Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/The term committed suicide

Should we use the term "committed suicide"?

Many times this has been brought up, but no consensus has been found. Even in a Wikipedia article, it has been acknowledged that the term "committed suicide" can stigmatizing and offensive (and outdated). Related: MOS:SUICIDE, MOS 2014, WTW 2016, MOSBIO 2017, MOS 2017, VPPOL 2018, VPPOL 2017, WTW 2018, CAT 2019, VPPOL 2021, VPPOL 2023. {{Sam S|💬|✏️|ℹ️}} 19:20, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As someone affected by suicide, I find "died by suicide" and other artificial attempts to avoid saying either "committed suicide" or "killed themself" offensive and patronising at best. DuncanHill (talk) 19:24, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Eschew Obfuscation. Circumlocutions just add clutter. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:29, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Stigmatizing as the term can be to some, in this case I think it's justified and not outdated. A lot of people who use the phrases "committed suicide" or "killed themself" do not mean harm or offense, even though it may not come off that way. If you as an editor feel that an article could be better worded using other phrases though, then I say go ahead so long as it doesn't violate consensus. Gommeh (talk/contribs) 20:26, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Washington Redskins wasn't meant to be offensive either, but it's not professional is it?. Kolya Butternut (talk) 20:35, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's different. Washington Redskins was the name of a billion-dollar football team, not text in a Wikipedia article. Gommeh (talk/contribs) 20:52, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Meaning it's even more absurd that we can't keep up with the times? Kolya Butternut (talk) 21:22, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sort of. The thing is, people still use those terms for someone ending their own life. Most people today use the word Commanders to talk about the football team, except to discuss the naming controversy. Gommeh (talk/contribs) 21:30, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
People use colloquialisms in common speech, that doesn't mean it's professional. Commit suicide is a colloquialism. Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:03, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's a fixed phrase. I am not persuaded that it's a colloquialism. --Trovatore (talk) 22:05, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Are you saying that fixed phrases cannot be colloquialisms? Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:16, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, of course not. I'm saying I'm not persuaded that this one is a colloquialism. --Trovatore (talk) 23:32, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What would persuade you? Kolya Butternut (talk) 00:11, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, I don't know. Thus far you've adduced no evidence for the claim. Maybe see what you can find and I'll see if I think it's convincing. --Trovatore (talk) 02:36, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But what evidence do you have that "commit suicide" is professional? Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:44, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You claimed it was a colloquialism; you back it up. --Trovatore (talk) 04:15, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We have a very large RFC on this some years ago that I inotiated, where the consensus is to follow what the sources say, and not force away the language, though if there's a choice, avoided "commited" is fine. Most modern sources avoid the term but older sources likely will used "committed suicide" so it probably will be used in describing deaths before ~2000 — Masem (t) 19:34, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's a misinterpretation of the close which states that we should determine what phrasing is best practice by following trends, not using language from old sources: Perhaps the best idea is to see what the cited sources in each article say and follow their formulation. This will naturally cause us to track whatever trend exists in society.[1] Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:10, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I do not think it is likely we will find consensus on this. Perhaps it is best to consider this a MOS:STYLEVAR type issue for the moment and to allow article writers to choose freely how to report suicides and then to respect their choice. —Kusma (talk) 19:35, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I note that Sam recently made this change to Carlo Michelstaedter, an article that I had originally translated from the Italian. It rubs me the wrong way and I have considered undoing the edit, and still may. But of course I certainly don't want to make it more likely that a reader will commit suicide.
What specifically rubs me the wrong way about "died by suicide" is that it removes agency from the person, like it's something that just happened. I don't have the same objection to "killed himself". I might change the Michelstaedter article to use that. --Trovatore (talk) 19:40, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I rather suspect that removing the implication of agency and autonomy is not considered a downside to the experts that promote this change. People who kill themselves as a result of deliberate, considered plans have agency and autonomy. For example, hospice programs in the US support people voluntarily stopping eating and drinking ("VSED"), and this involves agency and autonomy. People also kill themselves during psychotic breaks, or because their culture demands suicide to save face. This does not involve so much agency and autonomy. It is not unreasonable to say that someone was "killed by mental illness" or "murdered by military orders", or to otherwise minimize the implication of autonomy and agency. Because reality varies, IMO we need to have the full range of language available to us.
Maybe I'll throw something together at WP:Committed suicide, so we can have an explanation in one place. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:45, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If your first sentence is true, then to me that means that these experts are in deep moral and philosophical error. There is nothing more degrading than to lose one's free will. Free will is the sine qua non of humanity. To imply that these persons have lost it is very insulting indeed. --Trovatore (talk) 23:03, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What do you think actually happens to a person who is experiencing a psychotic break? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:48, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think they still have free will. Their choices may be based on an incorrect assessment of reality, and be made using invalid cognition or in a state of panic, but they are still choices; they are not some external thing. --Trovatore (talk) 05:10, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If someone genuinely believes that they have wings and can safely fly, and they are surprised to discover themselves plummeting to the ground, were they really choosing to kill themselves? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:46, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They were choosing to attempt to fly. Didn't work out, but it was still their act, not something that happened to them. --Trovatore (talk) 21:02, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Normally – if we had the necessary information – we would not call this suicide at all. Suicide requires an intention to die. In the absence of that necessary intention, I think it would be fair to say that the person "killed themselves", but they did not "commit suicide". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:45, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect that the case where the person genuinely did not recognize that the action came with a serious risk of death is vanishingly rare. I wouldn't put much weight on this sort of outlier. That said, I generally think "killed themselves" is fine. --Trovatore (talk) 22:05, 21 March 2025 (UTC) I expect there are also borderline cases, where someone is killed half-accidentally after deliberately engaging in reckless conduct. I'm currently re-reading The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, where Adams describes an individual who [...] died of a lethal overdose of brick wall, taken while under the influence of a Ferrari and a bottle of tequila. But we may be drifting from the topic at hand... --Trovatore (talk) 22:21, 21 March 2025 (UTC) [reply]
Hello @Trovatore, I’d like to offer a little more context on why health professionals have migrated away from “committed”. In attempting to reduce suicide, we see it as important to acknowledge the degraded decision-making capability associated with diseases like major depression. Dw31415 (talk) 14:41, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
OK, well, I think that's a very serious moral and philosophical error. --Trovatore (talk) 18:18, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It could be that someone's making a very serious moral error, but it could also be that someone else is making a very serious factual error. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:22, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Died by suicide" = "died by killing themself". All potential agency is retained. Kolya Butternut (talk) 03:56, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, "died by suicide" is grammatically correct; consider: "Although he died by self-slaughter, in a criminal's cell...." (1851, [2]) "If it appears that he died by self-murder, Finding in the inquisition shall conclude...." (1894, [3]) Kolya Butternut (talk) 05:33, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The initial post is a rather one-sided presentation of views - some people regard it as "offensive" and/or "outdated", but that is far from the universal view, even among those closest to it. I'm not one of those closely affected, but I find constructions like "died by suicide" and similar to be clumsy and inferior to active language like "committed suicide" or "killed themselves". The last discussion on this matter I recall came to a consensus that articles should not be edited to change one style to the other without explicit prior consensus on the talk page, and I see no reason to change that. Thryduulf (talk) 19:55, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Another RFC will lead to the same outcome. There's a bunch of people out there that try to be offended by as many things as possible. This is one of them. While it is their right to be offended by it, they are nowhere near the majority of people. I'm personally repulsed by this sort of bowlderization. If sources say someone comitted suicide, so should we. The phrase is neutral. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:05, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Two people close to me have died in this way, and I don't care whether it is called committing suicide (a neutral term) or killing themselves. What is more important is to explain to people that it is not the only solution to their problems. "Died by suicide" is both an offense against the English language and denies people agency. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:26, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
See i see it the other way around - died by suicide - shows some respect for the depth of mental illness required to kill someone - much as death by cancer, or died in an accident show for their causation. "committed suicide" has way too many "took the easy way out" or "poor thing was always a bit fragile" overtones - or at least for my generation it does. (acknowledging that word use and semantics changes by generation) An Old History Geek (talk) 06:34, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that there are differences by generation.
As a side note, it's important not to assume that every suicide attempt or death involves mental illness. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:55, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hello @Phil Bridger, I’m sorry for your loss. I’d like to offer that people suffering from major depression might not be fully capable of responding to rational explanations and may not be able to think clearly in terms of problems and solutions. That said your comment is a good reminder that, for those grieving the loss of a loved one, this discussion offers little or no comfort. Dw31415 (talk) 15:08, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ngram data shows that "died by suicide" is barely a blip compared to the normal phrasing "committed suicide". The phrasing is not offensive or harmful, and I find the idea that people who suffer from depression are strongly affected by the exact phrasing to be a bit farfetched and reductive. Keep as-is, unless the sources use a particular term. We don't need an RFC for this BugGhost 🦗👻 21:49, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When someone says that ____ is offensive to them, we should believe them. We should not tell them that they were mistaken, and the thing that upsets them isn't upsetting at all. It actually is offensive – to some. It actually does seem outdated – to some. It actually is upsetting and distressing – to some. It actually does contribute to the stigmatization of mental illness and survivors – a little. It's not necessary to share these views to recognize that these views exist. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:31, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Believing them is fine, as long as that does not mean that article content is altered to make someone feelings be soothed. This is an encyclopedia where we freely share information; it is not a therapy couch. Zaathras (talk) 22:40, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is an encyclopedia, so we should use an encyclopedic tone. That sometimes means leaning away from language that, in the specific context, will be perceived by some readers – even if it's just a minority of them – as needlessly judgmental and offensive. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:46, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@WhatamIdoing: But you're happy to use "died by suicide" when you know it is perceived by some readers as needlessly offensive? DuncanHill (talk) 22:52, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen no sources claiming that "died by suicide" results in people feeling offended. I have only seen aesthetic complaints (it's clunky, it's not traditional...), but it being unaesthetic is not the same thing as it being offensive.
That said, I don't happen to prefer that phrase myself, so if I'm writing the article, you are much more likely to see blunt, simple phrases like "killed himself". WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:57, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We have at least two editors in this discussion who have said they find "died by suicide" offensive. Using your words, we should believe them. Some1 (talk) 03:15, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and I do believe them. As I said here, I've seen "no sources" claiming this. I do see two editors reporting this, and I'm both curious about and supportive of their views. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:20, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have a diagnosis of depression and I find "died by suicide" offensive. I hope you believe me. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:51, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I believe you Phil, I am in much the same position. DuncanHill (talk) 22:52, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder whether people who dislike the lack-of-agency implications of that clunky phrase (though not a neologism; it's been in print for ~200 years) feel the same about a phrase like "died by forced suicide", where the point is that the person did not have an ordinary amount of choice.
On the other side, "committed suicide by cop" sounds wrong to me, even though it involves committing an actual crime. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:16, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Usually the opposite of stigmatizing is normalizing. I would actually rather we use stigmatizing language than normalizing language with regard to suicide, which should definitely not be normalized. I hope most survivors and their loved ones don't really want us to use language that might lessen our readers' good and healthy inhibition about suicide, out of fear that it might pair with an aversion to suicide survivors.
But there's no need to use "commit" which is still a bit religious in tone despite being very widespread. I guess the main objection to "killed themself" is it's too casual? IMO it's fine. GordonGlottal (talk) 22:57, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Although your intentions are good, stigmatizing something is a double-edged sword, as the stigma not only attaches to the act itself, but can also make it harder for people to talk about, whether that be someone talking about their own suicidal ideation (and it's important that they be able to talk about it, as opening up to a family member or friend or hotline about the depth of what they are struggling with can help someone avoid acting on that ideation), or talking about a loved one struggling with suicidal ideation or having killed themself (and it's important that people be able to talk about their worries and grief). FactOrOpinion (talk) 01:01, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Right. I think it is very much worth stigmatizing the act itself, despite potential costs. In many times and places suicide has been normalized. The stigma which we have built here and now is important and good and not to be taken for granted. To the extent that we can protect bystanders from distress, we should—but I place an absolute priority on maintaining societal non-acceptance of the act itself, which prevents more suicides than any treatment norm ever could.
Is there some objection to "Killed themself"?
BTW I came to this discussion because a fellow editor changed language at Chaim Walder to "Walder died by suicide". I see that Adolf Hitler suffered the same edit. Hitler in particular belonged to a society which elevated suicide as the correct response to failure; he had previously ordered many underlings to kill themselves. He did not "die by" an external force. And re both Walder and Hitler, the idea of intentionally softening our description of these acts of terrible evil cowardice, which were sins intentionally "committed" in the truest sense, is revolting. GordonGlottal (talk) 02:28, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Occasionally, someone will say that "killed himself" is too blunt or harsh. However, this is not a common response, and editors usually ignore such comments. There are alternatives that I think editors should consider if a certain amount of delicacy is wanted; for example, "His death was reported as a suicide", or you could work it into another sentence, e.g., "He lived there until his suicide on [date]".
In some cases, I think "committed suicide" is appropriate language. For example, historical ritual suicides should IMO not be described the same way as a frightened cancer patient, nor the same way as the death of an impulsive teenager. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:07, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
THIS^^ TOTALLY THIS! - suicide should have as much context in its reporting as is possible. Ritual Suicide, Honor system suicides. political/religious suicides are more death by social contract. A poor kid looking to end their suffering rather then seek help (which may or may not ever be there) - should not be spoken of in the same terms. A Veteran who commits "suicide by cop" deserves better then "committed suicide" - if anything death by mental illness. death by suicide makes it clear that this was a tragedy without a cause, a statement or anything more then a cry for help. An Old History Geek (talk) 06:41, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The suicide prevention organizations have gone off the "cry for help" language. I guess some kids misunderstood that as "here's a good way to ask for help". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:58, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As I see it the issue with “death was reported as a suicide” is that it could create a sense of ambiguity in situations where that isn’t warranted — it might make sense for an article like Jeffrey Epstein but not, say, Kurt Cobain. I don’t have a strong opinion on “died by” vs “committed”; I’m not super educated on the debate but as a reader, either seems okay to use in articles. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 00:19, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is exactly my point above. Sometimes a slight sense of ambiguity if warranted. Sometimes it's not. One-size-fits-all rules are not good in this subject area. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:27, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt that "societal non-acceptance of the act itself ... prevents more suicides than any treatment norm ever could." In my experience (admittedly not a random sample), societal non-acceptance is not a factor in people's decisions to kill themselves or not. There's a significant difference between not stigmatizing something (which I advocate here) and elevating it (which I do not advocate). FactOrOpinion (talk) 12:55, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. I doubt "committing suicide" is stigmatizing, as it is often used in official documents, and in fact, I have a friend who did attempt to commit suicide and he does use that term.(FYI He is getting better and is fine with his life at school)
Using other terms like "Died by suicide" and "Killed themselves" are very informal and are, In my personal opinion, even more offensive. Thehistorianisaac (talk) 13:10, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Lots of anti-LGBT laws, which are official documents, use stigmatizing language for LGBT people. Obviously, there's no correlation between something being used in official documents and it not being stigmatizing. JJPMaster (she/they) 13:16, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think "being stigmatizing" is an actual argument here, as I believe that anything on earth can be called stigmatizing at this point. And I would also rather Wikipedia be professional and use official sources anyways.
Even for stigma, I believe "committed suicide" is the most non-stigmatizing way to describe it. If I said my friend "attempted to kill himself", I would get in trouble at my school for being offensive, and he would probably be quite offended honestly, while if I used "attempted to commit suicide", that wouldn't offend him, I would still get in trouble(My school actively tries to cover up things that do not paint them in a positive light) but for different reasons.
Nothing can completely avoid stigma, but using "Committing suicide" is arguably the most common, professional and polite term available already. Thehistorianisaac (talk) 13:29, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Does your school speak English as the main/only language? The polite words to use differ depending on language you're speaking. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:09, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
FOO, this is a bit off topic, but Gordon is not completely wrong. It's likely that social stigma directly prevents some suicides while indirectly causing others. Many suicide factors are beyond the individual's control. For example, suicide risks are higher in an individualistic culture (e.g., Scandinavia) and in shame cultures (e.g., Japan). Some social stigma for suicide itself, at the whole-society level, seems to have a mild preventive tendency. However, if that stigma means people don't seek the help they need, then you also end up with preventable deaths among people with serious mental health problems. It's not as simple as saying "Let's save lives by having some social stigma" or "Let's save lives by having no social stigma". It's more like "We have this much and kind of social stigma, which means we have fewer suicides in this situation but more suicides in that context". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:30, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We should not tell them that they were mistaken, and the thing that upsets them isn't upsetting at all - I very much agree to the principal - but so far in this discussion I only see the opposite: those that have been affected by suicide in their personal lives (including myself) are being told by others that they are offended by the term "committed suicide", when in fact they aren't. This is very similar to the manufactured "Latinx" term that is overwhelmingly disliked by the group it is meant to represent. BugGhost 🦗👻 23:30, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's not true. Editors are being told that some people are offended by the term "committed suicide". Editors are not being told what their own opinions are. They are being told that an unspecified fraction of people-who-are-not-editors hold this opinion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:18, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Insisting that we stop saying something because some people find it offensive is linguistic fascism and an obstacle to truth. It might be offensive to Richard Speck 's family to refer to him as a murderer, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't. Using a euphemism for committed suicide trivializes it and dehumanizes the victim. I had a cousin ז״ל who committed suicide, and it was a tragedy, not something to be minimized as, e.g., unalived. He mattered. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:13, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to add that this isn't just vibes, there's research behind it. That said, even if there weren't, When someone says that ____ is offensive to them, we should believe them. is just common decency. Delectopierre (talk) 22:36, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that "died by suicide" is patronizing and offensive. DoubleCross (‡) 01:10, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think we should stick to natural language and avoid prescription. Changes like this are often well-intentioned but typically lead to reader confusion, a drop in accessibility, and even instill a sense of distrust. The notorious latinx is a good example. :bloodofox: (talk) 02:10, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as it currently is. Wikipedia is not censored. In fact, "died of suicide" or others just sounds even weirder. "Committed suicide" is NOT stigmatizing/offensive, and I believe we should keep things simple. Thehistorianisaac (talk) 06:44, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Use “killed him/herself”. “Committed suicide” strongly implies commission of a criminal offence, as suicide (or at least attempting it) once was one in many jurisdictions. It remains highly stigmatised in many countries. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:30, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Committing suicide requires a lot of… commitment. The word does not necessarily imply wrong doing. Consider: “As we commit his body to the grave, led by a priest who has committed himself to a life of prayer, let us hope that the general will stop committing so many troops to battle.” Blueboar (talk) 11:30, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Um, none of those three uses are the usage in "commited suicide", which is a synonym of "perpetrate". In your example, the first is a synonym of "transfer", the second and third are synonyms of "pledged". Black Kite (talk) 13:34, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to stress that a lot of the arguments above are re-treading the well-attended RFC from 2021, (see VPPOL 2021 that was already linked in opening statement). While consensus can change, there's not much new being added here to suggest that the area around that RFC has changed, more specifically, that there isn't any evidence from things like style guides that suggest we should be pushing away from that terms. Instead, this seems more rehashing on "the term seems unsensitive", which was already dismissed per NOTCENSORED. Masem (t) 13:29, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Follow what the sources say. Modern sources (Anglophone ones, at least) tend not to use the phrase "committed suicide", so we should not be using it if the majority of sources don't. Having said that, I'm going to have a rant about NOTCENSORED. It is not a get-out clause for being unnecessarily offensive when we don't need to be and people saying "well, I don't care what you think, I'm going to use this unnecessary phrase anyway because NOTCENSORED, haha!" really does make me think they are the exact people who should probably not be editing biographies. Black Kite (talk) 13:34, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Does historical context provide enough reason for the use of "committed"? The act may have been considered much more serious when it was deemed to be a sin and/or a crime. Or does the entire encyclopaedia need to written so as not to upset modern sensibilities? Martinevans123 (talk) 13:39, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Is suicide no longer deemed a sin? I know churches differ greatly in their interpretation, but I know that at the time Graham Greene wrote Brighton Rock the Catholic Church considered it to be a mortal sin. Has that changed now? I'm not up to date with Catholic doctrine. Phil Bridger (talk) 13:57, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    On WP:NOTCENSORED, I do not think this should be an excuse to be deliberately offensive just to be offensive, However I believe that there are other, more important things to take into consideration than "Does one person find this offensive"; In that case, biographies would be very one sided, and there would be no controversy section. If this were the case, Wikipedia would become more censored than North Korea. I get that my phrasing was, not necessarily the best, however I believe that whether people find something offensive should not prevent us from using more professional terms, or terms that are less offensive and a minority believe they are, as in this case. Update: I accidentally used WP:NOTCENSORED Instead of MOS:EUPHThehistorianisaac (talk) 13:50, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't have a strong feeling one way or another on this, but there's no evidence I've seen that Modern sources (Anglophone ones, at least) tend not to use the phrase "committed suicide". Rather, looking at Google ngrams it looks like committed is still a degree of magnitude ahead. Google news search shows 2.3 million responses for "committed suicide" in the past year, with "died by suicide" around 175k, so again a degree of magnitude. I know ngrams aren't the end-all-be-all, and Google news search isn't what it used to be, but it doesn't look like the language has caught on yet. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:50, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yet, when I looked at UK news sources last time this came up, the language was all over the place. I thought "let's have a look at the Daily Mail - if any paper's going to use the wording it will be them". However ... this search seems to suggest that "killed him/her/themself" is the most common, followed by "took his/her own life", as well as "died by suicide" and "committed suicide". There does seem to be some move to avoid it, so you have stuff like "He made a suicide leap from a cliff" or "he died after hanging himself deliberately". Black Kite (talk) 14:06, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What about this ngrams result showing a massive drop-off of "committed suicide"? Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:27, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Zooming in to just the current century, it looks like that phrase disappeared during the pandemic. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:16, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@WhatamIdoing: So actually it looks like both lines go to exactly zero starting sometime in 2020. My guess is that this is related less to covid than to the fact that you've chosen the corpus English (2019), whatever that means exactly. If you change the corpus to just English, "committed" still has nearly a 10x advantage on "died by" all the way to the end of the graph in 2022. --Trovatore (talk) 05:02, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for figuring out the source of those astonishing results! I thought that it was on the 2022 dataset, but I didn't double check. The relevant dataset shows "committed" becoming less popular around the pandemic, but still being more common. This link is better. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:52, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't remember where the 2019 corpus came from, but if you search
newspapers.com hits per year:
Kolya Butternut (talk) 06:11, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Those are interesting numbers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:33, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for compiling, interesting to note. Nisingh.8 (talk) 14:51, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Worth noting that these only appear to be British newspapers, and that "killed himself" numbers must be supplemented with "killed herself", "killed themselves" and perhaps others. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 15:09, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, noted they are not gender-neutral but even with just one phrase, the numbers indeed look similar or more than "commit suicide" which will only augment with other search phrases. Not a recommendation either way - just interesting notes Nisingh.8 (talk) 15:14, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I just wish that as much effort was expended on making life worth living as on the language used to describe suicide. I've been diagnosed with depression for over twenty years now, and still see lots of people thinking that if they only changed the language a bit then the associated issues would go away. The act is far more offensive than the language used to describe it. Phil Bridger (talk) 14:13, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • This again?? Noting that the proposer appears to have gotten in a dispute about their edits on this topic, opened this discussion, then proceeded to permanently quit the project (c.f. meta:Special:Redirect/logid/59150342). — xaosflux Talk 14:14, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    within at least 38 minutes of opening this section, it seems. why it was this fast is beyond me consarn (prison phone) (crime record) 14:46, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
ultimately, i oppose this, if mostly over the nitty gritty of mos:euph. saying that someone "died by suicide" implies the suicide happened to them (yes, i stole this from hbomberguy, sue me). similarly, expressions like "passed away", "passed on", and "was a side character in a grimdark story" are unclear, unfitting of the extremely plain wording used in articles, and generally just come off as trying to skirt around Just Saying The Thing™. "died", "was killed", and "committed suicide" are way easier to get. no opinion on "killed themself", aside from a slight preference towards "committed suicide", since it could probably make the wording of any given paragraph a little clunkier
also, i was gonna say wikipedia generally doesn't conform to a style on the sole or predominant basis that it'll offend the least people, but as it seems, people who have struggled with suicide seem to prefer just referring to it as that, so i guess this point would be kind of redundant here consarn (prison phone) (crime record) 14:44, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree; "committed suicide" not only follows MOS:EUPH(thank you so much for helping me remember the name of this policy. I accidentally used "WP:NOTCENSORED" instead), I believe that it is also less disrespectful Thehistorianisaac (talk) 14:49, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thing is, in comparison to other terms like "took their own life", "committed suicide" is not a euphemism, it had wide common usage to describe acts of suicide, and until recent use of terms like "died by suicide", had no alternate non-euphemism phrasing. Masem (t) 14:59, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Euphemism treadmill. Anomie⚔ 15:58, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's the thing, in time, it may be that something like "died by suicide" is the accepted wording that is not considered a euphemism, and "committed suicide" is, but we would need a clear consensus from a majority of style guides that "died by suicide" (or another phrase) is far more preferred to make that switch - we do not lead but follow changes in language. Masem (t) 17:04, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that "committed suicide" is not a euphemism, but "killed himself" is also not a euphemism. Therefore, there clearly was at least one alternate non-euphemism phrasing available before the advent of "died by suicide". Which, by the way, appeared in print no later than 1787, so that so-called "new" phrase, died by suicide, is about 250 years old.
"Killed himself" is the oldest option, largely because the word suicide itself only dates back to 1643.[4] The reason the word suicide doesn't appear in Shakespeare's works is because the word hadn't been invented back then.
In the Victorian era, the blunt "killed himself" appears to have become less common, and the formal "committed suicide" began to rise in use. The decline in popularity for "killed himself" might be due the Victorian era's preference for euphemisms, formality, and softening/distancing language over rough and ready language choices. If I were looking for non-euphemisms, I would not generally recommend starting with Victorian-era preferences. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:04, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Consarn, “killed themselves” is preferred to “committed” from a medical perspective if that’s more comfortable for you in your writing. Dw31415 (talk) 14:13, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wondering whether the objection is to the word “committed” or to using the word “suicide” itself? Blueboar (talk) 16:08, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I believe the objection is to "committed". The argument is that this is generally used for crimes - "committed murder" - or sins - "committed adultery" - and therefore is unhelpful and pejorative way to use in the context of suicide. (It is probably worth noting that, historically, suicide has been considered both a crime and a sin - people who killed themselves could not be buried in Roman Catholic cemeteries until the 1980s, and suicide is still a felony in at least one US state.)
    While I'd agree with this objection in principle, I believe "committed" also remains the most common way to refer to the act of suicide in common English, which tends to be Wikipedia's guide for usage. (And, along similar lines to the etymological fallacy, it is not always fair to assume that because a phrasing is likely to have a particular origin, it still necessarily carries all the same implications.)
    My inclination is that MOS:SUICIDE currently sets roughly the right balance, in not outright banning "committed", but suggesting caution, and providing other phrasings that may be more appropriate. But I wouldn't object to a stronger discouragement if others felt it necessary. TSP (talk) 17:22, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, the objection is to "committed". Public health experts want people to talk about suicide, and to use the word suicide. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:08, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I was leaning one way but Googled and found an NPR article title Outdated language that changed my mind. It states:

