Talk:Association of Firearm and Tool Mark Examiners

Copy editing

I've done the best job that I can.Rockyabq 06:07, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Citations, References

I'll add these when I have access to the old Journals. (They're in storage.)Rockyabq 06:07, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Restructuring

I'm not sure what specific restructuring is necessary or desirable. Is there a Wikipedia entry of a similar forensic science professional organization that I could use as an example? Rockyabq 05:46, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Response to inclusion in the Law Enforcement project

It's certainly true that most crime laboratories worldwide are government (law enforcement) entities. But there are many, many independent forensic examiners (not only in the field of firearm and tool marks but in all other forensic science branches). By including the forensic sciences (and their associations) in the Law Enforcement project, the implication is that they are biased in favor of the prosecution. Science (including forensic science) embodies a search for the truth, whether to offer evidence as to the guilt of an individual or to uncover evidence that exonerates him. Rockyabq 03:35, 23 May 2007 (UTC)Rocky (rockyabq)

The Law Enforcement Wikiproject has no official affiliation with any law enforcement agencies, the inclusion of this article in the law enforcement project is a wikipedia organisational matter more than anything. You can leave a message on the main project talk page, or see our scope page to check whether the article truly fits into our project, but on the basis of implying that forensic associations have a relationship with law enforcement.... well.... they do don't they? Inclusion in a wikiproject doesn't mean that the topic is biased towards the subject of that wikiproject, it just means that the subject is related to the topic :) hope that helps. SGGH ^speak! 10:47, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

You are however correct in saying that this article doesn't belong in the project, so I have removed the tag having looked at our scope to be sure. However my above comments still apply, as I feel you wanted the article to be delisted as a result of a misconception on the meeting of its inclusion in the first place :) SGGH ^speak! 11:21, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, SGGH (I suppose :o) Rockyabq 05:43, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Response to Proposed Deletion:

Wikipedia states, "...there is no practical limit to the number of topics we can cover, or the total amount of content..."

I'm unsure why the number of hits an article receives is such an important deciding factor. I can't imagine that many of the articles listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Scientific_societies get significantly more hits than this one. The Abkhazian Regional Academy of Sciences? (I'd try to have the AFTE article linked on that page also, but I don't know how. It should be listed there.)

AFTE is the ONLY dedicated professional organization for firearm/toolmark examiners (forensic ballistics) worldwide. If an attorney is checking the credentials of a claimed expert in the field who lists membership in AFTE, shouldn't Wikipedia be able to provide him with assistance? If a new graduate of forensic science is seeking information about a professional organization of firearm/toolmark examiners, shouldn't Wikipedia be able to help him?

Wikipedia's Deletion policy lists:

Reasons for deletion include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Advertising or other spam without relevant content (but not an article about an advertising related subject)
• Content not suitable for an encyclopedia
• Copyright infringement
• Hoax articles (but not articles describing a notable hoax)
• Images that are unused, obsolete, violate fair-use policy, or are unencyclopedic
• Inappropriate user pages
• Inflammatory redirects
• Article information that cannot possibly be attributed to reliable sources
• All attempts to find reliable sources to which article information can be verified have failed
• Newly-coined neologisms
• Overcategorization
• Patent nonsense or gibberish
• Redundant templates
• Subject fails to meet the relevant notability guideline (WP:BIO, WP:MUSIC, WP:CORP and so forth)
• Vandalism that is not correctible

Of these, "Content not suitable for an encyclopedia" might be stretched to apply, but then it would apply to all the articles listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Scientific_societies also, wouldn't it?

Thanks for your consideration, Rockyabq 03:35, 23 May 2007 (UTC)Rocky (rockyabq, original author of this entry)