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Talk:Coon hunting

Coon hunting has been listed as one of the Agriculture, food and drink good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. Review: April 21, 2017. (Reviewed version).

A fact from Coon hunting appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 9 May 2017 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that coon hunting dogs can bark as many as 150 times per minute? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2017/May. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Coon hunting.

This article is rated GA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Coon hunting/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Aircorn (talk · contribs) 01:40, 16 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

HiWhite Arabian Filly. Feel free to discuss any comments I make below.

Review[edit]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

Interesting topic.

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a(prose, spelling, and grammar): b(MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   Some very large paragraphs. Would you consider maybe dividing some of them up (in particular the first one in practice). They are a little exhausting to read. Some specific comments below.

Divided them in the seemingly logical places. White Arabian Filly ^Neigh 22:03, 18 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Divided them further.Continentaleurope (talk) 08:31, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

1. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a(reference section): b(citations to reliable sources): c(OR): d(copyvio and plagiarism):

   Nothing of noet on copyvio detector[1]. Quality of sources look fine for an article like this. Difficult to spot check the books as there are no page numbers given. Is ref 22 supposed to be all caps? As well as page numbers some details are missing from quite a few references. This includes web site names (e.g ref 10) book publishers and ISBNs. Some of the web links don't really help much. For example on reference 37 I could not find the information I was looking for. You don't need to provide all the details, but the references must be reasonable easy to identify (even if they are offline). For newspapers the headline and publishing date is essential and ideally if possible the page number should be provided. Web links are just convenience links and articles should be future proofed so that if the link becomes dead a person should still have enough information to find the source. I am having quite a bit of difficulty spot checking your sources at the moment and think this needs to be addressed before I pass this review.

I'm working on filling out the refs. I'll do as many as possible today, but may have to do more tomorrow if I don't get done.

Filled to the full all refs with isbn, issn, oclc. Also archived sources which allow you to. One source appears dead. The note and one statement in the main article are unsourced.Continentaleurope (talk) 08:31, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

1. It is broad in its coverage.

   a(major aspects): b(focused):

   While I am not familiar with coon hunting I have a bit of knowledge on possum hunting so have based some of this section on that. I was curious about what happened outside America (I saw in the Racoon article it mentions Germany). The articles sole focus is on the use of dogs, but I would think their would be hunting without them.[2][3] This mainly focuses on hunting as a sport. What about as population, disease (do they carry disease) and pest (are they seen as pests) control? Would be interested in the market for racoon pelts. Do most hunters sell what they get, do they keep trophies or are the carcasses discarded? If non of this is significant let me know.

I couldn't find anything significant about coon hunting outside the US. I'm kind of doubtful it exists, primarily because of the huge fight Britain has had for the past 12-15 years with people trying to stop fox hunting--it got outlawed for a while around 2004. I think Germany stopped fox hunting a while before that. I'll have to look into the hunting without dogs. I think you can call them like turkeys, but 95% or more of coon hunting is with dogs. As for disease, they carry rabies (I saw one with it actually a long time ago) and are seen as pests in rural places. They'll get into a cornfield and pull off an ear, take a bite out, throw it down, pick another...part of the reason why a lot of farmers hunt or let others hunt on their land. As far as I know there's very little pelt market nowdays. Years ago people would almost always sell them unless they kept a big one as a trophy or had it stuffed. In the pre-dog food days, people used to cook the meat for the dogs if they didn't eat it themselves.

The article covers enough aspects for a GA, but would not be enough for an FAC.Continentaleurope (talk) 08:31, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

1. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   Are there any protests, criticism of the sport. It mentions that they were protected once. I am sure some animal groups have said something against hunting.

• Not really protected, it's more like the conservation people went around to the coon hunting clubs and taught them not to chop down den trees or kill sows with babies. I added a little bit more about that. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the Humane Society of the United States oppose all hunting, but so far as I can tell they focus protests and that kind of thing on deer hunting. We could just note that they oppose it basically unless people are starving to death. (And I don't think they really like it then.) White Arabian Filly ^Neigh 22:02, 19 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Unless it is specific to coon hunting I don't think it is necessary. Up to you, it won't effect this assessment either way. AIRcorn (talk) 09:00, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

1. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   Only really edited by one editor so far.

