Talk:WikiLaw (3)

Renamed

I'm moving this page to WikiLaw (3) for two reasons: (A) This is actually the third proposal titled Wikilaw, and (B) this is the convention used by other recent proposals [ie. NonFreeWiki (2)]. My apologies for the inconvenience. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 23:41, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Development wiki

@Capankajsmilyo, Arepticous, and Owen912: I have included my testing wiki in the proposal. I'm currently testing out an implementation of Cargo in order to see if that is a good alternative to Wikibase. A good use case of Cargo is DiscourseDB which utilizes Page Forms. It's not as bad as I originally thought, but I'm still working on ways to improve the interface. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:03, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Scope

This proposal should really clarify its scope and how it differs from the countless existing projects. Some countries have sufficiently good public systems. Others have for instance Wikisource, http://rettspraksis.no, http://juriswiki.it/ and https://case.law/ , plus several PACER "mirrors" such as http://courtlistener.com/ , http://justia.com/ , the Internet Archive etc. Nemo 20:16, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

@Nemo: It is my understanding that what separates WikiLaw from the rest is the structured data portion of it. This will not only make laws machine readable, but it will reflect the law's true nature as an interconnected and living thing always in repair. Plus, having the statutes of many legal codes in one place will allow for easier research and review. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 06:44, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

That's definitely nothing new. Please click the links and study their technology! Nemo 10:47, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

I think a key difference with this project is it won't be limited to US Law. It will attempt to encompass all jurisdictions. There are no services like that. Supertrinko (talk) 19:24, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Exactly! –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 15:25, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Government Debates leading up to statutes

I'm curious if this sort of thing would be out of scope for this project? The debates that lead up to laws passing or failing to pass? Would WikiLaw hold Parliamentary minutes showing the debates and concerns raised about new laws, debates that could end up affecting the bill before it is brought into law. I think reading such content would be valuable in terms of researching the history and intent of a law.

I think WikiLaw would be a good home to store all parliamentary/congressional/other minutes.

As an example: I could take a Bill raised in Parliament, WikiLaw would hold the initial bill, the parliamentary readings, amendments made to the bill, and the final Act that is passed into law, and then amendments made to that act in future. Supertrinko (talk) 03:25, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Note that all this is in scope for Wikisource as well, although the English Wikisource has few: s:en:Category:Parliamentary speeches. Have you tried posting a selection of parliamentary debates from some country/topic/law/whatever on Wikisource, to get an idea of how it may work on MediaWiki and what features might be interesting to have? Nemo 09:53, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

While on their own, parliamentary debates would be well placed on WikiSource, combined with the benefits of placing legislation on WikiLaw that have been laid out on this project page, parliamentary debates would be a useful addition and better placed on WikiLaw. It would assist in researching the history of certain legislation, something that is not so easily done on WikiSource, as WikiLaw would be tailored to legislation and legal history. Supertrinko (talk) 20:27, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

@Supertrinko and Nemo bis: My speculation would be that Wikisource would maintain the transcribed record of any debates, while WikiLaw would manage its position in relation to various legal database. For example, I introduce HB-555 in Congress. It gets amended in Committee, and we debate on the house floor. Finally HB-555 would become MJL's Law. Relevant items within WikiLaw's database would likely include HB-555 as introduced, HB-555 as amended, the public act, and the codified statute. A property of these items could be a pointer to the debate on Wikisource. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 06:31, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

@MJL: It's a good point. While Bills and Acts will be changing based on amendments, and therefore are well placed on WikiLaw. Parliamentary/Congressional debates and readings are unchanging, and therefore are best placed on Wikisource. I agree with this. Supertrinko (talk) 19:17, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Version Control

Wikimedia content has an inherent feature that would fit perfectly in WikiLaw. Version control. All changes that are ever made to any page across Wikimedia are extremely detailed in "View history".

Legislation is something that sort of has this, in that every Bill that becomes an Act is attributed to a member of Parliament (I'll use the Westminster system for my example, but I'm sure it applies in other systems).

Every Act could have a history page that shows which politician made each change and when. It could link to sessions of government where the bill went through its readings, the related hansard, what amendments were made, and eventually show the final bill that was enacted into law, amending another act.

