Wikisource:Proposed deletions/Archives/2009-05

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Kept

Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo's Manifesto of Jan 5, 1899

The following discussion is closed:

kept and sourced billinghurst (talk) 14:48, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

No source, no translator info, no licence, no links, no header. Some can be fixed, though with no translator info, it seems more likely that it has been taken from a webpage. -- billinghurst (talk) 23:23, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Constitution of the Republic of South Africa/Schedule 6A and Constitution of the Republic of South Africa/Schedule 6B

The following discussion is closed:

Withdrawn by nominator. —Anonymous DissidentTalk 13:14, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Propose deletion of both subpages. I've been proofreading and formatting the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. The text was originally imported from here, which, as it says, includes amendments up to and including the 13th. But since then, there have been three more - the 14th, 15th and 16th (warning: PDFs). One of the effects of these amendments has been to delete Schedules 6A and 6B of the Constitution; therefore the corresponding subpages need to be deleted. (In case you're concerned about losing the text of the schedules, I'm planning to import the text of all the Constitutional Amendment Acts, which will include the amendments that introduced them in the first place.) - Htonl (talk) 02:00, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

  • Keep. I don't think that this is the best way to approach this problem. The problem is similar to the one in the discussion about the United States Code above. These sections may be no longer legally applicable, but they are a historical fact. Better would be to keep, and begin the page with a note that states something like "This schedule was repealed by ..., and no longer has legal effect. It formerly read as follows." By all means import all the amendment acts, but it is still important to maintain the distinction between statutes (including constitutions) and the legislative acts that implement and amend them. Many acts don't make much sense at all when they are removed from their broader statutory context. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 06:58, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
Comment. If we do that, then it seems to me that it would be appropriate to move them to not be subpages - so move them to something like Schedule 6A to the Constitution of South Africa - so that Constitution of the Republic of South Africa stays as a clean text of the statute as it now stands while the ex-schedules can live on as texts of historical interest. Obviously there would be a note in the header explaining the context and linking appropriately. - Htonl (talk) 09:13, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
The former title was probably better, but since this is no longer a deletion discussion, I'll comment further on that elsewhere. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 18:57, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
Actually, can I withdraw this proposed deletion as I intend to do that instead? - Htonl (talk) 09:15, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
Absolutely! Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 18:57, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikisource:Transwiki log deletions

The following discussion is closed:

Kept

Transwiki:Allen charge moved to transwiki space at WikiSource in 2006, and it doesn't seem to be an original source. What is our deletion requirements from the Transwiki space? Bring them here? Best judgement delete? -- billinghurst (talk) 10:57, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

There's a lot of confused, unsourced material in the Transwiki: namespace. I try and find the source of material before I delete it, but generally, if it can't be proven to definitely be copyright free, I delete it, unless it's a grey area, in which case, send it to WS:COPYVIO. Jude (talk) 10:59, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
When I invented the transwiki notion it was never intended that these pages would be permanent. The underlying principle was that an editor at the originating wiki, where, for whatever reason, the article was not suitable, would offer it to another project with only a vague notion about the new project's criteria for acceptance. With no receiving project champion to baptize these articles out of the transwiki limbo, the intent was that they would be deleted in due course. This is much wider than a mere copyvio criterion, because interests of the person who originally put the material on the first wiki may be presumed to have been addressed in whatever deletion process was undertaken there. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 16:39, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Kept, at least as a whole. Individual pages, once transwiki'd, or if identified as unsuitable for the project, can either be speedily deleted (if applicable), or nominated here. Jude (talk) 00:06, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Fair Credit Billing Act

The following discussion is closed:

Article being cleaned up. billinghurst (talk) 04:14, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Fair Credit Billing Act — This is just a summary, not the Act itself.—Markles 11:56, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

  • Delete. I agree with you on this one. It was added in December 2005, and all the edits since appear to have been about non-substantive issue. Summaries do have a place here, but they remain meaningless in the absence of a context, such as the legal provisions to which they relate. The original contributor was an IP who didn't do anything else, so unless someone is willing to godfather this page it should go. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 16:55, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Deleted

The Sources for Genesis

The following discussion is closed:

delete billinghurst (talk) 14:37, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

This is a list of texts added by JoshuaSlanders (talk • contribs)

Prosfilaes has raised concerns here: Talk:Priestly Source for Genesis, and mentioned this on all of the talk pages.