I made some edits recently, however reading content is more or less the same.Continentaleurope (talk) 08:31, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. I left a note at White Arabian Filly's talk page asking her to let me know when this article is ready for a second look. Would like to give her a chance to check your changes first before I do. AIRcorn (talk) 09:00, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

1. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a(images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b(appropriate use with suitable captions):

   Could potentially throw some wikilinks in the captions (dog breeds maybe if they have articles). Image licensing looks fine. All images are appropriate and match their assigned sections (although it would be nice to have a picture of racoons and dogs as a lead image as the current one could be a dog treeing anything).

• I'd like to have a picture like that too, but I can't find one. Oh well, maybe somebody will upload one at some point. White Arabian Filly ^Neigh 22:02, 19 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I included an infobox and moved photos where best appropriate to illustrate subject discussed next to it.Continentaleurope (talk) 08:31, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

1. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   My most pressing concern is the references. Everything else is a pass or close to one.

• OK, I am fine with all changes. The note is one of those "the sky is blue" things but if it's a problem I can remove/put on the talk page because that'll be a question I think quite a few people will ask. I considered looking up the game laws for every state, but given that at least half the 50 states (maybe all but Hawaii and Alaska--not sure they have coons there?) will have such laws, and they'll change yearly, it seemed like a huge task and a never-ending one. White Arabian Filly ^Neigh 21:46, 20 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Prose comments[edit]

• The breeds vary somewhat in size, though color is the largest obvious difference; all but the Plott Hound descend from the English Coonhound. Not sure how the two parts of this sentence tie together. They read like two seperate statements.
  • I split it into two sentences. The bloodlines are pretty similar and there's some forums or stuff saying all coonhounds are one breed.
• A major difference in hunting ability is whether a dog is hot-nosed, meaning it will skip an older scent to follow a fresher one, or cold-nosed, meaning it will follow an older scent. Feel this needs some more clarification. Ability to me says one is better than the other, but I am not sure that is what is meant here. It more seems to be saying that they are just different
  • I'll try to come up with a better word there--maybe "performance". Years ago it wasn't a big deal whether the dog chased the coon over three counties in the course of one hunt, but because of development the hot-nosed dogs have become more desirable. White Arabian Filly ^Neigh 21:40, 18 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• The dog is thus said to be treeing, and the raccoon is considered treed. I feel this sentence would be better moved earlier. When I got to tree bark I was quite confused (especially as I thought tree bark meant the bark of the tree when I first read it) and it wasn't until I got further along that I fully understood. An earlier explanation I think will benefit the article
  • Putting in the lead to give readers a heads-up.
• The largest and most prestigious annual hunts, also called field trials, include the Autumn Oaks and Leafy Oaks, besides the Coonhunting World Championship This is a little confusing. Are the Autumn Oaks and Leafy Oaks a single event or two events and what is meant by "besides".
  • Can change to something like, "The largest and most prestigious annual hunts, also called field trials, include the Coonhunting World Championship, Autumn Oaks, and Leafy Oaks." They're two different things, though the names are confusing.
    • Perfect. AIRcorn (talk) 00:04, 19 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• By 1885 a raccoon pelt sold for approximately 25 cents, a fair price for the time. A fair price compared to what? Other furs? The cost associated with hunting them?
  • Other furs and things like food items or other products. I can check the source and see if it gives a comparison.
• During the 1950s, staged nite hunts were created, and by the 1970s had become popular, with some hunts involving over one thousand dogs. Little awkward with the psuedo-parenthetical commas. Does the "and by the 1970s had become popular" need to be enclosed with commas?
  • Will toss commas.

Source check[edit]

• [4] good

Will finish this when references are easier to search

Random spot check[edit]

• Reference 17 - This method has led to a mule show competition called coon jumping good
• Reference 19 - Not all coon hunting is in the wild, as many modern hunters enter their dogs in competition hunts, good
• Reference 40 - in addition to bringing over $1 million in sales and ultimately becoming a platinum record for MCA Records. link doesn't work.
• Reference 8 - Some hunters also use Louisiana Catahoula Leopard Dogs, although this breed is not a hound but a cur. Only got snippet view but found mentions to cur in other pages.
• Reference 10 - The dog's voice may change timbre depending on how fresh or "hot" a scent is. Can't view, but assuming good faith
• Spot checks generally good. One link that is now different, but happy to assume good faith that it used to support the statement.

