[WikiEN-l] "Suicide methods" article

[gjzilla at gmail.com]

On 4/16/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> 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; Europe has a much
> more developed philosophical discourse on the morality of suicide.
> (Many here prefer the word "Freitod", or "free death", to
> "Selbstmord", i.e. "self-murder".)
>
> We should not be in the business of making such a moral judgment, but
> we should structure our information. Wikipedia is not a how-to. A
> purely descriptive, well-referenced listing of methods, their safety
> implications, and their cultural context would make a fine article.
> The current article suicide methods is awful, but not awful enough to
> be deleted. Unreferenced content should be carefully culled. A more
> detailed description of methods would be reasonable Wikibooks
> material, together with a discourse of reasons to commit & not to
> commit suicide. In fact, I would not be surprised if such suicide
> manuals have already been produced in the context of professional aid
> work.
> --
> Peace & Love,
> Erik
>
> DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
> the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
>
> "An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open,
> free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic
>

That's exactly what I've been trying to say. It's all relative. ~~~~