This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:WikiProject Dogs. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
In accordance with the amended Importance Scale (see discussion above), I have completed a review of the WikiProject Dogs articles, which have been reduced to 3,854.
A number of articles had nothing to do with the canines and made no mention of them, therefore I have removed the WikiProject Dogs banner from their Talk page - these are no longer of our concern.
A large number of redirects and lists were classified as articles; these have been reclassified.
IMPORTANCE=TOP
There are 47 articles as per the Importance Scale criteria. A list can be generated by clicking the hyperlinked number on the Total row at the bottom of the Importance Scale.
IMPORTANCE=HIGH
There are 104 articles as per the Importance Scale criteria. A list can be generated by clicking the hyperlinked number on the Total row at the bottom of the Importance Scale.
All "dog types", being one step above a breed, are now classified to this importance.
Volunteers are invited to review each dog type to ascertain if they meet WP:GNG. This group also includes all of the human service "assistance" dog types, which could possibly be integrated into just a few major articles rather than the collection of small articles on related topics that exists now.
Those dog types remaining after this refining process to be badged Category:Dog types at the bottom of each article page. The 22 that have already been badged appear under this category.
IMPORTANCE = MID
There are 542 articles as per the Importance Scale criteria. A list can be generated by clicking the hyperlinked number on the Total row at the bottom of the Importance Scale.
All breeds that are recognised by at least one of the major kennel organisations are now classified with the parameters importance=mid and breeds=yes under the WikiProject Dogs banner on their Talk page. These can be found listed under Category:Dog breeds task force articles (the breeds=yes adds them to this list).
All proposed "breeds" that are not recognised by at least one of the major kennel organisations are now classified with the parameter importance=mid, and the breeds= has been removed.
Volunteers are invited to review each of these proposed breeds to ascertain if they meet WP:GNG - some appear to be landraces, some genuine national or regional breeds, some appear to be advertorials for breeder associations, and some have no references at all and of these some are possibly made up articles (one Talk page claimed that the the references were fake, the "breed" was bogus and a joke on Wikipedia).
Those proposed dog breeds remaining after this refining process to be badged breeds=yes on their Talk page.
IMPORTANCE = LOW
There are 2,346 articles as per the Importance Scale criteria.
All extinct species and extinct "breeds" are now classified with the parameter importance=low.
IMPORTANCE = NA
There are 812 articles as per the Importance Scale criteria.
I agree with the direction of this, but have been kind of tied up with OR and NPoV matters (detailed in part below). I guess these things go together in a sense; reviewing the article helps us ID such problems, and IDing such problems helps us assess article importance/notability. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 04:44, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
Don't know why that ping failed, but I'm watching this page so saw this anyway. I'll stub the page (it's essentially all copyvio), but am very doubtful that it meets WP:NCORP – any thoughts on that? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:03, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
I think it’s a strong candidate for AfD. Further the last source is likely redundant, the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 meant any APBTs in the UK that were given an exemption from a court (not destroyed) had to be neutered, I doubt many 29 year old dogs remain. Cavalryman (talk) 20:04, 24 February 2020 (UTC).
Aargh, my mistake! I had completely forgotten about that page, which is also at Talk:American Dog Breeders Association/Temp. I knew there was a reason I wanted someone else to deal with this one: with all my respect and admiration for Atsme, I'm not sure that that page is our best option – it seems to be quite heavily based on the publicity materials of the association itself. But if consensus here is to do so, I'll move it into place over the existing page, deal with the history-merging and so on. Please let me know. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:52, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, JLAN - but oh my - I just requested a CSD for that page, and Fastily just fastily deleted it. If you want it back, it can be restored. I'm willing to do whatever is needed. AtsmeTalk📧19:01, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
The pix in the project template (top of this page i.e. Template:WikiProject Dogs) was recently changed from that of a coyote to that shown above - an artist's impression of a collection of domestic dogs. I would suggest that these types of changes should be first brought to this Talk page for discussion. The coyote was originally employed to highlight that WikiProject Dogs was now more about the subfamily Caninae and not just about the domestic dog Canis familiaris. I concur with the change, based on the reason that there are around 1 billion domestic dogs on this planet but only 7 million coyotes, therefore C. familiaris is the most appropriate representative. Whether an artwork is appropriate is a different issue. William Harristalk05:18, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
When I began, I had hoped to employ a carousel with revolving images which would include individual images switched every 5 seconds (or however long we set it, but it only shows the change after an edit/refresh) which is what we have for our project page infobox. Apologies for not discussing it first, but I got sidetracked (I am currently on island-time, so my camera and the Caribbean keep calling me) before I could finish setting up the carousel which I had planned to implement, if there are no objections to its use. With the carousel feature, we can discuss what images to place in the rotation and make everyone happy.AtsmeTalk📧15:23, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
SMcCandlish, do you have sources for maintaining the current separation of the articles? I am happy to withdraw if so, but from what I can see they appear to be the same thing, just one is tethered. Kind regards, Cavalryman (talk) 04:41, 3 March 2020 (UTC).
