Archive 10 Archive 15 Archive 16 Archive 17 Archive 18 Archive 19 Archive 20

Legislation, Statutory law, Statute articles

Legislation, Statutory law, Statute why are there three standalone articles on Wikipedia? Opnions invited. Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 03:10, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Because England. The Italians, and the Continental legal systems in general, perhaps unsurprisingly, use more precision. I find it amusing, the Italian articles that these English articles link to; at some point we need to create articles for these Continental (i.e., non-English), normative legal concepts. Int21h (talk) 03:31, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
And on that note, realize that both statutes and regulations (i.e., delegated legislation) could be considered legislation. A statute could be considered an (possibly along with others, such as statements of legislative intent, possibly the only) instrument of statutory law, and a regulation could be considered an instrument (along with adjudication etc.) of administrative law. I think the Italian articles are clearer in this respect. Int21h (talk) 03:26, 7 March 2015 (UTC) Int21h (talk) 03:34, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Judges are politicians at wikipedia?

An article I just started a few hours ago went for deletion almost instantly. Apparently the wikipedia notability requirements for judges are the same as for politicians? Ottawahitech (talk) 02:59, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, the notability guidelines for judges have been difficult in the past. NPOL provides some carve-outs from GNG that apply to judges (i.e., state supreme court judges, to my understanding, are automatically notable regardless of GNG). WP:NLAW, a failed proposal, would expand the carve-out to non-temporary members of state courts of appeals. —/Mendaliv//Δ's/ 19:44, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Notice and comment

I was surprised to discover this administrative law concept is a redlink (with or without hyphens). There are probably a few possible redirect targets, I'm not sure which would be the best. postdlf (talk) 16:45, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Rulemaking? But it could probably be an article on its own: [1], [2]. TJRC (talk) 20:30, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, Rulemaking would be the ideal target for now, at least until someone gets together a full-blown article. There's definitely enough material on notice and comment rulemaking (maybe that should be the ultimate title) to merit a separate article. —/Mendaliv//Δ's/ 00:38, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Notability of treaties

There is a discussion of notabilities of treaties and other international agreements going on at Wikipedia talk:Notability (law)#Treaties and other international agreements. This is a talk page for a somewhat old failed notability guideline, but every once in a while, some of us get inspired and try to see if we can raise a consensus on some elements of this, and right now, it's treaties.

If you have any input, please join in. Right now we have only me and one other editor, hardly enough to approach a consensus; and I suspect since the guideline has been long-dormant, it's not on many radar screens.

I'm posting this to WP:WikiProject Law and WP:WikiProject International law. If there are other WikiProjects that you think would have an interest, feel free to invite them to the discussion. TJRC (talk) 19:02, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act

Hi, folks. Input is needed for how (and whether) to cover RS's that assess the effects of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act (aka Adam Walsh Act or AWA). There exist very many RS's discussing the outcomes of AWA (a list of nearly three dozen RSs is available here, at the AWA talkpage). The RSs are nearly universally negative in their assessment of AWA; multiple searches failed to reveal much positive assessment. Some editors feel, however, that including these RSs would violate NPOV and that no RSs assessing AWA should be on the page at all. Input from people with experience in editing law pages would be greatly appreciated.— James Cantor (talk) 19:01, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Yet despite all these opinions the law has not been changed. Cantor and an SPA wish to use the article as a platform to advocate for such change, possibly because they are apologists for deviant behaviors.--MONGO 05:25, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
Yes, but bill to repeal AWA in Nevada has been introduced as James pointed out, and majority of states have not implemented it for various reasons. We merely want the main page to reflect the state of RS which happens to be unanimously negative towards AWA. Your contributions for improving the article this far includes multiple violations of WP policies:
  • 1. WP:YESPOV by removing sourced information with no attempt to rewrite to achieve more neutral tone.
  • 2. WP:WEIGHT by blocking any attempt to make the "main space to fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable ::sources, in *proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources", and by claiming that long list of peer reviewed RS that has ::been provided, (which is only a fraction of the unanimously critical RS there exist) constitutes WP:FRINGE, which is outright lie.
  • 3. WP:AGF by continuously repeating SPA, which seems to be no problem to half dozen other editors (who also initially objected some of my first edits ::and of *which many told you to back down)
  • 4. WP:NPA by your claims that me and James (who happens to be one of the top scholars on this field) are "apologists for deviant behaviors"
Note: this was already addressed by the one and only outside editor this far User:Epeefleche: "High-end RSs reflecting criticism should in turn be reflected in the article. Guesses as to the agenda of an editor notwithstanding -- we don't censor such criticism, because of a guessed-at-agenda, even if it is the case."
  • 5. WP:OR by asking us to provide answer to your question "How many actual incidents of inconvienence are caused by the legislation?" (which you well ::know can't be answered objectively) as a precondition to anything to be added on the article
  • 6. WP:POVFORK by suggesting new article covering critique
Very nice list for a WP editor of 10 years. It almost seems like this is all about WP:IDONTLIKEIT.
Outside input is definitely needed. Please people, take time to read what has been going on at the AWA talkpage and give your oppinion. Currently the article is not what WP:BALANCE requires it to be. ViperFace (talk) 21:32, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Viperface is a single purpose account and as bad a POV pusher as I have seen in some time. Even a cursory glance at the accounts edits easily demonstrate they are here for one purpose and one purpose alone.--MONGO 06:11, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Peter Cazalet

I'm working up an article on Peter Cazalet (racehorse trainer), Although he is not of interest to this WikiProject, his son Edward Cazalet became a barrister and High Court judge. Therefore members of this WP may be able to fill in a few details about Peter Cazalet. Assistance in this matter is sought. Mjroots (talk) 10:32, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to split Law school in the United States

I propose to split Law school in the United States into two articles, one focusing on the conduct of legal education, and the other containing material on Post-law school employment in the United States. I propose this because I believe that the primary concern of an article on law school in the United States should be law school itself, and not what happens after a student completes their time there.

I also find it odd that the section on "Post-law school employment" comes even before the section on Admission (I have never known anyone to pursue post-law school employment prior to being admitted to law school), and because at least some of this information is duplicated in a later section of the article, at Employment statistics and salary information. As it stands, the post-law school section seem to dominate the article, and clearly have more than enough material to support a freestanding article. The current focus on post-law school employment is also directed to a narrow point in history (from the article it seems to begin in 2009, although post-law school employment is something that has existed for as long as law schools have existed), and to a narrow point in the post-law school experience (the first few months or years after graduation, with no attention to whether graduates are employed in a legal field, say, five, ten, or twenty years out).

