Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dog breeds

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	To-do list for Wikipedia:WikiProject Dog breeds:	edit  · history  · watch  · refresh
See Wikipedia:WikiProject Dog breeds/To do

This talk page is automatically archived by Werdnabot. Any sections older than 60 days are automatically archived to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dog breeds/Archive 2. Sections without timestamps are not archived.

Archives: 1, 2   See also: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dog breeds/Categories

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)