Requested moves:03 March 2020
Two articles of interested to the project have been requested to be moved:
I saw this come up in the new pages feed, and wasn't sure what to do with it. Move it to List of dog breeds from India? Nominate for deletion? Dogs are tricky, so I thought I'd post here. There was a PROD but it was contested. Enwebb (talk) 03:15, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Justlettersandnumbers, William Harris & SMcCandlish, this dovetails neatly into the conversation above about Italian dog breeds. What are project member's thoughts on List of dog breeds from Country? To my knowledge none currently exist, but as I have said above I think we need to reduce List of dog breeds to a simple list as it is currently unwieldy, if consensus can be achieved to do so we could keep it in alphabetical order and the national lists will facilitate the national searches. On the other hand, we already have the national navboxes so is this unnecessary duplication? Cavalryman (talk) 04:26, 10 March 2020 (UTC).
I've been creating List of Fooian bar breeds lists for years, as a referenced basis for then creating a Template:Bar breeds of Foo navbox. For these clearly-defined topics it seems encyclopaedic to have a category, a list and a navbox that all carry essentially the same information; of these, only the list will normally have references, which makes it a fairly necessary element of the set. So yes, move it to List of Indian dog breeds, and then do something about the direly awful sources.
I'm with Justlettersandnumbers on this. This pattern has served us well across the livestock sector, so it'll do well for dogs, too. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 14:41, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
The phylotree is now axed - Ancient dog breeds do not exist. Part of the issue is that the names given to some articles do not match their English FCI name, and that the IP has added the English FCI name to the article hyperlink to that breed. This indicates that some WP:MOVEs may be in order. Other members with more expertise with breeds than I will need to review the edits. William Harristalk21:32, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
[Atsme stretches, yawns big] Good morning! Apologies...I've been asleep with regards to ADBA. I'm ok with whatever the project decides to do, so let me know. If you want me to do the merging, I can - if someone else wants to, that's fine, too. AtsmeTalk📧13:41, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
See Old English Terrier. After the perfunctory intro sentence, it launches into stuff like this (and doesn't get much better from there): "The Old English is a working and sporting terrier that is, in general, an exceptional athlete with a high, intense, and vigorous prey drive that is followed, if need be, by an awesome display of gameness." — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 01:42, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
As far as I can tell this is just a Fell Terrier, will dig a little deeper but I suspect either an AfD or a merger proposal (likely simple redirect) is in order. Kind regards, Cavalryman (talk) 03:37, 4 June 2020 (UTC).
I have removed that statement. An internet search using those words returns websites of a dozen different breeds, and all of them unreliable. William Harristalk09:41, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
David Hancock's Sporting Terriers[1] states definitively that the Old English Terrier is the same as the Black and Tan Terrier. The latter article is in pretty poor state (no inline citations at all) but the contents roughly align to what he says of the Black and Tan, I will add it to my list. Hancock has another article that is quite similar to what he says in his book here. I think we look to merge. Cavalryman (talk) 22:58, 4 June 2020 (UTC).
I appreciate your, in general, awesome display of gameness in pursuing such an exceptional, high, intense, and vigorous drive to, if need be, investigate the topic and material. >;-) — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 23:00, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
^Hancock, David (2011). Sporting Terriers: Their Form, Their Function and Their Future. Ramsbury, Marlborough: The Crowood Press Ltd. p. 96. ISBN978-1-84797-303-0.
