Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/National Police of Panama


 * 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. One of the "Delete" opinions is not supported in any way by policy, and while I'm sympathetic to the opinion expressed in the other two those concerns can be addressed with less dramatic measures, such as cleanup or stubifying out the machine-translated rubbish. Lankiveil (speak to me) 08:59, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

National Police of Panama

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

As background:- This is one of the 3,583 articles created by machine translation using the content translation tool prior to July 2016. There was a community discussion in which it was decided (1) to disable the tool on en.wiki and (2) to pass a new, temporary criterion for speedy deletion at WP:CSD, to enable the removal of these articles. The community accepted that many of these articles are fixable and properly-translated versions of them do belong on the encyclopaedia; but the community felt that machine translations are not reliable. Copyedited fixups of machine translations are also unreliable unless the person who has done the copyediting has dual fluency in the source language as well as English and so can confirm that the script has preserved the original meaning in the source language. Since that time I have been slowly grinding through the 3,583 articles listed here. Unfortunately in the case of this article the speedy deletion was declined, and my prod was unwisely removed with the inaccurate statement that there is "no good reason for deletion", despite extensive community discussion and consensus to the contrary. So now I need to ask the community to enforce it via AfD. I want to be clear that this translation is fixable for someone with dual fluency. I could fix it. But the effort involved is utterly disproportionate when these articles were created by scripts, and I'd like to finish this job at some point and I'm hoping to retire in 20 years. So I need the extraordinary measures the community has authorised to be enforced. Help me AfD, you're my only hope! — S Marshall T/C 17:50, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:12, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:12, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Panama-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:12, 11 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. I have copy-edited the first few paragraphs and hope to continue. Accordingly, the article is no longer eligible for speedy deletion as a machine translation. Eastmain (talk • contribs)
 * Great, would you like me to withdraw the AfD for a couple of weeks while you finish the job? Quite happy to do that if you do intend to fix it.  Could you just confirm that you understand the source version in Spanish?  The reason I ask is because translation scripts can pervert or even invert the meaning of the source text so we do need a Wikipedian to accept responsibility for the accuracy of the translation.— S Marshall  T/C 22:30, 11 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. The topic itself is clearly notable. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:56, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * That's never been in dispute. It doesn't address the reasons for deletion in any way.— S Marshall  T/C 18:22, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Of course it does. AfD is for articles not notable enough for inclusion, not for cleanup. -- Necrothesp (talk) 00:17, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
 * It's not about cleanup, though. I know the discussions and consensus I linked to in my nomination statement are long and involved, and it's possible that you haven't read them carefully?  It's about translation errors, which boils down to verifiability.  The basic question in this AfD is can a Wikipedian verify that the script has produced an accurate translation of the source language text?  I've already offered to withdraw the AfD nom if a Wikipedian will take responsibility for making sure it's accurate.  I don't trust the script to do it.  Google translate specifically disclaims any responsibility for it.  Literally the entire content of the page is unverifiable unless and until someone with dual fluency in English and Spanish checks it.  And I've linked to the very full and complete discussion in which the community decided that it would be disproportionate to ask editors with dual fluency to check them individually before deletion.— S Marshall  T/C 18:28, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
 * It's very simple. AfD is for deletion of articles on topics which are not notable. Even if this article was reduced to a stub the topic would still be notable. Its existence is clearly verifiable. Ergo there is no reason for deletion of the article and bringing it to AfD was unnecessary. You could have just reduced the thing to a stub and saved us the trouble of discussion. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:12, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
 * That's not really right, though. In most cases topics that aren't notable shouldn't be deleted.  They can typically be redirected somewhere; see User:Uncle G/On notability for a lot of nuanced thought on this.  AfD is for content that's irretrievably bad: WP:TNT cases.  In this case I would agree with you that a short, sourced stub or a redirection to Panama are reasonable outcomes, after the existing content has been deleted in accordance with the consensus.— S Marshall  T/C 17:36, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, –  Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 00:33, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete. Fails WP:GNG. This is the English Wikipedia. Might be notable in Panama and the Spanish Wiki, but not here. SW3 5DL (talk) 18:40, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * ...SW3 5DL... that's... not at all how this works. Timothy Joseph Wood  20:10, 19 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep I showing 5k+ results for Policía Nacional de Panamá in news. There's another 100 for Panamanian National Police in English. The biggest issue that needs addressed here is whether the correct translation is Panamanian National Police or National Police of Panama, and which one of those should instead be a redirect. Timothy Joseph Wood  20:21, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * ...TimothyJosephWood. . .this. . .is how it works. WP:GNG. Find some we can all see and it can stay. Google searches don't count if you don't show the sources. And then perhaps improve the article. SW3 5DL (talk) 20:30, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * No, what I mean is that your argument makes no sense on its face. Non-English sources are permitted on Wikipedia. If a subject is notable on the Spanish WP, its actually an argument in favor of the generally notability of the subject, because subjects are not selectively notable by language. Timothy Joseph Wood  20:47, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's notable. Yes, there are sources.  Clearly, Wikipedia should have a well-sourced article on the police force in Panama, and that's never been in dispute  I said as much in my nomination statement.  The argument for deletion is that this content --- this unverified, machine-translated garbage generated with a couple of mouse-clicks --- is not a useful step towards that goal.  Between the two of you, you've already done far more towards generating the article the encyclopaedia should have than the "author" of this "content".  Shouldn't we clear up his litter?— S Marshall  T/C 21:04, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I honestly don't see a good reason not to stubify with an expand tag at the very least, or to see if anyone wants to expand the portion that can be included in that stub, plus whatever sources we have that are in English. I have posted on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Latin America to see if anyone is interested. The Panama WikiProject unfortunately seems pretty dead. Timothy Joseph Wood  21:22, 19 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete. Nobody disputes that the topic is (probably) notable. The problem is that the content is almost entirely worthless machine-translated garbage. Keeping the article up in this state actively damages the quality and usefulness of Wikipedia. Unless somebody wants to userfy and entirely rework it, it should be deleted.  Sandstein   08:22, 27 January 2017 (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.