Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 113


 * 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. John254 00:15, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 113

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

This is a straight copy-paste from the cited source, with each case made into a wikilink. Not one of these cases has an article, and it seems unlikely that any meaningful proportion of them will have articles as most of the cases are not actually that interesting. If the list included a brief summary of the case and its significance that might make it useful, but it lacks even that. And again, the cases are not that interesting. so such a summary is not that likely. Just because we are legally allowed to copy-paste from this source does not mean we should be doing so, I think. Cruftbane 06:51, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep per Category:Lists of United States Supreme Court cases. --Brewcrewer 07:16, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Isn't that WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS? As an argument it certainly doesn't address the issue, which is that we have no articles n these, most of them are of no evident significance, and the list is already available from the authoritative source cited.  Existence of a category does not mean we should have every member of that category.  Cruftbane 10:43, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * That's a good point. However, this case is different, because it is not just one or a few other articles that "exists," but a huge category. And as Huon pointed out, most of them are redlinked like this one. But I think that Fosnez had made a the best point. And that is, that these cases are all "filled out" over time. Each Supreme Court case is considered notable, and editors are continuously creating articles for SC cases. Therefore, over time, the links will be "deredlinked" --Brewcrewer 15:13, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete - No assertion of notability. Simply being a U.S. Supreme Court case doesn't make a case inherently notable. --Hnsampat 11:49, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't generally respond to individual votes in AfDs, however, this one is particularly uninformed. Read SCOTUS and then tell me that what nine people decide for a nation of 300 million isn't going to be notable. The justices are as powerful as Congress or the President, and they regularly show that. Every case they rule on is a binding, un-appeal-able decision. What they have to say is most certainly notable. --MZMcBride 01:43, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't mind you disagreeing with me, but I resent your calling my opinion "uninformed." I'm at least as informed as you are, thank you very much. Now, to respond to your point. Certainly, the Supreme Court is clearly powerful and has the final word on a whole range of issues that affect millions of people. However, not every case that comes before the Supreme Court affects millions of people. Most are on very narrow points of law. I mean, would we have an article about each of the over 14,000 Executive Orders that various Presidents have signed? No, we'd instead only mention those that have had a widespread impact. Ditto here. (This is also why we don't have info on every single law Congress ever passed; we're Wikipedia, not the Congressional Record.) --Hnsampat 03:11, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Regardless of whether or not an individual case is notable, this AfD is focusing on the lists of cases, which as a sum of their parts, are notable and encyclopedic. Similar lists include: List of Statutory Instruments of the United Kingdom, 1991, etc. Also, there are projects devoted to covering equally large and arguably unimportant or un-encyclopedic content, e.g. WikiProject U.S. Congress is creating articles for every member of the U.S. Congress ever. There's obvious value to these lists, if for no other reason than pure reference material. --MZMcBride 04:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmmm...I see your point, but I don't entirely agree. I still feel that this list has no real content and is something that may fit better in Wikisource. But, to acknowledge that a case can be made for keeping, I'll say weak delete. --Hnsampat 15:51, 11 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Weak keep - I just checked several other "List of United States Supreme Court cases" articles, and all I checked contained a few non-redlinks, with only one of the corresponding 10 or so case articles I checked a one-line stub. So I'd give this list the benefit of the doubt and accept it serves the purposes of development and, someday, navigation per WP:LIST. Anyway, whatever we decide here should be a precedent for most of the category's content: volume 113 isn't any more or less notable than any other. Huon 11:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Although they are red links now, I would suggest they would be expanded fully later, even if it took 10 years, an easy to access, cross referenced and wikilinked listing of all these cases sounds like a wonderful idea, and perfect for wikipedia. This is not a small task, but given time, it will add to the value of the project as a whole. Fosnez 13:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, a directory of cases, eh? Cruftbane 15:45, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep We've been through this before, at Articles for deletion/List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 35. First, our coverage of Supreme Court cases suffers from as much recentism as any other area of Wikipedia. Look at a more recent volume for lots of bluelinks. We'll get to these older cases eventually. Second, as was pointed out in the first discussion, looking at Special:Whatlinkshere for a particular case tells you (from these lists) if several cases with the same name exist and a disambiguation page will be necessary (helpful for maintenance). Third, all cases listed here were decided by the highest court in the United States and are important because they set precedents in areas of law that effect the entire legal arena. You may not find much on nytimes.com these days about Cole v. La Grange (the first case on this list), but you will find 434 google books hits that indicate the case probably is notable. Finally, that something isn't "interesting" is a subjective judgment and not an indication of whether it should be included in an encyclopedia; I may not find Giant magnetoresistance interesting, but it's still linked from WP:ITN right now. Listing cases chronologically is an appropriate way to organize content, and is far from useless.