Talk:Flaxen (color variant)

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Requested move 21 April 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved to Flaxen (horse), moved to Flaxen (horse coat). Iamnotabunny (talk) 19:12, 28 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Flaxen gene → Flaxen (horse) – No flaxen gene has actually been found, and as the article says there might be more than one anyway. Flaxen color is definitely a thing that exists, so if we move to Flaxen (horse), it can be about both the color and the speculated genetics like it already is, while being titled after a thing that definitely exists. This wouldn't be inconsistent with all the pages like Dun gene or Mushroom gene, because those are known or suspected to be a single gene, while this is suspected to be multiple. It would be almost consistent with Sabino horse. Alternately, rename to just Flaxen to be consistent with the pattern groups Splashed white and Overo, but there's a disambiguation page there right now. If this goes through, I would also want to move Sooty (gene), for all the same reasons. Iamnotabunny (talk) 08:18, 21 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Destination title is under discussion (Flaxen (horse coat) is winning) since no one supports Flaxen (horse) as a destination anymore, including me. Iamnotabunny (talk) 06:30, 22 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Flaxen is not a horse. It is a horse hair trait, genetically inheritable. Suggest Flaxen (horse hair trait). —SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:36, 21 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@SmokeyJoe: That's why I'm not suggesting Flaxen horse. (horse) is meant to do disambiguation. To make it easier to judge consistency, here's a list of all horse color pages with some form of disambiguation I could find:

Black (horse), Chestnut (coat), Sorrel (horse), Bay (horse), Seal brown (horse), Gray (horse), Buckskin (horse), Sabino horse, Tricoloured horse, Roan (horse), Sooty (gene), White (horse)

(not sure if these also count as disambiguation): Dun gene, Cream gene, Pearl gene, Silver dapple gene, Champagne gene, Mushroom gene

As you can see, (horse) is the most commonly used form, and this makes sense, because this allows us to talk about the subject as it relates to horses in general, both the color and as much as is known about the genetics behind it. Iamnotabunny (talk) 18:20, 21 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

For all, they are consistently too brief and fail to describe the topic. “(Horse)” should disambiguate a specific horse by name, or a type of horse. All of these topics you list are “horse hair”, or “horse coat”. “Trait” might be over-specific, all features are traits. I oppose the current, as per nom, because this article, nor the other “gene” articles, are about a gene per se. A gene is hypothesised to be responsible, it may not be a single gene, or a simple gene matter, and genetic structure character is not the point. Move to something for sure, I am leaning “(horse coat)”, but am still wondering whether in some cases the topic should be broadened beyond horses. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:50, 21 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware of the (horse) for specific horses policy now (only because I happened to read the archived mess of mustang move discussions), but had proposed this because it matched the other articles. I'm fine with agreeing on something else, especially if we make it the standard for all the Color (horse) articles. I think the other "gene" articles are fine and should stay where they are, except for silver dapple gene which doesn't need the disambiguation, sooty which is probably polygenetic like flaxen, and possibly pearl since it's the same gene as cream but a different allele. As for what to move it to, I'm fine with either Flaxen (horse coloration) or like you said Flaxen (horse coat).

I agree we (wikipedia) should have more coverage of other animal genetics, but I don't think the horse articles are the place for it. The terminology's too different. Silver in horses is at the same gene as merle in dogs, the dog equivalents of cremellos are called albinos, rabbits with spotting patterns are called broken or charlie, and it'd just be a big mess. Iamnotabunny (talk) 02:11, 22 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You seem on top of this. I support you. Isn’t coat better, as it refers to the hairs, while coloration could be read to include skin color? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:30, 22 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Eh, to me a "coat" is more of a solid color while a "coloration" can be a pattern, but I assume everyone all has slightly different connotations. (horse coat) is fine. Let's go with that. Iamnotabunny (talk) 18:28, 22 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. First sentence of the article. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 02:45, 22 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@SelfieCity: The article is getting its facts wrong, but it's kind of hard to fix that when the article title is also getting its facts wrong. Here's one of the references in the article,[1] Crtl+F for polygenetic, and you'll see it says it might be multiple genes. The other reference [2] says maybe it's just one recessive gene. The fact is, we don't know,[3] and at least until we do we should change the title and first sentence to reflect that. Iamnotabunny (talk) 06:30, 22 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe, but what is the general scientific community's view on this issue? --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 13:37, 22 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@SelfieCity: As I said, it is that we don't know. The two sources I linked are the only ones I could find that speculate about the genetics of flaxen and actually seem to know what they're talking about (i.e. not just someone posting on a horse forum). They are, as I understand, two parts of a continued study. The first says the inheritance seems complicated and might not be simple Mendelian, the other says IF it is simple Mendelian, then it is recessive. That rules out there being a single dominant flaxen gene, but it does not rule out, say, there being two recessive genes which both contribute a little, there being multiple recessive genes that all have the flaxen effect, there being a recessive gene in Morgans (the breed studied) and a different dominant one in Arabians or something, the only thing we know is that IF there is a single gene, then it is recessive.

