Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fatal dog attacks in the United States


 * 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 no consensus. Although there is substantial support for deletion, there is greater support for keeping this content. The deletion rationales appear to center on the triviality of individual instances, but do not override the evidence that the subject in general is notable. Specific concerns about what columns or information should be included on the page are matters for editorial discussion, not for AfD. BD2412 T 17:54, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Fatal dog attacks in the United States

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

WP:NOPAGE it isn’t notable enough to have an article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 22:48, 26 November 2019‎ (UTC)
 * Added Template:afd2. Cavalryman (talk) 00:55, 28 November 2019 (UTC).

Per request(s) below, nominating subordinate articles:

notifying other contributors. Cavalryman (talk) 04:58, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Rosebud214 your not being truthful. I didn’t say I was going to nominate this article for deletion somebody else did. I kind of regret nominating this article for deletion; I should of let that person do it. The article was going to be nominated for deletion anyway because that person said they were going to do it after the Afd discussion about my article was done, hopefully this article doesn’t get deleted after this, it just that other people would want it deleted off of Wikipedia, and would agree about deleting this article. It is a great article that shouldn’t be deleted. JaneciaTaylor (talk) 00:50, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete – just like the arguments at Articles for deletion/People Who Were Killed in Animal Attacks, Wikipedia is not a obituary noticeboard. At a minimum this needs to be retitled as a list. Cavalryman (talk) 00:55, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete as per WP:GNG and WP:NOTMEMORIAL.  William Harris Canis lupis track.svg talk Canis lupis track.svg 01:32, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2019 November 28.  —cyberbot I   Talk to my owner :Online 00:56, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
 * As is typical, this was a half-assed attempt at an AFD. List of fatal dog attacks in the United States (before 2000) and List of fatal dog attacks in the United States (2000s) are not included despite serving the exact same purpose as this list.  So would the editor who did everything wrong in nominating this for deletion care to explain themselves?  It appears you're taking the stance that lists exist to collect wikilinks and not to collect information and reliable sources on the topic stated at the top of the page, but that's not entirely clear to me. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions  01:41, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Incorrect observation; this is a serious AFD process. A bit of care and research would have shown that the list template was in place long ago and has absolutely nothing to do with the AFD nominator.  William Harris Canis lupis track.svg talk Canis lupis track.svg 05:48, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
 * No biting, please. – Levivich 06:16, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete all – Not notable lists, and not a notable intersection, per lack of sources providing in-depth coverage of the list as a whole (as opposed to individual members). – Levivich 06:16, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep - I see lots of in-depth as well as fleeting coverage of the topic in reliable sources. The nomination and discussion thus far is shallow. Bearian (talk) 23:59, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep: In short, the article has lots of merit and interest to readers and researchers, is a popular oft-read article, has previously been AfD'd as Keep, and this nomination for AfD is a kneejerk reaction by Nom.
 * Reason this article has value: (1) It is a list of events, not a memorial to people killed by dogs (you could remove the names of the people and the list would still have value), and (2) it is a subject of intense interest in many sectors. This year alone there has been a fatal dog attack once every seven days, on average. Each year the count rises. Each fatality is accompanied by several news articles and some fatalities are getting over 100 articles covering them. The public passionately comments on every death. Academics, scholars and medical personnel are churning out several high-value studies each year on the subject of 'fatal dog attacks'. It is safe to say that the topic is very much followed by a wide audience. In support is Wikipedia's own page view stats averaging 600 views per day of that article.
 * The article has been AfD'd before, on 22 August 2010. The takeaways from the discussion can be summarized as:
 * The list is of EVENTS, not PEOPLE. The events, as a collection, are notable.
 * The earlier title of the article started "List of People..." and it was suggested to focus instead on the EVENTS of the deaths, and that the "the people are merely ancillary information to complete the description of the fatal dog attack, rather than the main point of the list," per . This change was made. I agree that the person's names are ancillary, but they are helpful in order to "match" up with news articles.
 * "The overall concept of humans being killed by dogs is notable, the individual entries on the list of course need to be properly sourced but do not need to be notable in and of themselves," per . I agree that it is the composite collection of fatalities, with its variability as well as patterns, that makes the collection notable.
