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Former featured article candidateCattle is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination failed. For older candidates, please check the archive.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
January 18, 2006Featured article candidateNot promoted

Recognition of climate change impacts on animal welfare[edit]

@Justlettersandnumbers: I did not remember to watchlist this page, and so was really disappointed to discover just now that you chose to completely revert the excerpts I added from effects of climate change on livestock with no prior discussion or warning. Further, I found your edit reason really confusing: thanks, but too much detail for this top-level article, and totally fails to address the elephant in the room – the effects of cattle on climate change.

If there was too much detail, then surely this could have been addressed by making the excerpts quote fewer paragraphs, rather than remove them entirely? Further, this article already has a very sizeable "Environmental impact" section, which devotes three paragraphs and a very clear graph to "the effects of cattle on climate change". That exact elephant in the room had already been addressed, seemingly adequately; the subject of animal welfare or even livestock productivity in the context of climate change had not been addressed at all until I added those excerpts - and now that you have removed them, they are still not addressed at all.

Surely, we can simultaneously acknowledge that cattle have a disproportionate impact on climate change and that they are starting to suffer from it, and will only experience more suffering the more it progresses? Or indeed, that the very business of rearing cattle for profit is not simply a large contributor to climate change, but also that it will become more difficult and less profitable as that very climate change gets more extensive? I don't think these points are in any contradiction with each other. On the contrary, they reinforce each other.

We can discuss the appropriate size of excerpts. I might even forego excerpts entirely in favour of a condensed section written for this article if you would consider that more appropriate. Yet, I consider covering these subjects in some form essential for the completeness of this article. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 13:43, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you may be right, InformationToKnowledge - but I don't think a massive excerpt is the right way to go about that. If you want to add something about that topic here, why don't you just write it in the article in the ordinary way (with attribution for any copied material, of course)? Thanks, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:17, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Bold@Justlettersandnumbers 170.173.74.51 (talk) 22:00, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK, how about now? InformationToKnowledge (talk) 13:51, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Estimated global cattle populations through history[edit]

I believe the addition of the above subject would be very useful to keep track of, especially considering the importance of cattle in the global food supply. The same could be said of other animals like bison, chicken, pigs, and so on. 14.192.208.130 (talk) 12:23, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"User:Mr. Great Cow" listed at Redirects for discussion[edit]

The redirect User:Mr. Great Cow has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 November 15 § User:Mr. Great Cow until a consensus is reached. TNstingray (talk) 15:28, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This page for all forms of domestic cattle?[edit]

I understand the rationale behind merging the taurine cattle page with this one, but as English Wikipedia caters to an international audience, i believe that the merged page(s) would've been a useful one if the wikipage for Cattle (currently this one) mentioned the other forms of cattle that originated from disparate domestication events, such as zebu, Indonesian cattle, gayal, and domestic yak, which come from either distinct populations or even entirely different species within Bos.

I therefore argue for the revival of the page Taurine/European cattle to accommodate the information specific to all cattle descended from the European Aurochs (adapted for temperate climates and diseases), and for this page's scope to be expanded to accommodate all forms of domesticated Bos. I leave the option to include other large-bodied domestic bovines, such as the water buffalo, for someone else to decide. Anthropophoca (talk) 06:47, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If somebody actually put effort into writing a lengthy taurine cattle page, maybe I would consider it, but if it's just a lazy one paragraph stub just for the sake of it then that's a non-starter. If you actually want to split out taurine cattle again, I would suggest starting to work on a sandbox, and writing a substantial article at least 3000 words in length. Then it can be evaluated here. I would oppose the expanding of the scope to all domesticated Bos, because that's probably not what readers are looking for. Hemiauchenia (talk) 07:27, 29 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Young female cattle (heifers), young male cattle (oxen or bullocks), and castrated male cattle (steers) are all colloquially called "cows".[edit]

By urbanites, yes. Not so simple among country folk who actually raise cattle, at least in the U.S. And used as a singular, a visitor to the farm/ranch referring to a male as a cow can trigger a response ranging from giggles expressing humor to smirks perceived as derision. Somewhat less so if an obvious steer is called a bull, since at least the m/f distinction is recognized, but a comment along the lines of "That's an ex-bull" would not be surprising. -- The question: why is this (semi-true, misleading) statement in the lede in the first place? Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 15:33, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, doesn't need to be in the lead. It's out now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:51, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]