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Category sort-out

For no particular reason that I can think of, I looked at Category:Dressage a few days ago, and found it to be pretty much of mess, so with no great conviction I created a couple of extra subcategories and did some tidying up. Montana has rightly suggested that it might be good to discuss the "whole tree" before doing too much more of this kind of thing. This would seem to be the right place for that discussion. Initial questions: do the subcategories for Dressage seem to be roughly the right ones, and have the right names? And if so, would it be sensible to try to create parallel categories for horse-racing, western riding, etc.? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 14:45, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I personally would like to see a category for writers on horse stuff, say Category:Horse writers, within Category:Writers by non-fiction subject area, in which there could then be categories for writers on dressage, writers on farriery (that might be a slim one), writers on racing etc. IMO someone like François Robichon de La Guérinière is as important as a writer as he is as a trainer (if not rather more so). Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 14:45, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
Hmmm. Most of the main famous trainers are famous because they wrote great books of some sort, otherwise they would have been forgotten. But putting a subcat in the main writer cats to drive traffic to the horse articles is intriguing. Maybe Category:Horsemanship authors or something. Montanabw(talk) 23:20, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Weekend vandal alerts- possibly

Those on vandal patrol may want to watchlist (Montanabw(talk) 23:10, 8 July 2011 (UTC)):

  1. Calgary Stampede is getting a lot of attention due to Wills & Kate's trip combined with PETA. Nuff 'said. It's lead editor is doing a PR also with a goal to move to GA. FYI.
  2. Buck Brannaman's documentary "Buck" is opening nationally (think it actually opened last week, but it's hitting more theaters this week. Anticipate some potential "helpy helper" edits with lots of peacock words and too many caps.
  3. based on #2, may also want to keep an eye on Natural horsemanship (which is a pretty poor article and even vandals can't really make it much worse, but still) and maybe Horse whisperer.

Source about horses in art

Hello, I'm working about horses in art in french (here : fr:Cheval dans l'art], but the english article have very very few sources. Can somebody use this The Horse in Art in Google books in horses in art ? I can't copy and paste a copyrighted book in a translator. Thanks --Tsaag Valren (talk) 17:10, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Watchlist whip

Hi gang, best to all watchlist whip. Someone feels it necessary to add a BDSM cartoon of topless women to the article. I know WP:NOTCENSORED and all, but seems undue, as the rest of the article only contains images of whips themselves, not their use on animals or other uses. Not a wiki-war I'm going to go into solo, those who care need to help. Montanabw(talk) 23:16, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Warlander

I've begun working on a review for a new equine article, Warlander, at WP:DYK. The citation format wasn't great, but the nominator/creator User:WarlanderHorse is a first-time Wikipedia editor with a stated passion for horses -- precisely the type of person the project should seek to encourage. Accordingly, I went through the article and enhanced the citation formatting. I have some questions about whether the sources utilized are reliable sources. For example, at least one of the sources is the web site of a Warlander breeder in Australia. I've asked User:Montanabw to take a look, because I know he's an experienced editor on equine matters. I make the same request here. If someone could give the sourcing issue a look, that would be great. Perhaps an experienced equine editor would even consider mentoring the new user to develop a new "workhorse" for the equine project. The discussion template for this article is at Template:Did you know nominations/Warlander. Thanks. Cbl62 (talk) 00:12, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I weighed in at the article. I think a slightly more justifiable claim can be made with a different hook in the DYK nom and proposed an ALT version. Other than that, the article is pretty darn good for one by a total newcomer (congrats there) and the various issues with the article are fixable and not fatal. While the editor probably has a mild COI, given the user name, that's not a huge problem, and I note this editor is already off to work on some non-related articles, which is very promising for a newcomer. (Welcome, by the way!) Breed interest is probably true of everyone at WPEQ (even Dana admits to owning an Appaloosa, after all! And she led the team to get the Appy article to FA! (grinning, ducking, running...) ) We have a fine line with breeder and breed registry sites across WPEQ, especially for the new "breeds" where the line between a "new breed" and somebody's stud farm can be a fine one. Here, we may have to rely on some breeder sites -- while a few horses are starting to show up in competition databases as "Warlanders" (notably the USDF) most competition associations that have breed-specific classifications or divisions don't yet seem to have given them "breed" standing. The Warlander passes WP:NOTABILITY but as a new crossbred-becoming-a-breed, it is inevitably going to suffer from having very few neutral third party sources of information, particularly because the breed itself seems to have a controversy over whether they even want to create second-generation crosses -- it's sort of like a labradoodle of horse breeds. Montanabw(talk) 22:05, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Black Caviar move discussion

Discussion (re-)started (here) on whether Black Caviar (horse) should be moved to Black Caviar, if anyone's interested. IgnorantArmies?! 08:57, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Bunch of Valued Image candidates at Commons

I've nominated three hore breed scoped VIC:s at Commons, but with the regulars there being much more used to evaluating plants, insects, and buildings related images, help would be useful. Valued Image status is different from Quality or Featured Image statuses in that the image's worth is measured in its educational value. Thus a lower quality, unartistic image can be a Valued Image if it fulfils [image criteria|the VI criteria] and shortly put, is the best available Commons image to illustrate the scope. All the images are geocoded (a criterion that's only avoidable in special cases), so that doesn't need to be checked (although if you're going to contest the nomination with another image, that too needs to be geocoded or geocodable); mainly, your consideration is needed to decide whether the nominations are the best in their scopes (categories) to represent the corresponding breed. Pitke (talk) 12:21, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Current nominations:

Treats from Commons

Pitke (talk) 20:43, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Much older

I wonder if anyone saw this? Maybe much older than we thought? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 15:16, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Oh, great ! I update fr:Domestication du cheval (domestication of the horse for you) just now ! --Tsaag Valren (talk) 16:29, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
No, don't be in a rush, that is not reliable material, at least not until they get it accepted into a peer-reviewed publication. "Tourism AND Antiquities" Hmmm is that a recipe for junk science of what? (grin) Horse art does not domestication make; they drew paintings on caves in France even farther back than that! The article presents no comment on what they found other than the horsey-looking art. If true, this would push back the date of domestication about 3500 years, which is highly suspect until there is more evidence. I just tossed info on this someone added to our article. Montanabw(talk) 19:34, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Of course, stupid bloody foreigners, what do they know? And stupid bloody BBC, gets taken in by any old rubbish those idiots at Reuters pick up from some charlatan on a street-corner. Much better to just accept the law as it is laid down here, eh? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:22, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Not so fast. The BBC article is very nuanced, in that it reports it as claims, and states explicitly: "The first undisputed evidence for their domestication dates back to 2,000 BC, when horses were buried with chariots." I looked at the data, and what they have found is a horse figurine that shows some markings that can be interpreted as a bridle. I think that is great, but I only recognized it as a potential bridle after it was pointed out to me. Before that, I thought it was a way to delineate the nose. Anyway, this raises the question what weight it should be given, if anything at all.... -- Kim van der Linde at venus 20:36, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
JLAN, grow up-- striking your own comments doesn't take them back! That wasn't a slur on the BBC, it was drawing proper attention to the flaws of the study. It's a press release, that's all. As for early domestication, David Anthony has pretty clearly established in his research that we can push that date back to about 3500 BC, but not farther. And the Anthony studies are in the same general area as the chariot finds (i.e. well north of the Saudi finds) Anthony is not quite "undisputed," but that's where the bit wear evidence appears, which is very strong physical evidence. The Saudi finds are interesting, but it's decorations on rock art. Montanabw(talk) 21:32, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
(after some edit conflicts) Actually, most of our "domestication" sources are scholarly peer-reviewed sources - not the BBC. I wouldn't have a problem pointing out that the Saudi's are claiming this, but until the scholarly papers come out and are critqued by other scholars, it's best to take it as "hm.. interesting, possible, but not proven". That's my take on it, wait til the scholars tear into it. Archaelogists are the best equipped to make statements on this, and until we have some more information, it's best to treat it as a "claim", which is what the BBC is stating. (And can we PLEASE dial down the snark on both sides please? Neither one of you is behaving well.. we didn't need the comments about foreigners and stuff nor do we need to totally exclude the claims either, they just need to be carefully made to make it clear that this is a news report of claims from some scientists (presumably) and that no scholarly papers or reception has been made yet... in other words .. it's "breaking news" and should be treated as such.) Ealdgyth - Talk 20:36, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Well of course I agree with both of the last two posts. I'm not for a moment suggesting that a news item should be treated as anything but that, but Wikipedia publishes news, so that in itself is not a problem. It struck me that the suggested difference is very large, and thus interesting; that is why I mentioned it here, a mistake I will not make again.
I apologise for my discourtesy, and have struck out those remarks. It happens that I lived for six years in that country, in that city, and I am perhaps particularly defensive when it is disparaged, which explains but does not excuse my rudeness.
That said, I want to make it quite clear that I am from now on adopting a full zero-tolerance policy with regard to slurs on the people, languages, customs, institutions, even the horse breeds, of other countries, and if I encounter another I will take the trouble to document the dozens I have let slip by, and ask for administrative action. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:58, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
JLAN, you want to take everything to the drama boards, start with yourself. You have now attacked me again and twisted everything I say. I have not at any time engaged in a "slur" on anyone and if you think the above was a "slur", well, learn to separate legitimate discussion and argument from "slurs." Disagreeing with you is not a "slur," it's just a disagreement. You want to take it to the drama boards, why not take it up with me privately first? You have sent me email before, I think you need to do so again. Montanabw(talk) 21:32, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

