This is an archive of past discussions with User:Montanabw. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Hi, I saw that you've been editing a few of the horse jumping articles recently. If this is an area of interest for you, I'd like to invite you to join WikiProject Equine. We've lost our specialist in the H/J stuff (I have some background, but I also have 1500+ WPEQ articles watchlisted, thus I've painted myself into a generalist corner) so if this is your thing, please join! Montanabw(talk)23:30, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks -- Have never participated fully in a project due to time limitations and the many interests that attract me. This is an area where I have experience (some of it dated to years of competition in several areas many moons ago) that could be useful in editing. Looked at the project page and saw some things where I might be able to help. Although not sure what it usually entails, will sign up, but expect to pick and choose where my input will be most effective. Have always wished that there were a cross reference index for WP -- to browse -- as with a book format, the topic of horses sure seems scattered. I can organize and edit in any category and it looks as if this is needed, so let's see... _ _ _ _ 83d40m (talk) 18:31, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
Man, anyone who could come up with a good category tree for the whole project would be taking on a life's work, should your penchant run to organizing things! As for the articles, we have tons of stuff that's start class or C-class (or stubs) that could use good sources. Feel free to drift anywhere you want. No particular commitment is needed, ANYTHING helps! Whatever area interests you will have stuff that needs help. The hunter/jumper/dressage articles have a mishmash of good and poor material, anyone interested in sorting wheat from chaff would be welcomed. The breeds stuff is probably the strongest, but there are still a lot of stubs and fancruft articles that need help. My self-appointed role at WPEQ is to sort of be the generalist, (partly due to my own experience, which has also been wide-ranging with no one specialty) and I usually have a good eye for when someone is going off into OR or FRINGE land. Montanabw(talk)23:37, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
Do not have any experience in Western topics, but can edit generally there. I'll start by nibbling at the edges in editing and clean-up by accessing the list of articles at the project page and selecting the ones I want to tackle. That might lead to more involvement. I still have other interests that attract me, but will keep coming back to the project while I believe I can make a contribution to its improvement. _ _ _ _ 83d40m (talk) 20:49, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
A couple of other places to look for lists of equine articles needing cleanup would be here if you want a complete list of articles with cleanup tags sortable by number of tags, etc. This is the same list, only already pre-sorted by tag. If you're interested... Both lists are updated every week or so by a bot. Dana boomer (talk) 21:14, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
Re Willson High School
The building became a middle school when Bozeman HS was built, later it housed the Bridger Alternative HS program but that is leaving [1] and I think it will be relegated to administrative offices. --Mike Cline (talk) 20:00, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, I know it was a "middle school" 'cause I went there! ;-) Actually, it was just 5th and 6th grade, then we went to "junior high" back in those days. Montanabw(talk)05:12, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
Breed names
You said something not long ago (can't remember where ) about the Shetland (pony)/Shetland pony/Shetland Pony thing, and that it had been discussed at some point and a consensus reached for the middle version. Can you remember where or when that discussion was, and what the rationale was? Richard New Forest (talk) 10:29, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
I think it is in the WPEQ talk archives somewhere. See what I did to fix that Albanian article. Essentially, if the breed name requires "horse" or "pony" as an integral part so not to sound stupid (as in American Quarter Horse) then it is capitalized as part of the breed name. Otherwise, its lower case (Andalusian horse, Arabian horse, Morgan horse, etc...) if it can normally stand alone and we are just disambiguating for wikipedia, particularly if horse people usually don't add the word "horse" or "pony" to its name. I suggested we keep the disambiguation parenthetical (horse) form for the named horse "biographies" (Sparky (horse)) and for the "stuff" articles (bit (horse), teeth (horse), etc...). Montanabw(talk)05:54, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
OMG that poor animal is just about morbidly obese! Score 8-9 ( would depend just how much you could lose your fingers / hand in the blubber over the ribs, etc.). I hate, hate, HATE it when people call obese 'show condition' or 'looking well' :-( . Wrote to Horse and Hound recently on overweight youngsters in the show ring, and H&H showing editor was pleased to agree with me :-) I like to see animals in the same condition that I'd like to be in: fit, healthy, with the right amount of muscle for the job they're doing, and the right weight for the time of year. A-bit-overlean at the tag end of winter is OK, if the horse is out of work and living 'rough'. Fat at the tag end of winter is a big no-no ..... laminitis lurks just around the corner when the spring grass comes roaring through. (And by the way, I'm not fat. I'm in show condition :o) ) (PippaRivers (talk) 16:11, 8 February 2011 (UTC))
After reading FHOTD: why do the animal welfare laws allow things like
dropping animal mistreat charges in case the culprit lets the animals to be taken away
keeping horses knee-deep in muck if they have coat shaggy enough to not reveal their sticking ribs to 50 feet away
selling injured, sick, abused horses in auctions?
If the last one was forbidden, people would have less chance of receiving money from their horse scraps as opposed to having to pay for putting it down. Pitke (talk) 00:44, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
The fat horse is pretty porky, yes. Look at the crease down his back! I'd say an 8 or a 9, depending on how the fat deposits palpated if you actually touched the horse. Winter coat may throw us a bit too, under the hair, the butt end could be as low as a 7. (The body condition score is sort of a composite -- one end a 7 and one ed a 9 probably averages out to be an 8) I have a hard time assessing draft horses without being there to see fat distribution live, they are overweight, but how overweight, I can't guess, could easily be only 7 or so by the breed standard, but it depends on how much fat is in the pockets by the withers and tailhead. The Highland pony is a sausage with legs, though an 8 at most not a 9, while the "Hutsulenpferd" photo is interesting, I've not seen fat distributed that way -- his front end is a 7, his butt is a 9-- talk about weird fat deposits! Montanabw(talk)04:53, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
As for the fugly blog, excellent questions! The first thing to understand about the USA is that an awful lot of people REALLY don't like to have the "guvmint" (also known as the "damngovernment") telling them they can't do anything they want, even if it offends and annoys other people, and they particularly want the home to be a castle where no one sticks their noses into their business. (see Fourth Amendment) So we don't license stallions, we don't regulate horse ownership except through zoning laws (which basically are "no livestock in the city limits."), and we have really weak land use and environmental laws (especially compared to Europe, but some Americans even call Canada a "nanny state") We DO have anti-cruelty laws. The thing is, they vary tremendously between the 50 states (kicking your dog in Mississippi has a different penalty than kicking your dog in Connecticut) and especially in the rural states you have a heck of a time getting the local sheriff off his (often overweight) butt to go deal with any animal case. Then, first-offense animal cruelty is usually a misdemeanor (fine under $1000, jail less than 6 months), no matter how bad it is, and the local prosecutors would just as soon cut a plea bargain than try a misdemeanor because they have too many cases, the courts are too busy and underfunded, so they want to focus on the big stuff like murders and that sort of thing. (Most prosecutors are also "city people" and don't get it about animals anyway.) So usually people agree to relinquish their sick, starving animals in exchange for all charges being dropped and, occasionally, an agreement that the won't own any more of that kind of animal again (at least in that state). The prosecutor calls it a win, and they sometimes have to pay at least some of the bills. Montanabw(talk)04:53, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
We also have an absolute multiple personality when it comes to horse slaughter. Keep in mind that most Americans absolutely refuse to eat horsemeat and think it's absolutely disgusting for anyone else to do so. (It's our favorite criticism of the French, we tell our naughty horses that they will get a one-way ticket to Paris if they don't behave!) But then we eat stuff like peeps and cheetos, so go figure. So we have no horses raised deliberately for the horsemeat market, we only sell the sick, the old, the broken down and the unsaleable culls. On one hand, in most states, horses are legally defined as livestock and could be sold for "salvage value" (i.e. slaughter, and yes, people ARE too cheap to euthanize, they'd rather get $100 for something half-dead than pay $150 for the shot and more to have the carcass hauled away and/or buried. But you have a good idea, to ban the sale of the half-dead stuff), but we have also shut down all horse slaughter plants in the US in recent years, for an assortment of reasons, mostly technical but related to public pressure. Many non-horse people and non-commercial horse owners think of horses as companion animals, and so we quietly run livestock auctions in most states, and virtually the only horses going through public auction are the ones no one wants and the canner buyers will get most of them. Our canners now just get shipped to Canada or Mexico for slaughter (and the conditions in Mexican slaughterhouses are horrific) Meanwhile, the horse slaughter issue is hugely emotional on both sides in the USA, there is legislation out there proposing to ban even the shipment of horses to slaughter, and at the same time, a lot of people blame our horse neglect problems on the closure of US horsemeat processing. All I can say for sure is that Montana is a place where slaughter horses have been shipped to Canada for decades (Calgary is closer than Texas, basically) and can still be shipped to Canada, but yet we still just recently had to bail out a large animal rescue place with 1200 animals (mostly Llamas, but a couple hundred horses and donkeys too) and also just had another guy half-starving 450 horses out on the open range rather than holding a "production sale." So there's no logic to it other than that there is no real market and very low horsemeat prices. That may not answer your questions, but it shows you what we are up against. Montanabw(talk)04:53, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
Imagine this......combined with this......and this.
That brings me to Finnish history of animal welfare. Our first ever animal rights group was something like "Horse Friends of Finland", and its first and most important task was to end the cruelty towards working horses. The horses those days were often driven to their very death, as industry was growing like what but motors were not that common yet. Old, lame, sickly, underfed or just otherwise miserable horses were just sold and resold (similarly to the Fugly story), and ended up first in long cargo hauls, and the final job was often, against all logic, where you'd think strong healthy horses were of most importance: winter logging. And we're talking about consistently 2-3 foot snow and easily -4F temperatures (and below) here. Horse slaughter was more or less using the axe or knife if the hack fell down and blocked the route. Eating horse meat was only fit for dogs, desperate and all. Yes. So what did the Horse Friends do? Started pouring out propaganda about how YUMMY horse meat was. They went to horse markets, bought the most miserable creatures, and those that were not immediate put-downs they fed. Suitably fattened up rescues were then humanely slaughtered, and served as steaming roast with gravy and all in Horse Friend meetings, where outsiders were welcome to attend for food and a little animal rights propaganda. The Krishna movement practices just this today, although without the meat and with a religious message. In a nutshell, they created demand for horse meat, which created motivation for horse owners to sell their horse while it still had some flesh, and to sell it to the butcher rather than a slavedriver. Pitke13:27, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
WOW! That's a fascinating tale! Talk about a twist on the usual arguments! I try to stay in the middle of the road on the actual USA slaughter issue because it's far more complicated here than either side wants to admit. (You'll note I virtually never edit on the wiki article) But the thing that drives me crazy here is hypocrisy. If someone opposes slaughter but starves their horse, that's hypocrisy. If someone says they "rescue" horses and then sell them for slaughter, that's hypocrisy. What also drives me nuts is ignorance, like the notion that the sick, starving, stringy horses (especially wormy, potbellied yearlings) are somehow going to become fine European cuisine. (I always like to use the photo of that really fat Ardennais horse as an example of "horse beef on the hoof" LOL!) It is hard to explain to people that no, an EU nation won't take broken-down Dobbin the ex-racehorse who has had a lifetime of vaccinations, fly repellants, wormer drugs, NSAID meds and other things put into his system that are all labelled "not for use on animals intended for food." Duh. (A lot of horse meat from North America actually winds up in Asia) Here in Montana, we had a state legislator get a bill pushed through to allow Montana to open a horsemeat plant if the USDA ever starts allowing it again (long complicated story there, no horsemeat slaughter in the USA because the USDA refuses to inspect it and thus it cannot be sold). He promoted the bill by suggesting that it was the best way to get rid of old and crippled horses. No one in the USA wants to admit that young, fat, healthy horses would be the logical creatures to market. However, the dirty little secret is that a lot of Quarter Horse breeders out here would hold annual "production sales" of their yearlings, offering a couple hundred horses, setting a "minimum bid" on each (price per pound, basically) and after the sale, all the no-sales would just get put on a truck and shipped to Calgary, having already been nicely fattened into "show condition." The guy here who was starving 450 horses admitted he once owned 900, mostly mares. NO WAY do you sell that many horses, especially yearlings, into the consumer market. OF COURSE they were quietly breeding for the meat market. Montanabw(talk)23:00, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
My take: on the whole, animals raised for meat, if allowed to run out on open grazing in a herd so they can display all the behaviour normal for their species, as well as having sufficient basic health care and supplementary feeding to keep them healthy and happy, don't have such a bad life of it. Better than many 'companion animal' horses currently have, we know. The most important thing, in my view, is that any slaughter plant has to be operated really kindly and humanely. If that raises the price of the finished meat product, so be it. And what would stop a really-well-run meat producing plant from exporting the finished product (sausages or whatever!) to places where it's 'OK' to eat it? No questions on welfare if the only thing shipped for long distances is no longer alive to suffer from it. (PippaRivers (talk) 08:50, 9 February 2011 (UTC))
Your take is sensible, if only sense were involved! I don't know anything about the horsemeat industry in Europe, but it sounds like it is radically different from that in the USA, (well-regulated, for one thing) and I have noticed in our breed articles that the meat industry has apparently been responsible for the preservation of some draft breeds that may have otherwise become extinct. I personally have mixed feelings on the issue in general, but I definitely would not put an American horse through the slaughter system on this continent as it sits today. Basically, the problem in the USA is as follows: 1) We don't eat horsemeat here and so people in the USA have really mixed feelings (generally contempt) about those who do. Then add to this 2) We therefore do not (officially) raise horses deliberately for meat at all, slaughter is considered the "salvage" market for culls and horse of no other use (and the meat goes abroad to people who Aren't Like Us, so that increases the head-in-the-sand problem.) So, unlike a cow, the horses get all the usual abuse and then slaughter at the end. 3) A lot of the loudest people protesting against horse slaughter are taking the "eating horsemeat is disgusting" angle or the animal rights position of "slaughtering any animal is cruel and we should all be vegetarians" angle, neither of which works in the direction of potential reform or dialogue. Then 4) Slaughter in the USA, before it was closed down, was far from humane. There were serious abuses in transport, care and handling of horses heading for slaughter, plus you could directly correlate the horse theft rate to the price of horsemeat because the field was so poorly regulated. (I remember one time, years ago, it got up to 80 cents a pound and everyone was told to padlock all their gates and stable their horses at night, even in Montana where we don't have a lot of horse theft) A couple of the less-crazy sites with some of the basics. [2] and [3] So I don't have an answer. I do know that learning about the approach seen in Europe has been very interesting to me and has led me to think a lo about the issue. Montanabw(talk)21:55, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
Interesting pages. The real answer to humane horse slaughter is to have the slaughterhouses owned and operated (paradoxically) by people who love horses. First time I ever had to hold a horse to be put down (humane killer) by the local kennel man, I asked him how he could bear to do the job (I was still young and such at the time). His answer: "Because I love horses. If I do this myself, I know it's been done properly, and the horse hasn't suffered." He spent about five minutes soothing and befriending the horse before putting it down - the horse hadn't a clue about what was happening. I wouldn't mind going that way myself! (PippaRivers (talk) 23:21, 9 February 2011 (UTC))
Yeah, I stay with mine the whole distance if it comes to it. Not going to "kiss them goodbye as they get on the truck," as one person once put it. Montanabw(talk)00:12, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
I used to have (and breed) dairy goats, and of course you get a lot of surplus male kids not 'good enough' to be kept for breeding. We castrated them early, and they were raised with just as much love and care as the on-coming young females - in fact, with a load of attention to being really happy being handled around the head, to guarantee that they wouldn't find holding the head, or strange objects touching the head, at all stressful. And when the time came for them to go for meat, we hand-picked a very small butcher operation, and I went with them myself, to make sure that they were 'introduced' to the butcher by someone they trusted, and held and petted by me when the time came for the actual deed to be done. We didn't have a single one show any kind of stress there. Maybe the (hypothetical) horsemeat-producing ranch should be combined with the slaughterhouse, so the animals are handled throughout by the same people, people they trust, who have taken care to acclimatise them? And slaughtered out of sight of each other, with a humane killer, by someone who's been a regular feature of their environment. (PippaRivers (talk) 07:03, 10 February 2011 (UTC))
This is getting silly
On a totally random note, can't we please find a way to illustrate something, anything, with this? It's too great to go unused! Pitke (talk) 08:33, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
Love it! We used to turn my father's walking sticks into hobby horses when we were kids (the odd sock whose partner had too many holes makes a terrific horse head for them, when stuffed :-) Needless to say, they all had names. And my favourite was a silver blue dun - not that I knew what it was, or even if they existed, at that point. But grey-blue sock with white wool mane and forelock, and black felt ears .... gotta be a silver blue dun! (And still my favourite-ever horse colour, too. He was called Twilight. :-) )(ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 19:43, 12 February 2011 (UTC))
Here in the UK (don't know what it's like elsewhere), you can't get someone prosecuted for cruelty to an animal that doesn't belong to them, or isn;t in their care. So people can go and walk into someone else's paddocks or stables, stab and slash and main the horses, and can't get done for cruelty, but only (if you're lucky) for 'criminal damage'. To me, that's as daft as saying that you can get done for GBH on a member of your own family, but not for some random stranger you happen tomug in the street! Your thoughts on this stupidity? (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 14:33, 11 February 2011 (UTC))
Stupid? More like "completely lacking in the logic department". It's like the animal cruelty law was created only to get around the "it's my property, I can do whatever with it" claims, not to actully protect the animals. Pitke (talk) 16:41, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
We have a similar problem with child abuse laws where I live. Only a "person responsible for a child's welfare" can be the subject of a child abuse action, where we use a civil "preponderance of the evidence" standard to establish a win in a legal case. Anyone else (creepy guy in the bushes) comes under the higher criminal standard of "beyond reasonable doubt." I don't know about elsewhere, but in the US, it was the ASPCA that started the initial push for child abuse laws when they had their first few wins and realized that animals were actually (slightly) better protected than kids. OK, stopping now, too much RL. Back to horses now... Montanabw(talk)05:18, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
Photos of Saddle innards? OMG!!!! YESSSSS!!!! Shoot me the link when they are up. How to properly integrate them, I'm not sure (don't want articles to be over-heavy on images) maybe there could even be a place for a spinoff article on saddle-making! What do you have? Just stuff for English saddles or other types as well (from Saddle, you will see we have additional saddle articles, Western, Aussie, etc.)
The white markings thing sounds like you are simply describing sabino, dun and roan. But maybe I misinterpreting something, it sounds like you are just saying that horses pass on their inherent patterning genetics
An allele IS, basically, a gene... alleles are forms of genes.
Rabicano, as far as I know, doesn't seem to have had any genetic studies done on it at all. Anyone know? Sponenberg's book would have whatever has been done, though.
What weirds me out about rabicano is that bays and chestnuts appear to express "rabicano" very differently (other than the white at the base of the tail.) I wonder if, like "sabino," there may be several different genes at work.
"Rabicano" starting at the topline sounds odd, do you have photos? (Most of the time random body spots are probably a variation of sabino, actually.) Have you yet seen rabicano? We could use a good frosty bay with a skunk tail there.
By the way (Pitke?) Am I right that folks in Europe seem to call some forms of sabino "splash," -- in the US, splash white is NOT sabino!
IMHO, I don't think the "dun leopard" is a dun -- no primitive markings. I'll grant you really weird color, though. And yeah, dun is a dominant, so once it's gone, it's gone. No lurking for a few generations and then popping up again (like Chestnut in Friesians, for example.)
Hahaha! I'm sorry to have apparently hijacked your talk page, Montana :o)
Pics? I may have / be able to take!
If you need close-up pics of various horse colour / markings stuff, there's always a possibility that I may have (or be able to take) an 'all-own-work' illustrative pic. Or I may not - but it might be worth asking, lol! (It might take a while, till I have access to whichever of our many thousands of semi-ferals with the desired type happen to turn up an a round-up .......) Happy to help out if I can :) (PippaRivers (talk) 12:27, 3 February 2011 (UTC))
Which kind do you want? And what's the best way to upload? (And can I be darned lazy and just email them 'with author's permission to use' to someone else who can upload them .......... ) lol||! I have a kewl pic of a beautifully top-frosted and skunk-tailed bay rabicano New Forest pony, also various pics of markings of different types on some of my own animals, and Ben d'Or spot of a chestnut roan New Forest pony, and x,y, and z others(PippaRivers (talk) 13:40, 3 February 2011 (UTC))
If you want someone else to upload them for you, you'll actually have more trouble, having to reply to a whole lot of OTRS ticket requests, confirming that YES they have your permission. I recommend using Commonist, which lets you easily prepare multiple images for upload and uploads them for you. You can specify licences, categories, parts of description etc to go with every image, and add individual additional cats, descriptions etc for each separately. It's easy to use too. If you took the photos, then it's your own business whether you want to release them to Public Domain, Copyleft or under some Commons Free Use licence. Copyleft means your work is free to use, distribute and adapt, and all adaptations must be this as well. This is more or less the same as Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike, except that the latter also requires the attribution of you whenever your work is used. This page has some general help concerning uploading files.This has info on acceptable licences. Pitke (talk) 14:29, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
Another thing: if you upload them by yourself, I can try and get the best shots recognition as Quality Images. Pitke (talk) 14:29, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
As for what I would like to get... Ho hum... Any "weird" colour (like anything that makes people go "what's that?!"). Any Cream gene double dilutes, especially perlinos or smoky creams, any multiple gene double dilutes (probably fall under "weird") like Cream + Dun or Silver + Dun. Any champagne colouration. Any rabicano. Any pearl (Prl) or "mushroom" (disputed) :P Any "appaloosa" colouration, and if you have "pintaloosa" you'll be my hero! Any white horses (even fully greyed pure white horses). Any strong dappling, pangare, or soot markings. Any unusual markings for that matter. Any flashy markings. In a nutshell, anything! We have plenty of greys, chestnuts, bays, browns and blacks, but anything else is still needed. And if you have good quality photos, then we'll welcome those in any case. Pitke (talk) 14:29, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
I shall play at photo-hunt amongst my (too many) pics. I have a friend who owns a bay-varnish-roan tobiano pintaloosa! I may be able to get a pic ..... I will try. I also have some of a strikingly-marked dun-appaloosa (almost stripy) foal which I encountered on a round-up and subsequently took pics of when it went through the sale yard. (PippaRivers (talk) 14:56, 3 February 2011 (UTC))
I uploaded a load! I have no idea how to direct you to them, but suppose my contributions would get them for you. I have so many pics .... most with their camera-produced names .... errrrk! Hunting them down relies on my memory of approximately when they were taken! (PippaRivers (talk) 16:36, 3 February 2011 (UTC))
Shoot us a link to your user page at Commons, we can then use the "contribs" link to find them, I think. Another thing that seems to be in short supply are good photos of NORMAL horses -- we could use good representative breed photos that are not "shaggy pony grazing in a field." But Pitke knows the images stuff on commons better than I, and can help with categories. I personally would have more use for "normal" examples of the colors that are not all mixed up. We could really use more good photos of horses who have odd colors VERIFIED by genetic testing so we aren't arguing if we have a pseudo-double dilute pearl/cream or what... Personally, I could see the need for more photos of bits and tack also, preferably OFF the horse to show the construction and design. Montanabw(talk)18:51, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
Chzz ► helped me out with the link below, and Pitke (talk) was a gem and catted them for me :o) I restore saddlery for a hobby / semi-income-generator. Got a few pics of the innards of saddles, if any use? Folks here in the UK don't seem to do much in the way of genetic testing (we're all either misers or skint - and I know which group I fall into!) so your chances of getting a pic of anything that's actually been tested from me are minimal!
