Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/New Bedford Police Department


 * 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 redirect to New Bedford, Massachusetts.  MBisanz  talk 03:06, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

New Bedford Police Department

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Non-notable police department in a relatively small city. Mellowed Fillmore (talk) 04:57, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Massachusetts-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:19, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:19, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:19, 7 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep. Preposterous nomination. Satisfies GNG easily and by a wide margin due to the very large number of detailed sources in GBooks and elsewhere. Being "small" (which is an expression of the nominator's subjective personal opinion: it is actually relatively large with budget of $15m) doesn't make it non-notable. Not even theoretically eligible for deletion as a plausible redirect (and merge) to the area it polices (WP:R). James500 (talk) 20:18, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep per James500. Nonsensical nomination as the subjective opinion of the city size in which the topic serves in irrelevant to notability.  Plenty of sources indicate passing GNG abound. --Oakshade (talk) 21:35, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 *  Speedy delete + redirect - first, article is just a skeleton and a bad one at that - there is no intro, not even a link to the actual town, and poorly formatted. One of the only two sections is the address of the police stations. And the article is three years old, so it's not like it's under construction. In no way does the article even attempt to satisfy WP:GNG; there is one primary source (PD website) and one to a memorial database of officers who have been killed in the line of duty, as a source on the officer killed in 1955 (which does not establish notability for the PD itself). I agree that the size of the town is totally irrelevant; it's about whether it meets the requirements for GNG. My search does not result in "very large number of detailed sources" (of which none are referenced in the article). Most are related to various officers who worked there, which does not establish notability for the police department itself, or your typical budget allocations, etc. Basic WP:MILL.  and, you both make mention of extensive coverage, but you have not put them in the article nor even linked them here to prove they exist. As far as I can tell, everything can be perfectly well covered at New Bedford, Massachusetts (which already contains an adequate section about the police and fire departments).  —Мандичка YO 😜 21:56, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Speedy is out of the question at this point as SNOW is not existing here and there are no slanderous BLP violations. The current state of the article has nothing to do with GNG. WP:GNG states, "Notability requires only the existence of suitable independent, reliable sources, not their immediate citation." --Oakshade (talk) 22:04, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * : It qualifies for speedy delete under WP:A7. There's just nothing there to support a claim of notability. The only real content of the article is the 1955 death of an officer; which fails to establish notability for the department. Infobox is entirely WP:MILL. And as I said, I bothered to search and found nothing. It's not sufficient to claim the existence of reliable sources; if they do in fact exist, why don't you cite them? —Мандичка YO 😜 22:48, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:MILL is only an essay, and it happens to be a load of nonsense that bears no relation to the actual notability guidelines. Coverage of police officers attached to the department, acting in that capacity, is coverage of the department, which is its members. To treat them as a separate topic would be bizarre, because they are obviously not. It is the officers who can't inherit notability from the department. In any event, there are plenty of sources about the department as a whole. And they are not just budget allocations either, though those would be fine as long as they are not published by the department itself. Such as the sources relating to the famous and significant case concerning their minimum height requirement. And I don't need to prove the existence of sources that come up immediately with a search engine. The links are at the top of the page, following the words "find sources". If you don't like the sources that come up, for example, in GBooks, you should go through all fifty of them one at time, and tell me what is wrong with them individually. Or I can return the favour by saying that you haven't offered links to the individual sources to prove the generalisations that you are making. It goes without saying that none of the criteria for speedy deletion (WP:CSD) are met. No sizeable paramilitary organisation is going to fail A7, and certainly not a police department. A7 is for articles about editor's pet cats, postman, or local corner shop. It is for topics that have zero chance of being considered notable by any established editor. Fifty sources in GBooks is a clear giveaway that A7 is out of the question. A much smaller number would suffice for that. James500 (talk) 23:14, 7 May 2015 (UTC) As for the criticism that I haven't added sources to the article, not only is that irrelevant to notability, but I'm afraid that the size of the WP:MASSNOM is so large that, so far, I have actually barely managed to even !vote in all the AfDs, never mind expand umpteen different articles at once, because the size of the nomination makes that impossible. It would take weeks to expand all those properly, even if I was doing nothing else. James500 (talk) 00:33, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:A7 wouldn't apply as being the police department of the city of New Bedford is a claim to notability.--Oakshade (talk) 00:17, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * A7 applies as nowhere in the page is there an assertion of significance. Regardless of whether it qualifies for speedy delete or just delete, it still fails GNG. No organizations are inherently notable (WP:ORGSIG). Being the police department of the city does not in any way establish notability (WP:NRV: No subject is automatically or inherently notable merely because it exists). Notability is not inherited nor is it achieved by relationship to a notable organization/event/person etc. On its own, the police department would not be any more notable than the town's post office, its city council, its railroad station or the red fire hydrant on Main Street. Having an officer killed in the line of duty does not in any way establish notability for the police department itself (WP:INHERITORG).  I'm not going through every link and analyze why it fails. This is not how Wikipedia works. Once content has been challenged or deleted, the burden falls solely on the people who want to keep it/reinsert the information to prove it belongs: WP:PROVEIT. We're all here willing to be convinced, so please provide the references to support your claim that the police department has received long-term, non-trivial, significant coverage in secondary sources  as required.  —Мандичка YO 😜 01:18, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * "The New Bedford Police Department is a law enforcement agency serving the city of New Bedford, MA". That's the claim to notability.  Whether you think it passes GNG or not is a different matter, but it's definitely not a A7 candidate.