Talk:Margaret Mary Vojtko

Renaming suggestion

I'm glad someone went and created this; I had thought about doing it myself after reading the Slate article, but I've been spread very thin lately.

I think it would be a great nominee for DYK. However, first I think we should rename it to Death of Margaret Mary Vojtko, per our other naming conventions for articles like this. Her notability derives solely from how she died, not (sadly) anything she did during her lifetime. Daniel Case (talk) 23:34, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• @Daniel Case:, I, too, came here after reading this Slate article (seems great minds think alike), wondering if the article was based on prior media coverage and planning to put a link in case someone came to correct the record.--ColonelHenry (talk) 04:40, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Great! But do you think we should change the name? Perhaps I should ask the article creator as well ... Daniel Case (talk) 22:33, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

In case it wasn't obvious, Slate is what prompted me to write this as well. I was a bit surprised someone else hadn't already done so. --BDD (talk) 23:10, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks for the kind words, Daniel. I'm aware of the "Death of..." convention and would've used it here if I thought it was the best option. I see your point, and I wouldn't really throw a fuss over a rename or anything, but the article fundamentally is about the person, not her death. It's true Vojtko wouldn't pass WP:ACADEMIC or anything, but it wasn't the event of her death (i.e., the heart attack) that made her notable so much as the response to it. People can be made famous by their deaths without their death itself being their primary claim to notability. Does that make sense? Am I focusing on semantics too much? --BDD (talk) 23:10, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Her death and the response to it are pretty much two sides of the same coin. Put it this way: no one would be using the #iammargaretmary hashtag if she were still alive. Daniel Case (talk) 19:00, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't know. I could see people using the hashtag if she were in a hospital dying of cancer and her employment status was known. We might still conceivably end up with a "Death of..." article, but perhaps only her preference for privacy prevented this from ever being a BLP. --BDD (talk) 20:06, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Why the decedent didn't become notable has no bearing on how we name the article. Daniel Case (talk) 05:25, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Addendum: See Death of Wang Yue for what I consider a parallel example. See also Murder of Kitty Genovese. From my own experience, I drew a distinction between Rebecca Coriam, who is notable only for having disappeared off a cruise ship, and Gavin Smith, most of which is about his disappearance but who I argued to be notable for other things before that (member of national champion men's college basketball team, holder of an existing record at another college basketball program, and short acting career). Daniel Case (talk) 19:09, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I would appreciate a DYK nom; I had been thinking of self-nominating anyway. And I wouldn't want the name issue to hold that up. But I wonder if it might make more sense to go ahead and run this through the DYK process and then take it to RM. How does that sound? --BDD (talk) 23:10, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

OK. Not seeing any serious objections above to changing the name, I'm giving 24 hours notice of intent to do so. Daniel Case (talk) 05:44, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No move. Cúchullain ^t/c 16:37, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

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Margaret Mary Vojtko → Death of Margaret Mary Vojtko – It appears this may be controversial, so it's best to bring it to a formal discussion. See the above section for previous discussion. The closer can count me as a weak oppose. BDD (talk) 17:02, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

• The discussion above is very useful. I normally strongly support titles with "Death of..." for people who are only notable for their death. However in this case, Vojtko's life is in a way retroactively notable. That is, as User:BDD notes, she has been made famous by her death. In addition, the content of the article is weighted toward the biographical. My own concern is whether the entire case is even encyclopedically notable at all and if it is better covered at Wikinews. —  AjaxSmack  03:56, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think you should lend much weight to the current content of the article, as it was written before the name change was suggested. Of course it was going to lean toward the biographical. While her life details are relevant to the extent they explain and clarify why her death was notable, it is her death that made her notable. Had she had reasonable health benefits and job rights closer to a tenured professor, she might have lived a little longer or died more comfortably, and never made the Post-Gaazette. That's why it should be "Death of ..." Daniel Case (talk) 06:15, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose per User:BDD. It looks to me like there is nothing very notable about her death, except that it has prompted questions to be asked about her life. As such she is notable for being the flagbearer for a group of people who may be in a similar position to her.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:25, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.