  • Yahwist Source of Genesis
    • Bible (Wikisource)/Genesis#2:4 to Chapter 6 verse 8 (with verses 4-8 being new text that appears to be a new translation, but has recently been removed), and
    • Bible (World English)/Genesis, Chapter 6 verse 9 - 9:27 (9:28 and 9:29 are not included), 10:8 - 16:14 (16:15 and 16:16 are not included), chapters 18 and chapter 19, chapter 21 verse 1 (first half only) verse 2 (first half only) and 7; chapter 22 verse 20 - 24 (which is the end of that chapter)
  • Elohist Source for Genesis
    • Extracted from Bible (World English)/Genesis. It includes chapter 20, 21:6 - 22:9, 22:16 (second half) - 22:19, 25:1-4, 28:11 (second half of verse) - 28:12, 28:17-22 (which is the end of that chapter), 30:1 (second half of verse) - 30:24 (first half of verse), 31:1 - 33:20 (end of chapter), 35:1-8, 35:16-20, 37:3-4, 37:12-18,21-30,36, 40:1-41:57, 42:5-7, end of verse 20-25,35-37 (verse 38 not included), 43:14 (oddly numbered 19), 43:18-23, 45:3, 46:1-5 (first part of verse only), 47:7-10, 48:1-2,8-22 (end of chapter), 50:24-26.
    At the beginning there are additional markers/notes such as "(Other parts from this point lost)", "(A cut done by Elohist here)", "(Other parts lost)", etc.
  • Priestly Source for Genesis

This is similar to the discussion we had about Gospel of the Hebrews

I dont mind if we keep "reconstructed" texts like this, but they would need to be well described. Wikiversity has a project which appears to be very similar to what JoshuaSlanders is attempting here: v:Bible, English, King James, According to the documentary hypothesis. John Vandenberg (chat) 13:29, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

  • A Reconstruction of the Q Document was an early proposed deletion (conveniently on the same page as Crito) that similar to this. If the reconstruction is both free and published, I have no problem with hosting something like this, even if it's a combination of a published list of verses with a standard translation, but the translation here seems to be idiosyncratic and I have no idea where the list of verses comes from.--Prosfilaes (talk) 13:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikisource:WebEx controversy documents and related pages

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted

These appear to be taken directly from courthouse records with no evidence that they have been published before. Mostly PDFs. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 07:59, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Note. Added {{delete}} to nominated page, please allow discussion to continue for 7 days. -- billinghurst (talk) 02:04, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Keep, prior publication is not necessary if the courthouse records are verifiable. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Carl Jung. 20:35, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Delete; ick. I think it's well within precedent to delete court documents discussing whether or not someone barely notable in any sense did or did not abuse his daughter and use the funds of his also marginally notable company to handle the resulting situation. Every word that drops from President Obama's lips, sure. Every book ever published in English by any semi-real publishing house, of course. The details of how Erin Zhu was raped by her father, details never published by anyone with editorial oversight because they were intrusive to her privacy and irrelevant? No. Hell no.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:26, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
    • And if anyone thinks this is too narrow and a content restriction, let me generalize: while court documents are generally free for us to print, they are generally without public interest and often intrusive as to the personal lives of those involved. Depositions, in particular, have no legal precedential value and are completely unedited; this collection reprints emails as sent. Furthermore, I see no way that the appearance of materials in these records would strip the copyright from them, particularly materials that had no connection to the case when generated. (The Church of Scientology has held onto copyrights of material printed in court records very strongly.) The value of the freedom of information is outweighed by the unedited nature of the material, the possibly copyrighted nature of the material, and the intrusive nature of the material, in general.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:49, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Delete - non-notable court documents. -- billinghurst (talk) 15:57, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
Deleted. Jude (talk) 00:15, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

A BRIEF HISTORY of SMSQ/E

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted —Anonymous DissidentTalk 05:26, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

No evidence of it belongs on WikiSource. -- billinghurst (talk) 15:50, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Category:Legislation-UKGov

The following discussion is closed:

An empty orphan category. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 22:06, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Deleted —Anonymous DissidentTalk 11:30, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted Angr 10:07, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