I was thinking that Bulldog breeds is a bunch of weird original research trying to link a bunch of unrelated breeds into a single classification, primarily to target them for breed-specific legislation. I checked, and this was already WP:AFDed almost a year ago, but survived by a "no consensus". I think this should probably be re-AfDed, with better-marshalled arguments, though I'm not personally in possession of sufficient breed-ancestry RS right now to approach this with the kind of solidity I would want to muster. Category:Bulldog breeds is arguably worse; it is nothing but a category for breeds that have "bulldog" in their name, regardless if there is any connection between them; this fails the "trivial intersection" test, and WP:CFD routinely deletes useless categories that are based on nothing but name similarity. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 03:49, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
This reminds me of what was once the Mountain dog article, which listed every dog with the word "mountain" in its name but neglected to mention the real mountain dog - the Tibetan mastiff - because it did not have "mountain" in its name. Your point is valid, however it appears to me that the category cannot be removed until the article is addressed, lest somebody simply recreates it again. William Harristalk09:50, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
I have attempted to improve the page a little, renaming it and removing most of the rubbish. There are several sources that describe them as a separate sub-type of the mastiff which I have attempted to convey in the lead, the breeds is a different story. Regards, Cavalryman (talk) 00:46, 10 June 2020 (UTC).
It seems to mostly be about whether classifying this dog variety as a "cur" is correct or not. It has an alternative name that does so, and people out there do so, but our article has been saying that this is a mistake. I'm not sure on what basis. The fine detail of such terminology is outside my expertise, so I leave it to others to sort it out. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 18:45, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
It's not a cur because it is a recognized breed, and any references to it being a cur are mistaken. And now I must return to the POV creep in our local bureacracy that wants full control of our thoughts and input. Happy editing! AtsmeTalk📧18:48, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
Atsme, a rewrite of the Cur article is on my to do list, from that hopefully these articles will dovetail into that. My thoughts are that whilst technically the definition of cur used to mean a non-hound dog of no particular breed, given the UKC have recognised and standardised several breeds as cur breeds that definition has evolved or at least an alternative definition has arisen. Kind regards, Cavalryman (talk) 23:59, 13 May 2020 (UTC).
Ah, I see. Then this is like all the pig and other livestock standardized breeds with "Landrace" (or a cognate in another language) in their breed names. They are not landraces ("natural breeds"), by definition, but were developed as standardized breeds using landrace foundation stock, in an attempt to fix certain traits common in the selected landrace. Similarly, the CLD was developed from some cur [in the American sense] dogs as foundation stock, and some versions of the breed name have "Cur" in them reflecting that background. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 02:06, 4 June 2020 (UTC). [Revised: 21:46, 9 June 2020 (UTC)]
Pretty much my thoughts, when I get around to the cur article I was thinking a single paragraph section called something like "modern usage" stating that a number recognised (and possibly unrecognised) breeds of a similar type use the term cur to identify themselves. Cavalryman (talk) 02:21, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
I like the article, Cavalryman - good job! My suggestion is to keep it as one article so our readers can see the differences in one read, which I consider a reader-friendly approach. AtsmeTalk📧13:55, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
I like the revision as well, but am skeptical there will be enough material for a stand-alone article on the extinct variety. The sandbox version presents as a more global overview. This is kind of a WP:Set index article on dogs classified as curs, which is a good approach when more typical disambiguation would produce several perma-stubs. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 21:46, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
Thank you both, I have spliced both in, SMC I believe I have included all of your improvements (I do like my dmy dates). I have no great attachment to the ordering of the sections if it’s felt the extant American cur should come before the English. Kind regards, Cavalryman (talk) 23:22, 9 June 2020 (UTC).
SMcCandlish, my apologies I had already merged the "English cur" section into the article prior to your last three edits to my sandbox, I will try to include them in time. A funny one, unsure if it is not per out citation policies but Lexico.com gives specific instructions on citing the dictionary [1] and states Oxford University Press is the author, I have applied that rationale across the other three dictionaries cited. Kind regards, Cavalryman (talk) 00:57, 11 June 2020 (UTC).
OUP doesn't define our citation practices. We have a citation system that (in the templates, anyway) carefully emits COinS metadata for various purposes, and the publisher shouldn't be polluting the author field, etc. (OUP probably like to do it their way because most citation styles put the author field first, when present, thus any work that cites their stuff a lot will generate a lot of "Oxford University Press" showing up in a row in the bibliography; it's advertising.) Anyway, no worries on the merging; I can do it, if necessary. Not really high-priority, though. Have some "real world" stuff to do for a technology policy project. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 15:18, 12 June 2020 (UTC)a
What about John Colby?
