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This page recommends, in the case of U.S. citations, use of the non-free Bluebook citation style guide for articles relating to U.S. legal cases. However, the Indigo Book (formerly Baby Blue) is a free content, public domain fork of text from a version that had lapsed into the public domain due to non-renewal, and is nearly identical to the official version.
In my opinion, as it is an open content project, the Manual of Style should endorse the use of the Indigo Book (and maybe it should be on Wikisource too?) as opposed to a non-free version. Would this be a good idea? ViperSnake151 Talk 21:00, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
I made subsections for titles in different countries [1], so details can be given for those countries. MBUSHIstory ( talk) 23:58, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
I described what I saw being done in stable and good articles when there are ambiguous titles and added it here [2]. MBUSHIstory ( talk) 23:58, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
A discussion of this began on my talk page, and I hereby move it to this page:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ChrisTS: In legal citations using Bluebook style, I think ellipsis is indicated not by three dots close up (...), but rather by three dots with spaces between them. Please correct me on this if I am incorrect. Perhaps the BB has been changed since the 1950s and 1960s on this. But if the BB rule is still the same . . . then you need to insert non breaking spaces (. . .)
to keep the ... all together. Thank you.
PraeceptorIP (
talk)
20:06, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
Yes. Chris. I think that would be a good idea. Can we transfer this to the Talk page that you mention and request a discussion there? I would just like to find out how properly to use ellipsis in quotations from legal opinions that are contained in WP articles about legal cases, so that I can be informed for the future. PraeceptorIP ( talk) 17:24, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
At this point I take no side except to say that if ellipses are generally three unspaced dots, but three spaced dots in legal citations, there will be confusion; not all those who edit law articles are lawyers, and not all are familiar with Bluebook style. OK, ideas and opinions, please. Chris the speller yack 17:30, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
I have been reading Heffernan v. City of Paterson, a recently featured article presently on the main page, and have come here supposing it has been written within these guidelines. The article seems to me well written and presented (and interesting!) but I have a problem with the citations. I see there have been discussions about "Blue Book" and so on but I am not concerned with any technicalities. I merely want to be able to follow up references fairly easily (in practice only if they are online, which they are).
Many references are of the form "Heffernan, slip op. at 2–3" without any links and where it is far from clear (to me) where I should be looking further. I think this is due to "short=yes" being specified in {{ ussc}}. It seems that as a reader I am expected to perceive that the first such citation should be in long form (and it is) and to search for it and use the link there. A problem for the general reader is the the long form looks very different from the short form so it is not obvious they are referring to the same thing. Alternatively I need to look in the infobox and realise that "Opinion announcement" is also what I am trying to find (it leads to a different web page, however). I think this MoS would be improved if it expected such short citations to be links, or at least there should be a subsection of "documents cited in short form", where I can find the references listed as a group in recognisable form. In a similar way "Heffernan II" and "Heffernan III" are defined as references and are later used but these are also difficult to find since they are embedded in the general reference list. Thincat ( talk) 12:44, 26 April 2017 (UTC)
There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#"Bare" / "Raw" URLs in common style guides that arose out of the use of URLs in legal citations and may be of interest to people watching this page. AHeneen ( talk) 12:36, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
Hi all,
I've recently started working on a some articles in this project field and have noticed a few issues. The one I'd like to discuss at the moment is the problem of
WP:Original Research. OR is a problem that crops up in many areas of WP articles – my "home" area of
WP:CHINA certainly included. However, it seems to be pretty pervasive here at
WP:LAW. In quite a few of the articles on cases, including even some of the well-known cases, the majority of the article is cited from and attributed to the case itself. This is poor practice, and does not comply with the guidelines at
WP:OR. Specifically, it violates the policies regarding the use of primary sources, which we are instructed to avoid here on WP (the specific section is at
WP:PSTS). A relevant excerpt from the primary source section:
"Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source. Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so. Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them."
