Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Poor Act 1697


 * 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 speedy keep. Withdrawn by nominator. (non-admin closure) &#124;  Uncle Milty  &#124;  talk  &#124;  13:06, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Poor Act 1697

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Got a few things going on here:
 * 1) The Act discussed in this very short article is not the Act described by the title. It is not and, as far as I can tell, never called the "Poor Act" by anybody outside of Wikipedia. I don't even think there was a "Poor Act" enacted during the Parliament of 8 & 9 Will. III. Normally, this would be grounds just for a move, of course, but there's a little more happening here.
 * 2) The "meat" of the article (one sentence) is an unsourced claim about the legal effects of this statute about vexatious litigation... which honestly appears to be unverifiable. I've searched the hell out of HeinOnline about the Act described (8 & 9 Will. III, c. 11) and found absolutely nothing to support it. So that material should be removed... which brings us to the next problem:
 * 3) Without that sentence, we've got a rephrasing of the title and a link to Mega... which should probably be nixed too. Even if it's a work that's out of copyright, Mega itself is well known as hosting a lot of copyrighted material. As WP:COPYLINKS states: "Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors." So we should probably lose the link. But if all that's left is a restatement of the article title, we're failing A3. SOFIXIT, you might say? That brings us to the next problem.
 * 4) As I stated above, I've searched the hell out of HeinOnline's collections on English law (which include all the nominate reporters, a bunch of law digests, an enormous amount of secondary sources on English law both ancient and modern, and the Selden Society's entire back catalogue). There are a number of mentions of the Act (the 8 & 9 Will. III, c. 11 one on vexatious litigation), but honestly I'm doubtful as to whether they rise to significant coverage. It's almost exclusively bits and pieces in cases and digests illustrating various points about the law, but virtually nothing cohesive. As such, I believe any article on this subject would probably violate WP:IINFO (and if it didn't, it'd have to glue those bits and pieces together with a substantial amount of original research).

Put briefly, we've got a bad title, bad article, and a rather niche topic. We're well within WP:DEL7 territory, probably within the penumbrae of WP:DEL1 and WP:DEL2, and improvement just does not appear to be practical. We need more articles on law, very badly. But what we've got here just isn't it. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 14:33, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 14:58, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 14:58, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 14:58, 19 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment In 1697, an Act For supplying some Defects in the Laws for the Relief of the Poor (8&9 Will III c.30) did provide in Part III for costs to be awarded to avoid "vexatious removals and frivolous appeals". A Practical Treatise on the Poor Laws, as altered by the Poor Law Amendment Act ... and an appendix of the Statutes, etc. 24.151.10.165 (talk) 17:30, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Yeah, law digests are out there. As are footnote mentions in some treatises. I came across both in my initial research. I'm really uncomfortable with treating those as secondary sources for a variety of reasons. Furthermore, it doesn't really get us past the problem of writing an article that's more than a sentence long, but not full of indiscriminate case citations. I mean, like I said I could support a redirect to an appropriate article... but I'm not sure one exists. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 18:05, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Oh wait, I just noticed your citation. That's a completely different statute. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 18:07, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The author does appear to have mashed up the Relief of the Poor Act (1697) and the Administration of Justice Act 1696. I've added the reference for the 1697 Act if that is deemed notable, but an argument could be made for deleting this as a fork of the 1696 Act. 24.151.10.165 (talk) 19:52, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Interesting. Maybe this can be rescued. I'll have to check Hein when I get a chance later. Thank you for sorting this out. Sadly, searching on Hein is hard without just the right keywords. I'm still grimacing at the "cannot be repealed" statement in the article, but that's relatively minor. Again, thanks. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 20:31, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm grimacing at the whole thing. The 1697 Poor Act probably is notable but most likely not for the costs part. I'm looking for more reliable sources but this reference suggest that is known for introducing "badging the poor". . 24.151.10.165 (talk) 20:41, 19 February 2016 (UTC)


 * The article has been fundamentally rewritten since the AfD was brought, thanks to the able help of 24 above. I think we can call this withdrawn. I would argue that the old versions prior to nomination are probably capable of being revdel'd under RD5, as the old versions would have been deletable under A10 as duplicative of Administration of Justice Act 1696. But I'm not going to fight over that. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 11:08, 20 February 2016 (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.