Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Police memorabilia collecting


 * 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. Here is hoping that the article soon be sourced... Randykitty (talk) 21:43, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Police memorabilia collecting

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Prod declined without meaningful rationale. "This is a very niche hobby that sadly fails WP:GNG. The title of this article doesn't seem to appear anywhere outside Wikipedia. The article seems like pure WP:OR, and given the lack of references, nothing can be rescued by merging." I'll add that BEFORE failed at locating any source that mentions this term in scholar/books and even regular web search gives nextr to nothing useful. A related term "police patch collecting" is used on the web but also very rarely, and patch collecting is in terrible shape too so merge there won't help much (GIGO...). If there is any other term, shrug, I couldn't come up with it and nobody bothered to mention it in the article. Lastly, the talk page is interesting and suggests this page was created and warred over by a few collectors who had better things to do than sourcing this, stressing ORish nature of this super niche topic. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:51, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  02:51, 29 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep. And don't PROD articles like this. That's for useless articles that probably nobody is going to support but don't meet CSD standards. If you think that no one is likely to support a large complete article on an activity that a lot of people do... you are way wrong. "Super niche topic" is no kind of rationale for anything. Half our articles are about stuff more obscure than this. Per Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, "Wikipedia... incorporates elements of general and specialized encyclopedias" and stuff like this is exactly what you'd find in specialized encyclopedias. Here is a book "Law Enforcement Memorabilia Price and Identification Guide" which is a specialized encyclopedia. And Encyclopedia of Federal Law Enforcement Patches so's this. There're others. Whether they have any general information about the hobby useful for the article I don't know, but most probably. Here's an article in the St Louis Post-Dispatch, "Police memorabilia collectors share badges, stories in St Charles". That uses the term right there, but if you don't like the article name, suggest a different one rather than deleting the article. Here is the Santa Maria Times with "Police memorabilia collector/s show nearly doubles in size". The Police Chief has "Each precinct will contain a trading area for those interested in adding special items to their police memorabilia collections" (can't read more), so apparently this is something supported by police departments. There's the basis for your article right there. But I mean, beyond that, it's abundantly clear that a lot of people are doing this -- there are scores of google results of commercial sites selling this stuff. You can assume that a fair number of people are going to be interested in it. It's getting eight views a day... mnmh that's actually pretty low, but still not nobody (I have seen worse). And it's a typical hobby like collecting other stuff, not something outside the pale of reasonable things for us to write about about. So I mean I would think the approach would be "Here's a notable worthwhile subject about something that lots of people do. Let's find a way to have an article on it.". We are here to have articles, not not have articles, within reason. There's a bunch of threads on the talk page, so editors are interested in the topic too. (Mnmh, and the talk page has "This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 August 2019 and 5 December 2019" so there's some snob appeal if we need it.) Yes the article has no sources, but I don't think the editors writing it were just making all that stuff up. So the sources for that must be somewhere. There's no reason to believe it's not true, so while ref'ing is important and necessary it's not super urgent. It'd be OK to tag for refs and come back in a few years and check it out. And anyway the sources I've given are enough to support an article anyway. Why are people wanting to throw away people's hard word that readers want. I don't get it. Herostratus (talk) 07:01, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * N.B. Oh I noticed just now that nominator is User:Piotrus. Hi, User:Piotrus. So now I get what's going on here. I don't have stats on how often User:Piotrus PRODs good articles (although I have a pretty good idea), but editors' AfD stats are public: here are User:Piotrus's nomination states, and here are his "vote"ing stats. Whether people want to look and them and draw any conclusions is up to them. Herostratus (talk) 07:59, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * You can review Piotrus's PROD log. You will find that many entries are blue links, having been caught by PROD patrollers such as myself – for example, see Yahoo (Gulliver's Travels).   If you notice any red links which seem erroneous, you can ask for reinstatement at WP:REFUND. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:40, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * No I can't. I'm wayyyy to busy for that and its not in my wheelhouse. Instead, we all count on the system to work. I didn't know there were PROD patrollers, but of course, and that's great (and seriously, thank you!), but isn't that kind of a backstop. The first line of defense would be people not PRODding articles that shouldn't be, and editors being engaged and educated if there's a pattern showing more enthusiasm than mastery in in that area. Herostratus (talk) 15:35, 29 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Books that people seem to use for this:
