Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Police

Shortcuts

This is a collection of discussions on the deletion of articles related to Police. It is one of many deletion lists coordinated by WikiProject Deletion sorting. Anyone can help maintain the list on this page.

Adding a new AfD discussion

Adding an AfD to this page does not add it to the main page at WP:AFD. Similarly, removing an AfD from this page does not remove it from the main page at WP:AFD. If you want to nominate an article for deletion, go through the process on that page before adding it to this page. To add a discussion to this page, follow these steps:

Edit this page and add {{Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/PageName}} to the top of the list. Replace "PageName" with the relevant article name, i.e. the one on the existing AFD discussion. Also, indicate the title of the article in the edit summary as it is particularly helpful to add a link to the article in the edit summary. When you save the page, the discussion will automatically appear.
You should also tag the AfD by adding {{subst:delsort|Police|~~~~}} to it, which will inform editors that it has been listed here. You may place this tag above or below the nomination statement or at the end of the discussion thread.

There are a few scripts and tools that can make this easier.

Removing a closed AfD discussion

Closed AfD discussions are automatically removed by a bot.

Other types of discussions

You can also add and remove other discussions (prod, CfD, TfD etc.) related to Police. For the other XfD's, the process is the same as AfD (except {{Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/PageName}} is used for MFD and {{transclude xfd}} for the rest). For PRODs, adding a link with {{prodded}} will suffice.

Further information

For further information see Wikipedia's deletion policy and WP:AfD for general information about Articles for Deletion, including a list of article deletions sorted by day of nomination.

Archived discussions (starting from September 2007) may be found at:

WikiProject Deletion sorting/Police/archive

Purge page cache

watch

This list includes sublists of deletion debates on articles related to Wikipedia:WikiProject Law.

Police

Irony of Negro Policeman

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

Fails WP:N. There are many reliable sources that mention the painting, but they lack significant coverage. Several of the sources currently in the article don't mention the painting at all, but are just used for general info about the painter, Jean-Michel Basquiat. The ones that do mention it only do so with one or two sentences, or, in one case, is a press release. Some of them looked to me like clear indications of notability at a first glance, such as NPR's "Jean-Michel Basquiat Painting Sells For Record $110.5 Million", but at a closer look, it turns out it is about a different painting.

I searched a bit and mostly found more of the same: reliable sources that only mention the painting in passing - confirming its existence, but not notability - and a few self-published, unreliable sources with analysis. The best I found was this, which contains a couple of paragraphs about Irony of Negro Policeman. I'm unfamiliar with the publication, Swamp, and can't tell if it's a reliable source or not. Nevertheless, if that is the only source that maybe contributes to notability, it's too little.

It seems like this was created some time ago as part of an effort to give as many Basquiat paintings as possible their own articles. I'm sure quite a few of them indeed are notable, but this one and potentially others don't seem to be. Uriahheep228 (talk) 16:53, 19 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Visual arts-related deletion discussions. Uriahheep228 (talk) 16:56, 19 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Police-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 17:18, 19 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - I've added some sources, but a search of the painting in g-books and g-scholar reveals a lot of mentions as well as a decent amount of in-depth discussion. This and this each have several paragraphs analyzing this particular piece. this describes the piece as one of his most well-known works, which seems to be supported by the fact that it's singled out in several newspaper reviews about gallery exhibits. Zzz plant (talk) 17:43, 19 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The first of those sources has almost two paragraphs. The second has about one and a half. The third is behind paywall, so I can't tell. It's still pretty weak, but if there are more sources with a similar amount of coverage they could build up to notability, at least if it's not the same information that is repeated. I also got a lot of search hits about gallery exhibits etc, but they lack significant coverage. They just mention that it was part of an exhibition. Uriahheep228 (talk) 18:29, 19 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep. I take the point about us not wanting separate articles about too many individual paintings but the politically charged subject matter makes it plausible that this is significant enough for an article. The Books and Scholar searches show that sources are covering it as more than just an item on a list of works. They are talking about it individually, about what it means as a statement and as an artwork. I don't think we can delete this. A merge to Jean-Michel Basquiat could be arguable but I think there is potential for this to be its own article. --DanielRigal (talk) 19:25, 19 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Zzz plant. There isn't much unambiguous SIGCOV, but there are so many sources that provide ~1-2 paragraphs of analysis that I think they togther add up to a GNG pass (here are a couple more: [1] [2]). This journal article is the strongest source I could find. MCE89 (talk) 04:09, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The third of those sources looks good, but the first two only have one sentence each, not one paragraph. With the article in Radical Philosophy and the two books Zzz plant pointed to above we have three sources that I would say are somewhere between trivial and significant coverage. The finds so far have been promising, but I still think it's below the threshold for individual notability. Most of the content here is about Basquiat and general themes throughout his works. There isn't really more to cover about this painting in particular than what can be said in a sentence or two in Basquiat's article. Uriahheep228 (talk) 17:02, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]