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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 merge to José Celso Barbosa. Black Kite (talk) 22:47, 31 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dr. Jose Celso Barbosa Post Office Building Designation Act[edit]

AfDs for this article:
Dr. Jose Celso Barbosa Post Office Building Designation Act (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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This was soundly kept back in 2006, though AfD had different standards back then, to put it mildly. The claims that all congressional legislation is notable seem wrong on the face of it. Bills to name post offices are WP:ROUTINE. So what we're left with is that this "may have been the first time that material from Wikipedia" was used in a bill. Even if this is true, unless the fact caused the bill to garner significant coverage in reliable sources—which does not seem to be the case—we're left with nothing worth keeping. BDD (talk) 20:30, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. --BDD (talk) 20:32, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Puerto Rico-related deletion discussions. --BDD (talk) 20:32, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep- It was good enough to have been kept then, it is good enough to be kept now. For a Wikipedia article to be considered important enough to be included in a Congressional House Bill (and so far the only known case) is incredible in itself. Even though it did not receive media coverage, it is still part of Wikipedia's history and legacy. Tony the Marine (talk) 20:44, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I am inclined to regard primary legislation as inherently notable for being what it is. (Delegated legislation might be conveniently redirected to the enactment it was made under). Primary legislation is never routine. I imagine that this Act is included in collections of annotated statues. I seem to remember someone mentioning something called the Federal Gazette in an earlier debate. The fact that comprehensive publications such as Halsbury's Statutes and Current Law Statutes Annotated exist can be viewed as evidence that all primary legislation is notable. When this Act is eventually repealed there will be something substantial to write about it (of interest from the point of view of statute law revision). Indeed, if we can establish that it is still in force, that is also substantial. James500 (talk) 22:46, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:ROUTINE is not applicable because a piece of legislation is not an event. James500 (talk) 23:13, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
How so? In the US, Congress names post offices, but this is routine business for them. --BDD (talk) 23:29, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If other legislatures don't do this, it isn't routine in any sense. The Parliament of the United Kingdom never does this.
WP:ROUTINE redirects to wp:notability (events). A piece of legislation is not an event. James500 (talk) 00:04, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Section 2 of this Act provides for the interpretation of statutes and other documents. This kind of non-textual amendment might affect the intelligibility of such documents (which is considered to be objectionable in some quarters). I imagine that public money might have spent on promulgating this Act etc (which is considered to be objectionable in some quarters). This Act is presumably taking up space on the statute book (and "too many statutes" is considered to be objectionable in some quarters). James500 (talk) 01:40, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as failing to satisfy the GNG, as I'm unable to find any substantial treatment of the topic in reliable secondary sources (certainly, none of the three citations in the article are such). Legislation doesn't get more insignificant than this, and the "may have been the first time that material from Wikipedia has been deemed important enough to have been included in a U.S. bill" business (which is not supported by the cited sources or by any other source I can find) is simply ridiculous. The information that the fellow was honored by having a post office named for him is in our José Celso Barbosa article, which is where it belongs. Deor (talk) 12:27, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Squandering public money and degrading the intelligibility of the statute law and other documents is not insignificant. In any event that is just your POV. Other people (not including myself) might even think that the symbolic value of this kind of Act is important. James500 (talk) 21:13, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Fails GNG isn't strictly a grounds for deletion. That guideline doesn't work in reverse and doesn't create a presumption of non-notability.
