Wikipedia talk:Notability (breeds)

Discussion

Greetings. I would like to place this draft up for discussion, input, thoughts and more from anyone who edits animal related articles or even anyone who has thoughts to put into the ring. There has been some discussion about this over time - I noted one especially at WikiProject Dogs back in 2007 or so, but not much since. I've seen quite a bit (especially where I edit primarily, in poultry) of people adding articles about random 'breeds' that are truly not real or notable, and also of people with little understanding of the editing area assuming other legitimate breeds were not real or were not notable. Hence a wish for a guideline. I am not sure if this will get much feedback, I truly hope it does, but I'd like people to give it a read and reply! JT_dale^Talk~ 16:05, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

To note; WikiProject Animals, WikiProject Dogs, WikiProject Poultry, WikiProject Genetics, WikiProject Agriculture, WikiProject Equines, WikipPoject Rats, WikiProject Birds Domestic Pigeon Task Force, WikiProject Cats and the village pump have been invited to this discussion. JT_dale^Talk~ 16:21, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Hello JTdale. I like your consultative and organized approach and I wish you and the interested parties all the best with this undertaking. Regards, William Harris • talk • 21:31, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

• I agree this is needed for at least the two reasons you've outlined.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:25, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

• I'm wondering if there may be a need for species-specific guidelines. Companion animals are rather different from livestock, and horses fall into an in-between realm. (Are there hamster breeds? What about guinea pigs? LOL!) The other thing that pops into my head are the indigenous landrace breeds in third world nations - probably a homogenous landrace (thinking Riwoche horse as an example) and of course the feral groups (Namib horse, for example), some of which also have acknowledgement as a unique genetic population. But a lot of them have no breed society, though biologists may note them as a clearly distinct ecosystem-adapted population. Montanabw^(talk) 21:51, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

To answer you, yes hamsters and guinea pigs both have breeds. A Nambi horse would be probably very similar to a landrace I'd think? I'm not familiar with them. JT_dale^Talk~ 08:49, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Some editors have issues with the word "landrace" for some reason. We need to cover all five of the following, without dwelling on any definitional disputes: standardized breeds (including crossbreeds and hybrids involving them, whether pejoratively labeled "designer" or not); landraces (sometimes called "natural breeds", but that phrase has more than one meaning); engineered (usually patented) organisms; named feral populations; extinct named populations that are attested historically. Breed standards are primary sources for standardized breeds, while patents and scientific breeding control protocols are the equivalent for engineered organisms like GMO crops and various lab animals. For landraces and feral populations, we don't have primary sources that define them in this way, and they are not really defined at all, but described, like species, in scientific literature or delimited, usually geographically, in legal/regulatory documents. For extinct "breeds", we often have no information other than primary eyewitness accounts and secondary sources commenting on them. (Most were landraces, by definition, but some might really have been breeds in a more formal sense. E.g., were ancient Roman war dogs bred to some kind of written standard? We aren't really sure, since we don't have a surviving standard to point to, and contemporary sources about them do not mention a standard.) Any or all of these may be covered by tertiary sources, like "breed encyclopedias", which often confuse these categories and just call everything a "breed", and are often poorly researched, especially when published by fancier and breeder organizations. Settling those sorts of source-evaluation problems isn't within the scope of this draft guideline, which is only about how to estimate notability.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  14:16, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Update: In the intervening years, I've attempted to address some of this (e.g. describe the source-evaluation issues without trying to "settle" them; make sure all these categories of organisms are covered, without WP:WIKILAWYER / WP:GAMING wiggle room, other than we're still not addressing lab animals and GMOs and such very much yet. I do think we still need a guideline on this because the frequency with which people try to inject bogus articles on alleged "breeds" and such is high enough to be a hassle. WP:DOGS also has had a huge cleanup problem dealing with worse-than-useless WP:POVFORKS based on nothing but minor differences in terminology between kennel clubs.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:23, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Concerns

Comments by Montanabw

OK, on one hand, I would LOVE to see an end to the "is it a breed" dramas. On the other hand, sometimes a page of guidelines creates more drama. Here are my preliminary thoughts on the proposal as it exists at this revision:

1. Be recognized (or formerly recognized) by a national or international species society or standard.[a] Some countries do not have a national species society but they do have an agreed upon standard.[b]
   • Private groups can be very small and call themselves "national." Perhaps add "regional" - at least in the USA, things like corporate registration are done at the state level. the federal trademark or 501(c)(3) designations are far too exclusive to encompass many animal breeds.
2. Be recognized (or formerly recognized) by a national or sub-national government. [c]
   • The United States doesn't have either of these, most animal regulation is at the state level and few states recognize breeds. Even where federal agencies note animal breeds (the USDA, or the reports of the FAO) their lists are often substandard and incomplete - or, in other cases, redundant and repeat without analysis the self-reports of private entities.
3. Recognized (or formerly recognized) by a national society of some other form. This primarily includes non-breed societies such as rare breeds societies.[d]
   • I like that. Maybe add to it "university research" or something - I'm thinking about the work of Phillip Sponenberg on rare breeds, he's got a lot of things published out there, but they are scattered about.
4. Covered in depth in a major independent species-focused publication.
   • I'd ask if "in-depth" exceeds GNG. I'd say the usual GNG reliable independent third-party standard is OK, provided that it is understood that significant or in-depth coverage within a niche area such as animal breeding is going to be a far smaller pool than say, baseball teams. Maybe give examples such as animal magazines, breed encyclopedias, etc. Also perhaps farm or agricultural publications (for chickens, ducks, pigs, etc...)
5. Have an international or nationally recognized studbook.
   • Again, in the USA, studbook organizations may be called national but could be incorporated in a single state. May want to clarify
6. A landrace generally recognised as a homogeneous population.
   • I like that, though perhaps just say, "Landrace generally recognized as such by independent, third-party sources" - I fear drama with "homogeneous"

As long as the criteria is pretty inclusive, but not so inclusive as to include designer crossbred animals or a one-person breeding program, this might work. On the other hand, I'm cautious. I'd be curious to know where the fights occur in animals other than horses. In assorted AfD discussions, my line for "what is a horse breed" is probably the time I tried once and succeeded and tried later and failed to delete Moyle horse. The community consensus was to keep the article, based mostly on its appearing in some breed encyclopedias - and I guess I can live with that. On the other hand, I still kind of wonder about the Georgian Grande Horse and the Virginia highlander. I think there is a decent argument to be made for the Camarillo White Horse and the Warlander people are pretty aggressive about saying they have a new breed now. (Sigh) Montanabw^(talk) 19:14, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

• Comment 2: We probably need a discussion of crossbreds and designer crossbreds ... maybe the article on these topics cover them, but we can't pretend they aren't there. Montanabw^(talk) 22:56, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

I would assume that when determining notability for non-breeds (or wannabe breeds, etc.), our standard Notability guideline (WP:GNG) would apply... if it has been discussed (in depth) by reliable sources that are independent of the breed/breeder, we can consider it notable enough for an article. Blueboar (talk) 13:56, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

• • [Note: Those are redlinks.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  14:32, 18 May 2015 (UTC)]
• Do you have ideas for establishing the notability of breed recognizing organizations? The Continental Kennel Club, for example, is a kennel club, but is known for 'recognizing' any breed whose creators have an extra $20 laying around,as opposed to the FCI or AKC which have a lengthy established history. --TKK! bark with me! 16:35, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
  • We have a twofold problem here. Fancier and breeder associations have a monetary interest in recognizing new breeds (or recognizing as breeds strains that have long existed but just been considered minor variants of "real" breeds). And tertiary "breed encyclopedias" have a monetary interest in doing so as well (to be bigger and "more complete" that competing works).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  14:32, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
    • It's a problem in all ways. And primary studies are sometimes funded by corporate interests who also want to make a profit. No one is pure these days. I think that's why we are saying these are guidelines. ;-) Montanabw^(talk) 07:58, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Comments by SMcCandlish in response

I've taken the WP:REFACTOR liberty of numbering Montanabw's points, above, for easy reference.

1. The case of minor organizations is covered in one of the footnotes already. As for regional/state-level, it seems unlikely to me that anything WP would consider notable as a breed would only be recognized as such by a local authority and ignored by national-level ones. Indeed, we could run into POV problems if we go that route, because some state, for pork-barrel reasons, may try to declare something a breed while no one else recognizes it. I can't think of a specific example, but by way of analogy, I'm reminded of California declaring the barred tiger salamander subspecies "endangered", while just north, in Oregon, it's one of the most common amphibians. What's happened is there aren't many of them in California, and never have been in recorded history; northern CA is simply at the tail end of its natural range. A stupid consequence of this is that you can actually go to prison in California for owning one as a pet, even if you got it from Oregon. I'd be almost willing to bet money that there are similar brainfarts going on at the state level with regard to breeds and their definitions.
2. Agreed that's a concern, and it may not be limited to the US. On the other hand, there are plenty of cases, especially in Europe, where national or international governmental entities have designated things as breeds of various sorts, and they don't have breed societies or breed registries in every case. So how do we address this, without opening the door of mis-citing bad information from the USDA?
3. "University research" is too vague. I agree with your assessment of Sponenberg's work, but him personally deciding something is a "breed" under some definition for his own purposes isn't good enough for WP. When journal-published primary source material refers to breeds we have articles on, that obviously does qualify as WP:GNG material to help establish notability, but WP:PRIMARYSOURCES doesn't allow us to rely on these alone, and specifically forbids us from interpreting them in WP's voice; a secondary source is required to provide that interpretation. Some secondary sources have to agree it's a breed.
4. Agreed; the rule is significant coverage in independent, reliable sources. I updated the wording.
5. All US corporations are incorporated in a single state, so that's not the issue. The real concern with studbook/herdbook here is that you and I, with no one else, can establish a studbook for some animals and declare them a new "breed". It's the WP:NFT problem. I think the present wording, that it be "internationally or nationally recognized" may be enough.
6. Agreed, and homogeneity is implicit in the definition of "landrace" anyway, as well as redundant with the wording in the intro. (That said, "independent" isn't necessary to reiterate here, as there probably are no sources that are not independent of landraces, while the same cannot be said of standardized breeds, which often have promotional organizations devoted to them.)