English doesn't use "race" translation for "breed." Maybe substrain or subtype, but not race (take to talk if needed)

The above is an edit comment by User:montanabw at Pottok, where I had translated the word "race" used in the French breed standard as "race", and where it has now been replaced by "type" which will probably do just as well in that context. However, I was surprised at being told, yet again, how to speak my own mother-tongue, so took the trouble to do a moment's research. Here's a Google Books search for "race of horse". Looks to me as if it is used, quite often too. Any other opinions? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:32, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

(after some edit conflicts) Why is it worth bringing up here if you think that the word change will "probably do just as well in that context"? If you have issues with another editor (and obviously both of you do) can you two take it to your own talk pages and spare the rest of us please? I have to admit that lately I've had no real desire to work on anything equine related because no matter what I say/do, it always ends up with fussing and fighting. I'm not picking sides here, its both of you, and it needs to go away. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:36, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
I made an offer to take it outside. JLAN knows where to find me on email and has done so before. Montanabw(talk) 21:55, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Requested reassessment of Percheron

An article that you have been involved in editing, Percheron, has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the good article reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:32, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Non-Thoroughbred Racehorses

I have added WPEQ templates at the discussion pages of some non-thoroughbred racehorses. You might be better qualified to explain the distinctions between AQPS and Selle Francais.

Tigerboy1966 (talk) 17:31, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

The French like their horses!

It would appear that the French really like their horses, or at least articles about them. A number of horse-related articles are featured on fr.wiki but don't seem to have any equivalent here:

All of the above are Featured Articles so they should be of a good quality and have numerous sources. Perhaps some of this may be useful - I hope so. violet/riga [talk] 23:28, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Can you give us a rough translation as to what these topics are? About all I know is "cheval" means "horse." LOL! Montanabw(talk) 00:50, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
Google translate gives you a reasonable idea:
Hope that helps OwainDavies (about)(talk) edited at 07:58, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
It does, we havesome analogous articles already, under different names and someone just has to transwikify them. "Light horse breed" without more is analogous to Grade horse or Hack (horse), maybe the French have additional concepts, but I think we have that covered. We definitely have a unicorn article and I think multiple horse mythology articles and the Category:Mythological horses. See no problem with someone adding to that collection. Not sure if we really have or need a list/summary article about mythical horses in general so long as we have the category, but if it's someone'sidea of fun, I would not see any objections. I have no clue if the Cheval Navarrin is the same or similar to the Jaca Navarra, but we have that article. We have nothing on a horse breed called a Nivernais, though there is an article on a dog breed called the Griffon Nivernais, so if there's also a horse breed, there's a potential article. We also have multiple horse in art-type articles, though probably not one just on symbols. That's an interesting idea for someone to pursue. Montanabw(talk) 17:35, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
These articles are mainly writted by me, so many thanks (complete list is here : fr:Utilisateur:Tsaag_Valren, I've worked on 50 featured articles (40 about horses) and won the french wikiconcours, in 2009 and 2010). We have translated your articles too : fr:cheval durant la Première Guerre mondiale from Horses in World War I, fr:Pur Sang from Thoroughbred, fr:Marwari (cheval) from Marwari (horse), fr:Suffolk Punch from Suffolk Punch, etc. It could be very interesting to work on a same article at the same time ? There'sther articles that just exist in french :
fr:Corne de licorne is a detailed article from fr:Licorne (unicorn), about the narval tooth sold as an unicorn horn. fr:Symbolique du cheval (Symbolism of the horse ?) is our best article (i've worked with a professor of literature on it).--Tsaag Valren (talk) 12:54, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
Good to know, Tsaag, and kudos for your hard work! Do you think we need to add any of these in an English version here? (note the links I provided above) If so, feel free to start a sandbox off your talk page and give us the link here at WPEQ. If any of us has the time/interest in the topic, we will be glad to help you clean up the English. Montanabw(talk) 03:31, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Many thanks !! In real life, I work for the preservation of old horse breeds and for the re-discovering (?) of myths and legends about the horse (in France of course, but in Belgium (Bayard) and Swiss (cheval Gauvin) too). I think fr:Symbolique du cheval is definitely our best article, unlike some others about the horse, it has been careful not to focus on french sources : there's work from Bruno Bettelheim, Carl Gustav Jung, Freud, myths/legends from all around the world, a chapter about the symbolism in the western with quotes from Sherwood Anderson, it would be very interesting to hear your opinion ! Really if I can translate it, I will be glad to work on it. ---Tsaag Valren (talk) 09:32, 29 August 2011 (UTC) (+ add) In our importance scale, symbolique du cheval is an high article, all the others are low --Tsaag Valren (talk) 10:13, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Tsaag! What great articles, compliments! As you have seen, I have made a few stubs for some of the breeds that were missing here, and will over the next weeks (or months?) try to expand them from the French ones. Meanwhile, if you see obvious errors please point them out or just fix them. I am quite unfamiliar with many of these breeds and liable to make mistakes. It would be really fun to try an interwiki collaboration. I notice that fr:Wikipèdia does not seem to have an article on the Cheval Corse (U Cavallu Corsu) ... Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 09:04, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi to you too ! I've seen your work, thanks. For the cheval Corse (Corse horse for you), I've forgotten it (or I forgot that Corse is a french island, but chuuut ;). This good source here can be used to create a stub. But it say this horse still exist, and I'm sure it's not recognised by the Haras nationaux. --Tsaag Valren (talk) 12:26, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I think they are trying to get it recognised right now. See www.chevalcorse.fr/. Pity the Benigni book is not viewable on google.fr. Do you ever go to real-world library with real paper books in it?
By the way, in looking through the fr: articles I came across a few dead links (no, I can't remember where!). If I find any more, would you rather I tell you, or tag them? If tag, then please tell me the fr: equivalent of 'dead link'.
We'll need to remove the interwiki link from the Horse breeds of France template (nice idea) - it is making two interwiki links instead of one show up on each page. Or can it be noincluded in some way?
Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 15:12, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
I'll try to take on doing the expansion work on Breton horse, Ardennes horse, Boulonnais horse and Percheron - I did the GA work/nom on these and so am probably the most familiar with the existing sources - if you want to focus on the others, JLAN. Percheron is the one I'm most worried about, because I'm considering taking it to FAC, and that process can be picky about editors using sources that they haven't seen (i.e., translating the material from the French wiki without actually seeing the sources), so I'll have to work closely with Tsaag on that one to make sure I have all of the sourcing matching up to the wording exactly. Dana boomer (talk) 17:45, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
Ok ;) I've not worked on the Percheron because it's... an enormous work. I have a hundred of books (old books, etc...) about it, and It's not a figure of speech. The Percheron is the horse most present in the world, I do not have the courage to sort my sources, it's going to take months... and I think the article could be so long that we need to separate the American Percheron and the French Percheron, at least. Standards are not the same, no ? --Tsaag Valren (talk) 17:52, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
I don't think we need separate articles, the standards are mostly the same, and the early history is the same. We want the article to be a summary and accessible to laypeople, so we don't want to include every piece of information available on the breed. An example I like to use is the Haflinger article, where I had books that detailed the breed lines and thousands of horses back to the beginning of the breed - this information doesn't need to be in the article because it's way too detailed for the average reader, but we can point the reader to it in the Further reading section or in a note. But, I'll probably do the other three first, and then work on Percheron (there are a few English language books I need too, so it's a ways down the priority list), so it's not a big hurry. Dana boomer (talk) 18:18, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
Well, as you know, the Haflinger article is one I think needs major attention ... sometime. Right now our French friends have given us a new stimulus and I thought it would be good to at least run through the existing articles on French breeds and see what is missing and what is already in good shape. I just cannot believe that there was no article on the Norman Cob - I've just made a stub there. The Percheron article here is one of the fullest; IMO it needs reorganisation more than anything else. There is a lot of stuff that is quite specific to the USA in there, and the article would read much better if all that was brought together in a section of its own; there might be even a tiny section on the Percheron in Britain to follow it. I think some of that American material might then be useful to Tsaag and co. That would leave the rest of the article free to concentrate on the Percheron in its original home and as a world breed. Btw, I would not think for one moment of adding anything to an article without checking the original sources; the translation instructions are quite clear about that.
I am surprised that the "Expand French" template was removed from Trait du Nord; that is an article that needs a great deal of work - a lot of it reads like a machine translation - and the French one is already very good, and much more comprehensive. I suggest replacing the template in the hope that some editor with near dual-fluency (Owain, is that you?) might sooner or later do something about it. I've now finished a first run through the living breeds; Pottok is the only one I didn't tag as needing expansion (I hope, unless I missed one).
Tsaag, am I right that fr:wikipédia does not have an article on the carrossier normand, or did I miss it?
Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:32, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
LOL, if you think Trait du Nord reads like a machine translation you should have seen what the actual machine translation looked like! Yes, the French article is more comprehensive. However, it includes unsourced information and information sourced to what the English WP considers unreliable sources (equinekingdom, a couple of self-published sites with no indication of expertise, etc). That is what was removed. You can see the discussion between Tsaag, I, and others on the talk page. The Percheron article is a bit US-focused at the moment, because that is what was in the source material I had close at hand. As I mentioned above, I have plans to acquire several other English-language Percheron books that will probably help to provide a more full look at the breed, and I would of course love to see what Tsaag has. And, JLAN, you have yet to bring significant new sources to the Haflinger article, or really provide compelling arguments that "major attention" is needed - obviously those people that passed it as FA-status didn't agree with you, and that included at least one European (German) editor. To be honest, I would like to see you take at least one article to GA and/or FA status, just so you could see the amount of work and scrutiny (especially in the FA nomination) that articles go through. Articles that are in poor shape just don't get through FAC, and rarely get through GAN, so the constant criticism of the project's existing GA/FA articles, without adding to the number yourself, is a little wearing. Dana boomer (talk) 22:44, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
Euuuuh... Norman Cob = Carrossier normand. I've add french sources in Percheron's talk page. --Tsaag Valren (talk) 23:20, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

