Talk:List of unusual deaths/Archive 8

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Kemistry

Is Kemistry's death unusual enough?

"Olusanya died in a road accident at 2:30 AM on April 25, 1999. She was in a car travelling behind a van on the M3 motorway in Hampshire, when she was hit by the steel body of a cat's eye, which had been dislodged by the van and flew through the windscreen of the car in which she was a passenger. The cat's eye hit Olusanya in the face and she was killed instantly." Portillo (talk) 04:51, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

the source as quoted does not call it unusual, without a third party reliable source making the assessment, no it is not appropriate for inclusion. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:58, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
This source [1] describes it as a "freak road accident". Martinevans123 (talk) 10:26, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
an you think that is a reliable source because .... ? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:01, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
More importantly, it is not a secondary source. Abductive (reasoning) 07:22, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
That source is deemed good enough to support the claim in the Kemistry article? But, more importantly, this source: [2] says this: "But Mr Short said he would write to the agency asking for a special inspection of the junction. Recording a verdict of accidental death, he said: "The chance of a Cat's-eye being thrown in the air must have been minute in the extreme." So, a chance that is "minute in the extreme" doesn't make something unusual? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:23, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
The cat's eye article source also states that, "Investigators acknowledged that the cat's eye bodies occasionally came loose, but added that such an accident was previously unheard of." Portillo (talk) 09:34, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
The direct quote used in that article is: "David Lydford, of Hampshire Police, said: Cat's eyes sometimes work loose, but I have never come across an accident like this in my 28 years with the police." "Martinevans123 (talk) 21:17, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure Mr Lydford also hasn't come across all sorts of other causes of accidental death that aren't all that unusual. That's a poor supporting quote for a death being unusual. It's a great source if the article is about things not previously experienced by Mr Lydford. --Dweller (talk) 21:22, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
I don't think he was assessing how unusual it was compared with all other causes of unusual accidental deaths. Why do you say this was "not all that unusual"? Could you provide us with one single other example? Or perhaps you know how many accidents Mr Lydford has seen in his 28 year career? But no, unfortunately, it's not a great a source - it's from the News of the World, alas. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:41, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
You've misconstrued me, but as you've pointed out that the source is unreliable anyway, there's no point discussing it further. --Dweller (talk) 22:10, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
Apologies for any misconstrual. But feel free to discuss the comment by the Coroner quoted further above. Perhaps you will tell us that Mr Short is no expert on probability nor on the logic or the mechanisms of causation? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:26, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Dogging, you're doing it wrong

  • 2008: Carol Hickey, a 43 year old mother of 4 from Co. Limerick, Ireland died after suffering a massive allergic reaction brought on after she had sex with an alsation dog. [1]
Removed by RedPen as "he is talking about the court case, not the death"
Now the judge is certainly quoted as describing the case as “very unusual”, but it's firstly WP:OR to interpret this as meaning that he's referring to only the legal sense of the case, rather than the facts of the case. Secondly, why does a legally unusual case imply that the death was mundane? Can only one of these aspects be unusual at a time? Has the judge's comment "used up" the conserved supply of unusualness available?
Bestiality is not common. Death from it is even rarer. One might even say it was "unusual". This is just RedPen playing his usual games to delete content, whenever he can invent the most farcical reasons possible to do so. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:26, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Apparently, it was German Shepherd. Maybe that's not unusual in Patrickswell? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:44, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I am so sorry to spoil your fun and make you play by the rules. You can start your own website and list whatever you want if you dont want to follow the rules. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 10:12, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe you are at all sorry. These are serious questions, not just "fun". I think you should answer the question that has been asked of you. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:38, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Kendrick Johnson

This source says “unusual nature of his death”: [3]. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:34, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

  • Source is primary, and does not know what the cause of death was, just that being found rolled up in a wrestling mat is unusual. I strongly urge you to stop presenting primary sources here, as WP:NOT#BATTLEGROUND applies. Abductive (reasoning) 07:23, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
    • I heard that, thanks. What would you see as an acceptable secondary source for such a report? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:13, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
p.s. you tell us that deaths caused by asphyxiation after falling head first into a recycling bin and asphyxiation after tripping and falling into a plastic clothes-airer and trapping one's neck in the rungs "are quite common". I wonder do you have any statistical bases for that claim or any suggestions as to where a reliable source for such might be found?
p.p.s. how many "primary sources" have I presented?

Rod Hull

I don't think that Rod Hull slipped for the purpose of improving his TV reception! Please, can editors be more accurate with their grammar.203.184.41.226 (talk) 21:24, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

  • Falling from a roof while attempting repairs is not unusual, so this entry has been removed. Abductive (reasoning) 07:20, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
    • Your opinion seems to differ from that of The Daily Telegraph on 6 Sept 2010: [4] which includes him in its list of "some other unusual deaths involving high-profile people." But who knows from where they took their information. Probably not reliable wikipedia, which wouldn't have been any good, would it? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:17, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
      • Another primary source mentioned by you. Anyway, think; fall from roof. How many people have died falling from a roof? Abductive (reasoning) 03:15, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
        • So, I'll be up to three soon, if I'm not more careful... but all press reports are primary sources, which should not be used at wikipedia? Why should my personal knowledge of the number of people who have fallen from roofs count for anything? Perhaps falls from roofs are so common they don't get reported? Where's the list of agreed reliable secondary sources? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:35, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

We never sleep?

Even if it were "reliable", the Find-a-Grave report (which looks remarkably familar) does not use the word "unusual". But the University of Wisconsin M.S. thesis by Edward Stanley Lanis, used as a source in his article, might be useful? Here's one of the unacceptable primary source press reports: [5] (Unless of course it's just quicker and easier to delete any entry which does not currently have a WP:RS, rather than move it, out of article mainspace, into a list that might be investigated.) Martinevans123 (talk) 17:13, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

If he's out to delete Tycho Brahe and William Huskisson, there's really no applying logic to this person. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:19, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
We can't be too careful.... "There are ten states (Colorado, Idaho, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah and Washington) that have criminal statutes regarding defamation of the dead." Descendants might sue, you know? Martinevans123 (talk) 17:24, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
Although vast uncited plot summaries are quite another matter. Andy Dingley (talk) 18:43, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
you didnt check the whole history, because i also think that plot description is excessive. However, a plot summary in its own article is sourced to the film itself and does not require outside sources. 19:34, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Back on to this article, I am out to have this article comply with basic content policies of WP:RS / WP:OR / WP:V at a minimum. its not like you havent been aware that they apply here for since at least back in September. and if i had seen anything that resembled a good faith effort to bring in appropriate sourcing then I would not have resumed actively reviewing and applying policies to eliminate content that does not meet policy requirements. If you would like, we could create a sandbox where those that I remove for inadequate sourcing can be warehoused- if you are truly worried that because of poor sourcing practices in the past we might loose track of important or relevant items. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:07, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm worried that the article is at the mercy of one ruthless and single-minded enforcer of wiki-law. As far as I know, the informal criteria agreed for assessing eligibility have still never been widely considered or discussed. And they are certainly not enshrined in any agreed wikipedia policy. There can be no argument with the need for WP:RS for all items in this list. But I don't remember a time-scale being agreed for any kind of "mass culling". Rapid wholesale excision of items about very well-known individuals seems a betrayal of the good faith in which they were originally added, by multiple past editors, who may well no longer even be here. I think we'd all agree that it's more difficult to look for a better source for any entry if it's no longer there? So yes, perhaps a sandbox holding area for possible entries, or re-entries, would be a very good idea. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:55, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
for what its worth, the only thing i am currently applying is WP:RS / WP:V and WP:OR which ARE enshrined in policy. We havent even gotten to the point where the more specific WP:LIST identifying criteria for this particular article may or may not apply.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:00, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
horse, cart, before, putting - just rearrange however required. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:20, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
Is it time for Wikipedia:Requests for comment/TheRedPenOfDoom? Andy Dingley (talk) 21:31, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
"* List of Unusual Deaths, 7 or 8, a quirky and unconventional wikipedia article, the bountiful source of inane trivia for bored provincial newspaper copy-writers for many years, was savaged to death by a merciless, but anonymous, Red Pen, purporting to be a resident in the neighbouring small town of Doom. (sorry, no WP:RS yet found)." Martinevans123 (talk) 21:46, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

holding pen

the holding pen for improperly sourced content that had been in the article for a long time Talk:List of unusual deaths/Sourcing issues -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 10:23, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. A very good idea. Some queries:
1. How long is "a long time"?
2. Is there any easy way of determining when an entry was originally added?
3. What about all the others already removed over the last few months? Martinevans123 (talk) 11:12, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
the article as it existed in September before the recent attempts to bring into compliance with sourcing policies. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:19, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. I think that answers (3). Martinevans123 (talk) 11:28, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Beaver Attack results in death

If and when the person is named, perhaps this might make the list: "A fisherman has been bitten to death by a beaver after trying to take its photograph. The man was on a fishing trip at Lake Shestakov in Belarus with two friends when they spotted the animal on the side of the road." http://news.sky.com/story/1076746/beaver-bites-man-to-death-in-belarus-attack http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belarus/9987265/Beaver-bites-man-to-death.html The second article calls him a "60-year-old former serviceman." The man's artery was severed and he bled to death before reaching a hospital. I like to saw logs! (talk) 17:50, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Alas, whether the victim is named or not, neither source (let alone any secondary, more reliable and/or scholarly source) describes the death as "unusual". So wikipedia has to assume that this kind of death might happen every day. Maybe, in Belarus, it does. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:56, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

These nit picking rules are RIDICULOUS. Why does a nazi-editor have to rule over this entry, it used to be so much more enjoyable. -anonymous — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.73.32.221 (talk) 05:43, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Gregory Biggs

