Talk:Darwin Awards/Archive 1

message: I don't really think it's appropriate to make this article be worded like one particular site created the term and is the experts on them, as they just rode a wave that was already in creation. We can link to the site as a main example, but this article reads more like a promotional service for one site that claimed to be the official one instead of discussing the topic itself more evenly. DreamGuy 23:31, September 11, 2005 (UTC)
Agreed.  It reads as if Ms. Northcutt wrote this page herself.216.120.133.250 14:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree, just marked it probably not having a neutral point of view.
--Vincent 09:31, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Website ad or cultural phenomenon

message: I removed the reference to nature vs. nuture, because the way it was presented, it was logically wrong.  It said that Darwin Awards must assume that genetics affect intelligence MORE than environment.  This is wrong, as natural selection can still work as long as their is ANY variation in intelligence due to genetics. (and of course there is, if not, intelligence could not have evolved in the first place....still, though, I left the sentence about the assumption)
Robbrown 20:52, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Nature vs nurture

message: I think that there must be a great deal of the history of the Darwin Awards missing from this entry.  The first mention of the Awards in Google's Usenet archive is from     August 1985 and implies that that they had been awarded in the past.  Does anyone know where they started and what happened between 1985 and 1993?
If I recall correctly, the Darwin Awards initiated with the Naval Safety Center and Rear Admiral Dirren, its director.  I know they were circulated during my time in the service through Naval Safety Center message traffic.  You might contact the Naval Safety Center and attempt to confirm this.  I do not know for a fact that Admiral Dirren was the first originator, but heard that he was.  Hope this helps. ElectricJoe 04:32, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What years were you in the navy? Greg 02:31, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I tried to email Dirren, he didn't answer. Greg 21:20, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Missing History?

message: There is some debate about whether the Darwin Awards is scientific and whether the Darwin Awards claims to be valid science. An interview with Wendy Northcutt doesn't help clarify. In an "interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Northcutt says:
“There is apparently a fairly strong contingent of people in the U.S. who think evolution is something they can dismiss,” she says. “If you think about a guy who blows off his testicles, you can laugh at it, but he’s not going to be around to reproduce again. As long as you can laugh at that kind of story, you get natural selection. That’s the essence of evolution.” 
This quote sounds to me as though Northcutt is saying that a case likely to be listed in the Darwin Awards is indeed proof of natural selection.Nancymc 18:22, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're confusing evolution and natural selection here...
I don't think Northcutt is making fun. I think she's in earnest. Only Northcutt knows for sure. But she has no problem selling herself as a scientific expert, and so I would not be a bit surprised. She's currently appearing on a panel called (http://yearlykos.or/node/279 Championing Science) so it's in her self-interest to promote the idea that the Darwin Awards, the source of her personal notariety, has something to do with science, when it really does not, other than as a thin veneer of respectability over lucrative cruelty.
evolution =/= natural selection MafiaCapo 14:45, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Are the Darwin Awards scientific?

message: The Darwin Awards? A website, three books and a Hollywood movie featuring Metallica (the same Metallica who have lost bassist Cliff Burton with a Bus crushing him to death on the second attempt? - isn't that FUNNY shouldn't we all LAUGH/"rofl" and write an e-mail to THE DARWIN AWARDS now?), providing a negligible part of humanity with a subculture of their own? People laughing about other people's death... it's things like this that I cannot and do not want to understand but combat. I strongly oppose such utter bullshit. Part of western society thinks it has total freedom, a radical misunderstanding, creating such wonderful things as MTV's Jackass, The Darwin Awards (Ladies and Gentlemen!) et al. Evil spirited minds would go on and wish someone specific to recieve a Darwin Award herself. LIllIi 00:10, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  ? 

message: The editor at 72.56.160.44 may be unaware of this, but accuracy matters here.  Changing the text of an actual quote from an actual source introduces inaccuracy.  Characterizing bestselling books as "not a commercial success" introduces inaccuracy.  Insisting that there is a dispute about the origin of the phrase "Darwin award" when Wendy Northcutt herself does not claim to have originated it also introduces inaccuracy.  In this round of cleaning up I did try to respect whatever actual information might have slipped in along with this recent campaign of misinformation.  However, it is not "advertising" to try and keep blatant lies out of an encyclopedia.  No doubt many people have many points of view on this subject.  If we want to keep the article neutral, a fine start would be to let ourselves be constrained by the facts.  I hope that standard, which is part of the project rather than one of my own imposition, is not too high for anyone to reach.  Demonweed 17:56, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia as a Reference 

message: You dress up as a alien, Bigfoot, demon, some monster where I'm at, you'll get a Darwin Award for sure. Where I'm at, it is legal to kill anything considered a threat to persons, property, loved ones. As if that is not bad enough, some people out here are armed all of the time and do drink booze. Martial Law 00:08, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Certain hoaxes