Does anyone think John P. Colby is deserving of a wikipedia article as he seems an influential figure in the American Pitbull Terrier breed. Dwanyewest (talk)
Agreed. It's really hard to make a case that any animal breeder is WP:Notable, in most cases. There are very few independent reliable sources that provide in-depth coverage of such individuals. Most coverage is found in breeder-published and breeder/fancier-targeted publications, which are not independent of the topic but deeply steeped in its promotionalism. Breed articles should cover the key breeders who established, defined, popularized a modern breed, but this rarely need take up more than a few sentences. And material about them needs to be cited to sources that are as independent of them as possible (e.g., not the website of a breed organization the person co-founded, etc.). It is best not to approach WP articles as something that a person is "deserving" of; it is not an award or honor (and is as apt to highlight controversies as to enshrine someone, if not more so). WP articles are written about (and survive when written about) topics, including persons, which attract a lot of non-trivial coverage in news, books, and other properly published material, by writers who have no connection to the subject. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 03:58, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
Agreed, but I will add that if, during our research, it is discovered that the person is notable beyond any dog affiliation, then yes, a separate article may well be warranted. AtsmeTalk📧14:01, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
Yeps. And even in rare cases someone just noteworthy as a breeder may be genuinely WP:Notable. I took Jean Mill to WP:AFD when it was a little stub that was basically a WP:NOT#OBITUARY problem. Though I continued to press to delete it, consensus eventually was (barely) to keep it, after it was expanded a whole lot during the AfD. I would hazard a guess that most of our few breeder articles pertain to race-horse breeders, since they're part of an industry that generates a lot of coverage that isn't just written and published by and for breeders themselves. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 15:24, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
We need to next have a discussion on the talk page about the genetics section and its revelations; all project members - and anybody else with an interest - are invited. William Harristalk22:53, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
Someone has decided to copy (not a WP:MOVE) the article Great Pyrenees→Pyrenean Mountain Dog, and it appears without discussion. I have no position on the naming but someone may. William Harristalk12:56, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
It appears the article’s lead is correct, of the kennel clubs in the infobox the two American ones call it the Great Pyrenees whilst all of the others the Pyrenean Mountain Dog, so the move is probably correct. I am a little confused by the move, but it appears it was moved but somehow the talk pages remain separated. Cavalryman (talk) 23:41, 15 June 2020 (UTC).
Can some of the Project’s members review my attempts at sourcing Cavoodle? A brand new editor keeps reintroducing unsourced content and patently rubbish sources, it is proceeding towards edit war territory. Kind regards, Cavalryman (talk) 08:40, 2 June 2020 (UTC).
Hmmm...there are no RS that would pass GNG - neither popularity nor fame are enough to establish notability. From what I can tell, the Cavoodle appears to be popular in Australia but beyond puppy mills and designer breeders with their own Wordpress sites, as well as other COI sites like animalso.com (which sports an "Affiliate Disclosure" as a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com), there simply aren't any independent RS that I could find, much less a reputable breed registry with reliable breeding and parentage documentation. I think the article should go to AfD. It was one of the sites you listed in a group that closed with no consensus. Let's get our RS page finished, and then go back to that list you presented - see if we can fix the sourcing issues and if not, go the one-at-a-time route at AfD. What a time sink, but that is our best option for now. AtsmeTalk📧12:08, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
Having had cause to file my first requests at ANI and SPI over this article, what are the project’s thoughts about its future? Kind regards, Cavalryman (talk) 20:35, 6 June 2020 (UTC).
Justlettersandnumbers, when I read your response it triggered a memory of my beloved potbelly pig, Miss Piggy. She starred as Schnapps in a short B-movie on Bravo titled, Flowers on a Muumuu starting at 18:20 - 24:00, then again near the end at 29:04. Piggy got better billing than I did - I'm listed way down in the credits as "Animal trainer". AtsmeTalk📧14:33, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
I expect given the newspapers cited it has established enough notability for a mention on the project, proposing a merger/redirect below. Cavalryman (talk) 11:33, 15 June 2020 (UTC).
