Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dogs/Archive B3

Wow! he:Category:כלבים

• Halló! I have seen an InterWiki link and hope to find some people interested to come here. Regards Gangleri 20:26, 2004 Oct 30 (UTC)
• List available at he:גזעי כלבים. Gangleri 20:31, 2004 Oct 30 (UTC)

KEYWORDS

• Dear friends, I submitted bugzilla:846 named: feature request: control of meta name="KEYWORDS" content="...". This is an issue discused in the past. Hope that somebody from the developers would do somthing about it. My question here is about your opinion concerning the maximal number of keywords which should be supported. Regards Gangleri 18:05, 2004 Nov 9 (UTC)

What is this dog?

I need a home.

I have a photo I quite like of a dog. Is it of any value to Wikipedia? Maybe someone knows what type it is? It was working as a sheepdog, in Poland. Thanks! Stevage 10:23, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, it was taken in the Tatra mountains, so the Tatra Mountain Sheepdog (image) is a strong candidate. However, there are two other breeds that look quite similar: the kuvasz and the Maremma Sheepdog. The dog in your photo appears to have a beard (or at least some hair on the muzzle), and none of the aforementioned breeds do (or should, at least). However, I'm going to put it in Tatra Mountain Sheepdog, since the geography and appearance both match. --Pharaoh Hound (talk) 12:59, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Fascinating, didn't think there would be such a thing. Of the three photos, the Tatra mountain one is probably closest, as they were of fairly slender build - nothing like the really heavy build of the other two. As they were on quite a traditional farm in the Tatras, the identification sounds even more likely. Thanks very much! Stevage 22:37, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Top importance collaboration list

I am not a member of this project, largely due to my almost total lack of knowledge of the subject. But, as many of you will know, from the notice above if nothing else :), there is another project relating to dogs which has recently been started and is beginning to try to do some assessments related to dog articles, Wikipedia:WikiProject Dogs. I would welcome any input from members of your group which breeds are probably of greatest importance for a good understanding of dogs in general, and which non-breed articles qualify as such as well. So far, I have only put in the assessment's top-importance category those articles which have been selected for the Wikipedia CD release. I think, given the large number of breeds out there, that there are without a doubt several more. On that basis, I wonder what the members of your group would think of the idea of selecting a set number, maybe 25, articles which we all basically agree are of top importance in the dog field, and, in effect, turning them into a group of 25 effective collaborations. Once most or all of those articles are brought to a sufficiently high standard of quality, we could choose another set to function as the next group collaborations. Anyway, I would welcome any responses regarding the choice of top-importance articles in general, and to the proposal for creating what would be an acting priority list for possibly both projects. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 22:18, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Mixed-breed dog FAR

Mixed-breed dog is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Joelito (talk) 03:19, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Breed question

We just received this note on the Dogs Project talk page:

There seem to be a lot of questionable article/edits coming from Bigsteeve, such as Tamaskan Wolfdog and some others. Somebody who's a bit more knowledgeable might want to look into it. Fightindaman 00:23, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I personally think this is probably more in your field than it is in mine. Please make any comments or changes as necessary. Thank you. Thank you very much. Badbilltucker 00:58, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Guanmao

I made a page for the Guanmao breed of dog. I don't normally work on wikipedia dog pages so it probably needs work. Maybe the dog already has a page of some other name. I made it because it was mentioned in the NYTimes. Just thought you guys should know. - Peregrinefisher 18:02, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Wildlife Barnstar

There is currently a barnstar proposal at Wikipedia:Barnstar and award proposals/New Proposals#Wildlife Barnstar for a barnstar which would be available for use for this project. Please feel free to visit the page and make any comments you see fit. Badbilltucker 15:32, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Dogs Project Top importance articles

At Wikipedia:WikiProject Dogs/Top-importance articles we are beginning to discuss which articles are of the highest importance to the project. Clearly, the most important articles are ones which should probably be the focus of a good deal of attention by our members. Given that your project is generally much better informed about the relative significance of breeds than some of our members might be, we would welcome any input any of you might choose to give as well. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:41, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Tamaskan dog AfD

The article Tamaskan dog is currently being considered for deletion here. We would welcome any input from the members of this project regarding the proposed deletion. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 15:28, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

The question of external Links

Consolidating Conversation Here:

From User_talk:THe_dog_trainer

Hi, welcome and thanks for editing Wikipedia. I'm sorry to say, I reverted your dog training external links from various dog breed article article. The sort of external link provided is not apropriate for wikipedia, since wikipedia is not a link farm, a method of link exchange to generate higher google search results. or a vehicle for promotion of products websites. You can read the article on External links for a list of what is apropriate to put in the external links section of an article. Simply having useful information alone doesn't make a site merit an external link.

