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This is a small-town police department whose article does not indicate its notability. Rather than do a full WP:AFD which will result in the complete loss of this information I will be redirecting it to Anthony, Texas shortly. Feel free to revert, but if you do and do not improve the article to establish notability, be prepared for an AFD. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 18:42, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Police departments are generally not notable unless they meet WP:Notability or a specific notability guideline. Normally lack of notability would be grounds for deletion, but because other editors may want to put some content in Anthony, Texas, preserving the content is useful.

Note: I previously boldly redirected the article, but another editor objected on the grounds that the department had suffered a line-of-duty death.

If this discussion does not get enough participation, a more formal review or even an WP:AFD with a recommendation of revert-and-lock rather than delete may be required. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:52, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Both articles are a bit of a mess. The target article is full of unencyclopedic information better found in a local map or phone book, and the PD article also has some issues where users have tried to include a little too much content. Wikipedia is generally not a memorial, and line-of-duty deaths are best recorded on a memorial site rather than here - unless the event where the officer lost their life was a notable one which respectfully is not the case here. That is not to say it can't be mentioned, but not too much information outside a history section. Of this article, a number of sections could be amalgamated or removed. However given the unwieldy jumble that the target article is, I may lean slightly towards avoiding a redirect - lest we cripple a bit of a mess with another less of a mess. SGGH ^ping! 10:09, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Reply The issue isn't the quality of the article, but the notability of the subject. I could make a near-featured-article-quality article on a local high school athlete, lacking only non-local, non-trivial references to reach FA status, but it would still fail notability standards and likely go down in flames at WP:Articles for deletion. Being an incorporated city, Anthony, Texas will survive any challenge to WP:Notability. Also, the police officer in question, Ernesto Rascon, already has an article. Whether that person meets Wikipedia's notability guidelines or not is for another discussion on another day - he is clearly locally notable, he's even got a local baseball park named after him, but local notability does not Wiki-notability make. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 15:06, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Such was not my point, I am merely discussing the mechanics of a potential merge. SGGH ^ping! 17:33, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment I can see no compelling and genuine reason to delete. WP:ORG suggests that we do, but that's written with commercial organisations in mind. This is a standalone not for profit agency, with a verifiable existence, whose article can only do good. Keeping it causes no damage to anyone; with a quick cleanup it'll be fine - but deleting it would weaken our encyclopedic coverage with no positive end result. If we were to use the hedonic calculus then it'd be a no-brainer. ninety:one 19:33, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks. I would dispute that this is a stand-alone agency, at least no more than any other municipal police department is. In my mind, the question is: "1) are municipal police departments pretty much automatically notable, and 2) if not, is there something about this police department that makes it so?" Your answer seems to answer question #1 with a yes. I'm not sure what the current consensus is on question #1 but a year or two ago it was "no" for smaller departments such as this. Consensus can change. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:57, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• These debates come and go all the time. Partly my fault I suppose due to my dramatically reduced wikitime, but Wikipedia:Notability (law enforcement agencies) lost its momentum. Perhaps we need to get it going again? In any case, it might be useful here anyway? Based on Wikipedia:Notability (law enforcement agencies) the article just scrapes in - it is just barely (death in line of duty) a bit more than a directory entry, but it is border line. Some of the content borders on "overdetail/fancruft".

Personally I think it should stay. Any police agency or unit has a significant impact on its community, especially over time, and is far more notable than the vast majority of no hit wonder music groups, horse jockeys, never heard of by nearly absolutely everyone or quickly forgotten sports people, etc. but Wikipedia:Other stuff exists . . . Peet Ern (talk) 08:47, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are we prepared for WP:CREEP? If the community really wants to have all police agencies that have something, even a single event, that gained non-trivial media attention outside their local area, then every medium-sized and larger police agency that's over 50 years old will probably qualify, along with a lot of smaller or newer ones. If that's what Wikipedia editors want, then we should get busy creating those articles. But be prepared to have the same discussion for fire departments, minor state-level agencies, and the like. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 14:01, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Call me an inclusionist if you will, but I see no reason to limit articles on government agencies - no-one stands to lose a thing. ninety:one 18:20, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, how long before we get Antony, Texas department of animal control? *joke* davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 19:08, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good point actually - generally towns this small won't have them, and if they did there almost certainly wouldn't be enough content to justify an article. PDs and FDs are different though. ninety:one 19:16, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]