Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Escambia County Sheriff's Office (Florida)

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 no consensus. I see support here for practically every outcome possible, merge, keep, delete and redirect. After reading it all I cannot see any consensus at all in this discussion, but this closure does not prevent any merge discussions from taking place on the relevant talk pages to try and reach consensus. Davewild (talk) 07:44, 3 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Escambia County Sheriff's Office (Florida)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Article subject does not meet WP:GNG per WP:ORGDEPTH: I could not find any references that establish notability. As of now the article is just a directory of information, which Wikipedia is not (WP:NOTDIR) —Мандичка^YO 😜 18:07, 9 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 18:55, 9 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Florida-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 18:55, 9 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 18:55, 9 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Keep. Satisfies GNG due to extensive coverage in GBooks, GNews (I count about twenty sources in the first and more than 650 results in the second) and elsewhere. This article does not satisfy any of the criteria of NOTDIRECTORY. It isn't a list (criteria 1 and 4), a genealogical entry (2), a collection of contact information (3), a sales catalogue (5) or an un-encyclopedic cross categorisation (6). "Directory of information" is gibberish and I don't see how this article could possibly be characterized as a "directory" in any meaningful sense of that word. We certainly don't delete an article because it is a collection of information, because all encyclopedia articles are collections of information. I'm fairly certain that the nominator has no idea what the word "directory" means. The Compact OED defines it essentially a list of people or bodies with contact details. This article isn't one, and there is no reason why it should be either, in view of the sources available. As a obvious redirect, with mergeable content, to Escambia County and Escambia County Sheriff, this page isn't eligible for deletion under any circumstances, and should not have been nominated (WP:R). AfD isn't for merger proposals. And that is exactly what this is: a merger proposal masquerading as an AfD. If the nominator wants to merge articles on police agencies into the areas they police, he should do so through the normal channels (Wikipedia:Proposed mergers), instead of wasting the time of the AfD volunteers, as there is zero prospect of any of these articles being deleted under existing guidelines, because we don't delete mergeable content or plausible redirects. I hope this recent spate of hopeless nominations will now cease, and that these merger proposals will be sent to the place where they are meant to go. James500 (talk) 20:45, 9 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There isn't "zero prospect" of these articles being deleted - see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barnstable Police Department. —Мандичка^YO 😜 12:03, 21 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comparing a small town police department with a large county sheriff's department is not comparing like with like. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:38, 21 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Wikimandia: The result in that AfD is what is known as an 'outlier' or 'fluke'. Obviously incorrect results do unfortunately happen at AfD. Frankly, that particular AfD should probably be sent to DRV on grounds that consensus is not a 'head count', and, in this respect, during the AfD, it was pointed out, correctly, that the guideline WP:R required redirection, and no valid counter-argument (nor any counter-argument at all, for that matter) was offered by anyone, and thus consensus was for redirection and was not assessed correctly. I'm afraid I don't have the time or patience to send it there myself. James500 (talk) 17:55, 21 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Off-topic discussion

OK you really need to familiarize yourself with WP:ORGDEPTH in particular. Just because there are multiple results in a Google search does NOT satisfy the requirements. Do you understand this? If you want your vote to actually mean something, then provide the links that you say support notability instead of just replying to all of these AfD and saying "I googled it and there were results that I found so therefore it's notable! I found (X) results so that means notable! And I'm not going to link to a single one as proof because they are all proof!" It's right there in the WP guidelines that this is totally insufficient to establish notability. It's pretty obvious you're having some trouble understanding GNG as a concept, or you know what the guidelines are and you don't care, or, even more entertaining a possibly, you're just trolling. —Мандичка^YO 😜 02:23, 10 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You know perfectly well that is not what I said at all. You know perfectly well that I said that the topic satisfies GNG because of the "extensive coverage" (in other words significant coverage) contained inside those (independent, reliable, secondary etc.) sources, and not because of their number alone. You know perfectly well that a closing admin would not have the slightest difficulty understanding that is what I was saying there. You know perfectly well, because it has been explained to you over and over and over again, by myself and others, that, under the guidelines, there is no need to provide a webliography of links to sources that come up immediately with search engines like GBooks and GNews, for the benefit of those who don't know how to use Google. You know perfectly well that, notwithstanding this, I did provide a set of links, immediately before the text of my !vote. I understand GNG better than you. I am more familiar with ORGDEPTH than you. You know perfectly well that I have not ignored any guidelines whatsoever. You may however, wish to read the policy Wikipedia:Ignore all rules, and discover that it says that editors can ignore any policy or guideline that prevents them from improving or maintaining Wikipedia (not that I have any need to invoke that policy in this case, your arguments having no sound basis whatsoever in those guidelines). I would be grateful if you would simply refrain from making absurd accusations of trolling on any occasion whatsoever in future. And I absolutely cannot fathom what you mean by linking that last comment of yours to List of people known as the Lame, or why you would find that "entertaining", whatever that means. James500 (talk) 22:36, 10 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

