Talk:American Pekin

breed?

So is this a breed of domestic duck? This article has the scientific name as "Anas platyrhynchos domestica", while domestic duck article has it as "Anas platyrhynchos domesticus". That would mean different supspecies of platyrhynchos. Of the sources [2] & [3] which are claimed to have "domestica", first is a book which I do not have, and second gave "Page not found". And strangely, fi-wiki article of domestic duck has domestica, though there are no sources for that. 82.141.117.117 (talk) 12:21, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Pekin

I have a pair of 1 year old Pekin ducks that I raised from day olds. They are land based and never swim in my pond. Do I have to teach them to swim as they were reared without parents on site? Bill — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.180.153.242 (talk) 20:54, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Phrasing

In 1873 twenty-five ducks were exported from China. Only nine survived the trip to Long Island, New York in the United States, while half were sent to the McGrath family in New York. But unfortunately, they didn't make the journey as they were eaten before they were finally at the McGraths' farm.'

What happened to the other 4 1/2 ducks? 80.254.147.68 (talk) 15:22, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Wow

I don't know the procedure for this, because I've never participated in editing wikipedia articles, but this article is absolutely awful. Somebody please fix it. Particularly the "pets" section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.110.229.140 (talk) 19:47, 28 April 2015 (UTC) no habitat, WHY! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.116.21.106 (talk) 17:18, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

The whole article would benefit from an overhaul: it currently resembles a "how-to" guide for amateur pet owners. Hopefully, someone out there has knowledge of the subject and understands how, stylistically, Wikipedia articles should be written ~dom Kaos~ (talk) 21:20, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

I would definately agree. I am working on it myself whenever I have time. EditSafe (talk) 03:46, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Incorrect / Unsourced Information

A lot of the information on this wikipedia page is unsourced and likely incorrect. I think it would be a good idea for us to work on filtering out or correcting the incorrect information. EditSafe (talk) 03:44, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Indeed, there was a mass of irrelevant or generic content, much of it either unreferenced or referenced to sources that do not meet our definition of a reliable source such as www.metzerfarms.com. In response to this request, I added nine or ten reliable sources, removed the dubious content and added some sourced material. EditSafe has put all the garbage back in the article. Since that was done without any vestige of an edit summary, I'm at a loss to understand why. Can you explain, EditSafe? I suggest reverting to this revision unless anyone can give any good reason not to. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 09:19, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

A lot of the information you removed had reliable sources backing it. Also, with the mass removal of information some important information was lost. EditSafe (talk) 20:29, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

For example, EditSafe? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:30, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Previous and current revisions

Edits done by mostly Justlettersandnumbers were changed to the version done by mostly by EditSafe. Recently, I recovered the sources to fix errors. Back to this, to those primarily contributing this article, can anyone here explain the edits and changes? I don't know which version is better, to be honest. --George Ho (talk) 06:55, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, I'm in no doubt which version was better, George Ho! In response to the complaints in the sections Wow and Incorrect / Unsourced Information higher up this page, I added about ten new refs, removed some unreliable ones, removed irrelevant generic content that is not in any way specific to this breed and so on – well, you can see from the edit summaries what I did. The changes were reverted by EditSafe; I've still to understand why, and am still hoping for some explanation and/or discussion. I see that Diannaa has, quite correctly, removed some unreferenced stuff (thanks, Diannaa!). However, some of that content was only unreferenced because EditSafe had removed the references from it; why exactly was that, EditSafe?

If there's consensus here, I propose (1) reverting to this revision, (2) incorporating any subsequent helpful edits, and then (3) rewriting in places to make this specifically about the American Pekin breed, for which I would use a couple of the sources from German Pekin. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 09:56, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

So, no answer. Unless there's any reasonable objection voiced here in the interim, I plan to go ahead with that tomorrow morning. If anyone disagrees with that, please say so! Thanks, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:25, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Which I have not done, as EditSafe is editing the article. What about trying to reach agreement here before you do too much more, EditSafe? If you've time to edit the page you probably have time to discuss and/or explain your edits. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:24, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

What are you saying that you have not done Justlettersandnumbers? Also, check my edit summaries and discussion posts if you want to know my reasons for editing. EditSafe (talk) 21:21, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

