Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Death/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject Death. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

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This is an important subject, but let's face it: this WikiProject is dead :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:24, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Hehe, indeed. :) I was amazed to discover nobody had started it before. I looked all over the project index and I'm having a hard time finding where to place it in relation to other projects. Biology and Sociology come to mind as possible parents. Any other ideas? --Geniac (talk) 01:13, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Sociology, certainly. Anthropology, medicine, biology... it's quite multidisciplinary. Perhaps this may be better off as a taskforce of one (or two) more estabilished wikiprojects? Say, a joint taskforce of sociology and biology wikiprojects, perhaps? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 02:06, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I didn't realize there was such a thing as a joint task force; I'll read more about them. I had started it as a project because of the multidisciplinary factor; I couldn't think of one existing project it would fit neatly under. --Geniac (talk) 02:47, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Example: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Polish military history task force, a taskforce of WP:MILHIST and WP:POLAND. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 03:18, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

This project is well enough stand alone - the range of categories in wikipedia that relate to death require no necessary relationship with other projects - simply by the sheer weight of categories and articles that can be allocated to this project - to be a joint taskforce is quite unnecessary.

It is important to recognize that some categories that might have been allocated or appropriated to or by other projects can be either reclaimed by this project for more relevant provenance, or they can have multiple project tags - as many subjects, categories and articles already have. Satu Suro 09:34, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Help needed

WP DEATH - is currently a shortcut to a list of dead wikipedians (sigh, RIP etc) - that shortcut is surely something this project needs and in turn probably need to give that list another shortcut, anyone out there know the correct way to work out shortcuts? Satu Suro 07:19, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Done. --Geniac (talk) 02:24, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Epidemiology and Demography

If I have scanned the project lists correctly - neither of these subjects have projects (please correct me if I have missed them) and they are intrinsically related to aspects of death and dying - these subjects may well have tandem projects - such as medical statistics and economics and geogarhpy - any discussion about which projects may have precedence in 'claiming' some death subjects as being in some domains as well, needs to be carefully thought/discussed through imho Satu Suro 08:47, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

New category Category: Human trophy collecting

I'm trying out a new category, tentatively entitled Category: Human trophy collecting. The intent was to group together all the cultural manifestations of collecting human remains. Not to include insanity, medical/educational motives, etc. So to group together both negative (war trophies, etc.) and positive (relics, mementos) manifestations. The current title is a bit more negative, not sure whether to retitle, or group the more positive manifestations separately. So, category in progress. Would appreciate any help refining the name, populating, forming the key article Human trophy collecting, etc. MatthewVanitas (talk) 01:31, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

That looks far more like an anthropological categery rather than totally one only for the death project - there is the key element of your saying cultural - in the end this project should be able to accomodate the category - but there is a very strong sense that it is more of an anthropological or even psychological element (even possibly criminal) - you might even see the complex political issues arrising from the character Yagan Satu Suro 03:37, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

This subject is now floating between a number of projects [1] - might be a good idea to centralise it Satu Suro 05:05, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Death

Oh, this is recent and interesting! Is it just for those interested in the art of dying and general death-related topics or would it suit someone who updates articles on formerly living people to reflect their recently deceased status, adds their name and details to recent deaths, has a familiarity with the {{recent death}} template and a tendency to bombard WP:ITN and occasionally WP:DYK with death-related nominations such as mine blasts, mudslides, massacres, the deaths and even state funerals of notable individuals from around the world, etc? --can dle •wicke 02:21, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the interest in this new project! We need all the help we can get. :) I think tagging every article about every deceased person with the project tag is impracticable; there are just too many. Also, most biographical articles are about the person, their career, achievements and so on, not about their death. However, I was intending to include articles exactly like the one you mentioned; Death of so-and-so. --Geniac (talk) 03:07, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

How important are the death articles of Bongo, Reagan, Jackson, Lennon, Hitler, Mozart, Poe, Monroe and so on to this project? Mid? High? --can dle •wicke 05:01, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

IMHO - those persons have biography already - they are already notable and probably have significant biographical articles and a presence on wikpedia in the first place - so their actual deaths are mid or low - so far in tagging I have not even ventured to add top to anyithing - we need to have a general statistical bent towards low as we start - and if articles are improved - then to bump up if they meet the guidelines. Always remember this project is about death and dying - not biography! Satu Suro 05:42, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

What about music and death? Death (song) for example. Low probably. Death metal? What about literature and death? The Dead (short story)? Or my favourite form of death? Do they actually have to be dead or can they just be called death? --can dle •wicke 08:39, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

The last item you mention is the main candidate - the earlier two might be conmsidered possibly a totally different subject - this project is about human death - its causes, the processes of acknowledging it - and things that happen around it - the items mentioned above are derivative and separate - they may not really be project material.

Just to have the word death in a title or name of something does not necessarily make it a candidate here... BTW your questions are very important - and as a result of them will probably see the evolution of the Death project version of - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:MEDA - with a careful understanding of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:CAT - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FAQ/Categorization - as background of sorts Satu Suro 11:53, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Of course the other is to go on the main page:-

The scope outline
The category tree
The template (probably due for a review)

They might give you a better idea as well Satu Suro 12:51, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Films? Corpse Bride, for example, both covers the topic of death and has the word "corpse" in its title. I'm beginning to get this now. The album Funeral (a song from which just conveniently came on the radio station I'm listening to) would not be part of this project because of the word but would if it referenced death? Am I right? --can dle •wicke 01:06, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Got it! (although reading the doom metal line of thought, one wonders)

Corpse bride is definite a candidate for the scope of 'fiction' section- (and unfortunately a significant portion of the goth subculture items :( ) Satu Suro 01:23, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Scope

Not yet linked - 2 more parts of scope -

Stats and Government: Demographics, Death statistics, Death rates, Epidemiology
Process: Types of Death, approaches to death and dying, Psychological and religious approaches to dying a 'good death'

any feedback or appraisal of these additions appreciated Satu Suro 07:54, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Very serious re-think

Now that we have a death project - the amazing set of lists need to be broken up and re-jigged - specially as there are many WP:RS issues:-

Cemeteries

I've long wondered if cemetery articles should have some sort of Wikiproject that they belong to - seems like quite a few of them out there either have no WP banner, or something that doesn't relate to the nature of the place. Then, I found this newish WProject today! I'm wondering then, is it OK to add individual cemetery articles to this project? I had been meaning to create a List of cemeteries in Cook County, Illinois for a while, and seeing this project gave me the impetus to go ahead and do it. BOZ (talk) 03:38, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Please do! I tend to add tags for architecture and death at cemetery categories - if you are going to create a list - it means to add the death template (wikiproject death) - then clarify it as a class=list and importance=low, and then if you are doing something in the states - whichever other project identifies its locality - illinois or the states Satu Suro 03:47, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

The main issue with a list that large is to find ways to add WP:RS - beyond the one website - and to make good links so the orphan tag can be answered Satu Suro 03:57, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I have a good print source or two I can go through when I find the time (took me a few hours to transcribe and wikilink that list, as it is), but in the meantime I'll add your banner to a few of my "favorite" local cemeteries. :) BOZ (talk) 12:35, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Philosophical and ethical issues

There are sections of the category tree or scope that have millenia old philosophical issues that beg the question as to why and how some deaths occur - we need to be mindful of the complex cross cultural issues that we might not be aware of that have existed and do exist across a range of religious and cultural contexts - those in the project who are not aware of other culture - might need to find the tag that says this might not reflect a global view for some articles - some seem set in one country or era - with insufficient perspective of ' other places and other people' Satu Suro 14:18, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I think I know what you mean. I started off by tagging most of the articles in the {{Death}} navbox. I specifically didn't tag articles like Out-of-body experience and Séance. The tag you're looking for is {{Globalize}}. --Geniac (talk) 02:38, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes I think in the very best spirits of the new year - and AGF - we should always have a peek at our fellow taggers contrib history - just to make sure we are all keeping on the straight and narrow - we could easily get out of hand (or perhaps out of body?) Satu Suro 02:56, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea to discuss project scope and article tagging on this talk page. --Geniac (talk) 04:12, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Boxes relevant to project

These need checking (and possibly using in the articles without them) - Satu Suro 14:24, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Fiction

I noticed that on the main page there is a provision for fictional works related to this project, particularly the undead in fiction. You might want to narrow down on what exactly the scope is for inclusion, because there are a lot of movies, TV, comics, games, characters, etc that could be included and I don't think you want to have this project become overloaded with fictional topics. :) For example, you probably don't want characters who have died and come back to life, but anything undead (Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, even Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees) would probably fit the bill. Similarly, I'd not include characters who are good at or enjoy killing, but I would say that anyone with powers that directly affect life and death (for example, a "death touch" type of ability, or the ability to resurrect the living) should be considered.