I also think a reader coming to an article on Law school in the United States is first and foremost going to want to know what a law school is and how it works (in terms of admissions, curricula, grading, and other elements of how one goes through law school). From an encyclopedic perspective, we should also be presenting more prominently information on the historical development of the features generally found in law schools, all of which is more relevant to an article on law schools than information about what happens after law school. bd2412 T 21:22, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

This seems like a minor problem with a particular article that is easily solved by a reorganization of the sections. Int21h (talk) 10:00, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Resources to show notability

Being outside the legal profession, I need some guidance or help please. There is a proposal to delete Satvinder S. Juss, and I am struggling to evaluate him against the notability criteria. Google Books shows him as the author of a significant number of books, but how can I determine how much impact those books have had on the legal profession? Are there secondary sources that would indicate this? Or a "Who's Who in the Law", or any other resource you could recommend? Of course, if anybody cares to contribute to the AfD discussion directly, please do so at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Satvinder_S._Juss. --Gronk Oz (talk) 13:37, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Proposed US Constitution WikiProject

Hi everybody! There is currently a proposed WikiProject called WikiProject: United States Constitution, which would focus on article related to the United States constitution. If you want to support the creation of the group, visit Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/United States Constitution. Thank you! CookieMonster755 (talk) 05:19, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Proposed new article on mental health and the American prison system

Hello! My name is Magen and I am an undergraduate student at Rice University. This semester, as part of an upper-level course on human development, I am interested in creating an article on mental health in the American prison system. I can't find any information on this topic currently on Wikipedia except for a section within the Prison Abolition Movement article, which, accordingly, is framed in relation to that political stance. This article would address the prevalence of mental illness within the prison system (according to one study done by the Treatment Advocacy Center, there are currently more people with mental illnesses in jails and prisons than in hospitals), proposed causes of this prevalence/its relation to deinstitutionalization, the psychiatric care inmates receive while incarcerated, the different experiences of inmates with mental illnesses vs. inmates who do not have mental illnesses, and advocacy surrounding this issue/proposed reforms. I have identified these topics through a review of the relevant research, and I plan to draw on scholarly sources available to me through my university, including journals such as Criminal Justice and Behavior, American Psychologist, Psychiatric Services. The Journal of Law and Criminology, American Journal of Public Health, etc. If you are interested in knowing more about my current bibliography, feel free to ask and I can send it along. This is only my second contribution to Wikipedia (my first was "Homelessness among LGBT youth in the United States," which received a B-Class rating), so I am more than open to feedback, ideas, cautions, etc. My most immediate concern is what the title of the article should be. I have also consulted Wikiproject Psychology on how to appropriate refer to a person with a mental illness, but if you have any thoughts about how to structure the title of the article, please let me know. Thank you so much for your time and feedback. I hope this posting finds you well! Magenstat (talk) 23:31, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Our article on psychiatric disease is currently titled Mental disorder. This may or may not be the best title, but using that terms fits our titles. Incarceration in the United States#Mental illness has what we have now. No title seems perfect as the article should include both the incidence, and warehousing, of persons with mental illness, but also treatment, or lack thereof. User:Fred Bauder Talk 10:11, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
Naming the article is important. Wiktionary seems to differentiate between "prison", "jail" (or gaol), and "incarceration", but "incarcerate" doesn't seem to have a noun form referring to a thing so I suggest "Prison mental health in the United States" or something. (Also see the usage notes for "inmate", which smacks of doublespeak.) I would also suggest adding a section in the Incarceration in the United States and Health care in the United States articles (and any relevant articles linked to from there) summarizing the subject (WP:SUMMARY) as well. If there are any specific jurisdictions (states, localities, agencies) or other things with articles that have a significant number of mentions or are particularly notable, make sure to updated those articles as well: don't just write a huge article and neglect to integrate it into the rest of Wikipedia, or it will whither and die. As for structure, I prefer simple section names, like "Relation to deinstitutionalization" and "Causes" over "Proposed causes" or "Proposed causes of prevalence", but that will probably become clearer once the article is sufficiently developed. Int21h (talk) 02:45, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
The effective legalization of torture in state and federal prisons by the Prison Litigation Reform Act has resulted in substantial untreated psychiatric disease in extreme situations such as ADX Florence. See the references in the following:

In 2012, 11 inmates filed a federal class-action suit against the Federal Bureau of Prisons and officials who run ADX Florence, Bacote v. Federal Bureau of Prisons[1] now titled Cunningham v. Federal Bureau of Prisons.[2] The suit alleged chronic abuse, failure to properly diagnose and neglect of prisoners who are seriously mentally ill.[3] As of March 2015 settlement negotiations were underway with the help of a federal magistrate and some improvements had been made by the Bureau of Prisons.[4]

  1. ^ Case 1:12-cv-01570 Complaints and Exhibits The United States District Court for the District of Colorado, retrieved 20 June 2012
  2. ^ Richard P. Matsch (November 26, 2012). "Harold Cunningham, John v. Federal Bureau of Prisons". http://co.findacase.com. Retrieved March 29, 2015. {{cite web}}: External link in |website= (help)
  3. ^ Cohen, Andrew (18 June 2012). "An American Gulag: Descending into Madness at Supermax". The Atlantic. Retrieved 20 June 2012.
  4. ^ Mark Binelli (March 26, 2015). "Inside America's Toughest Federal Prison". The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved March 29, 2015.

It turns out that, regardless of the source of the disease, a prisoner driven mad by torture may have the right to medical treatment. User:Fred Bauder Talk 09:58, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Menominee Tribe v. United States nominated for TFA

Menominee Tribe v. United States has been nominated for Today's Featured Articles, if interested, please visit and register your support or opposition to the nomination. GregJackP Boomer! 17:45, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Menominee Tribe v. United States is Today's Featured Article

Menominee Tribe v. United States is Today's Featured Article and was brought to featured status by members of this project. GregJackP Boomer! 01:26, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Nominated for deletion

Just wanted to let you all know that I nominated Paternity fraud for deletion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paternity fraud — Preceding unsigned comment added by Warm Worm (talkcontribs) 01:55, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Peer review request

Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock has been submitted for peer review in preparation for a run at featured article. If you are interested, please go the the peer review page and help out. Thanks, GregJackP Boomer! 19:05, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Flexible contracts

I believe this discussion should receive attention and participation from people of this project. Specifically, with regards with changing the title of the article in question. Thank you. --Mr. Guye (talk) 18:36, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Clarifying a nonsense sentence

At Contractual term#Terms implied in law we have the following sentence:

  • Wong Mee Wan v Kwan Kin Travel Services Ltd. established that when a tour operator contracts to for the sale of goods.

This sentence is missing a main verb, making it totally senseless. I have no idea what it's supposed to mean. Can someone who has some knowledge of the topic clean it up please? Hairy Dude (talk) 23:42, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Never mind. I dug through the article's history and found it'd been copied over from Contract way back in 2007, which had previously lost a big chunk of text due to some vandalism no one ever reverted. Here's the offending edit. I'll reinstate it and maybe someone can check the resulting text is OK. Hairy Dude (talk) 23:54, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Rough look at $GDP per law firm

section split from #about notability of law firms discussion

Credit due: $GDP data by nation table here was copied from Wikipedia List of countries by GDP (nominal), then adapted. The $GDP values are 2015 per World Monetary Fund. Note U.S. states' GDP is available at List of U.S. states by GDP.

Note there are 40 countries in Category:Law firms by country.

