User talk:ThatPeskyCommoner/Archive 1

I'm trying to work out how to add a note to an assertion on a page to indicate that it is not absolute fact, and that there are valid questions still to be answered, to avoid readers being unintentionally misled ..... but can't work out how to do it as my attempt (yes, I forgot to log in!) was removed with a "(Removing original research, if there are sources, please use them, and avoid speculation) " comment. (I felt a bit 'spanked' though I'm probably being over-sensitive). I didn't (and don't) think it was any particularly contentious issue. Can anyone suggest how one could make a (small) edit of this nature without having to cite already-published papers (which is pretty much impossible to do in the case of questions which haven't yet been answered .......)


 * It would help if you listed what page it was and what you were trying to post. In general, though, if something isn't fact and there are valid questions about it, it shouldn't be posted.  Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and should contain more facts than speculation.  That being said, there are things that we're speculating about -- for instance, whether or not string theory is true.  Sometimes Wikipedia gets bogged down by people arguing over whether or not something is true.  Who was really at fault in Country X and the civil war that happened there 2-3 centuries ago when both sides say that it was the other side's fault?  Because of situations like that, the standard for Wikipedia is generally verifiability, instead of "truth" (which might be more nebulous).  This way, people can go read the primary sources and make up their mind themselves as to what is the "real" truth.  Without knowing more about what you're talking about, though, I really couldn't give you more specific help.  Were you talking about Equine coat color genetics?  Usually, in a case like that, a simple indication of vagueness is enough.  For instance, "There probably is no lethal roan question" is vague enough, compared to "There possibly is no lethal roan question, though there are still questions to be answered about this".  That article needs more work, though -- one of the sources talked about the lethal roan question so I moved it into a reference instead.  Let me know on my talk page if you'd like more help or put the helpme template back up and someone will be by again. :) Banaticus (talk) 11:36, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Roan (horse)
Hi Pippa, and thanks for the note on my talk page. The main issue with your post is that it did not have reliable sources. This, when combined with the fact that it was challenging material that was referenced, made it not really appropriate to be included. If you have reliable sources for the fact that the lethan roan question is still unanswered, it would probably be possible to integrate your information. Also, depending on editor's interpretation of photos is usually considered original research, which is frowned upon. If a scientist looks at a bunch of photos and writes an article about them, we can use the article; if an editor looks at the same bunch of photos, we cannot use their conclusion, even if it is the same conclusion as the scientist came to. Basically, you're challenging established, well-referenced information with unreferenced speculation, which is not allowed by Wikipedia guidelines. Please let me know if you have further questions. Dana boomer (talk) 12:57, 2 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Pippa, let me explain a little bit about genetics testing for coat colors. First off, "lethal roan" was thoroughly debunked in studies of Quarter Horses by the late Dr. Ann Bowling (who died about 10 years ago) even before the development of the coat color test.  Second, though the language of science is cautious and indeed doesn't say "100% sure", your arguments otherwise don't stand up -- Rarely is anything in science is EVER described as 100% "absolute fact" (I believe gravity is still called a "theory", for example, but I'm sure not going to jump out of an airplane without a parachute!), but for practical purposes, mainstream science quite strongly suggests that lethal roan DOES NOT EXIST. Second, the UC Davis "roan zygousity test" is a "real" DNA marker test, which means that it's very accurate:  it tests for the presence of several genes that "tag along" with roan almost all the time, but researchers haven't figured out which one is the precise gene that causes roan (it would be like saying, "we aren't certain which house Cousin Vinnie lives in, but we KNOW he lives on the 600 block of Main Street.") A lot of the web sites out there that Dana explained were unreliable are unreliable precisely because they repeat outdated or inaccurate information.   That said, there are some genetic homozygous lethals out there in other colors, notably lethal white syndrome which is linked to the frame overo gene, which behaves something like an incomplete dominant. (Solid horse without, Spotted horse with one copy, dead horse with two). There has also been some evidence of homozygous lethality in certain lines of dominant white horses, but not all.  There are really interesting things going on with dominant white genetics, which are affiliated with the KIT locus that also affects all sorts of other white colors and patterns, including roan (also tobiano, which has NO lethality issues).  There are a few forms of dominant white which appear to have a homozygous lethal to them, but there are others which, so far, are not. So anyway, it's all extremely interesting, but so far the weight of science is heavily AGAINST the so-called "lethal roan" issue and has been for a decade.   Montanabw (talk) 19:53, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, both of you (and Banaticus too!) I have added a little bit to Banaticus' talk page, but (a) am too tired /overworked) and (b) see no point in replication, to repeat it here.  The 'dominant lethal white' thing is surely very interesting ..... I still feel that one day it will turn out that some (maybe only one) forms of 'classic roan' (as opposed to other types of roaning patterns) may be lethal when homozygous, but at present the roaning patterns present such a muddy field (we know there's more than one type even of sabino, for example; there's likely to be more than one type of rabicano, too) that sorting them all out gives us a well-nigh impossible task.  (PippaRivers (talk) 10:35, 3 February 2011 (UTC))

I will copy across only this bit: On the subject of lethality, think what could have happened in the studies on OLWS if the samplers hadn't been able to differentiate between Overo, Tobiano, splash-white, and sabino whte-marked animals, and they had all been included in a study on 'is white-marking lethal when homozygous'? I do appreciate that lab studies into particular genes will always be more scientifically accurate than 'by the eye' stuff, but sometimes you do have to be able to differentiate, visibly, between various different patterns. I am a pain, I know! (and overly-sensitive, I suspect. I respond much better to cuddles than to slaps; though I do try my utmost not just to say "OK, I quit" and go off and hide / sulk  in a corner) (PippaRivers (talk) 14:24, 3 February 2011 (UTC))

Basically, I think you've got it backwards. There is probably no breed with more "classic" roans in it (at least in the USA) than the American Quarter Horse, and it was that breed which Bowling studied in determining that there was no homozygous roan lethal. Similarly, the SB-1 (sabino horse) allele has been "cleared" of having any connection to lethal white. However, both sabino-white and roan have at times been "accused" of having lethal traits. However, most likely, it was something else that happened to be carried in a masked or minimally-expressed form on horses who also were carriers of lethal traits. There's all sorts of odd stuff out there and it's going to be decades sorting it all out, but roan has been ruled out. Montanabw (talk) 19:24, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I think we'll have to agree to differ agreeably! I'm fully awake to the possibilities of various colour genes living so closely next-door to non-colour but lethal ones that they can be passed down together for yonks. I like to keep as open a mind as possible before being convinced 'beyond reasonable doubt' on almost anything. (I'm also fully awake to the fact that having the mind too open can lead to the brain falling out, lol!) I have to admit that I've not come across the idea of homozygous sabino-white being linked to any lethal question (my bad!  I should know everything ...... I have failed to live up to my standards [sigh]). This may be because we have a load of them here in the UK, and have had for ages, it being part of the Blagdon colour-scheme (named after the village of Blagdon in Somerset, an archetypal Romany /other-gypsy stronghold for centuries). I used to live not far from there, when my oldest was still a wee infant :o) I think 'all sorts of odd stuff' is quite possibly the understatement of the decade, m'dear!  And yes, it's 03:17 hrs here in the UK, and I should be asleep, but can't.  It's been great having some discussion with folks who actually know stuff - around here I still can't get the locals to admit that buckskin is not dun ........ and champagne doesn't always necessarily come in glasses ...... and severely restricting the number of breeding males, and then having a load of them related to each other, is not good news for the future integrity and strength of the gene pool! Please continue to put up with me; I do try to be helpful and constructive.  And I will definitely make a serious picture-hunt around our several thousand semi-ferals which live on the doorstep a project for this year. (PippaRivers (talk) 03:26, 5 February 2011 (UTC))


