Talk:Kiger mustang

Cleanup
A lot of this seems to be a direct copy-and-paste from the various sources by various editors, and thus it looks like some of the information is overlapping or redundant. Katr67 00:18, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Image
The Sorraia type mare pictured is not typical. The information from Kiger Brand stating they were discovered in1971 is incorrect, it was 1977. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.54.212.155 (talk) 18:08, 2 June 2012 (UTC)


 * The image of the pinto and dun horses that replaced the Sorraia type photo at the top of the page do not appear to be Kiger mustangs from the Kiger or Riddle HMA. There are no pintos allowed in the Kiger registries and they do not usually occur on the HMA.  It looks like this image was taken from another Oregon HMA SilverSheWolf (talk) 04:41, 2 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I've reverted back to to Sorraia image. Although the pinto is from Steens which is also an HMA. But is there a third image we can agree on? I'd agree the pic including the pinto is confusing. Valfontis (talk) 07:46, 2 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Well, the Sorraia isn't a Kiger, either. I put the Mesteno photo back up, that was the one that was there for quite a long time. The image quality is poor, but it's unquestionably a Kiger.   Montanabw (talk)  08:40, 2 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Works for me. Valfontis (talk) 15:43, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Comments on article improvement
I know it's probably what the source says, but "claybank" IS red dun. Overall, the description of the color is probably what the source says, but they have no freaking clue how dun works genetically and it is described quite poorly. May want to mostly link to the dun article for descriptions and just discuss the basics plus the additional weird words they use (see what I did for the weird words at Fjord horse, where they call grullos "gray" ) ;-)  Montanabw (talk) 18:55, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Primitive markings include the two-tone mane/tail and leg striping, see the primitive markings article. Primitive markings as a whole are "dun traits". Point coloration can include the face, but I didn't realize we had an article, so I removed the parenthetical explanation and just left the link. The registry separates claybanks from other red duns, don't know why. All the variation names and color descriptions are from the registry, although I made a few clarifications, including that all of the shade descriptions are working on a tan base coat, so we're not talking red, we're talking tan with a red tinge. Dana boomer (talk) 19:36, 4 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Ah yes, you are right about the guard hairs, and yeah, duns are basically the only color that exhibits much in the way of primitive markings. We should eventually get that primitive markings article better sourced (I miss Countercanter).  Your changes mostly work for me.  These registries often made their color distinctions before we understood genetics very well (I remember actually being taught in college in the 80s that mating palominos might produce a lethal white "albino" ... no one understood cremello genetics yet...) I tweaked the stuff that's making me crazy, do as you wish with my edits (LOL)  Consider my butting in as a mere pre-GA PR, I'm not claiming a substantial contribution here, but just want to support the effort.   Montanabw (talk) 21:10, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Split? Clearly covers two topics
This article clearly covers both a feral landrace called the Kiger Mustang (properly Kiger mustang - names of landraces, populations and types, vs. formal breeds, are not capitalized except where they contain a proper name), and a formal domestic breed (derived from feral specimens as the founding stock), called the Kiger Horse (Kiger Mesteño depending on which breed registry you use). There are definitely enough sources on both to split this article into one on the breed and one on the feral landrace. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:31, 17 July 2014 (UTC)


