Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Litigation involving Tesco

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 delete as a POV fork and a coat-rack article. To the extent material can be reliably sourced and can be written in an NPOV fashion it should appear in Tesco. Future articles such as Allegations concerning when Tesco stopped beating its wife should be speedily deleted as well. Nandesuka (talk) 01:23, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Litigation involving Tesco

Litigation involving Tesco (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (delete) – (View log)

The article is a violation of the neutral point of view by suggesting any and all cases against Tesco are notable, and the cases listed are on the whole not notable with regard to the corporation as a whole, they involve single incidents, or trivial outcomes. The article creation follows on from an aborted attempt to include the list at Tesco, and considering the existence of Criticism of Tesco, is wholly redundant. MickMacNee (talk) 18:10, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Also note the section Tesco#Tesco_litigation, which predated this article's creation, and duplicates the notable content. MickMacNee (talk) 14:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

• Delete Article has no quality rating, and is of low importance. DeadmanUndertaker 18:36, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Since when are quality ratings reasons to delete? Garion96 (talk) 19:41, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

• Delete This seems too libellous to be tolerated in its current unsourced state. Colonel Warden (talk) 20:42, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

• Keep - this article is valuable and interesting. If there is any problem with neutrality then it's the wrong tag up here. Of course it's not libelous and everything is sourced: that's what the case references are there for. It's highly important because it's a list of cases. Every case is a precedent. Wikidea 20:50, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

• Delete - Anything important enough to cover should be covered in pre-existing articles. (added) Furthermore, Wikipedia is not meant to be a complete database of every legal action any company has been involved in. The vast majority of the cases listed in this article are unremarkable in all ways, with no lasting interest. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 21:24, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

• Delete POV fork. Jtrainor (talk) 23:06, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

• Delete. Agreed it's a POV fork and also a legal landmine. I agree with the nom that not all cases against Tesco are notable. I recommend picking the one or two most notable ones (i.e. ones with national or international scope), making sure the sources are airtight, and then adding them to the main article on the company. 23skidoo (talk) 23:45, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

• Delete The notable cases will have their own articles or be covered in the criticism article. I don't think we need a list of every time someone hurts their arm and sues. Maxamegalon2000 05:14, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

• Keep - the nominators deletion arguments are faulty:

1. NPOV - according to the guidelines of neutral point of view for Wikipedia All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), representing fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. The way the cases are presented does not indicate a breach of the neutrality guidelines of Wikipedia as they are a simple summary of the case that can be found in most legal journals or records. While there were entries that had weasel words and poor structure, a quick edit negated those. The nominators claim that the article is a NPOV fork is thus groundless.
2. Notability - While some of the cases are trivial in nature and do not warrant inclusion, there are several cases that appear to be precedent setting in there nature. A search of the web reveals notability fairly easily. The trivial cases should be edited out and the pertinent ones expanded on. The article very easily meets the four standards of notability.
3. The nominators linking of these two policies, WP:NPOV and WP:Note, as a valid justification for deletion is erroneous. If a subject is meets the four standards of notability, it is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. It is then the authors duty to insure that the information is then presented in such a way that it does not violate the standards of neutrality, as well as demonstrate what makes the article notable. To claim that the subject an article violates the standards NPOV because is not notable is, for lack of a better term, ludicrous.
4. Legal cases are not criticism. They are, by their very nature, disputes between two parties that needs to be resolved in a structured legal forum. Criticism is a party or parties stating an opinion that may or may not be legal in nature. There is no redundancy as they are not same thing, and folding this article into the Criticisms article would not be appropriate as such.

This is the wrong forum for this discussion. The article should be tagged for cleanup and citations, and the primary author should be given time to properly copy edit the article and structure it in summary style. The claims of legal land mine and lack of rating and quality scale by 23skidoo and DeadmanUndertaker are not valid policy based arguments justifying the deletion of this article. The claim of WP:Not by Matthew Brown is a valid point, but it can be addressed by surgical edits to the article removing the trivial cases, as stated earlier. Regarding the calls to incorporate this information into the main article, based upon the size of the main article, ≈80 kb, it is justifiable that information such as this be split off from the main article. In order to keep the main article at a more manageable size, around 50 kb per Wikipedia standards, this article should also not folded back into it.