The text added in individual training sections isn't specific to to the individual breeds of dog in question, so I removed those as well. That is useful information, it's just not the right place for it.

I hope that this does not discourage you from contributing.

You could consider looking at the Dog training article, and maybe putting some of your information there.

You may wish to review the welcome page, tutorial, and stylebook, as well as the avoiding common mistakes and Wikipedia is not pages. The Wikipedia directory is also quite useful. In addition, you might want to add yourself to the new user log;

By the way, an important tip: To sign comments on talk pages, simply type four tildes, like this: ~~~~. This automatically adds your name and the time after your comments.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask on my talk page.

- Trysha ^(talk) 23:07, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I just wanted to add a note that your dog-training tips indeed look useful and I hope you do investigate starting at Category:Dogs and go through the category tree to find articles where your pages are appropriate (as in the dog whistle article, which I just put back). If we linked to every possible dog-related web site on every dog-related article here, there'd be thousands of links in every article and it would be hard to find the ones that were really specifically related to the topic of the article. You'll get the hang of it, I'm sure. Also continuing discussion on User talk:Trysha. Elf | Talk 18:54, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

From User_talk:Trysha

Hello Trysha and thank you for your reply. Although I am a bit disappointed about the fact that you removed my links, I will do my best to contribute to the dog related article on Wikipedia while expanding my website. I went through teh links you provided and I have read the Wiki guidelines, so I am sure my future contributions will be better suited for this ingenious site.

I plan to develop Expert-dog-training.com into the first website that offers specific, breed oriented dog training methods. This is why I thought some links toward my website would prove useful for the visitors of Wikipedia. Wikipedia offers some nice breed information, while the links toward my website would also allow a person interested, let's say, in Bandog training to get some specific techniques that are focused on this dog breed. For Bandog, for example, the link would be http://www.expert-dog-training.com/Bandog-training.php

There is one other reason why I wish to help Wikipedia grow - a few relevant links would get interested visitors to my site. I will soon post a request on the website asking people who have dogs to contribute, if they wish, with their own dog training techniques. I will also offer visitors the chance to send me photos of their dog, which I will post in the related dog training article. Speaking of that, I read your Wiki profile and noticed that you have a Basset Hound - the funny thing is that the article for this dog breed specific training was on my work schedule for Monday. If you wish, I would be more than happy to use a photo of your dog for the dog training article on Bassets. I would also welcome any tips or tricks related to the training you used for your dog.

I hope we will keep in touch and, from now on, I will check with you first before posting any text or links.

Warm regards,

Michael

THe dog trainer 09:54, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Just popping in here. I think that links to this site in related articles are appropriate, such as the dog whistle article, where I replaced the link. The site is not blatantly commercial; in fact, I don't even really see anything commercial on this site. IMHO, these pages do provide useful info related to certain articles and can remain there. I can't find where the earlier discussions about these links are, so I'm just barging in here. :-) I'm not sure about the breed-specific training articles; most trainers I know do believe that there are some things that you must consider for each breed (or type of breed) to be an effective trainer. But, again, they don't look commercial to me, so couldn't the breed-specific links be appropriate, too? If you'll direct me to where you've already said something about this, that'd be great so I don't ask you to repeat it. Elf | Talk 18:54, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Hello again. Elf, thank you for your remarks. My website is new and small, for now, but I plan to allow it to grow in time and become one of the best breed specific and general dog training resource on the web. It will take a while :)) I hope my stay here on Wikipedia will be beneficial both for this extremely engagin site and for my website. I understand that the spacve reserved for "external links" can't be monopolized and I don't intend to do that. However, from what I know, specific dog training is a niche and there is a lot of interest in it (or at least that's the vibe I got from dog related forums where I did a little reasearch on the potential interest there would be in such a website). Once my site grows a little bigger I plan to contribute by writing articles for Wikipedia on related topics - for example, an article on training old dogs, which I belive doesn't exist.

In any case, I will keep in touch and I appreciate your support adn your patience, as I am still getting the hang of being active on Wikipedia.

Best wishes to you and your dogs! :)

Michael THe dog trainer 21:42, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

From User_talk:Elf

One thing, I cannot say that I'd agree with the decision of letting this "dog trainer experts" web site stay as an external link anywhere. The most I'd suggest would be one link at Dog training and that bothers me a bit.

I mean, his stated purpose is to use wikipedia to make his site more popular. (and to improve wikipedia after more people have sent information to his site??).