Wikipedia's content should be verifiable. That isn't normally a problem in page titles, but I see no reason for it to apply differently there. Iamnotabunny (talk) 17:58, 22 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

From my search for "flaxen gene", not much shows up (except Wikipedia content and what looks like a mirror of WP). As I can tell, I really don't know much about the topic, so I'll withdraw my vote. Thanks for explaining, though. I just feel at the moment like I don't know enough about the topic to vote either way. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 18:07, 22 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Unanimous to move to Flaxen (horse coat) Iamnotabunny (talk) 19:03, 28 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Late to the party

Sorry to move against consensus here, but you are wrong. The gene has not been identified with a test, but it is a genetic mechanism and not a coat color. I wish you had pinged me on this, as there are thousands of articles on my watchlist and I missed this entire discussion. If you look at Sponenberg's equine coat color genetics books, he mentions it. And sooty. Montanabw^(talk) 18:22, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging Iamnotabunny, who initiated this. Sponenberg's recent work is unavailable in Google books, but one of his earlier works has a note on flaxen being a genetic modifier here: [4] You'd have to get the other book via ILL or something. Montanabw^(talk) 18:27, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Montanabw: I did try to ping you, but it was my first time specifically trying to ping someone and I think I messed it up. Anyway, I've mainly been basing my opinions off of the two sources used here, which as far as I understand are not saying a whole lot. And no, "This suggests that the flaxen trait in horses is the result of a homozygous recessive genotype, under the preliminary assumption of simple Mendelian inheritance" does not mean Mendelian inheritance was the result, it means it was the assumption. I still need to do more research on this, and I'll try to get ahold of one of Sponenberg's newer books, but the overall impression I'd gotten was that flaxen as a single gene was an older idea that was no longer held in such high regard. I didn't realize it was still considered valid, and I didn't mean to unilaterally make this sort of decision. Iamnotabunny (talk) 22:57, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Montanabw: That book you mentioned is on google books after all here. It's the fourth edition from 2017, and it says at the bottom of page 61 that mane and tail color on chestnuts probably aren't controlled by a single gene, even though it used to be thought that they were. Iamnotabunny (talk) 00:41, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Curious post User:Montanabw. The article, the references, do not discuss a gene. The title alludes to a hypothetical gene. Genetic studies, or genetics mechanisms, do not imply a singular gene. I cannot understand how you say flaxen is not a coat colour, or hair colour. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:43, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

To be fair, it was pretty widely believed to be a gene before the studies were done. I've usually seen flaxen referred to as a modifier or a trait while flaxen chestnut or flaxen liver chestnut is used more for the coat color. But as long as we get the genetics right, I don't really care what we call it. Iamnotabunny (talk) 18:19, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A "modifier" IS an allele, of some sort. They haven't figured out exactly what it is, but whatever it is, it's obviously genetic. I'm open to discussion of disambiguation naming conventions for these articles, but (hair color) or (horse color) is confusing because for flaxen, we are only talking about manes and tails; for sooty, it affects body coat, but not uniformly. Perhaps discussion could consolidate at WikiProject Equine and you could ping the most active members to comment. Montanabw^(talk) 02:15, 8 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Montanabw: It can be genetic without being a gene. Height is genetic, but there isn't a single "height gene", there's lots. But I've taken a bit of a step back from wikipedia lately and realized it's actually not that big a deal if people think flaxen is a gene. Iamnotabunny (talk) 18:52, 20 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]