message: Aren't most Darwin awards unverifiable rumors and urban legends (I don't mean the ones on the original website, but the others)? Smith Jones 22:34, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aren't 

message: I bet one of the reasons some find the Darwin awards humor funny is the mock pretentious or mock scientific wording of the website etc. But we should at most quote the wording. The pretentiousness, mock or otherwise, should not be the tone of the article.Rich 14:04, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hear, hear. -- I@n 04:53, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Encyclopedic tone

message: This thing is disorganized with stuff in the wrong section etc. I'm not a skillful writer, I just try to fix bits and pieces.Rich 14:34, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: This article needs rewriting

message: The current round of rewrites is destroying info. For example, info about the 4 Darwin Awards books has been removed, yet the movie info is still there. Given that Wendy is the source of almost all Darwin Awards material, don't you think it's important to mention that the Snopes criticisms are NOT about Wendy's writings? And so forth. Greg 04:33, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The article is about Darwin Awards, not specifically about Wendy Northcutt's website of the same name.  Her books are listed in Wendy Northcutt, as they should be (although I have strong reservations about whether she is notable enough for a page of her own, but thats a separate argument).  Its a matter of balance, and the previous versions of this article would lead a casual reader to believe that Northcutt invented and owned the term "Darwin Awards", which was wrong. -- I@n 04:43, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You didn't actually answer my query: why is the movie treated different from the books? Almost all usage of the term Darwin Awards nowadays does revolve around her website and books, so I think you're trying to rewrite reality here. And your claim that a best-selling author isn't notable is, well, bizarre. Greg 06:34, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My main concern about Northcutt's article is that there's no citations.  And I could find none (serious ones anyway) that could verify what had been written.  The interview is a poor substitute I suppose.  In this article I'm trying to make it more balanced and to give a historic perspective of what DA's mean rather than it sounding like she created and owns Darwin Awards (whatever that is).  It sounded like a fan club page rather than an encyclopaedia giving out meaningful facts.  "Requirements" is just a cut and paste job from her website and therefore specific to darwinawards.com.  Also darwinawards.com has a significant section called (from memory) "honourable mentions" which don't comply with those requirements anyway.  -- I@n 07:08, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Her bio (which are the 3 items labeled lacking citations) is in her books. This article never, ever said she created the awards, that's the whole point of the Usenet history section, which you have not added anything to. All you've done is destroyed info. You should finish the job and delete all the examples, since they're from Wendy's pages. Then you'll have a nice, empty article, which says nothing about the actual Darwin Awards today, which do revolve around her website and books. Greg 07:29, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Greg, citations written by herself are hardly citations. See WP:VERIFY. -- I@n 07:34, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: She's a best-selling book author published by a major publishing house, who vetted her bio. Her books are not self-published. I really don't understand how you think you're improving Wikipedia with weird statements like this, but I am beginning to understand why you disagree with so many other Wikipedia contributors about what ought to be in Wikipedia. Greg 20:19, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Rewrites destroying info

message: I've been tweaking and adding to the interview section because I do think the information and quotes from it are worth being on Wikipedia, rather than just in a source. But would it be better to put it in Wendy Northcutt's article?Rich 05:49, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the whole of the requirements section and the interview would be better at Northcutt's page as they specifically deal with the website.  I'd support that. -- I@n 06:02, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The interview is now moved to Wendy Northcutt. -- I@n 08:35, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The interview was only there because of the Local Troll, who was using it to make Wendy look bad. You can delete it if you think it isn't worthwhile, instead of just moving it around. Greg 06:35, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: cnn interview w/WN

message: The "Darwin Awards" have nothing at all to do with Darwin. An individual among thousands or millions is hardly likely to have influenced the gene pool, and certainly not on account of their misjudgment in an isolated situation.
If you follow forums, chatrooms, etc., you'll find that a huge proportion of people now believe that someone who does something stupid "deserved to die".
It's just such lousy science. In trying to sell a ha-ha book that ridicules other people's mistakes, Wendy Northcutt and her publisher, Dutton of Penguin Group, have done a tremendous disservice.
The Darwin Awards are the worst, most corrosive form of mass media. Luddites have a more viable viewpoint.
Could someone who has the time and patience please take convert this piece of crap, non-encyclopedic material to about 200 words? 76.102.1.193 (talk) 19:06, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The Darwin Awards are not really based on scientific fact, and really are more of an internet phenomena than anything. I'm trying to fix up the article to the point where it illustrates them as humor, and not scientific fact, to remove any confusion. WTF? (talk) 20:09, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not Darwin 

