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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. Lankiveil (speak to me) 12:34, 28 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

List of Statutory Instruments of Scotland, 2012

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List of Statutory Instruments of Scotland, 2012 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, including a mere list of SIs. The concept of an SI is definitely notable, but the vast majority of these are not. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:41, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Scotland-related deletion discussions. AllyD (talk) 19:38, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A bunch came into Articles for creation. There were more, but I think most were declined at AfC either for failing WP:GNG or WP:NOT. We'll use this AfD as a test case. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 20:08, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have reviewed the lists that were rejected at AFC. In each case I found that the reasons for rejection were manifest nonsense. The reviewers either did not know what statistics are, failed to realise that the lists were daughter articles of a broader list satisfying NOTESAL, or failed to advert to the reliable sources present in the articles. I have moved all of these drafts into the article space. I decided that there was no need to wait because the failure of this AfD nomination has been a foregone conclusion from the outset. James500 (talk) 06:25, 16 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • We will not use this AfD as a test case for any country outside of Scotland as that would be completely inappropriate. James500 (talk) 05:20, 17 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • A problem with using a Scotland-only one as a test case is that editors interested in other legislatures won't have it drawn to their attention and could first encounter it as an outcome precedent. AllyD (talk) 20:29, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • A more serious problem is the fact that the countries of the United Kingdom are so different from each other that you cannot assume that it is possible to draw any valid conclusions from any one of them about the others. England is so much bigger than Scotland that there is no question of using Scotland as a test case for England on any subject. James500 (talk) 04:00, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep Why would you want to delete this?. It's clear it's not an indiscriminate list of information? It clearly does not satisfy Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. It's factual historical information, and ideal WP fodder. The UK lists alone cover Act(s), from about 1485. I think they should be kept enabling the editor to complete it. They pass WP:GNG. scope_creep talk 20:52, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
The lists go back further than 1485. Our list of Acts of the Parliament of England originally began with the Statute of Merton 1235, which follows The Statutes of the Realm. It now contains an entry dated 1194, which I think was formerly a statute of uncertain date. There is unconsolidated legislation from the thirteenth century still in force in England (eg the Distress Act 1267). We have lists and articles concerning earlier legislation going back to the Anglo-Saxon period before the Conquest. The Irish Statute Book website lists legislation going back to at least 1066. Our list of Acts of the Parliament of Scotland begins in 1424. James500 (talk) 14:01, 15 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, if it passes GNG, give me some sources that cover this significantly. It's just a bland list, of no importance, things lumped in without any consideration for significance, it tells you nothing you couldn't just get from another website. Absolutely zero encyclopedic value. I learn nothing from this article. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 19:57, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This list is not bland. Even if it was, that would be irrelevant. The legislation is important. Why would we want to remove individual instruments from this list for POV based reasons about their perceived relative significance when we don't have to? You will learn something once the items of legislation are blue linked or annotated. Many of them will have amendments and case law. Many of them will be very substantial documents indeed. There may be intense criticism. There is nothing on Wikipedia that you could not get from another source. That is the whole point of WP:NOR. James500 (talk) 02:32, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Any judgement on this should theoretically apply equally to every list linked from Template:British_legislation_lists. From a procedural POV, I think a discussion with wider reach should be held. --LukeSurl t c 20:33, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • It certainly will not because different types of legislation have different types of sources. English statutory instruments have, amongst other things, Halsbury's Statutory Instruments. Every public general Act passed since 1948 will satisfy GNG because of Halsbury's Statutes and Current Law Statutes Annotated. All of these works are massively comprehensive encyclopedias. There are others. The vast majority of public Acts applying to England will probably satisfy GNG by a very, very, very wide margin indeed due to the absolutely vast literature that exists. James500 (talk) 02:04, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:01, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:01, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Snowball keep. You have got to be kidding. Scottish Statutory Instruments are notable as a group. That means that they satisfy NOTESAL. That means that they get a list. This page is a daughter article of that list. It is clearly a legitimate spin off. The idea that legislation is not important is astonishing. The ultimate purpose of legislation seems to be to authorise public officials to use massive ultra-violence. That is ultimately what is sanctioned if the legislation is not obeyed. Even if the legislation is obeyed, it forces people to do things they would rather not do, which will frequently be really quite unpleasant things. In all probability every piece of legislation on this list will become either an article or a redirect to the piece of primary legislation under which it was made. This list will be necessary for navigational purposes at that point. James500 (talk) 01:48, 14 October 2013 (UTC) I think that this nomination is absolutely preposterous. I think that it would be a complete waste of time to give it any further consideration as it is obvious to