I work mostly with the Dungeons & Dragons, and Comics Wikiprojects - I'll toss the banner on a few of the more significant topics and characters, but since this is still a growing project I don't want to overwhelm you! :) BOZ (talk) 16:10, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

What we might need is a 'sub-genre', 'working group' sort of idea for the potential problem... 'Undead' as a subject is one thing - the actual material that has it as part of their content might be another - the problem in this project is that we are concerned with human death - the causes, the process of death, and the consequences and response to it - the undead fiction genre might actually be out of the scope in that it is derivative - where to draw the line is something it would be good to have ongoing discussion - so I dont know if I have explained that well enough - I do hope there are others with this on watch who might like to chip in - check the conversation at the section 'death' above as well - Satu Suro 23:49, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Gotcha! I won't add any more fiction-related articles at this time, then - earlier today I added several dozen examples of various types of articles you'd probably want to find on this project (feel free to remove any you disagree with). BOZ (talk) 01:02, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Hey most of that looks cool! But at a later date it would be great to have someone else just do a pick through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Unassessed_Death_articles and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:NA-Class_Death_articles to make sure we dont have any really obvious bad picks - thanks for your efforts! Satu Suro 01:07, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

The fiction part of the scope certainly doesn't have to be kept. I added it as an afterthought anyway. --Geniac (talk) 03:07, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I think fiction should have a place in our project. It may need to be better defined but I wouldn't get rid of it. -Pollinosisss (talk) 02:54, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I think what we need to do is constantly remind new participants - and the project - the scope - and where the derivative or displaced parts happen - we might have the case for double project tag - maybe death project and popular culture - for example - for anything in the derivative area that would fit like the whole corpus of the undead stuff (mind we dont offend the goth culture as well :( ) Satu Suro 03:19, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Automatically tagging certain categories

Most years and decades have their own death category. You can see all of them here. Does anyone know of a way to automatically tag these somehow, or at least speed up the process? - Pollinosisss (talk) 10:09, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Bots do exist - perhaps someone with this page on watch have had experience with tagging bots - please let us know - thanks ? Satu Suro 13:58, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Requested at User talk:Arbitrarily0#Bot task request. --Geniac (talk) 03:49, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Geniac -Pollinosisss (talk) 06:30, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Yep, I can do this :) Before I start, might it be better to add a class=CAT option to {{WikiProject Death}}? Otherwise, I'll just use class=NA (as I did for this test). Up to you, let me know then I'll start. Cheers, Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 16:55, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Would it make sense to just put {{WikiProject Death}}? The pages in the category namespace are automatically made 'NA'. If 'CAT' is added later, we wouldn't have to change anything. They would switch over to 'CAT'. -Pollinosisss (talk) 19:13, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Doing... okay, I've just started it with class=Cat. Like you said, unless a category class is added later, they will stay under NA. I'll post here again when the tagging is finished. Cheers, Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 20:04, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Very impressive - thank you! That sure helps! Satu Suro 00:26, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Done - your welcome! Just finished, with 2,703 category talk pages tagged. Have a happy new year, and best regards, Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 04:13, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Paranormal/Death mix

I have just tagged Category_talk:Reincarnation and Category_talk:Ghosts - anyone with ideas about the grey area of overlap between Project Death and Project Paranormal at these two subjects? Satu Suro 01:41, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The overlap is certainly there. I suppose the question is weather we choose to extend our project scope to cover these areas or not. Only certain parts of the paranormal project would seem to overlap with ours. Cryptozoology and Ufology can safely be ignored for example. Ghosts and apparitions on the other hand should at the very least be considered for inclusion in our project. As for reincarnation, it would seem to me to be all or nothing. Either we cover articles related to the afterlife or we don't. Does any of what I just said make any sense? -Pollinosisss (talk) 02:47, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes - this is exactly what the project needs - a good discussion is to where we draw the lines - for the afterlife - my suggestion (it is only that) is that we could tag reincarnation and afterlife category trees - but make sure that we share them with specific religion/buddhism/paranormal project tags - in other words in effect only a proportion of death project scope - not total Satu Suro 02:56, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Please note: Charnel ground and Sky burial

Please note: Charnel ground and Sky burial. Charnel ground is new, Sky burial has been evident on English Wikipedia for some time. Please codify in your project as required. Your work is appreciated.
B9 hummingbird hovering^{(talk • contribs)} 15:16, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you -Pollinosisss (talk) 02:55, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Potential cleanup lists

Death from laughter - is a classic case where the anecdotal unsystematic addition of odd items makes a joke of the death project (!) - if we tag the article - we have presumably the task of rescuing yet another reasonable subject to the fate of the in popular culture ~~messes~~ lists that ~~still~~ inhabit wikipedia - any thoughts? Satu Suro 13:26, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm in complete agreement. I greatly dislike those pop culture lists. This article deserves better. -Pollinosisss (talk) 14:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Resources

We have the very important category resource found at the following page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Good_Olfactory/CFD#Death

That should provide this project with a resource that is important in establishing whether early category creation or any thoughts of new categories - can be checked against this list - please note the creator of the list is a long established presence in the Category deletion and creation area of Wikipedia - and a very big thanks for allowing the project to access such a list Satu Suro 14:16, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

HELP Please

Portal:Death - is now under construction - please help find images and articles - and help with adding the various format items - i think the over-all colour should be black - any thoughts? Satu Suro 07:17, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I played around with the colours a bit. I like the current colour scheme, but the blue links don't really look good on a dark background. It doesn't really fit. Pollinosisss (talk) 14:18, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

It has had a brilliant start - just in one day it looks as good as any of them - thanks! Satu Suro 14:42, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I tried something a little different with the colours a moment ago. Any thoughts? -Pollinosisss (talk) 15:40, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Really stylish - readable but sufficiently dark and readable - a good mix Satu Suro 15:55, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Online sources of info (one in a stage of possible additions to a reading list)

Issues with http://www.deathreference.com/index.html - appearsa to have no home page or RS or source info - good for a cross ref with headings and topics - but 'should not be directly referred to as there is no provenance or form of verification of the information Satu Suro 15:28, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Clusty topics

from clusty.com - which uses a very different process than the google (ie different logarithms) - some might not be relevant but listed as found:-

Bereavement (49)
Books (27)
Kubler-Ross (15)
Psychology (13)
Images (12)
Hospice (9)
Stages (11)
Buddhist, Tibetan (9)
Suicide (9)
Social (11)
Poetry, Collection (8)
Review, Loss (11)
Sociological, Kearl's Guide (6)
End Of Life Issues (5)
Near-Death Experience (5)
Collection of articles (5)
Course, Nursing (6)
Answers (5)
Cancer, Women (3)
Conversations, Perspectives From The Arts, Humanities, And Medicine (5)
Videos, Sandra Martin Productions (5)
Quotes (5)
Council (3)
Body (4)
Remain a great mystery (3)
Centre for Death (3)
Legal, Law (3)
Knowledge (3)
Law, Euthanasia (3)
Download (3)
People And Their Loved Ones (2)
Conscious (3)
Dying Lyrics (2)
Hero (2)
Signs (2)
Interest Group (2)
Epitaphs (2)
Ala (2)
Viewpoints, Binding (2)
Biomed Central (2)
Rites, Rituals (2)

will check and compare on a separate project sub page soon - to cf against our categories in alpha order against these and the online resource mentioned above Satu Suro 15:47, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Scope suggestions

Aside from hardcore necrophilia (e.g. Necrobabes), I recall a lot stuff connecting Eros and Thanatos. Is there enough material for a list of death gods? Paradoctor (talk) 21:29, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The coincidences of Death and Eros are incredibly fascinating.