I will endeavor to improve articles I work on by replacing case citations with citations to reputable secondary sources like prominent books, law review articles, and commentary in casebooks. I invite others to consider these thoughts and share your viewpoints. Additionally, I would like to suggest that, if the community agrees, a note on this subject be added to this MOS page, perhaps in the
"Article Content" section. Thanks. White Whirlwind
咨
04:16, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
(Moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law)
Hi all,
I would like to make a suggestion that is relatively small in nature but would apply to a fairly large number of articles. Most articles on cases currently have the case citation immediately following the case's first mention (in our case, the lead) as is de rigueur in legal writing. However, I don't think this is necessary on Wikipedia, and I've had a number of readers tell me that they find this practice confusing and distracting, especially in those cases where there are two or even three different reporters cited. Given the prevalence of excellent case infobox templates like {{
Infobox court case}}
and similar, citation inclusion in the lead is also completely redundant. I would recommend we specify that citations not be used in leads and instead be given in the infoboxes. As an obligatory aside, this is very similar to what has been done in China and other East Asia related articles with Chinese characters and romanizations in the lead. Any comments are welcome. White Whirlwind
咨
05:12, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
I'd like to revive a thread that went moribund, for having been on the talk page of a draft, in which Mendaliv raised good points, almost exactly 5 years ago:
Suggestion to enhance case law citations for our audienceSince Wikipedia is ideally to be written with as general an audience as possible in mind, I think it might be a good idea to consider recommending the use of Rule 10.3.3 citations where possible. A lot of our readers aren't going to have access to the usual reporters, and may well just wind up googling for decisions. While not all jurisdictions have a case format amenable to such citations, I think it's worth thinking about. —/ Mendaliv/ 2¢/ Δ's/ 08:02, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
This is worth some additional consideration. More specifically, use a vendor- and medium-neutral citation system (per Bluebook 10.3.3, also found in ALWD 12.17) and addition of a parallel citation to a regional reporter when available (per Bluebook 10.3.1(b), and probably in ALWD somewhere), even if the court system to which the citation pertains doesn't require this. If even real-world lawyers are doing this, we probably should too, especially since we're writing for a global audience of non-experts, not writing for a specific court with citation rules.
Distilled to an MoS rule it would probably be:Prefer public-domain citations over vendor- or medium-specific ones. If a regional reporter is available in addition to a national or state one, please provide that as well, after the latter. Remember that our goal in citing case documentation – like any other sources – on Wikipedia is helping readers verify the content we are presenting. The citation requirements of the courts in the jurisdiction of a case about which we are writing are of no consequence for how we source Wikipedia articles.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
12:51, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
I have a suggestion that I would like to raise for discussion. Currently, the section on Article Titles only discusses cases. I'm surprised that the article doesn't give any guidance for how to title an article about a statute. I think we should also provide guidance on that issue. Full disclosure: I've been involved in debates on this point previously about articles about particular Canadian statutes, and my personal preference is always to use the short title for the act which is assigned to it by Parliament or the provincial Legislature. Others have argued that the bill number should be used, because when a bill is up for debate, it's often referred to in the media by the bill number, so that's the name the public associates with it. That in turn triggers some discussion about Recentism, since the bill number is transient and long-term is not a unique legal citation. I'm not trying to canvass support for my position on the name of any particular article. Rather, I came here for guidance and am surprised that there is no mention of this issue here at the Manual of Style. I also appreciate that there can be considerable variation on the naming of statutes in different jurisdictions, probably more so than in case citation, so it would have to be done consistently with the legal citation styles in each jurisdiction. It's very easy in Canada, because the custom is that each statute has a long title, and also frequently has a short title, intended for citations, so for Canada I would suggest using the short title assigned by the Parliament/Legislature. Thoughts? Mr Serjeant Buzfuz ( talk) 09:35, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
This layout guide says to use Judge/Justice title, however I see in featured articles like Roe_v._Wade it's inconsistently included. Is there a more precise rule I'm missing, such as using the title once in each paragraph and not after? Shushugah ( talk) 17:35, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
I stumbled across {{ BBstyle}} today, which is a garish template we apparently use in 126 legal articles to tell readers which citations style we use. I've edited it to not be so garish, but does anyone object to deleting it? It doesn't seem to make sense to include editing warnings in the article text itself. TheDragonFire ( talk) 17:02, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
The Australian Guide to Legal Citation whose link is listed as 'dead' is now at https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/2877782/AGLC3.pdf.