You're gonna love this. Honest you are. I have just dug out a load more pics (ponies and saddlery stuff) and have barely touched the surface. So I'm going to upload a heap (worst thing is remembering to go find out what date they were, so I can say so on uploading. I keep forgetting!) But ..... erm .... I still don't know how to cat them all :o( I'm too new at it. (I'm on a Mac, by the way). Soooooooo ...... if I send you a link to the stuff, could you (dear, sweet, kind Montana) possibly go and play with cats (no, not KITties) when I'm done? (PippaRivers (talk) 13:39, 7 February 2011 (UTC))
Sorry ol' Monty, looks like I beat you to catting them :3 Just FYI Pippa, cttting the files as you upload depends on how you do the uploading. If you do it via the Commons Upload page ([4]), then at the very bottom of the page there is the part where you add categories. You click on the +, and write the cat name in the box that appears, and click "ok". To add another cat, rinse and repeat. In case you want to check for your entered cat's subcats, click the arrow pointing down next to the cat name. This lists all available subcats. Click the one that applies (a new list appears if this new cat has subcats of its own) -- or if you don't think any of them fits, click "cancel" to go back. The plus-minus mark lets you fix the cat name in case you botched it. And then for something entirely different. Do you remember what this was about? I thought "wooing" but then again, I haven't been around courting horses so I wouldn't know. Catted it under "Horse behavior" in any case. Pitke (talk) 16:11, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
Ta muchly :o). I know it's possible to cat as you upload ... fing is, though, fing is, that I don't know what all the category names are, or where to find the blighters in the first place! A complete pull-down list (intelligent, so you can just put something darned obvious in), might be what I need. Of course, that might be what's there already ...... The lovely brown NF stallion was definitely courting (we have a vid at home of more playful behaviour ... nothing x-rated, just affectionate courtship flirting :o) ) (PippaRivers (talk) 16:30, 7 February 2011 (UTC))
Pitke is the king of cats (or something like that), but Pitke, you (and everyone else here too, calling all TPS-ers) would LOVE my favorite blog, Fugly Horse of the Day. The author of the blog has more snark in a day that I can muster up in a year! She also coined the perfect term for the products of krazy kolor breeding: Hideozygous!. Oh, and what you both appear to be calling "Spl" or "splash" is what I think people over here call non-SB-1 sabino. The example is Khemosabi, who had bold white markings, called sabino here, not "splash." but there's some study out there that calls him a "splash." (We have discussed this before and not arrived at a clear meeting of the minds on this) This matters because what is called splash white here happens to be linked to deafness. But they haven't located the gene yet, whatever it is. And I don't think there's a lot of study going on with it, either. Montanabw(talk)17:04, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
Pippa: Ah! A fellow Mac user! YES! When I use the upload template at commons, sometimes it is gracious enough to do what Pitke was describing. But most of the time, I just find other photos of the stuff I'm uploading and steal their categories. I figure that if I put something in too broad a category, either Pitke or one of the Germans will fix it for me! (LOL) As for the rest, remember that a locus is the location of a gene and that an allele is a variant of a gene (Like E or e), hence a horse gets two alleles, one from each parent. But that's it, no more for each given trait. Best description of horse genetics I ever heard described them as layers, you start with the base red or black layer (e) or (E), then add the various whole coat color modifiers (agouti, dilutions, etc.) then the weird stuff (sootiness, patterns, etc.) Another good analogy I heard was describing coat color genes like a bank of light switches in a theater or something -- you turn them "on" (dominant) or "off (recessive) in different combinations to create all the different "special effects." But yes, I suspect that we are going to discover that both sabino and rabicano probably have either many different alleles of one gene (there are now 11 for dominant white, I think) or else there are multiple genes involved (such as we now know to be true for what US breeders once lumped together as "overo" which is now, at a minimum, comprised of the totally different genes of frame, splash, SB-1 sabino and some other kind of sabino (sometimes called "splash," but it's not the same "splash" as "splash white" yet to be identified. At least we can test for cream dilution and LWS -- out here there were people who used to just shoot blue-eyed creams at birth because they thought they were "lethal white." The leopard complex is even weirder, as they now propose that there is both the Lp gene that makes the spots, and then a (yet unknown) "patterning" gene (labeled PATN) that overlays Lp to create the leopard, or blanket, or whatever patterns... =:-O Montanabw(talk)17:04, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
PIPPA! Just chuck them into cat Horses if nothing else. There is a complete category tree available at [5], with an instructions section summing up the main subcats. I'll make a short list for your reference on your talk page soonish. Yes, I more or less know the Horse subcats by heart, having created a great portion of them. Most of my +15K edits in Commons come from recatting horse piccies in fact >_> Pitke (talk) 20:23, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
As for your Lp tales, Monty (may I call you that?), you forget the very likely third factor that will explain the Varnish Roan thing. Will "full leopard" (all white with Leopard spots) be a maximum expression, possibly homozygous phenotype of the "Blanket" whiteness pattern, or a separate factor altogehter? And will "near leopard" turn out to be a maximum expression "Blanket" (with Lp spots) or a not-so-maximum expression of "full leopard"? Ah, exciting times, exciting times :> And yes, the Fugly Horse blog now has a new frequent! Pitke (talk) 20:23, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
Not quite, guys/gals/campers -- read the actual sources footnoted in the Appaloosa article, I spent HOURS sourcing and resourcing this stuff. (Reading scientific articles on genetics is a sure cure for insomnia except that figuring out WHAT they are saying then wakes you up in the middle of the night as your brain tries to untangle it all!) They have found a set of marker genes associated with Lp and may be on the verge of a full-blown test. They think that there are additional "layers" if you will (the proposed PATN thing, whether different alleles of Lp or a different, but associated gene is not known) that regulate the distribution of spots (blankets, leopards, etc...) . As for the homozygous/heterozygous thing, its basically that homozygotes have more white, but not in a completely linear "all the time" way --
And actually, more people call me Montana or MTBW, but just don't call me "late for dinner." ;-) "Monty" has connotations to either a trick roper or an amusing film that does not resemble my life in the least. (grin) I also prefer to preserve at least a superficial modicum of anonymity, including that of gender (Have made great friends on wiki, but there's a few really weird assholes around here too...=:-O )
If you upload it, we'll all take a look! LOL! And by the way, I am SOOOO going to remember "I'm not fat, I'm just in show condition. Love it! Montanabw(talk)23:02, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
You could grab'n'paste ('n'edit!) the text, and ask me to upload here any of the pics which aren't yet here, if you like :o) (PippaRivers (talk) 11:50, 9 February 2011 (UTC))
As they're my pages, presumably it would be OK for me to copy stuff verbatim (except then I'd have to do that work thing and re-write it in a Wiki-kinda way as opposed to a how-to kinda way. How about you copy it verbatim with my permission (into your sandbox, lol, me being bone idle again, so what's new? And btw, thank's for the sandbox link on my page, you're a Nangel :o) ) and you do the donkey work on re-writing it in the correct 'mode' and run it by me .......... (dontcha just love it when someone says that, lol!) (PippaRivers (talk) 22:59, 9 February 2011 (UTC))
Who here has a tame geneticist (the lab-type, or "GN1", sort .....) they can bully nudge into playing "Name That Sabino!" We have SB1. The next obvious place to look for the prospective SB2 (or whatever) would seem (on logic ... yup, there I go again!) to be the Clydesdale Horse. They don't throw SB1 Sabino whites / White Blagdons (ever, I think), but they do throw their own Sabino-pattern stuff all the time. And it's distinctive enough that you can pretty much look at that pattern, say "That's got Clydesdale in its breeding," and then confirm that it has from it's 'pedigree' (kindly provided by owner, for instance).(ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 14:08, 11 February 2011 (UTC))
The non-SB-1 Sabino thing is also true for the Arabian horse. Luckily, people like spots, so there's money in testing and therefore some day they'll figure it out. Montanabw(talk)22:34, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
Noticing the trout-slapping bit. I have to say, I am all against it. Think of the ongoing psychological trauma for the poor trout, for example, if it was forced (against its will) to come into actual physical contact with me. Poor thing - doesn't bear thinking about.
How about "Wikipedians who will do almost anything for the biscuit but hide quivering under the table if the rolled-up newspaper appears" ? (oooops I forgot to log in again!) (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 13:33, 11 February 2011 (UTC))
Haha! (Read those. And a gazillion pages which they linked to, second, third level down .....)
Yes, maybe I'm a bit of a puppy at the moment. I shall try to be less puppyish and more constructive. (But at least I am a werewolfy puppy :-) ) I have been doing some minor tinkering with the Dartmoor Pony page (it seems a bit sparse, and had the usual problem of people believing that all ponies on Dartmoor must be Dartmoor Ponies (we have the same situation in the New Forest). I think I may actually go to a real-life library, source some good books (if there are many!) on the Dartmoor Pony, and do more with the article. Do the pic contribs make me less of a puppy? [Wags tail, flattens ears appealingly, does that wrinkly-nose doggy-smile thing - you know the one!] My problem at the moment (and possibly for a long time) will always be the one of "I know this, but where was the darned source of my knowledge?" We've mentioned this one before. I have real-life constraints about ability to visit library at the moment (can't drive safely yet due to surgery on hand last November, and as the OH and I are full-time carers for elderly parent, plus having way too many other real-life commitments, fitting in time for OH to take me to the library, plus finding granny-sitter, is problematical). There may be other UK-equine type pages where I can be useful. And I would love to work collaboratively with someone on some saddlery stuff - even if my biggest contribution is providing pics.
Maybe one of the reasons I'm a bit chatty in user space is that it's such a refreshing change to interact with people who actually have brains! (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 03:36, 12 February 2011 (UTC))
Ha! You brought up puppies first! I am about half convinced that the puppy cabal does in fact run wikipedia. It seems to be the only explanation for those days when it seems all the grown ups have gone into hiding around here (including myself at times) ... LOL! I like how wiki makes me rediscover the library, though one time is was to access the Dictionary of American Regional English (yes, and it's a multi-volume unit) to settle an edit war over the authentic and proper pronunciation of chaps (and it's "shaps"! ) Fortunately, there is the glorious thing called Google books, which often has at least the excerpts of the most amazing things. And yes, the only one around here who actually knows anything firsthand about Dartmoor ponies will be Richard New Forest, so feel free to bug him if you want help on source material and such. He's one of the good grownups. (Say thank you, Richard!) As for aging/declining parents, I keep my personal details mostly off-wiki because every single thing we write here is open to the whole planet to read (though I occasionally slip up), but I you and I do appear to have a number of commonalities -- I am of a like age that I DO have some familiarity with that world, though mine do not live with me. Montanabw(talk)04:22, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
On the saddle thing, I don't know if in your travels you've ever torn apart a western saddle the way you've torn apart an English saddle, I know they aren't apt to be too common in your neck of the woods, but you'd be in my good graces for a very long time if you could produce a photo of a western saddle tree! I would be interested in collaboration improving the tack articles, we have a ton, most are still unsourced, some have bad info. I've got several books on tack, just been to lazy-ass to drag them out and do the articles. (You know, it's called real life...darn!) We have a good editor who is Australian and slaps us upside the head if we get too US-Centric in our lingo, but we're trying valiantly to keep all the different terms included somewhere. See, for example, halter. (BTW, the "rule" on wiki is whoever starts the article usually gets to dictate if it's US or UK English from there on out, unless there's a really logical reason to switch it -- like an article on London probably should be in UK English even if it was started in US, and vice- versa for, say, New York City)
I disassembled a child's Western-type saddle, with the intent of re-lining it. That was about five years ago - and guess what! Yup, all the bits are still in a box. Somewhere. The tree's cantle has split off at the top, so no-go on the rebuild job, but I daresay it could be glued together for a pic. (And I don't know if it's really representative of a 'normal' Western tree, as I don't know that much about Western saddles.) When I have a few moments spare, I'll take some piece-by-piece pics of a set of driving harness; they may be useful someday. I had to add a new section to my pwn talk page (for discussion) - go see What Wikipedia Is Not, for me, lol! I have been reading forever! Trying to rapid-learn-and-memorise everything on rules, guidelines, Wikiquette, and so on. I make goofy mistakes; probably always will. (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 07:15, 12 February 2011 (UTC))
Kind of a gray area. It's your stuff and I like you, so not a sin. My stuff, would be more of a problem. On someone's page where you had a disagreement going on, the crime of the century! (grin). Montanabw(talk)20:49, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm afraid I just leapt straight in there as it was getting hard for me to keep straight, too, lol! Nice to know you like me [wolf cub rolls over for a belly-scratch]. I certainly wouldn't edit your stuff, or anyone else's (on their own pages), and I try not to get into serious disagreements, ever. IMO a serious confrontation damages all involved, and is usually avoidable (I accept, not always! Some people you just can't avoid, lol!) Don't get me wrong, if a mugger actually went for me I would take them down without a second thought, but all other types of disagreement always end up with the sitting-round-the-table discussion - so why not just start there? (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 10:43, 15 February 2011 (UTC))
How about a WikiWolfcub category ..... WikiPuppy with attitude who occasionally goes off on a hunting spree to attack articles and chew them around a bit? (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 10:56, 14 February 2011 (UTC))
As long as Border Collies can also join! LOL! (Answer a mystery: Why do many Arabian horse owners also own various collie/shepherd breeds? Seriously, it's as bad as the hunter people own Jack Russell Terriers thing. Montanabw(talk)20:49, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
Oh, yes, I think Border Collies (and even borderline collies) could also join. You only have to see them at work to see just how wolfy they are between the ears :o) The Arab/Collie thing: Arabs and collies have a huge amount in common in terms of mentality. Vast intelligence combined with amazing loyalty (but only when they choose to give it); same with hunter-people and Jack Russels. In that case, it's not the horses, but the people, who have so much in common, lol! (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 10:43, 15 February 2011 (UTC))
Got a dinky userbox on the WikiWolfcub page now for anyone who adopts a Wolfcub, either deliberately or by accident! You may want to use it as an excuse for getting overwhelmed, lol! Do you like? [cub wags tail, displays appealing ears, does that down-on-the-elbows thing - you know the one - adopt the cutie wolf-cub, go on, go on, you know you wanna play] (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 13:03, 17 February 2011 (UTC))
Carcasses Stubs I Can Chew?
Looking at the British Riding Clubs thing (currently buried in the BHS page) - if I can expand it enough, would it merit an article of its own? References are all likely to come from their own website - is that good enough?
Similarly with the British Show Horse Association - I'm sure I can do a lot of expanding, but due to limited mobility, again all the info may well be likely to come from their own websites, so unlikely to be able to cite much in the way of other publications. What do you think? (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 13:03, 17 February 2011 (UTC))
It tends to be not-so-good when it comes to using an organization to source its own information. For basic things, like "we were founded in 1889", it's fine, but as much as you can source to outside sources should be. Generally, articles aren't considered notable until they can show non-trivial coverage in multiple reliable third-party sources (journals, books, even reliable websites). Until British Riding Clubs has these third-party sources, it shouldn't be split out, as it will probably get tagged for deletion (or at the very least tagged for bad sources). The same goes for British Show Horse Association - it really needs outside sources, we just haven't had anyone with the time/interest to get them. American Livestock Breeds Conservancy is one example of a fairly well-sourced organization article, although I'm still working to decrease the number of organization-published sources. Dana boomer (talk) 13:35, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
Horse stuff in general has this problem. Dana is right, and cleaning up articles definitely benefits from sourcing as we go. However, my take is that while we definitely need a minimal standard for getting past notability, and we need a good mix of sources for GA and FA, but for the in-between C and B-class articles, I say any source that is legitimate is better than no source. An association is a verifiable source on itself, particularly history and the reach of its governing authority. Montanabw(talk)16:18, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
Things like the BSHA and The Riding Clubs have always had championships and other competitions at major national/international shows - for example, the finals of things like the Riding Clubs Quadrille, and many of the BSHA classes, are held at the London International Horse Show at Olympia, which is one of the biggest shows of the British year, and gets TV coverage and so on. Other championship classes are at the Horse of the Year Show. Does that make them notable enough?(ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 16:25, 17 February 2011 (UTC))
Yup, definitely. I'm not arguing that they're non-notable, just saying that you should gather the independent sources before you start splitting articles. The "new page patrollers" are a lot more vigilant now than they were even 2-3 years ago, and so there's a good chance that if you put up an article sourced only to the organization the article was about, it would quickly be tagged. And Montana, yes, they are verifiable sources, however, by themselves, they are not enough to provide notability - two separate things. And TPC, while simple things (history, governance) can be sourced to the organization, other claims (such as we're the oldest, bestest, mostest organization in the history of the world) need outside sources. Other examples include one union company I know of whose head dude was embezzling, and even after he was convicted, all union publications continued to claim he'd done nothing wrong (his brother ran the publicity department!). Stuff like that... We run into it a lot with breed articles too - breed organizations saying the horse can do everything from heavy draft to Olympic showjumping, while third-party sources are a bit more...measured. Dana boomer (talk) 16:44, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
Oh, I basically agree with the wikipedia policies. And I know the frustrations with self-promotional organizations. (And not just organizations, some of the politician articles are really kind of disgraceful in their self-aggrandizement and aggressive defense!) I just don't want folks discouraged from creating new articles. I'm already having minor issues with hack (horse), which I first created as a quickie stub to take care of some red links, and now have gotten around to sourcing (which required me to update and change some info), but some of our WPEQ buds are sort of making me hold to my own standards, which is fine, but also I know it would be a little frustrating to a newbie. I don't know where the happy medium is, just that killing redlinks with a decent stub or improving stubs to start or starts to C-class is definitely helpful. Montanabw(talk)17:54, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
I've fluffed-up the BSHA and the Riding Clubs bit on the BHS page (nothing more to cite than their own websites). I think the problem with most of these societies is that the only people who might be interested in publishing anything about them are all far too busy playing with their horses, lol! (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 18:32, 17 February 2011 (UTC))
I was sorely tempted to bung in a bit more on the Riding Clubs Quadrille competition, just so I could puff-off how good our New Forest ponies are - the New Forest Pony Enthusiasts Club is a BRC member club, and the only club where all mounts are pure-bred registered NF ponies (and compete successfully against their horsey counterparts at all levels, bless 'em!). And WE WON the Quadrille at Olympia 2010! Yeeeeeee-haw! But I thought it might be giving undue weight to how brill my favourite British pony breed is :o) So I restrained my wolfcubbish pounce-and-play instincts, and was a Good Cub instead :o) (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 18:38, 17 February 2011 (UTC))
Maybe there is more room to create a separate article on that type of competition, as it's certainly something I've never seen and it sounds cool. However, the trick is to write it without pushing your NF's too much (I feel the same way about my favorite breed, so I sympathize) -- either via what I call either "current events" lists that have to be updated all the time or a "laundry list" of "this breed does good at this" stuff. (It's an ongoing nightmare at dressage -- EVERYONE's warmblood is good at dressage, and once you add the warmbloods, then everyone else goes "me too.") I even had someone trying to add their draft horse to barrel racing, which would be like me being a ballerina-- I mean sure I could wear a tutu and attempt third position, and maybe it would be of benefit to my physical conditioning, but that doesn't mean I SHOULD!!! =:-O Montanabw(talk)19:10, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
Watch part of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGRHRTzGRHI They did good! And had a load of fun. And possibly the best thing is that the ponies who do that stuff also do the NF Point-to-Point race (I think the only P2P in Britain still run under the 'original' rules - start point set, finish point set, pick your own route) and they also do the Forest drifts, so very much 'working ponies'. See clips of all four finast teams here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vkf7j2tbEjU&NR=1 Oooohhhh, found much better vid of the Foresters here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTHZshxdMNY ; and the grey in there is a working stallion (as well as a Championship winner of Mountain and Moorland ponies!) Dontcha just gotta love 'em?
Maybe you could get something similar to the Quadrille to catch on in the USA? I don't think there's anough on the Quadrille to give it its own article!
And you could always do the sort of dancing where nobody's watching ... and yes, dance is a tremendously good thing for the whole body. As is floor-type gymnastics (when I was a full-time instructor, teaching wannabe instructors, I had them doing gymnastic stuff quite often, lol!) But I would go with the baggy-cargo-pants with reflective swirl-strips, personally, if anyone was watching. They focus on the sparkly bits, not the body underneath! I have to admit, I like rave-dancing. And I'm not too old for it, I can still do the splits! (Comes of having Ehlers-Danlos, but who cares?) (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 19:40, 17 February 2011 (UTC))
OMG! As the 10-year-old vandals like to say TOOO KYOOOOT! LOL! And talented, too! The closest we have is freestyle reining ( Examples: [6] and [7]), but as you can see, the grownups sort of dominate it. I think this would be a BLAST! The Foresters are definitely charmers, but I think the Finnhorses are cute too, and so are Haflingers. (All this to say that I'm still an Arabian fan for my #1 critter!) Montanabw(talk)23:51, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
NFs are incredibly versatile animals, and make a wonderful outcross for a good all-around competition horse. Back in the 70's, in the area where I was working at the time, there were a lot of really good competition horses, working in all disciplines, which were mixtures of TB, NF and Welsh Section D. Nowadays everyone's into warmbloods ..... but I have a stunning NF x TB mare (wild, and a total diva, but stunning nonetheless - see File:ChestnutNFxTB.jpg), and I'd just love to find a really good TB x Welsh D stallion to put her to. (Imagine: chestnut mare, half TB, which I got completely unhandled as a six-year-old! A real 'project horse', lol! She's not halter-broken, but has been sat on. Hmmmmm!)