Politicians themselves could have their own pages on WikiLaw, where you can research the history of Bills they have introduced, or speeches they've made (assuming we'd want government speeches included).

With this in mind, I'd suggest each section of legislation should have its own page, like what I've done with Pensions Act 1849, s2. If any amendments are made that changes a section, the section can be updated. Then pages like Pensions Act 1849/Whole display the entire legislation.

With this, you'd have a page for a section in the bill it was originally created in, then any acts that use that paragraph would repeat that text.

All this is intended to make tracking changes to legislation much easier, which I think is one of the reasons WikiLaw should be a thing. Supertrinko (talk) 21:48, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Dev wiki

So at the Development test wiki, I was able to make a pretty good approximation of what I think a page on a single section of a code would look like.

Basically, CGS 1-2z will display a reader-friendly version (mainspace) of some prominent information which is stored in Item:Q5. The mainspace page calls this information (like the text of the section) using the pre-existing parser function {{#statements:...}}. This method has the obvious limitation of not being able to store "rich text" (or mediawiki formatted code), so that will remain a challenge going forward with automatic intrawiki links which is a highly desired feature for this project.

Eventually, as will be shown with CGS 1-1, WikiLaw will be able to generate tables for certain sections which consist of multiple subsections. Likewise, mainspace pages on different legal codes will be broken up as a table into links of its constituent parts. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 04:54, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

@Supertrinko: You might be interested in the above update. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 04:57, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

@MJL:I'm liking it so far, agree that interlinking will be an essential hurdle to cross. Another thing will be making navigating older versions of acts easy (i.e. before amendments), without creating many duplicate pages of the same paragraphs. I suspect item pages may be of help there. Supertrinko (talk) 21:57, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

@Supertrinko: Btw, I've merged your wikilaw testing wiki into my testing wiki and added you as a 'crat and admin there. I hope you don't mind, but I think our efforts should be unified. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 14:07, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

@MJL: After a bit of a hiatus, looking back into this project, Curious of your thoughts on the "Item" structure and how it'd handle amendments. Take SSA 2018 (NZ) s 8, on a particular date, the legislation changed to correct a typo. And of course other amendments can be more serious. Should the version history of a paragraph all be contained within the same item page, or should different versions be their own item? I've created SSA 2018 (NZ) s 8(1) and a new "point in time" property as a test. Supertrinko (talk) 02:16, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

@Supertrinko: Hmmmm... I think the answer depends on how the items get used by the project in the end. For now, I think it works best to have the version history on the item page to let researchers easily see what the text used to look like. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:54, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

@MJL:Been doing some testing, I like how the {{#statements:...}} works. I wish though for multi-value statements, it could return just the one with a specific qualifier. I think this works with Lua, but I am having trouble getting that working on the testing wiki. Supertrinko (talk) 22:30, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

@Supertrinko: I am pretty sure you can just set a preferred value in an item on wikibase. Would that work? –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 17:54, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

@MJL: You sure can, however that's only useful if I only ever want to use the preferred value. If I want an amendment act to show an older value as at the date of that amendment, and the principal act to show the preferred value (the latest one), then I still need to be able to search based on qualifier. Supertrinko (talk) 08:15, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

@Supertrinko: Hmmm... Not sure. Maybe ask the folks over at Wikidata, English Wikipedia, or Miraheze? –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:19, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Using other wiki to power WikiLaw

A lot of the basic data we want WikiLaw to hold already exists across different wiki.

Wikipedia: First and foremost, Wikipedia holds pages dedicated to certain acts. The purpose, history, and impacts of legislation. But it doesn't hold the legislation itself, as WikiLaw intends to. Previous proposals for WikiLaw have been shot down on the basis that the idea is in the scope of Wikipedia.

Wikidata: Already on the Test Wiki, Wikibase is being used to store metadata about legislation, including potentially the structure of the law (i.e. which subsections belong to which sections, and so forth). But with an inability to hold rich text, it may not be able to hold text, which may be stored on individual pages. I assume that if WikiLaw is officially adopted, all the data in the test Wikibase would be transferred to Wikidata.