I note that the Gregory Biggs death has been struck from this entry as not unusual because it was a hit-and-run. I'd think the fact that the motorist failed to notice a human being stuck to her car's front end and actually driving home with him there was sufficiently unusual. I would think that this one, with the inclusion of a live link to the story, should be put back in.Boomshadow talk contribs 15:05, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I quite agree that the circumstances surrounding this death might reasonably be considered, by most people, to elevate it from the realm of commonplace road traffic accident deaths to something more unusual. Unfortunately, there is no agreement yet established as to how far "circumstances" of death contribute, if at all (in contrast to actual cause or mechanism) in making a death "unusual". Quite regardless of this lack of agreement, however, there is an informal agreement between inerested editors here that at least one WP:RS source must be found which describes the death as "unusual" or somthing very similar, for an entry to be made in the list. If you think that this death is likely to have been so described, but that the required source has not yet been located, you are welcome to add it to the "holding area": Talk:List of unusual deaths/Sourcing issues, if it has been in the article for "a long tiome". Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:02, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
Looks like someone beat me to it. In particular, the reason I wish to find a source and include it is that authorities were consistently quoted as noting that his injuries might not have been fatal, had someone discovered him earlier. That was described by whoever put that in the "holding tank" entry. I appreciate the explanation! Boomshadow talk contribs 19:37, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
And now I have put a live link into the "holding tank" entry--oddly enough, the link came from the Fox News reprint of the Associated Press piece on the story, which itself was located on the Chante Jawan Mallard page, but since it can be found without using Wikipedia itself, I hope it's not TOO circular. Boomshadow talk contribs 19:46, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

List of unusual deaths cases have been removed mysteriously

Dear Wikipedia editors,

I noticed that since I started reading this page in December 2011, multiple edits listing real life unusual deaths have disappeared from this page. For example, the case of a car crash produced by an airborne black bear was originally listed and now it CAN'T be found (original link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2000763/Two-killed-bizarre-motorway-accident-airborne-21stone-black-bear-smashes-car-windscreen.html)


or the death by laughing of Chrysippus after giving figs to a drunk donkey...it has been removed.

I am not joking. So many cases are missing I lost the count. Does anyone know why cases have been removed? Thank you David 

 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.61.125.11 (talk) 00:29, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
its not mysterious at all. the ones that have been removed failed basic Wikipedia content policies of WP:V / WP:OR / WP:RS. They did not have a reliably published source that identified them as unusual.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:48, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

If that's the reason, being killed by an airborne black bear is not unusual enough(listed in the link I provided above? I mean, you imply the source is a lie? Thank you D. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.61.125.11 (talk) 00:29, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

reliably published sources. The Daily Fail is not known for its adherence to non-sensationalistic journalistic standards. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:51, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Daily Fail? I thought it appeared in the Daily Mail. So from your comment I understand you assume the new is a fake, it didn't happen. The pictures are Photoshop and Constable Martin Fournel, a spokesperson for MRC-des-Collines-de-l'Outaouais police doesn't exist. Also, in general, isn't it obvious that nowadays unusual deaths are likely going to be reported by 'sensationalist' media? D. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.22.1.13 (talk) 19:34, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Or maybe that esteemed publication just can't be trusted to use the phrase "bizarre motorway accident" reliably? I'm sure you wouldn't get a giant black grizzly in a decent newspaper. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:45, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

It's not esteemed. It's about listing facts about unusual deaths. But it's OK, I get it. You will just keep changing subject in order to justify your actions and avoid listing this new (and so many others). I thought this page was supposed to just include a "list of unusual deaths". Instead, is being governed by editors concerned with the epistemological meaning of the word "unusual" in online media... D. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.61.125.11 (talk) 01:56, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Apparently, it is esteemed, as it's won lot of awards. Although not for epistemology. Personally, I'd accept that story, on the basis of the bear facts. But other editors are more "hard-line" it seems. Martinevans123 (talk) 07:37, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
What do you mean "editors" (plural)? Andy Dingley (talk) 09:14, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
Oh yes, two. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:27, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Grigori Rasputin?

I seem to recall reading in my history class that Grigori Rasputin died in a most unusual way, being massively poisoned, shot, bludgeoned, tied up and tossed in a river, only to drown. I understand that the exact circumstances of his death are now in dispute, but his political assassination should still count as unusual. What do others think? Nutster (talk) 13:02, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I’ve always thought that Rasputin’s demise was quite notable. I suspect some editors would argue that either (a) each of the methods used were not, in themselves, unusual and/or (b) only the last one actually killed him. Quite regardless of such reservations, however, it is currently informally agreed that he could be added here only if a WP:RS source could be provided which said “Rasputin’s death was unusual”. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:24, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
Definitely unusual. The trouble with Rasputin's death is conveying it accurately, as there are differing accounts to consider, and deliberate obfuscation all round. The death section of his article here isn't very well cited, but Rasputin's is surely a notably mysterious death. No matter what the eventual truth may be, it is likely the established legend will live on. Anyway, I've found one good quote:
  • On December 17th 1916, in one of history's most bizarre deaths, the two conspirators poisoned Rasputin, shot him several times, beat and kicked him, and finally tied up his body and disposed of it benath icy waters..
Moss, Walter (2005). A History of Russia, Volume 2. Anthem Press. p. 113. -- Hillbillyholiday talk 05:31, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
Well, that looks like a pretty unambiguous description from a wholly reliable and respected source. I don't think we could get better than this. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:43, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Tudor barricades, men!

Look - the word "strange": [6], on a real BBC web-page, and researched by a real Oxford historian Dr Steven Gunn, too. So we are all agreed that this is a a perfectly reliable and suitable source for these 10 deaths, yes? Martinevans123 (talk) 17:33, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

  • They seem to think ordinary drownings strange: "Thomas Staple, a labourer of Biddenden, Kent, went into Mr Mayne's pond to wash and cool down on 2 June 1558, then suddenly fell into the deepest part and drowned." So, no, it is just human interest filler. Abductive (reasoning) 18:39, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
    • Hmm, but surely - an historian? an Oxford Doctor, no less? the esteemed and trusted BBC?! and a secondary source?? What's the point of agreeing criteria for inclusion, if we then just say (wholly subjectively), "nah, don't like it." Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:00, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
... so we agree criteria and judge all existing entries, throwing out all that don't comply and then when 10 come along, all at once, which pass the same criteria, we say "no we don't trust the list" or "no, it's human interest filler". Am a bit baffled by that. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:56, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
It doesn't pass. These list-of-10 articles are crap that comes out whenever some filler is needed. Typically media runs them during the holidays when their reporters are on vacation. Abductive (reasoning) 04:19, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
"crap that comes out whenever some filler is needed" - is that a recognised literary expression? or maybe you have a WP:RS for a defintion? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:49, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Football team killed by lightning

The list includes a case of October 1998 when the whole football team of Bena Tshadi was supposedly killed by lightning strike. This was only reported by one Kinshasa newspapres (L'Avenir). Two references are given, but they both cite the same article in L'Avenir. This supposedly happened in the east of DR Congo in the middle of the Congo Civil War and Second Congo War, and no other source mentions this. Is this really verifiable? Vanjagenije (talk) 23:58, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Marshmallow deaths

I think this is a candidate to be added to the article, where people died by a 'marshmallow game'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chubby_bunnyStopde (talk) 08:13, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Choking on food is hardly unusual. Banally common, in fact. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 08:19, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
It is a GAME, not casual eating. Check the article provided above. Using your "logic" that would disqualify the woman that died of water intoxication during the "hold your wee for a wii" contest, because people drink water. Stopde (talk) 08:31, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
Consensus has never been reachsed, to my knowledge, over the relative balance/ contribution of actual medical cause of death as opposed to circumstances. All that has been agreed (and this only infomally\) is that the death is described as "unusual" (or similar) by at least one, or possibly two, WP:RS. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:50, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
That game is certainly an unusual *cause* of death, but this list is about singular notable instances of death by unusual means. -- Netoholic @ 08:52, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Criteria

What are the criteria for inclusion in this article? --John (talk) 11:02, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

A previous informal discussion, which I think is archived here, led to an informal agreement (with the recently most active editor of this article User:TheRedPenOfDoom), that the death should be described with the adjective "unusual" (or some very similar adjective) by at least two independent WP:RS. I have tried, on several occasions to suggest that a list of possible RS sources be agreed, but this idea has not been developed. Neither has the list of informally agreed criteria been added at the top of the Talk Page or on the article itself. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:17, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
Yes, because at the moment it seems to be an indiscriminate collection of stuff.--John (talk) 15:00, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
I wonder what would be your proposed alternative criteria? And/or your proposed improvement(s) to signposting / mechanism. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:06, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Whatever the criteria, candidates for deletion should first be discussed here as a courtesy first. Some cases are widely reported, even nationally reported, due to their unusual nature regardless of whether the source calls it "unusual". Case in point would be the recent death of a 19 year old caused by a collision with his RC helicopter. RedPen saw fit to remove this without discussion in spite of the national coverage and unusual circumstances (only one other known case). In my view, this verges either on sloppiness or malicious editing. Talk page discussion is an important factor in identifying vandals who should be blocked and inexperienced editors who should be trained. Rklawton (talk) 17:51, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