On people being "aggressive" about asserting something is a "breed": That's one of the main reasons we need a guideline like this, tying things to reliable sources. The very aggressiveness of such assertions indicates a WP:NPOV problem. While ultimately we can rely on WP:GNG, it can take a long time to weed out bogus, emotional, and often promotional, notability claims without a topic-specific notability guideline.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:24, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Comments by JTdale in response

1. Agreed here with SMc for the most part. 2. On this point - unsure. What I'm mostly thinking though is that, especially in the less developed Asian countries, they don't have a standard, breed societies or anything else to rely on. But often the state level Department of Culture or even federal level has recognized the breed. This is the case with Denizli chicken. JT_dale^Talk~ 09:01, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

This makes me ask the question, what independent, reliable sources treat such an alleged breed/variety as such? That's the GNG question. It's not enough that a primary source declares something a breed (or cultivar, or landrace, or whatever) and that some tertiary sources like breed lists parrot this without question and without any in-depth coverage. If the alleged breed-or-whatever doesn't have substantial, neutral coverage in third-party sources, then it simply isn't notable for WP's purposes.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:35, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Additional discussion

• I favor a reasonably inclusive approach; I see the main benefit of this guideline is in kicking COI profit-making articles to the curb; I'd hate to see this guideline used to dismiss rare genetic pools of feral or landrace animals. Compare, say, the Riwoche horse (an article I'd want to keep) with calling the Labradoodle a "breed"! Thoughts? Montanabw^(talk) 22:56, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

• QUESTION: is this proposed guideline trying to answer the question "Is X a breed?"... or is it trying to answer the question: "Is X Notable enough as a topic to have an article about it?". The two questions are not identical. For example, as an article topic, the Labradoodle passes our general WP:NOTABILITY guideline. They are thus Notable enough for Wikipeida to have an article about them ... even if they don't qualify for the label "breed". Blueboar (talk) 14:22, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

More Is X breed notable even when it fails WP:GNG? JT_dale^Talk~ 16:44, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

This can only cover the second question, and it should be broad enough that it covers crossbreeds and hybrids.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  14:45, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

With the caveat that this is for purposes of article creation, not categorization. ;-) Montanabw^(talk) 07:58, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that's what's I mean. The first question is one of categorization, and is one that a notability guideline can't address. Many of my edits to the draft are explicitly to prevent it being misinterpreted/misapplied that way.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:16, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Footnotes

The relegation of examples to footnotes is decidedly non-helpful. Generally, people don't read them, and when we do use footnotes in guidelines/policies, it's almost always for explanatory material that is not of immediate interest to someone seeking guidance (see, e.g., those at WP:LEAD). While of course I can be WP:BRD reverted, I'm going to de-footnote the example material.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:27, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

• We might want to use threading and list structure, though. People are bad about long paragraphs too. Perhaps this format:

• The point or criterion we are discussing
  • Examples foo, foobar and foofoo
  • Further refinement of topic
• Next point...

Thoughts? Montanabw^(talk) 22:58, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

That seems like a good idea to me. I understand why footnotes may not be a good idea but yeah, longer paragraphs aren't great either. JT_dale^Talk~ 08:53, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

The bullet indentation looks fine to me, too.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  14:44, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Including GMOs in scope

I've expanded the scope to cover patented organisms, so that GMOs, laboratory animal strains, and other patented life forms are not accidentally excluded from the guideline.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:47, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

I see with the addition of a lot of plant related sutff. Perhaps the guideline should be renamed Notability (breeds and cultivars) then?

Wonder if we should split this for plants and animals? GMO plants are common, GMO animals - scary! Montanabw^(talk) 20:39, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

No need to split or rename, per the KISS principle and WP's practice of concise guideline titles, with scope explained in main text. We don't need separate pages for these things when separate bullet points can distinguish between them. "Breed" covers plants; "cultivar" is just botanical jargon for "plant breed", and plenty of sources refer to "plant breeds".[1] Animal GMOs have been around for decades, from extremely homogenized mouse and rat breeds for labs, to patented pig strains, to flightless fruit flies.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  14:40, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

"Oh Brave New World..." OK. Montanabw^(talk) 07:58, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Universities and trademarks

I added a bit on something recognized by established experts in a field... thinking Sponenberg's work on rare breeds as an example - may not have an organization yet, but an expert says they are a real thing. Might not cover stuff like the Riwoche horse - found by an anthropologist, I think - but we can tweak the wording.

I also added a bit on trademarks - I am thinking of the Pintabian as an example - a breed developed with a specific standard and the name was trademarked to avoid confusion with simple crossbreds. The Andalusian horse has similar issues in Europe with the "PRE" designation - lawsuits up the wazoo there over who gets to call their horses "pure". I think that Slovenia also sued Austria over who gets to call their horses Lipizzans. Montanabw^(talk) 22:51, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

I can understand that, but an issue for me is something like the many many many laying hybrids in poultry. Most are trademarket and half at least are patented, and most are so obscure they never need a Wikipedia article. Sadly many of them still have and it is a constant issue chasing them down. JT_dale^Talk~ 09:05, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Maybe we need some species-specific guidelines, or perhaps just say that a patent or trademark may be an indicia of notability but not a guarantee of notability. Montanabw^(talk) 20:31, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

I think changing it to an indication of notability is a good solution. JT_dale^Talk~ 06:26, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Trademarks do not indicate notability. Other than not colliding with a pre-existing trademark, there is no vetting process of any kind for establishing a trademark. There is no connection of any kind between patent and trademark law; they're totally dissimilar, other than involving intellectual property in the business world. The exact same WP:NFT problem of "I made up a stud book for animals I bred in my back yard and want Wikipedia to have an article about my 'new breed'" problem applies equally to "I registered a trademark for animals I bred in my back yard". Patents are another matter. A patent will not be issued for an organism unless it is in fact a provably distinct new strain, and patents are the principle determinants of a number of notable organisms, from GMO plants to laboratory mice, including many we already have articles about. The fact that the Pintabian has been trademarked (as has the Ragdoll cat breed) is completely incidental. It is not what makes them notable, or what establishes them as a "breed" in the broad sense. Treatment as a breed (or hybrid or landrace or whatever) in reliable sources (primary ones like breed standards or descriptive journal articles on population genetics, and secondary ones like lists of [inter]national organization-sanctioned breeds, or regulations covering various breeds, hybrids and landraces) is what makes something a breed/hybrid/landrace/whatever (that's a WP:RS matter of classification in the sources, not a concern of this draft guideline). It is substantial, independent coverage as such that what makes something a notable breed/hybrid/landrace/whatever (what we care about). By contrast to trademarks, which are meaningless to WP:N concerns, the patents on many of the subjects in, e.g., Category:Laboratory mouse breeds are the reliable (if primary) sources for them being definable breeds/strains; they're effectively the breed standards. Nothing like this can be said about trademarks; those are simply legal protections of names from use by competitors. McDonald's has a trademark that prevents Burger King calling one of its burgers a Big Mac to confuse consumers. That trademark neither tells us whether the Big Mac is properly classified as a burger, nor whether it's a notable one. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  13:50, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

PS: That said, if far too many non-notable hybrids are covered by patents, we may need to eliminate that criterion, along with trademarks. But if we do, we have to figure out how else to cover things like laboratory mouse strains and GMO crops. I think citation to a published lab breeding protocol should do the trick; this is the scientific equivalent of a breed standard and registry, but more rigorous, since genetic homogeneity is key to their very concept. It's not really the existence of a patent that helps establish notability, rather the patent with the breeding protocol used to create and maintain what the patent covers, is what fills the same role for certain organisms that breed standards and registries do for dog, cat and horse breeds. A patent by itself isn't it. All sorts of prototypes of inventions of all kinds are patented without ever seeing notable production, so it was a mistake on my part to insert patents by themselves.

On hybrids: Someone might want to exclude a chicken hybrid from notability, but GNG already covers that. If the hybrid has plenty of source coverage, then it is in fact notable even if someone thinks it shouldn't be, and if it's not then it isn't, no matter how important someone thinks it is. The purpose of this draft guideline is to help editors estimate the probability that something is notable. It's actually quite probable that a patented hybrid commercial animal strain is notable, since there's probably coverage of them in agricultural journals. Few of them have or will have articles here, because interest in the topic is too low for people to do the source research to establish notability. But the implication that they can't be notable is basically an argument for deleting everything in Category:Laboratory mouse breeds, too, which isn't likely to happen.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  15:34, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

