User talk:Theknightwho

Welcome to Wikimedia Commons, Theknightwho!

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-- Wikimedia Commons Welcome (talk) 17:40, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

UK legislation

Could you consider adding something like : https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Jewish_United_Synagogues_Act_1870_(UKLA_1870-116_en).pdf&oldid=573086068

on pre 1960's uploads?

I will of course note that some Acts/Statutes can have different citations, as Statutes of the Realm and the various collections Statutes at Large, use different ones for some Statutes passed prior to George I's reign.

I would agree that as the Queens printer version should be the primary file, but it's going to need a lot of cleanup to sort this all out. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 21:44, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

That's the plan! This is currently on the backburner, as I'm currently working on completely reworking the lists of Acts of Parliament on Wikipedia, which is taking up a lot of time as I've done a total overhaul. Currently reached 1974, with 1972 and 1973 probably completing today (and hopefully 1970 and 1971 if I can).

I have some thoughts on what you've said:

1. The citations for Acts Parliament change from regnal to calendar years from 1963 for Acts of Parliament. We should also consider that SR&Os and SIs are always cited by calendar year, and NI Acts switched from regnal to calendar year citations from 1943.
2. We should always be using the citation from The Statutes of the Realm as per the Interpretation Act 1978. However, we should follow the modern form of citation (e.g. 1 Will. & Mar. Sess. 2. c. 2) rather than something like 1° Gul. & Mar. Sess. 2 cap. 2, which is completely archaic. However, I would support having a Ruffhead citation (and any others if relevant) in a template on the file itself - I would suggest a new template be designed for UK legislation, to be honest. SR/Ruffhead citations may clash due to differing chapter numberings, however, so this requires some thought for implementation.
3. I have built a Wikipedia module that can automatically generate the session based on a date input, or else the year if 1963 onwards. I manually checked volumes 13 to 218 of the Journals of the House of Commons to create it, though there are quirks that make it hard to extend this earlier (though it will be possible and I will at some point). We should of course make use of this, but it also raises the question of how we date Acts:
   1. Before 14th September 1752, dates used the Julian calendar. This was changed by the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750.
   2. However, the second twist is that in Britain and Ireland before 1st January 1752 the new year started on 25th March (i.e. January, February and 1st-24th March were the last days in the year, so it would go (for example) 31st Dec 1650 -> 1st Jan 1650 -> ... -> 24th March 1650 -> 25th March 1651, and so on). Interestingly, this means you end up with dates like 29th Feb 1699. Note that this also means that 1752 is an oddity, with Jan, Feb and March being at the start of the year, but following the Julian dates until 2nd September. It then jumped to the 14th.
   3. The modern convention is to adjust the year in Jan, Feb and 1st-24th March, but to give the Julian date. In other words, to give the standard Julian date with the year beginning on 1st January. This is what we should do, and what my module expects, but it requires being careful when checking records prior to 14th September 1752 (this is why, for example, William & Mary are sometimes said to have acceeded in 1688 and sometimes 1689, as the legal date was Feb 1688 translating to Feb 1689 in standard Julian). Fortunately, prior to W & M the records tend to use day, month and regnal year, but from W & M to George II in 1752 you have to be careful.
4. Many local Acts are Order Confirmation Acts, which confirm one or more Provisional Orders.
   1. Usually, the POs in the same Act have nothing to do with each other, while the short and long titles to the confirmation Act don't explain much (e.g. the Local Government Board's Provisional Orders Confirmation (No. 14) Act 1896 - An Act to confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board relating to Aberavon Ashton-under-Lyne Derby Hexham and Stalybridge and to the Braintree and Keighley-and-Bingley Joint Hospital Districts.). Even when they contain only one order, the short/long title won't usually name more than the place. Don't be fooled by the names on the Parliamentary Archives for local Acts from 1903 onwards (where they've actually bothered to name them) - they include the place names for ease of use, but they aren't in the real short titles.
   2. The Orders themselves each have their own short and long titles (e.g. Derby Order 1896 - Provisional Order for altering the Derby Corporation Act 1877). These need to be searchable for the database to be of any use. The Parliamentary Archives fudge is subpar, as it isn't great for anyone trying to find an Order if it's been cited elsewhere, as citations will usually use the short title of the Order itself, and unless someone's familiar with Order Confirmation Acts they're likely to overlook it. These days, most people have no idea what they even are.
   3. We need to find a way to incorporate the short and long titles to Orders in a way that's intuitive, but avoids duplicate or partial uploads of Acts (as the Provisional Orders are incomplete without the confirmation Act itself, as they're scheduled to it).
5. We need to do a proper check for Short Titles so that uploads are named properly. This is non-trivial, as they're often scattered all over the place in addition to the Short Titles Act 1896. Occasionally they've even been changed. Not helpful.
6. You can find the QP/KP copies of most local Acts at the Parliamentary Archives. The site isn't easy to use unless you're familiar with the National Archives system, but if you search by monarch and chapter number (format (e.g.) 5 & 6 William IV c. ii) you should get there. They seem to be missing volumes at random (i.e. you'll sometimes find a bunch of Acts in a row missing), and they get patchier the further back you go, though even close to 1800 you'll often have success. The scans are not always of great quality (e.g. 1969 is crap) and sometimes pages are missing, too. However, having used it for research at work I'd say well over half of them are there and it's certainly a useful resource. Personal/private Acts are much more sparse, and pre-1800 there's very little in general outside of special copies of original Acts.
7. That being said, I seem to have been mistaken as to the licensing of Parliamentary Archives copies - it's not Open Parliament and is too restrictive for Wikimedia. However, the archives do allow visitors to create their own copies, and the physical copies of the QP/KP editions are subject to the Open Parliamentary Licence (if published in the last 50 years), or else in the public domain (if older). Volumes of Public Acts are much easier to find, so wouldn't require a trip to the PA.