There is no requirement to "discuss first" removal of content which clearly fails policies such as WP:V and WP:OR. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:00, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
When ppl who arent notable (ie no article and their death wont trigger one) die surely the press coverage itself is verifying that the death is unusual, otherwise it wouldnt be reported, as in the case of the helicopter boy, the man who garroted himself with his own cannabis farm protection devices etc so I would argue that the word unusual or similar only needs to be present when the dead person is notable while for unnotable ppl the death reported in two reliable sources should be enough, perhaps demanding 2 refs from different sources. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 18:04, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
no, things in the news are news, not "unusual"; and when they are in the places like the Post or Daily Mail they are merely sensational. Our Wikipedia guidelines on original research are quite clear. We cannot make assumptions or categorize things, we must have people knowledgeable in the subject area make the claim and have it published in a reliable source. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:33, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
see I would amplify Masem's comments: any editor that reverts one of RPoD's deletions is clearly violating policy unless they provide an inline citation, in the list, that supports the categorization of the death as "unusual", as WP:V requires that "any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation". I will enforce that policy by means of blocking without hesitation. .—Kww(talk) 14:15, 14 September 2012 (UTC) -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:41, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
No question the Daily Mail is a reliable source. RedPen, you have failed to answer my point that when the person is not notable press coverage itself is a reliable source for the unusual nature of the death. It is only in cases like Mike Edwards where regardless of how he died the death would have been reported where we need further evidence, ie the press coverage describing the death as unusual. You certainly do not currently have consensus to remove unusual deaths of non-notable people and I support Rklawton's reverting of your deletions of these cases. I have to say Red Pen's second revert knowing s/he has no consensus and poorly interpreting policy is not impressive and so I have reverted. Please try and find consensus here and dont revert again. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 22:45, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
No, the burden is upon YOU to show that it meets the criteria. We do not know why the news paper included the story, it is just as likely that is was a slcw news day. You have provided nothing but your personal speculation that the reason it was included was because it was "unusual". Revert yourself. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:43, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
I'll stand by my earlier comment above. The logic of "they wouldn't cover it unless it was unusual therefore this is unusual" is as blatant of a WP:OR violation as I can think of. If you can find a source that describes the death as being "unusual" or any reasonable synonym, great, include it. If you cannot, it's hard to interpret restoring the material as anything other than intentionally violating our policies on verifiability and original research.—Kww(talk) 02:10, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
The recent removals by Kww are fine. For instance, in the case of João Maria de Souza (killed by a cow falling through his roof), checking over sources reveals that this particular cause of death is actually quite common! "Local media says this is the third such incident in the region in the past three years." (BBC)
While we're here though, what about Rasputin? (previous discussion) -- Hillbillyholiday talk 02:21, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

"fake convenience links"

What are "fake convenience links" and why should they not be used or, at least, converted to proper references? Isn't it helpful to direct the reader to Google Books? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:34, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

  • The word fake seems inappropriate and verging on a personal attack. I usually expand the {{citation}} template with many references such as isbn and publisher. The urls in this case are a placeholder for this information which google provides and this seems a useful convenience. They should not be removed unless and until other good bibliographic references are provided. Warden (talk) 12:45, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

"unusual" vs. "unique"

2013: Roman Pirozek, age 19, was killed after being struck and partially decapitated by his model helicopter.

Conley, Kirstan (5 September 2013). "Toy helicopter lops top of man's head off". New York Post. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
Flegenheimer, Matt; Lisa W. Foderaro (6 September 2013). "Flying Model Aircraft Comes Under Scrutiny After Fatal Accident in Brooklyn Park". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 September 2013. "It has an excellent safety record," Richard Hanson, an official of the academy, said of the hobby. "This particular accident is very, very tragic but also very, very unusual."


Hillbillyholiday81 just performed this reversion, and I think that may be going a bit too far. The event was described as "unusual". I take it that Hillbilly's removal was based on the quote that showed a similar accident had occurred before, and that's not the criteria: that would be for "List of unique deaths".—Kww(talk) 17:51, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

so if two are still "unusual"- are three? what about four? What about four in a year? what about four automobile related since the invention of the automobile? what about twenty? what about twenty in the history of mankind? that just goes to point out that the current (lack) of objective criteria and the fact that since I began pushing over a year ago the community still has not been able to come up with any actual objective criteria which is a requirement of WP:LIST. Editors need to be able to know whether or not something should be included in this list. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:58, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
but even ignoring the overall lack of specificity for inclusion criteria, the source used for the claim of "unusual" is quoting “It has an excellent safety record,” Richard Hanson, an official of the academy, said of the hobby. “This particular accident is very, very tragic but also very, very unusual.” what exactly is mr Hanson's qualifications for determining "unusual deaths" and as the official for the hobby flying academy, he has a vested interest in presenting the hobby as safe and would not be expected to make a statement "yeah, we have these kinds of accidents all the time." -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:41, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
I think it's legitimate to argue that Hanson isn't a sufficient source for declaring something unusual, but the source doesn't need to prove uniqueness. If something has happened only twice in history, that doesn't suddenly make it "usual".—Kww(talk) 18:58, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
actually the source does not say "only two", it says "only the second fatal episode involving remote-control helicopters in the United States in decades." and it also says "the relatively small but passionate band of remote-controlled-aircraft enthusiasts," so how small is the group of enthusiasts in the US? two deaths within a few decades may actually be a quite significant percentage. i think its higher than the percentage of people who are killed scrapbooking. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:52, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
My removal of the chopper accident was for the reasons RedPenofDoom gives. I read several accounts of the incident, and it still wouldn't have merited inclusion under the policy of two sources describing the death as unusual. Of course, we've long struggled to come up with precise criteria for this article (see the archives), so perhaps all new suggestions should be automatically moved to the talkpage for discussion? -- Hillbillyholiday talk 21:26, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
we have now been provided with another source that does not call it unusual, in fact it calls the hobby risky [7]. deaths doing risky things are not unusual.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:07, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
What is "partial decapitation" anyway? It's either cut the head off or it hasn't. Britmax (talk) 23:40, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
it is the sensationalism. the carbon fiber blades hit the top of his head and a "partial scalping" is the more accurate description. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:02, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
These deaths deserve a mention somewhere. Perhaps a new section at RC Helicopter? -- Hillbillyholiday talk 18:04, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Hide and seek

2013: Dayne Buenaflor, age 3, and James Naraga, age 4, were found dead inside an abandoned sedan in Taguig City in the Philippines after the children suddenly disappeared and went missing for four months. Investigation into the circumstances of death revealed that the children were playing hide-and-seek with their neighbors and found the abandoned car and hid inside, and were consequently trapped when the child lock activated. The children eventually succumbed to severe dehydration and suffocation. Despite search efforts by the parents and the police, the children were not found until several months later.[2]

  1. ^ http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Judge-postpones-sentence-in-Irish-bestiality-case-where-woman-died-177089081.html
  2. ^ Dehydration and suffocation killed two missing kids in Taguig City GMA News. 18 July 2013.

Just removed this entry. A quick google search would suggest that death by 'hide and seek' is unfortunately quite common. -- Hillbillyholiday talk 08:55, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

So common that I believe a major reason why fridges and freezers have magnetic catches rather than mechanical ones is the number of children trapped in discarded units during such games and not found in time. Britmax (talk) 23:36, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Actual death date vs just the year

I think the actual death date, when it is known, should be shown rather than just the year of death — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.109.226.44 (talk) 15:04, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

does the specific date make it any more unusual or place it any more in context in the light of unusual deaths? or does it just add clutter to a list that is already WP:TOOLONG?-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:49, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Crocodile air death

2010: 20 crew and passengers died in a plane crash near Bandundu, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, when a crocodile, being smuggled by one of the passengers in a sports bag, freed itself and panicked the passengers who all ran towards the flightdeck. The tiny Filair L-410 Turbolet became unbalanced and crashed, despite the lack of any technical failure. One passenger and the crocodile survived.

"Africa: Plane Crashes After Crocodile Escapes, Causes Panic". ABC News.
Aircraft crashes after crocodile on board escapes and sparks panic Telegraph

This one's just been removed. Although the two sources provided do not describe the deaths as unusual, The Granuaid states:

Tim Atkinson, of the Air Accidents Investigations branch of the DfT, dealing with the accident from the UK, said: "If this were the cause of the accident it is truly extraordinary. "I would say it's extremely unlikely this story holds water but I wouldn't rule it out completely."[8]

Early reports make no mention of the crocodile, nor does the sole survivor interviewed soon after, who seems to come up with this story weeks later ([9]). -- Hillbillyholiday talk 21:17, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

I would say we need the final investigation to see if the story did "hold water". Pretty sure it didn't . -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:58, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Nigerian polygamist rape

2012: {Name}, a Nigerian polygamist businessman, died after being forced by five of his six wives to have sex with each of them. {Name} was caught having sex with his youngest wife by the remaining five, who were jealous of him paying her more attention. The remaining wives demanded that he also have sex with each of them, threatening him with knives and sticks. He had intercourse with four of them in succession, but stopped breathing before he was able to have sex with the fifth.

McDermott, Kerry. "Extraordinary story of the husband who was 'raped to death' by five wives because he was paying too much attention to the sixth". Daily Mail.

Needs either a total re-write with better sources, or better still, removal until outcome of legal proceedings (if any). -- Hillbillyholiday talk 23:33, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Death by beaver

2013 March: A fisherman in Belarus died of blood loss after being attacked by a beaver. The 60 year-old man was bitten multiple times by the rodent, which sliced an artery with its sharp teeth. Doctor Leonty Sulim remarked that neither he, nor his fellow medical colleagues, had ever encountered such injuries before. It has been suggested that the fisherman was trying to catch the beaver to have his photo taken with it. Such attacks are said to be on the increase in Belarus due to the increasing beaver population, but this is the first recorded fatality.

"Belarus: Man dies after being attacked by beaver". BBC News. 29 May 2013. (Video)
Karmanau, Yuras (29 May 2013). "Beaver Kills Fisherman In Belarus; Wildlife Experts Blame Aggressive Behavior For Upsurge In Attacks". HuffingtonPost.