If the government sources are trustworthy, I'm not desperately concerned about whether or not they are secondary. James500 (talk) 21:34, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's pretty strong language, but the sentiment is reasonable. No objections from me. --BDD (talk) 21:32, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You're thinking something along the line of List of bills naming United States Post Offices? Yes, that would seem to meet WP:CSC criterion 2. (From what I can tell, we don't have any other articles on bills that renamed post offices.) --BDD (talk) 22:12, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There must be a ton of them. If I recall correctly from checking the sources yesterday, six other post offices were named just on the same day as this one. I doubt that such a list would be acceptable unless there are secondary sources dealing substantively with this particular type of legislation. Even though we can have lists where the individual entries aren't notable, I doubt the advisability of a list in which the topic itself isn't notable. Deor (talk) 22:25, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, it might be a notable topic. I searched Google for "post office renaming" and immediately got this from the New York Times: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/one-area-in-which-congress-excels-naming-post-offices/?_r=1 James500 (talk) 23:11, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I also think that if the number of these Acts is large, that is something that militates in favour of them being notable as a group. James500 (talk) 23:56, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As an update, the many results that come up on Google for "post office renaming" include, amongst others, articles from ABC News [1], Fox News [2] and MSN Now [3] discussing these Acts a group. James500 (talk) 02:00, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep. I find the arguments of User:Marine 69-71 and User:James500, as detailed above, to be very compelling. In addition, 24 MORE editors voted to KEEP this article, in an overwhelming vote a few years ago. [4]
I don't even understand why this article was AfD'd all over again - it was already KEPT by a vote of 24 to 1, and the record of that discussion is clear and unambiguous. [5]
If you delete this article, then why not delete this article? Amelioration Act 1798. Or this one? Infanticide Act. Or any of these? Fox's Libel Act, Rule in Wild's Case, Rule in Dumpor's Case.
In fact, why not delete two or three dozen articles from this list? Index of law articles.
Bills introduced into the U.S. Congress and passed into law are notable per se. It would be arbitrary and capricious to single out this one article about this one law. Especially after 24 EDITORS already voted to KEEP it. Nelsondenis248 (talk) 05:25, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Why do you say that passed congressional bills are automatically notable? Is that your opinion, or is there a policy or guideline you're referring to? See also my answer below to James500 regarding the previous AfD (nutshell: a keep result doesn't mean you can't have another discussion, and AfD was a very different animal back then). You may want to review WP:NOTAGAIN and WP:ALLORNOTHING. I'm not recommending deletion of any of those articles. Stay focused. --BDD (talk) 05:11, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
See my answer to you below, observing that your comments nothing to do with me. James500 (talk) 06:24, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Pardon me; the page history is a bit tangled, and I obviously misread it. --BDD (talk) 15:09, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Even if it could not be verified that the Bill for this Act was definitely the first to cite Wikipedia, one could argue that any Bill introduced into Congress that cited Wikipedia in 2006 is notable, regardless of whether it was the first or the umpteenth. That is something that could be verified simply by looking at a copy of the Bill. No one could say that that was WP:OR. James500 (talk) 06:44, 24 August 2013 (UTC) If we subsequently discovered an earlier Bill we could just move the cut off point back. Perhaps we should have a subject notability guideline for early references to Wikipedia. James500 (talk) 06:57, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment: The Jose Celso Barbosa bio. on the article was edited and posted on "March 25, 2006" [6]. The bill containing the contents of the Wikipedia article was introduced to Congress on August 2006 File:H.R.3440.jpg. 2 + 2 = 4, it doesn't get much clearer than that. Unless proven otherwise, this is part of Wikipedia history. Tony the Marine (talk) 21:26, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep-A quick read of the bill makes it evident that a Wikipedia article was the prime source of the text of this bill, which makes it quite remarkable and demonstrative of Wikipedia's growing influence in society and growing level of credibility as a reliable source of information. Pr4ever (talk) 00:16, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Non-notable Act naming a Post office. It's routine bill passed to name a PO, even if it's the first bill to reference Wiki that should be in an article about Wiki, not in an article about the act. As for the other acts listed in a vote above, OTHERSTUFFEXISTS seems to apply. Caffeyw (talk) 04:04, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • We don't delete plausible redirects unless they are actually harmful. REDIRECTSARECHEAP. The man for whom the Act is named has an article in which the Act is (rightly) mentioned.
