Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is Act

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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 delete. While several sources have been offered by the keep side, the consensus here is that a bill that dies in committee is non-notable, and that the coverage of it is insufficient to steer cleat of WP:NOT#NEWS. Sjakkalle (Check!) 18:55, 4 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is Act[edit]

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is Act (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Per the reference mentioned on Talk:Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is Act 10,000 bills are introduced into each session of Congress. Only 400 become law. How is this bill more notable than the 9,600 that meet a similar fate? Not a notable bit of information. – S. Rich (talk) 03:30, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep - like the others, WP:GNG is the standard that should be applied. This one has received quite a bit of coverage:
On balance, I think this one passes WP:GNG in spades based on a depth of sources from national and international news outlets of unquestionable reliability. Stalwart111 04:35, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • By OP – But then what happened? Each of these news reports and editorials announced the introduction of the bill, and used the occasion to opine. Per WP:NOTNEWSPAPER "Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events." Clearly this bill had no enduring notability. – S. Rich (talk) 04:49, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Of course, you are free to disagree. Stalwart111 10:03, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Leave my views out of it, the problem is the weakness of the sources, as Arthur Rubin rightly observes. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:44, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry mate, I mean you are free to disagree with my take on the sources; wasn't suggesting you were making an WP:IDONTLIKEIT argument or something like that. Stalwart111 21:50, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
By OP – The bill itself is not a person or event, but the news and commentary found (in sources listed) is about the event – the introduction of the bill. It, and its' earlier equally unsuccessful introduction, were two small events in the drama of Washington politics. (If we said this person or event criteria did not apply, then every bill, failed or successful, could become an article. One of the first things a supporter might do would be to write up the introduction as an article in WP.) The much more important ideas related to the bill, which deserve encyclopedic description, are national debt, the means by which the government raises revenue, etc. – S. Rich (talk) 15:05, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Will, I'm not sure that applying WP:GNG in this case sets a precedent - there are two other pieces of proposed legislation on the AFD block and I can't see either of them being kept. I think its possible to make the distinction. Stalwart111 21:50, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete pending more information. Are there any sources which are not editorials, op-eds, official notification of the bill, or "silly season" announcements of the introduction of the bill? If not, there's no way to meet GNG. In fact, the first two I clicked were written by the author of the bill. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:59, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You mean of the ones above? The first is written by Pete Kasperowicz and the second by Brian Faughnan? Didn't Congressman Campbell propose the bill? Or am I missing something? Stalwart111 09:19, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - surely WP:NOTNEWS applies here. A flash-in-the-pan bill that does not become an act but is momentarily reported for its silliness - is not encyclopedic content, however much anyone may find it amusing to suggest it is so. Newspapers have to fill columns and even the best are not averse to having brief funny items, but such coverage absolutely doesn't meet the GNG. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:22, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There's coverage there from multiple years (two each at least from 2008 and 2011) and not many of them are from the funnies columns. Personally, I think it's a silly idea but it's a silly idea that has received significant coverage in multiple reliable sources. Stalwart111 10:03, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The '08/'11 repeat is just that the bill flashed up briefly again, it seems. The Washington Times article is an opinion by a Representative; the Weekly S. is a journalist's opinion blog, the rest are just political squibs e.g. Guardian Comment column of 2011, a British writer grabbing a passing American example. It's really terribly thin stuff as soon as it's examined, despite all the flummery of bluelinks to newspapers. All the articles really just say 'hey look at this, something different for once'. Not exactly lasting fame. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:44, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:50, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:50, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:51, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep or Summarize, Merge, and Redirect to John B. T. Campbell III; the first piece of legislation with the name of the subject was introduced by Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky in 1994, however it only received one reliable source from a news organization. The next time it came up was in 2008, when it was introduced by John B. T. Campbell III, who introduced it again when a new Congress was formed in 2011. The legislation that was introduced by Campbell, IMHO has received significant coverage from multiple non-primary reliable sources, both news and non news. Therefore, the subject is notable, IMHO. AfD is not a substitute for additional work. However, if there is a consensus that the subject is not notable, the content can be summarized, and merged into a section about Campbell, and a redirect left in the articlespace.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:22, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
By OP – An average of 18 or 19 bills per session are introduced by each of the 535 members. Less than one bill per member gets enacted per session. And we have Acts of the 111th United States Congress to list the 392 bills that made it through the process. (And consider that 88 of them are about naming different buildings around the country after so-and-so.) So the vast majority of those other enacted bills have no article or are redlinked. While the public may not think Congress is doing a good job, each of those members, for each of the bills they introduced, thought they were doing something worthwhile or notable. Depending upon the PR skills of the members' staff, introduced bills get something in the news. My point? There is enough WP work to be done on the enacted legislation without lifting the flap for the non-notable camel's nose bills to enter the tent. Also, even if we create a redirect to Campbell, his article then needs a blurb about the particular piece of failed legislation, with RS. (But maybe this is a good idea. Each Congressperson ought to have an article section on the dozen or so bills they introduce each session which go nowhere. And we create redirects from the bill #s or bill titles to get the readers to the particular article sections. And what about the co-sponsors of failed legislation? They also get blurbs in their articles and re-directs etc are created. On the other hand, because articles have these sections about failed legislation, the articles become targets for POV pushers who seek to show the waste of time that is going on with Congresspeople they don't like. (Opps, is my POV is showing through?)) – S. Rich (talk) 21:32, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I understand the concerns here, and yes there are many pieces of legislation that have received significant coverage and that are notable that either are stubs or whose article has not yet been created. However, just because those articles need work, or need to be created is not a reason for deletion of a notable subject's article.