• I view it as only an "indicia" (my favorite word today) but I also wonder if this one is best taken out altogether... I could go either way here. Montanabw^(talk) 07:58, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
  • "Indicia" is a plural. >;-) Anyway, I reworded to include patents in the only way they're actually pertinent (some GMO/lab strains are patented, but it's the breeding process and results from it that the patent covers, and this is basically the lab-coated equivalent of a breed standard, so I worked it in as a bullet point in that section). This also gets around a problem we'd likely encounter if we were to treat patents as prima facie proof of notability in and of themselves: Some governments' patent offices are notoriously corrupt, and will grant patents that cover non-novel "inventions" and even spurious ones. I was wrong when I said "A patent will not be issued for an organism unless it is in fact a provably distinct new strain"; that's only true of patent systems that can't be easily greased with money and other forms of influence. I was engaging in a bit of momentary bias toward the patent system with which I'm most familiar. Patents are even less reliable sources than I was thinking at first. And trademarks are even worse; they're nothing but legal protections against consumer confusion and unfair competition, and indicate nothing at all about the underlying article of trade. Two exactly identical products (i.e., things that WP should not have separate articles about) can be covered by multiple trademarks owned by different parties. We've actually encountered that with one of the horse varieties; I think the subject of our Kiger Mustang article has at least two trademarked names owned by different business interests for commercial breeding purposes, but we are not proposing a split on such a basis, much less a three-way split. The trademarks don't constitute evidence of notable offshoots from the feral population, only evidence of business as usual in American agricultural commerce. A journal article describing that the nascent Kiger Horse^TM standardized breed had successfully and markedly diverged genetically from the feral Kiger mustang population might be a another matter, but even then we'd need multiple sources treating it notably as its own equine entity distinct from the feral parent population for us to consider a WP:SPLIT. This is just one example of the sort of Pandora's box of worm cans we'd open if we started treating trademarks as evidence of notability. I don't see anything like that in any other notability guidelines.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:32, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Single breed groups

I'm hesitant to include the following unless we flesh it out a bit more: Single-breed clubs can be founded by anyone, have indeterminate membership and reliability, and are promotional in nature, not independent of the subject; thus they cannot help establish notability.. My concern is simple: I have had people describe a breed registry that may have "club" or "society" in its name as not a RS for an article on a breed. In the USA, where there is ZERO official governmental recognition of "breeds" (and what little acknowledgement exists is wrong often as not), most breeds have single breed clubs. While the USEF does have several breed-specific subsections in its rules, and thus is an RS to prove the notability of some breeds, the biggest breed in the country, the American Quarter Horse, left the USEF decades ago. Now, I doubt anyone would challenge the AQHA as not notable (several million horses registered since 1945), I can see someone raising a stink with a clearly notable breed registry like the Appaloosa Horse Club. So I propose we come up with some other way to assess if a single-breed group is really an organization or just a farm that sent in two cereal box tops and $20 bucks. Montanabw^(talk) 20:28, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

I can understand that issue. I have to say though in the area I deal with most (poultry), breed clubs are often extremely obscure entities. Even national ones are often not much more than 5-10 people active, with a small number of totally inactive members. They do play some good role in helping standardise the breeds over here, but they aren't at all an indication of notability on their own. JT_dale^Talk~ 06:28, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Breed clubs are a massive issue in dog breed articles. There are currently a couple breeds that are not notable at all, that won't get deleted because people who don't understand how breed clubs are formed keep thinking it lends credibility to the breed. @Sagaciousphil: and several other WP:DOG members could tell you tons. --TKK! bark with me! 15:18, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

It's a very tricky issue. In horse land, I've seen single farms create a "registry." But yet, I also have seen at least one GAN get challenged on the grounds that a well-known registry was not an RS! I suppose that this is where we remind everyone that we merely are offering these guidelines to augment or supplement GNG. Perhaps a statement that single breed clubs are a factor in establishing notability, but that they should not be the sole criterion upon which editors rely absent other indicia of notability via third-party coverage? Something like that? Montanabw^(talk) 21:10, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

As TKK states, we have huge problems in the dog breed articles with this (and even more so in the "designer breeds" backed up with registries like the "American Canine Hybrid Club"). It's difficult because we know what is and isn't reliable but it proves almost impossible to convince others not to use them. By the way, I feel The Kennel Club should be included along with the FCI and AKC. SagaciousPhil - Chat 09:26, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm almost wondering if we need a list of "presumed notable" organizations (except it would be in the thousands) - or at least some kind of running list of "stuff that's been discussed and consensus has/has not established notability." Thoughts?

I feel like I've seen similar lists in other groups. That might help, but it might also tread on the toes of being too rule-y. I would worry about someone, for example, claiming the Australian National Kennel Council isn't reliable because it's not on the list. --TKK! bark with me! 01:23, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Good point, some people can take advice or suggestions and turn it into the word of God. Vague is probably better! Montanabw^(talk) 02:53, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Our default stance has to be protective of the encyclopedia's mission to its readers. The problem with single-breed clubs is they fail the "independent of the subject" test for a reliable source for notability purposes. Remember that this is about notability. We are not questioning whether the Appaloosa Horse Club or American Quarter Horse Association are reliable for facts in articles about those breeds (e.g. what the breed standards are, how many are registered, yadda yadda – that's the kind of issue that's been raised about breed clubs in some FAC debates). But they are not in fact useful as indicators of whether the subject is notable, since they're essentially promotional in nature. It's like using the Jane Smith Fan Club as "evidence" that Jane Smith is actually notable for WP purposes. Can't do it. As most of the above indicates, promotionalism by official-sounding, but very small and breeder-money-vested interests is a serious problem in multiple domestic species, directly affecting articles now, so this language needs to be retained, in some not very different form, one that cannot be mistaken as implying that a not-independent-of-subject group like the AQHA can be used to establish notability.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  13:58, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Keep in mind that the AQHA has registered millions of horses. I'd say that a group can be both promotional and reliable as an indicia (not a slam-dunk) for notability. I'm comfortable saying "indicia" of notability - if there is no organization, that's a strike against notability, after all! Montanabw^(talk) 07:51, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Have to say that there being no organisation is not really a strike. At least from my knowledge base in poultry, there are many many breed who have no national (sometimes not even state-level) organisations in Australia, because the poultry community is very disorganised. Some of these breeds exist only in Australia (sometimes also in NZ) so the capability for overseas organisations to exist is not there. Yet they are certainly distinct breeds that have a level of notability. Sure this is the case in other varieties. In fact outside the big three of cats, dogs and horses, my experience is there simply isn't enough money invested into domestic animals of other types for breed organisations to exist in many cases. JT_dale^Talk~

Good point. How do you think we handle notability in such case - as opposed to the single farm "we created a breed" crowd? Montanabw^(talk) 22:09, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Can't speak for JTDale, but to me this effectively takes breed groups off the table as evidence of notability; they're intrinsically not independent of the subject.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:39, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

How many "units" are "produced" by the organization with an inherent promotional interest in a subject does not affect notability in any way. This "AQHA has registered millions of horses" thing isn't relevant to the notability question, any more than the Zune fails notability just because there were an order of magnitude fewer of them made than the competing iPod. While high registration numbers mean the AQHA probably knows a whole lot about those horses, it doesn't tell us anything at all about what third party reliable sources say about the horse breed in question. It's that very widespread independent coverage that establishes that the American Quarter Horse is a notable breed for WP's purposes. I'm agreed that absence of a breed club or equivalent is not a notability "strike". Requiring one would be a serious WP:BIAS problem, since the very concept of breed clubs is a modern, Western, affluent idea (mostly pertaining to a few specific species), and would be meaningless, even ridiculous to, e.g., the rural, tribal breeders and herders of Mongolian sheep or whatever. Their breed or landrace may be notable for reasons that have nothing at all to do with the sheep fancy (e.g. research in multiple journals may have proven them unusually resistant to some pathogen, and thus of interest for cross-breeding for hybrid vigor). I don't know anything about the .au poultry world, so I take your word for it, but in the US considerable genetic research goes into all sorts of animal and plant breeding, from pigs to green chile. That doesn't mean (per the thread below) that all individual specimens are subject to such testing, of course, because it would be expensive and time-consuming, and there'd generally be no point. (I don't need to genetically test my Dachshund pups to know they are true Dachshunds if I bred them from two purebred Dachshunds. But a buyer, I might want to pay for a genetic test for any alleged Savannah cat kittens, however, since they've been the subject of multiple frauds in the tens of thousands of dollars range. This sort of "genetic proof" testing doesn't appear to relate to any notability questions at all, but only to attempts to define something as a "breed" or not under some particular favored definition, which is outside the scope of a notability guideline.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:28, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Breed registries, studbooks, and genetic testing

• I'm not sure which section to include my comments/suggestions so I've added them here. Breed associations and/or breed registries (horses, cattle, dogs) for most domestic breeds require DNA testing. Breed associations exist to maintain/preserve or establish a specific breed type or standard in order to confirm and identify reproductive consistency of certain characteristics and desirable traits. They basically hold pure what their respective breed associations consider "true bloods". If an animal doesn't meet specific requirements, they are not registered. Associations that do not have breed registries which hold true to a specific breed type or standard may be questionable with regards to inclusion per GNG. However, I'm of the mind that recognized breeds established by reputable breed associations (IRS nonprofit status, elected BoD with officers, etc.) with long established breed standards (at least 5 generations) that require DNA testing are as notable as any species that meets PAG requirements for inclusion. Anything that falls outside that scope would be subject to GNG. --Atsme^📞📧 08:52, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Sorry to burst that bubble but outside the expensive companions animals, and some extremely rare types of large domestic farm animal (mostly pig breeds in the UK where the rare breeds survival trust has given grants) genetic testing of breeds doesn't happen as a general case. Certainly not in pigeons, rabbits, chickens, ducks, geese, turkey, guinea pigs. Actually the best guideline is a) Is an individual of this species worth less than four digits? b) Does an individual of this species produce more than a dozen or so offspring a year? If it fills either of those, likelyhood is no one bothers with studbooks and especially not with genetic tested ones. It's just to costly for breeders. JT_dale^Talk~ 11:05, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Uhm, bubbles aside, there is a difference between a species and a breed. I was under the impression the focus of this discussion had to do with breed recognition/notability/identification. --Atsme^📞📧 11:45, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

I think you have misread my post entirely. I am talking of the breeds of different species. Genetic testing rarely takes place of a breed if they belong to a species where an individual of this species is worth less than four digits or an individual of this species produces more than a dozen or so offspring a year. Simple logistics. In a chicken of the most productive breeds, a single pair can produce ~300 offspring a year. You can then see the issues. JT_dale^Talk~ 16:53, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is proposing that anything about genetic testing be required to establish notability. I think Atsme is arguing that in cases where we do have it, along with some other criteria (5 generations of breeding to a standard, or whatever), this should be evidential of notability. I'm not sure I buy that, since it's not independent of the source. The Apple-internal quality assurance processes that iPods go through before they're released for sale doesn't have anything to do with whether they're notable. Some of Atsme's other criteria aren't workable either. There's nothing special about a non-profit vs. for-profit breeding program; most notable breeds and other strains are developed commercially. And landraces and various other populations that would be subject to this guideline but which are not formal, standardized breeds, simply aren't relevant to any discussion of standards and organizations. When they are notable it's because of coverage in independent reliable sources. This guidelines is not and cannot be an alternative to the GNG; it's an interpretative supplement to it: "What are some clear indications this topic [breed, landrace, cultivar, feral population, hybrid] will probably meet the GNG without much effort?"

