Wikipedia talk:Deceased Wikipedians

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Should a likely murder/suicide be included?

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I was looking through old entries and found Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians/2009 § Glen Dillon (Glen Dillon), who died with his two children in a car crash. News coverage of Dillon's death, such as [1] and [2], characterizes it as a likely murder/suicide, noting that he was supposed to only be around his children supervised, and separately was facing charges of harassment and a request for a restraining order. I guess this raises two questions for us: 1) can anyone find anything that clarifies if the police ever ruled it a murder/suicide, and 2) if this was a case of a Wikipedian whose last act was to kill two children, is that someone we want to include here?

I can honestly see the case either way: You can make the case that we're all equal in death, that we have no way of knowing which good and bad things most of the people on this list might have done in their lives, and that the point is to honor people for their Wikipedia contributions and nothing else. Or you can argue that we should not honor a killer, much less a killer of children given our commitment to child protection. You could also argue that removing anyone from this list on moral grounds would create a slippery slope. Thoughts? -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 06:08, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that the point is to "honor" people so much as to "remember" them.
In that lens, this person had 751 edits and edited for about a year. I probably wouldn't have added the entry in the first place. But other people probably would think this is enough. I believe the circumstances were not entirely unknown at the entry's creation, since they linked to a news story calling the deaths "suspicious". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:48, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Water under the bridge at this point, since the entry has been around since 2009, but Wikipedia is a much bigger place 16 years on than it was in 2008. I wouldn't've added him based on a news report, unless I knew him personally. If someone added something new today on a current user that cast them in a suspicious light, I'd probably delete it as BLP-adjacent (recently deceased). Jclemens (talk) 00:07, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with your last statement: "You could also argue that removing anyone from this list on moral grounds would create a slippery slope." -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷)
A dead Wikipedian is a dead Wikipedian. Furthermore, why ignore a minor positive action (editing WP) because it was committed by someone who also did something seriously wrong? Lova Falk (talk) 08:14, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking as someone who remembers Glen ( I talked to him onwiki and met him at a meetup), I'd agree that using people's off-wiki (or, in many cases, on-wiki) actions as a yardstick for their presence on this list would indeed create a slippery slope and generally be a bad idea. Yes he only made 751 edits (nowhere near enough to, say, get adminship, even in 2009), but they were on the whole quite substantial. For example, In the page history statistics, he's still listed as the primary author of the Tasman Bridge disaster article. Moreover, he was well-known in the Australian and Western Australian Wikimedia communities. Also see the comments about him at this Signpost talk page from 2022 and note that his passing was mentioned in the Signpost in 2009. Graham87 (talk) 13:20, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I had met this editor at a couple of meetups here in Perth, he made good contributions and was a contributor in good standing. As tragic as the events surrounding his death are, I remember a lot of speculations being thrown around at the time. Gnangarra 14:43, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Maybe, but he made fewer than 1,000 edits and was only here for a year. Is there any kind of threshold? Guy (help! - typo?) 18:50, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Is there any kind of threshold there is no formal threshold and I would strongly oppose the introduction of one. If an editor believes, in good faith, that a deceased editor's contributions to the project were sufficient that they merit the description "Wikipedian" and wishes to remember them on this page then that is enough for me. Thryduulf (talk) 19:12, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Constance Cumbey

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The Christian writer Constance Cumbey, who had a hundred or so edits here as User:Cumbey, died on June 9 [3]. Not super active, but after I added her to Deaths in 2025, I was on Wikipedia:Notable people who have edited Wikipedia and coincidentally noticed she was listed. Nohomersryan (talk) 20:59, 11 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Krimuk2.0

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I came across an obituary on Instagram that I'm confident was about them. To respect their privacy I won’t share the post publicly, but the name and details match what's listed in old revisions of their user page (around 2012). The obituary was posted on April 3, and their last edit was on April 1. 2A00:F28:FF02:7CD1:2014:AE82:1602:6639 (talk) 21:28, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think I found the post you mean. Same first name, nationality, and second country of residence. But I don't think that's enough to be certain it's the same person, especially with this not being an obituary but rather a post from an organization about one of its members. Have you been able to find an obituary or death announcement that includes a date of birth (which Krimuk previously had on their userpage)? Or any source stating that that person was a Wikipedia editor? I would view either of those as sufficient evidence personally. Feel free to email me at wikimedian@tamz.in. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 23:18, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Based on e-mailed follow-up and some further research, yes, sadly there's really no way this is someone else. Same first name, nickname, exact date of birth, Indian nationality, master's degree from the National University of Singapore, LGBTQ identity, and passion for films and novels. I have taken the necessary steps per WP:DWG. If anyone would like to start an obituary, that would be great. (I'd recommend doing so just under Krimuk's username, unless someone who knew him well feels otherwise. While his first name wasn't private in the sense of being OSable, the fact that he renamed away from it means we should assume he wouldn't want it in the obit.) -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 06:18, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's best if entries in WP:OBIT are written by an editor who remembers the deceased person. If nobody who has seen this discussion knew the editor well enough to do that, then the user pages can still be marked with {{Deceased Wikipedian}}, the account WP:GLOCKd, etc. That might result in someone seeing the news and being interested in writing something for this page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:25, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I've posted on his usertalk and marked and protected the userpage. I sent the off-wiki evidence to a steward, but I think the one I chose is asleep right now, so it might be a few hours. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 06:28, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) So sad. I noticed his contributions in 2012, but we had little contact. Dr. Blofeld perhaps, who commented in the same post and knows cinema? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:27, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
He was an old friend of mine, though he hadn't been that active and we fell out of regular contact. He emailed me (Smarojit) on January 24 and asked how I was. We had a brief conversation about poor contemporary Hollywood films. He hadn't emailed for a long time before that. I wonder if he was saying goodbye to me. Though it seems to have been early April. Very sad. I don't think he was old, I would have thought around mid 30s.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:31, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Age: 34 on is talk (from the obit). Could you write a few lines about his interests and achievements? -- (forgot to sign then) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:26, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just wrote his obituary. Sad that I had to do 2 in quick succession!♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:06, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for doing that. I hope it is a long time before you need to write another. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:53, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Addition to guidelines regarding global locks