The Quadrille would catch on fast over in the USA, I'm sure. All it is is modified dressage-to-music (with a theme or story) for teams of four riders. I can just imagine a team of four stunning Arabs .... can't you? My first 'own-pony' (which I didn't get till I was nearly 20, and could only afford because he was a weanling when I got him) was Arab x Welsh, and such a stunner. And sooooooo well behaved - I used to teach little kiddies to ride on him (when he was older!), even though he wasn't gelded. You couldn't tell he was a stallion unless either (a) you put an in-season mare in front of him, or (b) you hunkered down to have a look underneath! I like a whole load of horse and pony breeds, always have done, but for me the NF's are the best UK pony breed, mainly for their versatility. They can happily carry a stone in weight for each hand in height, all day, when they're fit, so a lot are ridden by adults (specially round here!) All the riders in that Quadrille are adults (riding clubs are aimed at the over-18's, so it's really unusual to have an all-pony team doing anything at all). (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 03:53, 18 February 2011 (UTC))
For freestyle stuff, see also Cavalia. Corny, but I'd probably buy a ticket anyway if they came to town. I know what you're saying about the warmblood thing. We have our share of dressage divas even out here! I just cannot understand why some person my age (middle-aged) would want to buy some 17-hand monster that she can't even mount without help. Most amateur riders I see on those things are totally intimidated by the sheer power and size of the things, even if the horse is basically of good disposition and well-trained. They would be so much happier on a "normal" sized horse (by which I mean something around 15 hands or so, give or take a few inches either direction). There aren't a lot of the riding pony breeds out here in Quarter Horse land where it seems like every child of my generation was issued a shetland pony that resembled Norman Thelwell's ponies at best and they grew to loathe the creature in favor of a "real horse." But a few get here; when we see a dandy riding pony in the 13hh range, they are snapped up immediately. If I had a few, I might give up my day job and start teaching lessons again! (LOL!) The closest we get to the sweet-type ponies are the little foundation Morgan horses, which have a similar sparkly personality. I've seen exactly one Haflinger out here, they are adorable. We used to have a fair amount of section A welch ponies around here in driving competition, but not a lot of riding size, the ones I've seen are lovely. Montanabw(talk)04:15, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm sure there's a USA branch of the New Forest Pony society ...... alternatively, find a rich sponsor, import some decent Foresters from over here (and the prices they're going for at the Beaulieu Road Sales these days are just ridiculous - our economy means the bottom's dropped right out of the market!) So it wouldn't break the bank, and start breeding some real decent ponies which can carry children and adults alike! My son bought a perfectly reasonable NF colt foal last year for just £10. No, I didn't miss off a zero! If there's a market for them over there, it could be your way to make a fortune, lol! (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 06:00, 18 February 2011 (UTC))
Trust me on this ...... I suspect there may be many other articles on horsey tack stuff where the names derive from English place names. On my way through in search of things-I-can-add-to, I shall try and pick them out as I go. (Consider the Market Harborough martingale, the Rugby pelham - in fact, probably even the generic word 'Pelham' itself, as 'ham' is a place name - the Liverpool bit, the Worcester noseband, and so on ad infinitum). I've been wandering through tack articles and 'doing non-puppy-stuff' [wolf-cub wanna bone, gimme, gimme, good wolf-cub, waggy tail and wolfy tongue-lolling grin] (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 11:37, 13 February 2011 (UTC))
In the USA, we proudly call it a "kimberwicke," right in our rule book! LOL! Sometimes, if the piece of tack has its own article, a history/etymology section makes sense, but sometimes added geogaphical detail is TMI. Or you can wikilink to the place name for fun. Remember the differences between US and UK traditions, we try to acknowledge both. But I believe it was Mark Twain who said that the Yanks and the Brits were a people separated by a common language! :-D
Too, too true! On the subject of pronunciation (I read the entire shaps/chaps thing yesterday!), here's one for you: which word in the English language is most often pronounced wrongly? (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 06:18, 14 February 2011 (UTC))
What would you think of merging Open stud book and Closed stud book to stud book? The latter is not huge (just under 17 kb), so could easily take the extra heft, and I think it would be easier to have all of the information in one place. Obviously, we'd have to put merge tags on all and wait to see if anyone else had issues, but bringing it here in advance so you can tell me if I'm way off base! Dana boomer (talk) 20:47, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
I honestly don't know. "Stud book" redirects to breed registry, which is rather disorganized. I think the two may have been spun off (and I think I was the one who spun them off, or at least blessed the process) because the breed registry article was getting a bit unwieldy, and the open stud book section in particular was getting kind of long and risking undue weight -- maybe there is also an argument for merging the open and closed articles into each other (the way we merged all the cream dilution articles into cream gene), except I don't know what to name them. I guess my take is that the breed registry/stud book article needs some cleanup too. Maybe as part of an overall fix we could tighten up the breed registry so it's more readable and then merge in the other two. (might be a project worth sandboxing) We should also be sure we review Countercanter's studbook selection article -- it probably needs to stay solo, but is quite relevant in relationship to the open stud books of the warmblood breeds and may contain useful sources. I also wish we had more stuff on European registries -- government licensing of breeding stock and such is something I only know the broad outlines of... I guess my answer is "yes, but let's fix the whole mess while we're at it." (grin)Montanabw(talk)21:16, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
My take is to merge anything that's stupidly small and bitty into an over-all covers-both/all category wherever possible, then if it gets too unwieldy split them out again. But that's just my take. And I have to admit here that I'm a bit OCD when it comes to things being tidy, lol!(ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 10:58, 15 February 2011 (UTC))
I don't think that merging the open and closed stud book articles into the breed registry article would make it too unwieldy or of undue weight. Even not accounting for duplicative information that would be removed, you would only be increasing the size of the article by around 5 kb, and the "registered names section" alone outweighs that. Studbook selection should definitely stay solo, especially since that article needs to be expanded to cover more breeds (the coldblooded trotters in Scandanavia, for example), as it's quite heavy on warmbloods right now. The breed registry article obviously needs work, and an overall cleanup wouldn't hurt, so I think that it could all be done at the same time. I don't think it's something we need to sandbox right now - we've got too many other "sandbox" projects that are already not getting worked on - it's something that I could do a merge and general cleanup on in a couple hours of work. Think I should drop the tags in and see if anyone else is interested in having a say? Dana boomer (talk) 14:51, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
OK with me. You've won me over! I think the main deal is to organize the thing and maybe explain what a closed stud book is BEFORE getting into the more complex stuff of what an open stud book is (or partially open, or "send in $25 and a photo and we'll give you a purty certificate" mill). Montanabw(talk)22:06, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
"Ok, your horse (maybe) has four legs (maybe) and breathes (maybe), the registration fee is in... here's your certificate!" versus "let's see, your stallion has great movement, marvellous legs, and has won a few Olympic medals... maybe we'll let him breed for a year to see how he does. And if he doesn't produce top offspring... *snip snip gesture*"... Pitke (talk) 18:06, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
Precisely! LOL! Of course, the closed stud book also wants a pedigree (even with bad disposition and crummy conformation). I'd be kind of curious to know more about European studbook selection in closed breeds (like the Arabian) where licensing and such is done. Speaking only for myself, I do think that people here aren't willing to snip their critters, no matter how much sense it would make. Don't know if it's an ego thing or not, but it's a problem with both dog owners and horse owners. Drives me, well, nuts. Montanabw(talk)18:12, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
The New Forest breed society is incredibly strictly selective on their stallions (too much so, IMO, as we're jeopardising the gene pool at the mo). Each stallion has to pass the vet inspection, then be passed by a panel of breed society inspectors/judges, and then (if it's going to run out on the Forest) pass the Verderers' inspection too. A lot of 'perfectly OK but not show-championship material' stallions get turned down by the breed society :o( (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 07:45, 19 February 2011 (UTC))
Clever Cub :o) Prehistoric Exmoors
I had one of those "I know I know it, but how do I know it?" moments at stupid o'clock this morning, so spent all day tracking down citations for my knowledge of pre-historic and early-historic uses of Exmoor ponies. Exhausting! But I have now managed to pre-date the History of the Breed section by about 1400 years from what it was, on the Exmoor Pony page. So I am well pleased, and deserve an extra-special wolf-toy. (That's in addition to the choccies I had to eat as brain-food in order to tidy up the refs and citations into something that looked reasonably Ok.) ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 20:39, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
I slapped a "dubious" tag on it, but kept it. I did a little cleanup, nice job! (And now I know that wolf treats are CHOCOLATE! Are you SURE we aren't related??) Montanabw(talk)20:47, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Lol! Chocolate is brain-food. I suspect that for actual wolves, chocs would be as toxic as thay are to dogs! I have tracked down a possible reference (in Bennet and Hoffman) to a possible reference (in Speed and Etherington, 1952-1953) relating Equus caballus alaskae to the Exmoor. Cubs like to dig! ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 22:43, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Ah, must be sweet to be on Greenwich mean time! (+0) I am MT-7, so many more hours of wakefulness for me... (though sometimes I actually AM editing at 3am!) Montanabw(talk)00:04, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
New yakity yak section (has nothing to do with yaks)
Hm. Yes, Pitke is right, I value my life. I'll be celebrating my 40th year of Arabian horse ownership this year, but after Arab and Arab-like critters, my second favorites tend to fall under "cute-faced, smart, sturdy, sort of pony-looking critters" Which is why the horse gods probably made me train so damned many Appaloosas back when I thought I'd try to go pro! (the process taught me respect for the intelligence of Appaloosas, which may have been the point. LOL!) I think this means that I enjoy hanging out with the sort of horses who, if they had opposable thumbs, would rule the universe. As for UK horses selling well in the USA, check out Gypsy Vanner horse, take an unregistered critter with leg feathering and piebald spots, import it and call it "rare" -- and VIOLA! It's worth $10K! (Am I too cynical??) All you really need to do is find those "god knows what color THAT is" too-much-white-unregisterable NFs who still have a decent disposition, call them something like "Marbled New Forest Ponies," stick them on a plane and you too could be a millionaire! LOL! Montanabw(talk)23:05, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
If you like the "cute-faced, smart, sturdy, sort of pony-looking critters", get yourself some good Foresters! Ideally real Forest-bred ones. Mega intelligent, agile, sensible, versatile ponies, and can carry a stone in weight for each hand in height. And work all day and/or jump XC with that on board, as well! This is my boy Sunny at just 4 years old. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fBEOTR9tVo You like?(ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 07:52, 19 February 2011 (UTC))
The thing I can't wait for, just to teach 'em to use the correct names around here, is for one of our people to export a Forester to the USA, calling it a dun, and then get sued because it's a buckskin! (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 12:41, 19 February 2011 (UTC))
Ah! But we have a dun zygosity test AND a cream gene test -- and aren't afraid to use them! But yeah, people do get a little litigation happy over here. We have some equine liability statutes here, but people then say things like "We don't have to carry insurance for our horse show, someone breaks their neck, we can't be sued for that." My answer is always, "honey, you "can be sued" for anything if the other side has $200 bucks and the right piece of paper. The real question is, "can they win?" In which case, my answer is, "if you are negligent, yes they can, but even if they are just sue-happy nuts, it will still cost you a $5000 retainer to kick them to the curb on a Motion to Dismiss, so suck it up, pay the couple hundred bucks and buy the damn insurance policy for your horse show!" (Grrr...) Ever think I've had that conversation before? (sigh) These are, of course, are usually the same people who could run an activity by telling people they can only park their trailers between the irrigation canal and the barbed wire fence, while forgetting to rent so much as one porta-potty! Montanabw(talk)03:18, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
Over this way folks are pretty hot on being insured for all their little shows, as well as the big ones. But over here, will they "waste their money" on doing either a dun or cream test when they're positive it's a dun, and all their friends say it is, too ......... noooooo waaaaaaaay! (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 06:20, 20 February 2011 (UTC))
Pitke and I just had a debate over whether a horse was a dun or a buckskin. In the states, they used to claim that a horse had to have the black dorsal stripe to be a "real" buckskin, otherwise it was just a (really, really, really) light bay. However, the opposite is true -- a "real" buckskin won't have a black dorsal stripe because it doesn't carry dun (bay horses might have a countershading stripe, but not a black one, thus a buckskin might also have a countershading stripe, but not a jet black one like a dun might have). The other thing out there are the "dunskins" which are horses carrying BOTH genes! Montanabw(talk)06:29, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
Somewhere in my humungous pic collection I have some pics of a buckskin Forester with really almost-convincing pseudo-dun markings - all sooty countershading, of course, but quite enough to fool most people. I always clarify the 'dorsal' thing with 'must have correct, clear-edged and distinct dorsal, continuous from poll through dock unless broken by white markings' when I try to explain to people.' And then try to explain things like the dilute tail-cap sides, mane guard hairs, ear-tips and so on! And no sooty in the body coat! I have yet to see a true dun with sooty in its diluted areas.(ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 06:11, 21 February 2011 (UTC))
I think there can be a bit of sooty-looking masking on the face of some duns. If sooty exists independently of coat color, it could show up anywhere. Wish we knew more about it. Montanabw(talk)06:15, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
In my experience, the sooty, if the horse has it, will show wherever the dun doesn;t dilute - so yes, face, dorsal, shoulder capes and stripes and so on, will all show sooty if the horse has it anyway. (Real duns don't have much in the way of face dilution, so the sooty would show up there). If the horse doesn't have sooty, all the primitive markings tend to show as whatever the base colour would be. If you have query-pics, let me take a look at them (close-ups best) and I'll have a crack at identifying, and then give you the rationale behind it. (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 06:19, 21 February 2011 (UTC))
And now for our 'golden' Foresters .... I wanna track down what that's all about! There are very few of them, and the phenotype's all wrong for dun, buckskin, champagne and so on. And they don't belong to me, so I'm not likely to be able to grab hairs for a DNA test - even if I could afford the DNA test! The body coat (on bay and chestnut) is definitely a bit diluted by something - to golden-glossy to be straight bay or chestnut - but who knows what? (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 06:33, 21 February 2011 (UTC))
Check out dilution gene for all the ones we can test. And upload a pic of what you're talking about, maybe the collective wisdom has some theories. (Though we at WPEQ have one real mystery horse photo-- a bay paso fino with a yellow eye! (yes, yellow)) As for duns, the grullos get really interesting and weird stuff going on. I used to board where there was one that all anyone could say was, "what IS that horse's color?" Too bad I have no photos of him, but he basically looked like a bay dun with sooty dapples. Here's some photos of America's most famous dun-that-at-first-glance-looks-buckskin: Hollywood Dun It and his ranch You have to find some real detailed closeups to see the tiny white guard hairs, but the dorsal stripe is pretty obvious. Montanabw(talk)06:45, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
I do try and keep up with all the dilution-gene stuff, and what-can-be-tested-for stuff .... but these guys just don't fit anywhere! The only time I may be able to get some pics is on this year's round-ups (drifts) ... that is, provided that they're obliging enough to allow themselves to be rounded up this year! At first glance, you might think there was something Champagney going on there, but they don't have the skin mottling, nor the semi-dilute black points, nor the dilute eyes. But they do have that almost-metallic-golden look about the body. Hmmmmm. I can't categorise them anywhere, lol! (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 06:55, 21 February 2011 (UTC))
I'll go with a dun diagnosis on him for the dorsal, but the head seems a bit more dilute for what I'd expect of a dun. Has he been tested for champagne, too? (But no light eyes, hmmmmm .........(ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 06:58, 21 February 2011 (UTC))
HDI died before the dun zygousity test was out, I think, but he is typical of a lot of dun quarter horses, very crisp, clean color. No way is he champagne, no freckling on the skin, skin and the eyes are the giveaways for champagne. The grullo I boarded with was pretty typical of a lot of QH's I've seen, not really a completely "blue" dun but also not at all a true bay dun, kind of a silvery tan. One thing I've noticed is that roan on seal brown looks like a blue roan, I wonder if these almost blue dun grullos are dun on seal brown. Best theory I can think of. Of course, most people won't drop the more-than-$100 you'd need to get the multiple tests to prove it (black, agouti, dun, cream) I kind of go for simple, I'm not a fan of the "fading black" theory. I used to owned a black Arab (the basset-hound-chasing horse) that faded a lot, but it could be entirely diet-controlled. I think that some horses just have more natural oils in their coats than others, (just like people) beyond that, I think a lot of people don't understand that they have a smoky black! I doubt dun + pearl would be anything more than , only cream seems to double up the impact. I was just surfing a web site that is trying to claim that there is "dun" in Arabians, which is utter nonsense -- the countershading stripe is very common, even my palomino half-Arab has a slight one. (Incidentally, she has that metallic glow to her summer coat, her cream dilution comes from her line to a Kinsky horse.) I can't recall where the conversation is buried, but a lot of color genetics emanate from the spinal cord outward. Montanabw(talk)08:29, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
Interestin' stuff. Of course it's hard to spot the cream-on-black (smoky black), but you can spot it in a shake of a lamb's tail if it's combined with dun (dun+cream on black) which gives you the Ulsblakk in the Fjords (yes, so does dun+cream on bay, kinda .....). You know there's cream in the black-based Ulsblakk (a) coz you can see extra dilution, and (b) coz the Fjord society gave up breeding Ulsblakk to Ulsblakk because (wait for it!), that breeding produced an 'unacceptable level of blue-eyed creams'. So what does that tell us about the Ulsblakk horses - yup, each parent has a cream gene! I had an interesting e-chat with Philip Sponenburg on this one not too long ago - apparently he didn;t know what was responsible for the Ulsblakk colour. He does now :o) [cublet polishes claws smugly on chest front, lol!] Soooooooooooo ... pearl + dun might give some weird colouring not expected. Possibly. Dun-on-brown coat gives you a very distinct mouse (not blue) colur clearly based in brown (see http://www.brookridgemorgans.com/Lovey.htm who never looks either blue (black-based) or 'golden' (bay-based) dun, in any of her coat changes. ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 09:17, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
Most of our mice are gray! (One reason I hate "mouse dun" as a term, encompasses both brown and gray) I'd call that Morgan a simple "classic" or bay dun, though I acknowledge it's based on the darker brown (which I still call "bay" as seal brown is an allele of agouti, not a different overlay like sooty) But on our Norsky friends, see Fjord horse. I busted my butt trying to figure out all their terminology when I did a rewrite on that article! My eyes crossed trying to deal with all those unneeded extra letters! And I'm part Norwegian! Uff da! (I guess I'd best thank my lucky stars I'm not part Welsh-- talk about unneeded extra letters!) What we know is that all Fjords are dun, so that helps. And yeah, I love that the registries refuse to come into the 21st century and modify their registration rules when they know damn good and well that two cream genes = blue eyes/rosy skin. AQHA land has soooo many mixed colors, they like their "bay duns" to look like HDI, and anything weirder is a "grullo" even if it really isn't quite a true "blue dun." Oh, hey, somewhere I ran across the term "biscuit dun..." WTF is that? Another dun with cream dilution??
What gets me (get this!) is that in our New Forest registry, palomino stallions are not permitted (trying to eradicate cream), but buckskin stallions are just fine and dandy! Coz the guys over here call 'em dun. Now is that totally illogical thinking or what? ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 23:12, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
Tena-Pants required ..... for the Notorious Prehistoric Zombie Elk, lol!
I literally almost pmsl when I read about the Zombie Elk which apparently lived (and lived again, and again, and again....) in Prehistoric Britain. Why, oh why, do we not have suitable emoticons here in WikiLand? ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 14:59, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
Do you have a PMID for the "The origin of British horses. SPEED, J. G.; ETHERINGTON, M. G.; St Georg, Die Herkunft der britischen Pferde., 1953?, 54, 1, 4-7," or any alternative which has the "It is suggested that the original native horse of Britain in prehistoric times was a representative of the " Universal Pony, " which is said to have migrated from North America, and that the Exmoor Pony is a descendant of the type which existed in Britain ca. 100, 000 B. C." quote? Ta! ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 09:17, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I sent you all I got from the source, it was a subscription database called CAB direct, one of the ones the college gets, and I couldn't find the articles in any of the others, i.e. cience Direct, Wiley, etc.... you might drop a message to User:Sasata, who has sometimes been able to dig up scientific stuff for us at WPEQ. Tell Sasata a friend of Dana's sent you. Montanabw(talk)21:08, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
Here's the cite exactly as it was downloaded to me. No PMID, unfortunately.
The origin of British horses.
SPEED, J. G.; ETHERINGTON, M. G.; St Georg, Die Herkunft der britischen Pferde., 1953?, 54, 1, 4-7,
http://www.cabdirect.org/abstracts/19530101093.html
It is suggested that the original native horse of Britain in prehistoric times was a representative of the " Universal Pony, " which is said to have migrated from North America, and that the Exmoor Pony is a descendant of the type which existed in Britain ca. 100, 000 B. C. The Fell Pony is thought to be derived from a northern pony of a later date (ca. 60, 000 B. C. ] which migrated to Britain along a more northerly route. Foreign types introduced into Britain in historic times are said to have had a detrimental influence on the native horse, and a plea is put forward for the preservation of the original pony breeds still in existence. The Exmoor Pony is described. The article is illustrated by several photographs.
G. E. A. N.
Publication type: Journal article
Record Number: 19530101093
Author Affiliation: Vet. Fac., Univ. Edinburgh.
Language of publication: not specified
Geographical Location: America; North America; UK;
Identifiers: Britain; Plea; Pleidae; United Kingdom;
CABICODEs: BB500 - History and Biography;
Broad Terms: Equus; Equidae; Perissodactyla; mammals; vertebrates; Chordata; animals; ungulates; eukaryotes; America; British Isles; Western Europe; Europe; Developed Countries; Commonwealth of Nations; European Union Countries; OECD Countries;
...for assessing the first article I've written (although I hope to pitch in with more, and have been collecting sources). Is it very difficult to acquire pictures for new breed infoboxes? There doesn't seem to be much on Commons for breeds without existing articles; some websites have nice pictures, but I can't get my head around Wikipedia's fair-use explanations yet. Anyway, thanks again. Wi2g23:54, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
Answer on your talk page, but ask Pitke for photo help. If anyone knows where photos are, and how to get legal ones, that's your wiki-helper! Montanabw(talk)06:55, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
Those Exies Again - Pestering Kim Now, lol!
