Category talk:Suicides

Parent category

This in under Category:People noted for being in rare medical or psychological categories, but suicide is not rare. I would suggest this be under a new category, called Category:People by medical or psychological category, instead. Any comments or objections? Quadell (talk) 20:35, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

Only noticed this comment after I'd already removed this category from the one you mention. No opinion on creating a new one for it, are there enough other subcategories that would fit under it to make it worthwhile? Bryan 00:02, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I definitely agree suicide is not a rare condition, and it's listed in an inappropriate (and awkwardly-named) parent category. Perhaps a better parent category would be "Causes of death" or something similar. — Brim 09:17, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

Tidy?

Any chance of this getting a good going-through? I went through and moved out the suicides that were actually acts of Category:Self-immolations - which is now a subcategory. But there are still a lot of entries that should be listed under Category:Entertainer suicides (or else are currently listed under both), or else have potential new sub-categories created. (A lot of Nazis killed themselves after being caught and facing trial, criminals and politicians might also be able to be sub-catted) Sherurcij 08:15, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Alright, got tired of waiting...went through A,B,C and drew out about 150 articles that were then subcatted into either Category:Entertainers who committed suicide (existing), Category:Criminals who committed suicide, Category:Politicians who committed suicide, Category:Writers who committed suicide and Category:Artists who committed suicide. Sherurcij 06:56, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Just a note that I took out all the W,X,Y and Z ones that fit into one of the subcats (most of them fit into one) Sherurcij

V Sherurcij 13:09, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I (it was short!) Sherurcij 13:11, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

QUO Sherurcij 13:14, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I helped a bit. I also added a Category:Royalty who committed suicide. Dahn 08:14, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, that's great :) You might want to check my politicians subcat, I may have thrown some royalty in there myself earlier :) Sherurcij ^{(talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject)} 06:14, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

No prob and checked. Added Category:Sportspeople who committed suicide.Dahn 11:30, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Category:Jurists who committed suicide Dahn 11:56, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Finished H, 16 moved out of it, 5 left in it, and "Adolf Hitler" is currently locked so I just left a message on the talkpage for an admin to subcat him into "politicians who committed suicide" Sherurcij ^{(talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject)} 11:36, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Hehe, got G down to 2 articles :D Sherurcij ^{(talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject)} 11:47, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Added Category:Scientists who committed suicide, and completed D Sherurcij ^{(talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject)} 18:04, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Teacher strike in Ontario, went and did L as well Sherurcij ^{(talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject)} 18:17, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

There were 19 Ps, now there are 2 :) Sherurcij ^{(talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject)} 12:49, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, N, O, P, Q, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z

Method of suicide as a subcategory

I am currently writing a journal article on ‘creativity and suicide’ - exploring why creative persons take their own lives. As a part of my research I have constructed a rather extensive database of persons in history who have committed suicide and, importantly, the methods they have used. In the cases of drug OD I have also subcategorized the type of drug. As I have been cruising Wiki I have been adding the method of suicide information to its Articles. What do you think about creating a subcategory listing based on the method of suicide; e.g.: ‘Persons who have committed suicide by gunshot’. I'm fairly new to Wikipedia. If such a subcategory already exista please let me know. If not, how about it? Michael David 21:49, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

That's actually an interesting question, and I know we already have categories such as Category:Sallekhana and Category:Self-immolations that do list people by their cause. I'd have conflicting opinions on something like "Suicide by gunshot" simply because then we get into "Do we have "Entertainers who died by gunshot" and "Entertainers who died by poison", and we risk watering down the pool a little too much. The other option too, if you're not aware, is to create lists such as "List of people who committed suicide by doing X" or something. I know I'd actually wanted to do something similar because the Cyanide article listed people who drank cyanide to kill themselves, so I wanted to branch it off into a List of people killed with Cyanide or something similar. These lists would then be included in Category:Suicides definitely, assuming they were strictly about suicides (not "List of people killed by gunshot", but "who committed suicide by gunshot" or whatever). Sherurcij ^{(talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject)} 12:34, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that the method of suicide is at least as interesting if not more so than the occupation of the person committing suicide. There's no reason that you couldn't have someone listed under both cat:Suicide by gunshot and cat:Entertainers who killed themselves and furthermore there is no reason that you would have to have cat:Entertainers who killed themselves using firearms. It would be a bit sloppy and hard to find things to have both ways of categorizing intermixed on the same page, but you could create subcategories like cat:Suicides by occupation and cat:Suicides by method and more ways might occur to you like cat:Suicides by nationality. --JeffW 20:51, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with all you say. We could start with the two you suggested: Suicide by method & Suicide by Occupation. As for the methods, we could start with two major ones: (1) Suicide by firearm & (2) Drug-related suicides. The person's Article would contain both if both are known. If this works out we could consider other common methods of suicide, but for know let's limit it to those two. The Categories for a particular Article could look like this: Entertainers who committed suicide | Suicide by firearm. I don't believe that is too much.

Now. The question this computer-challenged person has is: How the hell do I create a sub-category. I told you I was new here.

