Portal talk:Law

Legal Meaning

I would like to see an article entitled Meaning (legal) that would summarize the history and concepts based on Original meaning and the Plain Meaning Rule (for instance). I notice that the law-related article Special meaning has been summarily deleted by someone: 2007-07-30T17:06:24 Mikkalai deleted "Special meaning" (nonspecific word combination. content was: 'Special meaning refers to the fixed or limited meaning allowed by law to be given to a word, phrase or expression in specific circumstances ...') Bob 20:38, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Did you enter it on Wikipedia:Requested articles? Mbisanz (talk) 06:45, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Request for third opinion: debate over validity of external link at article Moot Court

I have no legal background whatever, so I don't really have any good perspective on a minor dispute at Moot court. A new user, user:Jimdugan wants to press the case for an external web-site, which looks to me like spamvertising. May I invite further opinions at talk:Moot court. --John Maynard Friedman 12:23, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Difference between the legal terms "Inquest" and "Joint Inquest"

Recently having read the term "joint inquest" in an Agatha Christie novel, I´ve checked it in my Langentscheidt as well as in my PONS English-German dictionary, but I could only find the word "inquest" there. So I´d like to know whether "joint inquest" is the correct legal form, short "inquest", or whether there is a real difference in re. 91.21.61.246 13:07, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Review of M.C.Mehta v. Kamal Nath

Hi, I would like to invite all to kindly review and suggest changes needed to the article M.C.Mehta v. Kamal Nath, which dealt with the Public trust doctrine for the first time in India. Thanks LegalEagle 13:52, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Law related hooks that recently appeared at T:DYK

• ...that the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack was the first bioterrorism attack in the United States, and one of only two confirmed terrorist uses of biological weapons to harm humans?
• ...that seven followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh were convicted for being part of a 1985 assassination plot to murder the United States Attorney for the District of Oregon?

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You may wish to add these to the Did you know? part of the portal, to be rotated through. It's up to you folks. Cheers, Cirt 07:33, 2 December 2007 (UTC).

• The first one is not really a "law" matter - maybe a crime, but where is the legal hook? bd2412 T 12:19, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

who damaged the portal?

who damaged the Law portal until five minutes ago with the celtic cross and those sentences??? now all seemed gone back to normalcy, but you know... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.159.196.12 (talk) 15:35, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Request for explanation of or new article titled "Constitutional Revision"

The Prop 8 article currently discusses the legal challenges to and the CA Supreme Court ruling regarding the proposition. The article discusses a challenge to the proposition based on it being a constitutional revision rather than an amendment. Constitutional revision currently redirects to Constitution, but the latter article doesn't seem to specifically explain what a revision is. Might I ask someone to clarify this? Many thanks. MrBell ^(talk) 18:43, 8 December 2008 (UTC) 15 years ago I was 13 years old; I AM now- 28; At this facility I was put in the padded room for 93 days with nothing but a blue paper gown, A cold floor, no matt to lay on, No pillow, simply put: I was tortured at this facility. I was placed in a straight jacket multiple times; One time for 27 hours- I was also stripped naked several times they took my blue paper gown off and placed me on a cold steel restraint table with 4 leather cuffs that bound my ankles and hands, with a leather strap that bound my waist_ I was injected on this table MANY times with medications that to this day I have no idea what they were however they made me go in and out of consiousness and I KNOW have seriously screwed up my brain.. I personnaly hold these people accountable for continual torture to me throughout my life, right now, I continualy suffer from daily flashbacks of this place, and I suffer from nightmares of this place while I sleep. I declare that this hospital and many others like it are guilty of torture and TREASON to the highest extent of the law to: "children"> and guilty of inflicting severe mental torment that has lasted and haunted me all these years later. I ask for action and I ask that those responsible be held acountable for deystroying My chance at leading a happy full life. I SUFFER DAILY BECAUSE OF THIS F***ING HELL THAT HAS BEEN INFLICTED UPON ME BY THIS "hospital" Charter Northbrooke EAP Boys unit"4600 W Schroeder Drive Brown Deer Wisconsin, The State Of Michigan Family Independence agency; And the Hiawatha Behavioral Health agency

