Talk:Interpretation Act 1978

Discussion

A external link had been made to the act using wiki code. However, I think that it would be better if the link showed the sections of the act as opposed to the 'body' of the act. I do not know how to do this using wiki code. If anyone can do this if, you agree, I would be grateful if you could do so and maybe explain how to create wiki code for doing so. The link I have in mind is Interpretation Act 1978 Ron Barker (talk) 08:21, 6 July 2008 (UTC) here here

Merge proposal

I propose that Interpretation Act 1889 and Interpretation Act 1850 be merged here. These topics are closely related and having a separate article on each act is WP:UNDUE. Legend of 14 (talk) 20:58, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose The Interpretation Act 1889 and the Interpretation Act 1978 both independently satisfy GNG easily and by a wide margin. This is not surprising because they are two of the most important Acts ever passed. The policy WP:UNDUE has nothing to do with merging articles. The test we apply for that purpose is GNG. James500 (talk) 22:49, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

  WP:UNDUE is an inclusion policy and it applies to every article. Legend of 14 (talk) 22:56, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

  UNDUE applies to content within articles, not to the existence of articles. There is no way that it could possibly be POV to have two separate articles on two separate topics. I should point out that your citation of UNDUE is WP:VAGUEWAVE. James500 (talk) 23:44, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

  These aren't separate topics. There acts with very similar names, and very similar purposes, often talked about together by independent secondary sources . Also you cited to an essay about deletion discussions. Legend of 14 (talk) 01:22, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

  They are often talked about separately. The periodical article you cite is a single periodical article, and is actually primarily about the 1978 Act, with "glancing" references to earlier Acts, including several other Acts not proposed for merger, but without discussion of provisions from the Acts of 1850 and 1889 that have no equivalent in the Act of 1978. James500 (talk) 01:56, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

  They are often talked about separately, please provide sources for this claim. Legend of 14 (talk) 01:58, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

  There are three for the 1978 Act in the article: Halsbury's Statutes, Current Law Statutes Annoted, and Archbold Criminal Pleading. The 1889 Act is dealt with separately in Paterson's Practical Statutes, Chitty's Statutes, Arnold's Municipal Corporations, pre-1978 editions of Halsbury's Statutes. I could cite others. James500 (talk) 02:22, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose - whilst the topics are closely related, merging is likely to lead to an overlong and confusing resulting article. Mauls (talk) 09:51, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

Actually, Paterson says that the 1850 Act was very short, and that the vast majority of the 1889 Act is new and has nothing to do with the 1850 Act. James500 (talk) 19:36, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

Third party sources

@James500 7/15 references the article currently uses are references to the act itself, which is not independent. Third Party doesn't mean the act only relies on non-independent sources, it means that the act does so in a way that {{Third party inline}} would be tag bombing. That tag should be readded. Legend of 14 (talk) 02:39, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

The template documentation of Template:Third-party says "every source named has a very close connection to the subject", which is not the case here. I think the correct template is probably Template:More footnotes needed. Admittedly, neither template is particularly precise. What we really need is a template for "more third-party footnotes". James500 (talk) 06:04, 5 June 2025 (UTC)