Talk:De minimis

Untitled
I believe this is spelled "de minimis". --FOo

Limerick
I think the trivia section is worth including because students (secondary as well tertiary) will from time look up the term in Wikipedia and find the verse both diverting if useful. It should not be deleted because it might offend the sensibilities of some... (re-edited by author) Albatross2147 06:07, 23 December 2005 (UTC)


 * First off, I'm not offended by the joke, and it actually made me laugh. I strongly believe that Wikipedia should not censor things that some might find offensive (provided that such potentially offensive content is relevant to the article in question).  The limmerick, however, is merely a joke.  Jokes, generally, are not relevant in articles.  For instance, what if I inserted a joke into the JFK article?  Would that be appropriately encyclopedic?  The limmerick should definitely be removed. -  Jersyko   talk  13:28, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Who says the mnemonic is un-encyclopedic? It is included legitimately as some people (especially those who have a life and are not dedicated to keeping their little area of the Wikipedia garden just as they want it) will find it useful. I thought you supposed to be an inclusionist, Jerksyo. Albatross2147 23:45, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
 * This is not a mnemonic, it's a joke. I am aware of zero law students (being one myself) that use it as such.  The only references i've found via google regarding the joke are on message boards and such in the context of telling a joke, none mention it as a way to remember what the phrase means. I hope to significantly expand this article once my law review article on a particular application of it comes out this semester, and I'm not aware of any encyclopedia-quality articles with random jokes in them. -  Jersyko   talk  05:04, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Just because you are a student of law in that noted Olympus of academe, Memphis, (= irony btw) that does not make you an expert in the law, legal education, what passes for the law in Tn or even what should be included or not included in an article. There are plenty of articles which include "Trivia" or similar. This limerick was included in at least some editions of Glanville William's little classic. Albatross2147 08:19, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Please discontinue commenting on my person (you've crossed the line into personal attacks multiple times now, please see No personal attacks, and, at the very least, your comments are uncivil) and simply address the reasoning of editors that have commented. I can find no evidence that the limerick was in any of Williams' books.  Would you please point to a specific reference?  In any event, the inclusion of the limerick in a book is merely a red herring to some degree, as Zantastik and my point about whether the limerick should be in this article has not been addressed. -  Jersyko   talk  15:56, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I find the little limmerick is quite funny and feel almost a bit sad to see it go, but can we on wikipedia simply add jokes to the end of articles? Could we have a list of jokes about Irish people at the end of the article about Ireland? I think not, and for consistancy's sake, I'm excising the funny little limerick. --Zantastik 05:12, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
 * As you are a mate of Jerksyo, your delete does not count besides which your argument is specious in the extreme. Albatross2147 08:19, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * As you've failed to address his and my reasoning, however, your revert is entirely without merit. - Jersyko   talk  15:43, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Limerick is back as "a curiosity" if you must. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatulence#Curiosities for precedent. Also it is not "original research". so should not be deleted for this reason Albatross2147 07:27, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I would like to note that none of the "curiosities" in the cited flatulence article are mere jokes, limericks, or mnemonics concerning flatulence. - Jersyko   talk  14:40, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
 * .It is your responsibility, Albatross2147, to provide a verifiable source if you don't want it called original research. Furthermore, I have to warn you against continued reverting; I assume you're familiar with the three-revert rule. I will not revert the article again, but I will block anyone who breaks the 3RR. (Well, isn't this fun?) Anyway, everyone stay cool and don't do anything stupid. Again, if you provide a verifiable source for the limerick, you have my full support. Deltabeignet 22:30, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I found a version of the limerick here, with an acknowledgement to a law professor. I replaced the limerick with the link, as Wikipedia doesn't usually hold source documents. Deltabeignet 22:40, 11 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Although I think you have initially demonstrated bias obviously I shall let the subsequent rather neat change you have made stand however I reserve the right to add the "Curiosity" (or even perhaps "Trifle") should the link become a 404. I can't see why I should have been sanctioned under the 3RR rule since I was reverting to rectify what was arguably a change made by someone who simply didn't like the inclusion and who seems to regard the entry as their private property ie. no article is owned is an official policy.

I'd also draw your attention to the fact our Memphis colleague seems to get involved in all sorts of fairly strong discussions as can be seen from his talk pages. You can draw your own conclusions about that.

One point I would like to raise with you Deltabeignet is your insistence on citations and in your case I would say your "source" is not accurate since the limerick or versions of it can be traced back quite a number of years (I'll get a source on that one of these days) and it has been used to my certain knowledge (perhaps only as an aside) during a law lecture on a warm afternoon to provide assistance to students in remembering the meaning of yet another Latin phrase. Now perhaps in these days of political correctness and law students who are female, cross gender, gay and appendagely challenged and not almost universally Anglo-celt jocks such verses are not acceptable especially in the southern states of the US.