P.S. My Mom and My Brother Have also committed suicide, My Brother Died May 28th 1999 at the age of 25; and My mom died On March 7th 2008 at the age of 55;. I found both of them "dead" purple, Not breathing. This world sure does seem to me to be a cruel one. And The truth rarely reaches the eyes of the general public. Where was and where is the justice for my family? From: Jason Paul Arnold —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.202.220.151 (talk) 19:23, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

quit claim deed

Hiw wiuld you cancel a quit claim deed if you haven't recorded it yet?71.105.33.54 (talk) 10:29, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

List of self-inculpators

In case anyone wishes to comment (or to contribute to the article in question): This incipient list of notable individuals—so far, including Mary, Queen of Scots, Marie Curie, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard Nixon—who, for a variety of reasons, have created or preserved self-inculpating evidence, to their own discomfiture or undoing, has been nominated here for deletion. Nihil novi (talk) 06:53, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Request Incidents of ownership

Hi - I am interested in Tony Honorés concept of ownership, which I learned as 'Badges or Incidents of Ownership'. However, though Honoré's work is cited several times as "seminal" I could not find an article about the concept, nor is it explored in the article Ownership. Would anybody be so kind to fill in the perceived gap? Yotwen (talk) 07:08, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I even could make out the book in question: Tony Honore, Making Law Bind (Oxford: Oxford University Press/Clarendon Press, 1987, Library of Congress) - That one however, is unavailable this side of the globe. Your help will be appreciated. Yotwen (talk) 07:38, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Selected content layout

I'd like to propose that the format for selected content is standardised using a template I have made. I've listed this intention here to allow for discussion before I change the existing selected content entries to avoid having to revert all the changes due to a problem in the template I have missed, for example. Michael Anon 17:28, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

As I'm adding selected content anyway I'll use the template for new entries, which should show how it will function in practice. Michael Anon 17:35, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

The template has been implemented for all selected articles, biographies, cases and statutes. Michael Anon 06:50, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Merging selected content lists with the nomination pages

I'd like to propose that the lists of selected content and the nomination pages are merged due to the amount of duplication that exists. Portal:Law/Nominate/Selected article would therefore contain a list of selected articles as it presently does, but would have instructions, perhaps in a collapsed box at the top of the page, about how to add more selected content to the page. Michael Anon 08:06, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I meant to propose that all the selected content would be merged to Portal:Law/Selected article or its equivalent, but the principle is the same. Michael Anon 19:10, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

The changes have been implemented. Michael Anon 06:49, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Changing the Law Portal modules

I'd like to propose another set of changes to the Law Portal. I'm not entirely sure whether approval is encouraged or even required (WP:GLC seems a little contradictory on the point), but as I'd like to delete some pages as uncontroversial maintenance it would help to show that there are (hopefully) no major objections to the changes.

1. I'd like to propose the removal of the selected pictures module. There are only four pictures at the moment and it seems to be extremely difficult to find good quality pictures that are relevant to the portal.
2. I'd also like to propose the removal of the did you know module. The module seems to be too limited by the requirement that the items must already have been featured on the main page.
3. I'd like to start an "In this month..." module, as is present at the featured Arts Portal. This would allow almost all articles (articles with at least 1,500 characters and that meet the relevant core policies) to have a chance to be displayed if there is an important cited date in the article.
4. Finally, I'd like to even out the two main columns and arrange the content with selected articles and cases on the left and selected biographies and statutes on the right. The new "In this month..." module would go at the bottom of the left column and be balanced out by the legal news module on the right.

I look forward to receiving feedback. Michael Anon 07:35, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

I would oppose removing of the "selected pictures" and "did you know?" areas. Both are standard features that would be required of a portal seeking featured status, which is a worthy and achievable goal for this portal. Taking DYK first, there is absolutely no difficulty in finding lots of DYKs to use - P:ENGLAW has 50 just for England and Wales, P:SCOTUS has 60 just for the US Supreme Court. As for it being difficult to find relevant good quality pictures, I'd disagree with that too. "In this month" is a good idea, as is balancing out the columns. Bencherlite^Talk 09:43, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I see that you've spotted my goal of taking this portal of featured status. As you seem to be involved with the process, would you mind clarifying the portal guidelines: are selected pictures recommended or optional? They are currently listed in both categories.