Wikisource: Here, legislation is held too, copies of entire legislative acts as at the date they were uploaded are here, reviewed by others to ensure the text is all correct. Take ws:Pensions Act 1856 as an example. It holds the act as it was in 1856. But, future amendments that changed it will have to be held as different versions, which can be unwieldy to track, and for acts like social assistance, that are amended every year but are largely the same document, means dozens of almost duplicate copies of the same text. I've faced pushback on attempts to upload documents in an easier method because it's not "The Wikisource way."

Wikimedia Commons: As part of Wikisource, original scans of legislation are uploaded to Commons, where they're then transcribed onto Wikisource. It's a fantastic way to hold original sources if they're ever removed from government websites for whatever reason. Linking to these from WikiLaw could be useful and powered via Wikidata.

I think we run the risk that WikiLaw will more be a combination of information that currently is spread across different wikis. Wikipedia/Wikidata tells us about legislation, and Wikisource/Commons holds the actual text. While WikiLaw would present that in a far more legally relevant way, it'd still be duplicate information from varying sources.

My thoughts are that WikiLaw could instead be the engine that builds pages from data that is spread across different wiki. Have WikiLaw pull from these sources to build something coherent.

Want to update who voted on a law? Go update it on the Wikidata page. The history of a law? Update on the Wikipedia. Upload the text on Commons/Wikisource and combine Wikidata with that to create sectioned pages on WikiLaw as we're currently trying to. Information on Wikisource could be machine-readable by WikiLaw if the Wikisource books make use of templates.

Basically, I wouldn't imagine much information would be specifically held on WikiLaw itself, because there's no single component of WikiLaw that doesn't also belong elsewhere. So instead of having wikiLaw duplicate what's already in the wiki space, have WikiLaw pages be automatically generated.

A wiki that you don't directly update won't be unprecedented soon. Abstract Wikipedia will be a wiki that is purely generated from Wikidata and Wikifunctions (Something else I think WikiLaw could use, more on that another time).

When you hit edit on a WikiLaw page, it should push you to a page that asks what kind of thing you want to edit. If you say you want to edit the text itself, it'll push you to the Wikisource page's edit page.

In this way, WikiLaw as a stand-alone project is stands on its own two feet as a viable product, because no single wiki offers what WikiLaw can. A free and open digital law library. And it will work in co-operation with other wiki, rather than duplicating what's already out there.

I'd be interested in hearing thoughts on using other wiki to power WikiLaw. Supertrinko (talk) 01:42, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi, @Supertrinko! I'm really interested in this WikiLaw proposal, and I very much like your perspective of WikiLaw integrating the content available from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikisource and Commons. It kind of reminds me of what Scholia does for scholarly articles (although Scholia is mostly based on Wikidata alone).

In my case I'm mostly interested in something like this because in my country, although statutes for national and large jurisdictions are relatively easy to find online, this is not the case for smaller cities and towns. Hence, I was thinking of collaboratively building a legal repository. Of course Wikisource would work for this (I've been reading your and others' thoughts about pros and cons of using Wikisource for this), but definitely something that would integrate the life of statutes (from its birth as a project, through its discussions, and amendments) and their relations with others would be great! Diegodlh (talk) 04:04, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

extended thread

Moved from WikiLaw (3)#Discussion. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 21:47, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Extended content
Oppose. There is Wikisource for this PastelKos (talk) 13:35, 1 December 2020 (UTC) @PaselKos: You really can't do something like this in Wikisource. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 23:02, 21 January 2021 (UTC) @MJL: Er, you can with the proper formatting. AnotherEditor144 t - c 12:59, 1 March 2021 (UTC) @MJL: Your example is even done in MediaWiki, so this is exactly something that can be done on Wikisource equally. You could even copy https://law.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Template:section&action=edit into Wikisource, because the website is licensed under CC-0. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 13:56, 1 March 2021 (UTC) That would completely require changing Wikisource's current configurations to install several extensions it currently doesn't have. Most contributors there would find that disruptive, I have to imagine. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 19:34, 1 March 2021 (UTC) @MJL:, which extensions exactly? AnotherEditor144 t - c 19:55, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

• @AnotherEditor144: The current testing wiki uses Cargo and Wikibase to store items within a database and call them as needed. For example, CGS 1-1 transcludes the text of its subsections from a table stored in Cargo (see page values). mw:Extension:Cargo has more info on that extension.

