Jump to content

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mitchell Heisman

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Give a vote, don't back it up with logical reasoning, there is a huge chance I won't consider the vote worthy. As much as the Delete commentators have supported themselves with policy notes, the keep commentators have brandished emotive appeals. That's the case in many vote comments in this AfD. Allow me to showcase some gems: "Keep: Let this be remembered as a warning to others who consider that path." by Paul (User:Lpgeffen). Another one:"Keep The fact that large numbers of random people such as yourselves are reading and debating about Mitchell Heisman in-itself proves his noteworthiness" by brilliant argumentator Ancient Infant. If the suicide note is notable, prove it using Reliable Sources then create an article on the suicide letter. If the book is notable, use GNG or Notability (books) to prove your point. This article, or BdP if I may tastelessly place it, is a clear delete. If you have issues with this close, contact me on my talk page. Wifione ....... Leave a message 06:03, 2 October 2010 (UTC)(struck out two words from the above comment Wifione ....... Leave a message 10:29, 4 October 2010 (UTC)) [reply]

Mitchell Heisman

[edit]
Mitchell Heisman (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Sad story. Otherwise unknown 35 year old shoots himself on the Harvard campus. He happens to leave a 1900 page suicide note. But Wikipedia is not a news organization so this article does not belong here. Pichpich (talk) 01:58, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete as Wikipedia is not the news or a memorial site (only notable for her death]]. Armbrust Talk Contribs 02:46, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete non notable death—Chris!c/t 04:26, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep or perhaps move the article to "Mitchell Heisman Suicide" or "Suicide Note (book)". There's coverage by five separate journalistic organizations (i.e. who did their own separate investigations, not just reprinting each other's work), including two worldwide news organizations, one in Portugal, plus Gawker (which I didn't reference because they merely repeat the Crimson story). If you read the comment threads on any of the referenced articles, you'll find lots of random people saying things like this:
    • "This man just earned himself a place next to Plato, Aristotle, and Nietzsche (of course) in the historical records,"
    • "the most important thing I have ever read,"
    • "very well-researched, reads like Nietzsche in its genealogy of liberal democracy. Also like Nietzsche, it apparently brought him to a psychotic break. It seems like he was a witty, thoughtful guy who simply became obsessed by the absurdity of existence."
    • "I sense he has written something important for all of us who have ears to listen to."

Well-known theoretical physicist Luboš Motl described "Suicide Note" as "pretty impressive work" and praised Heisman as "a man of wisdom". Of course, it's only been a week since publication, so it's hard to tell reliably whether this particular work will turn out to have any enduring importance or influence; but all indications so far are that it will. We can hope that it does not influence future scholars to publicize their work in the same manner. Perhaps we should have a deletion discussion in a few months, after secondary sources have had a little bit more time to digest this stuff; right now all we have to work with is the primary source itself and shallow news reports and the like, not real academic analysis. Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 05:25, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If the note itself stands the test of time as literature, there will be plenty of time later to recreate a page about it, mentioning the biography of its author. As of now, this is just a bit of breaking sensational Newsotainment that is unworthy of inclusion. —Carrite, Sept. 25, 2010.
I can see how someone would think that, but I think a careful consideration of the available facts and analysis will show that this book is likely to have substantial historical importance, in popularizing certain philosophical and sociobiological points of view if nothing else. (I am not endorsing those points of view.) We must be careful not to be distracted by our entirely understandable prejudice against suicides in general and publicity-seeking suicides in particular. Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 17:24, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Carrite, I think part of the success of Wikipedia is that it's an instant Encyclopedia. There's no need to wait until the next year's edition. Wikipedia is an instant encyclopedia. As the times change, so does the record of them! Wikipedia is a valuable source to the Internet in general; and much of that is due to precisely what you're trying to curtail. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.179.180.250 (talk) 02:12, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
72...250, it's true that Wikipedia has a major advantage in being able to update quickly; however, another reason it's such a valuable source to the internet in general is that it's reasonably well-maintained, which in part is a function of restricting its scope to things that have enough interest that people will maintain the articles. I'm arguing that this is probably going to be such a thing; Carrite is arguing that it probably is not. Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 04:42, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. While it made blogs, Wikipedia is not governed by such gossip. It made news for two peculiarities, the length of the suicide note (or book, given its length) and for occurring at Harvard, but hardly encyclopedic. [tk] XANDERLIPTAK 07:29, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The five blogs currently cited by the article are journalistic publications, not self-published personal blogs, so I think they carry some weight. Of course, journalistic publications have somewhat different standards of notability than Wikipedia, but I think that in this case there is overlap. In a few months we should be able to judge more accurately whether this was just "gossip". Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 17:36, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
An extended statement by unregistered IP, no vote was given but safe to think it a "keep". [tk] XANDERLIPTAK 10:04, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

[Note: When I posted this comment, this article was currently marked as a being considered for deletion.]