On the topic of alterations to this portal, I wasn't aware of that there were so many relevant DYKs, nor that there was such a good resource for finding them – I would therefore support retaining the module. I also have no intrinsic opposition to selected pictures, but am struggling to find relevant good quality images at the moment – is there a particularly good place I could look? Michael Anon 07:47, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

There are a few pictures of courts/parliament buildings at Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Places/Architecture. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:59, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the link John. However, I was rather hoping to find a greater number of images on a wider variety of topics – twenty seems to be the recommended minimum number of items for a module. Michael Anon 09:38, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I've changed the column widths and moved the modules around – the portal shouldn't look so unbalanced once the "In this month..." module has been added and the height of the selected pictures has been standardised. Michael Anon 18:31, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I've started the selected anniversaries page, but it will need a lot more work before the module is ready to be included on the portal main page. Michael Anon 16:32, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Ministerial decree or Ministerial order?

Started this article, but not sure what the proper English term is. I see 126 articles on Wikipedia that use the term Ministerial decree. But in the UK it is called a Ministerial Order (United Kingdom). I reckon, this is the name for a Ministerial decree in this judiciary? Timelezz (talk) 22:14, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh, and capitalize to "Ministerial Decree" everywhere in the text? Timelezz (talk) 22:16, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Scroll Box for Entries/Decisions List

I generated a scroll box template for decisions for those who are interested in organizing decisions:

Decisions	Law
Decision 1	Case 1
Decision 2	Case 2
Decision 3	Case 3
Decision 4	Case 4
Decision 5	Case 5
Decision 6	Case 6
Decision 7	Case 7
Decision 8	Case 8
Decision 9	Case 9
Decision 10	Case 10
Decision 11	Case 11
Decision 12	Case 12

Twillisjr (talk) 11:36, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Strict Constructionism

With the news of Scalia's passing, I decided to browse what WP has on Strict Constructionism, and I noticed that it's not part of WikiProject Law. Anyone care to remedy that? It could also use some improvement by an expert... 204.145.225.29 (talk) 05:58, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Corporate law

This article is a complete mess and is in need of an expert or at least someone with a minimum of understanding of the topic. It defines its subject as a certain body of law and as the study of it and as part of what it calls "companies law", which is probably not even grammatically correct and would or should have an article of its own if corporate law were indeed "a part of a broader companies law" (sic). In fact, "companies law" is a redirect to itself, and the article is also a redirect from "corporations law".

The article also has other links to itself, which indicates more confusion in its scope and content, perhaps due to incorrect mergers or moves:

The most prominent kind of company, usually referred to as a "corporation", is a "juristic person", i.e. it has separate legal personality, and those who invest money into the business have limited liability for any losses the company makes, governed by corporate law. --Espoo (talk) 15:26, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Notice from the Portals WikiProject

WikiProject Portals is back!

The project was rebooted and completely overhauled on April 17th, 2018. Its goals are to revitalize the entire portal system, make building and maintaining portals easier, support the ongoing improvement of portals and the editors dedicated to this, and design the portals of the future.

As of May 2nd, 2018, membership is at 60 editors, and growing. You are welcome to join us.

There are design initiatives for revitalizing the portals system as a whole, and for improving each component of portals. So far, 2 new dynamic components have been developed: Template:Transclude lead excerpt and Template:Transclude random excerpt.

Tools are provided for building and maintaining portals, including automated portals that update themselves in various ways.

And, if you are bored and would like something to occupy your mind, we have a wonderful task list.

From your friendly neighborhood Portals WikiProject. Hope to see you there. Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   07:35, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

merger / confusion between incitement and solicitation

These articles do not mention each other or explain the difference between these concepts. More specifically, solicitation to commit a crime seems to be exactly the same thing as incitement to commit a crime. In addition, the article on solicitation talks about solicitation to murder when it should apparently be talking about the more general crime of solicitation to commit a crime of violence https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/373 . --Espoo (talk) 11:16, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Proposed portal mergers

Merge Portal:English law into Portal:Law

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Substantial efforts are underway to drastically reduce the number of portals on Wikipedia (see, e.g., Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposal to delete Portal space; numerous nominations for portal deletion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion). I propose that merging Portal:English law into Portal:Law would create a substantially more defensible portal for coverage of the topic and subtopic involved. bd2412 T 01:37, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Support this proposed merger and as a pagemover am happy to assist with making it happen; let me know if such help is needed should consensus be to proceed. UnitedStatesian (talk) 07:24, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

• Support. I think it obvious that Portal English Law should be merged into Portal Law. English Law is a subset of Law. A portal is supposed to be a big door into a special place from where you can get to many things. Narrow portals don't work. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:52, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. It would in theory be better to have one well-developed and well-maintained portal on law. However, that would be achieved by merger only if both portals were in good condition. Otherwise the result would just be merging a good portal with junk, or merging two piles of junk to create a bigger dung heap.