That's against the External links guidelines - it doesn't' have to be commercial to not be allowed. I don't see anything especially new or novel on his site (yet) to make it acceptable under "what should be linked to number 5" - and it's explicitly disallowed under "what should not be linked to" number 2 (self promotion). I've looked over a few of these articles and the dog whistle article is one of the few that mentions anything different than what can be inferred from information here. It also goes against wikipedia is not a link farm.

I don't mean to condemn him - he's being a nice guy and is trying to play within the rules - unlike others who have tried this in the past (the most memorable one was the woman who copied a dog training book from gutenberg removed all citiations, copyright, and references to the author, and then tried to link it everywhere here).

I think that I'd be really upset if we had a link to his site from every single dog article (as he seems to want to do [1] [2] [3] [4], etc..). One site doesn't merit that amount of linking.

I'll say that he does have a good idea to make a popular web site, So, by linking to his site (which is soliciting dog pictures and training info) to wikipedia, he's linking to a demographic that is more likely to provide him with information to make his site grow. And he's found a topic that people often have questions about - I've seen it time and time again at our dog training club, people come in having trouble training their dog and they think that they need some breed specific book or method so that they can train the dog when the real problem is that they simply haven't been consistent with training or simply don't understand how to train a dog at all.

I'd vote unlink them all, and once his site is done - if it becomes regarded as reputable dog training site after a while, then he should come back and consider contributing things from his site and referencing his site as a source. Right now, all we know about the info is that people emailed it to him. Is it verifiable? Besides a site shouldn't need links from wikipedia in order to make it popular.

- Trysha ^(talk) 19:13, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

From User_talk:THe_dog_trainer

OK, after thinking it over overnight and reading Trysha's thoughts on the subject and Wikipedia's linking policy, I am coming to agree that a link from one or two relevant articles, such as one on dog training and possibly a couple of others, would be most appropriate to this site. Trysha, perhaps we could accrue all the comments on this into one central location (dog project?) so that we could all comment there instead of in myriad Edit Summaries and talk pages and user discussions? Then we could point people there who want to express opinions one way or the other. Elf | Talk 20:51, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Continued Discussion

So, i've consolidated this discussion here for others to input.

I think i've summed up my thoughts in the previous though, while THe dog trainer's site might become the best site on the internet for training dogs. I don't think it's wikipedia's place to promote the site.

At most, i think we could compromise and allow a single link at Dog training, i'm finding it hard to justify much more than that, I have a script that generates a list of all the external links from all the dog project pages. I use this to check for "hidden spam" that has been reverted in the past.

Using this no individual web site has more than 4 links throughout the entire dog project with very few exceptions - the sites that do have more than 4 links those are large and universally considered authoritative. (akc.org, uckdogs.com, etc...)

(actually, looking through this list, I think that i should do some housecleaning)

These are the by number of links, in order:

  4 members.aol.com
  4 news.bbc.co.uk
  4 www.canismajor.com
  4 www.dogpatch.org
  4 www.moloss.com
  5 dmoz.org
  5 news.nationalgeographic.com
  5 www.basenji.org
  5 www.expert-dog-training.com
  5 www.iditarod.com
  6 www.heartwormsociety.org
  7 www.bulldoginformation.com
  8 www.geocities.com
  9 clubs.akc.org
 16 www.ckc.ca
 37 www.fci.be
 63 www.canadasguidetodogs.com
 72 www.dogdomain.com
 99 www.google.com
165 www.nzkc.org.nz
166 www.ukcdogs.com
168 www.ankc.aust.com
180 www.the-kennel-club.org.uk
197 www.akc.org

All the high number sites are major kennel clubs and list breed standards for the dogs, as well as competition rules, etc... The dogdomain.com and google.com sites host FCI standards, although dogdomain.com is kind of an annoying ad-laden site. The bulldoginformation.com, like moloss.com, gives useful info, but most of it seems to be a duplicate of what's in the various bulldog articles and the site is trying to get you to buy books. heartwormsociety.org - i guess it's reputable and all those links are in one article at the very end, it's deep linking into specific sections of the site - maybe that's too much, a general link to the site would be fine, it's an easy to navigate site. The geocities sites are to specific user pages, i'm not sure that those should stay, given the amount of flux geocities has. dmoz.org - web directory.

Westminster kennel club only has two links.

There are a total of 728 external sites that pages in the dog project links to.

- Trysha ^(talk) 21:21, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Expert dog training

Hello Elf, Trysha and anyone reading this post.

After being a while on Wikipedia I started to get a sense what a major online force this is. Of course, the external links to my dog breed training pages did bring traffic. However, I do not feel like I was "stealing" Wikipedia's visitors. On the contrary, I was hoping you would see the links as exactly what links are designed to be on the Internet - doors to related information that site A's visitor might want to look at on site B.