This work was written in 1978 (and presumably published the same year) in the U.S. According to [2], works published in the U.S. that year are public domain only if they were published without a copyright notice and there was no subsequent copyright registration within 5 years. Do we know this to be the case here? If not, we should err on the side of caution and delete as a possible copyvio. Angr 21:47, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

  • Delete. More importantly, there is no indication about who authored this apart from one individual's statement on the Talk page. AFAIK it is just some unknown individual's rant on the subject. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 23:46, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
    • There's a PDF of the Statement at [3], which clearly says "Copyright 1978, ICBI. All rights reserved." at the top, so this isn't a "possible" copyvio anymore, it's a definite copyvio. I've gone ahead and deleted it as such. Angr 10:07, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Template:PD-USGov-POTUS

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted

This template was briefly discussed on the Scriptorium in March, and it seemed that there was general agreement among established users that the template was unnecessary. Simply put, there is no difference in license or PD rationale between a specific template such as this and the generic Template:PD-USGov. If users want to get more specific about the origin of a work, that's what categories are for. Things get messy fast when you use templates for topical categorization in addition to license categorization—see the above linked discussion for an example I gave. In the past, we've agreed to get rid of these things; we deleted Template:PD-USGov-DOT, and in 2006 changed Template:PD-USGov-Military-Army-USACMH to a redirect (though its creator came back a few days later and reverted). Besides deleting that one and POTUS, we should also delete Template:PD-USGov-NASA and Template:PD-USGov-DHS-CG. --Spangineerwp (háblame) 20:51, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

  • Delete, though with proposal. If people have gone through the effort to have a variation for a valid reason/branding/categorisation, I wonder whether we can adapt {{PD-USGov}} to have parameters that offer the variations, eg. {{PD-USGov|org=NASA}} that would output the NASA equivalent of applying the categorisation and branding. -- billinghurst (talk) 23:59, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
    What do you mean by "valid"? For example, with POTUS, do you think it's worth having a POTUS parameter so that pages in Category:State of the Union addresses also get added to Category:PD-USGov-POTUS? In the case of NASA, wouldn't most WS works (unlike images) be published by the agency without individual attribution and thus be organized on NASA's Author page? I just can't think of a general case where it would be useful to have these kinds of categories. Most of the time the added information would be useless or irrelevant, and would increase category clutter. As for the template "branding", while I don't think it adds much, I don't have an issue with it. --Spangineerwp (háblame) 01:22, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
    Valid = community agreement. No specific example, I am just creating wriggle room. Valid may equal branding, it may equal easy categorisation, something that someone has a really good idea of which we haven't identified. -- billinghurst (talk) 01:56, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
    The presumption is that most people believe they have a valid reason when they start something. That the reasoning may in fact be misguided may not become evident until much later. The initiator may no longer active, but when he was his efforts changed hundreds of pages; very few of those changes were made by anyone else. The "community agreement" is illusory; absence of community opposition would be a more accurate assessment. For the most part when these ideas are applied there is great community indifference. If the community notices at all these changes are treated benignly as having no bearing on what currently occupies individual community members. It is not accurate then to conclude that because an initiative has lived out a survival period it has community agreement. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 08:55, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Delete. I already referred to an instance where having templates do double duty creates problems for a Canadian counterpart to #Category:Legislation-UKGov. It is usually only a matter of coincidence when categories and copyright status agree closely enough to be in the same template. As subject areas develop the copyright status should remain stable, but categories should leave room for hierarchical development without the need to fiddle with copyright status. Copyright status should favour the a keep-it-simple solution when a particular work qualifies as PD in more than one way. US presidential speeches clearly all come under PD-USGov-POTUS, but for all presidents before Harding they also fit in the pre-1923 slot, and that is a much easier one to explain to the general public. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 00:26, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Weak keep, the PD-NASA for example seems useful - Commons, WP and all other projects separate NASA from PD-USGov, because it has exceptions - it sometimes hosts Soviet works which are still copyrighted, its logos are still copyrighted, etc. In the same way, I see no reason not to "customise" and have separate child-templates that allow us to give the reader/rePrinter more information about specific copyright issues surrounding the Southern New York District Court, Department of Transportation or Environmental Protection Agency. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Carl Jung. 06:06, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
    Re NASA, I'm not sure that I follow you—are you saying that if NASA hosts a copyrighted Soviet work that that makes it PD and therefore we need a PD-NASA template because it's not a work of the US government? Re child-templates, I have no problem with separate templates if the copyright policy is different from that of PD-USGov—but as far as I know, DOT and EPA works are PD because and only because they are part of the federal government—thus, using a different template doesn't add more copyright information. --Spangineerwp (háblame) 12:21, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Commons PD-NASA, Commons PD-NPS, notice they contain additional copyright information for the reader/rePublisher. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Carl Jung. 15:45, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Fair enough. Would you support the deletion of Category:PD-NASA and similar categories? --Spangineerwp (háblame) 17:08, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
The separate templates allow us to give more information to readers, but separate categories seem unnecessary - I agree. They should all be grouped under a banner "Category:Works of the United States Federal Government" or however we classify them now. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Carl Jung. 17:18, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
I would prefer that we apply the base template, and apply extra information by addition to the base template. While it makes the template a little harder, as they are not subst: it makes sense (to me) to maintain flexibility. -- billinghurst (talk) 23:53, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Delete, the template {{PD-USGov}} does the job quite nicely already. Agree with the cogent rationale as laid out by Spangineer (talk • contribs). Cirt (talk) 22:56, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Delete the POTUS variant. I didn't comment on the original discussion, but I noticed the template appeared to be completely superfluous. I'm not too sure about the deletion of the NASA template, though. The reasons for its use as opposed to PD-USGov confuse me. Anyone care to enlighten?Jude (talk) 00:25, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
    • There's a lot of ESA and Russian stuff that gets commingled with NASA stuff, and well as some stuff NASA holds trademarks (or trademark-like protections) on. The NASA template is just there to remind people of that.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:39, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Template:PD-USGov-POTUS, Template:PD-USGov-Military-Army-USACMH, and Template:PD-USGov-DHS-CG will be deleted. Template:PD-USGov-NASA will be kept. Jude (talk) 00:24, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Crimes reported in Niobrara County Wyoming in the year 2000