If BD2412 wants to do a detailed analysis of the two portals and demonstrate that the result wouldn't be simply a bigger dung heap, then I'd be happy to reconsider. But without that prior scrutiny, no thanks. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:38, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

@BrownHairedGirl: I did that analysis before making the proposal. Most of the subjects covered under the English law portal are suitable for coverage in a general law portal. In particular, about 2/3 of the biographical topics under Portal:English law/Selected biography are for lawyers who engaged in most or all of their significant work before other common law countries (the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc.) came to have their current legal system, and thus are people formative to the worldwide common law system. Also, since these are long-dead historical figures, their entries generally do not need updating. The one Australian figure I would just delete, because he was notable for his military activity, not for any contributions to jurisprudence. Two of the biographies are redundant to existing biographies under Portal:Law. Similarly, the cases under Portal:English law/Selected case and the subjects under Portal:English law/Selected article are generally suitable for inclusion under the general law portal because they are either early enough to have established precedents governing later-formed common law systems, or significant enough to have influence in other countries. bd2412 T 19:19, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, BD2412. It would have been better to write up that assessment as part of the proposal, and to include links to facilitate checking it. But thanks for doing it now.

However:

• The fact that a biographical subject is long dead doesn't mean that an aged content fork is still OK. The article may have been developed a lot since it was forked. Same for the non-biographical topics.
• I don't see any assessment of whether Portal:Law is of sufficient quality.
• Rather than preserving any content forks, we should be ruthlessly eliminating all of them, and also eliminating all other variants of the abominable one-excerpt-a-time-with-no-upfront-list model of portal.

So what I'm seeing here is just a labour-intensive consolidation of past failures. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:42, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, it is labor intensive. We have editors willing to undertake the labor. bd2412 T 19:50, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

The fact that we have editors willing to undertake the labour of consolidating past failures doesn't make consolidation of past failures a good idea. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:01, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Law is, of course, one of the top 50 non-Main page portals for the entire project, and one of the handful of portals corresponding to the top 100 vital topics on Wikipedia. As Portal:Law is fairly certain to remain here, the question is whether we keep Portal:English law as a separate portal, or merge it up. Do you think Portal:English law should be kept as a separate portal? bd2412 T 22:43, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

My view, a view that I think BHG is on the same page with, is that the future of the top 10-100 is uncertain, they are unlikely to be simply deleted, but they are not currently serving any purpose for readers that reader want or appreciate. Even the top 2-10 portals a weak in the face of this criticism. The lower portals, including Portal:English law, are doomed for deletion or archiving, the do an active disservice to any reader who stumbles into them. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:46, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree in part. I think the law portal is particularly game for useful improvement, which is the impetus for this proposal. If we were talking about merging in a portal reflecting the law of most any other country, it might not be worth it, but since English law provided the historical basis for the legal systems of most English-speaking countries, I think it is particularly apt. Merging it now doesn't guarantee that the portal will not eventually be redeveloped in a way that excises this content, but at least it will be there if it is proves useful. bd2412 T 01:20, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

(ec) @SmokeyJoe, yes, I am in a similar place, tho with some nuances.

So far as I can see, there is almost no prospect of the community sustaining portals on topics outside the top 100 (which as rule of thumb is broadly analogous to VA-level-2).

I remain dubious that even that set can be designed in a way which actually adds value, and maintained well enough to continue to add value. In a world of powerful search and massive cross-linking, portals will always be a niche affair, and I don't see the evidence that the niche in en.wp is big enough to make portals viable. I also don't yet see any design of portal which isn't so deeply flawed as to be near-useless.

Given the improbability of a viable model of portal being developed, I'd be happy to see the deletion of all except the top ten. How my reading of where the community is at is that the community may not be ready to take that step just yet. So I could live with keeping with 100 fr now. It would clear a lot of clutter, and would allow the portals fans to concentrate on trying to find a type of portal which both adds value, and is maintainable They are currently a million miles from both goals; they seem stuck in the low-value decade-old Rube Goldberg machine model of magazine-style portals, and have no idea of how to attract maintainers. But I don't mind giving them that chance.