 * You definitely want to read up on the peer-reviewed scientific literature on the work they are doing with equine genetics with the KIT locus, which has a lot to do with white markings. (Countercanter and I had a free-ranging discussion about this across several article talk pages about a year ago. She changed my own views on these things quite a bit as I began to look at more of the actual literature)  The deal is that a LOT of white marking stuff is associated with KIT (and reading the studies makes my eyes cross!) but not much of it is actually lethal.  I'm curious:  Have you had to deal with a dead foal due to genetic disorders?  Wondering if it's personal --FWIW, and maybe TMI, but my own interest in equine genetics began (maybe I told you this already) while dealing with a horse I bought as a youngster who turned out to have cerebellar abiotrophy.  I still have the horse as a "pasture pet"-- it's not always fatal, but usually disabling.  From there I got interested in the lethals and particularly the dilution lethals.  Then colors in general... and then...  Montanabw (talk) 08:49, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

The KIT thing: you just say "Here KITty, KITty; explain yourself!" Surely that's all there is to it? (We wish .........) Never had to deal with a dead foal / genetic disorders thing personally, but have to deal on a daily basis with various members of the family having Ehlers-Danlos syndrome! I seem to have inherited from both sides of the family (paternal side are type-three-ish, maternal side are type-two-ish, all my offspring show bits and bobs, one definitely type-two-ish, two type three-ish, one undecided as yet! And the one that is undecided as yet has a type-three-ish partner, and they just have a new baby .........). Fortunately, none of us are the life-threatening type-four-ish :o) I've been totally hooked on the phenotypical minutiae of colour and markings since I first began helping out the vet by filling in silhouettes for him at the stables I worked at as a kiddie-helper  (eeeeeeeeeeeek! Four decades ago! More eeeeek!) Got interested in cat coat colour genetics at about the same age, then got into the horse colour genetics about the time they were working out that a 'cream gene' was responsible for palomino, buckskin et al.  In other words, quite a while ago!  As far as lab work goes, the nearest I've got was playing with drosophila back in the eighties.  Early eighties, that is ....... (PippaRivers (talk) 13:23, 7 February 2011 (UTC))

Pics? How do I point someone to them?
I uploaded a heap of original pics on horse colours, markings etc. for someone ...... and I have absolutely no idea how to direct them to the pics so they can see them and see if they want to use them! How do I achieve this


 * http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/Gallery.php?wikifam=commons.wikimedia.org&since=&until=&img_user_text=PippaRivers&order=-img_timestamp&max=25&order=-img_timestamp&format=html

 Chzz  ► 18:28, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

You're an angel :o) Ta! (PippaRivers (talk) 18:32, 3 February 2011 (UTC))


 * I thought, after, a list here might be more useful;


 * File:FlaxenLiverChestnut.jpg
 * File:ChestnutNFxTB.jpg
 * File:BuckskinNFStar.jpg
 * File:FlaxenChestnutNF.jpg
 * File:SootifyingCoat2.jpg
 * File:SootifyingCoat.jpg
 * File:PalominoRoanTobiano.jpg
 * File:WhiteMuzzleSide.jpg
 * File:NFStarStripeSnip.jpg
 * File:SplashTypeLegMark.jpg
 * File:SabinoTypeLegMark.jpg
 * File:RabicanoRoaningTicking.jpg
 * File:HoofStripe.jpg
 * File:HairWhorls.jpg
 * File:DunAppyStripy5.jpg
 * File:DunAppyStripy4.jpg
 * File:DunAppyStripy3.jpg
 * File:DunAppyStripy2.jpg


 * File:DunAppyStripy1.jpg
 * File:BroadStripeHoof.jpg
 * File:BlazeSplashType.jpg
 * File:BendOrChestnutRoan.jpg
 * File:BayRabicanoFrostingSkunkTail.jpg

 Chzz  ► 18:44, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

You're even more angelic! Please receive the Order of the Halo for service above and beyond, etc. etc. :o)

P.S. I've added another since then, lol!


 * File:SabinoTypeMarkings.jpg

(PippaRivers (talk) 20:06, 3 February 2011 (UTC))


 * Great; keep up the good stuff. I put the above into columns, w/ some boring code that doesn't matter


 * If you need stuff, gimmie a shout on User talk:Chzz  Chzz  ► 21:26, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I shall go on a mission to hunt down some more, over the next few months :o) Thanks so much, again! (PippaRivers (talk) 10:19, 4 February 2011 (UTC))


 * I gotta ask a couple of questions. 1)  Are you sure the liver chestnut flaxen is not a silver dapple? (Not arguing, just asking)  2)  I don't see ANY dun characteristics on the "dun appy stripy" horse -- he's clearly got some sort of dilution gene going on under that wild leopard coat that creates the light-colored eye and the tan spots, but I see no evidence of primitive markings -- no dorsal stripe at all, just for starters...   Montanabw (talk) 20:00, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely sure on both the liver chestnut flaxen ones - one belongs to me, the other to a dear old friend, and I know the breeding on them. (I want to buy his mare on the top-view pic, but he ain't selling! Doh!) Both come out definitely 'red' as opposed to chocolate in their winter coats, with real 'red' mane guard hairs and tail-roots. The gawjuss chap with his head up and his mane blowing, out on the Forest, is my own Sunny; the paleness of his flaxen mane and tail is partly due to genuine flaxen, and partly due to a heavy admixture of rabicano frosting (some of the hairs, on close inspection ..... and I mean really close .... are minimal-pigmented, and some are pure non-pigmented white). And no, I'm not going to try and work out what proportion of them is accounted for by which! The dun-appy was definitely dun-dilute - almost all his topline was whited-out (grubby, but whited-out, lol!), but where there were tiny odds and tods of colour crossing the spine you could just see evidence of the over-written dorsal in there. It was a lousy day for getting decent pics on sale day, and I couldn't go in the sale pen with him (against the rules!) but when he came through the pound and chute on the round-up a week or so before the sale I got really close and tracked down a number of vestigial almost-white-marked-out primitive markings, here and there. You can just about see, on a couple of the pics, where there are bits of leg-barring appearing within some colour spots on the little guy. (And it was running with mum when it came in on the round-up - and mum was definitely a dun.) (PippaRivers (talk) 03:40, 5 February 2011 (UTC))


 * Definitely fascinating.  Montanabw (talk) 08:49, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Muchas Gracias (or something like that)
See new additions to English saddle, and Australian stock saddle. Montanabw (talk) 17:35, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Ye're wielkam :o) Did you like the old pack saddles? (PippaRivers (talk) 19:01, 7 February 2011 (UTC))


 * Interesting, but very different from pack saddles seen out here. The one "pack saddle" looked more like an old military McClellan saddle to me.  Curious what you know of their history Be cool to see them in separate photos and a little less fuzzy (any possibility of shooting with flash??)   Montanabw (talk) 05:15, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I bought them off eBay! They came with their history (and some general waffle about them). I can certainly re-shoot them in better lighting (all my photos are done on the mobile phone!)   I've just done my usual and grabbed the bit of info about them I posted elsewhere, as the original is still in our 'other house' (no, we're not stinking rich, just in the process of moving into mum's house to look after her, and most of our stuff isn't here yet!). Here's what I can find easily: "they were originally used by settlers at Tuke Station in New Zealand, which was a sheep farm surrounded by 3000ft mountains, in a gold mining region about 13 miles from Ross on the Western coast of the South Island. They were used for about 40 years for transporting wool into Ross township. Each pony carried two 80 lb sacks, one each side, a 90 lb pack slung across the top, and a further 50 lb pack on top of that ......... and the ponies were 13 - 14hh as it wasn't possible for frail humans to lift the packs up onto bigger animals. The saddles were then used to carry venison across the Mikonui River (between 20 and 300 metres wide, depending), and up to six deer at a time were slung on the packs. The pack saddles were brough to the UK by a Miss Elly Wagg." I'll take more pics from different angles, too. I've been humming and haa-ing about rebuilding them; I think what I'll do is leave one in original state, and rebuild / remake the other one to the original pattern, in which case I'll be able to take some 'disassembled' pics too :-) However, I can't rebuild one yet (though I have the technology, I don't have the leather, lol! And new leather is quite horrifyingly expensive :-( We're talking in the region of £200 per hide for the quality of hide needed.)  (PippaRivers (talk) 09:58, 8 February 2011 (UTC))

Comprehending Commons Catting
It's Pitke again, this time here to introduce to the sprawling net that is the Wikimedia Commons category Horses and its subs.

