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The future of WikiProject dogs

To: 07bargem, User:Fishnerd, User:4444hhhh, Bobherry, Chrisrus, Coaster1983, Cyclonebiskit, Elf, Hutcher, Lisapollison, Miyagawa, Sagaciousphil, Hafspajen, R9tgokunks, SMcCandlish, The Cool Kat, Trulystand700, VanTucky, Mark Shaw, ItsWolfeh, 'K, Dougweller, Dinosaur Fan, LukasMaps, User:White Arabian Filly, Cavalryman V31, PigeonOfTheNight, Gareth Griffith-Jones, Xyzspaniel, User:Enzogato, User:Genegerbreader, Jamesjpk123, User:JackOfPanTrades

Hello all of the registered participants of WikiProject Dogs. Excuse me for calling on you but "there has been a disturbance in The Force!"

The "View history" log shows that WikiProject Dogs was created in May 2006 to provide a way of collaborating on the development of "dog and dog-related articles". It reached its peak in 2008 with several departments and taskforces. At some stage, someone included the project as a sub-project of Wikipedia:WikiProject Mammals and expanded the scope to include all of the Canidae, which includes dogs, wolves, coyotes, jackals and foxes that are referred to in mammal science as a collective group called "dogs". Nearly a decade after creation, the page view stats show that on average only 8 people visit this project each day. The Talk page shows a passing comment by a drive-by visitor from time to time. The page view stats show that on average only 3 people each day visit the Dog breeds taskforce and some of its subpages have seen no activity since 2008, so I assume all of the editing activity is occurring on the specific breed pages with little coordination from that taskforce. There are only 63 articles in Category:Dogs, and Category:WikiProject dog articles does not exist so it is unclear how the project manages dog articles. [It's Category:WikiProject Dogs articles.] In summary, this project is almost defunct. Some of you might agree that it has been so for a number of years.

The "View history" log also reveals that over time, one person or another comes along and focuses on furthering the project but then after a year or two then moves on. Some of you might now remove yourselves from the participants list and that is not a concern. I have recently processed the backlog of articles that had been waiting for assessment since 2011. I have attempted to restructure the project pages to assist visitors and to encourage them to get involved with the project if they decide to do so. Quoting Wikipedia, "A WikiProject is a group of contributors who want to work together as a team to improve Wikipedia. These groups often focus on a specific topic area." I see little evidence of this happening under this project.

When an organization falters, it is a signal that it needs to review its strategy and in particular its scope. I propose below some options for participants to consider, and seek comments over the next two weeks. The options I propose (and there may be others you might offer) are:

  1. A - Do nothing. By this we assume that the project is easily found and therefore provides a good "signpost" to direct interested editors to the right places. At some time in the future, a group might form to progress this project further.
  2. B - Full Expansion. There might be more interest in the project if its current scope was more clearly defined by its name. By this we would rename WikiProject dogs to WikiProject Canids so that it would more clearly show to other editors that it includes dogs, wolves, coyotes, jackals and foxes, and therefore perhaps attract more editors willing to assist from those subject areas. (It is supposed to be covering these now. I see little input from editors who are well known on the pages of these other areas.)
  3. C - Partial Expansion. Rename WikiProject dogs as WikiProject Canines so that it would more clearly show to other editors that it includes the "wolf-like canids" such as dogs, wolves, jackals and coyotes but excludes the foxes, and therefore perhaps attract editors willing to assist form those subject areas.
  4. D - Partial Contraction. There might be little interest in the project because its scope has become too wide. Under this option we return to the original definition used at the articles creation of "dog and dog-related articles". The project would remain named WikiProject Dogs. It is to include only the domestic dog, the dingo, wild, free-range and feral dogs.
  5. E - Full Contraction. This is Option D plus we narrow the scope to be about biological "dog and dog-related articles". Articles that are not about biological dogs, such as articles that are about dogs in books, movies, songs (and the names of astronomical objects e.g. the "dog star") would no longer be supported under the WikiProject Dogs banner.
  6. F - Super Expansion. Consider creating WikiProject Domesticated Animals under WikiProject Animals. (Suggested by editor Miyagawa below. Domestic Dogs would join it. WikiProject Cats does not have a Cats Breed Task Force, as yet. There is a WikiProjec​t Agriculture/Livestoc​k task force in existence that may be interested in joining.)

I seek your comments over the next two weeks prior to a possible proposal to be put to a vote. Perhaps we simply badge the project as inoperative on the project page and leave it for historical purposes. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 07:40, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