 * The opposite direction (which I disagree with) subsumed Chapman Swifts into Vaux's swift: apparently I was the only dissent.
 * Though I don't understand the specifics here, I agree that a species vs. a specific group generally are separate topics. What would the article names be?  —EncMstr (talk) 20:36, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I've linked the names above. As Montanabw notes below this isn't related to species and subspecies questions.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:52, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
 * No. This is not a "species" or a subspecies.  The tamed descendants are of the same bloodlines as the original feral horses. If you ran a DNA test, they would all be the same basic breed.  The line between a "breed" and a "landrace" is not easy to draw with horses and to do so may be SYNTH.  (The selective breeding techniques of the Nez Perce that produced the Appaloosa breed look a lot like landrace breeding - they let everything run loose, rounded them up, sold off (or ate) the ugly ones, kept the pretty-colored ones and what didn't die bred on) This is a GA-class article and to create an artificial WP:FORK out of it is silly. And please, let's NOT have a capitalization fight here, either. the whole breed/landrace/feral thing needs ore and better research on those respective articles before any consensus can be applied here. WPEQ reviewed that issue years ago when we upgraded the feral horse articles and found no clear consensus in the scientific literature, in fact, little research at all, most of it on isolated groups to determine specific ancestry  Montanabw (talk)  23:31, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
 * It's a very easy line to draw. If pedigrees are tracked and published for the purpose of maintaining a specific set of traits, it's a breed, if they're not, it's not. This is true regardless what animal species it is.  "Feral" doesn't enter this equation, and is a term referring to lack of captivity for an extended period of time and reversion to a state independent of humans.  Not all feral populations are landraces and not by any means are all landraces feral (most are not, in both cases).  For feral Kiger mustangs, it's being clearly sourced that they do constitute a landrace, i.e. a population with a known, limited distribution, and an isolated enough genepool to develop identifiable, heritable traits.  They are distinguishable from random North American runaway horses, have even more distinguishable characteristics and (we now know) and a more limited and and throw-back genepool than mustangs more broadly (which on the whole may not qualify as a landrace themselves, but simply a very broad regional term for feral horse - "In some modern mustang herds there is clear evidence of other domesticated horse breeds having become intermixed with feral herds...").
 * The landrace/breed distinction matters here for several reasons:
 * We don't write articles that cover two topics, even if unrelated, unless one is a subtopic too non-notable or too unsourceable to sustain it's own article. This principle is applied at all levels of the encyclopedia, even ones where many editors would like it not to be (e.g. profusion of separate articles on video games instead of a single article on the entire franchise). I didn't make this rule up, I'm just observing that that's how it's done here.
 * Failure to keep them separate results in categorization problems. I've been working for some time to create a landraces category tree, but this has proved unexpectedly difficult (Category:Landraces is almost empty) because of the resistance at some articles and projects to distinguish between landraces and breeds.  There seems to be a "breed pride" issue at work here, but it's hard to say really what is going on.  I've run into it in dog and cat articles, too (e.g. at St. John's water dog and at Van cat, two landraces that some parties had insisted on writing about as if they were formal breeds).  Several other landraces are still categorized incorrectly in breed categories.  This is like putting the horse-drawn carriage in the automobiles category simply because it's ancestral.  [Note: This has nothing to do with formal breeds that have the word "Landrace" in their breed names; they are breeds that are derived from the landraces they're named for, and they have confusing names, but that's not our topic.]
 * The minute they started selectively breeding the Kiger Horse from carefully chosen Kiger mustangs (starting with the notable individual horse Musteño), they created something genetically distinct, something with a human-engineered, more limited genepool than that encountered among the wild-breeding population. Failure to acknowledge this is the same thing as failing to distinguish between the Royal houses of Europe and all Europeans generally, or between your family and everyone else who lives near you.
 * Reliable sources about one are not necessarily reliable about this other, and this article is already badly mingling them. Every citation in this needs to be re-checked to see if the statements here that are sourced to it are about the feral landrace or about the selective breed, and then carefully written to make this clear to the reader.  This, BTW, is precisely the work that would need to be done to split the article.  It has to be done regardless.  This is a problem that GA review completely missed.
 * They're notable for entirely different reasons. The breed is notable simply as such.  Though there is no official policy on the matter, it's a done deal already that every formal breed pedigreed by a breed registry organization and covered in breed encyclopedia and other reliable secondary sources (registries are too primary to source themselves as to their own notability), regardless of species, is a notable enough topic for an article.  I'm unaware of any challenge to this idea, in any terms or form, that has succeeded.  We even have articles on extinct breeds, but they're well sourced as having in fact been actual breeds.  By contrast, the feral landrace is notable only for having been discovered to have more regularized traits that have been proven genetically to derive from a lineage thought to have been naturally bred out of the mustang population by out-breeding. They're a natural curiosity, while the formal breed is not.  As just some population of mustangs that someone named, the feral Kiger population would not have garnered any separate coverage and become notable on their own (how many other articles do we have on mustang populations, eh?) if not for that unusual quirk of nature.
 * The Appaloosa example is a red herring. If the not-very-selective Nez Perce breeding practice were still being used, the Appaloosa would indeed be a landrace, but they're not today. "A small number of dedicated breeders preserved the Appaloosa as a distinct breed until the Appaloosa Horse Club (ApHC) was formed as the breed registry in 1938." I.e., by 1938 at latest (we don't know anything about the practices of the early non-Nez-Perce breeders), the landrace forked into both a landrace and a formal breed, as has happened with the Kigers.  The difference is that the Appaloosa landrace is extinct (or still extant and we don't have facts and an article on it), while we clearly have proof that the formal Kiger breed, under two names (which are probably trademarked) is established, pedigreed and conformation-checked by breeder/fancier organizations, while the landrace  still around, as such, and being protected but not selectively bred by the Bureau of Land Management.  Two different albeit related populations, two distinct topics, so two separate articles.  Here I have to note that a large number of breeds are derived from landraces about which we do not have articles because we don't have enough sourceable material for the landrace articles - they were/are not notable.  Here is an uncommon case where the landrace is notable independently of the breed derived from it (or breeds - we don't actually have evidence that the two registries have the same standards of points or accept each other's pedigrees, so we may in fact have two separate breeds, as is the case of the Turkish Van and Turkish Angora developed from the Van cat landrace, and the various modern retrievers developed from the St. John's water dog landrace. Finally, There is no WP:NOR problem here like WP:SYNTH, except in the other direction.  Any geographically stable breeding population of domestic animal with some predictable traits is a landrace; that's just what the word means.  In order for something to be a breed, which is a specific claim of fact, there have to be reliable sources that establish that it qualifies as one, through pedigree tracking.  Everyone who professionally works on construction is a construction worker, but only persons with a particular license are general contractors. The fact that some sources use the word "breed" to include "landrace" because they don't understand the difference doesn't change this, it only means they're not reliable (on that point, at least, though the failure calls into question their reliability more generally). Likewise, if my neighbor says her son is a contractor but he's really some unlicensed construction worker, she's not a reliable source about her son's qualifications at least.  Landraces do not have the formal, organizational imprimatur that comes with the term breed, because they're not subject to strictly pedigreed breeding programs.  "WPEQ reviewed that issue years ago" – What's the link to that discussion?  I'd be curious to see what sources were looked at. And by now they're probably outdated if that was "years ago".  Also, GA review is a very simplistic process that does not examine questions like this, only a narrow set of criteria. Because of the lack of proper categorization and even proper writing of landrace articles, it's unlikely that the GA process could have caught this and recommended a split back then.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:52, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