--Oakshade (talk) 02:35, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * - That's not correct at all. Simply because something exists does not make it notable. WP:NRV —Мандичка YO 😜 14:37, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * That's more than "something exists." I guess we differ on what is a claim of significance.  I think being the police department in New Bedford is significant and already A7 doesn't apply.  You do not.  Speedy deletion is not going to happen here nonetheless. --Oakshade (talk) 15:02, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * : As I said, I don't care if it's deleted or speedy deleted. In fact I changed my comment to a regular delete. Now please explain to others why it should not be deleted at all. You claim it is significant because it exists; even though over and over and over in the guidelines it says this is not an acceptable reason. Please reread WP:GNG: You must supply proof that it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. I'm not quite sure why both you and refuse to do this. If this is your first time participating in an AfD discussion, please familiarize yourself with the general guidelines at WP:WHYN. Unless you can supply the required sources, this article will simply be redirected to the city article, where there is already a paragraph for the police department.  —Мандичка YO 😜 16:06, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Those words, that you give in italics, do not appear anywhere in WP:GNG. Nor does it contain any words that could be interpreted as having that meaning, even if one was to use techniques of interpretation to twist the meaning of the words to breaking point and then to some considerable distance far beyond. WP:NRVE says the exact opposite. I see nothing in WP:WHYN that could possibly impugn the notability of this department. (I think it is also worth pointing out that WHYN is at most describing GNG, not creating additional restrictions. What it says would not be, for example, an accurate description of the various SNG. Not that that is a factor here). Please read WP:N more carefully. I don't need to supply anything else to prevent redirection. For your information, this is not, as you suggest, my first AfD; I have participated in 384 AfDs to date, which is a lot more than you have, and I am (unfortunately) so familiar with the relevant guidelines that I can recite them backwards. Oakshade has participated in 2233 AfDs, which is also more than you have. James500 (talk) 21:34, 8 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Reply to the above: WP:PROVEIT only applies to "content" in articles. The topic of an article is not content. That is why we have a CSD that classifies blank pages as "no content", notwithstanding that they have a page name that identifies a topic. When we deal with notability of a topic, which is not content, the burden of proof is reversed by NRVE and BEFORE, which say that sources need not be cited to prove notability, and those arguing for deletion must look for sources and confirm their non-existence (which means providing a satisfactory explanation of what is allegedly wrong with any apparent sources). The reason for this is partly to prevent mass nominators demanding a webliography as a time wasting tactic, with the object of making it impossible to !vote to keep more than a small fraction of the articles so nominated. A police department is more likely to be notable than a 'peaceful' organisation. The town post office, railroad station etc are less likely to be notable in that they don't run around the streets with guns, forcing people to do things they don't want to do at pistol point. Violence, whether lawful or not, is more notable than peaceful activities. A paramilitary organisation that exceeds a certain size and/or level of activity will be notable. INHERITORG is not applicable because coverage of the activities of member of the department acting in their capacity as members is reporting activities of the organisation. The coverage is not inherited at all, just because the officers are mentioned by name. It is coverage of the department. What cannot be inherited is coverage of activities of members of the department acting otherwise than in their capacity as members of the department (eg if one of them was to get coverage for winning the lottery). But that is not what we have here, as far as I can see. A7 is not applicable because being a police department is a credible claim of significance and importance. As for inherent notability, NRVE, after saying it doesn't exist, immediately allows a form of inherent notability, namely, the nature of the topic is such that adequate coverage is likely to exist, possibly offline. (Did I mention that town police departments are likely to receive 'significant coverage in independent, reliable, secondary sources' and therefore can never be deleted per NRVE?). And the words "merely because it exists" do not include inherent notability for some reason other than existence, such as size. Many SNG have criteria for forms of inherent notability, even if they don't call it "inherent". ORG itself is a mess, has been under discussion for some time, and appears not to reflect consensus. And the main policy of the project WP:IAR, has always allowed inherent notability where necessary to avoid absurd deletions, and, being a policy, trumps the notability guidelines. So we do allow inherent notability. And all this discussion of inherited and inherent notability is completely academic because ... this department clearly satisfies GNG anyway. James500 (talk) 04:25, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Articles count as content. Again I am asking you to please post the references you claim exist. There is no inherent notability in a police department.  —Мандичка YO 😜 14:37, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Pages (including articles) are not content. A blank page is not content. The page name is not content. The topic of an article is not content. "Content" means, at most, the text inside the page that can be accessed with the "edit" and "view source" user rights. I have discussed this extensively with many others at the talk page of WP:V and the consensus was that the correct interpretation is as I describe it. (The discussion arose, IIRC, partly from the AfD of SUBST). I am not going to post a link to every single source in Google Books that comes up on a search for "New Bedford Police Department" or "New Bedford Police". You are quite capable of finding those yourself. James500 (talk) 21:34, 8 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete/redirect fails WP:GNG. Elgatodegato (talk) 19:36, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to New Bedford, Massachusetts. No independent basis for notability other than as part of New Bedford.  Insufficient content to justify splitting it out. TJRC (talk) 18:51, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Merge per . This department is not so notable in southeastern Massachusetts, or the nation for that matter, to be notable in itself. On the other hand, it's bigger than some other peace officer agencies that we have kept. Bearian (talk) 14:13, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Merge to New Bedford, Massachusetts § Government. North America1000 03:17, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment In July 2010, New Bedford Police Department (Massachusetts) was created by User:JITIC, and was redirected to New Bedford, Massachusetts a month later. In 2012, the same user recreated the page with a slightly different name, and there we are again... Kraxler (talk) 21:45, 16 May 2015 (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.