--Theknightwho (talk) 14:42, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

1. Over on English Wikisource, I was responsible for getting the Chronological table an 1870's edition of the Chronological Table partially transcribed..., but this wouldn't reflect changes ("effects" made by later legislation. Some of the later collected editions of legislation passed by Sesssion/Year has a table of effects.). That listed a table as variances between Ruffhead (Ruff.) and Statutes of the Realm s:Chronological_Table_and_Index_of_the_Statutes/Table_of_Variances though.
2. So far you re focusing on GB/UK. That makes me note that pre-union Scotland and Ireland being seperate Jurisdictions, would also have sequences of primary legislation?
3. There was a very basic module to handle Short titles's but the underlying module could be overhauled as it can't at present make a distinction between GB, UK, Scotland, and NI. If you were wanting to take on the task of an overhaul combining it with some of the functionality you suggested above, then feel free. (It would also potentially need to handle other jurisdictions that derive from British/Commonwealth practice (Like Canada, Australia, and pre-1947 (British) India.)
4. However in places, Wikisource seems to have used "unoffical" short titles for convenience in respect of Acts/Statutes which did not necessarily have an official one, and a degree of organised cleanup might be needed to handle these. Statutes/Acts transcribed from Ruffhead have generally been titled to be a subpage of that work to avoid confusioin between differing citations.
5. s:Template:UK_Statutes lists published collections (partial). See also s:Template:Ruffhead_volumes, Statutes at large was a title used by two different series though. Ruffhead being one and Danby Pickering being the other. (There was a much fuller biblogrpahy here - https://statutes.org.uk/site/collections/british-and-irish/) and the template should at some point be updated to reflect the entire position upto 1970, (or further if appropriately licensed editions exist.)

Statutes of the Realm also (in volume 1) gave a partial list of 'collected' editions of primary legislation published prior to it's creation.

1. As I understand it, Hathi trust has some of the later editions of the Chronological Tables. Although some of these are nominally expired crown copyright, Hathi doesn't show full scans for me.
2. Outwith the collected editions, there is some primary UK legislation that was uploaded to Commons, (typically from a QP version, or generated PDF of the "as enacted" version, prior to Fae's project. It might take a while but ideally these should be brought into any proposed schema carefully.
3. (Aside: Alongside legislation, there are also "Command papers" (i.e the 'white' papers talked about in the media, IIRC), and reports produced by various "Ministries" and "Departments" some of which may be expired crown/parliamentary copyright. The best collection is that held by Southampton University, but the licensing for their scans is not compatible with Commons. ( Much as I would like to at some point have things like the Anderson and Worboys reports into Traffic Signs at Wikisource.)
4. (Aside:There also the various reports and analysis done by the Statute Law Committee, from the mid 1960's onward. Some of the recent reports might be OGL, and some of the pre 1970 one might be an expired crown copyright?)
5. (Aside: Some very early English legislation, isn't in English... It's either in Latin or an older form of Norman French?)
6. (Aside: Was there ever a semi-official document which gave advice to printers/typsetters on how published legislation should be laid out with respect to typsetting.
7. I also strongly suggest you open discussions with contributors at English Wikisource.

ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 07:58, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

1. The Short titles Act 1896, is not the only Act which conferred short titles, I think some Statute Law Revision acts also had the effect of conferring short titles. Getting copies of those later Acts onto Commons in a suitable form would be useful ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 08:01, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Might be of Interest

Hey there!

There is a proposal on Meta Wikimedia to create a project called WikiLaw.

Cheers, –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 04:41, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks - have added myself to the list! Theknightwho (talk) 15:10, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Template:Template link with linked braces

Template:Template link with linked braces has been listed at Commons:Deletion requests so that the community can discuss whether it should be kept or not. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at its entry. If you created this template, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it. Please remember to respond to and – if appropriate – contradict the arguments supporting deletion. Arguments which focus on the nominator will not affect the result of the nomination. Thank you!

Achim55 (talk) 21:15, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello

Allahuabha dear friend, I want to ask you what's the ideal category for file like this which I claim to have received it by divine revelation from Baha'u'llah directly? --Islam90 (talk) 04:15, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

File:The Statutes of the Realm Vol 9 (1708-13).pdf

If you updated the file, please also update the source information, Wikisource uses this to get the hi-res images.

This is now the Hathi Trust version? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 14:37, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Also please update other files you updated like - File:The Statutes of the Realm Vol 7 (1695-1701).pdf. Thanks. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 14:38, 26 October 2022 (UTC)