I have posed some knotty questions for KimvdLinde, on her talk page. Take a wander over there and we'll see if, between us all, we can find something 'definitive' on ancientness on them. ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 12:41, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
You're clearly having way too much fun, now! LOL! I will warn you, though, almost five years on wikipedia has destroyed many of my most dear beliefs. More grain doesn't keep horses warm in the winter, draft horses were not in fact the original Destriers, the four foundations aren't, and actually, there is probably no real risk to guy who are peeing on an electric fence (damn! was hoping there could be a Darwin award for 'em!) On the other hand, I have finally convinced the planet that horses were NOT in fact domesticated 30,000 years ago, (cave paintings does not domestication make) and no, not every rodeo starts with a parade down main street! Montanabw(talk)07:23, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
I have told 'ee before, I read encyclopedia-stuff just for fun! I love to know things :o) (recall Short Circuit?) And I'd far rather know reality than myths. As for the electric fence thing, see the Exie talk page for what happened to my friend's dog - it didn't do him any permanent damage, but he sure said it hurt like hell, lol! I have never heard such loud or continuous squeals of pain / outrage from a canine before or since! ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 09:15, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
(cross-pasted from the Exie Sandbox - just in case you don't see it there first)
HERE's the marked-up image part of the 2002-study phylogenetic network. Note: the 2010 made no other changes to this section of the network, other than (importantly!) to re-name these B-clusters/nodes as I-clusters/nodes. And the 2002 C-clusters were renamed as B-clusters. I could seriously shake those 2010 people warmly by the throat for having done something so completely unnecessary and frustratingly confusing! ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 11:45, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
(I have also copied across to Kim) ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 12:37, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
Horse stuff
Thanks very much for all the good advice; I'll be referring to it a lot, since I'd like to pitch in with a couple more articles. Boy, it's hard to find RS for the obscure maybe-they're-breeds (although editors with Chinese or Russian fluency, say, may have access to more domestic sources for those breeds) but I read in the paper today that Google is shaking up its search-engine algorithms to return less eHow-type junk. Thanks for the tip on images too. BTW, do you know who is most active in the Thoroughbred-racing project? Wi2g16:06, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
Of my WPEQ buddies, Cgoodwin and Ealdgyth will be the most involved with that side of it. I don't know users like Cuddy Witter very well, but that's someone else to check in with. A good hint is to look at the history of articles like Thoroughbred, horse racing and so on, and note who (other than the vandal patrollers who check multiple topics) are the people who routinely do most of the vandalism reverts topic-wide and who may still be adding content that isn't getting reverting (or who are the ones doing all the reverts of the "enthusiastic kiddie -- MY HORSE IS BYOOTIFEL" edits.) ;-) I agree on the difficulty sourcing stuff on the rare Asian breeds. There are a couple of Japanese speakers who help when asked on the Japanese horse breed articles. When I created Riwoche horse and Nangchen horse there definitely wasn't much. I think on Java pony and all the other Indonesian breeds, about all I had to work with was the FAO site (which can be good, though I think they rearranged it again, sometimes you have to become a Wayback Maching guru!) and some tourism guides. Sometimes you're pulling a sentence here and a sentence there, often from stuff written either by non-horse people or promotional stuff written by the over-enthusiastic! LOL! Montanabw(talk)20:47, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
Help! Save the WikiWolfcub!
My Wolfcub has been suggested for deletion! How do we save it! (Comment is "This WikiFauna is redundant to the WikiPuppy. Even its userboxes are copied from the WikiPuppy's. If the creator wants, maybe we should userfy it for him since he seems to identify himself as a WikiWolfCub. ")
Haha! I made the userbox into a non-clone, lol! Pretty aqua-green now :o) Think that'll do the trick? I have to say, I think the deletion request came across as a bit s-bite-ful ..... [hackles up?] ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 10:48, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
Looks like the crisis was averted prior to my arrival, but I'd have leapt to your defense. Yep, it was bite-y. Trout slap in order, unfortunately, people who bite often are too humor-impaired to take a trout slap in good grace! Montanabw(talk)16:24, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
I think the Reaper was genuinely mistaken; closed discussion anyway and made quite nice comment on my talk page (and sorta admitted biteyness) so I awarded him/her a Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar for tacitly admitting guilt and making reparation. ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 21:28, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
American Mammoth Jackstock
Hello. First of all I would like to apologize for my very bad English. ^^ So, I'm contributing on the french Wikipedia and I work more particularly on the horses' and donkeys' races. I would soon like to create an article on the American Mammoth Jackstock and I see that it doesn't exist in any language, even in english. I don't find either a photo on commons. I found nice photos on flickr, but the licenses aren't adapted. I'm sorry to disturb you but, in view of your knowledge on the equestrian world, I thought you could have perhaps the possibility of getting one or several photos of this donkey. It would be so useful for me. Thank you very much in advance for your answer. --Eponimm (talk) 20:07, 3 March 2011 (UTC) --Eponimm
I found the two names in books : American Mammoth Jackstock and American Mammoth Jack. I don't know which one is the most used... But for sure, it's the same race! ^^ --Eponimm (talk) 13:59, 4 March 2011 (UTC) --Eponimm
Can you get .....?
1) "A Note on some British Late Pleistocene Remains of Horse R Burleigh, A Currant, E Jacobi", and "The skull of a Neolithic horse from Grime's Graves, Norfolk, England J Clutton-Brock" both from - Equids in the ancient world, 1991 - Reichert
2) Full text of this thing?
AND ......
3) Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, Three Neolithic axes from the Severn Estuary by J. R. L. Allen 1990, V ol. 108, 171-174 … in which it says (and bugger, I can't paste it coz I'm looking at a bloody image for crying out loud, which is why I want proper web access) "In the vicinity of the finds, at Oldbury Flats and at Hill Flats, [… blah, blah] The overlying estuarial effluvium … consists of green estuarine silts, with the footprints of cattle, deer and horse. These peats … can be correlated to … lower Severn Estuary and Somerset levels, with ages ranging between about 6000 and 2500 conventional radiocarbon years. "
4) (Wiley) HEDGES, R., SAVILLE, A. and O’CONNELL, T. (2008), CHARACTERIZING THE DIET OF INDIVIDUALS AT THE NEOLITHIC CHAMBERED TOMB OF HAZLETON NORTH, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, ENGLAND, USING STABLE ISOTOPIC ANALYSIS. Archaeometry, 50: 114–128. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4754.2007.00379.x (mentions horse remains / horse dung in that place) . Sorry about the caps, it was how it was on the page! ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 14:02, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Just an FYI that the article databases load real slow over the dialup, so I'm only going to search them on weekdays or when I have hi-speed access. Also, would you be OK with exchanging emails, as some of these will be easier to email as a .pdf? Could not find #1 or #3 -- did you find web links with abstracts? (Also try Google, Google books, and Google scholar searches, by the way) I was able to download #4 and #2 (If #2 is "People and large carnivores as biostratinomic agents in Lateglacial cave assemblages" Journal of Quaternary ScienceVolume 22, Issue 7, which is what came up with the doi ref) as pdfs. I tried to post a link to the full articles but if I didn't access it via the school's site, it would only load the abstract, so your choice is I cut and paste the whole thing into your sandbox or I will have to email it. Let me know Montanabw(talk)21:52, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
I tried Google books, scholar, all sorts! The only abstracts I could find were completely unhelpful, so the horsey stuff is buried deep in the text somewhere. I am very fast at whizzing through texts, though, so if and when you can get them I will go through everything and drag out everything relevant. ~~
Gotta Wabbit!
Horse bones circa 3500 BC in southern England :o) See Exmoor pony talk page. Fills the post-ice-age gap quite a bit (about half way, in fact.) ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 09:27, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
... and some Holocene horse remains, and a 1500 BC Aurochs in Devon just north of Exmoor, in a site which is rapidly being washed into the sea - who knows what has already been washed away there? (Some miles downstream of the prehistoric hoof prints) ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 06:55, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
Thought you might be interested in this one - loads of animals died very suddenly at the relevant time, and clearly not by the hand of man. (unless we had developed a really, really early atomic weapon :o) ) ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 10:03, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
I stay out of a lot of trouble on wikipedia by avoiding any discussion on the climate change articles, but if prompted (or plied with sufficient alcohol, which has the odd effect of loosening up my usual reticence with my political views, you know how hard it is to get an opinion out of me... ) I can make a pretty good case that we are heading for another round of mass extinction, this time human-induced. Montanabw(talk)19:38, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
Haha! me, too! What they don't seem to have grasped, here in the UK, is that global warming (and loss of global dimming - go on, Google it!) could very easily lead to massive winter-cooling in the UK, because of disruption of the THC. I'm old enough to remember the winter of 62/63 (it was fun!) ... that could become the 'standard winter' over here with only the slightest nudge to the THC. We're on the same latitude as Newfoundland, and it's only the THC running about at the speed it is, and in the direction it is, that stops us having the same winter climate. The alcohol thing? Noooooooo, really! ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 12:58, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
I like to tell a tale from over a decade ago of how after two drinks I began pounding my glass on the table in the Bar at the now-defunct Northern Hotel in Billings while loudly expounding my views (liberal in a conservative state) on a controversial topic after a lobbyist started buying rounds for the house at a political convention. And that was only two drinks... I get kind of a DGAF attitude. Fortunately, the incident does keep people who remember from pushing drinks on me; I just remind them what happens, that they will REALLY know what my opinion is on EVERYTHING, and they say "oh never mind then..." Montanabw(talk)16:39, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
Nice sketch! Good job of taking matters directly. Two thoughts: If you could provide us with a little more detail of if that's the southern coastline, or what, that would help (looks like it is?) and also, if you used sources, citing them strengthens your drawing's credibility. Something like: Derived from source a, b, c -- also proves you didn't just steal the map from a book. We need to do that for an improved parts of the horse diagram -- I've got to find or make a public domain drawing and then add the modern terms, what we have at anatomy of the horse and horse is an old diagram with some inaccuracies and no source for the labels, which means we will have trouble with it if we ever take it to featured article status. (I'm supposed to be the person who fixes that if I ever get around to it) Phooey. Montanabw(talk)18:39, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
I got so fed up with how long it was taking to try and find a free-use image, that I found this one in one of the sites I wandered around, and derived from there. It was just a much faster way of doing it! So I blew up the relevant section really big, faded it right down to almost nothing, and traced over the outlines before re-filling and labelling. The outline of 'modern Britain and Ireland' can just about be faintly seen under the ice, and the rest of the modern area is coloured a bit darker green than the bit that's now under the sea - my intention was to make it kinda clear, but not obtrusively so. I think it's quite cute that you can still see the crayon lines from my colouring, lol!
How/where do I edit the bit to show where the map was derived from?
I can easily knock up a horse outline drawing for you if you want, no probs. ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 07:41, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
In the source section of the image's Commons entry, say something like "handmade drawing derived from (source, page, blah, blah)" Don't say you traced it! Maybe read their stuff about copyright before annotating it. We can create maps and drawings derived from sources, in fact we SHOULD have a source, the trick is to not "copy" them. Kind of a nuanced difference, but an important one. ;-) Montanabw(talk)04:43, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
Fair enough - I did look at a whole load of other ice-age maps, lol! The only reason for the tracing was just to get the outline of modern Britain right - technically I could have got that from any modern map (and what kind of mutt is honestly going to draw that freehand, from scratch ......?) The alternate main source was the Sheffield University Ice Age Maps, so I have bunged both in as sources. ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 08:04, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
TFA
Hi Montana - You may have already seen this, but Thoroughbred is going on the mainpage tomorrow (the 10th). Just FYI, as it's a big article and could get a lot of hits. Dana boomer (talk) 17:12, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
--**Groan** Why us? Lucky me, I'm actually going to be around...at least in the afternoon... :-P
Good luck with that. I've come to the conclusion that it's best either to be totally out of it on TFA day (large amounts of alcohol and/or drugs ought to do it), or else to completely ignore it and pick up the pieces the next day. MalleusFatuorum21:26, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
Ha! I got a bite! You've been drafted for patrol, me laddie... (heh,heh, heh...) Of course, if you bring alcohol and drugs, that's good too. Montanabw(talk)21:28, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
That makes you PERFECT for vandal patrol! All you have to do is watch out for vandals, incoherent Sheening and when in doubt, just keep hitting the rollback button! Montanabw(talk)21:41, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
As to your request on my page, if you are an admin you could edit it yourself: I'm not sure whether this is considered good etiquette though. I'm not sure whether it matters whether you edit this version or this one. Otherwise post a request at WP:ERRORS: Floquenbeam has promissed to be back there at midnight. I believe that there is a system for warning contributors of a forthcoming TFA e.g. this, but I've no idea what the mechanism for identifying the recipient is. Kevin McE (talk) 22:01, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
I only get snarky about the reduction to Kev if I'm in a dispute, and I guess that I did take a fairly "no prisoners" stance on that TFA article a few weeks ago, although I do think I was right in fact, if not in tone. But maybe there should be a more reliable way of TFA allocations being notified: I guess if it went to the talk page, anyone who has it on their watch list will be aware. Kevin McE (talk) 20:06, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
I've had days like that. Once the thing gets started, everyone gets dug in and the snark flies, with the actual content being discussed becoming wholly irrelevant in the crossfire. No harm, no foul. And yeah, the infamous WPEQ cabal (that doesn't exist, like all other cabals) pretty much has TPS-ers on each other's talk pages, so if it pops up at one, everyone who needs to know will find out soon enough. Montanabw(talk)04:43, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
Powstanie stadniny w Nowym Dworze w Wieprzu. Jej kierownikiem został Józef Gozdawa-Tyszkowski
(Organization of the stud in Wieprz, the boss was Józef Gozdawa-Tyszkowski)
Thanks, that helps! I'll link to the region, just to be on the safe side (as most stud farms aren't precisely "in" a town) Montanabw(talk)20:53, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
Nope! It's the Cellphone Charger (or Mobile Phone Charger if you're a Brit) :o) I got sick of working on the article, so decided to play in Photoshop for a few minutes' break :o) ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 04:33, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
There has been a major revision of the the Service Awards: the edit requirements for the higher levels have been greatly reduced, to make them reasonably attainable.
Because of this, your Service Award level has been changed, and you are now eligible for a higher level. I have taken the liberty of updating your award on your user page.
Actually, the main star at the top of your userpage was up to date; the little userbox down at the bottom lagged this, I upgraded this to Most Pluperfect Labutnum. But... according to this you're eligible for another advance in six days, to Senior Editor III (or Labutnum of the Encyclopedia) anyway. Congratulations, and thank you for your many contributions to the Wikipedia! Herostratus (talk) 20:52, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
Hmmm, I moved Asturcon to Asturcón, nitpicking being my speciality as you know. Turns out most of the article is lifted verbatim from [9]. So I tagged it, but am now wondering if that won't just make more mess than was necessary. What's done is done, I'm afraid. I suggest deleting the Astrurian redirect (that's going to be the title of Robert Ludlum's next novel), which should be easy but idk how to do. And adding the page to the list of pages that need stuff done about them ... Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:28, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
OK, if you think it's a true typo, then I see your point. I just remember when people had created three different articles on the Pottock because they were all spelled differently! Montanabw(talk)20:15, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
GA Nomination?
You did say you could help, lol! (And that'll teach you to make rash promises .......)
And I'm only getting online now! But I'll keep an eye on the nom. There's often a backlog, so don't fret if it takes awhile, if it seems unduly ignored, ask Dana boomer for advice, she's sort of the goddess of getting horse articles through GA. Montanabw(talk)03:34, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
Coat colour help!
Coat colour is NOT my strongest suit, to put it mildly. So a couple of questions: (1) the Bardigiano standard allows for it to be anything from ordinary bay to 'morello maltinto', badly-coloured black. This is black with reddish highlights, but ... what on earth is it called in English? Is black bay correct? (2) a previous editor had put in seal brown; that is not mentioned in the standard and was apparently unreferenced, so I have for now removed it, but I'm not 100% confident that I was right do do so. What were seal brown horses called before they were called seal brown? Would you be kind enough to look at the article and comment? Also, I can't think of an English word for 'rabicanature'; rabicanations? I don't think so. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:26, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
I am stalking! I would say brown (aka seal brown) sounds the closest bet; alternatively dark sooty bay. 'Rabicanature' sounds like roan / roaning / possibly rabicano. What's the pattern look like on the 'rabicanature' animals? Do you have a pic? The fifth pic along in the Wikimedia Commons gallery is definitely sooty bay. On the clipped horses it's not so easy to tell, but I'm seeing a suspicion of dapples in there, and from that and the facial colouring I'd say again sooty bay on those. ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 22:35, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Seal brown is black with "mealy-colored" muzzle and near the flanks - and black with red highlights would be more black-bay, I'd think. Ealdgyth - Talk22:46, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Ah, but are we talking US English or UK English? lol! Seal brown (in the UK we still haven't got used to that!) is black(ish) with red(ish) muzzle, flanks, groin etc. Mealy brown would be same as, but mealied out by pangare making it more 'mealy' than red. In the UK the old-type names included black-brown and bay-brown, as well as dark bay and all that jazz. Dontcha just gotta love it, huh? ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 22:54, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Ah-ha, some dialogue, good to see. Thanks for taking an interest. The Commons pics are near useless, I think. What about this guy[10]? If he was the colour of his rump all over, so kind of black, but with red lights? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:01, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
The resolution's not really good enough for a real definitive answer! He's looking like a real dark sooty bay, as there's red coming up the outsides of his shoulders, but that could be just a trick of the light. Any better pics? ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 23:07, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Answers all around and thanks all for weighing in! First off, we had another editor with a degree in genetics do a TON of really good work on the genetics stuff at several of the coat color articles, so I always recommend reading them. Both bay (horse) and seal brown (horse) are decent articles. What little anyone really knows on sooty is at sooty (gene). "Mealy" IS pangare, but is not the same thing that makes a seal brown a seal brown. And yes, I suspect "Rabicanature" is rabicano (Which I think is actually a Spanish term) (we have some photos there that are pretty good of chestnuts, not so good on bays), but show a photo and I suspect we could tell you if it's actually a roan (horse), they are quite distinct. As for US and UK English, even within each nation there are disagreements, often regional ("mouse dun" "blue dun" and "grulla" are all argued over just in the USA, and some people don't understand that a "lineback dun" is a repetitious term) so it's probably best to stick to the most standard terms possible, and if you have to use some odd ones (see Fjord horse for some REALLY odd ones), then explain them. Montanabw(talk)23:57, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Second, a lot of those Bardigiano photos in commons look body-clipped me, and as many bay horses have something of a two-toned hair shaft, it's a pain to know what they "really" are. You will not go wrong just saying "bay." The bright red ones are sometimes called "classic" bay or "blood bay", but just "bay" implies that classic form, IMHO. On the darker animals, dark bay" is safe and generic enough that you may avoid useless "is it brown or is it sooty" spats. At one time you sometimes heard the term "Mahogany Bay" but I think it's gone completely out of style. (My rant about the term "black bay" is below) On the commons photos, I don't see the light areas around the muzzle, flanks and eyes that are typical of seal brown, except for this guy who has it at the flanks but not the muzzle, so even he is iffy. The photo you have linked, absent genetic testing to prove things one way or the other, could be a slightly bleached-out black, or a very dark bay. I don't see seal brown genetics there, nor any pangare. Until they locate the genetic mechanism and can test for sooty, "dark bay" is probably the more correct and least argument-inducing term unless you have a really obvious seal brown. Montanabw(talk)23:57, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Third, the underlying genetics start out the same for all bays/"brown" horses, they all carry at least one E allele and one A allele. (Hence, EeAa, EEAA, EeAA or EEAa) So they have a "black" base coat (as opposed to the recessive "red" -- chestnut-- base coat) with the Agouti gene suppressing black into just point coloration, allowing the underlying red base color to show through. To get Seal Brown, there is a variant A allele (At) that they can now do a DNA test for, but the seal brown is still genetically a "Bay" first. Sooty appears to be a totally different genetic mechanism that affects many different coat colors and also darkens coats independently of whatever is going on with agouti. And not yet testable. Montanabw(talk)23:57, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
As an aside (putting on ranting hat) I LOATHE the term "black bay" because I'm old enough to remember when it got popular with Arabian breeders during the 70s and 80s to try and convince n00bs that their horses were "almost black" and so sell them for more money. It's a PR term. But I also think it sounds equally dumb (as well as often incorrect) to call all bay horses "brown" because "brown" just sounds so boring when a nice bay shade is such a lovely color -- at least unless there is genetic testing to prove we have a "seal brown" -- and TPC, I don't like that term either, it's actually relatively new in much of the USA too. Montanabw(talk)23:57, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Thanks to everyone; montana's cut the head off the bull by removing the permitted colour range of the breed standard from the Bardigiano page, which is good; but I'd like to put it back once I can get the terminology sorted. So what about this guy: ? He looked jet-black almost all the time (he is dead now, sadly), but in this photo, taken in blazing sunlight, he clearly shows as not really properly black. My idea of dark bay is different from this, but as I said, I'm useless at coat colours. Sooty bay? Near-black? Or black-bay and remind montana that the 70s are well in the past now? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 00:18, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
Loads of blacks fade out to that kind of colour; he's 'proper black' about the muzzle and most of his 'bits', so I'd personally go with calling him black (unless you want to get into the 'fading black' scenario, which I guess we don't on here!). The black coat still has pheomelanin (the red pigment) in it, and it can show in certain lighting, or when they fade out. Back in the 1970's (when I was doing my instructor-training bit), the 'horse colour bible' was in Veterinary Notes for Horse Owners, and the colour list started with 'black, black-brown, brown, bay-brown, bay ...' ! And the hadn't officially recognised palomino at that point, either! If I can see a horse in the flesh I can tell you very quickly if it has sooty in it (the serious nit-picky minutiae of phenotype is my real speciality) - there are all sorts of little teeny-weeny differences between a coat with sooty and a coat without it, but from pics you can only go on sorta subliminal patterning, things like a sooty face-drop (like a dark charcoaly blaze), sooty dapples, darker on top gradually fading away as you move down the sides, and there's that weird 'sugar-gloss' thing that they have, too. ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 04:46, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
The horse in the photo is, if a Bardigiano, probably dark/black/brown/mahogany/whatever bay, given the prevalence of that color in the breed. I've owned a black horse that bleaches out, that horse and others I've seen usually bleach out more yellow than red, but that's JMO. Today, we'd send in a DNA sample to UC Davis and see if he carries Agouti or not, end of story. "A" present = bay, "E" present without "A" = black. "aaee"=chestnut. With the little black horse I once owned (who is the lead photo at hackamore) she was tested homozygous black, her dam, however, was truly a bay, though she looked as black as black as could be to me. (I don't have permission to upload pic to here or I'd show you an image) My own view is that the world of modern genetics ought to be simplifying coat color terminology, though undoubtably we shall never get rid of regional expressions (Out here in the west, we call most chestnuts "sorrel," which is just plain wrong, but whaddya gonna do about it with even the AQHA says it?? I've been arguing with my own father on the topic for about 40 years to no avail...) As far as the details, I also know a bunch of people think that a "light bay" is just another word for buckskin (horse), while I have heard other people think of a classic bright red bay as a "light" bay, and so there truly is no completely universal, drop dead "truth" about coat color other than what we can glean from genetics. So at the moment, we KNOW we can distinguish between black, bay and the variant of bay that we now call "seal brown," which is neither sooty bay nor the universal overall coat darkening factor that creates the liver chestnut and (IMHO) certain black/brown/mahogany bays. We could also tell if a bleached out black was actually a smoky black, which is a topic I'm totally avoiding because the Bardigiano does not appear to have cream genetics. As for the Bardigiano, I don't think I was the one who screwed up the coat colors, (I tossed the "brown" because it was a piped link to seal brown, any other kind of "brown" is genetically a bay, whatever it gets called regionally) but it doesn't look to me like any representatives can be called "seal brown" because they don't have the light-colored "soft parts." Montanabw(talk)22:16, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
In fact, let me do a string of images of horses I've seen in real life (all my photos) and what my call is on them (the rest of you can do the same if you want). Feel free to argue or offer alternative regional definitions! Montanabw(talk)22:49, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
"Mac" - I'd call this boy a "dark bay," but he's advertised as "bay," photo taken by me in April. Image of same horse, photographed in the summer by a pro here
Detail of Mac, head shot (show trim on face, virtually all hair around muzzle and eyes shaved off)
Mac's poppa, my photo, I'd also say dark bay, maybe "sooty bay" but he's advertised as "black bay" Professional photos here
LIttle black mare's butt, summer with proper nutrition after I'd owned her a year or two. DNA tested homozygous black
Little black mare as a coming-2 year old, about a month after I bought her, (March photo) having basically dug her out of a cow pasture, scraggly winter coat and about as butt-ugly as she ever could be! Talk about fading black!