message: The Darwin Award is a humourous tongue-in-cheek disassertion that has gone viral rather like Parkinsons Law of the 1955. which was originally published in the respected Economist newspaper.    Tabletop (talk) 00:52, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Parkinsons Law 

message: Are the Darwin Awards still active, as indicated in the infobox? On their website, only four are listed for 2011 and none for 2012.
:I was just thinking that. The main page does seem to have some 2013 stuff but none of the other sections seem to go beyond 2011 and some pages are beginning to look a bit spammy. Akerbeltz (talk) 16:59, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'd say no. Their main site hasn't updated since March 2013. Their Facebook page hasn't updated since December 2013. Their Twitter account hasn't posted since January 2012.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:8:B580:55A:712E:B9B6:9554:4B7E (talk) 12:02, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: As of March 2016, there is plenty of stuff on their site for 2014, but not later. Given the above earlier comments were posted in 2014 and complaining there was nothing after March 2013, it would seem the site is probably alive and well, but usually tends to be 1 to 2 years behind, perhaps due to the time needed to gather and check facts, etc. Tlhslobus (talk) 07:07, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Still active? 

message: This is an article about darwin awards, not northcutt. And it's just repulsive. I vote the photo of her be removed, along with the that cutesy box that advertises her website and books2601:7:6580:5E3:3520:956D:C4FE:F3E7 (talk) 07:24, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Wendy Northcutt was the founder and organiser of the Darwin Awards. She looked after the web site and wrote the books. For all intents and purposes, she practically was the Darwin Awards. I'd say a photo of her is quite relevant. --Roly (talk) 09:49, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Should be kept. As the author and initiator of these "awards" her photo is relevant in an encyclopedic context. A lot of articles about awards, institutions and similar topics have photos of their founders as part of the topic's historical background. Not a great photo of course, but the only one available right now. GermanJoe (talk) 09:34, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  photograph of northcutt-what for? 

message: This article is thoroughly POV in favour of the awards, and really should have a criticism section. I'd add one myself, except that 1) I just couldn't be bothered, and 2) I am even less bothered as I don't expect any RS (Reliable Source) for my main criticism of the awards, which is their failure to give any Darwins to all the idiots (many of them Nobel Prize winners) who have given us such things as H-bombs and global warming and are giving us Artificial Intelligence (which, it is said, may eventually decide to keep us as pets, if we're lucky). And of course they haven't given our entire species a 'prehumous' award despite the fact that waiting to give us a posthumous one is clearly leaving it too late. Of course if somebody could find and cite some RS that did make this kind of criticism, it would greatly improve the article. Tlhslobus (talk) 07:25, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you need to look at the criteria for the awards. --Roly (talk) 08:14, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Not when you're criticizing the awards, as you can also criticize the criteria (indeed I would expect almost all criticism of the awards would be criticizing the criteria). Part of what I'm half-jokingly saying is that the greatest threat to the human gene pool does not come from the 'stupid' failing to kill themselves, but from the 'super-intelligent' idiots (H-bomb inventors, etc) failing to kill themselves, so the award criteria should reflect this but don't, and it would be nice (and would improve the article) if someone found a RS that said so (tho I couldn't be bothered to look for such an RS myself, but somebody else might). Of course I expect most RS criticism would be about the awards being in poor taste (implicitly or explicitly as an inevitable result of their criteria), and I'm even less interested in looking for that kind of criticism (but somebody else might, and again it would improve the article (by making it less POV) if such RS criticism were found and included in a criticism section). Tlhslobus (talk) 12:47, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Talk pages are for discussing improvements to their associated articles, not the underlying topics of those articles. This isn't a place for sharing opinions about the Darwin Awards. —Largo Plazo (talk) 13:32, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I am, and have been, discussing how to improve the article. Since this seems to have somehow escaped your attention, I have now highlighted above and here some of the various ways in which I have suggested the article might be improved. Unsurprizingly explaining how the article might be improved often requires giving one's opinion about some aspects of the subject of the article, as in the above instances, where for instance it can help others to find the right keywords for Google searches for the kind of Reliable Sources that might help improve the article in the ways suggested, etc. In marked contrast, I see little in your above comment that helps to improve the article, as distinct from helping to prevent its improvement in any of the various ways I have suggested, except perhaps that it may have helped to improve the article by forcing me to highlight all the places where I have suggested possible improvements, so I guess thanks are due to you for that. Tlhslobus (talk) 03:40, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: You're writing that if there were many reliable sources commenting at length on some aspect of this topic, then the article should reflect what they say. It's like writing at Talk:Canada about how you think Quebec should have seceded already and then talking about how, if that had happened, then the article should reflect that fact. —Largo Plazo (talk) 13:37, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: You are self-evidently not comparing like with like. It is a self-evident fact that Quebec has not seceded. It is not a self-evident fact that there are no RS out there criticizing this site (indeed the article already has at least one none-too-visible RS-backed criticism in it, see below). Common sense suggests that there there must be a certain amount of criticism of this site by its very nature, if only because it is a site that laughs at the deaths of some real recently dead people (although, as I have already pointed out, there may also be other kinds of criticism of it too, which may also be worth searching for). Consequently searches for such criticism with search engines or by trips to libraries is quite likely to find some RS that say this, and finding and using those RS would greatly improve this article. Since Wikipedia is not compulsory, I prefer to suggest that others more interested than me might usefully undertake such searches. Meanwhile there is at least one, and possibly more, criticisms of the site in one or more places in the article (such as people complaining when some dead person they knew gets ridiculed by being put on the site), and the article would look a lot less POV, a lot less like a free advertisement for one author's books and website, and a lot more encyclopedic, if such criticism(s) were copied into a single easily spotted criticism section. But once again, Wikipedia is not compulsory, and I have no wish to risk wasting yet more of my time by risking getting into an edit war by trying to do this myself, as I have already wasted far too much time on this already. So, having made my suggestions for improving the article for others to run with if they are sufficiently interested (which I am not), I'm now taking this article off my watchlist in the hope that this will help ensure that your next reply won't provoke me into wasting yet more time on it.Tlhslobus (talk) 04:46, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

