Talk:Somerton Man

"... before it was realised it was a code."

Uhh, it is very very unlikely that this is a CODE. It is almost certainaly an ACRONYM. 2001:8003:E41C:1C01:7135:6DE9:762F:B16B (talk) 12:07, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Here's speculation, building on the Gerry Feltus bit and on the info about Carl Webb: "My Life Is All But Over (X) And I Am Quite Content [or Certain?] It's Time To Move To South Australia, Moseley St. Glenelg, Adelaide... [Bute? Bus?]" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:980:C004:5410:105D:FAC0:2F93:3578 (talk) 14:48, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Committed suicide

A couple of editors are determined to remove the term "committed Suicide" from this article. While I personally don't understand these objections, that's really not the point here. The article tells us that's what the police declared his death to be at the time. Who are we to declare that, based on modern sensitivities that didn't exist at the time, those police were wrong? The police said "committed suicide". So must we. If it's changed here, will Romeo and Juliet be the next target of this political correctness? HiLo48 (talk) 01:41, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

See MOS:SUICIDE - while the expression "commit suicide" is not banned on Wikipedia (per this RfC), it may be more appropriate to use other phrases. Muzilon (talk) 01:57, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

I presented an argument for my view here - the police said "committed suicide". HiLo48 (talk) 03:22, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

According to this Ngram, if I'm doing it right, only a negligible percentage of books used "died by" rather than "committed". It's just woke virtue signaling, welcome to the Wikipedia. It's not supposed to be our job to be the vanguard of the current cultural revolution, but try telling that to some people. Herostratus (talk) 06:06, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

I thought MOS:SUICIDE was relatively clear - it's not banned but There are many other appropriate, common, and encyclopedic ways to describe a suicide. Suicide used to be a crime in most jurisdictions of Australia (i.e. something that people "commit") but it is not longer and many reputable sources talk about it being unhelpful language, see here for example. I'm not going to edit war about it, but it's not appropriate to call such an edit "ridiculous" or "woke" when there are both valid reasons and literally a style guideline about it. To the point of saying what the police said at the time, the article does not currently quote them so there is no reason it has to use that wording other than personal preference. Melcous (talk) 06:33, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

This "crime" talk is nonsense. I am of mature years. Probably the first suicide I became aware of was 60 years ago. The person (who I knew personally, a schoolmate) was described as having committed suicide. I NEVER thought of it as a crime. None of the talk around the event suggested he had committed a crime. The same applies to every other suicide I have learnt of since then, sadly, hundreds of them. NONE were EVER described as crimes. I want to see a reliable source that tells me that committing suicide was seen as a crime. The source needs to be be from the time of the event, not some recent, politically correct essay. HiLo48 (talk) 08:03, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

See Suicide legislation. Muzilon (talk) 10:26, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Maybe don't just rely on your own personal experience to call other views nonsense: just because you're not aware of something, doesn't make it untrue. Suicide was decriminalised in NSW in 1967, in SA and VIC in 1983, in the ACT in 1990 and in the NT in 1996. source. Melcous (talk) 11:49, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I hear you. But we do say "committed an error" which has no implications of criminality.

I think that suicide used to be a crime everywhere in Christendom at least, and probably still is in many places (which seems archaic to me, but there is also a case for having it be something that comes to attention of the authorities in some manner. If it's not a crime then a policeman would have no business stopping you, unless an actual crime is also involved (causing a public disturbance or whatever), which the public would find disturbing.)

So, it may very well be that the "committed" in "committed suicide" was originally the same as the "committed" in "committed armed robbery". However, "committed suicide" is now idiomatic by itself. There's no real connection in the minds of people with criminality. People generally feel sorry for suicides rather nowadays. And it makes sense to me that we would have an idiom for that particular act, as it is considered uniquely grave and different from other causes of death, as you would think, since it involves the eternal struggle against despair and other primal and highly fraught subjects. "Died by suicide" kind of nudges it more toward being in a category with "died in a car crash" and so on.