As to this proposed merger, I agree that Portal:English law is too narrow an intersection. However, I continue to oppose @BD2412's desire to "merge" it. The use of content forks remains a thoroughly bad idea, and I noted above, the idea of expanding a portal with by adding stale content forks from elsewhere is just preserving relics. It seems analagous to stocking up one's larder with stale food and expecting to produce better meals.

I can see some merit in BD2412's view that some of the topics in Portal:English law might fit in Portal:Law. So I recommend making a list of such topics, and allowing a discussion in which of them actually fit without unbalancing the portal. Any such topics which are wanted should be added without content forking.

But I remain resolutely opposed to BD2412's desire to recycle old content forks. There is by now a massive mountain of evidence that content-forking is unsustainable. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:25, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Nuance? I use "merge" quite loosely. I think "merge" includes "smerge", and even includes "use for background reference". Content forks are indeed one of the big weaknesses of WikiPedia Portals. Content forking doesn't help readers navigate. The selection of content to fork introduces editor POV. Editors seem to manifest their POV by working on articles that match their POV, developing them into Good and Featured articles, and then biasing the Portal with Good and Featured articles. Slightly dangerous for all topics, very bad for some. I hope that a redeveloped portal notion will arise, and would expect it to not include forked content, not impermanent forked content for sure. It might be useful for us to write an essay on what has been learned from the many discussions that deleted portals. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:37, 8 October 2019 (UTC). The important aspect of "merge" is that post merge, the new thing will cover English law, and Portal:English Law will not have any form of separate ongoing existence. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:39, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

We're on the same page on the first part of your reply.

As to merge, I'm with you on the concept of merge as "expand scope of target, and remove the other portal". But I'd prefer just about any alternative to BD2412's content-fork-preservation plans. If we can agree on a definition of merge which includes both discarding the content forks and reviewing any topics before adding them to the target, then I'll support it. But so far, BD2412 seems determined to preserve every last content fork, even when they are 12 years old and never used in the portal, so my view is clearly a very long way from BD's. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:47, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Here, however, that is not the case. I have every intention of appropriately reviewing, updating, and culling any content that gets merged, and deleting what is insufficient. For example, the Court of Common Pleas (England), Cy-près doctrine in English law, and Insanity in English law are all subjects with importance to the general history of the law in the English-speaking world. Marshalsea prison and the Halifax Gibbet, not so much. Perhaps half of the selected statutes would make the cut (particularly the Statute of Uses, Statute of Monopolies, and English Poor Laws; while those that would not make the cut would include the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907, Variation of Trusts Act 1958, and Trustee Act 2000). The same kind of scrutiny will be applied to all other categories of content. bd2412 T 02:03, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

@BD2412: So there's your list of articles. No need to preserve the old content forks. And I really do hope you aren't even thinking of keeping the set of ten-year-old DYKs. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:36, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I had not given any thought to the DYKs at all. My list of articles would be those named, and a select handful of others. If there is no support for keeping a separate portal on English law, I have no qualms about getting started with repurposing the salvageable items now. bd2412 T 14:06, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Merge Portal:Law and Portal:Society into a new Portal:Law and society

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I further propose that Portal:Law and Portal:Society should be merged into a new portal, Portal:Law and society. There is no low without society, and no society without law. That portal is to replace Portal:Society as a Main page-linked portal. I dream that in this merge, substantial redevelopment will occur, retaining the pleasant look of portals, but gaining the comprehensive navigation possibilities present within the category system. For the purpose of drawing from the category system, I note that the category system is very lax with inclusion criteria as the depth becomes large. Category:Law sort of contains a sensible selection of top level law topics, but the discipline is poor, criteria undefined, and if you go deep, you can sometimes find surprising things. However, mostly it is pretty good. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:05, 26 September 2019 (UTC) This further proposal stems from a discussion at Talk:Main Page#Add Portal:Law to the list of portals displayed on the homepage. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:13, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Oppose the second proposal and politely ask the nominator temporarily withdraw it so that we can consider one merger at a time and thereby reduce the risk this discussion becomes a WP:TRAINWRECK. UnitedStatesian (talk) 02:03, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