ON the other hand, I do not see a flawless logic behind Trysha's "4 link" policy. I believe that limits the access visitors on Wikipedia have to other relevant info not p[resent on the site. Take Daschunds for example - plenty of info on the breed, but almost nothing about training. My link would have provided exactly the "informational bonus" if you will, the normal step after learning about the breed is how to train it, isn't it?

The only thing that is slightly upsetting is that I put in a lot of time to write the breed specific training articles, and the "your links are not worth inclusion" response is a bit discouraging. Even though English is not my first language I did my best to make each individual article sound like it was written by a native English speaking person. And I also believe the methods mentioned in the articles are at least 50% unique, something you can hardly say about web content today.

One last question - I contributed to the Mioritic dog page - would a link under "references" also be considered too much? I'm also asking because there are several dog article stubs I was planning to contribute to.

Thanks and may you all have a Happy New Year!

THe Dog Trainer

09:27, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

The Dog Scene

Please beware edits by 85.92.183.119. It appears to me that they are working through the alphabet adding an entry to every dog breed page under External Links to www.thedogscene.co.uk. Personally, I do not find this necessary or useful and have reverted their change on the Keeshond page. Keesiewonder 14:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Stablepedia

Beginning cross-post.

See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Stablepedia. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 03:37, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.

Labrador Retriever

This page has recently been revised to emphatically state that silver Labs are in fact pure labs, directly contradicting the prior text. I am in no way sufficiently well informed on the subject to weigh on, however, any expert in Labradors who could clearly indicate whether the silver Lab is or is not recognized as a pure Lab would be more than welcome to do so. Badbilltucker 16:57, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• I've tidyed up tha section, which was heavily biased towards silvers. --Pharaoh Hound (talk) 17:11, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposed Veterinary medicine project

There is now a proposed project at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Veterinary Medicine to deal with matters of veterinary medicine, a subject which currently has disproportionately low content in wikipedia. Any wikipedia editors who have an interest in working on content related to the subject are encouraged to indicate as much there. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 22:13, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Cesky v. Český v. Chesky

The names "Cesky Fousek" and "Cesky Terrier" are not properly transliterated. The first letter of Český is transliterated as a 'Ch' not a 'C'. It is not pronounced as Sesky terrier but as Chesky terrier. Should not our choice of name reflect this and be either "Český" or "Chesky" or the Victorian version "Bohemian"? Bejnar 17:30, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 17:33, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Olde English Bulldogge AfD

There's an article for deletion discussion regarding the Olde English Bulldogge article. The primary claim is that the breed is not notable, as the article's authors have not found any outside references to the breed. Feel free to weigh in to the discussion, particularly if you know of articles (which are more than ads or trivial mentions) which talk about the breed. Argyriou (talk) 20:37, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Please Help a Dog Project Member with This

I have had a headache all day, and, am afraid I have made it worse by doing some due diligence. Please see a list I have made on my talk page. For more background information, you may wish to see this and that. You will also easily find my participation in the deletion review mentioned for Winston Olde English Bulldogge. I'm not sure what if anything to do next, and would appreciate hearing other active dog project user's input. Kind Regards, Keesiewonder 01:18, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Alaskan Malamute Rewrite

I just wanted to call attention to my plan to rewrite the Malamute page to be sure I get all the advice I can get. See here. Thanks! ≈Krasniy^t/_c 22:54, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Might be nice to help out a fellow member, here. Please.

I just posted the following in the AfD for the Wilkinson Bulldog. I would really appreciate feeling like I am part of a project here, and not just some doggie person. There are accusations and generalizations that are being spread left and right ... Please take a look.

My most recent post copied from the AfD discussion: I am a member of the dog projects on WP, but am not the originator of them. Headphonos (and Cowbonsai), I have not ever said anything anywhere resembling this: "if it doesn't belong to a major kennel or the FCI, it shouldn't be in Wikipedia." I did suggest that Headphonos, and now anyone who is reading this, that if you have concerns about the dog projects, you should contact the projects directly. The response I received from Headphonos on this was that s/he was not interested in all the dog breeds, just certain ones ... and, I guess, with that reasoning, has chosen to not contact the dog projects. If you need me to provide links to my dialogs with Headphonos, I will. I do not feel that the dog projects are being portrayed accurately in this AfD. And, if there are concerns, if you do not raise them with the users who may be able to help, they cannot be addressed. Keesiewonder 23:50, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

American Rare Breed Association up for deletion

The article on the American Rare Breed Association is currently being considered for deletion. If you would care to comment on this proposal, please go to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/American Rare Breed Association. Thank you. Badbilltucker 22:05, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

May I Join?