OK, SMC, all the above is tl;dr and, more to the point, UNSOURCED. If you want to convince me, then provide WP:RS material that makes your case. The Kiger Mustang people are quite clear that the animals are one and the same. If you want to argue they are wrong, then show me the peer-reviewed sources that Support your argument. Until then, I'm not going to waste bandwidth on argument. WP:FORK also applies here; no need to split. At most, if you can source that the breed developed from a landrace, which developed from a breed, that could be a useful addition to the article. Montanabw (talk) 19:30, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Request for comments on article scope
This discussion is rapidly deteriorating into a series of inter-personal disputes, which, apart from being disruptive in itself, is likely to deter other potential contributors so there seems little to be gained by leaving this open. Despite the length of the discussion, only a handful of people have participated in the discussion, none of whom appear to agree with the opening statement. HJ Mitchell &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?  12:48, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Background: This article clearly covers, with reliable sources, both a feral landrace called the Kiger mustang (which some would capitalize as Kiger Mustang), and a formal, managed, non-feral breed (derived from feral specimens as the founding stock), called the Kiger horse or Kiger Mesteño (depending on which breed registry is consulted; the second appears to be a trademark, and so does Kiger Horse, capitalized like that). They could even represent distinct nascent breeds. There are at least 5 possible approaches to this question (enumerated below). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:01, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Obvious options:
 * 1) Split: Split this article into one on the formal breed, e.g. at Kiger horse, and one on the feral landrace, e.g. Kiger mustang; this has been done with the Van cat landrace and Turkish Van breed, and with the extinct St. John's water dog landrace and all the retriever breeds like Golden Retriever that are derived from it.
 * 2) Breed-focused article: Have one article, e.g. at Kiger horse, and rewrite to focus on the formal breed, but also covers the Kiger mustang landrace in a section; this approach is used at Appaloosa (though the landrace is extinct, making it unlikely as the main subject for that reason).
 * 3) Landrace-focused article: Have one article, e.g. at Kiger mustang, and rewrite to focus on the feral landrace, but also cover the derived Kiger (a.k.a. Kiger Mesteño) breed in a section; an example of this approach is the Aegean cat article, in which efforts to formalize the landrace into a pedigreed breed are mentioned but not the main topic of the article due to their lack of widespread acceptance as a breed.
 * 4) No scope change: Do nothing about the scope, though perhaps consider renaming the article, in a followup WP:RM discussion. ("Kiger Mustang" capitalized like that seems to be a hodgepodge, treating the landrace name like a formal breed name, while ignoring the actual formal breed names. Names of landraces, populations and types, vs. formal breeds, are not capitalized except where they contain a proper name, per MOS:LIFE, which technically doesn't give any imprimatur to capitalizing breed names either, but we're doing it consistently enough in practice that it probably will.  Then again, the Mustang article itself mostly capitalizes the word "mustang" – a broad feral North American type, not even a landrace, much less a breed – whether this comports with MOS:LIFE or not. Maybe this isn't the time and place for another capitalization discussion.)
 * 5) It's complicated: Do something more complex, if we determine that it's not entirely certain that the two commercial, formal breed strains, the "Kiger Horse" and "Kiger Mesteño" are actually the same breed. It's possible that they should be treated separately, like all the retriever dog breeds, and like the Turkish Van and Turkish Angora cat breeds, with the landrace distinguished from both of them.  5a. This approach might result in three articles. Or, 5b. it might require one Kiger horses (plural) article and three sections, if any of the three would not meet the General notability guideline by themselves; I don't think we want to lose any coverage due to WP:AFD down the road.

Are there others? — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:01, 20 September 2014 (UTC)