Be healthy Michael David 21:53, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

To create a subcategory edit the article you want to put in the subcategory and change the category name of the parent category to that of the subcategory. When you save it you will see a red link for the subcategory at the bottom of the page. Click on the red link and it will give you an edit box for the subcategory. The only thing you need to put here is the category link for the parent category, although you could add some explanatory text about what is supposed to go into the subcategory. So what you end up with is an article with a category link to the subcategory page and a subcategory page with a category link to the parent category page. Does that make sense? --JeffW 22:28, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

YES, THANK YOU. Of course, this knowledge could be dangerous in the hands of a compulsive list-maker (like me). I'll try to behave.

Be healthy Michael David 00:21, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

This is to announce the birth of a brand new Category: 'Drug-related suicides'. It is a sub of 'Suicides by methods'. Would someone with much more Wiki experience than I please check it out and see if it was created correctly, and is linked to all that it's supposed to be.

Thanks Michael David 12:54, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

It looks good to me. The only thing I might change is the sorting of Category:Suicides by methods. Since everything in Category:Suicides is about suicides it might be more useful to sort by the word method instead of the word suicide. This is done by adding the sort key after a vertical bar in the category link. So you might want to change the category link in cat:Suicides by methods to [[Category:Suicides|Methods]].

Also, I think 'Suicide by method' would sound better than 'Suicide by methods' but to change it you'd have to list it on the Wikipedia:Categories for deletion page under Speedy Rename. --JeffW 18:24, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I think I accomplished the sorting change as per your directions. As for the name change, of course it should be 'Suicide by method' (it usually takes only one to accomplish the task). My eye just never picked it up. I'm having to go out for a while; I'll try to change it when I get back - unless you get there first. That would be fine.

Thanks & be healthy Michael David

'Suicides' as a separate category

I have noticed that some editors are unilaterally deleting this Category, "Suicides', from Articles. I believe this is a mistake.

If a researcher is collecting data on 'suicide' (which I happen to be at this time), it is my understanding that the general Category of 'Suicides' is there if they want a list of all persons who have committed suicide. The subcategories by occupation are for those researchers who want only persons of that particular subset who committed suicide.

The general, all-inclusive Categories may seem redundant to some, but they are extremely important to someone collecting complete data on a particular subject.

Thoughts? Michael David 12:24, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Well if the person is commonly assumed to have committed suicide, obviously they should be listed in this category regardless of personal editor's opinions, I agree with you. But if they're already listed under a sub-cat like Category:Entertainers who committed suicide, then they shouldn't also be listed under Category:Suicides, no. Sherurcij ^{(talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject)} 12:28, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

My point is: Without the general Category 'Suicides', if I wanted a complete list of all persons who committed suicide, I would have to collect - then combine - all of the data from multiple occupational categories to achieve this complete list. What is the objection to having a person listed in both Categories?[ [User:Michael David|Michael David]] 13:31, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Because Wikipedia policy is not to include the "Parent Categories" in these cases, otherwise you would have to put Adolf Hitler into Category:Politicians who committed suicide, Category:Suicides, Category:Dead people, Category:People, etcetera. It also defeats the purpose of categories if they are too cumbersome, part of the reason you'll notice the efforts to move people from just "Suicides" into subcategories in general - so that people who want to study famous politicians have a seperate listing than people who want to study famous athletes. Each child/sub category is listed at the top of a parent category, so for someone like you to view all people who committed suicide, you merely have to do this category, and then the subcategories. Just like somebody listed under Category:Finnish ice hockey players is not also listed under Category:Ice hockey players and Category:Hockey players and Category:Athletes Sherurcij ^{(talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject)} 14:22, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

So, as I understand it, the Main Category 'Suicides' should be used only in cases where the person does not fall under an existing occupation already covered. Perhaps I'm dense, but what I still do not understand: is there a single list which collects all of the various suicides into one master list? If not, why not. Michael David 15:16, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

That's List of suicides. And yes to what else you said, for example the P section used to have 19 articles, most of which were easily sub-catted into the more specific categories. Now it has two. Edward Pilgrim who was just an "average guy" who committed suicide and made headlines, but doesn't really fit any other sub-cat, and Melvin Purvis who was an FBI agent, which doesn't really fall under "Military people" or "Jurists" as far as I can tell. Sherurcij ^{(talk) (Terrorist Wikiproject)} 15:29, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I finally got it! THANK YOU for your patience. Now, back to work. Something you didn't ask: I'm gathering material for a paper (perhaps, later, a book) exploring the relationship between creativity and self-destruction as they co-exist within a person. The goals are: to identify both - help to nurture the former - and to extinguish the latter.

Be healthy Michael David 15:56, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Hrm

Do we want to combine "Activists" and "Lobbyists"? Sherurcij ^{(Speaker for the Dead)} 10:57, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Lists?

With all due respect, this set of categories seems to me to be more appropriate for lists -- see the Category:Lists of people by cause of death for another example. Particularly, defining this by profession is going to lead to problems where people have multiple professions. In fact, every single other personal characteristic can be crossed with "suicide", thus doubling every set of categories in an article. That's going to make it hard to find relevant categories. I'm opening this up for discussion, after one of the sub-categories was posted on Categories for deletion. --lquilter 02:38, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Suicide as verb: commited suicide -->> suicided

I understand that using committing suicide does not have a positive or neutral weight Could all the categories using committed suicide be renamed? so, for instance, instead of "Ancient people who committed suicide" -->> "Ancient people who suicided"? Hoping that all the categories using "committed suicide" be renamed. Thank you Tortillovsky (talk) 14:57, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

References