Talk:Bridgend suicide incidents

Serious reservations about this article

I have serious reservations about the existence of this article at all. And in the state it's in, it's plain speculation. I am copying over something I wrote on Talk:South Wales in response to a question about it:

No. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a news source, so should not be reporting "news" anyway. And I certainly don't think Wikipedia should go down the tabloid path of linking multiple tragedies into one interconnected "news event". There are guidelines about how to report suicide responsibly (which include not going into detail about the means). I don't believe that much of the recent reporting in the UK press adheres to any of it. A more useful and encyclopaedic approach would be to expand Wikipedia's articles about suicide, particularly Epidemiology and methodology of suicide, where there is no discussion of the different types of "clusters" and the possible explanations and associations for such clusters. There is research available on factors that are thought to affect suicide rates, for example, and we are conspicuously lacking in that. Once that is done, it might possibly be appropriate to mention Bridgend. However, I think that if you look at the statistics, Bridgend (whether the town itself or the area -- and note that most of the papers are talking about the town but giving the figures for a wider area) may not in fact have the highest rate of suicide in Wales . So no, tabloid-fuelled "suicide town" speculations have no place in Wikipedia.

When I wrote that, I didn't know (although I should have guessed) that there was an article already. I stand by what I put. And this is an appalling article. If it is a news event, it does not yet belong in Wikipedia. If it is supposed to be encyclopaedic, it is failing miserably. There is no general context, no explanation of what "cluster" means, and no justification for including the details of the private lives of named people in it whatsoever. If they were alive, the WP:LIVING policy would undoubtedly apply. In fact, I see no reason why it doesn't apply anyway.

If you want to write a Wikipedia article about why people kill themselves, and how it can be that apparent clusters occur, read the sociology, psychology, psychiatry and medical statistics literature, and write an article based on those. If you have never heard of the reporting guidelines on suicide, there are some guidelines here. And in the meantime, this article needs fixing or (ideally, in my mind) deleting.

Telsa (talk) 23:58, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the article is in very poor shape. If you think it's bad now, just take a look at the version I stumbled upon yesterday. I chopped it down the best I could in the time available, but it still requires a major overhaul. If no-one else has by then, I'll spend some time cleaning it up tomorrow; even if what's left when I've finished is a mere stub, it'll be better than this. In the meantime, people coming here could do worse than to have a look at the article copycat suicide instead, which has some well-cited information on the ethical considerations of media coverage of suicides. All the best, Steve ^{T • C} 00:07, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Even with the article in the current stubbed form, I've reservations about both the title and assumptions. "Suicides" is a tabloid-driven presumption at this stage. Despite the cut-and-dried nature of the headlines, the actual text of the coverage uses phraseology like "suspected suicides" and "apparently killed themselves" (e.g. [1]). An official explanation of suicide is down to the inquests, and this point may never be conclusively settled in cases where the coroner's decision is an open verdict. (This isn't just a technical quibble: there are other common, but underreported, explanations for hanging deaths among young males). Gordonofcartoon (talk) 23:28, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps changing the title "Bridgend suspected suicides incidents" would be a good start, and I would disagree with Telsa here, suicide cult or not, this story has received plenty enough face time to be on wikpedia, at least as a section of a main article.--Kerotan^{Leave Me a Message} Have a nice day :) 23:40, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes it is noteworthy

This page is noteworthy, although perhaps not because of the events (suicides happen all the time, and at what point they become a 'spate' is debatable). However this created a huge media storm, and if something is that well documented on national television, radio and in most of the UK's best selling newspapers, all for several months, then it has been made noteworthy on Wikipedia, even if the events themselves are considered trivial or impertenant. If only as a test case of the workings of the media, this page is particularly relevent and should definitely remain. Wikipedia has no obligation to cater for the sensitivities surrounding such a case, and should document it objectively. Mtaylor848 (talk) 23:38, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

unfair

hello, as someone who knew personally some of the mentioned in this article and also the woman who's name has been added and quoted without her knowledge i feel compelled to pass comment, this was a harrowing time for many involved and their loved ones, and the media contribution made it worse and also destroyed the name of the town, i , along with many would like to see this removed, the comments Re linking the incidents and mentions of a cult are very unfair and untrue, these ideas were created by the media only and only sensationalized the tragedies, it will be in good taste and decency to either remove this piece or at least make it factual, it should not be something to be recorded as part of Bridgend's history, the families and friends ,. aad the town have been through enough — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lilad77 (talk • contribs) 23:25, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Questionable source People magazine

The number of 79 victims from People magazine should be backed by an official source. The numbers where

• 24: December 2008
• 25: February 2009
• 2 more victims: January 2010
• 28: February 2010 (mirror.co.uk)
• 79: February 2012

The fact that it was considered news-worthy that 2 people commtted suicide in January 2010 suggests that there where few cases then. If in fact the number was 79 two years later, that would mean that from February 2010 on there was the real peak of cases. Police asked the media to stop covering the suicides, but some did cover them anyway. So the big question is why did nobody besides the People magazine reported about the reportedly 51 cases from 2010-2012? And that even now, 4 years later? --88.75.28.159 (talk) 23:22, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

WP:RSP says that the US magazine People "should not be used for contentious claims", so I'm going to cut this surprising statistic. --Lord Belbury (talk) 15:29, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

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Study suggesting the cluster came after the reporting, not the other way round.

I'm thinking of linking to this study somehow: https://orca.cf.ac.uk/53883/1/Scourfield.pdf

I agree with comments at the top of this talk page. This article is not very good. It doesn't explain suicide clusters; it doesn't explain the media's role in the deaths; it gets the number of deaths wrong; etc etc. DanBCDanBC (talk) 16:34, 13 January 2017 (UTC)