Beyond "Committed"
Rewording How Wikipedia Writes About Suicide
Across thousands of Wikipedia articles, the phrase "committed suicide" still appears — a relic of the era when suicide was a crime. This project replaces it, carefully, with wording that reflects how we understand suicide today. Suicide is a tragedy, never a crime or a sin
Why the word matters
The verb "committed" carries the weight of crime and moral failing — we say "committed murder" or "committed fraud". It entered the language when suicide was literally illegal, and it lingers long after the law changed. Major style guides and suicide-prevention organizations now advise against it, because the framing still shapes how bereaved families and survivors hear themselves described.
Wikipedia's own Manual of Style acknowledges that "style manuals have come to avoid commit suicide, which is now considered insensitive because of its whiff of criminality. There are many other appropriate, common, and encyclopaedic ways to describe a suicide." (MOS:SUICIDE)
Read more →How you can help
The work is simple: find an article on the shared spreadsheet, make the edit on Wikipedia with a clear summary, and mark it done. Where appropriate, instead of "committed", choice words that shift the blame away from the victim: "died by suicide", "took their own life" or "ended their life."
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