If you read this section from the top down, EditSafe, you will discover what it is in your edits here that needs explanation (and is not in any way explained by your edit summaries); then, a little lower down, you will find my proposal for removing the unreliable sources and irrelevant content, restoring the referenced and relevant material, and then making the changes necessary to make this page specifically about the American Pekin. Since you did not trouble to comment in this thread, I was planning to make those changes without your input; however, you made edits to the article, so I held back in order for more discussion to take place here. Perhaps we could start with this:

• What makes you think that www.metzerfarms.com is a reliable source?
• What makes you think that www.duckhealth.com is a reliable source?
• Why do you think that generic content about hatching duck eggs belongs in this article, which is about a specific breed? Do the sources you cite specify that this material applies only to the American Pekin?
• Same question, but for chick sexing
• Same question again, but for the WP:HOWTO content about raising ducklings – none of that stuff is about this particular duck; it might have some relevance at Domestic duck, but it has none here. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:28, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

For the content about hatching eggs and chick sexing, this content I consider to be good because it gives information about the duck and how it is used. I am okay with the 'How to' content being removed - and have removed a lot of it myself - as long as none of the information that is important about the bird is removed. Some of this information may not be applicable only for the American Pekin, but it applies to this breed. As for metzerfarms and duckhealth, these sources do research about ducks and have a database with information about the American Pekin Duck. EditSafe (talk) 04:32, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

@EditSafe and Justlettersandnumbers: Have you considered going to WP:RSN yet? They can evaluate the sources and determine their reliabilities. George Ho (talk) 08:40, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll check it out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EditSafe (talk • contribs) 02:23, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

So, several weeks have passed, and EditSafe has not troubled to reply to my questions above. Discussion should be the way forward here, but for that to work editors have to actually be prepared to discuss. Meanwhile the article just gets worse and worse.

Once again, I propose (1) reverting to this revision, (2) incorporating any subsequent helpful edits, and then (3) rewriting where necessary to make this specifically about the American Pekin breed, for which I would use a couple of useful (and reliable!) sources from German Pekin. Ping PigeonIP and GeorgeHo, the only people other than EditSafe who seem to have taken any interest in the actual content of the page (if I missed someone, please remedy my oversight). Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 16:33, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, that should have read George Ho. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 16:35, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

@Justlettersandnumbers:: I think this article is overdue to be rewritten based on reliable sources. Please note that it is even questionable that the ducks shipped to New York really were of the same breed as the ducks shiped directly to Europe. It is also not known if these Pekin ducks realy are breeds/ducks from Beijing (like the Hamburghs, that are not breeds from Hamburgh, but shiped to Great Britain via Hamburgh harbour). It is commonly believed that they were, but it is not a known fact. (but it is a fact the Hamburghs genetically may be two breeds ;) The only known thing is that both were (upright) white chinese ducks, both shiped in the same year from a harbour of Beijing. (I did not know about the shi-chin-ya-tze before. The authors I read were just hesitant to say that both were of the same breed/origin. --PigeonIP (talk) 20:47, 5 March 2017 (UTC))

I noted that you used GEH and VIEH-pages for the article about the German Pekin (the PCGB simply refers to it as "Pekin" as the American Association does to the American Pekin). If you want to use articles from "the" German expert for duck breeds use Amerikanische Pekingente and Deutsche Pekingente. The other authors do refer to P.-E. Oswald and his work.

@George Ho: You asked: which version is better? It is this on. The other one has terrible mistakes! --PigeonIP (talk) 17:43, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

@EditSafe: Comments? George Ho (talk) 19:13, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

@George Ho: Yes. I think that the article could definitely use a rewriting, although the last time it was rewritten (by Justlettersandnumbers) a lot of good and sourced content was removed, and the article was completely changed, making it about both the American and German breeds. If this time the article is rewritten with the good information about the american pekin being kept, that would be good. EditSafe (talk) 19:57, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

EditSafe, I asked you higher up this page to specify what "important information" was lost when I cleaned up the page before, but you didn't answer. So let me ask you again: what good sourced content did I remove? I'm curious, because what I thought I was removing was (as I said higher up): "a mass irrelevant or generic content, much of it either unreferenced or referenced to sources that do not meet our definition of a reliable source, such as www.metzerfarms.com". Since I'm repeating myself so much, I might as well repeat that I did that in response to a specific request here, on this page, from three editors – of which you were one. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:06, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Justlettersandnumbers Here is some of the good content that you removed:

"The Pekin duck is the most popular commercial duck breed in the United States, after a small number were imported to Long Island from China in 1873 by James Palmer of Stonington, Connecticut."