I am reminded of a great passage from a book I recently read.

"Aphrodite had a negative or deathly aspect balancing her erotic aspect under various names such as Epitymbios, Aphrodite of the Tomb. This duality is expressed in Plato's distinction, in the Symposium, between the terrestrial Aphrodite, goddess of animal matings, and the celestial Aphrodite, who wears the starry sky--the zodiac of astrological determinism or Necessity--as her crown. In monistic readings, the life aspect of the goddess can equate with the flow of forms, that is, the Many, and the death aspect with the absolute--the "lifeless solitary One," as Hegel would call it (echoing Plotinus, who called it "the alone"). But this correspondence can as easily be reversed, as Plato does, regarding the relative life of terrestrial Aphrodite as equivalent to death, and the absolute life offered by the Celestial Aphrodite as her true birth-giving function." (The Shape of Ancient Thought, p.56)

-Pollinosisss (talk) 09:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

There is already a category [2] Satu Suro 07:39, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I added List of death gods to our "Suggest an article" section of the "Articles" project subpage. Death deity contains a partial list, but this definitely deserves its own article. Perhaps it can be created as a collaborative effort down the line? -Pollinosisss (talk) 07:55, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Eeeep! Being bilingual is fine and all, but if you search the German Wikipedia for "death gods"? Sheesh. At least I finally recalled why I so readily associate beauties with bodies: I used to own a copy of Lo Duca's Psychopathia Sexualis der Comics (OCLC 74841841, 64707682, [3] ). Basically a Best Bits of the European underground nasties from the 60s and 70s with some highfalutin' psychobabble. Has a nice selection of the kind of stuff you guys favor. ;) Paradoctor (talk) 09:00, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Huh? please do not cast aspersions as to whether any editors working on this project actually have anything bestial or weird as part of anything favoured for inclusion - remember WP:NOTCENSORED and WP:NPOV please - I personally find considerable parts of the scope of this project very avoidable and rather yuk - I'd much rather be doing a Birth project and portal anytime really - Satu Suro 09:04, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

My turn to Huh?: Sorry if that acome across the wrong way, but I was of course not insinuating that anyone besides me was a paraphiliac. I guess the ";)" emoticon needs a link something. The "stuff" I was referring to was the part of the book covering the relationship between sex and death.

As far as the policies mentioned is concerned, believe me, if they weren't principles here, I'd push for them. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Please, I'm not insured against malpractice, Paradoctor (talk) 15:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that - simple misunderstanding (probably) - I am sure other language wikis have some surprises that we probably do not want - but hey the eros thanatos complex has been around a few thousand years or three so its all in good company? Satu Suro 00:49, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Scope question

Hello, not a participant, but I am a prolificWikiGnome who tags articles for relevant wikiprojects when I come across them and I have a question about your scope as it pertains to a few articles:

Space Shuttle Challenger disaster - only 7 deaths but hugely important in the scheme of things (also an FA)
Space Shuttle Columbia disaster - only 7 deaths but also hugely important in the scheme of things
USS Iowa turret explosion - 47 deaths (also an FA)
Attack on Pearl Harbor - 2,300+ dead, US entry to WWII

Any guidance related to these types of articles would be appreciated for my future tagging runs. -MBK₀₀₄ 03:35, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes they all do come under death project scope - and also possible disaster management project scope as well Satu Suro 07:40, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, I will tag these immediately. -MBK₀₀₄ 07:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks MBK004, the help is appreciated. -Pollinosisss (talk) 07:56, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Our first FA article

The Death WikiProject's first featured article[4].

Execution by elephant

It was already featured before we came along, but it's a start right? -Pollinosisss (talk) 10:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Like anyone would disagree with Wikipedia's very own death squad. ;) Happy New Year! Paradoctor (talk) 12:57, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

We have our means and methods - happy new year to you as well Satu Suro 13:59, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Pity it has already been on the Main Page. Oh well. Excellent title for an article. --can dle •wicke 12:16, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Unusual articles

The 'unusual articles' page contains a death section. I thought I'd mention it for those who didn't know of this page's existence. It contains some interesting entries. -Pollinosisss (talk) 12:07, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

For the record

Or

Or if more than one such link is advised, add one of these... {{portalbox | name1=Death | image1=Skull 2.svg | name2=Death | image2=AllsvanitySmallSquare.jpg | name3=Death | image3=Skull and crossbones vector.svg | name4=Death | image4=Crossbones (PSF).png }}

Copied from my talk page - thanking Carlaude for help Satu Suro 14:35, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, was looking for those exact images. --can dle •wicke 12:53, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Would you be able to factor one into the project template stuff? Satu Suro 12:56, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

No, Geniac has protected it for some reason... --can dle •wicke 13:06, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh well a small knock on the door then Satu Suro 13:08, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I protected {{WikiProject Death}} per Wikipedia:High-risk templates; "The template is transcluded into a very large number of pages." You can always use {{editprotected}} on a template's talk page to request a change be made to a protected template. Is there agreement to which portal image is preferred? I'm partial to the third one. --Geniac (talk) 01:36, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

We might have to do a vote (and pollinosisss is off for a few days) as there seems to be a range of views - am wondering whether one gets into the template and another goes for the portal link image... In the box there are 4 images - we are not pirates (well I cannot confirm or deny that one) but number 3 is the clearest image, number one was used in at least one portal link, I think it might have to be a drawn out vote... sigh ...

Image one - Candlewicke, Pollinosisss
Image two
Image three - Geniac, SatuSuro
Image four

Lets wait until next week as some might not pick up on this till then Satu Suro 01:44, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh dear - there has been a visitor in the night - our vote might have been sidestepped by a portal cleaner person who plays portals like we do edits :)- as some say 'its all good ' Satu Suro 01:26, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

talk pages for Deaths in (Year) -- explain that some conversations are moved to Deaths in (Month)?

Hi, it took me a while to figure out that talk pages in Deaths in (Year) get moved, and to make a suggestion for making archiving more evident to novices like myself. After wondering about the number of policy discussions atTalk:Deaths in 2009, I realized why that was. From a discussion between User:Vrillon and User:WWGB in an unrelated thread, Talk:Deaths_in_2009#Proposed_new_policy, and looking at the that talk page history I got the impression that discussions relating to particular deaths are hand-archived from the Deaths in (Year), and moved to the appropriate month. That seems sensible (and explains why the discussion page is mostly policy!). But as a newcomer, I didn't know that was the common practice--even after spending a bunch of time reading the talk page.