No. Leave it on the table. The only viable portals moving forwards are portals linked from the main page. For subject-bias-specific reasons, I think Portal:Law has the highest probability of success in renovation, higher than Portal:Society, and Law and Society belong together. In comparison, Portal:English Law, until recently Portal:Law of England and Wales, was a low end portal liable to be deleted in a couple of months. Playing with Portal:English law is to play with deck chairs. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:30, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

If someone were to start merging Portal:English law into Portal:Law, I predict it to be all wasted effort. Portals need a major restructure. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:32, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't see how we carry out such a restructuring of Portal:Law without Portal:English law ending up merged into it. So far as I can tell, your opposition is not premised on the idea that Portal:English law should remain a standalone portal. If your objection is based on a perceived need for "a major restructure" of portals, then the absence of the prospects for such a restructure rather moots the objection. bd2412 T 00:59, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

You are talking to UnitedStatesian? I strongly support, with advocation of going further. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:46, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

My apologies, I confused your discussion with UnitedStatesian as inherently being in opposition to the initial proposal. The "wasted effort" comment threw me off. I disagree that it would be a wasted effort in the absence of further restructuring. bd2412 T 02:48, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

In that case you have my full encouragement. I think something should be done, I have thrown out ideas, but I don’t know anything for sure. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:59, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

• My inclination at this time would be to oppose until the Portal:English law merger is executed, and we can see how that comes out. I believe law is a broad enough topic on its own to not need further upmerging, but that might be something to explore further down the road. bd2412 T 17:15, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. The fact that you have to include "and" in the title means that it's not a perfect, intuitive match. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:00, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
• Please note that Law and society redirects to Sociology of law which would be both less than law and less than society. I'm afraid it would be too narrow a term for two rather comprising subjects.--Aschmidt (talk) 20:38, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. That would be either a) unwieldy union of two distinct topics, or b) a narrow intersection. Either outcome would create a misconceived portal. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:33, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

• I think both your (a) and (b) are obviously wrong. The union is pretty well defined, and as discussed at Talk:Main Page#Add Portal:Law to the list of portals displayed on the homepage the overlap (intersection) is huge. The notion of "a misconceived portal" is nebulous. Can you described a well conceived portal? An advantage of this merge could be that the customary logical rigor of lawyer people might succeed at renovating at least one portal to something useful. "What is the purpose of a portal" remains an open question. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:41, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

• @SmokeyJoe, you might have some chance of persuading me that my view is "obviously wrong" if you provided some explanation of why you believe that it's so obvious. But bare assertion carries no weight with me.

"Foo and Bar" makes some sense if topics are of similar level; siblings, not parent/child. However, law is one small part of human society. So "Law and society" is effectively "Small subset + Broad topic", which is silly. It's like "Luxembourg + Europe": if it describes a union, then it's tautologous, but if it defines an intersection it's a v narrow matter of Luxembourg's relations with its European neighbours. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:38, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I could respond to all of that, but it is of negligible value compared to a statement as to what a "well-conceived" portal could look like. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:46, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

The characteristics of "well-conceived" portal (by scope) are that its's an easily recognisable, customarily used broad topic whose label doesn't overemphasise one component or introduce ambiguity. Some examples "Africa" is an easily recognisable, customarily used broad topic. "Africa + Sicily" is a POV combination. "Morocco + Africa" is either tautologous or some sort of intersection. "Law + Society" has all the problems of "Morocco + Africa". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:54, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I think you are over-generous with narrow scope. I think scope needs to be entire philosophical areas. Currently these are the eight mainpage linked Portals. Other languages have different selections. BD2412 thinks Law should make the list. I think that is the easy part of the question. The harder part relates to content in the portal, and navigation facilitation in the portal. I think a viable Portal should present no impermanent content. Definitions required for one to understand the scope, yes. Some illustrative examples of the scope, maybe. Bias towards the best looking content, no, that is POV. I think a viable Portal should facilitate navigation to every related topic. Portal:Mathematics should enable logical navigation to every mathematics article. Unlike categories, it should not have unexpected leakage into other category trees. I think that in the end the conclusion may be that portals are a failed concept entirely, redundant in every aspect to something else. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:22, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

@SmokeyJoe, Africa is a v broad topic, tho maybe not broad enough; it would make the 100 cut, but not the 10.