Priority key:
 * Symbol userfy vote.svg = "yes, please, anything" - cat is almost empty or fails to illustrate the scope properly - even relatively low quality images will be an improvement
 * Symbol move vote.svg = "well, we could use more variety" - cat has a good number of images but is lacking in wide coverage or quality of images
 * Symbol plain red.svg = "only good quality or exceptional images please" - cat has many many files already, or has a very large scope
 * Symbol plain grey.svg = special - any images of decent or better quality should be catted in this in any case


 * Main category:


 * Sex: there are three obvious categories: Stallions, Mares and Geldings. Symbol plain red.svg
 * Pregnant mares Symbol userfy vote.svg


 * Colour: Horse coat colors has colors as subcats, in hierarchial order. Use the root cat for colours you have trouble catting/identifying. The easier way to find specific colours is to just check Horses by coat color. Some colours (like amber champagne or pearl) don't have their own cats yet due to complete or significant lack of images. Most colour cats are either "Colournames" or "Colourname horses", although there are exceptions.
 * Most basic colours (bay, brown, black, grey) as well as the most common patterns and dilutions (palomino, tobiano, sabino, roan) are Symbol plain red.svg
 * Rarer dilution combinations or patterns (Spl, frame without other patterns, most "appaloosa" patterns, rabicano, Silver) Symbol move vote.svg
 * Truly rare dilutions and patterns (or cryptic ones) (such as smoky black, white, champagne, Prl, "mushroom") are Symbol userfy vote.svg

Suggest you contact Kella's Stud to ask if they can upload some mushroom pics for you :o) http://www.kellas-stud.co.uk/mystery.htm Here's an intersting fing ..... I was e-chatting to Kellas and Philip Sponenburg about mushroom a little while back, and asked Kellas if they had any fading blacks (non-smoky) anywhere in the same families (I have two or three theories around both mushroom and fading black), and they do have them both cropping up within related animals :o) (PippaRivers (talk) 10:37, 8 February 2011 (UTC))


 * Any (genotypically) non-standard colouration is Symbol userfy vote.svg in case the animal is either tested for colour, or its parentage and possible offspring offer good evidence of its genotype. For example, take this Icelandic -- he is registered a sun-bleaching black, but was revealed a smoky black via bloodline analysation. Without this info he would be just a weird-looking bay. With the info -- a valuable example of an elusive colouration. Additional info should be available in the image description.


 * Markings: and its subcats. Mostly Symbol move vote.svg, although cropped good quality leg markings and "other" markings would be closer to Symbol userfy vote.svg
 * Foals by color: (lacks most colours but will prolly gain new subcats soonish) -- with the exeption of chestnut and bay foals, Symbol userfy vote.svg


 * Breed or type: All existing horse breed cats -- if the breed is known, but it has no cat yet, cat under the root cat. If the breed is unknown, cat under one of the subcats of Horses by type if applicable. Symbol plain grey.svg
 * There is a specific category for New Forest ponies roaming in the forest: -- also made a new one for Non-NF ponies in NF, your help would be much appreciated in checking the Free Roaming Ponies in NF cat for instances of these.

Here are some absolute guarantees: if it has white markings (including anything appy) anywhere on the body behind the head (other than roaning patterns), or white markings anywhere on the legs which are higher than the knee or hock, then it's not a New Forester. If it's a stallion on the Forest, then it absolutely guaranteed is a New Forester. Same goes for things like Dartmoors (there's an alleged-Dartmoor I happened to notice in passing which is coloured, therefore not a Dartmoor. It would be classified as a Dartmoor Hill Pony.) A heap of ponies on the Forest are part-bred Foresters. Here's how it works: anyone who occupies land with 'Common of Pasture' has the right to graze any horse, pony, donkey or cattle on the Forest. But colts have to be removed at the beginning of their two-year-old year and can't go back out until either gelded or 'passed' by the stallion committee as being good enough to run out there, and they can only be pure-bred registered New Forest ponies. So, it's not easy to tell (particularly with the cross-breeds) exactly what is, and what isn't, a genuine New Forest pony. Other than using the rules as guides, you have to actually know the pony itself (or its pedigree, anyway) to guarantee it's a Forester. (PippaRivers (talk) 10:37, 8 February 2011 (UTC))


 * Age:
 * Old horses (+20) and Yearling horses are Symbol move vote.svg, others mainly Symbol plain red.svg.


 * Condition: Thin horses and Fat horses. Symbol move vote.svg


 * Other cats: these generally have a large number of subcats, and you'd better just take a peek to get some idea of what to expect. X F, Y C next to a subcat link refers to the number of files and subcats in that particular cat.
 * Horse anatomy
 * Horse behaviour (grazing horses is Symbol plain red.svg)
 * Use of horses, Horses by function
 * Horses by setting
 * Views of horses Symbol plain red.svg
 * Horse equipment
 * Equine locomotion Symbol plain red.svg

That should be the most important cats to know. Pitke (talk) 23:29, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks loads for all that stuff :o). On the other side of the coin ...... Oh my gawd, another whole heap of stuff to attempt to learn by heart!  You'll have to excuse me if I end up relying on you to cat some stuff!  If you have any specific pics you want to run by me and get some input on whether it's a 'real' Forester, give me a heads-up on them and I'll take a look. (Although there are several thousand ponies running out there, I actually know quite a lot of the ponies and their breeders, and can often recognise whose brand is whose, and so on - I may even be able to identify the pony in question - particularly if it happens to be one of my own, lol!)  (PippaRivers (talk) 10:37, 8 February 2011 (UTC))
 * Here's one: . I marked/recatted all tobianos I could find, plus one wierd multi-pattern, but this is more of a flashy sabino than anything other. Pitke (talk) 11:02, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

That's a non-Forester; white above the knee and hock, and a bit too much hair about the heels (though pure Foresters can trhow some pretty hairy legs when in winter coat). From body type it's most likely to be a Forest-cross-vanner/cob/summat-else-like-that. (PippaRivers (talk) 15:59, 8 February 2011 (UTC))

Thoughts
Pippa, with your resources and energy, there are a couple of breed articles that desperately need help and anything you do will be welcomed (plus, Pitke and I will both help!). If you can get the basics of footnoting and ref formatting, with a review of what wikipedia considers a reliable source, and an understanding that WP doesn't care what we know (I learned that through long struggle), they care about what can be verified, then you are in a position to do a LOT of useful stuff here. Start with seeing if you can add stuff to feral horse, which is the jump-off list for articles on various feral and semi-feral breeds. Then peek at New Forest Pony and see if you have some ideas for improving it. If you want a MEGA challenge, we've had Gypsy Vanner horse on the cleanup list for years, but no one wants to tackle it because in the US the horses are romanticized, while in the UK they seem to be vilified, and getting a calm, neutral, properly sourced article is a challenge.

If it helps, our GA and FA horse breed articles can be studied for formatting ideas, layout ideas, etc. Right now, the goddess of WPEQ, Dana, is leading a charge to get Chincoteague pony to GA status, so if you want a comparison article about a semi-feral breed, that's a good one. We are also working on bringing Appaloosa, currently a GA, up to FA. (I think we're there, we just have yet to submit it to the queue because FA is a long and complicated process). And if you want to see a mega-awesome article, check out Pitke's labor of love, Finnhorse. Montanabw (talk) 23:56, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Errkk! Energy is so variable, lol! I can certainly try stuff, but unless I have the spare time to go hunting for 'verifiable sources' the best I can offer is from my own personal experience. We do have quite a following for the gypsy vanner types (aka 'traditional cobs') building here in the UK; they even have their own show classes now, and quite a number of people are coming around to the idea that, on the whole, the good 'uns are darned useful animals, almost worth their weight in gold. The purists, of course, don't like 'em coz they're 'mongrels' .........