 * "I've noted that some of the concerns here refer to the insufficient notability of individual events listed in the table. ... The topic - deadly dog attacks in the USA - is what we should judge. It is a notable topic, as is confirmed by the cited studies," per . Indeed there are quite a collection of studies on the subject of fatal dog attacks, and many more added each year, meaning that the topic itself is of interest to the scientific and academic communities.
 * "People wanting to research this topic, such as myself, find this list very useful. If you want to see what a "memorial site" article looks like, see Diane Whipple, this is not a memorial but collection of important information," per . Like I said, you could remove the names and the information would be just as valuable. The names, of course, are important for matching event entries with their citations (news articles).
 * Reason this nomination is flawed: The Nominator just had her own hard work decimated through AfD "concensus" after a month of discussion about it and 35 other editors involved. Per edit histories, I see that Nom created and worked on an article called People Who Were Killed in Animal Attacks. Her last version is here . Someone nominated it for AfD with the result "merge". The final result can be seen at Animal attack. Someone "pruned" the work from around 150 entries to a measley 13 entries.  Nom wrote several times in Articles for deletion/People Who Were Killed in Animal Attacks that if her work is destroyed she would nominate for AfD Fatal dog attacks in the United States. And here we are. I posit that the nomination effort is a reaction to earlier events and this AfD would not have been nominated otherwise. Perhaps, also, the flaw in her article was the focus on the people (People Who Were Killed...) and not the events themselves or the collection of events and tie them together with its significance in today's society. But I digress.
 * In response to, the "in-depth coverage of the list as a whole", or rather the glue that discusses the subject of fatalities from dog attacks was moved to the article Fatal dog attacks. The article Fatal dog attacks in the United States was not just a simple list until recently. There was a Talk page discussion earlier this year where the participants seemed to agree to move the non-list info, the studies, to an international or non-country-specific fatal dog attack article, and rename the remaining list as "List of...". The move happened; the rename did not. So if there's any "in-depth coverage of the list as a whole", it would now be in the "umbrella" article Fatal dog attacks which, along with its own collection of fatality events, has links to other break-out articles for Canada, United Kingdom and United States. Rosebud0214 (talk) 00:12, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Don't be side-tracked by other articles, past history, nor rhetoric. This article will stand or fall on its own merits and nothing more.  William Harris Canis lupis track.svg talk Canis lupis track.svg 11:22, 1 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep Per WP:LISTN, a list meets notability requirements when the list topic has substantial received coverage by reliable sources. Fatal dog attack in the United States is a subject that has received a lot of coverage and analysis; here are some secondary sources I found after only a rudimentary search: . I believe that WP:INDISCRIMINATE may be a bigger problem: the list size is massive, and I expect that a reasonably complete list would have several thousand listings. However, I think the article does a good job contextualizing the information, and the list is broken up into three sub-articles. Given the extensive academic interest (largely medical and legal) in American dog attacks and the fact that every listing has received coverage in reliable sources, I do not believe indiscriminate is a good reason to delete. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 05:07, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I do not believe that a business journalist writing in the business section of Forbes magazine counts as a reliable secondary source, and certainly not an expert one. Certainly the 3 research or professional journal articles do. None of the 3 research articles list dog attacks across the years - one of them lists dog attacks for 1974-75. The article Fatal dog attacks in the United States bases its references on media articles - I do not regard media articles as reliable. There was one Sherrif's Office official report; I do regard that as reliable. The issue is "where do we find a list of dog fatalities in the US spanning years with Significant coverage?" WP:SIGCOV. So far nobody has provided one, yet " multiple sources are generally expected".  William Harris Canis lupis track.svg talk Canis lupis track.svg 11:08, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
