Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Urban dog

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. -- Tavix ^(talk) 20:28, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Urban dog[edit]

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Unclear what this is supposed to be, a tautological definition combining an adjective and a noun is not a notable stand-alone topic. Just because someone wrote a animal care book helping city dwellers with "introducing a dog in the home, behavior, socialization, training, walking with a leash, common problems, and leaving the dog alone." does not mean this is an independently notable or encyclopedic subject. Reywas92^Talk 19:05, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Animal-related deletion discussions. Reywas92^Talk 19:05, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. Andrew D. (talk) 00:05, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Weak redirect to Dog#As_pets. I expect that the author will defend this with his trademarked "I googled a book with this in the title" argument, but my scan of at least the applicable scientific literature [1] would indicate that the term generally crops up as applied to more specific topics that alreday have articles (Dog bite and Rabies cover about 3/4 of those). If there is much to say on this particular topic that cannot be either treated in such places or at dog, then fine, but I doubt it. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:34, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: The article was created as a response to Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2019 June 25#Dogs in urban environments. -- Tavix ^(talk) 19:57, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:NOTDICTIONARY. SpinningSpark 22:56, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The article was started as a quick response to a RfD, as explained above. It was started as a WP:STUB because it was late at night. A stub is a valid way to get a topic started as per our editing policy:
Perfection is not required: Wikipedia is a work in progress. Collaborative editing means that incomplete or poorly written first drafts can evolve over time into excellent articles. Even poor articles, if they can be improved, are welcome. For instance, one person may start an article with an overview of a subject or a few random facts.

The reference to a dictionary is quite mistaken. The topic here is not a particular word or phrase. Our policy WP:NOTDICTIONARY explains that

One perennial source of confusion is that a stub encyclopedia article looks very much like a dictionary entry, and stubs are often poorly written; another is that some paper dictionaries, such as "pocket" dictionaries, lead users to the mistaken belief that dictionary entries are short, and that short article and dictionary entry are therefore equivalent.

So, what we have here is confusion generating disruption. The topic is clearly notable as several books have been cited about various aspects of the topic and there are many more sources out there. What is expected in this situation is collaboration in expanding the topic, as requested by the {{stub}} template, "You can help Wikipedia by expanding it."

To explain the matter further, let's page @Uncle G: who wrote many of these policies and so best understands them.