Little black mare's sire, DNA tested homozygous black, summer photo
I'd say "dark bay," Pesky would probably say "sooty," Ealdgyth would say "black bay" she dapples, is darker along topline
Classic "blood bay", real bay, true bay, classic bay, bay bay...whatever. Bay!!!
Also "dark bay," Arab breeders would advertise her as "black bay" but probably seal brown, given light-colored "soft parts"
The two "dark bay" mares shown in the other photos "seal brown" on the left, "sooty" on the right.
A big thank you for these and to all who chipped in here, I've learnt something. I think I have found the answer I need, in the Simon & Schuster/Bongianni horse book, which it turns out is a translation of an Italian publication, and can be peeked inside on amazon. He gives "dull black" for black (slightly reddish); does this bring back any unpleasant childhood memories for anyone, or can I use it? Oh, and no way is the pic I posted of a Bardigiano! - but maybe that was just a bit of fun? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:43, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
I'd probably put it in quotes because it's a term that is a translation from the Italian as opposed to "normal" English horse lingo. But no PTSD here. Montanabw(talk)23:57, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
I would have called Maclintock a (plain simple) brown as used in SB, racebooks, newspapers, show schedules etc all around the world, until I saw the first photo of him in the ad, where he appears to possibly be a bay. Terms such as black-bay were totally foreign to me until WP. In judging colours the end of the black on the legs can help, too, in deciding a colour. In bays this is usually well defined and not so in browns or blacks. Light and dark descriptions are very subjective and not typically used by the major SBs. Cgoodwin (talk) 02:36, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
I always tend to like the names that actually reflect in some what what's going on genetically, if possible - which is why I tend to go for things being described as 'sooty-whatever' when they clearly are that. We have a stallion which runs on the Forest over here, registered as 'dark dun', changes colour quite a bit, often look almost black. Hunker down and take a look underneath the guy, though - or a hair-by-hair inspection of his muzzle - and he's actually an incredibly dark (probably homozygous) sooty buckskin (yup, throws cream-dilute offspring). I say 'probably homozygous' because every offspring I;ve seen of his, to dat, has sooty in it. Pesky (talk) 04:12, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
LOLs all around! Cg, you see, I strongly suspect that "black bay" came into being in the Arabian world because how dare our exotic beauties be called merely "brown?" The registry itself stays completely out of it and just registers everything as "bay," which actually kind of makes sense because the E plus A genetic structure is true of all horses in that family -- everything else is an overlay. Maclintock really, if anything, is almost a sort of maroon -- the head shot I think is the most accurate for his color as I saw him live. As for Pesky's "dark dun" , he is rather interesting, and certainly doesn't look dun to me. Your notion of "sooty buckskin" is a distinct possibility (black+agouti+cream overlain by sooty), but so is simple smoky black (black+cream). Either way, though, he cannot be a homozygous cream ("smoky cream") because double-dilute cream will dilute black to cream and also creates blue eyes. Luckily, if his owners wanted to spend the money to ship DNA samples, he could be tested for black, cream and agouti (bay), which would definitively answer the question. I don't know which if any European labs to coat color testing, but several do in the USA, notably UC Davis. Montanabw(talk)18:50, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
I know he's not a dun, but you try telling that to the breed society! Trouble is, they want to have duns, so they call all the buckskins duns. We seem to have lost the true dun from the NF breed altogether (or at least certainly in the Forest area, and in every other pic of every other Forester anywhere else in the world that I've seen), but I just don't seem to be able to get the message across (real life version of IDONTHEARTHAT). He's (almost certainly him, anyway, as no other contenders in the picture ....) sired a double dilute, (so he has cream himself). No way are his owners going to pay for any testing! No benefit to them in doing so. Definitely doesn't look smoky black once you've seen him through all his various coat variations - sometimes very clearly a sooty buckskin (obvious buckskin overlain by obvious sooty top-mantling and / or dapples). And he's a gorgeous boy, too :o) Pesky (talk) 11:51, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
UC Davis has come up with a dun zygousity test, but so far it's only good on Quarter Horse, other breeds aren't lining up the DNA markers properly. Dun is a dominant, so yeah, if you don't see any duns, it ain't lurking as a recessive, sigh... But then, some breed societies that accept palominos and buckskins will not register double dilute cremellos and perlinos, even though they are the inevitable result of at least one in four single dilute cream-to-single dilute cream matings. So talk about total moronic idiocy! But then, over here we actually have a Palomino horse "registry" even though it's an incomplete dominant and hence can NEVER become a completely true-breeding characteristic! (sighing) Montanabw(talk)04:05, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
Get this for whacky logic: the breed society is trying to eradicate blue-eyed creams, so they don't allow palomino stallions (a pally stally has to be gelded). But, because they call the cream-dilute buckskins 'duns' , they have no objection to buckskin stallions!
They really, really don't want to 'not have duns'. And just can't accept that, if we had the dun gene, we would be seeing the same proportions of blue duns, bay duns and red duns as we have blacks, bays and chestnuts. No way could you ever have the dun showing up just on a bay base and on nothing else. And (last I heard), 'buckskin' was not a recognised colour in the breed - can't register one as buckskin. Pesky (talk) 04:18, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
Exactly! Is there any lab in the UK that can do genetic coat color testing? (I know of labs in the Netherlands that can go genetic disease testing but don't know if they waste their time with color stuff). Testing could put this to rest ... of course, to ship express air some hair root DNA to UCDavis from Europe would probably cost you mucho dinero plus the $40 of $50 testing fee, but if you COULD make a midnight requisition of some hair with bulb root attached and send it off ... oh the FUN you'd have! Montanabw(talk)04:48, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
Haha! It's actually cheaper for Brits to send samples to some of the USA places for basic red/non-red, etc., than to get testing done over here! And why would anyone want their animal confirmed as being cream-dilute if that meant he might have to be gelded for it when the untested animal across the road is allowed to keep his 'bits'? Pesky (talk) 11:05, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
Hmmm. How about a national champion with really rich owners? A good threat of a lawsuit is always good for getting things to actually change! Get some buckskin boy to win, insist on not being called a "dun," and no one will DARE chop his nuggets! I got onto all this color stuff via research into genetic lethals. I was working on cerebellar abiotrophy (CA) along with some other relative unknowns for about four years. ("Seal brown" happens to be CA-affected) We made progress as a snail's pace, getting people to grudgingly send in samples to UCD, when all of a sudden, a stallion by a MAJOR big name horse threw an affected foal. Luckily the carrier stallion was owned by a Sheik Yabouti sort of character, who went ballistic, made all kinds of noises at big-name stallion's owners, who demanded a test, and suddenly the DNA marker test that UC Davis had, but was keeping under wraps and we nobodies could not announce it as available because it wasn't perfect yet, was publicly announced within a matter of weeks, about the same time that the owners of big-name stallion announced that testing indicated the carrier gene wasn't from their boy, it was all the dam's fault. (Blame the mothers, they always blame the mothers...). As of November 2010, they have finally narrowed down the markers to a single SNP, with two overlapping genes, but in retesting a few of their old samples, found that the old "indirect marker" test had still been 97% accurate with NO false negatives. But had Sheik Yabouti not raised a fuss, we would have had to wait over two more years before the fully-developed test came out. There's a 19.7% carrier rate for the thing, so had they not released the marker test, how many affected foals would have died in the interim? A few carriers were false positives and one apparent unsymptomtic affected turned out to be just a carrier, so even a test with a 3% error rate probably saved more than a few foals. So, one moral to the story is, when a stinking rich person is about to be publicly humiliated, they demand changes. Montanabw(talk)04:33, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
BW, I have been spending a lot of time on the 4th floor of the MSU library with my campsus ambassador duties. Today, while killing a few minutes in the stacks, I stumbled on the run of Appaloosa News and Appaloosa Journal from 1963-1993. If you ever need me to look up something re the spotted horses, let me know. BTW, thanks for trashing the Bozeman trivia. Quite tedious it is. --Mike Cline (talk) 22:26, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
Encouraged by the discussion page of Camargue (horse), I tried my hand on manades and made a trial version for a separate article on it. If you are still interedsted in the subject, please see if you can agree on my text. You'll find it in the only Sandbox on my Userpage. Paj (talk) 21:24, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Thanks again, Montabw! The nuances are all in order as far as I understand. I'll summon courage and "pubish" the thing in a day or two unless anything new occurs. And when I do, the truly huge difference between the French version and the sandbox one is bound to attract attention. But that's life, I suppose. Paj (talk) 15:25, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
Probably not, but I'm sick of babysitting and cleaning up messes and then being misunderstood, accused of things I didn't do, and then treated with a level of sarcasm and condescension that is uncalled-for; all by one person. I've just had it. I'm very frustrated. Pesky was a dream new user, JLAN has a lot of energy and is contributing useful content, but I've had it with his tone. Montanabw(talk)08:58, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
Awwwww, shucks! [blushes, hides muzzle behnd paws, peeks out from under paws, wags tail] Thank you! Pesky (talk) 09:41, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
I have left a comment over there. It's important, if a new user wants to collaborate (as opposed to taking over the world, lol!) that they become a person with whom others want to collaborate ...... Pesky (talk) 11:44, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
OK, so you've toned down the snark at Menorquín horse, and it may have needed it. The trouble with that is that you have introduced a false statement that was not previously there. It is not in Spain that the two breeds are considered separate, but all over the world, the FAO being a completely authoritative and worldwide source; would you be kind enough to revert, and perhaps start a discussion there on how to phrase it better?
I'm sorry to repeat myself, but have to ask you again, would you please discuss before making edits to material that you know I have written, especially if you know that I have only just written it; and also refrain from unhiding poor material that you know I have not written? Since there has been an intervening edit, I have NO IDEA how to recover my previous version of Mérens, where I had intentionally hidden a load of garbage from a totally unreliable source that was wholly, diametrically at variance with what is in the breed standard (which I'd just put there for everyone to read anyway). I'm spending more time trying to pick up the pieces than getting anything done. I repeat, I do think about what I am doing while I am doing it. I make a lot of mistakes, I know, and I am always happy to know where they are. But it's a total waste of everybody's time if I have to keep running around putting things back. You are managing to step on my heels and my toes at the same time, and it is really seriously counter-productive. Please note that I do not charge around changing everything you've done the minute you've done it (well, OK, I did fix the incorrect redirect from Balearic horse right after you made it, but that was a one-off).
On the poor material thing, we obviously have widely different views. Yours, if I've understood correctly, and forgive me if I haven't, is 'keep it till something better comes along'; mine is 'bin it'. So we'd be at a sort of impasse if it wasn't for a chappie called Wales, who made it all very clear here:
"Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information"
(I've toned down the font size a bit from the original!) So could we please agree that for, say, a month or so, you will not unhide stuff I have hidden on the pages of the indigenous breeds of Europe or the traditional sports and riding styles associated with them, and I will not hide stuff on any of the other pages, however unsourced, biased and inappropriate I think it? And that we will discuss BEFORE, not after, messing with what the other has done? And then, after that month, review?
I also want to apologise for moving Balearic horse without checking with you first – the history showed clearly that you had recently moved it, but I saw it only after the dirty deed was done. That was impolite of me, I'm sorry. I hope you are satisfied with the result? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:37, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
JLAN, anyone can edit wikipedia, and the process is collaborative. NO ONE should be randomly hiding or deleting material on pages with multiple active editors (you will note that I am mostly leaving your new stubs alone to give you time to incubate them). If you have issues, tags and templates are the solution. That way, others reading the article know it has issues. I have no problem with seeing improved material, but to delete sourced material is not the way things are done on wiki; for one thing, it's throwing the baby out with the bathwater at times, and more to the point, the burden is on the person adding NEW material to show that it is better. In some cases, the material is not necessarily false, though it may be imprecise. (for example, a breed standard stated in hands rather than centimeters or meters), it may come from an iffy source, but unless it is near-slanderous (saying, for example, "surly disposition" the way the one article did), it just needs a tag. Everything gets to where it needs to be eventually. It can suck to have other people inquiring if air is really breathable (to steal a line from Pitke), but I've actually learned that occasionally even I have been wrong! =:-O The rules of wiki, though often frustrating, actually work more often than not. (That said, at times I still want to pitch the laptop through a wall). Montanabw(talk)18:32, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
First:What a friendly page you have here. Makes me remember living in Kentucky, Louisville, and how honestly friendly everyone was. I investigated and.....You are absolutely correct! In fact there is one yachting event that requires at least one female on each team. I will contact my source, the Chicago Field Museum Members Magazine. Maybe I can get a personal interview with one of the mummies. TRA! Buster Seven Talk20:02, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
I've followed your work a lot and I'm not so convinced that you would fail an RfA. You'd need some guts to step into the snake pit though. Take my RfA as a very good example. You are well known and respected, and your supporters could well outweigh the opposition, even if it were at the last minute. The clue is to get very strong nom and co-nom. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:15, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
I appreciate your support -- 'cause didn't I even spat with YOU at some point! ;-) LOL! I believe that the criteria is both guts AND being a glutton for punishment! By that standard, I'm only shooting 50-50! Montanabw(talk)21:38, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
Whether we had a spat or not at any time (and it really was only a very very tiny one), I like to think I'm objective when suggesting anyone for sysop :) It takes courage nowadays to run the gauntlet, but every one respects an attempt from a truly experienced editor, even if they don't pass. Some of our very best admins and 'crats failed first time round (I was lucky with my first shot at the bucket), and I'm sure you wouldn't fall off your horse if you failed. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:25, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
I know you are upset about various issues, but making snarky edit summaries like the one you made when this page was created is unhelpful, I think. (Tagging a category talk page with a wikiproject banner upon creation of the category is not mandatory; nor is it even recommended in the guidelines for creating categories. You may do tagging as you wish, but please don't suggest it is the responsibility of the category creator.) Good Ol’factory(talk)00:55, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
I didn't. You misread. I was just sighing and being martyred that the thing was created so I had to go and do all the work, poor me, whine, whine, whine, whine... If I can't whine some on wikipedia, about wikipedia, do you think people in RL care about wiki-woes? Nah, they don't. So whining here. (whine, whine, whine...) Montanabw(talk)21:40, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
Mission: to make the Finnhorse sound less amazing! Our darling GAN reviewer says: "I don't see any clear description of what Finnhorses are not suited for. :D Pitke (talk) 12:59, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
I managed to get Arabian horse through GA, but due to the same situation, am reluctant to submit it to FA... welcome to the cannonball run! I'll see what I can do! Montanabw(talk)15:45, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
I think you've answered that pretty well. (btw, I found Dcoetzee on IRC, looking for something constructive to do .... so I pointed him in the direction of Finnhorse). He says he is kinda a horsey person himself. Maybe we can sell him a Finnhorse, lol?! Pesky (talk) 08:17, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
Adding: is it possible for an article to be put up for GA and skip straight to FA? :o) Pesky (talk) 08:23, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
I suppose it is theoretically possible to go straight to FA, but I'd ask either Ealdgyth or Dana before trying it, they've marshalled more articles through the process than I have. I know Dana tends to proceed cautiously, step by step, including peer review, but maybe Ealdgyth got one of her horse biographies or bishop biographies go to straight to the grand prize...dunno. TPSers? Montanabw(talk)
I took Augustine of Canterbury direct to FAC (back in 2008) and just recently took Broad Ripple Park Carousel direct to FAC. I don't recommend that as an option for most things (to gauge those two examples against my normal practice, those are the only two out of 35 FAC noms I've done that with), and especially for folks who aren't FAC regulars, I'd strongly recommend GA, then Peer Review then FAC. The more eyes on the article you can get, the better. Ealdgyth - Talk15:55, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
I was asking, bearing in mind the reviewer's first comment ....... I meant, is it possible for a GA reviewer to decide that the article warrants an FA flag instead .... :o) Pesky (talk) 16:00, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
The reviewer was being nice to Pitke before launching into the critiques. But at least the reviewer was nice! I've run into a few that weren't. Montanabw(talk)16:37, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
That RfA reform thing
Kudpung has asked me to 'nudge' some people .. as I'm an idle get, I'm just going through the entire Task Force list so my apologies if you didn't need a nudge! You can slap me about over on WP:EfD if you like :o)
Straw polling various options: over here - please add views, agree with views, all that usual stuff. Pesky (talk) 12:44, 18 April 2011 (UTC)
Re: Stampede
Hi, and thanks for the consideration. I do suspect that the Calgary Stampede article has the potential to face such edits - especially if I get it featured in time to appear on the main page for next year's centennial, but for the most part, the PETA types have left the article alone thus far. Certainly, if you have material to expand the Rodeo and Animal Welfare sections especially, I would love the help - I'll probably try to finish re-writing the animal welfare section today or tomorrow based on what I have atm. As far as Animal treatment in rodeo goes, I'm not sure I would even wish to touch that article. At a quick glance, I think the best bet would be to do a complete dump and rewrite of it, probably focusing on the events and intermixing the pro and con arguments throughout. Cheers, Resolute23:31, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
I personally consider that one a content fork and would like to merge it back into the animal welfare section of the rodeo article, but I fear stirring up a hornet's nest. However, feel free to swipe stuff from the rodeo article if it will help; I worked quite hard on it at one time to try and make it as scrupulously NPOV as possible. Given the topic, that means both sides are pissed at me but oh well, I should be getting used to that around here. There are some sources sitting around in my sandbox above (see the sandbox list at the top of this page) that might help though they are more general. Montanabw(talk)23:48, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
That's always been my story and I'm sticking to it. Doesn't work, but I keep doing it over and over, thus engaging in that classic definition of insanity! Montanabw(talk)23:40, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
Just a friendly notice
Hi. :) Per your request, I just wanted to let you know that a horse related article passed through CP today. The content has already been removed, but if you wanted to see the text for reconstruction it's all still visible at [11]. The article is Knabstrupper. --Moonriddengirl(talk)16:18, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
Um, these two are the two that have the longest recorded breeing histories, AND have influenced an insane number of horse breeds, making them appear in almost any given article about a modern horse breed. Both also have huge numbers of animals all over the world. How come they're not to be "high"/"top"? Pitke (talk) 16:05, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Also, why WB not high? Other than racing, all major equestrian sports are completely dominated by them. It's also a horse type with loads of breeds. Pitke (talk) 16:43, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
If TB moved from top to high, then WB has to move from high to mid. And frankly, not "all major equestrian sports" are dominated by them. They don't do horse racing or harness racing or endurance riding or any western disciplines. They don't even completely dominate eventing. (grin). Montanabw(talk)17:25, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
No, was using only GA and FA examples for a reason. - The reason? My reason was to provide a wider view of how the topic importance goes with different scopes. I'd rather we have examples of breeds, sports, medicine topics (such as laminitis and colic, Lavender Foal Syndrome for instance), and tack etc. It'd be more helpful for a new face, of why not an older one as well - how are you going to compare, say, curb bit with horse breed importance? Pitke (talk) 16:46, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
For the breeds, the answer is "edit wars" and "sez who?" If we put Arab top, then we get people who hate Arabs saying that Barb and Akhal-Teke and Turkoman horse and (insert old breed here) should be top. We have been challenged for even having TB at "high." Overall, it's better to slightly under-assess than to over-assess because the higher-ranked articles get more pressure and more stupid fights over assessment. As far as the examples on the assessment page, I didn't want to use articles that sucked as examples, that's the primary reason. The other idea was that because the most work has been done with the breed articles, using breed articles for examples provides a consistency of very nice articles on similar topics having different levels of importance. All of which we certainly can take over to WPEQ for further discussion if you want. Montanabw(talk)17:02, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Well, a breed's influence can be easily proven. A more defined importance scale with more defined examples would indeed help ward off edit wars over everyone's fav pony breeds - we could present guidelines and say "please first provide reliable sources that say Spiffy Sparkly Horzey has been a major influence in multiple breeds, or dominates a major equine sport". I don't know many horse breed info books that don't list a breed's major influences. Pitke (talk) 17:09, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
As for "easily proven," not as easy as you think. :-P As for sparkly horzey, Cute point, well taken. But you didn't survive the edit war over the assessment of horse slaughter when the PETA sorts wanted it to be "top." Facts don't sway fanatics, and I've had enough trips to WQA and ANI (all decided in my favor) to want to avoid stupid edit wars with the lunatic fringe. You also haven't had to deal with the people who insist that draft horses can do barrel racing. Montanabw(talk)17:25, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
No, was using only GA and FA examples for a reason. - The reason? My reason was to provide a wider view of how the topic importance goes with different scopes. I'd rather we have examples of breeds, sports, medicine topics (such as laminitis and colic, Lavender Foal Syndrome for instance), and tack etc. It'd be more helpful for a new face, of why not an older one as well - how are you going to compare, say, curb bit with horse breed importance? Pitke (talk) 17:09, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Except then the chart gets huge. We may want to improve that assessment page, but we may want to compare it to what they do on other wikiprojects (Veterinary medicine was one). I agree you can't compare a bit to a breed, but that's why vague is good ... we are assessing relevance across the entire wikiproject. Montanabw(talk)17:25, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Let's take the individual assessments to the talk pages of the respective articles and discuss on a case-by-case basis. Overall, IMHO you are over-assessing articles when compared to other en.wiki projects. I do agree that the upgrade to mid on the color articles is probably wise, as all horses have a color. Upgrading some of the main equipment articles may also be in order because most horses use a saddle or harness, a bridle and have a halter. Health stuff affecting all horses probably qualifies for upgrades to (worming, laminitis, colic, etc...) But as you can see here, breed importance is hotly debated and best kept a bit low key. Montanabw(talk)17:25, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Horse portals
I think this is something that should be done for every relevant WikiProject for every relevant page.