This is a rough draft...

Note: Formulas for counts of articles in category not working properly yet, except for areas where there are no sub-categories. (Technical question: A PAGESINCATEGORY formula like 944 can report the number of articles in a simple category having no sub-categories; is there a formula that reports the number at or beneath a given category? It doesn't matter to me if the count is perfect or not, like if there is a list-article or two, or a few firms show up in more than one subcategory. But if there's a way to get unduplicated counts of firms under a big category, that would be great. --doncram 05:33, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Rank Country/Region GDP (Millions of US$) Count in category** Category $GDP / law firm
 World 77,301,958[1]
9999999   European Union[n 1] 18,495,349[1]
1   United States 17,418,925 58 Category:Law firms of the United States
2   China 10,380,380[n 2]
3   Japan 4,616,335 13 Category:Law firms of Japan
4   Germany 3,859,547 8 Category:Law firms of Germany
5   United Kingdom 2,945,146 93 Category:Law firms of the United Kingdom
6   France 2,846,889 5 Category:Law firms of France
7   Brazil 2,353,025 0 Category:Law firms of Brazil
8   Italy 2,129,276 1 Category:Law firms of Italy
9   India 2,049,501 10 Category:Law firms of India
10   Russia 1,857,461[n 3] 0 Category:Law firms of Russia
11   Canada 1,788,717 24 Category:Law firms of Canada
12   Australia 1,444,189 25 Category:Law firms of Australia
13   South Korea 1,416,949 4 Category:Law firms of South Korea
14   Spain 1,406,855 3 Category:Law firms of Spain
15   Mexico 1,282,725 0 Category:Law firms of Mexico
16   Netherlands 880,394 7 Category:Law firms of the Netherlands
17   Indonesia 856,066 0 Category:Law firms of Indonesia
18   Turkey 813,316 0 Category:Law firms of Turkey
19   Saudi Arabia 777,870 0 Category:Law firms of Saudi Arabia
20    Switzerland 679,028 1 Category:Law firms of Switzerland
21   Nigeria 594,257 1 Category:Law firms of Nigeria
22   Sweden 559,113 2 Category:Law firms of Sweden
23   Poland 552.230 0 Category:Law firms of Poland
24   Argentina 536,155 1 Category:Law firms of Argentina
25   Belgium 527,810 1 Category:Law firms of Belgium
26   Norway 511,602 3 Category:Law firms of Norway
9999999   Taiwan 505,452
27   Austria 436,069 0 Category:Law firms of Austria
28   United Arab Emirates 402,340
29   Thailand 387,253 2 Category:Law firms of Thailand
30   Colombia 378,415 0 Category:Law firms of Colombia
31   Iran 367,098
32   South Africa 350,800 12 Category:Law firms of South Africa
33   Denmark 330,614 4 Category:Law firms of Denmark
34   Malaysia 313,158 0 Category:Law firms of Malaysia
35   Singapore 297,941 14 Category:Law firms of Singapore
36   Israel 290,643 11 Category:Law firms of Israel
37   Chile 276,971
9999999   Hong Kong 274,027 5 Category:Law firms of Hong Kong
38   Philippines 272,067
39   Egypt 271,427 2 Category:Law firms of Egypt
40   Finland 267,412 4 Category:Law firms of Finland
41   Greece 241,796
42   Pakistan 232,757
43   Ireland 232,150
44   Kazakhstan 231,876
45   Iraq 229,327
46   Venezuela 227,175
47   Portugal 220,062 1 Category:Law firms of Portugal
48   Algeria 212.453
49   Qatar 202,450
50   Peru 202,416
51   Czech Republic 198,450
52   Romania 188,893
53   New Zealand 181,574 9 Category:Law firms of New Zealand
54   Ukraine 178,313 1 Category:Law firms of Ukraine
55   Kuwait 175,787
56   Vietnam 170,565
57   Bangladesh 161,763
58   Hungary 132,260
59   Angola 124.178
60   Morocco 112.552
61   Slovakia 95,805
62   Ecuador 93,746
63   Oman 77,116
64   Azerbaijan 73,537
65   Syria 71,998[n 4]
66   Belarus 71,710
67   Sudan 66,748
68   Sri Lanka 66,722
69   Libya 65,516
70   Dominican Republic 61,256
71   Luxembourg 60,402
72   Croatia 57,371
73   Uzbekistan 56,805
74   Burma 56,759
75   Uruguay 55,708
76   Kenya 54,993
77   Guatemala 53,797
78   Bulgaria 53,046
79   Costa Rica 49,621
80   Slovenia 48,005
81   Ghana 47,830
82   Tunisia 46,995
83   Lithuania 46,507
84   Ethiopia 45,999
85   Lebanon 45,019
86   Serbia 42,492
87   Turkmenistan 40,826
88   Panama 40,467
89   Yemen 40,415
90   Jordan 33,858
91   Tanzania 33,285
92   Bahrain 32,791 1 Category:Law firms of Bahrain
93   Côte d'Ivoire 32,061
94   Latvia 30,953
95   Bolivia 30,824
96   Congo, Democratic Republic of the 29,896
97   Cameroon 29,267
98   Paraguay 29,051
99   Trinidad and Tobago 27,719
100   Zambia 26,831
101   Estonia 24,888
102   El Salvador 24,259
103   Uganda 22,926 8 Category:Law firms of Uganda
104   Cyprus 21,919 2 Category:Law firms of Cyprus
105   Afghanistan 21,706
106     Nepal 19,341
107   Gabon 19,228
108   Honduras 18,813
109   Bosnia and Herzegovina 17,828
110   Brunei 16,214
111   Georgia 16,162
112   Papua New Guinea 15,973
113   Cambodia 15,659
114   Equatorial Guinea 15,574
115   Mozambique 15,329
116   Senegal 15,154
117   Botswana 14,837
118   Iceland 14,656
119   Jamaica 14,288
120   Congo, Republic of the 13,781
121   South Sudan 13,734
122   Chad 13,411
123   Zimbabwe
124   Albania 12,724
125   Namibia 12,318
126   Burkina Faso 12,247
127   Mauritius 11,930
128   Mongolia 11,516
129   Nicaragua 11,272
130   Madagascar 11,210
131   Mali 11,070
132   Armenia 10,431
133   Macedonia, Republic of 10,238
134   Laos 10,002
135   Malta 9,545
136   Tajikistan 8,497
137   Haiti 8,458
138   Bahamas, The 8,367
139   Benin 8,310
140   Moldova 7,935
141   Rwanda 7,431
142   Niger 7,359
143   Kyrgyzstan 7,225
144   Kosovo 6,827
145   Guinea 6,282
146   Timor-Leste 6,147
147   Suriname 5,057
148   Sierra Leone 4,788
149   Montenegro 4,377
150   Togo 4,360
151   Barbados 4,284
152   Mauritania 4,187
153   Fiji 4,037
154   Malawi 3,814
155   Swaziland 3,620
156   Eritrea 3,444
157   Guyana 2,970
158   Burundi 2,723
159   Lesotho 2,276
159   Maldives 2,276
161   Bhutan 1,985
162   Liberia 1,933
163   Cape Verde 1,920
164   San Marino 1,802
165   Belize 1,604
166   Central African Republic 1,538
167   Djibouti 1,457
168   Seychelles 1,398
169   Saint Lucia 1,317
170   Antigua and Barbuda
1,201
171   Solomon Islands 1,097
172   Gambia, The 850
173   Guinea-Bissau 845
174   Vanuatu 821
175   Grenada 814
176   Saint Kitts and Nevis 767
177   Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 720
178   Samoa 705
179   Comoros 652
180   Dominica 498
181   Tonga 477
182   Federated States of Micronesia 333
183   São Tomé and Príncipe 308
184   Palau 246
185   Marshall Islands 175
186   Kiribati 172
187   Tuvalu 38