  • There is one other option I'd like to table, although I've no idea how possible it might be. How about a WikiProject Domesticated Animals. So that'd include pets, farm animals etc. However, I'm not sure what it's like over at WikiProject Cats as I've never been involved with them and as for the farm animals, I haven't even checked to see if there is a pre-existing WikiProject that exists there. Miyagawa (talk) 18:02, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
WikiProject Cats scope includes the wild varieties as well - lions, tigers etc. Their collaboration page became inactive in 2010, so they suffer from a similar issue (are we seeing a pattern emerging here?) There is no WikiProject Domestic Animals but you raise a good point. At the minimum, this would right now make a fine Domestic Mammals Taskforce under WikiProject Mammals even without including cats and dogs. The difference between a WikiProject is that it covers "at least several hundred pages to thousands of pages", whereas a Taskforce "involves a few dozen to a few hundred pages" according to WP:PROJGUIDE, which also provides guidance on how to set it up. Alternately at the medium, there could be created a WikiProject Domestic Mammals that sits under WikiProject Mammals, and includes WikiProject Dogs and and WikiProject Cats as its "sub-projects" if their scopes were reduced to the domestic forms. Alternately at the maximum, a WikiProject Domestic Animals could be established under WikiProject Animals that would also include domesticated birds etc. This would be a huge undertaking but not impossible for an interested group. William Harris • (talk) • 23:16, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
This idea is not without merits; I was helping draft something similar, a WikiProject Breeds, but it did not get off the ground. Despite what I said below about expanding scope, it is not the only approach. The problem I see with WikiProject Domestic Animals being viable is the same one WikiProject Breeds had: there are already long-entrenched "camps" of editors who have a vested personal interest in perpetuating all the separate WikiProject [insert one specific domestic animal type here]s, because in several cases each consists of a small, winnowed "in crowd" of a like mind about "their" topic, who can and will tagteam against "outsiders", sometimes very successfully (especially if they've got some pet admins). The two approaches to dealing with this are to make the project more attractive to new people and swell its ranks, diluting the influence of the "owners", or forming a new mega-project that merges them all as "Domestic" or "Breeds", with one clique counteracting the excesses of another.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:22, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
  • I think this project would function better if it focused on dogs, not all canids, and not dogs in media (though there's no guarantee that narrowing the scope would revive the project). A couple of years ago, articles on mammal species were scattered across seven different projects: mammals, cats, dogs, equines, cetaceans, rodents and primates. I added the mammal banner to all the Felidae, Canidae, Equinae and Cetacea species. The species account for a pretty small number of the articles with the cats/dogs/equines banner, and I don't see that people interested in cats, dogs and horses are likely to do much work on wild relatives of the domesticated species. Plantdrew (talk) 20:09, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
WP:PROJGUIDE advises: "Is this a 'natural' scope? Will other people be able to easily understand what kind of articles the group is working on?" I concur with you, and I am not convinced that people coming to a project named WikiProject Dogs are expecting to also find work being done on the Black-backed jackal from the remote regions of southern Africa - they are expecting to find work being done on the Golden Retriever or similar. One thing is certain: it is the registered participants of WikiProject Dogs who will decide shortly on what is in and what is out of its scope; articles on other species will need to live with that decision. William Harris • (talk) • 23:16, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
  • I'm more with Plantdrew. I might edit a wild canine article if I see obvious issues, but I generally don't expand them or do considerable work there. I don't think ruling out the dogs in media type articles would help the project necessarily and might restrict it. New users with an interest in joining might be put off or confused if we didn't cover stuff like Old Yeller. Maybe the thing to do is start an article improvement drive and try to get more GAs, maybe improve some of the ones that have been delisted and get them relisted? White Arabian Filly Neigh 21:15, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
I do have an interest in wolves and am part of the "Wikipedia wolf pack", I span both camps, however I can see what has happened to this project and it is in need of some urgent attention. There are arguments both ways for dogs in media and I have no position on that - I will observe other people's points of view. Article improvement is one of the purposes of a WikiProject but unfortunately collaboration appears to have broken down for both Dogs and Cats. Perhaps one of the reasons is that the examples used for the article Importance Scale is not clearly defined for this project, so without a guide we are unable to ascertain which are the important articles to work on and which are not. We currently have 29 articles rated as "Top Importance" - rightly or wrongly - however only 4 of them are at GA status. One of the Top importance articles is Hounds that has been at class=stub since 2002 - it is actually a list but that might be clarified at some point in the future. We have one more Tab available on this project's main pages (on the Project page, near the top of the screen) and perhaps it could be used for managing collaboration in the future. Our flagship article Dog is rated at class=B by the Dog Breeds Taskforce, having lost its GA status in 2007. I understand that a WikiProject does not "own" the articles under its banner, but if there were ever an argument for jointly "managing" an article through a WikiProject "collaboration" page then it is this one - there are far too many "drive-by" editors having their way in an unstructured manner on that article, and one long-term participant there has been slowly but surely deleting content under the guise of "improvement" for quite some time. Our quality grading scheme is given to us and is the same across Wikipedia, however we can include examples from within our WikiProject for what is a GA level article etc. Our importance rating examples and implementation is up to us. Where we attempt to direct our resources for the most value is also up to us and any editor willing to assist. William Harris • (talk) • 23:16, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
  • I think that we should increase our advertising on this project. We should create a survey saying how people were recruited to this project, and how we could capture that for use. What do you guys think? Jamesjpk (talk) 01:05, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
Retraction - I have found all of our articles: Category:WikiProject Dogs articles, now included on the main project page under the heading "All articles". I have also found the list of Category:WikiProject Dogs members who display the project userbox on their userpage, now listed on the membership page. There are 90 of them, of which 30 are members of the Breed Taskforce. Of course, not all of these are active and two of them have been blocked indefinitely. I wonder what other little hidden gems are there just waiting for us to find them?
We have a list of current participants i.e. those editors that I called at the start of this section. I know that the list is current because I deleted those who had not contributed edits to Wikipedia in over a year. Some of them are willing to assist at this time as the three editors above are all known to me. Now that we have a list of those editors who display the project userbox on their userpage then your suggestion is now possible; it wasn't before. But first, look at your own reasons for joining. When I first came to Wikipedia, I placed the project userbox on my userpage because (1) I intended to edit only dog related articles (2) I was now part of a group without knowing what that entailed - joining Wikipedia is a bit of a mystery (3) I thought that there was a greater "mind" that coordinated the project and soon I would get a tap on the shoulder to help out in some way. It did not take long before I realized that no such coordinating mind existed, and today that mind is us! I only joined the participants list because that would allow me to rate articles, and so in 2015 I commenced clearing the backlog that had been left since 2011. I had no other reason for adding my name to this list because I could not see anything else being done! I assume if you were to ask the 90 editors why they have the project userbox displayed on their userpage the answer will be "because I love dogs" and that is fair enough. Why 35 editors added their name to the participants list, and what their expectations were, might prove more enlightening. We can do both. I do not know why 30 people display the Dog Breed Taskforce userbox on their userpage nor what their expectations were. When something is named a "taskforce" then one would envisage some tasks to be performed. Their reasons for doing this would also prove most interesting. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 03:09, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
I have just had a quick look at some of the 90 editors that display the project userbox. Of those I looked at, many have not seen any editing activity in 3-8 years. I have also had a look in the archived Talk pages for the Project page. Some items of interest. There was once a WikiProject Dog Breeds, that got merged. There was a debate over what should be done with Movies, Cartoons, TV Programmes,and Comics. Someone thought that it was a good idea to start badging Canidae articles under WikiProject Dogs - no discussion was entered into. Later, someone complained that the scope was out of control. All of this was before 2008!! I see that WikiProject Mammals collaboration page ceased operation in 2011, and a good contact over at WikiProject Birds tells me they almost went extinct not long ago when a number of editors left over some minor disagreement. William Harris • (talk) • 05:24, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
  • I would go for full expansion (aside from fictional and other peripheral stuff); this will attract more biology editors and just critical-thinking, policy-conscious editors in general, and help stem the tide of COI articles on vanity dog "breeds", and other claptrap. Also agree that a project has to be advertised in various ways (the most effective isn't really advertising but directly inviting the participation of new and non-new editors working on the articles). I know from experience that having some simple and goal-oriented stuff to do is helpful – neither vague "overhaul all the dog stuff" hand-waving, nor bureaucratic "collaboration of the week" and "editing marathon contest" stuff. The fact, however, will remain that WP's serious editorial pool is dwindling as a natural part of the project lifecycle. Most of the important and/or controversial topics already have articles; what is left is hard work improving them, and the hard and largely uncheered work of adding articles on more obscure but still provably notable topics. This isn't "sexy" and doesn't attract many editors, so wikiprojects of all sorts are shrinking. This is actually okay; it's fine for a wikiproject to essentially consist of 3 or 5 or even 2 active editors, as long as they're actually active. What keeps a wikiproject viable are: a) actually bothering to use its talk page to coordinate, and b) avoiding territorial disputes (like taking "our articles" stances against "outsider" editors, etc.) that reflect negatively on the work and the people willing to do it. Not everyone is a "joiner" and wants to sign up to be in a wikiproject, but may be doing good work. At some point, a topical wikiproject's work can essentially be done. We're not there yet, but when that day comes, it is okay for a project like this to be tagged as dormant.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:39, 24 June 2017 (UTC); revised 11:03, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
Sobering comments as always, thanks Mac. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 08:59, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
  • With the exception of those Projects falling under the umbrella of Military History, in my opinion, very few are constructive or productive these days as many are "controlled" by a small group of editors [obsessively] pushing their own agendas. It appears this Project is now being led down the same road with changes being made without discussion and seeking to take control of this Project. SagaciousPhil - Chat 09:01, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
Not come across WP:BOLD before, Phil? Perhaps you might outline what that agenda is? William Harris • (talk) • 09:04, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
I suggest reading WP:BRD before continuing with sarcastic comments. I have no idea what, if any, agenda might be at play here; my comment was regarding how other Projects appear to be presently functioning. Anyway, I removed my name from the list of Project participants a few hours ago as I hadn't realised it was included (Hafspajen, who added it, retired from WP over 10 months ago after being harassed/hounded by socks etc so s/he is highly unlikely to return and might as well be removed as well). SagaciousPhil - Chat 09:44, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
I am sorry to hear that, Phil. The artwork of Hafspajen is know across Wikipedia and you have been active with the Dog Breed Task Force. Perhaps you might reconsider sometime in the not too distant future. As you can see above, my agenda is to put the options (plus others identified) to the membership, perhaps leading to a vote or leading to no further action. That is not comparable to a "small group of editors [obsessively] pushing their own agendas", that is called democracy. William Harris • (talk) • 10:10, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
I am fully conversant with what a democracy is, thank you. Interesting to note that you claim "I have basically been "WikiProject Dogs" for the last couple of years" - really? SagaciousPhil - Chat 11:47, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
You may be conversant with what democracy is but can you recognize it when you see it? As interesting as you might find trawling through my User Contributions log - for an as yet undisclosed purpose - the context of that conversation was the assessment of articles, was it not? Do you dispute that I have been assessing articles for this project for the last couple of years? More importantly, do you have anything constructive to add regarding the options under consideration because this is what you were originally invited here to do. William Harris • (talk) • 11:52, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
Phil's general point is valid, and one I make frequently. The no. 1 source of conflict on WP (outside of naturally controversial topics like GMO foods and Trump) is control-freak behavior by insular cliques of editors, which is what I was getting at in my own comments above, both with regard to WP:OWN and in favor of recruiting more people by invite when you see them working on dog stuff. BTW, it's helps – a lot – to refer to participation and participants not membership and members. The wikiprojects still using the latter words need to be rewritten to use the former. The last time WP had an actual internal membership organization was when WP:Esperanza was active, and it got shut down as WP:NOTHERE. Anyway, the main way a wikiproject avoids becoming the plaything of one or two editors is by making sure it always has new people in it with their own ideas, and the readers in mind, foremost, over internal politicking or editorial egos.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:13, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
These days I am not fussed whether a wikiproject is active or not - the biggest benefit is the Wikipedia:WikiProject Dogs/Assessment page, which gives an analysis of the state of the articles. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:19, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
My vote would be "C" partial expansion to include wild animals that people can class as dogs, such as wolves, coyotes etc. 'E' is a whole different kettle of fish. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:23, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Apologies for the late contribution. Personally I am in favour of "D" partial contraction. I think the inclusion of all canids is too broad in scope, and whilst I have little interest in dogs from film or literature (with the possible exception of Jock of the Bushveld) I think this is the natural home for such work. Cavalryman V31 (talk) 08:47, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Close - no further action