me that it is absolutely certain to fail. I think that it should just be closed now. James500 (talk) 03:00, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep.Seems to be the practice. As someone that works in the area, there will certainly be official government documents/website that refer to the full list of intruments for any given year ( Like HMSO). Seems to be the practice to put the year's list of statutes on Wikipedia, whether this is a good idea or not I'm not sure, but the UK SIs are on their back to 1948, and there are other Scottish ones on there - eg - List of Statutory Instruments of Scotland, 2002 Deathlibrarian (talk) 02:38, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Government publications include, amongst other things, Legislation.gov.uk, three editions of Statutes Revised, Statutes in Force, three editions of Statutory Rules and Orders and Statutory Instruments Revised, many many editions of the Chronological Table of the Statutes, the Index to the Statutes, the Table of Government Orders, and the Index to Government Orders, two revised editions of the Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, the Northern Ireland Statutes Revised and a chronological table of statutes for Northern Ireland. There is also a revised edition of pre union Irish statutes. All of these are reliable secondary sources. They are not just lists or copies of legislation. They are heavily annotated. The revised editions are equivalent to encyclopedias. They have been in publication since 1870. James500 (talk) 05:27, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actually those are all primary sources - a secondary source would be a newspaper article talking about the implication of one for example. But as WP:INDISCRIMINATE states, simply being true and verifiable is no reason to have an article in itself. Specifically, "Long and sprawling lists of statistics may be confusing to readers and reduce the readability and neatness of our articles. In addition, articles should contain sufficient explanatory text to put statistics within the article in their proper context for a general reader." In the time you've got flustered and upset because somebody's disagreed with you, you could have improved Scottish Statutory Instrument, cited the text currrently tagged as [citation needed] and got it up to C class. Something really worth thinking about. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 05:48, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I am afraid that you are mistaken on all counts. None of those sources are primary sources. You don't know what the difference between primary and secondary sources is. (A newspaper is actually a primary source). This list contains no statistics whatsoever so INDISCRIMINATE has no relevance to this. (Statistics are numerical quantities calculated from data. This article contains no averages, no percentages, no standard deviations, and no other numbers whatsoever. Whatever the titles of these instruments are they are not numbers and therefore cannot be statistics.) The entries in this list will have context once they have been blue linked or annotated. It is only a matter of time before that happens. I am not upset that someone has disagreed with me. I think that this Afd is an serious embarassment to the project. I think that if the press or other outsiders realised that we were even discussing this, they would start laughing at us. This is not quite as bad as nominating George Washington for deletion but it is uncomfortably close. I also think that editors shouldn't have their time wasted with ludicrous nominations that have absolutely no chance of success. James500 (talk) 11:45, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What I can see from here, and from your recent contributions to WT:N is that you prefer to argue and create dramatic tension from trivial matters in preference to improving articles, and you don't actually understand why I opened this AfD. I'll duck out of this conversation now and wish you a nice day. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:55, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I understand you rationale for deletion perfectly. I just think it is complete misreading of the policies concerned. I am not trying to create dramatic tension, but think this nomination has a tendency to do that. Snowballing an Afd certainly isn't an attempt to argue with anyone. It is an attempt to put the thing out of sight and out of mind as quickly as possible. Bearing in mind the number of articles that I have created (about six hundred) and expanded, and bearing in mind that the vast majority of my edits are in the article space (about 75% or sixteen thousand) and the article talk space, I don't think that you have any right to accuse me of not being interested in improving articles, because that is simply nonsense. If I have recently made a very small number of edits to the Wikipedia and Wikipedia talk space, it is because I think that some of the stuff there is making it increasingly difficult to improve the content of the encyclopedia. If you had not made this nomination, I would be improving articles right now. But I can't do that, because someone is wasting my time with this nonsense. James500 (talk) 12:08, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, how did my recent comments at WT:N come to your attention? Because I did say something on that page about lists of legislation a very short time before you made this nomination. James500 (talk) 12:33, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Characterising this list as "cruft" is not helpful if you do not explain why you think it is. I can see no reason for that characterisation and honestly think that this AfD nomination is spectacularly absurd. "I don't like it" certainly isn't a valid reason for deletion and that seems to be the argument that you are advancing. That is the only meaning that I can attribute to "listcruft". There is no convention that lists should be only of wikilinked items let alone that most of those should be blue links. You are thinking of disambiguation pages which are specifically intended to serve no purpose other than navigation. The manual of style explicitly envisages stand alone lists that contain zero notable entries. We like red links because they facilitate the creation of articles and redirects. That said, many of these instruments will be notable. The rest can presumably be redirected to the primary legislation under which they were made. I have no doubt that the list will eventually be blue linked from start to finish. This might take some time (Rome wasn't built in a day), but there is no deadline and articles are not required to be perfect. James500 (talk) 20:48, 16 October 2013 (UTC) In fact, if you bear with me, I will add as many