Regard Cowdy001 ( talk) 07:54, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
I recently came across a discussion from 2017 ( [3]) that concerns the lack of standard naming convention for articles about "laws by country". I wanted to bring this to attention in case someone wants to formulate something more consistent. Right now, we have a huge variety of styles:
X law( Abortion law, Prostitution law, Gun law in the United States)
X laws( Child pornography laws in Portugal, Gun laws in the United States by state)
Legal status of X( Legal status of psilocybin mushrooms, Legal status of cocaine, Legal status of same-sex marriage, Legal status of fictional pornography depicting minors; also used for stuff like Legal status of Hawaii, Legal status of the Holy See, Legal status of the State of Palestine)
Legality of X( Legality of incest, Legality of cannabis, Legality of bitcoin by country or territory, Legality of bestiality by country or territory)
Laws regarding X( Laws regarding rape, Laws regarding child sexual abuse)
— Goszei ( talk) 22:15, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
There have been numerous discussions at Talk:State v. Chauvin on whether State v. Chauvin should be renamed to Trial of Derek Chauvin. Proponents of the move have cited similar articles as examples: Trial of George Zimmerman, Trial of Michael Jackson, Trial of Susan B. Anthony, O. J. Simpson murder case, and O. J. Simpson robbery case. Notably, these articles (which are US criminal cases) do not follow Bluebook format as this guideline currently requires. Non-US examples include Trial of Anders Behring Breivik, Trial of Benjamin Netanyahu, Trial of Catalonia independence leaders, Trial of Saddam Hussein, and Trial of Oscar Pistorius.
The discussion at
Talk:State v. Chauvin remains ongoing. In the meantime, I am hoping that editors can weigh in on this guideline more broadly. Specifically, I am asking the community to consider whether
MOS:LAW#Article titles should be modified to state: Articles on cases should be titled according to the legal citation convention for the jurisdiction that handled the case, except for criminal trials, which should be titled "Trial of (defendant)" or a similar format.
Pinging the following participants at Talk:State v. Chauvin: @ Bagumba, Phillip Samuel, InedibleHulk, 69.174.144.79, WikiVirusC, Buidhe, Kellis7, K.e.coffman, MykReeve, Lugnuts, Firefangledfeathers, Volteer1, Kauri0.o, Ched, and Iamreallygoodatcheckers:
I would greatly appreciate your feedback on the above. Thank you! Edge3 ( talk) 02:46, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
I have modified the guideline to reflect the opinions expressed in this discussion. Edge3 ( talk) 15:38, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
I've restored my edit per the recent consensus at Talk:Trial of Derek Chauvin. Edge3 ( talk) 15:05, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
I'm very new to Wikipedia and the conventions used here, but it seems slightly incongruous to refer to this page as the "Trial of Derek Chauvin" when so much of the content is outside the scope of the trial itself. I realize this might be a bit wordier, but "Prosecution of Derek Chauvin" would seem more accurate, since that would encompass both pre-trial activity and sentencing. NerdOfAllTrades42 ( talk) 22:09, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
The section on Canadian legal citations refers to the McGill Guide, but notes that it is proprietary. However, Queen's University Law Library has provided a summary of the citation methods recommended by the McGill Guide. Any problem with adding a link to the Queen's University page? It would provide guidance on how to cite Canadian legal matters. https://guides.library.queensu.ca/legalcitation-mcgill-9th Mr Serjeant Buzfuz ( talk) 00:58, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
I've begun a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Conflicting styles for names of laws, seeking to clarify how to style the names of laws here. ₪ MIESIANIACAL 00:11, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
I came across this recent ongoing discussion and previously too I have gone through some other discussions. Here I am not interested in political part of those. Here concern is limited about How to handle encyclopedic legal reporting including in cases of BLP?
Where both primary and secondary sources are available, one should cite both. While primary sources are more "accurate", secondary sources provide more context and are easier on the layperson. Where primary and secondary sources conflict factually, the primary source should be given priority.
— - Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Legal#Guidelines
I will be pinging editors from above mentioned discussion plus users who previously participated in building and discussing this MOS please feel free if you know users who are interested and know of legal nuances.
I also ping @ Kautilya3 since discussed one of above points in some other discussion. @ SoloKnowHow83, @ Tayi Arajakate @ CrusaderForTruth2023 @ RegentsPark Bookku ( talk) 09:25, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
Where both primary and secondary sources are available, one should cite both. While primary sources are more "accurate", secondary sources provide more context and are easier on the layperson. Where primary and secondary sources conflict factually, the primary source should be given priority.That, along with the current BLP guidelines is sufficient. We don't want to make the rules too technical, it just fosters harassment of content creators. GregJackP Boomer! 18:22, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
".. The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content.
