Talk:Senior station inspector

Is this article, as it stands now, more a definition or an entry?

The following is a discussion between Huaiwei and myself regarding this article. Other comment would be appreciated. My comments will be indented and in italics for ease of flow.

Discussion

I know newbies tend to exhibit some kind of enthusiasm which is good, but you might want to hold your horse when tagging Senior Station Inspector to be a Wiktionary candidate. It was only 6 minutes old when you tagged it, so give it time.--Huaiwei 13:42, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Then perhaps you can educate me. Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia, is it not? If that is so, then the ranks of the police force should be in the Singaporian Police entry, which it is. Is Senior Station Inspector a rank used in more than one country, similar to "General?" If so, that I would agree with you it needs its own entry. However, as the article stands now, it is an office exclusive to one body, which itself has an entry. It is a definition and it is already in Singapore Police Force here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Police_Force#Ranks. The entry gives no further information than is in the list. Further, even if it were to, I believe a very strong case could be made that the duties of a SSI or any other Singaporian police officer belongs in the SPF entry, not their own.

Newbie or not, this is not an example of misplaced enthusiasm but an example of trying to prevent wikipedia from being cluttered. I am not for deleting for the sake of deleting, but I would like to hear a justification for making this its own entry when it alread exists. Thank you. Avi 15:18, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

If the fact that supposedly only one (we have yet to prove this) country uses the rank in question is the main reason for you calling for its deletion, then mind commenting on Assistant Chief Constable, Assistant Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, Chief Constable, Commissioner of Police (Hong Kong), Commissioner of Police (Singapore), Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, Deputy Chief Constable, Deputy Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, New York City Police Commissioner, Police Commissioner of Mumbai, etc, all of which would also have qualified for deletion based on your self-imposed criterion?--Huaiwei 16:02, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I think that there is a lot of redundancy and extraneous information here. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a vast repository for trivia. If there is something special or unique about the positions that lends itself to an article separating it from others of the same name, I can understand that. Many of those articles also link to holders of the office; something I may not add to wikipedia, but notable in their own right. However, and article like this: Police Commissioner of Mumbai is also a definition, and depending on the outcome of our discussion, I think that should be tagged as well. I am not fond of articles like this either: Assistant Chief Constable. I think it should be a section under Policing in the United Kingdom.

Do you plan on expanding the SSI article, or leaving it as a one-sentence entry? If the latter, what is your justification for leaving it on its merits, not a comparitive argument from other articles that may share the same issue? Thank you for responding. -- Avi 16:16, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

As I said earlier, you tagged an article which was 6 minutes old. Wikipedia grows best with community contributions, and this does not always happen in 6 minutes. Of coz when I created the article, I have no intention to keep it as a one-liner entry (else I wont have bothered added a stub notice). That said, you appear to have this impression that even if the article becomes 3000 words long, you are still going to flag it for deletion by calling it a "definition". Where do you draw the line between a "definition" and an encyclopedia article? Also, can wikipedia article not start off as one-liner stubs before they see glorier days? I seek your comments on these.--Huaiwei 16:32, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that here is where my respective new-ness came into play; six minutes is a bit too new. However, I guess I fit most closely in the Deletionist group, in that I would rather throw out some wheat with the chaff; especially as I am sure that any such wheat will be posted again very shortly.

Regarding the difference between a dicdef and an article, yes, size does have what to do with the matter. If germane content of significant size, more than a few sentences, can be added, it does lean towards it having article potential, and it should be treated more as a stub than a def. There is no single line; personally, I make that decision individually on each article. For example, an article about a specific person, once (potential) notability is established, is more likely an article than an entry about the particular meaning of a Sudanese noble title, which should be under Sudanese Noble Titles, IMO. Of course, I am just one voice among hundreds of thousands, as every one else is. The idea is that the collective decisions of a group of intelligent individuals will rise above the indivudual decisions of each member. Of course, this could just be the argument of Eventualism vs. Deletionism, but that would be oversimplification :-).

In a nutshell, where I draw the line is different than where you do, is different that where everyone else does, which is why we have these conversations and we both come out the better for it. I think that it may be beneficial if we continue this discussion on Senior Station Inspector's talk page. I am going to take the liberty of transferring this discussion there. Once again, thank you for the frank and cordial discussion, it is appreciated :) Avi 21:16, 25 January 2006 (UTC)