wikilinks as I can bear to add now. James500 (talk) 20:52, 16 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. User:RHaworth was informed of the existence of this AfD by the nominator with this edit. James500 (talk) 00:26, 17 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. This AfD is seriously out of process. Altough this AfD is obviously intended to impugn the validity of the other annual lists of Scottish statutory instruments (which, together with the list for 2012, really form a single list) no notice of this AfD has been placed on any of those lists. Furthermore, the list for 2012 was created very recently and it is obvious that editors and readers of the earlier lists are less likely to be aware of the list for 2012, and to have it on their watchlist, than the earlier lists. Nor have the creators of the earlier lists been notified directly. James500 (talk) 05:20, 17 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. It's merely a reproduction of a list available in primary sources - there's no value in duplicating it on Wikipedia when the vast, vast majority of the entries on the list are redlinks or nonlinks with no prospect of ever having enough WP:V secondary sources avaiable to become viable articles. Cynical (talk) 00:47, 20 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It is not a reproduction of any source because none of the lists in reliable sources that might be used to source this article contain links to Wikipedia articles or redirects. A list of SSIs is a secondary source (ie the lists that might be used to source this are secondary sources). There is nothing wrong with entries on this list linking to redirects (ie to the primary legislation under which the SSI was made, whose article will discuss the SSI) which I assume could be done in all cases. There is no reason to insist on having links to articles. Instead of making vague references to "the vast, vast majority" could you please give us an actual number or estimate and explain exactly how you have worked it out. Because I don't know that what you are saying is true and I am not prepared to accept it on the basis of your personal knowledge. As regards secondary sources on individual instruments, I would probably be quite happy to accept an article on an SSI that consisted of the amendments made to it. It is not as if anyone could dispute the fact that an amendment has been made (leaving aside the possibility that it might be ultra vires, which we can leave to readers to decide for themselves) or that its effect cannot be accurately explained by quoting it more or less verbatim. Since legislation.gov.uk does not presently revise these instruments, I think that such an article could be enormously beneficial to the readers, since at the moment you have to pay for something similar or do it yourself, and bearing in mind the importance of a great deal of subordinate legislation and the extent to which the legislature delegates its powers. And if anyone starts waving policies, guidelines or essays about independent secondary sources in my face at this point, I am just going to refer them to WP:IAR, which one of the five pillars. Alternatively, the list could be directly annotated with this kind of information, like the Table of Government Orders was (and, indeed, with any other information that might be available). In which case links would not be needed to justify the list. There clearly is value in having an annotated list of SSIs. James500 (talk) 04:59, 20 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. The possibility of annotating this list is a very strong argument in favour of keeping it, that needs to be directly addressed by the people who are arguing to delete it. They also need to explain why they don't like redirects. Bearing in mind that neither NOTESAL nor anything else requires lists to have any individually notable entries. James500 (talk) 05:13, 20 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The list makes no effort to establish notability of this list as a group or set (and given that there are more of these, there should be more deletions to come) In addition, James500 is showing troubling signs of a displaying a serious BATTLEGROUND mentality, calling other discussions illegitimate (see the AfC references), casting aspersions on the motives of others, and warning people to not wave "policies, guidelines, or essays" "in his face." We might need an administrator to get involved if we're going to have a productive debate of the issues at hand. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 21:49, 20 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Scottish Statutory Instruments have received significant coverage in a rather large number of reliable sources - see these results from Google Books. That does seem to indicate that they satisfy NOTESAL as a group. I feel that the comments you are making about me are mistaken. I have not called any discussion illegitimate, I have not cast aspersions on anyone's motives, and I have not warned anyone to refrain from doing anything. I feel that I have to point out that commenting on other users is considered to be disruptive. James500 (talk) 23:02, 20 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
SSIs will probably be discussed in detail in the annual supplements to the Stair Memorial Encyclopedia, which don't seem to be searchable with GBooks. (Since GBooks is reported to be about three quarters incomplete, the actual number of books is presumably likely to be four times the number of results in GBooks). James500 (talk) 00:09, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The list doesn't have to make an effort to establish that SSIs are notable as a group. You are suppossed to look for evidence of notability. You are suppossed to conduct some kind of search. James500 (talk) 02:16, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That Scottish Statutory Instruments as a concept is notable does not mean that an indiscriminate list of every single one is. Celts is a notable topic, a list of every person in the world of Celtic descent is not. And yes, you have cast aspersions. What exactly do you call declaring that people's reasons were "manifest nonsense?" Or announcing in advance that people shouldn't quote Wikipedia policies because you plan to ignore them with WP:IAR as if that's what it's there for? Or your vote of "snowball" keep, which absolutely does not apply here? Fact is, you've made it very difficult to have an actual discussion.CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 17:37, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A list of every person in the world of Celtic descent is prohibited by NOTGENEALOGY. That is a specific exclusion which has nothing to do with notability or indiscriminacy and which has no application to this list.