This has moved to an off-wiki discussion with the arbom-en mailing list. The short version is that an activist (using a pseudonym) against pit bulls and related breeds is using their blog and Facebook to try to whip up a meat-puppetry campaign of such activists to come and skew our terrier articles with claims that they are innately, genetically, inevitably violent and dangerous. I was singled out as an "enemy" (despite being no booster of such breeds – simply by demanding reliable scientific sources for any behavior-and-genetics claims, pro or con, that apparently makes me a pit bull promoter because I interfere with the ability to make anti-pit claims that don't have good sourcing). Much worse, Atsme was being outright doxxed, and the intent was clearly to generate off-wiki harassment. It's unclear who this blogger might resolve to among Wikipedia users, though I suspect it's an anon the evidence has become pretty clear — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 01:48, 4 June 2020 (UTC); revised: 22:56, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Very unfortunate, it is particularly disappointing that two editors were named in person. I have a strong suspicion which (still active) editor is responsible, as well as one other possibility. Very poor form. Cavalryman (talk) 03:11, 4 June 2020 (UTC).
Yep. Both Atsme and I independently converged on the same suspect. I've provided the evidence to ArbCom. (I also had up to three potential others, but they're all much, much less likely that the one we have in mind.) — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 22:56, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Does anyone think it is inappropriate to post the links to the two blog articles here so if the author decides to contribute to this page or other dog articles, for whatever reason, there is complete transparency? Cavalryman (talk) 02:13, 1 July 2020 (UTC).
Cavalryman, I assure you I did nothing remarkable for that Galician breed – I had the book, knew it covered dogs, so looked in it. For this Cantabrian one I can find nothing; according to this page, the Cantabrian type was one of several regional varieties described in 1898; the first twelve Sabuesos registered by the Real Sociedad Canina de España were all from Cantabria. Merge? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 09:40, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
I have hacked, slashed, rewritten, sourced and stubbed Northern Inuit Dog (AfD'd once) and Tamaskan Dog (AfD'd four times), according to one source it appears they both descend from a 1980s breeding project in the UK, the descendants of which include both these two "breeds" as well as the deleted Utonagan (WP:Articles for deletion/Utonagan). Does anyone know of any other sources for the above breeding program, given the dire states of sources for both remaining articles it would be better to merge them into a single article. Kind regards, Cavalryman (talk) 02:35, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
There is an appearance of both names in a couple of Google Books, but just the names without depth and therefore not notable. The NID is mentioned only once in Google Scholar, and that is the reference which I placed in the NID article some time ago. The other NID reference I placed there is a book, the text can be found written in Google Books but the page number is not available. As much as I have had something to do with both articles in the past, my thoughts are that they should both be AfD. WikiProject Dogs covers over 3,000 articles - we do not need articles on non-notable dogs even though these 2 dogs exist. William Harristalk08:40, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
I have redirected Tamaskan into Northern Inuit as it seems (both from the source you introduced & various non-RS websites) that they NID is the original breed and a number of breakaway breeders then went solo marketing their dogs under different names. Cavalryman (talk) 01:28, 19 June 2020 (UTC).
I have found - coming from our Main Page, section "Cleanup list" - a very powerful piece of software that lists all of the WP:DOG articles that have various issues/problems/faults and this list can be seen here. William Harristalk11:28, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
Portal:Dogs
I have just stumbled upon Portal:Dogs, apparently it is within the remit of this project and apparently it is one of Wikipedia's WP:Featured portals. I estimate 30% of the links on the page are redirects (some have been so for over a decade) and the lead appears to be a restricted to the domestic dog, as opposed to the broadened scope of this Wikiproject.
I suppose the question should be asked, is this portal still relevant (I personally have never quite understood the portal thing)?
If so, do we have a responsibility to maintain it in any way?
If not, should we (and how do we) nominate it for deletion?
To support discussion, I quote Wikipedia:Contents/Portals: "Portals complement main topics in Wikipedia, and expound upon topics by introducing the reader to key articles, images, and categories that further describe the subject and its related topics. Portals also assist in helping editors to find related projects and things they can do to improve Wikipedia, and provide a unique way to navigate Wikipedia topics. At present, there are 526 portals."
Each one appears to be a "Grand Central Station" on a specific topic for Wikipedia visitors.
I am responsible for the wording of the Introduction, which I placed there some time ago - it needed a serious update from the very dated verbiage that was there. William Harristalk07:50, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
I am happy to start a minor renovation, do we want to expand the intro to encompass Canidae and include some broader articles into the mix? Also it appears that the introduction is currently linked to Dog, not Portal:Dogs/Intro. Kind regards, Cavalryman (talk) 12:00, 8 July 2020 (UTC).