Just come across an interesting story. I think the above paragraph pretty much covers it. Unusual enough? -- Hillbillyholiday talk 00:16, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

The Telegraph describe the man as a "former serviceman" and add: Sergei Shilinchuk, deputy head of Brest's environmental protection committee, said he had never heard of a fatal attack before. "People have lost fingers – that's the worst I've come across,"[10] -- Hillbillyholiday talk 00:48, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Sounds unusual enough to me. Rivertorch (talk) 05:56, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

no need to use the actual word "unusual", you can think for yourself

The article is called List of unusual deaths, not List of deaths that just happen to have the word unusual included in a news story about them. There wouldn't have been all the coverage of a man got from dying while eating cockroaches, if it wasn't an unusual and interesting story. The dictionary defines "unusual" [11] as

not normal or usual
different or strange in a way that attracts attention
not commonly seen, heard, etc.

Does this story not meet the definition of unusual? It was different or strange in a way that attracts attention, thus, it was unusual. Dream Focus 18:28, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

WP:OR is the applicable policy. It really doesn't matter if you or I think it's unusual, it only matters whether a reliable source has described it that way. The logic of "it must have been unusual or they wouldn't have talked about it" is virtually the definition of original research.—Kww(talk) 18:36, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
Consensus can be formed on this talk page on what should be on the list. It isn't original research, its common sense. You are allowed to think for yourself, and not just mindlessly quote things. WP:OR says at the top "This page documents an English Wikipedia policy, a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow." And the word normally links to Wikipedia:What_"Ignore_all_rules"_means#Use_common_sense. Please read that. It clearly applies here. Does anyone sincerely doubt this was a "different or strange in a way that attracts attention?" That is the very definition of unusual after all. Dream Focus 18:40, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
What I'm certain of is that "List of deaths that Wikipedia editors think are weird" is a really bad article to have.—Kww(talk) 18:46, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
What you believe is a bad article is irrelevant. I'd like more opinions on this so we can form a proper consensus. Dream Focus 18:54, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
Judgment of something as "unusual" CANNOT be a matter of "editorial judgement" by Wikipedia editors. such analysis and commentary is clearly NOT permitted by core content policy WP:OR. This is a pointless discussion because even if consensus here decided to toss out that policy WP:LOCALCONCENSUS, it cannot. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:08, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
You don't have to follow it for 100% of the situations that come up. WP:OR clearly states that, as I have already quoted multiple times. That wouldn't be there without a reason. If consensus is that this is one of these cases, then it can be ignored. Dream Focus 21:26, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
the "ignore all rules" has the important caveat "if it improves the encyclopedia". Creating a precedent of ignoring basic policy to add clutter to an already bloated article with content that Wikipedia users think is "unusual" is not going to improve the encyclopedia. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:42, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
Our opinions on these deaths are completely irrelevant. You've been here long enough to understand the prohibitions on original research, DF. I don't understand why you fail to see the applicability here.—Kww(talk) 19:12, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Note that most of the things on the list don't have references that call them unusual. Do we erase over 90% of the list? Dream Focus 02:05, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Show some that don't describe the death as "unusual", "strange", "weird", "bizarre", or some reasonable synonym. The list has been purged of most offenders.—Kww(talk) 02:12, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
    • The second guy on the list, Arrhichion of Phigalia, doesn't have anything in the single referenced source that use the word "unusual, strange, weird, bizarre", etc. The 4th guy on the list, Mithridates, has no reference except to a dead link to Bostonleadershipbuilders.com, which seems an odd website to be considered a reliable source for any information about ancient Greeks. Many references are to books. Has someone honestly searched through all of these? Dream Focus 02:50, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
Arrhichion was easily repaired. TRPoD worked on the list earlier, and I've focused mainly on keeping it from sprawling back out of control. It used to have many more entries with significantly worse sourcing. It's not perfect, but that's not a reason to continue to make it worse.—Kww(talk) 03:07, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
i started going through. people complained. we created a holding pen. people didnt source from there either. i will probably start more closely examining some again soon, but if you want to take the lead, feel free. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:53, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
I'm against removing something only because you didn't find those keywords. I was just pointing out that much of the list would be eliminated if we used that as the only method of determining if something was notable. Dream Focus 09:27, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
That is the perennial issue with this whole article: it fails WP:LIST in not having objective criteria that allow any editor and any reader to know what is or is not within the scope of the article. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:21, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
applause to Dream Focus. i comment more against the unique restrictions two or three users are putting on this article --in the next subsection. Cramyourspam (talk) 16:54, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
since you may have missed it, WP:OR and WP:V and even WP:MOSLIST are project wide policies and guidelines and the application of project wide policies/guidelines to this article is not "unique"; NOT applying them, however, would be and would require a consensus to show that doing so improved the encyclopedia. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:13, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Should the following entries be allowed?

Is there consensus that these entries are "unusual" even if the exact word isn't used? Should they be allowed on the article or not? This is a matter of editorial judgment. (see above discussion if you want to argue that point). Dream Focus 18:57, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

SInce Dream Focus can't quite seem to get the point, I will make it again. This is not a matter of editorial judgement. It doesn't matter what he or any editor thinks. His efforts to circumvent policy with a straw poll seeking editors opinions, rather than sources, is invalid. Unless a source describes the death as unusual, it would violate WP:OR to include it.—Kww(talk) 19:55, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
Kindly keep this in the section above and respond to what I said there twice already. Dream Focus 19:57, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
No. Attempting to bypass WP:OR by seeking editorial opinion about whether something is "unusual" or not is just an effort to bypass policy. You started this section after two editors had pointed out that your logic was fundamentally flawed. You then rearranged the discussion after it was again pointed out that your logic was fundamentally flawed. If you want to encourage people to look for sources that state things are "unusual", "weird", "bizarre" is no problem. Falsely stating that that inclusion is matter of editorial judgement is a problem,—Kww(talk) 20:02, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
I started this section at 18:57, 20 September 2013 (UTC) when you were the only editor who might disagree with me. It wasn't until 19:08, 20 September 2013 (UTC) when a second person showed up who agreed with you. It is editorial judgment. Click on the link at WP:OR where it says "Normally" and read through that. Dream Focus 20:05, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
You had to wait a whole ELEVEN MINUTES to find out there were more than one person who disagreed with you (and only because I was edit conflicted in removing your re-insertion of content from the main page. Kww was just too fast. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:03, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
Excuse my misstatement: you created the poll when I objected, but you didn't attempt to rearrange the discussion to suit your tastes until after two people had. Sorry, the argument that policy needs to be endlessly and exhaustively rediscussed because policies are normally followed doesn't hold a lot of water. This is a clear-cut case of attempting to characterize material in a way that no source has characterized it. Look above: if people think something should be included, it's normally listed with a request for sources, not opinions. There's even Talk:List of unusual deaths/Sourcing issues as a holding ground for cases that need sourcing.—Kww(talk) 20:15, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
Rearrange it to put the argument in the proper section. You are arguing this and disrupting my poll here with something that was being discussed just fine in the section above. WP:OR links to this:

Wikipedia has many rules. Instead of following every rule, it is acceptable to use common sense as you go about editing. Being too wrapped up in rules can cause loss of perspective, so there are times when it is better to ignore a rule. Even if a contribution "violates" the precise wording of a rule, it might still be a good contribution. Similarly, just because something is not forbidden in a written document, or is even explicitly permitted, doesn't mean it's a good idea in the given situation. Our goal is to improve Wikipedia so that it better informs readers. Being able to articulate "common sense" reasons why a change helps the encyclopedia is good, and editors should not ignore those reasons because they don't include a bunch of policy shortcuts. The principle of the rules—to make Wikipedia and its sister projects thrive—is more important than the letter. Editors must use their best judgment. Why isn't "use common sense" an official policy? It doesn't need to be; as a fundamental principle, it is above any policy.

Hopefully something written there will sink in. Dream Focus 20:19, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
Certainly: generally, when someone has no logical leg to stand on, it's convenient for him to describe his personal opinion has being "common sense". Surely, you've read WP:NOCOMMON. No, I'm not trying to "disrupt" your straw-poll: I'm simply explaining to you why it's invalid.—Kww(talk) 20:25, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
You dismiss the policy of Wikipedia:Ignore all rules by linking to a essay. Dream Focus 21:30, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
while you merely dismiss half of the policy itself!-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:34, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
I did not dismiss the policy at all, simply pointed to the part saying it didn't have to always be followed. Dream Focus 21:55, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
you dismissed or completely failed to address the conditional that must be met before ignoring the rules can be considered: doing so must improve the encyclopedia. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:07, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

* 2012: Edward Archbold, 32, a man of West Palmm Beach, Florida, died after winning a cockroach eating contest. The cause of death was determined to be accidental choking due to "arthropod body parts." [1]

  • Support inclusion. Dream Focus 18:57, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
  • do not include: fails WP:OR - there is only the opinion and interpretation of Wikipedia editors that this is "unusual", no reliable sources have made such analysis. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:05, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Here it is tagged under the section "Bizarre". Here is called "Weird News". I think it qualifies. --cyclopiaspeak! 19:24, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
  • That's one. Got another source?—Kww(talk) 19:29, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Uh.. he just listed two sources. Dream Focus 19:31, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Missed that. OK, two sources, "weird" and "bizarre". That's sourcing, not original research.—Kww(talk) 19:55, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
  • There is no evidence that the death by asphyxiation by things being put in the mouth is what is being called "bizarre" or "weird" by those tags, rather the stories are calling the general practice of eating weird things for prizes weird. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:32, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
  • This seems a bit too paranoid. It is clearly the combination of things that is deemed unusual. The contest alone wouldn't have passed a couple lines on the neighbourhood's newsletter. The fact a guy died because of this is the news. --cyclopiaspeak! 08:38, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