I would like to join this. I have two dogs: a Papillon, Lexie who appears on the Papillon page as the one with perthes, and Truman, a (democratic) Golden retreiver. Also, I may try to make a Userbox that adds membaers to a category. Geohevy 01:30, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

• Please do. This WikiProject always welcomes new members. For this WikiProject (as with all the ones I've ever seen) you don't even have to ask. --Pharaoh Hound (talk) 01:56, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Mirror site infringing on Wikiepdia articles about breeds of dogs

The site http://www.about-puppies.com is mirroring articles from Wikipedia about breeds of dogs without any acknowledgement of Wikipedia or the GFDL. See Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks/Abc#All About-puppies.com for more information. I have not contacted the site about the infringement as any complaints should come from contributors to one or more of the articles. If any editor who has contributed to any of the articles about breeds of dogs in Wikipedia wants to pursue this, please follow the process described in Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks#Non-compliance process. -- Donald Albury 01:17, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Considering an article for AFD

Please see this. Keesiewonder ^talk 01:18, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Copied from talk page of Wikipedia:WikiProject Dogs

heading - Extinct Dog Breeds

The Old English Bulldog discussion above brings up and interesting problem. What is an extinct dog breed? Does it require that all members of the "breed" fail to produce offspring? What if the dog is bred for a different purpose as the Fox Terrier was. Is the Old Fox Terrier extinct as there are no longer working registered Fox Terriers as a result of selctive breeding for a larger dog? Or are they just called Jack Russells now? What about claims of extinct breeds from times before there were breed registries? At that time there was no requirement that dogs be of the same "breed" for breeding, you just put together the dogs that you had that did the work. If the dogs that make up the "old english bulldog" were used to make today's pit bull did that dog go extinct or just change? Or just become an unpopular breed name? What defines a breed? appearance? work? Temperment?

When breed registries came to be in the late 1800's there was a strong incentive to create noble and ancient histories for the dog breed to be recognized. These claims were possible because they were unverifiable. Are these sources now to be considered reliable for encyclopedic purposes? Is old and unverifiable better than new and unverifiable when it comes to sources?

I suggest that we need to maintain a skeptical eye when it comes to breeds that went "extinct" before the advent of written pedigree records (largely in the 20th century).--Counsel 17:30, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Again

Tamaskan Dog is back; please see Talk:Tamaskan Dog. So is this the 3rd time? Keesiewonder ^talk 10:51, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Expanding the infobox template

I've been looking around other languages for dog articles (mostly in search of images, but I normally end up looking at the infobox) and I've noticed several different parameters that other language infoboxes have which I think may be useful here. For example height and weight parameters in German, French and Polish IBs (I particularly like the Polish version). Polish also appears to incorporate a link to a Commons gallery into the bottom of the infobox, which I think is quite neat. A "colours" one might be useful as in the French version. Another could be "original use" and possibly "modern use" (no examples, I thought those ones up one my own). What does everyone think about adding some or all of those? --Pharaoh Hound (talk) 13:27, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Breeds notability guidelines

There are currently a number of active discussions for deletion regarding some little known breeds of dogs. It has been proposed that perhaps a guideline for Notability (breeds) be established. Personally, I have no acquaintance with writing such guidelines, and certainly am completely unqualified to write regarding dog breeds. If anyone who has some experience regarding this sort of thing would care to do so, I and I think several others would be immensely appreciative. Thank you. Badbilltucker 00:27, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

My first suggestion is to title it Wikipedia:Notability (dog breeds). Start small. If the cat and horse people want to imitate your proposal, that's great; if not, let them make their own guidelines.

Next, look at other notability guidelines. What makes a particular dog breed notable? You can find anything on the internet, but how much can you find? I'd suggest starting with AKC registrations. I assume the British equivalent is similar in how it selects breeds. Is the CKC selective, or does anyone who puts up $50 get registration? For breeds which aren't AKC-recognized, what does it take to be notable? According to an argument elsewiki, the Shar Pei wasn't ACK-recognized until after lots of people had them. Was it recognized by a Japanese or Chinese association? Why didn't the AKC recognize it?

Lastly, look at where you might find discussions of rarer or newer breeds which aren't AKC-recognized, which aren't basically paid ads for the breeders. Which dog-fancy magazines aren't in the pockets of their breeder advertisers? What's their circulation? Do they write about every small breeder who crosses their gate, or only about breeds which will likely soon become AKC-recognized, or at least AKC-debated?