Final comments[edit]

Happy to pass this as is. Congratulations White Arabian Filly and helpers. AIRcorn (talk) 06:09, 21 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Continentaleurope (talk) 00:56, 22 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sharon got hit by a tampon in the bathroom. As the WP website confirms, the term "coon" is used in a racially derogatory way towards African Americans and Australian Aboriginies. I recognise (and am very glad) that this GA is about raccoon hunting, but I wonder if some mention of the term "coon hunting" in its perjorative senses would be appropriate. Certainly it came up in the Travyon Martin situation, and appears online ([5], [6], [7], [8], [9] definitions 2 and 3, "coonhound" as a name for slave-hunting dogs, etc) with racist meanings. I don't doubt that the term "coon hunting" for raccoon hunting is used an unconnected to the racist meanings, but either the article should be at coon hunting (sport) or something like that with a dab page covering other meanings, or there should be a section on other meanings, or even there could be a hat note to an alternative page where the racist meaning is included? Not having anything to me is incomplete, which is not ok in a GA-level article. Thoughts / Opinions? EdChem (talk) 06:16, 22 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As the reviewer that passed this I feel obliged to defend my position. This article is clearly about hunting racoons. Should it be at racoon hunting (probably, I would support such a move), but this is not something that is decided by a good article reviewer. To me mentioning a completely unrelated topic, especially one using racist slang, would fail the focus criteria. When deciding on the broad criteria I google the title and see what shows up and if anything is relevant to the article. Nothing really shows up about the racist intent. That may be because I am somewhat protected with my New Zealand location (my first thought when I saw this nomination was that it was about raccoons, not the racist intent). I just did a US google search and found one link in the first four pages[10] to the Travyon case.

It is a bit unfair on the creators of this article to ask them to create another article on an unrelated topic they probably have little interest in. The sources you use as evidence are dodgy at best (or just plain terrible - urban dictionary). The DAB page doesn't even go to a page titled coon (racist term), but a list of hundreds of racist terms so I am not even sure what a hatnote would say.

Bottom line I am confident this article meets the criteria to be a good article. I have reviewed nearly 80 articles now so have a fair idea on the criteria. You are welcome to ask for a reassessment or even gain consensuses for any change you see fit. As for DYK, I am not terribly interested in the process and if it is decided that this title is inappropriate for a link from the main page then that is your decision and unrelated to the good article status. AIRcorn (talk) 08:22, 22 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Aircorn: As an Australian, living in a country with no raccoons but where "coon" has been used as a racist term for Koori peoples, my first thought was the racist version and I was very glad that the article was about hunting. I was not proposing that my links be used in the article, but rather to illustrate that the term does have other meanings. I don't propose a GA review or any such though, nor am I attacking you as the reviewer or the article's authors. However, I could not write an article on the year 1488 and not include a hat note to point to the alternative racist meaning of the number. The article is clear about the hunting and I concur that moving the article to "raccoon hunting" is a good approach to separate it from the racist connotation. But if there is a redirect from "coon hunting", a hat note would be needed. EdChem (talk) 09:07, 22 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I must be naive as I had to look up 1488. Sorry if I misjudged your intent, it was the not ok in a GA-level article that I was reacting to. I would not oppose a hatnote out of hand, but I could not find a suitable article to point to. Do you have a target in mind? As a little aside I remember seeing a popular brand of cheese in Aussie called coon. AIRcorn (talk) 09:51, 22 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Under the present title, I think no mention is a problem at GA level vis-à-vis completeness, but I think a change of title + a hatnote is a much simpler solution than making suitable additions to the article at the present title. Note that I don't view this as a major criticism of your review, missing a possible alternative meaning is an error but no reviewer will be faultless or perfect and I acknowledge that my view could be seen as incorrect or questionable. I don't want to get into a great debate over meeting the GA criteria, an area where your experience is far greater than mine. However, as an example of what I mean, I would not be surprised when an editor is unaware of the alternative meaning of 1488, nor would I see a GA reviewer of the year article missing the need for a hatnote (were it missing) in a review, but I would consider its absence to be an issue of completeness which needed addressing. One simple question, Aircorn: do you see moving the article to raccoon hunting and making coon hunting a redirect as an uncontroversial technical move as outlined at WP:RM, or should I start a move request discussion?
As for the cheese, I doubt that the name would be chosen these days, just as the Washington NFL team would not be called the redskins if its name were to be chosen today. EdChem (talk) 11:54, 22 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
PS: is there not a more appropriate GA category for this article than agriculture, food and drink? Maybe something in sports and recreation? EdChem (talk) 12:00, 22 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You might be interested in the note that was attached to the GA nom, it is visible at the top of the page in this revision. It was left by White Arabian Filly and addresses a few of your points. As for the name change; common name seems to be coon, but an argument may be made on precision. As even if coon hunting is a redirect we will still need a hat note, so what about just putting the following hatnote at the top and leaving it at that. AIRcorn (talk) 06:58, 23 April 2017 (UTC) [reply]