I think that the relevant templates need to be added to each and every horse-related article, including all of the horse breed articles
They ARE on the talk page of every article, isn't that sufficient? I honestly have no real deep opinion either way (in article namespace or on talk page) I just don't want to be in he middle of some wiki-debate that changes every three months. When it's a policy, or at least a guideline with consensus, let us know. In the meantime, yeah, the only way this could reasonably be done is with a bot, which is actually a good idea. Montanabw(talk)15:48, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Hi Pesky! Looks like you are having fun around here! Keep an eye on WPEQ talk, I think a discussion of categorization criteria may be coming over there and we will want some input! (See above talk and chat that is developing at American Saddlebred) Montanabw(talk)15:33, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Yup, I read through all that early this morning (forgotten it all by now, of course ....). I got coerced coaxed into doing a GA review ...... feels like work, lol! And home life is stupidly busy - but our 2yo colt has finally come home from the Forest (had a phone call this morning from the Agister ....) My God he's GROWN! Pesky (talk) 16:50, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
There is something inherently sane about letting young horses life in a natural setting during those awkward adolescent, pain in the butt years (yearlings, especially). They emerge from their feral period much saner than the hothouse flower! However, I cannot help but think of those wonderful cartoons by Norman Thelwell of the different breeds of UK ponies, with the New Forest Ponies being denoted by butts, tails, eyes peering out from the woods and question marks! :-D Montanabw(talk)17:49, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
The very reason young stupid Finncolts have been sent off to shared summer pasture for more than half a century now. Pitke (talk) 17:52, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
My oldest mare grew up that way, halter-broke, very well-handled and properly trained as a foal, but most of her yearling and two year old year spent running up and down the Bridger Mountains. She has stronger feet, better bone and 10 times the sense of her barn-raised younger counterparts and completely clean legs at age 31, not a splint. Still sheds off like a wooly mammoth too, but right now we aren't discussing that part! :-P (spitting out loose hair from between my teeth...) Drives me crazy the way most people raise Arabians these days, they aren't greenhouse plants! Montanabw(talk)18:01, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Ponies that have spent their early years out on the Forest are so much better emotionally balanced - knowing how to be part of a herd, knowing where the 'boundaies' are in terms of acceptable behaviour (with other horses, at least!); used to the traffic, used tolooking after themselves, knowing what's actually worthy of being spooked at, and what's no problem. They have a good life out there. :o) Pesky (talk) 18:17, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Various Varians
Chzz (on IRC) has just pointed out that you probably need to use the Template:copied thing on the talk pages of the various Varian articles, even though you basically wrote most of them, just to avoid anyone (who cba to check out authorship on the others) shouting copyvio etc. at you! Pesky (talk) 07:01, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
Hmmm. That's not quite the ideal tag, and a new policy to me (and geez, try backtracking that stuff) Learn something new every day. I think I have a better tag that may accomplish similar goals, will see if it works. Montanabw(talk)07:14, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
Chzz wasn't suggesting it was 'policy' - just a move towards cvovering your back in case anyone started getting snitty! You know what (some) people can be like :o) Pesky (talk) 11:02, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
I put a tag there, not sure it's ideal, but this new stuff always throws me for a bit. No kick if someone else fixes it. Montanabw(talk)21:03, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions with User:Montanabw. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Very cool, indeed. Be nice if people spent the $50 bucks and did the genetic analysis. Of course, for multiple tests, it's 40-50 a pop, so I suppose springing for $200 or so would be kind of daunting. Also be nice if they had a test for splash. Montanabw(talk)18:41, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
Pfft, who cares about its genetics, its babies will be spotted, almost guaranteed! ...erm, and never mind the occasional dead white ones. Pitke (talk) 18:58, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
I'm thinking we need to clean up some of the other "big" breeds to GA status, particularly Morgan horse and/or American Quarter Horse. We all know just enough to be dangerous, but I feel we can probably work on these with relatively little trouble. I'm OK with taking horse to FA too. Maybe we could put Arabian to a peer review, but I don't really want to do an FA run on it until later in the summer because it's apt to be at least as complicated as Appaloosa was... Montanabw(talk)19:25, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
I'm off to Wyoming from the 8th through the 23rd of June, so anything we do is going to have to work around that. I shouldn't be gone long periods of time again until August after that... Ealdgyth - Talk19:43, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
Hmm. Well, maybe until Ealdgyth gets back, we can work on getting reviews and polishing on Horse and Arabian? For horse, we should probably ask a couple of the new horse editors (Pesky and Pitke spring to mind) to take a look, there's at least one dead link tag that needs to be taken care of, and we should probably make sure that all of the comments from the previous peer review have been integrated, if they're still applicable. For Arabian, the rest of the tags need to be dealt with, and then probably put it up for PR. Montana, I'll start on the work on Horse, if you want to take on the tag-busting work for the Arabs (you've got more source-availability than I do). Then, when Ealdgyth gets back, start pushing for FA on horse and maybe play with getting Quarter horse up to GA. Thoughts? Dana boomer (talk) 20:03, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
I've already asked Pesky -- a couple weeks ago -- to look at Arabian, I'm most comfortable keeping that review kind of informal. Pitke would be good too! I say let's hit horse for sure, and QH is fine with me, though definitely want Ealdgyth on that, as she has the uber-source material! Montanabw(talk)18:10, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
I had a quick canter through the Arabian article and tweaked it here and there, mainly just concentrating for the moment on reducing choppiness and increasing fluidity of prose. Will come back to it again to look for more things; meanwhile I may do the same with Horse soon(ish). Pesky (talk …stalk!) 12:06, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
Thanks Pesky, I'd say Horse is the priority as the gang all want to take it to FA and it's getting a little bit of annoying attention that's slowing things down (some of which is probablymy fault, but...). Montanabw(talk)14:43, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
... and Ironholds says he'll take a look-see and contribute, too, to check it out from a non-horsey perspective for things which we might miss noticing. :o) Pesky (talk …stalk!) 06:25, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
Crow Horses in 1743
I have a number of books on Canada and there is nothing that would even hint that Hudson's Bay people were this far from the Bay in 1743. The Verendrye brothers, who were from French Canada and competing with HBC, definitely saw either the Big Horns or Black Hills in 1743 and no other Europeans seem to have been in the area until Lewis and Clark in 1804-05. 1743 can only be Verendreye. There is nothing in the Verendrye journals that would prove that the Horse People or Bow People were Crow, all tribal assignments being guesses. As for Rhonda Massingham, Amazon.com search shows she seems to be a popular gardining writer who wrote text for a book of photographs - not a reliable source. I would be inclined to say that in '1743 explorers from Canada found the natives of the area in possession of many horses'.Benjamin Trovato (talk) 12:23, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
You may be correct, but the problem is that if the source cited said HBC (and yes, the source could be wrong), then we need yet ANOTHER source to use your wording. And "natives" can be considered as insulting language, you can say "Native people" or call people by their tribal name, but it's one of those things where a little sensitivity is needed. Other sources say the "horse people" and the "bow people" were probably the Crow and Cheyenne, so some language from such sources could probably be worked in. So I'm not really arguing with you, I just want proper sourcing so we avoid problems later. Montanabw(talk)18:34, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
Then how about removing the footnote? It is possible that someone who writes books about how to squirrel-proof your garden may have made a discovery that would require re-writing the history of Canadian exploration, but she should have published it in a proper journal, not a book of horse pictures. I think it was a simple mistake. How about "In 1743 [Verendrye|French-Canadian explorers] found horses in widespread use." The reference to Verendrye would then point to his journal, which is the only possible source. There is nothing in the journal that would justify assigning horses to a particular tribe.Benjamin Trovato (talk) 01:10, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
LOL! As Time1965 wrote the article, I'd like to respect his work. But I think this is a perfect opportunity to weasel! (grin) I'd be OK with just saying "explorers" or something. I personally think you're right about Verendrye, but sure as shootin' someone will scream at us for WP:SYNTH if we say it without a source that says "Verendrye saw Indian people with horses in what today is South-Central Montana." :-P. Montanabw(talk)18:05, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
That was a tad silly of JLAN. Too much history; well, we've tried to be firm-but-fair for a long time, and it just hasn't seemed to cut it. Nobody can say we haven't tried. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 06:51, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
No idea about sunspots, but it is possible I suppose. I've seen one or three things like this during the short time I've been on Wiki...one example being someone who insisted on "converting" ALL cartridge mesurements (as in 7.62x54) to some obscure form of the x symbol because he/she saw it that way in ONE scientific book (not a ballistics book, mind, but a different study). That debate refused to acknowledge that the simple x was the standard in ballistics and has been for many years. Wiki "reality" is irritating in many ways. If an existing profession or area has its own accepted standards, why not use them? Inventing your own just for the sake of some oddball sense of reality doesn't make sense to me.Intothatdarkness (talk) 20:29, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
Preaching to the choir, me laddie, preaching to the choir! Yeah, MilHist and Equine seem to have similar issues, I prefer to avoid MilHist, they are even more prone to "sunspot activity" than WPEQ, I think. Montanabw(talk)20:40, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
Hi. I stumbled across Dan Bailey today and did some format improvements to it. Then I found Flathead Indian Reservation and it's in need of major work (check the last version before today when I started on it). Then I checked out the WikiProject Montana page and saw you listed as a member and willing to help and answer questions. I was wondering if you're interested in helping with the Flathead article. PumpkinSkytalk13:39, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the tippo. Dang, I was actually in Dan Bailey's last weekend when we were over in Livingston (see photos I added to The Murray Hotel). Shoulda brought out the camera there too. Will peek at the Flathead article, though most of the Native American articles sort of suck, so diving into those can be a life's work! =:-O You may also want to tip off Mike Cline to anything you spot, as he is the guy with the energy on the Montana articles. Montanabw(talk)15:46, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
I think I've done about all I can with Flathead Indian Reservation. With a couple of good refs with new info we could expand it enough to make it DYK eligible. Mike left a very nice and helpful note on my talk page. I put this post on this page too. PumpkinSkytalk23:19, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Yes I am EXTREMELY opposed to posting someone's paper as the Animal Assisted Therapy article. It represents a particular point of view which is not in line with Wikipedia standards. I intend to delete it again, if it is not rewritten to be more objective.
The Dogfather (talk) 13:20, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
On top of the coordinates, a bot just marked that article as unreviewed, I wonder why. I reverted, but please watch it, I will be out for now, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:25, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
Helloooooo!
I just caught sight of you on my talk page :D
My beautiful boa now has a starring role in Boa constrictor; see full-res vid here. Ain't she fast?! We need someone with a high-frame-rate camera now, to get a really good slow-mo vid of the strike.
Will peek and adjust. Confusion is Bear's Paw and Rocky Boy's. Same general area, two different apostrophe configutations. :-P Montanabw(talk)21:02, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
"Your insults "Restoring previous formatting, removed by editor Montanabw, who has been asked on at least three previous occasions not to edit the talk-page contributions of others" This is bull. Only this one particular time have I EVER deliberately changed something you wrote, and here it was only formatting, not content. You have had some other talk page comments get scrambled up due to anything from edit conflicts to computer gremlins to vandals, but I personally have NEVER deliberately changed anything you have written (I've never changed what ANYONE has written!!!) and am very insulted that you think I have. I tried to explain myself previously to you about this, as well. I have really had it with your sheer meanness and constant insults. Maybe you have no idea how obnoxious and flat out cruel you sound online, but let me just say that I have had it with your attitude. Contribute on the issue, stick to the issue, argue the issue as much as you want, but can the insults. Oh, and how about writing some more actual content instead of criticizing everyone else's? It would be nice for you to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem of wikipedia's incivility. Montanabw(talk) 16:36, 10 August 2011 (UTC)"
Well, I can't recall on which talk-pages I think you have done this before, and I'm certainly not going to start searching for them, so I withdraw my unsubstantiated accusation and offer a full apology for it, which I hope you will accept. That said, I will ask you to make quite absolutely certain that you never again edit a talk-page contribution of mine as you did here and here. Is that clear? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:27, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
OK, apology accepted. The Asturcon one appears to have been an edit conflict or something, I most certainly DID NOT ever intend to remove anyone's stuff (I'm not that malicious). As for editing the HIW one, I was merely formatting, not altering content, but if you really insist on not having your mistakes fixed, next time, I'll just critique it and ask you politely to try a different approach. Montanabw(talk)20:37, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
Based on your suggestion, I looked at sources for this artist. I only find two decent refs: [16] and [17]. Do you know of more? I can't even find a year of birth, though it looks late 40s-early 50s. Right now I'm not sure how good the article would be. PumpkinSkytalk21:19, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
I also found this: [18] which is basically this[19] Also, send a message to User:Tim1965, who is the guru on all things related to Great Falls High, where I think Dolack graduated. Montanabw(talk)22:14, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
Droped a note on Tim's page. I saw the Schlechten article while working on the big list. It's the first article I've seen on three people.PumpkinSkytalk22:24, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
Are you guys psychic or what? I was doing research on a Dolack article in the past two weeks, and just moved a bunch of notes into one of my sandboxes. The biographical basics are coming out of Who's Who in America, but there are bits and pieces about him in The Missoulian and Great Falls Tribune as well as a few other places, and some books. I don't think it'll be great, but it'll pass notablity and approach B-class. It might get done this weekend, if I have enough time. The big issue is going to be a lack of a photo of Dolack, and getting one or more of his artworks into the article. - Tim1965 (talk) 01:27, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
I'm been called many things, but psychic is not one of them ;-) ROFL. This thread started as part of our (us two and Mike Cline) working on List of people from Montana and sub lists of it. I have the football one at FLC now. Ideally the whole set of list will be FLs one day. Feel free to help if you like and for sure add in Dolack to the artists section of the main list when you're done. You may want to DYK it. I think you can put in one of his as a sample. See article on fellow Montana artist J. K. Ralston. PumpkinSkytalk01:37, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
Full disclosure: I have about five Dolak prints hanging around. So I can easily take an image of his artwork, but I think there is a problem with copyright on photos of works of a living artist. If you guys sort out THAT problem, I can provide actual images of some of his favs (including "Montana History Lesson" which I have as a signed print -- BEFORE they used it as the textbook cover too! ) Montanabw(talk)22:30, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
Dolack may have his own Wikipedia account at User talk:Mdolack. If this is really him, it may be possible for us to get him to sign a release for the use of one or two images (plus a head-shot, that'd be wonderful!) of his and get them onto Commons so that they can be used on the main page if we get a DYK. - Tim1965 (talk) 01:23, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
Might be hard. He created an article on himself (see the talk page) and it got deleted. He only has 3 edits showing, all in May, so he's not editing and email isn't activated. Unless we can contact him somehow (like maybe a website) all we can do is post on his talk page. PumpkinSkytalk01:33, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
I'm going to email him through his Web site. He might have had such a bad experience already that he'll say no, but there's no harm in trying. - Tim1965 (talk) 00:58, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
If you diplomatically explain that an article written by neutral third parties (us) will take, but WP just is really anal about people doing self-promotion, he might bite. I don't know him personally at all, else I'd offer to step in, but as it sits, I tend to keep my actual Montana connections off wiki. (Took me five years to start deliberately uploading in-state images) The state is too small in population and I like staying mildly anonymous to the locals ;-). Montanabw(talk)17:39, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Suggestion for WikiProject United States to support WikiProject Montana
It was recently suggested that WikiProject Montana might be inactive or semiactive and it might be beneficial to include it in the list of projects supported by WikiProject United States. I have started a discussion on the projects talk page soliciting the opinions of the members of the project if this project would be interested in being supported by WikiProject United States. Please feel free to comment on your opinions about this suggestion. --Kumioko (talk) 01:51, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
A request to start over as Wikipedians
Hi! I'm the guy who called you names on my talk page several weeks ago. I actually stopped editing for a day or so because of the interaction. I disagreed with you not only on the merits, but because of what I saw as owney and bitey behaviors. I could have stayed in the talkpage discussion but I disconnected because of my rising anger at what I saw. I still read the discussion that way, but I'm not here to prolong that. So I wanted to say I'm sorry for getting too hot. I was wrong to take it up a notch. I made a misjudgement in using usernames. It was a lesson learned, and I'll not repeat that mistake again. Then I foolishly kept it up instead of focusing on the pagespace. Thank goodness for MONGO. That he showed us both equal respect in interjecting forced me to stop. (MONGO is one of my wikiheroes.) So I took a break and went back to helping newbies, which is an interesting hobby of mine. I deal with a bunch of newbs so I'm very sensitive to behaviors like the ones I described above. Anyway. I'm sorry. I was wrong in many ways. I hope you can let this bridge under the water, be merely water under the bridge, to use Ealdgyth's phrase. I'd like to join the discussion at Talk:Horses in warfare, but I wanted to visit you here first. It seemed the right thing to do. BusterD (talk) 23:25, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Fair enough. I think some stuff in online writing probably comes across as more harsh than intended, and as I am often very hurt by what others write too, I suppose that writing that is harsher than actual intent is probably a thing on both sides and well worth thinking about. In my case, dealing with three or four people expressing opposition had me feeling pretty dogpiled and I was definitely getting on the fight to not be intimidated or bullied, whether they actually intended intimidation and bullying -- or not. I perceived their behavior as such and pushed back. Makes sense to just write it all off to everyone having a bad day and starting over. Thanks for your offer of an olive branch. I accept. Montanabw(talk)23:43, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Appreciate your response, and (not surprisingly) now I better understand why you acted as you did. I thought I'd let the heat subside. I'm glad we can work together. I've had Horses in warfare on my watchlist for a long time, and I'm not sure I've ever been on pagespace, other than normal patrol. It's really fine work, and I know you can't keep a high-profile page at that level without sustained effort. I promise not to muck with it, OK? BusterD (talk) 00:03, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. I think the best help is when multiple people provide supportive explanations. Sometimes one person can say it just right, but another cannot. Montanabw(talk)20:35, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
I've begun working on a review for Warlander at DYK. Given your having already given this article a "once over," and with your experience in equine matters, it would be great if you could chime in on the reliability of source, etc., and in general whether you think the article is fit to be featured on the Main Page as part of DYK. The discussion template for this article is at Template:Did you know nominations/Warlander. Thanks. Cbl62 (talk) 23:58, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
With multiple "dubious" and "citation needed" tags, this article can't be promoted for DYK Main Page exposure. Any chance you could work with the original editor over the next couple days to remedy the issues and thereby rescue it for DYK? Cbl62 (talk) 22:52, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
I'll do an edit on the article and see what can be done. The drafting editor may object to what I'll have to chop, but I can salvage it for DYK. If they want to keep the tagged material, then you'll have to do what you have to do, I guess. Stay tuned. Montanabw(talk)16:21, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
Make way for a new kitten
BusterD has given you kittens! Kittens promote WikiLove and hopefully these have made your day better. Kittens must be fed three times a day and will be your faithful companion forever! Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a kitten, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend.
Spread the goodness of kittens by adding {{subst:Kitten}} to someone's talk page with a friendly message, or kittynap their kitten with {{subst:Kittynap}}
Here's my newest one, an old translation of my fi Promising Article, Complex Vertebral Malformation. I DYKNOM'd it, care to take a look and see if my hook's alright? It's a genetic disorder, that's a hard topic for catchy hooks :/ Pitke (talk) 17:30, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
I'll have to take a peek. As you know, genetic neurological diseases in horses is my #1 thing! My horse with cerebellar abiotrophy was originally suspected to have the equine CVM (cervical vertebral malformation). Luckily, I got the CA diagnosis BEFORE I dropped $3K on a myelogram!!!! By the way, if you're into this stuff, want to peek at the much weaker wobbler's syndrome? Seems like everything neuro in the states gets labeled "wobblers". Montanabw(talk)03:02, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
I'll look it over, at a guess, probably poor sourcing, possible verbatim copying from some unidentified source and various style and grammar issues, that's usually what gets these tags slapped on the horse breed articles. Montanabw(talk)20:27, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
I popped by and did a bunch of things. It has some problems with vagueness, see the article's talk for more detailed suggestions. Pitke (talk) 06:00, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
Ok, thanks ! Hippophagy is currently a delicate debate, there are events for its abolition throughout the country, as I suppose the end of the slaughtering of horses in the U.S. ? That's why we have found lots of sources easily about this subject. Even English speakers say it is a Franco-French debate, for exemple Alan D. Krinsky, Let them eat horsemeat ! : science, philanthropy, state, and the search for complete nutrition in nineteenth-century France, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2001, 337 p., and Kari Weil, « They Eat Horses, Don't They ? Hippophagy and Frenchness », in Gastronomica, vol. 7, no 2, 2007, p. 44-51. So perhaps we can have Hippophagy, horse slaughter and horse meat article ? For the POV time, I've work this article because the food industrie spread a big lie, that French draft horses survive only because of meat, so "if you want to save draft horse, eat them", they say on T.V. (u__u) *remains quiet, Tsaag, remains quiet* Except that in France the production is well below consumption, which means that horses people eat are not the french ones (supporting evidence), but from Canada, Mexico and Poland ... people have a right to know where come from this meat.