    The Associated Press Stylebook guides journalists to "avoid using the phrase committed suicide. Alternate phrases include killed himself, took her own life or died by suicide. The verb commit with suicide can imply a criminal act. Laws against suicide have been repealed in the United States and many other places."

    I see no reason not to use this logic in my wording and will attempt to change my language surrounding the topic. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 17:31, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we should use the term committed. They chose to commit the act and successfully killed themselves. 🇺🇦 FiddleTimtrent FaddleTalk to me 🇺🇦 21:12, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Which completely misses the point of the general usage of the word "committed" in this context (see the comment immediately above yours). Black Kite (talk) 21:51, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It seems weird to me that "died by suicide" isn't being seen as a neutral term. It's a simple statement that they died and the cause of death was suicide. If there's more to say, we can say it. "After a long battle with worsening schitzophrenia, he died by suicide."; "He applied for and received euthanasia on December 2012."; "After killing his wife and child, he killed himself, in what has been described as a 'typical murder-suicide'."; or, for a practical example from Ludwig Boltzmann, "In May 1906, Boltzmann's deteriorating mental condition (described in a letter by the Dean as "a serious form of neurasthenia") forced him to resign his position. His symptoms indicate he experienced what might today be diagnosed as bipolar disorder. Four months later he died by suicide on 5 September 1906, by hanging himself while on vacation with his wife and daughter in Duino, near Trieste (then Austria)."

I don't see how using "committed" in any of these examples would add anything. We're not adding some subtle variation of meaning; you need more words than either "died by" or "committed" to have any real nuance of meaning. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.9% of all FPs. 22:11, 21 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Adam, I think that sometimes editors prefer the disapproval inherent in "committed". One book calls it "a whiff of criminality", and talks about the transition from society disapproving of suicide because it's a sin to society disapproving of suicide because it's a sign of "insanity". There are several comments above about "died by" seeming too passive, whereas "committed" means the person made intentional choices. I think sometimes we want to blame the dead person. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:16, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WAID is, politely and circumspectly, referring to me; she knows that I think we should try to choose language that deters suicide.—S Marshall T/C 00:25, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think she's referring only to you.
To the extent that she may be referring to me, I'd like to clarify that, for me, it is not about blame. The person made a choice. Perhaps I'd have preferred a different choice, but this is fact-dependent. In any case I was not in a position to make the decision; that person was, and made it. This is entirely separate from "blame", which assumes at the very least that the choice was wrong, a fact not in evidence. --Trovatore (talk) 02:14, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The issue here might not be neutrality, but the way language correlates to other descriptions of deaths. "Died by X" implies a specific means, but "suicide" is a manner of death. "Died by homicide" for example is sometimes used, but to me it reads similarly strangely. I suspect there will be a lot of personal variation around what language sounds natural. CMD (talk) 01:41, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, suicide is a specific means. "died from being stabbed", "died by heart attack", "died by suicide". Again, though, I don't understand the argument that "committed" is neutral, but "died by" is somehow a non-neutral term. It would seem to be the exact reverse. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.9% of all FPs. 12:29, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Suicide is not a specific means. It is a word that identifies the relationship between the person responsible for the death and the person who died, much like other -cide words. CMD (talk) 12:37, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You wouldn't say "committed homicide" to indicate they died by homicide, though. I'm not seeing any sort of valid argument as to why "died by suicide" shouldn't be considered a neutral, default wording, nor any real argument in favour of "committed". There are cases where we could perhaps avoid either version, e.g. "He hung himself, a suicide", but it feels like "died by suicide" usually flows better with other details. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.9% of all FPs. 18:20, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Committed homicide" is a very common phrase? Why wouldn't someone say it? CMD (talk) 02:01, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If Mary died of homicide, you wouldn't say "Mary committed homicide." If John died of fratricide, you wouldn't say "John committed fratricide." 22:38, 23 March 2025 (UTC) Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.9% of all FPs. 22:38, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But you would say that "John committed homicide when he killed Mary". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:44, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Because homicide is generally considered a crime. People don't use "committed" with "-cide" words that are not crimes - "The cleaner went into the bathroom and committed germicide", "the farmer committed pesticide", "the condom committed spermicide". TSP (talk) 11:56, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If someone were to use any of those -cide words with a meaning of "the act of killing X" rather than "a substance for killing X", I'd expect "committed" would be likely to be used. Google does return results for these "commit" phrases, although many at first glance seem like people being humorous rather than serious use (likely because "the act of killing X" isn't common English usage for any of these words in the first place). Anomie⚔ 12:06, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Because pesticides and germicides are substances, unlike homocide and suicide which are actions. The term 'committed feticide' is used, even in relation to animals: [5] Traumnovelle (talk) 03:48, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break - !voting

  • Absolutely no "Committed" Per S Marshall, while most people no longer know this, it originally implied "committed the sin of suicide". In 2025, Christians and RSes agree that the suicidal are primarily sufferers of organic medical conditions, not 'committing a sin'. As an aside, it's a very good sign that we've reached an era where people can even debate whether "committing suicide" is a stigmatizing phrase. It always was. Feoffer (talk) 12:56, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Wasn't there was also the legal aspect, i.e. committing the crime of suicide? I'm not sure I've seen any evidence that all Christian denominations have agreed that. Also, many RSs still use "committed"? Martinevans123 (talk) 13:15, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure, the civil law aspect of it was a big deal too. But "committed" is certainly archaic, outdated language. Feoffer (talk) 13:18, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The NYT was still using it in 2021 and the BBC in 2012? Martinevans123 (talk) 10:08, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Committing imply neither of those things. I highly doubt the catholic church gives much of a fuck when someone commits code to GitHub. Here it simply means 'to carry out', i.e. to have done. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:19, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You're using the wrong definition of commit. Maybe the etymology will help: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/committo#Latin Kolya Butternut (talk) 00:51, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That definition is not reliable or complete. I do not see anything there that would explain how I might have committed something to memory. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 03:53, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That's the second meaning of commit, which is more or less 'to pledge'. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:36, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Uh, right. Well, so much for me helping your case. 😂 Also, it was somewhere around the fifth meaning of commit where I finally clicked on it, but thank you for the heads up regardless. 👍 Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 06:30, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I should add, I make this mistake all the time, writing "committed" instead of "died by". But I'm always happy when other editors correct me, so please, keep it up. Feoffer (talk) 13:15, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    while most people no longer know this - so why is it an issue? It's not stigmatic if it's not actually associated that way. The phrase "press someone for information" comes from the act of squishing someone to death with rocks until they enter a plea, but that doesn't mean that the current phrase has the same archaic connotations today. BugGhost 🦗👻 15:56, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with BugGhost here, I would argue that people no longer associate it with the above argument and that, overall it is a less stigmatizing phrase then any other term. Thehistorianisaac (talk) 18:24, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Not enthusiastic about the use of the word "committed", would still go with what the balance of sourcing says tho since that's what we usually try and do.Selfstudier (talk) 18:47, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Commit" is a neutral verb. What you commit makes it good or bad or something in between. Yes, you can commit a crime or a sin, but you can also commit a good deed. That is the same usage of the verb "commit". Phil Bridger (talk) 18:56, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • To be honest, I think he committed a good deed sounds pretty odd. It's not one of the usual meanings of "commit".
      That said, I don't hear this implication of nefariousness that others do in "commit suicide". It's a fixed phrase; the notion of sin or crime has been lost, at least to my ear. --Trovatore (talk) 19:01, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "He committed a good deed" sounds perfectly natural to me. Maybe the difference is geographical or generational - I am English and in my sixties. I certainly agree with the rest of your statement. The notion of sin or crime has been lost, if it was ever there. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:14, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I linked an article above that states the Associated Press Stylebook states "The verb commit with suicide can imply a criminal act." It is safe to say it isn't considered purely neutral. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 19:21, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Phil, I am American but of a similar age bracket… and “He committed a good deed” is normal for me. So not national, but perhaps generational. Blueboar (talk) 19:25, 22 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I put "committed a good deed" (exact quoted phrase) into Google, and it gave me just 50 hits (counted by clicking through the search results pages) on the web and about half that in Google Books (counted by looking for the phrase in the search result snippet). That is not apparently a common phrase. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:58, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    In my experience "commit a good deed" is a unique and ironic use. From a journal article: Commit seems to have an overwhelming bias for unpleasant collocates; however, a Google search for “commit a good deed” returned more than 30,000 hits. On the other hand, the 400-million-word Corpus of Contemporary American English returned no hits for this, suggesting that the hits on the web may reflect non-native use or “experimental” use...? (footnote on page 167) [6] Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:51, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I found that the ghits listed at the top of the page had a very insignificant relationship to the number of actual results offered on the page. The estimate of 30,000 ghits turned out to be almost exactly 50 actual pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:18, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If you must count Google hits then that is not the way to do it. If I type "Donald Trump" into Google and click though the results I get 299 pages. Do you really believe that "Donald Trump" has only been mentioned 299 times on the Internet? Google truncates its results to 1000 and then eliminates duplicates, so you will never see more than 1000 results and the number is only an indication of how many duplicates there are in the first 1000 hits, nothing connected to the total number of hits. Phil Bridger (talk) 15:59, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Truncating results at 1,000 would not affect a search that returns only 5% of that limit. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:19, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You are completely misunderstanding the results. I said truncating at 1000 and then eliminating duplicates. Google estimates that there are about 30,000 hits, truncates this at 1000, and then elimates 950 of them as duplicates. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:00, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    So 95% of the hits are duplicates? If applied to 30K ghits, that would suggest just 1,500 real sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:38, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    All this shows is that counting Google hits is an absurd way of making any decision. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:46, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Committed" does have some criminal connotations in some situations. Died by suicide is passive in a way that flows very badly. A better alternative is simply "killed him/her/themself" but for some people that seems too informal. I prefer the latter personally. But probably all can be used, it should be judged case by case. My main gripe is when people try to apply the avoidance of the committed suicide phrase to criminal cases, where people will sometimes try to replace it with the more passive phrasing. So you will get an article that says someone murdered 7 people and then died by suicide - extremely jarring when it involves murder-suicides. And at that point the criminal implication is not really wrong. But that is probably niche. PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:51, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I also think that case-by-case judgment is the best approach.
    Also: I oppose edit warring to keep disputed language in any article. This should not be a controversial position. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:00, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The issue is that some verbiage needs to be in the article to convey the information. In most edit wars, all variants are disputed yet one of them has to be there, if only as an interim. 184.152.65.118 (talk) 04:58, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    In most edit wars, only committed and died by are disputed. In my experience, if you show up to a dispute like that and suggest any third option, everyone is open to that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:41, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The slight variant died of is also frequently disputed, but either way most is not all, hence the difficulty. 184.152.65.118 (talk) 22:20, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    But probably all can be used, it should be judged case by case. Agreed. Died by suicide sounds better in some cases (e.g. According to Police Headquarters 11,095 people died by suicide in Bangladesh in 2017), while committed suicide sounds better in others (e.g. In order to avoid being captured alive, Mir Jafar committed suicide by drinking poison.) Some1 (talk) 03:18, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The term "commit suicide" implies tha an offense was committed, i.e., suicide. Per neutrality, Wikipedia should not determine whether or not suicide is an offense. In Canada for example only attempted suicide is an offense. Notice that no one says that articles should say that someone committed homicide, since homicide is not always an offense. Let's follow what reliable sources say and ignore the anti-woke extremist criticism. TFD (talk) 03:12, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The term "commit" implies that a negative action happened. Nothing more, and nothing less really. I sympathize with those who are saying that the term "commit suicide" is "negative" - because it is negative. But to try and say that "commit" implies a crime.. that's absurd to me - I agree with Phil in this thread. It's not "anti woke extremist" to use the actual definition of words. Sure, Wiktionary isn't a reliable source, but per definition 4 of the verb: "(transitive) To do (something bad); to perpetrate, as a crime, sin, or fault" (bolding mine). Notice that it even gives an example beyond "crime" or "sin" of "fault" - or are we saying it's completely normal, fine, and good/neutral to commit suicide? As someone who has had mental health problems in the past (and still does, to an extent, though I'm in a much better place now than if you asked me years ago), I find this sort of trying to rewrite the English language to be at best virtue signalling, and at worst akin to whitewashing. Bluntly, if people read the phrase "commit suicide" (in any form) and feel a negative connotation to it, good. Suicide is not a positive thing, and it should not be treated as a positive/neutral thing - especially not by changing away from a word with a negative connotation. There are many other ways to help those who have mental health problems rather than trying to prevent them from feeling like suicide has a negative connotation - and in fact, trying to diminish the negative connotation with committing suicide hurts. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 04:20, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Suicide was traditionally considered a sin in Christianity and was illegal in most English-speaking countries until the 20th century. That's the origin of the phrase "commit suicide" in English. It's also what I assume most people here are referring to when they talk its negative connotations, rather than just the general sense of death being a sad thing (which is of course preserved in the phrase "killed themselves"). – Joe (talk) 18:55, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My impression is that the suicide prevention experts are concerned that "suicide is bad" leads directly to "so I won't seek help for my suicidal thoughts, because I don't want people to think I'm bad". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:14, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm woke and.... At first I wrote "proud" there, but then I realised that not going through life fast asleep is not really something to be particularly proud of. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:21, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Absolutely no "Committed". As someone affected by suicide, I find it highly offensive to ignore the reality of how precipitously and demonstrably "committed suicide" has become universally disapproved of by style guides and RS over the past ten years. In 2015 the Associated Press states in part:

Suicide stories, when written, should not go into detail on methods used. Avoid using committed suicide except in direct quotations from authorities. Alternate phrases include killed himself, took her own life or died by suicide..."Committed in that context suggests possibly an illegal act, but in fact, laws against suicide have been repealed in the US, at least in certain states, and many other places".