Hello Miyagawa, User:White Arabian Filly, Cavalryman V31, Plantdrew, Jamesjpk123, SMcCandlish, and Cas Liber. Thanks for your responses.

Agree that semi-active is best tag. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:39, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
Template now in place. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 09:27, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

AfD:Majestic Tree Hound

FYI: AfD:Majestic Tree Hound

This seems to hinge on what the notability standards are for a minor breed that's not recognised by the major kennel clubs, but does seem to have some recognition around its own breed owners. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:12, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Well, that would be true of anything. My book collection has great significant to me and the people who like to borrow my books, but we don't need an article about it. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:06, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Followup note, for future reference

The way to deal with this in the future is simple. We certainly do not need that article, since it's a miserable stub and will almost certainly remain one, and new-breed attempts like this most often result in extinction within a decade, meanwhile most of the sourcing is not truly reliable (dog fancier publications are largely written by breeders and serve a promotional purpose).

The fix is an article like List of dog crossbreeds and List of experimental cat breeds (yes, they could use more consistent naming). We just a couple of months ago AfDed to merge an iffy cat article into the latter of those list articles, and the same can be done with iffy dog article like this one into the former. We could quite literally end up with 100+ crap "articles" like this if we don't take this approach (and we already have dozens of potential merge candidates), because backyard breeders are trying to create new breeds all the time, and if they look funny or whatever, someone somewhere (probably with a connection to one or more breeders) will write about them somewhere and lend a false sense of notability. Maybe this Majestic Tree Hound page technically passes the GNG, by a [dog] hair, but the project is better served by compressing info on wanna-be breeds like this into a list article.

PS: We also have List of extinct dog breeds and a bunch of junk stubs should merge to that, too.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:19, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Call name

Is this an official term in the world of canines? Please see Call name (disambiguation). Staszek Lem (talk) 21:11, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Found myself: Breed registry, but may be a better target? Staszek Lem (talk) 21:13, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Water dog needs help

The Water dog and Gun dog need some urgent help I have started with Gun dog any help would be wonderful. Dwanyewest (talk) 14:43, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Dwanyewest, I agree entirely, gundog is inadequate and water dog is a complete mess, it seems to include all retrievers. I'm currently away from home, but when I return I will see what I can do using the several books I have on the topic. Kind regards, Cavalryman V31 (talk) 10:43, 7 July 2018 (UTC).
Dwanyewest, I have done a minor re-write although there remains plenty of opportunity for someone to take the article much further. Kind regards, Cavalryman V31 (talk) 13:38, 8 July 2018 (UTC).

AfD:Red-Tiger Bulldog

Red-Tiger Bulldog has been nominated for deletion. Comments are invited at the article's entry at AfD. Cavalryman V31 (talk) 03:17, 19 July 2018 (UTC).

AfD:Continental bulldog

Continental bulldog has been nominated for deletion. Comments are invited at the article's entry at AfD. Cavalryman V31 (talk) 04:15, 19 July 2018 (UTC).

AfD:Leavitt Bulldog

Leavitt Bulldog has been nominated for deletion. Comments are invited at the article's entry at AfD. Cavalryman V31 (talk) 23:28, 19 July 2018 (UTC).

List of articles that need improving

Bracco Italiano, Pudelpointer, Pointing breed, Galgo Español, Ca de Bou are there other dog breed articles that need additional information as I am trying to add sources to articles without third person information. Dwanyewest (talk) 13:24, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Polish Greyhound, Cirneco dell'Etna also need help to if there any others I would like to potentially work on them. Dwanyewest (talk) 14:55, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

New article Kurdish dog

Could someone take a look at this please? I'm not sure this is right, or that the sources all back it. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 18:45, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Request for comment on the origin of the Poodle

There is a request for comment on this at Talk:Poodle#Request for comment on how to describe the dispute over the origin of the poodle. Doug Weller talk 08:28, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Is this even worth it ?