 * 6 - ask to see sources for all the assertions above. I don't KNOW that the assertions aren't backed by sources, but I also don't know that they aren't. We usually follow the sources here on Wikipedia. But, my personal lean is that unless there is so much information that it requires forking, we're fine with covering it all in one article - that way the history is covered without duplication. Ealdgyth - Talk 11:13, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
 * For what do you feel sources are missing? We know when and where the formal breed was established from the free-breeding population. There isn't any mystery about this.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:06, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm not seeing sources for the supposition that the landrace is greatly different than the breed. At this point, honestly, I'm not seeing what the problem IS... does the article not make it clear enough to others that there are different subjects covered under this title? The article is quite short enough as it is ... is there something missing that would bulk up the article on one aspect to make it necessary to fork? Basically, I"m not seeing WHY this is such an issue. The first sentence of the article makes it clear that the article discusses both the feral population as well as the re-domesticated animals deriving from the ferals. I'm not seeing that the sources used make that much distinction... so what's the problem you're trying to solve? Ealdgyth - Talk 23:25, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, the article does not make that clear enough. Yes, much is missing, and in what direction to bulk up the article(s) is the main gist of this RFC.  The fact that you're mistaking a new breed (possibly two new breeds) being developed from the feral population as simple "re-domestication" is evidence itself that the article is confused and confusing.  The problem to solve is that this article very, very unclearly covers at least two related but distinct subject, and poorly distinguishes between them.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:28, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
 * By sources - I mean .. going to the books on horse breeds and the better websites and seeing what they do for this breed/type. Such as Dohner's The Encyclopedia of Historic and Endangered Livestock and Poultry Breeds - which is quite honestly a must if you're going to be editing in this area. On p. 366 Kiger's are discussed - as all part of the same subject. Both the feral population and the registry are intermingled. Then you'd need to check OSU's site - which only discusses the feral population. Then you'd want to look at the Kentucky Horse Park's Internation Museum of the Horse site (which is handy because it's designed more for the non-horseman) at IMH - they discuss the feral and registry horses together. Other sources would be Storey's Illustrated Guide to 96 Horse Breeds of North America - which likewise discusses the feral population in the same entry with the registry animals. Then there's Hendrick's International Encyclopedia of Horse Breeds - which lumps the feral and non-feral horses together in one entry. My copy of Simon & Schuster's Guide to Horses and Ponies of the World is copyrighted in 1987 so Kiger's are not mentioned - but a check of a newer edition would be helpful. The Ofifical Horse Breeds Standards Guide puts both into one entry under "Kiger Mesteno" (the rest of these entries I've discussed are under "Kiger Mustang"). As an aside - none of these sources ever use the term "landrace" for these horses. In fact, Storey's has a very nice chapter on how breeds develop and what feral horses are - without ever mentioning the concept of landraces. In all my research and reading on horses and the development of breeds in the Americas (and I've done this sort of research on and off for 20 years) ... I've never seen the concept of "landrace" used in books on American breeds or horses. It's just not applied. I'd like to see sources that use the concept (and not just scientific ones - but "popular" works designed for the non-horseperson interested in horses ... such as the Simon & Schusters Guide which is basically a field guide like for birding.) Ealdgyth - Talk 12:47, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
 * You're making the same WP:IDONTKNOWIT / WP:IDONTLIKEIT sort of argument that Montanabw has made several times in related discussions. We have reliable sources on what landraces and breeds are and how (despite some overlap in some sources with unclear definitions) they are distinguishable, and why this matters.  The fact that horse specialist sources tend to avoid the term landrace is of no consequence here; it's a general scientific term, and it applies to cases of horse populations that qualify whether horse specialists prefer the term or not.  The failure of some sources like Storey's to make the distinction doesn't mean the distinction isn't there, and it's determined by the sourceable facts about the population, not by any argument to authority, especially when there may well be an in-field POV avoidance of the term by those alleged authorities, for some kind of inter-species pissing match reason that's not become clear yet; no one but horse specialists have any issue with this term, we have no sources for why some of them do, how many of them do, and whether they still do. Disagreements over terminology are not disagreements over actual applicability of definitions.  It doesn't matter that Apple Computer calls their computer monitors "displays"; they're still monitors, and our ability to classify them as such on Wikipedia is based on the verifiable facts about them, not what labels Apple prefers.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:08, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I mentioned the landrace bit in passing - the main reply was about the scope of the article. You did not reply to any of that, or the sources I put forth that showed that many sources discuss both the feral population and the registered population together. Does this mean you're not disputing that the scope of the article as currently done is supported by the scope of many of the sources? Ealdgyth - Talk 00:30, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Oh, by the way - which one of the three editors you just discussed on your talk page am I, by the way? The one who dislikes you? The one who has serious English issues? Or the other one?) Ealdgyth - Talk 12:51, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
 * None of the above; that was about a faction engaged in kind of pointless posts at some RMs, and is not related to this discussion, though at least one of those parties is also in this discussion. There are only so many editors, and it's likely that any discussion involving one aspect of animal breed articles will involve some of the same people as another discussion about some different aspect of animal breed articles. Why did you think either observation would apply to you?  You do seem to know how to use capitalization in English, and you've not posted a statement that you're !voting against me for personal reasons, so you could not have been meant in either case.  If you say that someone ran into your car, I don't need to chime in with a question about whether you're accusing me, when I was nowhere near your car.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:08, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I learned very very long ago to not assume anything. It is always safer to ask if I'm unsure about something. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:30, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps I can help. The problem as I see it is that believes that "if pedigrees are tracked and published for the purpose of maintaining a specific set of traits, it's a breed, if they're not, it's not". Since that is not what most other people believe, it creates misunderstanding. The principal organisation working in domestic animal breed identification and conservation world-wide is the FAO. Here are two definitions of "breed" from one of their publications (full citations omitted for brevity, supplied on request): I find both to be helpful in trying to understand what a breed is. My understanding is very different from McCandlish's. The Kiger Mustang is in my view incontrovertibly a breed by those definitions; that some members of it live in managed feral conditions and others in domestic conditions does not affect that in any way, any more than the strictures of the BLM over the use of the word "mustang". It's a type of management that is common in many breeds in many parts of the world; one I happen to know a little about is the Giara Horse in southern Sardinia, management of which is near-identical to that of this breed. The New Forest Pony is managed in much the same way, though not on a mountain; I believe that the Assateague Horse is also managed in a similar fashion. Is there a problem with the scope of those articles too?

