Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Belly rub

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:{{la|1=Belly rub}} – (View AfDView log | edits since nomination)

:({{Find sources AFD|title=Belly rub}})

Barely more than a WP:DICTDEF; poorly sourced to a series of blogs; created by a user who is under a community ban from creating new articles (see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1171#User:Pek continuing to mass create poor-quality stubs after ban expiry WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 22:22, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

: Removed comment about violating ban; the ban went into effect after this article was created. The rest of the issues stand. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 22:27, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Animal-related deletion discussions. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 22:22, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

• Keep or Redirect to Emotion in animals. — Maile (talk) 02:54, 25 February 2025 (UTC)
• comment Why is this article limited to dogs? Should it be expanded to a belly rub for any kind of animal or even humans? There is no head pat article. Moritoriko (talk) 07:23, 26 February 2025 (UTC)
• Merge to Body language of dogs. I'd rather keep it, because all good dogs deserve a belly rub, but there's not a lot of good and on-point sources on Google. Ping me if you rescue this. Bearian (talk) 02:04, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

• Merge If the article would stay as it is. then yes I would agree with Bearian for it to be merged to Body language of dogs, now if it is to be considered as a standalone article, then I would agree with the idea of Moritoriko to expand it for other animals as well, I mean just do a google search for Belly rubs for Pigs, and you'd get substantial hits too for potential article materialVillkomoses (talk) 15:12, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
• Merge content to Body language of dogs, but perhaps consider converting this particular page into some sort of disambiguation per Moritoriko. ~ Pbritti (talk) 17:37, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
• Delete I do not find any good sources for this. I searched G-Scholar and G-Books hoping to find something at least approaching scientific. The sources I did find, like the ones in this article, have no basis in fact. Lamona (talk) 22:21, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
• Delete. If its not sourced it does not merit an article and why would we merged unsourced material to degrade the proposed target? Spartaz ^Humbug! 17:08, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

::"If". Herostratus (talk) 15:27, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

• Keep.. Good dog. Good boy! Herostratus (talk) 04:12, 4 March 2025 (UTC) (Changing my vote to Userfy, explained below. Herostratus (talk) 18:16, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

:

:: {{reply|Herostratus}} Sounds a lot like WP:ILIKEIT. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 11:48, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

:::Thanks! Do I get a biscuit? Herostratus (talk) 23:04, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

::::No biscuit? Am I... a... a... bad boy? Nah. Mom says I'm a good boy. Anyway, getting serious, let's think this thru like the good boys and girls we are. So, I am sticking with keep as my vote, altho I would be OK with merge with Body language of dogs, or a retitle to "Belly rubs in animals" or something, setting up for an expansion. Body language of dogs is not too long. Shorter articles and more of them, longer ones and fewer -- a matter of taste. As long as the material and the usable refs are kept. (Merges are supposed to be with the Suggest Merge template actually, but that dog is long gone in the teeth.)

::::So, looking at the refs... There are seven. The [https://www.thesprucepets.com/why-dogs-like-belly-rubs-4584399 first] is by a "certified dog behavior expert and writer with a decade of hands-on experience in dog training and canine aggression. She is a member of the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants" (she says). The [https://www.barclondon.com/blogs/mindfulness-wellbeing/why-do-dogs-like-belly-rubs second] is an anon page on a commercial site. The [https://www.petmd.com/dog/behavior/why-do-dogs-belly-rubs third] was reviewed by a veterinarian who (says she) [https://www.petmd.com/author/dr-sandra-c-mitchell has some decent credentials]. The [https://petcube.com/blog/dog-belly-rub/ fourth] is by a "pet mom" who (says she) [https://www.petmojo.com/author/claudia-smargiasso/ publishes pieces about animals a lot], for whatever that is worth but she's not a hobo. The [https://www.dogkindtraining.com/blog/rolling-over-does-your-dog-want-belly-rubs fifth] is an anon page, but it's on a dog-training-company site and you'd have to think they'd know something about the subject and a business motive not to say wrong things. The [https://www.canineactivitycenter.com/belly-rubs-a-puppers-ultimate-weakness/ sixth] is another anon page, but the site is only a dog boarding/grooming operation, so probably not usable. The [https://dearpet.in/blogs/dear-pet/what-does-it-mean-when-a-dog-lets-you-rub-their-belly seventh] doesn't devolve.

::::The first and third are clearly fine. The fifth is fine to, given how its nature and context; you could tag it for better source I suppose. The others, no. But the first and third and fifth contain plenty of info to ref a fine article on the subject. And Google does come up with more right off; my first result is from the American Kennel Club which I would think would be quite reliable. It does have "There has yet to be any scientific research on why dogs love belly rubs" (good to know and worthwhile reporting) but right after has "Dr. Stanley Coren, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of British Columbia and author of How to Speak Dog, believes it’s simply another way of socially connecting with your pet. 'For some dogs, a belly rub is simply a variant of being petted. It is a form of social contact. The fur on the belly is usually less dense and softer, so the sense of being touched is less muted'" which is plenty good enough for us, we are not a hard science entity. We would want to be like "According to Stanley Coren...". We can trust the Kennel Club to be reporting his words accurately.

::::Regarding notability, couple things. If you're married to WP:GNG (I'm not; it's quite a good data point to begin deeper consideration tho), recall that the GNG only requires two sources that are more than a passing mention in a sentence, which all of these are. None of them are Time magazine, but the WP:GNG doesn't require or even mention notability of the source, only reliability, which several are.