* 2013: João Maria de Souza, 45, was killed when a cow, believed to have escaped from a nearby farm in Brazil, went onto his roof during his sleep, causing the room to cave in and the 3000-pound cow landing on him. He died soon afterwards due to internal bleeding.[2]

  • Support inclusion. Dream Focus 18:57, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
    Note that the BBC mentions [12] two previous times a cow fell through a roof, it says "There were no casualties in the two previous incidents." This is the first time someone apparently died this way. Dream Focus 19:03, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
  • do not include. Fails WP:OR - there is only the opinion and interpretation of Wikipedia editors that this is "unusual", no reliable sources have made such analysis. Clombering sources together to create such analysis is also clearly not allowed by policy. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:13, 20 September 2013 (UTC) I will no longer oppose the inclusion of the death by cow as sources that meet the current minimal requirements have been produced. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:50, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Two sources here too. The Telegraph: Police in Caratinga, Minas Gerais state, have launched an inquiry into the bizarre death. ; Timaru Herald: Surely there can be no stranger or more unlikely ways to complete your allotted days on this planet than to be killed by an accident- prone beast falling on you while you are sleeping in your bed. (there may be more, these are just the first two I found) --cyclopiaspeak! 20:09, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
  • And there we go: sourcing, the foundation of WP:V.—Kww(talk) 20:17, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Florida man who died in cockroach-eating contest choked to death, autopsy says". NBC News. 26 November 2012.
  2. ^ "Joao Maria De Souza, Brazilian Man, Killed By Cow That Fell Through Bedroom Roof". Huffingtonpost.com. 13 July 2013. Retrieved 7 August 2013.


  • Comment. As sympathetic as I am to the goal of keeping list articles well sourced and free of marginally relevant entries, I think it's possible to go overboard in such efforts. "Unusual" is a really common word—there's nothing even remotely esoteric about it—and it seems to me that death by choking on cockroaches or by cows falling on one's bed are patently unusual and would be considered so by nearly everyone. Whether or not the cited source uses the word "unusual" or a synonym to describe such incidents, it seems probable that the unusual nature of the death provides the reason behind the source reporting the incident in the first place. It doesn't quite rise to the level of "the sky is blue"-type statements where verification isn't needed, but I think it comes close. Policy wonkery aside, what is the content-based argument against inclusion: that choking to death on cockroaches is a usual way to die? As for editorial discretion, Wikipedians exercise it all the time, using consensus to decide on borderline cases, and I don't quite see how doing so constitutes original research. Rivertorch (talk) 19:42, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
"its a slow news day - we need some filler" is equally as likely a reason for the story running. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:34, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
No, things like this get coverage around the world because they are weird and interesting, not because of a slow news day. Dream Focus 21:24, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
sensationalism does not an encyclopedia make. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:36, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
That doesn't make any sense. Wikipedia is filled with articles about famous models, actors, and musicians. The top ten most popular articles are often sex related or something about Batman. If something gets significant coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject manner, then it doesn't matter if you believe it was just a slow news day or whatnot. That does not invalidate the coverage. Dream Focus 21:54, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
Batman gets coverage on slow news days and fast news days over months and years of time. death by cow gets coverage on one slow news cycle till the next sensationalistic piece of clap clap is slapped up to fill in. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:14, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
"Clap clap"? I Googled it and found some music videos and a site for chlamydia-positive singles. LOL. Of course articles on unusual deaths are filler for slow news days, but what conclusions are we to draw from that? Most of the deaths listed in this article are perfectly newsworthy and wouldn't be reported, slow news day or not, if they weren't unusual. In any event, the topic of unusual deaths seems like a fascinating one. Taking off my editor's hat and pretending i'm a "mere" reader, it occurs to me that the topic is one I'd like to read about, and my expectations about sourcing would be simply that Wikipedia had verified that the listed deaths actually occurred at the place and time and in the manner stated; I wouldn't expect Wikipedia to omit entries because the writer(s) at a particular source neglected to characterize a death as "unusual" using the word itself or an approved synonym. Putting my editor's hat back on now, I must say I hope our readers expect us to use judgment and good sense about what to include and exclude, rather than just mindlessly regurgitating information based on the presence of keywords. Rivertorch (talk) 06:49, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
WP:NOTNEWS Just because it hits a newspaper does not make it encyclopedic. And whether or not readers "expect us to use judgment and good sense", policy WP:OR / WP:V / WP:UNDUE dictates that article content must be based on sources and not on the opinions and analysis of Wikipedia editors (with any exceptions based on the conditional that there is an actual improvement to the encyclopedia).-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:26, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, none of the policies you cite conflict with what I wrote above. Look, we can wikilawyer this till we're blue in the face (ha! would our deaths qualify as unusual, do you suppose?) but it's really rather pointless. At its essence, this really is a content dispute—the sort of inclusionism-deletionism thing that I go out of my way to avoid (being neither an inclusionist nor a deletionist). It seems to me that in the absence of any actual evidence that any or the core policies is actually being violated, the question should be resolved based on local consensus. If we need to have an RfC to get more editors' opinions, we can do that, although I'd prefer not to be the one to set it up. Otherwise, I guess we can just bicker about it interminably. Rivertorch (talk) 20:59, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
There is evidence of core policies of [[WP:V] and WP:OR being violated when editors include content that cannot be verified as having been deemed "unusual" by a reliably published authority. Local consensus cannot over-ride that. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:04, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
while articles must be policed against true nonsense, this is the only article i've encountered which has this odd demand that inclusion must include a citation of a reliable source which calls the method of death "unusual". when an existing WP article about someone shows that they died in a a way which a reasonable reader could call unusual, that res ipsa could be listed on the list of unusual deaths. Cramyourspam (talk) 21:16, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
If the "reasonable editor" is me, then sure. ;-)
but i dont think that there is actually any way that "reasonable editor considers unusual" would meet Wikipedia:Lists_(stand-alone_lists)#Selection_criteria which states that "Selection criteria should be unambiguous, objective, and supported by reliable sources. In cases where the membership criteria are subjective or likely to be disputed (for example, lists of unusual things or terrorist incidents), membership criteria should be based on reliable sources." so that editors know what to include and exclude and readers know what to expect to find in the article.
The very discussions on this page show how far differentiated "reasonable" editors can be on what they consider "unusual", which easily fails the "unambiguous" and "objective" requirements. That this article has more discussions about the application of policy to particular content probably goes more to show how the basic concept of the article is a flawed one.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:30, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
If the basic concept of the list is truly flawed, then perhaps you should nominate it for deletion. I don't think it's flawed—it's just a bit subjective, like lots of other things. Cherry-picking passages from an MOS page (which, like all MOS pages, prominently bears the advice to "use common sense in applying it; it will have occasional exceptions") really doesn't get us anywhere. Guidelines are supposed to reflect actual practice and convention, which is that editors use their judgment both in determining whether inclusion criteria are met and in determining the criteria in the first place (and, when necessary, modifying them). We do this every day, not just on lists but on various articles. Sometimes it's helpful to define the parameters for inclusion, as is done on List of major power outages. We can't quantify "unusual" in that way, of course, but maybe we could come up with some wording that's a bit less restrictive. How about it? I trust you don't actually think that a cow dropping through the ceiling and crushing someone is an example of a usual death. I think it would be considered unusual cross-culturally, even universally; don't you? Rivertorch (talk) 09:48, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
it is not just a bit subjective, it is completely subjective. and yes, like all policies and guidelines, there are times when we might not need to follow the MOS; however, doing so is subject to the conditional "if it improves the encyclopedia". As for having a goal that we come up with inclusion criteria that are "less restrictive" than basic content policies of WP:OR and WP:V - what exactly would the "improvement" to the encyclopedia be?
i have been pushing for a year to try to get some criteria that are less subjective and there has been no progress made (see the voluminous archives). Feel free to start a new section where you lay out some of your options.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:18, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Embedded lists

