Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of unusual deaths

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

The result of the debate was keep. — FireFox (UTC) 11:03, 28 May '06

[edit] List of unusual deaths

This list is inherently unencyclopedic. It assumes that there is a common standard for "unusual", and includes a number of deaths (just for starters, Commodus, Attila the Hun, Clement XVII, Giles Corey) that are not unsual or are at any rate are not unusual in context. Kept to the low standards that the list currently manages, being basically all-inclusive, this is an infinite list and is therefore an indiscriminate collection of information. Vizjim 14:10, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep - This list is perhaps one of the most interesting works on this project. Do not use AfD to debate whether certain specific entries should be included or not - take that to the Talk page. The list is factual and captivating. -- Netoholic @ 14:15, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• I am not debating those specific entries: they are just the clearest examples of why the list fails the indiscriminate collection of information rules. Vizjim 14:17, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep as per Netoholic. I've always found this one of the most interesting articles in the project. The JPS ^{talk to me} 14:16, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep: I was originally looking for an article to delete, but article looks significant and interesting. It covers only notable people with unusual deaths, which is not clear from the title, and unusual is not well defined as Vizjim pointed out. I would like to tidy these up. While I'm criticizing, I would like a cite for each claim, perhaps a web link to a respected source. Stephen B Streater 14:27, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Check towards the end of the article (e.g. the last entry). A lot of the people listed here are not famous. What standard of fame would you apply? There's an NBC reporter who died of an embolism there - that's embolism, as in "thing that kills thousands of people every year".
    • I begin to see your point better. However, the vast majority of the pre 1900 entries would fit the most curmudgeonly of criteria. Do you object to more than (say) 10% of the pre 1900 entries? If not, then I suggest the issue is with frequent editing the article to delete the chaff, rather than deleting the whole thing. Bathwater and babies? Dweller 15:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
      • Having referred back to the article from your list above ("Commodus, Attila the Hun, Clement XVII [should be VII?], Giles Corey") I think you're just too picky. Dying of a nose bleed on a wedding night is fairly unusual. Personally, I wouldn't be too bothered about 3 of those 4 being included. Dweller 16:05, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
        • I think a balance of fame and unusualness. If it was a really whacky death, I think anyone would do. I would prefer a higher fame threshold for less unusual deaths - perhaps only those with WP articles? Stephen B Streater 16:37, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
          • I've added the last three wikilinks to the names. Only two came out red, surprisingly. So any editing will have to be on unusualness of death vs famousness of person. Obviously someone thought each was important, so I might make a list of possible deletions on the talk page. Stephen B Streater 20:25, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - I agree with the above opinions. An idea that may please most parties... the "Darwin Awards"-type entries are irritating, I'd humbly suggest that if the page was altered to be a list of famous people who died unusually, it would pass your "indiscriminate..." test? Dweller 14:31, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Keep Though I see serious POV problems with what constitutes an unusual death, and some are mystifyingly normal deaths. (Clark Gable died of heart disease. Jessica Savitch drove into a canal. Zurab Zhvania died from CO poisoning from a faulty space heater. These are unusual, how?) Can someone define some criteria? Fan1967 17:32, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Possibly trim out some of the less-unusual ones, but this is an interesting and encycloepdic article. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 17:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Agree with Andrew Lenahan completely. I think people will agree that dying because a tortoise was dropped on your head is unusual and deserves to be noted. The same goes for most of the list, but there are some which are not notable – for example, Matthias Corvinus, who died of poisoned figs? That could be taken out. --Fbv65edel ^{(discuss | contribs)} 18:09, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Delete - this list is interesting, in a way, but there is no hope of containing its growth at the moment. There are any number of completely usual deaths. I could probably add half a dozen, simply off the top of my head.--Nydas 18:45, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I'm with Fbv, though, that some of the entries are not very unusual at all. ... discospinster 20:57, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Police for less unusual deaths. - CNichols 22:25, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per User:Vizjim, indiscriminate collection of information; "unusual" is not something that can be verified and WP:NOT applies. Policing the list will not help without a means of verifying the unusualness. Angus McLellan (Talk) 22:43, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - useful list --Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 00:47, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Many inherent POV problems, but most importantly, not a particularly useful list at all. Hobbeslover 01:17, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - agreeing that oversight is always needed. I added this phrase to the intro months - heck, maybe years - ago The list also includes less rare, but still unusual, deaths of prominent persons in an attempt to deal with the issue of people putting in slightly odd deaths they'd read about in a history book. Perhaps that doesn't work, though, and this article needs to be re-focused. - DavidWBrooks 01:34, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete This seems more like a side show made up of sensational but useless information. More importantly, I agree with the person that pointed out that "unusual" is not quantifiable. --Papa Spot 02:14, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Keep - more like Almanac or Ripleys material, but interesting none the less. If these are verified legends, then I'm OK with it. 03:59, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - no NPOV criteria. They are all interesting, but unusual? JPD (talk) 09:09, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - It clearly needs a fair bit of work, but the nucleus of a good article is there and discussion over the notability of certain aspects of it should surely be on the talk page. I also disagree with the suggestion that "unusual" is not quantifiable - to pick one example from the article, people do not "usually" drown in barrels of Malmsey wine, ergo such an occurrence is, by definition, "unusual". Agree however that a lot of the deaths on the list don't qualify - but that's not a reason to delete the entire article. Seb Patrick 13:22, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep - I don´t see why this should be deleted, doesn´t harm anyone to have it, Just the information should be accurate. 24 May 2006
• Keep - I don't see what's so NPOV of unusual. Unusual implies that it is not a normal occurance, that it is something notable. Dying of a nosebleed does not happen normally, or else people would be dropping like flies. --THollan 17:34, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

• Keep - "unusual" can be determined based upon the likelyhood of it occuring. So then, the question is: " of all those that have died throughout history, how many died in this way." If it is not comparitively speaking something that could be considered a "usual" event, then it is inherrantly unusual. Plus... on a personal note, it's interesting. - Clinton D Begley Duckbuster 13 19:38, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep useful list.  Grue  07:42, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per Grue Will (^E_@) T 09:49, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

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