How on earth could this article be being considered for deletion? Just because the guy killed himself?

Everyone's focusing now on the fact that Mitchell Heisman killed himself - but so did Cleopatra VII of Egypt, Hannibal, Nero, Virginia Woolf, Sigmund Freud, Ernest Hemingway, Alan Turing, Sylvia Plath, Yukio Mishima, Hunter S. Thompson, Kurt Cobain, and Vincent van Gogh... and people don't focus solely on the fact that they ended their own lives, but also on what they produced during their lives.

(A cousin of Heisman's has stated [in a comment at Huffington Post] that he was really affected by the death of his father when he was twelve, and it pushed him into a kind of overly materialistic view of life... which could go a long way towards explaining the kind of materialistic reductionism in his book - and maybe also, in part, his suicide. Heisman also says this in the last chapter of the book.)

Focus on his book, not on his suicide. It's not a fun or perhaps even a "healthy" book to read - but it sure is fascinating. He is attempting to grapple with some fundamental issues at the core of Western civilization. He may be right about some things, and terribly wrong about others - but his book is a serious attempt to address core themes in philosophy, science, politics, and biology - and as such, his book merits analysis, discussion, rebuttal perhaps - and certainly inclusion in Wikipedia (ie, an entry about the author, and eventually an entry about the book itself).

The book (ie, the "suicide note") is quite ambitious, far-ranging and interesting - it presents some extreme and provocative theories about the Jews and Egyptians and the Greeks, the origins of Judaism and Christianity, the Americans and the English (which he breaks down into the Anglo-Saxons and the Normans), tribes and races, biology and technology, God as artificial intelligence / Kurzweil's "Technological Singularity" (sometimes paraphrased as the idea that God hasn't actually been invented yet), Darwin and Nietzsche and Marx and Jefferson (and Leo Strauss and Hitler)... It ends with a very moving self-examination describing his exaggerated objectivity, his inability to take his own emotions seriously.

He does ignore lots of things which seem crucial to me (like the collapse of Gaia, which seems to me to be the central fact of existence today and which probably doesn't leave much time for the Singularity to ever take place - or even just basic human experiences such as love and happiness*), but within the limits of his discourse (which is still pretty broad, encompassing a lot of the classic major intellectual themes of western civ), he raises some interesting issues in unusual ways.

[*Actually, now that i've gotten to the end of it (the "punchline" chapter), i see that there IS a section about normal human emotions such as love, which he admits he basically analyzed away, with his obsession with being materialistic and objective and his experiment in nihilism.]

The middle of the book contains a lengthy (and possibly quite original) historical analysis attempting to show that the American Civil War was not fought to liberate the black slaves - it was instead just a kind of tribal warfare between the people of Massachusetts (Anglo-Saxons) and the people of Virginia (Normans) - as revenge for the Norman conquest of Anglo-Saxon England way back in 1066. I'd never heard of this theory, as i'm not very well informed on historiography - i wonder if it's original with him. At any rate, it's quite interesting.

At the beginning of the book, he claims that the Jewish invention of their God was a way to escape their enslavement by the Egyptians. Again, I'm not sure if this is original or not - but again, it's quite an interesting assertion.

There's lots of other stuff - some of which may or may not hold any water - it's definitely the strangest thing i've ever seen since Schreber's memoirs or Deleuze & Guattari's Anti-Oedipus - wildly outrageous in some places but also weirdly lucid in other places...

I wonder what kind of reaction this book will provoke over time... I certainly don't know what to make of it myself, except maybe to view it as something which should be warded off. Is it just a very extreme view of history? Or maybe a symptom (or a diagnosis) of a mad civilization (or of a mad individual)? Could merely reading it be a sign (or a cause) of madness?

It makes me wonder: what if aliens from another planet stumbled across this book? If they studied enough human history and learned enough English to be able to process what it says, would they be aghast at a species and a civilization and an individual that could produce such a strange stream of symbols?

If one accepts James Lovelock's assertion that humanity is indeed killing Gaia, then the individual nihilistic self-destructiveness documented by this book could serve as to document the planetary nihilistic self-destructiveness of civilization itself.

