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. (NB. This changed from "no consensus" following an appeal to my talkpage to review - in the cold light of day, this result better represents consensus) Fritzpoll (talk) 22:08, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009[edit]

Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Non-notable piece of legislation. No sources provided that show notability. In-process label has been in place for weeks and no changes have been made recently aside from adjustments to the number of co-sponsors. A Google news search [1] for the term turns up nothing that establishes notability. Even if the bill were to pass, since the Federal Reserve is already audited regularly [2], so I can't see how a bill that forces another audit(?) would be notable. Burzmali (talk) 18:53, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I accordingly request that the next administrator speedily close this AfD as "keep" under WP:DEL: Deletion discussions that are really unresolved content disputes may be closed by an administrator, and referred to the talk page or other appropriate forum. If this does not happen, I request that the admin ask me for further evidence of my charges. JJB 20:31, 13 April 2009 (UTC) JJB 21:06, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

  • First, do not change another editor's !vote. Second, I will not apologize for my promptness in responding to the AfD. There's nothing nefarious in this. I have the article watchlisted, and I saw the AfD and responded. It's nothing more that that. I didn't have any hesitation, because I'd considered nominating it, myself. Third, I don't know what you mean when you refer to "TJRC's suddenness to respond in both AfD's." I did not participate in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rand Paul. In the meantime, please read WP:AGF. TJRC (talk) 20:43, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Refactored; I had conflated events. And wariness is compatible with good faith. JJB 21:06, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
      • False accusations are not. Apology accepted. TJRC (talk) 21:13, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Don't worry, JJB's been accusing me of having an anti-Paul bias for closing in on a year now [4], I'm used to his remarks. However, normally he at least gives a reason to keep as well. BTW, I'm still waiting for 'insert name of nefarious Anti-Paul alliance' to send me that toaster ;) Burzmali (talk) 22:48, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I've already given my delete !vote above, so this is just a comment, with further thoughts; this is pretty much my thought process that went into that !vote, but I think it's worth documenting in further detail. My thoughts here are pretty much geared toward U.S.-based congressional legislation, because that's what I know. Much of it would apply to state or local legislation, although I believe the bars in those cases will be substantially higher, since the such laws affect so fewer people than those enacted at the congressional level. I don't have enough background outside the US to comment on proposed legislation in non-US jurisdictions.
The noteworthiness or lack thereof of proposed legislation if problematic. Pretty much every piece of congressional legislation will get some news coverage. Newsworthiness is not notability, as that term is used in Wikipedia. It is not sufficient to have a list of pieces of news coverage and use that, in and of itself, as a basis to claim notability. Unless the proposed legislation has clear indicia that it is notable, it's really not worthy of an article. One good indicium is that the legislation actually passes. But that's not in itself even enough: Congress passes a lot of legislation that's not particularly notable. The fact that a bill does not pass is an indication that it is not notable, but it's not conclusive. The controversy over the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, for example, was so great that I think that it would have been considered notable, even if it had not passed.
This is somewhat applicable to proposed constitutional amendments, as well, except that because amending the Constitution is a pretty big deal, it's not that unusual for attempts to do so to be notable, even if the attempts are ultimately unsuccessful; see, e.g., the articles on the Bricker Amendment and the Equal Rights Amendment. Those amendment attempts are long-dead, but are still discussed today. Of course, for those two citable instances, there are a lot of amendment attempts that died and are not particularly notable.
It is worth bearing in mind here that Notability is not temporary: "It takes more than just a short burst of news reports about a single event or topic to constitute sufficient evidence of notability." As applied to this particular case, I really don't think that people will be talking about, or otherwise taking note of, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009 after the sun sets on the current U.S. Congress in 2011.
My thoughts here are not limited to the FRT Act. We have other articles that I feel the same way about. As a specific example, we've got Patent Reform Act of 2005 (did not pass), Patent Reform Act of 2007 (did not pass) and Patent Reform Act of 2009 (still pending). I assume that the editors who created each of these articles believed that the bills had a pretty good chance of becoming law; I personally believe that the 2009 one will. But with the benefit of hindsight, it seems pretty clear that the 2005 and 2007 acts ultimately were not notable; and maybe the 2009 will turn out not to be as well. What's notable here is a topic like "proposed patent reform," which would discuss the various proposals that have been put forward, including these three acts (most of which duplicate each other, anyway). If the 2009 Act passes, then great, have an article on it that covers what it actually will have done.