I think also that here, as with the above argument about the AQHA, some "how do we define a 'breed'?" stuff is getting mixed into a notability discussion where it does not belong. Anyway, it doesn't matter that there may not be studbooks or other pedigree systems for some forms of livestock. The fact that there are for some others isn't insignificant. How significant it is, is an open question though. As Montanabw points out frequently, any handful of people can establish a studbook and attempt to start a new breed, including with a breed standard they've written up, and Tikuko echoes this observation. I mostly focus on cats, but like Tikuko in editing dog articles, I have been resisting the introduction of non-notable, wannabe cat breeds, at least as separate, spammy, WP:NFT-violating promo articles. (See Manx cat for handling of some nascent split-off breeds as subtopics, to the extent they can be reliably sourced, and indicating what their recognition is and how limited it is.) Substantial coverage in independent sources is the key point for notability, i.e. creating a stand-alone WP article. Perhaps we should remove mention of breed registries/studbooks entirely. They ultimately suffer the same problem as breed clubs and trademarks: They are promotional in nature, are an "insider" thing, and are not independent of the subject.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:28, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

SMc I think you're not reading Atmse's post. The proposal is that breeds that do not have a breed society that a) is a charity, b) has a BoD, c) conducts genetic testing of a studbook will require GNG. That is a silly idea. The first two for reasons you outlined, and the last for reasons I outlined. And not sure of my opinion of removing them entirely as some form of indication. JT_dale^Talk~ 05:01, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't think you're understanding my post. WP editors cannot establish a "breed". Breeders establish breeds and they become notable for the reasons I mentioned. If they are not a notable breed under certain criteria, they are a species. We need to refer to RS in order to give a species or subspecies a "breed" designation. I provided some qualifiers. If we don't use qualifiers, we are back to square one. --Atsme^📞📧 12:51, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Whether a biological population is defined as a species isn't related to human-involved breeding of them, and this breeding rarely results in speciation. (Though, of course, all domestic animals and plants are already classified within one species or another, or as a hybrid between them). I certainly do agree that WP editors cannot themselves establish that something is a breed (for WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV reasons). WP:RS are certainly needed to label any population a "breed", and they have to be reliable enough that they understand the difference between a standardized breed and a landrace; many tertiary and some primary sources do not. But that's not really a notability issue, that's a WP:V issue for details in the article. We also have a terminological problem in that "breed" is used differently in different sources, with older sources more often having a looser conception of the word, as do many tertiary sources. The general trend on Wikipedia has been to toward the more precise meaning. There's some resistance to this, e.g. some fanciers really, really want to label as a "breed" every vaguely distinct strain of domestic organism that someone has given a name to. A consequent problem for notability (as well as verifiability and neutral point of view) is that there is pressure to accept articles on "breeds" that are not really distinct much less notable populations, because some "breed encyclopedia" writer somewhere included an entry for "breed" he heard about in Nairobi or whatever, but doesn't really have much actual information about, and "completist" Wikipedia editors want to include an article on it here, too, citing such a tertiary, questionable source.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:38, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Single-breed publishers, by their nature, can't help establish notability

Production of a breed standard, pedigree register, or other primary source by a (usually national or international) organization that covers many recognized breeds within a domestic species is much more meaningful for WP:N purposes than the same published by a single-breed organization, which inherently lacks independence of the subject. This consequently means that breed standards as such mean more for notability purposes for some species (e.g. dogs and cats) than for others (e.g. horses and chickens), simply due to how breeds are established and regulated in those different circles. This has nothing to do with whether the breed is more notable than another. It also has nothing to do with whether any single-breed group is more notable or more reliable than another organization. It's just an incidental fact in the real world, that for some types of domestic species, breed definitions and pedigrees are controlled more closely by breeders of that particular strain rather than by an overarching, more general governance body of some kind, and this directly affects whether we can rely on a particular standard or registry for notability establishment. A national or international multi-breed organization like the Cat Fancier's Association or American Kennel Club is simply naturally, innately a more independent-of-subject source than the American Quarter Horse Association, even if I would honestly trust the AQHA on a veterinary question relating to that horse breed more than I might trust the CFA on a similar question about Siamese cats, because the closeness to the subject that rules out the former as a source of notability may also make them more accurate on breed-specific facts we might report in an article. For horses, inclusion of a breed standard in an independent, reliably published, multi-breed work like Lynghaug's The Official Horse Breeds Standards Guide is more indicative of notability than the original publication of the breed standard by the single-breed organization that issued it. There's no comparable work for cats, nor that I know of for dogs (or chickens). In the horse world, we rely on non-organizational authorities like Lynghaug to filter "it's a breed!" claims, while in the cat and dog worlds, this role is fulfilled in a more organized way, by national and international bodies like CFA and the Fédération Internationale Féline for cats, and the AKC and Fédération Cynologique Internationale for dogs.

Single-breed material in secondary sources, e.g. articles about the breed in general-interest publications, is directly evidentiary of notability. So are single-breed primary sources from more general publishers (e.g. a journal article reporting research into a specific cultivar's environmental health). The problem is when the publisher of the source is organizationally focused on the single breed in question. The publisher is the issue more than whether it's a standard, a pedigree registry, or whatever, that they've published.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  13:31, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

In the horse world, with NO universal governing authority, unless a nation grants "official" status (and even that could be corrupt, I suppose) breed encyclopedias are sometimes about all there is (or, in come nations, the rather uneven self-reports to the FAO) Seriously. Let's use the Moyle horse as our test case - I actually don't think it's a breed (just my personal opinion) but it went to AfD twice, once I prevailed, and once I lost. So it's in. Let's look at that article in light of our criteria and see what you and others think! My own take is that some encyclopedias are better than others. Edwin Hartley Edwards is very good and highly credible; Fran Lynghaug mostly just republishes verbatim what various organizations sent her. Bonnie Hendricks used to totally suck, but the newer editions are actually getting better and it is becoming an adequate source for very basis material. I think that secondary sources are great, but sometimes there just ain't much. Montanabw^(talk) 18:20, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

I can agree absolutely with you on notability vs reliability, and breed entities vs species entities. Regarding the standards. Generally in poultry they are compiled by national or state bodies in collective standards. Regarding independent publications; the only one I can think of that is similar is Storey's Illustrated Guide to Poultry Breeds and anything by the order Joseph Batty (Breeds of Poultry and Their Characteristics, Rare and Old Breeds). They are generally considered quite notable and reliable. But they are both very American, and my belief that they are reliable and notable is just the general thoughts of poultry breeders in my small state, but then that is often all we have to go on. Popular media invariably gets things incredibly wrong (like the constant mistake that Silkie is spelled Silky), so you sit in a tricky corner of - notable publications are rare, popular publication is even rarer, and popular coverage is often totally unreliable. Like you're saying, breed societies are the least notable but most reliable. JT_dale^Talk~ 08:36, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

@JTdale: Yeah, though we have to be careful as editors doing a WP:V/WP:RS and WP:NPOV analysis in what we take them as reliable for, including with the multi-breed organizations. I opened a new talk section on those (though tried to remain focused on notability not verifiability and neutrality issues). I agree with your take on the "popular publication" problem. It also strongly affects the actual reliability of secondary sources for details on pet animal breeds, as much as for livestock breeds. Mainstream coverage is very good for helping establish notability, though. Piles of coverage is why we know the Manx cat is a notable topic that should have an article, and the lack of it is why we know that the nascent breed or subbreed Tasman Manx should remain a subtopic at Manx cat, if we cover it at all. Relative coverage levels usually let us arrive at these decisions without any debate, but that's not always going to be true, especially in horse and dog breeding, where there's a lot of partisanship and promotion for recognition of new alleged breeds. (There's gold in them-there hills. Labradoodle, anyone?)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:51, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

@Montanabw: Moyle horse: I agree that we don't need an article on this, from a WP:N perspective, regardless of whether it's a "real breed" or not (a WP:V and maybe WP:NPOV question; like you, I'm skeptical it qualifies, at least as a standardized breed). I'm very surprised that survived AFD. There's nothing but a single tertiary source, the details provided border on unencyclopedic (like they were written by Rex Moyle's nephew or something), and there's not enough content to make it useful to anyone. The problem with articles like this, and the underlying theory that a short entry in a breed encyclopedia is sufficient to establish notability, is that I could write quite literally over 100 miserable pointless stubs like this on virtually unknown and possibly extinct cat "breeds", based on the content of any of dozens of excessively "complete" (but poorly researched and detailed) cat breed book. The fact that an alleged breed might exist and might have been named by someone in a book or two isn't enough to make it notable. So, yeah, count me in for AFD 3 on that one. I hope that it doesn't take someone going on a misguided spree of minor-breed stub creation for every dog or whatever breed ever mentioned in passing for WP to decide collectively that we don't want pseudo-articles like this. These kinds of rare breeds belong as entries in a list article. The answer to the notability question on this one is that it lacks multiple sources, and simply having an entry in a comprehensive list of all known breeds doesn't meet the standard of '"Significant coverage" [that] addresses the topic directly and in detail ... more than a trivial mention'. Will address breed books separately.