Because of the wording of the comments made by the nominator about the disputed nature of this information, it also appears that the nominator may also be slightly biased against the primary author or the contributions made by the author. This is only an observation on my part, but it should be taken into consideration because it could be coloring the nominators view and preventing him from making a qualified judgment in regards to this article. The two users are in the middle of an ongoing edit war over a content dispute at the main Tesco article. This AfD is the result of it. Nothing personal with the two contributors, but I must suggest this AfD be put down until such time that the two can come to an agreement or a third party can truly moderate a compromise. I personally agree with WikIdea per my comments above. --Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 17:06, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

You have mistakenly separated points 1 and 2, when they are in fact linked. It is the listing of minor cases as a separate article that is a violation of NPOV, it has nothing to do with how they are worded. The creator, despite invitation at the main article, and now yourself, keep asserting that some are notable, without indicating which ones. Please list them, and why - note the section Tesco#Tesco litigation that already exists. Other sections in Tesco clearly need separating out before this one does if size is the only justification for this fork. Point 3. is just semantics, and is not a justification not to delete this title, plenty of people would have no problem in classing legal action against Tesco as criticism, not that it needs to go into that article anyway. Afd is certainly an appropriate venue when the article's creation is an attempt to circumvent discussion of the material at the main article. I will point out again that the user was advised to highlight the notable cases not included at Tesco for discussion. His response was this 100% cut and paste re-creation of the already rejected material. MickMacNee (talk) 17:59, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Could you please point out the policy in the MoS that states grouping similar information together is a violation of NPOV so that I may review it and make an educated comment? Also, please explain why the section Tesco#Litigation still exists in an article that has grown above the 80 kb limit. Why has that article not been split into its own article per the size guidelines using the method set forth in thesummary style guidelines? Why should that section remain in the body while others are more worthy of a split?

As to notability, cases mentioned in the first section of the article are several that strike me as conforming to the standards of note; a Google search of at least two of those generated several thousand hits relating to the cases, so I am sure that you could all work on citing them properly. --Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 00:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

(indent) Grouping together insignificant case information would be a violation of the principle of undue weight portion of the NPOV policy, specifically, the minority viewpoint being pushed here is that any and all legal cases involving Tesco/A.N. Corporation are worthy of note. Secondly, I ask again for you to list the cases that are notable, if they do not include the cases already referenced in Tesco#Tesco litigation. As already said at length, the cases with purported notability should be highlighted and justified on the talk page to be considered for inclusion, a process that was recommended and ignored by the re-creation of the entire rejected section as a separate article here. The size issue is irrelevant as to whether this article is deleted, its deletion from the main article has already been endorsed, and there are obviously other sections of Tesco that should be forked first before the remaining litigation section. MickMacNee (talk) 12:00, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Rejected by who? You? Hahaha. Wikidea 20:47, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

In fact the creator asserts above that every one of the cases is a precedent as it stands now. That is just clearly wrong. MickMacNee (talk) 18:03, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

With all your eminent legal expertise, it should be then easy to explain why these cases (I challenge you to name any single one) are not precedent. But I expect you can't. Wikidea 20:47, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Completely at random, the top one in the list. What is the legal precedent set down in that case? MickMacNee (talk) 21:14, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I would be very surprised if any of these cases set any legal precedent, let alone all of them. The Health and Safety cases especially are trivial. Man slips on crisps? Child walks into door? Piece of wire found in food? Er, no. Black Kite 21:18, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

You have taken a content dispute to an AfD discussion. This is neither the place nor the time. If that is the case then you, as the nominator, are clearly suspect in your motives. You two should refrain from commenting as you are clearly biased. Please comment only on the merits of the discussion. Jeremy ( Blah blah...)

• Delete The trivial and run-of-the-mill cases can be stripped out per WP:NOT#IINFO, and if anything else is really encyclopedic enough to be mentioned in the main article, then it can be. Black Kite 21:18, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Please note that the main article is already at 80 kb in length and the addition of a complex legal section could push it over 100 kb. The article is in desperate need of an bold editor who can do what needs to be done to bring the thing under control. --Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 04:24, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Put comments and replies on talk page. Sorry Black Kite, but even though you're an administrator, it doesn't look like you're any better a judge than some of the other users. You wouldn't believe how complicated slipping on crisps etc and wire found in food can be. Wikidea 22:27, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