I do feel like his book like a car wreck, and i'm a rubber-necker. Again, this does not mean that this author and this work should be excluded from wikipedia. Reading Kafka also gave me the creeps, but Kafka has a page in Wikipedia too.

Basically, i would say that this book represents a kind of twisted culmination of Western thought, a blow-by-blow description of someone who pushed certain Western notions of objectivity and materialism to their ultimate conclusion and thereby painted himself into a corner - perhaps somewhat along the lines of Kafka's short parable "A Little Fable" about a mouse who thought the world was so big, until the walls appeared, and started closing in on him, and he ran in every which way, confused, until a cat told him to change directions - and ate him.

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/LittFabl.shtml

Heisman's book is a fascinating examination of where Western thought can lead, if pursued ad absurdum. As such, perhaps it can serve as a warning to some people, as a counter-measure, a cautionary tale, telling us where we might end up if we embrace truth and objectivity in extreme over life and subjectivity.

I'm not saying that everything in the book makes sense - but it is certainly a poignant document expressing one individual's attempt to understand his place in the universe. He himself accepted that he had "failed", and acknowledged this in the last chapter. It is touching to see how he tried to anchor himself in the world of emotions by listening to music - specifically to Bach (perhaps not the most inspiring musician to listen to - as in my opinion Bach is himself rather reductionist, mathematical - ie not terribly emotional.)

But, as I remarked above, Sylvia Plath and Curt Cobain and Vincent van Gogh are all in wikipedia, and they all produced fascinating works, and they all destroyed themselves. Mitchell Heisman probably falls into the same category as them - a great mind who willed his own demise - and his far-ranging work does constitute an ambitious attempt to make some sense of the trajectory Western civilization itself. Whether we regard his work and his life as a failure or not, it certainly is an interesting enough case to be included in wikipedia.