To avoid doing anything stupid with any existing article, I s'pose I could play around with a 'testing' version of it. My biggest problem (for me) as regards footnoting and stuff is that (a) I don't know how, lol! and (b) a huge amount of what's in my brain has spent decades getting in there, I've read squillions of things (I have to admit that I was the sort of little horror that actually read encyclopedias cover-to-cover for fun when I was a kid!), and as a result, although I can remember the data (got a goodish remembery) I can't usually remember exactly where I got it from. On a good day I can get through four or five books .......

Probably the best source of (published) info on New Forest ponies is Dionis MacNair (she's written a good little book, is a long, long-time NF pony breeder, show judge, all that stuff, and is also one of the Verderers of the New Forest. Not to mention being a wonderful lady!)  Here's the book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Forest-Ponies-Architects/dp/187358069X. One of our Agisters is known for being a goldmine of info on bloodlines both on the Forest and off, but as he's a full-time Agister and all that stuff, I doubt if he ever has / will publish anything! (Actually, all of our Agisters know huge amounts of stuff on the breed.) This is the problem with the Foresters - the people who really know 'em are far too busy with all the complexities of being a real-life person to publish anything at all!(PippaRivers (talk) 08:24, 9 February 2011 (UTC))

First thing I'm really noticing in the Feral Horse thing is that our British free-roaming ponies aren't actually 'feral'. All of them are actually privately owned, and just run out on the moors / forests etc. under common grazing arrangements. A fair number of those running out on the Forest are halter-broekn, and some broken to ride as well (either off work to breed, or for a break in training to grow on, or because the owner doesn't have access to a jockey small enough for them, or has too many ponies 'at home', or they are retired riding animals). We use the phrase 'semi-feral' to describe these herds; so the Dartmoor, Exmoors, New Foresters, and the 'feral' pony illustrated in Scotland are all currently miscategorised. Maybe a sub-heading under 'semi-feral' horses would be appropriate? (PippaRivers (talk) 14:56, 9 February 2011 (UTC))

I did that; hope that's OK :o) (PippaRivers (talk) 15:13, 9 February 2011 (UTC))
 * Yep, and I tweaked it a bit more. Nice!   Montanabw (talk) 21:36, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Here's a knotty question: what's the situation about editing pages on (for example) the New Forest, or the New Forest pony, without providing citations because it's not really available - "coz it's common knowledge around here, everyone knows it!", or it's only confirmed by things like the Verderers' Bye-Laws, and so on? Would edits based on "common local knowledge - been that way for decades / centuries!" be removed for lack of verification? Or would I be considered a reliable source by myself, as both a practising New Forest Commoner and a life member of the breed society, and so on?(PippaRivers (talk) 15:31, 9 February 2011 (UTC))


 * You're like me, lots in the head, pain in the butt to go back and find the book or article you saw it in 20 years ago! I spent my first year or so on wikipedia in happy bliss just adding the stuff I knew in my own head.  That all sort of ended for me when we ran into an editor (who eventually got blocked and left) who would insert tons of crazy stuff and claim her version of reality was as good as anyone's. (We had edit wars over really stupid things, sometimes I was forced to find a footnote for every sentence in an article!)  In fact, if you trot over to the Mustang article, I'm in one of those spats with someone else right now!  (phooey)  Montanabw (talk) 21:36, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I bunged a bit of stuff in the New Forest Pony thing (not a heap, just a tad), and added a link to the Verderers of the New Forest website. If people hunted around on that site for long enough (including checking out all the links to all the court sessions for all those years.......), they'd probably find some kind of verification, lol! How do you add a link / ref to a book? Is it OK just to kinda-splat the URL from Amazon in? (Like this: New Forest Drift ) And by the way, if you can get hold of Sally, there's a lady who takes a megazillion pics all the time (cracking good ones, too!) .... she might be temptable to upload a few freebies, though she generally does it for money. Pic-taking, that is ......) (PippaRivers (talk) 22:06, 9 February 2011 (UTC))


 * We also get a lot of goofy stuff that was probably inserted by either the PR department of a registry or else a 10-year old kid with stars in her eyes. What you certainly do is copyedit what's there and remove any of the real bad unsourced misinformation.  Good footnotes are always preferred, but if the article is stub class or start class and can be improved a little, that beats a poke in the eye with a sharp stick!  LOL!  You can put your comments on sources on the respective article talk pages or an actual source in the "external links" section for others to use later.   Montanabw (talk) 21:36, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * As far as the "everyone knows this" material, that's trickier. Technically, the answer is "no, that's original research."  The unofficial answer is that if the article is already lacking any sources or has very few, you can probably get away with sneaking in some material (the horse tack articles are still largely unsourced, for example).  However, if the article is already well-footnoted, (like the roan article) it's probably wise to find source material for the stuff you add as well. Finding VERIFIABLE info is the hardest -- there's a lot of "Joe's garage" web sites that aren't great.  But I have found that a person can actually find more good source material out there than you think.  And it doesn't have to be on the web, just something that is publicly available (like at a library or museum) so other people could go in and verify your source.  We ran into this with the Lipizzan article.  There's actually a user here who really works at the Spanish Riding School (I emailed them and verified it!), and he was absolutely ripping his hair out because he obviously knew a lot but had to verify it with outside sources.  (can't blame him!) But I think he "got it" when a Slovenian nationalist showed up and started arguing that Austria had no right to claim the Lipizzan because Lipica is now in Slovenia...(sigh) it's the "on the internet, no one knows you're a dog" thing.   Montanabw (talk) 21:36, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Here's a few good of 'cover it all' sources on English saddlery stuff:
 * Bridlework, by Robert H Steinke
 * Saddlery, by Elwyn Hartley Edwards
 * Repair Your Own Saddlery & Harness, by Robert H Steinke
 * The Working Saddler's Handbook, by Keith Savory

(See I am already learning how to 'copy paste and hack'; I'm so cool, lol :o) )

Does adding the link to the Verderers' site cover verification for all the Foresty stuff? As mentioned above ...... if you read everything, everywhere, on their site, you'll get verification for pretty much anything to do with the Forest :-) If that's OK, brill, sorted!  (I am an idle get, I know!) Actually, I have too much stuff to do, and not enough hours in the day.(PippaRivers (talk) 22:06, 9 February 2011 (UTC))


 * Yes! But on the other hand, no... For stuff about the Bylaws, marking fees, road-death stats, Verders' history or anything else about which the Verderers can be expected to be authoritative, their publications and website are as good as it gets.  However, where they are repeating material which is ultimately from other sources, we need those sources, and where they are just quoting what other people say (for example, in Verderers Court records) they are no more than a ref that the person said it, not of course that what they said is true.  Richard New Forest (talk) 10:23, 10 February 2011 (UTC)