That said I imagine that the irony of US law students worrying so much about a trifle has not been lost on all observers. Albatross2147 04:12, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I've heard the limerick, but never as a mnemonic - you have to already know the meaning of the phrase to get the joke (compare the Onion article in which Scalia exposes himself and quips, Res ipsa loquitur). bd2412 T 02:30, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion this limerick does not help you learn what the phrase means and should therefore not be included in an article. It also may be seen as appropiate in the eyes of schools, in ordr for Wikipedia to have credibility jokes that do not respect this should not be included. (Would you reference an article with this limerick in it??? ) Would you find it in any other encyclopedia??? Flying Canuck 00:31, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Hmmm citing Wikipedia as a reference in secondary or tertiary level papers probalby merits a fail I would have thought - even Jimbo says that (ref his speech in Sydney April 2007) but perhaps that is not the case in North America. Albatross2147 02:35, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

RfC Response: I agree with most of the people on here who are against having the limerick on the page. As entertaining as the limerick is, I agree that you have to know what the phrase means to get the joke; furthermore, it is definately a joke, not a mnemonic. And the third strike against it is that it is not encyclopedic, in that you wouldn't expect to find it in an encyclopedia. I think the current solution with having an external link to it is a good compromise. EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 03:25, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

GOOD LORD. I have just read the article and like every red-blooded lawyer in the United States, my first reaction was to add THE limerick in the main text -- glad I read the talk page first! To be frank, though, it is not just "a limerick", it is practically part and parcel of the lore of law school -- I do not know a single law student who, when first becoming acquainted with the jargon of legal expressions, was not introduced to the limerick -- it is practically a "rite of passage", and certainly deserves a mention somewhere on Wikipedia, and the "De minimis" article certainly seems like the right place to put it. Oh well... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Partnerfrance (talk • contribs) 20:11, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Small Images = De minimis?
Are images that are too small considered de minimis and non-copyrightable? For example, emoticon images, can sometimes be as small as 15x15 pixels, and I've been told that they are not copyrightable. I've been looking for an actual law around this and I can't find anything about it. Would this term cover it? If so, could we get some references to add this to the article? There's a few other articles that could use a reference. -- Dan Leveille TALK 17:59, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Other languages
I have noticed that on the German wiki, there seem to be two articles,De minimis and minima non curat praetor. James500 (talk) 07:12, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The de minimis rule in American drug law
The citation in the sentence,"The de minimis rule in American drug law requires a usable quantity of the substance in question before charges can be brought, known as the minority rule.[7]," is to a book about Canadian law, not U.S. law. Speaking as a layperson, not a lawyer or a law student, I wonder if that is misleading. Will the reader who doesn't go down to the references misunderstand it? Maybe the sentence should read, "The de minimis rule in Canadian drug law requires a usable quantity of the substance in question before charges can be brought, known as the minority rule.[7]" Being a layperson, I will ask before making a change in an area where I am not expert. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dgndenver (talk • contribs) 19:34, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Changed it to "North American". Thanks for pointing this out.--Auric (talk) 17:06, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Example
Looking at the first part of the "examples" section

In criminology, the de minimis or minimalist approach is an addition to a general harm principle. The general harm principle fails to consider the possibility of other sanctions to prevent harm, and the effectiveness of criminalization as a chosen option. Those other sanctions include civil courts, laws of tort and regulation. Having criminal remedies in place is seen as a "last resort" since such actions often infringe personal liberties – incarceration, for example, prevents the freedom of movement. In this sense, law making that places a greater emphasis on human rights, such as the European Convention on Human Rights fall into the de minimis category. Most crimes of direct actions (murder, rape, assault, for example) are generally not affected by such a stance, but it does require greater justification in less clear cases.

I find myself completely unable to parse this. Is it just me, or is this section really obscure?

* Septegram * Talk * Contributions * 22:29, 6 November 2014 (UTC) unredbl,ys:[ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.246.178.222 (talk) 07:01, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

It's not just you. I wouldn't begin to know how to fix it, as I do't know what it intends to say. Maybe lawyers understand it. Dgndenver (talk) 04:46, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

IPA
? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.246.178.222 (talk) 06:59, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Section: Risk assessment
Stumbled in reading this section for various reasons: Mvsmith (talk) 16:10, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
 * The paragraph seems to consist of four circular restatements of the same idea.
 * The phrase it refers means specifically what? The term de minimis or the concept?
 * The therefore sentence is not a logical consequence of the first sentence, but a restatement.
 * The virtually safe statement is kind of a circular-but-negative definition, but 'the highest level of risk' would be 'virtually dangerous,' as we're approaching danger upward from the point of zero risk. The reference is from toxicology, where the standards presumably would be evidence-based through scientific study? Some is unspecific.
 * The fourth sentence contains surely a partial list of fields of application, but then uses may refer to and then restates the concept.
 * What is ASA 1?

Shipping
I am not a legal expert, but "de minimis" has an important relation to shipping via "Section 321 Programs" and how they relate to the controversial shopping platforms of Temu and Shein. Can somebody with the knowledge add this shipping exemption to the article? Thanks! -1ctinus📝 🗨  14:39, 28 February 2024 (UTC)