Whoa, can we put a hat on this? Ishdarian|lolwut 07:56, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
WP:BLP1E indicates that we should rename the article to be "Mitchell Heisman Suicide" or "Suicide Note (book)", not delete it. Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 17:24, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to note that BLP is not exactly relevant for someone who just committed suicide. Pichpich (talk) 17:50, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"BLP1E" is a misnomer. The notability guidelines for people notable for only one event say nothing about being alive or dead. And renaming the entry after the event instead of the person is only an option when the event itself is notable, which it isn't. Hairhorn (talk) 18:42, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hairhorn, can you elaborate on the remaining scads of policies ostensibly being violated? Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 05:12, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete on the basis of the non-notability of one who is known for a single event of non-historic importance. In addition, it would be a terrible precedent to allow a Wikipedia memorial article to stand for someone who just killed themselves this month. We're not here to give the Wikipedia seal of approval to creative or stylish suicides. Dude wasn't notable and leaving the world's longest suicide note might get him into the Guinness Book of World Records (although I doubt they'd want to encourage that behavior either), but it most certainly should not get him in Wikipedia. —Carrite, Sept. 25, 2010.
Wikipedia article coverage is limited to topics that are notable, not topics that receive a seal of approval. Disapproval is not a valid reason for deleting an article. Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 17:24, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As I mentioned, this is a clear case of ONE EVENT notability which should make deletion an obvious call. It is ALSO a terrible precedent to allow a memorial here. —Carrite, Sept. 26, 2010.
I agree that Wikipedia is not a place for memorial pages and that the article cannot be justified as a memorial page. I think it's very likely to turn out to be a notable event and book, though, which suggests renaming rather than deleting the page. Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 20:48, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But, is it REALLY just ONE EVENT? It seems like TWO events to me... 1) He committed suicide on a major holiday, in a major public location. His suicide had news articles written about it before his name was even known (or perhaps it wasn't released on purpose.) His suicide had news articles published about it before it was known he had written and released this 'book'. 2) He released this long 'book.' This book itself may have been/may be worthy of an article on it's own as the so-far analysis (as above) already makes a note the intricacies of it's theories. (Lets face it, even no matter what the quality of this work, even horrible works get some attention.) Yes, his book gets a heck of a lot more attention because of the proximity of it's release to his suicide, as well as it's title/intended 'use' as a suicide note; and similarly his suicide is made a lot more interesting because of it. If anything, I think this is one reason why his suicide seems so pointless -- if he could create such a thing on a whim, imagine what he could have possibly done with the rest of his life had he not died. Either way, I count two events here. Centerone (talk) 10:27, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In general that is not the case — the Huffington Post reports frequently on daily trivia that are not notable in the long term, and the New York Post even more so — but it does represent some kind of evidence in that direction, because the event is clearly more notable than the vast majority of suicides. Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 17:24, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Horrible car crashes in the New York area are typically reported on in each of the major NY papers. It's called daily news and it belongs at WikiNews. Pichpich (talk) 17:47, 25 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Pichpich, I concur, but don't think this is a similar case. Horrible car crashes in the New York area are not typically discussed over the following weeks in the Huffington Post (based in California), whatever the Boston equivalent of the New York Post would be, the blogs of Czech theoretical physicists, and Portuguese, Turkish, and Romanian newspapers. Strangers don't usually comment on blogs about how the car crash changed their lives. Published poets don't call for a performance reading of the car crash. Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 21:12, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Your argument would have some weight if you could find in that list someone who's sole claim to notability is the suicide. Pichpich (talk) 13:35, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Pretty much all the students are like: 'they led a regular life, committed suicide, the reaction to the suicide was dealt with in the news' with Leah Betts the opening statement to the article is: "Leah Sarah Betts (1 November 1977[1] – 16 November 1995) was a schoolgirl from Latchingdon in Essex, England. She is notable for the extensive media coverage and moral panic that followed her death several days after her 18th birthday." David Kennedy's entry seems to be explained by: 'he was related to famous people, he led a relatively uneventful/average life, got addicted to drugs and died early.' There are plenty of others. Centerone (talk) 14:27, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep OK maybe my vote isn't that important since I'm just a casual user, not someone deeply involved in Wikipedia like most of the people on here seem to be. However, I will say that this Wikipedia page served it's function for me: I heard the name "Mitchell Heisman" and immediately searched Wikipedia and found what I was looking for. I hate coming here and not finding something; even a tiny "stub" is often very useful. Unless server space is a massive issue, I don't see the harm in keeping this small article to help others who, like me, surfed in from the Web looking for exactly what this article provides. 141.154.114.31 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 12:42, 26 September 2010 (UTC). — 141.154.114.31 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
