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 delete. Will userfy on request for those looking to put the articles listed here into a category (such a category is not specified by those arguing for categorisation). --Sam Blanning^(talk) 03:21, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of publications in law[edit]

List of publications in law (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This article could develop in one of two ways but in either case I do not believe it suitable for Wikipedia:

1. It could become a list of all publications in law. Its scope appears to be all legal writing in all countries at all points of time. Such a project is so vast as to be beyond a lifetime's work. In any event, this would seem to breach WP:NOT#DIR as it would simply be vast list of sub-divided publications.
2. Alternatively it might list only important publications in law. This raises an intrinsic POV element in determining what qualifies as an important publication.

If a legal publication is notable, an article about it should be created. A list of those notable publications and their articles would then seem an appropriate way to present this information.

In of itself, this list will either end up being a directory or a very subjective list of which publications that it occurs to users to include as being important. Given the underdeveloped nature of legal coverage on Wiki this would be far from encyclopedic. WJBscribe 03:13, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. I should have addressed the fact the page offers some guidance as to inclusion. I don't think this helps with the NPOV problem above as the criteria are very subjective- especially Influence and Latest and greatest. WJBscribe 03:17, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment. This article should be part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Science pearls but it is not listed there. This is why the title was not changed like the others to be "List of important publications ..". See also the related debate on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of important publications in computer science. --Bduke 03:37, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think a separate point (if the article is kept) is whether it should be amongst the science lists in the first place.... WJBscribe 03:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, as it is a clean list that, although it may need work, seems to be going well so far. Sharkface217 03:38, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. These lists, while somewhat subjective, are good to have. Eventually the goal should be to include publications that already have articles on Wikipedia, or publications which should have articles here. --- RockMFR 05:32, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, or else I'll add the textbook I co-authored and my published master's thesis and don't any of you dare remove them :-) WP:POINTs aside, this list has no workable scope, as pointed out by the nominator. WP:NOT a catalogue of books, and there are very many legal publications in the world, even notable ones. Such content is better placed in the "References" or "Further reading" sections of the articles about the area of law in question. Sandstein 05:52, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, this seems like a misguided effort (best) or an attempt to inflate Google rank (worst). meshach 08:17, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - per WP:NOT. notable publications would merit their own articles; maybe a category Law Publications or the like? /Blaxthos 15:38, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - this is a job for a category. --humblefool® 19:51, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Categorify. If the standard for inclusion in a list is the same as the standard for inclusion as an article, categories are much better. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 21:23, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete or Categorify There are just far too many items that could be included on this list - consider the number of titles in your average law school library. I've always believed that lists which are necessarily going to be wildly under-inclusive should instead be deleted. --TheOtherBob 06:22, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Keep. The term is important, not notable, as adopted in the science articles and successfully defended here quite a few times. There are many items that should be included in an article that do not merit their own article, and this is the place to put them. Many discussions here have ended with a consunsus or merge, and this is the sort of place they are intended to be merged to. We have argued this before, and I find it peculiar that we must reargue it every time. DGG 02:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete or show us where it's referenced that such-and-such book meets the criteria set forth. This list and others like it are completely unsourced and amount to nothing more than personal opinion. Glendoremus 23:02, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete/Categorize per TheOtherBob. --Wizardman 02:07, 9 December 2006 (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.