 * For the "I don't know how to do it" stuff, I have two suggestions. First create a sandbox off your user page like I do, then copy and paste entire articles into it and play with them.  If you screw it all up, no one will know or care!  Sandboxes are easy to create, I'll make one ready for you:  Click this link: User:PippaRivers/Sandbox1.  Second, plagiarize syntax!  Over time, you'll find the various help pages with formatting advice, but in the meantime, just copy and paste the wikipedia markup you need and replace the content with your own. Simple footnotes are easy. Just put the "ref" tags around what you want to footnote and make sure the references section at the bottom exists and has the  tag where you want the footnotes to be listed.  At first you may have suck-egg citation formatting, but if you give us enough to find the article, (title, author, date, and a URL if it's a web site) those who care can help you with cleanup.  You can then compare changes and go "Oh!  That's how you do it."  If you mess something up in an article, I or someone else at WPEQ will probably notice and fix it, you can compare what we do and our edit summary to get the tips you need.  Or just come running to us for help!  Richard New Forest is a fellow Brit and longtime user here. Pitke has got the sourcing and citation stuff down and also does tranalation stuff.  Cgoodwin is an Aussie and does a lot of good work, especially on TB and rural/Ag articles. Myself, Ealdgyth and Dana boomer are all pretty long-time editors at WPEQ and can help with the fussy stuff.  So GO FOR IT!     Montanabw (talk) 21:36, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Ahh, hacking stuff I know about! Copy-paste-n-edit! (I wrote my first-ever web pages in BBEdit, working in raw html, lol! I didn't have Dreamweaver in those days - and even now I'll as often just go and hack the code about rather than edit in the 'display' window - saves so much time.  It does, it means I don't have to spend time learning all that new stuff .....)  It still sounds like work, though!(PippaRivers (talk) 22:06, 9 February 2011 (UTC))


 * Time, eh? TOO LATE!  YOU'RE ALREADY HOOKED!  (LOL).  What you did with the New Forest Pony article is "good enough for now."  In a perfect world, you'd footnote the Verderers' site at the spot it sources, but you can learn to do that later (usually "later"is when some drive-by idiot comes by and slaps 10,000 template tags on the article and explains to us how much the article is terrible we personally are incompetent idiots (sigh)).  Really, wiki syntax isn't too tough, but you'd laugh at how there was a big debate over on another page about how maybe the syntax and markup was too difficult for women to learn, and maybe that was shy there aren't as many women as men editing wikipedia!  =:-O  That raised a few hackles.  Essentially, over time you will learn where all the other wikipedia articles are and add the appropriate wikilinks to them.  The two big things that are handy to learn right away is the use of the tags and how to make "piped links" like bay when you want to link to the article bay (horse) but you want the article to read "bay horse."  We also use piped links for humorous effect on talk pages, too!

Cat
 Chzz  ► 08:48, 10 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Also, while I was here, I noticed the above thread; one of the "drive-by idiots" who "comes by and slaps 10,000 template tags on the article" might be me, one day; although not quite - I always try to fix things, and/or show people how. Consequently...I thought this little thingy might be useful to you;

{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" ! How references work

Simple references
These require two parts;


 * a)

Chzz is 98 years old.

He likes tea.


 * b) A section called "References" with the special code " ";

Named references
Chzz was born in 1837, in Footown.

Note that the second usage has a / (and no closing ref tag). This needs a reference section as above; please see user:chzz/demo/namedref to see the result.

Citation templates
You can put anything you like between, but using citation templates makes for a neat, consistent look;

Chzz has 37 Olympic medals.

Please see user:chzz/demo/citeref to see the result.

For more help and tips on that subject, see user:chzz/help/refs.
 * }

 Chzz  ► 09:03, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Tamuchly :o) Yet more stuff to learn, lol!  I shall do some learning.  Soon.  I promise.  (PippaRivers (talk) 11:58, 10 February 2011 (UTC))

New Forest
Hi Pippa. Only just twigged that you're also in the Forest... Where are you based? We're at Hangersley. Richard New Forest (talk) 10:23, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

New Milton! Most of my depastured ponies are in the Burley Rocks / Lawns area though, as the Wootton end is a bit too trafficky for my liking! (PippaRivers (talk) 11:56, 10 February 2011 (UTC))

User names
 Chzz  ► 13:49, 10 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Hey P! Cool user name change!  Can we now call you TPC? Or "pesky"?  (grin) LOL!   Montanabw (talk) 06:23, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

"Pesky" will do just fine, lol! I have so many nicknames ...... I am also affectionately known as The Alpha Bitch from time to time! I have no objections to being called a duck Pesky, as I try not to go in for self-delusion. Y'know, looks like, quacks like - it's pesky! (You only have to consider 'that roan thing', f'rinstance ...lol!)(ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 10:30, 11 February 2011 (UTC))


 * Alpha B, eh? You too?  NO wonder you fit in here so well!  BTW, I did the same thing here you did -- started with something akin to my real name and then changed to the more vague name.  On the other hand, another WPEQ compatriot, User:Josette, went the opposite direction.  By the way, be sure you join WP:EQUINE and find all the fun we can have there.    Montanabw (talk) 18:42, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * lol! (The Alpha B**** title also applies to that werewolfy thing, which I generally like to keep quiet about....)  So how does one join WP:Equine ? (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 19:29, 11 February 2011 (UTC))


 * Just add your name to the list of participants. Pitke (talk) 19:49, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Fank yew, did dat ting~! (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 20:00, 11 February 2011 (UTC))

Archive
Hiya, just to let you know - I 'archived' the previous chats from my talk, to User talk:Chzz/Archive 28 and User talk:Chzz/Archive 28.

Sorry for that added complexity, but my talk page gets very busy. Speak soon!  Chzz  ► 19:54, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

No probs! (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 19:59, 11 February 2011 (UTC))

Wikipedia Is Not.....
A cure for insomnia. Trust me on this .... it is 06:32, and I have been reading for around five hours. Class discuss? (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 06:33, 12 February 2011 (UTC))


 * Have you checked out the pile of userboxes on my User page? I've got the one about "...after just one more edit..."!  Oh yeah, and the "award" someone gave me for being merely up until 1 a.m.?   Montanabw (talk) 00:43, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I have made a new resolution - if I'm reading something that contains a typo, tortology, or dinky grammatical or punctuation errors, I shall go in and fix it :o) (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 07:27, 13 February 2011 (UTC))


 * Typo fixing is a never-ending need! As for grammar, just remember UK versus US English!  LOL!  (Seems like we eventually get pretty fluent in both) By the way, if you haven't found it yet, check out Glossary of equestrian terms.  We are super-anal about making sure all new material is footnoted as we go (we actually started the glossary properly with footnotes from the get-go), but if there are some more US/UK variations to add, you can pop over to the talk page and point out the need for additions if you see any.  Once you get a feel for the "culture" on that article, there's always more stuff to work on...   Montanabw (talk) 02:52, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Cool - I shall go play there, too :o) (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 05:01, 14 February 2011 (UTC))


 * One thing: I'm of mixed feelings about bringing every last slang or archaic term into some of these articles ("shannon" for example).  What can be sourced to a reference work is one thing, but once the more uncommon alternative regional terms get started, they become endless and can distract from the flow of the article (out here in the wild west we have plenty of weird words for things, as does the US deep south, and I'm sure Cgoodwin, our resident Aussie can add even more).  So I'd kind of like to stick to the stuff that's standard in the books unless etymology matters. We have enough trouble with national stuff -- UK vs US vs AU/NZ (and occasionally Br vs Eire, South Africa and India!)  We start adding historic and regional terms and, well, as we say out here, "Katy, bar the door!"   Montanabw (talk) 07:36, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

And FYI, this has been languishing, unused, for a while, but it's a good navbox to find all the tack articles: User:Montanabw/Tack sandbox

I shall attempt to restrain myself, lol! And I shall definitely investigate the links from the sandbox. I;m currently playing with the BSPS stub. (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 08:38, 14 February 2011 (UTC))


 * The various British horse show organization articles definitely can benefit from any help they can get. We've periodically had some good editors there, but it's been short-term, hit and miss.  As most of us at WPEQ know zero about British horse show organizations, and Richard does not make that an area of emphasis, you have a pretty free rein there.  I'd be glad to answer any formatting questions or help bail you out if someone else gets upset at you for something. I think someone else made a navbox for all the different groups, and it has many red links, so mucho new articles to be created.   Montanabw (talk) 20:58, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't know a huge amount about them, but am happy to trawl through thier own websites for extra info to 'bulk up' a stubby article on them. As far as the BSPS stuff goes, my own personal experience is a few decades old (eeeek! Seems like yesterday!), so everything I've added has just been grabbed from their own website. (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 09:20, 15 February 2011 (UTC))