This article is about raccoon hunting. For other uses of coon, see coon.

I have added a hat note along the lines you suggest, as well as adding "coon hunting" to the coon page (both meanings) and "coon hunting" to the racial slurs page. EdChem (talk) 15:41, 23 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

EdChem, Aircorn, Sorry to be late to the discussion, I didn't get online yesterday. I was aware of the racist meaning but named this article coon hunting because, if you do a Google search for that term, the vast majority of what comes up is about this: hunting raccoons. There are a few racism-related results, but not many if you're in Google Books, which is where I found most of the sources. (The Urban Dictionary reference above made me remember one time when I was looking up bareback riding, meaning riding a horse without a saddle, and UD brought up some weird thing about having sex without condoms. Where did they get that?!) Also, "raccoon hunting" has far fewer hits, and the dogs are called coonhounds, not raccoonhounds. All the media listed talks about "coon hunting" and it's not racist in nature; Where the Red Fern Grows is an American classic that most children are required to read for school, and Jerry Clower's stories are about growing up poor during the Great Depression. In addition, there are several books listed on Google with coon hunting in the titles, and as far as I can see they're about hunting raccoons with hound dogs [11][12]. Also, the sources used here all use coon hunting, so the term seems to be definitely more connected with the sport than the racist usage. Because of all that I went with this as the Wikipedia:Common name because that's what I figured most people with interest would search for. The hatnote seems to be a reasonable solution. By the way, raccoon hunting redirects here and the DYK nom has already passed ☺. This article is also getting over 2000 pageviews a month.White Arabian Filly ^Neigh 22:01, 23 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@White Arabian Filly and Aircorn: Firstly, purely as an FYI, I have not received the pings from either of you recently, so there may be some issue at the moment, and I'm sorry if neither of you are pinged with this message. I do recognise you both tried to add pings.

Secondly, WAF, I recognise that most sources use the term for raccoon hunting, I had and have no doubts that it is the primary topic, but as an undisambiguated GA, I was concerned that there was nothing for someone looking at the racist term to be redirected. I did wonder about a move to raccoon hunting, but I agree that most sources do use the abbreviated term and so WP:COMMON places it here. The hat note has addressed the concern I had, coupled with my edits to coon and racial slur. I have no issue with the DYK, glad it is on the way to a main page appearance, it was just how I saw the topic and did a double take. Assuming you have no problems with what I have done (beyond the usual editing / tweaking / polishing that goes on all the time), I think this is resolved.  :)

Thirdly, thanks to you both for resolving this in a civil and collaborative way, even though my comments were not well expressed at times and came across as critical of your work. EdChem (talk) 02:40, 24 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I am also glad it's resolved peacefully. I got your ping (and another from somebody else) but I'm on mobile view, so maybe it's an issue with desktop? You could check the Village Pump to see if anybody else is having the same issue. White Arabian Filly ^Neigh 21:09, 24 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Pings only work if you sign them. So if you add a ping to an already written comment you have to resign with ~~~~. AIRcorn (talk) 01:23, 25 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the advice / reminder, Aircorn, but looking at that diff it can be seen that the time stamp on the signature was changed, so I suspect that WAF did re-sign with the tildes... sometimes pings don't work, I've seen it on other pages, but I've not seen any explanation of why it happens. I suspect it's a known bug with an unknown or unpredictable trigger. EdChem (talk) 03:08, 25 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]