Talk:Unidentified decedent

A fact from Unidentified decedent appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 14 April 2015 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that there are around forty-thousand unidentified decedents in the United States?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2015/April. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Unidentified decedent.

Wikipedia

Law Enforcement Mid‑importance

	Law portal This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Law Enforcement. Please Join, Create, and Assess.Law EnforcementWikipedia:WikiProject Law EnforcementTemplate:WikiProject Law EnforcementLaw enforcement articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.

Death Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Death, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Death on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.DeathWikipedia:WikiProject DeathTemplate:WikiProject DeathDeath articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Causes

I've changed 'are faced with' to 'present' as they aren't really faced with anything. It's the people that are trying to identify them that are faced with problems. (Isn't the English language wonderful?) Peridon (talk) 17:13, 21 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've rearranged the lead a bit too for similar reasons. Peridon (talk) 17:18, 21 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Use of the term "decedent"

"Decedent" is a specifically American legal term for a deceased person. This is a term which is not in use elsewhere in the English-speaking world. "Unidentified bodies", "unidentified human remains", etc. are much more common and usual. Additionally, the use of placeholder names like "John/Jane Doe" for unidentified dead bodies is an American thing that's not really done elsewhere. Wikipedia should ideally present a global rather than specifically American viewpoint if possible. Pseudonymous Cognomen (talk) 16:52, 17 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any other terms you have in mind that sound more formal than "body" or "corpse"? --GouramiWatcher^(?) 18:22, 24 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Dead" works as a noun. InedibleHulk (talk) 17:13, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Given that 90%+ of the text refers specifically to America, why not just make it overtly about America only, which would turn its current deficiencies into strengths? --Dweller (talk) 22:50, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Such as "Unidentified decedents in the United States"? --GouramiWatcher^(?) 02:50, 11 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly. But if the term really only applies to the US (worth checking) wouldn't even need a page move, just a copy tweak, mostly to the Lead. --Dweller (talk) 09:41, 11 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Worldview tag

Claiming non American examples is very problematic until this problem is resolved. I've therefore applied a {{worldview}} tag. --Dweller (talk) 10:57, 6 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

More cases have been added that come from other countries than the USA. Therefore, I have removed the template. --GouramiWatcher^(?) 19:46, 6 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The cases from other countries stand out as incongruous in an article which is clearly overwhelmingly about the American legal term and the subject in regard to the USA. It needs to decide if it is about unidentified human bodies from a worldwide perspective, in which case it requires significant overhaul and expansion, or it stays highly specific to America. If the latter, a parent article about unidentified human bodies ought to exist separately. Mutt Lunker (talk) 22:27, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'd definitely appreciate anyone willing to add more information regarding cases/investigation in other countries, especially with non-English speaking regions. Due to copyright regulations in other areas, it would be somewhat difficult to find images in the public domain, which would most-likely help with this issue.--GouramiWatcher^(?) 18:49, 26 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations

Congratulations on making it to today's listing on the "Did You Know..." section of Wikipedia Main Page. The process of making it the listing takes a bit of effort and involves the quick cooperation of many editors. All involved deserve recognition, appreciation, thanks and applause.

Best Regards,

Bfpage |leave a message 13:02, 14 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Identified decedents are not unidentified decedents.

This seems simple, but so have a lot of things, so I figure I'll start the discussion before someone reverts. Not much I can add here that isn't in the header. InedibleHulk (talk) 11:14, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

They were added because of significant attention they had received while unidentified. Relevant to the article if you ask me. --GouramiWatcher ^Talk 16:04, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Situations change. Will Rogers got a ton of press during his life, but we don't count him in Category:Living people. No Pluto in List of gravitationally rounded objects of the Solar System#Planets. The "BTK Killer" has a name now, so Dennis Rader isn't in Category:Unidentified serial killers. InedibleHulk (talk) 16:45, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I put them back as "Formerly unidentified". At least that's a sort of "unidentified", not the total opposite. Rhetorically, anyway. The facts of the matters are still quite different, but nothing's perfect. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:11, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Changing the image to include other unidentified decendents

Considering that all of the unidentified decedents have been positively identified, I think that making a new list of unidentified decedents would make sense. However, we should archive the old one and not delete it. I think it'll help with the exposure considering how many people pass through Wikipedia every day.

Balkanite (talk) 19:11, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Why ruin the page?

4meter4, why did you remove the “formerly unidentified” section? This was once the place to check for updates on unidentified decadents, many of whom are now being identified by DNA. It’s really disappointing to no longer be able to do this I💖平沢唯 (talk) 20:06, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's not an appropriate list for an encyclopedia. Once a decedent is identified they are no longer an "unidentified decedent". According to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System approximately 4,200 unidentified decedents are identified every year in just the United States; so being a formerly unidentified body is not unusual or encyclopedic. Including such a list here is not only off topic but is WP:LISTCRUFT and would fail WP:NLIST and WP:NOTDIRECTORY. Not to mention that the prior list was poorly referenced and overused primary sources. 4meter4 (talk) 23:18, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have to concur. We have the Doe Network, Namus, NCMEC & of course the rather well put together Unidentified Wiki for stuff like this. It is beyond the scope of wikipedia, shame that it is.--SinoDevonian (talk) 23:25, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Lists of formerly unidentified decedents

Per past discussions both on this talk page, at various AFDs, and elsewhere, consensus is not to include such lists here for two reasons. One, by definition, once a body is identified it is no longer an unidentified decedent. Two, according to NAMUS's own statistics, law enforcement in the United States successfully identified 7,188 unidentified bodies in 2023 alone. And that is in just the USA. Being a formally unidentified body, while sad, is not uncommon. This is therefore not notable under Wikipedia:NLIST and WP:INDISCRIMINATE. We should not encourage WP:LISTCRUFT of this type because it is not encyclopedic.4meter4 (talk) 23:08, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]