Columbia Journalism Review The American Heritage Dictionary also advises against "committed".[7] The dictionary definition of "commit" in this sense clearly has negative connotations, in violation of WP:NPOV, which "cannot be superseded by editor consensus." Also per MOS:MED#Careful language, "Choose appropriate words when describing medical conditions and their effects on people". Appropriate means medically accurate and not expressing negative/disparaging attitudes. Lastly, we have our own style guidelines; we do not use the style of the RS which we happen to cite, per Wikipedia:Specialized-style fallacy (reliable sources style fallacy). Kolya Butternut (talk) 05:48, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You state The dictionary definition of "commit" in this sense clearly has negative connotations, in violation of WP:NPOV, which "cannot be superseded by editor consensus." Are you claiming that killing yourself is not something that should have a "negative connotation[]"? -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 06:27, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The negative connotations are specific:
  1. Cambridge Dictionary: "to do something illegal or something that is considered wrong", for example: "She tried to commit suicide by slashing her wrists." [8]
  2. Lexico: "Perpetrate or carry out (a mistake, crime, or immoral act)", for example: "he committed an uncharacteristic error". [9]
  3. American Heritage Dictionary: "To do, perform, or perpetrate", for example: "commit a murder". [10]
  4. Wiktionary: "To do (something bad); to perpetrate, as a crime, sin, or fault", for example: "to commit murder". [11]
  5. Chambers Dictionary: "to carry out or perpetrate (a crime, offence, error, etc)." [12]
Kolya Butternut (talk) 06:59, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
1. "or something that is considered wrong" - are you saying it is not "considered wrong" to kill one's self?
2. "Perpetrate or carry out (a mistake...)" Are you saying it is not a mistake to kill one's self?
3. Doesn't even implicate it as wrong, so I'm not going to respond to this.
4. I already responded to this in my response.
5. "error" - again, are you claiming it's not an error to kill one's self?
This is abhorrent. You're making the argument that it's not wrong to kill one's self. And sure, it may be okay in very specific, limited circumstances (such as if one has an uncurable, terminal illness), but the vast majority of circumstances it is still a negative thing. If anything, your sources show that it is not a word that means "a crime", but merely "anything bad". So to argue that "commit" is inappropriate, you are arguing that committing suicide is not bad at all, ever.
And that is something that I, as someone who has suffered from mental illness and has actually attempted suicide before, cannot stand behind. To try and tell me, who fortunately failed to commit suicide the two times I tried to do so, that it was not negative for me to try that... I'm going to stop now, because I don't have a response to this that is civil. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 07:05, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Suicidal people's feelings on this are not monolithic, and you do not know my story. But the negative connotations are very specific in this case; The verb commit is associated with crime (in the justice system) and sin (in religion).[13] Kolya Butternut (talk) 07:42, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What I'm taking from this conversation is that most of us would prefer language that deters suicide, but there's dispute about whether "commit" is the most effective deterring word. It seems to me that "commit" is more likely to deter those who are worried about crime or sin, and less likely to deter a secular person who isn't concerned about the law because they don't intend to survive.
I think this is a very serious problem that would benefit from a lot more thought.
Rather than focusing on this one word "commit", can we instead discuss more broadly how we describe suicide in Wikipedia articles? I've begun thinking about this at User:S Marshall/Essay3 and would welcome more input.—S Marshall T/C 09:12, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hello @S Marshall, I just made some contributions to the essay started at Wikipedia:Committed suicide. Please take a look at that too. Dw31415 (talk) 13:54, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If I am reading it correct, I think the argument is not to actively deter suicide but to make it less stigmatic - ie. there is a claim that there is a determent in the phrase "committed suicide" due to the word "comitted", and it makes those who feel suicidal feel alienated and othered. I disagree with this line of reasoning, but I think this is the argument. BugGhost 🦗👻 15:05, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is not an easy topic area to discuss - for those of us with personal histories with the subject, it can be incredibly difficult. Speaking to nobody in particular, let's try to WP:AGF here and not accuse people who disagree with you of advocating suicide, or trying to make people who attempt suicide seem like bad people. Let's also not assume what the other person's experiences with the subject matter might be - once you do that, then it puts the other person in the awkward position where they either can't engage further, or they have to disclose something sensitive in a very public and permanent way. If anybody feels like they can't do that, then it's their responsibility to disengage and let others carry on the conversation. I say that without any judgement, as that's what I've been doing and will continue to do for these types of conversations. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 09:50, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for politely pointing this out. I read this shortly after you posted it. I have avoided commenting here again because I didn't want to inflame things more. I would like to apologize if anyone felt I was attacking them - I wasn't trying to. It's just as someone who has been personally affected by suicide (myself, and close friends) I have strong opinions on this sort of change that people seem to think does something big but doesn't actually. I have stepped back away from this conversation, and am only responding to thank User:GreenLipstickLesbian for their polite "calling out" of me for my comments here. If anyone has any specific questions for me on this matter, please ping me directly and I'll try my best to respond if I can do so without becoming emotional - but otherwise, I don't intend to respond to this topic further as I don't think I'll be helpful.
Just to be clear, I do not have any ill will towards anyone here - I do believe everyone is contributing in good faith. And yes, GLL, I know you weren't responding to me alone/directly, but I wanted to apologize to everyone here for how emotional I got in the responses I made. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 04:56, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to echo this: this sort of change that people seem to think does something big but doesn't. If you are making a choice between "He committed suicide" vs a blow-by-blow description of everything that happened during the last hour of his life, then the latter is much more damaging. WP:NOTHOWTO is extremely important. By comparison, avoiding "commit" language is a nice-to-have. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:22, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So to argue that "commit" is inappropriate, you are arguing that committing suicide is not bad at all, ever: Perhaps use neutral language that does not indiscriminately pass judgement. —Bagumba (talk) 23:30, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that neutral, non-indiscriminately-judgmental language would mean usually avoiding the "commit" wording, but not in every situation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:56, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I find it very odd that someone can find "killed themselves" better than "committed suicide". I can very easily imagine an alternate reality where people are pushing to remove the phrase "killed themselves" because it implies the subject is a "killer", which has blatently obvious negative connotations, and replace it with the more formal and neutral "committed suicide".
"Committed suicide" may have etymology based in religion or law, but languages evolve and those connotations no longer exist day-to-day, except to those who navel gaze about style guides. People don't consider committing code, comitting resources, committing to a task, committing yourself to something, comitting good deeds, etc etc to be sins or crimes just due to the word commit.
Either way, like I said above, we should just stick to whatever the sources say in a case by case basis. BugGhost 🦗👻 11:20, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's some suggestion above that the "alternate reality" is our own past, noting that "killed himself" dropped in popularity in favor of "committed suicide" back in Victorian times. Now we have people taking offense at the verb "commit" in what has become a somewhat fixed phrase. Every once in a while one such person finds their way here to try to advocate for language change, there's a lot of argument, and in the end if there's any conclusion it's "follow the sources" because there aren't enough on the advocacy side to override our existing policies that say that. Anomie⚔ 13:29, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What is the policy basis for following the style of the sources? Kolya Butternut (talk) 13:52, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
None whatsoever. Our articles have to mean what the sources mean; but they don't have to say what the sources say, and they shouldn't. Our job is to summarize the reliable sources in WP:OUROWNWORDS.—S Marshall T/C 17:03, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Can just go with suicided then, dictionaries seem to accept as verb. Selfstudier (talk) 18:24, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Suicided is used colloquially to mean that someone was murdered and their death was made to look like a suicide; see the first three entries of 'suicided' on the Urban Dictionary [14]. Some1 (talk) 19:04, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Soft no - We should strive for clear, non-euphemistic language. "Committed suicide" is euphemistic, "killed [himself/herself/themselves]" is a more straightforward, less linguistically clunky description of the act. Similar reasoning as "passed away" vs. "died." Gnomingstuff (talk) 14:08, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    But if I jump off a building thinking I could fly, then I have killed myself but have not committed suicide, which includes intent. The difference matters. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 17:07, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I had a family member who, during the COVID lockdown, killed themselves during a dementia-induced incident in a very similar fashion to what you're describing. They did not have intent, but it was ruled a suicide regardless. ⇒SWATJester Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat! 17:32, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    First off, I am sorry to hear about those tragic circumstances.
    Having said that, not only our article on suicide, but all the dictionaries I quickly find (including M-W, American Heritage, law.com, The Law Dictionary speak to intent in the primary definition. NIMH, CDC, and WHO agree. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 18:26, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Applying "theory" (like definitions) to complex circumstances can be quite difficult, especially since the coroner/official can't actually know what was going on in the person's mind. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:34, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think Nat's is the main argument against "killed himself" sorry, I can't bring myself to write themself, and themselves doesn't seem quite right. And it does have some merit.
      But it's a fairly fine distinction. "Committed suicide" definitely denotes intention; "killed himself" almost denotes intention. If I ski down a run that's too hard for me and fall off a cliff, have I killed myself? It isn't the way you'd usually put it.
      I think if we use "killed himself" it will usually be clear from context that it wasn't an accident. --Trovatore (talk) 18:30, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      It depends on context doesn't it? And we need different words to describe different kinds of context. Sometimes it will be appropriate and others it won't. An outright ban censoring certain words just because they don't work in the wrong context seems quite absurd to me. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 21:13, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      To be clear, I'm not arguing for a ban on anything. I'm just saying that I find the argument that "killed himself" allows the possibility of accident to be — of some merit, but not very much.
      ("Killed himself" can also be awkward grammatically in more complex constructions, because of the way anaphora works in English. I found this out when I tried to fix the language in Carlo Michelstaedter. It now says One of his friends from Florence, a Russian woman, had also killed herself, as had a brother who lived in America, which I find a little clunky because of the interaction between "herself" and "a brother". But this doesn't seem like a terribly serious problem either.) --Trovatore (talk) 22:03, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Yes, I understood this. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 22:05, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I quite like the idea of bundling this into an essay/guideline on writing about death (if we don't already have one) – "strive for clear, non-euphemistic language" could be the nutshell. Talking about terminal illness as a "battle", "struggle", etc. could be added to the list of language to avoid. – Joe (talk) 18:45, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I loathe the "battle" language for serious illness. See also MOS:CLICHE for the general case and especially (in this context) MOS:SUICIDE for any article saying something like "lost his battle with depression". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:38, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That is something that we can agree on. The use of such language implies that those who didn't "battle bravely" against cancer or whatever are somehow at fault. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:00, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    We would never say that someone "committed assisted suicide", would we? As with the recent news about Daniel Kahneman, we'd say "died by assisted suicide". Which kind of begs the question why not also "died by suicide"? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:11, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This has been discussed; see the 2021 RFC mentioned at MOS:SUICIDE. There is no reason to change the wording from "committed suicide". The person has made a commitment to carry out a specific act of their intent. As one editor said in the aforementioned RFC, "This (committed suicide) is a standard phrase in most varieties of English, and it's not the job of Wikipedia to enforce a particular form of language" or add unnecessary verbiage. Also see the RFC: "Committed suicide" language, here on Village pump from January 2021. As stated in the summary of the conclusions reached, "The result is to not change policy, which allows 'commit suicide', therefore no change is needed". There is no need for a passive euphemism. Kierzek (talk) 00:33, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Died by is passive and indicates it was an outside force enacting the action, which is true for assisted suicide, but misleading when it comes to suicide proper. The passivity is also just extremely poor writing. PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:42, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "Died by" is not the Passive voice in English, nor is it a euphemism. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:03, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I meant passive not in the grammatical sense but in the sense of being subject to another's actions, in that it creates something of an oxymoron, because died by indicates an outside force acting on an individual, something that happens to someone, when suicide is someone deciding to do something to themself. PARAKANYAA (talk) 05:44, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I've been reading that some surviving family members latch on to the concept of choice as a way of comforting themselves: "I'm sad that he chose suicide, but at least it was his choice, and he was still in control".
    In the case of serious mental illness, most experts reject their POV. The expert POV is closer to "Suicide is a fatal complication/outcome of depression combined with alcohol overuse. It is actually fairer and more accurate to say that this person was killed by the disease of depression and alcohol use disorder, and not through their own free-will choice".
    In the minority of cases unrelated to frank mental illness (e.g., a terminally ill patient following the physician-assisted suicide process), there is certainly a significant element of choice. But I would caution editors against assuming that this element is always significant. To say that we know that suicide deaths are never primarily "something that happens to someone" is essentially to say that Wikipedia editors' personal opinions are more important and more accurate than the reliable sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:42, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Regardless of how much agency suicide is the action of taking one’s own life, and so however you may interpret the general sequence of events leading to it as influenced by one’s psychological state describing it as something done to you is oxymoronic. PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:02, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I’m not arguing for never using it but I’m trying to illustrate why it is my most disliked option personally. “Killed himself”, in contrast, is straightforward. PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:07, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, that's your personal opinion. The reliable sources disagree with you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:07, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not sure that "died by assisted suicide" was considered in that 2021 RFC? Martinevans123 (talk) 11:56, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Besides the linguistic ambiguity noted above, people tend to prefer died by suicide in the cases where they want to avoid committed suicide, but I think that is worse. I suppose “killed himself/herself” is seen as direct to the point of offensiveness. I think it’s probably the best for cases where a criminal implication would be inappropriate (e.g not in the course of crimes) even if it’s ambiguous PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:46, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    There are many ways to write about suicide attempts and deaths, and our tendency to reduce it to just two (committed/died by) or just three (committed/died by/killed self) is a mental trap we need to avoid.
    You could, for example, write "He died in Smallville on [date]" (just like you would for any other manner of death), and then add "The cause of death was suicide" (just like we have written "The cause of death was cancer" or whatever in over a thousand articles, including a few dozen for suicide deaths). MOS:SUICIDE offers a handful of suggestions, but there are dozens or hundreds of possibilities here. Don't get stuck on just two or three of them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:20, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, if you decide to write it an overly drawn out manner you can dodge the issue, but your example as given just seems clumsy to me whether in the suicide context or not.
    And saying it as the cause equates it with the physical cause of death, e.g. poisoning shooting drowning. Suicide is not the cause, it is the action of dying by one's own hand. PARAKANYAA (talk) 05:48, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    There are ways to say it that aren't "overly drawn out". "Killed themself" is briefest, but for example "took their own life" is still shorter and fewer syllables than "committed suicide", and uses simpler words too.—S Marshall T/C 10:15, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    “Took their own life” is definitely euphemistic, much as passed away is. PARAKANYAA (talk) 17:58, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Which still leaves the problem of things like infoboxes where we need a 2 or 3 word phrase for a cause of death. Masem (t) 11:56, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "Suicide" or "suicide by hanging" for the infobox. In the body it could say "his death was a suicide". Actual method of suicide is discouraged unless it is noteworthy. Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:21, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with Kolya. First, consider not putting it in the infobox at all, unless it's a significant part of the person's life story. It is normal and officially preferred (see Template:Infobox person/doc) to omit |death_cause= from the infobox unless the death is part of the person's notability (e.g., a "Murder of ____" article, or a cancer activist). Second, if you do need to include it in the infobox, then just write |death_cause =Suicide. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:53, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Suicide is a relatively rare cause of death.This 2002 source suggests that in "... Christian countries (e.g. Italy), the total suicide rate is around 10 per 100,000". Martinevans123 (talk) 18:00, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    this is where i think wp:notcensored comes in. if something needs to be less direct just to be less offensive to some people, i don't think we should cater to them, especially if it comes at the expense of grammar. this applies to unfortunate cases like death just as much as it does to petty cases of someone's favorite character being known for porn (gardevoir, twilight sparkle, sidon, the onceler...), and everything in between. this is why i think that if a consensus is to be reached to use clunky wording like "died by..." or "the cause of death was...", there needs to be a way better argument than appealing to feelings that ultimately might not even be widespread enough to warrant a wiki-wide change
    this is why i don't oppose (exact words, since i'm not in much of a rush to actively support it either) the use of "commit", because... it's functionally just a synonym of "do", regardless of whether or not it's associated with sin (whatever that is this week) or crime
    yes, i know this is just the "facts don't care about feelings" argument but lazily repackaged, shush consarn (prison phone) (crime record) 11:15, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    it's functionally just a synonym of "do" - it's not, though? It's not used like that in any other context. "I'm just going to commit some shopping," "I committed a five mile run this morning", "he went into the garden to commit pesticide"?
    This seems like the opposite of "facts don't care about feelings". "Died by suicide" or "killed themselves" has all the facts. "Committed" adds feelings.
    "Not censored" means we don't hide the facts; it doesn't mean we add judgement to them. It's like putting "[Politician], a complete idiot" at the top of their article then complaining it's censorship if someone removes it. TSP (talk) 12:24, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    However, the other side of the coin is that WP does not lead shifts in the use of language, we must follow the broader trends. And the issue at play is that while newer style guides have suggested moving away from "committed", there's no broad trend that all style guides have moved from that, and in practical use "committed suicide" is still seen as the neutral term. Masem (t) 12:29, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That is a stronger argument, yes; but if it's already being suggested by at least some major style guides, Wikipedia is hardly leading the shift if it does the same. We can balance both arguments - we should aim for neutral, encyclopedic phrasing, while also not inventing neologisms not found elsewhere or adopting obscure phrasings.
    In this case, is "died by" more neutral than "committed"? Yes, as shown by other uses of "committed". Is "died by" an unacceptably obscure neologism? No, it's already being suggested in other style guides.
    We don't have to show that it's more neutral AND that it's the majority usage. It's sufficient to show that it's more neutral, and is a mainstream usage. TSP (talk) 13:46, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Where are you seeing "commit suicide" in professional writing in the last two years to suggest it is still not discouraged by any style guides? Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:28, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Masem, if memory serves, every time we have this discussion, you make these two claims:
    • That Wikipedia should follow, not lead, language trends.
    • That some unspecified style guide somewhere still prefers the older version.
    Garner's Modern English Usage, which is one of the style guides that the WP:MOS is based on, directly says that the "committed" language has been discouraged by style guides since 2000. Accepting that advice a quarter century(!) later cannot be described as "leading the shift in the use of language" with a straight face. Let's focus on that date: twenty-five years. We have many editors for whom this is literally their entire lives. This is not an example of "leading" change.
    Also: I echo Kolya's question. What style guides actually support this outdated language? Can you find anything in, say, the last decade? I've read a lot of style guides, and I'm not finding support for this language. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:04, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    a little late to note, but... does it really add feelings? it at best only implies that it wasn't something done on the side or by accident, like stubbing your toe on your way to the bathroom or buying salami to go with your cheese, but something someone actively focused on doing (which i really doubt wouldn't be case, ever). you could argue that it can be used in emotionally charged ways (specifically to imply bad law stuff or bad religion stuff)... but "can be" pretty much reduces the possibility of determining an "is" to a case by case basis, and even then, it might still be subject to different interpretations. there certainly are good arguments that can be used against this wording (see whatamidoing's just above me :flushed:), i just don't think this is one of them consarn (prison phone) (crime record) 18:57, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You say "can be". In what non-crime, non-sin contexts is this phrasing used?
    The relevant OED definition is II.9.a. 1445– transitive. To carry out (a reprehensible act); to perpetrate (a crime, sin, offence, etc.). Cf. to commit suicide
    This is not the same as, for example, to commit to something. As far as I, and the OED, know, "commit [action]" is only used in the context of crimes and sins (or in humorous pretence of it); or in reference to suicide (which was historically considered both of these). TSP (talk) 19:19, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    as ironic as this may sound, in the latter case. regardless of its previous associations, "commit" is indeed used to refer to suicide. this is ideally where this reasoning begins and ends consarn (prison phone) (crime record) 20:51, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I've thought about it, and it seems to me that there is a grammatical reason for this that is incidental: the class of nouns that CAN be combined with commit: i.e., nouns that describe an act or action, that are uncountable - tend to be restricted to offences of various kinds, and to suicide. I cannot think of any nouns that are uncountable, and are actions/acts, that are not a type off offence, other than, nowadays, suicide.

    Which I think, if anything, any implication is a result of suicide's noun class than the function word "commit" that's only purpose is a function word that must be used with that class of nouns. So the meaning isn't in the word connor, it is just that the nouns that fall into the class of nouns that get paired with commit just HAPPEN to almost all be offences. 73.48.233.128 (talk) 20:54, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    What about: “He committed a good deed” or “She committed an act of kindness”? Sure, almost all are offenses… but that almost means that there are exceptions. That is important. Blueboar (talk) 21:03, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That is a new and ironic use. Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:00, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think I've ever heard that said - there was a suggestion upthread that it was a solely American usage? - but nevertheless, as WhatamIdoing says, even if it is said, that's not quite the same grammatical structure. Committed murder, committed adultery, committed suicide. A counter-example would be something like "He committed driving", "He committed authorship".
    This possibility is actually covered in the Oxford English Dictionary - while definition II.9.a. is transitive. To carry out (a reprehensible act); to perpetrate (a crime, sin, offence, etc.). Cf. to commit suicide, definition II.11. is transitive. humorous and ironic. To do (something likened by the speaker to a crime or offence). Cf. perpetrate v. 3. - e.g. The saint once..imprudently committed a miracle (from Gibbons' The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire).
    The construction is so distinctive that it can be used with non-crime actions, to humorously suggest that they were considered to be crimes.
    And to answer Consarn, the entire point of this argument is that the only things this phrasing is used for, apart from suicide, are crimes and sins; therefore to use it for suicide is to put it into that group. Suicide itself can't be your counter-example. TSP (talk) 10:52, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Again, “She committed an act of kindness” or “He committed a good deed” shows that it isn’t only for crimes and sins. Blueboar (talk) 12:21, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    As I've said elsewhere, I don't think I've ever heard that terminology, but I do see some Google hits for it.
    However, that is not quite the same piece of grammar. (I realise this also goes for "committed a miracle" above, so maybe that wasn't the best example.) "Committed a X" is not entirely the same as "Committed X". TSP (talk) 14:36, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    One can commit a poem to memory? Not sure that's particularly negative. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:37, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    See also Involuntary commitment. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:00, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, "commit", like many common English words, has lots of meanings and can be used in many different ways - you can commit to a course of action, you can commit some code to a source repository, you can commit something or someone to someone's care, you can commit someone to prison or to psychiatric care, you can commit something to memory, you can commit troops to a military action. OED lists sixteen distinct ways the word "commit" can be used.
    But the specific usage here, as I cited above, is II.9.a To carry out (a reprehensible act); to perpetrate (a crime, sin, offence, etc.). Cf. to commit suicide - and as far as I can see is the only "commit [act]" usage, and is only used for crimes, sins, and suicide. TSP (talk) 15:08, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "Committing a poem" – committing any countable noun, or committing any object – is a different grammatical construction. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:09, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Uncountable nouns that represent acts include aggression, perambulation, and speech. One can "commit aggression", but it's an offense.
    Also, most gerunds (driving, walking, speaking...) could be used grammatically, but we'd normally change the grammar: "He committed the act of driving", rather than "He committed driving". Also, you'd expect that sentence to end with something indicating that this was a problem, such as "even though the judge revoked his driver's license last month". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:24, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That sounds like a crime, or at least a protocrime? Martinevans123 (talk) 15:01, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes. As the OED points out, "commit [action]" implies that the action is a bad thing, and carries this implication so strongly that it can be used ironically. The literary power in the phrase "commit random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty" exists because the "commit" wording implies that there is something radical and deviant about being kind and creating beauty. If the author had exhorted us merely to "perform random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty", nobody would have remembered the phrase. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:13, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Not unless one had committed it to memory, perhaps. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:16, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah! I hadn't realised that - I had been curious that some people had been citing "commit an act of kindness" as a counter-example, and I could find examples of that online, but it didn't seem to fit any of the OED definitions and I couldn't work out why it existed.
    The phrase WhatamIdoing quotes puts it in context. It was originally OED definition II.11. transitive. humorous and ironic. To do (something likened by the speaker to a crime or offence). Cf. perpetrate v. 3 - "commit" was being used to humorously describe acts of kindness as if they were crimes - "random" and "senseless". It seems like it has since been taken out of context and become a minor usage in a non-ironic sense. TSP (talk) 15:24, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Seems like we already have MOS:SUICIDE (a guideline and not an essay), which does a fine job of discussing the language around suicide. Currently, it says:

    The phrase committed suicide is not banned on the English Wikipedia,[6] although some external style guides discourage it as being potentially stigmatising and offensive to some people. There are many other appropriate, common, and encyclopaedic ways to describe a suicide, including: died as a result of suicide, died by suicide, died from suicide, killed themselves, The cause of death was suicide.

    If people here aren't satisfied with that and are looking to completely ban the usage of the phrase "commit[ted] suicide", then please start an RfC, because all of this bickering is getting pretty unproductive. Some1 (talk) 18:19, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    i'd say give it until this discussion has been going on for at least a week consarn (prison phone) (crime record) 20:58, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    An essay, Wikipedia:Committed suicide, was created so that’s a productive step. I don’t see anyone calling for an outright ban so I don’t expect to see an RfC on this. I’d also like to see this discussion wrap up, but naturally so. As a reminder to the broader group, this shouldn’t be a general discussion forum so it would be best if any remaining discussion had a proposal or venue question to it. For any editors struggling with thoughts of self harm, I’d offer that there are many resources to help such as Crisis Text Line in the US[15] and many caring professionals willing to help. Dw31415 (talk) 22:20, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    m:Mental health resources has the global list. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:26, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "Committed suicide" should be banned outside of quotes. Every time I see that in an article I feel like I'm reading World Book Encyclopedia 1999. Kolya Butternut (talk) 00:41, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It should be stressed that language came out of the 2021 RFC, and while CCC happens, 4 years seems far too soon, particularly as no new evidence related to style guides has been brought up here, at least not in terms of evidence of why we should be revisiting it. We should not simply be revisiting this just because of the concerns of feelings (as the links in the OP statement point out, the situation from this point of view has been addressed ad nauseum and we shouldn't be reiterating on that). Masem (t) 00:47, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    no new evidence related to style guides, would this qualify: Preventing suicide: A resource for media professionals, Update 2023, World Health Organization

    The phrase “committed suicide” implies criminality (suicide was historically criminalized in many countries and remains a criminal offence in some countries today) and unnecessarily increases the stigma experienced by those who have lost a person to suicide. It is better to say/write “died by suicide” or “took one’s life”.

    [16] Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:21, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Same advice appears in the 2017 update of the same document [17], so that isn't a changed factor. Masem (t) 02:39, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Your comment was about "new evidence" related to style guides. If WHO's guide wasn't referenced in previous discussions then this is new evidence. By your logic, if every single style guide bans "committed suicide" but they were published before previous discussions, then there is no way to meet your criteria. Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:49, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    What the various style guides had said were considered in both 2019 and 2021 discussions are this, at minimum, so we know where WHO, NIH, AP, etc. all sit already as of those dates, and that factor was considered in those discussions. It still seems to be the case that moving away from "commit suicide" is not yet universal across style guides or going by mainstream usage, and since WP should not be trying to lead in terms of common language use but only follow, it doesn't seem that there's been any significant change in the style guide positions since 2019/2021 to make that shift (specifically to eliminate "commit suicide"). Its important to know that style guides do give alternatives like "die by suicide" that we can use. Masem (t) 12:10, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You're saying that in the 2019 and 2021 discussions we considered NIH, AMA, and WHO style guides which we did not know about nor discuss? Kolya Butternut (talk) 12:39, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    My point is that so far in this discussion, no new points of evidence or argument have been added compared to the 2019 or 2021 discussions, the only change is the slice of editors partipating. While consensus can change, I'd expect a far greater weight on new evidence or other need to argue we need to override the result of a discussion from just for years ago. Style guides have been reviewed in the previous RFCs so it's not like we are ignoring them, just that's evidence we already know exists and which has been factored into the previous RFCs. — Masem (t) 15:07, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm still waiting for you to provide a single reliable source that encourages the use of "commit suicide". WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:17, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    My point is that so far in this discussion, no new points of evidence or argument have been added compared to the 2019 or 2021 discussions, Yes I know, and I'm telling you I don't see that these three style guides were ever discussed. Starting with NIH Style Guide, is there any evidence that that has been mentioned in any of the discussions on writing about suicide? Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:41, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    US National Institutes of Health's Style Guide adopts the AP Stylebook's recommendations:

    Use died by suicide or attempted suicide instead of committed suicide.

    [18] Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:37, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    American Medical Association Manual of Style

    suicide—Avoid the phrase committed suicide because it implies criminality or moral failing.

    Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:58, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Per Social media and suicide, there is considerable concern that some Internet sites encourage young people to commit suicide, as this is a leading cause of death for this age group. It would not be prudent to give people the idea that Wikipedia is one of those sites by requiring that suicide be presented here only in a positive way. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:28, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Jesus, this is like a regurgitation the "suicide panic" of the 80s. Straight out of Heathers. Zaathras (talk) 23:56, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not seeing the relevance of fictional comedy predating the Internet. I'm referring to the reality of cases like Molly Russell which have resulted in the Online Safety Act 2023. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:46, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Qualified Yes Wikipedia is not censored and we generally try to avoid euphemisms. "Committed suicide" remains one of the most common forms of communicating death by one's own hand. That said, editors should use some common sense and avoid using terms that are not employed by the sources covering the subject's death. Broad discretion coupled with good taste should be the rule of thumb here. -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:21, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: When somebody dies from suicide it is nearly always terribly sad, tragic and devastating – apart from in a small minority of cases such as when evil serial killers like Harold Shipman and Fred West have died from suicide – where I don't think anybody would have shed tears for them. But in the vast majority of cases, suicide is terribly sad and my heart goes out to the bereaved. However, I also feel that WP:NOTCENSORED should apply. If a reliable source states that somebody has committed suicide, then I don't think it's the job of Wikipedians to censor a word that some people may deem to be offensive. We don't censor other potentially offensive words for reasons of sensitivity. Regards, Kind Tennis Fan (talk) 23:54, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes since it seems we're voting now. Not Censored and Not Therapy grounds. Zaathras (talk) 23:56, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • As someone who's fussed over this, I see two choices as equally viable – given my own understanding of formal English as presently written, both personally and at-large. Either we proscribe some terminology as unduly criminological or moralizing, following like recommendations in major style guides, or we avoid policing such terminology across disparate articles for its own sake. Having made good-faith efforts to perceive these connotations as inherent to the term commit suicide, I admit I personally cannot – but I fully support either of these outcomes. Remsense ‥ 论 05:23, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes but is it really even a negative inference? If one committed suicide, they were at least committed to something. Hyperbolick (talk) 08:10, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "Commit to" is a different phrase. The OED definition we're talking about here is II.9.a. transitive. To carry out (a reprehensible act); to perpetrate (a crime, sin, offence, etc.). Cf. to commit suicide at Phrases P.6.. As far as I can see - and no-one has yet presented a counterexample - the structure "to commit [action]" is only used for crimes, sins, and suicide (or in an ironic usage to suggest something should be considered a crime or sin - e.g. the horribility of "committing" puns - Benjamin Disraeli). TSP (talk) 11:01, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, that is a different phrase, so shouldn't be used here. But there is nothing ironic about committing a good deed or committing an act of kindness, unless you make a circular argument by dismissing anything positive, so counterexamples have been given. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:11, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think I've ever heard that phrase, and OED doesn't seem to know of it, but I do see there are online hits for it. However, that's still a slightly different piece of grammar - "committing a/an X" is not quite the same as "committing X". "Committing X" or "commit X" still seems to be only for crimes (commit murder), sins (commit adultery) and suicide. TSP (talk) 14:31, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Can one perform suicide? Or is that only for harakiri? Martinevans123 (talk) 15:19, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That's not a natural phrase in English. In the more technical literature, they write about "completing" suicide.
    In other languages, suicide may be treated as a verb (Spanish does the literal equivalent of "he suicided himself). German has the same "commit" problem ("begehen", a verb associated with crimes, but with a literal translation closer to going through/trespassing; alternatively, in German, people can "practice" suicide, using the same verb that you would use in a statement like "I need to practice my German verb conjugation before the test"). I would expect other languages to use words in the do/make range ("He made suicide" or "He did suicide"). WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:52, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I see that Minamoto no Tametomo committed seppuku (in 1170, the first it seems). I haven't checked all the others at Seppuku#Notable cases, but I expect that many are the same. I see that Isao Inokuma "died by suicide by seppuku in 2001". Martinevans123 (talk) 16:00, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I would expect that any "perform" language is oriented towards ritual suicide. People "commit suicide (and other 'bad' actions)" and they "perform ritual suicide (and other rituals)". WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:07, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, there might be a few performers in that list. I guess one can commit or perform a suicide attack, such as with kamikaze. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:27, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You could say he committed a senseless act of ________ and then insert any one of perhaps dozens of things which are not crimes nor sins. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 17:28, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    There's some useful extra context higher up in the conversation - it looks like "commit" for acts of kindness may have originated in a quote, attributed to Anne Herbert: "commit random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty" - based on the phrase "random acts of violence and senseless acts of cruelty".
    If so, commit was a deliberate choice to humorously liken acts of kindness to crimes, casting them as radical and subversive. It seems like it has since gone into the wild somewhat as a positive meaning independent of the ironic sense, but it looks like it originated as OED II.11. transitive. humorous and ironic. To do (something likened by the speaker to a crime or offence). Cf. perpetrate v. 3.. TSP (talk) 15:31, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose any form of censorship to words based on fear or being offended and don't understand why some people are insisting why there just absolutely must be only crime or sin associated with "committed" or "commit" when people can do something socially unacceptable to someone which is neither a crime nor a sin and it could still be described as something they "committed" against society or another person. Does this now mean we should eliminate words from other articles also simply because of them being socially unacceptable in that context? Where do we draw the line? Intelligent and rational people can reason out what context words should belong in and the appropriate style they should have without being restricted by censorship. Thanks. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 17:07, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This is an unhelpful strawperson characterization. Your notion that, with term X there absolutely must be some connotation of Y is not what anyone is actually arguing. We make language choices based on aggregate public senses of words—that X does not connote Y to you (it doesn't to me, remember) is really beside the point. It is really not an attack on your sense of self or belonging, but that seems to border on how you are taking it. Remsense ‥ 论 17:33, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    the way i see it, it's more like what i said before. it's an opposition of a specific reason to do it. there certainly are other terms that could be used and arguments to use them... it just happens that appealing to feelings is not a very good one 'round these parts consarn (prison phone) (crime record) 17:47, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's a false dichotomy—all words have connotations and emotional potential which cannot be perfectly wedged apart from their dictionary definitions. This is a dimension we sometimes have to consider beyond what words to watch mean to us personally. I am willing to take others' word for it, even if I don't get it. Remsense ‥ 论 17:55, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with Remsense, and you can see that in this discussion. We have several editors arguing against died by because it makes them feel(!) like the person's autonomy is being disrespected. If "feelings" aren't a good argument, then this argument against "died by" is invalid.
    Instead, I think that the connotations of our word choices are valid things for us to consider. Sometimes a "feeling" of passivity is really not appropriate. Sometimes a "feeling" of criminal action is entirely appropriate. Editors IMO should use the full range of the English language, taking into account the need to avoid invoking an inappropriate "feeling". WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:01, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Your notion that, with term X there absolutely must be some connotation of Y is not what anyone is actually arguing. See: Special:Diff/1282264387. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 17:51, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, let's see that diff. Let's see that diff and focus on the word "or", as in:
    • only used for crimes, sins, and suicide or
    • in an ironic usage.
    The word "or" means "not absolutely only the first one". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:56, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That is the correct interpretation, not what they argued. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 18:00, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That is what they argued. They have posted multiple comments in this discussion about the ironic use. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:02, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    No, because they said the ironic use was still indicative of a crime or sin. Please read the last part of the diff again because whatever they might have previously posted on the irony of the term, this is what they landed on. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 18:14, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Perhaps my use of "should be considered" was a little imprecise, but I think your reading requires ignoring the meaning of the word "ironic". If I say, ironically, "I am committing senseless acts of beauty" am I genuinely saying I think beauty is a crime, sin, or other reprehensible act? No, that would not be employing irony. Am I comparing acts of beauty to a crime, sin, or other reprehensible act? Yes.
    Anyway, I'm right here - you could have tagged me - so if you're asking "am I claiming that people ironically using terms like 'committing senseless acts of beauty' genuinely believe those acts to be either sins or crimes?", I can easily answer "of course not". TSP (talk) 18:44, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for clearing that up. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 19:12, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I guess I was just a little confused by what your argument actually was because you stressed it even more later on at Special:Diff/1282287279 about how there really just isn't any other associations other than crime, sin and suicide so it kinda made me think maybe you really might think the ironic uses were still only associated with crime or sin, but just not in a "negative" way. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 19:51, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Mea culpa. The core point is that doesn't have to be true and it's better not to argue as such. Remsense ‥ 论 17:58, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Does your view that we should Oppose any form of censorship to words based on fear or being offended also apply to racial slurs? Those are "words" we don't normally use "based on fear of [readers] being offended", precisely because they're "socially unacceptable in that context". Or is this not actually a general rule, and you just don't care if you offend or upset people in this particular context?
    BTW, occasionally, "this particular context" is going to be a parent sitting in a hospital and trying to learn something about suicide while waiting to learn whether their child is going to live or die. I think it would be decent of us to put down our "Nyah nyah nyah you can't censor me!" attitudes and try to be both factual and humane. And I say that as someone whose been accused of "destroying hope" by labeling fatal congenital diseases as being fatal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:54, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think it would also be decent for someone not to imply that someone else has childish attitudes just because they they prefer the unrestricted free-flow of information and ideas between consenting adults who are rational and intelligent enough to sort things out between themselves in spite of differing viewpoints. I like to think I haven't committed tit-for-tat offenses against anyone in this thread so far so I feel like my views are just fine thank you very much. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 18:39, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    We're writing an encyclopedia for literally everyone on Earth, not just your "rational adults". Remsense ‥ 论 18:41, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    According to policy and current Wikipedia practice only rational people are currently allowed to edit Wikipedia. Nobody gives a crap about literally everyone on Earth nor should they. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 18:58, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Reason is something humans brandish, not something they breathe. Remsense ‥ 论 19:01, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, I can't argue with that. :) Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 19:31, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Our word choices in articles are not about editors. We're Wikipedia:Here to build an encyclopedia for its readers, not for its editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:49, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, I wonder how people feel if they happen to have a mental health problem and see you writing that "only rational people" belong in our community.
    I once estimated the number of Wikipedia editors with certain mental health problems. You can see the numbers at User:WhatamIdoing/Editors are people. I didn't include certain conditions (e.g., autism) because they're known to be over-represented in the community, but some of these others are probably over-represented as well. It would be fair to assume therefore that this is the minimum number of editors with each of these diagnoses. We're talking about tens of thousands of editors who are living with the stigma of other people casually deriding them as crazy, and we really don't need someone saying that "only rational people are currently allowed". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:01, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Gosh, I wonder how they will feel having you suggest they are not rational? Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 22:07, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Huggums537, I understand you are frustrated but every other reply of yours is clearly, when viewed in isolation, meant purely as a barb in seemingly bad faith. No one's really rational is what I was getting at below, and the arguments about what is self-censorship versus writing a tonally neutral reference work for many different kinds of people seems pretty set by now. Maybe take a break for a bit? Remsense ‥ 论 22:20, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I would be very grateful if you would stop taking my comments out of context for the purpose of putting them into isolation and making them seemingly intended purely as bad faith barbs. If you can't simply make your salient points about self-censorship versus writing a tonally neutral reference work without resorting to such tactics, then maybe you are the one who should take a break for a bit? Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 22:41, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I wasn't trying to vie for a better rhetorical position, I was speaking in a straightforward manner. I understand I'm totally off base though, so I'll duck out, sorry. Remsense ‥ 论 22:56, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I guess you missed my point. Everything you linked to about building an encyclopedia is about editors working together not about what readers want and without us there is no encyclopedia. Building for the sake of literally everyone on Earth as opposed to building just for the sake of an encyclopedia is a monumental task that really isn't even possible or within the scope of what writing an article should be about since topics will inevitably cater to some and not others simultaneously. In other words, you just can't please everybody. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 22:03, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @WhatamIdoing, to answer your questions: Does your view that we should Oppose any form of censorship to words based on fear or being offended also apply to racial slurs? Those are "words" we don't normally use "based on fear of [readers] being offended", precisely because they're "socially unacceptable in that context". Or is this not actually a general rule, and you just don't care if you offend or upset people in this particular context? I actually do care quite a bit if I offend or upset people, but I resent the fact that I should have to so I hold my views about censorship (partially) for that reason. Asking me if this view extends to racial slurs is more personal than I am comfortable disclosing at this time and I'm not really sure what relevance any of this personal line of questioning has to do with anything anyway unless you just find me to be that interesting! :) Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 23:14, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not sure I follow all this, but the consensus of RS say that "commit" in "commit suicide" is in the sense of a crime or sin. I can understand how it could feel like censorship to ban a phrase that is still used in common speech, but it just makes us look unprofessional, like reading "stewardess" in a newspaper from the 90s instead of "flight attendant". It is no longer standard in professional writing. There is an argument that it is appropriate in articles about a suicide in a country where it actually is a crime, and I think at this point it should be against our guidelines to use the phrase except possibly in those few instances. But "convicted of the crime of suicide" or something probably makes more sense. Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:54, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If we seek to destigmatize suicide, it wouldn't be by removing "committed" but by destigmatizing the phrase, committed suicide, as a whole. Hyperbolick (talk) 01:21, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I doubt anyone would ever get the death penalty just because they committed literary abuse for writing stewardess when they should have wrote flight attendant. If I could change one thing about Wikipedia it would be that we stopped being afraid to directly say things that are explicitly implied elsewhere. For example, WAID suggested we shouldn't be directly saying only rational editors are allowed, yet it is explicitly implied that if you persist in irrational editing behaviors it will be considered disruptive and you will be more or less politely shown to the door. It also amazes me how easy it is for people to assume that someone must believe in the death penalty just because their profession happens to be the Executioner or that everyone who believes in the death penalty either wants to be the Executioner or just like the Executioner themselves. Yet they have no problem believing a pro wrestler or an MMA fighter might also want to be a ballerina or figure skater. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 02:09, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Irrational people and irrational behaviors are different things. People with no mental illness regularly engage in irrational behaviors. People with mental illness may be 100% helpful and non-disruptive on wiki.
    About your comment above: We have multiple reputable, reliable sources saying that some people are offended by the 'committed' phrase. Nobody's offended by its absence, or even notices its absence (though if you pick an awkward or inappropriate alternative, some will notice the presence of a problematic alternative). Yes, it's occasionally irritating that other humans are allowed to form their own opinions based on our word choice. But this one is really easy: if you care about not needlessly upsetting or offending anyone, then just don't use this one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:51, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I just feel like I will have committed a betrayal of my own values if I don't stand for free speech even though I will be choosing not to use the words "committed suicide" unless it is appropriate. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 15:19, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Back in, sorry, but this is important. No one is standing against any coherent notion of free speech, in part because it's beside the point. As I'm sure you know, Wikipedia is not a forum for free speech. Other editors here are trying to decide what site guidance should be, and it is counterproductive to redirect efforts to the end of soothing one's own conscience. Remsense ‥ 论 16:28, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Many here have voiced concerns about censorship, which is one of the most basic stands against free speech as it can get. Your refusal or inability to get the point does not mean that it's beside the point, and just because Wikipedia is not a soapbox for free speech does not mean people cannot act on their conscience regarding free speech. BTW, I have a really big problem with the hypocrisy of you busting my balls about how counterproductive it is for me to act on my conscience regarding free speech while you so freely act to soothe your own conscience over the tragedy of people committing suicide. Please get back on track and get off my ass. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 17:09, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You're the one who has insisted on making it about your ass (that is, your personal sense of what words mean, your conscience, your values) and my point is that others would rather discuss the issue at hand.
    This is conflating limitations on speech by individuals with those defining content suited for an encyclopedia—which is mystifying and counterproductive. Remsense ‥ 论 17:24, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    About the claim that "Many here have voiced concerns about censorship": I counted. It's you, one person who mentioned it but later said he'd named the wrong page, and five others, including someone who also cited Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not therapy, which is an essay about not letting editors screw up Wikipedia just because their occupational therapist wanted them to get some typing practice in, and which has nothing to do with what we write in the mainspace or whether we should take advice from reliable sources. I therefore suspect that said editor doesn't know what they're talking about and just made some (wrong) guesses based on the WP:UPPERCASE.
    There are 58 editors in this discussion so far. Therefore, this alleged "many here" is about 10%, and their assertions have been challenged or contradicted by several other editors. This does not sound like a winning argument to me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:41, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Ok. I'm not sure I'm picking up what you're putting down, or smelling what you're stepping in, but I didn't claim it was a winning argument only that it was shared by others. What's this all about anyway? Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 17:51, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    With all things being relatively equal as to the most popular term in the sources meaning that whatever is "trendy" is fairly meaningless to me. I would like to see some sources showing some conclusive evidence that the language has actually been harmful to anyone because this is the type of rigor that should be required before we remove something or someone from Wikipedia for being harmful not maybe what somebody or something might possibly do to cause harm. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 16:04, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Potential harm of the term is only one consideration. We know that historically and currently suicide is a crime or viewed as a sin, and that's where the term comes from, and modern style guides consider it a loaded term and unprofessional. If we're ignoring readers' potential offense, is there more proof you would need for the other issues? Kolya Butternut (talk) 16:25, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I feel like when it comes to removing someone or something from Wikipedia, then the other issues are far less relevant and beside the point. I think harm is the far more important consideration than people being offended and I think that is why others are so concerned about censorship because we wouldn't normally censor Wikipedia just because people are offended, but we would remove someone or something if it is actually harmful. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 17:26, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    So how would you define "harm"? Do you need a suicide note that says "I decided not to seek treatment for my depression because people keep talking about suicide like it's a crime or a sin, so instead I'm killing myself"?
    Or is it enough to have reliable sources saying "Yes, we did a survey, and people said this harmed them"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:31, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I would certainly like to have more than conjecture to fully convince me. Does anyone have anything more than that? Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 17:39, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If I give you a reliable source saying that people have told them that it harmed them, are you going to dismiss that as "conjecture"? I want to agree on where those goalposts are in advance, so nobody can accuse you of moving them if the sources don't support your POV. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:54, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It already sounds "here-sayish" before I've even seen it and probably not even close to the conclusive evidence I had asked for, but I would imagine it's probably still worth producing just for the sake of argument. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 18:06, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    What would conclusive evidence look like? If I'm going to bother looking for sources, I might as well keep an eye out for your preferred form. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:07, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, if you of all people are asking little ol' lowly me advice on what conclusive evidence would look like and what form to use, then my words of great wisdom to you would be that the most effective thing to do is assess all your sources and produce the very strongest ones you think you have for your argument rather than just settling for giving the opposition whatever it is they say they are willing to accept. That would be the very best possible form of building your conclusive evidence. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 18:51, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That method seems like it would result in this pattern:
    • Me: Here's some sources.
    • You: Nah, I'm still not personally convinced.
    • Everyone else: No matter what evidence is produced, it'll never be good enough for him! His mind is already made up, and he doesn't care about facts! He's moving the goalposts!
    I'm aware of the cognitive problems with this; humans frequently don't respond logically to evidence that conflicts with their biases (or even their initial starting positions). But I'd like you to have a chance to define what you think would be convincing (to you), and then maybe we could prevent that third part of the pattern. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:59, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I've invited you to set the goalpost as high as you possibly can. Otherwise, it sounds like your mind is already made up about me moving the goalpost. If you're being generous enough to allow me to be the one to define the parameters of the goalpost, then I say set it as high as you are able to and let's see the best you got because I really think this is a problem looking for a solution without any facts based data showing deaths attributed to the use of this language and that is about as close as this rat is going to get to setting my own trap with a goalpost. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 20:21, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    No, you haven't invited me to set the goalposts. You've invited me to kick the ball as hard as I can, and indicated that after you know where the ball lands, you'll set the goalposts wherever suits you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:26, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I really hate that someone I've known and respected for so long keeps seeing this mirage of goalpost moving and the idea that your own thoughts might have committed a betrayal of disillusionment within you is distressing to me. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 04:41, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral (leaning no in practice, but permissively yes) on "committed suicide". Oppose use of "died by suicide". We have a perfectly good alternative that maintains the active voice and reads much more naturally "x killed him/herself". This is what we landed on when we had a good natured discussion on it at David Reimer. Style guides that argue against "committed" suggest this as a suitable alternative. There are a few times a formulation "died by suicide" might work on the sentence level, but generally it is an ugly passive construction that should be studiously avoided. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 18:01, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    As a point of grammar, "he died" is active voice, and adding "by suicide" after that doesn't change the grammar. "He was killed" is an example of passive voice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:30, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You'll notice I did not say it was "passive voice". I said that it is a "passive construction". Passive because "died" here is intransitive (unlike "killed") and the addition of the prepositional phrase adds information that identifies the mode by which one died whilst failing to identify the actor. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 21:26, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "Walk" and "run" are also intransitive verbs, but we don't consider those to be passive activities. I don't think that grammar is the way to make a successful argument.
    It might also interest you to know that hospice workers routinely talk about people "actively dying". Although it is outside of conscious control, it is not exactly a passive process. Perhaps what you mean is that it feels like the phrase does not ascribe a satisfactory amount of voluntary intention and willful control to the now-dead person. That's IMO a fair POV, but it's a POV. Another POV would say that someone "died of depression" (or even worse: "lost his battle with depression"). I don't think we should have a single POV about all deaths. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:46, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The lack-of-agency argument is baffling. "Died by his own hand" is the same construction and I don't think people would say it's passive (although it's not professional). Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:58, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Hmm, I can imagine a story that someone might tell themselves: "I'm fighting so hard to survive. It would be so easy to just let myself die, but I am determined to live. People really ought to be committed to the outcome if they're going to kill themselves..." Feeling that they have control over this one thing, no matter what else their mental health problems may inflict on them, may be the only reason some people are still alive. I don't begrudge them that view at all. I just don't think we should elevate that POV over the other POVs. Sirfurboy's formulation of "leaning no in practice, but permissively yes" sounds like the right balance to me. I don't think that a one-size-fits-all solution is best. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:26, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Perhaps what you mean... What I mean is what I said. The phrase is passive in meaning, not in form. Which is why it was coined, presumably. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 23:28, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Since it was coined in the 1700s, I doubt it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:52, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Despite feeling more natural to me, it does seem that ngrams data suggests that other formulations are more appropriate. That having been said, "died by suicide" still seems like an unusual enough phrase to me that it immediately brings to mind Titus Andronicus reading off poetry by Abraham Lincoln at the beginning of A More Perfect Union. signed, Rosguill talk 20:30, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Four points:

  1. Killing oneself is certainly an act that is "committed"
  2. It's the common name (including in sources) for doing so
  3. The implicit question is "shall we make a rule up to forbid using the term "committed suicide"
  4. What is the poimt of trying to mandate terms for assigning less of a negative stigma to suicide? I won't elucidate the points that this obviously leads to.

With the implicit question being #3 the answer is "NO" North8000 (talk) 23:27, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On the four points:
  1. What does that mean? By which definition?
  2. Citation needed
  3. Yes, outside direct quotes, like any other colloquialism
  4. It's not just about assigning less of a stigma. Using "committed suicide" makes our encyclopedia look out of date and unprofessional.
Kolya Butternut (talk) 01:34, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Using committed suicide makes our encyclopedia look sane by using common language, rather than tortuous artificial alternatives. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 03:32, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with N8000 and HB. This argument that we need to remove language to reduce stigma attached to suicide is not doing victims any favors because there needs to be a healthy amount of "stigma" attached to it since it has been rightfully argued elsewhere that we want to make sure it isn't presented as a normal option. When you know you've done something wrong or made a mistake, then a normal amount of guilt, shame, or embarrassment are normal healthy reactions to keep us internally and emotionally guided. It's only when those responses are overwhelming that they're not normal or healthy. I don't believe I ever saw any sources for the claim that this phrase originated due to the ACT being a crime or a sin, but if there's any truth in it I can't think of a better way to let people know that suicide is not a normal option and as I've argued before I could care less about the style trends when sources are more or less equal. The important thing to focus on here is what causes harm to victims and what causes harm to my rights. I could care less what "looks professional" relative to those things. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 04:20, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The word suicide was promoted in the 1800s as an alternative to the original English self-murder because some people wanted to society to consider killing yourself as being less related to murder. Suicide is an attempt at de-stigmatizing killing yourself.
@Headbomb, what's "tortuous" or "artificial" about the phrase killing yourself? One of my ongoing frustrations with these discussions is that they usually devolve from "Um, guys, every suicide expert on the planet suggests avoiding that committed language" to "Ugh, I just hate this newfangled died by language. We must use committed because I hate died by and if we don't use committed then we'll have to use died by". English is a big language. There are lots of words. If we wanted to (and I don't) we could ban both committed and died by and still have many options left. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:59, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I mean to me it is just quite ridiculously absurd that anyone would first care more about whether a death is seen as a crime or sin than preventing a death in the first place. Let's get our priorities in order people. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 06:34, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Shame around suicidal thoughts is more likely to prevent people from seeking help. This is what the sources say. Kolya Butternut (talk) 11:13, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Using language that is helpful and respectful encourages an environment free of stigma, where we can talk more openly and safely about suicide and its prevention. Words matter in a world where silence or insensitivity can make matters worse. The more we are open and safe in our communication, the more likely it is that people can offer or seek help.