Oh, another thing with more fun, i think the galloping horse in your talk page is very-very cartoonesque, so... that's all folks ! --Tsaag Valren (talk) 17:05, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Hi Tsaag, we already have horsemeat and horse slaughter as separate, and highly controversial, articles here. I avoid them totally because even my blood pressure and ability to cope with conflict has its limits. Yes, the issue is very contentious here, viewed by some as akin to eating cats, dogs (or worse). And yes, there definitely is a belief put out there that the horsemeat industry in Europe is what saves the rare draft breeds over there. I'm definitely staying out of that controversy! (As you no doubt know, horsemeat consumption is also used as a "cheap shot" at the French here in the states) In the USA, of course, with the closing of horse processing plants here, many US horses simply are shipped to Canada or Mexico anyway. I know in the USA we have a push for "country of origin" labeling on beef, I can see how that is an issue elsewhere too. The conditions in Mexico are often beyond horrific, those in Canada more in line with the conditions anywhere. But more to the point, an awful lot of domesticated horses wind up at slaughter, but European buyers might be appalled to realize all the medications not designed to be used in food animals that are given to horses -- wormers, fly sprays, vaccinations, performance drugs (particularly old racehorses), etc. I'm sure the EU would raise eyebrows at that (?). Anyway, had an interesting talk about this with Pitke also. Certainly multiple sides to the issue *remains quiet, MTBW also remains quiet*Montanabw(talk)18:59, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
I heard that in Belgium, the revelation of the origin of horses for slaughter provoked strong reactions, but you've right, enough about sensitive subjects, we have a beautiful joint work in progress on the Percheron, and hopefully many more! --Tsaag Valren (talk) 19:13, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
And it's a mind-boggling concept to an American! LOL! I do not favor equine slaughter as it currently exists in North America for a number of reasons, primarily related to the abusive handling of the animals in transit and prior to death, and because its availability seems to contribute to the backyard breeder problem, but it is really interesting to see a whole different view on the topic, grown from a different cultural context. And we do have a crisis of unwanted horses in the US that needs to have SOMETHING done. It's complicated because euthanasia of horses is complicated and there isn't much availability of postmortem rendering of humanely euthanized animals here; the euthanizing chemicals basically makes the carcasses into "toxic waste" that have to be buried. Montanabw(talk)21:53, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
No one's willing to buy a piece of land, rent a backhoe, get the needed licences and permits, and print money by providing a horse cemetery? o.o Pitke (talk) 08:59, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
Oh, and actually now in Finland, we're having something of a problem that I might have to mitigate by becoming a horse slaughterer. The number of slaughterhouses who take horses is too small, and some are just less than pleasant to have your horse put down at, think of screaming pigs and piles of bloodied cow parts. Pretty distressing for the owner, not to mention the horse. Anyway, there is horse trafficking going on, they load up in here and take the animals to East Europe, Italy, or Greece, and slaughter them there. It's practically a non-stop ride for the horses, with less than adequate conditions. Luckily, that's not a major problem, most horses do get put down at home or at a proper slaughterhouse. Pitke (talk) 09:09, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
You raise an interesting question, Pitke. We people in western civilization don't deal very well with death in any form, do we? We may consign animals to a horrible fate just because we cannot stomach the reality of taking personal responsibility. (I call it the "I don't want to watch Blackie die, so I'll send him to the auction sale and pretend he's going to find a forever home with some nice lady who wants to take care of my old, lame horse" phenomenon.) Of course, it takes a lot of land for a horse graveyard, (though you may be right that some people would pay for this) though where land is plentiful, people CAN pay a guy with a backhoe about $60-$70 an hour to dig a big hole on their own property, and having a disposal company haul away a euthanized large animal carcass to who-knows-where is sometimes about the same cost. A few people are in places where they can donate meat to a zoo, if the animal is dispatched with a bullet or capture bolt rather than with drugs. The problem is in areas, such as the east and west coasts, where land is expensive and animals in landfills are frowned upon. I had a friend on the east coast (Maryland) who was very conflicted about slaughter because euthanization and proper disposal of her horse would run her $1200.00!!! In contrast, she could sent it to the sale yard and maybe earn $500 or so. I had to admit that I could not judge her or make that decision for her, as I live where land is cheap and I can humanely euthanize and properly dispose of a horse for about $250.00 total (and be there when it happens). Now, as for you, the notion of small scale on-site animal rendering for cattle and other animals happens to be a small niche market in the USA, mostly amongst organic meat producers and those who otherwise want to guarantee that their meat animals are dispatched in a humane manner that they can oversee, yet still have saleable meat. People might have an interest in something like that. The one-way trip to Eastern Europe is precisely akin to the biggest problem with horse slaughter in the USA. (start with that human denial and refusal to take personal responsibiliy thing) Even when the US plants were open, for many years, they only existed in Texas and Illinois, with horses shipped cross-country (often in double-decker cattle trucks without adequate food or water) over long distances. (In Montana, the closest plant is the one in Calgary, Alberta anyway, so MT horses have been shipped to Canada for slaughter for a long time.) We also have issues with the "less than pleasant" conditions where horses are slaughtered, as nearly all facilities are geared toward cattle and the horses are only run through on certain days, via equipment, again, designed for cattle. Pretty ugly, and often not very humane. But then, it isn't fun and games for cows, either, I guess. This thing of humans being carnivores (or at least omnivores) is an interesting moral question when you realize that meat doesn't hatch on a styrofoam tray in the grocery store! Montanabw(talk)20:34, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
I noticed that you had made the last edit on the article listed in the subject line. However I found the article severely incomplete given the fact that their is on Highway 93 as you venture into BC the Tobacco Plains Band of the Ktunaxa Nation. It seems to reason, that those details were completely ignored in this article and since I am unable to edit them as I do not want to learn the markup, I thought instead to contact you. You may also see more information via this reference. http://www.tobaccoplains.org/aboutus.html.
You are confusing the Tobacco Roots mountains with some other geographic feature, your Ktunaxa people are in British Columbia, and there are no "tobacco plains" in the area of the Tobacco Roots mountains.. The Tobacco Roots do not extend into Northwest Montana, Glacier Park, nor British Columbia, they are in south central Montana. Sorry not to be of more help. Montanabw(talk)19:51, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
If I remember correctly...
...one of the suggestions in GAR for Finnhorse was to include info on sire lines. I've been drafting away in my sandbox, and the Lohdutus section is about finished. Care to take a quick look? Pitke (talk) 20:05, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
My take is that you have enough for a spinoff. I'd add a paragraph as a summary with a "main" link, then make this a separate (and very cool) article! For example, see how we handled the foundation sire lines at Lipizzaner for how a summary might work. Montanabw(talk)20:39, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
Holey moley, more sub pages? Suits me. More potential DYKs for me :D Another question. I found out that there actually is a gap in the history section, about the Tilastolliset taulut trotter registry and its foundation in the mid 19th century. In other news, I'm finally confident that I should just up and translate the article into Finnish (and add the removed refs to the Swedish version, and proofread it -- someone's translated the en version partially, mostly it's fine but I found some mistakes already), and any later development we do I'll update to the other two versions. When I'm done I really hope I can get my mother to translate it into French, she teaches both English and French as second language -- now that her book project is finished, I can actually see an opportunity opening up :) Yeah, I guess my goal is to have this article (and its subs) fully translated into as many languages as I can, and get it t:o FA (or at least GA) in at least 3 or 4 languages. I'm going to make the Finnhorse promoting associations award me a gold medal! Or at least get me some nice photos to use >_> Pitke (talk) 09:16, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Hee hee! The Finnhorse breeders should crown you or something, they seriously owe you one! Fear not the spinoffs, have you noticed that the bigger breeds like the American Quarter Horse and the Arabian have quite a few SEPARATE articles on various famed animals? (Check out the categories to see...) Your Finnhorse summary is really a modest scheme, really. Now that we have Tsaag on board at en.wiki, he/she is the guru of French articles, so may be a good partner to team up with to do Finnhorse on fr.wiki, and a grand scheme you have, indeed! Also, User:Conversano Isabella is Austrian (i.e. native speaker of German), but I think he speaks relatively fluent French (his English is so-so but improving), so may be able to point you toward a de.wiki version too. (Though Kersti over at Commons is also German and maybe she'd help too?)
No need for a link to a random YouTube video. Also the video is more about the version known internationally as combined driving, which has many images. Better to find acceptable images for the article itself. Montanabw(talk)18:24, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm sorry about this, noticed your amendment to the article before I discovered you had answered me. Its carriage driving here and this is not UK. Anyway it is a real subject and needs to be covered. The article gets visited by potential readers. The subject's a great deal more than standing in front of an audience for applause isn't it. I was just disappointed to find that little bit of text was all there was and hoped to attract attention - also yours by my draughting. Eddaido (talk) 19:47, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Now I am rather confused by your answer. "Carriage driving" is one term for a form of horse-driving, but to the extent it may warrant its own article, it needs a LOT of expansion because as it sits, the stub says virtually nothing. Posting a link to an hourlong YouTube documentary isn't all that helpful, though if the narrative has some useful linkable info, you can sometimes use video as a reference if you cite to the minute and second where the clip or statement exists. Montanabw(talk)19:52, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Oops, there's a misunderstanding about the linked video which is called This is Carriage Driving and last for 1:33 meaning one minute 33 seconds. I would hate to be in the position of trying to write an article when all I can say of the subject is "I wish I could do it" and I know absolutely no more than the obvious. I'm sorry I've been a distraction but it was intended to have been to a purpose. Regards, Eddaido (talk) 21:57, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Oh, don't sweat it. We could use a person who knows the sport really well to spend some time improving that particular area of WPEQ, unfortunately, our driving guru, Richard New Forest, has a real life and can't spend all his time on wiki fixing things -- darn! Montanabw(talk)21:05, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Scratchgravel Hills
Its done: Scratchgravel Hills. Next time your heading this way lets plan to meet up somewhere for coffee or something. Just needs a little leadtime to ensure I am in town. Just got from Pittsburgh last night.--Mike Cline (talk) 15:28, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
She'll be whiter around the body and neck, roans tend to look pretty un-roan when they're little. I'll have to try and stalk her for some photos next summer o_o Also stalk all the horsey mags and papers for the following months, she'll be recognised (=colour ans markings officially recorded) for registration in a month or two. I know a paper or three that will surely publish her just on grounds of her paper. I mean, the first (new generation) male roan, the first double cream dilute, and the two first smoky blacks last year were a big thing. Pitke (talk) 20:40, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
Nonono, that's not the point. Finnhorse. That's both palomino and a roan. About 30 palominos and 8 roans exist in that breed. Pitke (talk) 20:16, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
We usually say the base color + roan when we do color lingo these days, hence "palomino roan." Except we still say "blue roan" (which looks like a gray but is genetically a black roan) Go figure. Roan being a dominant gene, there will be more roans. Interesting that mama looks like a bay roan. Was papa a palomino or a cremello? (Must have been?) Montanabw(talk)21:43, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
Papa is palomino, a non-studbook stallion by another non-studbook stallion (out of Täti Moonika), mama indeed is a bay roan, a result of deliberate breeding. Roan is probably going to survive, thanks to deliberate colour breeding, but it'll be a while before we'll see any studbook registered roans. Hopefully that colt I mentioned earlier (the only male roan) will get mares outside of his breeder's herd... Or maybe even gets leased or sold to someone who has the will and means to take him into studbook. Luckily, the studbook status of the parents only really matters with the trotter section. Pitke (talk) 20:02, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
Why do you say it will be awhile? Are none of the roans eligible to be registered, or have they simply not yet passed the performance testing? Roan, being a dominant trait (like gray) will keep increasing faster in the population than would a more recessive condition(?). It will be interesting to see what develops. Montanabw(talk)20:12, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
Well, it's not like they're not eligible...My guess is that their owner simply just doesn't feel the need, and wants to concentrate their efforts on securing the survival of the colour. Mares can be studbook registered even without a competitive record, but my guess is, the board isn't going to be favourable if she has no competitive history, and is of non-studbook parents, and possesses less than stellar conformation and qualities. And getting a colt into studbook would be an outright job! The little fella would need to place on national level to qualify for R section, which means it'll be probably a minimum of 7-9 years before studbook can even be mentioned. The there's the fact that the older mares are nearing 20, and each has only managed to produce one or two roans IIRC; their (pretty late born) daughters have been bred young; I imagine, to secure the line's continuity after one or two roan cousins died infertile or untimely. And of course, it's breeding for colour with a single, very narrow line. You gotta breed what you have, and studbook registering has little value if your horses are the sole 8 roans in the entire breed. And if you live up north, the horse needs to be pretty dem great to pay the ~200 dollar examination fee and all that gas, not to mention the waste of time, just to get an extra letter in its registry number. Pitke (talk) 23:42, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
Seems weird to preserve the color in an unregistered line. Is this an exercise in futility or am I missing something? Could these horses, say, great-great-grand-offspring eventually be registered if the parents have SOME record, or will they vanish from the official studbook altogether? Montanabw(talk)23:24, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
Not to worry! The studbook regulations don't directly require the parents to have aquired anything. Of course, things are easier, especially for stallions, if both parents are sb. reg'd, and for stallions sb. reg almost definitely required some competitive success, but the rules do accept registering a horse for breeding if he/she's just that dang good. (No, I don't actually know what they would do if someone presented them a DNA certified pureblood Finnhorse stallion with mindbogglingly beautiful conformation, but also a pedigree full of secret hidden bush Finnponies that EU or Suomen Hippos know nothing about... if he hadn't taken part in anything during his lifetime, but could perform dazzling dressage any day and clear a 5-foot course without losing breath... Would they say "that's nice, we're sure you can score a few national level placings, come back once you're done"? Or would they wet their pants with glee and, after a few more DNA confirmations just to be sure this isn't a cruel cruel joke, gladly accept him with much praise and jubilee?)
As for roans and studbook related babble, Taikuriina's sole roan daughter (they alone consist roan branch 2/2) Taikan Muisto has been taken to conformational shows, although her success indicates she's either not stud book material, or a late bloomer. And to be frank, the other branch would benefit from a generation or two of good sires too. Taika-Varpu at 3 isn't awful but ... Taikan Muisto at 2 is better, although with dinky little hooves and smallish joints (for all I know of horse conformation), and weak-looking knees.
If I understand the breeder's intentions, they know what they have, i.e. not stallion-making material. The chances that these more or less homely mares produce a colt of such conformation that it can pass the stud book examinations and attract mare owners who wouldn't breed to a roan just because he is roan are low (additionally, until Taikahuure was foaled in 2010, many actually believed a genetic superstition that male roans would be impossible in Finnhorses!). Fillies will be easy to sb. reg in case they show good promise. And of course, should a colt turn out so good that they wanted to try and sb reg him, they can just, this is an exaggeration, blow the "sb. reg my mare" whistle the day before they enter him to make him pass his pedigree formalities. :) Pitke (talk) 18:52, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Tl;dr version: provided they are of quality, any of their pureblooded descendants (and the animals themselves) can be registered in the studbook. In case of males, it is fairly easy to satisfy the de facto rule of having both parents sb-regged since the breeders use sb sires, and sb-regging a mare is pretty much a breeze. In case of females, well, breeze. Pitke (talk) 23:02, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Hello Taylor and glad to see you back! Let me know what some of your favorite topics are, and I can probably point you to the best areas... you did a nice job with the article on Authentic, and we have plenty of horse "biographies" that need help, and some famous horse people as well -- There are a lot of people redlinked at List of Olympic medalists in equestrian. (Hey Dana, why are none of the horses wikilinked there? Some have articles...??) Dana's suggestion to work on expanding stubs is also a great one, and if you have other areas of interest, we can point you at the articles most desperately in need of work that are still within your idea of what might be fun! Montanabw(talk)17:34, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Horses are wikilinked when they have articles, it's just that most of them don't. If some have articles and haven't been linked, this is just an oversight and should be corrected. Dana boomer (talk) 21:32, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Taylor! There's a job for you right there! In a quick look, I noticed that Custom Made (aka "Tailor") has an article but isn't linked on the list. That's a great cleanup project (my guess is that the USA and UK horses are apt to have articles, as are the more recent animals from the 90s and 00s) Montanabw(talk)22:22, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Just in case you didn't see them on my talk page, Rocket's second-lesson videos are uploaded! Bearing in mind that (a) this was only his second lesson, and (b) this is the baby who fractured my skull when he was an even smaller baby, we're soooooo pleased with him! One very, very smart li'l guy :D. And OK, yeah, good-looking too! (Adding: COI? POV-pushing? Never heard of it!)
So what did you think of him, huh? Was he amazing, or was he brilliant? :D (And have you ever heard of the "alternative close"? lol!) He'll be going back out to the Forest for about 9 months soon, to give him some "thinking time" before we move on to the next stage. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 08:17, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Haven't viewed all, I must admit. But what I LOVE about the NF approach is that you create mentally healthy horses by letting them just be horses! I think that is 100% the BEST thing that can happen to a young horse. I just lost my dear 31 year old mare, I think she was the wonderful horse she was in part because she got to grow up on the side of a mountain with a herd of her "peers", interspersed with proper training. You Commoners are seriously doing some very good things! Montanabw(talk)01:23, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
It really does have to be the very best way to let them grow up, I'm sure. Such a shame that most people don't have the facilities to do it this way! Our totally-diva chestnut mare has changed personality so much since we turned her out to the Forest - and she looks sooo much happier now! Pesky (talk …stalk!) 13:15, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
At the very least, even modest turnout space with a group allows for much mentally healthier animals than those stuck in a box all day (we humans go nutty in a 12 x 12 office cubicle, horses do amazing not to go any nuttier than they do in theirs!) I find it ironic that people claim to have no room for even simple turnout when the reality is that they have no clue how to manage horses into workable social groups, putting far too many animals in too small a place and then claiming that turnout is bad because the horses get hurt! (Fix the fences, plan the space, separate completely incompatible animals, oh how I could go on and on...)
I reverted the changes back into place... Hope you don't mind. There was a general agreement that the section was a little too big in the discussion I started at NPOV/N. Slatersteven was acting in concert with that. Cheers! Resolute23:42, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
No problem if they worked for you. Sometimes I worry about lead editors being bullied into going along with something where they aren't really OK, just tired. But if you're OK, then I;m OK! Montanabw(talk)19:57, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Nope, that's pretty much why I took it there. I expect activists will make attempts to change the wording on the section/article, especially as next year's event approaches, and wanted a place to point them to when I explain that the text was neutral as is. Resolute23:27, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
The activist issue permeates all the rodeo-related articles. Can I have a permanent link to that so I can use it next time the Cheyenne Frontier Days one gets hit? Montanabw(talk)23:36, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
You did a nice job of raising the issue in a way that didn't generate a lot of drama. I wish I could do that, I can't seem to open my mouth without pissing off someone! Montanabw(talk)23:56, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
New images and changes in fiador knot, take a look
A mockup of a rope fiador
Hi there... I just wanted to mention that I've added several images to the fiador knot article, one of which (shown right) might also be useful in the fiador (tack) article. The knots shown are based on diagrams found in Bruce Grant's 1972 Encyclopedia of Rawhide and Leather Braiding. Please also take a look at the changes I made to the description of how the knot is used -- the article originally read that it's the fiador knot itself that goes around the heel knot, but this seems incorrect (and not likely to work in any case.) Feel free to fix and/or let me know about anything that looks off.
BTW, I noticed that in the book mentioned above the bottle sling (aka Hackamore knot) is actually partially threaded through the bosal and heel knot, rather than just being around it. I left this detail out for now, but I wondered if this is just an idiosyncratic way that Bruce Grant shows it, or whether it's actually the correct/preferred way. I've been working on the bottle sling article today also, and may want to mention something about the threading method in there if it's actually the widespread/proper use of the knot when attaching to a bosal. If you don't know what I'm talking about I can provide more detail... --Dfred (talk) 23:28, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the cleanups in fiador knot, and for the clarification positioning of the fiador knot. One question though: does the fiador really get its name from the fiador knot? The description of the Spanish use of fiador in the Origins section of that article (and wikt:fiador#Spanish) indicates the word has been associated with at least a few different types of cords/lanyards owing to their function in securing/protecting/preventing something. So, if anything, wouldn't the naming more logically have flowed in the other direction when the knot became commonly used on an item with that name already? (Incidentally, it is interesting to consider how the use of the term fiador for the neck cord of a cloak (from 1794) might relate to the equestrian use.)
That slight variation in attaching the hackamore knot/bottle sling to the heel knot I mentioned above is also shown in another poster from the site you pointed me to... Note the two diagrams on the second row (even with the horse's eyes) in this image. You may have to zoom in, but you'll see how the two terminal bights of the fiador are partially withdrawn, the heel knot put through, and then the two bights returned to position after being passed between the "legs" of the bosal above the heel knot. This connects the fiador to the bosal even more securely than the normal application of the bottle sling. It seems intended to increase security and help prevent the knot from working loose over time. I'm tempted to mention this detail in the bottle sling article if it is the common method for attaching the fiador; it is quite distinct from how the bottle sling is generally used. Further, in comparing the mecate tying diagram in Grant's braiding encyclopedia to file:Bosal_on_horse.jpg, I notice the book shows the lead end of the mecate threaded through the terminal bights, which effectively locks the whole thing together. I would guess that in a rig-it-yourself setup like the traditional hackamore there are probably a fair number of minor variations depending on where, and from whom, one learns the techniques. However I am definitely interested if the threaded-bights variant of of the hackamore knot is the common/preferred way -- it is very difficult to tell from most photos of the tightened assembly of knots.
BTW, I also added some information from the Grant book to the bottle sling article regarding the (un)suitability of using the plain bottle sling knot as a sort of makeshift bit and reins as described by Ashley. I get the sense that Ashley may never have seen these knots as used together in an actual fiador. He surely would have illustrated the entire fiador as he was wont to do with almost any knotted contrivance he ever saw. --Dfred (talk) 18:30, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
I can't find much on the chicken-or-egg question about the fiador, so I guess I can't say unequivocally if the fiador is named after the knot or the knot named after the fiador, would be interesting if that could be sorted out. (My own axe to grind are people who don't read and try to call it a "theodore.") As far as securing the bottle sling knot, you are right that there are a lot of variations, see also File:Hackamore to bit.jpg. The "California style" was not quite as wild and wooly in their approach, they took a bit more time and sophistication, and thus would have been less concerned about loops and dangling things than the "Texas tradition" which was more prone to be fast and furious (breaking 6-8 colts a day, putting them to work on a cattle drive in a week or so and figuring they'd be trained by the time everyone got back (see Cowboy for explanation of these) If I were an old-time cowboy who'd rough break colts, (I'm not, but let's pretend) I'd favor getting the loops out of the way, because any kind of loop or dangling thing is a risk to get caught on something; the more wild and crazy an unbroke horse was, the more potential for disaster! In particular, one method of rough breaking was to buck the horse out in the corral, and once they'd mostly quit bucking, they'd open the gate and just let them run like he** out on the prairie until the horse was exhausted, the cowboy would then come back on a presumably "broke" (i.e. in spirit, especially) horse. But in the meantime, there would have been brush and other things that could potentially catch on equipment, so from a safety viewpoint, loops would be bad. If you want to see the real gear in authentic use, check out anything by Charles Marion Russell, the cowboy artist most noted for his attention to proper authenticity. (Russell is also real good for Indian stuff too -- including rope bridles!) For example, see images of http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Charles_Marion_Russell such as File:Broncj.jpg and File:Charles Marion Russell - A bad hoss (1904) original.jpg, elsewhere another one at off-wiki siteMontanabw(talk)20:27, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. I changed the wording in fiador knot to the more neutral "and shares its name with". I agree that in the field things are often heavily influenced by practical considerations.
Funny you should mention Russell... I actually saw several of his works (both paintings and bronzes) at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art when I was at a meeting in Indianapolis just last month. There were also a few examples of American Indian horse gear displayed on full-size horse mannequins on the second floor. --Dfred (talk) 17:20, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
Got your changes, thanks! Yes, Russell is fun, very accurate in details in his work, more so than Remington (Remington once notoriously painted a Native American warrior riding a women's saddle... oops!) Montanabw(talk)07:57, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
RE: Wikipedia article "Ali Pasha Sherif"
Dear Montanabw:
You have some incorrect information in this article which I have been trying to correct, and you keep deleting it. In the article you say that Abbas I Pasha's (1812-1854) eighteen-year old son who inherited his horses was Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt (1789- Nov. 10, 1848) - obviously that information is incorrect! How can someone who was born in 1789 be the eighteen-year old son of someone who was born in 1812? If you go and actually read the article on Ibrahim Pasha (1789-1848) you will quickly see that I am right on this issue. Ibrahim Pasha (1789-1848) was not Abbas I Pasha's son.