 * Yes, neither of these come up from a search based upon anything in the article. &#9786; And the real reason that this shouldn't have gone through Proposed Deletion is that it went through it before, and was challenged, back in 2007. Uncle G (talk) 12:09, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, neither of these come up from a search based upon anything in the article. &#9786; And the real reason that this shouldn't have gone through Proposed Deletion is that it went through it before, and was challenged, back in 2007. Uncle G (talk) 12:09, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, neither of these come up from a search based upon anything in the article. &#9786; And the real reason that this shouldn't have gone through Proposed Deletion is that it went through it before, and was challenged, back in 2007. Uncle G (talk) 12:09, 29 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep The page currently focusses on two aspects - badge/patch collecting and police museums. Here's examples of sources which demonstrate the notability of these and other similar aspects:
 * The Pocket Guide to Collecting Police Badges and Patches
 * Encyclopedia of Federal Law Enforcement Patches
 * Sheriffs' Insignia of the United States
 * Police Buttons (volume 2!)
 * Oxford Truncheon
 * Police museums: A comparative approach
 * Representations of Women in Canadian Police Museums
 * A Guide to the Archives of the Police Forces of England and Wales
 * Preserving Police History
 * Me, I have a classic Metropolitan Police Whistle (right) which I shall be keeping handy now when patrolling! Andrew🐉(talk) 12:40, 29 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep. Police memorabilia collecting is a real hobby, with clubs and institutions established for it. For example, https://www.picaa.org.au/, https://www.pcnews-online.com/. Steepleman (t) 13:49, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep, a notable hobby, plenty of WP:RS available as pointed out by and . SailingInABathTub (talk) 13:55, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep per Herostratus, though I can't say I'm unendingly happy about the dig on the record, which is a blunt instrument at the best of times (although in this case perhaps very blunt indeed). This definitely shouldn't have been prodded, though, and I'm a little surprised the BEFORE couldn't turn up anything -- there's blatantly a lot going on sourcewise. Vaticidalprophet 14:08, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes you're right, mainly because I made a fair enough case without getting into that, which wasn't kind or necessary. So mea culpa. On the other hand, I'm just really frustrated. I never come to AfD -- just felt like it today -- and it's not my job to deal with patterns. That doesn't mean they don't exist and shouldn't be talked about. We don't have elephants in rooms in the Wikipedia. Herostratus (talk) 15:35, 29 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete: per nom, term and most of the content seem to be WP:OR, fails WP:GNG CommanderWaterford (talk) 22:00, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * :It's plausible the topic may be notable, given the titles of sources like American Police Collectibles or The Pocket Guide to Collecting Police Badges and Patches, but it would be good to check they are reliable (not self-published by some collectors). Other sources seem somewhat off-topic - Encyclopedia of Federal Law Enforcement Patches seems like it would support the notability of the topic of police patch etc., not of collecting them, unless it has an entry for the phenomena of collecting? Same for works on Sheriff's Insignia of the United States or Police Buttons. However, CommanderWaterford makes a critical point that this article is currently pure WP:OR from the early days of Wikipedia, and as such merits a WP:TNT treatment, unless someone feels like verifying the claims inside? - GizzyCatBella  🍁  12:06, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
 * While trivial mentions, here are some further uses of the term in reliable sources - St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Antiques Trade Gazette, Boston Globe, Liverpool Echo, Fox23 News, Colorado Springs Gazette. SailingInABathTub (talk) 12:27, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
 * , Nobody claims the phenomena doesn't exist. But for it to remain here we need WP:SIGCOV no 'trivial mentions'. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 07:57, 1 May 2021 (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.