Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fire Service/Archive 4

Coordinators' working group
Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. &mdash; Delievered by §hepBot  ( Disable )  on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 05:25, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Steam fire engines
FYI, just created a category for Steam Fire Engines over at Commons. All pics but one (so far) are steam-powered, horse-drawn pumps. Would make a nice article (and hence provide a commonscat link to the category!)

Cheers -- EdJogg (talk) 01:39, 3 March 2009 (UTC) -- sorry, not watching this page

Article alerts
This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the  parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:09, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

Problems with Devon & Somerset and Cornwall articles
Both Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service and Cornwall County Fire Brigade (which incidentally isn't tagged by this project) contain huge sections which are simply duplications of much of the content in Fire apparatus. I feel strongly that duplication is a bad thing and should be removed and replaced with wikilinks to the appropriate articles. Can some experts from this project please take a look at both articles, including their talk pages and take any appropriate actions - including shooting me down in flames if you think I'm wrong. --TimTay (talk) 21:15, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Notability of Fire Departments
Does this project have a notability guideline for Fire Departments? Is every local volunteer fire department considered inherently notable, or do the general guidelines of WP:Organization still hold? I ask this because I have nominated Patterson Heights Volunteer Fire Department for speedy deletion as a non-notable organization, and its author has contested under the reason of "there are other fire department articles on Wikipedia". WikiDan61 ChatMe!ReadMe!! 17:48, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * There are not notability guidelines, but we can certainly looks at WP:Organization and/or create our own and get concensus. Personally, I would argue that certain departments are in fact more notable than others. Most major metropolitan departments (FDNY, LAFD) are notable based on their size or for certain significant incidents that they have mitigated. Other, smaller departments would be notable for the same reason (i.e. The Arlington County Fire Department in Virginia was the primary fire and EMS provider to the Pentagon on 9/11). Any other thoughts from members? --Daysleeper47 (talk) 01:59, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Most fire departments have lots of trivial local coverage, in the context of newspaper articles on fires. Many of them are governmental organizations. Some get profiled in non-trivial ways--books, documentaries, fictional portrayals. Here's my initial thoughts on notability:
 * If a local/municipal or rural fire department doesn't have sufficient coverage to meet either the organization or general notability guidelines, then articles should be merged into the parent governmental organization or the locality which they serve. That is, even if a volunteer fire company is private, it exists inside and responds to emergencies within a particular county, parish, etc.
 * If a fire department is the focus of a major, notable creative work--fiction or documentary, film or written, that fire department is notable. FDNY, LA County, etc. all pass this without anyone having to think halfway hard about it.
 * In between those two extremes, there's a lot of middle ground. Charleston is tragically notable, as is Baltimore.  Line of duty deaths do tend to get a lot of coverage which goes into the culture, organization, and leadership of the local department.  Tragedy sells.
 * Major metro areas--Dallas, Seattle, Denver, Chicago--where there are hundreds of firefighters, dozens of stations, and scores of staffed apparatus, are more likely to be notable than smaller departments, but I don't know that there is a hard and fast rule on which are and why.
 * I don't recall seeing any fire departments proposed for deletion. Frankly, I think a lot of content we have under the scope of this project gets a "pass" from the deletionists, compared to other areas such as fiction, religion, or politics, because everyone loves us. :-) I don't think that's necessarily a good thing, because I think that many of our articles could  benefit from the scrutiny, sourcing, and cooperation needed fight off AfD's . Jclemens (talk) 19:39, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

new UK article that needs help
I saw this come across Special:NewPages. Can one of you folks take a look and keep/improve/delete as necessary? I'm watching the article but not this page, so please give me a talkback if necessary. tedder (talk) 23:57, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Fire appliances of the United Kingdom

New fire gallery at commons
commons:Category:Smolenskaya Square (Moscow) fire of May 11, 2009 - report of an actual fire / firefighting episode. NVO (talk) 02:49, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Current wildfire in Alaska
Just started yesterday. Mile 17 fire. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:18, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

2006 Kolkata leather factory fire GA Sweeps: On Hold
I have reviewed 2006 Kolkata leather factory fire for GA Sweeps to determine if it still qualifies as a Good Article. In reviewing the article I have found several issues, which I have detailed here. Since the article falls under the scope of this project, I figured you would be interested in contributing to further improve the article. Please comment there to help the article maintain its GA status. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 07:07, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Make a New Infobox with freedoms
I don't like the current Infobox for the firefighting. It doesn't have the freedom to add info like adding facilities data; not able to name the units to different terms; slot for joint departments; extra web link slot; and a slot for other languages title. It be nice if some could make more freedom for future and current pages about departments. Rasseru (talk) 04:43, 19 August 2009 (UTC)