(And all its sub-pages. I didn't put {{delete}} on all of them because there are hundreds of them.)

It's not a static work. It is too dynamic and always changing. The policy, Wikisource:What Wikisource includes#Evolving works, states, "…works whose content is expected to constantly change over time, for the purpose of keeping the work updated, to improve the content matter of what has already been published, or to make the text more comprehensive, are excluded from Wikisource's scope." And one example given of an evolving work is: "Compilations where there are many sources of a particular text, and/or the text is to be constantly updated as more relevant information is found and added…" I know that a lot of work went into creating these articles, and it's a shame to delete them. Nevertheless, if one goes to a particular section of the code here on Wikisource, it may not match up to the code as it exists at that moment in law.—Markles 10:54, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

This issue was handled in the case of the CIA World Factbook by preserving a 2004 version of the work. Obviously the US Code is much bigger, but one possible way to make it fit the "evolving works" standard would be to save a complete copy (djvu? pdf? not sure if this is even possible) and work from that. --Spangineer^wp (háblame) 12:35, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

• jeez, keep. Emesee (talk • contribs)

• Delete. Agree with Spangineer, if we keep that it should be a specific version that is identified for replication. The current hotchpotch is a little bit of a nightmare. billinghurst (talk) 12:49, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
• Comment I think "a little bit of a nightmare" and "hodgepodge" are apt descriptions. It already overwhelms the nice folks at Cornell (www.law.cornell.edu/uscode), the Law Revision Council (law.house.gov) and others. I suggest avoiding it altogether, even specific snapshots, because freezing it in time has little-to-no value to our readers, especially in light of how much work it would be to get that snapshot edited into Wikisource. On Wikipedia, meanwhile, we've done a good job using Template:UnitedStatesCode which links to the Cornell version and that's fine.—Markles 14:38, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
• Partial keep Having worked with this stuff when I largely replaced Template:USC with Template:USCX, I agree that most of this material is unlikely to be added, and totally incapable of being maintained. I can't even imagine anyone trying to do anything about the Internal Revenue Code. A few select titles, notably Title 17 (Copyright), are of great interest to those who edit here, and maintenance is within the realm of possibility. Those few should be kept. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 16:36, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

• Maybe. I can see some benefit, but even a great interest to a discerning audience is still not enough to overcome the accuracy problem of using evolving documents. I think does readers a disservice to send them to a document that might not be right.—Markles 18:57, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

• It looks like it's possible to get a complete copy of Title 17 ([1]), for example, upload it as a djvu to Commons, and use it as the source text for that Title on that particular date. If someone is willing to put in the effort to add the content of that file to Wikisource, I'm not opposed, so long as the date of download is clearly marked in the header, and a more regularly updated version (i.e., the appropriate government website) is prominently linked. As for the current material, I don't see any way to verify it, so I'm inclined to say delete all and rebuild it (if anyone has the desire) from dated sources uploaded to commons. --Spangineer^wp (háblame) 20:02, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
• Delete; it can be replaced with dated editions. Having done some work on it, I know very well that the current incomplete hodgepodge of various editions is a total mess. —Pathoschild 21:41:39, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
• Delete. I have to agree with the above. Trying to have the entire work up-to-date would require all of the energy of this project concentrated upon it, and even then, we still wouldn't necessarily be able to ensure complete accuracy. Keeping a few select, dated editions of significant titles is a good idea, however, especially in the instance of hte Copyright Act, which is very relevant to the rest of Wikisource. Jude (talk) 02:18, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment on keeping Title 17 - I think even keeping part of the Code, particularly Title 17 pertaining to copyrights, increases the problem. We are directing readers to that title everytime a PD msg is put up. But if it's out-of-date then we're doing them a disservice. Just because it's important doesn't mean it's a good idea to keep an Evolving work, in violation of WS policy.—Markles 18:08, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
    • I think that's a good argument for directing readers to an official site with every PD message instead of the wikisource version, which, as you say, may be out of date. Any copy kept by wikisource should be presented as a historical document, not as a current reference. --Spangineer^wp (háblame) 04:13, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
      • Then perhaps to the extent that any pages are kept they should also include a date and a link that may be followed for a more up-to-date version. Anyone would remain free to update the Wikisource pages. This should be the case for all statutory documents, not just the US Code. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 05:24, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
        • Look at Civil Rights Act of 1964. It states in its header: "enacted July 2, 1964." It has since been amended many times (see http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964). Is that what you mean?—Markles 11:07, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
          • Yes and no. What I really had in mind was how we treat the laws of other countries; they have similar problems. (But see more below.) Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 21:06, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
• Why not keep as dated? Even if the law changes in the future, we can still maintain an accurate record of what the law was at a particular time, or from a particular range of dates. This is actually useful to the extent that, when an act is committed that is asserted to be unlawful, the law applied is that which existed on the date of the act, not on the date of adjudication of liability. BD2412 T 17:02, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