SAFE LANGUAGE AND MESSAGES FOR SUICIDE PREVENTION
This pamphlet discourages "commit suicide". Kolya Butternut (talk) 12:36, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, the only source I read that was an actual study was very clear they don't have enough information about the stigma around suicide to make any determinations and the best they could do is make inferences based on the data they gathered from mental illness. Furthermore, this type of inference based original research didn't suggest anything at all about shame or guilt, but rather other types of stigma associated with mental illness. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 14:14, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Which source did you read? Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:39, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it was linked in one of these essays in this discussion, but I also could have found it in the guidance. I apologize that I had some difficulty finding it again for you, but if I come across it again I will produce it Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 20:48, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I went back in my browser history and I think this was the source Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 21:35, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps more to the point: Why is a death the only form of harm that we should consider? Isn't "needlessly upsetting grieving family members" also a form of harm? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:02, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

People bereaved by suicide have highlighted that the word “commit” is most commonly used in conjunction with a criminal act, resulting in a negative connotation of immorality, which is now inconsistent with the legal status of suicide in most countries globally.[9–12] Consequently, use of the phrase “commit suicide” in the media and in academia has been discouraged.

[1] Kolya Butternut (talk) 18:49, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Simply put, this is called looking for ways to be offended. Suicide is also associated with death, which evokes negative emotions in people. Therefore we now need to use self-unaliving to avoid the implication of death. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:11, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Unalive" is just used to circumvent being flagged by social media, not to spare anyone's feelings.[19] Kolya Butternut (talk) 20:27, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I read the study. I was immediately concerned about sample selection, but the authors responsibly flag this. They say:

Secondly, in recent years there have been a number of publications and media guidelines advising against use of words such as “commit”, “successful” or “failed” in combination with “suicide”, including by authors of this paper and Samaritans.[13–15,25,26] To our knowledge, this advice has been based on anecdotal evidence regarding the views of people affected by suicide. The survey was developed following debate about whether these views were representative, and the potential implications of advising against use of one particular term. It is possible that such previous publications have influenced the findings, particularly since some recruitment took place through social media channels associated with the authors and Samaritans.

The authors note how geographical location skews results, and elsewhere they note that "committed suicide" is actually as acceptable as "died by suicide" by those whose experience of suicide is individual and the opposite view comes from those who only experience suicide through work or volunteering. As quoted above, that latter sample population was drawn primarily from the Samaritans, who have published guidelines on the matter. This is not telling you what you think it does. Its headline, btw, is that "took their own life" was, quantitatively, the most acceptable across all populations, with some making the point that it is "suicide" that is the problematic term. I also don't think you should be selectively quoting the comments from one part of the sample population as though that were a conclusion of the study - it was not. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 21:46, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"since some recruitment took place through social media channels associated with the authors and Samaritans" ≠ "that latter sample population was drawn primarily from the Samaritans."
The outcome of the study:

Of phrases describing fatal suicidal behaviour, “took their own life” and “died by suicide” had the highest median acceptability scores. The scores for “commit suicide” were most variable and spanned the range of acceptability scores.

I quoted the introduction, but from the conclusion it is clear that "commit suicide" was controversial. Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:24, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
≠ "that latter... It worries me that you think you know that. Not that it matters. The part "highlighted" refers to write in answers, and these are not quantified. It was by no means all the answers, just part of the range. You do see the problem here? The authors do. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 23:09, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The issue of harm is complicated. If a relative has an incurable disease and is in intractable pain, I am traumatized. If he commits suicide, I am traumatized. If I prevent him, he is traumatized. In every case we both suffer harm. How do you decide which is worse? While in general I believe that it is right to prevent suicide, there are special cases where it is selfish to intervene. I hope to never be faced with making such a decision. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:55, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@WhatamIdoing, if upsetting the feelings of bereaved people were the only thing to take into consideration, then I would be more than happy to remove any phrasing anybody wants, but the reason I'm insisting on death being the most important consideration is because we are talking about real world life and death consequences for the changes we make not to mention the consequences it will have on the rights of people's freedom of speech or disruptive effects on people's ordinary day to day editing habits. But Huggums it's just one word we're not asking you to change much, and you are asking people to ignore how we feel. No, you are asking me to give up everything I care about, stand for and believe in which is every bit as deeply ingrained in me as much as anyone else has feelings ingrained in them you are asking me to change my deeply ingrained behavior which actually seeks out to prevent death and loss of personal freedoms just so that someone else can squalor in their grief. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 21:28, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do you believe that using the word committed will decrease suicide deaths? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:41, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's already been argued plenty that the stigma attached to it serves a useful purpose. My hope is that my arguments will somehow show the benefits far outweigh any perceived negatives. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 21:49, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But you said "the only source I read that was an actual study was very clear they don't have enough information about the stigma around suicide to make any determinations and the best they could do is make inferences". So I'm confused why you're making conclusions in the direction in favor of commit suicide if you don't think there is evidence either way. And the study you read found that Low suicide stigma was also associated with greater tendencies to seek help.[20] Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:30, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am also surprised by the claim that I think it's already been argued plenty that the stigma attached to it serves a useful purpose. Where does any source say that the stigma of the 'committed' language specifically serves any useful purpose?
Or are you speculating that since suicide stigma in general, measured at the overall society-wide level, has some (possibly small) preventive value against total deaths, that we should do anything we can to increase stigma? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:55, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WAID, I was just talking about what I thought some people were saying in this discussion and I'm glad you made the clear distinction of the differences between the stigma around the language of committed suicide and the stigma of suicide itself because I think the confusion Kolya has expressed revolves around this. The quote above about low suicide stigma has no correlation to the stigma of the word "committed", but rather the types of stigma that are also associated with mental health. When you separate out the two you see they are actually two different issues. Consider:
  1. I'm not happy to say I committed a senseless mercy killing to put the suffering animal out of its own misery.
  2. I tried to fool them, but I committed a betrayal of my own efforts when I just couldn't keep a straight face.
In both of these examples it could also be argued that "committed" is an outdated phrase implying crime and sin where no crime or sin has been committed, but it looks absurd and ridiculous to do that in these examples doesn't it? It just seems like a happy coincidence that suicide happens to have some other stigmas attached to it so people can make "committed" look more evil than it actually is by insinuating it's another "stigma" when it wouldn't be in any other circumstance. If you want sources showing proof that the committed language has useful purpose then look no further than our English language and the two examples I just gave you. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 01:21, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"A senseless mercy killing" is an oxymoron ("mercy" is the reason, or "sense"). Let's assume you meant "committed a mercy killing". A quick trip to Google Books indicates that that phrase is sometimes used when the author writes about murdering humans (fictional or otherwise), often with 'mercy killing' in scare quotes.
"To commit a betrayal" is not a common English phrase, but it, too, gets used, sometimes specifically for "committed a betrayal of confidence" or "of trust". Glancing through the search results, they're frequently about religion or moral philosophy, with what's probably a fair minority about adultery in the mix.
And here we should say: Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. It is possible for a sentence to be grammatically correct and not carry any sense at all. That doesn't mean that the usual sense of a word doesn't exist, and it especially doesn't mean that the usual sense of a word doesn't exist in the context where that usual sense has been identified as existing by Wikipedia:Reliable sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:38, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Huggums, you said that stigma attached to [suicide] serves a useful purpose, correct? The sources say no.
I committed a betrayal of my own efforts is not encyclopedic writing. We would not write "So-and-so committed a betrayal of their efforts." That's non-neutral language. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:04, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"So-and-so committed a betrayal of their efforts" is also just bad writing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:37, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I also wrote; "It just seems like a happy coincidence suicide happens...", to inspire thought in others and prove a point, but that is also just bad writing. You guys missed that one like you've missed the point. If the conversation has been reduced to nitpicking about the informal language I've used here which I would never use in an article, then I guess I'm done here. Thanks for the writing advice. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 18:40, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What is an example of an encyclopedic use of the word "committed" which is not in the context of a crime or sin? Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:32, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In Computer Science, this term is used all over the place. A committed database is a database in which all changes have been saved. A journaling filesystem marks blocks committed in the journal when they are saved to disk. But your question is too broad. What you are really asking is whether the term "committed", when applying it to something someone does, always connotes some kind of offence. Recourse to the OED will disabuse you of that. Foster children are committed to the care of foster parents, troops may be committed to a charge, your boss may be committed to a course of action, Caesar committed to his when he crossed the Rubicon; Jesus committed his Spirit to God in the crucifxion accounts, the authority of the king was committed into the hands of the regent, etc. The OED has an extremely long entry on this word, with many different meanings. The act of carrying out a crime is one of then (ii.9.a) And you'll note that is a long way down the order. It is not the only meaning, and I am actually doubtful it is the first one that comes to mind when anyone (who has not been pre-primed) hears the term "committed suicide". You have spent a lot of words making your point, but maybe now is a good time to let some others speak. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:35, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Then I have to clarify. Using OED 1913, definition III,[21] "To perpetrate or perform (in a bad sense)", what is an example of an encyclopedic use of the word "committed" which is not in the context of a crime or sin...or other bad sense? Kolya Butternut (talk) 17:32, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Your (very old) dictionary lists various other definitions. Why would you insist only on the third one? Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 18:11, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have a link to a newer OED that is available? Kolya Butternut (talk) 18:20, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Commit:
I: To give in charge, entrust, consign.
II: To commission.
III: To perpetrate or perform (in a bad sense).
IV: To put together, join, engage, involve. Kolya Butternut (talk) 18:30, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
See [22]. You will need to login with your institution or through your library. If you can't access that work, you can get shorter entries by using Wikipedia Library's Oxford Reference subscription: [23] Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 18:59, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
a little late to note, but i thought the fact that the definition people have been debating for is specified to be about crime, sin, and suicide would have gone somewhere. as in suicide being the third option that is clumped together because it's already been stapled to the word, with it itself not necessarily being a crime or a sin. granted, that ship's sailed, so there's probably no point in this anyway consarn (prison phone) (crime record) 21:38, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Generally no. There's a long-standing consensus that the term is not "banned" on Wikipedia, and that seems unlikely to change. A great deal of the usage/etymology argument is off-base and being made by people who don't know what they're talking about and have not bothered to actually find out. And WP does not make decisions based on how ranty some activists are, especially over alleged language changes. However, it really does not matter that the usage "committed suicide" is at least as old as the criminal sense and does not derive from it. Enough of our readers mistakenly believe that it does, and the purpose of our text is to communicate clearly and effectively with our readers, not have them grind to a mental halt in mid-sentence to spend half an hour wondering why we've done something they think is insensitive and then start writing a re-re-re-re-re-hash nastygram about it on the talk page. This simply is not productive, and using "committed suicide" does not buy us anything. That said, various editors have objections to some of the alternatives, and we are not in a position to prescribe one in particular.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:46, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Dictionary break

The word commit has many meanings and is part of many phrases. One of the problems we have is that people keep trying to make grammar-type arguments, but they're using the wrong phrase. For example:

Various uses
Use Meaning Examples
Commit [something] to [something else] dedicate, entrust commit a child to someone's care, commit ourselves to justice, commit something to memory
Commit to [something] dedicate to commit [the organization] to a course of action, commit [ourselves] to an action
Commit [a thing] dedicate it commit money [to a particular purpose], commit computer code [to the database],
Commit [an action] perform, perpetrate commit murder, commit suicide, commit adultery

Yes, these involve the word commit, but, no, they do not involve the very specific phrase in question. The specific phrase is "commit [an action]", and that phrase does not have room for a "to", implied or otherwise. For example, foster parents do not "commit care"; they just "care". The KJV/Authorized version has "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (not commit at all), and other translations variously use commit, entrust, place, or put. But he's not committing an action; he's committing a thing [his spirit]. That's a different grammatical structure and is not relevant. The only uses of commit that are relevant for this discussion are actions that have been committed.

Or, to put it another way, if you want to argue that commit doesn't ever imply wrongdoing, then please provide an example involving the intransitive verb and an uncountable noun that represents an action, and does not need the word "to". WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:45, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Folly consists not in committing folly, but in being incapable of concealing it.

- Baltasar Gracián
Again, maybe looking at what the OED entry actually says would be instructive. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 19:08, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please provide a neutral encyclopedic phrase. Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:33, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You hear that sound? That's the machinery digging out the goalposts and dragging them along the ground.

every seemingly ordinary person on this planet is capable of committing heroic acts.[24]

or, indeed, this parliamentary language:

Members of the Lords asked whether the bill would deter people thinking of committing heroic acts.[25]

Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 19:50, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
ironic of me to say this, but this entire discussion about finding instances of "commit" being used for good or at least neutral stuff seems like a red herring. suicide isn't exactly all sunshine and rainbows, so why would this have anything to do with it in the first place? consarn (prison phone) (crime record) 21:42, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Commiting a heroic act" is not neutral. This is also in the context of moralizing. Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:31, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I asked my AI assistant some very specific questions to help me with this problem and this is the result it gave me:
Ah, I see exactly what you’re aiming for now, Huggums! You're exploring situations where someone might "commit" an action that’s offensive or controversial but doesn’t rise to the level of crime or sin—more of a breach of social etiquette, norms, or unspoken rules. Here are examples that might hit closer to the mark:
1. **Social Offense**:
- "He felt as if he had committed an unforgivable act by forgetting to thank his host, though it was merely an oversight and not truly a moral failure."
This shows how "committed" conveys the perceived seriousness of an action that’s socially unacceptable.
2. **Breaking Traditions**:
- "She committed the faux pas of wearing white to a wedding, drawing disapproving looks from some guests."
The act isn't illegal or sinful, but it violates societal expectations.
3. **Violating Unwritten Rules**:
- "They committed the error of speaking loudly in a library, disturbing the peace but breaking no laws."
This captures an act that’s socially irritating but not against formal rules.
4. **Missteps in Communication**:
- "He committed the awkward mistake of interrupting his boss in a meeting, causing tension but no lasting harm."
The action crosses interpersonal boundaries without constituting a crime or sin.
These examples illustrate "committed" being used in scenarios where the gravity of the word is somewhat exaggerated or rooted in subjective judgment. Do these resonate with the kind of usage you’re envisioning? I’d love to dive deeper if you'd like! Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 05:20, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm perplexed at the question. We're looking for neutral, professional writing. The word commit always has negative connotations (or ironic positive connotations). Ask AI: "Is the term 'committed suicide' encyclopedic, neutral writing?" Kolya Butternut (talk) 11:19, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No! Again, this is clear WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. As above, the British House of Lords did not use the term in such a manner. You are simply ignoring the evidence you don't like and continually attempting to reframe the question. When you demand "encyclopedic, neutral writing" and ignore such evidence, it is apparent that you will only accept such writing as meets your conception of such writing, where you have already determined that the term can only be negatively framed. You have incorporated the conclusion of your argument into the premises. And it is all a rabbit hole. No one is going to wade through all your 46 contributions looking for the core of your argument. This is just dictionaries at dawn now. Time to lay it to rest. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 11:44, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I can't follow your accusations, but I think you're making this too complicated. WP:NPOV is a core policy. As I have argued consistently, "committed" is 99% of the time negative, and sometimes used in the nonstandard, opposite way, such as "committed a good deed". Are you arguing that "committing heroic acts" is neutral? That it is a standard use? It sounds like the word "committed" is again attached to moral acts. But I am just trying to be generous by engaging with your concerns, when every single RS which discusses the question says "commit suicide" is non-neutral. Here's one.[26] Kolya Butternut (talk) 12:37, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Kolya Butternut, if this is just a stylistic issue regarding good encyclopedic writing, then the current guidance we have covers all of it, and this whole discussion was just a big waste of time unless people want to continue to debate about the difference between what constitutes an "offense" or real harm. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 16:57, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not just a stylistic issue. Firstly, it violates NPOV. Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:25, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WITHDRAWN
I think the proposal goes against my stance on restricted speech and I have a better proposal prepared. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 06:14, 3 April 2025 (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.

Proposal

I feel like this discussion will find no consensus just like the many discussions before it and I propose that rather than forbidding any language we just accept the current guidance based on the many discussions proving an inability to gain any consensus on the matter and we can lay this matter to rest by restricting any future rfc's on the matter to the talk pages of the relevant guidance about suicide so we won't take up so much community effort on going nowhere.

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.

Alternate proposal

I think a better way to solve the stalemate of consensus is to maybe try a first-time compilation of all past and present discussions into one huge combination of a single reading of what the general consensus might be. Perhaps we can break the stalemate that way without restricting speech? In other words, a really good closer might count the votes and opinions from this and all previous discussions to see if we can determine some kind of tie-breaker that way? Seems kinda fair.