This seems similar to archiving talk pages, and common practice in that case seems to be to add an infobox linking to the archived talk pages. (This page has such a link, in fact!) It would be helpful, I think, to add a general statement of archiving practice to the infoboxes for Death in (year) pages where this happens. Apologies if this idea has already been discussed or is unwelcome--I was truly confused! Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 13:08, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

It is very welcome - it is likely some eds who have managed death related pages prior to the existence of this project might not even be aware of the project yet... Satu Suro 13:11, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposal

List of cemeteries gets devolved - that each country has a list that is linked - and if it is too big it gets broken down (as with usa) - so that there are no actual text or links at the main list - or possibly at the first level country list either - anyone with thoughts about that? Satu Suro 13:19, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Once broken down, would you want the new lists to only include special cemeteries as is the case now? -Pollinosisss (talk) 00:25, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The big problem is the large list is beyond redemption - a mix of links to articles in some countries - and then others completely red links - the suggestion is to reduce them all to country lists - or in the case of USA to state lists - and then try to ask eds to comply with links to exisitng articles and then move the red link lists to talk pages (where possible) - where a country list is only grey or red links - to take it to the country project - dump the info on the project talk page and not create a list.

As it stands List of cemeteries is too big and embarassing to leave as it is now that we have a death project. As for 'special' or 'notable' that might take ages to verify or ascertain - not 100% which way to go re inclusion - anyone with any thoughts? Satu Suro 00:19, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

What you're saying makes sense. As for inclusion criteria, we can proberbly forget about them for now. If it notable enough for wikipedia it's notable enough for a cemetery list, right? - Pollinosisss (talk) 01:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Indonesian lists I have purges of grey and red links every now and then because they get out of hand - I say blue links in mainspace - grey and red links to the talk page for future reference Satu Suro 01:13, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed -Pollinosisss (talk) 02:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Quick question

Out of curiosity, do fictional accounts of death or accounts of undeath fall under the purview of this project? The reason I ask is that, for the past month (and about once per week) an IP has been tagging Dungeons & Dragons articles describing or related to undead entities as part of this project, and it's my opinion that undeath and fictional accounts of death are not covered. Am I wrong in thinking so? —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Boribori!)} 20:37, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Could you provide some examples? --Geniac (talk) 00:34, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure he has articles such as these in mind. -Pollinosisss (talk) 02:01, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Orcus (Dungeons & Dragons)

Aongst others, Pollinosisss; I've also seen the IP tag Zombie (Dungeons & Dragons) and Wraith (Dungeons & Dragons). It isn't restricted to key characters —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Boribori!)} 04:38, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not trying to cause any trouble - if I am wrong in my tagging, I'll be glad to remove them myself. 24.148.0.83 (talk) 04:40, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I just wasn't clear on the limitations of the provisions for fiction under Wikipedia:WikiProject Death#Scope. 24.148.0.83 (talk) 04:46, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not a problem.

Our fiction scope has not yet been adequately defined. Now that death in fiction has been brought up again, perhaps we can come to some sort of consensus on where to draw the line for stuff like this.

Tagging of recent "massacres" for the wars in the Balkans

Many massacre articles for ex-Yugoslavia were tagged by Wikiproject death (including Talk:Bruška massacre, Talk:Ahmići massacre and Talk:Podujevo massacre). I removed these tags but have been asked to reinstate them. I believe it is insensitive to have the following template on the talkpages of these articles Wikipedia:WikiProject Death/Templates. Many relatives of those killed can look at these pages. Please make your opinions known on this here where I have also requested several other wikiprojects may comment. I have suggested that it is okay for wikiproject death to keep a view on these articles but that the project banner on the talkpages is not acceptable. Polargeo (talk) 07:05, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

The place is to leave any comment is here - this is the project that claims scope in those article talk pages - there are many items on mainspace wikipedia that do not pass the 'sensitivity' test in any way - and which in fact fit with the fact that WP:NOTCENSORED - to resquest a project does not tag items that are in its scope is very close to WP:IDONTLIKEIT - and the fact that people might view the talk pages of such items is odd - the mainspace part is where they should be looking. As much as we might seem to lack sensitivity on this issue - we are the editors who work on the 'Death' project - and there are much worse pages (morally, ethically and etc) and items that we have to regularly consider for this project.

Also please do not take issue with the tagger of the articles - this is an issue of the scope of this project - this is where the discussion should be held, it is no one editor but a project that has been created for the benefit of linking the subject in wikipedia - the scope of the project, is what you should be discussing - so we dont tag any massacres anywhere in the world?

Suggestion - if you have some beef about the events and claim that they are not in fact massacres but something else - then what you need to do is move the page and title to something other than the current article title that it is currently with - with WP:RS to back the move. If you cannot do that I would suggest then that your point is in fact WP:DISRUPTIVE however polite and considerate you might seem in your request about sensitivity - and that most projects if asked to not tag articles would seek some sanctions for such an activity. Maybe a good read of WP:ABOUT and WP:NOT to find where the sensitivity issue might be - try WP:MILHIST and a lot of their articles about the Yugoslavia and the Balkans before taking issue with this projectSatu Suro 07:18, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

FYI

(Direct quote from WP policy) 2.10 Wikipedia is not censored Policy shortcuts: See also: Wikipedia:Profanity, Wikipedia:Sexual content, Wikipedia:No disclaimers in articles, Editing policy: Preserve information, and Wikipedia:Options to not see an image

Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive, even exceedingly so (see Wikipedia:Content disclaimer). Anyone can edit an article, and changes made are displayed immediately, so Wikipedia cannot guarantee that articles or images will always be acceptable to all readers, or that they will adhere to general social or religious norms.

Obviously inappropriate content (such as an irrelevant link to a shock site, or clear vandalism) is usually removed quickly. Content that is judged to violate Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy, or that violates other Wikipedia policies (especially neutral point of view) or the laws of the U.S. state of Florida where Wikipedia's servers are hosted, will also be removed. However, some articles may include text, images, or links which some people may find objectionable, when these materials are relevant to the content. Discussion of potentially objectionable content should not focus on its offensiveness but on whether it is appropriate to include in a given article. Beyond that, "being objectionable" is generally not sufficient grounds for removal of content.

From what I see there, there is no reason why we cannot tag massacre articles if they titled as such. Satu Suro 07:46, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

This discussion is not just a wikiproject death discussion that is why I have hosted it on my talksubpage. It would be biased to just discuss it here Polargeo (talk) 07:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

You are asking a project to not carry out its scope - why not here? You are asking a project to contravene general wikipedia policy for your reasons - your sub page has absolutely nothing to do with the death project scope Satu Suro 08:10, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Please do not move my edits from this page to your subpage - hosting - it is not a recognised part of this project and basically is getting into WP:OWN territory over the subject and issue - you have not asked to do so and you are specifically copying my edits - please desist Satu Suro 08:22, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I have not moved your comments. I have copied them to my own talkspace. I can host a copy of your comments in my own talkspace if I wish, particularly as they are largely directed at me so can we not waste time with this argument. Polargeo (talk) 09:38, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Slow down....i just reverted a tag removal and noticed he did a few others...did not see this first..Pls finish this discussion before removing any WIKIProject template...and it clearly should be cover by this project ....causes of death is the founding category of this project regardless if the odd person is offended...I am offended by all the Jesus and other religious figurers but you dont see me removing wikiproject temples ....This is a POV move!!Buzzzsherman (talk) 08:44, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I am interested in articles that are covered by at least 6 wikiprojects. I do not wish to discuss this at this wikiproject alone as that would be biased. Okay I cannot do anything about you discussing it here but any consensus you reach here will be amongst yourselves only and not a valid consensus for the articles. I will not undo or remove your template anywhere from now on without consensus so don't worry about that. Polargeo (talk) 09:35, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Unless more neutral ground can be found my comments on this issue will remain at User talk:Polargeo/death. Polargeo (talk) 09:47, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

The most appropriate place to discuss the tagging of articles with a project banner is on the talk page of the project, i.e. here. Massacres are within the scope of this project and so articles about massacres should be tagged with this project's banner. --Geniac (talk) 00:38, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

