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 Merge/Redirect to Great Falls, Montana--JForget 15:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Great Falls Police Department (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

Notability especially per WP:LOCAL. There doesn't appear to be much coverage outside the regional area to make the PD notable. Appears to be a somewhat recent consensus as occured with this recent AfD Travellingcari (talk) 20:23, 2 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete not really a change in consensus--just that we are seeing more such articles. DGG (talk) 04:50, 3 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• oddly enough, that line of logic tends to point out that consensus is changing. Exit2DOS2000^•T•C• 03:30, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

*possibly, but not in the case of these two articles, neither of these were newly created. I found them when clearing the backlog Travellingcari (talk) 04:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - WP:Local is only an Essay, not a Guideline (besides, it deals with Artilces about places, not Police Dept's). Coverage in any WP:RS is stil coverage in a WP:RS no matter where it is located. 1 previous AfD does not mean a consensus has been reached on an entire topic, and smacks of Other stuff does not exist, so why should this. I see no valid reason to delete based upon this Nomination request. Exit2DOS2000^•T•C• 04:34, 5 February 2008 (UTC
  • Comment and you're entitled to your opinion. I've seen it as consensus and precedent and until AfDs start to swing the other way, I'll nominate as I do not believe any of these small town ones are encyclopedic. Travellingcari (talk) 04:53, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • And I would hope you continue to weed out the bad articles. All I ask is that you not base your Nomination Statements upon the "Local clause" of WP:N since such a clause does not exist. If the subject of an Article has been mentioned in a newspaper or other WP:RS, no matter that WP:RS's physical location, that is still a WP:RS. Exit2DOS2000^•T•C• 08:54, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Fair enough, but is the local newspaper, where by far the only place these small PDs are located independent of the source? None that I've proposed for deletion have any coverage outside their immediate metro area, and a fair few don't even have that. The vast majority include articles, "Meeting X to be held at the PD" "Officer X started his career at the PD" Nothing including reliable, notable coverage of the PD itself. Maybe I wasn't clear in the past but I still see absolutely nothing notable about these two or Rockland Paramedic Services, which was the intial one we disagreed about. Travellingcari (talk) 12:53, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • I have yet to see a newspaper owned by a police service, so yes they are independant of the source. Trying to form yourown precedent by refering to previous AfD's is pointless as, anything that can be proven by previous AfD's, can also be disprooven by previous AfD's, so I will not accept that as being relevent to anything and will always state as such. Exit2DOS2000^•T•C• 04:30, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. I'm not convinced that this police department is not notable. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:16, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per DGG; non-notable small town police department. Jfire (talk) 02:18, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, an unremarkable police organisation. Lankiveil ^{(complaints | disco)} 12:23, 10 February 2008 (UTC).[reply]
• Keep if more verifiable information can be added. Otherwise merge and redirect to Great Falls, Montana. — CharlotteWebb 12:42, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — CharlotteWebb 12:45, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Montana-related deletion discussions. -- the wub "?!" 15:26, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge/Redirect to Great Falls, Montana. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 18:50, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - NN even for section in Great Falls, Montana article. Nothing in the article recognizes it's notability, and it is sourced entirely from the town's own website. Great! That information is already on the web; it does not need to be on Wikipedia, too. --BizMgr (talk) 00:35, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • OK, lets delete all of the articles only sourced from the web. How much is left? Vegaswikian (talk) 09:20, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I don't disagree with your first statement that you're not convinced it isn't notable (although I haven't found any evidence that it is and recent AfDs have said they're not. WP:CORP even says "## Organizations whose activities are local in scope are usually not notable unless verifiable information from reliable independent sources can be found.", however I think your above comment is stretching it a little. There's a huge difference between 'sourced entirely from the town's own website' and using online independent sources to verify why Subject X is notable. Travellingcari (talk) 12:41, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • There is absolutely no difference. A RS is still as RS, no matter where the source is located. Be it here, there or from Japan. Your diminishing the validity of a source based solely on its location, nothing more. If you wish us to ignore a source of information, give a valid reason. Exit2DOS2000^•T•C• 04:13, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • Have you read the article? Every single source in this 'article' is the city's own website. There is *no way* that's independent by any stretch of the imagination and as I said above the guideline WP:CORP says, Organizations