Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of police stations in the West Midlands

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. After several relists, I can't see a general consensus from those who have discussed their views here. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 16:11, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

List of police stations in the West Midlands[edit]

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I haven't been able to find any reliable sources discussing police stations in the West Midlands as a group or set, as required by WP:LISTN. The entries that are sourced cite incredibly insubstantial passing mentions in local news stories: the source cited for the existence of Dudley Road police station, for example, notes that a building "apparently used to be the local police station" and is uncertain what century it was built in. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, awareness of which thankfully has led us to mostly avoid lists like this (our only other lists of police stations being List of [notable] police stations and List of district police stations in Hong Kong). – Arms & Hearts (talk) 18:25, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Crime, Law, Police, Lists, and England. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 18:25, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Plenty of sources exist, not all of which are online. Here is another source for the building in Dudley Road, with pictures of it in use as a police station; though the original source's "Built in the late 19th or early 20th century" is hardly a deletion rationale. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:40, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah I'd keep it. Many West Midlands Police stations have closed, been sold or demolished. And most of our sources are from the Birmingham Mail, our local newspaper. Sparkhill Police Station is now a Bosnian community centre. Flags up. Maybe references in the Pevsner books. Ellrbrown (talk) 14:50, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Sources for individual stations are immaterial. They need to be discussed as a group. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:56, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Wikipedia is not a place for indiscriminate information. The list may be suitable for historians to study at a relevant museum or archive, it is not suitable for en.wiki as it is not noted nor notable. JMWt (talk) 11:16, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Clearly a well-defined, perfectly acceptable list. Plenty of sources. Of course stations in a single force area are discussed as a defined group. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:31, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
By independent sources? If so, produce them. Because all that's there now is single-station ones. Clarityfiend (talk) 11:25, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think you and the nominator probably need to reread WP:LISTN and tell us exactly where it says it is a requirement that they must have been discussed as a group or set. Because that's actually not what it says at all. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:17, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Describing this as a list of stations in a single force area is anachronistic at best, plain wrong at worst, given that many of these stations closed decades before West Midlands Police came into being. Saying that the aforementioned Dudley Road station, for example, was in the WMP force area is like saying Catherine the Great lived in the Soviet Union. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 17:38, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The West Midlands is a county - a perfectly standard sub-division of the country. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:41, 3 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete because of nom reasons and Necrothesp ("Of course stations in a single force area are discussed as a defined group." "then produce these sources" "But but but, it's not a requirement to have such sources"). Really... Fram (talk) 12:28, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- There clearly are sources. Maybe you should look at the article and read the appropriate guideline, which doesn't say what several people here seem to think it says. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:13, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  - Let's take WP:CSC: "Every entry meets the notability criteria"? No, clearly not. "Every entry in the list fails the notability criteria."? No, we already have articles for some entries. "Short, complete lists of every item that is verifiably a member of the group. "? It's not short, and we don't know if it is complete or not. And that's after discounting the basic WP:LISTN because that only gives again and again strong suggestions but not 100% binding requirements. Agreeing that a list may be deleted because it fails those strong suggestions is not the heinous crime you believe it to be. Fram (talk) 10:47, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    - The third criterion seems applicable to me. It's hardly a long list. All LISTN says is One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources.... One, not the only! A list doesn't automatically fail notability criteria if it doesn't meet this, nobody should be claiming it does, and no closer should be deleting based on those who do. Of the delete votes so far, four (including the nominator) rely on this spurious claim and one merely expresses an opinion that it's "indiscriminate information", which it clearly is not. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:41, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      - There is a standard criterion it clearly fails, and people !voting delete see no good other reason to keep it. A closer would be hard-pressed to disregard these when the keeps don't have a stronger argument, as is the case here. Fram (talk) 14:34, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
        This is the crux of it in my view – the guideline is somewhat fuzzy, but that fuzziness obviously doesn't mean that we default to keep in the absence of good arguments. The claim that sources exist for individual entries, as well as being very questionable given the current state of the article, is obviously one that could be used to justify keeping all manner of trivia, so plainly isn't a good argument. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 17:38, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:NOTDIR and WP:LISTN. Most of these police stations are completely non notable. Ajf773 (talk) 04:09, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. West Midlands Police station closures are talked about as a group see: [1] and [2] and [3]. Rupples (talk) 03:45, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Rebuttal. Closures are not stations. This is not a List of West Midlands police stations that were closed. Furthermore, I could easily find sources for other things that were closed, e.g. Kmart store closings 2022: Just three Kmarts remain after new round of closures. Things routinely close; schools, coal-fueled power plants, etc. etc. They don't merit standalone lists. Clarityfiend (talk) 13:15, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just because its closed doesn't mean it never existed. 😎😎PaulGamerBoy360😎😎 (talk) 03:05, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Which has no bearing on the notability of this list whatsoever. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:45, 1 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Can we review whether the sources showing station closures have discussed as a group change the calculus, which is currently to delete?
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz ^Humbug! 07:59, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - for me the issue is whether we can take police station closures in a snapshot of time to show that the location of police stations is notable for all time. Clearly police stations have been noted. Clearly as a group they've been written about. For me that doesn't change the metric of a page that contains essentially esoteric information. For me this is a list that may well belong in a museum. It's not suitable for en.wiki. JMWt (talk) 08:31, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- Presumably, by "esoteric information", you actually mean "information I'm not interested in"? What is esoteric to one person is vital historical information to another. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:47, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Here's a report on custody suites in West Midland police stations.[4]. More on closures [5]. Historic England commissioned a report on police stations which shows they are considered as a group for architecture and historic importance (four from West Midlands listed towards end of the report).[6]. Rupples (talk) 22:10, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The first two of these are primary sources; notability requires coverage in secondary sources. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 18:29, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Acknowledged, but do you accept the Historic England report as contributing to NLIST? Rupples (talk) 05:20, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. As these police stations close it seems some are being reevaluated and are notable for historic and architectural reasons as witnessed by their listing in recent years by Historic England. I've annotated two (Acocks Green and Darlaston). What about changing the article title and restricting entries to those locally or nationally Listed? Rupples (talk) 19:36, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Fails NLIST and WP:CLN, there are no WP:IS WP:RS that provide direct and indepth sourcing that discusses this as a group and it serves no navigation purpose. for CLN. // Timothy :: talk 12:32, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, _signed,Rosguill ^talk 02:27, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Although this book is about London Police stations and so doesn't cover the West Midlands, its coverage is not restricted to listed buildings and is illustrative of police stations being covered as a group.[7]. Rupples (talk) 03:27, 4 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. The problem I see with this list and why I've refrained from !voting is its scope. What are the criteria for inclusion? It includes current and former police station buildings, but there are likely many former ones missing such as those that closed pre-1974. An example is the former Stechford police station in operation until the present one was built in around 1970. Surely, West Bromwich had an older police station? What about police houses? Is the article restricted to police buildings extant or recently in existence? It's not clear. There was an AfD a few months back Articles for deletion/Fire stations in Columbus. The article being discussed appears to cover all fire stations that ever existed in that city, totalling about 65. I count about 70 police stations in this article and likely many more that could be included, making the list overly long. I think the list is potentially encyclopedic, but needs a reconsideration of its scope. Rupples (talk) 21:41, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep reason is WP:LISTN. बिनोद थारू (talk) 01:06, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Per above, WP:LISTN. Bookworm857158367 (talk) 14:30, 7 November 2023 (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.