Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bad law


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Going with keeps. If someone wants to propose DAB please do so at the appropriate channels. Missvain (talk) 16:14, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Bad law

 * – ( View AfD View log )

An odd one; not quite sure what to make of it. It's a borderline dicdef: "Bad egg — an egg that's gone bad, or possibly an egg that wasn't very good to begin with; possibly an egg that wasn't cooked well; could also refer to a dishonest person."

That said, I'm sure in legislative and judicial circles the concept of 'bad law' comes up regularly, although whether this has been discussed in sources in any depth is difficult to ascertain, since by the article's own admission there are many different possible meanings. (BTW, I did check Mozley & Whiteley's Law Dictionary, but the only entry starting with 'bad' referred to an unsound plea, which this doesn't pertain to.)

At any rate, I'm moving this on WP:GNG notability grounds, with WP:V and WP:OR issues to boot. Curious to see what others think. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 06:24, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. DoubleGrazing (talk) 06:24, 18 May 2021 (UTC)


 * It started out as a disambiguation page, notice. Uncle G (talk) 07:00, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Yep, I spotted that. But per WP:DABNOT it was never a proper dab, AFAICS, hence false premise from the outset. --DoubleGrazing (talk) 07:08, 18 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep It's a broad topic: "an article that addresses a concept that may be difficult to write about because it is abstract, or because it covers the sometimes-amorphous relationship between a wide range of related concepts." Here's a selection of sources:
 * Is Bad Law Still Law? Is Bad Law Really Law?
 * How to make bad law: lessons from cyberspace
 * Do cases make bad law
 * The perils of complexity: why more law is bad law.
 * Great Cases, Like Hard Cases, Make Bad Law
 * "Good Law" vs "Bad Law" explained
 * Bad Laws – An Explosive Analysis of Britain's Petty Rules, Health and Safety Lunacies, Madcap Laws and Nit-Picking Regulations.
 * Do Great Cases Make Bad Law?
 * The phrase most often appears in some variation of hard cases make bad law, which we have as a separate page, but there is clearly more to it than that. Wikipedia itself is a good example of the chaos, inefficiency and injustice which arises when you have a flood of half-baked, poorly-written laws – see WP:CREEP; WP:IAR; WP:NOTLAW; WP:LAWYER; &c. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:58, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ✗  plicit  06:33, 25 May 2021 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * DAB - this phrase could mean numerous different things. Having an article which doesn't pick sides is not especially helpful. At the end of the day, it's a common adjective attached to a common noun and there is no centrally agreed upon meaning to it. And the topics are covered elsewhere.  ‡ Єl Cid of Valencia  talk  13:55, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. I was leaning towards DAB/Wiktionarify originally since the article in its present form is a dictionary definition. After thinking about it, however, it makes some sense to have an article on what sorts of law are considered "bad", given the wide range of sources discussing the topic as noted by Andrew Davidson above. In particular, the GNG/V/OR issues stated in the nom are probably not intrinsic to the article given the scholarly literature discussing it—this research paper (also published as a Routledge book chapter) discusses the topic of "bad law", as such, in some depth. In that case the fact it's written as a definition at the moment is a reason for improving the article rather than deleting it, and it would probably not be appropriate for Wiktionary since the phrase would precisely be being used in the common sense of bad + law. —Nizolan (talk · c.) 12:12, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   11:59, 2 June 2021 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.