Argyriou (talk) 05:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• Badbilltucker -- Thanks for starting this thread!
• Argyriou -- Thanks for your input! I feel you have given us a great place to start; please let us know if you think of anything else.
• As I'm sure anyone reading this can appreciate, designing and implementing this is going to take some time. I fully believe it is possible, though. And I have faith that the new place we'll be after going through the process will be better for all parties. I cannot completely articulate it yet, but ... thinking just about the bulldog situation (see this for an example of a complicated mess) and trying to work through a methodology we can write down may provide insight for how to deal with all domesticated dogs (Canis lupus familiaris). For instance, right now, I have no qualms what-so-ever having an article about the Alapaha Blue Blood Bulldog and the Olde English Bulldogge. The former, at least, according to our Wikipedia article (which may not be completely up to date) is not recognized by any of the several international breed standard organizations; so, my reasoning has little to do with whether a breed is or is not listed there. I maintain that based on my research so far, these two bulldog breeds are welcome, in my opinion, to their own article on WP. The Wilkinson Bulldog, however, does not pass the test for me. In all my spare time, I'll try to write down my 'test.' In the meantime, my fall-back criteria is if I cannot establish verifiability with what I consider scholarly research, then my perspective is the dog in question does not deserve an article of its own in this encyclopedia. (i.e. I am good at research and am good at finding other scholar's research. See for yourself amidst a number of my WP posts or ask me for some examples. Skeptics please note I said research, not just dog-related research. Also, I do not unilaterally always vote to keep or not keep; it depends on what my research bears.) A proposed Wikipedia policy that seems to expresses a lot of my approach is Wikipedia:Attribution. To be continued ... I am going to post a link to this thread in the other dog project ... Kind Regards, Keesiewonder 09:33, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposal

An easy way to start would be to define some black, white, and gray areas. For example:

• A breed is considered notable if it is recognized by the American, British, or Canadian Kennel Clubs. (This is meant to apply to well-known breeds such as the German Shepherd.)
• A breed is also considered notable if it is widely recognized by major reliable sources independent of the breeder which describe the breed in detail. (This is meant to apply to popular crossbreeds such as the Labradoodle.)
• A breed is not notable if a breeding population does not exist independently from its originators. (This is meant to apply to made-up breeds like the East Miami Swamphound.)

How does this sound as a first approximation? Is there anything obvious that'd end up on the wrong side of this policy, or which could easily be covered by this policy but isn't? Zetawoof^(ζ) 18:46, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

That looks good, though a little more input into what constitutes a "reliable source" may be useful - is the Continental Kennel Club a reliable indicator of notability? Are there eqiuvalent organizations to the AKC/CanKC/BKC in Japan, China, Australia, or continental Europe? Which publications are pretty much automatically indicators of notability?

How do the Olde English Bulldogge breeds fare when tested against those three criteria? Argyriou (talk) 19:22, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps I should clarify: "reliable sources" is meant to refer to sources outside of the dog fancy community, such as general-distribution newspapers. As I state in the proposal, that line's mainly meant to shoehorn in breeds that aren't official, but widely recognized anyway - another example besides the labradoodle would be the Alaskan Husky. Basically, it's for unofficial or unrecognized breeds that have widespread name recognition anyway.

If there are other big kennel clubs in Asia, Australia, or continental Europe which are considered to be on the same level of reputability as AKC/BKC/CKC, then, by all means, they'd pass too. I only mentioned those three because I knew that they're considered reputable.

I'm not sure how all the OEB breeds stack up. They all certainly fail the first two criteria: none of them appear to be recognized by the big three kennel clubs, and the closest I've seen to a news reference was a one-off mention of a particular dog's breed, which doesn't really count. Results are mixed on the third; the Olde English Bulldogge appears to fall into the gray area, as the article implies that there are multiple breeders out there. The Wilkinson Bulldog appears to fail, as it appears to only be bred by the Wilkinson family. The recently deleted "Tasmakan dog" would probably have failed the third criteria as well, as (if I remember correctly) there was no evidence it existed, much less that it was actively being bred by multiple groups. Zetawoof^(ζ) 20:09, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I would say strike the third option. It is redudnant. Let's stand back and look at it outside the dog community. Any group of people can get together and create a "breed", let's say a group of 30 people get together with german shepherds and pomeranians and want to make the "shep-pom". They sell the breed over the internet and maybe even get it registered with one of the many "registries" out there. Should this dog have an article? No. I think that's specifically of the things we are trying to avoid. Now,, let's say a group of 30 scientists genetically engineers a breed of dog combining human DNA with canine DNA to produce a breed of dog that is totally hypoallergenic, and is four times smarter than the average dogs :) - this development makes major newspapers and television programs. Should that have an article? Absolutely. Is there an AKC breed out there that is not the subject of some sort of work? The bar for option two is very high - most people won't be able to do that. Rather than just say "reliable sources", you can say "is the subject of one or more non-trivial published works" that's how most of the other notability guidelines work. - Trysha ^(talk) 20:47, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Redundant? Perhaps. What I'm trying to do with that last clause is to establish a gray area between notable and non-notable breeds. Perhaps it isn't necessary, though. The second option is intentionally difficult to satisfy as written, though. Allowing any "non-trivial published works" opens the door for using pages like this one as references, which definitely isn't what we want. (CMacMillan notes on the Wilkinson Bulldog AFD that it describes some of the breed's key personality traits as being able to say "mumma" and eating from a spoon!) Hence, as I stated above, I'm thinking it might make sense to require such references to be from sources outside the "dog community". The big issue here is that it's easy for trivial sources to look nontrivial in this sort of context, particularly given the existence of registries that'll essentially add anything for a fee. Zetawoof^(ζ) 21:20, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Not meaning to throw a spanner in the works, here, but I do note that there is a breed of dog in Turkey called the kaldang. It is according to one of my sources illegal to export any animal of this breed from Turkey. Would this dog, which currently exists in very small numbers only within a specific country, qualify as notable? Badbilltucker 21:58, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