  We also use Wikibase for stuff, too ([1]). It helps store certain items when Cargo is found not to be useful. Since it's a testing wiki, we're still figuring out which should be used for what for optimal output. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 20:00, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

  MJL, if Wikibase can be a substitute, why not replace Cargo entirely with it? AnotherEditor144 ^{t - c} 20:11, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

  @AnotherEditor144: Wikibase has trouble automatically transcluding rich wiki text. Compare CGS_1-1j(a) and Item:Q24 to CGS_1-3 and Item:Q23. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 21:03, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘

• This thread was getting too long. Anyway, MJL, I see no difference whatsoever. AnotherEditor144 ^{t - c} 21:06, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

  @AnotherEditor144: We can move it to the talk page if you'd like.
  CGS 1-1j(a) outputs: Each state agency, as defined in section [[CGS 4-166|4-166]]... We want it to output Each state agency, as defined in section 4-166...
  There are also limitations to Wikibase like strings can't be over 400 characters (which is certainly problematic for many laws). –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 21:12, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

  That is just some wiki markup (they do the same thing). I will move it to the talk page (whose?) See you tomorrow. AnotherEditor144 ^{t - c} 21:16, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

  @AnotherEditor144: I don't think you understand me when I say CGS 1-1j(a) outputs Each state agency, as defined in section [[CGS 4-166|4-166]].... –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 21:53, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

  @MJL: what do you mean, then? AnotherEditor144 ^{t - c} 07:11, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

  @AnotherEditor144: Try to click the link to CGS 4-166 on this page. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 17:24, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

  MJL, the link works, although there is nothing significant about that. -- AnotherEditor144 ^{t - c} 19:14, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

  @AnotherEditor144: I'm talking about the red link that should exist to CGS 4-166. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 19:19, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

┌───────────────────────┘

• @MJL: Doing that kind of thing is not useful. We need an actual link there, not formatting. AnotherEditor144 ^{t - c} 19:41, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

  I guess that was the point. "Wikibase has trouble automatically transcluding rich wiki text." 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 13:24, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

  @AnotherEditor144: This^^^ –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 04:38, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

  @MJL: This? AnotherEditor144 ^{t - c} 07:12, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

  @AnotherEditor144: I'm using the word in the Internet slang sense. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 07:17, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

  Are you sure the [[]] tags actually come from Wikibase, or are you just using <nowiki> tags to keep up appearences AnotherEditor144 ^{t - c} 07:22, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

  @AnotherEditor144: I'm rather confident in that. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 16:26, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

  @MJL: What do you mean by that? AnotherEditor144 ^{t - c} 16:39, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

  @AnotherEditor144: There are no <nowiki>...</nowiki> in place on the testing wiki which could cause problems like the one currently seen on CGS 1-1h. (Subsection C in that test is the only subsection to use wikibase to store its text). –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:16, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

  MJL, okay. It just says {{{Text}}}, so I guess that was the problem. AnotherEditor144 ^{t - c} 09:02, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

  @AnotherEditor144: Well, it means that Wikibase (via {{#statements:P1}}) isn't passing through the underlying information to Cargo. If you look at CGS_1-1h(c), you will see the |text= is set to be {{#statements:P1}}, but that doesn't reflect in the page values.
  That causes a lot of problems, any potential solution on my end would likely result in a severe amount of technical debt. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 20:05, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
@MJL: Why would technical debt be so important to you? AnotherEditor144 ^{t - c} 10:15, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

@AnotherEditor144: Important to me? Well, it really isn't. However, I know the developers get upset when people create unnecessary work for them, and I don't exactly like the idea of doing something knowing that would be the case. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:16, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Web3 access

Help me with web3 connections Okenwaonyebuchi2 (talk) 10:50, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Talk Okenwaonyebuchi2 (talk) 10:53, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure you are in the right place. ~~~~
User:1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 22:48, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Woah, here's some progress!

If you take a look at these pages:

• Legislation:P.A. 00-82 (US-CT)
• Legislation:P.A. 00-82 S.5 (US-CT)
• CGS 1-1l

You'll see that there is now a method for being able to automatically pull up a statute's legislative history (?!) and to create output Public Acts via the text of its individual sections. The legislative history also appears on a public act section's page to ensure readers can get to related acts and statutes easily.