If "landrace" is a useful concept at all (it isn't one I personally use), it presumably applies to long-established populations where uncontrolled breeding has taken place over many generations; if so, the term does not seem remotely applicable to any part of a population selected by DNA testing 37 years ago (assuming our article has that right?). has offered one option 6 above, with a suggestion that I endorse. Another possibility that could be added to the list is "leave well alone". Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 01:01, 21 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Actually, I'm relying upon the sources already cited in our article Breed. If you think that article is poor, feel free to work on improving it. The Lush definition is one among many, and importantly here, it's a rather extreme (and political) advocacy position, not a neutral, scientific approach. It's actually an anti-scientific one, and not practical nor well-accepted.  Neither of your quotes even contradict me anyway; both require controlled, not free breeding.  But this isn't a discussion for this page.  We have pretty well-sourced articles at both Breed and Landrace, and our articles need to make reference to those; when we link from some article like this to Breed, our meaning at this article has to match that in the breed article, not mean something completely different.  If you want to use some odd term-of-art definition of "breed" from a specific source, you need to make it clear you are using that author's particular definition and cite it.  It's a WP:POV-pushing exercise, and the fallacy of equivocation, to tweak an article like this one to evade any discussion of the landrace vs. the breed here just because you don't like the term landrace and don't like it being applied to horses, and really, really like the word "breed" being applied to every horse population someone's stuck a name on.  How you feel about these words is of no interest or consequence to Wikipedia. There may or may not be a scope problem with some other articles. That has nothing to do with whether there's a scope problem with this one. Just because you don't see that there is one doesn't mean other editors are forbidden from raising concerns about one. If you cannot tolerate discussions of this sort, you can leave them well alone yourself. PS: "it presumably applies"? "I believe"? "I happen to know a little about"? "My understanding is"? "If... a useful concept at all (it isn't one I personally use)"?  Sure sounds like original research and personal point of view to me. I think the problem here is that some people simply doesn't believe that the word "landrace" can/should be applied to horses, that "breed" can mean anything they want it to, and that "breed" somehow has some special imprimatur or cachet that must be "protected". That is a POV problem. "Breed" is not an honor or title, it's a technical term and it has definitions.  WP has already settled at the article on that word on a definition of what it means in our context. It's narrower than some would like, but that's likely to be true of all such terms in all fields.  I'm sure someone somewhere is pissed off that trucks above the size of pickups are not covered at or included within the working definition at Automobile. That article is a good model here - it acknowledges that wider definitions exist, then moves on, sticking with the more common, narrower one.  We have to do this with Breed, too; the notion that we can have our article say, basically, that it means whatever a couple of breeders say it means, is absurd and unworkable.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:41, 21 September 2014 (UTC)