".. Any of the three can affect reliability. Reliable sources may be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both. These qualifications should be demonstrable to other people. .."
Bookku ( talk) 12:30, 24 April 2023 (UTC)".. Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources. Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person. .."
References
Bookku ( talk) 05:44, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
There is an alternate sentence suggested in highlighted quote"...after an Indian court convicted .."
"... after an Indian court convicted .."
the other user replies".. One source (Guardian) states that the cases are of defamation of people with surname .. while the other (BBC) says "Prime Minister..'s surname". .."
.. whereas for RS, the latter is the central point. ..
No doubt both the users in above cited discussion are making their respective arguments in good faith and seem to be experienced editors. Here point is to have easy to understand encyclopedic guidelines on legal nuances.
Bookku ( talk) 10:14, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
A blasphemy case against a Chinese national covered in Blasphemy in Pakistan#Selected cases, the Chinese national is subsequently released on bail. Case is not closed and two news media report differently.
.. The court said it had granted bail because there alleged offence appeared to be "the result of a misunderstanding". ..
.. A Chinese citizen accused of blasphemy in Pakistan was released on bail after an anti-terror court ruled that no offense had been committed. .. The main accuser in the blasphemy case kept changing his statement and bail has been granted until the case is concluded, which may take a few months, according to a police official. ..
When abbreviating an act (or similar) at first mention, I recommend avoiding "the act", as such:
Instead, give a commonly accepted acronym in parentheses, or no abbreviation. Using “the act” to refer to a previously mentioned act through the body of an article is fine, but does not need signposting and should be used as normal language allows. Similar considerations should be made for other similar legalisms.
I only bring it up, because I have seen it a lot lately (often in Canadian articles for some reason). It may be a by-product from copy-pasting, or it may be just legal-minded editors writing from what we’re used to. Funnily enough, half the time, the abbreviation isn’t even used later. I am in two minds about adding this guidance to the MOS. First, I don’t want to accidentally suggest that “the act” is never used to abbreviate later, and second, to explain that would take a good chunk of text (as above) for something that has not proved to be terribly problematic. Perhaps something to just keep in mind for now. — HTGS ( talk) 02:57, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
![]() | This project page does not require a rating on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
This page recommends, in the case of U.S. citations, use of the non-free Bluebook citation style guide for articles relating to U.S. legal cases. However, the Indigo Book (formerly Baby Blue) is a free content, public domain fork of text from a version that had lapsed into the public domain due to non-renewal, and is nearly identical to the official version.
In my opinion, as it is an open content project, the Manual of Style should endorse the use of the Indigo Book (and maybe it should be on Wikisource too?) as opposed to a non-free version. Would this be a good idea? ViperSnake151 Talk 21:00, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
I made subsections for titles in different countries [1], so details can be given for those countries. MBUSHIstory ( talk) 23:58, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
I described what I saw being done in stable and good articles when there are ambiguous titles and added it here [2]. MBUSHIstory ( talk) 23:58, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
A discussion of this began on my talk page, and I hereby move it to this page:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ChrisTS: In legal citations using Bluebook style, I think ellipsis is indicated not by three dots close up (...), but rather by three dots with spaces between them. Please correct me on this if I am incorrect. Perhaps the BB has been changed since the 1950s and 1960s on this. But if the BB rule is still the same . . . then you need to insert non breaking spaces (. . .)
to keep the ... all together. Thank you.
PraeceptorIP (
talk)
20:06, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
Yes. Chris. I think that would be a good idea. Can we transfer this to the Talk page that you mention and request a discussion there? I would just like to find out how properly to use ellipsis in quotations from legal opinions that are contained in WP articles about legal cases, so that I can be informed for the future. PraeceptorIP ( talk) 17:24, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
At this point I take no side except to say that if ellipses are generally three unspaced dots, but three spaced dots in legal citations, there will be confusion; not all those who edit law articles are lawyers, and not all are familiar with Bluebook style. OK, ideas and opinions, please. Chris the speller yack 17:30, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
I have been reading Heffernan v. City of Paterson, a recently featured article presently on the main page, and have come here supposing it has been written within these guidelines. The article seems to me well written and presented (and interesting!) but I have a problem with the citations. I see there have been discussions about "Blue Book" and so on but I am not concerned with any technicalities. I merely want to be able to follow up references fairly easily (in practice only if they are online, which they are).