The policy cited here such as "don't like it" "Not censored" is all to do with content. This issue has nothing whatsoever to do with content and everything to do with the sensitivity of wikipedians. Placing a grinning skull and a "this topic comes under wikiproject death" with a link to a nice black gothic wikiproject on the talkpage of articles that detail events where people have recently lost loved ones is not a wikipedia content issue at all. It is a wikipedians behaviour issue relevent to the way wikipedia is presented and will be percieved. I went to the main wikiprojects who deal with those articles and informed them of the issue. Although only recently involved in these articles SatuSuro is now treating the situation as if wikiproject death WP:OWNs them (another thing I have been accused of). I have already declared that I will not remove templates if the wikiproject chooses to replace them. I am a very reasonable editor and willing to debate anything but having long lists of accusations (including POV!) thrown at me along with irrelevant policy makes it impossible to discuss the actual issues. I will declare my personal interest here if it helps. As a geophysicist I professionally visited Bosnia and Herzegovina to assist in locating mass graves. I have seen and talked to relatives of those killed and I have witnessed excavations of mass graves. It is not me who is personally offended by a skull picture. I am simply considering the image of wikipedia in the light of my real life experience and trying to have some empathy for what it would be like for a relative to see this banner. Polargeo (talk) 12:35, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Points:

(1) Please note I have not touched the articles since they were reverted, and in view of general principles from having been on wikipedia for a long time - I would never touch them - I would request a third party, even more than that if necessary to examine with the issue, and I would not expect that my personal opinion would affect the outcome - specially in view of the accusations against me above.

(2) I have not seen anything in wikipedia about wikipedian behaviour (versus content) - if that is what concerns poleargo - he should have not taken issue with (polinossis) or myself or this project - but taken it higher - it is not a project issue.

(3) WP Death does not own anything - nor does poelargo own this particular debate either - so it does not go to his sub page

(4) I had said on geniacs talk page I might have taken this issue to a noticeboard in the hope that others might help in the general conversation but this same message above is on this page and geniacs talk page, so I cannot keep up with where poleargo is next.

(3) I believe if an editor wishes to reform wikipedia behaviour - then users talk pages, project talk page, or personal sub page are not the places to go to - wrong place.

That is an issue for the higher rungs of the whole of wikipedia - otherwise why just the balkans? - as potentially if it were a precedence issue - large amount of wikipedia would have to be examined for sensitivity issues, and I suspect some considerable chaos would ensue: what of the victims of all other mass killings on the planet within living memory?

Empathy and consideration are indeed a reflection of a compassionate and informed civilized society and its citizens - but hell - this is wikipedia, and it also reflects a lot of things that are inhumane, barbaric and outright idiotic - it is interesting to wonder how online encyclopedias might make accommodations for all 'sensitivities' - I would have thought that the logical extension of the request for sensitivity might suggest that we didnt have articles about massacres? Satu Suro 13:04, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Tagging of recent "massacres" for the wars in the Balkans part II

This whole thing is rather silly. Articles dealing with things such as civilian casualties during wartime or prisoner of war executions are clearly of interest to our project. User:Polargeo has claimed that our tagging of these articles is in some way POV-pushing. By tagging these article we are not making any judgments. Whether a given event was or was not a "massacre" doesn't even matter. As for the skull image, it has been claimed that some people might be disturbed by it, especially for recent events. If this is a genuine concern, couldn't the project templates simply be wrapped in a "WikiProjectBannerShell"? This would be an easy way of hiding the skull on sensitive articles.

If Polargeo remains in total disagreement, we should just ask some sort of third party for an opinion. It makes little sense to waste time on this thing. Our time could be better spent elsewhere as I'm sure you'd all agree. -Pollinosisss (talk) 03:03, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

This is not silly and should not be dismissed off hand. Please see my comments above. If you wish to put the banners back I will not undo them. Your suggestion of putting them in a bannershell is a good one. I would implore you to do this as a matter of course when tagging articles involving deaths in the recent past (say 30-40 years). Polargeo (talk) 12:41, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

If poleargo is able to cope with bannershell covers of the tags, it may solve the issue for all involved, but if the other issues raised above still concern - this project talk page is not the place for them Satu Suro 13:10, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I would say that using {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} on articles about deaths that occurred on or after January 1, 1970 is a good idea. It is meant to be used "when more than two or fewer than six banners are present on the talk page" anyway, which I'm sure already applies in many cases. --Geniac (talk) 00:43, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that - he has agreed with the issue, and your point is a very useful guideline, all it needs is for someone to reinstate the project tags, which after the long discussion I am not prepared to do - cheers Satu Suro 00:45, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I have reinstated the banner to all the articles it was removed from, but this time within WikiProjectBannerShell. I have also added a note about this to Template:WikiProject Death/doc. --Geniac (talk) 03:51, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. -Pollinosisss (talk) 03:58, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Excellent - a very good solution which actually addresses the original complaint - hopefully the scope of the date/year also is something that is important to keep in mind for anyone who assists in tagging category and article talk space Satu Suro 04:00, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Suitable article?

An account of several families dying in a cemetery at the same time... --can dle •wicke 00:42, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Hey its a double banger! yes Satu Suro 00:48, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think we should include things like aviation accidents but only when at least one person died as a result. The definition according the article includes a few things not involving fatality. Where would this fit under the Scope section? --Geniac (talk) 00:58, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Man-made disasters perhaps? The Man-made hazard article lists aviation disasters under the transportation section of 'technological hazards' -Pollinosisss (talk) 02:05, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

In the Scope section, a "Man-made disasters" line would probably fit best directly following the "Large scale" entry due to similarity. I'd also like to suggest at this point that if an article exists titled "Deaths of [such-and-such event]", we should tag the "Deaths of..." article and not the article about the event. --Geniac (talk) 01:11, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Good advice - and very good sense of the scope of the project - but the problem does arise where editors conflate the two in on the one article - I suggest when in doubt that taggers might have to bring the article to the project as a question - or even consider removing the deaths section into a separate article if it is large enough as a valid article. Satu Suro 01:15, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

The undead in fiction and the death project

Let's use this section to figure out where we stand on the subject of fictional undeath.

It might be easier to figure things out if we look at some examples. Let's take a look at liches, a type of undead.

We have three types of articles:

Lich - a type of undead
Lich (Dungeons & Dragons) - a type of undead within a specific "universe"
Nagash (Warhammer) - an undead individual

~~I think we should include the first type of article(types of undead) within the death project~~ and omit the last type(specific undead characters). I wouldn't want to see every fictional ghost (Category:Fictional ghosts) tagged with our project. ~~I'm not sure where I stand when it comes to articles like Lich (Dungeons & Dragons) though. Does anyone have any thoughts?~~ -Pollinosisss (talk) 05:46, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

The big problem for project scope is where to jointly tag some items with other project tags to show that there are crossover points - Undead fictional items are not really death project material - it is too vast and much more in popular culture than what this project is about Satu Suro 13:23, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I've been thinking about it some more; maybe we should exclude the purely fictional articles that are only indirectly related to death. So, Lich would be out, but Vampire would stay in since it has a folkloric origin. In effect, we would be choosing to ignore all fiction that doesn't directly relate to death. -Pollinosisss (talk) 16:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree that Lich is out. Even though it has a "In religion and mythology" section, it's largely unsourced. Vampire, however, has huge amounts of well-written and thoroughly sourced information on the history, beliefs and origins of vampires. --Geniac (talk) 01:47, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Assassination articles

Should the articles in the lower group be renamed for consistency's sake? -Pollinosisss (talk) 11:56, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Assassination of Haim Arlosoroff - Assassination of Galip Balkar - Assassination of Hervé Bazin - Assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman - Assassination of Benazir Bhutto - Assassination of Zoran Đinđić - Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria - Assassination of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi - Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi - Assassination of James A. Garfield - Assassination of Habyarimana and Ntaryamira - Assassination of John the Fearless - Assassination of Julius Caesar - Assassination of Louis I, Duke of Orléans - Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin - Assassination of Ziaur Rahman - Assassination of Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev

Indira Gandhi assassination - Robert F. Kennedy assassination - Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination - Abraham Lincoln assassination - William McKinley assassination - Moscone–Milk assassinations - Olof Palme assassination - Park Chung-hee assassination - Anna Politkovskaya assassination

Very good point - will point this out to a good CFD assessor Satu Suro 12:08, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I would probably go with "Assassination of XXX" for two reasons. (1) The majority seem to be in that format already; (2) there are articles called "Death of XXX", but they aren't ever called "XXX's death" (as far as I know). Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 07:26, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that - appreciated Satu Suro 07:27, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

They've been renamed. I forgot to mention it here. -Pollinosisss (talk) 22:40, 4 February 2010 (UTC) Done

Tools to help your project with unreferenced Biographies of living people

List of cleanup articles for your project

If you don't already have this and are interested in creating a list of articles which need cleanup for your wikiproject see: Cleanup listings A list of examples is here

Moving unreferenced blp articles to a special "incubation pages"

If you are interested in moving unreferenced blp articles to a special "incubation page", contact me, User talk:Ikip

Watchlisting all unreferenced articles

If you are interested in watchlisting all of the unreferenced articles once you install Cleanup_listings, contact me, User talk:Ikip

Ikip 02:07, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Same as above - such spamming projects with the likelihood of zero BLP issues is problematic Satu Suro 03:11, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I laughed so hard when I saw these notices. Anyway, I came here because your project tag showed up on an article I'm watchlisting. Sounds like an interesting project, and although I don't see myself contributing very much to it I'll tag any relevant articles I see. Lithoderm 04:40, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Improving the "look" of the death WikiProject

Please place design suggestions here. -Pollinosisss (talk) 08:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

If the portal can have rotating articles and pictures (ie they change regularly) - is it possible in project space? Satu Suro 13:27, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

It may be possible. I'm not sure. -Pollinosisss (talk) 10:33, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I am. Use something like {{CURRENTDOW}} to select what to display from a table of options, and you're all set. Paradoctor (talk) 11:29, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Good to know. Thanks. -Pollinosisss (talk) 11:58, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

No problem. And because it was fun:

Hit "refresh" link until you're convinced. ;) Paradoctor (talk) 12:49, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't change it. Considering the topic, the project page is perfect as it is. @harej 02:21, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

With all thanks to Pollinosisss Satu Suro 02:29, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

For order's sake, I believe the member list should be in alphabetical order. --Kivati (talk) 21:34, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm ok with this. Unless others disagree, I'll make the change. -Pollinosisss (talk) 22:37, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I changed the list. -Pollinosisss (talk) 07:24, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Request for comment on Biographies of living people

Hello Wikiproject! Currently there is a discussion which will decide whether wikipedia will delete 49,000 articles about a living person without references, here:

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people

Since biographies of living people covers so many topics, nearly all wikiproject topics will be effected.

The two opposing positions which have the most support is:

supports the deletion of unreferenced articles about a living person, User:Jehochman
opposes the deletion of unreferenced articles about a living person, except in limited circumstances, User:Collect

Comments are welcome. Keep in mind that by default, editor's comments are hidden. Simply press edit next to the section to add your comment.

Please keep in mind that at this point, it seems that editors support deleting unreferenced article if they are not sourced, so your project may want to pursue the projects below.

Such spamming of projects is really necessary?. This project is about dead people for a start. Satu Suro 03:10, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

How ironic... :P --can dle •wicke 04:51, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Bus electrocution

It's on the Main Page now, a most unusual form of death. --can dle •wicke 01:43, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this seems to be within scope as it is a transportation disaster in which at least one person died. I've also tagged Electrocution. --Geniac (talk) 22:48, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

thanks for that - scope of causes of death seems to fit with this no problems. The actual perpetrators or committers - such as killers or murderers are not in scope - correct? Satu Suro 08:53, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think electrocution is within scope because the definition in that article is "the stopping of life". Yes, I agree that biographies of killers and murderers should be out of scope because they are articles about people, but acts of killers such as massacres should be within scope, as well as lists of victims of such acts and events. --Geniac (talk) 20:30, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Which is why when I get to the murderer categories recently - the biography project tag seems far more appropriate - thanks for the clarify Satu Suro 00:21, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Pageview stats

After a recent request, I added WikiProject Death to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The stats are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Death/Popular pages.

The page will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. You can view more results, request a new project be added to the list, or request a configuration change for this project using the toolserver tool. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 01:06, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Is the Paranormal pseudoscience

A discussion has been started at Wikipedia_talk:Categorization#Is_the_paranormal_pseudoscience.3F. Unomi (talk) 05:52, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Well death is certainly not a paranormal issue per se - and neither it is related to pseudoscience - it is what people make of what happens after - so basically it could be considered an out of scope question? Satu Suro 00:19, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Death and state funeral of Lech Kaczyński

Please help expand if you are interested. It might be on the Main Page soon. --can dle •wicke 14:52, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I suggest scope be modified

I suggest that you modify the scope of this project, which currently categorically excludes biographies, to include articles where the death process is a substantial part of the article. For instance, the article Eugene Ejike Obiora to a large extent discusses how a series of events led to the subject's death, and I think for that reason that this project would best be served by including this article. __meco (talk) 07:27, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

If a substantial part of the article is about the person's death, should it be moved to Death of Eugene Ejike Obiora? It would then be within scope. --Geniac (talk) 16:49, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's bordeline that, since it has been moved back and forth from that name. I still believe that we ought to look at the substantive case, not merely the article name. __meco (talk) 21:47, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

WP Bio is a large and ungainly project with a scope that could strangle itself with - I personally do not think this project should incorporate or be a co-cordinator of that - simply double tag the article - death and bio projects - there are many like that quite justifiably like that Satu Suro 23:50, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

That is my perspective also. I think it's an omission of this project to distance itself from biographies simply because they are biographies. I propose a set of conditions be devised for including those biographies that clearly deal with death in a substantial or significant way and which would serve to reflect constructively on other articles already covered by the project. __meco (talk) 07:03, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we should include articles about people who just happen to be dead (i.e Michael Jackson). However, I agree that we could figure out conditions on how to include articles about people that are most known for having a significant connection to death topics (i.e Jack Kevorkian) or when their death is what they are known for (i.e. Eugene Ejike Obiora). --Geniac (talk) 23:20, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with that - and the term or phrases to allow such - I suggest should be something like People and Death - but qualified as the way both Meco and Geniac have phrased it - people with significant deaths or connections with death issues Satu Suro 23:51, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Style-guides

I am not sure if we have a link to - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cemeteries - but there are quite a few aspects of material related to this project that could benefit from some guidelines/styleguides - for instance a current FAC Funerary_art is being improved to that status by some art-historians - they are doing a good job - however there are some aspects of some themes that this project covers we could possibly learn from already listed FA and GA - and see if there is anything that might fit for this projects general aims and scope. Satu Suro 01:56, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Extensive Category change of Death categories

Please note that there are large changes occurring in category names - please see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2010_May_6#Accidental_deaths

Anyone interested in the status of Death categories on wikipedia should look at this and comment if possible - specially if you have signed up for help in this project - thanks. Satu Suro 05:01, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Death category poll: request for input

OK, WikiProject Death members, you guys are the experts on death (or perhaps just the death obsessed), so I want to run this by you before I take any action. I am considering proposing a rename for all of the subcategories of Category:Death by country. Right now, they are all named in the format "Human death in FOO". Similar to the change recently made to the "accidental human death" categories (see section immediately above), I think it's safe to remove "human" from these category names. But the question I have for you is—rename it to what? Should they just become "Death in FOO", or should it be "Deaths in FOO"?