I can be regarded as the main driver for the inclusion of the Canidae in the project, however in this case I believe that the portal should be about the domestic dog, as that is what I think the majority of visitors who come to the portal will be looking for. The verbiage in the Intro of the portal is a transclusion of the lede in the Dog article, which is fair. William Harristalk21:39, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
There is a section "Things you can do", which shows "Article requests". It links to a subpage full of article requests for the dog project. These have been manually placed there, on what basis I do not know. It was probably set up at a time when Wikipedia and WikiProject Dogs was new. I suggest the entire subpage be wiped, which will show nothing listed on the "Article requests". I cannot see why that would be listed on a public portal - it is a matter for WP:DOGS and not a public-facing portal. Your average public visitor would not be able to find the subpage, let alone edit it to place a request there. William Harristalk22:34, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
Reference: Wikipedia:WikiProject Dogs - Main Page, box for To Do, the section Stubs. I have reviewed all of the WP:DOGS articles that were classified at Class=stub and Importance=Top or Mid (I am not concerned about Importance=low at this stage). Those articles that warranted being reclassified from stub→start have been so reclassified, leaving many still remaining at Class=stub. These are now listed on the Main Page, just in case a visitor has an interest in one or two of them. Don't be too surprised by the number. All of these articles relating to domestic dogs are also displayed on the dog portal. (Of course, some of these should be deleted on GNG, but we will get around to that.) William Harristalk09:24, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
The Conformation show redirect actually needs to be replaced with a WP:Set-index article that addresses conformations shows generally, which also apply to cats and various livestock breeds. There are some other article titles like this dating from the early 2000s, in which dog or horse people "claimed" a far broader topic name for a species-specific article. I guess the sky has not fallen in the interim, but still. We can do better. :-) Speaking of such matters, it's not clear which other dog-related topics are not exclusively dog-related. Even agility trials are not (I know it sounds hard to believe, but people actually train cats for this, and running obstacle courses is a standard part of modern cat shows). I would think the dog version is the primary topic for that, hands down (technically WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT, to Dog agility), but we should address the cat version somewhere (probably a section at Cat show) and have a disambiguation hatnote pointing to it. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 18:54, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
As long as Mac has some reliable sources supporting cat agility - and I do not doubt his word - I believe that his proposal has merit. William Harristalk22:23, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
I'm happy for the details of this to be sorted out in any way that seems appropriate, so what SMcCandlish says sounds fine to me. All I really care about is that when we write dog show, we get taken to a page on that topic. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:23, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
Fully support all moves, it seems extraordinary it was a disambig page in the first place. SMC, I agree dogs shouldn’t have a mortgage on these page names, apparently even horse agility is also a thing. Cavalryman (talk) 11:19, 11 July 2020 (UTC).
Reference: Wikipedia:WikiProject Dogs - Main Page, contents "4.2 Recent change patrolling". The recent changes list has not been reviewed for some time. With some data sorting and indexing behind the scenes, I have just added another 220 dog breeds and types articles to our watch list (yes, two hundred and twenty!) e.g. Karelo-Finnish Laika. This may mean that more changes will now be picked up on the list each day. William Harristalk09:51, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
William Harris, that is monumental. I have never noticed this list, I will have to start paying attention. I wonder if it’s possible to link the project banner to the list. Kind regards, Cavalryman (talk) 13:37, 1 August 2020 (UTC).
I have added it to the top of the "To Do" template on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Dogs - Main Page. If any new editor would like to assist, that might be a good place to start as a first step. William Harristalk05:35, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
Recent change patrolling Part 2 — Plus werewolves to be removed from WP:DOGS.
Hello all, two action items for your attention:
The list of patrolled changes includes domestic dog articles but not the canidae articles. We currently have 48 Importance=Top articles that are not on the patrol list, e.g. Wolf, Golden jackal. I intend to place them onto the list.
I intend on removing the WikiProject Dogs badge from the werewolf-related articles by the logic that these are not members of the family Canidae - refer to the purpose of the project on the top of this page. These belong under WikiProject:Fictional characters.
Recent change patrolling Part 3 — Plus biographies of veterinarians to be removed from the change patrol list
Hello all, two action items for your attention:
The list of patrolled changes includes domestic dog articles but only some of the canidae articles. We currently have 81 Importance=High articles that are not on the patrol list, e.g. Arctic wolf, Coywolf, Canid hybrid but also Police dog, Assistance dog etc (which I assume are "new" since the list was last updated). I intend to place these onto the patrol list.
