Talk:Killing of Henryk Siwiak

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Requested move 11 September 2016[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk • mail) 14:32, 19 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Henryk Siwiak homicide → Shooting of Henryk Siwiak – Should be consistent with other similar titles about such deaths of low-profile persons. Alternatively, go for Death of Henryk Siwiak, apparently more neutral than "shooting" or "homicide". George Ho (talk) 22:08, 11 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support. Considered moving it myself, but didn't want to disrupt a DYK. But yeah, this is definitely more consistent. Nohomersryan (talk) 00:02, 12 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Shooting or death, Nohomersryan? --George Ho (talk) 00:13, 12 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose vigorously I think "shooting of ..." should only be used in cases where the victim survives, unless we make them all "Shooting death of ..." "Death of" is for deaths that aren't officially considered homicides (i.e., Elisa Lam), or where there is official disagreement about the cause of death. And I would find "Homicide of ..." very awkward; when a crime is described as a "homicide" in the media the victim's name usually precedes it as a modifier.

    If anything we should rename the older articles to be consistent with this, as I did with Chandra Levy homicide recently when the prosecution dropped the charges against the alleged perpetrator rather than retry him, leaving that the only sound name under policy we could give the article. We are not and should not be bound by older, less wisely chosen editorial decisions not only in article naming but in anything we do. Daniel Case (talk) 01:38, 12 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum: Really, this is something we should decide at a higher level than just one single article. Daniel Case (talk) 01:41, 12 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ahem, what about Shooting of Trayvon Martin, the dead person? George Ho (talk) 04:32, 12 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, what about it? Just because the name was used when people were reacting to events and creating it doesn't it makes sense to always keep it ... I'd rename it Trayvon Martin homicide, which leaves no doubt that he died at the hands of another person (which "shooting" does), without imputing to George Zimmerman a crime he was acquitted of. If you had just come out from living under a rock for ten years and that article title was all you knew about the case, you might be forgiven for wondering why it raised such a ruckus ... because he wasn't just shot, he was killed. Daniel Case (talk) 05:12, 12 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If you read my !vote above, I rejected that construction as clunky and awkward, not widely used in modern written English. It seems to me that when a killing is described as a homicide (which we must do in this case as no one has been charged, much less convicted, so legally it is not a murder, and whatever the colloquial use of the term we, like other popular media, have BLP to think about and the presumption of innocence to assist in maintaining), the victim's name is usually used before it as a modifier.

And to repeat what I've said about "shooting of ...", that doesn't automatically communicate that the victim died. We IMO ought to save it for situations where the victim survives. Daniel Case (talk) 18:31, 13 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 25 May 2020[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved to "Killing of Henryk Siwiak". There is a consensus that the present title is unsatisfactory, and a general acceptance that "Killing of Henryk Siwiak" is a better title. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:20, 10 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Henryk Siwiak homicide → Shooting of Henryk Siwiak – Per WP:CONSISTENT. This is a re-argument of the unsuccessful RM from nearly four years ago, above, as well as a reflection of the just-concluded Talk:Shooting of Atatiana Jefferson#Requested move 14 May 2020. Wikipedia main title headers have certain established forms and, while participants in WP:WikiProject Death may wish to add their viewpoints, the standard titles, depending upon circumstances, are Murder of..., Killing of..., Shooting of... [both fatal and non-fatal], Assassination of..., Execution of..., Lynching of..., Suicide of... and Death of... [which includes historical events, such as Death of Edgar Allan Poe]. The form depicted here — "Xxxxxxxx Xxxxxx homicide" — has not been used for other article headers. — Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 20:08, 25 May 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. Natg 19 (talk) 03:33, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Roman Spinner: Which is not a reason why it should not be (and it is, actually). I consider "Shooting of ..." to be inadequate because people can be shot without dying. "Murder of ..." would be a violation of BLP, OR and NPOV, in the U.S. at least, since the killing of one person by another can only be "murder" following a guilty plea or conviction, where a trier of fact has determined that the killing was unlawful. Until then it can only be "homicide" ... calling it a "murder" when there are no suspects, even, is wrong in more ways than I can count. Daniel Case (talk) 23:58, 25 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I don't like having to disagree with the author of the article, but I haven't changed my mind since last time. I did do a search and found there is at least one article using "Homicide of...", which, if "shooting" is rejected again, should be considered because it is more in-line with every other article on here about killings. Nohomersryan (talk) 04:10, 26 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    IIRC, the "Homicide of ..." construction was rejected as rather awkward in another one of these discussions. It puts one in mind of Emerson's line about "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" to insist that because all the other articles titling schemes use "of", one using "homicide" should.