There's a bizarre banner tag on the article which starts, "This article contains embedded lists..." This tag seems quite inappropriate as it is intended for regular articles which contain lists which might better be turned into prose. This is not appropriate for list pages which obviously ought to contain lists. There doesn't seem to be any discussion supporting this nonsense so why is it there? My impression is that this is tag bombing - the placement of inappropriate tags to deface an article. Discuss. Warden (talk) 09:27, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Why am I not surprised that you are sooooo concerned that the tag specifically talks about the indiscriminate nature of "embedded" lists and not at all about the actual indiscriminate nature of the entire list, the poor sources used and the fact that the sources quite often upon inspection do not actually support the inclusion of the item on the list with an actual identification that the death is in fact "unusual"? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 09:35, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
  • The tag links to a MOS guideline which seems to be quite irrelevant to this page. Please explain the point of this. Warden (talk) 09:41, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I agree, there is no reason for that tag to be there. Also, the original research tag is no longer valid since every single entry has a reference. There are no "citation needed" tags anywhere in the article. Dream Focus 10:18, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
as has been shown over and over and over again, yes, the WP:OR tag is entirely valid. Most of the sources have not been confirmed to actually identify the death as "unusual" - it is only the Wikipedia editors personal opinion that it is. Previous reviews of the 2000s and early 1900s found at least half of the items to be included only because of original research. There are large swaths of the article content which have not been reviewed. If you want to begin examining and confirming that the sources are the ones making the assertion of unusualness, then when all sources have been confirmed the OR tag may be removed.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 10:48, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
  • All the entries seem to have had quite detailed attention and cleanup. The OR tag is now indiscriminate and unhelpful and should be removed too, as Dream Focus says. If there's a problem with a particular entry then it should identified clearly and specifically. I am quite satisfied with the entries which I have worked upon in detail. All the facts were obtained from good sources and it is outrageously insulting to suggest otherwise. Warden (talk) 11:12, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
indeed - how outrageous and insulting to suggest that good sources like [13] should not be used in this article!!!! why anyone who thinks that a claptrap source like [14] would be the source used for a claim on this article, why they should be SHOT. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:22, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
  • The source about Margo Jones stands up. If you're just being picky about looking for the word "unusual" then that appears in another source which says "...unusual death in 1955, attributed to the accidental inhalation of carbon tetrachloride fumes after her carpets...". What we have is a good faith entry with a reasonable source. There is no justification for calling this OR in a blanket way as the story of Margo Jones are her death in numerous sources. Warden (talk) 13:09, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I quite agree with Colonel Warden. That OR is indiscriminate and unhelpful. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:30, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
your version of "seeming" is incorrect. just this morning I picked at random the Qin Shi Huang entry from a section that I thought had been fully vetted and yet the first check showed an WP:OR violation. There are many sections that have not been even partially vetted and all evidence from the past indicates that there is in fact a large possibility of list entries rife with OR. If you are willing to state that all of the entries are in fact not in violation of WP:OR i am fine with removing of the tag. If after your assertion of no existing WP:OR and the removal of the tag, there are existing entries found that contain WP:OR the tag will be reinserted and I will have no reason to assume that you are here to do anything but disrupt the improvement of the article. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:48, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
Assume good faith. And Qin Shi Huang's death may not have been that strange, but how he was buried with his terracotta army sure was. Dream Focus 12:00, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
Assumption of good faith goes both ways. To state or imply that I have no reason other than tag bombing to insert the WP:OR banner flies in the face the evidence in the article history.
If you would like to organize a process in which all of the article entries are systematically vetted, when that is completed we can remove the OR tag. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:14, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
I see. So by politely expressing an opinion on the apprpriateness of the tag, there is now "no reason to assume that I am here to do anything but disrupt the improvement of the article." I think that's a little wide of the mark, Mr Blue Pencil. Do other editors want to check out the history of my previous contribution to this debate? Or my recent efforts to make the article body more attractive by adding appropriaite images? Or my vote at the last RfD? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:44, 24 October 2013 (UTC) p.s. and what constitutes "proof" of the cause of death of someone who died in 210 BC? Am still missing that full post-morten toxicology report and The Daily Telegraph obituary.
  • The case of Qin Shi Huang shows how inappropriate the claims of OR are. I've seen his death covered on TV at length myself - all that stuff about the mercury and the rotting fish. If that's the sort of case meant by this then the tag should certainly go as it is being abused. Warden (talk) 13:09, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
  • why it is OUTRAGEOUS and INSULTING that anyone should not be taking into consideration the TV shows that you have seen and are not referenced in the article when they are assessing the content. That is simply unbelievably bad faith action on their part! -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:52, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

By the repeated removal of the WP:OR tag, shall I assume that those responsible for removing it have in fact vetted the contents of the article to ensure that the rampant OR that has been seen in multiple sections has in fact been corrected? And you are in fact willing to stake your reputation as being editors who wish to improve the encyclopedia and are not mere disruptive trolls. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:55, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

I've removed it once. With an edit summary request for you personally to show here the evidence of the remaining "bad entries", if any. I wish to "improve the encyclopedia" by removing inappropiate tags. Does this make me a single disruptive troll or just part of a large band of disruptive trolls? I think we should be told. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:11, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
If the remaining sections are on par with the handful of sections that I have vetted, and there is little reason to think otherwise, then between 20% and 80% of the current content in those sections fails either WP:OR or WP:RS. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:49, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
Gosh, how can you be so shockingly accurate? A simple list of "bad entries" would be fine. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:01, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Alternative tags

TRPoD has now placed a different banner tag on the article: {{list dispute}}. This is more accurate than the banner tags we had before so this is progress - well done. But we're still not there yet as this tag has detailed instructions which seem not to have been followed:

"To apply this template to an article, first add a new section to the talk page, describing the problems with the disputed statements. Add {{List_dispute}} before the disputed list. To include a link to the section of the talk page discussing the dispute, use {{List_dispute}}. If the talk page section name is "Disputed Inclusion" (as standard), then the tag should be {{List_dispute}}, and if the section name is f.ex. "Disputed Inclusion", the tag should be {{List_dispute}}."

So, please could TheRedPenOfDoom complete these formalities. We will then be able to see exactly what the point at issue is and can commence discussion to resolve it.

I had a browse through the various cleanup tags myself. {{inline tags}} seem best for marking entries which are weak or disputed. For example, if better sources seem needed then {{better source}} marks this in a direct way which would be more helpful to editors. We should prefer this to moving entries elsewhere, which is quite messy and disruptive.

Warden (talk) 08:31, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Even this seems a bit of over-kill: "This template identifies a Wikipedia list that has content whose truth, factual nature, relevance to the topic, or length is in dispute." It seems that only "relevance" is in dispute here, and only then because some sources do not happen to describe the event in "the right way". Martinevans123 (talk) 09:20, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

dynamic list tag

This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.

Is there any possible reason to have that there? What particular standards for completeness are we trying to satisfy? I see no reason to have that there at all. Opinions please, lets form a proper consensus. Dream Focus 13:58, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I suppose some lists, for example of finite series of physical entities, are easy to complete. This is less so. But I don't really see how this "advice" helps either the editor, or especially the reader, in any way. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:20, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Trimtime!

There's a lot of cruft here. Gotta keep it trimmed! Just going back to the 1940's, and skipping some marginal ones, here's some that ought to go or probably ought to go. If no compelling counter-argument develops I propose to delete these ones.

Definitely need to go, IMO

  • 1974: Thomas Bayliss died after being run over by two semi-trailers and a pickup truck on State Road 64 near Bradenton, Florida. None of the three vehicles stopped immediately after the accident
    • Man struck and killed by truck on highway. No story. Drivers didn't stop because they thought they'd hit an animal, not because they were heartless psychos or something interesting.
      • Remove --cyclopiaspeak! 07:58, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
      • Remove I don't see what's the deal here. zubrowka74 17:15, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
      • Keep I like it , i think its unusual! --john wilsone
        • Sorry, John, but we can't use just personal preference as the criterion here. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:36, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
  • 1977: Tom Pryce, a Formula One driver at the 1977 South African Grand Prix, was killed when he was struck in the face by a track marshal's fire extinguisher. The marshal, Frederik Jansen van Vuuren, was running across the track to attend to Pryce's team-mate's burning car when he was struck and killed by Pryce's car. Van Vuuren himself was torn in half as the car ploughed into him at a speed exceeding 270 km/h (170 mph).
  • 1990: Bo Díaz, a 37-year-old former baseball player, was killed at his home in Caracas on 23 September. A satellite dish that he was adjusting on the roof of his home fell on him and crushed his neck and head against the base of the dish.
    • So what? people are killed in home accidents all the time, particularly when working on the roof. Nothing particularly bizarre about it being a satellite dish. Diaz was an OK catcher but no superstar.
      • Remove --cyclopiaspeak! 07:58, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
      • Keep : It's not that odd but it is described as unusual. zubrowka74 17:15, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
  • 1999: Jon Desborough, a physical education teacher at Liverpool College, died when he slipped and fell onto the blunt end of a javelin he was retrieving. The javelin passed through his eye socket and into his brain, causing severe brain damage and putting him into a coma. He died a month later.
    • He slipped and fell onto a (somewhat) sharp object. People do. Sometimes it's a javelin, sometimes it's a rake, whatever. No entry.
      • Keep - A physical education teacher killed on the job by a javelin sounds odd enough to me.--cyclopiaspeak! 07:58, 26 September 2013 (UTC) Remove per sources below by TRPoD. Well, I stand corrected (Indeed, I never got that Ph.D. on Javelin Thanatology). --cyclopiaspeak! 13:16, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
        • your expertise on the unusualness of deaths by javelins is questionable, good thing you have a dayjob.
delete ample evidence above that the single source used in the article assessing the situation as a "freak" accident is giving such interpretation WP:UNDUE prominence. and neither source says that he died from the javelin, the BBC source [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/365923.stm , after three weeks in a coma, he developed a chest infection which caused his condition to worsen. " seems to imply that it was death from other causes. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:48, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Unsure Yeah, a javelin, no big surprise. The unusual part seems to be that the blunt end killed hit. But whatever. zubrowka74 17:15, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Pointed remark Hmm, so that's a grand total of nine deaths, RedPen, in the 24 years between 1981 and 2005. Out of how many deaths worldwide, in total? What percentage might that be, I wonder? And all worthy of new reports, apparently. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:26, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
  • 1994: Gloria Ramirez, suffering from complications of advanced cervical cancer, was admitted to a hospital in Riverside, California. Before she died Ramirez's body apparently released mysterious toxic fumes that made several hospital employees very ill.
    • Interesting, but Ramirez presumably died from complications of her advanced cervical cancer. The fumes are a separate issue, not the cause of her death (as far as I know) and nobody died from them.
      • Keep - This is a very unusual death in that the circumstances are extremly unique. Dying by cancer is one thing, dying by cancer while intoxicating nurses and physicians with stuff chemically cooking in your own body is another. --cyclopiaspeak! 07:58, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
      • Keep It was not caused by cancer. It was caused by the toxic gasses in her. I edited the article to reflect what the source said. Rather long article about the investigation. [15] Dream Focus 10:48, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
      • Keep, as it's been said the whole situation surrounding her death is unusual, not the cause itself. zubrowka74 19:05, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
      • delete - " on April 29 to reveal the autopsy results, coroner Scotty Hill announced that Ramirez had died of cardiac dysrhythmia triggered by kidney failure stemming from her cervical cancer." blah blah blah there was new evidence that toxic chemicals might be involved. "The Riverside Coroner’s Office apparently agrees--it released the Livermore report last November, hailing its conclusion as the probable cause of the hospital workers’ symptoms. " - but not of Ramirez death. "Andresen’s team is going to conduct more experiments and check Ramirez’s blood again" but " the theory has provoked a backlash from other scientists.". The source does NOT conclude that Ramirez death was unusual. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:21, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
      • Hmmmm. It seems TRPoD is correct -- Dream Focus, your ref says "coroner Scotty Hill announced that Ramirez had died of cardiac dysrhythmia triggered by kidney failure stemming from her cervical cancer." But the DMSO explanation came after that. But it says she was brought to the ER because of cancer-related kidney failure, and only when oxygen was applied there was the DMSO converted to dimethyl sulfone, which then converted to the nerve gas dimethyl sulfate, but apparently that didn't kill Rameriz -- "[I]n her warm blood, the dimethyl sulfate was unstable and quickly fell apart into its hydrocarbon and sulfate components. There was not yet a sufficient amount of nerve gas to harm the paramedics. When Susan Kane drew blood at the hospital, however, the cool temperature had slowed the breakdown of the dimethyl sulfate. Appreciable amounts of it built up in the syringe, and some of it vaporized out of the blood. This was the gas that poisoned the emergency room staff", it says.
However, this then raises the question: can the immediate circumstance and aftereffects of a death lead to its inclusion here? Suppose I die in a mundane car crash, but a bus swerves to avoid the accident, tips over, and the bus occupants fly through the air and land (injured but alive) in the cars of a working ferriss wheel, in exact alphabetical order. The only death is my mundane one. Does this qualify? I'd say no, but it's an interesting question (but possibly a slippery slope). But let's give TRPoD the win here. Herostratus (talk) 22:04, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
  • It is an usual death because of things involved, not just the possible cause of it. The article goes on to show the initial coroner's report may not have the actual reason for her death. It says "presumably from cancer-related kidney failure". Research was done to figure out what else had happened. The poison gas that was produced in her body could've been what killed her. It certainly harmed everyone else around that breathed it. Dream Focus 04:23, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
    Also note the reliable source does call it an unusual death. "Micozzi is a forensic pathologist who has helped investigate dozens of unusual deaths." He was called in to investigate this, because it is an unusual death. Dream Focus 04:26, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
    Oh look, more evidence. In the article for the woman, Gloria Ramirez, "The Ramirez family's pathologist was unable to determine a cause of death" and links to an article ANATOMY OF THE "FUMING WOMAN" from the New Times Los Angeles Published: 05/15/97, which goes into detail on how they messed up things so badly that future examinations weren't able to determine the cause of death. Dream Focus 04:41, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Arguable