 * LISTN states that a list is notable if it has been covered as a "group or a set"; it states that the "entirety of the list does not need to be documented in sources" to meet notability requirements. Here, just about every database you can think of will have several entries on fatal dog attacks in the United States. Many of these sources analyze the dog attacks in detail and examine trends and data points over time. While not every listing needs to be covered in reliable sources, every entry here does in fact seem to be cited to independent sources (meaning it goes above what is required by LISTN). (I'm unsure why local media sources are not considered reliable. They don't establish notability on their own nor would I use them for truly controversial claims. However, the local paper seems perfectly authoritative for information on local dog attacks). Spirit of Eagle (talk) 23:09, 1 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Comments: Re "None of the 3 research articles list dog attacks across the years" and "Where do we find a list of dog fatalities in the US spanning years with significant coverage", here are six sources that do: 1979-1988, 1979-2005, 1989-1994, 1997-1998, 2000-2009, 2005-2017. Re "I do not regard media articles as reliable", Wikipedia does. Many Sheriff Office reports nowadays are posted on Facebook, which Wikipedia does not prefer and which have been passed over in favor of media articles for citations. I challenge you to find one single entry on the list that didn't happen. Re WP:SIGCOV, that policy relates to the topic as a whole, and does not govern that every paragraph, every sentence, or every list entry need also have significant coverage. The whole of the list is a topic, and the topic does have significant coverage. (See Notability.) Perhaps some of the content from Fatal dog attacks should be brought back into this list article or bluelinks made to there to direct readers to where they can find more information on the topic. You are trying to assign (to lists) rules that do not exist. To wit are multiple other lists in Wikipedia that are similar or equally "no source to tie them together" including List of political self-immolations, List of unusual deaths, List of fatal shark attacks in South African territorial waters, and such trivia as List of fictional badgers. If Wikipedia had a requirement of lists to have some other reliable source to have discussed "the list", then almost every list in Wikipedia could be removed on that basis. In this case, we have scholars, publishers and journals discussing the topic as a whole. This list correctly follows Manual of Style/Lists, "The list may be a valuable information source. This is particularly the case for a structured list. Examples would include lists organized chronologically, grouped by theme, or annotated lists." This list's entries correctly follow Stand-alone lists, "Selection criteria should be unambiguous, objective, and supported by reliable sources." A few other bits from Notability: Notability requires verifiable evidence. ✅ Notability is not temporary. ✅ Notable topics have attracted attention over a sufficiently significant period of time. ✅ I just don't see any downside to leaving the list article in Wikipedia and I see a lot of reasons it should be included in Wikipedia. Rosebud0214 (talk) 23:58, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Incorrect conclusion. What you have provided are 4 references about dog fatalities or attacks, which list the dog breed/cross involved and without listing the individual years of each, nor the people involved, nor descriptions. These look nothing like the Wikipedia lists. That dogs attack people and researchers are interested is not the issue here. A better argument would have been that Wikipedia already has an article on "Dog bite", and that these 3 lists provide an adjunct to that article.
 * No, Wikipedia does not regard media articles as "reliable", it regards them as WP:PUBLISHED, and WP:CONTEXT matters - let WP:BESTSOURCES be your guide. From WP:NEWSORG - "whether a specific news story is reliable for a fact or statement should be examined on a case-by-case basis." William Harris Canis lupis track.svg talk Canis lupis track.svg 04:58, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
 * , the sources cited above summarise dog fatalities (with some selected case studies) and draw conclusions from those summaries, they do not list each case individually as this list article does. You are correct pointing to WP:LISTN, specifically a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, the sources provided for this page do not discuss the deaths as a group or set, they discuss each individually. Cavalryman (talk) 06:15, 2 December 2019 (UTC).
