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The article title makes sense, but why don't we include her legal name in the opening paragraph? I know her husband's surname is a point of contention among some of her fans and feminists, but should that have any bearing on an encyclopedia article? Rklawton (talk) 17:03, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No strong objections. But did she ever use "Sylvia Hughes"? As far as I know she never published under that name. Her gravestone does have "Sylvia Plath Hughes", however. I'm thinking that a similar case might be Pam Ayres (although Dudley Russell is a theatre producer). Martinevans123 (talk) 17:41, 24 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just to remind editors there have been two previous discussions, on the most appropriate format for this description, one in each of the two archives. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:12, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Except your decision is in conflict with recommendations from: the International Association for Suicide Prevention, the Centre for Suicide Prevention in Canada, the United States Department of Defense, the United States Navy, the American Psychological Association, Samaritans Ireland, the Associated Press stylebook, The Guardian style guide, The Observer style guide, and many others. Stubbornly maintaining an outdated style because "that's how we've always done it" is inappropriate behaviour for an encyclopedia.
Thank you for the links, I (different IP but that previous message was from me) actually had not found the threaded conversation view like you posted. What I had done was try to follow the conversations by reading talk revision histories one message at a time. It was awkward and I did miss some messages. I take back my snide comment about inappropriate behaviour for an encyclopedia, that wasn't fair. But reading the convos in full, it does appear my view of the two previous discussions wasn't too far off: the only real consensus from those conversations was to not phrase it as "killed herself." Everything else just ended up being variants of "I like this better" for one option or another. I also see that at one point you had actually asked to be pointed to English language bodies which had some kind of consensus on this matter. I believe the list of organisations I posted in my previous message speaks to that. Ultimately my own preference would be to see it as "died by suicide" based on recommendations from prominent bodies concerned with this matter, and because language does evolve over time. I also see the wiki style discussion from 5 years ago where the outcome was that there is no consensus against "committed" and that each individual article should determine what works best, so that's where we're at still I suppose. 23.17.152.50 (talk) 03:35, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
level-4 vital article is rated GA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
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