If there is a law in Turkey specific to that breed of dog, that's notable. Turkish law is a non-trivial, outside source. If it's illegal to export because it meets some guideline (for example, "dogs under 10kg"), then that does not establish notability. One might also look at the reasons the dog is illegal to export - is it protected for conservation-type reasons? If so, there's probably a Turkish conservation groups which has written about the breed, or there may have been newspaper articles about the breed being protected from export. Argyriou (talk) 22:09, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. If the breed's well-known enough that the Turkish government has seen fit to pass a law specifically about it, it's definitely notable. (However, Google doesn't appear to recognize it - are you sure you've got the right spelling?) Zetawoof^(ζ) 23:53, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

No, wrong spelling Kangal dog. Sorry. :) Badbilltucker 14:55, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

• Question completely unrelated to the above comment Why is the FCI not included in the three KCs which registration with guarantees notability under your proposal (I'm merely curious). --Pharaoh Hound (talk) 22:45, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Do you mean the Fédération Cynologique Internationale? If so, it's definitely worth mentioning - the only reason I didn't list it was because I hadn't heard of it before. Zetawoof^(ζ) 23:53, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Yes, I meant that FCI. If you're located in Britain, the US or Canada (ir any other non-FCI country, for that matter) it's quite common for people not to know about the FCI as all those countries aren't part of the FCI, and generally distance themselves from it (speaking in terms of kennel clubs, of course). --Pharaoh Hound (talk) 13:45, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Nice idea but to me, it doesn't seem to quite achieve its objective as it stands. Its hard to demarcate grey areas; that said my first thoughts for an updated proposal would be:

1. A breed is considered notable if it is recognized by a major internationally recognized Kennel Club (for example, the American, British, or Canadian Kennel Clubs).
2. A breed is also considered notable if it is widely recognized by major reliable sources independent of the breeder and owner populations, which describe the breed in detail.

   A breed is not notable if a breeding population does not exist independently from its originators. (is this really helpful? See below and note that some notable types of dog may possibly have very strictly controlled breeding sources? See below)

3. A line, breed or crossbreed which has played a significant, demonstrable, and enduring historical role in breed development history, or in some industry, culture or niche, may be notable for that reason.
4. Specific lines, colorations, and crossbreeds (for example proprietary types of dane or bulldog or labrador, and most crossbreeds) are usually not notable unless they have an established history of being bred by more than one independent source, are highly regarded or cited as significant lines or crossbreeds by independent non-owning reliable sources, and are notable in their own right amongst breeds or crossbreeds or in some niche or role for more than just "being a dog". Mere existence is not sufficient grounds for notability.
5. Types of dog not recognized by a major KC should usually be evaluated for notability from the perspective of society in general, or the dog-owning population in general, and especially in view of citation by non-owners or the size and spread of the owner population (whether generally or in a specific area or niche).

The last three criteria capture: dogs of historical interest, the exclusion of most lines and crosses unless notable for being "more than just a type of dog", and states that notability for unrecognized types of dog should be evaluated from the viewpoint of "is this notable to society or to the dog world in general", rather than "is it of interest to its own fans and breeders"?

My $0.02. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 10:45, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Follow-up. Would any of the possibly minor club, like the Turkish Kennel Club, qualify? It says here that they recognize the Akbash dog, although the FCI doesn't. Would recognition by any of these smaller groups count? Badbilltucker 14:55, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that depends on how selective the club is. If the Turkish Kennel Club recognizes as a breed anything which a breeder pays a fee for, then no. If they have some sort of reasonable standards other than payment of a fee, then yes. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Argyriou (talk • contribs) 18:30, 25 January 2007 (UTC).