whose activities are local in scope are usually not notable unless verifiable information from reliable independent sources can be found. The city's own website is not independent, therefor it fails sourcing. To date I have found no independent evidence which is why my delete stands. As we've discussed, I understand and appreciate what you're trying to do but in this case, I think you're mistaken. If you have an issue with the guidelines, then it's an issue to discuss with guideline revision but this article as it stands does not pass WP:CORP as it exists. If the links to the city's own site weren't 404s (seen that?) I'd bet this was probably a copy/vio direct paste of the city's own website. I've read what you both said -- this article still doesn't pass. Travellingcari (talk) 04:26, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • Ok, let me get this right, as you have claimed this similar argument in several AfD's. Your contending that the Source is not independant because the city/municipality/state owns the Article topic in question? Does that mean then that we cannot use .gov websites as a Source of information in the USA Article? Browsing the Refs there, shows that 40 of the first 104 is from a .gov, are these all worthless? Should we remove them? No, because they do provide a reliable source with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (WP:RS). And, since we are more concerned with verifiability, not truth (WP:V), I would consider them an excellent source. If you can proove that, in this case, the G.F. Police Department writes the websites in question, then my argument would have a gaping hole, but thats not likely. Exit2DOS2000^•T•C• 10:16, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
            • I agree that gov sites can be used for citation. I disagree that local gov sites like this can solely evidence notability. This in the same way that I would distrust a Washington Post article about itself as a sole source for an article. In the same way that WP:Bias talks about personal notability (that if you are famous, somebody else will write about you), I believe if this Police Dept were notable, it would have source beyond its own municipal funder. Additionally, as previously noted, even if the we allowed all citation from the town's website, that has nothing to do with the AfD at hand, which is the GENERAL notability guideline, which states notability should be beyond a local scope. That level of evidenture has failed to be achieved. --BizMgr (talk) 17:25, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - we don't have a notability guideline for local governments and agencies, do we? They're either going to be de facto notable or de facto not notable. Any police department in any city of any size is going to sail through the general notability guidelines simply because it will have lots and lots of articles written about it in reliable secondary independent sources. In about 15 seconds I found this one, for example[1]. The exercise of finding fifty or a hundred more seems pointless. Until and unless we have a systematic way of dealing with this question I don't think we should be deleting local government articles on a piecemeal basis.Wikidemo (talk) 18:57, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment the ones that have been deleted so far (Rockland Paramedic Services and Gatlinburg Police Department off the top of my head, although I think there was another) have been deleted because they failed WP:ORG. WP:ORG doesn't make a distinction for government or not but WP: CORP says "Organizations whose activities are local in scope are usually not notable unless verifiable information from reliable independent sources can be found.". Can anyone argue that this police department isn't local in scope? There's nothing notable about its work, it's sourced entirely from the PD's own website which fails independence, no matter what Exit says above. The town is automatically notable per precedent but the PD? What's next? The building department? I stand by what's been said on this and other AfDs by me and others, if it's notable it should be included. I don't see it meeting WP:N Travellingcari (talk) 19:36, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, JERRY ^talk _contribs 02:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete: Just your average police dept. Nothing remarkable about it. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 03:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete fails WP:ORG / WP:N. Find multiple, reliable, independent sources that give substantial coverage to the subject and my vote will change. Even find one. That's the way the guideline works, and we shouldn't change it for articles on local government agencies. Noroton (talk) 04:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete The information can easily be incorporated into an article on the town. I see nothing to indicate this is a notable police department per all the relevent guidlines WP:N etc. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge with Great Falls, Montana. The police department is a major public service in a community, but unless it is a very large department like the London Police or NYPD, it is only of local interest. The article looks long and unwieldy to merge, but this is really because of an exaggerated use of headings. Once these are removed, a paragraph or two can easily be assembled. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:47, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete to get it off AFD. (And per Jayron32.) Open to merging with the town. Stifle (talk) 09:28, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete this cruft. Honestly, I can't imagine why we would want to start having articles on small town police departments. Guy (Help!) 12:16, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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.