Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Use of force doctrine in Missouri


 * 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. After two relists I think we have heard all the points there are likely to be raised. The argument for deletion is weak and the consensus does appear to be Keep. The question of a move or rename of the article can be handled elsewhere. --MelanieN (talk) 01:54, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Use of force doctrine in Missouri
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

I don't see how this is notable at all. I could see how Use of force doctrine in the United States might be notable, but not an article at the state level. In any case, there seems to be very little Missouri-specific material here. StAnselm (talk) 21:36, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Missouri-related deletion discussions.  Rcsprinter123     (push)  @ 21:54, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions.  Rcsprinter123     (quip)  @ 21:54, 12 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment: No opinion, at least as yet, on the merits, but this was kept at a previous AFD under a slightly different title (before a page move) – Articles for deletion/Use of Force Doctrine in Missouri. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 22:16, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep for all the reasons given in the last AfD and more. This topic satisfies WP:GNG and WP:LGNC. There is Missouri-specific material that isn't present in the article but could be added. To argue that Missouri law is inherently non-notable because it is state law is nonsense because of (a) the large number of publications specifically about Missouri law, including what look like massive encyclopaedias of Missouri law (Missouri Practice Series and Vernon's Annotated Missouri Statutes); and (b) the size (in terms of population) of Missouri and the degree of autonomy it has to make its own laws. In any event articles of this type never get deleted on grounds of notability because there is always a suitable target for merger and redirection, so this nomination is effectively a merger proposal. James500 (talk) 13:26, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
 * What would be the target? Use of force doctrine in the United States? I could see the possibility of a page move there. As for coverage, the only reference I could see in Google Books was this one. StAnselm (talk) 19:41, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The obvious target for merger would be Use of force or a broader article on Missouri law. This article does contain material relevant to, but not present in, Use of force, which should preclude deletion altogether, this being a plausible redirect. Alternatively, the move you proposed would be a possibility. In addition to the sources mentioned in the article and during the last AfD, searches for extracts of section 563, for example, bring up many results in GNews and quite a few in GScholar and GBooks. In GBooks, for example, you missed Vernon's Annotated Missouri Statutes. I appreciate that Google has difficulty sorting the wheat from the chaff, but the sources are there. James500 (talk) 12:27, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
 * Keep: The suggestion that state-level law is not at all notable is odd. The law on use-of-force in the United States is highly heterogeneous across states, as are nearly all subsets of the law. There may be a handful of states with insufficiently developed use-of-force law to fill an article. And there may be states with no noteworthy instances of police use-of-force. Missouri does not fall into either of these categories, given directly relevant statutory law and the notorious Shooting of Michael Brown. The article certainly needs revised to include a discussion of state-specific law and perhaps removal of the general federal law. But deleting the article entirely on the grounds that state law is not noteworthy would be foolish. Osuadh (talk) 07:27, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, &mdash; kikichugirl  speak up! 01:27, 20 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment: I do not understand why the original name of the article (Use of force law in Missouri) wasn't changed to Use-of-force law in Missouri since:
 * 1. For grammatical correctness, it is the compound adjective "Use-of-force" that modifies the noun "law".
 * 2. The article pertains to use-of-force law in Missouri in general, not limited to only legal doctrine/common law.
 * Can anyone shed some light on this issue? Djbaniel (talk) 14:09, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, -- Sam Sailor Talk! 08:00, 27 February 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.