Talk:Coon hunting

Alternative Meanings
Sharon got hit by a tampon in the bathroom. As the WP website confirms, the term "coon" is used in a racially derogatory way towards African Americans and Australian Aboriginies. I recognise (and am very glad) that this GA is about raccoon hunting, but I wonder if some mention of the term "coon hunting" in its perjorative senses would be appropriate. Certainly it came up in the Travyon Martin situation, and appears online (,, , , definitions 2 and 3, "coonhound" as a name for slave-hunting dogs, etc) with racist meanings. I don't doubt that the term "coon hunting" for raccoon hunting is used an unconnected to the racist meanings, but either the article should be at coon hunting (sport) or something like that with a dab page covering other meanings, or there should be a section on other meanings, or even there could be a hat note to an alternative page where the racist meaning is included? Not having anything to me is incomplete, which is not ok in a GA-level article. Thoughts / Opinions? EdChem (talk) 06:16, 22 April 2017 (UTC) As for the cheese, I doubt that the name would be chosen these days, just as the Washington NFL team would not be called the redskins if its name were to be chosen today. EdChem (talk) 11:54, 22 April 2017 (UTC) PS: is there not a more appropriate GA category for this article than agriculture, food and drink? Maybe something in sports and recreation? EdChem (talk) 12:00, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
 * As the reviewer that passed this I feel obliged to defend my position. This article is clearly about hunting racoons. Should it be at racoon hunting (probably, I would support such a move), but this is not something that is decided by a good article reviewer. To me mentioning a completely unrelated topic, especially one using racist slang, would fail the focus criteria. When deciding on the broad criteria I google the title and see what shows up and if anything is relevant to the article. Nothing really shows up about the racist intent. That may be because I am somewhat protected with my New Zealand location (my first thought when I saw this nomination was that it was about raccoons, not the racist intent). I just did a US google search and found one link in the first four pages to the Travyon case.
 * It is a bit unfair on the creators of this article to ask them to create another article on an unrelated topic they probably have little interest in. The sources you use as evidence are dodgy at best (or just plain terrible - urban dictionary). The DAB page doesn't even go to a page titled coon (racist term), but a list of hundreds of racist terms so I am not even sure what a hatnote would say.
 * Bottom line I am confident this article meets the criteria to be a good article. I have reviewed nearly 80 articles now so have a fair idea on the criteria. You are welcome to ask for a reassessment or even gain consensuses for any change you see fit. As for DYK, I am not terribly interested in the process and if it is decided that this title is inappropriate for a link from the main page then that is your decision and unrelated to the good article status. AIR corn (talk) 08:22, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
 * As an Australian, living in a country with no raccoons but where "coon" has been used as a racist term for Koori peoples, my first thought was the racist version and I was very glad that the article was about hunting. I was not proposing that my links be used in the article, but rather to illustrate that the term does have other meanings.  I don't propose a GA review or any such though, nor am I attacking you as the reviewer or the article's authors.  However, I could not write an article on the year 1488 and not include a hat note to point to the alternative racist meaning of the number.  The article is clear about the hunting and I concur that moving the article to "raccoon hunting" is a good approach to separate it from the racist connotation.  But if there is a redirect from "coon hunting", a hat note would be needed.  EdChem (talk) 09:07, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I must be naive as I had to look up 1488. Sorry if I misjudged your intent, it was the not ok in a GA-level article that I was reacting to. I would not oppose a hatnote out of hand, but I could not find a suitable article to point to. Do you have a target in mind? As a little aside I remember seeing a popular brand of cheese in Aussie called coon. AIR corn (talk) 09:51, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Under the present title, I think no mention is a problem at GA level vis-à-vis completeness, but I think a change of title + a hatnote is a much simpler solution than making suitable additions to the article at the present title. Note that I don't view this as a major criticism of your review, missing a possible alternative meaning is an error but no reviewer will be faultless or perfect and I acknowledge that my view could be seen as incorrect or questionable.  I don't want to get into a great debate over meeting the GA criteria, an area where your experience is far greater than mine.  However, as an example of what I mean, I would not be surprised when an editor is unaware of the alternative meaning of 1488, nor would I see a GA reviewer of the year article missing the need for a hatnote (were it missing) in a review, but I would consider its absence to be an issue of completeness which needed addressing.  One simple question, : do you see moving the article to raccoon hunting and making coon hunting a redirect as an uncontroversial technical move as outlined at WP:RM, or should I start a move request discussion?