But that's a tangent. Africa was merely an illustrative example to show the problems of the proposed merger. If you want to fold Portal:Law in Portal:Society, then that's a task for if and when we cull down to ten portals; but if so, just call it Portal:Society. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:46, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I did write, at Talk:Main Page#Add Portal:Law to the list of portals displayed on the homepage "Oppose. Law belongs squarely within Portal:Society. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:55, 25 September 2019 (UTC)"

"just call it Portal:Society" makes sense. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:58, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Agree completely with @BrownHairedGirl: initial comment above to "oppose." Sm8900 (talk) 13:52, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. "Law" is a topic that is totally separate and different from "society." Sm8900 (talk) 13:51, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

• This is not so, as can be seen in Law and society, see above. The two terms are not completely separate, they are intertwined, but they are not identical, so much is true.--Aschmidt (talk) 21:53, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

• Withdraw this Portal:Law and society proposal [1]. Possibly Portal:Law might be merged into Portal:Society one day, but not Portal:Law and society. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:38, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I have tried something new with images

Rather than having a featured image on the page with a constant rotation of images pulled from a subpage, I have put thumbnails of all of our featured images on the main page. Let me know what you think. Cheers! bd2412 T 16:57, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

An instructional page for this portal

It has been noted recently that two recurring problems of portals are that they are difficult to edit due to complicated structures invoking subpages, and that they tend to lack an explanation of how featured content gets selected for the portal. I propose that we create an instructional subpage for this explaining how to add new content and setting standards and a procedure for selecting such content. bd2412 T 00:37, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

If there is no objection, I am going to go forward with a draft for this proposed page. Cheers! bd2412 T 00:13, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Good idea. Points to consider on edit barriers: Transclusions are difficult, especially when they eliminate [edit] links. Beautiful source code to a computer programmer is very different to low barrier source code. Div tags are hard for editors. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:31, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

I feel that perhaps making it easy to propose new content, but leaving up the barrier of expertise for implementing that content, provides the best setup. I envision the addition of portal content reflecting the processes used for the main page and DyK. bd2412 T 00:40, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

We should also outline some principles for building Portal:Law/Selected anniversaries, which was created some time ago but lacks content, and is not presently shown on the portal. I have created Portal:Law/Selected anniversaries/April from information on the pages for the individual pages. bd2412 T 04:15, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Another thing that I would like to outline is a principle for achieving balanced representation. I think we should say something along the lines of:

Because this is the English-language Wikipedia, content may tend to favor the legal regimes of English-speaking, which tend to adhere to common law principles. In particular, it is recognized that many common law principles originate in English law, and were dispersed therefrom through English colonization of other countries. However, this portal should also provide some representation of law and legal systems from other system and originating in other countries.

Cheers! BD2412 T 03:51, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Merge outcome

I have recently close a discussion on merging Portal:English law into this page. Pinging those who expressed an interest in helping merge things BD2412, UnitedStatesian. Per my close, and BHG's oppose, do make sure that the resulting portal is of higher, not lower, quality due to the merge. Ideally, this subheading should serve as a good place to discuss the merge if need be. Smooth sailing, Captain Eek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 05:18, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

• I have created Portal:Law/Maintenance as a tool to keep track of the quality of portal contents, and we can use that to insure that the quality issues are addressed in this case. First and foremost, we should make sure that any content ported over is either FA (or previously FA) or GA status, that it is made up to date and transcluded if possible, and that nothing redundant to existing content is included. bd2412 T 11:10, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Law made for man and not otherwise

It's reasonable to say the whole essence of law is to protect what is already inherent in man.Law doesn't give man his right,but recognizes it and ensure there will be no need for the deprivation of those right.Man is the centerpiece of what law is and seeks to achieve. Its also beneficial to say that anytime the essence and nature of law is being discussed,we invariably talk about the nature of humanity.In the light of this,law is subjected to the control of man and not otherwise and if law is not aimed at protecting our right,we revolt. Joy abbey (talk) 13:23, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Under what circumstance would the law not be "subjected to the control of man"? So far as we are aware, there are no alien life forms changing human laws. BD2412 T 23:58, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Request for draft page review

Hello, I am a new editor and would like to request review on Draft:The Manitoba Law Journal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deardorff (talk • contribs) 17:42, 26 August 2023 (UTC)