In a similar vein, the FRT Act just doesn't meet the standard for notability. If there is an article on proposed economic or banking reforms, then a discussion of the FRT is probably worth including there; and as I said above, given the existence of List of legislation sponsored by Ron Paul, it's worth including there.
My general view here, to sum up, is that: 1) proposed legislation needs some actual indicia of notability to be notable in a Wikipedia sense; 2) newsworthiness can be almost presumed for proposed legislation at the congressional level, and is neither the same as notability nor in itself sufficient to confer notability, but it may be one factor; and 3) passage of the legislation is a strong (but not necessarily conclusive) indicium of notability. Applying this to the present article, I do not see that it meets these criteria for inclusion as an article. TJRC (talk) 20:09, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You asked me to comment. We're not a guide to the USCode, where it matters very much what passed and what did not; we're an encyclopedia covering notable things of the present and the past. Using your example, the history of attempts to reform the US patent legislation is of such importance to anyone who cares about patents in or out of the US (if only because US legislation has in the past bee on totally different principles from everywhere else), that every serious legislative attempt is notable. The current bill and the compromises in it and the debate over it and the comments on it, and the interpretations that will be made of it are very much influenced by the response to previous attempts. This does not mean that every attempt to pass legislation on a national level is notable. But the attempt is sometimes as notable as the actual passed Act--or even more so: the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment is even more indicative of American thinking of the period than it would have been if it had passed. And the debate can be more relevant than the bill itself, for either passed or failed. As for legislation under current consideration, the same guidelines as for any news story apply: is it clear yet whether it will actually be significant, & is the situation stable enough to write about?. DGG (talk) 20:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
So what do we include? At a national level for nations of which we have comprehensive coverage, we should include every piece of legislation of significant public importance or where there has been significant public debate-- and every attempt noteworthy for legal or historic or social reasons. Just the same as for all other public events. They're the basic part of political history, and need very detailed coverage. My caveat about nations for which we have detailed coverage, is that we should if possible cover the most important things in a country first, & it might not be wise to try from the start to be comprehensive. At a national level what don't we include: private bills, of course, and technical changes, and commemorations, and the like. Legislation dealing with special interest does get included if the special interests are significant, for we aim to be comprehensive.
This does necessarily mean separate articles. When there isn't that much to say, then combination articles are a good compromise, as everywhere else. it's the coverage that matters, not the division into articles.
At a subnational level, the number of people affected are smaller, and we therefore need a fairly high level of significance. But the significance can be outside the state as well, as a model for elsewhere. At a local level, I do not know how to handle this and other local matters--in principle, being not paper, we should be able to cover very minutely. In practice, its not where our efforts should be spent.
and the "very weak" in my keep was because I am not convinced of the significance of this rather routine piece of posturing. Number of co-sponsors is not decisive in the US system, especially for things where legislators will want to have something to point to for their core constituency. DGG (talk) 20:38, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Again, this is about newsworthiness, not notability. TJRC (talk) 06:31, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Given its role in the recent Tea Party movement, that suggests it'll be undergoing some sustained support and a role in public discourse. So it's clearly notable right now and there's every indication it'll be newsworthy for some time in the future. At the least, this AfD is premature since this is a current developing topic. Buspar (talk) 07:05, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also, a comment. The nominator stated: "Even if the bill were to pass, since the Federal Reserve is already audited regularly [15], so I can't see how a bill that forces another audit(?) would be notable." This indicates that the nominator does not actually understand the subject of the article. The act would require significantly more public disclosure of information than the current 'audits'. --darolew 20:53, 16 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Find an independent reliable source that says that then, or even talks about the bill at all. Burzmali (talk) 02:07, 17 April 2009 (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.
Category