"Pekin ducks bear a superficial resemblance to a British duck breed, the Aylesbury. Pekins can be distinguished from Aylesbury Ducks by their larger overall size, bright orange-yellow beaks and more upright posture."

"Pekin hatchlings have bright yellow plumage with an orange bill, shanks, and feet."

You changed the article from a multiple paragraph article to one that is just a few sentances long. EditSafe (talk) 23:41, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Hey, EditSafe. I think you can read the following essays, which can help you collect your thoughts: Wikipedia:Truth, Wikipedia:Truth matters, and Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth. I'm unsure whether you want to read a humorous piece, Wikipedia:Truth is irrelevant. Also, you can read the policy, WP:V. --George Ho (talk) 23:45, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

George Ho You just posted opinion essays about not using your opinion, what is your point with those? EditSafe (talk) 00:00, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Well... sorry if I wasn't clear earlier. I will rephrase: I think I will abide to Justlettersandnumbers's revision. Even when the his/her version is small, the version is very cleaner and well verified. All of the sources are reliable. This version suffers from issues, even when there may be... "truth" about the ducks. I don't know whether you want the article to be truthful. However, in the case of this article, quality is more important than... trying to tell the facts about the ducks. Can you, EditSafe, let me change the article back to Justlettersandnumbers's version, please, so we can move on? George Ho (talk) 00:11, 6 March 2017 (UTC); un-struck. 11:11, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

@George Ho: The version by Justlettersandnumbers is not much better quality than the current one. It talks mainly about Chinese duck breeders, and says very little about the American Pekin Duck. Unless you are talking about a different version than [[1]] I think that reverting to the previous version rather than editing the current one would be a bad mistake. EditSafe (talk) 02:37, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Hmm... I may not know much about the ducks, and I may be uncertain whether either version is correct or clean or whatever. However, I hope the discussion is still productive. If it becomes unproductive, then I think one of dispute resolution methods, like a WP:DRN, would resolve content disputes. George Ho (talk) 03:12, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

EditSafe has listed three items of "good sourced content" that I am supposed to have removed from the article when I rewrote it. The first of those was not removed but expanded and rewritten for encyclopaedic tone, with new sources, to read "In 1872, at the request of a businessman named McGrath, fifteen white ducks hatched in Peking were loaded at Shanghai by James E. Palmer, of Stonington, Connecticut, for shipment to the United States. Nine birds – six ducks and three drakes – survived the voyage, which took 124 days and reached New York City in March 1873. ... It was soon in widespread use for production of birds for slaughter." The other two are without any reference at all, and are clearly marked "citation needed". Did I remove any other valid content? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:06, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

References

@Justlettersandnumbers: Here is one of Wikipedia's guidelines: "When you find a passage in an article that is biased or inaccurate, improve it if you can; don't delete salvageable text. ..." You have in your previous edits removed a lot of content that with some editing can be brought up to Wikipedia's standards. I agree that this article needs a lot of work, but just deleting 4/5 of it does not improve it. EditSafe (talk) 01:20, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

I disagree. About four-fifths of it (maybe a little less) needs to be removed immediately. That includes the non-reliable sources, all the material about hatching and so on that is generic to all ducks and not just this breed, and the remaining unreferenced stuff. On that topic, please read this part of our policy on verifiability:

In Wikipedia, verifiability means that other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source. Wikipedia does not publish original research. Its content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of its editors. Even if you're sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it. However, while verifiability is required for including something, it is not a reason for inclusion. When reliable sources disagree, maintain a neutral point of view and present what the various sources say, giving each side its due weight.

All material in Wikipedia mainspace, including everything in articles, lists and captions, must be verifiable. All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material. Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed.

