Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lompoc Fire Department

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. postdlf (talk) 01:02, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Lompoc Fire Department (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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This is an article about the fire department of a town of 42,000. Most of the information in it comes from government websites that are local sources. The applicable thresholds of notability here are WP:GNG and WP:CORP, and I cannot find evidence that this meets either; the only substantive coverage is in newspapers from that city. Vanamonde (talk) 13:10, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. IntoThinAir (talk) 14:01, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. Happy holidays~! ^{Babymissfortune} 17:18, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect to Lompoc, California#Public safety. nn for a standalone article, but a valid redirect. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 22:39, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Are "newspapers from that city". not independent sources? Rathfelder (talk) 23:39, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  I think they're not independent in the sense that single-town newspapers will always have coverage of the fire department within their town, no matter how small. As such they're not necessarily biased, but they're not very useful for judging notability. See WP:AUD. Vanamonde (talk) 06:35, 25 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• So this is only an urban encyclopedia? Rathfelder (talk) 09:00, 26 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Not in the least. AUD would support keeping this article, if this fire department had coverage from outside its small town. Moreover, your issues with that guideline might be entirely legitimate, but as long as the guideline is in force, legitimate XFD arguments cannot ignore it. Vanamonde (talk) 13:46, 26 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. While Fire Departments in general, are of zero interest to me, I don't see the problem with this article. The town itself is four times as big as some small towns that I've lived in, so a fire department for it, would be a significant thing. People seem to be taking WP:GNG to extremes; just because some topic is not international or even national news, doesn't meant that the article about it doesn't need to exist. WP is a better place if we include in topics that are of interest, even if those topics are regional, or don't make news. A really paranoid android (talk) 11:59, 26 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - notable does not mean 'known globally'. Local newspapers are perfectly legitimate independent sources. Oculi (talk) 02:49, 28 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  We have a guideline, WP:AUD, which explicitly says otherwise. Vanamonde (talk) 05:44, 28 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  *Keep. That isn't what it says. If that were the case we would have no coverage of organisations in small countries like Andorra or Bermuda. Rathfelder (talk) 10:58, 30 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  That's a complete misunderstanding of what the guideline says; coverage in national press is good enough. Organizations in small countries receive national coverage quite easily. The fire department of a tiny city is a different matter. Vanamonde (talk) 13:20, 30 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This is the reason why AUD is current under review: it's simply illogical to state that "local" news cannot by itself sustain notability but national news (which could be the media of a very small country) and "regional" media can. In this case there is coverage from multiple local news papers and television stations including KEYT-TV, but it is impossible to determine which of these is "local" and which "regional" on the basis of AUD. FOARP (talk) 13:34, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• KEEP AUD is garbage and completely useless in this situation (which of the multiple media sources available for this article is "local" and which "regional"?) so we should just ignore that guideline and go with the significant coverage in multiple reliable sources. FOARP (talk) 13:37, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep: regularly covered by statewide media e.g. this. SITH (talk) 16:46, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. My first thoughts on this one were, what is there to say about this fire department that is different from any other town? An article that has nothing to say beyond a few generalities isn't worth keeping, even if it can be sourced. The fact that it has an extensive history section has convinced me otherwise. SpinningSpark 02:01, 1 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep There's no good reason to delete this and our policy is to preserve such material. Andrew D. (talk) 10:10, 3 January 2019 (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.