I agree that "Farmer Foo's breeding program" doesn't need its own article, but I disagree about genuine rare breeds: The Marsh Tacky, for instance. But then it's noted in independent publications. I don't want an AfD dramafest, but I also don't want to exclude what are sometimes difficult-to-find examples; not all breeds are standardized, many types are noteworthy. We also need to not be Euro-US-centric, I use the Riwoche horse as an example of something that should meet GNG, somehow... I do have some list articles, Stock horse for example. But I tend to insist that a breed be notable via GNG before getting placed onto the list. Hmm. Montanabw^(talk) 02:55, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

@Montanabw: I wouldn't AfD Marsh Tacky; clearly notable. Riwoche, too (though it's probably not a "breed" in any meaningful sense of the word). WP:LIST does suggest that notability is a permissible criterion for some lists; for a list of horse breeds of a particular breed type like stock horses that probably makes sense. Being that strict in more general lists of breeds, e.g. List of horse breeds, will work against WP:EQUINE's interests. A common result at AfD is that almost-notable things should be merged into other articles, often lists, and that would be an obvious result for marginal stubs on obscure breeds, where the article is unlikely to ever improve past the stub point. If all the horse breed lists are GNG-level exclusive, then there's nowhere for these to be merged to. Consequently, completists/inclusionists are highly likely to keep creating such pointless stubs. On the other hand, you can end up with the opposite problem, as at List of dog breeds which is probably over-inclusive. It's interesting that the quite manageable List of cat breeds has similar public-facing inclusion criteria to the dogs one, but is much less cluttered with questionable cruft. This suggests that the two editorial pools are, for practical purposes, applying entirely different criteria. The dog list looks like anything even vaguely ever suggested to be a breed by anyone is included, despite no recognition by international or national breeder/fancier groups, even things that are clearly landraces, or variations of another breed in the standards of most organizations. A lot of merging is probably in order.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:07, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Multi-breed groups

Three specific kinds of problem to address

There cannot be a more reliable (primary) source for certain things, like a breed's defining characteristics, than the organizational publisher(s) of standard(s) for the breed, pretty much by definition, if they're actually reliable. But are they? And does this really affect notability (vs. verifiability and neutrality?)

1. Some are not generally recognized as authoritative. As with any other organization, reputations and trust are earned. New organizations pop up, often with an axe to grind. E.g. some breeders are disgruntled about a national or international organization being stringent about a breed's characteristics, or resistant to accepting claims of development of a new breed, so they create a new registry/pedigree organization with looser standards. The second of these these (loose new breed standards) is a notability issue, since it means that the inclusion criteria for promoting something as a breed is lower than expected. Maybe two neighbors with 10 dogs have "established a breed" under such a loose process, and it's hard for Wikipedia to detect this case of WP:NFT when an "international breed registry" with really only 10 members publishes a standard for it, and it gets repeated on various websites, or even in a dog breed encyclopedia. New, poorly staffed organizational also pop up with no axe to grind. Many countries have no historically had an incorporated dog society, cat society, etc., and few have one at all for working livestock. When a new one pops up, how much does recognition of a breed by it lend notability to the breed?
2. They may not be independent of the subject. Some multi-breed registries can cast doubt on whether they help establish notability, by direct involvement in promotion of a new breed, or recognition of something (e.g. a color variant) as a "breed" when all other sources treat it as a variation within a breed (i.e. something we'd cover as a detail in the older breed's article, not write a new article about). The Catz, Inc. registry, for example, is actively helping develop and promote a number of new cat breeds in New Zealand, and appear to be closely connected with their breeders. I'm skeptical that this is entirely unusual. It's probably a truism that most people who work for these organizations, everywhere, are themselves breeders, former breeders, or breeders' family members. A similar problem of this sort is less aggressive, non-profit promotion of a locally-developed breed (usually based on a regional landrace) by an established national organization, out of nationalistic pride (and probably sometimes with government funding for this purpose), but without recognition progressing very far for the breed internationally. Does this lend any weight to notability? An effort like this is currently underway with regard to the Aegean cat landrace, which some are trying to develop into a standardized breed (though our article doesn't go into it in any detail).
3. An unrelated problem, prevalent regarding species kept as pets, is that many breed clubs, and consequently some multi-breed organizations, promote ideas about innate breed behavior that have not actually been proven, and can't be proven without significant ethological research. Some breeds do have innate average behavioral traits (especially in dog breeds, e.g. pointing, setting, herding, aggression), but many simply do not. It's a total fantasy that this cat or rabbit breed is more "intelligent" than that one or more "friendly" or whatever; those are individual traits, and there's zero evidence pointing toward breed-level differences in most cases. (One exception is the Ragdoll cat breed, developed specifically be docile when handled; it seems to be a genetic "neural short-circuit" like setting and pointing in hunting dog breeds.) Worse yet, many species-focused secondary sources, especially fancier publications, uncritically repeat these claims as if they were proven facts, when they're just breeder PR. Many articles in fancier magazines, especially breed profiles, are written by breeders, with a fiduciary interest in making the breed sound especially attractive. This problem is mostly a WP:V/WP:RS and WP:NPOV (especially WP:UNDUE) issue, though. It might not directly affect any notability questions.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:54, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

• I think that's a WP:RS issue, not a notability one. JMO Montanabw^(talk) 02:57, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

The first and second are RS issues that directly affect the WP:GNG: coverage in independent reliable sources isn't happening when a source that sounds acceptable at first isn't reliable, or isn't independent. The third one probably mostly affects WP:UNDUE questions, and might not raise notability issues.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:03, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Breed books

I agree with Montanabw, above, that some breed "encyclopedias" are better than others, and we shouldn't try to lump them together. They clearly have various editorial approaches, and some are secondary sources while most are tertiary, and a few are partially primary. Many breed books are "coffeetable books" written by authors with questionable credentials, and anyone can get one published as long as it has pretty pictures. These are tertiary sources of questionable reliability, though not zero value. (For WP:V/WP:RS matters, any time a fact can be cited to a better source I would replace a citation to such a tertiary work, or at least pre-empt it with the more reliable one). For those sorts, I think they do little to help establish notability at all, because of their editorial intent to be comprehensive (over-inclusive). Entries they add do not amount to substantial coverage for WP:N purposes, and their independence and neutrality is compromised: Every alleged breed becomes an important, real breed if you are aiming to have a bigger breed book that one published by a competitor last year. Anyway, I've divided this up into groups for further examination, below.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:23, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Equines

In the previous discussion, I wasn't meaning to blow Lynghaug's horn, but The Official Horse Breeds Standards Guide is a worthwhile book to consider. It's unusual in consisting mostly of published "official" horse breed standards (no landraces, ferals, etc.), selected from their original breed-club publishers, plus some supporting material. In effect, Lynghaug is an editorial filter, weeding out "me and my neighbor have a new breed we came up with last month" crap, and choosing to publish those they feel are established and significant enough to warrant the publication expense. It's hard to classify; it's kind of primary, secondary, and tertiary all at once in different ways. Specific facts about about specific breeds in it are basically primary, reprinted from the breed clubs. The selection process is secondary. But pressure to be comparatively complete, at least with regard to standardized breeds, makes it a bit tertiary, too. I think the Lynghaug case is important to look at, because this is basically how the centralized fancier/breeder organizations also work, for the most part. The exact details in the breed standards they publish are primary source material, and come from the affiliated breed-specific clubs, perhaps with minor alterations. (There's actually a bit more on Lynghaug & horses below, in the cats section.) Hendricks's International Encyclopedia of Horse Breeds was mentioned at having improved for WP:V purposes. It's over 400 pages, and so I'm skeptical it's helpful for notability establishment purposes; but for all I know it's 200 breeds (which would not be a huge number, in horses) and 2+ pages per breed, which could be "substantial" enough. But it could be a lot of compressed coverage of as many horse "breeds" as the author can find, whether noteworthy or not.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:23, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Lynghaug basically printed whatever was sent to her, copy and paste from breed web sites. Hendricks has improved - she started as a copy-paste from a web site maintained by Oklahoma State University - both have improved. The length is not the problem - the articles are longer than they used to be (I didn't count what she covered and with 400 or so clearly identifiable horse breeds, an average of one page each isn't bad). International Museum of the horse is another decent-enough source. I guess my take is that we don't want to be too hard on tertiary sources for animal breeds, as the small ones aren't apt to have much. Edward Hartley Edwards is old, but sound. In essence, I think that if a breed pops up in multiple encyclopedias, even if that's the only place they appear, that's a decent GNG indication. Montanabw^(talk) 06:05, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

@Montanabw: Except GNG clearly expects secondary sources, and says to twice: 'Availability of secondary sources covering the subject is a good test for notability. ... "Sources" should be secondary sources, as those provide the most objective evidence of notability.' The further restriction "independent of the subject" also rules out tertiaries that just regurgitate material from breeders, which sounds like Lynghaug (which is disappointing). That's why I'm suggesting, in previous thread, that the general breed lists need to not have "passes GNG" (which translates as "should have its own article") as an inclusion criterion (even if some narrower lists like Stock horse do). There needs to be a way to include encyclopedically relevant breed info that doesn't quite rise to the separate-article level, and the general breed lists are the most obvious and least messy way to do this. What I meant by length of the source with regard to notability is depth of coverage. A breed book that's 200 pages covering 50 breeds is giving good depth. One that's that length covering 400 "breeds" is going to have a lot of trivial, superficial coverage that doesn't help for notability purposes. I have some cat encyclopedias like this; they uncritically and shallowly include entries on everything anyone has ever asserted to be a breed, often with hardly any information about them. Similar entries in more than one tertiary work isn't really enough to go on, especially since these sources crib from each other. I'd agree that non-trivial coverage in multiple tertiary sources is enough for inclusion in a list, but it won't satisfy GNG itself, because they're tertiary. Otherwise, we'd be looking at the creation of hundreds more pointless stubs. I could probably create 20 or more in one afternoon from a single cat encyclopedia, but this wouldn't be helpful to anyone (except maybe a few people trying to promote wanna-be breeds.) In short, we need more content, with more sources, in fewer articles.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:24, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