Many references are of the form "Heffernan, slip op. at 2–3" without any links and where it is far from clear (to me) where I should be looking further. I think this is due to "short=yes" being specified in {{ ussc}}. It seems that as a reader I am expected to perceive that the first such citation should be in long form (and it is) and to search for it and use the link there. A problem for the general reader is the the long form looks very different from the short form so it is not obvious they are referring to the same thing. Alternatively I need to look in the infobox and realise that "Opinion announcement" is also what I am trying to find (it leads to a different web page, however). I think this MoS would be improved if it expected such short citations to be links, or at least there should be a subsection of "documents cited in short form", where I can find the references listed as a group in recognisable form. In a similar way "Heffernan II" and "Heffernan III" are defined as references and are later used but these are also difficult to find since they are embedded in the general reference list. Thincat ( talk) 12:44, 26 April 2017 (UTC)
There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#"Bare" / "Raw" URLs in common style guides that arose out of the use of URLs in legal citations and may be of interest to people watching this page. AHeneen ( talk) 12:36, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
Hi all,
I've recently started working on a some articles in this project field and have noticed a few issues. The one I'd like to discuss at the moment is the problem of
WP:Original Research. OR is a problem that crops up in many areas of WP articles – my "home" area of
WP:CHINA certainly included. However, it seems to be pretty pervasive here at
WP:LAW. In quite a few of the articles on cases, including even some of the well-known cases, the majority of the article is cited from and attributed to the case itself. This is poor practice, and does not comply with the guidelines at
WP:OR. Specifically, it violates the policies regarding the use of primary sources, which we are instructed to avoid here on WP (the specific section is at
WP:PSTS). A relevant excerpt from the primary source section:
"Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source. Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so. Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them."
I will endeavor to improve articles I work on by replacing case citations with citations to reputable secondary sources like prominent books, law review articles, and commentary in casebooks. I invite others to consider these thoughts and share your viewpoints. Additionally, I would like to suggest that, if the community agrees, a note on this subject be added to this MOS page, perhaps in the
"Article Content" section. Thanks. White Whirlwind
咨
04:16, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
(Moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law)
Hi all,
I would like to make a suggestion that is relatively small in nature but would apply to a fairly large number of articles. Most articles on cases currently have the case citation immediately following the case's first mention (in our case, the lead) as is de rigueur in legal writing. However, I don't think this is necessary on Wikipedia, and I've had a number of readers tell me that they find this practice confusing and distracting, especially in those cases where there are two or even three different reporters cited. Given the prevalence of excellent case infobox templates like {{
Infobox court case}}
and similar, citation inclusion in the lead is also completely redundant. I would recommend we specify that citations not be used in leads and instead be given in the infoboxes. As an obligatory aside, this is very similar to what has been done in China and other East Asia related articles with Chinese characters and romanizations in the lead. Any comments are welcome. White Whirlwind
咨
05:12, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
I'd like to revive a thread that went moribund, for having been on the talk page of a draft, in which Mendaliv raised good points, almost exactly 5 years ago:
Suggestion to enhance case law citations for our audienceSince Wikipedia is ideally to be written with as general an audience as possible in mind, I think it might be a good idea to consider recommending the use of Rule 10.3.3 citations where possible. A lot of our readers aren't going to have access to the usual reporters, and may well just wind up googling for decisions. While not all jurisdictions have a case format amenable to such citations, I think it's worth thinking about. —/ Mendaliv/ 2¢/ Δ's/ 08:02, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
This is worth some additional consideration. More specifically, use a vendor- and medium-neutral citation system (per Bluebook 10.3.3, also found in ALWD 12.17) and addition of a parallel citation to a regional reporter when available (per Bluebook 10.3.1(b), and probably in ALWD somewhere), even if the court system to which the citation pertains doesn't require this. If even real-world lawyers are doing this, we probably should too, especially since we're writing for a global audience of non-experts, not writing for a specific court with citation rules.