    • The Act is only routine, if at all, from a US-centric POV. And we don't do that either. James500 (talk) 04:22, 25 August 2013 (UTC) You also have to consider whether Congress has always done this or whether it is a recent development. It might be that in the sweep of world history this particular class of legislation is a local and temporal aberation that is very unusual indeed. James500 (talk) 08:06, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • I looked at Wikipedia: Other stuff exists and saw this: "Identifying articles of the same nature that have been established and continue to exist on Wikipedia may provide extremely important insight." So the prior existence of another comparable article DOES provide a valid precedent and consistency. In this case, we have DOZENS of prior articles with similar content, sourcing, and levels of notability. They appear in virtually every letter of this alphabetical list: Index of law articles. There is NO WAY that you can single out this one article about this one law, without deleting dozens of others from the Index of law articles and from our Wikipedia.
Especially since 24 EDITORS ALREADY VOTED TO KEEP THIS ARTICLE in a prior AfD.[7]
Comment. The offence of infanticide and the Libel Act 1792 mentioned above are not good examples as they are in fact discussed in minute detail by encyclopedias and treatises on English law. James500 (talk) 09:53, 25 August 2013 (UTC) That may be, James, but the articles Fox's Libel Act and Infanticide Act in this Wikipedia contain virtually no sourcing or information, and there are many more articles like this in the Index of law articles and in our Wikipedia project. Nelsondenis248 (talk) 18:31, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
James, I notice that you weren't around in 2006. Nothing wrong with that, but AfD was a very different world back then. Very few of those editors were making policy-based arguments. It's perfectly legitimate to discuss an article at AfD multiple times, especially when it's been so long since the last one. --BDD (talk) 05:11, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have not said anything at all about the previous AfD debate. I can only assume that you must be referring to something said by another user. James500 (talk) 06:24, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Pardon me; the page history is a bit tangled, and I obviously misread it. --BDD (talk) 15:09, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Deletion should not have been the only option given. The nominator seems to have forgotten that there is also the option of "re-directing" the article to that of the article of the main notable subject, which in this case is Jose Celso Barbosa. Antonio Martin (talk) 20:26, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Excuse me Whpq, but my vote is a definite “keep” from deletion. I only suggested that a redirect option was not mentioned by the nominator, that’s all. Antonio Martin (talk) 03:38, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I see lots of commentary indicating a belief that the use of wikipedia in this routine bit of government activity to be significant. I see no evidence offered that this is significant in any way via reliable sources. The opinion of wikipedia editors do not constitute a reliable source. -- Whpq (talk) 20:31, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • The Act is not routine from a neutral point of view. Other countries don't pass this kind of legislation at all. Even in the US, this seems to be a recent development. Read WP:NPOV.
    • Notability is a Wikipedia concept invented by Wikipedians. Reliable sources don't decide what is notable. We decide. We do have subject notability guidelines which say, in effect, that certain things are inherently notable. If I was preparing a subject notability guideline for law, primary legislation would be the first item that I would include (with the possible exception of classes of legislation that can be convieniently dealt with by lists to which each statute is redirected and in which its information is tabulated).
    • The government sources do appear to be reliable. I am not inclined to doubt THOMAS, the Congressional Record, the US Statutes at Large, etc. If this Act is so insignificant, why has the State published all this information about it. Presumably they must think that it is significant and that someone is interested. In the UK, IIRC, some private Acts weren't printed at all. Only their titles were published. James500 (talk) 23:19, 25 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • By the way, where have you looked for sources? You need to physically go to a law library and conduct a search of the stuff that hasn't been digitized yet. James500 (talk) 00:23, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment. A lot of people here are trying to apply WP:GNG and WP:ROUTINE to this article but everyone seems to forget that both WP:GNG and WP:ROUTINE are guidelines, not policies. The only policies that I can think of that apply here are WP:ISNOT, WP:NOTPAPER, WP:NOTEVERYTHING, WP:INDISCRIMINATE, and WP:EDIT. So lets examine the policies rather than the guidelines, since, per WP:CONSENSUS, another policy, "Consensus is determined by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy." So, we must examine our policies, not our guidelines, to reach consensus on this matter.
First of all, WP:ISNOT states that Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia. This article does not violate such statement as it is written in an encyclopedic manner.
Reviewing WP:NOTPAPER, we have that:

...there is no practical limit to the number of topics Wikipedia can cover or the total amount of content. [...]articles must abide by the appropriate content policies, particularly those covered in the five pillars.

Once again, this article does not violate such policy as it abides to our content policies and our WP:FIVEPILLARS.
On WP:NOTEVERYTHING we have that:

...information cannot be included solely because it is true or useful. An encyclopedia article should not be a complete exposition of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject. Verifiable and sourced statements should be treated with appropriate weight.

Once again, this article does not violate such policy as (1) it is not a complete exposition of all possible details (2) it is a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject and (3) its statements are verifiable, sourced, and treated with appropriate weight.
Revising WP:INDISCRIMINATE we have:

...merely being true, or even verifiable, does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in the encyclopedia. To provide encyclopedic value, data should be put in context with explanations referenced to independent sources.

Once again, the article does not violate such policy since the explanations are referenced to an independent source, namely GovTrack which is not owned nor run by the government, and is instead run by Joshua Tauberer.
Finally, we have WP:EDIT which states that:

Wikipedia is here to provide information to people; generally speaking, the more information it can provide [...] the better it is. Please boldly add information to Wikipedia, either by creating new articles or adding to existing articles[...] However, it is Wikipedia policy that information in Wikipedia should be verifiable and must not be original research. You are invited to show that information is verifiable by referencing reliable sources.

