Talk:Rafeiro do Alentejo

Herding characteristics
As a kind o sheepdog, I'm curious to know what they are capable of. Can they drive? Gather? Or do they merely protect? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mgrazebrook (talk • contribs) 20:48, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Naming confusion
I've changed the alternate names for the correct ones. According to FCI and portuguese CPC, "Portuguese Sheepdog" is the name for another distinct dog breed from Alentejo, known as "Cão da Serra de Aires". --Richard George 11:48, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Attribution
Text was copied from Rafeiro do Alentejo to Cão de Gado Transmontano. See former article history for contributors. 7&amp;6=thirteen (☎) 13:42, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Bad link
I'm not sure of the proper procedure for this one... source #5 is a bad link and goes to a 404. If you remove the main.htm from the address, it redirects to a porn website. Chillidobe (talk) 04:30, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 21 February 2020

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

No consensus for any alternative title, after extended time for discussion. BD2412 T 02:41, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Rafeiro do Alentejo → ? – Per WP:USEENGLISH we should not have this at the Portuguese name when formal English ones are available and well-attested. However, in this case, we have a tough choice. While Alentejo Mastiff is used by one American kennel club, the international one, Fédération Cynologique Internationale (FCI), uses the "Portuglish" Rafeiro of Alentejo, which isn't really ideal, though FCI is a more reliable/influential/reputable source than a single national registry with no connection to the native country of the breed nor with any efforts at the breed's establishment (possibly important is that the Portuguese Kennel/Cynological Club, who developed the breed standard, is an FCI national affiliate). However, rafeiro is technically a misnomer, meaning 'mongrel' or 'mutt', and refers to the original foundation stock being landrace animals with no pedigree history. Another American registry provisionally recognizes the breed under its original Portuguese name, Rafeiro do Alentejo; but provisional recognition is basically meaningless, and breed names often change by the time they are fully accepted (if ever; given the low breeding numbers of this variety, never is actually fairly likely). At first, I leaned toward Alentejo Mastiff as more precise in a sense, as well as a bit more concise, but in the end I lean more toward FCI as simply a more important source of names, with international standardization, and because the misnomer isn't transparent in English and only matters to people fluent in Portuguese. This is obscure enough a topic that I don't think a typical WP:COMMONNAME analysis can reliably be done; there will be a lot of statistical skew due to online dog forums and so forth being pro- or anti- particular kennel clubs, etc.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:54, 21 February 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. BegbertBiggs (talk) 20:56, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

To clarify: The source is pertinent in the sense of being a tertiary-source confirmation that FCI's primary-source claim that the native Portuguese name is rafeiro do Alentejo is correct. By itself, it doesn't help us answer the "what to name this article?" question. What we lack and with something this obscure will continue to lack is a pile of secondary reliable sources in English which might or might not present a clearly favored common name in English. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:22, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Its been called this for a very long time. See for example, If you want to put in the English variant, do it as a redirect.  7&amp;6=thirteen (☎) 16:59, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
 * That's not pertinent.  the original Portuguese name has been used for a longer time than names in English, since it's a Portuguese breed. That doesn't tell us anything about what name should be used on English Wikipedia following our policies and guidelines and with our English-speaking readers in mind. There is no "WP:PREFEROLDNAMES" principle on Wikipedia (the opposite tends to be more true: we prefer names commonly used in  English-language sources).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:47, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The FCI's given "English" name for this breed is "Rafeiro of Alentejo" - I think we should run with that. It is not a big change.  William Harris Canis lupis track.svg talk Canis lupis track.svg 06:07, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose, per "If there are too few reliable English-language sources to constitute an established usage, follow the conventions of the language appropriate to the subject ... Portuguese for Brazilian towns ..." – only two sources have been cited here, and they don't agree. A couple of other English-language books that use the Portuguese name are this and this; don't know how reliable the first is, but pretty sure Janet Vorwald Dohner is regarded as solid.
 * By the way, our policy on changing long-established page titles without good reason (WP:PREFEROLDNAMES) is "If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed". Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:32, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.