The issue is not server space (all the text on Wikipedia is tiny compared to the images) but maintenance effort and verifiability. If a page discusses a topic that has little coverage by reliable sources and little interest by Wikipedia editors, then nobody will bother to fix even obvious vandalism, and it becomes difficult to distinguish fact from fiction, so subtle vandalism becomes impossible to fix. Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 17:33, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I am amazed and truly entertained by the policies and procedures of this forum. I wonder if this cold calculating process isn't in some way similar to Mitch's process itself. Cold calculation, like that of a panicked bureaucrat, that brought him to his death. He was my friend, and I am one of three primary sources for most of the articles sited, but I'm not here for that reason. I'm here to say that whether or not you do delete it doesn't matter. If Wikipedia was truly striving to present accurate information on unique events, I think this articles inclusion is a "no brainer." However, Wikipedia's purpose is to provide information on things that the public has interest in, with any controversy either expunged or in constant conflict. Wikipedia is a positive force, I use it all the time and I thank you for your service. However it is limited by these factors. Why not unburden yourselves from this discussion and delete the article. Like your forefather, the Nelson television rating system, you can always reinstate the article at a future date when the real determining factor of popularity is more settled. After all, you do have a page for the Jonas Brothers don't you? Was that determined by merit or sheer popularity? I'm sure I wouldn't know. You can commence with my expulsion now. Cheers. 209.6.76.165 (talk) 13:39, 26 September 2010 (UTC)JLN — 209.6.76.165 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
This must be incredibly difficult for you; I wish there was something I could say that would make a difference next to the enormity of what happened a week ago. Do you have an opinion about whether people will still be writing about what Mitch did and thought in 2020? Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 17:33, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I partially wished this would all blow over. But I've read much of the book and much of the reaction and I think his work has enough heft and the events enough tragedy to become something mythic. It seems like this is happening, I guess its what he wanted. I do think his book and actions are notable, not because of suicide, but because of the apparently long planned process and scholastic endeavor that ended in suicide. Someone said that he thought himself to death. I think there is truth it in. I don't think Mitch will go away, but I don't think he's going to be embraced by the general public. I think he is a cautionary tale to all thinkers that I hope does not cause copy cat events. I also think that there is much more of this kind of writing to come. Many futurists are writing about the end of times, not referring to Religious references, but to the end of humanity, rise of machines or the rise of a uni-mind. I think his life and death is an important moment in that genre of discussion, not because he was the first to see this, but because as someone with Asperger's syndrome in a world where more an more of us are "empathetically handicapped" he is a canary in our coalmine.209.6.76.165 (talk) 20:21, 26 September 2010 (UTC)JLN[reply]
Thank you. I didn't realize he had Asperger's. I'm tempted to ask more questions but I don't think this is the place for it, and maybe not the time; if you want to discuss further, my email address is on my user page. Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 21:16, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep In addressing Mitchell Heisman's notability I would like to cite the numerous journal publications and blogs written about him as a secondary or accessory reason. What primarily substantiates his biography notability is the guidelines of Wikipedia's own Deletion Policy. Mitchell Heisman is worthy of notice; that is, "significant, interesting, or unusual enough to deserve attention or to be recorded." His 1,095 page book has been published and it is unusual. It also holds the supremely relevant disclaimer at the initial start of the book: being wary of suppression. This is not all.
    A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of published secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject.
    • If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be needed to prove notability; trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may not be sufficient to establish notability.
    • Primary sources may be used to support content in an article, but they do not contribute toward proving the notability of a subject.
But interesting =/= notable.—Chris!c/t 18:53, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but Wikipedia is not a memorial.—Chris!c/t 18:53, 27 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and rename "Suicide Note (book)" Bhny (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:29, 27 September 2010 (UTC).[reply]
  • Keep Much as I appreciate the NOTNEWS principle, this isn't routine reporting of news but reflects a very unusual manner of death with philosophical import. It's notable not so much for the length of the suicide note but for the intellectual effort to critique the Western view of life, culminating, apparently, in the author's taking of his own life as "an experiment in nihilism". Now it may be Heisman doesn't deserve notability, and if he had not pulled a stunt like publicly committing suicide his treatise would have gone unnoticed. But as you know, we don't decide here who deserves to be notable; rather we observe coverage in reliable sources. I only came to this article after first reading about Heisman in the Boston Globe, which portrays him as intelligent and having diligently worked on his strange project over five years. This article is, however, hard to classify: maybe it should be "Mitchell Heisman suicide". What's most notable - what attracted media coverage - seems to be the event and the context and meaning of it, as opposed to the man or the book alone.Fletcher (talk) 00:34, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's a very interesting point. It does seem that a number of the people voting "delete" were doing so explicitly because they wish suicides were less notable and want to deny them coverage, despite current Wikipedia policy advocating against such activism. It's troublingly recursive, in that Wikipedia's principles fairly clearly require that Wikipedia provide publicity to this book that in a sense attacks the liberal, rationalistic values upon which those principles are based, and which will almost certainly result in copycat suicides — but "publishing this information will result in suicides" has been decided not to be a valid reason for deleting articles from Wikipedia.
Thank you very much for the link to the Boston Globe article; I hadn't read it before.
It seems that we're coming to a consensus on "keep" at this point, as more information about Heisman and his book are becoming available. Of the 13 votes cast so far since the beginning of the 26th of September, only two are "delete"; the other 11 are "keep", although one of those is presumably a joke, describing Wikipedia as a "blog". By contrast, the people who came to a conclusion during the first day of the discussion, the 25th, leaned strongly toward "delete": eight "delete"s and only four "keep"s. I think it's safe to assume that most of those early voters weren't particularly well-informed about the issue at the time; the article barely even qualified as a stub, the comprehensive Globe article hadn't yet come out, and some of them likely hadn't even read the news coverage linked as sources. It seems likely that if their conclusion had been more informed, most of them would have voted "keep". Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 05:06, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, but all three examples you give involve more than death, as the deaths resulted in "moral panic" and drug prevention related campaigns and legislation, thus there is something of an impact of those deaths that goes beyond the initial news coverage. Here, the news cycle is very short, after the unusual "whoa, 1900 pages suicide note" initial reaction, there's nothing else to say. No one is going to start an suicide prevention campaign based on this event.