text: ":Cynical and voyeuristic", yes. Also cruel and cruddy!144.35.114.203 (talk) 04:18, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism section needed 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: This section wasn't appropriate for an encyclopedia imo. I get that the "award" is supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, but an explicit listing of real dead persons (with mourning family and relatives) feels like literal grave dancing and provides little to no encyclopedic value. I have removed this dubious list, but additional discussion and other opinions are welcome. GermanJoe (talk) 13:28, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: You've seriously reduced the value of this article for anyone who's new to the topic -- the rules remain, but the few examples linked in the History section are all urban legends. Wikipedia has a lot of information involving real dead persons with mourning family and relatives... whether or not that's grave dancing is obviously left to personal opinion, but perhaps you should consider if your personal opinion about that should extend to everyone else? Greg (talk) 05:19, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Notable winners"? 

message: Not a few of these awards, from my observations, were of doubtful origin. The usual flim-flam was to cite a foreign newspaper as source, since middle Americans are not only ignorant but credulous. I got tired of seeing ‘The Sydney Herald’ cited. There is no such paper. --2001:44B8:3102:BB00:8D6D:82E:FBEC:5C51 (talk) 21:48, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: On the darwinawards.com website, I see a bunch of references to the Sydney Morning Herald. Also, Google says there are 0 results for the quoted phrase "sydney herald" site:darwinwards.com. Greg (talk) 21:20, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Veracity 

message: Hello everyone. Judging from past discussions and a few sources that I found, the Darwin Awards are clearly a source of contention and some strong opinions. Editors in the past have requested "Criticism" or "Reception" section to highlight what experts (or otherwise) have to say on the Awards's credibility, quality or ethics. I had to do some digging, but I found a text by scientist and educator Sharon A. Hill, written on her personal website, which is highly critical of the award on both scientific and moral grounds. I also found an article from The Guardian, written by Sylvia McLain, a University of Oxford biophysicist. It isn't specifically about the Darwin Awards and only mentions it in a few paragraphs, gives a much less scathing opinion than Hill's text, and realizes they are mainly tongue-in-cheek, but it still admonishes the Awards for not accurately representing Charles Darwin's evolution theory.. Lastly, there's the book Encyclopedia of Evolution which I found in past discussions, written by Stanley A. Rice, a professor of biology at the Southeastern Oklahoma State University. On page 108, like McLain, he acknowledges that the Darwin Awards are mainly for entertainment, but notes that they do not correctly represent how evolution works.
And that's all I could find of opinions from subject-matter experts on the awards. It would be good to find some positive ones for balance, but alas. Do these sources warrant a "Reception" section or something similar? I'd like to hear opinions. --DannyC55 (talk) 01:24, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Reception" section or similar? 

message: This has been on the internet for a long time now, and it's really not a big thing anymore. Much more entertaining and outrageous stuff than Darwin awards is available now. So is the Darwin Awards still notable? It's certainly inhumanly cruel. Could it be deleted?Rich (talk) 16:23, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Notability is not temporary. The Darwin Awards (in the context of Northcutt's project, since the word is still occasionally used in memes and whatnot) may have faded into obscurity in recent years but it was extensively covered in its heyday, so it can't be deleted for lack of notability. --DannyC55 (Talk) 00:17, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can this article be deleted?