Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Deputy Assistant Commissioner


 * 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   keep. Consensus is fairly clear here. A merge discussion can continue elsewhere, but there's not any consensus to do that here, either. Courcelles 21:50, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Deputy Assistant Commissioner

 * – ( View AfD View log )

No significant coverage provided and no evidence that I've managed to find (and I have looked!) to demonstrate that the role/rank has been discussed directly and in detail by any third-party sources ╟─ Treasury Tag ►  presiding officer  ─╢ 13:51, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Redirect or smerge to Deputy Chief Constable; no real reason to have seperate article for what is essentially the same thing under a slightly different name. Yunshui (talk) 14:34, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. It is evident that neither of the above editors have actually bothered to read the article. While a DAC wears the same rank insignia as a DCC it is a completely different rank with different responsibilities (it is the fourth highest rank in the Met, whereas a DCC is the second highest rank in a provincial police force). The article discusses the development of the rank, which is unique to the Metropolitan Police, and is part of a series of articles on British police ranks. The development of Met ranks is complex and I fail to see how deleting or merging this article would benefit Wikipedia. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:51, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * It is evident that neither of the above editors have actually bothered to read the article. WP:AGF would seem to apply here. While a DAC wears the same rank insignia as a DCC it is a completely different rank – please contradict me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe I every suggested otherwise. I simply said that the rank DAC has not been discussed directly and in detail by multiple reliable sources. Unless you can provide any such sources then your comment is essentially a classic WP:ITSNOTABLE argument. ╟─ Treasury Tag ►  District Collector  ─╢ 14:56, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Sources added. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:08, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * You are surely not suggesting that those sources ( viewable here for those without other access ) are "direct and detailed coverage" of the concept of a DAC? They're short, minor observations at best. ╟─ Treasury Tag ►  Counsellor of State  ─╢ 15:22, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * And you are surely not suggesting that WP:N is that proscriptive? What you basically appear to be saying is that useful, factual, accurate, sourced information should be removed from the encyclopaedia simply because nobody has in the past written a long article or book specifically about it. How sad that anyone should suggest that this should be the case. If you were suggesting a merge then it wouldn't be so bad (although I'm not sure what it would be merged to), but you actually seem to be suggesting deletion. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:35, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * And you are surely not suggesting that WP:N is that proscriptive? I'm suggesting that, if the article doesn't meet the general notability guideline's minimum threshold, it should be deleted. Of course I am. What you basically appear to be saying is that useful, factual, accurate, sourced information should be removed from the encyclopaedia simply because nobody has in the past written a long article or book specifically about it. Our notability policy is based upon coverage, not upon usefulness or factuality or value. So in essence, yes, that's more or less what I'm saying. How sad that anyone should suggest that this should be the case. WT:NOTE is where you should propose any changes to our current policy. You actually seem to be suggesting deletion – indeed I am. ╟─ Treasury Tag ►  co-prince  ─╢ 15:41, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but your interpretation of the guidelines is unnecessarily rigid. You seem to be applying dogma in a way that can only damage Wikipedia. You seem to be treating the deletion of valid information as a good thing. Very, very odd. You are aware that WP:GNG is a guideline, right? Not a policy? That it is not in any way set in stone? In any case, is there really that much "direct and detailed coverage" of any police or military rank? Most of them are covered only peripherally in works on the organisations in which they exist. Maybe therefore you'd like every rank article deleted? Why single this one out? -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:35, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * You seem to be treating the deletion of valid information as a good thing. What qualifies it as 'valid'? Truth? Then I'll create an article about the time I cut my knee last week. It's interesting? Debateable in this case, but anyway irrelevant to notability. You are aware that WP:GNG is a guideline, right? Not a policy? Personally, I feel that this is a pretty ropey argument for keeping material which is in no way notable. Maybe therefore you'd like every rank article deleted? Maybe. But 'other shit exists' is also a fairly unimaginative argument. ╟─ Treasury Tag ►  quaestor  ─╢ 15:52, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions.  -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:39, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions.  -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:39, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions.  -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:48, 18 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep as notable. The rank is frequently referred to. There will have been endless documents and reports discussing Metropolitan Police structure, many of which will not be on-line but which will be publicly accessible. The objection is, I think, that they are not 'third-party' in that they have been produced as part of the process of government or within the police and police organisations themselves. But that is the way the public services function. Typically the press will do little more than recognise a change (the days when the Times acted as a paper of record in the old sense are gone and no other commercial publication has taken over that role) and there is often no commercial market for publications about these things because the information is readily available from public sources. If we say that everything produced within the public sector about the public sector does not count for notability, then we are creating an institutional bias within Wikipedia against coverage of the business of government. But when police ranks, or public bodies, or official apppointments or whatever else are referred to as they often are publicly, then it is the business of Wikipedia to provide a source of reference. --AJHingston (talk) 15:51, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, what is all this "keep as notable" business about? Here at Wikipedia Towers, notability is defined as "a topic that has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." As you have said, there are no third-party reliable sources which discuss DACs directly and in detail. Unfortunate, perhaps. A result of rapid technological change, whatever. But it's nevertheless true and nevertheless problematic. ╟─ Treasury Tag ►  secretariat  ─╢ 15:55, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * What do you define as "significant coverage"? WP:GNG states that it "is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material." An article in an encyclopaedia and several articles in The Times seem to be significant enough to me. They may be on the short side, but they are not trivial. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:00, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I would define "significant coverage" the way that WP:GNG defines it when you aren't selectively quoting from it, Necrothesp. The part you accidentally (?) forgot to mention reads, "sources that address the subject directly in detail." ╟─ Treasury Tag ►  constabulary  ─╢ 16:03, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * No, I didn't forget to mention it, accidentally or otherwise. The subject is addressed directly in all the sources I have mentioned and it is addressed in detail in at least two of them. The guideline specifies no minimum length for allowable sources. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:08, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Well you didn't mention it, instead choosing to quote only half of the relevant sentence. I wonder why you made that choice then. ╟─ Treasury Tag ►  prorogation  ─╢ 16:42, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * A lot depends on what is meant by 'independent of the subject'. If independence means having no link at all - ie because the Metropolitan Police are publicly funded and answerable to government, then any source related to government or police does not count - of course you automatically rule out most sources which discuss the matter in detail. But I don't think the policy intended that. Most public bodies, for example, as organisations, will only be discussed in detail in official sources of one kind or another. The fact is that the holders of the post of DAC are referred to frequently in the media by virtue of their office. The reliable source on what that office actually consists of, the case for and against having it, etc is invariably from official sources (where do the press get any information?) --AJHingston (talk) 16:56, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I didn't mention it because it clearly didn't need mentioning. Stop throwing snide accusations around. -- Necrothesp (talk) 22:20, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - seems well-sourced to me. MikeWazowski (talk) 16:02, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Which of the sources listed do you think qualify as significant coverage? ╟─ Treasury Tag ►  constabulary  ─╢ 16:03, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep as per AJHingston and WP:IAR, WP:BURO, WP:UCS --DeVerm (talk) 16:11, 18 July 2011 (UTC).
 * So are we going to delete ever article on a police or military rank? Of course this article should not be deleted! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.154.178.138 (talk) 17:48, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * 'Other shit exists' is a really bad argument. ╟─ Treasury Tag ►  voice vote  ─╢ 17:58, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - simply see no apparent reason that would justify deletion or merging.--BabbaQ (talk) 18:39, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep This rank needs explanation for readers of the likes of the Brian Paddick article and is regularly mentioned on British and London news. It is not immediately self-explanatory and does not have a direct equivalent in other forces as far as responsibilities are concerned.--Peter cohen (talk) 19:34, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep The notability guidelines advise me to treat them with common sense. When I do this I find the topic of the article is clearly and definitely notable. The verifiability policy requires the information in the article to be verifiable and, because there were no references at the time of the AfD nomination, this aspect could have been properly raised: if no significant information was verifiable the article should be deleted. However, the references now provided show there should have been no such doubt. The references are entirely adequate and appropriate for the content of the article. Thincat (talk) 22:19, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Merge - To the 2 main proponents in this discussion, I suggest step back and take a breath (as well as AGF in eachother). I find it highly suspect that a book such as this even only makes 1 mention of the rank. If a 'source' only makes a single mention of the rank, the it is NOT being discussed or described in any depth, which is required by WP:N. Doing a GSearch for ' "Deputy Assistant Commissioner" "Deputy Chief Constable" ' has the odd result of ONLY 114 hits, which tends to make me think both terms are used interchangeably (either correctly or incorrectly). Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 23:39, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Completely incorrectly, I'm afraid! Which surely proves the value of this article? And as we all surely know by now, Google searches are an incredibly poor way of proving notability. You are quoting a book written for people who want to join the police force; it is only natural that a rank seven above the joining rank, which only a minute fraction are ever likely to reach, is not described in any detail. -- Necrothesp (talk) 23:58, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok then if your not happy with that book, why does a Independent Review of Remunerations and Conditions (dated Mar 2011) of each rank only have 4 minor mentions of this rank?? of them 4 mentions, nothing about the rank is described. (Please be careful, I know you are passionate but everyone has an article they have created called up at AFD, even me). Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 02:11, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh good grief. Now you're quoting a report on pay to justify why an article on a rank should be merged? Why on earth should it discuss a rank in detail? It says what a DAC is paid. What more do you expect it to say? Does it have detailed histories of every rank? No. Yes, a DAC wears the same rank insignia as a DCC. That doesn't mean he is a DCC. The role is completely different. The DCC is the deputy commander of his force; the DAC is not. The DAC's rank has an interesting history completely different from that of a DCC. I'm curious to know in what way you think a merger would benefit Wikipedia. If it's just for dogmatic reasons (GNG says...) then I would point you to DeVerm's comment above. Wikipedia is about what is useful to readers, not what is written in a handful of guidelines. And guidelines are not set in stone to be slavishly obeyed. Our main consideration should always be benefit to the encyclopaedia. Neither deletion of good information nor merger to a largely unrelated article provide any benefit whatsoever as far as I can see. Don't get me wrong, I believe in deletion of rubbish and articles on truly non-notable subjects, but I don't believe in deletion of information that could actually be useful to large numbers of readers. And yes, I did create this article. That does not, I assure you, mean I would be any less passionate about AfDs on similar articles (as my edit history will show). I do not believe in wanton deletion of any article if a case can be made for its utility. Attitudes such as TreasuryTag's above comment ("Our notability policy is based upon coverage, not upon usefulness or factuality or value") strike me as dogmatic, short-sighted and bizarre in the extreme, and also highly damaging to the project. They are also not in the spirit of what Wikipedia guidelines and policies actually say. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:00, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * And by the same token, how does any of what has been presented make this rank Independently Notable and discussed "in depth"? A merger of 2 ranks that wear the same insignia would make sense, as they are equals in the same hierarchy. A dogmatic view of WP:N does, you have to admit, keep the project on track. Just because something exists does not mean that it must have an article. Nothing presented so far as I have seen, has actually discussed in depth the interesting history of this rank or what they do, only mere mentions of its existence, where it lays in the rank structure and what it pays. nothing more. Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 14:40, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * All I can say is that you're obviously reading a different article from the one I am and working on a different project with different aims from the one I am. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:11, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. And certainly don't merge with Deputy Chief Constable - they're different. (The clue is in the name!) If there potentially isn't enough material for a separate article then merge with the other Met Chief Officer ranks. And I emphasise 'potential' because several people (presiding officer, Counsellor of State and Exit2DOS) all appear to be proposing deletion based on the current content. Also, has anyone counted the number of other articles that already link to this one? Finally, many people (presiding officer, District Collector, Counsellor of State, co-prince, quaestor, secretariat, constabulary and prorogation) are proposing deletion based on dogmatic adherence to guidelines - if this produces intuitively the wrong outcome then the probability is that those guidelines (and correct me if I'm wrong, but they are just guidelines) are flawed, as I believe is the case here. (This may also give rise to any apparent weaknesses in the arguments already proposed for keeping - those people are using common sense arguments which are being attacked by dogmatic reference to procedure.) Antrim Kate (talk) 15:52, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I do not endorse a Delete. Simply because WP:ITEXISTS does not mean it should have an Article. It can be just as well described WP:WITHIN another Article seeing as only Trivial mentions about the rank can be found at this time. Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 00:58, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Accepted - my apologies - but I still say the place to merge it, if that's the outcome, would be with other Met ranks rather than with its equivalent in a provincial force. Antrim Kate (talk) 13:18, 25 July 2011 (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.