Wikipedia talk:Assassination

Proposed Wikipedia Policy, Guideline, or Process Discussion

After the recent discussions on whether the Killing of David Amess should be called killing, murder, or assassination, looked back and found similar discussions about this word choice. I believe this essay should become an official Wikipedia guideline, for a big reason. The definition of "assassination" says "The murder of prominent or important person, such as heads of state, heads of government, politicians, royalty, celebrities, or CEOs.” But as multiple discussions have shown, the common definition is not always what Wikipedia uses. Wikipedia bases the titles term (killing, murder, or assassination) based on what reliable sources are using. The discussion on October 16, just a few days ago, was fairly lengthy, and most of the !votes to change the title to "Assassination of David Amess" were about the common definition of assassination. If this guideline becomes accepted, a lot of long, and painful discussions could quickly be closed or changed just based on this guideline. Though, this is just my opinion about the essay that I created and proposed, so please, give your opinion below. Elijahandskip (talk) 01:30, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Discussions

• Before it becomes an official guideline, it probably needs to be expanded some, though, I don't think it can be expanded too much with what it is covering. Elijahandskip (talk) 02:57, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
• I don't see the need to have such a specific and short guideline per WP:CREEP etc. As an essay, well essays are a dime a dozen so I don't see any harm. If there is need for the guidelines to touch on this. just roll it into Wikipedia:Naming conventions (violence and deaths) which already touches on the general issue. Nil Einne (talk) 03:51, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:CREEP. It doesn't much matter what the title of an article is and so all the usual fuss over death/murder/killing/assassination/disappearance/whatever is a big waste of time. See synonym. Andrew🐉(talk) 06:59, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose As per my previous comments, the term "Assassination" is not really used in the UK when it comes to the death of a (UK) politician, it's more of a US-centric term. Compare with the Assassination of John F. Kennedy vs. the Murder of Jo Cox. You wouldn't swap assassination/murder around in these cases. It's probably best to stick with WP:RS of what the UK press state, rather than trying to (re)define a dictionary definition for WP. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 07:37, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

I mean, you sort of just described exactly what this essay is. The essay just clarifies that naming is based on what RS says and not what the common English definition of “assassination” is. Elijahandskip (talk) 16:31, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Your essay is pretty much redundant to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (violence and deaths). – The Grid (talk) 20:37, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

The Grid wait, so is your comment more like a "Move" to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (violence and deaths) !vote? (Just sort of wanting to clarify your comment, because oppose would mean Wikipedia should not have a policy anywhere for the term "Assassination".) Elijahandskip (talk) 20:52, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

It's a vote to move discussion to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (violence and deaths). – The Grid (talk) 14:20, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

• This seems like a reasonable policy but should probably be integrated into Wikipedia:Naming conventions (violence and deaths). There should possibly be some clarification about when, if ever, the definition of "assassination" is sufficient to warrant the use of the term (for example, in an article such as List of assassinated serving British MPs would it be appropriate to describe an assassination as such even if the RS choose a different term to describe it?). However, for most purposes including article titles I support the guideline. TWM03 (talk) 12:06, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

• Move discussion to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (violence and deaths)/Archive 1#Assassination is missing in order to discuss this type of addition to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (violence and deaths). Edit: I agree that this should be clarified. — Alalch Emis (talk) 13:01, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

• Move as stated above; I agree with the intent of clarifying that, but the topic seems quite specific to warrant a policy on its own. Clarifying (and potentially expanding) the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (violence and deaths) policy seems to be a better option, given the brevity of the guideline. Skencer11 (talk) 02:26, 27 October 2021 (UTC)