 * Works for me. Good places to learn how to do footnotes!  LOL!  What I've noticed about show rules, based on my experiences with the USEF and its predecessor names, (I actually found an AHSA rule book from 1975 a month or so back while going through old stuff, so yeah, I can relate) is that the competition rules change relatively little over the years.  Feel free to have fun!  Montanabw (talk) 22:35, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks
for the typo-fixing on WP:POLICE, it is appreciated :) Acather96 (talk)

You're welcome - I just happened to notice it in passing :o) (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 21:26, 17 February 2011 (UTC))

Maintence
Heya,

Great work fixing typos. One tiny complaint:

Also I noticed your request about matching exact text; I suggest you take a look at WP:AWB - a program which lets you perform search/replace operations on a range of pages (which can be generated by a search for a word). Might be just the job. Cheers,  Chzz  ► 15:56, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Oooooooooops! I really thought I'd missed everything in an image name - so sorry! Can't use AWB as I'm on a Mac! I did take a browse around the possibilities, but couldn't see anything Mac-based in there.(ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 16:39, 19 February 2011 (UTC))


 * COUSIN! A fellow Mac user!   Ha!  Check with Ealdgyth, who uses a lot of tools and I think is also a Mac user (I don't use many tools, but I think she does).   Montanabw (talk) 03:31, 20 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I have been busy on a hunting spree for misspellings of "management" this morning :o) (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 11:40, 20 February 2011 (UTC))


 * There is never "nothing to do" on Wiki. LOL!   Montanabw (talk) 05:32, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

WikiWolfcub category
(Answer copied here, before I archive it  Chzz  ► 16:20, 21 February 2011 (UTC))

Thank you! Now ... how can I add the WikiWolfcub category to my user page? (ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 09:41, 16 February 2011 (UTC))


 * In the user-box template Template:User_wikipedia/WikiWolfCub you'd add a line &#124;usercategory = NAME OF CAT HERE - that will then put anyone using the box into the category. See Template:User WikiProject Equine, have a look how they've done it on that one.  Chzz  ► 13:26, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Ta again :o) ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 08:32, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

For taxonomy assistance
That user I was referring to at the Exmoor pony page is User:KimvdLinde, who has the most creative user page on Wikipedia (I don't have her guts to try something like that!) Taxonomist and historical reenactor, as well as someone who does know a few things about horses! What a combo! Anyway, I sometimes email her in real life and she'll pop in to help us out with impeccably defendable research sources, though at times the process stings a bit because when we are wrong, she will tell it like it is! =:-O But if the connection has been validated by a scientific study, she'll find it. She's not quite as cynical as she'd like you to think she is, but definitely brooks no nonsense! LOL! Montanabw (talk) 22:50, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * And FYI, I do have access to some subscription databases (Among other things, I teach a couple classes as an adjunct professor at a local college, they pay squat, but the students are fun and I can get at the library stuff free) so that helps. I tried to find something on Etherington in the decade 1950-1960 and came up empty, so it might be a book.  (If you can find the full citation, let me know).  However, in looking for articles, the search engine did give me "Proctosigmoidoscopy and rectal biopsy in the diagnosis of schistosomiasis mansoni"  Just in case you ever wanted to know about that!  LOL!


 * I suspect that may come under the heading of 'things I cba to read about just yet', lol! Maybe Kim can find Speed and Etherington?  It's that jaw and 7th molar thing that the Exies apparently (and only) share with the Alaska fossils that has me interested.  And the stuff I just dug up about the 200k-400k years ago mega-flood would provide a very much more sound basis for separation of the Exies from the other Euro-wild-stocks than the previous post-ice-age meltwater raigin sea levels only 10k years ago.  And I have just sussed that I have been reading (mostly on-screen) for almost 20 hours solid, so I guess I'd better try and get some sleep now! ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 23:28, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * What the dealbreaker here is, is the question of WHAT the"Alaskan fossils" were that speed referred to.  Montanabw (talk) 22:03, 24 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Hopefully we may get an answer to that - but I have a feeling (no stronger than that) that they were Hay's 1939 Equus niobrarensis alaskae, and a feeling (again can't trace from where) that E n alaskae may have been renamed as Equus caballus alaskae ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 12:37, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Partial paydirt
One database is giving me summaries. There are six articles, all in the British Veterinary Journal, dated between 1950 and 1953. I will try to find what I can and get it to you. I suspect all I'll get are abstracts, but what's mine is yours. Montanabw (talk) 23:09, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * When this redlink goes blue, I'll have made the data dump of what I have. User:ThatPeskyCommoner/Exmoor sandbox. (If you don't want me to make a sandbox in your user space, I can show you how to get rid of it later)  Montanabw (talk) 23:12, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Coolio! I have already used some as an excuse for removing that 'descended from ferals' bit. ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 23:38, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Except that it appears all modern horses, more or less, are! Should you have insomnia, I have found things that will help solve that problem:

(translation: The Przewalski probably is not the wild ancestor of the domestic horse, and more support for the "one or just a few stallions" theory)
 * http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/content/95/2/158.full.pdf+html "Isolation of Y Chromosome-speciﬁc Microsatellites in the Horse and Cross-species Ampliﬁcation in the Genus Equus" (One of the "there might have been just one stallion" studies -- Included New Foresters but not Exmoors, I will admit)
 * http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/26/1/199.full.pdf+html Lau, A. N.; Peng, L.; Goto, H.; Chemnick, L.; Ryder, O. A.; Makova, K. D. (2009). "Horse Domestication and Conservation Genetics of Przewalski's Horse Inferred from Sex Chromosomal and Autosomal Sequences". Molecular Biology and Evolution 26 (1): 199–208. doi:10.1093/molbev/msn239.
 * http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36/n4/full/ng1326.html Lindgren, Gabriella; Niclas Backström, June Swinburne, Linda Hellborg, Annika Einarsson, Kaj Sandberg, Gus Cothran, Carles Vilà, Matthew Binns & Hans Ellegren (2004). "Limited number of patrilines in horse domestication". Nature Genetics 36 (4): 335–336. doi:10.1038/ng1326. . (more on the one or a few stallions theory-- this one DID look at the Exmoor)
 * http://www.sfu.ca/~donyang/adnaweb/Cai%20DW%20JAS2009.pdf Cai, D. W.; Tang, Z. W.; Han, L.; Speller, C. F.; Yang, D. Y. Y.; Ma, X. L.; Cao, J. E.; Zhu, H. et al. (2009). "Ancient DNA provides new insights into the origin of the Chinese domestic horse". Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (3): 835–842. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2008.11.006. Retrieved 17 January 2011. (Summarizes some of the other articles while concluding that the Chinese domestic horse is probably not related to the Przewalski, also has some cool maps and charts)
 * http://www.pnas.org/content/106/51/21754.full.pdf+html "Revising the recent evolutionary history of equids using ancient DNA" (If you aren't asleep yet, this one will do the trick, I found it almost indecipherable on a casual glance, but it's possible that somewhere in there is something that may help the "Celtic pony" thesis.  )
 * See also the footnotes at domestication of the horse. The above are all full texts, I have abstracts only of a few others below, if someplace has a free version, then excellent:

Identification of Y Chromosome Genetic Variations in Chinese Indigenous Horse Breeds J Hered (2010) 101(5): 639-643 first published online May 23, 2010
 * Vilà, C.; et al. (2001). "Widespread origins of domestic horse lineages". Science 291 (5503): 474–477. doi:10.1126/science.291.5503.474. .Science 19 January 2001:
 * C. M. Wade, et. al "REPORT:Genome Sequence, Comparative Analysis, and Population Genetics of the Domestic Horse" Science 6 November 2009: Vol. 326 no. 5954 pp. 865-867 DOI: 10.1126/science.1178158
 * Yinghui Ling, Yuehui Ma, Weijun Guan, Yuejiao Cheng, Yanping Wang, Jianlin Han, Dapeng Jin, Lai Mang, and Halik Mahmut

