http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=...ew&pageId=70358

WorldNetDaily is concerned about Wikipedia articles telling people how to commit suicide.

Here are the articles they are complaining about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Complete_Manual_of_Suicide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Exit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peaceful_Pill_Handbook

I don't see anything in the articles though to say that anyone is advocating suicide or anything in the articles telling people how to commit suicide.

Looks like a case of moral panic to me. Thoughts?

Hiya Joy,

Yes the article does look like a possible case of starting a moral panic. I don't see exactly how wikipedia entries like this would bring influence on people undecided on the issues of suicide/euthanasia etc.

Except, the 4 entries have very little (if any) stated criticism of the various publications, which should get alarm bells ringing as to possible partisanship. I see this a lot in Wikipedia. Sometimes it can be pretty obvious to the knowledgeable observer when critiques of a topic/BLP subject's work etc. are being ignored/suppressed- but you have to know about the subject to be able to detect that. Obviously many people accessing Wikipedia don't necessarily have that, and therefore may be being fed an incomplete, partisan account of something without being aware of it.

I don't know much about these books (though I do profess to know something about the political issues surrounding euthanasia)- hence I don't know how much critique they engendered, but I'd make an educated guess and say more than has been mentioned in those articles.

This makes those articles potentially little more than advertisements for the books (you get slightly more info than you would on Amazon I think!).

I guess what would be interesting would be the reaction if any duly knowledgeable editors tried to introduce any third party critique sources into the articles.

There used to be a very active usenet group called "alt.suicide.holiday" where people discussed the best ways to commit suicide.

It would improve the article, but ultimately I doubt that the major views and counterviews can peacefully coexist in the same article, any more than Catholicism and Anti-Catholicism can (and for the same reasons involving prior philosophical assumptions about life). The problem is that this is one of those cases were Wikipedia won't permit a fork (which is NOT a POV fork if you leave summaries in each article). Some forks are just politically incorrect. You'll never see a creationism/anti-creationism, or a pro-pedophilia/anti-pedophila. You won't even see a homeopathy/anti-homeopathy, due to the POV pushing of the science-warriors.

So expect wars and lots of Drawhma, since these things can't peacefully coexist in the same house, and yet will be forced to. This is one of those cases where one side absolutely cannot leave the other one alone. You don't want to go near that if you have a warrior group who insists on one article on the subject, end of discussion. Many wiki article wars remind me of dead marriages which have started to stink long ago, but the partners have not separated, for extraneous reasons. Yech.

But like all yechs on wikipedia, I refuse to clean up human poop off the floor while Jimbo and crew continue to outlaw diapers. I've told you the way to fix it. I'm not helping you on fix, if you don't listen about how to prevent the problem. See Milton's 18 part credo if you want full detail.

I believe almost anything that is wrong with Wikipedia or elsewhere on Web 2.0 can be traced back to usenet.

Not precisely. They complain that an unnamed article that is the subject of their criticism links to those articles:



Suicide methods links to The Complete Manual of Suicide, and Euthanasia and Right to die both link to Final Exit - I can't find any article that actually contains links to all three at the present time. Suicide and Suicide methods seem likely candidates (Suicide methods certainly fits the rest of their description reasonably well), but they don't actually name what article they're talking about.

GBG, was that a nail I heard being smitten squarely on the head? It's all part of the "There is no point trying to do the right thing because the net can always heal itself back to being broken" mindset.

Link to Milton's 18-part credo

By this logic, Wikipedia encourages people to have sex.

•Assisted Suicide Courtesy of Wikipedia
Christian Web News, KY -1 hour ago
As if Wikipedia’s tryst with porn wasn’t enough, the online “free encyclopedia" is now sharing with internet surfers dozens of detailed descriptions of ...

View the article

•Concern over Wikipedia's'how-to' section on suicide
OneNewsNow, MS -13 minutes ago
Wikipedia, the online public-input encyclopedia, now has a how-to section on suicide and mutilation. Rita Marker of the International Task Force on ...

View the article

Disturbing.

It would please me if you'd all link to this once, even if you don't read it. That will raise the Google rank. It's already close to the top for "Wikipedia" and "dissent." And I get no benefit from it-- I put it up merely to make people think, and to screw WP out of free administration by people doing it for the wrong reason which they'll later regret.

As I made clear, I have no problem with people performing janitorial duties on WP if it gives them immediate satisfaction like Tetris and it's not performed in a sadistic spirit; we've all discussed admins like Walkerma, who who may very well edit for reasons that aren't pathological.

How to tell if you're editing or vandal-fixing WP for the right reasons? You have nothing hugely invested in it; you got all your satisfaction at the time you did what you did. If they kick you off tomorrow, or the thing quits running due to some legal mire, all you'll regret is the loss of further enjoyment, but won't feel like you put a lot into the thing for a payout or payback that you later got screwed out of.

My philosophy of editing WP is rather like that of an atheist toward cleaning up crap in the world. (eh, Lar?) You'd better get your satisfaction on the spot, from playing the game here and now for keeps, because you're not storing up treasures in Heaven (and can't even be sure you are storing them up in Unicef or the Third World, either).



Or, as Khayyam might have said of Wikipeda:

That's because the same people who were messing up UUnet are also messing up Wikipedia.

Your wish is my command, Milton.

That's one of the more popular pages on Wikipedia Review, so it should help a bit.