Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cult suicide

This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was keep. —Korath (Talk) 17:48, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

Cult suicide

Delete -- Should be cleaned up and any new info merged into their relevant articles, (e.g. Scientology, Unification Church, Branch Davidians, etc. --Zappaz 03:37, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Keep -- I agree it should definitely be cleaned up, and maybe also renamed "Mass suicide" with special attention given to religious cults. However, mass suicides are a recurring event in human history, so there should be an article on the subject. --StuTheSheep 04:02, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)
  • Moving to Mass suicide is an option, but then most of text will need to go.--Zappaz 04:21, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep -- The article needs some work, but it is an important topic that should be in an encyclopedia. --Apyule 05:00, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep clean up a bit I agree but why would we not have this topic in Wikipedia? Williamb 05:03, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep -- Key topic D. Wo. 06:45, 2005 Mar 10 (UTC)
• Keep -- This kind of article is what separates Wikipedia from other encyclopedias. Arvindn 07:57, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep -- This can't really be merged into other articles, although I don't know if PoV should be considered - I know it is hard when we are talking about cult suicides, which most people have a strong opinion about. --Wee Jimmy 08:00, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep -- This is a very important topic that reflects upon quality of self awareness. Assisted suicide comes to mind, and it seems an injustice that internal link just redirects to Euthanasia. An anthropologist's examination of psychiatric internships revealed cultish hazing rituals escalate the psychotropic prescribing patterns of interns, placing the suicides that result from psychotropic medications, many of which have mandated black box warning labels, somewhere between assisted suicide and quasi-cultish suicide. --Ombudsman 08:22, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep --Although I think the article needs some work and more balance, I think it should still be kept. Cjb88 08:39, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep and move as per StutheSheep. --InShaneee 15:40, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep don't really see why not Gkhan 18:55, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Susan Davis 18:55, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • This user has 5 edits at time of vote, all on VfD. [1] Smoddy (t) (e) (g) 19:21, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • So what?
      • So users with very small numbers of edits are sometimes counted less when an admin is summing up. Nothing against the user, just Wikipedia convention. Smoddy (t) (e) (g) 20:33, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. --Ryan! | Talk 19:30, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, and do not move to Mass suicide, as the two topics are not the same. -- Antaeus Feldspar 19:57, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Out of curiousity, what would go in a 'mass suicide article then? I've heard that term often, and always in relation to some sort of cult.--InShaneee 03:09, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • Here's an example of a mass suicide not related to a cult: the 960 members of the Israeli community at Masada, who collectively committed suicide in the first century, rather than be conquered and enslaved by the Romans. --BD2412 18:29, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. -- Useful article on a real topic. Why on earth delete? Palnu 21:10, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Eriathwen 22:50, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep It is a topic that is interesting to many people. It is a useful summary of the phenomenon. --Batmanand 23:17, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Ran across it from the Heavens Gate article.. interesting stuff, found it useful. Gmaxwell 23:31, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Encyclopedic topic. Article that needs clean up doesn't belong on VfD, invalid listing. --Andylkl 19:25, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep It deals with a taboo topic; hard to find good unbiased discussions on things like this, a shining point of wikipedia --Aika 21:38, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep but definitely clean it up. Rcsheets 08:42, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, it needs edits for sure, but I don't see what is the point of the cleanup suggestion below.
• Keep, It certainly belongs in an article of itself. Druminor 16:40, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Redirect to Mass suicide, as per StuTheSheep and Zappaz above. The definition of cult is controversial. By omitting that word from the article title we can keep the article NPOV about the exact nature of the masses involved. -Willmcw 00:55, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)

Clean-up plan

1. Copy info from Destructive_cult#Killed_themselves_or_each_other
2. Delete or radically trim section on Unification Church, since its suicide rate (at least in the US) is not demonstrably higher than that of the general population. (2 or 3 suicides in 25 years - out of 30,000 members = 1 suicide per 250,000 members, per year)

Any problems with the above? -- Uncle Ed (talk) 15:44, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure why there is a section on the Unification Church in the article. I don't even think poor Noah Lottick should be in the article -- while the stresses of being in Scientology may have triggered his suicide, that doesn't make it a "cult suicide". I don't have any problem with the above cleanup plan. -- Antaeus Feldspar 16:41, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well spotted, Ed & Antaeus. I agree. Thanks. --Zappaz 23:43, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

America and the Unification Church? I don't see why spotting such points. The cult suicide issue is much broader. But I suppose it is an admission by Zappaz that the article itself should be kept and its deletion proposal was futile. --Pgreenfinch 11:12, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.