Responding to ping. Offhand, I don't think Wikipedia should change until the world changes; Wikipedia doesn't lead but follows. We should not be "politically correct" despite the fact that we have been at times (banning "mankind", etc.). That said, this is not a !vote. It would be irresponsible to !vote without reading existing discussion and considering other arguments; and I'm not reading 26,000+ words; life is too short. So what's the point of posting a non-!vote? Well it might influence some !votes, existing or future. I'm probably saying what's already been said many times in various ways, but "politically correct" and "political correctness" do not otherwise occur in this discussion. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 13:56, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Every RS which discusses the use of "commit suicide" says it has negative connotations, so it violates NPOV. Pinging @SMcCandlish: to this response to minimize my comments since others joined the discussion. Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:20, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you say so. What about the RS that uses the phrase without "discussing" it? Clearly, those RS don't think the phrase needs "discussion"; it's just part of the language. I'd say you're cherry-picking sources. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 14:54, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. This has been going on since the earliest days of this re-re-re-re-re-re-re-debated perennial language-reform advocacy debate. I'll reiterate that we do not have to buy into bogus claims that "no one uses it any more", when "enough of our readers reactive negatively to it, so it is poor communication on our part" is a good enough reason for WP to phase it out. The distinction matters, because if the "remake English to suit my politics" crowd are taken seriously on this and treated as the reason for such a change, then it will embolden them to push for every "reform" idea that pops into their heads and we will never, ever hear the end of it. On this one point, make the change gradually because it's the practical thing to do for our mission and our relationship with our readers. Do not do it quickly and as a "term ban" just because cancel-culture censorious and linguistically uninformed busybodies are screaming and hand-waving about it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:52, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am against heavy-handed language policing. But the consensus is clear in RS and professional writing that the idiom is outdated and negative. To me it is simply ignoring reality and our policies to keep using the term. Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:51, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Then stick to your !vote, by all means. My reality is that it's still a common part of the English language. You've stated your view and I've stated mine; neither of us is going to "win"—particularly not me, since I haven't !voted. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 16:03, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
it's still a common part of the English language; citation needed for being a common part of professional language. Kolya Butternut (talk) 16:12, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe the closer will be convinced by your argument from authority; maybe not. I'm certainly not. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 16:23, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is an argument from RS, that's how we write an encyclopedia. You have provided no RS to support your opinion. Kolya Butternut (talk) 16:27, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I accept your challenge. How many reliable sources using "commit[ted][ting] suicide" would satisfy you? I have already rejected your requirement to limit my sources to those written by language "experts", so doing so would not "support my opinion". ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 16:36, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. How about professional publications by universities beginning in 2023? Kolya Butternut (talk) 16:46, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How about reliable sources, period? Sigh. We have now achieved circularity, I think. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 16:49, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, but can you use your judgment and look for high quality reliable sources? Kolya Butternut (talk) 16:50, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have no idea what you would consider "high quality". I suspect it would have a lot to do with whether a source supports your position. For my purposes in this context, a reliable source is a reliable source; however, I would take guidance from WP:RSP and avoid sources not listed there. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 17:02, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, yeah, as usual you are trying to restrict the question so much as to coerce the result you want, but this took me about a minute to find, and there were a lot more. [29], [30], [31], [32], [33], [34], [35]. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 16:56, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
trying to restrict the question so much as to coerce the result you want does not demonstrate an assumption of WP:Good faith. It is perfectly reasonable to ask for the most recent high quality sources since this is a recent change. Kolya Butternut (talk) 17:04, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Two different perspectives here. From our perspective, what we consider cherry-picking is either bad faith, incompetence, or just poor judgment; I'm going with the latter, which does not violate AGF. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 17:28, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Recent sources from academics doesn't seem like cherry picking to me; it's pretty broad. Unless you're referring to something else I said. Kolya Butternut (talk) 17:38, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And around we go again. Apparently you have expended little effort to understand my comments. I'm out for now; I have other things to do. Maybe more later. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 17:50, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I thought I was hearing you. You said you would use any sources deemed reliable. I have not opposed this, except for the condition of asking for recent sources. I don't know where we're talking past each other. Kolya Butternut (talk) 17:52, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Re-read your own comment and see if you can identify a material difference between it and this last one. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 18:01, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, that was... passive-aggressive? Comment 1: recent sources from academics. Comment 2: recent sources. Big difference. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 18:08, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I loosened my ask to try to be more collaborative. I understand that Wikipedia is not written at an academic level even if I might prefer that in many contexts. Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:10, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Cool. I like collaborative, especially when it gets me what I want. So we're back to how many sources would satisfy you? And, most importantly, what would it mean if you were satisfied? Would you switch your !vote? If not, why should I spend an hour of my short remaining life on that? ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 21:42, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Presenting an argument backed by sources would satisfy me that at least we're having a policy-based reasonable disagreement. You're arguing that even if dictionaries and other sources say "commit" in this sense is negative, RS are still using the term with neutral intention which could be said to demonstrate neutral meaning. I don't expect to be convinced, but I am influenced and curious, and I'm convinced this argument is at a respectable impasse? I would like to hear arguments from others at WP:NPOV/N, but maybe another time. (So providing me with sources may not be worth your effort, but I appreciate the offer.) Below you mentioned percentages of decline in usage. Did you notice my numbers from newspapers.com? Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:21, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Presenting an argument backed by sources would satisfy me that at least we're having a policy-based reasonable disagreement. - Lol. Why should I care about satisfying you about that? I'm results-oriented. dictionaries and other sources say "commit" in this sense is negative - "This sense". The sense that you choose out of many because it's the one that supports your position. I think that's called circular reasoning, or something equally cool that escapes me at the moment. providing me with sources may not be worth your effort, but I appreciate the offer. - Ok. You're welcome. Did you notice my numbers from newspapers.com? - No. Are they significantly below 50% in RS usage of "commit suicide"? If so, how many RS did they look at? If not, they're meaningless to me (that is, aside from the fact that they support my position, not yours).I'm convinced this argument is at a respectable impasse? Sounds about right. Thanks for the stimulating conversation. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 22:57, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Mandruss says I don't think Wikipedia should change until the world changes; Wikipedia doesn't lead but follows. The world is already changing. The use of "committed suicide" in real-world sources has been declining for the last five years. Garner's Modern English Usage says that style guides have opposed it since 2000 (i.e., for a quarter of a century). We are already "following" the real-world change rather than "leading" it.
I personally oppose a complete ban, and I strongly oppose any sort of mass changes. But the fact is that this change is happening in the real world, and we are not leading anything in this area. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:02, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The world is already changing. - Yes, "changing". I'm waiting for "changed". The world may ultimately end up "changed", or this could be a trend that reverses in 2038. has been declining for the last five years Yes, declining. A fall from 90% to 80% is declining. It still leaves 80%, which is still a substantial majority. So "declining" is pretty much meaningless here. style guides have opposed it - I don't much care what style guides oppose. Style guides are leaders; Wikipedia is a follower (a follower of widespread cultural trends, not of style guides). We can't know whether the world will follow style guides' lead on this particular language change. We are already "following" the real-world change rather than "leading" it. - You are seeking to "follow" style guides and other academic sources. They are not the real world, nor do they speak for it. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 21:54, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So if 80% (of what?) isn't enough (or so I infer), what is enough? At what point does it become "changed" instead of "changing"?
How would we know that the real-world is sufficiently changed? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:14, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So if 80% (of what?) - Of relatively recent (five years?) RS. what is enough? At what point does it become "changed" instead of "changing"? - When the number falls significantly below 50%. How would we know that the real-world is sufficiently changed? - By conducting a reasonably thorough survey of relatively recent (five years?) RS. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 23:43, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Are these the RS that make recommendations about writing about suicide (e.g., AP Stylebook from the Associated Press), or scholarly literature (e.g., articles on PubMed), or news and books in general (e.g., search Google Books and Google News), or something else? How would you find RS to check them, and which would you include?
What's the denominator? For example, does this sound like a fair calculation?
  • We find out how many RS in the last five years used "committed suicide".
  • We find out how many RS in the last five years used any different phrase (First pass: {"died by suicide" + "killed himself" + "killed herself" + "died as a result of suicide" + "died as a result of suicide" + "died from suicide" + "death was suicide" + "death was a suicide" + "suicided"}.
  • If the first number is smaller than the second, then the rate is below 50%, and the real world has already sufficiently changed. If the first number is larger than the second, then the rate is above 50%, and the real world has not yet changed.
I don't know what these numbers are; they can't be determined until you declare which type of RS you are talking about. I'm just asking if this sounds like a fair way to calculate what you're looking for. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:38, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
declare which type of RS you are talking about. RS as defined at WP:RSP. There are probably quite a number of obscure academic sources not listed there, and I have no problem excluding them; as I've said, we shouldn't be driven by academic sources on this. IMO.
I've said significantly below 50%. I wouldn't be inclined to accept 48%, since that could too easily be 51% by "next year" (there are likely small fluctuations within the longer-term trend). And I think 47% is a generous concession on my part. Other than that, the methodology you outlined is pretty close to what I had in mind.
This necessarily limits us to web-based sources; I'm not blindly accepting anybody's word for what they read in a printed book or journal. Not that I don't trust you guys or anything. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 05:47, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Mandruss, usage of "commit[ted] suicide" has dropped precipitously over the past 10 years as seen in this comment Kolya Butternut (talk) 13:32, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That comment is pure systhesys of sources and this whole dictionary thing is a futile exercise in tertiary sources because dictionaries are more or less responsible for reporting facts and it is a fact that there is a minority of people who are offended. I'll bet my bottom dollar most of those definitions say the operative word "some" consider it offensive or similar. Also, asking us for sources about a WP:Sky is blue thing that everyone has agreed has been an accepted use up until now is pointless and redundant. Just because a minority finds it offensive doesn't mean we should have to cater to that by changing language. Hell, even the dictionary did not remove it from their books, they only mentioned the fact some find it offensive so if you want to preach about following the sources then please learn to follow them better. Thanks. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 18:01, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
even the dictionary did not remove it from their books; there is no word that modern dictionaries remove due to offensiveness. I'll bet my bottom dollar most of those definitions say the operative word "some"; challenge accepted. Kolya Butternut (talk) 18:45, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
there is no word that modern dictionaries remove due to offensiveness. If this is true, then why should we? Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 22:30, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The same reason we don't refer to Black people as negroes in wikivoice. Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:41, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Aw, come on man. I'm not getting trapped in this negro fight. Anybody who's ever spent any time in the real negro community knows what's really going down in negro-town. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 03:49, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Besides, we have a very scientific method passed down to us from the Germans called "Das Negros" which proves "negro" is acceptable language anyway. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 04:28, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Mandruss, are you thinking about the sources listed at RSP as "GUNREL"? (The Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources page doesn't actually "define" RS at any point.)
For example, ABC News (United States) is the first source in that list tagged as green. We could search their website – "committed suicide" site:https://abcnews.go.com/ – and discover from a sample of the first consecutive 10 results (I used DuckDuckGo so the results should be the same for everyone) found nothing more recent than 2019. So that's probably a "no", and there's no need to look for alternative phrases, because if they've published anything about suicide at all in the last five years, they've used an alternative phrase. (Though I switched to Google Search, where Ghits says that since 2020, they have used "died by suicide" more than anything else – about six times as often as "killed him-/herself".)
The next in the RSP list is The Age newspaper. A quick sample of the first 10 search results suggests that they last used that phrase in 2012, so that's another "no".
And then repeat that times ~150 "GUNREL" entries, to figure out which publications have/haven't used that phrase in the present decade. If <47% of them (~70) have used that phrase since April 2020, then you will agree that the real world has already changed.
I think that a slight amount of common sense can be applied: for example, any opinion pieces saying that it's an inappropriate phrase should be omitted as being on the wrong side of the Use–mention distinction. I'm not sure how you would want to classify a publication if the phrase appears only in a direct quotation (e.g., from a family member).
Does that sound satisfactory to you?
Another approach could look at individual articles rather than whole publications. For example, since 2020, Google Scholar estimates that it has indexed:
  • 17,800 articles using "committed suicide"
  • 15,200 using "died by suicide"
  • 13,230 using "killed himself" + "killed herself"
  • 173 using "died as a result of suicide"
  • 1,430 using "died from suicide"
  • 450 using "death was suicide"
  • 289 using "death was a suicide"
  • 1,130 using "suicided"
which is about 36% "committed suicide" and 64% one of the other phrases. For comparison, it estimates 514,000 total articles containing "suicide" during that time period, so this is also 3.5% of suicide-related articles using that phrase, and 96.5% of them not.
It's not possible to produce the same list for PubMed (due to the different in search engine structure; "committed suicide" is a pre-indexed phrase but [e.g.] "died from suicide" is not, so it overcounts the "died" version by finding anything similar, instead of the exact phrase). However, PubMed reports 27,388 results for "suicide" and just 172 for "committed suicide" (with journals from non-English-speaking countries looking over-represented in those results), which is just 0.6% "committed suicide" and 99.4% not. This suggests that the phrase is even less common in the recent medical literature than it is in Google Scholar. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:02, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's at least in the realm of the kind of thorough research I was looking for, so I won't press the distinction. I'll take your word for your results, and I can't fault your reasoning. I won't go as far as supporting—my dislike for social activism at Wikipedia is strong and gut-level, and there's no doubt a lot of it going on in this discussion—but I hereby withdraw my non-!vote. If I hadn't been pinged, I wouldn't be in this at all. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 05:02, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Opposing social activism which is on the side of RS and our PAGs is itself a form of WP:ADVOCACY. I'm actually not sure I see anyone in the current discussion motivated by social activism. Kolya Butternut (talk) 05:56, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It wouldn't be the first time, but I would be very surprised. To me, it matters not what side they're on, it's still social activism. The problem of social activism at Wikipedia is more important than whether Wikipedia articles contain the phrase "committed suicide". It needs to stop, and I'll do my small part to fight it, even if it means Opposing social activism which is on the side of RS and our PAGs. By the way, I'm technically neither opposing nor supporting anything, assuming the closer can follow the discussion (they will deserve the Wikimedia Medal of Honour with three silver oak leaves). If it makes you feel better, I'll invoke WP:IAR.
Reminder: I have withdrawn my non-!vote without adding a !vote. It's like I was never here, and you're welcome to collapse my participation (which would obviously include all comments originating from my initial one). Just erase me, to the degree permitted by PAGs. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 07:07, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm actually not sure I see anyone in the current discussion motivated by social activism. Oh, if you mean the discussion since I responded to ping, I agree. But that's not what I'm talking about; I'm referring to the entire 28,000 words. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 06:22, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Opposing social activism which is on the side of RS and our PAGs. If it makes you feel better, I'll invoke WP:IAR. I'm not sure I understand you, but I think IAR means consensus overrides PAGs, but consensus cannot override NPOV. I do not see a problem with being motivated by activism if people are just as motivated to adhere to consensus, V, and NPOV.
I mean that I don't recall anyone arguing against "commit suicide" with a social activism motivation on this entire subpage. Kolya Butternut (talk) 06:36, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know where you got that idea about IAR, but it says and means "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." That "you" can be a single editor or a group, and that "rule" can be any rule including policy (the "A" in IAR). I believe opposition to social activism at Wikipedia improves Wikipedia, provided there's enough of it. Like I said, my small part. I do not see a problem with being motivated by activism if people are just as motivated to adhere to consensus, V, and NPOV. It is eminently clear that current Wikipedia policies are inadequate to protect the encyclopedia from the influence of social activists. Yes, they know how to use consensus, V, and NPOV, so the only available recourse is IAR—a Wikipedia policy.
I don't recall anyone arguing against "commit suicide" with a social activism motivation on this entire subpage. How would you know? We can't see them, but we know from the effects that they're there.
"Mankind" is still widely used in the real world, yet Wikipedia is no longer allowed to use it because it contains that evil word "man". Never mind that the word never refers to the male gender but to the entire human species. Now, editors are forbidden to use a very useful word in favor of neologisms like "personkind"—not even in my dictionary!—or other unnatural, awkward, and/or cumbersome constructs. "Humanity" works per its fourth definition in my dictionary; and "humankind" also works; but that's no reason to shrink the encyclopedia's available vocabulary by 1 with such an inane and mindless rationale. We could and should use all three words.
Et cetera. How did that happen? Social. Activism. Language policing by members of a minority of the general population, who sometimes form a majority in a Wikipedia discussion. Why would they choose to sit this one out, and how would they coordinate that if they did? ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 17:20, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know where you got that idea about IAR; IAR does not mean ignore Wikipedia principles. IAR is analogous to WP:5P5: "The principles and spirit matter more than literal wording". Neutrality is a core principle.
How would you know? Because I am the only person arguing in favor of avoiding "commit suicide"? I know my motivation.
I don't see specific reference to "mankind" in MOS:GNL. I appreciate your feelings on this, but "mankind" has a gender neutral definition; "commit" means to perpetrate, which is not neutral.
As I said, you are engaging in social activism. I just want to acknowledge the reality of what the sources say. Kolya Butternut (talk) 12:59, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Then WP:IAR is in serious need of a clarification update. It should say what it means, not some worse-than-useless advertising slogan whose intent is a matter of editor opinion. Pending that update, I'll stick with the literal reading of the policy. Otherwise, I'm now out for good, unless somebody starts criticizing my mother or something. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 13:58, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_%22Ignore_all_rules%22_means#What_%22Ignore_all_rules%22_means Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:30, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community." And stop criticizing my mother. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 16:31, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Because I am the only person arguing in favor of avoiding "commit suicide" is perhaps the point where you reflect that others simply do not agree that this is a neutrality issue, and thus you might wish to WP:DROPTHESTICK. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 14:37, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Mandruss, if this preliminary step is sufficient for the moment, then I won't bother collecting more (though anyone else is welcome to do so, if you feel like it – I tried to make the description of my methods sufficiently concrete that it should be replicable at any point). (No need to reply if you don't feel like it. It sounds like you're pretty done with this conversation already. Also, not pinging so you don't feel like you really have to come back to it yet again.)
I also haven't placed a !vote. I think "commit" is normally not the right choice, but I don't think a total ban is the right approach. Imagine, e.g., the intentional, long-planned death of a terminally ill right-to-die activist, in a place where that's illegal. Might it not be fair to describe that as "committed", complete with the implication of knowingly and intentionally committing a criminal act? Perhaps editors would decide against it, but I think they should be free to consider it.
For the kinds of deaths that the prevention organizations are thinking about (e.g., impulsive teens, people with substance use disorders), I don't think that "commit" language is normally appropriate. But I also think that when we give editors some information, they will consider all the facts and circumstances and make a reasonable choice for a given article. I'm content to leave them to it, without an absolute ban on "committed". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:11, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"This sense". The sense that you choose out of many because it's the one that supports your position. Do you disagree that OED definition III which I cite in my 17:32, 31 March comment applies? Feel free to cite a newer dictionary. Are they significantly below 50% - newspaper usage of "commit suicide" is a fifth or less of what it used to be. I don't know about other RS. Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:12, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do you disagree that OED definition III which I cite in my 17:32, 31 March comment applies? Sorry, that link gives me nothing related to "commit". Feel free to cite a newer dictionary. First, I use only online dictionaries. Unless I'm mistaken, they are not static but are constantly being updated to reflect current usage. So "newer" has no meaning in that context. My dictionary-of-choice is Merriam-Webster. It lists nine "subsenses" for transitive verb "commit". Subsense 1 supports your position; subsenses 2–9 do not. You're cherry-picking subsense 1. Granted, it's an American English dictionary, but I refuse to believe that the situation is significantly different in your OED. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 23:36, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Um, you're supposed to pick the relevant sense from a dictionary, when a word has multiple meanings. Surely you don't think " 'put into charge or trust : entrusted' suicide" is a fair or relevant understanding of "committed suicide"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:41, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. Try this angle: suicide sense 1a, "the act or an instance of ending one's own life voluntarily and intentionally [...] die by suicide = commit suicide". Nothing remotely negative implied anywhere on the page. Merriam-Webster would mention a connotation if one existed in common usage; they're good about that. Their "commit suicide" redirects to that same page. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 00:06, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/suicide
https://consciousstyleguide.com/conscious-language-american-heritage-dictionary/
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/commit-suicide Kolya Butternut (talk) 01:12, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know about other RS. Aye, there's the rub. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 00:00, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Responding to ping. Why am I being pinged? I have not edited this page, and I'm sure as hell not going to read all of this, not to mention there being an indication that I also need to read other discussions which I can't tell if they've been linked or not. See WP:TRAINWRECK, and also WP:STICK. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:07, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Ivanvector, pings were made to all users who participated in past relevant discussions in an effort to break a very long ongoing no consensus run on this topic that has kept coming up over again for at least the past decade. I'm shocked nobody has made any extreme effort to solve this repeated strain on the community up to this point. Sure it is a lot of reading and pings, but if we can put just a little bit into this now maybe we can put this to rest at last. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 13:50, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Huggums537 if there is repeated strain on the community, may I suggest applying the existing consensus and existing policies? The RFC close makes it quite clear that editors are free to word it as they see fit, and warns people on both sides not to tendentiously try to change that wording. Looking over this page I'm seeing certain editor(s) taking an extremely crusadery approach here. I have suspicions which side is responsible for the strain, but maybe I have it backwards. Either way, perhaps what is needed is a topic ban or two to persuade tendentious crusaders not to disrupt article writers.
Compiling a case for a topic ban is an unpleasant and daunting prospect, but sometimes that is the valuable task the community needs someone to take up. Because this page is an enormous time sink with (in my opinion) little prospect of producing a significantly different result than the one I already linked. Alsee (talk) 23:16, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think I would agree the RfC you linked to is a good indicator the consensus has been in favor of keeping the wording and the history of this whole thing is evidence that all attempts to change have been unsuccessful. However, I think topic banning those attempting/"crusading" to make the changes would be a shallow victory unless they're being really tendentious as you mentioned. A more victorious approach in my opinion would be for us to continue to muster every little bit of logic and reason that we possibly have to defend our position with until others see something they are able to latch onto and join the bandwagon because it isn't likely to change the mind of the other side, but some people on the fence might be persuaded by our determination paired with some decent reasoning. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 18:48, 3 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have no idea where this discussion is now, but I support the use of the term "committed suicide". That's the way it's usually expressed in English. It is not Wikipedia's job to change English-language usage. Use of the term is certainly not violating NPOV in any way. Neither is it colloquial. I would note that the Oxford English Dictionary lists it as neither colloquial nor offensive. Some people will find ways to be offended by absolutely anything and everything. It is not our job to protect them from their own insecurities or pander to their minority opinions. It is simply our job to present facts in the English language that most people use. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:22, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    OED has an entry on "commit suicide"? If not I'm not sure what you mean, but the applicable definition of "commit" in the 1913 OED says "To perpetrate or perform (in a bad sense)", which is not NPOV. Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:15, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I linked you to the current version of the OED already. Why are you persisting with a 112 year old entry instead? And in multiple comments. Yes, the OED has an entry for "commit suicide". [36] Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:59, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The 1913 OED doesn't list it as colloquial or offensive either; it lists it as doing something in a negative sense. I'll try to access the current OED later. Kolya Butternut (talk) 12:57, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Partial definition from OED: "... to kill oneself ... in extended use." Citation: Oxford English Dictionary, “'to commit suicide' in commit (v.), sense P.6,” March 2025, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1076841465 Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 20:49, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    What is sense P.6? Kolya Butternut (talk) 21:50, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • My opinion still remains the same as in 2021. Allow changing to "committed suicide" but don't require it. Changes should be done in a case-by-case basis subject to local consensus. pandakekok9 (talk) Resist internet censorship in the Philippines! 14:14, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • While I appreciate that some editors find 'committed suicide' to be very objectionable, I personally find 'died by suicide' to be far more patronizing and borderline dehumanizing in that it implies the absence of agency. I see no likelihood for a clear consensus to emerge from this sprawling thread, but I do see plenty of potential for hurt feelings and editors talking past one another. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 14:20, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Responding to ping – agree with Ivanvector, Necrothesp, and Sirfurboy. Kolya Butternut should read WP:BLUDGEON. Stifle (talk) 14:30, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Responding to ping. Give editors agency to decide what is appropriate for the article on a case-by-case basis. We don't need to prescribe how language is used, Wikipedia is not the Académie Française. --benlisquareT•C•E 14:35, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Responding to ping: The current guidance quoted above is adequate and appropriate. Aint broke - don't fix. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 15:47, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Responding to ping: In my personal experience, "committed suicide" is generally (though not always) common and considered acceptable usage. I respect that others have had different experiences, but I see no need to change current policy or guidance in this regard. I'm also sympathetic to the argument that changing it to make it less "stigmatizing" in reality comes across as patronizing and demeaning, and I still don't subscribe to the argument that the word "committed" carries with it inherently negative connotations. As I've spoken my peace here, it is unlikely that I will engage with attempts to change my opinion, though I will of course respect any consensus-guided changes that may occur. DonIago (talk) 16:54, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Responding to ping: absolutely do not ban "committed suicide" because it's a normal English phrase. Use normal English, not contrived phrases meant to sound all nice. Nyttend (talk) 18:53, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Responding to ping: As per Peter Southwood, Donlago, Nyttend et al, strongly oppose banning the phrase. Gimubrc (talk) 19:12, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Since I've been summoned. "Commit" is simply the verb that collocates with "suicide", the same way "set" does with "alight". I understand others feel very strongly against the phrase and some authorities recommend against it, but the balance of evidence suggests that it's still widely considered neutral and inoffensive, with no implications of criminality or wrongdoing. Maybe someday that will change, but it hasn't yet. The phrase shouldn't be banned, and should generally be preferred in that it's common usage. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 20:51, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Do you have any reliable sources saying that the phrase is generally considered "inoffensive"? Because we've got sources directly saying the opposite... WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:15, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    There are a limited number of sources saying that this phrase is offensive and shouldn't be used, and there are the countless and infinitely greater number of sources that use "commit suicide" normally and without comment. If you only look at sources explicitly recommending or forbidding usage, you'll get an incredibly skewed picture. Nobody bothers to put in their guide phrases that they think common and inoffensive. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 22:31, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Except that they do? We have style guides like https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsstyleguide/all/#s saying "The BBC’s Editorial Guidelines say that "kills oneself" or "takes one's life" are preferable options. At inquests, say: The coroner recorded a verdict of suicide." Therefore, sources actually do bother to put in their guide phrases that they think common and inoffensive. They even mandate some of them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:42, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That's exactly what I'm talking about. The source only mentions those because it considers "commit suicide" to be offensive. Those sources that don't will not mention it. When you only look at sources that describe using "commit suicide", you will end up with massive selection bias. The vast majority of sources simply use the phrase and don't bother explaining why they do. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 00:51, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay, so:
    • Every(!) single source that talks about it objects to it, but
    • no(!) source explicitly endorses it, and
    • you somehow know that "the vast majority of sources" use the phrase, despite
    • evidence that this is not true, so
    • we should ignore the sources that WP:Directly support the claim that it's inappropriate and instead pretend that hardly anyone actually objects to it, ?
    Can you find any English-language style guide that mentions suicide but doesn't mention "commit" either way? Suicide-related style guides cover a lot more territory than "commit", and IMO most of that is much more important. So if "commit" is acceptable but not worth explaining, where's a style guide that says "Don't be sensationalistic" or "Don't quote suicide notes" or "Don't provide cookbook-style information on how to replicate the suicide method" but doesn't mention "commit"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:06, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think @Red Rock Canyon is trying to explain to us that the "missing data" (the sources that don't explicitly endorse it, yet we still know it does through our historical use of the language) is likely creating a selection bias AKA survivorship bias. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 08:57, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    So:
    • We have lots of sources, including highly reputable, non-activist professional sources, that WP:Directly support a claim that it's problematic.
    • We have exactly zero sources that directly support a claim that it's not problematic. (I take the above comment as an implicit admission of this.)
    • But we should infer that since just 0.6% of articles mentioning suicide in PubMed during the last five years, that it's still an implicitly endorsed phrase that is used in "countless" (except we counted them) and "infinitely greater number" (except it is used in less than one out of every 150 suicide-related articles, and many of them are in journals focused on non-English speaking areas or in controversial journals like Cureus) sources.
    This does not seem like a logical interpretation of the facts to me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:46, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This reminds me of those weird people calling for a ban on hospitals as dangerous places because they had all of this historical data showing the high numbers of people who have died in hospitals and even some reliable medical professionals warning of the risks and dangers involved in going to the hospital, so how could anyone possibly ignore their "facts" if they had absolutely nothing explicitly stating that hospitals were not dangerous? All I see is absurdity or lunacy there. Plus, I'm aware that statistics can be misleading so at least some of the evidence seems questionable to me . For example, your approach that looks at Google scholar compares the term "commit suicide" against all other terms combined making it appear that it has a low percentage compared to other terms, but when you just look at the plain data it obviously ranks highest. It makes a difference how things are presented, what things are taking into account, and what things have or haven't been factored in. In other words, I think we need a whole lot more information before we should be making any big decisions about this. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 18:11, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I say we need more information because so far I've only seen one study that isn't really all that convincing and I believe the prudent thing to do would be to keep the status quo until we have more reliable studies, and stuff. Going off of style guides seems pretty weak to me. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 18:18, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Do you also oppose MOS:GENDERID, which is based on style guides and which also doesn't have Official Scientific™ Evidence proving that the name or description Wikipedia has about someone else upsets some readers? Do you also oppose MOS:SUFFER, which says not to call people "victims" of disorders, on the basis of style guides instead of data? I'm wondering whether the rejection of professional style guides is a general principle with you, or if you have a special rule for disregarding style guides for writing about suicide. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:03, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I haven't participated in the gender thing in a long time so I don't remember where I stand on that, but if I had to guess, I would probably be on the side of scientific evidence over style guides. I've just read SUFFER and I quite surprisingly like it, but I do however disagree with the drug abuse section, and think that whole section should be removed for the simple fact that most if not all illegal use carries a serious risk of addiction or physical harm when it isn't prescribed by a doctor and replacing "drug abuse" with "recreational use" undermines these risks. Heck, even legal use carries a huge risk of physical harm or addiction. Just look at alcohol. There's a very real difference between a recreational drinker, and an alcoholic, but make no mistake about the recreational drinker taking a risk of causing physical harm each time they drink. I say this as a reformed drug addict so I do admit having some personal beef with it. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 00:37, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    P.S. I want to add that I would never dream of referring to myself as a former "recreational user" in order to avoid the embarrassment of referring to myself as a former addict. I'm not some kind of a politician that needs to save face. I personally need the more harsh language to keep me sober because it reminds me of the pain and anguish of the poor choices that I made and I never ever want to lose that feeling or forget where I came from because I can tell you that I struggled to get sober many times and as soon as you try to relax or pretend like the past never happened is right when it reaches up to bite you in the butt. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 01:01, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    that's kind of the crux of this whole thing. people have different opinions, some of which conflict with others, so it's literally impossible to satisfy everyone. this is also why i oppose any bans here, since banning things can very easily come off as censorship, "softening" things can very easily make suicide not seem as impactful as it is, and making it a rule can very VERY easily spiral into the kind of thing people will wikilawyer the h*ck out of (sorry, my mom doesn't let me say the fuck word) until it's brought to discussion again, specifically because of the lawyering. even if it was unilaterally agreed by pretty much everyone ever to be offensive, the solution would just be not using it. we don't see articles referring to people with prosthetic limbs as "augmentoids", for example, because everyone agrees that that's offensive for the sake of being offensive and nothing else, and sounds too dumb to take seriously consarn (prison phone) (crime record) 12:09, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Huh? Our guidelines say to avoid using many words in wikivoice. Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:35, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Summoned by ping. As with so many above, i cannot agree that "committed suicide" is wrong or to be deprecated; it is the usual and normal, colloquial and everyday use of language that actual people use in speaking and writing in order to be understood. Style guides and such stuff can try and change language (make no mistake, that is what they are trying to do with this particular usage), but that is by no means our remit. It should be permitted for us to write "died by suicide" or some such, though it can sound fake, condescending and, almost a non-natural language structure, but by means should we ban "committed suicide" ~ LindsayHello 21:47, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Summoned by ping. As per my usual position on stuff like this: 1) It doesn't matter. 2) Nobody cares, including the reader, and if they do, or say they do, well, we can't overly cater to people who are that easily bothered. 3) Consistency between articles is way overrated and more a function of editors wanting to be neat rather than serving the reader. (Neatness is OK, and inconsistency within article is overly sloppy (altho it doesn't even matter for this question), but is usually way overdone here; a project like this is not going to be Britannica and might as well get used to it), 4) let the editor who is researching and writing the material -- the actual work of the project after all -- the satisfaction of writing as she wishes (within reason). We do not need to micromanage editors and it's a waste of energy and annoying to the volunteers, and 5) stuff like this puts editors in a cop/perp relationship ("you may not do (unimportant thing) X, and ultimately I have the law on my side, so submit"), which after all is human nature (who doesn't like to boss other people around!) but might interfere with the friendly collegial relationships we need.
So, here's what you want to do. Make a list of reasonable constructions -- IMO should be inclusive, ten or so, but doesn't have to be -- and the rule can be very simple and easy to follow: "Pick from among this list". Most all editors will be using one of the legal constructions (and if not they're being overly idiosyncratic and just revert) so the rule won't ever have to be used and one less thing to worry about. This is the actual correct solution. Herostratus (talk) 22:12, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Summoned by ping. Do not think we need a rule around using or not using this terminology. Commit means dedicated to carry out not just jail. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:09, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    See above discussion; you're using the wrong definition. Kolya Butternut (talk) 01:35, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't know why I was pinged, as I'm not a Wikipedian, but I support strongly encouraging editors to avoid "commit suicide", as the term has long ceased to be neutral, and alternative phrasing has become common in the media. Too bad English hasn't come up with a phrasing like the French se suicider ("to suicide oneself") or the Japanese jisatsu suru ("do suicide"), which are both neutral and elegant. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:51, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    In English we do have to "unalive oneself", due to algorithmic censorship on social media. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 10:45, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I've read the same thing, but I hope we can all agree to keep that one neologism out of ordinary Wikipedia articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:48, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    French is the superior language in this case with its "se" reflexive verbs. A curious and off topic fact: the sui in suicide is from the same Latin root as the se in French, so it has doubled itself up there. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:27, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Japanese has the superior phrasing, as the grammar is was straightforward as is even possible in the language, with no funny reflexive stuff and no redundancies. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 12:02, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    got it, establish japanese as the official language of literally everything ever~
    please don't actually do that, it's a pretty chaotic language, extremely prone to bad puns consarn (prison phone) (crime record) 12:12, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Responding to ping: I oppose a ban on the phrase. I rarely encounter regular folks who object to the term. In fact, when I speak with patients, most of them use the phrase, for example: "Sure, I think about killing myself when I'm really feeling down, but I would never actually commit suicide." I understand the history and the connotation among some, and I personally try to use other phrasing, although I often forget and no one faints if I say something like, "his uncle committed suicide when he was young." Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 21:03, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Summoned by ping. I am not in favour of getting rid of the term from Wikipedia given that the phrase is still commonly used in RSs, we are not here to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 23:28, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Responding to ping: Suicide is unpleasant, and any term relating to it has a negative connotation. Some will be upset by any reference to suicide, and that is why there may be warnings if this topic is to be discussed. However it makes little difference as to whether "committed" is used or not, so we just stick to what is in common use, not looking at accademics so much as newspapers and other sources that we actually use. But in any case "committed suicide" is still a common term, and per evidence supplied above the most common term for this. We don't need an onerous style guide, as a single publisher might, and so we should not be deprecating or banning its use. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:36, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    per evidence supplied above the most common term for this; What evidence are you referring to? Kolya Butternut (talk) 11:51, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    i assume it's whatamidoing's findings, which she used as proof that only 36% of the sources she found were using the wording in question... but ignoring the fact that it was the most used wording, at ~17,800 results to "died by suicide"'s ~15,200 consarn (prison phone) (crime record) 12:23, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I got pinged, so that's why I'm coming in. I actually do not like the term "committed suicide" for various reasons which have been discussed above, but I do think it's the commonly used term. That very well may change in a year or two but I don't think it's there now. May His Shadow Fall Upon You ● 📧 11:57, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Summoned by ping. I support the existing consensus which explicitly allows "commit suicide" and which cautions anyone on either side of the issue against tenditious changes in either direction. If anyone is tenditiously rewriting articles to say "commit suicide" or tenditiously deleting "commit suicide" from articles, then the appropriate action is a topic ban against making or discussing such changes. Alsee (talk) 23:34, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Padmanathan, Prianka; Biddle, Lucy; Hall, Katherine; Scowcroft, Elizabeth; Nielsen, Emma; Knipe, Duleeka (2019). "Language use and suicide: An online cross-sectional survey". PLOS ONE. 14 (6): e0217473. Bibcode:2019PLoSO..1417473P. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0217473. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 6563960. PMID 31194768.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: article number as page number (link)