A good place to start with very well-accepted breeds is with the research that a user started and we continued with here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Dog_breeds/Breed_source_list. It's based on our agreement repeatedly over time that breeds listed in any of the major kennel clubs included in the infobox are legit breeds (this excludes some pay-and-we'll-list-you orgs that I know we have discussions about here somewhere--sigh--so many years of talks, not all perfectly organized). This table lists those breeds & alternative names & many other breeds that we established one way or another as being "real" breeds whether or not they're included in the FCI, AKC, etc. I check this table whenever a breed name pops up that I don't immediately recognize. But we've also established over time that there are hundreds of breeds that don't show up under these clubs, either, so we've also relied on published breed encyclopedias, such as Fogle's The New Encyclopedia of the Dog, Cunliffe's The Encyclopedia of Dog Breeds,, or Mehus-Roe's Dog Bible. What's particularly interesting is that, even when these boosk don't have an entry specifically for a breed, they might one or all mention the breed in passing, such as in a general discussion of types of dogs (e.g., hounds); we've accepted these as legitimizing the existence and acceptance of the breed, although there might not in fact be a breed in the FCI, AKC, or so on. Consider, for example, that the Border Collie and Australian Shepherd, although well-established breeds, weren't recognized by the AKC or FCI until *very* recently, in large part because their breed registries severely resisted incorporation into organizations that they felt emphasized appearance over utility. So you couldn't ever say that a breed isn't a legit breed because it's not recognized by AKC or FCI. And of course each of the various clubs has "developing breeds" by various names that aren't full-fledged members but have some breed club somewhere who is working to develop a pedigree line.

Failing mention in any of the accepted registries, the fact remains that if *any* registry lists the breed, then it exists in some group's mind and dogs will be made available under that breed name and peoplel might well come to Wikipedia looking for information. The best that we can do is to provide articles with any neutral info that we can find about the breed and say it like it is. And, after that, we've also relied heavily on how often a breed is mentioned on the internet and how legitimate it looks after considering all the citations.

I'm not sure that you're going to be able to get more specific than that--as I mention elsewhere, it's been an ongoing battle to keep every cutesy hybrid name from having its own article (see poodle hybrid), but I'm afraid that even that has been a losing battle. If any given newspaper in a given country lists "purebred FoobyDooby puppies" for sale, then that means that there are an awful lot of people out there breeding what they believe are FoobyDoobies and that, in the sense of being info that someone's going to want to look up, makes them a "real" breed-- "legitimate" has an entirely different meaning, IMHO.

Hope this rambling helps clarify wikipedia history on dog breeds. Elf | Talk 03:59, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I post here reluctantly, due to the fact of having a vested interest in the outcome. However, I feel quite strongly that the general policy of being as inclusive as possible is the correct one. Wikipedia is, in my mind, not only the place one goes first for a good summary of an unfamiliar topic, but also the place one goes when the search for information fails elsewhere. I realise that the ongoing dissing of Wikipedia by the hidebound professorial faction cuts deep and really hurts the feelings of the many sincere, serious contributors here -- but I think it is a disastrous mistake to attempt to respond to criticism by restricting information and limiting inclusivity, because that strikes at the root of what Wikipedia is.

There is no easy, foolproof touchstone-of-notability for dog breeds. Creating dog breeds is a human activity that has gone on for a long time; the structures that surround this basic activity are ephemeral and changing. At the rate the AKC (which BTW still lacks an article here that honestly and objectively discusses its place in the dogworld and its manifold shortcomings and abuses) is going these days, it may have disappeared by the year 2050 if not sooner, to be replaced by multiple smaller, more responsive registry organisations. The trend is certainly in that direction at the moment. So my advice would be: stop looking for a foolproof criterion of notability and just continue to apply common sense, leaning heavily towards inclusivity and giving small landrace breeds, new breeds, alternative breeds, the benefit of the doubt. The dog world is in a state of turbulent change at the moment. It is not the place of Wikipedia to attempt to set norms for the canine fancy, only to document what's happening. My two cents worth... Ditkoofseppala 20:01, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

My take is simple. The founding principle of the kennel clubs - the pure bred - is a myth. It dates back to the old eugenics movement, and is based on serious misconceptions about the fundamentals of genetics. The act of trying to create a pure-bred strain of dogs is enormously destructive to the health and well-being of those dogs, and the various manias and absurd fashions that periodically infest the dog fancy only make it worse.

But more than that - the public is beginning to wake up to just how destructive a force to the health of dogs the kennel clubs are. And will remain so long as they continue their two most destructive practices - closed studbooks and registering litters.

--jdege 04:17, 28 March 2007 (UTC)