Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Driving Instructors (Registration) Act 2016

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. Concerns that the subject fails WP:GNG due to lack of coverage in secondary sources were successfully rebutted by the evidence provided by James500. A merge to Road Traffic Act 1988 may still be preferable but that is a decision best settled outside of AFD. Editors can pursue that path through a merge proposal if desired. (non-admin closure) 4meter4 (talk) 23:47, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]


Driving Instructors (Registration) Act 2016

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Driving Instructors (Registration) Act 2016 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Article on a non-notable statute, sourced entirely to Hansard and text of the statute itself. (And therefore WP:OR.) AFAIK, statutes are subject to the same notability standards as any other topic, and this one fails WP:GNG. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 04:56, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 04:56, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 04:56, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep We are all expected to know the law of the land and so calling this OR is absurd. It's sensible to use the actual statute as a source and it's not difficult to find more sources such as this and that. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:48, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • It is not at all absurd to call this original research—describing a statute, or any written work, purely by reference to its text, as opposed to secondary sources discussing it, is textbook OR. The first source is pretty good but it's one paragraph (page 125). The second "source" is a PowerPoint presentation of no clear reliability. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 13:16, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. North America1000 13:33, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep - this is primary legislation, so definitely keep. It would stand even without sourcing. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:50, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • According to what policy is an article about primary legislation, or any other kind of legislation for that matter, an automatic keep? AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 16:29, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment by Article Creator Firstly just wanted to note my conflict on comment here due to being the original page creator (albeit some time ago). My view at the time (which I don't think has particularly changed) is that any Act of Parliament of the UK is likely to be sufficiently notable either to be included as a standalone article, or to have its own subsection within another article where this is more appropriate (e.g. legislation relation to HS2 is likely to be best placed as a standalone section on the HS2 article). At one point I was looking to create articles for each primary Act as they were created but ultimately got busy within other subjects so never completed this. Possibly the contents of this article could in some way be merged into Road Traffic Act 1988 with a suitable redirect or to keep as a standalone article if there now sufficient commentary to justify an article (I haven't looked at what online commentary has been added since the law was passed and the article was originally written shortly after Royal Assent was given). Either way I think some commentary on each Act of the UK Parliament that is made should be retained in wikipedia. This might be a topic to seek further consensus on in the Law or UK projects/portals, there was brief discussion at Wikipedia:Notability (law) on similar topics but no consensus was reached. I do appreciate the sourcing of the article to secondary sources could be better (there are now plenty of online sources that talk about ADI requirements which could potentially be used here).Tracland (talk) 17:19, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I guess the best merge destination would be Driver's education? Andrew's source—a proof from Exploring Parliament (ISBN 9780198788430)—could be used to source content for a selective merge there, especially as a start to an "in the UK" section or similar. As for the broader point: I'm not sure how often statute notability comes up at AfD (will have a look at the archives of list of Law-related deletion discussions), but in the absence of any clear guidance I think falling back on GNG is fine, especially since statutes often are discussed at length in treatises and law journals. One could also try a variant on WP:NPROF and judge statute notability by number of citations, but that would depend on finding a worldwide Google Scholar–equivalent for statutes, which I doubt exists. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 18:54, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, I think it’s a difficult one. For what it’s worth this Act probably isn’t sufficient for its own article but is probably better as a subsection of another. But other UK statute articles are often sketchy on details (if they exist) which makes it hard to properly decide. One of the reasons I gave up on the project (of creating content on acts at Royal Ascent) was it was just too big a job to fix other articles connected to new laws as they came out. Bring it all up to date is a task for some (more diligent) editor than me. Tracland (talk) 19:33, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to Road Traffic Act 1988 perhaps. There is no basis whatsoever for the claim that individual laws are automatically notable, and closing admin should disregard such comments. Best to cover with related legislation it amends or its subject like Driver's education in the United Kingdom, but many laws are mundane and bureaucratic without significant coverage of their effects. This is listed at both List of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 2016 and List of Acts of the 1st Session of the 56th Parliament of the United Kingdom (unclear why there's such duplication) so it could be redirected there as well. Reywas92Talk 17:03, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Satisfies GNG. This Act is included in both Halsbury's Statutes and Current Law Statutes, with significant commentary.  I can also point you to LexisLibrary Legislation, Westlaw Legislation and Lawtel, amongst other sources. James500 (talk) 18:25, 22 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • James500, can you provide some links and/or snippets? AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 18:30, 22 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • You can get both of the printed publications from a library or a bookseller. The online sources require a subscription. James500 (talk) 18:37, 22 October 2021 (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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