::::Beyond that, stepping away from the screen and gazing at the tea leaves of rules, into the real 3D world, of course it's a notable subject. Everybody knows what belly rubs are, and millions do them every day, and talk about then, and doubtless many people would like to know about them -- why do dogs like it, which dogs like it, do some cultures not do it, and so on, including finding pointers to refs with more info. Just the sort of thing a very large general-readership encyclopedia would want to cover, yes? And it is part of the general subject of human-dog interaction which is not Squiddly Diddly. It is not trivial. And it not ephemera, quite the opposite: people will want to research the subject as long as there are dogs and people. It's an asset to the project and exactly what we are supposed to be doing as we continue to grow. Herostratus (talk) 01:14, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

• Keep I agree with Herostratus. I have added as a source an article called "Give your cat a belly rub at your own risk"." The topic of belly rubs meets WP:GNG with online sources - checking books about dogs as pets would provide more (eg Siberian Huskies For Dummies p96 [https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Siberian_Huskies_For_Dummies/nXn_DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1]). RebeccaGreen (talk) 12:03, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

:

• Move to Petting of animals and expand to an article on that subject. I thought we would have an article on this, but Petting redirects (questionably) to Making out, and the closest thing that we have in the hatnote for that article is Social grooming, which is mostly about animals petting each other. Humans pet and stroke animals, as a notable phenomenon, and we appear to have no article specifically on that phenomenon, which we should. BD2412 T 23:12, 11 March 2025 (UTC)
• Move I agree 100% with User:BD2412 above. I will start finding sources about human -> animal petting Moritoriko (talk) 02:40, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

:: All of these can be accessed via wfl. None of them specify belly rubs but I will keep looking.

:: Health benefits to humans of petting animals [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15762389/]

:: Health benefits to dogs by humans petting [https://avmajournals.avma.org/view/journals/javma/247/11/javma.247.11.1289.xml]

:: A social inspection of petting dogs in video games [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14775700.2023.2301192]

:: An investigation on petting other animals [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247496989_Reduction_of_state-anxiety_by_petting_animals_in_a_controlled_laboratory_experiment]

:: Moritoriko (talk) 06:52, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

::: Indeed. There is no dearth of sources for an article on Petting of animals here:

::: {{cite journal|last1=Kuhne|first1=Franziska|last2=Hößler|first2=Johanna C.|last3=Struwe|first3=Rainer|year=2012|title=Effects of human–dog familiarity on dogs’ behavioural responses to petting|journal=Applied Animal Behaviour Science|volume=142|issue=3–4|pages=176-181|doi=10.1016/j.applanim.2012.10.003}}

::: {{cite journal|last1=Mariti|first1=Chiara|last2=Carlone|first2=Beatrice|last3=Protti|first3=Massimiliano|last4=Diverio|first4=Silvana|last5=Gazzano|first5=Angelo|year=2018|title=Effects of petting before a brief separation from the owner on dog behavior and physiology: A pilot study|journal=Journal of Veterinary Behavior|volume=27|pages=41-46|doi=10.1016/j.jveb.2018.07.003}}

::: {{cite journal|last=Jenkins|first=Judy L.|year=1986|title=Physiological Effects of Petting a Companion Animal|journal=Psychological Reports|volume=58|issue=1|pages=21–30|doi=10.2466/pr0.1986.58.1.21}}

::: {{cite journal|url=https://journals.lww.com/hnpjournal/citation/1991/01000/health_benefits_of_companion_animals_in_relation.6.aspx|last1=Baun|first1=Mara M.|last2=Oetting|first2=Kathryn|last3=Bergstrom|first3=Nancy|year=1991|title=Health benefits of companion animals in relation to the physiologic indices of relaxation|journal=Holistic Nursing Practice|volume=5|issue=2|pages=16-23}}

::: {{re|Maile66|Moritoriko|Bearian|Pbritti|Lamona|Spartaz|Herostratus}} ...? BD2412 T 17:16, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

::: {{re|WikiDan61|RebeccaGreen}} (pinging two more). BD2412 T 17:25, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

• Changing my vote to Userfy for now, from Keep. What bothers me is I hjave learned that, apparently, exposing the belly can mean "Hey I want a rub" or "Touch me and you die" or something, and we're not showing the second very much. I mean a "Wikipedia told me that when dogs do that they want to be rubbed, and now I am missing fingers" lawsuit would be no fun. We are supposed to be pretty careful about putting in anything that is 1) possibly wrong, biased, cherry-picked, spun, or whatever that 2) could cause damage to people in the real world. That is what WP:MEDRES is about, altho this is not a MEDRES situation. (If it wasn't for that, I would recommend the Move option per above.)Herostratus (talk) 18:16, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
• Comment {{ping|Herostratus}} Unless the pages is userfied to a user other than the original author, userfy is equivalent to delete in this case, since the original author ({{userlinks|Pek}}) is now banned from the article creation process. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 18:29, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
• I second WikiDan61. Draftification would be more practical than userfication in this case. BD2412 T 18:30, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
• Oooooh, OK, Draftify then. IDK. Herostratus (talk) 23:16, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
• Draftify seems to be the consensus that I can live with. Bearian (talk) 12:04, 13 March 2025 (UTC)
• Comment I wouldn't have a problem with draftifying as Petting of animals - that's a better result than deletion or merging with an existing, not very well related article. RebeccaGreen (talk) 14:33, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

{{clear}}

: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.