The fr/en equine translation page is released

Hello, in order to make the translation easier, the project:monde équestre has created this page to list your featured (golden star) and good (silver star) articles, and ours. You have 63 featured and good articles/lists, and we have 47. --Tsaag Valren (talk) 16:58, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Request for Comment: Capitalization of common names of animal species

Dog articles at FAC

Hi ya'll - I don't know if anyone who watches this page is interested in dogs as well as horses, but there are currently two dog breed articles up at FAC:

The KCS article in particular could use some comments - it was archived last time for lack of input and is about to fall into the "older nominations" section, again with very little comment. Happy editing! Dana boomer (talk) 11:30, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Genetics article with TB stuff

Some interesting stuff on TB foundation bloodlines here for anyone interested: http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=18863 Enjoy! Montanabw(talk) 21:13, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Article move

Hi folks, someone, correctly, I think, wants to use the article name lateral movement to describe the general concept in physics, and at the moment, it's an article only about lateral movements with horses (and not a great article, at that; I think it's one of Eventer's old ones, originaly). Which new title would be better, Lateral flexions, which is the term for equine lateral movements within the dressage world, though not a universal term, or Lateral movement (horse)? I don't particularly care one way or the other, though I suppose I lean slightly toward the former, but thought I'd check in with the whole crew for thoughts. (If we pick one and an edit spat erupts, no reason not to move it to the other later, I suppose) So, thoughts? Montanabw(talk) 19:21, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the lateral movement article should probably discuss the general concept in physics. As to the new article title, I think that Lateral movement (horse) would be my preference (it gets a few more Google hits for both web and book, and is less English-discipline focused, I think), but I'm not really set on either of them. Dana boomer (talk) 19:29, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
You are probably right. I'll give it a bit to see if anyone else weighs in and then work with the other editor on the actual title move. Montanabw(talk) 01:32, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Coat color evolution

He, I can for the life out of me not remember where to find where we discuss coat color evolution. HELP! -- Kim van der Linde at venus 00:28, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think we really have. It's an omission we ought to look at fixing! [{Equine coat color genetics]] might be a logical place. If there is anything, it's at wildtype, and there isn't much there. Montanabw(talk) 05:48, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

GAR drive in process

As part of GAR drive of a GAR drivein Dec 2011, a reviewer will appear and review Arabian horse. It may be useful to check the Good article criteria at WP:WIAGA - except that for the GAR drive, broken URLs can be ignored. I noted Articles_lacking_reliable_references and Articles needing additional references, and you may want to check section "RS" of WP:V. Good luck. --Philcha (talk) 06:42, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Old Age Home for horses?

On Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Retraining of Racehorses is a discussion about alternatives for deletion of the article Retraining of Racehorses. Can somebody take a look at it? Night of the Big Wind talk 15:20, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Will take a peek. Others may as well. Montanabw(talk) 18:57, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Breed Naming Convention

A very important discussion is taking place at Talk:Welsh Corgi#Requested move that may affect the naming of breed articles (including horse breed articles). All interested parties should take a look and give their opinions. Miyagawa (talk) 13:42, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Photo request

If anyone can get a photo of a hot walker,preferably with a horse on it, please see new article Hot walker -- it was created as a hoax stub and, by request, I quickly whipped into something of a real stub to avoid future nonsense. But might as well make a useful article out of it now it's there. Montanabw(talk) 23:01, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Articles on the Turkmenian kulan and the Persian onager

I've created the following stubs, with a reliable source, plus scientific name redirects, and entries on the relevant disambiguation pages:

— SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 18:17, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Go for it. That area of WPEQ has been neglected by us equus caballus-focused sorts. Montanabw(talk) 22:54, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion

Project members should consider creating some re-direct pages. I had to type in WikiProject Horse/Horses/Equus before looking up the project name at Talk:Horse. An editor shouldn't have to go through all that. You want people to find your project, yes? Then I recommend some re-direct pages.Boneyard90 (talk) 13:15, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Feel free to create some. Not sure what is best, go ahead and do what you think is helpful! Montanabw(talk) 20:51, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Participants list

Should this perhaps be sorted into active and inactive members? For example wwe still have Jack Merridew on there and he is long blocked.RafikiSykes (talk) 13:55, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

That would take someone willing to do the work. And the definition of "inactive."  ;-) Montanabw(talk) 20:51, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
I could do it if needed? Some projects move the users to inactive if they have no edits in over a year or a similar long periods? RafikiSykes (talk) 01:23, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Tacky question

Per a discussion here, should we consider moving the horse tack articles to a broader Category:Horse equipment. There is something of a debate over what should go into a "tack" category, and I think this may extend to some people not knowing what "tack" is -- a topic even open to debate amongst horse people. (Does "tack" include halters & and lead ropes, or leg bandages like skid boots or polo wraps?) Also, if collateral topics belong, (Neatsfoot oil, used to condition tack, for example?). I proposed using "horse equipment" as a category that would just skirt the whole debate. Thoughts? Montanabw(talk) 17:51, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. Miniapolis (talk) 02:08, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
What's the easiest way to get someone's bot to do this? Montanabw(talk) 22:53, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
wp:Bot_requests - UnbelievableError (talk) 03:12, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Beyond needing help

Needs lots of help, maybe a merge: Equine podiatry. Don't even know where to start, but Pesky, Richard and Owain, this might be your turf, as I think more a UK-based profession. Montanabw(talk) 20:43, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

This is fun! Calling the Brits!