Another angle - Status Quo

I think it should be noted in this context, that this issue is emblematic of a trend on Wikipedia, to be conservative to change. This is quite often entirely appropriate, as trends come and go. This one however seems to be sticky.

Had coverage of suicide been first authored on Wikipedia today - I am certain that there would have been overwhelming consensus not to use the term "committed suicide". Arguments to use preferred older terminology would have been met with a simple refutation that this is WP:IDONTLIKEIT.

In some sense, referring to many older discussions and old consensus, from before this terminological shift was cemented is just claiming a false Overton window based on the fact that Wikipedia started before this shift occurred. I think quite central to this debate, which I see being ignored, is the question: "What terminology would we have been used if Wikipedia was started today?"

This is not an arugment against Wikipedia's conservative bent, or an argument that we should follow every trend. Rather, the argument is: that sometimes, we have to get with the times, and consider our own age. Had we started our coverage on suicide in the past 5-10 years, we would likely not have chosen to allow "committed suicide". CFCF (talk) 13:48, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Wikipedia's conservative bent" is not a sentence I'd have expected to see in 2025, given how much mud actual conservatives sling at Wikipedia editors for the exact opposite accusation that Wikipedia's editorial style is excessively progressive - among the easiest examples that come to mind, on Wikipedia we refer to people by their preferred pronouns, and prohibit deadnaming, both things which regularly draw ire from those entrenched in conservatism. The deadlock preventing any departure from the status quo on suicide phraseology isn't that Wikipedia is conservative to change, it's due to a multitude of complex reasons, one of which is that not all of us are Americans, and generalisations that might normally apply to the American cultural zeitgeist of the day (for example, "commit suicide" being potentially offensive phraseology) doesn't apply to all Wikipedia users. As a non-American, not once have I ever heard, in everyday life or in local layperson media, any suggestion of the phrase potentially causing offence, and thus from my non-American perspective it feels more like a foreigner problem from across the globe being forced upon me by Americans. I'd argue that the wishes of non-American Wikipedia editors such as myself are more likely to be glossed over, but I'm not going to make a big deal out of it, because when in Rome, do as the Romans do, and from survey after survey we still know that Americans continue to make up the bulk of English Wikipedia editors. --benlisquareT•C•E 16:38, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Australian style recommendations against "commit suicide":
https://www.abc.net.au/about/abc-style-guide
https://mindframe.org.au/suicide/communicating-about-suicide/language
https://mhcc.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Recovery-Oriented-Language-Guide-3rd-edition.pdf Kolya Butternut (talk) 16:51, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Two organisations nobody has heard of, great. What about the pineapple spruiker on the street, or the nail salon worker, or the car mechanic? This is everything wrong with this discussion right now. This is linguistic prescriptivism, mixed in with blind adherence to arguments from authority. Owing to my long-term interest in applied linguistics, I am a Wiktionary contributor since 2008, which means I am inherently a linguistic descriptivist, and thus, simply out of principle, cannot agree with linguistic prescriptivism, including the kind that you are advocating for here on Wikipedia. Language should not be something that a king or an emperor or a central committee or a politburo or an activist group or an academy or a think-tank can enforce in a particular way; language should be left to naturally evolve on its own, and we should not falsely paint the usage of words as either "correct language" or "incorrect language", because there is no such thing as incorrect language as long as the commonfolk are using these words and expressions in a widespread manner. We can only describe how language is used by the commonfolk, and mirror how language is used by the commonfolk. Any attempts to police how "commit suicide" is used on Wikipedia, in spite of how the commonfolk use the phrase, is a textbook example of prescriptivism and I will oppose it based on my personal values. I don't care about what advocacy groups say, I simply care about what the greater population says. If the greater population is evil, then we should be evil too. --benlisquareT•C•E 17:02, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is the biggest public broadcaster in Australia.
  • Mindframe is a project of the National Suicide Prevention Leadership and Support Program, aka something the Australian federal government is doing.
  • The Mental Health Coordinating Council is the peak body for community mental health organizations in New South Wales.
Wikipedia usually cares about what the reliable sources say, not what "the greater population" says. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:26, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia usually cares about what the reliable sources say, not what "the greater population" says — That's true for matters of fact, but not necessarily for matters of style. (Saying a particular death was suicide is a matter of fact that requires an RS. What words we use to say it is a matter or style.) For style we have MOS, which is based on the consensus of the Wikipedia editors, not necessarily the style used by RSs. Mitch Ames (talk) 04:02, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but our style is based on style guides, academic sources, and our concept of encyclopedic style. Our goals do not include mimicking the style of speech used by "the pineapple spruiker on the street, or the nail salon worker, or the car mechanic". WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:43, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What words mean is a matter of RS. According to RS, commit means to perpetrate, which is non-neutral. Using commit suicide in wikivoice (outside contexts where RS describe the crime of suicide) is a violation of the principle of NPOV, which is not just a policy that can be ignored. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:47, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We're not writing an article here. We're discussing policy at the village pump here, and policy doesn't care about what the reliable sources say, it cares about what the community consensus says, where members of the community may or may not be swayed by valid and convincing arguments from reliable sources. I'm giving my personal rationale as to why I'm not joining in on changing the existing consensus, and I immediately get hit by an American's "here's what you should know about your country, I know more about your country than your personal experience living there, by the way" as if it's some kind of gotcha (this is an extremely common stereotype of American defaultism on the internet, and a very common gripe and cause of spitefulness within the rest of the Anglosphere, in case anyone wasn't aware). If you're going to change my mind and the minds of others, you're probably going to need to improve on the PR work, because you're doing a great job of alienating people who would be otherwise sitting on the fence and are open to be swayed into joining a consensus change. You could be the most correct person on the planet, but if your way with people is absolutely terrible, nobody will care about how correct you are. Convince me, convince the editors who contribute to this project, make the community feel like you have a valid point, don't speak to style guides like it's an infallable holy book. --benlisquareT•C•E 06:03, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again, consensus can override policies, not the principle of NPOV. Feel free to provide RS which non-Australians do not have access to which show that "commit" does not have negative connotations. Kolya Butternut (talk) 11:09, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Look, do you want me to help you, or not? I'm just trying to make you understand a very basic principle about human nature here. Nobody in history ever succeeded because they were right, they succeeded because they were persuasive and had people skills. It doesn't matter if they were a Mesopotamian military general, or a Wall Street banker, or a civil rights activist, every single person who achieved their goals was a people-person. Right now, here on this discussion page, your goal is to change Wikipedia policy and prevent editors from using specific wording, is that not the case? Do you not see that being "right" and "correct" is counter-productive to achieving that goal, and that you should attempt to adjust your tactics a bit? --benlisquareT•C•E 11:16, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How about this, let's walk back ten steps and go for a fresh reset. I'll give everyone another chance at changing my mind. I'll describe my current position as thus: I am philosophically a linguistic descriptivist, not a linguistic prescriptivist. Because of my philisophical views, I believe that we should allow the usage of "commit suicide", "died as a result of suicide", and "killed him/her/themselves" without any preference over one or the other. The editor should be given free will to decide which form to use, within reason. We should trust editors to make the right judgment for the right situation. We should not enforce one form or the other. Should there be an individual edge case that requires intervention, for any and all rationales, this scenario can be addressed by community consensus on the talk page, on a case-by-case basis. Convince me, and my fellow contributors to this project, why my position is faulty and that we should enforce specific phraseology and prohibit the use of others, without resorting to style guides or advocacy groups. --benlisquareT•C•E 11:17, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Academic and scientific writing is persuasive by being right not by having people skills. If you want to help you can use your people skills to support my correct arguments. You're focusing on style guides and advocacy groups when dictionaries and RS which discuss the meaning of the term say it is non-neutral. The Oxford English Dictionary is descriptivist; do you have access to that?
Also, suicide was a crime in Australia up until 1958, in living memory.
https://psychology.org.au/publications/inpsych/2013/february/beaton Kolya Butternut (talk) 12:55, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, I am not writing a mainspace Wikipedia article, I am having a discussion on a talk page, I am not obligated to cite reliable sources. You may choose to provide reliable sources to back up your claims if you prefer to do so, but I have no obligation to reciprocate. Do you genuinely believe that, in the current state of this talk page, this proposal will be closed in your favour, and a policy change will be implemented? Rather than focusing on "reliable sources" as a crutch, how about considering some independent thought of your own, and refute the more abstract concerns that have been raised?
Wikipedia editors are people, not robots - we're not just going to flip a switch and go "beep boop - you are right" after you present the alleged facts from 500 different reliable sources. Being "right" has never ever mattered, not now, not ever. If a drink driver swerves into your lane, do you say "but officer, I was in the right"? No, because both of you are now in the cemetery. Rather than being "right", you need to be persuasive. You can cite all sorts of advocacy groups, but will you pass the vibe check that is required in order to turn consensus around? Think about it - a large majority of the people eager and willing to contribute to a libre and gratis encyclopedia project in their own spare time are, more likely than not, going to have slight libertarian leanings. What do you think the common reaction will be when you start policing what words they can and cannot use? A favourable reaction?
As an example of the damage caused by such a widespread and sweeping policy proposal, on Wikipedia we have hundreds, if not thousands, of biographical articles about dukes, princes, generals, and scholars from the Tang dynasty and Ming dynasty that committed suicide, and the idea that we need to rephrase all of them following a policy change, because we might potentially risk someone reading about a Sui dynasty prince who lived 1400 years ago who committed suicide over an estranged lover to become emotionally distressed over the article's phrasing (not the article's topic matter or biographical content, but the phrasing), seems like preposterous pseudoscience to me. If it's not broken, don't fix it. --benlisquareT•C•E 13:32, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would expect this discussion to be abandoned without a close. I expect my proposal to eventually make it to policy. In this moment I am concerned about what you think, not other people, and you are clearly self-aware and able to make judgments beyond your emotions, so I feel no need to appeal to them in your case. My concern in this moment is not about readers' distress; it is about adhering to the principle of NPOV. NPOV depends on reliable sources. Kolya Butternut (talk) 13:48, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, unless you decide to change your approach (i.e. "Academic and scientific writing is persuasive by being right"), you're most likely going to be having the same discussion in July 2029, and still wondering why the policy proposal isn't gaining traction from the community. --benlisquareT•C•E 13:51, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You're not discussing your position you're only talking about tactics. I have no need to persuade because the writing is on the wall, the media and encyclopedic writing rarely use the term anymore. Kolya Butternut (talk) 13:55, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Let's get back to what you said, I'll give everyone another chance at changing my mind. Descriptivist RS describe the language as non-neutral. The old OED does. As a linguist maybe you have access to the new OED? Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:08, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For for those among use who are neither American nor Australian, there is the World Health Organization - Preventing suicide: A resource for media professionals Update 2017 page 16, WHO: Preventing suicide: a resource for media professionals Update 2023 page 20.

The phrase “committed suicide” implies criminality (suicide remains a criminal offence in some countries) and unnecessarily increases the stigma experienced by those who have lost a person to suicide. It is better to say “died by suicide” or “took his/her life”.

Or LANGUAGE MATTERS SAFE LANGUAGE AND MESSAGES FOR SUICIDE PREVENTION - Public Health Agency of Canada 2020: The term ‘committed’ is stigmatizing as it implies someone is criminal or immoral or has committed an offence. Suicide is not a crime. It was decriminalized in 1972. Recent amendments to the Criminal Code of Canada (section 241) refer to ‘die by suicide’ rather than ‘committed suicide’.

Or - Self-harm and suicide in adults, UK Royal College of Psychiatrists 2020 page 15: The media are a significant factor in perpetuating this stigma; they include traditional print and broadcast media but also, of increasing significance, online – especially social – media. Although there are clear guidelines produced by the Samaritans concerning the reporting of death by suicide, it is very difficult to enforce these online. It is important that anyone involved in mental health services understands the effect of their language on family and friends who are bereaved by suicide. Phrases such as ‘committed suicide’ date back to a time when an attempt to take one’s own life was a criminal act.

Or THE LANGUAGE OF SUICIDE: PREVENTION AND STIGMA South African Depression and Anxiety Group page 2: Commit Suicide: The word ‘commits’ is associated with crime – he committed murder. The preferred term is ‘died by suicide’ because it emphasises the death and avoids judgment about the means.

Or Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand: Reporting and portrayal of suicide: Avoid saying someone “committed” suicide – this associates suicide with a crime or sin. Instead, use language such as “died by suicide,” “took his own life,” etc.

Or The International Association for Suicide Prevention - The Language of Suicide: The term “committed suicide” implies a level of criminality while “completed suicide” implies earlier attempts when there may have been none. Both terms (committed and completed) perpetuate the stigma associated with suicide and are strongly discouraged. Using the word “successful” or “failed” to describe suicide is also discouraged. Terms such as “died by suicide” or “died of suicide” as well as “suicide death” and “fatal suicide behaviour” are recommended. Sensitive use of suicide-related language is appreciated.

Or National Office for Suicide Prevention - Ireland: Language and Suicide: Using the term ‘commit suicide’ can imply a sin, criminal offence or act, and therefore can be stigmatising – of the person who has died, or of people who have been bereaved. The act of suicide was decriminalised in Ireland in 1993 and the term 'commit/committed suicide' should always be avoided.

Or Trinidad and Tobago, 2021 Ministry of Health Guidelines for Reporting on Suicide: INSTEAD OF THIS: Using stigmatising language such as successful/ unsuccessful suicide, failed aempt or commied suicide. [...] DO THIS INSTEAD: Use phrases like “died by suicide” or ”took his/her life”.

Or The Lancet Commission on ending stigma and discrimination in mental health 2022: The media play powerful roles in increasing stigma when they reinforce stereotypes associated with mental health conditions, such as unpredictability or dangerousness, and decreasing stigma when they align with guidelines on responsible reporting, for example of suicide [...] The use of stigmatising language can have effects related to suicide. The term committed suicide, for example, might suggest that suicide is a criminal act, even where it has been decriminalised whereas died by suicide is non-judgemental.

