Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of strange laws


 * 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 no consensus. Mr.Z-man 17:57, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

List of strange laws

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The title is WP:POV, what is a strange law from one perspective is perfectly reasonable from another. Also WP:INDISCRIMINATE as any law can be called strange (and most likely has been). I see no way this article can be improved to something encyclopedic. Sjö (talk) 08:13, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica1000 09:47, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica1000 09:48, 14 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep The topic is well sourced and so passes WP:LISTN. Note that, not only are there numerous books on the topic, but the topic is covered by mainstream media such as the BBC and officialdom such as the Law Commission and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.  The list entries are all blue links such as the famous chewing gum ban in Singapore.  The list therefore performs the useful encyclopedic purpose of indexing our articles of this sort.  It is not indiscriminate as care has been taken to only include such well-sourced cases for which we have articles. Andrew D. (talk) 10:21, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete. This is WP:LISTCRUFT. It's impossible to determine membership in this list because, as the nominator points out, it's entirely subjective. For example, the chewing gum ban in Singapore makes complete sense to me and the statute forbidding Bearing of Armour made sense when it was enacted. Some legal scholars say that prostitution law in Canada is strange because it prohibits solicitation but not actual prostitution. Should it be on the list? Even if we could agree on what is strange this would be unmaintainable if we include every strange law from the Babylonians to present day town ordinances. Tchaliburton (talk) 01:06, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * WP:LISTCRUFT is an essay, not policy and so, per WP:PGL, carries little weight here. Andrew D. (talk) 00:36, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * But WP:LISTCRUFT does a solid job of explaining why this would be WP:BADIDEA. T.C.Haliburtontalk nerdy to me 00:50, 16 December 2014 (UTC)


 * The title is no more POV than List of weird buildings, which was found to have consensus at the "village pump" page. WP:INDISCRIMINATE has no application whatsoever to this article as it does not fall into any of the four criteria of that policy. The list criteria is not subjective: this is (or should be) a list of laws that have been called "strange" etc, in express words, by at least one reliable source. The list of weird buildings was found to be acceptable on the same basis. (To put it another way, it was decided at the "village pump" that there is generally consensus for articles titled "list of weird X"). There is no such thing as an unmaintainable list: we are NOTPAPER. Draft:List of unusual laws should possibly be merged into this article. James500 (talk) 08:39, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I missed that discussion - do you have a link, please? An even better precedent is the list of unusual deaths which was praised by Time Magazine as one of Wikipedia's top ten pages.  We even have a category for such lists. Andrew D. (talk) 09:31, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Possibly the discussion headed "proposal: lists must be based on objective criteria" in archive 110 of WP:VPP. It may be that my memory of the details of the discussion is not completely correct. James500 (talk) 12:35, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. That discussion was focussed on the List of films considered the worst.  The strong consensus was that such lists are ok. Andrew D. (talk) 13:14, 16 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Tentative keep - at least, in theory, this could be fixed through normal editing and sourcing. Bearian (talk) 18:32, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep This is a clearly notable subject and a list is certainly a reasonable way of covering it for Wikipedia. Care will need to be taken with inclusion criteria and with the sourcing - many of the "strange law" books do little enough checking as to make them unreliable sources - but that's a question of list management, not of list deletion. – Philosopher Let us reason together. 23:07, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I can see where this discussion is going, and I think it's important to have very strict criteria for inclusion and sourcing, but that discussion is better had at the article talk page when this discussion is closed. Sjö (talk) 12:58, 22 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep as Andrew D. says fufils WP:LISTN. Also reasons for nomination are weak: WP:NPOV is not applicable, as most reasonable persons would find these laws strange, maybe not always when they were they were passed (Wearing armour in Parliament), but are mighty strange they are still laws. Therefore WP:INDISCRIMINATE also does not apply, unless it could be argued that these laws where not notable in themselves. Mrjulesd (talk)  23:51, 19 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep It has sources so it is notable. The article could use more examples with sources, but it is good enough to keep. Frmorrison (talk) 15:39, 22 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete a list of made up trivia as has been said strange is hard to define most are perfectly sane to those that inacted them. Nothing in the article mentions why somebody or anybody would find the very few items on the list "strange". MilborneOne (talk) 18:37, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment So you don't believe any of these "made up" laws were proposed or enacted? There seems to be a lot of references in the relevant articles. And you don't find any of them strange in any way? The references in the list would seem to disagree. Or are you just opposed to the idea that any laws could be seen as being strange and unusual? Again there seems to be a lot of sources that disagree with that sentiment. --Mrjulesd (talk)  19:48, 22 December 2014 (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.