    For the longest time the name of the victim has comfortably modified "homicide" when that term has been used to describe a killing where there has been no murder or manslaughter trial. Daniel Case (talk) 04:45, 26 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support. We commonly use "shooting" for events like this where nobody has been convicted of a specific offence. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:16, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    But, as I have pointed out, people can be shot without dying and yet the case can still be notable enough for us to have an article about it.

    "Shooting of ..." seems to be preferred for cases where someone is shot by the police and there is a controversy over it.

    And just because we have done it that way doesn't mean that it has always been right and in accordance with policy. Daniel Case (talk) 18:12, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    We have done it that way because it's the best way of doing it. We don't use "Foo homicide" because that's not the best way to do it. Your opinion clearly differs, but mine does not. "Shooting of" is perfectly sufficient. Of course people can be shot without dying, but we don't need to dot every i and cross every t in article titles. And we rarely have articles about shootings that don't cause death in any case. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:22, 29 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    @Necrothesp: You'd probably have been better off not responding: "We have done it that way because it's the best way of doing it." Circular logic. We don't use "Foo homicide" because that's not the best way to do it. That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Your opinion clearly differs, but mine does not. In what parallel universe, exactly, does that count as a legitimate argument?

    "Shooting of" was as far as I know instituted around 2014 to deal with police-shooting articles because "murder of" in those cases was deemed too judgemental and POV (as it is in any case where there is no conviction and theoretically could be) I don't see why, in the U.S. context at least, "foo homicide" can't work for police killings as well, since the term is accurate in that case as well.

    It seems like most American editors, at least, are OK with this; British editors have told me that to their ears the term sounds rather unfamiliar and distinctly American (although I have found that both the Crown Prosecution Service and the National Statistics Office are trying, slowly, to change that). Daniel Case (talk) 21:22, 29 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Your opinion. My opinion. Both are just opinions. Trying to poo-poo mine does not make yours any more valid. Wikipedia operates by consensus and we will get one here sooner or later. My comment stands. -- Necrothesp (talk) 22:08, 29 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Only with the help of crutches and two strong orderlies on either side ... Daniel Case (talk) 02:33, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per the above, basically. If someone's convicted of something, we could consider a move to something like "Murder of".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:39, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
But if we must go with "shooting of", why not at least "shooting death of ..."?

One of my main problems with this is that not all unsolved homicides are shootings. Following this example, we'd have to go with, say, "Stabbing of Betsy Aardsma", "Strangulation of Susanne Lindholm" and so forth. Why fracture the titling scheme so much when there's one word that would serve the same purpose regardless of the manner of death and keep article titles shorter to boot? I do not and cannot accept "because we've always done it that way" as a valid reason, unless it's more honestly phrased as "because we're not tired of being lazy yet." Daniel Case (talk) 18:08, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose – The title should indicate the most notable aspect of the subject, that the victim was killed. Removing for "homicide" for consistency is a circular argument. The reason this collection of articles has been developed is by arguing for increasing the number of articles with "Shooting of" without making any other good argument for using it. There is a better precedent developing with "Killing of" as in Killing of George Floyd. Move to Killing of Henryk Siwiak. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 17:21, 3 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I could live with that, too, I suppose, although that "Killing Of ..." construction long predates the George Floyd article ... see Killing of Tim McLean, dating to 2008, a title settled on over there after the defendant was acquitted by reason of insanity. Daniel Case (talk) 06:27, 4 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Circumstances of death in highly publicized cases such as Killing of Tim McLean, Killing of Eric Garner, Killing of Tessa Majors or Killing of George Floyd are inapplicable to this discussion in that these individuals were not victims of gun violence. On the other hand, individuals who did die as a result of firearm discharge — whether by police (Category:People shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States) or by civilians (Shooting of Yoshihiro Hattori, Shooting of Trayvon Martin, Shooting of James Scurlock) — are delineated under main title headers "Shooting of..."
Examples of such potential headers as "Stabbing of Betsy Aardsma", "Strangulation of Susanne Lindholm" are also inapplicable since both are already under "Murder of..." and if there had been no murder conviction in those cases, then both would have been under the header "Killing of...", which encompasses all non-murder killings, other than the more-specific "Shooting of..." (such specialized killing headers as the historical "Lynching of...", "Stoning of..." or even the legally-sanctioned "Execution of..." are outside the scope of this discussion). —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 04:50, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Roman Spinner: I suggest you actually read the articles carefully before you link to them. No one has ever been charged, much less convicted of, any crime in either the Aardsma or Lindholm cases. That is in part why we have articles about them.