See Horse rings in Portland. At talk, we are discussing if these exist anywhere else. Can anyone find more evidence of this sort of things in other cities? Can you Brits help us on this? Montanabw(talk) 18:53, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

New template, need some hands

Brought the long-languishing Template:Horse equipment online. Still a work in progress, all who can help either by adding it to the tack articles or improving the template itself, please feel free to dive in! Fresh from the sandbox! All poop removed! (I think)! Montanabw(talk) 20:36, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Possible project for the project

Cavalry in the American Civil War is short on references. It's a decent base article, but would need a lot of work and a LOT of sourcing, but has GA potential. We have a good gang here to work on the horses in military history stuff. Anyone want to take a peek and see if this is a good candidate for collaboration? Possibly a horses in the American Civil War spinoff? Thoughts? (Note, as a comparison, we have Horses in the Napoleonic Wars. Montanabw(talk) 16:21, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Redirect comment

sorry if this is the wrong place to put this, but Thoroughbred Racehorse should not redirect to Horse Racing. I went to thoroughbred racehorse wanting to read about the history of the thoroughbred racehorse, NOT Horse Racing. Something should be done."Selene Scott (talk) 00:52, 19 July 2012 (UTC)" Cuddy Wifter (talk) 01:49, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Have changed the redirect to Thoroughbred. Cuddy Wifter (talk) 01:59, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Article alert

Connemara pony has come to the attention of some folks affiliated with WP:Ireland, who are demanding various improvements. I don't have the time to deal with this, would someone else interested in working on GA articles want to bring this up to maybe B-class? Montanabw(talk) 21:57, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Colbert alert

If all could watchlist the dressage articles, (dressage, and probably classical dressage, I've also seen hits at Quadrille_(dressage)), they are starting to get hit by fans of Stephen Colbert, who declared Dressage the sport of the summer due to the involvement of Ann Romney (the segments on his show sometimes been kind of funny, actually). Great publicity for the sport, but it's not "horse prancing" (sigh). Here's hoping it isn't going to be worse than the Burnie Burns edits at cribbing (horse). Montanabw(talk) 19:46, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

United States government sale of wild horses

I'm thinking of writing about this. Is it too newsy? Is it a scandal? Has it been covered?

The story in a nutshell: The US government is selling off feral horses without promised oversight of buyers, who appear to be selling them to Mexico for slaughter and sale as meat to European nations.


Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:28, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

You may want to start by looking at the content and structure of Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 and see how your proposed article fits into that topic/timeline as you might be able to merge it into a single existing article, thereby preserving the continuity. See for example the "Subsequent Congressional action" section of that article. Viriditas (talk) 04:10, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. Wow. It's big. I'll need to put on a pot of coffee, unplug the phone, and sedate the kids with cough syrup for a couple of days. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:03, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm also going to point out that this is nothing new, the battle between kill buyers and wild horse advocates has been going on from the get-go, these guys are always trying to scam the BLM, so though this fellow sounds particularly obnoxious, it's an ongoing thing. I know, I'm cynical. I favor protection of wild horses, and I think some of the BLM's policies are idiotic, and Virditas probably did pinpoint the best place to add info, but it really can be summed up in a brief paragraph that begins, "Over the years, horsemeat buyers have attempted to circumvent the Act in many ways, sometimes due to lack of BLM oversight, and at times with accusations being raised of unofficial complicity by the BLM." But there also IS a big problem out there that the BLM refuses to get serious about trying population control, and keeping tens of thousands of horses in holding pastures is not a sustainable solution. And they still have landowners complaining that they want more grazing space for cattle; reduction in grazing land for herds is also a factor. The horsemeat issue is an additional problem, and they are all in a great big tangled up mess. I personally don't even know where to start, pull any thread and you get a tangle. Montanabw(talk) 22:19, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
I don't know what to do either. I think I should drop it. I asked myself why they don't just let them stay in the wild, but then I google mapped western Colorado [4]. It seems that if it's flat, grazeable land, it's a farm. In fact, I can't find anywhere in the US that's flat and green and not a checkerboard of crops. I guess this town ain't big enough for the both of us. Sorry horses. :( Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:21, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
My biggest concern is the way they render these horses. I've heard horror stories about animals who are still alive and conscious as they are being processed in these slaughterhouses. I don't personally care if you or anyone else eats meat, but there's a lot of evidence now showing how the meat industry itself contributes to pandemic disease, major air pollution in urban environments, climate change, and unnecessary pain and suffering for animals who are just as sentient as we are. As far as I understand it, we are about a year or two away before the meat industry can clone and produce artificial meat, making animal slaughter unnecessary. See In vitro meat for more information. Technologically speaking, there is no need to kill animals for meat. Viriditas (talk) 04:57, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
1) That's why as long as there's a meat industry, I'm pro-whaling. I love piggies because they're as smart as dogs, and I'd rather see 1 whale die and feed hundreds of people that 100 piggies die.
2) Nobody will ever, ever, ever, in a million years, buy and eat artificial meat. No way. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 05:07, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Actually, I predict that tissue engineered, artificial meat will eventually be one of the largest sources of animal protein. Viriditas (talk) 05:15, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
Soylent Green? =:-O Montanabw(talk) 23:56, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

But seriously, there are some major issues with horsemeat, the transport and slaughter in facilities designed for cattle the tip of the iceberg. I just posted some links at the horse slaughter article (I don't edit there, too much drama on both sides) that the EU is banning US-origin horsemeat because, basically, we can a lot of racehorses that have been shot up with bute and god knows what else; in practice this has meant that the Canadian slaughterhouses are now not taking US Horsemeat and Mexico is apt to follow. I don't know what the result will be, rescues in America are already overloaded with unuseable horses and a 1000 lb housepet eats a lot. We also have trouble where I live with people dumping horses on the open range, which for a domestic horse is about like dumping an unwanted housecat on the streets; they have insufficient resources to survive unless they are damn lucky. (It also raises issues of genetic contamination of certain wold horse populations) Meat in general has issues that trouble me, but as a hardcore carnivore, my compromise is to try and eat sustainably-raised animals. People like Joel Salatin are leaders in that movement.

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I think enough people have read this thread to make edits where needed. It's all out of my depth and too sad.
To Viriditas: No way. Even if starved for animal protein, people would rather turn to squid and jellyfish. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 04:43, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
I think you underestimate how much the field of artificial meat products has advanced in the last ten years. For example, I've eaten fake meat products recently that were indistinguishable from animals and they weren't even tissue engineered. The bottom line is that the taste and health benefits of artificial meat will very soon outweigh those of natural meat, and people will look back in horror wondering how their ancestors ever ate animals to begin with. Most futurists are predicting 2015-2020 before the technology will be perfected. Viriditas (talk) 11:27, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
The technology is currently a long way from perfect, at least for lovers of a good roast beef! LOL! But they do claim to have it worked out by the time of Star Trek, and I do look forward to the invention of FTL technolology allowing Warp Speed, so nothing is impossible! Montanabw(talk) 19:49, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Represent. :) Viriditas (talk) 20:41, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Kerry Bog Pony

Hello, I've work this article : fr:Kerry bog on french wp (that's because I love Ireland), you can easily translate it here : Kerry Bog Pony, all sources are in english (and probably you have some sources I don't have). Vote is open in french. --Tsaag Valren (talk) 14:30, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

A detail : somebody here can remove the watermark on the infobox photo ? --Tsaag Valren (talk) 14:32, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Very cool! I'll put this on my list of things to do...unless someone else gets there first! Dana boomer (talk) 17:22, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
OK, new version now up at Kerry Bog Pony. I didn't specifically translate the French article (I used mainly my own sources and then transferred a few bits and pieces from your version). If you wouldn't mind taking a look to make sure there was nothing I missed that you think is important? I see that you made it to Good Article status on the fr.wp - nice work! I'll probably let the English version sit for a few days, in case anyone has any issues with the re-write, and then toss it up for GA status here. I don't know how to remove watermarks from images - perhaps one of the graphics people at Commons could help? Dana boomer (talk) 16:18, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Museum of Polo and Hall of Fame

I am going through the inductees of the Museum of Polo and Hall of Fame. May I add this project to their talkpages?Zigzig20s (talk) 13:19, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

How many people are we talking? Probably is suitable. Anyone else have thoughts? Montanabw(talk) 21:41, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
Hopefully all the inductees. I am working on polo at the moment--it would be great if some of you wanted to help as well. This is why I ask.Zigzig20s (talk) 13:50, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
How many is "all"? 50 or 500? :-) Montanabw(talk) 21:59, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
Looks like 75 or so, based on the webpage. I have no problem with adding the banner to the talk pages. Are you just creating stubs, or planning to take these articles higher? I'm not a huge polo fan, but wouldn't mind helping out with GA nomination runs and such. Dana boomer (talk) 23:34, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
I would like to take these articles higher, possibly to GA status. So, all inductees from the Museum of Polo and Hall of Fame to start with. Also pages like these ones: U.S. Open Polo Championship and Monty Waterbury Cup. Thank you for helping.Zigzig20s (talk) 01:16, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Sounds great! Just let me know when/if you get to a place where you need help with touch-up stuff before/during a GA nomination... I don't have the sources, so wont be much help on the writing end :) Dana boomer (talk) 12:54, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Cleanup of dreadful state of horse types cat. & subcats., confusing & confused article titles, and text that goes with them

The horse breeds category, more so than most other such categories for domestic animal breeds, is a total mess.