• Can't compare cats and horses - horses, luckily, don't have multiple litters annually- so they develop breeds a bit slower! We mostly have all the notable breeds in already for the horses and it is about 400 - I really don't want to see someone go off on a deletionist or merging spree, particularly for the ones in the third world. I think that in practice any breed I might fret about will have enough sources to pass muster, but as for the breed encyclopedias for horses, believe that I need to respectfully disagree to some extent on that. WP:PRIMARY states, "Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability." (Once again, WP guidelines sometimes contradict each other - and anyone can edit them, too) The horse breed encyclopedias don't all crib off of each other, though they may tap the same sources for things like breed standards. For example, Elwyn Hartley Edwards is very much independent, Hendricks has improved in later versions and seems to work jointly with Oklahoma State, Lynghaug is rather uncritical and the one who "cribs" the most, but to her credit, she says nothing about the Warlander. Plus if she's backed up by, for example, a listing by the FAO or a researcher like Sponenberg who says, "yup, it's a rare breed worth preserving," then I'd say that passes muster. Now, I would agree with you for raising a critical eyebrow at a designer crossbred that is less than 2 or 3 generations along, but I'd disagree as to rare breeds and historic breeds that don't have a lot of sourcing. (But if they are on theLivestock Conservancy list, I guess that's in our criteria anyway, so we're god) While I can make a good case that, for example, the assorted Indonesian pony breed articles might be able to be combined (e.g. Sandalwood pony, etc...) I would be equally adamant that the Japanese horse breeds probably should not be. Montanabw^(talk) 09:15, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Cats

I own a large number of the cat breed books. There some solidly researched ones, fortunately, but they range all over the map from quite exclusive, covering only major breeds, to wildly inclusive, as with Desmond Morris's Cat World: A Feline Encyclopedia (which covers more than breeds, and is a mixed secondary and tertiary work; looking it over it's clear that he's including every reported landrace as a "breed" as well as every alleged new breed he can find mention of). Morris's Cat Breeds of the World is much more exclusive, so more likely to help establish notability than his totally indiscriminate other book. This sort of patten repeats; going down my bookshelf, I see that one book is several pages per breed, and limited to major breeds, and another tries to cover every "breed" it can, in very little detail. Such works are a reminder that significant coverage in multiple, independent, reliable sources is needed to establish notability. Many of the breeds listed in the more permissive works are definitely non-notable by WP standards, some barely attested, some very new and still in development, others extinct ancestors of modern breeds, so we're right back to the Moyle horse issue. I shouldn't be able to use the esteemed Morris's inclusive book as an excuse to spam WP with "unsolicited bulk stubs" that are basically pointless and become a maintenance problem. It reminds me of someone-or-other's (fortunately abandoned) plans to create a stub article for every single pro player ever admitted to World Snooker. An aside about Morris: As an ethologist (animal behaviorist) he's one of the few actually reliable secondary sources on cat behavior aside from books specifically about cat pyschology; most of the stuff in fancier publication about cat temperaments, etc., is promotional nonsense.

Following on the above stuff about horses (and digressing away from books for a moment), take the example of the Cat Fanciers Association (CFA) standards for the British Shorthair and Manx cat breeds, both of which come from the British Shorthair Cat Club (BSCC), which is at least a two-breed club, but still closely tied to its subjects. The CFA acceptance process amounts to a "this has been through some kind of third-party editorial review process before being published" filter, a more stringent one that Lynghaug's horse standards book's editorial review (it's quite hard to get a new breed into a group like CFA). I think in both cases the process is essentially similar in some ways, and it adds some "notability points" that would not be there otherwise, e.g. for some new cat breed that the BSCC came up with and had a standard for but the CFA did not recognize yet, or new horse breed that some local breed club came up with but that wasn't in Lynghaug's current edition. It's not that Lynghaug or the CFA are unquestionably authoritative (though CFA may be more so in its purview than Lynghaug, since it is an organizational entity, and has no vested interest in being permissive with inclusion criteria). They're both apparently independent of a breed's creators, and not excessively inclusive. Such is my impression, anyway. Back to books now.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:23, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Dogs

There also appear to be books possibly comparable to Morris's – both exclusive and inclusive, but reliable – for dogs and some other household domestic animals, but I don't own any, so it's hard to be certain they're not just coffee-table books. Most of them, as with cats, are probably wholly tertiary. I'm unaware of anything like Lynghaug's work for dogs or other species. There are so many of these dog breed encyclopedias, most with 4-5 star ratings from enthusiastic dog fans, that's it hard to even pick a couple to evaluate. But even just scanning Amazon, the notability-establishment problem becomes immediately clear: Back-to-back, I see Morris's Dogs: The Ultimate Dictionary of Over 1,000 Dog Breeds and TFH's Encyclopedia of Dog Breeds: A Field Guide to 231 Dog Breeds and Varieties. Obviously the former could never hope to establish notability, and it's pretty much impossible for most of what that book covers to not be obscure, informally-bred landraces few would classify as "breeds". If there were really 1,000 breeds of anything, the concept of "breed" would be completely meaningless. The second more likely could be used to help establish notability, because it has much more limited inclusion criteria, and at 480 pages is giving more than 2 pages per breeds, so it could be "substantial" coverage.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:23, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Other livestock (cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, rabbits)

I see that there are works like Storey's Illustrated Breed Guide to Sheep, Goats, Cattle and Pigs: 163 Breeds from Common to Rare. That one's very title indicates that it could be used to help establish notability because it's quite exclusive and selective; at 320 pages for only 163 breeds across all those species, the coverage would likely be "substantial". Porter's Cattle: A Handbook to the Breeds of the World is 400 pages, but I have no idea how discriminate its inclusion criteria are or how much depth of coverage each breed gets. I remain skeptical, and bet that it's over-inclusive for WP:N purposes. For rabbits, I see that there's Storey's Guide to Raising Rabbits: Breeds - Care - Housing (unknown how much is devoted to breeds, in what depth), and Whitman's Domestic Rabbits & Their Histories: Breeds of the World (456 pages suggests over-inclusive). Rabbit books appear to be sharply divided between pet- and livestock-focused compendia, with many of the former aimed at children.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:23, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Re rabbits. Information on the author is here, here. JT_dale^Talk~ 06:09, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Other mammals (pet and lab)

I'm unaware of any actual breeds established among ferrets, hamsters, gerbils, etc. There are mouse and rat breeds, but they're lab animals, not covered by breed books. I don't see anything suggesting that fancy rats and fancy mice are actually breeds. I even used to keep fancy rats. But someone else is looking into it (see my talk page).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:23, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

A quick look indicates Hamster 'breeds' are actually all species. However, Guinea Pigs do have breeds and are shown (but normally they use the name Cavy when showing them). JT_dale^Talk~ 06:09, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Birds

JTDale mentions Storey's Illustrated Guide to Poultry Breeds and Batty's Breeds of Poultry and Their Characteristics, Rare and Old Breeds, but hasn't said much about them other than they seem to be well-respected, although distinctly US-focused. Levi's Encyclopedia of Pigeon Breeds seems to be the only thing going for pigeons that's about breeds specifically not pigeons generally. At nearly 800 pages, I'm extremely skeptical that it's not excessively inclusive, and thus probably not helpful for establishing notability.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:23, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Regarding poultry - Batty was born in 1925, and I think is deceased, so all his works are out of date but he did write an enormous number that are considered reliable in my knowledge. Storey is a subsidiary of the Workman Publishing Company. It's books however aren't standards based, but an authors 'knowledge' on them with (presumably) research and some pretty photos thrown in. It is borderline a coffee table book but literally the only third party book that is modern that is anything but a coffee table book. The problem with poultry is we're working in an era when the hey day has passed. It is now the slow end of poultry showing, and just not as much money is invested as was a hundred years ago. JT_dale^Talk~ 06:09, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Re pigeon breeds. A quick look indicates Levi's Encyclopedia of Pigeon Breeds was first published 1965. This from the back of the breed explains who he was. It is likely reliable but extremely out of date. JT_dale^Talk~ 06:09, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Plants

There are several enormous encyclopedic (tertiary) compendia of cultivated plants, and garden plants (including non-domesticated), such as Brickell's The American Horticultural Society A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants. I no longer own any, living in an apartment with nowhere to plant much of anything. The extreme comprehensiveness of them (tens of thousands of entries) means they're too indiscriminate to help establish notability. Virtually anything that has ever been asserted to be a cultivar (or is wild but suitable for gardening) is listed in them. That said, they are probably very reliable for WP:V purposes; the detail level is astonishing, and their accuracy level is high (millions of gardeners and such depend on them daily, and horticulturalists are sticklers about plant facts).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:23, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Misc.