And another thing Black Kite, looking at your interests - trains - it would be just as easy to say the same thing as all those above have about them. How would you respond if I said "all those trains from the British Rail corporate liveries should be scrapped, because really it's all irrelevant toss. You've seen one train you've seen them all!" I think you'd reply that I was being rather ignorant about the subtle differences between train models. Well that's precisely what's going on here with these legal cases. Wikidea 23:11, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Well if there is some incredibly important precedent being set in one of these cases, then it would be useful to actually explain that in the article, wouldn't it? Otherwise there is nothing to distinguish it from being another person-falls-over-sues-store case. You can't just list a whole shedload of cases, claim that they set a precedent, but not explain why. Also I'd sort out your civility problems while you're there, too, because an attitude of "I'm right and you're wrong because I know more about this subject" isn't particularly appealing, and it's Wikipedia policy that is being discussed here, not the finer intricacies of Health and Safety Law. Black Kite 09:39, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Don't get sour. It's okay to be wrong sometimes. Just so long as you admit your mistakes, and then correct them. I don't apologise for knowing more about this subject than you, because clearly I do. That's why I write about it. But the difference between you and me is that I don't purport to pass judgment on subjects of which I have no knowledge. I try to learn first, often from online encyclopedias. So are you going to change your mind, and get rid of your misconceived advocacy of deleting this interesting article for lawyers? I expect you won't, because now your pride is at stake. But prove me wrong, and show me you're better than the one who nominated this article in the first place! Wikidea 11:16, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

See, that's where the problem lies here. I'm perfectly knowledgeable enough to pass judgement, because it's the relevance of the article in terms of Wikipedia policy that is the only issue here, and that's something I am certainly familiar with. Having said that, I'm always perfectly prepared to change my mind; if you can produce relevant information that shows why these particular cases are notable, I'll certainly consider it. Black Kite 12:33, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

As I said above, I have already posted responses on the talk page. I could do the same for every single case. You're absolute, this is about policy: (1) notability (2) neutrality. If it's neutrality, then it needs a neutrality tag and people to say what's not neutral, rather than the other way around. If it's notability, then I think I've already shown why I'm correct, and this page is notable. Wikidea 13:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

But you're still going to need to explain why each case - not just one or two - is any more notable than the many other similar cases. And this needs to be in the article, not on a talkpage. (I note that one case does appear to have some element of precedence, but that one has its own article). Black Kite 14:20, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I'll do that for this law article, if you do it for your train article. Wikidea 18:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

A far better use of your time would be to go back and read WP:NOTE, WP:NOT#DIR, WP:INTERESTING and WP:NPOV, since you clearly don't understand the concepts that we are dealing with here. Oh, and WP:CIVIL. I won't comment further. Black Kite 18:56, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Good.Wikidea 09:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

• Comment Not every case cited is notable because those settled or decided at first instance are only persuasive precedents and would not pass WP:N on their own, and there really is nothing to be gained by mentioning them at all, as any large company gets involved in litigation at that level. Of the others, if they set out novel interpretations of the law (as the Nattrass case did), they should be able to stand on their own as articles within WikiProject:Law or within a legal topic. There is nothing here of the notability, say, of the McLibel case, and the only linking fact is that Tesco was a party in all these cases. One might think that this was a somewhat indiscriminate collection of cases with no obvious point in mind. Outside the context of writing a law-based article, to make these cases notable enough to merit inclusion would require multiple, reliable, secondary sources, and I don't see any. --Rodhullandemu 20:50, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

So it's plain that this is not at all a deletion debate for the article. If anything it's about what should be included. And Mickmacknee, who nominated it in the first place was just pursuing a sour grapes agenda. What a waste of time. Wikidea 23:40, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Only up to a point. I think WP:NPOV is a bit of a red herring here; articles on Microsoft and McDonald's deal with major litigation which has been reported outside the hallowed halls of justice (where I have long since ceased to tread), and reporting facts can never be POV unless it is done indiscriminately to make some point. I'm not saying that is the case here, because I can appreciate both points of view in what is essentially a content dispute between two editors. That is why I made a comment rather than a vote for delete/keep. Both sides of the case have merits. However, the issue is what is appropriate for Wikipedia. Certainly, WP:NOT includes "indiscriminate lists of information", which the minor pieces of personal injury and Employment Tribunal litigation would appear to me to be as they are of little value legally or otherwise. As already pointed out in my original comments, if a legal decision involving Tesco is sufficiently important as far as legal precedent goes, arguably it deserves its own article, and may be referred to from the main article, or a subsection thereof, but certainly not lumped in for a purpose which as far as I can see, has not yet been made clear. --Rodhullandemu 00:37, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

See the prior discussion and the main article's litigation section. MickMacNee (talk) 00:49, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I already have, since I don't believe in going naked into the debating-chamber; and the third opinion, which I tend towards agreeing with. If only it had ended there. --Rodhullandemu 00:55, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

• Delete: Violates NPOV and is not encyclopaedic. Where are pages regarding Asda, Sainsbury's etc.? Welshleprechaun (talk) 23:56, 4 June 2008 (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.