 * You might be interested in the note that was attached to the GA nom, it is visible at the top of the page in this revision. It was left by  and addresses a few of your points. As for the name change; common name seems to be coon, but an argument may be made on precision. As even if coon hunting is a redirect we will still need a hat note, so what about just putting the following hatnote at the top and leaving it at that. AIR corn  (talk) 06:58, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I have added a hat note along the lines you suggest, as well as adding "coon hunting" to the coon page (both meanings) and "coon hunting" to the racial slurs page. EdChem (talk) 15:41, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
 * ,, Sorry to be late to the discussion, I didn't get online yesterday. I was aware of the racist meaning but named this article coon hunting because, if you do a Google search for that term, the vast majority of what comes up is about this: hunting raccoons. There are a few racism-related results, but not many if you're in Google Books, which is where I found most of the sources. (The Urban Dictionary reference above made me remember one time when I was looking up bareback riding, meaning riding a horse without a saddle, and UD brought up some weird thing about having sex without condoms. Where did they get that?!) Also, "raccoon hunting" has far fewer hits, and the dogs are called coonhounds, not raccoonhounds. All the media listed talks about "coon hunting" and it's not racist in nature; Where the Red Fern Grows is an American classic that most children are required to read for school, and Jerry Clower's stories are about growing up poor during the Great Depression. In addition, there are several books listed on Google with coon hunting in the titles, and as far as I can see they're about hunting raccoons with hound dogs . Also, the sources used here all use coon hunting, so the term seems to be definitely more connected with the sport than the racist usage.  Because of all that I went with this as the Common name because that's what I figured most people with interest would search for. The hatnote seems to be a reasonable solution. By the way, raccoon hunting redirects here and the DYK nom has already passed ☺. This article is also getting over 2000 pageviews a month. White Arabian Filly  Neigh 22:01, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Firstly, purely as an FYI, I have not received the pings from either of you recently, so there may be some issue at the moment, and I'm sorry if neither of you are pinged with this message. I do recognise you both tried to add pings.
 * Secondly, WAF, I recognise that most sources use the term for raccoon hunting, I had and have no doubts that it is the primary topic, but as an undisambiguated GA, I was concerned that there was nothing for someone looking at the racist term to be redirected. I did wonder about a move to raccoon hunting, but I agree that most sources do use the abbreviated term and so WP:COMMON places it here.  The hat note has addressed the concern I had, coupled with my edits to coon and racial slur.  I have no issue with the DYK, glad it is on the way to a main page appearance, it was just how I saw the topic and did a double take.  Assuming you have no problems with what I have done (beyond the usual editing / tweaking / polishing that goes on all the time), I think this is resolved.  :)
 * Thirdly, thanks to you both for resolving this in a civil and collaborative way, even though my comments were not well expressed at times and came across as critical of your work. EdChem (talk) 02:40, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, I am also glad it's resolved peacefully. I got your ping (and another from somebody else) but I'm on mobile view, so maybe it's an issue with desktop? You could check the Village Pump to see if anybody else is having the same issue. White Arabian Filly  Neigh 21:09, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Pings only work if you sign them. So if you add a ping to an already written comment you have to resign with ~ . AIR corn (talk) 01:23, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the advice / reminder, Aircorn, but looking at that diff it can be seen that the time stamp on the signature was changed, so I suspect that WAF did re-sign with the tildes... sometimes pings don't work, I've seen it on other pages, but I've not seen any explanation of why it happens. I suspect it's a known bug with an unknown or unpredictable trigger.  EdChem (talk) 03:08, 25 April 2017 (UTC)