I don't know yet about koi and other domesticated fish (are there any other?) and whether there are actual breeds. Despite the huge rise in pet-keeping and specialty breeding of wild species, I'm not aware of any reptiles or amphibians that qualify as domesticated, much less breeds. The closest thing is probably the axolotl as bred for laboratories and the pet trade (I saw a paper once suggesting they'd speciated), and some of the "designer" snakes bred for albinism or leucism. But they're still essentially wild animals. If there were anything we'd need to care about, it would likely be covered in detail in Obst & Richter's The Completely Illustrated Atlas of Reptiles and Amphibians for the Terrarium, which is a very reliable tertiary compendium covering all small-to-medium species and subspecies. But it's vastly inclusive, so no WP:N help.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:23, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Pretty much all domesticated fish are Carp I believe (including Koi and goldfish), so easier to use that grouping. JT_dale^Talk~ 06:09, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Breeds vs. subbreeds/variations

The following link addresses most of what is being discussed here but focuses on dog breeds. It could also apply across the board as somewhat of a guide to the breed dilemma. [2] We follow GNG, refer to X as a breed if the sources are there to validate it. If not, X is whatever identified species it happens to be and is described as having certain characteristics consistent with that specific population and so forth. --Atsme^📞📧 03:12, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

@Atsme: While that Dog Owner's Guide website you gave the URL to is not a reliable secondary source (It's primary, a blog written by a trio of dog trainers and kennel club members: "Founded in 1990 in Cincinnati, Ohio, home-based Canis Major Publications began as..."), much of what it says is probably correct. A good point it brings up (as do many reliable secondary sources) is that many "breeds" as defined by one fancier group are simply color or other minor variations on a broader breed as defined by another organization. I agree with your underlying idea; if I may restate and run with it: It's a WP:V problem, often leading to WP:N problems, for WP to identify as a "breed" anything that isn't one according to a preponderance of reliable secondary sources (i.e., don't give WP:UNDUEWEIGHT to an outlier). However, I think your black-and-white approach has proven to be over-reaching, and is not necessary. There is no sharp line between "just misc. members of a species" and "definitely a standardized breed". Landraces in particular encompass a lot of grey area. See separate thread below.

Draft proposal: My feeling on this is that for virtually any such case (a breed has several variants, and one organization as redefined some or all them them as separate breeds), WP should have one article, and include the varieties alleged sometimes to be separate "breeds" as sections within it. This will help reduce confusing bloat at articles like List of dog breeds, for example. The WP:EQUINE project has been really good about taking this approach, and so have most of the cat editors. I'm not too sure about the other domestic animal categories. We have a responsibility, per WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE and WP:NFT, as well as WP:N, to prevent (and clean up after) the profusion of "breed activism articles" (many of which probably also raise WP:NPOV issues). It would also help prevent the introduction of redundant, almost identical articles. If the breed description of one rabbit "breed" and another are identical except for one point about color, we're surely making a mistake. I'm not proposing specific language here, yet, just a general principle. @Atsme, Montanabw, JTdale, William Harris, SagaciousPhil, and Tikuko: Pinging whoever's posted here already, for consideration/comment. @Sagaciousphil: Pinging again; got username wrong the first time.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:48, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

• I think we may be getting into instruction creep here. In some cases, such as the Belgian horse or the Welsh pony, I would agree wholeheartedly! But the dog breeds that seem to have splits of very similar animals (thinking of a split in the Jack Russell Terrier for example) may have very legitimate reasons for having separate articles. I'd urge caution here. Suggestions, perhaps, not "rules". We don't want to go overboard with the local consensus thing... Montanabw^(talk) 08:12, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't propose Jack Russell Terrier as a sub-breed to merge. The Russell Terrier, Parson Russell Terrier and Jack Russell Terrier are treated separately enough by enough breed-defining sources to leave them separate, I would think. There's a large amount of general-audience, non-fancier, secondary source material about Jack Russells as a "thing unto themselves", as it were. By contrast, the (inconsistently titled) Wire Fox Terrier and Fox Terrier (Smooth) are just two coat patterns of the same breed from what I can tell; non-fancier sources and many fancier groups treat them as one breed, the Fox Terrier. I don't mean to pick on dog breeds in particular. A similar argument can be made for merging Cymric cat into Manx cat, or at very least for keeping the questionably notable variants/subbreeds like Tasman Manx, etc., as sections at Manx cat (which they are right now), and not splitting them off. Treatment of the Cymric (a.k.a. Manx Longhair or Longhair Manx) as a distinct breed is really marginal, and there is literally no difference at all other than coat. About the only notable thing about it is the Canadian nationalistic claim that it's a Canada-developed breed, and Canada even issued a commemorative coin featuring it. But even this origin claim is questionable. There's no reason that issue couldn't be adequately covered in a Cymric section at the Manx cat article. The articles, other than that little bit and the hair length, will be essentially identical (or would be except the Cymric one directs people to the Manx one for most of the details). I have a Cymric cat myself, so I'm the furthest thing from biased against them. I just don't see enough evidence they're encyclopedically distinguishable. It's a bit like writing a separate article for a new edition of a book because the cover art changed.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:45, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Landrace is inclusive of a lot of "breeds" that aren't standardized

The categorization landrace encompasses a wide range of things often called "old breeds", "natural breeds" (which has multiple, incompatible meanings), "local" or "regional breeds", "native breeds", "traditional breeds" (another term with multiple meanings), etc., as well as extinct and historical breeds that pre-date breed standards and pedigree registries. It's simply inherent in what the word "landrace" means. All it takes for domestic animals to be a landrace instead of random, misc. members of a domestic species is for them to be phenotypically distinct on a geographical basis, for someone to have noticed this, and to have named them as a distinct population on that basis. The inclusion criteria for that categorization are really low. When multiple secondary sources treat this a named, distinguishable population, that establishes notability, whether the term "breed" properly applies or not. By contrast, to be a standardized breed, there has to be an actual, verifiable (i.e. published) conformation standard (it doesn't require a breed registry). And not all standardized breeds are notable. Any random yahoos can produce a breed standard and even a registry studbook; that's a primary source.

Example, and related verifiability point: This next point is more of a WP:V/WP:RS/WP:NOR/WP:NPOV question, not a WP:N question. It's okay for us to discuss this in passing here, but at some point such discussions should fork off to a new Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (breeds) page. WP has a problem that many tertiary and primary sources use the word "breed" any way they want, indiscriminately and vaguely, and often to push a POV. We can't rely upon these labels in these kinds of sources. As an example, stray cats wandering and breeding all over the place in California or wherever are not a breed, or a landrace, they're just mongrels. A quite phenotypically and even behaviorally distinct, largely feral population called the Van cat, in the Lake Van, Turkey, area is a landrace (and a threatened one, like the Manx cat in it's native Isle of Man, in both cases due to being out-bred by cats from elsewhere that people have brought into the respective areas and let loose). There are lots of reliable sources about the Van cats, and about how they're quite regional, and largely free-breeding, not pedigreed housecats. The Turkish Van standardized breed developed in part from them (in England, not Turkey!) is not the same topic as the Van cat landrace; there are also lots of reliable sources about it, including formal breed standards, and the well-known history of the breed's purposeful development from Turkish imports (from all over Turkey, not just the Van area).

Back to notability: An ongoing selective breeding program sponsored by the Turkish government to preserve the local population and its traits, near Lake Van, could lead to the rise of a standardized Van cat breed much closer to the original, landrace population than the Turkish (English) Van breed. (This isn't the purpose of that program, but could easily become the eventual result.) If that did happen, we'd surely cover the landrace and the newly established formal breed in the same article, and focus on the landrace as more notable. This is precisely the approach taken with the Kiger mustang article (a feral population, but from which have been derived two nascent commercial, standardized breeds, the Kiger Horse and the Kiger Musteño, that do not have their own articles). In the cats example, if some tertiary source (e.g. a cat article) or primary source (e.g. a cat website) today declares the Van cat landrace to be a "breed" (and many of them do), well, that's total catshit, and we can't call it one on the basis of such sources. It's original research because it's a novel interpretative analysis by Wikipedians that the primary and tertiary sources' claim is correct, classifying it as a breed instead of a landrace, even though secondary sources indicate it's free-breeding and mostly feral, and we have no sources at all for a breed standard much less a pedigree registry.

The only problem I see is that some people really aren't familiar with the concept of "landrace", and/or just hate the idea of something they think of as a "breed", usually in some undefined way, not being called a breed. In two cases, I've had people tell me they thought use of landrace was some kind of "demotion". They react a lot the way many members of the general public did to the reclassification of Pluto as a dwarf planet instead of a planet. This is a POV problem. The way around it is to use some other term like "landrace breed", "historic breed" or whatever, that retains the word breed, distinguishes it from standardized breed (which is what the article Breed should focus on), and links the entire compound term to landrace. Voilá, no more conflict.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:51, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I think you are on a good track to note that these should be viewed as notable. I'm most comfortable with the description of a landrace as a "stage in breed formation," hence landrace or landrace breed. Likewise, "standardized breed" is another stage in breed formation. Taking the Kiger example - they are all really the same horses, just two registries, both started to record the horses that came off the range, and a split because (I suspect) the people don't get along so one bunch took their marbles and went to play elsewhere. So does just forming a registry of the landrace make a standardized breed? Montanabw^(talk) 08:17, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Briefly, and hopefully without re-opening a debate: I've pointed out before (and someone did recently, too, on another page, I think it was Peter Coxhead), this "landrace as a breed-formation stage" thing is not what even your favored source actually says. Landraces are sometimes a stage in breed formation. Some breeds are formed without landraces; many landraces do not lead to breeds; breeds can even spawn landraces. IF we see "sometimes chocolate is used in baking" we cannot conclude that chocolate is not notable except in the context of baking, nor that all baking involves chocolate. I don't like to belabor this point, but we seem to keep coming back to it.