So, in my humble opinion, advocating "died by suicide" is a little tone-deaf to idiomatic English, although the intentions are good. If not that, or in addition, there's kind of a natural tendency to want to nudge cultural expressions out of the Middle Ages, which is understandable and admirable I guess. But we are not here to nudge. Herostratus (talk) 15:05, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Melcous and Muzilon - I am not interested in legislation. Funnily enough, nobody was ever prosecuted for the crime of committing suicide. Even when I first heard if it being a crime, 60 years ago, everybody laughed at the silly idea. What I asked for, rather than as was insultingly alleged, "just relying on your own personal experience", was for sourced examples showing that it was truly seen as a crime, not according to archaic and ignored laws, but by society AT THE TIME. HiLo48 (talk) 23:02, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

A Trove search turns up several cases of prosecutions for attempted suicide in South Australia – as late as the 1950s. Muzilon (talk) 23:47, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

I did not say ATTEMPTED suicide. HiLo48 (talk) 02:15, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Well, obviously it would be impossible to prosecute a successful suicide... Muzilon (talk) 07:42, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Really? HiLo48 (talk) 10:07, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, really. (And my guess is that the prosecutions are probably mostly to get the guy some help. The first instance (all I read), the guy apparently wasn't prosecuted but just admitted his (obvious) guilt to a judge, and was told to not try it again for at least a year, or forfeit 35 pounds. Possibly a parole officer or someone might check on him occasionally, IDK. Treated more like a traffic ticket than a real crime. I was involved in a somewhat similar case myself. It's not like the authorities are trying to throw these people into the hoosegow.) Herostratus (talk) 18:56, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

@HiLo48: it is fairly obvious that you are not going to change your personal view; I'm trying to explain why many other people think this language is problematic, which is well documented and has led to things like MOS:SUICIDE existing. The fact that legislation was needed throughout Australia to decriminalise it makes it clear that it was a crime, regardless of what you heard or thought (which is, so far, all you have based your arguments on). The article Suicide in Australia avoids using the term "commit". Lifeline Australia advises not to use that language here, as does the Australian government funded Mindframe here, as does for one example the Tasmanian Suicide Prevention Strategy here. In light of all this, I'm not sure why you are so against us doing the same here other than your own personal dislike of what you perceive to be "political correctness", which this is so much more than. Melcous (talk) 00:18, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Then it should be easy to provide sourced examples showing that it was truly seen as a crime, not according to archaic and ignored laws, but by society AT THE TIME. And stop talking about me! HiLo48 (talk) 02:15, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

It's my personal view too. How many people's personal views are needed before we can stop snarkily disregarding arguments that that are not unreasonable (even if you think they're wrong)? It's alright tho. I do understand you being frustrated. You feel strongly about this. It's good to have passion about things. But sauce for the goose, so, I would wonder if you are first deciding that you like "died by" and then are looking for refs to shoret that up. I am. That's how people often roll. At least I admit it. Can you? It's hard to know yourself that way. But it's worth trying.

But when I do it, if the counter evidence is strong enough, I will pipe down. I don't know as it is here; you have reasonable points, but they are kind of weak, I think. So can keep going if you like. My arguments are:

• The Ngram I pointed to shows that in books that contain either the phrase "committed suicide" and "died by suicide", 100% use "committed suicide", within a rounding error. 100%. This includes current books as well as older books. You haven't addressed this and can't. I think that alone is a winning argument right there. Not that we must use "committed", but that we are at least allowed to do what 100% of book authors do. That's my strongest argument so far, and it awfully strong. Other lesser points are:

• We are not bound by external sources for our own terminology. We don't slavishly follow the Chicago Manual of Style or anyone else. In fact, outside manuals of style are expressly deprecated IIRC. We must follow sources for facts, but not necessarily for style or precise terminology. Granted, what other people say is a major data point, yes. It's not everything but granted we don't want to be an outlier. But per the above the data point seems to point to "committed". So this is an argument that you might make, actually.