 * No need for RfC:  Also, since when is one wiki a source for another wiki? (breed? Really?)  This is a non-issue; the article scope is fine.  As far as can be determined, all Kiger Mustangs registered by breeders are the direct descendants of the "wild" herd.  A 'feral landrace" IS a breed (None other than D. Phillip Sponenberg explains that landraces are a stage of breed formation)  There is no significant genetic difference and the goal of the breeders is to preserve the traits these animals had in their more natural state.  SMc provides absolutely no sources for his assertion that there is some sort of difference.  Even if there is, I agree with {[ping|Ealdgyth}} that the article is short enough that there is no need to create a content fork or a spinoff.   Montanabw (talk)  06:00, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Last I looked one editor who doesn't want to talk about something doesn't get to tell the community whether it can have an RFC or not. You're also misrepresenting sources; a "stage of breed formation" is not a breed. When I attach axles to a chassis I do not yet have a car.  "None other than"?  Nice, transparent argument to authority; there's no evidence that Sponenberg is any more authoritative than anyone else in his field, and I'm skeptical you even knew who he was until I cited him at Landrace a month or two ago.  Every source ever cited on Wikipedia about breeds and landraces (with the possible exception of the FAO, who classify  landraces as a kind of breed – it's not a definition they're imposing on anyone) tells us what the difference is, and our articles already clearly explain it.  WP:NOT; no one needs to re-explain why an airplane is not a truck just because airplanes can also be driven on the ground and one editor is having trouble seeing the difference, and is going to refuse to cooperate until it's re-explained to them. Also, "the goal of the breeders is to preserve the traits these animals had in their more natural state" is an unsupported assumption, and almost certainly false (you seem to be conflating protected herd management and selective breeding, and it wouldn't be the first time you've done this in related discussions).  Do you have a source proving that foundation stock were not selected as best representing what the breeders thought made the landrace phenotypically distinguishable other feral horse populations, rather than whichever ones seemed healthiest regardless of their appearance? Do you have a source that attractiveness of the appearance to buyers was not considered?  Is that even plausible, given that two competing breeders are commercially marketing their variants, and that attractiveness is part of the marketing?  The very fact that they didn't all look very similar when they were free-breeding is part of the landrace's actual genetics, which were more diverse; the very act of fixing some traits in a breed and breeding them toward standardized goals irrevocably separates a breed from the more diverse landrace it was selectively bred from. This is inherent in the very concepts of landrace and breed.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:33, 22 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Again, tl;dr. I still see no sources from you, SMC, only more of your endless ranting.  So see below.  Montanabw (talk)  19:00, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Again, WP:IDHT. You cannot say "tl;dr" every time you don't want to engage in a discussion, and then claim you're winning the debate.  You've done this  just recently.  Would you like diffs? If you cannot address the debate points, the debate is not going your way.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:48, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Further possible coverage...
I do not have these books ... would want them checked for coverage also ...
 * http://books.google.com/books?id=zmg-ZQ6oep0C&dq=%22kiger+mustang%22&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s
 * http://books.google.com/books?id=PxXejG6sjbMC&dq=%22kiger+mustang%22&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s
 * Ealdgyth - Talk 13:05, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The Johnson one has partial Look Inside on Amazon; Kiger Mustang is mentioned with the Pryor Mountain Mustang and others on p. 73, but as far as I can see does not have a separate breed profile. Nice summary of other available sources above, btw; pity the OP hasn't troubled to provide a similar list of sources in support of his assertions, though he has as usual amply compensated for that lack with inane verbiage and irrelevancies. Allow me to help: here's a Google Scholar search for "Kiger mustang" landrace. And, for what it is worth, here is what the International Museum of the Horse says about it: "Kiger Mustangs are an established breed". Are we done here? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:10, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
 * How would personally attacking me, then observing that Kiger Mustangs exist as a breed resolve the issue of what to do about there being both a breed and a landrace and us already having sources that distinguish between them? If anything, you're supporting my position; you've provided additional sources that not only is the landrace notable, so is the breed (not all asserted breeds are notable and many attempts to establish new breeds fail, so this was not a foregone conclusion).  It's unclear to me what sources you think are missing.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:38, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
 * A landrace is a stage of breed development; here they are basically the same thing. As we have been trying to explain to you all along.   Montanabw (talk)  19:02, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
 * A landrace is a stage of breed development; you're falsifying sources again. Here's a direct quote: "One mechanism for breed formation includes a landrace stage (Sponenberg and Christman, 1995)" . See below for more from this source, demonstrating every point I'm making here about this article's scope.  PS: The position you imply, that a landrace is  a stage of breed development, doesn't even make sense here, because we have reliable sources that both the formal breed(s) and the landrace .  What you propose is .  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:13, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Falsifying sources is a hefty accusation. In fact Montana is not falsifying anything. She is saying that landrace is a stage in breed development and qualifies that with "here". SMc I am concerned about your accusations.(Littleolive oil (talk) 12:34, 25 September 2014 (UTC))

Proposed early closure

 * Vote to close RFC: Clear 3:1 consensus against splitting the article, and multiple reliable sources provided by the majority parties versus one person's endless ranting. Let's close this dramafest before it wastes any more bandwidth.   Montanabw (talk)  19:00, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia doesn't operate on voting, and RfCs are not votes. They run for a specified period of time, absent overwhelming reasons to close them early. Do you have some kind of problem with the Wikipedia editing community having input into this article and its scope? Especially given the sourcing below, a source you already knew about, but were misquoting?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:12, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I would LOOOOOOVE for the "wikipedia community" to review. The problem is that you are saying enough for about 25 people here. Diffs would be great, go for it.  And I'm sick and tired of your twisting everything I say and making broad-based accusations.   Montanabw (talk)  02:40, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

This source addresses all of this in three sentences
Ironically, it's the source that Montanabw tried to rely on and misconstrue (see "None other than D. Phillip Sponenberg explains...", above), so it's certainly one that this editor was aware of, all the while saying there were no sources. Let's quote the source directly: "A few island populations are good examples of isolated landraces, including those of Shetland, Iceland, Greece and Indonesia. ... New World populations based on the Colonial Spanish horse also fit here. Landraces attain their uniformity (and, therefore, breed type and character) more by default than by design, being shaped by some rather arbitrary forces (founders, isolation, selection) rather than deliberate and unified breeding decisions of a breed association."

Let's look this over:
 * Contrary to 's claim that horse-related sources don't use this term, here's a high-end, academic horse-related source very specifically using it to refer to horses, and to distinguish certain kinds of populations of them from deliberately bred populations.
 * The mustangs, including the Kiger strain, are in fact derived from the Spanish Colonial horses (see all the sources at Mustang). This is a reliable source telling us that they're a landrace,  (while other sources here tell us there are modern, derived formal breeds based on the landrace; equating them is the undeniable original research).
 * It also tells us that there's a bright-line difference between them and formal (or standardized, or conformance, or deliberate, or whatever adjective you like) breeds: "being shaped by arbitrary forces... rather than deliberate and unified breeding decisions".
 * Sponenberg uses the word "breed" by itself, without a modifier, in a very, broad inclusive way (as does FAO and OED; see source citations at Landrace), and clearly distinguishes this from formal/deliberate breed, which is what our Breed article is about. All of this kerfuffle is really about the willful or incidental confusion of the two by some editors.  People are losing their tempers about the word "breed" and its relation to horses for no reason.