James500 You either don't respect the WP:GNG or don't understand (I'm not sure which would be worse) as evidenced by what you post on all these AfDs. I and many others have told you over and over that there is no inherent notability for municipal organizations such as police departments. You very well know that and you acknowledged that yourself when you wrote on the Org Guidelines that you don't agree and wanted that changed (and then you also claim here that the Org Guidelines are "a mess" and are "under discussion" (because you started one) and it seemed it hadn't "reached a consensus" (because nobody was agreeing with you. You're not "ignoring all rules", you're just refusing to follow ones you don't like. And I will say yes, I have absolutely no confidence that you understand the definition of "extensive coverage" or "significant coverage" is, as you've failed to supply one single example. I'm wondering if you don't even get how this forum works, as evidenced by your decision to vote KEEP on an article that was a blatant how-to/advertisement (and was speedily deleted as one), saying you didn't understand why they were saying that it was How To/Ad, and that you were going to vote KEEP to "balance out" their DELETE votes because you said were cast based on "manifest nonsense" ... oh yeah ... and claiming the spam article was referenced because it linked to a law and all laws are right and therefore reliable (even though the article was not actually citing the text of the law at all, but using it to disguise that it was an ad! ... Even though they were probably using Google Translate, nobody else was pretending that was a legit reference.) So, either you actually don't know how to verify references, or you don't understand why verifying a reference is a step you need to take before you claim it's a valid reference... or you know very well it's required but because you believe "ignore all rules" applies to every single thing you do on Wikipedia, you will not be partaking in that particular step. Either way, I'm starting to think that perhaps AfD is not the right place for you to contribute to Wikipedia and if others have the same opinion. —Мандичка^YO 😜 16:24, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry but I simply lack the patience to deal in detail with irrelevant and misleading comments about what I may have said elsewhere. Suffice to say that I don't agree with your interpretation. For one example only, saying that I disagree with certain aspects of ORG is not the same thing as saying that I intend to ignore it. Do you understand the distinction? In any event, I haven't proposed to ignore ORG here. Likewise, if I recall correctly the discussion of AUD, and certain other parts of ORG to which I referred, in another AfD, which is not relevant, part of which is now archived, was started by CT Cooper months ago, and not by me, as you claim. And ... I could go on but I'm not going to. If you read the edit notice that appears when you try to edit an AfD, you will find it says something to the effect that commenting on other editors, instead of the article, is considered disruptive. In view of that, I would be grateful if you would simply stop commenting on me, as it is not even relevant to the article that is supposed to be the subject of this AfD. You would not like it if I was to search through your contributions for any editing that I disagree with and present it as evidence of 'incompetence'. And I don't want to do that either. And you cannot ask editors to leave AfD because they are more inclusionist than you would like them to be. If editors came here and !voted "keep per SCNR", something I have never done, that would be perfectly fine, though their arguments would likely gain little traction and be accorded little weight. It would be no worse than !voting "delete per MILL", as happens all the time, which essay is equally at odds with the real guidelines. In order to determine consensus, editors absolutely must say what they really think. Some editors, for example, faced with this AfD would actually insist that GNG was satisfied by the number of news results alone. I would not endorse them, (I would invoke NRVE ("likely to exist") instead, which would be applicable), but I would not pretend that there is a rule against advancing unorthodox or unpopular arguments, and start demanding that they leave AfD forever. If other editors do not agree with my assessment of notability, they will come along and say so, so what I say doesn't really matter anyway. But I don't think that is likely to happen, because, in truth, topics with many hundreds of news sources are rarely deleted or merged, despite the fact that, in practice, the outcome of an AfD primarily depends on who !votes in it, as evidenced by the lack of consistency in results. (Guidelines are also meant to be descriptive rather than prescriptive). So, instead of continuing this irrelevant argument ad infinitum, why not just wait and see what other editors think? I personally really do not want to reply here again. James500 (talk) 03:18, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to Escambia County Sheriff and possibly and possibly Merge to the article. If RS shows that it can stand alone, I will have to agree with the idea of keeping the article. Wikic¤l¤gy^{t@lk to M£} 23:53, 13 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Selective Merge to Escambia County, Florida, which presently only mentions the agency. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 22:51, 16 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 00:49, 17 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Any law enforcement agency with 650 employees is easily notable enough for an article. In fact, Escambia County Sheriff should be merged into this article. We usually have articles about the department, not the chief. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:58, 19 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Please familiarize yourself with the guidelines. No group, or company, or agency is automatically notable because of the number of its employees. —Мандичка^YO 😜 12:07, 21 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Please try not to patronise a very experienced editor who is completely familiar with Wikipedia's guidelines and is giving his considered opinion as he is perfectly entitled to do in an AfD! I consider large law enforcement agencies to be inherently notable. I also consider this to be common sense. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:34, 21 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 03:48, 24 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

~~Keep Law enforcement agencies of a town are very notable, and it has received significant coverage like this in reliable sources.~~ SilverSurfingSerpant (talk) 11:30, 25 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Struck content from confirmed sock above, per WP:SOCKSTRIKE. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 11:11, 31 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - As a local branch of government, there's no inherent notability, per WP:NPOL #3 "Just being an elected local official...does not guarantee notability". The county sheriff is (usually) a local elected officer. Most of these would never get any in-depth coverage, law enforcement is taken for granted, no reason to write about it, except if there's something very wrong. In the list at Escambia County Sheriff there isn't a single blue link. Kraxler (talk) 23:56, 1 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: WP:NPOL applies to individuals. This article is not about an individual. James500 (talk) 18:38, 2 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per our usual outcomes. See, e.g., Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Genesee County, New York Sheriff's Office. We usually keep those larger sheriff's offices, but not always. I think at 650 officials, in an exurban area, would be notable. Bearian (talk) 19:47, 2 June 2015 (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.