[WikiEN-l] "Suicide methods" article

[Doc glasgow]

Erik Moeller-4 wrote:
> 
> On 4/16/07, Anthony <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
>> An article on how to commit suicide is, in my opinion, irresponsible,
>> regardless of whether or not there are other such guides already on
>> the Internet.  But it also has no place in an encyclopedia.
> 
> This is a moral judgment. There is an entirely reasonable moral
> position that suicide is a perfectly valid option for any human being
> to consider, and that providing information on how to commit suicide
> safely without crippling yourself or others is better than pretending
> such information does not exist. In fact, suicide hotlines here in
> Germany tend to answer these questions just as calmly as they give
> reasons why one would want to avoid suicide (my mother has done
> training and supervision of suicide hotline workers, so I know a bit
> about the topic). A strong bias against suicide as an ultimate
> rational choice betrays an American cultural bias; 
> 

There is a flaw in your moral relativism. Hijacking planes and slamming them
into buildings, lynching blacks, screwing pre-pubescent boys, and gassing
Jews have all be considered perfectly valid options by certain people in
certain cultural contexts. Would we list the methods by which one might do
such things in a morally-disinterested manner? Is that what NPOV demands? Is
that responsible? 
Further, if it is wrong to limit information on suicide because wikipedia is
culturally amoral,  why should your proviso "without crippling yourself or
others" stand? It too is a value-judgement? Why not include methods that are
designed to cause maximum devastation? 

Yes, policy says Wikipedia is 'not censored', but our policies were never
intended to be 'suicide pacts' that had to be followed to their logical
conclusions no matter how absurd. Policy is no substitute for good
judgement. And anyone who thinks we can make decisions in wikipedia without
using 'subjectivity' just isn't living in the real world. Or perhaps they
want to programme bots to make content decisions....

Having said all of that, I'm not sure this article actually does give me
great cause for concern. But we should retain our basic humanity and
cultural sensitivity when we make decisions like this.

Doc
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