 * Response to two previous comments: None of the policies cited by William Harris support the claim that local news sources are inherently unreliable. To the contrary, the policies provide support for the claim that local sources are reasonably authoritative for local dog attacks and other local events. As for the LISTN argument, nowhere in the policy is there a requirement for the reliable sources to be lists themselves; it merely requires that they be discussed as a set or group (which is met here). Spirit of Eagle (talk) 16:49, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Animal-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 08:09, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 08:09, 2 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Note: Contributions for newly created User talk:Rosebud0214 indicates it is a SPA that was created in October, at which time they added 2 deaths to this list. Atsme Talk 📧 15:20, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete all - agree with the reasons above, and will further add that if we summarized the numbers as a statistic for inclusion in a medical article about leading causes of death where WP:MEDRS is the prevailing guideline for citing sources, it would fail inclusion. Another issue I've run across is WP:V with regards to corroborating the accuracy of events in some of the cited sources.  Atsme  Talk 📧 15:20, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't think MEDRS applies here, as none of the listings are medical. While dog attacks are certainly of interest to the medical community, the date, location and details of specific dog attacks are not the type of information I would describe as biomedical; mere reliable sources should be enough. There is some biomedical information in the lead section about the dangers posed by dog bites, but these seem to either be cited to reliable medical sources or are claims for which high quality medical sources certainly exist. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 17:03, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I disagree, misidentification is a problem per RS, and when visual IDs are used in the coroner's report, issues arise: National Canine Research Council, Michigan State University article. This list plays right into the hands of misidentification. Atsme Talk 📧 17:26, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Ok, that is a really good point and one that made me reconsider my vote. After thinking things over, I think the list is salvageable if it de-emphasizes the dog breeds. Specifically, the list should not contain a column of dog breeds, note that the reported breed is only a claim by non-knowledgeable parties, and describe in detail the inaccuracy of visual determinations of dog breeds. I agree, based on the sources you provided, that accurate breed identification requires medical or scientific knowledge beyond what can be expected of most journalists. However, I don't believe that this is fatal to the list and that this is an issue that can be resolved through editing. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 17:38, 3 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Well I see people don’t have have a consensus about this. This Afd discussion is going to last more than 7 days. This is between keep and delete, hopefully they will decide to keep it. It is a great article that has reliable sources. JaneciaTaylor (talk) 18:42, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete Compilation of obituaries/news events of non-notable people. There are certainly sources that let us discuss the topic but such a listing of individuals is not notable. Reywas92Talk 19:46, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep. This seems to be an attempt to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Sure, there are issues at times and occasional inaccuracies, but by and large this is a valuable resource. The solution is to follow WP:PRESERVE and improve, not delete. -- BullRangifer (talk) 00:04, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * That's bull, ! (Do you get that a lot? ) WP:ITSUSEFUL is a classic argument to avoid. That's not a reason for a stand-alone list. WP:PRESERVE is satisfied by our article about Fatal dog attacks. That's where the baby is; this list is all bathwater. As far as we can tell, no reliable source has ever published a list of all fatal dog attacks in the US. As a set, it's not notable. RSes write about fatal dog attacks in general, and about particular fatal dog attacks, but not about a list of all fatal dog attacks. – Levivich 00:49, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * LOL! No, that's the first time. By your argument, we cannot have any lists here. Otherwise, you may or may not be right about that article being sufficient, although they serve very different purposes, so I'd still miss this list. I'll put the article on my watchlist. I wasn't even aware it existed. -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:42, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * We could still have lists here, like List of US presidents, for which there are many sources (entire books) that are lists of US presidents. List of black quarterbacks has sources that are lists of black quarterbacks. My view is–and I don't know how widely it's shared–that if an editor is putting together the list by amassing individual entries (rather than basing the list, or most of it, en toto on lists published by RSes), then that's WP:SYNTH. In the case of these fatal dog attacks, all those news reports about dog attacks are primary sources (reporting contemporaneous events), and so the list that collects them together is a secondary source, not a tertiary one, and therefore it's SYNTH. – Levivich 05:12, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * No, per WP:NOTSYNTH, "SYNTH is not mere juxtaposition". SYNTH is when you put two facts together to arrive at a novel conclusion.  Simply listing those facts, one after the other, does not do this. Andrew🐉(talk) 00:37, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep The encyclopedia benefits from having informative articles like this. All entries are referenced.  Whenever a dog kills someone, it makes the news somewhere.  One of the founding policies of Wikipedia is Ignore all rules If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.  Also WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY   D r e a m Focus  02:12, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep Passes WP:LISTN – see Fatal dog attacks, 1989-1994 or Fatal Dog Attacks, for example. Andrew🐉(talk) 15:59, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:LISTN Paisarepa (talk) 23:30, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete all per WP:NOTIINFO WP:NOTMEMORIAL and WP:NOTNEWS. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate memorial for victims of a specific death, especially as almost every victim is non notable, including infant children (some not even named), and referenced by a single news report. Ajf773 (talk) 08:49, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:LISTN - a quick search for news sources shows several hits that talk about the topic of US dog attacks as a whole, as opposed to individual incidents. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  11:23, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
 * That doesn't explain why we need to list every single victim of a fatal dog attack. Ajf773 (talk) 17:24, 6 December 2019 (UTC)


 * 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.