  1. The animal type (here "horse" or "pony") is present and capitalized along with the rest of the breed name when (and only when) it is always included in the breed name for clarity. This is usually the case when:
    A.  it has to be distinguished from another animal with the same breed name (e.g. Hackney Pony and Hackney Horse)
    B.  the name would be jarringly confusing, seeming to refer to something completely different, without the type being included (as in American Quarter Horse, Yorkshire Coach Horse, Norwegian Forest Cat).
  2. In all other cases, the type should be dropped entirely, if possible (as in Norfolk Trotter, Thoroughbred and German Shepherd)
  3. If disambiguation is required, the type should be converted into a proper, bracketed parenthetical disambiguation, per WP:DAB and WP:AT (as in Dartmoor (pony), Siamese (cat)).
  4. Those that are not formal breeds, recognized by one or more fancier/breeder pedigree registries, but rather are landraces, need to be decapitalized (except when containing a proper, e.g., geographical or possessive, name, as in Przewalski's horse), and rewritten to stop making blatant original-research claims that they are breeds rather than landraces. Landraces need to be in a new Category:Horse landraces, under Category:Types of horse. Also, Category:Feral horses should probably be a subcat of the landraces one; I cannot think of any separately identifiable, notable population of ferals that is subject to selective breeding, so they are landraces by definition if they are distinguishable from other horses in any way. In the interim, I've moved Category:Feral horses to Category:Types of horse from Category:Horse breeds, because they are not breeds. A breed is a formal designation and definition of a pedigreed population, produced by selective breeding, subject to a conformation standard as determined by a registry organization; no more, no less, and nothing else.
  5. Things like Category:Color breeds is not very helpful. Do not confuse coat colors, body types, etc., with breeds. That category is also misnamed because it's missing "horse" – people may try to put pigs, cats, etc. in there mistakenly. Few people but fanciers of these colors consider them breeds, for good reason.q The notion of a non-pedigree-based breed is weird and will be confusing to too many people. It would make much more sense to have a Category:Horse coat colors and patterns or Category:Horse coat types, and put these articles in there. The color breed article is sufficient to document the odd notion that some people call a horse a particular "breed" simply because of how it happens to be colored. There's a reason that the major registries don't do this, and that this silliness is perpetuated by only by small independent, specialty registries.

Over 100 horse/pony articles need one or more of these sorts of cleanup. I've started with Category:Horse breeds originating in England, but have more pressing things to do. Someone from WP:EQUINE needs to take this on. See Category:Cat types and its subcats for how precisely this kind of cleanup has been performed there.

In the interim, I've filed two Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests with regard to point #1 above, to move New Forest pony to New Forest Pony (cf. Norwegian Forest Cat) and Hackney pony to Hackney Pony (cf. Hackney Horse). I've already moved those in this England category that needed disambiguation to names like Lundy (pony), and left as they were those that for clarity need to keep the type in the name (Yorkshire Coach Horse and Hackney Horse). I have also challenged, on their talk pages, the notion that Exmoor (pony) and Dartmoor (pony) are formal breeds at all; everything in the articles so far suggests they are informal landraces. I've also filed two CFRs, one to move Category:Individual mares to Category:Individual female horses (because there is no Category:Individual fillies), and to move Category:Influential Quarter horse broodmares to Category:Influential American Quarter Horse broodmares because "Quarter horse" is not the name of the breed. And I created Category:Individual male horses and moved the articles that belong in it out of Category:Male horses, and tagged the new category as badly needing to be populated, with {{Popcat}}. And I fixed the backward relationship between Category:Types of horse and Category:Horse breeds. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 09:59, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

One small point - in American horse circles - "Quarter Horse" is the common name for the beed. Aren't we supposed to use the "common name"? And if a breed has a stud book - I think we can consider them a formal breed. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:20, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
You'd have to take that first issue up as a WP:RM at Talk:American Quarter Horse, but expect resistance, since that article title has been the stable [no pun intended] for a long time. WP:COMMONNAME doesn't say to use the most common name in local English, but the most common name in reliable sources generally. See, e.g., English billiards, which is what the game is called for the most part, worldwide; in the UK itself, it is simply called "billiards", and the phrase "English billiards" is very rare there, being seen as redundant locally. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 22:34, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
On the second issue, I think that's a question worth exploring, but more broadly than just for horses. Some friends and I could make up a new studbook for "black horses with crossed eyes" but that wouldn't make such horses a "breed" in any sense that Wikipedia could possibly care about, even if we were intentionally generating cross-eyed foals. The entire notion of "color breeds" flies in the face of what "breed" has consistently meant in animal husbandry for at least the last couple of centuries. Existence of a studbook simply means that some parties have gotten together to create one, nothing more, and it brings up a lot of WP:N, WP:V, WP:NPOV/WP:UNDUE and WP:NOR questions to treat coat patterns as "breeds" simply because some random assortment of fanciers has tried to advance a coat pattern as a "breed".

My initial take on this, based on how coat patterns are handled for other domestic animals, is to suggest we convert these articles to coat pattern articles, and for each one with a studbook and/or fancier organization, have a short section explaining that thus-and-such group has created a studbook for the coat pattern, and has advanced it as a "color breed", but that this is different from the normal interpretation of "breed". That would be a balanced approach that would not confuse readers but would also not bash fanciers of "color breeds".

Another concern, across domestic animal articles, is that there are more and more breeders all the time, all of them looking to make a name for themselves, and often advancing their own "new breed". They are not notable in most cases. The WP:GNG provides a baseline for determining this on a case by case basis, but a shorthand way of approaching it is to simply ask if any major fancier/breeder organization (international, or even just national in cases of countries with large, strong and long-established fancy/husbandry organizations) formally recognizes the breed for pedigree and show purposes, at least provisionally/experimentally. If not, it's highly unlikely that it's notable as an alleged breed, and pushing them as such on WP is very likely to be a WP:NPOV and WP:NOR problem. I've recently WP:PRODed Layanese for precisely this reason. The "article" on this "breed" basically amounts to promotional spam by/for the breeder. This looks to be the case with the "color breed" articles, too. Breeders and their minor organizations appear to have hijacked what should be straightforward color coat articles, (cf. Tabby (cat), etc., outside the horse-space), and turned them into promotion/advocacy pages about an alleged "color breed". — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 22:34, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Apps (Appaloosa) and the Paint Horse Association however, would disagree. In the US (where the majority of Apps, at least, are) those are the dominant meanings of those color breeds, and quite arguably, the Appaloosa IS a breed that just happens to have color also. Paints too, in the US - they are colors that are also a breed type (i.e. QH type). I'm pretty sure that in Europe (from my reading) you'd either call a paint a pinto or a piebald/skewbald. So it's pretty clear that those two breeds should stay at their current names. I'd be opposed to turning the Paint Horse article into just a color description - that can be handled with the various patterns - overo, tobiano, splashed, etc. With Appaloosas - they pretty much ARE the color breed and the color pattern is the breed - the few European breeds have totally different ancestry and descents. And I hardly think the Exmoor Pony Society (founded in 1921 here) is just a "some parties have gotten together to create one" ... it's been around a while, after all! I'm all against covering every single tiny group of fanciers - but if a stud book and/or society sticks around for almost 90 years, we have to consider that a good indication that we've moved beyond landrace and are into breed territory. To be clear - I'm fine with covering the palomino color pattern at Palomino - and the various organizations that register them on their own pages, but you can't sweep all the color "breeds" into one camp or the other - there needs to be some actual looking at the facts on the ground and what usage is. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:00, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
PLEASE OH GOD NO NO NO! WikiProject Equine (WPEQ) has a longstanding consensus on the article naming conventions. You don't understand the issues and there are MULTIPLE issues here (among them, the naming of individually named horses! Can you at least PLEASE leave ALL these articles alone as we have 350-400 horse breed articles that are going to be affected. You don't understand the nature of horse breeds within the equine world and all your category changes are going to make an OR problem go from bad to worse. Please, please, please, withdraw this here. I'm begging you! Montanabw(talk) 23:14, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
Take a cue from Ealdgyth, above, WP:DONTPANIC, and please just engage in normal discussion please (cf. your own talkheader about psychodrama). I already said clearly that I just did the one English breeds category as an illustration and wasn't going to do any more because this is the equine project's job and I have other fish to fry. To reiterate some of what I said on my own talk page (I agree centralizing discussion here is a good idea): I disagree with your characterization of my edits as destructive, but recognize that you are objecting to them, and am happy to stop and discuss. These articles and categories are not in a stable, consistent state, and WP:EQUINE does not WP:OWN them. They are grossly inconsistent and messy, in their substandard and confusing naming, in their misleading and sometimes counterfactual and/or biased content language, and in their sloppy, incorrect categorization. A large number of them have basic factuality problems, like presenting landraces as formal breeds, uncritically mislabeling as "breeds" coat colors/patterns that are not breeds but just have some random yahoos with a studbook claiming they're a breed (see above – I clearly recognize that in some cases they really are breeds). Somewhere around half of them that I've looked at have incorrect disambiguation style that violates WP:AT and WP:DAB. There are many other problems.

