Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Penney's Law of Gross Weight Tonnage

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 of the debate was DELETE. — JIP | Talk 06:41, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Penney's Law of Gross Weight Tonnage

This article is about a "law" that supposedly has sporadic usage in eastern Nebraska. It get zero Google results, even whe the name of the originator is excluded. A lot of the stuff in Category:Eponymous laws is only slightly better. -- Kjkolb 07:44, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

• Delete neologism. --TheMidnighters 08:32, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete neologism unless shown otherwise prior to end of AfD. Onus is on creators of articles like these to provide good, verifiable citations showing actual use. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:49, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
• After reading the definition of neologism, I'm not certain that I agree that this is one. Assuming it is, can someone point me to where they are excluded from Wikipedia by policy? I have searched and found nothing. I'm uncertain how I could go about providing proof of use. Most of the people using the term are the sort who use computers only when they must. I can't think of one person from the Steamfitters union who would have their own webpage, much less register it with google. Anyone have any ideas? DJPhil 07:02, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Neologisms fall under original research, which is among the criteria for deletion, see WP:NOR. --TheMidnighters 08:21, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah, I see. After reading what I have on that page, I understand the above objections. In attempting to discern whether or not to write this up I didn't run across the above, and I appreciate your patience in pointing it out. DJPhil 10:32, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

• Delete With apologies. Should have more carefully read the manual. DJPhil 10:32, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Actually, IMHO the most important policies are verifiability and citing sources. To the extent they are followed, they are what make it possible for people who are not authorities to write an encyclopedia that is authoritative. Yes, there is information that is true but unverifiable. Our rules exclude such information, because the only way to insure a reasonable degree of accuracy is either to accept only information that is verifiable or to limit participation to trusted, credentialed contributors. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:23, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
• Comment: This is actually a Talmudic law dating back to around 600 AD, which states that "An empty carriage must always yield right-of-way to one which is laden.", which is essentially what the Nebraskans reinvented 1400 years later. Owen× ☎ 18:51, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

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.