Langbahn Team – Weltmeisterschaft

Talk:1997 Saint-Casimir mass suicide

Good article1997 Saint-Casimir mass suicide has been listed as one of the Philosophy and religion good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
October 1, 2024Good article nomineeListed
Did You Know
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on October 28, 2024.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that on the same day that the members of Heaven's Gate died in a mass suicide, five members of an unrelated group did likewise?

GA Review

Passed. IntentionallyDense (talk) 21:33, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This review is transcluded from Talk:1997 Saint-Casimir mass suicide/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: PARAKANYAA (talk · contribs) 01:13, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: IntentionallyDense (talk · contribs) 17:39, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]


I will review this shortly! IntentionallyDense (talk) 17:39, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Review

Rate Attribute Review Comment
1. Well-written:
1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct. Some confusing wording which I highlighted below. IntentionallyDense (talk) 19:50, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation. IntentionallyDense (talk) 20:24, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
2. Verifiable with no original research, as shown by a source spot-check:
2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline. IntentionallyDense (talk) 19:01, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose). I've verified all the online news articles (using google translate so I'm assuming any differences in wording can be attributed to that. IntentionallyDense (talk) 19:01, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I spot-checked some of the book sources as well and those came back clean so I think it's fair to say this passes sourcing requirements (pending nominator addressing the issue I mentioned below). IntentionallyDense (talk) 19:01, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

2c. it contains no original research. IntentionallyDense (talk) 19:01, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism. Everything was put into writer's own words. IntentionallyDense (talk) 19:01, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
3. Broad in its coverage:
3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic. IntentionallyDense (talk) 20:24, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). IntentionallyDense (talk) 20:24, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each. IntentionallyDense (talk) 20:24, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute. IntentionallyDense (talk) 19:01, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content. IntentionallyDense (talk) 19:01, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions. IntentionallyDense (talk) 19:50, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
7. Overall assessment. Holy shit what an interesting and dark read. I really enjoyed doing this review. I'm placing it on hold until some prose issues are fixed but well done. IntentionallyDense (talk) 20:24, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pleased to say that this is now a pass from me! It was a pleasure collaborating with you PARAKANYAA. IntentionallyDense (talk) 21:32, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

After checking, I have no idea where I read this. PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:18, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's all of what you pointed out. Anything else you see an issue in? PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:28, 1 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 talk 00:28, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Source: Coleman, Loren L. (2004). "Cultic Copycats". The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow's Headlines. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4165-0554-9, p. 84. "On March 22, 1997, just as the Heaven’s Gate thirty-nine were dying by suicide, a documentary film about the Order of the Solar Temple cult aired on French television, and, in what was probably not a coincidence, five members of the Order of the Solar Temple killed themselves that day in a “Christic Fire.”
  • Reviewed:
Improved to Good Article status by PARAKANYAA (talk). Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has fewer than 5 past nominations.

PARAKANYAA (talk) 01:05, 2 October 2024 (UTC).[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation

QPQ: Unknown

Overall: IntentionallyDense (talk) 01:45, 2 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No murder?

'This was the only OTS transit that ... was purely voluntary and did not involve murder'