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted

This page does not seem to match our criteria for inclusion for publishing or as an historical document. -- billinghurst (talk) 15:44, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Deleted. Jude (talk) 00:21, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Bible (New Revised Standard)

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted

The page is only a partial framework, and one that has not been touched in two years. I propose that we clear it out, and if someone gets the energy again, then it can be restarted. -- billinghurst (talk) 15:16, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Deleted. Jude (talk) 00:21, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Basic Information on the Stimulus Payments

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted.

Looking at our in/out criteria this seems to fall into neither. The page Basic Information on the Stimulus Payments seems to be a direct replicate of an IRS webpage, and one of little particular note and little or no long term historical merit. After a year there is no links to the document, and no basic maintenance to the page. -- billinghurst (talk) 10:28, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Delete. There's no indication that this is previously published, nor does it appear to be of any historical note, at least not now. Jude (talk) 12:01, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

David Ferrie's purported suicide notes

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted. —Dark talk 05:13, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Unpublished material that is purported to have been written. No evidence that they are historical documents and fit within our criteria. -- billinghurst (talk) 23:53, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Documents are assumed to be "historical", we don't have a criteria for notability - look at our legal cases and such. Also, it seems to be reproduced from here - although I can't speak to copyright status, but I always lean towards supporting things like this. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Carl Jung. 00:00, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
That is not how it is expressed at WS:IO, where it clearly indicates of national or international significance for historical documents. If you are going to so loosely judge that criteria, then you are opening a very wide gate, especially where the documents cannot be verified to exist, let alone the veracity of the text. Where are the documents? What is the source? An indication that it came from a primary source would be useful, but not even that. -- billinghurst (talk) 23:09, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
It also doesn't fall under "Bibliographies", nobody is suggesting it is a national document - that is for things like treaties and constitutions. This counts as a "source text". I highly doubt The_Pearl/Volume_12#THE_NEW_PATENT_FUCKING_MACHINE. is of "international importance", but it is a text that falls within our copyright provisions, and thus is allowed. You may argue the suicide note is suspect, or that it is copyrighted, but you can't argue "It's not important enough". Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Carl Jung. 13:41, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
You claimed above that it was "assumed to be historical", which when it appears in WS:IO says in full "Historical documents of national or international interest". "Source text" demands that it be published.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:07, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Delete. The allegation that the document is historical should be supported by evidence. The given source appears to be tied to conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination, and that makes it suspect. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 08:47, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Delete: possibly unpublished, purported suicide notes are not under our purview.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:07, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Delete: essentially per Prosfilaes (talk • contribs), especially the parts about "unpublished", and "purported". Cirt (talk) 16:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Pierino Porcospino transwiki to IT