I'm not sure if the difference is very meaningful in practice; i.e., I don't think the contents of the categories would be much different, and in a sense it's more a stylistic choice. I suppose one could say that the first option could include all sorts of information on death in the abstract as well as including subcategories for people who died in FOO from various causes. The latter option could theoretically be limited to only include subcategories for people who died in FOO from various causes, and not the more general articles or information about death in the abstract. But I doubt very much that such a distinction would be respected in practice.

So this is more of just a "what do you like?" poll.

OPTION 1: Death in FOO
OPTION 2: Deaths in FOO
Please express preferences below. (PS: I'd love to join your WikiProject, but the string in my leg is gone ... (Oblique Dr Strangelove reference.)) — Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:58, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Votes, comments, etc.

Support Option 1 - Death in foo wow a visit from our creator, so to speak, bow down, kow tow, and quiver with astonishment that the creator of most of wp en's death categories should visit, and ask us? Satu Suro 12:07, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
Support Option 1 - Death in foo - Option 1 is implicitly more inclusive. All death articles related to a specific country should have a single cat as their root. It also sounds better.-Pollinosisss (talk) 15:00, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
Support Option 1 - this is more inclusive, and we can have option two added as a subset thereof (if we so please). __meco (talk) 15:12, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
Comment. Seems to be that option 1 is preferred—just a simple dropping of the word "human". I think that simplifies things. Hopefully I will be able to do this nomination some time. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 00:58, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
Formal proposal started. I've started the formal CFD to implement this change. It is here. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 01:51, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Successfully completed

Thanks everybody for your input. The nomination was successful and the changes have been made. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 10:02, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Excellent! Satu Suro 11:30, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Hatnotes

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category%3ACauses_of_death&action=historysubmit&diff=364196880&oldid=363134314

FYI - some editors do try to 'play' with the qualifications so that notes on categories might illustrate the limits and the possibilities of the project scope - note that the new causes of death category helps keep the project scope well defined Satu Suro 00:49, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Foo massacre or Foo Massacre? Foo murders or Foo Murders? Foo genocide or Foo Genocide? other Foo?

Hiya to all. A question on the titling, as several articles in this Wikiproject came up in a discussion about use of capitals in article naming on Talk:Denial of the Armenian Genocide#Requested move; specifically, about the capitalization of titles of events like these: Are Foo massacre, Foo genocide, and Foo murder proper nouns, and if so, shouldn't they be Foo Massacre, Foo Genocide, and Foo Murder? Here's my sense of it, copied from over there at the RfM, [where the proposal (not mine, I had questions that led to you) was to move the page from Denial of the Armenian Genocide to Armenian Genocide denial]: This was my first question, because I thought, "Well, this would conform better to the Manual of Style (which does not cover this specific point...YET):

"However, should it not be Armenian genocide denial, unless there is some legitimate reason why in this case genocide should be capitalized? Further, why should not (for examples) the articles Armenian Genocide, Assyrian Genocide, Srebrenica Genocide, Rwandan Genocide follow the same naming conventions as do Greek genocide, Dersim genocide, and Burundi genocide? I have the same question concerning titles containing the word massacre: Why Parsley Massacre but Rohingya massacre? Perhaps if such topics are considered events and as such are considered proper nouns...but I'd like to see all such titles conform across the board, to a coherently stated convention, whichever convention is supported by either clear policy or robust consensus. I haven't looked hard for it at all, but maybe someone else has: Is there any established WP policy, guideline, or village pump decision on precisely this?"

The response was:

"I'll explain my vision. In the titles it is a name of an event ("Greek Genocide"), a term and not word-combination (adjective + noun) to mark the belonging of the event. The same way the terms for Cuban Missile Crisis or Caribbean Crisis and not Caribbean crisis with Caribbean as an adjective and crisis as a noun. Or the Berlin Blockade, for another example."

to which I queried further:

"Is your vision... supported by a WP policy, and if so, please point me to that policy. I studied WP:Article titles and WP:Naming conventions#Capitalization to no avail. Where is this 'an event, or series of events, is a proper noun whose terms shall be capitalized' policy, if there is one? Declaring that something is an Event (not to opine in any way that this E/event isn't one) and thus is a proper noun that should be capitalized, could be controversial to some, and might encompass different scopes for different folks, so please explain also, if you can, why (as examples--there are a vast number of 'E/events' that might have this issue) the E/events currently titled (and capitalized like this-->) Greek genocide, Dersim genocide, Burundi genocide, and Rohingya massacre should not be capitalized as you propose for the move to Armenian Genocide denial, if there is a good reason to handle each differently. Staying arbitrarily within the narrow category of death and dying-themed events only, why Moors murders and Soham murders, but Parker-Hulme Murder? (the current examples suggest, somewhat irregularly, that single death is an Event, but multiple death is an event, unless it's a whole lot of death, in which case it's an Event??) What is the WP policy, if there is one, that sets these sorts of boundaries (or not) for E/events of all flavors?"

and got this answer:

"I do think that massacres or genocides you noted above should be capitallised. Those are events. A murder is an event, a pogrom is an event, a mass murder (massacre) is an event, a genocide is an event, but an article "Mass murders" is not an event, an article "The genocides of Europe" is not AN event or Sexual disorder is a collective word-combination and a collective article but Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder is a name of one disorder. the same way Greek, Assyrian or Armenian Genocides are separate events and not some variety of genocides or something. I don't even thing this was ever discussed. Just all the WP:RSs write it with a capital letter so no doubts."

Please share your thoughts on the idea of changing such names to Foo Massacre, Foo Genocide, and Foo Murder(s), proper nouns. I'm going to try to edit the Manual of Style to address this question, and before I do, I'd like to find out what community consensus is on the matter. I just discovered WP:Death today and joined. Right before that discovery, I dug a big hole that may bury me ultimately, by posting a similar comment on all of the pages mentioned above that were not capitalized as I am suggesting they might ought to be. This included the following: Soham murders, Moors murders Katyn massacre Khatyn massacre Rohingya massacre, Greek genocide, Dersim genocide, and Burundi genocide. Now I wish I had started here first, because as usual, I ~~may~~ have clearly bitten off way more than I can actually chew. So. Chewing fervently...

Sorry so long-winded. =) Duff (talk) 06:20, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Nah not long wided - Well explained - MOS aside - I always thought that Caps and lower in any title of combined words was the right way to go - regardless of usage outside of wikipedia - I do not see why genocides or murders need continual capitalisation... It then becomes a POV in a title, unless... it is a place name as the second word, but... Satu Suro 06:29, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Suicide

I have created Wikipedia:WikiProject Suicide, which is envisaged as a subproject of WikiProject Death. Should, then, the WikiProject Death templates be removed from suicide-related articles and replaced with WikiProject Suicide templates, or should they both stay there? Thanks, Tisane ^talk/_stalk 19:53, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

With suicide being so clearly a subset of this WikiProject, how about adding a switch to this WikiProject's template, |suicide=yes, which several other WikiProjects employ similarly? __meco (talk) 15:40, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

BLP (Taxidermist) and wikiproject death

I noticed that the article Taxidermy uses the template {{WikiProject Death}}. I thus considered the same template for a BLP I am helping to develop at Perryjarvis/Polly Morgan. On reflection, it is probably not a good idea to tag such an article in this way. What do you think? --Senra (talk) 10:46, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Although not currently specified, I do not think taxidermy is within scope. I think we should stick to human death. Any agreement or disagreement? --Geniac (talk) 13:13, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I am inclined to think that taxidermy should be included but I'm not adamant about it. I sense that it is an activity where death is a considerable perspective. I'm also unsure of making the clear distinction between human and animal death if there are perspectives which are common to either. __meco (talk) 15:37, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