Is designing Pitbull awareness month even considered a notable subject? [1][2][3][4] Dwanyewest (talk) 22:22, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Definitely not worthy of a stand alone article, but perhaps a mention could be included in the Pitbull age. Kind regards, Cavalryman V31 (talk) 13:33, 18 October 2018 (UTC).
Yeah, looks like it got AfDed. I agree it's the sort of thing worth mentioning in the article on the breed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:35, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Is the Godfather of dog fighting notable?

Ed Faron is widely recognised as the godfather of dog fighting which he did for 40 years as part of Wildside Kennels do you think he should he should have an article. Dwanyewest (talk) 20:26, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Here are some sources if anyone is interested [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]Dwanyewest (talk) 12:52, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
@Dwanyewest: Seems like sufficient published notoriety to pass WP:GNG, though the people at WT:BIOGRAPHY would likely be more certain.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:56, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Should this exist?

What's anyone's opinion of American Temperament Test Society existing. Dwanyewest (talk) 13:32, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

It's a good sub-topic for merging to Temperament test, which is what I've proposed in the AFD, below.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:27, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Nomination of American Temperament Test Society for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article American Temperament Test Society is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/American Temperament Test Society until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

Play bow

I wonder whether anyone wants to dissuade me from (eventually) writing this article. There has been some research by dog behaviorists, and there's at least one usable image on Commons. Or maybe someone who knows more about dogs (that would not be hard!) would like to do it? Yngvadottir (talk) 19:33, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

... and they have a category: c:Category:Dogs bowing to initiate play. Yngvadottir (talk) 20:33, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
Yngvadottir, how extensive is your reference? I think an article like Dog body language would be great. Kind regards, Cavalryman V31 (talk) 11:40, 17 August 2018 (UTC).
So far I have noted on my home comp (I'm currently at work) a couple of different analyses to what I believe is the same study that casts doubt on a previous study. We in fact already have Body language of dogs, to which I've just redirected your Dog body language redirect red link. I think that's a useful overview to have but I only found it through its use of one of the images in that Commons category. I note that German Wikipedia has de:Vorderkörpertiefstellung, which adds academic references that JSTOR may well not show me (haven't looked yet). Thoughts from you folks who know the field? Yngvadottir (talk) 11:50, 17 August 2018 (UTC) ... German Wikipedia led me to a usable book reference and JSTOR lets me see multiple articles by Bekoff including the one critiqued in the later work. I think I'll set this aside and come back and do it if no one else has first. Yngvadottir (talk) 20:34, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
@Yngvadottir: Yeah, I would just expand Dog body language. We don't need a separate micro-article on every aspect of that.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:58, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
I actually started it in user space, using two of the references, but haven't had the time to return to it. I'm weak in the sciences and so it takes a large degree of concentration for me to summarize well in those fields. I do still feel it merits a freestanding article, though. Yngvadottir (talk) 06:03, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
Please see WP:SPLIT, WP:SPINOUT, WP:SUMMARY. We don't spin subtopics off into stand-alone articles unless the main article has become too unwieldy to include more than a short summary of that subtopical material, or the suptopic is unquestionably notable in and of itself (and even then we still often merge short ones). I agree it's encyclopedic to cover somewhere, but if it were a stand-alone page I would just propose merging it to Dog body language and I think many others would as well. The main article is very short (especially given the scope of what all could be included and in what depth), and barely mentions this particular behavior except in passing. An "I think it's interesting" kind of idea about why to create a stand-alone article isn't really applicable here, though it's an understandable instinct. PS: "play bow" is ambiguous; I thought it referred to a kind of dog toy when I first encountered the subject line here. It would not work well as an article title.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:34, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Is Wallace the pitbull notable ?

Should Wallace (pitbull) have an article as he was a Disc dog in world championships what are anyone's thoughts? Dwanyewest (talk) 21:36, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

I have some sources if anyone is interested [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] Dwanyewest (talk) 12:30, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Is 2006 Cynosport World Champion
  • 2007 Purina Pro Plan Incredible Dog Challenge National Champion.
  • He qualified multiple times for the Ashley Whippet World Championships, the UFO World Finals, the Skyhoundz World Finals, and the USDDN World Finals.

good enough as accomplishments. Dwanyewest (talk) 13:46, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Dwanyewest, I think both are worthy of mention in the Pitbull article, but not independent articles. Kind regards, Cavalryman V31 (talk) 03:47, 19 October 2018 (UTC).
Agreed. This has the same problem as the temperance testing organization article now at AfD for merger or deletion: lots of passing mentions in sources, but not the subject of in-depth coverage focused exclusively on that subject.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:36, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Talk:Irish Bull Terrier

Could one or more people knowledgeable about reliable sources for dog breed characteristics take a look at the discussion here? We have a "stubborn new editor runs into the WP meat grinder" situation, and I was hoping we could re-focus on the actual content under dispute. Seems like folks here can opine on what is too bloggy and what is a good reliable source for dog breed characteristics. I won't try to summarize the dispute any more because it isn't an area I understand well. My gut says there must be a compromise to be made, but I could easily be too optimistic, and one or the other side is just wrong. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:03, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

I tried a "bullet list of WP editorial basics" approach.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:38, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject

The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.

Portals are being redesigned.

The new design features are being applied to existing portals.

At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template {{Transclude lead excerpt}}.

The discussion about this can be found here.

Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.

Background

On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.

There's an article in the current edition of the Signpost interviewing project members about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals.

So far, 84 editors have joined.

If you would like to keep abreast of what is happening with portals, see the newsletter archive.

If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page.

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   07:35, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Dog sports

Question: will it make sense to move in here with dog sport activities, competition results etc.? This might result in massive amount of pages, articles (depending what level of competition is worthy of being added here but I assume at least World Championship level competitions under FCI are worthy). What about competitors? Can you point me to some specific guidelines on the matter? This is not about dog shows - rather obedience, agility, IPO, herding etc. Nimdil (talk) 18:36, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

@Nimdil: We'd have to be very careful of WP:NOT#NEWS. At most, I would start by using the new portal system to overhaul Portal:Dogs, and then see about working competition-related stuff into it as a feature (and, yes, just at the international level). While I did work on the portal overhauls stuff a little, it was mostly not on the "guts" of it, so I don't really know the new templates and and scripting.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:32, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Merge discussion

Please see Talk:Staffordshire Bull Terrier#Merger discussion. Thanks in advance....Atsme✍🏻📧 19:29, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Template:Hairless dogs

I have tagged Template:Hairless dogs for speedy deletion under WP:CSD#T3 as it directly duplicates a section from Template:Primitive dogs. Kind regards, Cavalryman V31 (talk) 03:34, 16 November 2018 (UTC).