I intend on removing the biographies of veterinarians from our list for patrolled changes, under the logic that these are not members of the family Canidae, and they fall under both WikiProject Veterinary Medicine and WikiProject Biographies which have the facility to conduct their own page patrolling.
This is way outside my usual topic area, so excuse my ignorance. The Pomchi, Pomeranian Chihuahua mix, is a very common mixed breed. My dog is one. What am I missing here, is it just an oversight that there's no article, or...? Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) please alwaysping!01:40, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
Hello Psiĥedelisto, I must admit I have never heard of a pomchi before now. We have a lot of trouble with designer crossbred dogs on the project as there are just not many reliable secondary sources for the multitude of possible crosses that are produced these days. That being said, I think I have located a single source for the pomchi, so I believe I could add an entry at List of dog crossbreeds. Kind regards, Cavalryman (talk) 02:07, 15 August 2020 (UTC).
Additionally, there are 450 breeds recognised by the FCI. How many different ways can we combine 450 of something taken 2 at a time? My combination calculator tells me just over 100,000 different ways, or in our case different cross-breeds. Wikipedia would be filling up very quickly, and that is without including all of the non-recognised breeds in the world. William Harristalk04:05, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
I did not indicate that there were sources to support all of the potential crossbreeds. I was indicating the potential number of articles that could possibly be generated, which is why the Project has been compiling a list of cross-breeds - rather than articles - where there has been a desire to have an article but the cross has not been notable. William Harristalk22:26, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
Adding WPDogs to shelter articles
I just added WikiProject Dogs to the Talk page banner of Muttshack Animal Rescue Foundation so the Dog project would get notified automatically when I submitted it to AfD. I had an earlier exchange with William Harris on another AfD about the Dog project wanting to get notified, which is why I'm thinking WPDogs is interested in the shelter articles. I have a list of other shelters/rescues to check on Wikipedia to either update, ignore, or AfD (depending on what I find). Since a wikiproject is ordinarily the one who chooses which articles they want under their wing, not random wiki editors, I am asking the project participants:
1. Do you want me to add the WikiProject Dogs banner to shelter/rescue article talk pages when I come across them? (unless they are cat-only)
2. If "no" to #1, would you want me to post a notice of AfD on this talk page if I submit a shelter article for AfD?
My thoughts are: (a) all Wikipedia articles should be owned by a project (b) I believe that animals shelters were originally set up to rehome dogs, and dogs are their largest detainee (c) therefore animal shelters should be badged WP:DOGS. If these are not to be badged WP:DOGS, then what are the relevant alternatives? William Harristalk22:23, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
Perfect. If I come across an article about a shelter or rescue that is not already tagged (badged) for WPDogs, I will add the tag/banner. That's all I wanted to know. I didn't want to tag these sorts of articles if you did NOT want them included in WPDogs. (WP:PROJGUIDE#OWN) Normal Op (talk) 22:40, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
I have visited Category shelters and badged a number of articles as WPDOGS; some bore no badging by any Wikiproject. I believe that one of the reasons WPDOGS became semi-active (almost slumbering) for some time was because it has difficulty in defining its scope, and what was important to it. It is only recently that we are progressing a new agenda, and re-invigorating the project. William Harristalk08:08, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping, William Harris – I am moderately familiar with the website, though I don't think I've added it as a reference in the last few years. My take:
the online magazine/journal is arguably a WP:RS – content written by qualified staff, editorial control etc.; however, much of it reads like regurgitated press-releases (e.g., this)
some pages of the "atlante" (encyclopaedia, more or less) of plants and animals are signed – an example is this. I believe that to evaluate the reliability of those pages we'd need to review the qualifications of the contributor (the list is here, they're almost all young and some are surely not "experts" in any real sense of the word). I'd take any unsigned page with a pinch of salt, but I've certainly used info from some of those pages once I'd tracked it down in more solid sources. I think it's a valuable asset for that purpose. I wouldn't use or accept it as a sole source for any contentious fact.