Andrew D. (talk) 23:53, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Lolol you can't just say "please help" and therefore the existence of your vague nothingburger is justified...I wish this were an actual dictionary definition, that would be more useful than this since I don't know what it is. Does an urban dog have specific different characteristics from a suburban dog or rural dog? If so then you need to provide that basis for people to work off of, not your eleven-word "article", which could have also been a WP:DRAFT in response to the RFD; you could have also requested collaboration on a talk page first. Someone writing a book helping urban dog owners keep a pet in an apartment does not distinguish an "urban dog" as a notable unique concept, and the other sources are quite clearly about stray/free-ranging dogs or street dogs, and you made no effort to clarify what makes this warrant a separate article rather than just taking the names of the first hits in your Google Books search. Reywas92^Talk 04:19, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per Andrew D. ∯WBG^converse 03:15, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete It's unclear why urban dogs in general would be a separate topic from pet dogs and street dogs. Although several sources have been provided, they seem to be the result of googling "urban dog" and don't point to a single cohesive topic. –dlthewave ☎ 03:24, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Although several sources have been provided, they seem to be the result of googling "urban dog" and don't point to a single cohesive topic.- yes, that's the article creator's usual MO at AfD. Reyk _YO! 08:32, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete- "An urban dog is a dog in a town or city". Well, duh. This is an exercise in stating the obvious but nothing useful. Are these stray dogs? Pets of people living in towns? Guide dogs for vision impaired inner city workers? No idea. The article doesn't say and was never intended to convey anything useful. It's just the result of finding a handful of books with the word "urban" and/or "dog" in the title, not looking at them, and then citing them in an 11 word microstub. Reyk _YO! 08:32, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Even if this were actually a thing, it would still fail on the grounds of being an un-nottable WP:NEOLOGISM. But this is not a thing, this is the result of googling two words and noting that they are sometimes used in conjunction with one another. None of these sources indicate why this is a concept that is separate, and needs a split article, from any of the other topics already noted in some of the responses above. Rorshacma (talk) 15:25, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I also questioned the notability and validity of this term as a separate subject when I noticed the article was created via the discussion that Tavix linked. (I am the nominator of that discussion.) Seems I'm not alone in this concern. Steel1943 (talk) 17:21, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy delete per criterion A7: no effort at all has been made to credibly indicate why this is a significant topic. Reminds me of there are birds. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:03, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- A7 only applies to articles "about a real person, individual animal, commercial or non-commercial organization, web content, or organized event that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant, with the exception of educational institutions." This topic therefore doesn't qualify. See also WP:WIHS#A7. Andrew D. (talk) 18:52, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  - Okay, then A1 no context. "A dog in a city" is insufficient context around which to write an encyclopedia article. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:00, 28 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  - Ha ha, arguing over guideline smallprint won't convince anyone to save this article. What's your next article Andrew? Dead horse? That's been a disambiguation page far too long with no primary topic to take the title. SpinningSpark 13:05, 28 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    - I already started dead cat and have written on other similar titles like urban chicken. The topic here would be comparatively easy as there are several books on the subject. But we seem to have several hounds here and I have plenty of other things to do. "Every dog has its day". Andrew D. (talk) 14:54, 28 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Spotte 2012, p. 228 tells me outright that "urban dogs are characterized by six factors". Dr Spotte cites Ortolani, Vernooij & Coppinger 2009 and Daniels 1983 for that. The book, from reading even just the context on the rest of the page, is discussing street dogs by this name, and contrasting them with "rural free-ranging dogs". Ortolani et al. actually say village dogs. Daniels says free-ranging urban dogs.
So there is the actual science for you, from doing a little more than putting two words together and actually reading what the searches turned up.
Uncle G (talk) 00:04, 29 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Spotte, Stephen (2012). "Socialization". Societies of Wolves and Free-ranging Dogs. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107015197.
- Ortolani, Alessia; Vernooij, Hans; Coppinger, Raymond (July 2009). "Ethiopian village dogs: Behavioural responses to a stranger's approach". Applied Animal Behaviour Science. 119 (3–4): 210–218. doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2009.03.011.
- Daniels, Thomas J. (July 1983). "The social organization of free-ranging urban dogs. I. Non-estrous social behavior". Applied Animal Ethology. 10 (4): 341–363. doi:10.1016/0304-3762(83)90184-0.
Comment I believe the article as currently written is eligible for A3 deletion. If some of the references have any useful content, adding it to the article should make this an easy keep. If not, this should be deleted (or turned into a DAB page, if there is a need to have something at this name). power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:11, 29 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- There probably is. Notice all of the other names in what I wrote earlier and read Talk:Free-ranging urban dog#Move to "Street dog". Uncle G (talk) 13:13, 30 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment, now if this was the article Urbane dog ie bassets, weimars, standard poodles, it would definitely notable... Coolabahapple (talk) 02:01, 30 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, per above ,WP: Notdictionary Alex-h (talk) 08:49, 30 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete the Article because it's not meet WP:NOTDICTIONARY.Forest90 (talk) 08:21, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect. It's a valid search term but has little content to add. Bearian (talk) 13:27, 2 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Although I love dogs, fails WP:NOTDICTIONARY. William2001^(talk) 22:06, 2 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, I can't see much published that discusses "urban dogs" as a concept in itself - Feral dogs, pet dogs, stray dogs, and working dogs are clearly discussed in other articles, but I just can't see a significant number of sources that are going to discuss the vague crossover of pet dogs, street dogs and working dogs that happen to live in cities. This is not a useful article topic without that specific coverage. It's just a vague dictionary definition restatement of a concept - while that concept clearly exists, it does not exist in a form that a useful encyclopedia article could be written about. ~ mazca ^talk 12:29, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.