I kind of wonder whether it's maybe this group that should be removed from other template. Some hairless dog breeds are recent; by what rationale are they being classified "primitive"?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:11, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
Prior to my nomination I had wondered the same, but Bruce Fogle's The encyclopedia of the dog[p 1] lists most of the breeds as primitive (his full list here), those not classified as primitive are covered by the terrier navbox. Kind regards, Cavalryman V31 (talk) 03:49, 17 November 2018 (UTC).
Works for me.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:18, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Dr Bruce Fogle, The encyclopedia of the dog, DK Publishing, New York, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7566-6004-8.

Breeds talk merge

Resolved

I propose merging Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dogs/Dog breeds task force to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dogs. No one has posted at the sub-talkpage in over a year (other than the merge notice I'm about to add), and we do plenty of breed discussion on the main talkpage. This would help centralize the remaining active members (and maybe get new ones, since no one wants to sign up as a participant in a moribund project). I would archive most of the current sub-talkpage, and move a couple of unresolved threads to this talkpage, then redirect the sub-talkpage to this one. I already did this with the templates sub-talkpage, since no one had posted to it since 2011.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:04, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Which form is preferred?

I'm currently working on Commons Dog Breed Pages. I have noticed there are two different ways of adding the names in different languages:

Which one is preferred? Should all the breed pages be modified according to the preferred model, so they could be standardized? --Canarian (talk) 19:51, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

@Canarian: Sorry no one got back to you sooner; the taskforce page you originally posted on went dormant shortly after you posted there (and has been merged into here). Anyway, that's probably more of a question for Commons people, but from what I see there, the format used there today is more often "the second way". E.g., the page linked to as "the first way" has been changed, in its current version [27], to use "the second way", and this seems to be a Commons norm now. It's certainly much more compact. The way you're doing additional-language descriptive material (e.g., what the Commons category is about, in Finnish) appears to be the prescribed way (Commons language-block templates). Hope this helps.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:22, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Breed names in English

Unresolved

There are currently many articles with an original breed name, even though there exists an official English FCI breed name.

List of breeds with official English names according to the FCI website (these breeds are currently in Wikipedia with the original name):

I suggest that in these cases, we could use the official English FCI name rather than the original name (as this is English Wikipedia). However, I want to hear some opinions before moving these articles to new English titles. If I get others' permission, I can transfer these pages to English titles. --Canarian (talk) 19:43, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

I would strongly object to several of these being moved. Please check The Kennel Club website as you will find, for instance, the Lowchen, Bracco, Podengo, German Spitz (Klein) and (Mittel), Eurasier etc etc are the breed names used in the UK. SagaciousPhil - Chat 20:17, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
 
We also have to exercise great caution here. WP:BIRDS got into a years-long shitstorm, which spread to other projects, after trying to impose an external organization's list of bird names onto Wikipedia articles as some kind of "official WP standard". Several editors quit Wikipedia over it. Sanctions were contemplated. Just a total debacle. It led to half a dozen RfCs, including one of the longest in WP history. Massive WP:DRAMA, and all over trivia. (Redirects exist for a reason!) While that had more to do with capitalization of species names that selection between completely different names, that also came up, and the central issue was about WP:BATTLEGROUNDing / WP:SOAPBOXing to push some external organization's PoV.

The thing is, our article titles are determined primarily by WP:CRITERIA policy (and the WP:COMMONNAME in English-language sources is the first-choice name to test against those criteria). WP titles are not determined by any third party's preferences, nor by editors' preferences about which third party they like better. However, the whole WP:Article titles policy is complex. Another aspect of it is WP:USEENGLISH. So, we're apt to lean toward an English-language name, unless a foreign one is genuinely more common in English. A third factor, especially for obscure stuff that isn't often mentioned at all except in specialist material, is that if we don't have enough sources to do a statistical analysis of source-usage frequency of particular names (can't be sure what the most common name is), we'll prefer the name used by an international organization than one preferred by a national (or more local) organization. So, I'm afraid a one-size-fits-all approach is completely unworkable here.

I do agree that this entire list (and maybe more besides) need to be reviewed and some of them subjected to WP:Requested move. PS: One tool at our disposal is WP:NATURAL and WP:NATDIS policy. If we're stuck at present with a disambiguated name, we have the option of replacing it with a still-common but not quite the-most-common name if we get a more natural, less awkward result, as long as it fits the rest of the criteria (recognizable, concise, and consistent in approach with other comparable article titles).
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:13, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

  • I believe WP:COMMONNAME as known in the English speaking world (acknowledging that in itself can be contentious) should be the overarching consideration. I agree many of those listed should be moved, but not all. I think moves should be requested as opposed to boldly moved and listed on this talk page. Cavalryman V31 (talk) 11:13, 18 November 2018 (UTC).

Differences in infoboxes

Unresolved

The FCI groups have been marked a little differently between different breeds. For instance, in the Smooth Collie it says: "Group 1, Section 1", while in the German Shepherd there's: "Group 1 Herding Dogs, Section 1 Sheepdogs". Should we have a some kind of common standard for this, for example mentioning also the names of the groups (plain group numbers don't tell anything for common people not familiar with the FCI grouping)? Also, the group 1 is officially called "Sheep and Cattle Dogs (except Swiss Cattle Dogs)", not "Herding Dogs". --Canarian (talk) 16:10, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

I agree this should be consistent. It should use the more informative versions where this information exists, since "Group 1, Section 1" doesn't mean squat to any WP reader unless they work at FCI.  :-) I would suggest updating Template:Infobox dog breed/doc to include instructions to this effect and an example like "Group 1 Herding Dogs, Section 1 Sheepdogs".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:57, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
I agree they should be consistent, I have no great opinion on which way although the latter looks a little busy to me. Canarian what are your thoughts? Kind regards, Cavalryman V31 (talk) 11:06, 18 November 2018 (UTC).
I "vote for" mentioning the name of the breed group (and sub-group). In addition to giving more information about the given FCI group, as SMcCandlish said, it is also more similar to the way AKC groups are mentioned in the info box (the AKC does not use numbers, but specific names for groups). --Canarian (talk) 16:11, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Writing about breeds

After two new-ish editors ended up at WP:ANI in the same week for breeds-related disruptive editing (and one topic-ban was issued), I've expanded a bullet-point list of advice for them into an essay: Wikipedia:Writing about breeds.

