Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Use of Force Doctrine in Missouri

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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 keep. Of all the arguments presented here, Carrite's is the strongest. We keep pages based on their coverage in reliable sources, and that has been amply demonstrated here. If there were not much distinction between Use of Force Doctrine in general and Use of Force Doctrine in Missouri, then things may be different, but judging from the comments here that doesn't seem to be the case. Whether the topic is in the news or whether other articles do similar things are secondary concerns. There was also a concern that Missouri isn't mentioned in the main Use of force article - this can be solved through normal editing. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 06:23, 22 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Use of Force Doctrine in Missouri

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This article seems to have been created simply as a result of the

Michael Brown shooting. No other state has it's own use of force page and material in it seems largely a rehash of the regular use of force page with a bit of Missouri law thrown in. If there are any significant differences in some U.S. states compared to the national norm, I'm sure they can be added to the main use of force article keeping everything together in one comparative bunch, and avoid making Missouri appear to be some sort of special case. – JBarta (talk) 11:51, 26 November 2014 (UTC)[reply
]

@
talk) 16:46, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply
]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Missouri-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:57, 27 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:58, 27 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NorthAmerica1000 18:25, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Encyclopedic topic passing GNG for significant coverage in multiple published sources. We're doing the sum of human knowledge thang, you know.... Carrite (talk) 14:02, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Currently, Missouri is the only state to have a "Use of Force Doctrine in XXXXX" article here. I would imagine while every state has its own peculiarities, these peculiarities are usually minor, and any notable peculiarities could be mentioned in the general
separate article? – JBarta (talk) 22:22, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply
]
Who is to say that this first is the last? This is the seldom seen
WP:OTHERSTUFFDOESNTEXIST argument... Carrite (talk) 22:16, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply
]
That a particular argument automatically doesn't have merit because it appears on some list of arguments to avoid is simplistic nonsense. In this case it is a rubber-stamp approach that ignores context and better possible alternatives (mentioned elsewhere). – JBarta (talk) 00:57, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I would also suggest that this article is somewhat of a

WP:UNDUE. – JBarta (talk) 22:22, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply
]

Murder in the United States and within that article a section identifying notable differences in some states. This to me is a sensible structure that would also work well for Use of Force. Everything is not deserving of an article at any given point in time. If the Use of Force article were to list so many difference between states that a consensus is reached to give each state its own article, then that's another story. But we're nowhere near that point. And again, the OTHERSTUFF argument isn't in a vacuum. It is combined with other issues (NPOV, UNDUE, FORKING) that while you've chosen to dismiss, I believe are important to consider here. – JBarta (talk) 01:56, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply
]
On the other hand, pan-jurisdictional articles may have problems with SYNTH and NOTDICTIONARY (lumping things together because they have the same name) because laws and law books are not necessarily pan-jurisdictional. A view that X should not have an article only because no other X's have one is automatically an incorrect view, since that says nothing about WP:N or WP:SPINOUT. And the only argument that can realistically be made here is for merger not deletion. James500 (talk) 05:16, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Something to consider if the article gets merged, is that Missouri will then be the only state with a section in the
not a law book. – JBarta (talk) 13:49, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply
]
NOTMANUAL has no application to this article, or anything like it, because this article contains no instructions or advice. Law books are not generally manuals, and, in any event, we do use manuals as sources: it is their style of writing that we do not imitate. Wikipedia includes all specialist subject encyclopedias and is therefore, amongst other things, a legal encyclopedia (WP:5). In fact, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of the law of Missouri (most legal encyclopedias relate to a specific jurisdiction: for example, Scotland has the Stair Memorial Encyclopedia) and should therefore include the whole of that law, because that is what a legal encyclopedia does. Your comments about "notable differences" have no basis in policy or guideline (
notability applies to topics of articles, not content within articles), and sound likely to result in Wikipedia being dumbed down to the level of a children's encyclopedia. It certainly wouldn't be compatible with being "the sum total of human knowledge" and would result in you injecting your POV about what is and isn't important into the encyclopedia. In any event, all such differences are important and useful. Your arguments about neutrality are nonsense. James500 (talk) 19:28, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply
]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NorthAmerica1000 00:47, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You have argued for "merge" above and for "keep" here. They are two different things. Please clarify yourself. – JBarta (talk) 13:54, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I did not argue for merger. I said that this sort of article has WP:SNOW chance of being deleted on grounds of notability because there is always an obvious target for merger. James500 (talk) 19:49, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This is all putting the cart before the horse. If there were a state by state comparison already in the regular use of force article that was getting too big for that article, then fine... maybe each state should have an article. But there is no such thing. Not one scintilla of effort has been spent doing that. Now all of a sudden this one lone state article appears and the only reason for it's existence is that it's an outgrowth of the Michael Brown shooting. Each state deserves it's own use of force article? Fine, then write a bit on each state in the regular use of force article FIRST... then if each state warrants an article we can consider it. But skipping the important part and jumping right to creating an article for just one state to dangle in the wind by itself for all the wrong reasons is just not a neutral, unbiased or sensible way to build an encyclopedia. – JBarta (talk) 13:30, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
As stated in my introduction on the article's talk page, I created the article for Missouri in hopes that there would be sufficient current interest to properly develop the article. Hopefully articles for other states would follow.
talk) 05:21, 21 December 2014 (UTC)[reply
]
And regarding the example of Same-sex marriage in the United States, if you look at the history of that article, it started out with state by state sections listing notable information/differences between some states, then as time went on and those bits grew, various states broke off from time to time with their own article. A sensible way to go about it, unlike the backwards approach championed by a few here. – JBarta (talk) 13:56, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If it's better to start with "state by state sections listing notable information/differences between some states," until various states break off from time to time with their own article, then that is certainly fine by me. :-)
talk) 05:21, 21 December 2014 (UTC)[reply
]
@JBarta: It is your approach that is "backwards" (and a recipe for SYNTH), because it does not follow what reliable sources actually do. There are plenty of books specifically about missouri law, or areas of it (try searching for terms such as "missouri practice", "missouri statutes", "missouri criminal law", "missouri criminal code" etc if you don't believe me). It is, like the law of other jurisdictions, an independent topic that needs to be dealt with in its own right. And I don't believe that a system of law can be understood by looking at differences from other systems, because they will be almost random and presented outside of their real context, which is the system of law they are part of. James500 (talk) 11:23, 21 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If you look at the history of
spitting off into various states. – JBarta (talk) 19:28, 21 December 2014 (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.
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