Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Indian pariah 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The result was Withdrawn. withdrew this nomination; would have closed as keep per the arguments presented if it had remained in effect. (non-admin closure) -- Dane 2007  talk 00:23, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Indian pariah dog

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At first glance, this might appear to be a strange AfD, because the article contains a number of sources, and there are a handful of others online. However, I still believe this is deletion worthy, essentially because there is no clear cut evidence that this dog breed exists as a single breed, and the article is therefore composed partly of original research and partly of fringe theory. It is not recognized as a standardized breed. Its characteristics have not been described in a systematic manner by any reliable source. The sources that do mention it fall into three categories. First, reliable sources giving it the briefest of mentions. Second, sources that all trace back to a single website, indog.co.in, which is not reliable and clearly has an axe to grind. Third, sources that are circular references to Wikipedia. Having spent a long while parsing through this mess, I have no option but to say delete. Vanamonde (talk) 10:33, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * After substantial thought, I would like to withdraw this AfD. I stil stand by my nomination rationale, and indeed, only one of the !votes is substantively helpful to somebody who wishes to rewrite the article. However, this discussion is not helping us fix the mess that the article is, either via WP:TNT or by rewriting it based on scientific sources, and is obviously not going to be closed "delete"; with my withdrawal, this is eligible for speedy closure, and I would hope that the "keep" voters would then lend some assistance in fixing the mess that I found. Vanamonde (talk) 02:52, 8 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Weak keep I found this and apparently Darwin also wrote about it in one of his books. It seems to be considered a landrace instead of a pure breed. I wonder if there are Hindi language sources. White Arabian Filly  Neigh 15:35, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * that is the source I was referring to when I said "circular referencing." I am fairly certain it was copied verbatim from the Wikipedia article, which had the same wording in the lede well before that book was published. Negates it as a source, don't you think? Vanamonde (talk) 18:47, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I didn't notice that the content was the same. Frankly, I think such copying from Wikipedia should be illegal, when they're putting it into a book and then selling the book...making money off our work! Due to the Darwin book though, my !vote remains the same. White Arabian Filly  Neigh 21:05, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is licensed under CC-BY-SA. Such copying is legal, but attribution should be provided ("BY", see WP:REUSE) and the license ported ("SA" for share-alike). That book fails to do so (its copyright notice is weird, it says "all rights reserved" just before "CC-BY-NC", but in any case does not mention WP and mentions the wrong license). Tigraan Click here to contact me 11:00, 6 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep, but that article is sure in need of some TLC. Even just looking at scholarly journal articles, there is discussion of its role in social history, its possible relationship to Australian dingos (a controversy with tons of references on all sides), osteometric history and dog burial data, and even a 1912 paper about parasitic liver flukes in Indian pariah dogs. I can't say that what we have is an article to be proud of, but it doesn't seem TNT-level bad, and there's simply no way I can advocate for deletion on a topic with this much high-quality sourcing available, even if editors haven't taken advantage of it yet. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 17:41, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately it is systematic of Wikipedia that articles on pedigree breeds are typically strong (or at least coherent, if inevitably full of fancruft), where articles on landraces ramble on in a patchwork manner. Nonetheless, we shouldn't maintain articles which synthesise subjects out of sources that contradict each other. If a strong claim can't be made to this being reliably distinguished from pariah dog in general, a merge is appropriate, with poorly- or un-sourced material removed. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 17:44, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Chris has expressed a number of my concerns, but here are some more. I can see your argument, but I would invite you to dig a little deeper into those sources that you found. Here is my conclusion from reading several sources, and previewing others. There are several sources saying that dingos are descended from dogs from India, without naming a breed from there. There are other sources examining pariah dogs/free-roaming dogs/street dogs in general, without specific links to India. And there are sources on Indian street dogs, which nonetheless are concerned with behavior, and not with phylogeny/taxonomy. Additionally, I would tend to give little weight to old sources (even Darwin, to an extent!), because their science, and their taxonomy, is very dated. When their findings were of interest, you would expect followup, as is the case with most species/sub-species described back then. Vanamonde (talk) 18:47, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Every source I cited above specifically refers to "Indian pariah dog" by name (some of them capitalize it). I can cite a half dozen more than compare or contrast it, in various ways, to other indigenous dog landraces. As to the idea that the relationship tree (landraces aren't really quite the same thing as species/subspecies, after all) of dogs, including the Indian pariah dog, hasn't received modern attention, that's simply not true. Indeed, the Indian pariah dog was included (with other indigenous dog landraces) in a mitochondrial DNA sequencing study of Indian wolves in 2007. I get that this article is a rambling mess, but there's been actual science done regarding these dogs, from the 19th century all the way to right now. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 19:56, 5 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep There is no doubt among experts that this is a genetically isolated gene pool and clade or branch on the dog family tree, that has long been and remains of great interest to experts, and exists in absolutely enormous numbers compared to Cocker spaniels or any famous and officially recognized dog breed you can name.

Every once in a while, someone comes along to articles about dogs such as these and wants to delete them, perhaps because it just seems wrong that a mere dirty trash-eating mongrel village and street dog should be important or interesting or worthy enough for an article.

In some cases, they may be right, but not this one. The Indian pariah dog may not be a lesser animal to many or most, but the references contain overwhelming evidence that it is one of the most numerous and scientifically important genetically pure coherent branches on the dog family tree. Chrisrus (talk) 23:58, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * It is not a question of worthiness, but of policy compliance. The article as it stands is composed entirely of original research, and I cannot personally see a way of rescuing a viable article from this mess. Even if it were notable (which to be honest I'm still not sure of: too much of the coverage seems to focus on the generic pariah dog, rather than a specific Indian variety) WP:TNT still applies. If somebody else is able to clean out the crap and replace it with what science there is, well and good! I'd love to see that outcome. Vanamonde (talk) 11:08, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * In that case you should be calling for article improvement, not deletion. It is improper to delete an article on the grounds that it's not very good.  Chrisrus (talk) 12:54, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * In general, that would be true, but in this case I see nothing worth preserving in the article as it stands, and additionally it violates WP:NOR. Therefore, even if the coverage in reliable sources is sufficient, I would recommend blowing it up and starting over. Vanamonde (talk) 15:48, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Nonsense. There is plenty of value here.  I'll work on it a bit, but discuss this furhter on it's talk page where the topic is article improvement, not distruction.  We do not delete articles because they need work.  Do you know the hassle involved in getting it recreated?  Chrisrus (talk) 23:42, 6 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep: agreeing it is misguided to attempt to delete and then (possibly) recreate an article based upon perceived faults within the article. All this could be sorted in a talk page discussion itself. There is good content in the article and it is certainly not a hoax.  Fylbecatulous talk 11:11, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep in view of the above discussion and support improvement of article as is JarrahTree 01:19, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Animal-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 01:12, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Asia-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 01:12, 8 October 2016 (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.