• Let's all stop with the criminality bit. We say "committed an error". You haven't refuted this and can't.

• "Committed suicide" is an idiom. It's to be understood as a unitary phrase. Like "kicked the bucket". We don't take that apart word-by-word and conclude that someone punted an actual bucked. "Spilled the beans" and so forth. "Committed suicide" is the same. The Idiom article is rather long but explains all this in detail. You haven't refuted this and can't.

I don't really care about what WP:SUICIDE says. Rules here are supposed to mostly codify existing good practice. Prescriptive rules that micromanage exactly how the writers -- the people doing the actual work of the project, after all -- must state things, put together by a committee of some editors who, I strongly suspect on (I think) reasonable grounds tilt a particular way ideologically (and, worse, possibly don't even know they do (some), or at any ratewill admit it publicly) -- those rules are useless to me. And in particular when the phrase forced down my throat is lowkey offensive, at least to me. So please stop.

Bottom line: As the Bible says, ye shall not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. If I spend time and effort on crafting an article, give me at least the satisfaction of choosing my own terminology (within reason). I don't like it when someone comes along to an article and substitutes their own preferred terminology for the author's. It's roiling the text to no advantage, it's lowkey disrespecting the original editor, and it's super annoying if it's woke shit.

Micromanaging the volunteers is a risky way to run an organization the organization which depends on them. Herostratus (talk) 21:19, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

I assume you are speaking to me? I actually have not expressed what my personal view here is, and I have already said I am not going to edit war about this. I have been trying to articulate what the Australian government, mental health professionals, and other community members have said about why this language is considered problematic and stigmatising. Does that mean it can't be used here? No. But is it worth at least considering that maybe it shouldn't? That's why MOS:SUICIDE exists, whether you care about it or not. Sure, it's not necessarily wikipedia's job to engage in this kind of 'public policy' type form of expression, but there is also a reason List of suicide crisis lines ignores the WP:EL and WP:NOTDIR guidelines. I have not called keeping it as is "riduculous", "woke", or "virtue signalling" (or whatever the opposite of those terms is) - others have engaged in that kind of unhelpful name calling. I have simply tried to present as neutrally as possible the reasons why some people feel this is important. Melcous (talk) 05:56, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

I still want to see sourced evidence that it ever was truly seen as a crime, not according to archaic and ignored laws, but by society AT THE TIME. HiLo48 (talk) 06:37, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

For what purpose? How is that going to change this discussion? It's not clear anything is going to satisfy you. Muzilon has already provided evidence of criminal prosecutions for attempted suicide, which is all there can be - dead people can't be prosecuted. It's not difficult to google and find books like this that trace the history of suicide legislation and how it is connected to the criminality around assisting suicide. Or articles like one. But none of this is really helping us have any kind of constructive discussion. Melcous (talk) 07:25, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Are you saying that it was only ever seen as a negative if someone tried and failed? Where are the essays and newspaper articles condemning someone for having committed suicide? HiLo48 (talk) 22:03, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

(I believe that the general definition of crime is that it's an actually defined in law as an illegal action, regardless of the general public's support or opposition to it. We can find, e.g., all sorts of old sources condemning someone for being an atheist, but that doesn't make it a crime. Perhaps you mean "is socially unacceptable"?) WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:56, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

There's no requirement to follow the exact wording used at the time; weself compilen abouth Chaucer in our English, nonother hes Saxonli, after all. I suggest that if some editors dislike 'commit' and others dislike 'died by', that you all Wikipedia:Compromise on using neither. It's not that hard for a good writer to find alternatives. For example, many recent sources in the UK say something like "The inquest returned a verdict of suicide", which meets all the common goals (formal, factual, unsentimental, has been used since at least 1800, so it can't be accused of being new-fangled, etc.). To give a specific example, the existing phrase the autopsy findings suggest he committed suicide by poisoning himself could be shortened to say the autopsy findings suggest he poisoned himself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:45, 15 October 2023 (UTC)