Talk:Exmoor pony

Comments as requested
Apologies for taking a couple of days to get to this:
 * First, are you planning on taking this through GAN or straight to FAC? Personally, I like to take articles through GAN, just to get an extra set of eyes, but it's up to you. The article is very high quality, as it stands.
 * The last sentence of the lead is a little jarring, just hanging out by itself. I'd suggest combining it with one of the other paragraphs or moving things around so that you can expand the last paragraph. For an article of this length, either two or three paragraphs work per WP:LEAD.
 * What makes ref #1 (Everything Exmoor) a reliable source?
 * Make journal refs consistent - either always give publishers or never give them. Compare refs #7 and 8.
 * Ref #11 needs to be formatted as a journal, not a web ref, and needs the journal/publisher info fixed.
 * Ref #36 (Wynmalen, Henry) needs a page number.
 * What make all four parts of ref #37 reliable sources?
 * Lead, link Tarpan, and find a place to link History of the horse in Britain?
 * Characteristics, three "and"s in first sentence.
 * Characteristics, "It shows a distinctly different jaw structure..." Is there any analysis as to what this means or why the breed has developed this way?
 * Modern DNA studies - link haplotype on first occurrence, not further down.
 * Modern DNA studies, "the lack of sufficient pre-domestication DNA samples...until more samples have been analyzed." Redundant.
 * Uses, "Exmoor ponies won the International Horse Agility Championships in 2012." Multiple ponies won the championship in a single year?
 * Smith, Morrison in References but not Notes.

Overall it looks pretty good. I've made a few minor tweaks, but nothing major. Dana boomer (talk) 14:50, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, and: I don't think there is too much of an emphasis on the genetic stuff, given the number of studies that have been done using Exies and the amount of mythtorical stuff that is out there. The article is not overlong, so I think the stuff fits well. Dana boomer (talk) 19:12, 29 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree that the "purebred since Adam and Eve" stuff is an issue for the Exmoor, so detail helps. That said, don't call the primitive wild horse a "Tarpan," that's a specific subspecies. ;-)    Montanabw (talk) 22:59, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Beginning to work on this for buffing to GA status (which should be fairly easy, given all the work that has been put into it). A lot of the above comments are still outstanding, so I'll be striking them as I work on them. Dana boomer (talk) 19:17, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * More work. I love it when I find a source that says "a bunch of other mythtorical sources are incorrect and here's why". Jaw stuff is hooey, kind of like backbone stuff in Arabs. Still looking at a few spots. Would like to find better sources than Everything Exmoor for the "many fanciers say they were bred pure" stuff, but it'll work if it needs to. Dana boomer (talk) 16:24, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

A landrace, not a breed?
I have a very strong feeling that this is not a formal, selectively bred breed, recognized by any fancier/breeder organization, but is in fact simply a landrace. All the facts in the article seem to support this. If so, this article has to be rewritten and recategorized to stop making the unverifiable and blatant original-research claim that it is a breed. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  08:05, 2 January 2013 (UTC)


 * It is a horse breed as horse breeds are defined, it has a registry and a breed society. Please don't do this.  You are messing up multiple articles here with these moves and actions against consensus.  You have raised this issue at WikiProject Equine (WPEQ) and it needs to be resolved there before you go into any individual articles.   Montanabw (talk) 23:19, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
 * It is most definitely a breed, and also a landrace. The Exmoor Pony Society was founded in 1921 to establish a stud book to ensure continuation of the true pure-bred Exmoor Pony. The breed is recognised by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust as "endangered".  To claim that calling it a breed is "blatant original research" and "unverifiable" is absolutely beyond the pale.  The boot is very much on the other foot, here  for you to make the decision that it's "not a breed" is what is blatant original research. Not even "research", either, as it would appear that you didn't make much of an effort to find out whether there was an official breed registry ... so all that it really is is a totally uninformed personal opinion. Wikipedia article titles are not intended to comply with your own ill-researched / unresearched personal opinions.  Pesky  (talk ) 08:36, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
 * SMc, based on your comments over at WPEQ, I think you are using some of the same standards used for dogs and cats on horses and livestock. There is enough of a difference between these animals that I don't think your analogies hold for livestock, which are simply not managed in the same manner as household pets, nor do they have litters, etc.  While I think your intentions to clean things up are well-intentioned, I'm afraid that when it comes to naming conventions, the dab rules are really mostly observed in the breach.  Note here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neapolitan

Move
Why was this article moved? Natural disambiguation is preferred over parenthetical. I think the new title fails WP:AT, because "Exmoor (pony)" is not actually used by sources and it's an implausible search term. bobrayner (talk) 09:42, 2 January 2013 (UTC)


 * This was a move against the longstanding consensus of WPEQ and there is a much larger issue to be resolved before anything gets moved.  Montanabw (talk) 23:19, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I have moved it back. If anybody genuinely feels that "Exmoor (pony)" would be a better title, an RM is the next step. bobrayner (talk) 23:29, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
 * This talk page move stuck, but not the main article, see your talk page.  Montanabw (talk) 22:13, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes; presumably because the redirect was edited by the same person who did the move. That's not good. bobrayner (talk) 01:44, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Put in the move back request: Talk:Dartmoor_(pony)