It provides a crash course in how to write about breeds the Wikipedia way. It's mostly for new editors, but might be of use to some more experienced ones who have not written about breeds before or thought much about how our WP:P&G apply to the topic area.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:52, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Two legged dogs

We don't seem to have any articles mentioning them. Not the ones that get around with wheels etc, those that rely solely on two legs, eg Duncan Lou.[28][29][30] Doug Weller talk 12:29, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Doug Weller, do you think something could added to prosthesis? Kind regards, Cavalryman V31 (talk) 03:49, 19 October 2018 (UTC).
@Cavalryman V31: that might be possible for dogs using wheels, but I'm thinking of dogs that just manage to use their muscles to balance them. Or at least this one dog. Doug Weller talk 18:31, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
I would suggest instead an article on pet disabilities (or disabled animals, or something like that, if things like this also pertain to zoo-kept specimens?). This could cover prosthetics, the (sometimes surprising, like running in a handstand) balancing adaptations, medical procedures to restore mobility (or vision, or whatever), etc., etc. The info should be somewhere, and I would argue to centralize the bulk of it, though treat it WP:SUMMARY-style where relevant. Given that people interested in pet mobility are probably looking for that info in one place, having it thoroughly split up at articles like Prosthesis isn't going to be helpful. People interested in prosthetics are mostly looking for its applicability to humans, with only passing interest, if any, in other animals.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:53, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
Pings: Cavalryman V31, Doug Weller.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:56, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
I think that’s a good idea, although I wouldn’t know where to start finding the references. Cavalryman V31 (talk) 14:24, 12 November 2018 (UTC).
Dog fancier magazines probably have plenty of overview stuff, and some details in their veterinary columns, but actual veterinary journals would be more solid (though most are behind paywalls). You can apply for subsidized journal access here. For some of them (JSTOR is one) there's a waiting list, but for some you can get approved within a few days. I had no trouble renewing my Oxford access, and I think I got EBSCO at one point, and HighBeam twice over the last few years, though I'm not sure about Questia; would have to check my WP e-mail. The access periods tend to last 6–12 months; it varies.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:27, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
@Cavalryman V31 and SMcCandlish: I'm not sure about the name but Yale has JSTOR for graduates so I can help with that. Restrict it to pets though - Disabled pets? Doug Weller talk 07:57, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
That's what I get for not bothering to go to Yale. LOL. Title: Pet disabilities? Disabilities and pets? Pet rehabilitation (too vague, might imply behavior modification)? I dunno. Looking at Category:Disability, the title "Disability and pets" or "Disability and animals" if broader would best fit the pattern, it seems.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:16, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of multiple dog breed Templates by FCI classification

Template:FCI 1, Template:FCI 2, Template:FCI 3, Template:FCI 4, Template:FCI 5, Template:FCI 6 & Template:FCI 7 have 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 V31 (talk) 11:03, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

I've asked at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2018 November 3#Dog breed navboxes by FCI classification for a clarification on what the deletion entailed (any merger or move stuff that we need to know about, and so on).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:48, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
As far as I know, what happened is that templates {{FCI 1}} to {{FCI 7}} were deleted (after being removed from articles) as redundant to generic templates of say {{Hounds}} etc. Galobtter (pingó mió) 06:11, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
Here's a compressed summary of I what I was told over there by Cavalryman V31:
I'm thinking it may be a good idea to catalogue this set of templates at WP:DOGS#Templates [it's actually WP:WikiProject Dogs/Templates] so we have a convenient reference of what we have. Plus whatever other templates we need on a regular basis (infoboxes, stub types, etc.). It's kind of weird for a project this old and of this scope level to not have a list of key templates.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:54, 12 November 2018 (UTC); link fixed 15:17, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
SMcCandlish, I have already added Template:Mastiffs and Template:Pinschers and Schnauzers to WP:WikiProject Dogs/Templates, I have held off adding Template:Mountain dogs until the deletion nomination has been finalised. Kind regards, Cavalryman V31 (talk) 14:22, 12 November 2018 (UTC).
Wow, I'm being a blind bonehead; I was looking for WP:WikiProject Dogs#Templates and didn't see the tab for WP:WikiProject Dogs/Templates. Will merge the results of what I was working on.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:47, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
Updated: I've added about two dozen missing templates to WP:WikiProject Dogs/Templates.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:18, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, that was to be my next task. Cavalryman V31 (talk) 18:17, 12 November 2018 (UTC).

Follow up on Template:Mountain dogs

The speedy deletion nomination for {{Mountain dogs}} has been contested and rejected. I would like to put two possible ways forward for discussion here to achieve some project consensus before diving headlong into TFD.

Proposal 1. Template:Mountain dogs be nominated for deletion at WP:TFD.
Proposal 2. Template:Pastoral dogs be renamed Template:Herding dogs and the bottom half of the template be deleted.

I am also open to other suggestions. Kind regards, Cavalryman V31 (talk) 21:04, 2 December 2018 (UTC).

Pings: SMcCandlish, Canarian. —  Cavalryman V31 (talk) 21:13, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
TfD it. This is a WP:POVFORK attempt (at least at the navbox level, maybe worse) and looks to be WP:INDISCRIMINATE. It's very clear from the article Mountain dog that this is a vague and totally synthetic classification of dogs by no criterion other than whether they're from mountainous regions, and is not a working dog classification, nor a breed group, nor any other kind of encyclopedic connection between breeds; it's just a phrase. The article's own lead states outright that they typically bred for herding, livestock guarding, and farm use, so dumping them all into Pastoral dogs > Livestock guardian dogs (the "sub-navbox") is original research and directly contradictory of the article. The article has few sources, though, and most of what's in it is unsourced, nor is much of anything sourced inline. This may not even be a notable concept, but nothing different from "semi-arid region dogs", "coastal dogs", "arctic and subarctic dogs", yadda yadda.

Even if the idea can survive as an article, we do not need redundant navboxes for every imaginable way to group dog breeds together (white dogs, dogs larger on average than coyotes, dogs with floppy ears, dogs from Central Europe, etc.). Lots of ways to categorize dogs are not even appropriate for WP:Category treatment, though "Mountain dogs" might be, since the term is provably attested.

I would have to think that what we should end up with is either a single Template:Pastoral dogs, but with the entries checked to make sure that the entire contents of Template:Mountain dogs wasn't just dumped willy-nilly into Pastoral dogs > Livestock guardian dogs; or split the pastoral template into its two subtemplates: Template:Herding and droving dogs and Template:Livestock guardian dogs, again checking to make sure that the entries are correct. However, it's not terribly plausible that there's a major split between these dog roles. Any herding dog will also have been bred to be a livestock guardian.

The more I look at this (especially the lack of any material at any of the three articles about the alleged differences between livestock guardian dogs, herding dogs, and mountain dogs, the more this looks like either a PoV fork or a more innocent content fork, creating three articles on essentially the same thing simply because different breeder organizations use different categorizing names for their breed groups. We're quite possibly looking at a three-article merger that needs to happen. "A phrase exists and I can prove it in sources" doesn't mean WP has to have an stand-alone article on that phrase, per WP:NOTDICT. Cf. all our other (mostly not completed yet) mergers of content forks of breed group and showing classification terminology back into complete, general articles on broader classifications. This seems like just another case of that. PS: I notice also that the herding and guardian types' articles are sorely confusing dogs trained to so something and breeds developed to do something [allegedly – most of the claims are unsourced, as to particular breeds], so there's a bit of a WP:COATRACK problem, too.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:59, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

I agree about the Mountain dog article, its (very few, non-reliable) references don't even support the page's contents and a google search comes up with some dog food articles and a link to the Bernese Mountain Dog article, a page merger is probably in order. I am personally very comfortable with the split in {{Pastoral dogs}}, the two broad categories are quite destinct in nature and dog type. I have done a quick scrub of {{Mountain dogs}} and copied all of the extant breeds into the Pastoral dogs navbox (there were several extinct breeds already covered by their national templates & {{Extinct dog breeds}}) and will now nominate the Mountain dogs navbox for deletion. Kind regards, Cavalryman V31 (talk) 05:43, 4 December 2018 (UTC).