  • 1960: Alan Stacey, Formula One race driver, died in a crash during the Belgian Grand Prix when a bird flew into his face, causing him to lose control.
    • Racing Formula One cars is dangerous. There's a lot of things that can go wrong -- something on the track, bird, tire blows out, whatever.
      • Keep - Of all things that can go wrong, birds on your face seem among the least common.--cyclopiaspeak! 08:10, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
      • Keep That is clearly an unusual death that belongs on the list. Dream Focus 10:51, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
      • delete 1) the source says the only evidence that it in any way related to a bird is a claim by a mechanic - that is not a reliable source. 2) even it it was a bird, " Of all things that can go wrong, birds on your face seem among the least common." is WP:OR, 3) the source does not identify it as "unusual" so it fails WP:V. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:22, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
      • Comment. TRPoD is correct. "Colin Chapman, builder of the car, held to the idea that a bird had struck him in the face, knocking him cold." This is the only source we have listed, and that's all it says. No bird was found or seen as far as I know, just one person's rank speculation Furthermore, Chapman would have incentive to direct speculation away from a possible fault in the car -- which is the other possible explanation offered (by the author of the book cited, and which also seems to be speculation), that the gas tank split open, spraying Stacey with gas and causing him to lose control. Or Stacey could have a heart attack or seizure or struck something on the track, or whatever. We can't use this, period, since the source doesn't support the material. If it's kept, we have to change it to "undetermined reasons" (which I would guess makes it pretty mundane for a race car driver). Herostratus (talk) 22:24, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
  • 1966: Worth Bingham, son of Barry Bingham, Sr., died when a surfboard, lying atop the back of his convertible, hit a parked car, swung around, and broke his neck
    • Erm. Car accident. He had something sticking out his car (pro tip: don't do this!) that hit something. I bet this happens to someone several times a year. Bingham himself was not notable although his dad was, somewhat.
      • Undecided Can't decide how this is common. Should look more.--cyclopiaspeak! 08:10, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
  • 2002: Brittanie Cecil, a 13-year-old American, was struck in the head by a hockey puck shot by Espen Knutsen and deflected into the crowd at an NHL hockey game in Columbus, Ohio. She died two days later in the hospital.
  • 2011: Jose Luis Ochoa, 35, died after being stabbed in the leg at a cockfight in Tulare County, California U.S., by one of the birds that had a knife attached to its limb.
  • 2004: Ronald McClagish, from Murrow, Cambridgeshire in England, was trapped inside a cupboard when a wardrobe outside fell over and made it impossible for him to get out. McClagish survived for a week before succumbing to bronchitis, which he had contracted when he removed a waterpipe in an attempt to free himself and the cupboard was partially flooded.
  • 2006: Mariesa Weber, a petite 38-year-old woman, asphyxiated when she became wedged upside-down behind a bookcase in her bedroom while trying to adjust a plug on her television set. Her family, believing she had been abducted, searched for eleven days before finally finding the body
    • I suppose it's not super common to get wedged into the furniture and die (as opposed to outright killed by falling furniture, which is common), but it's happened twice it appears and probably more. Here's a person got stuck in a chimney. Here's another. Here's another. Another. And there're more if you look. And that's just chimneys. So I dunno. I'd delete them.
      • Tentative keep - After all these are not chimneys. It is true it seems there is at least a third incident of the kind [16]. However, circumstances here seem to make them stand: in one, the death was actually due to his attempts to free out; in the second the fact that family couldn't find her body in her own home for 11 days. --cyclopiaspeak! 08:10, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
  • 1983: American author Tennessee Williams died when he choked on an eyedrop bottle-cap in his room at the Hotel Elysee in New York. He would routinely place the cap in his mouth, lean back, and place his eyedrops in each eye.
    • Stuff like this happens every day. The only reason for including it would be that it's Tennesse Williams, who was a legitimate big star. I don't think that fame of the deceased is a formal criterion, but it's apparent that there's some de facto criterion along the lines of "(fame of deceased) x (oddness of death) = (value of having an entry)", which is OK I guess. Williams was very famous (a high multiplier) but his death was extremely mundane (a low multiplier). If the article was List of unusual celebrity deaths maybe it'd be different, but IMO mundane demise means no entry. Herostratus (talk) 02:45, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
I agree with removing all of these except for the man at the cockfight and just maybe Tennessee Williams. The usual thing at cockfights is that birds die, not people, and being killed by a fighting rooster (knife or no knife) seems unusual indeed. Maybe it wasn't unusual, but apparently the BBC thought it was; they have plenty of things to report, even on slow news days, and it's hard to imagine they bothered to report the death of an unnotable man in a foreign country for any reason other than its being unusual. As for the playwright, yeah, people choke to death on objects every day. Mr. Williams's habit of putting the cap in his mouth sounds unusual, at least; whether the death that resulted from it was by extension unusual also is a judgment call, and I don't feel strongly either way. Certainly, his death would have been reported widely regardless of how it occurred. Rivertorch (talk) 03:29, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
re the cockfight and BBC- there is no evidence that the BBC thought it was "unusual". All we have is that they printed it. They could have printed it because they thought it was "funny", that it was "horrifying", that it would be "a good stick in the eye to show how stupid those Americans are", that "we havent run any stories that will rile up PETA in a while". To assess motive upon the publisher that are not explicitly specified in the source is not something that we can use as a basis to include content. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:04, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
I would think common sense would apply here, but whatever, I found another source that uses the word "weird" to describe it. [17] Dream Focus 15:56, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

What measurement is being use in the above debate?