The insomnia thing - I've never yet found a cure! only temporary relief, lol! I'll read through some of that stuff. Don't suppose you noticed if any of them mention the Exie? Thing is with DNA, that there's such a lot of it in those 32 pairs (or 31, or 33, or 16, or whatever depending which equid you're looking at!)! And a vast amount of it is exactly the same as for us humans, too! And has any of them addressed the chicken-and-egg thing? "Which came first, the (that specific) Y-chromosome or the horse?" How much variation is there between modern horse Y and zebra Y, and ass Y, and so on? How actually 'big' is the Y chromosome, and so how prone to mutation anyway? ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 06:40, 23 February 2011 (UTC)


 * These guys all need to know more about the behavioural aspects of what they're looking at! I find this sooooooo often with the lab-rat geneticists; maybe they should work hand-in-hand with more of the field-vole types.  Consider  "This pattern was not seen in wolves; in fact, more Y haplotypes were found than mitochondrial haplotypes. " From Lau, Peng et al.  Wolves mate for life - one male to one female except when one partner dies (and even then the other may well choose not to find another mate), and only the alpha pair in each pack generally breed.  However, pack-ranking is 'socially inherited' from the dam, not the sire - so the highest-ranking-dam's offspring are more likely to breed than the highest-ranking-sire's in the event of death of a partner and choosing a new partner.  And it's the female that chooses the male, in wolves - so an alpha-female will retain her status as alpha-female when choosing a new partner, but the partnerless alpha-male would have to be adopted by an equally partnerless alpha-female in order to carry on breeding.  What I'm trying (not ver well!) to say is that, when an alpha-female wolf dies, the alpha position within that pack is much more likely to be taken by the strongest (character) of her female offspring than by a non-related female in the pack.  Adding a bit more: and the alpha-female is most likely to be challenged for alpha-position by one of her own daughters than by a different female within her own pack; also the daughter of an alpha-female is more likely to take over the alpha-position in another pack, if that pack's alpha-female dies, than one of the lower-ranking pack members.  (They kinda 'forget' the fact that they were alpha's cubs in the first place if they weren't the alpha-cub in their own litter.)  And the incoming (related) alpha female within the pack will most likely have chosen a completely unrelated male separated off from another pack as a mate. Which would explain the apparent female-driven thingie. What you think?  The labby-type geneticists are absolutely brilliant on the molecular DNA stuff, but as a general rule they mostly know squat about the social structures of the animals they're looking at, so can miss out on some really obvious stuff.  Sort of not seeing the wood for the trees, kind of thing.  ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 07:03, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Bugger! Orlando, Metcalfe et al have not included the Alaskan remains! ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 07:21, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Oooh, oooh, I'm loving this: "Seven major haplogroups and 17 clusters (A1–A7, B1–B2, C1–C2, D1–D3 and F1–F3) were evident in the star-like network. The 25 haplo- types of our study fell into all of the seven haplogroups, and in several of the clusters. Some haplotypes, for example H5 and H25, shared the founder haplotype of a cluster with a variety of breeds from different regions. The network showed that breeds of different geographic regions overlapped, suggesting extensive gene flow had occurred among different breeds. Interestingly, some haplogroups corresponded to particular breeds and regions. For example, haplogroup F clustered with breeds from East Asia and Middle East, while D corresponded with many Iberian horses ..." ... this is providing backup to the stuff I dug up on phenotypical variations in dun-colour patterning stuff indicating a number of different types of dun descended from a number of different ancient stocks! Yeeee-haw! I do love it when the lab-rats catch up with my undisputed genius, lol! ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 07:40, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Same study; I'm looking at their Lineage E here as a 'prime suspect' for the Exie/Celtic type. Take a gander at the table (fig 2) and network (fig 3) to see what I mean. Someone needs to go compare their Lineage E with some aDNA from the Alaska fossils (if they can extract it - should be able to as climate would support preservation of aDNA). ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 07:50, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Lindgren et al ....."Modern breeding practice selects stallions and lets them cover many mares each, a breeding scheme that reduces the number of patrilines in the population" and here we go again :-( In the wild, one stallion will cover many, many mares. They form herds, don't they?  One stallion to as big a bunch of mares as he can retain?  So loads of his offspring about ..... it's not just domestic breeding that creates this pattern, it's a natural pattern of breeding for horses!  The 'one male to a load of females' stuff is not evidence for domesticated breeding when it comes to horses - it's just what horses do! ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 08:00, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Grrrrrrrrrr, grrrrrrrrrrrr .......... somebody needs to go slap some of the labrats upsides the head and tell them to think about the actual animals themselves, and their social and heirarchical structures, not just look at the bleedin' DNA and make assumptions which don't take into account what is 'species-normal' behaviour for whatever kind of animal they're looking at! It seems to me that a vast amount of what they've got here is little more than a mol-gen confirmation of species-normal behaviour patterns (and yes, it indicates that those behaviour patterns existed in pre-history, too). To compare with a real 'control' group, all they need to do is go check out the patrilinear / matrilinear stuff on other (non-related) species that run the same behaviour patterns (red deer, for example, to compare to horse for the Y-chromosome stuff, and probably small-cat species to compare with wolf for the mtDNA patterns), and they'll be likely to find the same kind of stuff going on. You just can't compare a load of other animals to what you might find in (for example) humans, coz humans, as a species, and taken overall, are primarily monogmaous without strong matrilinear or patrilinear stuff happening. ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 08:10, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

More Slaps Upsides the Head / Ass(es)!
Any researcher who thinks Icies are a 'primitive breed' and uses them as such in any research needs to be kicked in the Equus hydruntinus/ Equus hemionus / Equus africanus ! See the Exmoor Pony talk page for the real gen on the Icies! (Relatively modern mongrels which got bottlenecked.) Not to be compared to the (probably) 100,000 year old Exie-types ancestry. ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 13:53, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You cannot deny that Icelandics have at least 1000 years of enforced purebreeding behind them, whereas a foreign stallion could have crept into Exmoor and done deeds... :P Pitke (talk) 15:43, 23 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh, yes, of course I know that :o) But the biggest thing that really separates the Exies from everything else is that unique jaw structure, which still remains as otherwise-unexplained.  Personally, I love the Icies!  In how many other breeds could you get a silver blue dun with such an extravagant mane, lol?! ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 15:49, 23 February 2011 (UTC)


 * It's clear that you are having WAY too much fun with that scientific literature. However, if you want to look at a "no-duh" utter waste of time and taxpayer money, someone up in my neck of the woods got the bright idea to see if too much cheap grain makes horses "hot." here-- login required, but free  I'm SO certain that the trainer of the horses happening to be the grandson of Ray Hunt had absolutely NOTHING to do with the study being funded.   Montanabw (talk) 21:42, 24 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Love that "study"! I think I am getting somewhere with the Exie thing - I'm seeing (or hallucianting?) two main matrilines in the Exies, one of which appears to be the 'real McCoy' (truly ancient and unchanged) and the other of which comes down from an Araby-type-wossname first node, so that's from an 'incoming mare'.  And yes, I am having heaps of fun with the scientific literature ... obsessive-compulsive learning combined with a hunting mission! (wow! what a potent cocktail! Like offering catnip to a leopard, lol! :o) ) ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 13:28, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Cervus canadensis
I've replied in both bits of my talk page, User talk:Chzz and Does WikiLand Have a permanent home for ..... Cheers,  Chzz  ► 23:58, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Good news and bad news
So, I started working on Exmoor Pony, as you can see in the history - I made harvard-style refs, so that when you click the short-form ref in the == References == it links to the biblio details.

Unfortunately, I came across a rather significant problem; I realised that a paragraph came verbatim from the website referenced, and indeed that this has been in the article since its inception in 2005, where it appears to have been entirely copy-pasted from that site.

As copyright issues are serious business, I've sought help - see User_talk:Moonriddengirl.