Once again, this article does not violate such policy as it (1) was created boldly but not recklessly by an editor following policy (2) all its content is verifiable and (3) it provides reliable sources to make its content verifiable.
So, as an editor who is not interested in this article, I cannot come up with any policy that would lead me to believe that this article should be deleted. Make your own judgements.
—Ahnoneemoos (talk) 02:06, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Being "owned or run by the government" does not necessarily preclude independence. The incorporated status of the State is a legal fiction which might potentially bear no relation to reality at all, such as where, for example, changes in personel mean that the present "government" is effectively a completely different entity from one of its predecessors. James500 (talk) 04:31, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to José Celso Barbosa#Recognition. IMO, there is not enough content to warrant a separate page. The gist of the article, in its current form with only eight sentences of prose, could easily be condensed and merged into the main Barbosa article. Zzyzx11 (talk) 03:18, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - The undisputed facts here are that this article is about an Act of Congress, that Wikipedia information was taken by a member of Congress to produce a Bill that was subsequently signed into law resulting in said Act, and that a copiuos number of editors have already weighted in on this matter in the past with a "Keep" result. Other than a vague reference from the nominator to the effect that "AfD had different standards back then", I do not see anything here that can change the historical value of this article. "Any fool can make history, but it takes a genius to write it. --Oscar Wilde." My name is Mercy11 (talk) 15:20, 27 August 2013 (UTC), and I approve this message.[reply]
  • Merge to José Celso Barbosa. The Act's only claim to notability is that its supporters cited Wikipedia, apparently for the first time; which is just not a big deal. If this self-reference is really deemed to be important, maybe it should be memorialized along the lines of what's done with court cases at WP:Wikipedia as a court source or WP:Wikipedia in judicial opinions. Apart from that, this article is is a great example of WP:Run-of-the-mill, and while that essay is neither policy or guideline, it makes a lot of sense. This Act is twice-removed from notability. The Act is not notable. The building that is the target of the Act is not notable. The person for whom the building that is the subject of the Act is notable. Merge it there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ‎TJRC (talk • contribs)
    • WP:MILL is a load of nonsense which . . . contradicts WP:PERFORMANCE, . . . Wikipedia simply cannot get "clogged" . . . . . In any event, Acts of Congress are far removed from the examples given in that essay (which seems to me to be a misreading of NOTPHONEBOOK, NOTNEWS etc - the number of residential properties, sports events etc is not the issue). James500 (talk) 03:26, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
WP:PERFORMANCE isn't policy (or a guideline). --BDD (talk) 03:54, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have redacted the erroneous remarks. James500 (talk) 04:12, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • To be honest, to describe an Act of Congress as an ordinary, everyday, commonplace thing per WP:MILL is absolutely preposterous because such Acts are inherently unusual by virtue of the fact that only one body of persons can pass them. To employ a fairly crude metaphor, if a person walks down the street, he is very unlikely to see people passing Acts of Congress. James500 (talk) 09:04, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Governments at all levels, and all around the world pass legislation. It's what they do. It's not inherently unusual for a body that is responsible for passing legislation to pass legislation. -- Whpq (talk) 13:23, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Passing legislation is not part of the everday life of ordinary people. You might as well talk about a run of the mill country or a run of the mill war or a run of the mill murder. Some classes of people, events and things are inherently significant. James500 (talk) 19:23, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Articles on murders are frequently deleted as run-of-the-mill. --BDD (talk) 19:37, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That is actually quite shocking when you consider that murder is both rare and widely considered to be very serious. (I'm not saying these articles should not have been deleted, just that I wouldn't invoke WP:MILL in support of that). James500 (talk) 19:55, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Rare compared to what? The odds that any single individual will be murdered are pretty low, but in general, murder is literally an everyday occurrence. But we're getting off-topic. --BDD (talk) 21:07, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - For those who believe that naming post offices are not a routine thing, I'd like to point to Acts of the 112th United States Congress, which would indicate that 45 acts were passed naming postal facilities, and looking at Acts of the 111th United States Congress, 70 such acts were passed. So what we have here is in fact routine legislation being passed, with no significant coverage about the legislation. -- Whpq (talk) 13:34, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Other countries do not pass this type of legislation. Far from being routine, it appears to be a bizarre local anomaly that is attracting criticism. We can't determine what is and is not routine from a national POV. James500 (talk) 19:23, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • From the NY Times article noted above, I quote "Passing these bills has become routine, and it is usually done without much debate or dissent." So yes, all evidence points to the naming of post offices as run of the mill stuff. That the US has a quirk that requires legislation to name a post office is not the topic of discussion here; it is the one specific act, "Dr. Jose Celso Barbosa Post Office Building Designation Act" which is under discussion. -- Whpq (talk) 20:44, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • It is not routine or run of the mill if the majority of countries do not do that. The article in the NYT is obviously written from a national POV and is not relevant on this point. James500 (talk) 22:07, 28 August 2013 (UTC) And one article expressing one person's opinion is not particularly compelling evidence either. James500 (talk) 22:16, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Similarly: "In each of the past five Congresses over 15% of all bills passed and signed into law named a Post Office." "In Past Decade, Congress Has Made Naming Post Offices a Top Priority". Courier Express and Postal Observer. January 8, 2013. Retrieved August 27, 2013. And: "More than one in five of the public laws passed by the 110th and 109th Congresses were post office naming bills." "Naming Post Offices Through Legislation (CRS report no. RS21562)" (PDF). Congressional Research Service. February 20, 2009. Retrieved August 28, 2013. Really, it's pretty hard to find any congressional enactment that is more routine and less notable than an act naming a post office. If you want to claim notability for this particular legislation, you have to come up with something more. TJRC (talk) 22:47, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Only from a US-centric POV which is not compatible with NPOV. Do you have any evidence of other countries doing this? James500 (talk) 23:00, 28 August 2013 (UTC) The passages you have quoted don't actually use the word "routine" either. Numbers alone don't necessarily make for routine. James500 (talk) 23:21, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm citing them as support that these enactments are routine, not that the sources use the same label. The legislative practices of other countries are immaterial. Congress enacting an act naming a post office is a routine act, regardless of what other countries do. That's not POV, that's just pointing out that it's routine. They raise the U.S. flag over the Capitol every morning, and no other country does that, either; that doesn't mean it isn't routine when it's done in the U.S.
What I have not seen in any of this discussion ,or in the article, is any supported claim that this Act has had any significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. The only references in the article are to the bill itself and to the Congressional Record, which covers all congressional floor activity, regardless of importance or notability. Where are the sources that are alleged to make this pass WP:GNG? TJRC (talk) 23:24, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am unable to agree that the perceived routiness of this Act means that it is not notable. I think, in particular, that the example of the flag is not relevant as you are not comparing like for like. Other countries do raise their own flags over their own public buildings, which is broadly equivalent. There is no reason to imagine they pass any legislation that is even remotely similar to these kind of Acts. The legislative practices of other countries are relevant if they provide perspective.
  • The fact that something fails GNG does not necessarily mean that it is not worthy of notice. See above. In this case, it is quite open to me to argue that Acts of Congress are notable per se, for being what they are, regardless of whether they are considered routine or not, as long as they can be verified with one trustworthy source, which is the only absolute requirement.
  • As regards congressional floor activity, I observe that we have, for example, the dates on which this Act passed through its legislative stages, I observe that equivalent information for Acts of Parliament is included in Halsbury's Statutes and Current Law Statutes Annotated and I infer, by analogy, that such information is encyclopedic.
  • I think that the only plausible argument in favour of merger is length. I am inclined to oppose a merger to the article on the doctor because I think a merger to an article on post office renaming might be preferable. Such an article would have to be created first. James500 (talk) 00:14, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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