As far as I am aware, this has never been done before. Other websites simply have a reference to a given public act, but with this workflow we are actually able to give interested parties a chance to read what the original text said. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:50, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

It has now been proven possible to create chapters automatically compiled from statute sections which may themselves be automatically compiled by potential subsections. Additionally, links made to laws can be tracked and displayed by transcluding the Special:WhatLinksHere/ page. Development will need to be done to ensure links made from projectspace, et al. will not be included in the results. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 07:20, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

This is cool! Very nice work. I think legislative history will be a huge component of WikiLaw. Supertrinko (talk) 22:23, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Hyperlinking between legislation

Hyperlinking between sections/legislation is one of the biggest advantages of online legislation. A challenge I'm finding is how complex inter-legislative links can get.

Legislation links to sections within itself, and sections within other legislation a lot. It can get as complex as:

   Compare: 1964 No 136 ss 3(1), (5), 10B(5), 11(8), 11G(1), 11H(1), 20A, 39A(1), 60H(1), 60RAB(1) and (4), 61D(1), 61E, 68A(8), 80B, 88A, 126A(1), 157; 2007 No 97 s AA 3, Part Y

You can imagine the complexity of setting up something like:

   Compare: [[Social Security Act 1964|1964 No 136]] ss [[Social Security Act 1964/Section 3|3]](1), (5), [[Social Security Act 1964/Section 10B|10B]](5), [[Social Security Act 1964/Section 11|11]](8), [[Social Security Act 1964/Section 11G|11G]](1), [[Social Security Act 1964/Section 11H|11H]](1), [[Social Security Act 1964/Section 20A|20A]], [[Social Security Act 1964/Section 39A|39A]](1), [[Social Security Act 1964/Section 60H|60H]](1), [[Social Security Act 1964/Section 60RAB|60RAB]](1) and (4), [[Social Security Act 1964/Section 61D|61D]](1), [[Social Security Act 1964/Section 61E|61E]], [[Social Security Act 1964/Section 68A|68A]](8), [[Social Security Act 1964/Section 80B|80B]], [[Social Security Act 1964/Section 88A|88A]], [[Social Security Act 1964/Section 126A|126A]](1), [[Social Security Act 1964/Section 157|157]]; [[Income Tax Act 2007|2007 No 97]] [[Income Tax Act 2007/Section AA 3|s AA 3]], [[Income Tax Act 2007/Part Y|Part Y]]

It's incredibly repetitive, and doing this throughout massive acts feels like a horribly daunting task.

The text as written in legislation is supposed to be self-evident, and follows rules, a computer just needs a bit of help identifying context that we naturally perceive. For simplicity, any system we create should be able to make use of those rules to parse text and identify what things should be linking to.

Just some simple markup to recognise links (the symbols selected are entirely placeholder):

   Compare: $%1964 No 136% ss @3@(1), (5), @10B@(5), @11@(8), @11G@(1), @11H@(1), @20A@, @39A@(1), @60H@(1), @60RAB@(1) and (4), @61D@(1), @61E@, @68A@(8), @80B@, @88A@, @126A@(1), @157@$; $%2007 No 97% s @AA 3@, @Part Y@$

It's still quite convoluted, and needs work, but I think is an improvement. Essentially, anything between %% is a reference to a legislative document. Anything between @@ is a reference to a section.

By themselves, @@ will reference a section within the current document, unless wrapped in $$, in which case, it will reference a section within the act referred to within the %%.

Even typing out that explanation highlights the downside. That's quite convoluted. But on the upside, adding those symbols just to the text was incredibly simple. I just put $$ around anything that needed context (i.e. would link to one act), then put %% and @@ around specific parts.

I'm not so much recommending this particular system that I came up with in a few minutes, as much as highlighting the need for a system. Adding "smart" legislation is a monumental task, and you want to do everything you can to make it as quick and easy as possible. Otherwise, it's just not going to get done. Supertrinko (talk) 23:26, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

WikiLAW reactivating

Hi Would you be interested in reactivating WikiLAW so it does not get deleted on MH or even to advance it? Zblace (talk) 11:12, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

@Zblace: Done –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:54, 24 September 2023 (UTC)