Well, Cavalryman, that's a more-or-less perfect example of a case where I personally would not regard this source as reliable – that page is signed by Pietro Perra, who is not among the listed contributors of the website, and appears to have no credentials as an expert. This newspaper article may be enough to confirm the existence (present or past) of the breed, even if it isn't enough to establish notability. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:24, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
Rescue content in articles about animal shelter organizations
I would like some other opinions. I have been encountering a lot of run-of-the-mill animal shelters that have had Wikipedia articles created. A particular editor made quite a handful of them. One of the sections that had been created for most of them is "Notable rescues" which are ordinary rescues/incidents that happened to get some sort of local news coverage. Now there's a difference between news coverage "about an organization" (that is used to determine if an organization is notable enough to have a wiki article) and articles about a local incident of an animal abuse/abandonment/injury that the local shelter then takes care of (which is a human interest story for local news coverage, and of course the intaking shelter will get a mention).
Per any dictionary definition of "notable", none of these rescue-incidents count as 'notable' and I feel that adding them to a shelter's article is UNDUE -- mostly because these are ordinary issues that any shelter handles daily. That the local paper picked up a particular story, doesn't make that particular rescue-incident notable. I also feel that mentioning them in a wiki article is WP:UNDUE because this is ordinary business/work for a shelter.
A really notable case might be a local hoarder that was raided by police and animal control, 200 animals were seized, and the shelter spent the next week finding alternative placement for that many animals because they couldn't handle that volume alone, or they rallied their local community to build new kennels within two days, getting donations of building supplies and volunteer labor (I just made that one up; not real). That might be notable. Or the effort Muttshack Animal Rescue Foundation made in the wake of Hurricane Katrina; they canoed around the flood for weeks, breaking into submerged houses to rescue pets... THAT was a notable effort. (Unfortunately for them, it seems to be the only notable effort they've made and their article might be deleted at AfD, though maybe a single heroic sustained event should count to keep that article.) I use that to illustrate the difference between whether a shelter organization is notable, or whether a rescue incident is notable. Muttshack-Katrina: notable incident, not notable org. Richmond Animal Protection Society may or may not be a notable org, but their list of 'notable rescues' is ordinary work for a shelter. The "50 dogs abandoned" is probably the only really unusual case, but is that notable, or WP:DUE? Are the rest? What about these sorts of sections?
I'd like some feedback on what others think about including ordinary rescue incidents in shelter articles. Please discuss. Thank you.
Normal Op, apologies I mustn’t have published this earlier. I agree, unless a rescue received significant coverage it’s likely not notable, such lists usually contradict WP:TRIVIA and are often used to cite bomb an article in an attempt to give the impression of notability. Cavalryman (talk) 08:28, 26 August 2020 (UTC).
Cite bombing, which we have witnessed much of most recently. Normal rescue incidents are news and not notability in my opinion. WP:NOTNEWS applies. William Harristalk10:06, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
Just a drive-by comment: animal shelters are subject to the same notability requirements as any other company or organisation. Some articles created before March 2018, when those criteria were made much more stringent, may no longer meet those requirements. In relation to the question above, that page specifically mentions "coverage of purely local events, incidents, controversies" as trivial, non-significant content. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 12:56, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, you three. I knew something was wrong with that sort of content, but you've laser-pointed me to some great policies/guidelines which I can use in edit summaries when I excise such content: TRIVIA, CITEBOMB, NOTNEWS, NORG, ORGDEPTH. Additionally, I didn't realize NORG had been changed in 2018 (I see the history/diffs, wow); significant clarifications there which will come in handy for some other non-dog projects I'm working on. Normal Op (talk) 19:28, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
We had that conversation a little higher up this talk page. I am definitely making sure that shelters (those that have dogs, not just cats-only) are tagged for wikiproject dogs on their talk page before I nominate for AfD. Some bot will update the list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Dogs#Article alerts once every 24 hours. Normal Op (talk) 23:29, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
Poll: Do the other WPDogs people wish me to add AfD notices on this talk page as well, or is the notice in 'Article alerts' sufficient? (The latter shows up in one's Watchlist, but the former does not.) Normal Op (talk) 23:29, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
talk
talk
Atsme Talk 📧 15:23, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
Ovtcharka (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has been nominated for deletion, project members are invited to comment a the article's entry at AfD. Kind regards, Cavalryman (talk) 11:20, 4 March 2020 (UTC).
Resolved
Atsme Talk 📧 14:33, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
Template:Greenlandic dogs has been nominated for deletion. Project members are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Kind regards, Cavalryman (talk) 04:02, 7 July 2020 (UTC).
Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) please always ping! 20:24, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