"Indiscriminate", when applied to a list, means "random". It does not mean "lengthy" (NOTPAPER). It does not mean "includes items that are not individually important" (not that I can see any unimportant SSIs in this list anyway). A list of all SSIs, placed in order of their official numbering, is not random, and therefore not indiscriminate. A random selection (ie subset) of SSIs would be indiscriminate. If the SSIs in this list were placed in a random order, that would be indiscriminate.
Your comments about me are mistaken. James500 (talk) 02:18, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, | Uncle Milty | talk | 23:24, 20 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. This edit is an example of how the entries in a list like this could be annotated. This is the sort of information that a person confronted with an SSI would want to know about it. You could not say this isn't useful. James500 (talk) 08:36, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If you honestly want to keep the article, I think the best thing you can do is read WP:BLUDGEON very carefully and then stop contributing to this discussion. Then go and improve Scottish Statutory Instrument with all the sources you claim to have found, which I asked you to do a week ago and yet you have not done. As you can see from the top of this AfD, I said "The concept of an SI is definitely notable" so it should be easy for you to do. As we can also see, you said "it is obvious to me that it is absolutely certain to fail". Clearly it wasn't obvious to the closing admin, as they've relisted it! Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 08:47, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In my opinion, WP:BLUDGEON is a seriously misconceived essay. The user who relisted this debate is not an admin. James500 (talk) 10:06, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Please see my reply on this discussion's talk page regarding my relisting of this discussion. --| Uncle Milty | talk | 12:15, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's the best "Keep" vote I've seen, but doesn't that source just say the lists exist? It doesn't appear to give any indication why they're notable, unless the explanation is on another page that I missed. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:32, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
LISTN does not require the list to be notable. LISTN requires the items listed to be collectively notable. The existence of lists of those items may prove that those items are collectively notable. There is a complete list of SSIs in Current Law Statutes Annotated. James500 (talk) 11:18, 22 October 2013 (UTC) BAILII has Statutory Instruments of the Scottish Parliament. James500 (talk) 14:19, 26 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No it doesn't. Please don't just wave policies around but actually quote sections of them and explain how and why they apply to this article. WP:LISTN does require the list to be notable - specifically it states "Notability of lists (whether titled as "List of Xs" or "Xs") is based on the group" and "The entirety of the list does not need to be documented in sources for notability, only that the grouping or set in general has been". This is how List of Hammond organs can legitimately exist - multiple, independent reliable sources talk specifically about each model in turn, including the B-3, the C-3, the A-100, the L-100, the M-100, the XK3, SK2 etc etc... whereas multiple independent reliable sources don't talk about, say, the A84 Trunk Road (Main Street and Leny Road, Callander) (Temporary Prohibition of Waiting, Loading and Unloading) Order 2012. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:51, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. The passages you have quoted from LISTN are not, in my opinion, capable of bearing the meaning that you ascribe to them. A source that says "Scottish Statutory Instruments are good" is a source that documents the set or grouping in general. I think it is clear that the words "in general" mean "collectively". James500 (talk) 12:48, 22 October 2013 (UTC) Possibly the reason for this is that a list of SSIs is a daughter article of Scottish Statutory Instrument and the topic of a daughter article does not need to be notable independently of the topic of its parent article. James500 (talk) 16:42, 27 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
What exactly does the one example that you have given prove about the other 359? And why start with number 18? Does that mean you agree that the first seventeen are discussed by "multiple independent reliable sources"? James500 (talk) 16:42, 27 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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