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Please review my addition to the guidelines. I thought it would be useful. I've also requested global locks for, I believe, everyone on the Deceased list (at the time of this post) who hasn't been locked yet. The vast majority are now globally locked, and only three requests are still pending. starship.paint (talk / cont) 14:56, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that looks correct to me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:18, 30 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Year tab sizes

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Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians/Year header has a tab for each year 2005–2025, with a row for each decade (2000s, 2010s, 2020s). Each row spans full width, which means that the width of each tab depends on how many years there are, and that number is different for each row. As a result, the tabs are inconsistently sized. It's hard to scan by eye, it has the appearance of undue prominence of some years, and because the boundaries are not consistent it looks like a simple layout mistake. Anyone have thoughts about switching to a simple list (like {{Hlist}} or {{Horizontal TOC}} does) or to an exact grid (with blanks for 2000–2004 and 2026–2029)? DMacks (talk) 19:09, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've noticed this before. I decided at the time that if someone else had an idea that would make it better, I wasn't going to object. As far as I'm concerned, do whatever you want. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:39, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm thinking Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians/Year header/sandbox, which would give the page looking like Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians/sandbox. DMacks (talk) 00:55, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Works for me. I don't know if you want to wait for a few days to anyone else has an opinion, or just to install it and see if anyone complains. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:08, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Did it. As long as it worked for someone else, I figure it's safe to install, and easy enough to tweak or undo altogether if someone complains. DMacks (talk) 07:22, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Babelstone (Andrew West)

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User:BabelStone (Andrew West) appears to have died, per a collaborator on a mailing list he frequented. He had some 12k edits. Nuew (talk) 21:09, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

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What will happen to deceased IP editors. 23.162.200.217 (talk) 20:54, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Only registered user accounts will be recognized. - FlightTime (open channel) 21:06, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
May I ask about how the identities or knowledge of the passings of Wikipedians who never disclosed their real life identities and remained known only through their online usernames up till their passing are discovered?
I noticed there were deceased Wikipedians listed/identified only by their usernames.
I am curious as to how the passings of such fellow Wikipedians who remain anonymous in terms of not disclosing real-world identities are recorded (and I hope that such fellow Wikipedians rest in peace alongside the rest of their fellow deceased Wikipedians, knowing we value and recognise their contributions) if there are complications such as there being no disclosure/notifications from their loved ones about said passings (perhaps out of desire for privacy, for example) or other limitations on confirming their passings. MTAMSK (talk) 17:10, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If they never disclose their real-time identity, then the identity is not known (unless disclosed by family members) and for obvious reasons can not be listed here. Ymblanter (talk) 17:29, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
More practically, a lot of long-time editors have disclosed their real-life identity to at least one other editor, or they leave an instruction with their will and testament asking their family members/estate executors to let Wikipedia know.
There is nothing inherently wrong with us not finding out. An account that hasn't been used in a long time is an account that hasn't been used in a long time, regardless of whether that's due to death, a lost password, or lost interest. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:51, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps, but I do hope their contributions are still valued regardless of status.
In any case, thanks for the answers! MTAMSK (talk) 18:12, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is an interesting question Captain Almighty Nutz (Contact me EMail Me Contribs) 18:45, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

User:MichaelQSchmidt

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Per an Instagram post from Tim Heidecker, the former Wikipedia admin User:MichaelQSchmidt has died.[4] Nohomersryan (talk) 00:39, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This Facebook post, which was added to Michael Q. Schmidt, would seem to support that. That said, neither is a reliable source, and I've removed the statement from his biography for now on that basis. While WP:RIP doesn't need to hold itself to WP:RS, it would probably be best to hold off on adding something here until a source emerges that can be used in the article. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 13:29, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Jay has now updated the article with a citation. I've done the necessary DWG things. It would be nice if someone could put together an entry at Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians/2025. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 13:58, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've made a start on it. I just assumed that the infobox image is good enough here and copied its formatting from the previous entry about BabelStone. Feel free to make tweaks/additions, of course. Graham87 (talk) 16:52, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

User:Faizan

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Per the User talk:Faizan#Remembering Faizan 2018 post, he had died on 3 June 2018, and the poster was willing to provide evidence privately to an uninvolved admin. Faizan had more than 40,000 edits, and the last edit was in 2017. The deceased template was removed in 2019, as the verification of death was not done. User's account was blocked for socking, however he had claimed that the account was compromised. Jay 💬 15:00, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]