Notability of law firms

Are law firms within the scope of this project? Are there any specific notability guidelines to supplement Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)? Would, say, rankings in the likes of Chambers & Partners or Legal 500 be relevant? The specific case I am thinking of is the Denver law firm, Davis Graham & Stubbs. Ferma (talk) 18:47, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Do you think there's a need for anything more specific than the notability guidelines for organizations/companies generally? postdlf (talk) 18:58, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
Yes it's within our jurisdiction (pun intended), but like Postdlf says WP:ORG and WP:GNG is applicable here. GiantSnowman 18:59, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
@Postdlf: Yes. See discussion above. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:52, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
Rankings in law directories needs to be evaluated by someone familiar with how they work. I remember getting invitations from these and, in some cases, I think the listing depends on what the firm submits or even how much money they pay. I note some are red-linked above. As noted in the discussion above, some expertise in how reliable they are would be welcome. Just being a big firm, I think, might not be that notable. A great firm does great things and there will be sources. User:Fred Bauder Talk 09:06, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, there seems to have been a spate of summary deletions of obviously notable law firms recently, such as Bae, Kim & Lee, Gleiss Lutz, and Cuatrecasas. These are among the largest law firms in South Korea, Germany and Spain, respectively, and are often high in the rankings published by independent bodies like the two I mentioned above (each of which do their own interviews of clients to produce their rankings, albeit based on law firm submissions, but they do not do "pay to play"). For direct comparisons, see Yulchon, Hengeler Mueller, and Garrigues. Gleiss Lutz and Cuatrasas are among the largest European law firms outside the UK - see List of largest European law firms (excluding UK) (2012)

I think these deletions are just plain wrong. Compare the recent AFDs for Yulchon, and the even more clear result for Advokatfirman Vinge.

No doubt there may be unduly promotional material in this sort of article, like any other article about a commercial organisation or product, but that is a reason to improve them and make them more neutral, not a reason to delete them. Ferma (talk) 18:23, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

AfC submission

Hello there! What do you reckon about this recent submission? Draft:Unreasonable Search and Seizure in New Zealand. Regards, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 23:04, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Free access to HeinOnline

The Wikipedia Library has just launched a partnership with HeinOnline to offer Wikipedians free access to this archive of legal periodicals. Please sign up for one of the 25 free accounts at WP:HeinOnline. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:40, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

What a poor partnership to promote. That means, at a maximum, there will be an additional 25 Wikipedians that can do basic research, which practically few can verify.
In addition, I am of the opinion that HeinOnline subtemplate (of {{Subscription needed}}) should be purged from Wikipedia until such time as Hein can get their act together and provide DOI identifiers, or at least unique identifier strings like JSTOR, and thus be included in the citation templates. They are obviously smart enough to do so, especially given their apparent courting of (or at least an informed consciousness of) the Wikipedia community, so I assume they are doing it on purpose, and for that they should be expect to be given especially low visibility--not more, special visibility than other online document repositories via this Subscription needed template.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Int21h (talk) 01:08, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
I think 25 Wikipedians with access is better than none, and if the pilot program is successful it could be expanded in future. But I agree DOIs or identifiers would be helpful. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:09, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Category:Judicial branch of the United States government

Hi,

Is Category:Judicial branch of the United States government about the federal judiciary only, or also about state judiciaries? It is a subcategory of United States federal law but Category:Courts in the United States‎ and Category:State judiciaries in the United States are subcategories of Category:Judicial branch of the United States government.

Perhaps we should make clearer what meaning (legal or geographical) of "United States" in a category name or article title: e.g. replace it with "federal ... United states" (for federal US law) or "in the United States" (for all legal or political "American" topics) ?

Apokrif (talk) 19:11, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

This keeps coming up and I've never gotten a straight answer. The GNIS system (the successor to the FIPS system) recognizes this fundamental difference between "civil" identifiers and "populated place" identifiers. I think thus far we have de facto been treating them as legal (civil) IDs, in the context of political topics. But our article structures are flexible enough to consider inherently related topics, e.g., subnational and subordinate entities, to be fair game for inclusion in an article. Categories' simplistic tree structure's parent-child relationship is not explicitly defined and AFAIK follows the scheme used in the articles, so to any extent that the category structure deviates from the article structure, it needs to be corrected.
For other countries, such as Iraq, I have used a "federal ... of Iraq" scheme and redirected the ambiguous phrase to it. But just because. :/ I don't know if Iraq's provencial judiciaries are considered separate. Some countries have a unified judiciary at a national level while having de jure autonomous states, like Russia. Other countries like Germany I'm even less sure about. So it's not as if we can look to other countries for guidance.
I have also chosen to interpret, as a rule, "of" to refer to the political entity, and "in" to refer to the geographic area. Given that most state judiciaries seem to be unified at least in theory, a single article for each state should suffice.
The "Courts in" category, and it's related articles, are a relic and should eventually be merged with the "Judiciary of" articles, mostly because the "Courts in" articles' simplistic nested list just plain misinforms on the relationship between courts. (For example, court heirarchies of the Judiciary of New York are not accurately reflected in the Courts in New York article, neither in respect to appeal procedure nor in administrative divisions, nor could it be with such a simple mechanism.) But we've not enough knowledge of our governments to supplant such a simplistic and retarded analysis, so thus they stay. Int21h (talk) 01:58, 5 May 2015 (UTC) Int21h (talk) 02:09, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
I should also note the problem is, IMO, when using the "in" style, we cannot limit the subject matter to the proper political entity as a rule, e.g., when the article has become so massive to become unreadable. And if we use that style at one level, should we not standardize across the board, and if so, would for example "Courts in New York" include, as a rule, those federal and international courts within those geographic boundaries, e.g., those courts whose jurisdiction could conceivably cover the teritory? (Be truly NPOV and that becomes a massive list.) Would that not become too uncontrollably massive? For that I am against that course. Int21h (talk) 02:28, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
"Courts in New York" would rather literally mean: courts located in New York, whatever their jurisdiction: there could be e.g. UN courts or tribunals in this city, or even a court which has jurisdiction overs countries which have no obvious links with the USA (as is the case for the Iran–United States Claims Tribunal in the Netherlands). Apokrif (talk) 14:15, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Another list of cases (and topics)