--chaser - t 23:45, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Who's doing this work for every other country's supreme court? Cruftbane 06:55, 11 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The folks at WikiProject Law might be. Why?--chaser - t 07:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep. There are over 30,000 U.S. Supreme Court cases; if WP:SCOTUS created 100 articles per week, it would take over 5.5 years to complete all of the cases. Is that an argument to delete the lists? No, it's just a simple justification for the number of red links. Hopefully, one day, all of those links will be blue; it won't be today or this year. There are very few complete lists of U.S. Supreme Court cases available online; before this, the only publicly accessible one that I know of was the U.S. Supreme Court's, and that list was hard to find for even an incredibly capable web surfer. These lists are unbiased, accurate, informative, and useful. These lists are unable to be replicated using categories due to the nonexistent articles. However, as for notability, every U.S. Supreme Court is binding on the entire United States. To try to argue that what they rule is uninteresting and therefore the lists of articles should be deleted is ludicrous. Additionally, this very debate has come up before and was not only closed as "keep," it was closed speedily. These lists should stay. Also, on a side note, Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions is an essay (read: "it merely reflects the opinions of some of its author(s)"). It's not a guideline, and it will never be policy. If "some" of those editors care to weigh in here, they're free to; else, who cares what they have to say? --MZMcBride 01:40, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Is a sensible structured list (by date) meeting WP:LIST. Most if not all Supreme Court cases are notable in their impact as can be seen from the most recent of these lists List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 546 where many of the cases have their own articles. As notability is permament I see no reason why the same cannot be done for many of the cases on this list. Davewild 07:43, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, meets the requirements of WP:LIST purposes information, navigation and development. Dreadstar  †  19:43, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep A list such as this is a navigational and organizational tool. I expect that each of the cases have multiple substantial coverage in reliable and independent sources, as would be seen by Google book This is in addition to legal textbooks. It is naive to say "the cases are not that interesting" unless the nominator has researched each of the cases and checked for the citation of the case in subsequent legal opinions. Edison 16:29, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep As the original creator of this article, I must recognize my own bias, as it wouldn't make me feel very good if the consensus of the wikipedian community thought my contributions were in some way unworthy. That being said, I will (subjectively) say that the article should be kept for a number of reasons. First, wikipedia remains a good place to start an investigation into the past and just because no one has started a page from one of the redlinks does not mean that they will not in the future. The list also meets wikipedia's policies for a page, and as MZMcbride says, this similar page has already been discussed. The result was a snowball keep. Second, the list is important as a historical reference to cases that were decided by the Supreme Court of the United States of America, which is a seperate and powerful branch of the Government of that country, and deserves respect. Third, the past decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, through their impact on U.S. foreign and domestic policy have affected and continue to affect the everyday lives of every person on the planet, although perhaps at times with minimal impact. Fourth, the process by which the Supreme Court decides its cases involves an examination of precedent as well as the application of its policy of stare decisis, whereby the laws of the past can become binding legal principals and affect the decisions of future courts, and the page is an important reference to this process. Although this particular list of cases may not seem particularly relevant to your life today, they form a basis of the legal decisions that I assure you are completely relevant to your life. Fifth, the page works as a navigational and organizational tool and allows the easy creation of the case pages in the future. Finally, I will personally endeavor, just to end this argument, to create several case pages (that I personally find interesting, although I'm sure every case is especially interesting to someone) from the redlinks myself as well as link the case cites from the list to findlaw's case files.--Cdogsimmons 19:19, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Hehe. Three keep votes consisting of 210, 244, and 358 words, respectively, totaling 812 words. I think Chaser was right. --MZMcBride 02:19, 13 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep per the numerous well-worded and comprehensive arguments above. Court cases that make it to the Supreme Court are inherently notable and lists of them are helpful in reference guides for providing clear organization of those cases.  I also think this one may fall under a snowball keep as well.  In any event, I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!  Sincerely, --  Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles  Tally-ho! 18:50, 14 October 2007 (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.