Distilled to an MoS rule it would probably be:Prefer public-domain citations over vendor- or medium-specific ones. If a regional reporter is available in addition to a national or state one, please provide that as well, after the latter. Remember that our goal in citing case documentation – like any other sources – on Wikipedia is helping readers verify the content we are presenting. The citation requirements of the courts in the jurisdiction of a case about which we are writing are of no consequence for how we source Wikipedia articles.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<
12:51, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
I have a suggestion that I would like to raise for discussion. Currently, the section on Article Titles only discusses cases. I'm surprised that the article doesn't give any guidance for how to title an article about a statute. I think we should also provide guidance on that issue. Full disclosure: I've been involved in debates on this point previously about articles about particular Canadian statutes, and my personal preference is always to use the short title for the act which is assigned to it by Parliament or the provincial Legislature. Others have argued that the bill number should be used, because when a bill is up for debate, it's often referred to in the media by the bill number, so that's the name the public associates with it. That in turn triggers some discussion about Recentism, since the bill number is transient and long-term is not a unique legal citation. I'm not trying to canvass support for my position on the name of any particular article. Rather, I came here for guidance and am surprised that there is no mention of this issue here at the Manual of Style. I also appreciate that there can be considerable variation on the naming of statutes in different jurisdictions, probably more so than in case citation, so it would have to be done consistently with the legal citation styles in each jurisdiction. It's very easy in Canada, because the custom is that each statute has a long title, and also frequently has a short title, intended for citations, so for Canada I would suggest using the short title assigned by the Parliament/Legislature. Thoughts? Mr Serjeant Buzfuz ( talk) 09:35, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
This layout guide says to use Judge/Justice title, however I see in featured articles like Roe_v._Wade it's inconsistently included. Is there a more precise rule I'm missing, such as using the title once in each paragraph and not after? Shushugah ( talk) 17:35, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
I stumbled across {{ BBstyle}} today, which is a garish template we apparently use in 126 legal articles to tell readers which citations style we use. I've edited it to not be so garish, but does anyone object to deleting it? It doesn't seem to make sense to include editing warnings in the article text itself. TheDragonFire ( talk) 17:02, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
The Australian Guide to Legal Citation whose link is listed as 'dead' is now at https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/2877782/AGLC3.pdf.
Regard Cowdy001 ( talk) 07:54, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
I recently came across a discussion from 2017 ( [3]) that concerns the lack of standard naming convention for articles about "laws by country". I wanted to bring this to attention in case someone wants to formulate something more consistent. Right now, we have a huge variety of styles:
X law( Abortion law, Prostitution law, Gun law in the United States)
X laws( Child pornography laws in Portugal, Gun laws in the United States by state)
Legal status of X( Legal status of psilocybin mushrooms, Legal status of cocaine, Legal status of same-sex marriage, Legal status of fictional pornography depicting minors; also used for stuff like Legal status of Hawaii, Legal status of the Holy See, Legal status of the State of Palestine)
Legality of X( Legality of incest, Legality of cannabis, Legality of bitcoin by country or territory, Legality of bestiality by country or territory)
Laws regarding X( Laws regarding rape, Laws regarding child sexual abuse)
— Goszei ( talk) 22:15, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
There have been numerous discussions at Talk:State v. Chauvin on whether State v. Chauvin should be renamed to Trial of Derek Chauvin. Proponents of the move have cited similar articles as examples: Trial of George Zimmerman, Trial of Michael Jackson, Trial of Susan B. Anthony, O. J. Simpson murder case, and O. J. Simpson robbery case. Notably, these articles (which are US criminal cases) do not follow Bluebook format as this guideline currently requires. Non-US examples include Trial of Anders Behring Breivik, Trial of Benjamin Netanyahu, Trial of Catalonia independence leaders, Trial of Saddam Hussein, and Trial of Oscar Pistorius.
The discussion at
Talk:State v. Chauvin remains ongoing. In the meantime, I am hoping that editors can weigh in on this guideline more broadly. Specifically, I am asking the community to consider whether
MOS:LAW#Article titles should be modified to state: Articles on cases should be titled according to the legal citation convention for the jurisdiction that handled the case, except for criminal trials, which should be titled "Trial of (defendant)" or a similar format.