There are redlinks from a soon-to-be-deleted userspace list of law school textbook cases and topics (the page in question violates copyright by copying entire TOCs, but this assorted list does not). Cheers! bd2412 T 15:00, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

  1. Alberts v. California
  2. Allied Structural Steel Co. v. Spannaus
  3. Associated Press v. Walker
  4. Bridges v. California
  5. Commonwealth v. Davis, aff'd sub nom. Davis v. Massachusetts
  6. Corporation of Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. Amos
  7. Erznoznik v. Jacksonville
  8. Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court
  9. Gooding v. Wilson
  10. International Society for Krishna Consciousness v. Lee
  11. Kovacs v. Cooper
  12. Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights
  13. Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co.
  14. Madisonian Republicanism
  15. Maher v. Roe
  16. Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis
  17. Perry Educators' Association v. Perry Local Educators' Association
  18. Planned Parenthood v. American Coalition of Life Activists
  19. Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley
  20. Public Utilities Commission v. Pollak
  21. Rendell-Baker v. Kohn
  22. Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia
  23. Sable Communications, Inc. v. FCC
  24. Shaffer v. United States
  25. Southeastern Promotions v. Conrad
  26. State v. Post
  27. Thompson v. Western States Medical Center
  28. United States Trust Co. v. New Jersey
  29. United States v. Washington Post Co.

Move discussion Law project editors might be interested in

Law WikiProject editors might be interested in taking a part in this move discussion. ― Padenton|   22:48, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Notability of state supreme court decisions?

Hello! I'd like to know how notable state supreme court decisions are when rulings are related to federal law that mandates states to implement certain statues on their own legislation. Edit below is objected by few editors on talk page, but no one seems to be able to give any policy based reasons for excluding it from Adam Walsh Act article. AWA requires states to make certain amendments to their own legislation or they will lose some of the federal Byrne grant. Recently some state supreme courts have ruled some of the required statutes as unconstitutional under state constitution and states no longer enforce those requirements. Is there any objective reason to leave this out? I think not but my relations with those other editors has become too personal and they object virtually any proposal I make. Any comments from uninvolved editors will be greatly appreciated.

Some provisions of the Adam Walsh Act have been challenged on constitutional grounds. In federal level, courts have upheld the law as a regulatory measure, rather than as a punitive law which can not be applied retroactively. In 2014 Fifth Circuit declared the act unconstitutional in certain cases but the decision was later reversed by U.S. Supreme Court.[1] Contrary to federal court rulings, some state supreme courts have ruled certain AWA requirements to be in violation of their state constitution. In 2011, Supreme Court of Ohio found the Ohio version of Adam Walsh Act to be punitive in nature, barring law's application to those whose crime predate the law's enactment.[2] Maryland Court of Appeals made similar decision in 2014.[3] In 2012 Ohio Supreme Court ruled lifetime registration for juveniles to be cruel and unusual punishment[4] and in 2014 Supreme Court of Pennsylvania found lifetime registration requirement violating juveniles right to due process.[5]

ViperFace (talk) 22:20, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

  • Your question does not appear to be about the notability of a state high court decision, but about content in the Adam Walsh Act article. A state high court decision is normally notable enough for its own article, which has no bearing on whether information on a state court decision should be included in an article on a federal law. GregJackP Boomer! 03:14, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Adopted by State:

Some Federal regulations are not always adopted by the state I am here because I was reading http://www.udmsa.org/pdf/2005Final.pdf and found the statement

"Since many states prohibit for-profit debt-management businesses, and since card issuers have limited their fair-share payments to nonprofit entities, members of this third generation of agencies are organized as nonprofit entities...."

This got me wandering if My state prohibit for-profit debt-management businesses. I have not found a list of stats that have adapted this regulation. Could it be possible to have a section on the pages about a regulation that list if stales adopt them in part or in full?

Thank you all for you time and efforts to make Wiki's such a great resource-(Jwktrucker (talk) 03:25, 7 May 2015 (UTC))

AfC submission

What do you guys reckon about Draft:RG Anand v. Deluxe Films, AIR 1978 SC 1613? It seems to have been quite a prominent case. Thanks for your feedback, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 16:14, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Also, should Draft:Bill C-634: Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights be merged with the existing article? Best, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 18:45, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Self-defense (United States)

I pretty much rewrote the entire article, for the following reasons:

  1. Most of the article dealt with justification defenses that were not related to self-defense.
  2. Many of the cases were not cited properly, nor did they in many cases support the material cited.
  3. Parts of the article dealt with issues that were factually incorrect.
  4. The citation style appeared to mix Bluebook and I don't know what - I replaced all cites with Bluebook.
  5. I replaced cites to internet sites with cites to the actual case from Google Scholar.
  6. I used appropriate secondary sources as the principal source for the article.
  7. I also hatted off a good deal of comments on the talkpage—asking if one can legally kill a police officer is not relevant to this article.

Let me know if I missed something or if there is something I should change. Oh, and if someone would be so kind as to reassess the article, it would be appreciated. GregJackP Boomer! 06:49, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Need more eyes

The following pages need more eyes on them:

--Guy Macon (talk) 18:33, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Fletchers Solicitors

Your attention is called to an appeal from a WP:Speedy deletion of the above article. The discussion is at Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2015_May_21#Fletchers_Solicitors. Sincerely, BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 05:24, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

UNITED STATES v. DeBERRY

Does Wikipedia have an article about UNITED STATES v. DeBERRY? I wasn't able to find one. Pardon me if I'm asking in the wrong place, and thanks! JoeSperrazza (talk) 13:57, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

  • No, we don't, and I don't know that this case would merit an article. The case seems to recognize that there is a weapons exception to the Fourth Amendment's requirement of reasonable suspicion, affirming a conviction based on a search that would be questionable in other circuits. GregJackP Boomer! 05:31, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
OK, thanks. I have heard it frequently quoted by 2nd amendment advocates. I accept your analysis JoeSperrazza (talk) 17:44, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
They are quoting Posner's concurrence on the dicta in the case (and the dicta itself), not the actual substantive decision, which said "Armed persons are so dangerous to the peace of the community that the police should not be forbidden to follow up a tip that a person is armed, and as a realistic matter this will require a stop in all cases." DeBerry, 76 F.3d at 886. In other words, if the police get a tip on an armed person, that gives the police the right to search the person for a gun. The opinion actually states the opposite proposition to what the advocates think it does. They would be better served if they cited United States v. Black, 707 F.3d 531 (4th Cir. 2013). GregJackP Boomer! 19:30, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the reference: "Black was one of six men standing in a semicircle when officers approached to make “voluntary contact.” One of the men had an openly carried firearm in a holster on his hip. Officers secured the gun in a police car and began patting down the men for other weapons. One of the officers had taken Black’s identification card and pinned it to his uniform. Black got up and attempted to leave, but officers stopped him and eventually found a gun on him. Black was a convicted felon. He moved to suppress the firearm, alleging the stop was not based on reasonable suspicion. The Fourth Circuit agreed. The circuit found that Black was seized long before he was told not to leave, and at the time of the seizure, the only articulable facts were that one of the men was openly carrying a firearm, which is not a crime in North Carolina. The court rejected the government’s contention that a possible felon in a possession situation entitled the police to check. “[W]here a state permits individuals to openly carry firearms, the exercise of this right, without more, cannot justify an investigatory detention. Permitting such a justification would eviscerate Fourth Amendment protections for lawfully armed individuals in those states.”" JoeSperrazza (talk) 23:30, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