Can't check the reference, but I believe that killing a person who asks you to kill them still counts as murder, so the killing of Druau would have to be murder, wouldn't it? As for 'purely voluntary' - well, 'pure' seems a strong word, since the cultists did try to kill their children twice involuntarily. 62.73.72.3 (talk) 01:53, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If you kill someone who asks them to kill you it is probably more along the lines of assisted suicide, which when prosecuted is usually manslaughter not murder. Well, it might be tried as such in some jurisdictions. Depends on the circumstances, the country, and many factors but that is what the source says. A murder is not simply killing someone, but a specific legal thing, differentiated from other counts. Since there was no one alive to try, I suppose if they had abandoned the plot after Druau died it may have turned out differently but unlike the others none of the deaths here were declared to be murder by the authorities, which is not the case for the 1994 and 1995 transits.
It did not involve murder, but it did involve attempted murder. And then they stopped. Those are not the same thing, so I think it is fair to say. PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:01, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Assisted suicide is defined in the article on the subject as 'the process by which a person, with the help of others, takes medications to end their own life' or otherwise as 'when another person materially helps an individual person die by suicide, such as providing tools or equipment'. This is contrasted with voluntary euthanasia, in which the doctor takes a more active role. So killing someone who asks them to kill you would be closer to voluntary euthanasia, not to assisted suicide, but such a description would still be absurd in this case, because euthanasia is 'the practice of intentionally ending life to eliminate pain and suffering' and does not include 'the practice of intentionally ending life to send a person to Sirius'. The description as 'manslaughter' doesn't seem to fit, since manslaughter is normally either involuntary or the result of the offender 'act[ing] "in the moment" under circumstances that could cause a reasonable person to become emotionally or mentally disturbed'. The OST believers were not 'acting in the moment' and their beliefs can hardly be described as those of reasonable persons. (Assisted suicide is apparently treated - illogically - as manslaughter in some US states, but the acts were committed in Canada.) All in all, deliberately killing someone is normally, by default, considered murder with the exception of certain very special cases, and I don't think that the fact the victim asked to be killed is enough to make it one of these cases. However, if the source does say explicitly that no murder was involved, the claim will have to stay, however wrong it may be in my opinion. I would just request a quotation to verify that the source does indeed say that.
Concerning the description 'purely voluntary' - if one means by 'transit' only the deaths that did occur, then it was voluntary, since these deaths were voluntary; but I think it makes more sense to use the term to refer to the entire proceeding intended to bring about a 'transition', and suggesting that said proceeding consistently respected consent is clearly incorrect. I see no reason to refer only to successful killings as 'true transit', since the successful killings produced an actual journey to Sirius precisely as much as the unsuccessful ones did. Again, if the source says it, there is nothing to do about it, but I would request a quote from the source that explicitly says that.--62.73.72.3 (talk) 07:13, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Our article on "assisted suicide" does not actually reflect the dictionary definition of suicide. It appears mostly to reflect medical assisted suicide, which is its own thing. Merriam Webster defines it thus: "the act of suicide carried out by someone with assistance from another person". Not strictly a medical professional. Oxford reference says: "The act of helping someone to commit suicide by giving them the means (e.g. drugs) to do so." So under not-Wikipedia's definition it is assisted suicide yes; though perhaps your comment about "voluntary euthanasia" is more accurate. There was no murder investigation and unlike the others it was not ruled as a murder after the fact. I can go look at the coroner reports if you want. Even if it is murder, no sources call it that, so we cannot call it that. Also, things kind of get weird when you're talking about mass suicide specifically.
Here is the quotation from page 242 of The Mystical Geography of Quebec:
"The 1997 transit, unlike the previous transits in 1994 and 1995, was a pure voluntary and ideologically driven group suicide". I guess I could remove "did not involve murder" but that's referred to before. PARAKANYAA (talk) 07:24, 5 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I rephrased this slightly. PARAKANYAA (talk) 04:01, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
'So under not-Wikipedia's definition it is assisted suicide yes' - not really. Oxford reference says assisted suicide is 'the act of helping someone to commit suicide by giving them the means (e.g. drugs) to do so'. But they didn't just 'give Druau the means' to kill herself, they literally, physically killed her with their own hands. Merriam Webster's 'definition' is more of a syntactic operation than a definition - pretty much 'assisted suicide is suicide that someone assists': this does not address the question whether killing someone on their request is a suicide at all. The fact that there was no murder investigation does not necessarily mean that no murder took place, especially when the perpetrators were dead and could not be punished anyway. The general characterisation of the event as 'a pure voluntary and ideologically driven group suicide' stresses, again, the fact that it was voluntary, which is clear, but the idea that this characterisation excludes murder hinged on the idea that murder cannot be voluntary, which is, again debatable. Perhaps we may not call it murder in the absence of sources calling it that - although IMO it is too obvious to count as OR, but OK, I suppose the very fact of our discussion proves otherwise - but explicitly claiming that it did not involve murder seems excessive. --62.73.72.3 (talk) 10:01, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, so it no longer says that, I changed it some time ago. It just says it was the only purely voluntary one, which is probably the clearest way given the sourcing (explicitly saying no murder was a somewhat tortured, if accurate, reading of the text). That they killed her is undisputed, but killing is not murder, and Wikipedia has very specific guidelines on deeming something a killing/murder/death, see WP:DEATHS. Also I have never seen a source that calls this murder, and in the absence of a conviction, murder is a judgement call on whether one consider a killing to have the requisite attributes. We can't make the judgement, since that is WP:OR, and seemingly no one else has. Personally, the idea of calling a voluntary killing murder is ludicrous - murder is not just killing somebody, it is a specific thing and requires both a lack of justifiable reason and malice. Having someone else kill you is still suicide, because you still made the choice and action to die, you're just using someone else as a tool to do it. But that gets into broader arguments than the Sirius weirdos. PARAKANYAA (talk) 10:15, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Quelle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:1997_Saint-Casimir_mass_suicide