Pinging the following participants at Talk:State v. Chauvin: @ Bagumba, Phillip Samuel, InedibleHulk, 69.174.144.79, WikiVirusC, Buidhe, Kellis7, K.e.coffman, MykReeve, Lugnuts, Firefangledfeathers, Volteer1, Kauri0.o, Ched, and Iamreallygoodatcheckers:
I would greatly appreciate your feedback on the above. Thank you! Edge3 ( talk) 02:46, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
I have modified the guideline to reflect the opinions expressed in this discussion. Edge3 ( talk) 15:38, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
I've restored my edit per the recent consensus at Talk:Trial of Derek Chauvin. Edge3 ( talk) 15:05, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
I'm very new to Wikipedia and the conventions used here, but it seems slightly incongruous to refer to this page as the "Trial of Derek Chauvin" when so much of the content is outside the scope of the trial itself. I realize this might be a bit wordier, but "Prosecution of Derek Chauvin" would seem more accurate, since that would encompass both pre-trial activity and sentencing. NerdOfAllTrades42 ( talk) 22:09, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
The section on Canadian legal citations refers to the McGill Guide, but notes that it is proprietary. However, Queen's University Law Library has provided a summary of the citation methods recommended by the McGill Guide. Any problem with adding a link to the Queen's University page? It would provide guidance on how to cite Canadian legal matters. https://guides.library.queensu.ca/legalcitation-mcgill-9th Mr Serjeant Buzfuz ( talk) 00:58, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
I've begun a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Conflicting styles for names of laws, seeking to clarify how to style the names of laws here. ₪ MIESIANIACAL 00:11, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
I came across this recent ongoing discussion and previously too I have gone through some other discussions. Here I am not interested in political part of those. Here concern is limited about How to handle encyclopedic legal reporting including in cases of BLP?
Where both primary and secondary sources are available, one should cite both. While primary sources are more "accurate", secondary sources provide more context and are easier on the layperson. Where primary and secondary sources conflict factually, the primary source should be given priority.
— - Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Legal#Guidelines
I will be pinging editors from above mentioned discussion plus users who previously participated in building and discussing this MOS please feel free if you know users who are interested and know of legal nuances.
I also ping @ Kautilya3 since discussed one of above points in some other discussion. @ SoloKnowHow83, @ Tayi Arajakate @ CrusaderForTruth2023 @ RegentsPark Bookku ( talk) 09:25, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
Where both primary and secondary sources are available, one should cite both. While primary sources are more "accurate", secondary sources provide more context and are easier on the layperson. Where primary and secondary sources conflict factually, the primary source should be given priority.That, along with the current BLP guidelines is sufficient. We don't want to make the rules too technical, it just fosters harassment of content creators. GregJackP Boomer! 18:22, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
".. The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content.
".. Any of the three can affect reliability. Reliable sources may be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both. These qualifications should be demonstrable to other people. .."
Bookku ( talk) 12:30, 24 April 2023 (UTC)".. Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources. Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person. .."
References
Bookku ( talk) 05:44, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
There is an alternate sentence suggested in highlighted quote"...after an Indian court convicted .."
"... after an Indian court convicted .."
the other user replies".. One source (Guardian) states that the cases are of defamation of people with surname .. while the other (BBC) says "Prime Minister..'s surname". .."
.. whereas for RS, the latter is the central point. ..
No doubt both the users in above cited discussion are making their respective arguments in good faith and seem to be experienced editors. Here point is to have easy to understand encyclopedic guidelines on legal nuances.
Bookku ( talk) 10:14, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
A blasphemy case against a Chinese national covered in Blasphemy in Pakistan#Selected cases, the Chinese national is subsequently released on bail. Case is not closed and two news media report differently.
.. The court said it had granted bail because there alleged offence appeared to be "the result of a misunderstanding". ..
.. A Chinese citizen accused of blasphemy in Pakistan was released on bail after an anti-terror court ruled that no offense had been committed. .. The main accuser in the blasphemy case kept changing his statement and bail has been granted until the case is concluded, which may take a few months, according to a police official. ..
When abbreviating an act (or similar) at first mention, I recommend avoiding "the act", as such:
Instead, give a commonly accepted acronym in parentheses, or no abbreviation. Using “the act” to refer to a previously mentioned act through the body of an article is fine, but does not need signposting and should be used as normal language allows. Similar considerations should be made for other similar legalisms.
I only bring it up, because I have seen it a lot lately (often in Canadian articles for some reason). It may be a by-product from copy-pasting, or it may be just legal-minded editors writing from what we’re used to. Funnily enough, half the time, the abbreviation isn’t even used later. I am in two minds about adding this guidance to the MOS. First, I don’t want to accidentally suggest that “the act” is never used to abbreviate later, and second, to explain that would take a good chunk of text (as above) for something that has not proved to be terribly problematic. Perhaps something to just keep in mind for now. — HTGS ( talk) 02:57, 21 October 2023 (UTC)