CFCF (talk) 13:20, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not therapy. The risk disclaimer states that content on Wikipedia may cause harm to readers, and Wikipedia bears zero responsibility for any harm that arises due to its content. --benlisquareT•C•E 13:39, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What does that have to do with anything? CFCF (talk) 13:40, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your position is that the wording causes stigmatisation, and thus harm. My position is that language should not be restricted by prescriptive policy, and that greater trust should be bestowed upon editors, who are adults and capable of making the right judgment for the right situation. I trust the editor; you do not. You believe that the editor needs to have restrictions placed upon them in order for them to constructively build an encyclopedia. --benlisquareT•C•E 13:46, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm also just going to out on a limb here - and clarify MY position, which is not what you are saying it is. My personal position in this is more or less agnostic as to whether this is a real problem or not. However, in interpreting what the field says on the subject, and what is the consensus appropriate terminology in the best available WP:RS today - there is only one answer - which is that: saying "committed suicide" is inappropriate and not WP:NPOV. I don't really care about the issue itself, but I do care that consensus here is based on personal opinions, which is not appropriate. CFCF (talk) 14:50, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You are free to hold that position, but it is a WP:FRINGE position according to all the guidelines above - which are not therapeutic guidelines, but media guidelines. Wikipedia is media. My position is that Wikipedia should abide by WP:RS and strive for a WP:NPOV in accordance with the general consensus of the field - and not whatever consensus is among a clique of experienced editors and lay people. CFCF (talk) 13:47, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If it's fringe, then explain this talk page. The cohort of Wikipedia editors does not exist in a vacuum, it's obviously a byproduct of the world around each editor. More editors, not less, would be in favour of sweeping policy changes to prohibit stigmatising wording surrounding suicide if it was fringe. No, I don't need a RS to prove this, by the way. --benlisquareT•C•E 13:53, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So in the face of a plethora of WP:RS you are saying WP:IDONTLIKEIT? And you feel that holds as a policy argument? CFCF (talk) 13:57, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
RS, RS, RS. Yes, all the RS in the world supports your position. The cohort of Wikipedia editors on this talk page unfortunately do not. How are you going to turn this situation around? Remember, this is your problem, and not mine. I don't need to make valid policy arguments because I'm not proposing changes, the onus is not on me. I'm not trying to be smarmy here, I'm putting the spotlight on an inconvenient truth that many here seem to dodge - in order for policy changes like this to pass, it's not the RSes that matter, it's the discussion participants. --benlisquareT•C•E 14:08, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Consensus cannot override NPOV. Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:13, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WP:NPOV exists because 37 Wikipedia editors in 2003 came to the consensus to write that page and make it a policy. --benlisquareT•C•E 14:15, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You're not making arguments based on Wikipedia principles, and therefore all we need is one courageous RFC closer in the future to ignore such arguments. Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:34, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Kolya you're right a close can go against the majority, I've personally closed against the majority in a 20-vs-10 RFC. You're also right that consensus cannot override NPOV, in particular I participated in a decision to sanction Administrators at Azerbaijani Wikipedia who had engineered NPOV-violating consensus. I mention this because you overlooked something in your hope for a "courageous RFC closer". If someone "courageously" closes as you suggest with the rationale you suggest, that close would certainly be challenged and, I expect, overturned at close review.
Your argument that "committed suicide"-violates-NPOV hasn't been convincing people. Maybe you are misunderstanding/misapplying NPOV, maybe everyone else is misunderstanding/misapplying NPOV, but the result is the same. Repeating that argument again isn't likely to change any minds that it didn't change the last time you repeated it. Alsee (talk) 01:13, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This discussion ended two weeks ago. Maybe some of us should have taken to a user talk page so we would feel free to comment as much as we want without it being viewed as a time sink (although since this discussion has been relatively hidden in a subpage I expected it would be soon forgotten without a close).
I will note that you did not comment on the substance of my NPOV argument.
I am not aware that there have been battles over this language at articles. Kolya Butternut (talk) 01:55, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
oh boy it's that time at 9 am where i accidentally yap for way too long
it's less that it "ended", and more that everyone else kind of lost interest in a one-versus-a-million discussion, since as some other editors have noted ages ago (hi past masem :D), your repeated arguments that the use of "committed" is offensive have at best flown over others' arguments that avoiding any specific wording is more offensive, since it attempts to obfuscate the act or its impact. sirufboy mentioned it before, but it really was starting to smell like idht
as for the last part... huh? didn't the previous rfc alsee mentioned before start over those specific kinds of battles? if there haven't been battles (or at least that many of them) since, it must be because the consensus was pretty effective, and from an admittedly really short look (i mean like 20 minutes short lol), the last case of those kinds of changes that i saw were on 2022 (after the rfc's closure) in robin williams, with the current wording used (effective as of this diff, apparently) reeking of "there have been wars over what to say here, can we please just skim past it"
see also this lengthy discussion in archive 9 of that article's talk page (hi past kolya again :D), which ended(?) in... i'm not willing to say "train wreck", but more so "everyone went to the rfc and/or lost interest", and even then, your ideas were pretty openly disagreed with for more or less the same reasons as now (that being that "committed" is an idiom, and the most commonly used one at that), so if it closed, i don't think it would've been in your favor
...it also kind of disturbs me how easy it is to see this entire discussion (as in the whole discussion about the wording, not just the one in this page) as being against you specifically, with how aggressive your participation has been. i say this as the kind of wonk who has bludgeoned discussions regarding redirects before, am currently doing it, and will do it again, you might want to have another look at the case. if this many people are against it, the problem might lie elsewhere consarn (prison phone) (crime record) 12:32, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I would say the problem is idht, but on your part and most others. "committed" is offensive is not my argument. My argument is that RS say committed is offensive, and therefore violates NPOV. The difference is not trivial. As to the other side's argument, that avoiding any specific wording is more offensive, citation needed. Also, policy says we are to avoid idioms. But if you would like to continue this discussion, let's go to One of our user talk pages so that I don't get burned for bludgeoning. Kolya Butternut (talk) 13:29, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
i don't think taking it to a talk page is needed, since it'll only spread things even thinner than they already are. unfortunately, this is an argument where the opposition (to yours, that is) is overwhelmingly simple, so repetition of one side is pretty much inevitable: people either don't care (see the number of sources still using "committed"), or find the obfuscation of a term in favor of something that, ideally for the people pushing that term, would mean the exact same thing (see the first few votes, and the previous discussions, and-) even more offensive. reliable sources reflect the opinions of the people, the quantity of which you yourself described as "some", that "committed" is offensive, but they also reflect the opinions of the others, who just use the funny word
this is all stuff we've already done though, so i've decided to spend an unhealthy amount of time looking stuff up, came upon like 15 painful realizations in a row, and am now dead
from a "short" googling session, the results i got looked something like
  • "committed suicide": ~26,700
  • "commit suicide":~53,300
  • "commits suicide": ~19,800
  • "committing suicide": ~12,600
  • "died by suicide": ~77,200
  • "die by suicide": ~24,000
  • "dies by suicide":~69,600 (not nice in this case)
  • "dying by suicide": ~9,920
  • "cause of death was suicide": ~24,800
  • "cause of death was a suicide": also ~24,800 lol
  • "cause of death is suicide": ~17,300
  • "cause of death is a suicide": ~24,800 again!?
  • "cause of death being suicide": okay yeah you probably guessed that it'd be ~24,800 by now
  • "cause of death being a suicide": 6, and one of the results was a hazbin hotel discussion on reddit (tbf it is grammattically cursed)
favorable so far, huh? now this is the part where it gets especially fucky... for me specifically
  • "killed himself": ~142,000
  • "killing himself":~106,000
  • "killed herself": ~70,300
  • "killing herself":~40,200
  • "killed themself" ~125,000
  • "killing themself":~91,300
  • "killed themselves": ~126,000
  • "killing themselves":~90,800
  • "killed itself": ~98,400
  • "killing itself": ~67,800 (for the record, i wouldn't give "itself" much weight, since it's usually used to refer to things that aren't people, like corporate entities or corporate entities)
that's right, baby, i've been wrong and dumb and stupid this whole time!! by google's standards (specifically on a clean incognito mode window, since it normally kinda hates giving me usable results), the majority is easily the most blunt, in-your-face wording, to the point where a grand total of three ways to word it (or maybe even just two if you discount "itself") don't outnumber literally all the others. this means i'm now officially pro "killed", hell yeah!
...or pro that thing the previous rfc did, which was not forcing a single wording, since even those four instances of 24k "cause of death..." searches are nothing to scoff at
point is, the "people find this offensive" argument loses to an overwhelming majority, and the majority argument also loses to an overwhelming majority, but if it helps, my Dumb Ass did get the specific majority wrong, so i should prepare my oven for a couple months of mostly eating baked trout consarn (grave) (obituary) 15:03, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a better first consideration: look up notable suicides in the past 3 to 5 years and tell me how RS reported on them. Kolya Butternut (talk) 16:23, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Consarn, those numbers aren't what I get. At www.google.com, a search for the quoted phrase "killed himself" returns "About 9,670,000 results". How did you get only "~142,000" for that search? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:40, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
i switched to the news tab lol. should have said that before, my bad consarn (grave) (obituary) 16:54, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The simplest explanation is that the entrenched position here - is for whatever reason ignorant - both of the field and of developments in language over the past 20 years. It is also entirely false to state that you do not need to make arguments to support status quo - that is the entire opposite of WP:BEBOLD or WP:5P5. You're just wrong - ignoring WP:RS is not in line with WP:PILLARS, and in particular WP:NOTDEMOCRACY. We abide by sources first and foremost. CFCF (talk) 14:16, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As we speak, right now, there is nothing stopping an editor from writing a new Wikipedia article, and using the wording "Following a year-long struggle with depression, Joe took his own life on February 17". Editors can already do this, right this moment, with no policy barriers. Two hours later, another editor, who either doesn't know about the stigma behind the phrasing, or doesn't feel too strongly about the new AP/NYT/BBC recommended phrasing, is then able to write another article that goes "then in 612 AD, upon receiving news of the emperor's death, Sima Huang committed suicide, and he was buried alongside 300 of his servants who were put to death", and they can do this with no policy barriers. A third editor then encounters an old article from 2007 that says "Tim committed suicide whilst on tour with his band in Adelaide", WP:BOLDly suggests a wording change, and can successfully change the wording since all 5 people on the talk page agree to it. None of this is impossible right now - we give editors the right to do the correct thing, free of parental supervision, and let them flourish. From my perspective, philosophically, this is the Wikipedia I envision - a Wikipedia of trust, and of maturity. Meanwhile, a policy change adds an extra guard rail for editors to firmly adhere to, because we don't trust editors, like an extra fence at the park (because we don't trust people to not vandalise a statue), or like an extra speed camera on the highway (because we don't trust motorists to not speed). My philosophical desires hold just as much weight as your RS-supported points showing that public health agencies view such wording as stigmatising, at least in my personal view. You're more than welcome to disagree with this, of course, and honestly I won't be too up in arms over it, since just like how I trust editors to be able to constructively write articles without guardrails, I will also defend your right to disagree with my 100% subjective position that I have provided zero RSes for. Don't mistake this for me agreeing with you, of course. I still value the freedom of editors over the prevention of stigma. --benlisquareT•C•E 14:52, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, maybe there is some way to distinguish between historical coverage and modern coverage. CFCF (talk) 15:00, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia policy is descriptivist not prescriptivist. Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:06, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Benlisquare, I think you should read Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not therapy, which begins Wikipedia is not therapy. It does not exist for the purpose of letting people practice occupational therapy skills, such as using computers, typing, organizing information, or working with others.
I suspect you will find that it does not say what editors sometimes guess from the WP:UPPERCASE. In particular, it says nothing about protecting readers' mental health, and it says almost nothing about editors' mental health. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:03, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Understood, that's my mistake. My apologies. --benlisquareT•C•E 18:00, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I can't help but feel that the TL;DR of that list is that a bunch of organizations caved in to stop language change activists from whining at them ad nauseum. Like what's happening on this page. Anomie⚔ 13:58, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have a WP:RS to support that statement - or is it your opinion? Further, I don't see how it is relevant. Language changes, sometimes through advocacy, sometimes naturally. Wikipedia does not prescribe that "We must only use the language that was deemed appropriate in 2001". CFCF (talk) 14:00, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there is one several chapters further up the page somewhere, where a survey was conducted that found people with personal experience of suicide did not see "commit suicide" as stigmatising, but that those who had no personal experience of suicide but worked or volunteered to assist (e.g.the Samaritans) were more likely to see it as stigmatising. The research was carried out by someone who advocates avoiding the term, who wanted evidence for the policy. The evidence was - shall we say - equivocal. (And okay, here's the ref [37]. See figure 3 and also, especially, the researcher's caveats). Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 14:09, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, so in the face of WP:DUE - how do we weigh this? CFCF (talk) 14:17, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We are not writing an article about it, so what does WP:DUE have to do with anything? Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 16:42, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is a nonsensical argument which for whatever reason has been brought up multiple times here without being challenged.
So here goes:
  • Policy is not independent of article space. Any discussion we have here is about what to do in article space.
WP:DUE is valid to discuss from the perspective of articles broadly - which is frankly the only thing we are doing here, unless you wish to challenge WP:NOTSOCIALNETWORK.
CFCF (talk) 17:54, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yep. Nonsensical covers it. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:26, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In addition to what @Anomie has to say about the list of sources I'd also like to point out that there appears to be a preferential wp:synthesis of the sources going on where the proponents of this nonsense are wanting so much for the sources to explicitly say that us common folk and even the media should start policing our speech, but in reality these are just snippets taken out of context of a bigger picture where what is actually going on in the majority of cases is that this is best practice advice for what mental health professionals should do. That doesn't mean it is what we should do unless we all agree we should pretend we are mental health professionals. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 17:50, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What are you talking about? Do I have to go through and cite everything again? Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:47, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Huggums, when you look at a page like https://www.samaritans.org/about-samaritans/media-guidelines/guidance-for-reporting-on-self-harm-and-suicide-content-online/ or see advice (on that page) labeled "Tips for the general public on how to talk about suicide online in a safe way", I don't think "advice for what mental health professionals should do" is a fair description. I bet you don't, either. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:49, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I was obviously referring to the same list of sources recently provided by CFCF which Anomie had commented on, none of which included the one you are talking about. At any rate, it is why I said the the majority of sources were advice for health professionals, and not all of the sources. I will not rehash the debate as to why I think recent trends and fads in the media or style guides are a bad idea for Wikipedia. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 02:57, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Let's look at the list CFCF posted. Here's some quotations:
  • "A resource for media professionals"
  • "The media are a significant factor in perpetuating this stigma; they include traditional print and broadcast media but also, of increasing significance, online – especially social – media"
  • "Reporting and portrayal of suicide: Journalists have an important role"
  • "The media play powerful roles"
  • "Guidelines for Reporting on Suicide" "The media perform an integral role in the responsible reporting of this issue."
  • "In relation to suicide, the media play a major role in influencing stigmatising knowledge (ignorance) and attitudes (prejudice)...The term committed suicide, for example, might suggest that suicide is a criminal act"
  • "Recommendation 6: all national and international media organisations (traditional and new media) should be called upon to issue policy statements and action plans (based on the findings of this Lancet Commission) on how they promote mental health and contribute to reduction of stigma and discrimination in mental health"
I'm not finding evidence that "the majority of sources were advice for health professionals". It looks to me like "at most, a small minority of CFCF's sources were advice for health professionals, and a solid majority are offering advice to non-health professionals". Maybe you'd like to read the sources? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:47, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The only quote I find very compelling is the last one and even so it reads more like propaganda begging the media to do something they are not already doing or accepting as opposed to being the Rock solid evidence from reliable sources that everyone's already been doing "for a long time" anyway. The rest of them read more like a simple statement than they do as advice with a recurring theme running through the bulk of them that can be summed up in one simple statement; "media plays a role", which is a statement maybe we could possibly all agree on, but hardly the descriptive or prescriptive advice that can be relied on as to what the media should or shouldn't be doing especially when it appears to be nothing more than an implication that they should please, please, please follow what is trending with health Care professionals. I wish I had not responded in this thread again because I was trying to avoid it for my own mental well-being as a person who takes two different kinds of medications for migraine headaches that are known to cause depression and suicidal thoughts. I'm fully aware of the risks involved and I think the benefit of not having my head feel like it's going to explode is worth the risk of me going in every 3 months and lying on the little depression quiz about how I feel just fine because I know it's just the medication and I would never act on anything I might think about. I personally think it is insulting that anyone else believes they know better than me whether I am capable of making an informed decision about suicide. The bulk of so-called reliable sources in this thread create more stigma than they prevent because they treat people struggling with suicide like they're effing stupid or something. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 12:51, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe it's not about you, though? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:48, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I can honestly see why some people in this thread have said they see the forcible usage of alternatives to "committed suicide" as patronizing and offensive. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 13:51, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
skirting around saying one specific thing doesn't mean the thing it refers to isn't being said. it's why censorship of this nature can't work, and why 4kids is an evergreen joke. case in point, "committed suicide" and "died by suicide" both refer to banishing yourself to the shadow realm, regardless of any past meanings that, as far as most people care, have been lost to time. this is why i really don't get why one wording would be usable and the other, an evil creation of satan that kicks every puppy in a 3km radius every time it's uttered
...plus, forcing things in general invites resistance, especially if there's any ambiguity as to whether or not it's worth forcing. it's why peta is an evergreen joke as well consarn (prison phone) (crime record) 14:26, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, both of those phrases refer to the same act. Yes, both of those mention suicide by name.
No, they don't both use a verb associated with criminal or sinful acts. (No, that "past meaning" has not been "lost to time", and won't be until at least my generation has died.) No, they don't both put equal emphasis on death.
And the OP's post isn't about "forcing things". The question at the top, if you'd like to take a look, is "Should we use?", not "Shall we absolutely ban all instances of?" WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:56, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
the op is gone (about half an hour after the post, which is... strange), with kolya filling in (i'm almost willing to say "usurping"), and... well, yeah, kolya seems more on the side of banning, if a comment like "'Committed suicide' should be banned outside of quotes. Every time I see that in an article I feel like I'm reading World Book Encyclopedia 1999." is anything to go off of
and honestly, i really can't see how one of those wordings would put less emphasis on the fact that someone killed themself. maybe one can be argued to put less emphasis on the fact that they did it (as i mentioned before), but it really doesn't do much to imply that they're anything but dead after the act, unless you somehow don't know what suicide means. if you want to argue that a generation to whom that meaning is still alive is still alive, sure, but i can very well argue that it's a minority among a sea of people who don't know or don't care, like brainrotted youth, mildly brainrotted adults, and quake 4 fans (the horror!), and thus its influence is waning. and also that this entire conversation is the first time a lot of people, some even apparently also from those generations, even hear that some people might have have a problem with it
the argument that wikipedia saying a specific word that hasn't been near-unambiguously deemed not very tubular (like any slur of your choice) would stigmatize or normalize something is, from what this conversation and years of the site's existence have shown, unlikely unless it's a made-up word that sounds funny (see wikt:fluffle). ultimately, the arguments against the use of it have been an extremely vocal minority, with editors like the ones brought in from the pings (red rock canyon, lindsayh, etc.) at worst opposing a ban because it's not something so offensive it needs the hammer, and some of the ones near the start of this discussion (phil bridger, duncanhill, etc.) actively finding the alternative proposal(s) offensive or patronizing instead consarn (prison phone) (crime record) 00:22, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The OP wasn't an every-single-day editor, and they exercised their WP:Right to vanish the next day. Perhaps they looked at the early responses and decided that Wikipedia wasn't a place they wanted to be associated with any longer. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:59, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
you'd think so, but if i haven't counted anything wrong, there were less than 10 of them... and they weren't even as heated as things have been now (hell, some even supported it, hi past kolya :D). if you want to say that that's the straw that broke the camel's back, then... well, yes, sure, you can do that, but i find it no less strange that it was this fast. as in within seemingly 38 minutes of the discussion starting, if it needs clarification again consarn (prison phone) (crime record) 10:52, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You're still ignoring that RS say "commit" is non-neutral, and consensus cannot override the principle of NPOV. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:03, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do you see it as censorship to be told to avoid "feeble-minded" to refer to intellectual disability? Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:46, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
if someone is attempting to force its use or disuse, yes consarn (prison phone) (crime record) 23:05, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
hey wait a minute... was this trying to tie the definition of censorship to the content being censored, as opposed to the act of censoring (or at the very least the attempt to do so)? i really hope it was only an accidental red herring consarn (prison phone) (crime record) 00:24, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't follow, so the answer is likely no. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:01, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to close

We are significantly over 40,000 words. Anyone who has followed this will surely be aware there is no consensus for banning the term, and in any case, it is not an RfC, which would be required to do so. It would be unfair to request a closer to summarise this. I propose we just close this discussion now. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:40, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We don't need a close. We can accept no consensus and keep talking, or not keep talking. Kolya Butternut (talk) 08:52, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I dare say the discussion remains fruitful, the arguments are strengthened, and there are attempts to find consensus in the midst. Consensus is not about answering Yes/No - but about trying to find what we can agree upon. If some people prefer to state their opinion in words that "This is what I think, and no manner of discussion will make me change my mind" - that is up to them. But such views are irrelevant and should be ignored. There are many ways to interpret consensus beyond a Yes/No ban. Things can be discouraged per consensus, and I have to say - if nothing else the discussion might lead to the production of a better question, where we actually put forward an RfC-style proposal that is properly reasoned and includes arguments and counterarguments with reference to policy and sourcing. CFCF (talk) 11:10, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Consensus can't be based on last one standing. We don't have time for this discussion, and if I unwatch it, what happens if someone tries to close it as consensus found? We need to close off the proposal, and if you want to carry on talking amongst yourselves, that is fine, but I don't think you can claim there is any consensus when most participants have simply unwatched the page. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 11:17, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For what its worth, Wikipedia does not work that way. Further, this entire page is a discussion, to which there have been a few proposals, one of which has closed. The discussion can certainly reach consensus for yet another proposal, but as of the sections that are active - this is still being formed out. That a discussion has reached over a pre-set number of words, with many participants indicates that it is lively, and is probably the opposite of a reason to close it. CFCF (talk) 11:22, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion can keep having proposals but none of them can take effect because an RfC is required to over-rule an RfC per WP:CONLEVEL. If you open an RfC, ping me in, because I will shortly be unwatching this page. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 11:44, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Neither WP:RFC nor WP:CONLEVEL say that an RFC is required to over-rule a prior RFC. They never have said that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:00, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is a limited group of editors in an out of the way place. An RfC is more public and brings in a larger body of editors. Nothing decided here can over-ride an RfC. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 21:09, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see 88 editors participating here. The 2021 RFC had 72 editors participating. For comparison, at the start of this month, there were 4 RFCs open in the Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Maths, science, and technology category. Those four discussions have 5, 8, 9, and 9 participants. That's an average of less than 10% of what we have in this discussion.
This discussion and the 2021 RFC both started at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), which is a high-volume discussion page. There isn't anything "more public" than that. When I split it off, I left the original question with a pointer to this page on the Village pump, so other editors would have a chance to notice it and join here. And it's linked on a few obvious pages, such as Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Style discussions elsewhere. That page gets ~150 page views per day; it is not obscure. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:45, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The editors who have opined thus far have clearly shown no consensus emerging for the initial proposal. Most have departed. If you then come up with a new proposal, without an RfC, you will not get everyone back, and, again, consensus cannot be led by last person standing. An RfC will be required to bring the proposal to the attention of the broadest range of editors, and to ensure the discussion is neutrally phrased, has a defined run time and a clear close. Anything less could not reach the same level of consensus as previous RfCs. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 22:26, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
While I do see your point and I can appreciate the fact that you've pointed out an obvious problem inherent to large discussions, it's important to realize that if we were to imagine this discussion had been an RfC, you would be suggesting that alternate proposals could not be made within an existing RfC of a certain size due to a loss of original participants and while this sounds like an idea I might possibly support, I'm pretty sure it isn't how things have historically worked in the past so your argument that consensus can't be changed in this way needs to be amended because currently the correct way to phrase your argument is that consensus maybe shouldn't be changed in this manner. I mean I've actually seen an alternate RfC with fewer participants pass in this jacked up way before. It's a very unfortunate nature of the beast not easy to see any ways around. Huggums537voted! (sign🖋️|📞talk) 23:05, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, as the top of Wikipedia:Requests for comment says, an RFC is an advertising mechanism for ordinary talk-page discussions. If someone comes up with a brilliant solution in comment #142, then consensus can form around that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:58, 16 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sirfurboy, I wonder what you think "the initial proposal" actually was. Here's what the OP wrote: Should we use the term "committed suicide"? Many times this has been brought up, but no consensus has been found. Even in a Wikipedia article, it has been acknowledged that the term "committed suicide" can stigmatizing and offensive (and outdated). This was followed by a list of links to prior discussions. I see a question there, but technically no "proposal". WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:56, 16 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
if only counting the amount of different people who voted, i think it'd be closed as "don't really do anything lol"
if counting the arguments, i think it'd be closed as no consensus, bordering on train wreck (give or take that wonk from rfd bludgeoning this whole thing. concern, i think was his name)
regardless, if closed now, there would absolutely be issues. at the absolute worst, in the absolute worst possible scenario (that doesn't involve this discussion having a body count), i myself would only speedy close it to give everyone a month or two to rest, which would obviously mean mr. bones' wild ride would start up again later consarn (prison phone) (crime record) 11:37, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Instead of looking at it through the lens of "which side wins", I wonder if you noticed any areas of general agreement. For example, I notice that a lot of people, regardless of their views about the commit language, dislike the died by language, usually as a matter of personal aesthetics, but sometimes because of their personal POV about suicide. I also notice that fewer people are complaining about the died by language than in previous years.
What did you notice? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:03, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
i noticed that editors in favor of "commit" generally do so because they think there's little ambiguity, little need for emphasis beyond what the word "suicide" carries along, and little reason to argue that it's not the most common term (again, even research against it inadvertedly proved that it was), with some actively finding alternatives, especially in the contexts suggested by kolya, to be offensive, patronizing, or attempts to obfuscate somethng extremely hard to obfuscate
while editors against it see alternative forms as less offensive (with a preference for "died by") or "commit" as more (yes, i'm differentiating those two), and in their defense, have reliable sources backing them up... but are still overall minorities, with "commit" still being the most commonly used wording. an argument could be made for the percentages ("commit" having about 36%, but "die by" being the only other term that comes within spitting distance), but even then, i don't think it would work out how anyone expects it to (that is, i don't think it would work at all)
then again, i ultimately don't think this is too related to what would happen if this discussion got closed now (that is, what it would be closed as and how people would react), so eh consarn (prison phone) (crime record) 23:05, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The 36% number is misleading. Firstly, that is just google scholar. In newspapers, "commit[ted] suicide" is used less than half as often as "died by suicide". But here is the beginning of the results for google scholar:
Since 2020:
  • 17,800 articles using "committed suicide"
  • 15,200 using "died by suicide"
  • 13,230 using "killed himself" + "killed herself"
Newspapers.com:
2,780 articles using "commit[ted] suicide" in 2024
5,810 articles using "died by suicide" in 2024
2,604 killed himself/herself in 2024 Kolya Butternut (talk) 06:33, 16 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/The_term_committed_suicide