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted

Pierino Porcospino is a document in Italian, and I would propose that it be transwiki'd to Italian WS. -- billinghurst (talk) 05:32, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Addition: I deleted this text (didn't realise it was listed here), as it appears to be an in-copyright translation of a German public domain text. Jude (talk) 10:07, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Murder of Levi Jones

The following discussion is closed:

Deleted. Sherucij is right in that the text has all the base components. The problem is the actual validity of what seems to be a shard of something larger. —Anonymous DissidentTalk 13:08, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Was tidying up headerless and transwiki'd; culling a few. I culled Murder of Levi Jones and Sherurcij asked for me to recover it and commence a discussion here. I propose that it is deleted as it looks to be a small component of a work without uploaded image, care and proofreading. If the work is out of copyright, then I feel we are better to inhale the whole book anew, rather than the portion that we have that is unchecked, has no guarantee of authenticity, etc. -- billinghurst (talk) 07:37, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

There's a copy of the complete text here, on Archive.org, however, it appears to be an unproofread OCR. As it's merely an excerpt, I agree with its deletion, though hopefully someone can upload this as part of a proofread project? Jude (talk) 07:59, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
It seems to me that it needs {{header}} and {{incomplete}}, but is otherwise no different than hundreds of other texts we host. I've added both, so strongly support keeping. Sherurcij Collaboration of the Week: Author:Romain Rolland. 16:13, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Category:Law of Philippines

The following discussion is closed:

Speedy delete 15:54, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Empty category duplicates Category:Law of the Philippines. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 18:13, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks to have been a redirect at some point. Nothing links, and nothing links to. -- billinghurst (talk) 15:54, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikisource:Wikiproject Classics/linklist and Wikiproject Classics/linklist

The following discussion is closed:

speedy delete billinghurst (talk) 15:58, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

This subpage is nothing more than a list of unlinked names that has not had anything done to it since November 2006. The other page is only a redirect to it from a wrongly named page. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 07:42, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

National People's Assembly of Thailand and links to it.

The following discussion is closed:

Links merged to Wikisource:Thailand -- billinghurst (talk) 01:58, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

This is a misconceived page that started as a "catagory" (sic!) page. It is not itself the page of a work, and appears to be a listing of some works about the National People's Assembly of Thailand. Alternative organization has been done for the affected works. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 21:19, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Clarissa Learns to Read

There is no evidence of being published. It is a clever little work, so maybe it could be transwiki'd. Possibly to Wikibooks? -- billinghurst (talk) 12:52, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikibooks is not for original works of fiction. Fiction Wikia might be a better place. --darklama (talk) 17:49, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
Deleted. If it is unsuitable for Wikibooks, then I don't see any point for a transwiki if it will be deleted there. Author of the page has not responded to my query from late March, so I've deleted the page. If they want a copy of it, I can pull it out of the deleted page for them. Jude (talk) 00:10, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Other

Ballots of the U.S. Democratic Party presidential nomination, 1896

The following discussion is closed:

Merged billinghurst (talk) 04:36, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

According to our inclusion policy on reference data, specifically excluded are as follows:

  • Lists
  • Tables of data or results

This seems to be both a list of names and a table of election data.