My use of English was lax there. I meant "On reflection, it is probably not a good idea to tag a BLP article in this way. What do you think?". I was assuming the Taxidermy article had been tagged correctly --Senra (talk) 19:13, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Well, BLP articles are within scope if the person has a significant relation to death topics or is known because of their death. See /Archive 1#I suggest scope be modified for that discussion. I still think discussing whether taxidermy is within scope or not is a good discussion to have. --Geniac (talk) 21:53, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Re: I suggest scope be modified

I am not so sure. I had considered tagging the Taxidermist Polly Morgan (currently in user space at User talk:Perryjarvis/Polly Morgan) with {{Death}} on the basis that Taxidermy is similarly tagged. On the one hand, this would clearly indicate to readers (of the talk page at least) that the article discusses death. On the other hand, this is a biography of a living person. I feel tagging such a BLP with {{Death}} is an overstatement and thus would be against the BLP guidelines. I would welcome other views. In the meantime, the biography will not be tagged with {{Death}} --Senra (talk) 12:13, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Assessment guidelines needed

Obviously, class is easy to assess because it simply deals with the quality of the article, and generally class is carried over from one WikiProject tagging an article to the next. Assessment of importance, however, is difficult, especially with such a non-standard WikiProject as this one. I just assessed the importance of Airblue Flight 202 as "Low", but I'm far from certain that this is the correct level. There's a lot of apples and oranges in this project; how do you compare articles on euthanasia with airplane disasters, for instance. We need to develop a guideline at Wikipedia:WikiProject Death/Assessment specifically for importance, where it currently says nothing. __meco (talk) 08:50, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

List of professional cyclists who died during a race

This List-Class article classified as being part of WikiProject Death would probably benefit from the attention of this Group. As of now, it has no inline-citations and the lead paragraph needs to be re-worked.

Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 14:09, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Error to fix

At gravedigger, it says "...in the first three or fifty centuries of the Christian Era." which is clearly wrong, but how to fix? Anyone here know what it should say? Huw Powell (talk) 20:32, 7 August 2010 (UTC) Calculated guess - first three centuries makes sense - removed the fifty bit - thanks for pointing that out - fixed Done Satu Suro 02:09, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Hey

I noticed your project when a recent article of mine was tagged with your project banner (Mass suicide in Demmin). I did not realize before that we have such a project. You might want to have a look if other articles I wrote fit your scope, namely Lorenz Schwietz (an executioner), Sidonia von Borcke (convicted witch burned at the stake) and Bellum se ipsum alet (which caused a multitude of deaths). Regards Skäpperöd (talk) 19:44, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Death articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Death articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 22:21, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Each US state needs separate List of Cemeteries article

The article List of cemeteries in the United States needs to be broken up into 50 articles. There must be over 1000 cemeteries in Massachusetts alone!-96.237.8.162 (talk) 22:18, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Famine in India

I'm trying to improve Famine in India to a GA level article. However some sections of the article are being called to have an "Indian nationalist" viewpoint. If you have an interest in the topic, please help improve the article to GA level. I've asked for a peer review for the article. Zuggernaut (talk) 16:47, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

ANI (Jamesinderbyshire) per WP:FAKE for Famine in India article

I have reported User:Jamesinderbyshire at ANI for providing ficticious references attempting to bolster his claim that 26 million Indians did not perish of famines during 1875-1900. Separately, my attempts to include the a line about Green Revolution in the lead section of the same article is being resisted by the same user. Please vote/participate in both the ANI as well as the inclusion of Green Revolution in the lead. Zuggernaut (talk) 00:05, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

RFC: Should there be a separate article called Targeted killing

Ongoing Request for Comment, at Talk:Assassination#RFC:_Should_there_be_a_separate_article_called_Targeted_killing.
New comments should go all the way to the bottom, below subsection, Discussion break.

Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 22:24, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

New infobox template for famines

I've created a new infobox template that can potentially be used in every famine article on Wikipedia. For a list of articles where it can be used, see the categories famines in India, famines and other relevant categories. The usage documentation still needs some improvement and the template might undergo minor teaks further - all feedback/suggestions for improvement are welcome! Feel free to link to or re-post this message in relevant places. Zuggernaut (talk) 17:22, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Assassins

The usage of assassins is up for discussion, see Talk:Hashshashin . 184.144.167.193 (talk) 05:11, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Springbank Cemetery Aberdeen

Members of this WikiProject may like to contribute to this AFD on a Commonwealth war grave:

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Springbank Cemetery Aberdeen

--Mais oui! (talk) 10:23, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Famine in India

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Famine_in_India#Recent_deletions_by_Snowded. Zuggernaut (talk) 08:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC) (Using {{Please see}})

Cemeteries and notability

It is of some imperative that this project establish a sense of what and where cemeteries are in the notability of things - as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Springbank_Cemetery_Aberdeen I find the delete arguments close to spurious. The graveyard was belonging to a range of graveyards that hold war-dead, and is watched over by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission - to delete such an article the closing editor claims we do not have any criteria of notability.

A warning here - many projects have the afd fashions/phasesseasons over aspects of notability of component articles - earthquakes last year had editors saying that unless an earthquake had a certain level of (ugh) GNG hits, levels of fatality or calamity - they did not exist within the earthquake scheme of things.

The Springbank article is a case worth considering -

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Springbank Cemetery Aberdeen was not listed as a WP DEATH issue

Part of the Commonwealth War graves commission ambit - I believe we - as a project should establish that any grave/cemetery that is acknowledging that there are victims of war in any number - then that is sufficient defence of the article - however slim the references or other supporting data - if the place theory of the endless third world villages to have entries here in wikipedia - and allows insubstantial localities with small population to be implicitly part of wikipedia - I see that the death project as a custodian of those places where the dead are honoured or otherwise - should have it as a prima facie argument for inclusion or notability - if there is a need for a bottom limit on this - we need to discuss it here so we can establish the criteria.

Google Books, Google search, Google News, are all culturally and logarithmically biased and not a final answer - I believe there are country specific databases that are not google connected that are inherently more thorough despite the extraordinary google stretch - I believe the Death project needs to establish an inherent project established criteria for cemetery notability that is not over-reliant on universal search engines or directories - in many countries the national library databases and country specific search engines are more effectively interrogatable - google is not the sum of human knowledge and can never be that

Satu Suro 05:16, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

- I believe the notability of a cemetery might be evaluated by comparing it with these criteria:

- National cemetery - Arlington National Cemetery
- Cemetery with famous/historical people - Père Lachaise Cemetery
- Of Notable antiquity - Valley of the Kings
- With Victims of massacre or genocide - Choeung Ek, Cambodia
- Cemetery Associated with a Notable Structure or Site - Mount Kōya, Japan
- Cemeteries with Other Notable Cultural Features - Saint Louis Cemetery, New Orleans

Boneyard90 (talk) 22:52, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that considered response and welcome to the project - I hope some of the other participants or watchers might concur with you - it looks far more specific and practical than my suggestions - thanks for it and lets hope someone else comes on board to comment - cheers Satu Suro 01:58, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Request for Re-assessment: Coffin birth

~~Coffin birth~~ - I re-wrote the entire article. Requesting re-assessment. Also, you can throw in your opinion on the Talk:Coffin birth page regarding the question: Should the article be moved to Postmortem fetal extrusion? Thanks. Boneyard90 (talk) 22:56, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
~~Camp Nelson National Cemetery~~ - Requesting re-assessment for B-class. Re-wrote and expanded article, added references and an image. Thanks. Boneyard90 (talk) 21:02, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Both articles assessed B-class after they appeared in the DYK feature. Boneyard90 (talk) 19:38, 31 January 2011 (UTC)