My very valid objections to "murder of ..." in titles of articles about unsolved recent homicides notwithstanding, I am somewhat OK with its use in articles about cases old enough that it is unlikely that anyone who committed the crime is still alive to be charged and face trial ... I created and researched Murder of Pamela Werner under that title since it had happened 80 years ago, right before a devastating war that almost no one related to the case who wasn't British is known to have survived. Likewise the much older Gatton murders. And while I would still prefer the Aardsma case article be titled as a homicide, at least for now since the PSP are still investigating it, I went with Murder of Jane Britton, from almost the same time, since the police were able to link the DNA to a suspect who died in prison in 2002—it's de facto solved and we don't have to worry about impugning the innocence of a dead person.

I don't see what the fact that they were shot has to do with how we title articles ... unless, as you imply, we are doing so to make some sort of statement about gun violence in the United States. If that is, then it's POV and we should very much be avoiding that, however passionately we as individuals may feel about it.

Two questions then: 1) Would you use the "shooting of ..." form, or some variety, if we were to have standalone articles on, say, the deaths by accidental self-inflicted shooting of Terry Kath or Jon-Erik Hexum ("Accidental shooting of ..."?) 2) I have also created Suicide of Randy Potter, the only standalone article I've written about the suicide of a non-notable person, since it gained national notability when the police found his body in his car in an airport parking lot near his months after he'd been reported missing, an airport parking lot that supposedly checked and kept every license plate number on file every day. Since Potter had shot himself, should the article title thus reflect it? ("Suicide by shooting of ..."?)

Roman, really, your answer reads like you were more afraid of not getting the last word in than that you had anything substantial to say. Daniel Case (talk) 17:37, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You hit the nail on the head. There is a walled garden of U.S. fatal police shootings to protect. That is the only reason I can see for the "consistency" line of reasoning that seems to crop up on all these RMs with no other justification for this precedent or why it was a good idea to begin with. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 18:25, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Daniel Case: You are correct that I only glanced at the two main title headers you submitted as examples and, upon seeing "Murder of...", incorrectly assumed that those responsible were convicted of murder and, covering every eventuality, added, "if there had been no murder conviction in those cases, then both would have been under the header "Killing of...""
Therefore, per currently active nomination Murder of Tessa Majors → Killing of Tessa Majors at Talk:Murder of Tessa Majors#Requested move 2 June 2020, if someone were to nominate Murder of Betsy Aardsma → Killing of Betsy Aardsma as well as Murder of Susanne Lindholm → Killing of Susanne Lindholm, I would support both of those nominations. Ultimately, however, each case may be decided by a separate vote and if consensus decides that one unsolved case should remain at "Murder of..." while another unsolved case should be moved to "Killing of..." then such is the nature of Wikipedia consensus.
In fact, as we all know, there are inconsistent main headers all over Wikipedia, with this header being a perfect example — even though there are no other headers using the specific form "..... ........homicide", there was no consensus to move it four years ago and there may be insufficient consensus to move it now.
It is also true that by specifying "Shooting of..." in their main headers, articles appear to be making a POV statement. However, the 265-entry Category:People shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States has existed since March 2009 and its parent Category:Deaths by firearm in the United States since March 2007. An overall parent Category:Firearm deaths by country was created in March 2013. If there had been consensus that such specific focus upon death by firearms could be considered POV, then "Shooting of..." main headers would have already been moved to "Killing of..."
Having stated the above, I would support a potential mass nomination of headers specifying fatal "Shooting of..." so that these would actually depict the form "Fatal shooting of...", although I doubt that such a proposal would achieve consensus.
As for your other examples, had consensus evolved to specify within the standard Wikipedia main headers "Suicide of..." that the method of a particular suicide was firearm use, then there would have been headers to the effect of "Firearm suicide of...", but obviously there was no such consensus. Also, while Category:Firearm deaths by country and Category:Firearm accident victims in the United States list those who were accidentally shot by others as well as those who accidentally shot themselves, if an entire article were to be devoted solely to the deaths of Terry Kath or Jon-Erik Hexum, the header would likely be "Death of...", rather than "Shooting of... [by someone, rather by oneself]". However, again, one such RM discussion may lead to an outcome different from another such discussion.
Finally, regarding "your answer reads like you were more afraid of not getting the last word in", my above comment (at 04:50, 6 June 2020) was my first posting in this discussion since I submitted the nomination at 20:08, 25 May 2020. Now, however, since I was pinged for a reply, this lengthier second comment will hopefully resolve any uncertainties, and if additional issues arise, I will be happy to return for a further discussion. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 02:55, 7 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Move discussion in progress[edit]

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Killing of Lizzie O'Neill which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 18:20, 4 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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