--137.122.49.102 (talk) 18:18, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It seems almost certain at this point that there will be a lot more said about this book in the coming years, and it could turn out to be something more significant (for good or ill) than a suicide prevention campaign. Just look at the comments by the people who have read some or most of it. Heisman predicted that it would result in a moral panic that involved suppressing the work itself; I'm interested to see whether that comes to pass. Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 21:39, 28 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As I already stated there are a significant number of similar entries with little or no reason for notability. As I stated, besides these, as just one example there is David Kennedy he lived a relatively uneventful life before he died early due to drug addiction. His sole claim to fame is that he was related to famous people. His death did not even result in a "moral panic"! Anyways, note that these articles are not titled for the "moral panic" or any campaigns or efforts that result due to their deaths -- which may (or may not) be notable, but rather are detailing individuals who have little to no notability of their own. They are notable solely due to their (accidental) death or (intentional) suicide and what it led to. As I also mentioned above, not only was his suicide being covered by the press before there was any knowledge of his book, but his book is a separate area of notability, and is being extensively discussed in many places. At very least his death is resulting in a "moral panic" and AfD discussion on Wikipedia! Oh my! :D Centerone (talk) 02:59, 29 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep Its worthy of something to know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.90.252.58 (talk) 19:22, 29 September 2010 in an unknown timezone (maybe Florida?)
I've slightly revised the markup in the above comment to leave the page easier to read. I don't yet know who wrote it. Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 17:36, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, now I've added a signature aping SineBot's. Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 17:42, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The fact that large numbers of random people such as yourselves are reading and debating about Mitchell Heisman in-itself proves his noteworthiness, and memorability beyond the news, and beyond this mortal coil RIP... If you need a technical argument for a keep vote try this on for size-- WP:PERP. Since "Suicide has historically been treated as a criminal matter in many parts of the world" (see Suicide legislation), and point 3 of WP:PERP outlines that a crime is notable if "3. The motivation for the crime or the execution of the crime is unusual or has otherwise been considered noteworthy such that it is a well-documented historic event", the article should be kept. NB. please do not construe from this argument that I believe suicide is a crime, which I don't. It's just an argument to save this article from deletion. It was the first potentially valid argument I could find while going down the page Wikipedia:PEOPLE from the top. Ancient Infant (talk) 04:12, 29 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep it his work suicide not is a good read and may be important to keep around —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.180.30.143 (talk) 06:42, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've slightly revised the markup in the above; I think it should be read as "Keep it. His work, Suicide Note, is a good read, and may be important to keep around." In passing I would like to note that we are not discussing whether to delete Suicide Note but rather an encyclopedia article about it. Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 17:36, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I have a very tangential reason for this recommendation: the person and his story are a contribution to philosophy and quite simply, a proof that philosophy is not dead, and that the quest for the meaning of life is not just a Woody Allen joke. Nshuks7 (talk) 10:44, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep How are other events, even as important as the Holocaust, different in the discussion whether this article would encourage copycats (which as far as I can see would be the only real objection)? Should the Holocaust article be deleted because someone might decide to repeat or carry on those events? The problem lies in whether his thoughts are of any value, other than just understanding what goes threw the mind of someone trying to commit suicide, and that can only be evaluated in time ie once reviews and critical analysis have had time to disseminate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ciuchy (talk • contribs) 11:35, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
While I think the article should be kept, I think there are some significant differences from your Holocaust example. There are stronger countervailing forces to genocide than there are to suicide, ranging from simple compassion to the fear of a violent response. It has been convincingly shown that copycat suicides are in fact fairly common. I know of no such evidence about genocides. And, while I agree that some of the people voting "Delete" seem to be motivated purely by a desire to deny Heisman publicity because of the manner in which he became notable, and that those votes should therefore be disregarded, others legitimately assert that his work simply is not notable, which is a higher bar than merely "any value".
The evidence we currently have (the opinions of the few dozen people who have already read the book, and the news articles) strongly suggests that his work will have lasting notability. But if it suggested, rather, that Heisman would be reduced to a trivia question in short order, then we ought to delete the article, even if his thoughts did have some value other than just understanding the cause of his suicide. Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 17:36, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep There are many news reports of the event of Heisman's death and many discussions of his opus. The laziest of Google searches will demonstrate that this article possesses notability, and it would be prudent to assume much of the opposition to its presence is likely due to the circumstances surrounding its notability. We can be sure that there will be literary and film follow-ups to this event as well analysis of the text of his suicide note in the near future. Let's not forget that there's an accepted and useful article for Christine Chubbuck, who published nothing yet is noteworthy only for the public nature of her suicide and the news and discussion surrounding it -- yet, there's no question of its validity as an article. TeamZissou (talk) 16:18, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The primary grounds for deletion seem to be based on notability. Authoring a book and the latter suicide are plainly two separate events. Furthermore there's very clear interest outside the normal news cycles into the contents of Mr. Heisman's writings. At first glance his work is easily on the level Ted Kaczynski's Unabomber Manifesto. Xtraeme (talk) 23:07, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Mitchell_Heisman&oldid=1142540133"