User:JTdale/Notability (poultry breeds)

This guideline is intended to be a benchmark for WikiProject Poultry to use for deciding notability for poultry breeds, and for other editors unfamiliar with the subject area to consult as the collected advice of more experienced editors on the subject. Given not all poultry species possess breeds, this guideline concerns primarily ducks, geese, turkeys and chickens. It is important to note this guideline does not concern species, such as the many species of quail. A breed is defined by the the Oxford Dictionary as a group of animals with a distinctive appearance, often bred via deliberate selection.

Guidelines
Due to the inherent lack of mainstream media coverage of less popular animal breeds, especially of species that aren't regularly covered (unlike dogs and cats) and even more so of foreign breeds uncommon in the English speaking world, there is a lot of scope for ending up with long term stubs. However, this isn't inherently bad in itself since these breeds often continue to exist and will attain more material with time provided that they were verifiable in the first place. Therefore, to qualify as notable in the eyes of WikiProject Poultry a breed should fulfill one of the following;


 * 1) Be recognised by a national or international poultry society or standard. Some countries do not have a national poultry society but they do have an agreed upon standard all poultry clubs use, plus there are organisations such as Entente Européenne. National but not primary poultry societies such as the American Bantam Society and the Rare Poultry Association (Australia) do count. Please note this is not referring to a national breed society. Therefore, if the breed Foo is created and recognised by the Foo Club of America but not the American Poultry Association it wouldn't qualify under this. Poultry breed societies are okay as a source of information but they are often extremely small interest groups run by a handful of people and don't give any indication of notability.
 * 2) Be recognised by a national or subnational government. Sometimes, poultry societies simply haven't been founded but agencies such as the local Department of Agriculture or Culture will have recognised the breed in some form.
 * 3) Recognised by a national society of some other form. This primarily includes non-breed societies such as rare breeds societies (i.e. The Livestock Conservancy).
 * 4) Covered in depth in a major publication, such as Australasian Poultry Magazine or Lewis Wrights Illustrated Guide to Poultry.

On top of this, media coverage overrides any of this. If a breed is not in any standards but has been covered by secondary sources other than this then they are immediately notable via WP:GNG.

Be careful
Some sources that seem like they should be reliable may not be.


 * While the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation Domestic Animal Diversity Information System is useful, it is not always a reliable reference and not proof a breed qualifies as real. Many countries report commercial hybrids as 'breeds' to it and numerous errors exist. However sometimes governments do report more than the minimum information to the system and this can be useful. Overall, DAD-IS should be taken case by case.