Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shinese (3rd nomination)

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 delete. The nominator's concerns have not been successully addressed. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:51, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Shinese

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Note: I am relisting this so soon after the previous AfD because of the outcome at DRV (Deletion Review, May 2nd).

The sources in the article are as follows; I was unable to find any others that did not have boilerplate mixed-breed text:

Four designer dog registries or lists. Please note that two say that other crosses will be added on breeder request, and one says "All new combinations are welcome to be submitted for review to be included." None of them give any information about the Shinese whatsoever aside from it being a Shih Tzu x Pekingese cross
Two articles that literally mention its name and nothing else
A page on dogster, the sole content being "Shineses are hybrids of Shih Tzu and Pekingese dog breeds." along with random dogs with "Shinese" listed as breed
Dog Breed Info page. This is not a reliable source, but even if that is ignored, the only content is their boilerplate text for mixed-breeds and some user-submitted pictures. Take a look at another, like the Afollie, for evidence
A broken link, archived in the Wayback Machine here. Fails the policy on self-published sources: http://www.mixedbreedpups.com/about/
Finally, we have a slew of books + one website related to Shih Tzu and Pekingese individually. Although a significant outcross to a Pekingese within the Shih Tzu breed may have occurred, it does not mean it has any relevance whatsoever to the current designer dog known as the "Shinese". In the 1940s, a significant outcross to a Newfoundland was made within the Bernese Mountain Dog breed, and I've seen crosses of the two. Does that mean that it's notable in any way, any more than a Dalmatian-English Pointer cross is notable because of a very real health-related outcross? It's significant to the breed in question, undoubtedly, but that does not mean that the modern-day designer dog has anything to do with it. In fact, I have seen no evidence of a relationship whatsoever. I'd be happy to see evidence to the contrary, but nobody has given any so far nor have I been able to find any myself.
Other generalized books relating to dogs or mixed breeds. I have read through most of these myself in the past, and know that they do not cover the Shinese; none of these are used to support specific information about the Shinese itself, which is the article's topic. There is some information about how the two breeds (Shih Tzu and Pekingese) are similar, but this does not cover the Shinese as a (prospective breed)/cross.