Back to writing a guideline: I tend to agree about the Kiger situation, though the data is sparse (and I rescind my proposal last year for an article split; I've completely re-thought this stuff). To get concrete about how the draft guideline could use the Van cat example, detailed above: After adding info (I have a source) about the attempts to standardize it as a breed, it's probably fair to cross-categorize that article in both Category:Cat landraces and Category:Cat breeds. The landrace is notable, while the breed, to the extent it can even be confirmed to exist, would not pass GNG (only one secondary source), and even if it did, it would probably be "reader-hateful" to split them into separate articles. It's wrong to say that the landrace has "become" a breed. The landrace still exists and is more important; there are thousands of these cats running around all over the place in the Lake Van region, vs. maybe 100 captive specimens in the breeding program, access to which is strictly controlled. No international or national cat fancier/breeder organization recognizes either the landrace or the wannabe-breed at all. But they almost all do recognize something quite different: the confusingly named Turkish Van breed, developed in the UK, which may not even be closely related and not having the same characteristics. This is just one example of how it gets complicated not just for naming, but for determining notability. The Van cat landrace is notable on pure GNG grounds, as the article is well-sourced. The kinda-maybe Van Cat breed being established isn't notable, but encyclopedic to include as a section there. And the other thing, the distinct Turkish Van breed, is notable under the criteria we're trying to develop (recognition by multiple breed standards groups), as well as the GNG, since it's in most cat books.

I think where this draft guideline could help would be in saying, basically, "do not fork Van cat into Van cat (landrace) and Van Cat (breed); but also do not merge Van cat and Turkish Van into a Van cats page." The rationales would be broadly applicable, e.g. to cases like the Kiger horses, if written well, and the Kigers would be a good additional example.

Similar situations can arise in unexpected places. For example, the axolotl, according to bad news about two years ago, appears to be extinct in the wild now. Laboratory strains have existed since the 1800s, quite divergent from the wild population (they're among the things that some caudatologists have classified as distinct biological races), and there are millions of specimens, often found even in pet stores. These things are independently notable topics, and theoretically could be split into separate articles (exactly as has been done with the Brown rat and Fancy rat articles), but I'm skeptical there's enough material to pull this off or that doing so would be helpful to readers. It's more common-sensible to cross-categorize into wild and pet categories, and we should probably directly advise that. All kinds of strains of things (unusual snake colors, etc.) are being developed for the pet trade, but it's unlikely they're notable on a species-by-species basis. It's probably better to have an article on each species, an article on pet strain development of reptiles, and short WP:SUMMARY pet-trade sections at each of the former linking to the latter.

If this is agreeable, I think I can write this into guideline lingo and examples pretty easily.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:22, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

We have been over all of this, exhaustively, and we may have to agree to disagree a bit. But at the end of the day, we might be winding up in the same place anyway. Yes, I agree there is no sense in CFORK-ing articles on Van Cats or Kiger Mustangs. We also agree that breeds are not subspecies or "races." What I think is probably impossible is coming up with a hard and fast line at which a set of traits leaves the realm of random survival of the fittest and can be called a "breed." Just as an example, Sponenberg does also use the phrase "landrace breed" in some of his works, (we discussed that somewhere else a while back) and he has written so much that sometimes he explains the same concept in different ways, depending on his audience. Similar problem here, perhaps: I hope that you can agree that not all animals with a shared set of traits have to be "standardized" to be called a breed; and in turn I do agree that landraces are not always a stage in the formation of a standardized breed. (Some are designer crossbreds, etc...) Put out some proposed guidelines on the page and let's see what they look like. (I happen to agree that playing with colors in animals is annoying... you might get a laugh out of a word coined by a blogger to snark at the color breeders of horses - that the animals they create are "hideozygous." Montanabw^(talk) 05:02, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Sponenberg and some other people using confused terminology like "landrace breed" is basically of no consequence. Our articles, like most usage in the real world, distinguishes between the concepts. As you point out, it's often going to be an audience matter. For "horse people" readers, calling everything a "breed" as a form of shorthand is probably convenient, but it's a different audience. Ours is basically established by the way our articles are written. Since our articles on the terms distinguish breeds (domesticates with continuing finely controlled selective breeding) and landraces (domesticates that mostly free-breed in their area and have somewhat naturally adapted to it) we don't have an audience, in general, for whom the terms are synonymous or in a subset relationship. That is, treating "landrace" as a subset of "breed" contradicts our own sourced articles and makes it impossible to write our articles on specific domestic animal populations with clarity.

It's exactly the same problem as permitting on Wikipedia the imprecise usage among American hunters of "wild pig" to refer to feral pigs (domesticated ones that have gotten loose and somewhat reverted to wilder looks and behavior), and similar misuses of "wild". We're doing an encyclopedic job when we note somewhere that "wild" is sometimes misapplied (also to dogs, horses, etc.) and we clarify that they are are not wild animals, but domesticated animals that are feral; this can often be done in a footnote (though Feral pig addresses it more directly because of the illegal 1990s release of actual wild boars for hunting in the US, their interbreeding with feral pigs, and the effect this has had on them as a pest animals). This explain-and-link solution is how to deal with confused and confusing over-broad use of the word "breed" to refer to things that, from an encyclopedic perspective, don't qualify. Hell, you can pretty often find entirely non-domesticated animal subspecies referred to as "breeds" ("There are several distinct breeds of lion in Africa", etc.) in sources that should really know better, but this is not anything we would emulate. We have a duty to write more precisely.

Another way of looking at this: dwelling on weirdly commingled terminology and treating it as if it's controlling of English-language interpretation for everyday people or (even worse) a biological context is very WP:UNDUE. Given how clearly landrace, feral, wild, etc., are defined, in so many sources, it can become a WP:FRINGE and WP:NOR matter quite quickly. We're not in a position to "adopt" a usage found in a few places if it flies in the face of the rest of scientific and everyday terminology.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:48, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Move to tag Proposed

Is there a reason not to tag this page as {{proposed}}? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:07, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

My view is that it isn't yet developed enough for that, but it can be tagged as proposed if you reckon its a better fit, JT_dale^Talk~ 14:48, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I think it is a better fit. I have been watching, having little to say because others here know far more than me, but I think this guideline is needed. I seems to have lost momentum, despite being pretty good, so I think it should be raised to being a serious proposal. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:57, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

I've had it open for some time, and have been giving it further thought. It's more a matter, I think, that tempers tend to flare up about the issue (not necessarily on this particular page) so we back away for a while and chill out. The "danger" with tagging it with {{proposed}} is that if it's not subjected to some consensus vote in short order, someone will pointedly slap {{rejected}} on it for no real reason. One issue in the "isn't yet developed enough" department is we've identified above that there are varied approaches in different species for how breeds are established and "regulated" (if at all), and taken some baby-steps toward how to help identify what breeds might be notable or not, but we haven't really settled on much specific to advise yet.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:30, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree. Templates tend to attract drive-bys who don't always come in with informed opinions. Montanabw^(talk) 05:03, 10 August 2015 (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 ☏ ¢ 😼  22:04, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Two issues

Two issues:

1. "Recognized by an international, national, or (for larger countries) sub-national government body."

   For larger countries? Why? Which are the "larger countries" and how are these defined?

2. "Specific populations of canid hybrids are rarely notable, though might be mentioned with proper sourcing at wolf-dog or coydog."

   I have absolutely no idea what that passage is attempting to articulate. William Harristalk 07:54, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Hello Mac, do you have a watch on this? I am keen to progress. We will need to get this tidied and invite a few other WikiProjects to comment. William Harristalk 09:01, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

@William Harris: I have so much crap on my watchlist it's become useless for now. Better to ping me. Anyway, yeah, there are various bits that still need some work. I've taken the liberty of numbering your items above for easier reference.)

1. I think what the first is getting at is that is that we might care what a state-level government of US, Australia, Mexico, etc., says (e.g., it may have declared a population of wild horses distinct and protected), or even a county-level one in the UK, but we don't care what the government of Triesen says; it could not possibly represent a large enough real-world consensus on anything to matter here, and won't generate anything but local news coverage. We can probably avoid this vagueness problem with something like this: "Recognized by an international or national government body.", followed by a footnote: {{efn|A sub-national government body (state, county, canton, province, departement, etc.) might also be sufficient, in jurisdictions where decisions such as protection of a population of animals is decided at that level of government, since such action is likely to generate secondary-source coverage.}} "International ... government body" isn't terribly precise, but would include the EU and also including multi-national treaty organizations. It's probably good enough wording for the purpose at hand. Trying to be mindful of WP:CREEP and tumidity.
2. It's saying that neither your backyard breeder experiments in crossing wolves and retrievers, nor the feral coydog population in the hills around you, are going to be notable, absent something special going on that triggers WP:GNG. We do have various articles on very specific feral horse ("mustang") populations and such, but the few we do have are well-backed by non-trivial coverage in multiple, independent reliable sources, and also happen to trigger the item above that, in being subject to US state-level regulation as protected populations. There's a lot of money to be made in "developing" and selling hybrid canines, as with producing alleged new horse "breeds" claimed to be from mustang stock, so we're trying to dissuade attempts to write promo articles, mostly. There's probably a way to rewrite it more clearly.

Anyway, it's important to remember that this isn't another WP:NPROF, controversially trying to declare itself an alternative to WP:GNG and introduced new rules. The purpose of this page is to explain, to effectively predict, what is or is not likely to pass GNG on a topical basis by what kind of factual background the topic has. Aside from the always-fought-about NPROF, that's what all the WP:SNGs do. I wrote most of this page's material (for better or worse) and have tried to keep it centered on this: "Your article idea will probably or probably not pass WP community muster based on ...".
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:54, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Upate:

1. I implemented this fix. Also tightened up various potential loopholes. Catching every opportunity for WP:WIKILAWYER and WP:GAMING stuff takes multiple passes.
2. I made this problem just go away by merging the largely redundant sentences; the whole para. now reads: "Dog crossbreeds and hybrids are usually not notable, unless subject to extensive independent coverage (e.g. Labradoodle). Non-notable crossbreeds that are verifiable and worth at least mentioning in the encyclopedia are best covered at the articles on the breeds they are derived from (or at wolf-dog or coydog in the case of hybrids)."

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:16, 20 February 2020 (UTC)