Delete. Jude (talk) 12:00, 10 April 2009 (UTC) Conditional keep, if it is indeed part of The First Battle. Does anyone have access to the original pagescans used to create this work so we can double check? Jude (talk) 23:57, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
at archive.org pp.214-218, so YES. billinghurst (talk)
Keep- part of a work -- billinghurst (talk) 23:25, 12 April 2009 (UTC)Delete → excluded material as per WS:IO Statistical source data (such as election results) -- billinghurst (talk) 11:37, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
It is linked from the page The First Battle/Chapter 11, it seems to have been split from the work. If it is from the source, perhaps it could be merged or subpaged to "The First Battle". Cygnis insignis (talk) 14:54, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Done as subpage to Chapter 11 with header. Still open for review.
You might want to tweak the header, as the chapter links are missing a level of ../. Jude (talk) 23:57, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
Done billinghurst (talk)

Category:American state papers

The following discussion is closed:

Withdrawn

(Another editor and I have had an interesting discussion in the User:talk namespace, but now I think it should be discussed by other editors.—Markles 18:32, 1 May 2009 (UTC))

Propose deletion. Inclusion in this category relies on subjective standards. I couldn't find anything about this on Wikisource, but on Wikipedia I found: w:Wikipedia:Categorization#What categories should be created, states, "Do not create categories based on incidental or subjective features" and "Categories appear without annotations, so be aware of the need for a neutral point of view when creating or filling categories. If the composition of a category is likely to be controversial, a list (which can be annotated) may be more appropriate." And w:Wikipedia:Overcategorization#Subjective inclusion criterion states, "Adjectives which imply a subjective inclusion criterion should not be used in naming/defining a category. Examples include such subjective words as: famous, notable…"—Markles 18:32, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. The objective standard of inclusion would simply be the acts showing up in history or political philosophy books. Or at least the most renowned ones, or a preponderance of them.
You mentioned "Do not create categories based on incidental or subjective features". The feature "historical" (which is what is implied in the category) may be accidental as far as the legal content in itself goes, but it is essential relative to the author, in this case the U.S. government, representing its essential acts. And I don't think history or philosophy are entirely subjective opinions, but consists of genuine objective knowledge.
You seem to argue that calling certain governmental acts historical will likely be controversial among categorizers. I don't agree because those most likely to be controversial will be the actual significant acts, because partisans won't want to bother with what they think are trivial acts, so in turn the controversy will be about what the significance is, rather than whether they are significant.
You close by mentioning a rule that says subjective words such as "famous" or "notable" shouldn't be used in defining a category. But I disagree that that rule should be pushed so far as to apply to history categories. Next to finding out what happened, discerning between the accidental and essential seems to me the primary role of the historian. That is why the large Wikipedia category w:Category:Political history of the United States contains lists of notable political events in a category defined by their notability. I think the problem that that guideline addresses applies to present-day subjects, where people have living emotions or financial interests, etc. they want to cultivate by adding a superlative, rather than to the dry analysis and conclusions of historians.
The greater part of my reason for originating the category, is where Markles indicated, at User talk:ResidentScholar#Category:American state papers ResScholar (talk) 05:20, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Completely disregarding objectivity--as I don't really think we have much of a policy for that--and notability, is there any reason why this can't be a Wikisource: index page? Our usage of Category: pages and Wikisource: index pages seem to be separated as follows: Categories for "broad topics", automatic indexing (authors, dates, years of publications, locations, etc), whereas Wikisource: index pages are more geared towards specific topics, (Portal:Mermaids). Jude (talk) 10:06, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Almost all of the items in the category were formerly in Category:History of the United States, placed there by a variety of Wikisource users. They all believed a history category was a helpful one. To me a better question would be why should we go out of our way to delete a useful subcategory of a category that was populated spontaneously? ResScholar (talk) 15:53, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I'm really confused as to how this category breaches the Wikipedia guidelines that Markles is quoting. What subjective standards? There's no mention of anything "famous" or "notable" here; any work that satisfies the inclusion policy of Wikisource, and can be described as "American state papers", belongs here. On Wikipedia, there's a similar category called "United States law", which includes resolutions, state laws, and federal laws. If one article in that category is deemed non-notable, that article gets deleted, not the category. I would certainly like to see a better organized index page, but what's wrong with using a category to collect all these works? --Spangineerwp (háblame) 16:16, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
    • The problem is that there is no standard for what a "state" paper is. Some laws are included if they are "historical" or "notable" or such, but that's subjective.—Markles 17:01, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
      • So define "American state papers" in its broadest sense ("state" == government related) and put all US government documents, published by the colonies, the continental congress, the supreme court, the president, the CIA, the US congress, the individual states, the territories—all of them—in this category. Make Category:United States law a subcategory of it. Rename Category:US Government Documents to Category:Works of the US Federal Government and make it a subcategory too. Then consider whether or not it's appropriate to rename this category (American state papers) to something that sounds more general (such as "Government works in the United States" or the like) and add the country hierarchy "Government works by country", of which "Law by country" would be a subcategory. --Spangineerwp (háblame) 20:18, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
        • That wasn't the point of the category. The point was to relate the history of the U.S. by primary sources. If it's called "Category:Historical primary sources of the U.S." I think it's less aesthetic, but otherwise that suits me just as well. As far as I know, there's no gripping conflicts among editors who add historical events to the history categories to Wikipedia, they just live with each other. And not to make too fine a point of it, if history and philosophy aren't in some way objective, then they're opinion and not knowledge. Yet you can earn a doctorate in both of them. ResScholar (talk) 21:16, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
          • That's the problem. "Historical" is in the eye of the beholder. It's inherantly subjective. If you can make an objective standard for inclusion, then I'd be OK with it.—Markles 23:17, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
        • I was given to understand that beauty was in the eye of the beholder. If you think truth is, try telling that to the judge if you're in a criminal case: "I realize the videotape evidence with my face on it committing the crime points to me your honor, but if you squint at with a skeptical enough gaze like me, you'll see that there is a second truth coexisting with the first that contradicts it and says that I'm not guilty at all!" We can suspend judgment, weigh the evidence, but unless we're a complete skeptic, eventually we have to make a decision and get on with our lives. Wikipedia has 3 million articles compared to Wikisource's 125,000, and yet they haven't felt the need to divide their historically significant events categories into differing schools of thought. Why should we worry? ResScholar (talk) 00:18, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Categories here are seriously underdeveloped. Although I may question whether some of the contents are properly included in the category, this does not invalidate the category itself. Rather than relying on policy discussions about categories at WP, to which Wikisource participants have not contributed, it would be better that this project take its own approach. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 20:57, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
    • I support the idea of WS having its own standards and not relying on WP. But what standard does WS have here? I also support increasing development of categories, but let's not set a bad precedent for future categorization.—Markles 23:17, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
      • We don't have any specific policies on categories and subcategories, at least that I can think of. You're welcome to propose on on the Scriptorium, if you'd like. We certainly do not follow Wikipedia's standards on categorisation: they are designed for an encyclopedia, and that is something we're definitely not. Jude (talk) 01:26, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Constitution of the Republic of South Africa/Schedule 6A and Constitution of the Republic of South Africa/Schedule 6B