Wikipedia is not paper, and is not limited to how many articles that can be created. Furthermore, improving and creating articles is never done on Wikipedia; thus just because there are notable subjects that have to be worked on, or haven't been created, is no reason why another notable subject shouldn't exist.
There are two things an AfD is suppose to answer. The first and primary question is "Is the subject notable as defined by the notability guidelines and essays that exist?". The second, and less important question is, "If the subject is notable, are there policies, guidelines, or essays, which inform us users that a consensus of users have decided that a subject should not be created for various reasons, should be merged and redirected for various reasons, or should be treated differently than a stand alone article for various reasons."
This subject has received significant coverage IMHO, and other editors are free to disagree with that opinion. However, I believe that I have explained clearly why I think the subject is notable.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 16:17, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. The cited sources are not WP:RS for news. They are blog or opinion. SPECIFICO (talk) 11:02, 25 February 2013‎ (UTC)[reply]
But what of the dozens of news created sources about the subject, or the tens of thousands of non-news sources, that are available? What determines notability of the subject is not limited to the presently used sources in an article.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 16:17, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If you have citations to news sources that discuss this Act, I would like to see and consider them. Not the topic but the Act which is the topic of the article. I have not seen any. SPECIFICO talk 16:25, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Just google search and one will find multiple reliable sources from news organizations, and on the internet.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 16:45, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. I did that before my first comment above. I don't see any discussion or ongoing coverage beyond listings of the origination of the bill. Nothing to indicate notability. So if you have specific examples that I may have missed please provide them. On the basis of search results my view is still as stated above. Thank you. SPECIFICO talk 16:54, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom. & WP:NOTNEWS. Lacks significant coverage in independent reliable sources.--JayJasper (talk) 20:28, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete- I agree with the reasons above.--Soroboro (talk) 02:12, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep This is just additional harassment from Rich, Rubin and SPECIFICO... Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive786#User:Xerographica. The information is factual and is obviously notable to the congresspeople who sponsored and co-sponsored it. Right now the argument is that newspaper editors are somehow more qualified than congresspeople when it comes to determining notability. Regarding the slippery slope argument... I think it's pretty absurd to worry about editors making the effort to create an entry for every 10,000 bills introduced. And if they did...so what? Why not have a record of all the laws that congresspeople have tried to pass? How is that unencyclopedic? Is the concern that 10,000 entries is going to take up a lot of space on the hard drive? If so, anybody with even the slightest knowledge of space constraints would appreciate how absurd such a concern is. Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. --Xerographica (talk) 14:05, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • And that claim of harassment is one of a couple of reasons you're having to watch this from the sidelines, being indef-blocked. Drmies (talk) 01:45, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. A bill that dies in committee isn't of encyclopedic value unless there's something special going on, and there isn't. BTW, the article is named incorrectly; it should be called "Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is Act of 2011" since there's also a "Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is Act of 2009". Drmies (talk) 01:45, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    .... and, probably a few other years. THOMAS found 3, the last time I checked. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:47, 3 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I would have agreed if there was some content about the act. But in its current form, there's just nothing which indicates the important or notoriety of the draft act. Kabirat (talk) 07:16, 4 March 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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