Which ice age are we talking about?
The article says "Exmoor fanciers claim the breed is descended from wild ancestors and has been bred pure since the Ice Age, and thus is more than 100,000 years old", but the last ice age was only 10,000 years ago, not 100,000 years. George Ponderevo (talk) 00:38, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Hehe! Well, there were certainly ponies there throughout the most recent ice age (that area of the UK was farther south than the ice sheets; AFAIK the farthest-south that glaciation ever came was just to the north of London.) But ... equines appear to have been resident in the UK for - according to the fossil records - at least 500,000 years.  Take your pick! I'm hoping to get back to working on this article soon, but Real Life is being obstaclous just now.  Nice to see you taking a look at it :D  Pesky  (talk ) 18:21, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Reference to any ice age is probably misleading in that case, as most people will associate "ice age" as the last cold period 10,000 years ago. George Ponderevo (talk) 18:42, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
 * During and since the last ice age would be OK, I think. Or whatever - I'm not personally greatly fussed about it. Pesky  (talk ) 20:01, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
 * So can we just say something like "Exmoor fanciers claim the breed is descended from wild ancestors and has been bred pure for the last 100,000 years"? George Ponderevo (talk) 01:15, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
 * What does the source say? On that note, we have had a long discussion (involving a few now-inactive trolls at times) about the history of horse domestication theories and need to be a bit careful in handling the romantic notions of some breed aficionados. (see my sandbox)  Montanabw (talk) 01:44, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, the more I look at that the less sense it makes. Bred by whom 100,000 years ago? And isn't every breed descended from wild ancestors? George Ponderevo (talk) 02:08, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll see if I can tweak this. Basically, because of the fairy-tale nonsense that most of these older breeds have going, to not mention the belief at all will result in every 10-year old girl who likes ponies (and breeders who still feel 10 years old in their hearts) will go in and keep adding it over and over.  I'm looking at the source material to see what I can glean from there.   Montanabw (talk) 18:18, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Quick note
Just lurking on the work being done on this article. Too bad ThatPeskyCommoner is not active on WP any more, she really knows her stuff; may ant to email her for a PR; I think the email link is still active and she didn't quit in disgust or anything, RL stuff bit into her WP time. Also, her History of the horse in Britain and FA-class New Forest pony may have good source material. Montanabw (talk) 02:10, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, she did some wonderful work on this article. The history/DNA stuff is really solid, and I think in good shape for a GAN. My main focus at this point is replacing a few unreliable sources used for minor things, expanding a couple of spots that I had questions on when I read through the article, and doing a bit of source formatting. Nothing major, and probably nothing that will be significant enough to claim for WikiCup points, but this is another of the B-class articles that will be relatively easy to get to GAN with a bit of buffing. Dana boomer (talk) 02:44, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Duplication in lead
Just looked at this article for the first time in ages (following its GA nom) and it has greatly improved, however I did notice that twice in the lead it says "there are estimated to be around 800 Exmoor ponies in existence" in the 1st para & "As of 2010 there were an estimated 800 Exmoor ponies worldwide." in the third. Is this deliberate?&mdash; Rod talk 13:19, 17 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I can't see any reason for the duplication, so I've removed the first mention. Eric   Corbett  13:35, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Richard Acland v Thomas & number of ponies
In the section on Recorded history and modern times it says 400 ponies were taken to Winsford in 1818; however the Richard Acland linked was born in 1906. This looks as if it has been copied from the main Exmoor article & reproduced the error (which seems to have been copied onto lots of web sites). There are a whole bunch of Acland baronets but I suspect it should be Thomas Acland but don't have the source used as a reference to check. This site says it was Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 11th Baronet and was 30 ponies not 400 and this site says it was 20.&mdash; Rod talk 13:44, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, Hendricks got this one badly wrong. I've reworked the beginning of the paragraph based on a better source - the majority of reliable sources seem to say 30 ponies, so I've gone with that. Equinetourism (the second link above) I wouldn't really consider a reliable source, more of a sales site. Dana boomer (talk) 00:09, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

date error in ref year = 2102
The current ref 2 to the Breed Standard includes a publication date of 2102. Having looked at the web page referenced I would assume this should be 2012 but there isn't a date on it apart from copyright 2014. Are there particular dates when Breed Standards are published (perhaps in a book as well as the web site)?&mdash; Rod talk 14:17, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the note! It, of course, should have been 2012, but the rule book (which includes the breed standard) was updated in 2013. I've now tweaked the link and the date. Dana boomer (talk) 23:47, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Just a side note, Rodw, to ease your concerns, most horse breeds update their rule books annually, but usually the breed standard doesn't change (and when/if it does change, it's a historic big deal commented upon in other reliable sources as part of the breed history); I've got old rule books going back into the 1970s for some breeds and the language is identical to 2014.  Montanabw (talk) 04:07, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Characteristics
"The legs are short, with clean bone", as opposed to dirty bone? Needs rephrasing or explanation for non-specialists.  Tigerboy1966  07:51, 17 June 2014 (UTC)