  • The above deletion debate is emphasizing the WP:OR arguments that make up this list. Examples: "sounds odd enough to me", "birds on your face seem among the least common", "Can't decide how this is common", "I bet this happens to someone several times a year", "This is a weird incident indeed", "I would think common sense would apply here, but whatever, I found another source"
  • "I found another source" should be the only argument for inclusion. We should not be in the business of trying to decide whether or not a source appropriately used as synonym of Unusual. The entire above debate screams WP:OR. To me, that inclusion criterion is way to large because reliable source will use those adjectives just as a catchy descriptor, and not an accurate descriptor of the rarity of the event. Other editors clearly agree given the above debate about whether a death labeled "unusual" by a source truly is includable. But editors relying on their own knowledge of what appears unusual is not how we should be solving this inclusion criterion problem. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 21:55, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
I'm using the reasonable man standard. Would a reasonable man be likely to consider these deaths unusual (either in the sense of "bizarre, weird, macabrely amusing, ironic, interesting, and so forth" or in the sense of "unique or nearly so").
Here's what WP:OR is for. You can't decide to write in an article "[Fact] and [fact] and [fact], so it's possible that Stalin may have wanted Hitler to attack the Soviet Union in 1941" (assuming that no sufficiently reputable historian has ever advanced this theory, which I don't think one has). There's a lot of stuff less blatant than that that you can't put in either. But be reasonable. These rules are for serious articles. The example for prohibited original synthesis is "The United Nations' stated objective is to maintain international peace and security, but since its creation there have been 160 wars throughout the world." That's good! People shouldn't do that.
But with this article, we're down in the weeds. And we're not mindless pencil-pushers and paper-shufflers here. It's an encyclopedia not the IRS or DMV, and the point of all this is to make better articles. And here's how sticking to the letter of WP:OR makes the article worse:
  • If there's a mundane death, but the reporter decided to call it "weird", we can include it -- in fact, we must include it, or we're cherry-picking. Look at the 1974 death of Thomas Bayliss. A fairly routine traffic accident, but the reporter or editor decided to describe it as "bizarre". But it wasn't. It was a little interesting but not very. But it's in, and if you want to be a bureaucrat it has to stay in. I'm arguing to get it out, to improve the article.
  • If there's a death that most everyone would agree is quite bizarre, but the reporter and editor decided not to so describe it -- maybe their house style is to be low key, maybe the reporter thought it better to let the facts speak for themselves, whatever -- then we can't include it (and there are several such deaths that we're arguing about.)
So for this article, sticking to the letter of WP:OR would make for a worse article. And not only should we not do that, WP:IAR requires us to not do that.
And it's not like there's an agenda here. No one is putting in non-unusual stuff to make the point that humans are stupid or accident-prone or that we should all stay home, or whatever. So relax.
Of course, it's arguable that the article shouldn't exist. I don't have a strong opinion on that and could be persuaded either way. I'm operating on the assumption that it does exist and will continue to do so, and given that, it should be as good as possible. Then there's the question of what's "unusual" to one person isn't to another. Well of course. That's why Great Darwin gave us brains and Great Jimbo gave us talk pages, to work these things out. If enough people work through that I'm confident that the Hive Mind will come up with a reasonable result. Herostratus (talk) 23:38, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
your claim that we "must" include it if a journalist happens to use the word "unusual" is absolutely FALSE. WP:NPOV and its subsections such as WP:UNDUE and Good Research clearly mandate that simply appearing in print is not sufficient and while WP:OR cannot appear within an article, we by all means can evaluate whether or not sources that happen to use the term are in fact in an appropriate manner to meet the list criteria. But clearly a large portion of the policy issues with most of the entries here is that the current criteria completely and utterly fail the basic standards for list criteria WP:LSC and WP:NLIST. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:11, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Well put. I previously recommended all new additions should be moved to the talk page for debate. It's clearly a much visited article, so no doubt there will always be people willing to discuss new entries. Perhaps the article should set to 'full protection'? -- Hillbillyholiday talk 23:57, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
  • I firmly disagree that your proposed violation of WP:OR would improve the encyclopedia, although I would tend to agree that simply deleting the article would improve the encyclopedia. If a list has such poor inclusion criteria that we need to violate policy to decide what goes on it, we shouldn't have the list at all.—Kww(talk) 01:41, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not trying to be contentious, but to me, it read like you just argued for following community belief about what is mathematically uncommon. This simply can't work for inclusion criterion because of the very limited scope of editors working on this list. In no way could this community in anyway have enough personal experience to know what are uncommon types of death worldwide unless they are researchers in the specific field.

  • The diarrhea example is perfect. It's the number one killer of infants in the developing world, but would be extremely unusual in say Northern Europe. A reliable source would even be justified in using the word unusual. It's not reasonable to think that a handful of Wikipedia editors working on this page would have the reasonable sense enough to know what types of deaths are unusual amonge the 5.5 million people who die every year on this planet.
  • Or what about Jose Luis Ochoa and his knife wielding cockfight. Cockfights are mostly an underground phenomenon in the US. How do we know that is a rare death? How do even know strapping knifes to the chicken is rare and that knife strapped chicken vs human isn't common in this underground world? These fights are hugely popular parts of Asia, Africa and Latin American. How do we know it is unusual? In all likelihood it is rare, but where is the source that actually looked at the data and isn't just making a reasonable US-centric assumption?

If we're not going to argue deletion for this list, then we need an inclusion criterion that doesn't depend on the limited world experience of a few people lucky enough to live lives that include the globally unusual luxury of having enough free time and education to edit an unpaid encyclopedia more than a handful of times. This article makes claims about worldwide rarity of something that our sources simply don't support. Readers of this article would be falsely led to believe the we are providing a "fact and fact and fact" list about provably unusual deaths. If we can't do that, we shouldn't be trying to shortcut it by basing it on what we believe the numbers to be. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 01:09, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

re the cockfight and " How do we know it is unusual? In all likelihood it is rare, but where is the source that actually looked at the data and isn't just making a reasonable US-centric assumption? " We can be pretty sure that our "source" didnt look at world wide or historical data. The item is included because one sheriff in CA said that he had never seen anything like it before." I have left it in because there are bigger offenders - non reliable sources and "sources" that in no way a actually represent the death as "unusual". -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:25, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
A cockfighting rooster appears to have taken deadly revenge on its trainer for forcing it back into the ring too soon. The bird is said to have attacked owner Singrai Soren and slit his throat with razor blades he had attached to its legs.
Champion rooster slashes its owner's throat for being asked to fight once too often Daily Mail 21 January 2011 -- Hillbillyholiday talk 01:39, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

As a minor point, it's fairly ridiculous to maintain that "unusual" means "mathematically uncommon" in the context of this article. It means "interesting", but we can't say "interesting" of course. Also, I'm not interested in ruleslawyering my way through an alphabet soup of three-letter acronyms. It looks like we're talking through each each other at this point. We just have fundamentally different beliefs about how to curate an article like this, I guess.

I dunno. If you wanted to phrase this unkindly, I guess you could characterize the overall vibe like this:

  • We are some editors who don't like this article, don't think it should exist.
  • But it's been nominated for deletion seven times. All seven resulted in a flat-out Keep (five times) or No Consensus To Delete (twice). So we're stymied. We can't delete it.
  • But at least we can screw it up, blank it or reduce to a stub by rigidly applying rules meant for articles like Quantum gravity and Causes of World War I, or at least generally try to make it something that is not what it's intended to be but rather what it would be if it was the kind of article that we like to read and write.

I guess it'd be great if we could source to the Journal of Morbidity and Mortality article "The Unusual Death: An Metastatistical Study Using Data Fitting" and the Actuarial Science Review article "Morbidity Incidence Rates in Sheffield, 1920-1940: A Regression Analysis of Outlier Events" or something. Maybe the books "Anomaly Detection in Human Morbidity: Defining The Truly Unusual" or "The Oxford Companion to Exceptional Demise" would help. Unfortunately, we don't have access to those.

There's a whole honkin' pile of articles that don't meet the standards of our scientific and historical articles. For instance, List of Strawberry Shortcake characters is a mess. I mean, right off we have "Huckleberry Pie is one of Strawberry Shortcake's friends..." and not only is there no citation to the Interdisciplinary Journal of Social Amity proving this, but there's no citation at all. Maybe they're not really friends. Maybe Strawberry Shortcake just tolerates Huckleberry Pie. You'd want a psychometric behavior assessment of all their interactions for starters, I'd think. I don't know how you all sleep knowing that articles like that exist.

Unlike many articles here, every entry in this article is referenced. Unlike many articles here, this article is interesting and popular. Unlike many articles here, this article has apparently been curated with some care and affection. Unlike many articles here, this article was called "fascinating" by Time magazine. What I'd suggest is that editors who hate this article and don't think it should exist should consider if they can get on board with the program here, which is that this article is, is intended to be, and probably always will be a kind of quirky oddball country cousin of our main thrust of articles on scientific and historical and other serious topics and needs to be handled accordingly. Herostratus (talk) 03:27, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

complete and utter bullshit. If "unusual" in this context means "interesting" but of we cannot use "interesting" because then the complete and utter inappropriateness of this article becomes apparent so we will try to hide behind a different word but use it in a way that doesnt mean what it actually means" is WP:GAMING the system. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 10:50, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
and if there are other worse articles out there that do not meet Wikipedia content standards you can make them better, but you cannot use them as an excuse not to apply content standards to this article. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:09, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
I'm obviously not nominating it for another deletion, so suggesting it got kept doesn't invalidate my critiques of the inclusion criterion. Moving the goal post from "unusual" to interesting, is, well, "interesting". Were is that cited anywhere? I looked at three thesauruses and didn't find interesting under synonyms for unusual. If this article is about "interesting" deaths, then let's call it that. Your attempt to again redefine what unusual means to you only, highlights my critique of this list's inclusion criterion. It seems rather futile to me to be engaging in a thinning of this list when we can't even agree on what unusual means. If we go by a dictionary definition, "Not usual, common, or ordinary", then any nominally insignificant death fits this description. I really don't mean to be contentious or cause anyone to get defensive about the need to keep this list. I'm just trying to challenge us to come up with a better inclusion criterion so we don't have to engage debates about items that include comments like: "sounds odd enough to me". If we achieve that, this debate disappears and future deletion efforts will be thwarted. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 03:48, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Note that editorial discretion is not original research. We make decisions all the time about what to cover inside an article, how much space to give to a topic, how a topic should be framed, etc. This isn't original research. We are "editing an encyclopedia", not "compiling facts mechanically". There seems to be a desire over the last few years to move Wikipedia more and more toward some mechanical, bright-line, and robotic criteria for editing, this was never the practice, and never the intent of our policies, or the mission here, which is "writing an encyclopedia". Gigs (talk) 18:57, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Indeed. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a search engine. We are not here just to deliver sources based upon a keyword search. Warden (talk) 13:38, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
To all who think this article is non-encyclopedic and therefore should be deleted : this guy wrote several books on strange articles he found throughout scientific litterature. His second book deals exactly with unusual death and suicides. So it's not as bad as it looks. We can tighten up the criterias but to me it's not in the same league as the Quantum Gravity someone mentioned. It can live with a little more flexibility. zubrowka74 16:40, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
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