Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cats

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Thoughts on The Spruce Pets as a source?

Most articles on cat breeds are of poor quality and are mass produced without any bother to check and verify detail making these sites quite unreliable for sourcing pretty much anything. (May as well use the Fancier site as they are just taking information from them, if they're not just throwing a random number around to add in life expectancy and height/weight). I did notice https://www.thesprucepets.com/ when searching and it seems to be of a decent standard considering the state of cat breed articles.

It lists the author of the article and some articles do get reviewed by a qualified veterinarian/veterinary nurse. Some of the list/chart content like friendliness and affection ratings just seem to be made up/unreliable but aside from that the articles seem to be of good quality and they do reference sources. (Usually just Fancier claims).

Just like to know if anyone has thoughts/comments on it's use as a source. Traumnovelle (talk) 09:50, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

I remain highly skeptical when it comes to most of their material. This seems like mostly just another clickbait "internet pets site" designed to monetize clicks by having fluff articles on every alleged breed ever named by anyone, except that it has some editorial and sometimes even veterinary review of certain articles, but not the majority of them. A good test for me was their article on the controversial Scottish Fold [1]. It cites no sources, is full of generic stuff that pertains to all cats, bogus behavioral claims that are just repetition of breeder promotional materials, and a glossing over the breed's medical issues, that reads like someone just cribbed from our own article. Maybe they have better stuff, but I think a WP:RSN/WP:RSNP review of this site would conclude that like so many it just publishes whatever its registered writers send in without much editorial oversight, putting it in about the same camp as "contributor" pieces submitted to Forbes and Entrepreneur (both listed at RSNP), just about cats instead of business. Same with "contributor" pieces in HuffPost and in Rolling Stone "Culture Council". Lots of publications are moving toward rapidly piping out content submitted by non-employees and subject to little if any ediorial control. This publishing model is growing like mad, and it's bad news for us. A The Spruce Pets piece written by a subject-matter expert would be one thing, but the articles I looked at over there were mostly not encouraging.

I do see some that have a "Reviewed by" veterinarian link and a "Fact checked by" editor link [2]; those would presumably be better-quality sources, though few of the article have both (e.g. this one [3] lacks the former despite making medical claims), and many have neither (like the one I started with, despite also making medical claims). A handful have the vet review link but not an editor one [4]. One of the site's most frequent writers is this one who claims to be a cat expert with "decades of hands-on experience and intensive research", but is actually an author of a total fluff book about cats and a children's book, both of which seem to have been self-published, aside from the latter which is on Amazon [5]. Nope, even that one is; it's a "Kindle Scribe" e-book (i.e. self-published by an Amazon user). She has no veterinary background, and says she simply took some cat health classes. Her on-site bio's claim "EXPERTISE: Feline Anatomy, Feline Medical Conditions" is not defensible.

Didn't look at other bios, but my rede on this entire site so far is "use only with caution", only with at least the editor-review link, and for medical claims only with a vet review link. But, really, anything of that nature would be better sourced to something from scholar.archive.com, scholar.google.com, or JSTOR or another journal site via The Wikipedia Library. Any material from TSP is bound to be tertiary sourcing at best.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:29, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with SMcCandlish. I took a cursory look at it, and my impression was that it was mostly listicles and clickbait. It certainly does not meet MEDRS, and I wouldn't want to use it for other claims either. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 00:06, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Maine Coon GA review.

I've relisted Maine Coon for a GA review. 15 years since the initial review and a lot has changed in the article. Traumnovelle (talk) 23:08, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

WCF for establishing notability?

Is the WCF able to establish notability like the CFA, TICA, FIFe, and GCCF? I'm asking due to the York Chocolate article which is a confusing article with unsourced contradictory information about the breed being extinct. I've removed egregious material including a potential malware link but I don't wish to do much more if the article is at risk of being deleted due to lack of notability. Traumnovelle (talk) 19:51, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

GCCF reliability for non-breed standard and non-GCCF claims.

I've come across two breed showcases by the GCCF which plagiarise Wikipedia (Manx and Nebelung), given that can the GCCF be considered reliable for any history related referencing aside from GCCF recognition dates? There's a few articles which use it as a source. Traumnovelle (talk) 09:25, 19 March 2024 (UTC)