  I think that's the general consensus, but the text we have now is not dated; it's a hodgepodge of different sources and editions. —Pathoschild 20:11:10, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

  • Viewing the issue here as a proposed deletion is entirely too simplistic; there are hundreds of (perhaps more than a thousand) articles involved. Some most certainly should be deleted. A better approach might be to take a wider look at how Wikisource handles the entirety of law as a subject matter, perhaps through a new Portal:Law. We might begin by looking at the difference between an "Act" and the "Code". Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a good place to start looking at this. If you go ahead to Title I, that begins "Section 2004 of the Revised Statutes (42 U.S.C. 1971), as amended by section 131 of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 (71 Stat. 637), and as further amended by section 601 of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 (74 Stat. 90), is further amended as follows:" The primary reference there leads us to section 1971 in Chapter 20 of Title 42. That chapter is not currently on Wikisource. The numbering of that Title goes up to Chapter 148, but in all that the only section we have directly is 263a in Chapter 6a relating to "Certification of laboratories" in Public health. The text of Acts should remain as produced; they may have been subsequently amended, but that would belong to some later Act. All Code sections here should have links to the relevant Cornell and/or government sites, and the header notes, in addition to stating how recent our content is, should advise the reader how to get more recent information. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 21:06, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

How we handle a wholistic approach to dealing with replicating laws of 200 nations and subsidiary legislatures, add in the UN, WTO, etc. is a necessary discussion, though, I don't think that is the forum. One needs to understand the differences in another countries legislative frameworks and associated jargon. I am happy with the key point of not replicating a dynamic work, and looking at specific snapshots; while the discussion on the development of how to do it, I believe belongs elsewhere, and needs consideration, and NOT just from a US viewpoint. -- billinghurst (talk) 22:26, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

• I agree with the idea that codes can be different from statutes, but we also run into problems that certain codes are written at a specific time themselves and then later amended. Take, for example, the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.—Markles 22:53, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
• Let me add, also, that Wikisource shouldn't be a legal reference. Woe to them who use it as such.—Markles 22:57, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
  • The Internal Revenue Code of 1986 as we know it today is really an alternative name for Title 26 of the US Code. It replaced the IRC of 1954, which in turn replaced the IRC of 1939. PL 99-514, with the short title, "Tax Reform Act of 1986" was the specific statute that implemented this. We have only a few scattered sections of this, and the Cornell site itself states that 1176 updates remain to be integrated. Anybody who believes that we can maintain this Title needs being struck with a big clue-bot, and our few scattered section are likely good candidates for deletion. I also agree that the Wikisource pages should not be used as a legal reference in a real case, but they can be a useful launching point for someone's legal research. This distinctly parallels the situation where Wikipedia articles should not be used as references for student papers.

What it comes down to is that the holistic discussion should take place before any massive deletion campaign. That discussion will better inform any deletion process, and allow anything salvageable to be saved. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 08:30, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Naturally the discussion should take place, however, the deletion forum isn't that place IMNSHO. We are talking about a structured component of WS, so that requires the opportunity for a full community, presumably WS:S. -- billinghurst (talk) 08:39, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: Billinghurst (talk • contribs) has a good point, WS:S might be a better place to have a greater in-depth discussion about this issue with the wider community. Cirt (talk) 16:35, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
• Keep title 17, at least. A few points, some of which have been made above:
  • Title 17 is directly pertinent to, at a minimum, WS:WWI and WS:COPY, and is frequently referenced in discussions at WS:S and WS:COPYVIO. In other words, it has value as a ready (and linkable) reference for this project itself, irrespective of its additional value as another source text within our library.
  • Title 17 is also referenced on (and linked from) en.wp and en.wb, several legal blogs, and probably other projects also. We are talking about breaking a lot of people’s links.
  • Many of the items in Category:United States copyright cases construe (and link to) the provisions of Title 17. Contrary to the suggestion that our copy of Title 17 isn’t a reference source, it’s entirely feasible to use it as such. Just look up a provision that interests you (say, § 107) and click “what links here”: Presto, a list of cases applying that provision of the statute. That the listing is incomplete (because fewer than all cases are online here) is no reason to delete the underlying text of the statute; WS doesn’t hold itself out as comprehensive and nobody has suggested deleting other very large but incomplete projects.
  • It doesn’t change that often. The last meaningful amendments to Title 17 were the additions of Chapters 12 and 13, eleven years ago. Year-to-year ferment in the Code may be a reason to delete some parts of it (at least, until somebody gets around to writing the scripts that would be necessary to keep our version synced with the official one), but carries little force as a reason to delete Title 17.
• Should a consensus emerge to delete the Code in its entirety, I would hope that implementation of that decision could be delayed long enough to permit an upload of a djvu of the most recent published version of the Code and a migration of the text to the Page: namespace. In the most recent published version of the Code (2006), Title 17 is fewer than 200 pages, well within our capacity to handle. Tarmstro99 (talk) 17:40, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Tarmstro? How did you envisage that this document should be handled, as static or dynamic? If static, then which date were you going to settle upon? If multiple dates, how are you proposing to differentiate? Does it (legislation) require a disclaimer that it is of a date, rather than necessarily current? -- billinghurst (talk) 02:03, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