European Company Regulation listed at Requested moves

 

A requested move discussion has been initiated for European Company Regulation to be moved to Societas Europaea. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 22:30, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Claim (patent) listed at Requested moves

 

A requested move discussion has been initiated for Claim (patent) to be moved to Patent claim. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 22:44, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Recognition of same-sex unions in the Republic of Ireland listed at Requested moves

 

A requested move discussion has been initiated for Recognition of same-sex unions in the Republic of Ireland to be moved to Same-sex marriage in the Republic of Ireland. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 22:46, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

State of Florida v. George Zimmerman listed at Requested moves

 

A requested move discussion has been initiated for State of Florida v. George Zimmerman to be moved to State v. Zimmerman. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 23:19, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Kevin O'Malley listed at Requested moves

 

A requested move discussion has been initiated for Kevin O'Malley to be moved to Kevin F. O'Malley. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 23:21, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Juan Rivera (wrongful conviction) listed at Requested moves

 

A requested move discussion has been initiated for Juan Rivera (wrongful conviction) to be moved to Juan Rivera (Illinois). This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 23:22, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

The court case that wasn't

I hope I'm not intruding. Trying to find someone more knowledgeable than myself. We're having some issues over at United States invasion of Panama. There is a New York Times Piece that mentions the family of a reporter, Juan Antonio Rodriguez, had sued the US government for wrongful death, as he was allegedly killed by US troops.

It was in US court, so I figure it's public record, but for the life of me I can't find anything on it. Admittedly, I'm have very little experience looking up cases. So, yeah, I guess that's why I'm posting here, hoping someone can point me in the right direction. Thanks either way. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 05:24, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

A suit against the U.S. Government would likely have been brought in the Court of Federal Claims, if that helps. I don't have much experience with that court, but you could see if it is part of PACER, or contact the Clerk's Office to find out if there is any record of such a case. (The cases would be indexed by claimant/plaintiff, so you may need to figure out or guess which family member took the lead as executor or estate representative.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 08:14, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
It wasn't a lawsuit, it was an administrative claim made against the government. The Spanish Government sought $1 million for the family of the photographer, the U.S. State Dept. declined the claim as it was a death in a war zone. See Spanish Yearbook of International Law: 1992 160-61 (1996). GregJackP Boomer! 16:34, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
I tried pacer, but didn't have enough information about the case to find anything. GregJackP, unfortunately that issue is $300 to view. Can you give me any info about the claim that would help with search terms? A definitive name for the claim? Would it be in public records anywhere? Timothyjosephwood (talk) 05:07, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, I had the same problem with Pacer. The only thing I found on that book was through GBooks, and those pages were available via their preview feature. Sorry that I'm not more help. GregJackP Boomer! 05:26, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

@Greg and Brad: What is your feeling on the other part of the issue we're discussing? The claim was filed in 1990, but we have no conclusion to it. My feeling is that it was likely dismissed, but that without the conclusion, we're only telling the part of the story that makes one party look bad. My gut says that if the US government was found culpable, the media would have reported it since the victim was a reporter. Niteshift36 (talk) 12:10, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

What makes one party look bad? We cannot remove it or add unsourced information. Citadel48 (talk) 21:22, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

  • It implies that the US did something wrong intentionally. We absolutely can remove something if it presents a distorted view, even if it is sourced. Let's not forget the policy WP:NOTNEWS tells us "not all verifiable events are suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia" More importantly, it says "While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion". Just because it was in the newspaper doesn't mean it has the enduring notability for inclusion. I count around 40 sources today carrying stories that Nicki Minaj demands an orgasm every time.[3] That doesn't mean it belongs in her BLP on Wikipedia. Niteshift36 (talk) 22:14, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

You cannot remove factual information from the page just because you feel it makes the U.S. look bad, and as for the other statement, as you've said before, WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. Citadel48 (talk) 22:38, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

  • Please pay attention. I never said it needed removed because it made the US look bad. But you're prone to misrepresenting things anyway.Niteshift36 (talk) 03:03, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

The NY Times story quoted above says that the case affected U.S.-Spanish relations, which means it had some significance regardless of its outcome. And some degree of the U.S. perspective is given, saying that it would not pay even if its military was responsible. More digging should turn up more information, particularly from the Yearbook noted above, but it looks like it's worth a mention provided it's presented in the proper context (i.e., of allegations made in a legal proceeding). postdlf (talk) 22:46, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

  • As it turns out, we have an outcome. The claim was denied. Spain tried asking on the families behalf and that was also denied. There actually isn't even proof that it was US fire that killed him. Now that we can show that there was no finding of any culpability or even proof that it was the US that killed him, the whole story is being told. Niteshift36 (talk) 03:03, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Real world legal situations Vs. AN/I

I have some concerns related to practices as they are conducted at WP:AN/I especially in relation to issues such as Right to reply and deformation of character and thought that it might be relevant to ask how parallel situations might play out in real world situations within which people use their real names.

As far as I understand it, in criminal proceedings, a plaintiff is brought to a court, hears the charges, enters a plea from which point the majority of the evidence is presented with relevant parties being present.

In Wikipedia an editor can have a long list of accusations presented in an "incident report" after which a whole range of editors can add comment all of which will remain in an order in which it will be sequentially read and then members of a self nominated editor jury may vote irrespective of which an administrator may still pronounce a judgement all of which may happen before anyone has even checked whether the potentially unknowing plaintiff has even logged on.

In other cases administrators may issue blocks on editors in a way that effectively enforces a TP equivalent of house arrest within which I believe pings may even be interpreted as WP:CANVASS. The editor effectively becomes isolated and may, in effect, face a one-on-one interview with an accuser.

How do real world legal situations compare to this?