You say "We have had a longstanding, stable (excuse the pun) consensus on breed naming conventions, categorization and other issues", but it sure doesn't look like it. The fact that your project has settled on being satisfied with such a confused mess that violates several policies, and doesn't like its boat rocked doesn't mean no one's going to rock the boat. Even if it was not a mess, as long as it directly conflicts with WP:AT and other major policies and guidelines, all you have is a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS which is overridden by site-wide rules anyway, as a matter of policy (and previous ARBCOM decisions that rein in [pun again, sigh] recalcitrant wikiprojects). If you want to make a case that my attempts at cleanup have been unhelpful (my "changes are going in the wrong direction" as you put it), feel free to do so, and maybe you are right. I don't think you can make any kind of convincing case that a major cleanup effort isn't needed.

I would most like to see a) the term breed (in article text and categories) limited to formal breeds recognized as such by major, long-standing organizations; b) landraces properly distinguished from them; and c) redundant, improperly disambiguated titles like "Exmoor pony" done properly as "Exmoor (pony)", like every other topic, including all other animal breed topics, do. (Hint: If such an article ever uses a construction like "The Exmoor is..." then it is obviously safe to disambiguate this way; if the type of animal is always included because the name would be confusing without it, then the type is part of the breed name, should be in the title and should be capitalized – the American Quarter Horse and Norwegian Forest Cat have to be named this way or they sound like coinage and woodlands.) — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 00:22, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

You would have made a lot more progress had you come here BEFORE changing a bunch of articles and then "salting" them so they could not be moved back. You are also incorrect about the need to always dab with parentheses. There is room in the MOS for other naming, and in these cases, many breed societies, particularly the pony breeds DO name the breed the X horse or the X pony (i.e. Arabian Horse Association, American Paint Horse Association, Welsh Pony and Cob Society, etc...) most of these British pony breeds also ARE in fact recognized by some organization (among others, the FAO for certain, in fact they go overboard at times, but also many national organizations) So, until you have gone through the material breed by breed and know what you are talking about, you really need to lay off. Your "landrace" theory is interesting, and in theory you make a decent case for it, but as I said, the term is not widely used in the horse world, so to say "breed X is a landrace" is as OR as calling it a "breed" unless you can do a bit of research and show us your evidence. Montanabw(talk) 17:09, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
Oh dear! The Exmoor Pony, Dartmoor Pony, etc. are the recognised breed names. Most of the British horse and pony breed societies have been established for a good long time, and many have daughter societies all around the world. Please don't just go changing everything around! The Exmoor Pony is definitely a breed, not just a landrace. It has a closed stud book; for a pony to be an Exmoor Pony both its parents must have been fully registered in the breed society's stud book. Not every pony-which-looks-the-same and is running around on Exmoor is an Exmoor Pony. Same goes for the Darties, Shelties, and Foresters, and so on. The Lundy Pony is named after the island of Lundy, so should follow the same rules as the Norwegian Forest Cat, etc. Exmoor is a place, not an animal. Dartmoor is a place, not an animal. Welsh Mountain, etc. etc. Personally, I'm kinda OK with "Exmoor pony" and "Dartmoor pony" and so on, but definitely not with "Exmoor (pony)". Pesky (talk) 07:40, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

A lot of cool photos

It's me again, I've see on FlickR a lot of cool horses photos with the good licence, but I'm not a specialist of commons (I don't really know how it work). So here's the FlickR gallery : http://www.flickr.com/photos/desertnightcreations/ . You have :

Just a quick note here, we already have two pics of that specific stallion (File:Sato, Throroughbred Palomino, sabino, stallion.jpg and File:Sato - Palomino sabino Purebred Thoroughbred Stallion.jpg. Pitke (talk) 10:09, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Basically, there's an upload wizard at Commons where you can plug in the Flicker ID number and if the copyright is OK, it will partly automate the upload. If the copyright is too restrictive, it won't allow the upload. Montanabw(talk) 04:49, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but commons is all in english and for me it's a little bit difficult. In the Upload wizard usually I have ti precise author, licence, description, etc, etc --Tsaag Valren (talk) 08:54, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
Correction  : I search, I find : http://toolserver.org/~bryan/flickr/upload (now, how does it work ?) --Tsaag Valren (talk) 08:57, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
This one is much simpler, and you don't have to do much: http://toolserver.org/~magnus/flickr2commons.php FunkMonk (talk) 22:21, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Current consensus explanation

OK, for those who consider the above to be TLDR, here is the current consensus at WPEQ:

  1. A horse "breed" is a horse breed if the article passes WP:Notability standard, while it is true that a lot of people try to create "designer breeds" that are a fancy crossbred, we DO carefully apply WP:NOTABILITY to these and have had several articles hotly contested. Generally, if a breed appears in a "horse breeds" encyclopedia and/or is in some fashion "recognized" by a multi-breed sanctioning organization, we will allow the article. For example, two that are in the "gray area" are Warlander and Moyle horse. Montanabw(talk) 23:58, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
    I've seen articles already just looking at one category that do not seem to qualify, yet in their prose use the term "breed" and are categorized as such. This is a WP:V/WP:RS, WP:NPOV/WP:UNDUE and WP:NOR problem for sure, and in some cases may be a WP:COI/WP:SPAM issue, if edited by proponents of the new or "designer" breed. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 00:57, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
    You can certainly nominate these, individually for AfD or see if you can find a RS that supports your "designer breed" theory, proposing such a category and see if we can find the source material to justify it, but I doubt you will succeed in finding sources - We must live with WP:V and not go OR in the other direction. Montanabw(talk) 17:34, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
    On that note, be aware I fought and lost an AfD on Moyle horse (see talk) and I'm also not a fan of seeing articles on stuff like the Georgian Grande Horse or Warlander either, I think the first is a remnant of a single person's crossbreeding program and the other two are, IMHO, modern designer crossbreds. However, having fought and lost on Moyle horse, I've rather given up, though I have managed to AfD amd keep some other stuff from being recreated. However, these aren't the Eriskay pony. Montanabw(talk) 17:34, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
    "Designer breed" was your term, not mine. I wouldn't need an RS that a breed wasn't a breed; rather, asserters that some alleged kind of horse is a formal breed have to show RS that it is one. Many of these pages are miserable stubs with practically nothing in the way of content or sources. I'm not a fan of AfDing articles that can be salvaged, however. Agreed with yoru take on the Georgian and Warlander.
  2. A "type" is not necessarily a landrace nor a single breed. In most cases, such as the warmblood, a "type" is simply a grouping of horse breeds with similar traits that horse people refer to with a collective term for ease of categorization. Another example is gaited horse. A few other things may get lumped in here as a catchall, such as bronco Montanabw(talk) 23:58, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
    Sure. The cats and dogs projects and others uses the same terminology. But I don't see that this project is even recognizing that landraces exist, in articlespace or categoryspace, and it seems to me so far, just looking at the English breeds category that some landraces are not being categorized and described as such, but as formal breeds. I could be wrong about this, but if I am that just means that the articles need to be clarified so that why it's a breed and not a landrace is actually clear. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 00:57, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
    The existence of breed societies dedicated to preserving each breed is not enough? However, more to the point, can you provide sources other than your own WP:SYNTH that these are classified by biologists as landraces? Montanabw(talk) 17:34, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
    "Societies"? Not always. Is it independently notable? How many human members and how large is the animal registry? How long has it existed? Is it affiliated with a national/intl. organization or is it just 3 blokes in the same town? Proponents of all new breeds usually create some kind of shell organization. Re: various feral pony and horse populations, in each case one would want to ask if they are actually breeding groups, controlling the selective breeding of the animals and tracking pedigrees, or are they simply a conservation group who let the animals breed naturally and just look after them with innoculations and salt-licks and microchip RFOD tags, and so on? Completely different. Landrace has a pretty straightforward definition. The SYNTH issue, as with assertion of formal breed status, runs the other direction. All domesticated animals in consistent regional populations that are not subject to managed selective breeding are landraces, by definition. (If they're very feral with a wide range, they can also fork into ecotypes, etc.) Something is not a breed without a selective breeding program, and that is what has to be sourced. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 02:05, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
  3. The "landrace" issue is controversial in the horse world. Essentially, while the feral horse "breeds" may have landrace traits, they are generally not called "landraces" within the equine community and so it is as much OR to call them "landraces" as "breeds." In particular, there are a number of semi-feral horse breeds that have considerable human intervention in selective breeding, even though they also live in a semi-wild state. the Camargue horse is an example of this. Montanabw(talk) 23:58, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
    Then these need to be properly described and classified on a case by case basis. This project's penchant for lumping everything into overbroad categorizations is not helpful and ultimately is not encyclopedic. The term landrace is a general biology term that applies to all plants and animals, and we have reliable sources for its definition and the breadth of its applicability; it is not at all original research, by any stretch of the imagination, to apply it to horse varieties that qualify, just because horse fanciers don't use it all that much. By way of analogy, if AKC decides tomorrow to use the term natural regional type to refer to landraces of dogs, WP's work is done if it simply notes this fact and moves on; it would be gross WP:UNDUE weight to refuse to properly categorize these varieties as landraces on such a basis, and would violate WP:V, too. I'm working toward a Category:Landraces, because this is an overarching topic of interest to plenty of people, and it would be absurd to omit horses from it. NB: I never suggested applying the term to feral populations that are in fact selective bred as human-controlled breeds. I wasn't certain their were any, but there clearly are, and that's great; they're not landraces. They're a bit comparable to the feral parrot populations of L.A. and Orange County, California, most of which are still of an identifiable breed (that will change over time, because they are not being selectively bred and managed, and some of these species can hybridize). — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 00:57, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
    Categories for navigation purposes are inherently a bit "overbroad" unless we want to have Category:Horse breeds recognized within by the United States Equestrian Federation but not by the British Horse Society with two spinoff alternative registries formed by people pissed off that their horses weren't included in the stud book. (Grin) Horse breeds don't have an AKC, there is no universal (or national) recognition group that defines what a breed is or is not. The USEF once tried to fill that role, but it is mostly discipline-focuesd: too many breed groups spun off and it hasn't been a home for all breeds since sometime in the 1970s. I would have no problem cross-categorizing some "breeds" as "landraces" but until we have an RS that says "horse X is a landrace" I don't feel such should be an exclusive category and the "breeds" removed from "breeds." Montanabw(talk) 17:34, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
    There's breadth and then there's overbreadth. I'm not seeing (where I've looked lately – cats, dogs, cavies/Guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils, pigs, sheep, goats, cattle, donkeys and horses, so far) any organization-specific categories. Typically there's a breed cat., then subcats by country, and sometimes particular classifications, e.g. by body type, working/non-working, coat pattern, whatever. I'm not perturbed in any way by there not being one overarching horse fancier/breeder/pedigree/show organization. There's not one for cats, dogs, etc. either. Cross-categorizing, yes, is sometimes unavoidable, especially where a landrace, not subject to managed breeding, attracts the interest of (usually but not always foreign) fanciers who establish it as a "natural breed" selectively breed to reinforce the most defining traits of the landrace. There are quite a number of articles that cover both the original landrace and the derived breed, across various animal types. I think I have sorted out all the cat ones by now. I still think you have the sourcing requirements reversed. Landrace is a default condition; most domestic animals around the world are members of a landrace, not a breed.
  4. Breed categories: At WPEQ, we have grudgingly allowed the "breed by nation" categories (because we argued against them and lost), but want all the breeds to remain in the main breed cat as well. We think the "by nation" issue is a real problem because, just for an example, the Lipizzan has five different nations claiming origin status, based on the multiple stud farms that contributed foundation bloodstock. So we are kind of letting the "by nation" promoters do whatever they want, so long as the main horse breeds category stays. Montanabw(talk) 23:58, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
    Understood (I'm reminded of an argument is a submarine movie). I agree on all that. The main breed category does need to have them all in it (I fixed this recently with cats). The country ones are a pain because of the problem you pointed out, but too many people really want them. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 00:57, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
    Whew! We agree on that! Hooray! Montanabw(talk) 17:34, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
  5. Naming: Because we have WP's capitalization conventions, the dab situation AND multiple individually named horse "biographies" (those tagged by WikiProject horse racing are probably in the thousands) we have come up with the following consensus for naming:
  1. Individually named horses (e.g. Secretariat (horse) are given parentheses per WP's standard DAB protocol where needed.
  2. Horse equipment is also disambiguated per WP's standard dab protocol, though this is not consistent. (e.g. Bit (horse)
  3. Horse breed articles will be named by the breed alone if there is no need for disambiguation. (e.g. Thoroughbred) This usually applies to horse breeds, not ponies
  4. if there IS a dab issue, then "horse" or "pony", lower case, is added (e.g. Arabian horse, Shetland pony). Most pony breeds have "pony" as part of their name.
  5. If the word "horse" or "pony" is part of the name, so that it sounds ridiculous without (e.g. American Quarter Horse), then the word "horse" or "pony" is capitalized. This is seldom needed with horse breeds, but frequently needed with pony breeds.
  6. However, previous editors have created a shitstorm over capitalizing "Pony" in the pony articles per MOSCAPS, so we just finished a round of making them all lower case again. Montanabw(talk) 23:58, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Clear as mud?? Montanabw(talk) 23:58, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Clear, but problematic in a few places. Individual horses: Yes, makes sense. Equipment, right. Breed alone, right, but several pony articles were already done this way, and there's no compelling reason not to do them all this way when possible, as all other topics do, including other domestic animals and even horses (it's actually a matter of policy at WP:AT to use the shortest name and not disambiguate when not necessary). Your DAB solution is substandard, and that's a non-trivial problem; because it doesn't match what, well, everyone everywhere else on WP is doing, it would always result in conflict and confusion, and it clearly is a WP:Principle of least astonishment problem as well as a direct conflict with WP:AT and WP:DAB, and thus with WP:LOCALCONSENSUS (i.e., you don't get to make up your own rules that buck [pun!] a broader site-wide consensus on how to handle something like disambiguation style). Capitalized "Horse" and "Pony" when needed, right. Complaints about it: Yes, they'll happen, for now anyway. MOSCAPS is unclear on breeds. It's something I'm addressing very clearly, including with horse examples, in WP:Manual of Style/Organisms (draft, but nearing formal proposal quality now). — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 00:57, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
PS: I'm sorry I've inadvertently "picked a fight" with this project. Antagonism isn't my goal; encyclopedic veracity (foremost) and consistency (secondarily) are. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 00:59, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
PPS: If "Arabian horse" is being used instead of "Arabian (horse)" simply because of your "Seabiscuit (horse)" convention, that strikes me as an inappropriate overreaction to a perceived but not actually evidenced confusion problem. Even if it were to prove to be a serious one, the solution per naming policy is to disambiguate better (e.g. "Seabiscuit (racehorse)") not throw out the DAB baby with the bathwater by ignoring it and making up your own new disambiguation style that no one else will recognize and many editors will interpret as an obvious error and try to fix. If it works for cats, dogs, sheep, pigs, guinea pigs, etc., etc., as well as non-biological topics, it will work fine for horses, too. And if "Arabian (horse)" supposedly wouldn't work because someone might confuse it with an individual horse (really, the exact opposite is much more likely), then "bit (horse)" wouldn't be viable, either. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 01:04, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for racheting down the heat. But I REALLY wish you had discussed this first before you moved all those articles. Unfortunately, (racehorse) doesn't always work, either, as animals "change careers" - For example, Bask was a race horse in Poland, a show horse in the USA, and then a major breeding stallion. But even so, if you want to do that, take it up with WikiProject horse racing, as they have most of those articles. You'll be renaming well over 1000, I think. Also will have to discuss if "race horse" is one word or two (I think there's a US/UK English thing with that) So if you really want to do so, go over there and Good Luck with that. Montanabw(talk) 17:34, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