The same sources continues: "Standardized breeds" [which Sponenberg uses synonymously with "deliberate and unified" breeds] are maintained and fostered more deliberately than are landraces. A standardized breed is generally forged by design rather than by default, with breeders striving to achieve some pre-conceived and formal notion of an ideal animal upon which group of breeders have agreed", and much else of direct application to this very article and its scope.

Interesting that, when I took a few minutes to look this up, I found it immediately, while those opposed (as of this writing) to the idea that there's even anything to discuss here have no sources at all for their view. Now, if people would like to stop pretending there's no difference between a landrace and formal breed, pretending that the former term can't apply to horses, and pretending that the term and the distinction aren't demonstrably relevant in this particular case, I would like to return to the question posted by the RfC: How should this article handle the complicated scope; there are several ways to approach it, enumerated above. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:48, 24 September 2014 (UTC)


 * SMC - can I give you some advice? I really don't care about the landrace issue. I've never seen it used... but I will admit I've never really been trying to notice either. I happened to be looking at some sources (including some academic ones) and noted the couple that apply the term landraces to horses. But... while I really don't care either way, your way of editing and throwing around accusations of "those opposed" and mentioning me by name really puts my back up and makes me want to oppose you just because of the way you're treating this small statement of mine as something that must be beaten into the ground. You are not winning friends with the way you're approaching my discussion. I suspect you have this problem often. I'm pretty laid back about editing and try hard to understand where everyone is coming from ... and I"m not going to let this change my mind from being indifferent to active opposition. (as an aside ... you've read more into my statement than I said .. I said "In all my research and reading on horses and the development of breeds in the Americas (and I've done this sort of research on and off for 20 years) ... I've never seen the concept of "landrace" used in books on American breeds or horses." - I said "American breeds" and I also qualified it by noting that I hadn't seen it... Spoonenberg does mention the mustang populations as possible landraces - but in my defense - I'm not a researcher in mustangs - never have owned one or cared to. My work with horses has been with breeds other than those mainly or exclusively descended from mustangs (as no matter what nonsense you hear about the Quarter Horse - it has very little mustang in it... lots of other stuff, but not much mustang)). Can I ask you to kindly treat other editors here (who possibly could be brought to agree with you) a bit less like opponents? Ealdgyth - Talk 13:02, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
 * If the above was not clear - I agree that Spoonenberg does show that landrace is occasionally used in relation to horses. It's probably okay to use it on this article. But that wasn't really the question that was asked in the RfC, so shouldn't we be discussing that? Ealdgyth - Talk 13:12, 24 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't see the need for this RfC, and yes editors do have a right to question an RfC. The article seems fine to me; Kiger Mustang, feral, includes the sub topics of the feral horse, and Kiger Mustang, its bred-in captivity progeny. For an article of this length, in an encyclopedia, I believe its useful and informative for the reader to have both in the same article since both are so closely related, and additionally for readers to see that connection easily. If at some point content expands significantly then another discussion may be appropriate. I think we're jumping the gun here and creating complexity where none needs exist.(Littleolive oil (talk) 02:46, 25 September 2014 (UTC))

Another reason it is silly to split the article is that we are talking about less than 1000 horses ever registered over a 25 year period; there are only about 100 in the wild right now (based on the article as I understand it) and another 75-100 new horses "registered" (which apparently could be new foals or horses captured off the range to reduce populations) You really think we need TWO articles a small population? No. (signing late) Montanabw (talk)  18:22, 25 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree. As I said this article is fine, and I'd say excellent in fact. This is an encyclopedia not a book. I don't see the need for the RfC,  for a fork off of content, and what I'm seeing is that misunderstanding is being used to attack other editors, and has become the basis for this discussion. This has become complex for no good reason. I find that when things  are right they are elegantly simple.(Littleolive oil (talk) 12:49, 25 September 2014 (UTC))

I didn't say we need two articles; there are at least 5 ways to approach this scope question. The most obvious and the simplest is to clearly treat the landrace and the formal breed(s) separately [in the same article], but I've been perpetually filibustered in my attempts to do it this "elegantly simple" way. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:39, 26 September 2014 (UTC)


 * The article as  a GA  retains a certain amount of elegance per WP. I'll repeat what I think just for the record. The article is fine as is.  I see no reason  for content to be forked off because I do  not accept that the feral horse and its in-captivity progeny should be treated separately at this point. Please don't confuse an opinion with filibustering. Doing so is an assumption of bad faith. You asked for an RfC. Editors including me responded and commented. If you want an RfC you have to be ready to see opinions that may not coincide with your own.(Littleolive oil (talk) 02:32 26 September 2014 (UTC))