Please excuse the long quotation, but it's important for you to understand how a Wikipedia article is supposed to be written. Unfortunately, the present version of this page is a long way from that ideal. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 09:35, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

After reverts by EditSafe, now I must support Justlettersandnumbers's version. George Ho (talk) 11:11, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

@Justlettersandnumbers: @George Ho: Seeing as this discussion has been going on for a while, and consensus has not been reached, I have submitted this discussion to the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. I am not sure how good it is as I have never used it before, but hopefully this will help us reach consensus. You can find the submission here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Talk:American_Pekin_Duck#Previous_and_current_revisions EditSafe (talk) 01:45, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

The DRN case is closed as suggesting to turn back to this talk page. Should we do the RfC right away? Pinging Justlettersandnumbers, EditSafe, PigeonIP. --George Ho (talk) 20:17, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

@George Ho: Yes. Just going back to the same discussion is not going to work out any better this time. EditSafe (talk) 22:58, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Requested Move

I've (obviously) performed the requested move, which is better but maybe not best. We have German Pekin and American Pekin Duck...do we have consensus on changing the format of one or the other?  Frank  |  talk  01:35, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

I would say move 'German Pekin' to 'German Pekin Duck'. This way it is more obvious that this is talking about the animal. EditSafe (talk) 04:32, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

@Frank: If with "duck" than "German Pekin duck" and "American Pekin duck" – "Duck" is not part of the name of the breed, while the capitalisation of "Duck" implies that it is. German Pekin and American Pekin are perfectly good as well. All variations of "* Pekin Duck" are not. --PigeonIP (talk) 12:02, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

How about American Pekin (duck) and German Pekin (duck)?  Frank  |  talk  21:31, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

That would be the fastet way to get a non-bracket-name. There are authors who are moving all ***(duck), ***(sheep), ***(chicken) - breed-articles. even if it makes no sense and there is no source for it. --PigeonIP (talk) 21:44, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand. What do you mean by a "non-bracket-name"?  Frank  |  talk  21:49, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Sorry i meant "article-titels without parentheses" because of WP:NATURAL. Please, have a look at Category:Duck breeds. Once there were some articles with "duck" in parentheses. --PigeonIP (talk) 22:01, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

I guess in retrospect I prefer American Pekin duck and German Pekin duck.  Frank  |  talk  22:16, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

OK, I really wanted to keep out of this discussion because it's been such a monumental timesink in the past. But for what it's worth: there isn't, and there never was, any real consensus for titles like "German Pekin duck"; we have a lot of them because of the efforts of just one editor a couple of years ago. There is, of course, nothing remotely natural about having a title that has two words capitalised and one lowercase (New York city?, Chase Manhattan bank?, Pacific Coast highway?). In this case, we don't need to disambiguate with either "duck" or "(duck)", because we only have one American Pekin article so there's nothing to disambiguate from – that is also why I created German Pekin at that title. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:35, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

I could support (and implement) American Pekin and German Pekin...any takers?  Frank  |  talk  22:44, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, that's what I'd suggest, certainly – it was my Alternative proposal in the move discussion. Let's see if anyone agrees … Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:25, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

You know I do. i just fear, the next random visitor moving it/them because of "consistency" with the other articles in the duck-breeds-category. (or worse: to "clarify" that it is about ducks, moves them back to "Ducks".) sorry I lost faith in that case, because of that one persistent editor consuming so much time we could have used much better writing articles and creating real content...

Anything is better than American Pekin Duck. American Pekin duck/German Pekin duck would be better, American Pekin/German Pekin the best solution to the "problem". --PigeonIP (talk) 19:35, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

It is done.  Frank  |  talk  01:31, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

And then it is undone, despite the consensus here, by EditSafe. That doesn't seem to be anything like collaborative editing, EditSafe, more like someone trying to enforce their personal preference even if it is against consensus. Frank, I'm sorry to bother you yet again, but could I ask you to do whatever you think necessary here? Might that perhaps include undoing the improper close of the RM above, and re-closing it in accordance with your reading of this? Thank you, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 10:53, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

@Justlettersandnumbers: There was no consensus here. See the other discussions and edit history. EditSafe (talk) 22:30, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

RfC Previous and Current Revisions

Should we edit the current version of the page or rewrite the page from scratch? 18:20, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Opinions

• Edit Current Version. Editing the current version would be better than starting over. EditSafe (talk) 18:20, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

EditSafe, the OP you made was less clear and too brief. May I or Justlettersandnumbers please help you rewrite it? Also, why archiving the threads? Previous version and Current version. --George Ho (talk) 01:49, 27 March 2017 (UTC)