Nomination for deletion of Template:Mountain dogs

Template:Mountain dogs has been nominated for deletion. Project members and other interested parties are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Cavalryman V31 (talk) 05:56, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Nomination of Double-nosed Andean tiger hound for deletion

Unresolved
 – Result was merge, but to an article that does not yet exist.

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Double-nosed Andean tiger hound is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Double-nosed Andean tiger hound until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

This could really use some further input, or it will likely end "no consensus".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:07, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

The result was merge, but to something along the lines of an article of bifid-nosed dogs, an article on bifid noses and other cleft-palate conditions in dogs, or to a canine section on such conditions at a broader article. And of course the material would need to be compressed to remove unsourced and poorly sourced claims.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:05, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Followup: Some stuff to merge in with it would be the micro-stub Double-nosed pointer, as well as any related info at Pachón Navarro. Another breed, about which we have no article, the Catalburun (AKA Turkish Pointer) is also said to develop this feature/fault.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:31, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Template:Pastoral dogs

I have made a slight change to {{Pastoral dogs}} with the inclusion of a key at the base to include breeds that are typically grouped with the livestock guardian dog breeds but are typically not used in that role. I am not 100% convinced by it and request other editor's opinions. Additionally, does anyone know how to fix the colour of the key? Kind regards, Cavalryman V31 (talk) 04:05, 5 December 2018 (UTC).

Fixed the color. I tweaked the footnoting style; it's much less visually confusing now. Fixed a typo. I think in this state, the footnote is useful to readers.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:29, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
Many thanks, that’s a vast improvement. Cavalryman V31 (talk) 10:49, 5 December 2018 (UTC).

Capitalization of names of standardized breeds

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC on capitalization of the names of standardized breeds.

This is a neutral RfC on a question left unanswered by MOS:LIFE (on purpose in 2012–2014, pending "later discussion"). It is now later, and lack of resolution of the question has held up MOS:ORGANISMS in draft proposal state for 6 years.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:03, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Cleanup of breed group mess

FYI
 – Pointers to relevant discussions elsewhere.

Please see Talk:Non-Sporting Group#Requested move 20 February 2018. The follow-on comments also cross-reference various ongoing merge discussions.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:05, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

See also:

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:17, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Anyone want to start working on these merges (of those that haven't been done yet)? I'm more of a cat person when it comes to categorization knowledge. Better if a dog expert tackles this.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:29, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

 Done Cavalryman V31 (talk) 01:41, 11 December 2018 (UTC).

Merger discussion for List of dog breeds recognized by the American Kennel Club

An article of interest to the project—List of dog breeds recognized by the American Kennel Club—has been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. Cavalryman V31 (talk) 05:17, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Merger discussion for List of dog breeds recognized by the Canadian Kennel Club

An article of interest to the project—List of dog breeds recognized by the Canadian Kennel Club—has been proposed for merging with another article. If you are interested, please participate in the merger discussion. Thank you. Cavalryman V31 (talk) 06:20, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Adding an option for a second image to Template:Infobox dog breed

Hi all

What do people think about having an option for a second image in Template:Infobox dog breed to allow dog breed articles to show a second image in the infobox? I think this could be very useful for breeds which have sexual dimorphism or more than one colouration. Being able to add more than one image is a common feature in infoboxes e.g Template:Speciesbox.

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 15:05, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Hello John Cummings, to be brutally honest I don’t think the infobox is the place to show such things, that belongs in the article. I believe a second image in the infobox would be too much. Kind regards, Cavalryman V31 (talk) 19:25, 13 December 2018 (UTC).

Tazy, Tazi

Would it be more appropriate to name Tazy instead Tazi (dog)? Dwanyewest (talk) 17:15, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Tazi brings up 306,000+ selections from Google whereas Tazy doesn't even reach half that number, but my question is why have a separate article on it? The dab page for Tazi points to either Afghan Hound or Saluki. Atsme✍🏻📧 17:25, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, this looks to be an accidental WP:CONTENTFORK of the same dog at a different (local-language) name. Should be merged (if there's anything to merge) then just redirected to Tazi. Since there are two actual dog breeds called Tazi, we can't actually have an article at Tazi (dog), since it's fails WP:AT#DAB and WP:DAB.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:44, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
Agree with the merge under Afghan Hound. My understanding is that Tazi - a Persian-originating word (Dari) that has made its way into the Afghan (Pashto) language - is the name used for the Afghan greyhound. I have just removed the Saluki from the dab page - Saluki appears to derive from an Arabic word. (I also grow tired of trying to sort out the Arab/Iranian conflict that happens on the Saluki page from time to time, with editors based in Iran trying to badge the Saluki as a "Persian Tazi", and editors based in Arabia trying to remove any reference to Persia from the Saluki article!) William Harris • (talk) • 11:59, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
In some countries, the Tazi is categorized as a different breed from the Saluki and the Afghan Hound. For example, it has its own breed status in the Estonian and Polish Kennel Clubs. This breed is seen as a breed from the Soviet Union, unlike the Afghan or the Saluki. There are two lines of it: the Kazakh Tazi and the Turkmen Tazi. In Russian, this breed is called Sredneaziatskaya Borzoya ("Central Asian Sighthound"). Used for hare, wildcat, fox and wolf hunting. Males 60 to 68 cm, females 56 to 65 cm. Sources: Morris, Desmond. Dogs - The Ultimate Dictionary of Over 1,000 Dog Breeds. Ebury Press, 2001. ISBN0-09-187091-7. Page 43. Gondrexon, A. & Browne, Ives. Elseviers Hondengids. Elsevier Publishing Projects S.A., Lausanne, 1974. ISBN951-35-1120-0. Page 184. Polish and Estonian Kennel Clubs. --Canarian (talk) 16:48, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
That may be so, but WP doesn't care enough to create a bunch of redundant articles. All it requires is a few sentences at detailed and established articles on world-wide dog terms. This is covered in detail at WP:Writing about breeds, a summary of policy as applied to the topic (including the fact that we merge redundant articles, and don't create them on non-notable breeds or alleged breeds. Also of relevance is WP:Identifying and using tertiary sources, especially the material about over-inclusive (indiscriminate) tertiary sources. A book purporting to be an encyclopedia of 1000+ "breeds" of dog can only be doing one thing: falsely equating "breed" with "any population of dogs someone has put a name on". Even mentioning most of them would be WP:INDISCRIMINATE and having articles on any of them as WP:NOTABLE requires multiple, independent, reliable, secondary sources (that actually agree with each other, and aren't contradicted by others).