All pages hosting modern laws should have such a disclaimer. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 07:09, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

As they generally do. We could record comparable information on the {{textinfo}} box. My slight preference, although I’m not trying to dictate policy, would be for us to host the most recent (current) version of the code, a document which naturally will evolve over time (albeit much more slowly, at least as far as Title 17 is concerned, than people seem to be assuming). Once our version gets synced up with subsequent amendments to the statute, former versions of the text will remain accessible in the edit history: in an ideal world, you could step back and see the law as it existed a year ago by examining our copy of the page from a year ago. At least, that is how I’d prefer to see our copy of Title 17 evolve; others may (and probably do) have perfectly valid contrary opinions. Tarmstro99 (talk) 13:56, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

• Keep. I think this is more of a Scriptorum issue then here; it's too large. I have no problem keeping static copies of the laws. In response to Tarmstro99, right above (13:56 04/22/09), if you want to do the 2006 published edition of the laws, or just Title 17, I'm happy with that. I think that's strongly in our mandate. However, I think each page should be static; if a law is updated on the 1st of June, and then on the 15th of November, 2009, and we're trying to follow the laws, then we should have Title 17 xxx (1 June, 2009) and Title 17 xxx (15 November, 2009). The edit history isn't to track the evolution of the text, it's to track the evolution towards perfection in the text itself and the changes in the various notes we put around the text.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:15, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Let me emphasize for clarity; I encourage the keeping of these texts as static texts, especially if we're matching a published edition.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:17, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
    • Keeping a static edition of each title isn't necessarily a bad idea, but it could rapidly spiral out of our own control in attempting to keep them up-to-date (or the post the more 'recent' version). It would still be a massive project and undertaking, possibly more than just keeping it up to date. I wouldn't oppose this suggestion is someone were willing to implement it and see it through. Jude (talk) 10:06, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
      • This is a project for all published writing in the English language; that dwarfs any tiny subset of it, like the US Codes. We have too many in-progress projects here for me to worry about one more.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:50, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
• Comment on the importance of Title 17 - Is it important to the readers or to the editors who have an understandable interest in copyright law because of the nature of Wikimedia? Many of the statutes in Wikisource are amendments to Title 17, but those represent a small minority of all statutes enacted. Title 17 is no more special than Title 18 (crimes) or Title 42 (Public Health - which is the largest title by far). TItle 17 may be less dynamic than some others, but what's the reason to keep it in Wikisource? Does it further WS's mission? Why not just link to Cornell or law.house.gov, where they have non-profit/government professionals who keep it up-to-date better than we ever could? —Markles 11:40, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
• Comment on appropriateness of discussion here vs. Scriptorium - As the proponent of this deletion, I have learned a lot about this subject. I will concede that this should get a review at WS:S before any action taken.—Markles 11:40, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

  It might be best merely to make an announcement on the Scriptorium and direct people here to involve them in the discussion. Jude (talk) 10:06, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

  • Done! See WS:S#Large deletion proposal of United States Code.—Markles 12:02, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

• Keep. If the United States Code is to be deleted, then I could also propose deleting the laws of the Republic of China because the Legislative Yuan now in Taipei, Taiwan amends these laws more frequently than Communist China and I cannot always maintain the English translation as I am already so busy on Chinese Wikisource.--Jusjih (talk) 18:02, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
  • "If delete A, then delete B." Why does that mean "Keep"?—Markles 18:23, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
    • I consider the laws of the Republic of China evolving works like the United States Code. To keep the United States Code, we need a uniform governmental source to get the text including revision history. Otherwise, maintaining is so hard. English translations of the Republic of China also have the major problem about evolving changes, but I am reluctant to have them deleted, though I stop posting more for now.--Jusjih (talk) 01:49, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
• Comment I think we should move the pages to a static dated version and replace them with disambiguation page offering whatever static pages we have (which presumably will grow) as well as a link to more reliably updated source. Deleting alone is a poor option, who knows what sort of incoming links we have.--BirgitteSB 18:42, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Myself, I don't think networking disadvantage should ever come between site policy. While your idea has merit, precious little should preclude action in any circumstance if it's required by policy. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:13, 10 May 2009 (UTC)