  • As for inconsistency, since I came on board in 2006, when breed names WERE all over the place, we have worked very diligently to REMOVE all "Breed X (horse)" names and make them "Breed X horse" - We FINALLY got all of these fixed this year and had near-total consistency on this - until you started moving them back. We have some capitalization inconsistency still, but I think that's a no-win - I for one would be perfectly fine with Title Case (Arabian Horse, Shetland Pony), but the MOS capitalization gods have periodically raised hell with us when we have done so (As in New Forest Pony/pony), so we have been trying to move the articles to "horse" or "pony" being lower case, to please the "consistency" capitalization gods, only digging in to keep capitalization on things like American Quarter Horse. I'm not going to fight that battle, been there, done that. Tired of moving and re-moving capital letters on 300 articles. Montanabw(talk) 17:34, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
    Understood, and I'm basically just going to move on; other people can figure it out later. I think this project has settled on internal conventions that conflict with the site-wide style, and people will continue to question this indefinitely, but it's better that it's at least pretty consistent that total chaos like it was. I remember working with you on the donkeys cleanup, back when. :-) — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 02:05, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Contrarian comment

Personally, I'm not very keen on wikiprojects setting their own internal rules on naming, spelling, style, notability &c because, all too often, the bits that agree with broader enwiki policy are redundant, and the bits that don't agree cause lots of unnecessary drama. In this particular case, we have the Wikipedia:Article titles policy, and I think that policy does a pretty good job.
It looks like there have been several moves like this:

  • Shire horse → Shire (horse);
  • Dartmoor pony → Dartmoor (pony);

... and so on. The new titles comprehensively fail the Wikipedia:Article titles policy; they are neither natural, nor are they commonly used by sources, nor are they likely search terms. Mass moves of naturally-disambiguated titles to parenthetically-disambiguated titles are bizarrely inappropriate and do a great disservice to readers. They should be moved back. bobrayner (talk) 01:28, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more. Miniapolis (talk) 14:37, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
This is not contrarian, and I think it's something SMcCandlish will need to take into consideration. It's always nice to have Wikipedia:Article titles on your side.--Curtis Clark (talk) 03:32, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
There's unfortunately more than one way to interpret WP:AT and all it's vagaries and nitpicks. I find it instructive curious that almost all other domesticated animal projects (and even plant projects where this kind of naming is relevant) came to the opposite conclusion you did. I think both of you are taking all of "Shire (horse)" as if it were alleged to be the common or natural name. That's not how WP:AT analyzes this; only the part before the disambiguation is considered for WP:COMMONNAME purposes (the disambiguation is a sometimes-necessary add-on that comes after the proper name is established, and only when required to distinguish between articles. If one can reasonably begin these articles with "the Shire' is a breed of horse..." and "The Dartmoor is a breed of pony...", then Shire and Dartmoor are the proper names, but they have to be disambiguated as Shire (horse) and Dartmoor (pony) because of other articles. The Dartmoor can certainly be done this way. The Shire arguably really needs to be Shire Horse, because the "Horse" part is in practice always used. Any breed/variety of anything that can reasonably be referred to without adding its type-of-organism is handled that way, including plenty in horses: Abtenauer, Lipizzan; in other categories: Dutch Belted, Fabrianese, Japanese Bobtail. I do find this principle violated pretty often, with things like Sahelian Goat and Arabian Horse, which are definitely wrong from a WP:AT perspective. Some projects for some reason just seem to assume that the type "must" follow if the name is adjectival, but this is clearly not actually the case: "My pet Ramsey is a Cymric", or "she's grown too big to ride her Shetland", etc. The only time the type name is needed is when the name would be farcically confusing without it (as in American Quarter or New Forest), in which case it would be capitalized with the rest of the name: American Quarter Horse because it is always part of the name. But "pseudo-diambiguated" names like Exmoor pony would not, since "pony" is not a mandatory part of the name, but a label that would not normally be needed in most contexts. At any rate, using the short form, when possible, using a parenthetial disambiguator when necessary, and only using the long form when understanding would be impaired without it, seems to work fine across all of these organism categories when people bother to apply these principles. I used to be in favor of the Poitou donkey article title style and helped move the donkey articles all to such names, but I did not understand WP:AT (then WP:NC) properly at that time. Almost none of them should have "donkey" unless needed as "(donkey)" for disambiguation. Anyway, like I say, I'm moving on to other pastures [pun again]; there are lots of small pet animal categories that are just chaotic. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 02:05, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
It seems like we're talking past each other, so I'll stop. Considering the disagreements over some of these moves, I think it might be a good idea to consider RMs if you see any other titles in new areas which you think need to be fixed. bobrayner (talk) 03:09, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
I agree that an RM is always appropriate when there is the expectation of controversy, and in other circles moving an article sans RM simply to conform to an overarching principle is seen as POINTy. For example, plants with widely used common names are rarely moved to the scientific name without an RM, where it is usually hashed out that there are several regional common names, or that a single common name refers to several species.
I still point to Toy Fox (terrier) as the anchor at the "don't do this" end, and would add West Highland (terrier), that people call "westies". These are really clear to me. When I talk about a "Shetland", it's in the same way that I talk about a "westie" or a "foxie" (or even a "dobie"). And the point I'm trying to make here is that names may be styled, but they are not style. Wikipedia could come up with a "style" saying that the article should be "disambiguated" as Hemionus (Equus), but that doesn't make it the name.--Curtis Clark (talk) 03:35, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
Essentially, WPEQ has used WP:IAR and figured out an elegant way to get around the dab problem inherent where we have thousands of individually named animal articles (probably more than any other animal, I suspect) and quite a mix of breed names, some of which include the modifiers "horse" and "pony" and others that do not. Short of taking this to a huge RfC dramafest for the next six month, can we at least move back those seven or so articles until the next time someone wants to raise this issue? Frankly, I see nothing wrong with Siamese cat or Shetland sheepdog, either, as if I were from Thailand or the Shetland Islands, I would personally insist on not having my historical ethnicity considered the same as an animal. Montanabw(talk) 21:12, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Put the move request in for the six moved articles. I'd say until or unless a consensus is reached to change all 300 or so with "horse" or "pony" added, we keep them at least consistent, so as to avoid the "mess" that SMc does have a legitimate concern about (we DID have them all un-parentheses-ed (if that's a word), though not every linking page fixed. See consolidated discussion at Talk:Dartmoor_(pony)#Requested_move. Montanabw(talk) 22:04, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I wouldn't put much weight on inter-article "consistency". That might be visible to a very small proportion of editors - those active in this project - who might spot when some aspect of an article's title isn't perfectly aligned with another article's title; but the first priority should be to reflect the naming used by sources in each case, as that is what will most benefit the average reader, and that is what average readers will be looking for. I have even seen one project move an article to a new title which wasn't used by any sources at all - a new name for the subject was conjured out of thin air - simply to make it "consistent" with the names of other articles... bobrayner (talk) 02:44, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
Well, no breed registry in the world is for the XYZ (horse)! LOL! Be assured that we are actually quite careful with "horse" and "pony", using the breed registries' preferred terms, as well as those supported in other sources; if you mislabel one as the other, Katy Bar the Door! Insulting the animals! Crime of the Century! (In both directions) The only real huge issue we've had was on a few rare European breeds with few English language sources where I think SMc and I have been on the same page, WP:USEENGLISH. None at issue in this move, as all are English breeds (or Welsh, or Irish or something like that, same basic set of islands, anyway) Montanabw(talk) 20:00, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
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