The obvious place for this would appear to be Afghan hound#Variants, since this section already exists and the Afghan has been identified as a basal breed. This section already covers the Bakhmull Tazi (of Russia, from Afghan foundation stock). This is almost certainly the "Russian Tazi" of which Canarian is thinking.

PS: I actually own Desmond Morris's breed encyclopedias (among many others) and can directly attest that they're indiscriminate. His goal clearly was to write about every dog (and cat) term he encountered, and he does not distinguish clearly between breeds, landraces, feral populations, historical terms for groups of long-extinct dogs, etc. They're reliable sources for many things (such as that so-and-so term appeared in thus-and-such source in 1798 or whatever), but not for assertions that things are breeds, or what their history really is, only for what the materials he found at the time said the history is. He assembled dog and cat trivia with little actual WP:AEIS work to make his output on this topic an actual secondary source; it's thoroughly tertiary. (This is in contrast to his anthro-biological work, like The Naked Ape, which is still highly recommendable decades later – one of my favorites in the field.) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:44, 7 December 2018 (UTC); revised: 02:33, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I agree that some of the breeds Morris lists are definitely not breeds - such as Pit Bullmastiff or many of the breeds with just few lines at the end of the book. And that while some breeds have a good amount of sources listed right after the breed description, others don't have any. But I just noticed the 2008 edition has "Outstanding Reference Source" mark by the American Library Association on its cover. I don't know what their criterias for nomination are, but based on their history and influence world wide, it is not just an insignificant small organization. I think it might be stated as a good source in several things and certain longer (two pages; I don't think there are any longer ones than that in the book) breed descriptions, but poor source in unsourced and very short breed descriptions.
Here are few other sources (not necessarily to disagree, just to bring more sources so we all can figure out what's the best thing to do):
  • Biased for sure, as it is from Kazakhworld - Kazakhs for sure try to promote the breed as their own, but I hope it partially helps to figure out the overall situation of the Tazy as either a breed on its own or a local variety of the Saluki (when looking at the pics, the Russian Tazy certainly is not a variety of the Afghan; if something, it is a variety of the Saluki and if we come to the conclusion that it should be merged, I think it is better to mention it as a variety in the Saluki article than in the Afghan article)
  • The Astana Times, Kazakh Online Newspaper - another pretty biased source, "According to the organisers, Tazy breed standards were approved by the Kazakhstan Ministry of Agriculture in August. The next step will be the registration of Kazakh breed dogs by international dog organisations and announcing Kazakhstan as the country of origin of Tazy and Tobet dogs, which are endangered now.", "The idea was also supported by a well-known expert and Dog Breeder Association President Vladimit Ekk."
  • BBC, "it's now one of the rarest dogs in the world"
  • National Geographic, "The Tazy’s ancestry is unclear. It shares DNA with a cluster of similar-looking breeds from central Asia, the Middle East, and north Africa. In Kazakhstan, lanky dogs appear in 3,000-year old petroglyphs. And not far from where Akbakai now ran, dog bones were found in a Botai burial grave, a Copper Age civilization that kept domesticated dogs and horses."

--Canarian (talk) 08:00, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

PS: Relatedly, I've done some cleanup at Afghan Hound (mostly to remove promotional breeder nonsense in the Variants section), and something of an overhaul at Saluki (combined diff of several passes: [31], especially to undo blatant original research that was trying to equate the modern breed with skinny-faced dogs in medieval and ancient art, and feral landrace dogs in the middle east with purebred dogs in England and Germany all as "the Saluki"). Many of our breed articles have similar serious problems, both of conflation of modern standardized breeds with historical dogs (which almost invariably would have been landraces before the notion of studbooks and pedigree registries arose) and feral regional populations, and of bullshitty claims and emotive descriptions inserted by breeders to sell more dogs. Be alert also, in the latter regard, for both a) WP:SPAM links to breeders/kennels and to non-notable, sub-national organizations, and b) claims that so-and-so person was instrumental in establishing or popularizing a breed, with no source but their own website. It's good that this wikiproject "rebooted" last year. Its original incarnation either did very little to restrain dog articles turning into fandom blog pages, or actually contributed directly to the problem.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:33, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
I concur with your assessment, Mac. There is much breed-club, dubious website, and OR nonsense across a number of the breed articles. You know the type of thing: "There are depictions of (insert name of any breed here) on cave walls dating back 9,000 years." This usually comes together with a complete misunderstanding - or misinterpretation - of what some early DNA studies had indicated. I have done what I can with the main DNA offenders, and I support your efforts elsewhere. William Harris • (talk) • 00:43, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Should Indian Bull Terrier be redirected?

Should Indian Bull Terrier be redirected to Gull Terrier anyone with an opinion can discuss it here on Talk:Gull Terrier. Dwanyewest (talk) 15:42, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

The current draft version of the article is a redirect anyway, do we need the redirect? Cavalryman V31 (talk) 23:06, 10 January 2019 (UTC).

Should Gull Dong be separated?

I am wondering what anyone's opinion on Gull Dongs being redirected to Gull Terrier or should a separate article be created? Dwanyewest (talk) 17:47, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Dog/puppy food/nutition WP:CONSISTENCY issue

FYI

Please see Dog food#Puppy food, which raises the issue of Dog food, Puppy food, Dog nutrition, and Puppy nutrition resolving to inconsistently named and arranged articles.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:16, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Wikitext userbox where used
{{Wikipedia:WikiProject Dogs/UBX/User dogproject-en}}
This user is a contributor to the
dog breeds task force.
 linked pages
{{Wikipedia:WikiProject Dogs/UBX/User WikiProject Dogs}}
This user is a member of
WikiProject Dogs.
 linked pages

--Splattereel (Talk) (not autoconfirmed) 18:58, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Should Hulk the pitbull get an article?

Is the dog Hulk (dog) the pitbull notable as a dog even the he has an online show on Barcroft TV.[32][33] [34][35][36][37][38][39][40] [41][42][43]. Dwanyewest (talk) 15:07, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Barcroft TV channel isn't even notable to have its own page. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 19:10, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
Why not just include it in Pit bull? Atsme✍🏻📧 13:21, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

List of Dog Breeds by weights?

I'm looking for a sortable list of dog breeds by weight, weight range, etc. AKC's list of breed weights is very useful, but it is not sortable by weight. Would such a list here on WP be useful, and not considered copyvio? It'd be nice if the list could be automatically generated from the breed article's infobx, à la SemanticWiki, but that's probably not feasible. But if went through the effort to put such a list together, with cited refs, would it be useful? sbb (talk) 20:48, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Requested Edit

I requested trimming some unsourced commentary on a page about a dog food brand here under the heading "Un-Cited Content." I have a disclosed COI and the page doesn't look very active, so I thought someone here might have a minute to take a look. CorporateM (Talk) 21:12, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

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