Thus, although it has many sources, I would appreciate it if voters (!voters, if you prefer) would look carefully at them to decide whether they actually cover the mixed breed. Like I said above, no evidence has been found by me that indicates a reliable source about the Shinese exists, period. Thanks in advance. – anna 11:30, 12 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment there is a nasty habit of Wikipedians saying "it has lots of sources = it is notable = keep". What we need here is a serious debate as to whether the sources are reliable, and even if they are, do they give facts that support the article and allow us to have solid content, or do they just give passing mention? I call on any keep voters to indicate what sources they think the content of this article ought to rest upon. If they can do that, keep. Otherwise we must delete. Closing admin: the question to you is "have the arguments that the nominator has presented been rebutted in the course of the debate?" If they have, keep. If they have not, delete. this nomination is not based on notability but verifiability. --Scott Mac 11:43, 12 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as a non-notable hybrid. I really can't see any significant coverage in the sources above which can be termed reliable. --Anthem of joy (talk) 12:04, 12 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The article has been kept twice at AFD already and shouldn't have to suffer this triple jeopardy. Crosses between Shih Tzu and Pekingese are quite notable and there are plenty of sources which discuss them in detail. As this is the topic of the article, there is no case for deletion. One might discuss the matter in the article for those breeds but one would then have to repeat the material and so a page for the cross seems reasonable. Colonel Warden (talk) 16:59, 12 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- The "triple jeopardy" argument is invalid. If you look at the previous nominations, then the specific objections raised here were never debated (indeed there was no debate). The question isn't a procedural one, it is whether the article complies with our core policy of verifiability. The nominator has at length outlined an argument that it doesn't. A keep voter needs to explicitly refute. Vague gesturing at notability and multiple sources are not a reply. Specifically, which sources do you think allow us to create a solid article - and why is the nominator wrong to dispute this. Something AFD has a tendency to one-dimensional thinking, and reduce everything to "notability". The question here is not notability, it is whether sources exist to support and verify a factual article. Any response which doesn't engage with that is simply irrelevant to the debate.--Scott Mac 17:10, 12 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The sources exist; I looked through them last time and was satisfied. A key point to note is our policy that Wikipedia is not a dictionary. The topic here is crosses between Shih Tzu and Pekingese. It is abundantly clear such crosses have occurred and are documented in reliable sources; the nominator admits as much. The rest is a matter of ordinary editing, not deletion. Our emphatic deletion policy is that "If the article can be fixed through normal editing, then it is not a good candidate for AfD.". Editors should therefore please not use AFD as a general purpose tool to resolve content disputes. Colonel Warden (talk) 17:17, 12 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Respectfully, you are misreading this. The topic here is not "crosses between Shih Tzu and Pekingese" the topic is Shinese. The nominator is suggestion that there are, in fact, no reliable sources discussing the Shinese. You disagree. Fine. All I'm asking is which specific source(s), relating to Shinese, you consider to be reliable enough to support an article?--Scott Mac 17:28, 12 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) The issue here is associating two concepts that are unrelated at their core. Here's a true, very similar situation: there is a modern designer dog called the "Bernefie", a Bernese Mountain Dog x Newfoundland cross. It's about as verifiable as the Shinese. In 1948, there was an outcross to a Newfoundland within the Bernese Mountain Dog breed that undoubtedly had some kind of impact on the BMD breed. However, connecting these two events is not entirely logical unless evidence can be found; differences abound between making an outcross to improve one of the parent breeds and crossing two breeds in order to cultivate the resulting mix, especially when considering the amount of time that has passed between the two events. The same can be said of connecting the Shinese to an outcross by Elfreda Evans in the 50s. Shineses lacks reliable sources, which was the whole point of my argument. – anna 17:36, 12 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organisms-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 17:30, 12 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your argument that Shinese are unrelated to crosses of the parent breeds is nonsensical - this is exactly what they are. You just seem to be nit-picking about nomenclature but Wikipedia is not a dictionary and so we are not here to argue about words. The breed name is recognised by the American Canine Hybrid Club and other similar registries. The rest is a matter of ordinary editing, not deletion. Colonel Warden (talk) 17:57, 12 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It seems nonsensical to connect two things with entirely different histories and intentions (and constitutes "original research"). The burden of proof is on those who want to keep the article by arguing the two are intimately connected -- where does it say so? Superficially, sure, but there's a huge difference: early Peke-Shih Tzu crosses were carefully incorporated back into the Shih Tzu breed, while the Shinese, in the same way as designer dogs generally, is bred specifically as a mixed-breed dog, keeping the 50/50 mix of each parent breed. (According to various reliable sources, most designer dogs are generally bred because they're in vogue, which is another factor that sets the two apart -- the outcross was the exact opposite at the time, so there were other motivations at play.) No historical connection has been pointed to, and a tenuous practical connection. The American Canine Hybrid Club accepts any crosses that are submitted -- how is that an arbiter of anything? "OTHER HYBRIDS WILL BE ADDED AS DEMANDED BY BREEDERS": straight from the horse's mouth.
Here's a non-dog analogy: one person sets fire to a famous house in 1940, for political reasons. This event has no particular name but has some coverage in a few newspapers. Later, in 2003, a delinquent sets fire to the same house for shits and giggles, and the event is dubbed "The Bungalow Burning" by locals and a few blogs, "self-published sources", et al, but no reliable sources give it a mention. Would you argue that both incidents should be dubbed "The Bungalow Burning" within their own Wikipedia article? Does that strike you as misleading? Although one could argue that perhaps the first burning was the reason that The Bungalow Burning occurred, that line of reasoning would be nullified if there were a slew of similar burnings around the same time to different famous houses -- which is, in essence, what designer breeding is (substitute "burnings" for "breedings" and "houses" for "breeds", although that's obvious, I know). It's likely we won't agree on this, but I hope that summarizes it decently. – anna 19:22, 12 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. The sources provided in the article are not sufficient to demonstrate notability under the WP:GNG. All the same, the basic existence of the breed (at least in terms of meaning something to dog-fanciers) is not in question and the sources in the article do serve to verify that. Is that enough? If this was a species of beetle instead of a breed of dog, there would be no doubt - we do not delete articles on verifiable species, no matter how uninteresting. There is no subject-specific notability guideline for dog breeds, though there was an attempt to establish one some years ago in WikiProject Dogs. Nor is there a precedent in the form of common deletion outcomes. The WikiProject discussion is interesting, because there is a strong suggestion that recognition of the breed by the various major kennel clubs would be a bare-minimum requirement for meeting the proposed notability standard. I checked the databases of the American, Canadian and UK kennel clubs, and none of them list any of the variant names of this breed. So this article doesn't meet the GNG, and probably wouldn't meet the subject-specific guideline either, if it existed, which it doesn't. So in the end, sorry, but there's just no basis for calling this notable. If it was recognized as a mainstream breed, I'd probably be arguing along the lines of inherent notability, but it just isn't, so I just amn't. Delete. Thparkth (talk) 02:39, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment as the author, I apologize for the extensive discussion this has caused, and applaud Anna for her diligence. I have to say that I still kind of feel that even though it didn't have the name "Shinese" during early and modern crossbreeding, it still was in essence a cross between the two, even without the actual modern assigned name. I will continue to look for references offline, I am determined there must be something out there! However, if this ends up being closed as delete, I ask that the closing admin please paste the contents into a sandbox of mine, as I remain hopeful it will one day be inarguably notable. - Theornamentalist (talk) 01:37, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As I said at the DRV, someone typing "Shinese" into Wikipedia's searchbox has probably made a typo for "Chinese" or "Shinies" or something, but it's plausible that they're looking for information on this non-notable kind of designer dog, so there probably ought to be a redirect to List of dog hybrids where shinese are mentioned.—S Marshall T/C 18:52, 15 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Unfortunately until independent reliable references are available, the breed isn't sufficiently notable. I've had dogster and dogbreedinfo thrown out of articles at the GA stage before for being unreliable. Any cross breed registry is only sufficient to list that it is recognized by that registry as often they are pay to register. If it ends up being as popular as a Puggle or a Cockerpoo, then the article can be recreated then. Miyagawa (talk) 18:37, 17 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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.