My concern, as well as in regard to individual rights, is that editor count in en:Wikipedia has fallen and may still be falling and my suspicion is that inter editor treatment in proceedings such as in AN/I may be a contributory factor. GregKaye 16:40, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

The way issues are dealt with on ANI could certainly use improvement, but I don't think analogizing to a real-world legal system is the answer. (ArbCom's procedures are somewhat closer to a real-world legal system, but there are still major differences and the analogy is still pretty strained; compare this principle.) The question is not whether our system of noticeboards could use improvement in theory, but what practical suggestions anyone might have for improving them. And as important as that discussion is, this probably isn't the page for it. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:31, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ius Laboris

This discussion may be of use in establishing detailed criteria of notability for legal firms. Comments appreciated. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:43, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Another related discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sebalu & Lule. I would really love to see the project guideline on what makes a law firm notable, with particular attention to whether inclusion if lists like Ius Laboris, Wells and Partners, Legal500, IFLR and such is a factor to consider. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:31, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

about notability of law firms

This is about notability of law firms. But, it wouldn't be mere inclusion in the directories/databases that I or anyone else would say is relevant, because all or too many firms are listed.
The question could be whether there could be some general endorsement of a reasonable process (or a Wikiproject guideline set up), to guide creation of articles on the positive side, and to guide AFD deletion processes on the negative side. I wouldn't want to start by trying to change Wikipedia:Notability_(organizations_and_companies). But this WikiProject, or any group of interested editors (say just Uganda-interested editors), could set some very general guideline for themselves, to prioritize article development by criteria that seems most sensible. I suggest, at a minimum:
  • First what matters is whether a firm is in the very top tier of firms in a major group
  • With major groups being nations, or women-owned or minority-led firms, or specialties like banking, bankruptcy, corporate, M&A, etc. For the U.S. and some other countries there are lots of law firm articles, maybe including all of the top tier ones, but in most nations, there is little coverage of the top tier yet.
  • With "top tier" defined as best can be done:
  • using the best available sources: the most widely accepted/commonly used, the most comprehensive, the most reliable sources that list and rate firms (including The AM Law 100 for the U.S., Chambers and Partners (corrected from Wells and Partners, --doncram 6/6)for many/all countries, IFLR for many/all countries (?), Legal500 for some/all countries (?))
  • using ranking or grouping methods possible: e.g. size in revenues where available (what AM Law 100 does, using their estimates of firm reveunes), by quality of firm (e.g. class "A" vs "B" vs "C" firms, as Chambers and Partners (corrected--doncram) and IFLR provide), perhaps by size in number of lawyers
  • Also very high priority should be given to learning about, documenting the sources, e.g. by developing articles about the major ones (Chambers and Partners (corrected --doncram), others are currently red-links).
  • With some agreement on the above, document the agreement in a WikiProject Law guideline or resources page. And then ask positive content editors to create/develop articles in the top tier, and generally ask deletion-involved editors to avoid AFD'ing articles of the top tier.
  • There should be a list-article covering the at least the top tier ones in each nation or major group, showing redlinks where new articles are needed. All in the top tier achieve at least "list-item notability" (a lower standard than notability for having a separate article). A firm's row in the list-article would serve as a reasonable target for a redirect, as a nicer AFD outcome than outright deletion. And the list-article would help rationalize the process for all editors interested in the topic area.
  • In the far future, perhaps, plan to refine priorities/guidelines towards covering more than top tier, with sources that may vary by nation, specialty, or other group.
Could anyone endorse/agree on the above? sincerely, --doncram 09:10, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for takimg up the task. First, I'd be careful with the proposal that being at "the very top tier of firms in a major group" is valid; this has been rejected for companies in general and I don't see why law firms should be an exception. Just being quietly large, profitable and succesful is not encyclopedic, IMHO. Further, it's difficult to quantify: size and profit will vary from country to country, and where is the cutoff? Top 5? 500? How to verify claims of "one of the largest in Fooland"? (see this new thread at NCOMPANYU talk). Now, I see you given a lot of thought to addressing some of those issues. I think that an argument can be made not about size/profits per se, but rather, by recognizing some lists, such as Ius Laboris, as reliable sources. If we can agree which lists, and rankings in them, are good, we could try to create a guideline such as "listed in at least two of the following rankings: Top 50 in A, all in B and C, etc.". We do however need input from experts on which lists classify as reliable sources (editorial/peer review, fact-checking) and which are PR/marketing spam including anyone who will pay to be added to them. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:32, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for acknowledging I have applied attention. Sure, the number of firms in a country are "top tier" will vary, and what are the common sources that say whether a firm is top tier or not, will vary. And sure, an extreme policy of accepting the top firm in any group, where group can be "most profitable law firms whose founding partners are identical twins and their main building is painted blue", would be unreasonable. That's not a problem. There won't be any sources, much less a consensus of sources, about which firms are in the top tier of that nonsensical group.
Consider a reasonable group: firms in a nation, such as Uganda. There are multiple sources that do group Ugandan firms into 3 tiers, into "A B C" or "Class 1 Class 2 Class 3". And for the top tier the different sources show some consensus. All 3 methods identify one specific law firm being in the top class, whether the size of the top class is 4, 5, or 11. ALL AVAILABLE SOURCES AGREE THAT THIS FIRM IS TOP TIER. And Uganda is a major group. We have to agree that at least this firm should be covered in wikipedia if we want to help Wikipedia get developed, engage more informed editors etc. We need one firm to be covered so that there is one article where the sources matter, and are used. Eventually, 10 years from now, if a group of very informed editors, looking at a lot of good articles, reviews the big picture and says one country shouldn't be covered, because all of its firms are way less important than the accepted top tier firms in every other country, then okay. Like if there is, weirdly, one firm located in Antarctica, but it is just two people who do personal income tax filings for a few of the scientists down there, well sure, it would fail that review and is probably not worthy of an encyclopedia article.
But, we're not anywhere near that point. We have no law firms in too many countries. We need to allow/encourage editors from many countries to contribute, rather than arbitrarily, in advance, with no information, just say no firms from Belgium allowed. To start, we have to allow at least one firm (and more if there are several all tied), and allow debate there about whether it really is the top one or not, etc. And, for now, on a "working basis", not a forever decision, we allow at least one. I don't want to have to endure AFDs that repeatedly try to get rid of all of a country's firms, attempting the impossible task of comparing its number one to the accepted firms of all other nations. AFDs would be okay by me, if, however, they were about using sources to argue one given firm is not "top tier", it is lesser than some other firm(s) that are the top one(s), based on new sources, better interpretation of sources, etc.. At least that would be productive in developing understanding of sources. Simply, I don't want to edit in an article development drive that rules out ALL of my country, or of any other country, in advance, unreasonably.
You want to pose a big obstacle: although you yourself don't know anything about sources, you nonetheless want to halt all article development (you will proceed with AFDs) until you are satisfied by wonderful experts that you trust joining wikipedia and participating in discussion. I bet there are no experts available here, and maybe never will be, of the type you would accept. And so far we have little/no knowledge about sources. We must start somehow. We need to have a workable way to develop articles and sources, which has to allow ONE in Uganda. This is not changing wp:Notability standards for organizations. This is not permanent, either. It is a reasonable way to start. And, I rather assume the top tier in every country will meet wp:GNG, eventually when national news sources become available, etc. For Uganda and many countries, probably, any government-funded public works project is required to have a Uganda firm involved, every big lawsuit between multinationals has to have a Uganda firm, etc. And I predict there's gonna be coverage about those Uganda firms. Sure, I don't have a great amount of coverage in hand. But you don't have access to all the likely sources, and you can't read Swahili, Luganda, Southern Luo, Runyankore, Runyoro, Ateso, Lumasaba, Lusoga, and Samia to be able to rule out significant coverage in each of them, either. So drop the principled but impractical obstacle, for a year or two or three, okay? --doncram 03:39, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
The way I read your argument is that we should ignore GNG because 1) said firms may become notable later 2) our policies may change 3) systemic bias discriminates against some companies. I respect the inclusionist approach, but I just can't find much sympathy for what I see in essence is many companies using Wikipedia to advertise their services. We are not Yellow Pages. Most companies are not notable. If there's no proof of coverage in reliable sources like newspapers or research works, we need to agree on some other, clear criteria. Like WP:NSONG/Wikipedia:Record_charts. Like what you describe in your opening paragraphs. If there are reliable lists for the biggest/most important firms in a given grouping, that's a convincing argument. (Sadly, this WikiProject doesn't seem active enough to have anyone offer their opinion on that, so we may not make much progress). And yes, I can leave the third-world law firms for a while, systemic bias and all of that. There're plenty of other spam entries to focus on (which is why I moved to reviewing Category:Law firms of the United States). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:10, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
Some firms pay attention to their Wikipedia article, and those of their attorneys; some do not. The consequence is that coverage is skewed toward those who have made an effort. Which serves our readers poorly, as the length and content of articles reflects the skill of the public relations effort rather than objective criteria. Objective criteria for notability of firms might include being of counsel in cases which are heard by state and federal appellate courts; appointments to the judiciary from the firm, and being of counsel in notable cases. Normal Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources should apply, of course. To use just Colorado, which I am familiar with, as an example that must include the regional press and the local legal press, as there is little or no national or international coverage. User:Fred Bauder Talk 09:31, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
Update: I return because I am reminded by a relisting notice at the AFD for what appears to be one of the very top Ugandan law firms (tied with 1 other for top, or tied with 3 others for top, or tied with 4 others for top, according to three sources). This current discussion is fine. I appreciate that editor Piotrus offers above that "yes, I can leave the third-world law firms for a while, systemic bias and all that". In the Wikipedia coverage of third-world nations' law firms, I see under-coverage or no coverage as the problem, and backing off a bit about deleting all of any nation's coverage is necessary as I argue above, and appreciated. Also about Piotrus turning attention to wp:ADMASQ (Ads masquerading as articles, or also known as wp:ARTSPAM, Articles that are merely SPAM) of U.S. law firms, that's fine by me. Fred Bauder's point is undoubtably true, for Colorado firms or for U.S. firms in general. What's needed, probably, is subdivision of the Notability of law firms topic into what I covered above about under-covered areas, vs. topic of over-covered areas. Perhaps tabulating the ratio of population of area vs. law firms in that area having wikipedia articles, for major categories of law firm articles, would provide some useful guidance. Seriously, do let's do some tabulating and make some rough calculations. --doncram 04:46, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Other discussions:

--doncram 18:06, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Institute for Justice

Should the Institute for Justice article be a part of this WikiProject? If so, what rating and importance should be assigned to the article? Background: The Institute for Justice is sometimes called a "libertarian ACLU." It has litigated five US Supreme Court cases, including Kelo v. City of New London. It is also heavily involved in efforts to reform civil asset forfeiture laws. Thanks - James Cage (talk) 23:07, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

  • Done. I added the banner to the article talk page. GregJackP Boomer! 21:09, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
Thanks! James Cage (talk) 19:46, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

"S.A."

The usage and primary topic of S.A. is under discussion, see talk:S.A. (corporation) and talk:S.A. for multiple discussions. -- 70.51.203.69 (talk) 05:35, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

RfC re Institute for Justice

You are invited to participate in an RfC at Talk:Institute for Justice regarding how our article on the IJ (a high-profile libertarian public interest law firm) categorizes IJ's casework, e.g. whether cases should be categorized as "Economic liberty," "Property rights," "Free speech," and "School choice" or using another categorization scheme such as "Eminent domain," "Civil forfeiture," "Campaign finance," "School vouchers," etc. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 06:17, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Hey Doc - I don't think that the above description is neutral. We are debating if the article about IJ should describe how IJ categorizes its cases, or if we should categorize them in some other way, using terms and categories that IJ does not use. But we can have that debate on the talk page. Thanks! James Cage (talk) 15:11, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

United States v. Ramsey (1926) FA nomination

United States v. Ramsey (1926) has been nominated at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/United States v. Ramsey (1926)/archive1 for featured article. The case is about the Osage Indian murders in the 1920s and one of the first murder investigations of the Bureau of Investigations, which later became the Federal Bureau of Investigation. If interested, please stop by and add your comments, either for, against, or neutral. GregJackP Boomer! 19:28, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

United States v. Kagama Featured Article Candidate

United States v. Kagama is undergoing evaluation for possible promotion to Featured Article at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/United States v. Kagama/archive1. Feel free to stop by and assist in assessing this article. GregJackP Boomer! 04:32, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Major Revisions to Circuit split

Hi everyone! I just made some major revisions to the circuit split article. It is on the "to do" list on this project's homepage. It was previously a stub, but now the article is fairly substantial. If I may "toot my own horn," I think it is pretty well written :-) Now that I've done research on the topic, please let me know if there is anything else you think I should include. Notecardforfree (talk) 18:43, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Copyright Violation Detection - EranBot Project

A new copy-paste detection bot is now in general use on English Wikipedia. Come check it out at the EranBot reporting page. This bot utilizes the Turnitin software (ithenticate), unlike User:CorenSearchBot that relies on a web search API from Yahoo. It checks individual edits rather than just new articles. Please take 15 seconds to visit the EranBot reporting page and check a few of the flagged concerns. Comments welcome regarding potential improvements. These likely copyright violations can be searched by WikiProject categories. Use "control-f" to jump to your area of interest (if such a copyvio is present). --Lucas559 (talk) 15:31, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Ashford v Thornton featured at the Wikimedia blog

Hi all, Ashford v Thornton has been featured at the Wikimedia blog. I'd love to get your feedback on this! Ed Erhart (WMF) (talk) 10:27, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

It is a fascinating article -- thanks so much for your hard work! -- Notecardforfree (talk) 16:32, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Requested article

Could somebody please make an article about the Supreme Court case Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc? I'm really not knowledgeable enough to make it myself, but it's obviously an important Supreme Court case and I'd like to see it on Wikipedia. If anyone is willing please say so on my talk page. Thank you so much.GrandmotherClause (talk) 19:12, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

  • Per your request, I went ahead and started an article for Texas Dept. of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc.. Right now, the article only includes a background section and a summary of Justice Kennedy's majority. Later this week, I will go back and include a summary of the dissenting opinions. There has been a TON of press coverage on this case (including a symposium on SCOTUSblog), so I imagine the article will ultimately have a fairly long commentary/reaction section as well. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 22:45, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

RfC: Should all of the urls for this website [The Pirate Bay] be included in the infobox?

 B An RfC "Should all of the urls for this website [The Pirate Bay] be included in the infobox?" has been posted at Talk:The Pirate Bay#RfC - 24 July 2015. Interested users are invited to comment.- MrX 16:08, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
Cite error: There are <ref group=n> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=n}} template (see the help page).