For later
Someone tried to add updated material but didn't do it very well; there might be a good web link or some salvagable data there, though, so parking for later. Montanabw (talk) 08:16, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

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Requested move 7 November 2018

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Moved as proposed. bd2412 T 04:59, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Kiger Mustang → Kiger mustang – Per MOS:LIFE. WP does not capitalize any general animal type, population, or other grouping, with the (sometimes controversial and still uncodified) single exception of the names of standardized breeds. "Kiger mustang" is not one; it's just a term for a population of feral horses in a particular area. A particular standardized-breed effort has started with some specific horses from this population, and the purebred result is called Kiger Musteño, also covered in this article. That qualifies for capitalization, but is not the primary topic of the article, and not independently notable. After the move, the article text should be adjusted to use "Kiger mustang" throughout, like the main Mustang horse article and "mustang" in its text. —&thinsp;AReaderOutThataway&thinsp;t/c 04:45, 7 November 2018 (UTC) --Relisting. –Ammarpad (talk) 06:15, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The distinction between breeds and "standardised breeds" is an artificial one. Standard or no, this one is treated, listed and capitalised as a breed in solid reliable sources such as this: Valerie Porter, Lawrence Alderson, Stephen J.G. Hall, D. Phillip Sponenberg (2016). Mason's World Encyclopedia of Livestock Breeds and Breeding (sixth edition). Wallingford: CABI. ISBN 9781780647944, page 480. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:41, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
 * It's irrelevant who draws what distinctions and that you may favor those that prefer to draw none. WP does draw a clear one; our article at Breed isn't about feral populations. MOS:LIFE is crystal clear on the matter: "English vernacular ('common') names are given in lower case in article prose .... This applies to species and subspecies, as in the previous examples, as well as to general names for groups or types of organism".  If you think the guideline should change, you can take that up at the guideline's talk page. —&thinsp;AReaderOutThataway&thinsp;t/c 15:32, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
 * But the sources are also something that Wikipedia follows and the relevant guidelines is those dealing with Article titles. I really don't care either way - but use reliable sources, not a wikipedia article on Breed, and use the correct guidelines - which deal with titles. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:42, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
 * WP follows sources on capitalization and other style matters only when virtually all of them are consistent on the peccadillo in question for that particular case. (Otherwise, we would have no style guide; we would simply do whatever even a slight majority of the RS were doing.) When usage is almost entirely uniform – across general-interest not just specialist publications – then and only then do we get iPod and Deadmau5 exceptions. When it's not that consistent, the demands for "Ke$ha" and "SONY" exceptions are rejected. This is a case where various sources do not capitalize, and various specialist (and some non-specialist but sloppy) sources over-capitalize. (If you look at them, they tend do this with every group of horses regardless what it is, and with lots of horse-related terms just because they're horse-related.  Many of them also engage in outright errors, like referring to mustangs as "wild" horses; they are not wild animals, they are feral domesticates.  Not every source that is reliable for some things about horses is reliable for all things about them, most especially including how to write about them.) When a topic is only attested in specialist sources, we also reject weird over-styling, because it doesn't match normal-English usage patterns and is confusing to readers.  That's especially a problem here: The breeds projects' editors have strenuously demanded (against considerable opposition, and it's not necessarily a permanently settled matter) to retain capitalization for standardized breeds, because of what they are. I.e., they've erected a special typographic system here in which the name of an animal cluster being capitalized is a special signal that it's a standardized breed.  To flip around and start applying the style to non-breeds makes a mess of this and misleads the reader into assumption that this is a breed rather than a feral population or wild animal.Anyway, there here is no rationale by which MOS:LIFE does not apply to this case. The fact that people will make "do it because I'm used to it in what I'm reading over here in my specialist lit" demands for idiosyncratic capitalization that is generally considered a blatant error by the average English-language user is the very reason that we have MOS:LIFE in the first place.  Its sole purpose is to reject that kind of argument, because it's perennial rehash that we've been over again and again, always with the same lower-case result. Finally, the vast majority of reliable sources on breeds distinguish clearly breeds from non-breeds like feral populations, so there is no "follow the sources" argument to make anyway. This "well, by  definition somewhere, anything I want to be a 'breed' is one just because I declare it to be one" stuff is a tired argument that's never worked here.  It has nothing to do with whether our article Breed "is a reliable source", which is cannot be, by definition.  The reliable sources cited for it tell us that the concepts are distinct. Those sources are not lying to you, or we would not be citing them, especially not in articles as developed as Breed and Feral. Give them a read.  The concepts are not even related, other than they only apply to domesticates.  —&thinsp;AReaderOutThataway&thinsp;t/c 16:22, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Support – It's clear that it's not a breed and that enough reliable sources (books) use lowercase mustang for this (e.g. this one. Caps are optional here, so we follow the wp guidelines, avoiding unnecessary caps. Dicklyon (talk) 16:15, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Support - per nom and Dickylyon. WP:CONSISTENCY and the fact as mentioned above enough WP:RS list it the way as 'Kiger mustang' JC7V (talk) 00:46, 21 November 2018 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.