The Ibrahim Pasha who inherited Abbas I Pasha's horses was Ibrahim Ilhami (al-Hami) Pasha (Jan. 3, 1836 - Sept. 9, 1860). This can easily be confirmed if you visit these 2 links:
Also, you say that if I have detailed information on some of the people mentioned in this article, that I should post it in the Wikipedia articles devoted to those people. I agree, but Ibrahim Ilhami (al-Hami) Pasha (1836-1860) and Ali Pasha Sherif's father, who died on Feb. 13, 1865, don't yet have Wikipedia articles devoted to them. Therefore, the only logical place to post this information, currently, is in your article on Ali Pasha Sherif.
Most of the information I have been adding to your article is fairly hard to track down, so if anyone is searching for this particular information and they find it in your article on Ali Pasha Sherif, I'm sure they will appreciate it. By adding this detailed information to your article, I am trying to make easy for people what would otherwise be a somewhat arduous research task for them. Believe me, I have spent many hours tracking down this information, and it isn't information which is easy to find and validate.
Neither of those sources is a reliable source as wikipedia would consider it, however. Especially the freepages.genealogy one. You need sources that meet WP:RS to add information to wikipedia. Ealdgyth - Talk20:01, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
I did note that there are multiple people titled Ibrahim Pasha and I adjusted that link accordingly. As far as birth and death dates on people not having WP articles, you could put that information on the talk page or into hidden text, but it is irrelevant to an article on other people except as to how it affected them. Montanabw(talk)22:04, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
RE: Wikipedia Article on Ali Pasha Sherif
Dear Montanabw:
Hello!
I see in your Wikipedia article on Ali Pasha Sherif, that you recently made a link to the Ecole Militaire in Paris. This is an error. The Ecole Militaire is not the same institution as the Ecole Militaire Egyptienne. Ali Pasha Sherif attended the Ecole Militaire Egyptienne, not the Ecole Militaire.
The Ecole Militaire Egyptienne was a special school that Muhammad Ali Pasha (1769-1849) set up in Paris for the exclusive use of students that he personally approved and sent there. The school was in existence for only 5 years (1844-1849). After Muhammad Ali Pasha passed away in 1849, the school was quickly closed down by Abbas I Pasha who was the Governor of Egypt from 1848-1854.
There are other errors in this article which I have detected. The major remaining error is the confusion of Ali Pasha Sherif's father (who died on Feb. 13, 1865) with a man named Muhammad Sharif Pasha (Feb. 1826 - April 20, 1887). Muhammad Ali Pasha (1769-1849) and these other 2 men were all born at Kavala in northern Greece, which has led many people who are not careful in their research to assume that Ali Pasha Sherif's father and Muhammad Sharif Pasha (1826-1887) were the same person.
My research on this particular issue is still continuing, but following are the basic conclusions I have arrived at.
It was indeed Ali Pasha Sherif's father who was Governor of Damascus, Syria from November 1832 to some time in 1838. Since Muhammad Sharif Pasha wasn't born until 1826, he couldn't have been appointed Governor of Syria in 1832, since he would have only been 6 years old at the time of the appointment. Also, more than likely it was also Ali Pasha Sherif's father who was head of the Egyptian Financial Ministry in 1844, since Muhammad Sharif Pasha would only have been 18 years old at that time.
However, since Ali Pasha Sherif's father died in 1865, the Egyptian governmental positions that he is usually credited as holding in the 1870s and 1880s were actually held by Muhammad Sharif Pasha, who didn't die until 1887.
Another point well worth considering is the following.
It is known that Ali Pasha Sherif (1834-1897) had 2 brothers, namely Khalil Pasha Sherif (June 20, 1831 - January 12, 1879) and Osman. Khalil was a famous art collector and Ottoman diplomat. If you check the biographical and genealogical records available on Muhammad Sharif Pasha (1826-1887), you will find that he had a few sons, but that their first names were not Ali, Khalil and Osman. This is further proof that Ali Pasha Sherif's father and Muhammad Sharif Pasha were definitely not the same man.
Furthermore, the available records state the following.
"Muhammad Ali Pasha [1769-1849] brought El Sayed Muhammad Cherif [Ali Pasha Sherif's father], of Kawala [Kavala, a city in Macedonia, Greece] origin, to Egypt when he was 12 years old, and obtained admittance for him into the school at Khanka [El-Khanka, a city 12 miles northeast of Cairo], where all the sons of the Pashas and Princes were educated. He filled many posts in the Egyptian government during the reign of Muhammad Ali Pasha under the name El Sayed Mohamed Cherif Pacha El Kebir. He was made Wali (Governor) of all Arabia, including Lebanon and Syria."
According to the historical records, Muhammad Ali Pasha (1769-1849) was born in Kavala (Cavalla), Macedonia, Greece, and first journeyed to Egypt in 1799 (when he was about 30 years old) as an officer in the Ottoman expeditionary force that was defeated by the French at Abu Kir in July, 1799. It is quite possible that when Muhammad Ali Pasha left Kavala for Egypt in 1799, he took 12-year old El Sayed Muhammad Cherif with him. If that was indeed the case, then we can calculate that if El Sayed Muhammad Cherif was 12 years old in 1799, he was born around the year 1787. This is another proof that El Sayed Muhammad Cherif and Muhammad Sharif Pasha were not the same person, since Muhammad Sharif Pasha wasn't born until 1826 - approximately 39 years after the birth of Ali Pasha Sherif's father.
I plan to add some documentation to your article, in substantiation of the statements made above, as time permits. Plus, I am still conducting research in order to make sure that I have reached the right conclusions on these particular points. This is very much a work in progress.
---
I'll fix the link. What we desperately need here are the actual source citations for the "historical records" you are putting in above. I'm not questioning what you are saying, only that we have to have information on the actual source documents (read WP:CITE, WP:V, and {[WP:RS]] to see what I'm talking about. Wikipedia really needs to have the actual source material cited, if we can do so) I'm also going to move this over to the talk page for the article so it can be available to anyone else working on it. Montanabw(talk)15:53, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
I don't really have anything to contribute to the article, so I'll leave this here. I had a really hard time finding Ottoman sources for the HiWWI article. The main one I did find (Erickson, Edward J. (2001). Ordered to Die: A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War. Contributions in Military Studies, Number 201. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN0-313-31516-7.), I mainly looked through for cavalry info, and don't recall seeing a mention of Sherif, but I could have totally missed it. I got this book through ILL, so don't have it available to check. This, plus a couple of other very minor mentions, was all I came across of Ottoman horse use around the time of the war, and I don't remember coming across anything to do with Arabian breeding. If I had, I probably would have dropped something on your talk page, and since I don't seem to have done that, I don't think I found anything. I don't think I have any other source material that deals with this area/time, but when I get home tonight I'll take a look through a couple of cavalry/horsemanship books that may have something. I agree that more than "my research shows" and "historical records show" is needed for referencing, although the research above looks sound on the surface. Sorry I can't be of more help, Dana boomer (talk) 17:38, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Thanks Dana. This has been something driving me nuts about middle east history of the 1800s in general, seems to be mostly Traveler's accounts, people such as the Blunts, who were not really scholars. Montanabw(talk)17:46, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Friendly hand
Hi Montanabw,
You proposed me a friendly hand on Mike Cline's talk page, so I would be very glad to accept your offer! I also don't have any particular link with Buddhism, but I found very disturbing the way a few contributors are systematically moving and removing content from the English WP pages.
A specific issue is the non-respect of the naming conventions, which gives a primary position to the conventional English spelling for foreign-language names (in that particular case Tibetan). It is very positive when these editors are adding Chinese and/or Tibetan alternative spellings, the problem is that by doing so they also systematically delete or move to a less prominent position the traditional English spelling. Beside the lack of respect for English language and for the work of previous editors, they also lower the quality of WP pages and make a search for these names more difficult.
I've spent a bit of time over the past few days monitoring the activities of Quigley and 虞海, but I don't have the required IT skills to revert all the controversial edits and won't have the time in future to permanently monitor it. A "friendly" hand will therefore be more than appreciated.--Pseudois (talk) 06:48, 12 November 2011 (UTC)--Pseudois (talk) 06:52, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
If you want me to watchlist specific articles, be glad to do so. The issue of WP:ENGLISH is a problem everywhere and determining what is the culturally respectful approach is also a challenge sometimes. But I have pretty strong views about the Chinese government's Tibetan policy, so I'll try to keep an eye on the most critical things you might point me to. That said, if others are articulating my own concerns effectively, I'll keep my powder dry. Montanabw(talk)03:00, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
Shore is purdy! The Annenberg connection is fascinating. I have to admit that I'm kind of trying to sandbox a couple articles of my own at the moment, so not apt to be a lot of help here, but should I trip over something along the way, I'll let you know (BTW, I found but lost and could not find again a link to a really cool Butterfly shaped brooch said to be made of Montana or Yogo sapphires that's also in the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum... might want to keep an eye out). Montanabw(talk)21:09, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
Yes, and another link to it here (If the link doesn't work, go to the gems page and click on "Sapphire Butterfly Brooch" (why I lost that URL and couldn't find it, well, the moral of the story is -- scroll down the page, silly!) May be worth an article too, or just add to Rock Creek or Sapphire Mountains. Another thought is if the SI photos count as images owned by the US Government, thus public domain (?) Montanabw(talk)22:02, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
SI images are PD but they seem to sometimes use photos from elsewhere, so you have to be careful. Will work the butterfly when the movie is over. PumpkinSkytalk22:06, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
The Montana Butterfly Brooch photo is not free, not the best one at least. I've emailed for a release and will look for a free one. PumpkinSkytalk02:19, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
Note
Yeah [20][21]. I removed their article talk rant but I hate to alter user talk if I can help it, so I let that slide for a few hours. Came back just now with the intention of collapsing it with a header including "something about the best way to cook a steak". Your approach was likely the better one, thanks for addressing it before I had to. Regards. Franamax (talk) 01:35, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
Missoula page
For God's sake, would you please stop deleting 2/3 of the Missoula, Montana page. You've done it three times now. Just leave a note and someone competent can remove the knitpicky items you seem to be obsessed with. Next time I'll just report it as vandalism.Dsetay (talk) 04:09, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
Dsetay, I'll answer in detail on your talk page, but this appears to be a technical hiccup, as all I am trying to do is to remove the fake nickname "Zoo Town" from the infobox. Montanabw(talk)22:16, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
One thing you can do is to periodially check your watchlist, and always at the end of your session. If your edits have made large deletions, they should show up with a bold red negative "byte count". The only other way to check that I can see is to click the article history after each edit, and that's a little unreasonable for someone using a dialup connection to edit. Franamax (talk) 02:04, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Not a bad notion. Good advice from a fellow dialup sufferer. (I'm not always on a dialup, only from home. Oh. That means I am SOOOO busted for editing WP at work too! LOL!) Montanabw(talk)21:07, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Whether or not its a threat, it's generally considered rude to put that sort of templated message on a long term editor's talk page. Do you really think that doing that will help with a collaborative editing enviroment? I haven't looked at the edits involved, and perhaps the information needs to stay out if it's unsourced, but a "Welcome to Wikipedia" templated message is just going to get someone's back up and not help with resolving the dispute. Technically, it may be perfectly correct, but it's certainly not helpful. Ealdgyth - Talk23:28, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
It's a longstanding editing dispute (see talk of article if it matters) and the material has been in there for months. I just added four sources to back up the paragraph and reworded it. This is just another round of bullying tactics from JLAN, who is clearly out to intimidate me. Montanabw(talk)23:50, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Help with article
Hi. I had created the account ISPMB Horses as an organization so I could write or suggest an article about them. Found out from you and Dragonflysixtyseven that I went about it wrong. I created a new account "Equus Ferus" per Dragonfly's suggestion. I am an individual who has mustangs and volunteers for horse rescues. I just started volunteering for ISPMB. I want to submit an article about them since ISPMB the the organization that was started by Velma Johnston (Wild Horse Annie) and there is an article about her. I have also written to Dragonflysixtyseven for help since I am very new and have not done this before. Although I have read how to do this in Wikipedia, I can't seem to figure it out. Thank you for any help or suggestions.
Equus Ferus (talk) 17:55, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for the information. I will read and see what I can come up with. Once I have a rough outline, how can I have someone (you) review it for me to see if it is neutral?
Equus Ferus (talk) 22:43, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Sure, and I recommend that you create a "sandbox" and use the Article Wizard so that the article gets some totally neutral (i.e. non-horse) as well. Montanabw(talk)22:47, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
I have been getting some great advice. Things seem a lot more clear now. Once I hand write an outline I will definitely play around in the sandbox! Thank you for the directions. It all has really helped! Equus Ferus (talk) 01:18, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
I'd like to do an article on the Yogo sapphire. Do you have or can you get one or more free images of them? I can't find any. I have, or perhaps used to have, a Yogo mounted in white gold, but I'll be darned if I can find it. PumpkinSkytalk22:32, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Cool idea! I'll see if the guys who own the jewelry store up the street from my office will let me take a photo of one with my cell phone or (if I remember to bring the camera) something of somewhat higher quality. Montanabw(talk)02:35, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
This is in my Sandbox2. I'm essentially done with web refs and now working my way through the Voynick book on Yogos that I have. I guess another week, so there's still time to obtain a photo or two. PumpkinSkytalk01:53, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Keep nagging me (grin). All I have to do is get off the dime on this. Squeaky wheel and all. Literally, there's a jewelry store a block from my office. I CAN do this. Montanabw(talk)03:15, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
I have uploaded a photo of a purple Yogo. Let me know what you think. Middle of next week I'll be able to take pic of cornflower blue one and that's roughly the time I hope to be done adding material to my sandbox2. PumpkinSkytalk22:58, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
I've moved my Yogo sandbox to mainspace. Posting to Montanabw's and Tim1965's talk pages. A few thoughts:
Unless Montanabw objects, I'd like Tim1965 to do the DYK nom BUT please wait til I get a Creative Commons release on a photo I have a lead on (it's a very good pic) AND let's throw our noggins together on good hooks. This is FULL of hook possibilities. Let's do this discussion on the new article talk page
There are almost 80 numbered refs and it's over 41K big, not bad for a new article
On the DYK mention it was moved from sandbox 6 NOV, so they'd won't say it's overdue. I started OCT 25. log here
Copyedit help from all and asssistance in meeting all wiki policies greatly appreciated.
Let's centralize all discussion on the new article talk page.
the mine and the gem are so intertwined I lean to leaving it all in one article vice a separate mine article
OK, I have maybe come up with a way forward, and in the spirit of WP:BOLD have created it. The page is at equestrian facility and I would intend it to replace stable, livery yard and other similar small articles. These article are all stubby and small at the moment (and unlikely to ever become long enough or good enough on their own), and cross over with each other (as many stables also have a rising school, equestrian centre etc.), so the idea is to cover them all in one place, like we do with horse care.
Now i haven't finished - there are still other sections to add, but i concentrated on the stabling section first, where i've tried as hard as possible to keep it international, with explanation of the relevant terms where I can.
However, whilst I'm working, I know that you'll have valuable input so I would be grateful if you could have a look. Once it is in a reasonable state, I would then suggest redirecting the other articles to this single page (which is why livery yard, stable etc. are not in-line linked).
Ewwww yuck. Bureaucrat speak. May be a solution, wonder if there is one more elegant. Oh, and also notice we also have horse management. I'd kind of prefer to merge it all into barn or something. I'll take a peek and if I have no better ideas, yours probably works, but my own barn and/or stable is hardly an "equestrian facility." LOL! Montanabw(talk) 22:21, 14 November 2011 (UTC) Follow up that said, I'm impressed with your work. Not sure it means we can merge all the other articles, but I DO like the progress being made. Montanabw(talk)22:52, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
I like the idea of a merge of a bunch of small articles into something larger and nicer, although I agree that "equestrian facility" is maybe not the most elegant name for it. Some possible merges:
Stable - Barely start class, few references, bare coverage of salient points
Thanks for that, guys. Montana, your edits are excellent, and Dana, those are good suggestions. So far, I think I have included all teh content (and more) that is relevant from Livery yard and Stable, so i think they could be redirected (of course if the secton ever gets to large, they can be split out again as daughter articles) and i'm sure the others can be worked in. For the naming of the main article, I kind of agree, so any suggestions welcome - would yard be any good from your point of view? I think the barn article is already pretty good, and far too wide a subject to focus on horses only. OwainDavies(about)(talk) edited at 05:59, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Agree that barn is much wider than just horses, and doesn't really cover things like Riding academy. Before we do any redirecting, though, merge tags should probably be put on the relevant articles (and a summary of this conversation on their talk pages, possibly with a link here) and let to sit for at least a week. This way people who don't watchlist Montana's page will have a chance to know what we're contemplating and give their thoughts. It is quite possible that no one will notice/care, but we should at least give them that chance. Dana boomer (talk) 12:33, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Probably not stable vices, as that is more a behavior/medical issue than management. But see also horse management. We also have pen (enclosure) and stuff like paddock, where the US and UK terms have widely varying meanings. "Yard" would not work at all because in US English, that's what your kids play in. We might be stuck with equestrian facility, much as I loathe the title, I can't think of one better. Montanabw(talk)21:10, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
I wasn't suggesting merging the vices article, just making sure there are cross-links between the two. Same for mounting block. Horse management redirects to horse care at the moment, and I don't think all of this information is really a "management" or a "care" topic so much as it is a facility or a location topic. Also agree that yard is not a good one - a "yard" is definitely a lawn (though lawn brings to mind more manicuring and less random things scattered around) in my book. Dana boomer (talk) 21:14, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
See T:DYK/Q. Yogo sapphire is in queue 1 and should appear as the lead dyk with photo at 11am today, eastern US time. I think this is the best new article I've ever worked on and truly appreciate all the help. PumpkinSkytalk10:55, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
OK, I've listed this for GA. It's the only one in it's category. Any help would be appreciated. We should look at its current state with GA-level in mind. I don't have any experience to speak of at this level, so help would be great. I think we need to expand the lead. PumpkinSkytalk20:03, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
the DYK had 22,100 hits, holy cow! We made the DYK stats page! I'm not sure how to incorporate the Piegan Blackfeet and state gem things into the body. I'm using Synthetic diamond as a model as it's the only gem related FA. Seems good leads, as summaries, don't need refs.PumpkinSkytalk14:17, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Jesse admitted he shouldn't have said he was walking away. Dreadstar has been a great help and I think we've taken at least an initial stab at all of Jesse's concerns. I've asked him to do a lookover. Thanks so much for all your great help!PumpkinSkytalk15:49, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
I deeply apologize for any offense. It sincerely bothers me that my actions were described as "BS". I'm new to GA reviews, and so I'm sorry that I strayed from policy there and on my issues in the GA review itself. This is a very educational experience for me, and it won't happen again. Thank you very much for your comments Montanabw, I actually didn't realize you had interjected, but in any case I'll consider what you said and do my best to apply it next time. My Wikipedia activity has rapidly accelerated over the last four or five months, and I've moved from mostly reading and the occasional edit to furious editing Folding@home in an effort to get it up to GA (may happen within a month or so, waiting for some other feedback first). As such, I've learned large amounts of Wikipedia policy from text to image licenses, and if I apply incorrectly what I've read, then I will apologize and stand corrected. So once again I'll learn from this and strive to do better next time. Jessemv (talk) 00:36, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
None failed, it was just the gauntlet that was run when certain tendentious editors (some of whom you remember only too well) tried to derail the nom. We also had a couple recently challenged for review for ridiculous reasons. They too survived, but the process was just exhausting, and I was sore tempted to misbehave and vent publicly! The last one I ran through solo went through without any problems. Montanabw(talk)17:16, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
Too many things, especially when drugs and trainers with needles are involved. Race horse stuff is notorious but when it comes to the show ring, which is more my world, soring and tail-deadening are currently my number one and two pet peeves, these people and these people pretty much explain it. Montanabw(talk)03:05, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, people are idiots sometimes, take a lot of parents who get their own egos tied up with winning -- seen at any Little League game. Whether it's pets or kids, I want to say, "get your own life, people!" :-P Montanabw(talk)03:17, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
Hi Montanabw, consider spending a minute on the article to rephrase and/or clarify that "self-declared" stuff. If you can do that, the whole edit war will be over very quickly. BTW, the IP editor has been warned (by another editor) for edit-warring, but you are guilty of the same infraction, of course (that I may agree on the content is irrelevant). Thanks, and happy days, Drmies (talk) 18:20, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm not the one who keeps adding "self-declared", and I am begging people to take the issue to talk. I have repeatedly asked to discuss this. A non-involved editor has commented, but not the anon IP who is the other person involved with this. I requested a day or two ago that the article be semi-protected for a bit, which was not granted. If they don't want to talk and I can't get temp semi, got any other bright ideas other than to keep reverting this until the editor explains or sources the material? It's a wording problem, not a fact problem, but the bottom line is that I'm not going to dive into this without talking to someone who can properly nuance the issue. I cannot find any sourcing for the terminology used, so am reluctant to let it stay Montanabw(talk)19:59, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
Well, I thought you had expertise on the matter and that this would be relatively easy for you. I don't disagree with you on the language, mind you. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 01:06, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
I chimed in with you on the talk page. Please let me know if it gets out of hand and I'll be happy to step in--don't find yourself guilty of edit-warring. Happy days, Drmies (talk) 01:10, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
"Mac" - I'd call this boy a "dark bay," but he's advertised as "bay," photo taken by me in April. Image of same horse, photographed in the summer by a pro here
Detail of Mac, head shot (show trim on face, virtually all hair around muzzle and eyes shaved off)
Mac's poppa, my photo, I'd also say dark bay, maybe "sooty bay" but he's advertised as "black bay" Professional photos here
LIttle black mare's butt, summer with proper nutrition after I'd owned her a year or two. DNA tested homozygous black
Little black mare as a coming-2 year old, about a month after I bought her, (March photo) having basically dug her out of a cow pasture, scraggly winter coat and about as butt-ugly as she ever could be! Talk about fading black!
Little black mare's sire, DNA tested homozygous black, summer photo
I'd say "dark bay," Pesky would probably say "sooty," Ealdgyth would say "black bay" she dapples, is darker along topline
Classic "blood bay", real bay, true bay, classic bay, bay bay...whatever. Bay!!!
Also "dark bay," Arab breeders would advertise her as "black bay" but probably seal brown, given light-colored "soft parts"
The two "dark bay" mares shown in the other photos "seal brown" on the left, "sooty" on the right.
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