The following discussion is closed:

Withdrawn by nominator. —Anonymous DissidentTalk 13:14, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Propose deletion of both subpages. I've been proofreading and formatting the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. The text was originally imported from here, which, as it says, includes amendments up to and including the 13th. But since then, there have been three more - the 14th, 15th and 16th (warning: PDFs). One of the effects of these amendments has been to delete Schedules 6A and 6B of the Constitution; therefore the corresponding subpages need to be deleted. (In case you're concerned about losing the text of the schedules, I'm planning to import the text of all the Constitutional Amendment Acts, which will include the amendments that introduced them in the first place.) - Htonl (talk) 02:00, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

  • Keep. I don't think that this is the best way to approach this problem. The problem is similar to the one in the discussion about the United States Code above. These sections may be no longer legally applicable, but they are a historical fact. Better would be to keep, and begin the page with a note that states something like "This schedule was repealed by ..., and no longer has legal effect. It formerly read as follows." By all means import all the amendment acts, but it is still important to maintain the distinction between statutes (including constitutions) and the legislative acts that implement and amend them. Many acts don't make much sense at all when they are removed from their broader statutory context. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 06:58, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
Comment. If we do that, then it seems to me that it would be appropriate to move them to not be subpages - so move them to something like Schedule 6A to the Constitution of South Africa - so that Constitution of the Republic of South Africa stays as a clean text of the statute as it now stands while the ex-schedules can live on as texts of historical interest. Obviously there would be a note in the header explaining the context and linking appropriately. - Htonl (talk) 09:13, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
The former title was probably better, but since this is no longer a deletion discussion, I'll comment further on that elsewhere. Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 18:57, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
Actually, can I withdraw this proposed deletion as I intend to do that instead? - Htonl (talk) 09:15, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
Absolutely! Eclecticology - the offended (talk) 18:57, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
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