 Chzz  ► 03:55, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

OK, I'm sure I can do some re-wording on that one to get around the problem. ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 06:40, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Done that - should be OK for 'from now on' stuff. Sadly, I don't have a time machine (well, apart from my Mac's clever one)! The original editor probably meant well, and didn't know what they were doing. ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 07:53, 25 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for working on it so quickly.


 * Yes, the first editor probably did mean well, and over time, the standards change. In recent years, we've had a several times where a big fuss has been made over copyvio issues (and rightly so, most of the time). Sometimes, when an article has contained copyright-violations for a long time, it can be necessary to remove all the old revisions in the history - "revision deletion" - to avoid people reverting/reinstating further copyright material. In this case, with it being a fairly small portion of the current, and because we've marked it all up and dealt with the specific problem, I hope we can avoid that -because the history is useful. What we need to do is, a) check carefully if there are any other bits that have sneaked in, and b) be careful over anything new added. I'll add the article to my 'list of stuff to keep an eye on'.


 * Regarding a) - it is certainly harder than I used to think, to avoid the problems. It can be problematic even if you copy a few words of phrasing from a source - and once (1.5 years ago) I was pulled up for it. An example was, a newspaper said, "The bodies of A and B were taken to the primary health centre at Footown", and I'd written, "Their bodies were taken to the primary health centre at Footown" - and that was a problem.


 * That specific user, Moonriddengirl, helped me back then - and has helped me many times since, with copyright issues. Here is a specific example of her assisting me in rewriting a bit of short-paraphrasing which I'd inserted - which I think is a good example of how such problems can be overcome.


 * For any such copyright questions, it is definitely good to know !


 * Thanks again,  Chzz  ► 14:51, 25 February 2011 (UTC)


 * A really good editor I respected got caught up with something like that. But the ensuing lynch mob ran him completely off wikipedia, which was sad.  I had to deal with the opposite problem once, someone screaming at me about OR if I changed too many words.  Sigh.  But then I also was in on the cleanup of that massive sockpuppet mess where one person created hundreds of copy and paste articles.  (yuck)   Glad you guys understand the happy medium.   Montanabw (talk) 07:53, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Harvard refs
Two things;


 * 1) Can I assume you'll watch Exmoor Pony? I hope to try help improve it, from time-to-time. It is on my list of things-to-try-and-help-with; that is a somewhat long list, but I may occasionally try to poke my head in to it. I always try to say what I do, in edit-summary - and I'm no expert on horses, so I may well make mistakes. Feel free to fix stuff I do.
 * 2) Have you seen how these Harvard-refs work, now? For example, I found a ref for part of this sentence (and added a at the end, regarding the rest),  and then added the book details . If you look at that part of the article - reference 2 - you'll see that the little [2] links to the short-form reference ^ Sponenberg 2003, p. 30, and then clicking on that will highlight the applicable Bibliographic entry. That's how Harvard-style works. Hope that makes sense?  Chzz  ►  16:28, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I kinda-sorta understand the concept of the Harvard refs; will have to try them on for size, though! The tag .... errrrrm ........ well, that's what mealy (pangare) markings do! They hit those areas of the animal, it's part of the pattern. So is it OK to remove that tag? :o) ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 14:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Exmoor stuff
I have left and right and on my talk page a slew of responses to various aspects of the debate. I hope I did not offend you, but I think the general thing to keep in mind is that in the past say 8 years, a lot has been reshuffled using (ancient) DNA. This shows that the exmoor is of the same stock as all the other domesticated horses and within the primitive pony branch (shetland, Fjord, Icelandic etc). Sorry to bust your bubble... -- Kim van der Linde at venus 21:02, 25 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Kim, I am almost impossible to offend :o) I'd love some day for you to give me a talk-through on how to 'read' a phylogenetic network thingie properly; if I can find a way of pointing to bits and asking what the significance is of them, I shall do that :o)  Never, ever worry about having offended me - someone has to get to the point where they are actually indulging in genuine 'offending behaviour' before I get riled - anything else is just not worth getting upset about. ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 09:29, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Owwwooo
Hey wolfpup! I see you're running with the big dogs now! I guess this is what happens when I leave you unattended for a day or so! (grin) Looks like you are having fun, though, so if you need some help, let me know. So far, you've attracted the attention of the pros, not the trolls, but if someone gets mean, just get out the WP:TROUT if anyone plays too rough! (Hey all, remember TPC is only about three "weeks" old here -- learning very fast, but still a WP:WikiWolfcub) Montanabw (talk) 07:41, 26 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Cub is addicted to learning, lol! The purpose of an expert is to have their brains picked - that's what they're for!  And yes, I did notice that there was apparently a member of my pack gone temporarily missing (I actually missed you - am I sad or what, lol!)  If I see a troll, I will call the pack in.  But only because homicidal rage is apparently not considered either 'socially acceptable' or 'appropriate' as a response :o) ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 09:25, 26 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I occasionally have a day or two off when I have no time to jump on wiki during the day and then come home zonked, feed the critters and hit the hay early. I even leave town without my laptop once in a while.  As for homicidal rage, I think you'd be amused by WP:LAME =:-O   Montanabw (talk) 20:33, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

MfD nomination of WikiWolfcub
WikiWolfcub, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiWolfcub and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes ( ~ ). You are free to edit the content of WikiWolfcub during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Reaper Eternal (talk) 23:35, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Since it is redundant to WikiPuppy, maybe you will enjoy contributing to that page. Reaper Eternal (talk) 00:11, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Are you quite sure you have appreciated the significant differences between the WikiPuppy and the WikiWolfcub, rather than being misled by the superficial similarities? ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 05:54, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I closed the deletion discussion, in light of your good faith efforts and per WP:BITE. However, maybe a better solution would be to improve the WikiPuppy page with content from the WikiWolfCub page? I mean, maybe it would be better to discuss on the WikiPuppy page that "WikiPuppies, as they start to venture out into the wild eventually start to grow into WikiWolfCubs. [insert descriptions of WikiWolfCubs here]." Reaper Eternal (talk) 13:47, 27 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Bless you, you are a star! Being a "Wolfcub", I have to say I didn't start at the WikiPuppy stage - I just leapt on an unsuspecting prey and boldly edited where it wasn't really the right thing to do, lol!  (But we got that sorted out.) The Wolfcubby thing is more a case of someone who jumps in and gets their teeth into something (possibly inappropriately!), rather than someone who's a bit scared of jumping in, and then tiptoes around 'growing up' for a while I think.  Anyhoo, thanks soooooo much for clsoing that, I really appreciate it :o) ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 14:00, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Help Save the WikiWolfcub (Please!)

 * 1) Don't panic
 * 2) Don't ask elsewhere; beware WP:CANVAS
 * 3) Don't write too much in the MfD. You get the "lady doth protest too much" effect.
 * 4) 7 days, minimum. Chill out. See what happens
 * 5) Worst case? It gets userfied; that's fine. Some of the finest userboxes are in userspace

 Chzz  ► 05:08, 27 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Chzz! I have to say that being judged 'same as WikiPuppy' felt like a real slap in the face! And my excuse for working at silly o'clock is insomnia - what's yours, lol!?


 * Can't sleep, clown will eat me  Chzz  ► 07:07, 27 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Clown-repellent tip: get into a flaming row with the clown.  They are renowned for not eating things that they know will disagree with them :o) ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 07:34, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Heh. But re. the MfD, just wait a while. Have a cup of tea, etc. It'll all come out in the wash, I imagine. Cheers,  Chzz  ► 07:50, 27 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Hey, look, it changed colour, lol! If it comes to being [insert suitable word here] about what else the userbox looks like, then hey, I can fix that, lol! ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 09:09, 27 February 2011 (UTC)


 * ... and the 'suitable word' in this instance could well be "s-bite-ful!", lol! ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 10:39, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

It's changed colour because the discussion is over - the page is being kept.

The result of the discussion was  Nomination withdrawn, I did not realize how new the creator was  13:44, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

So - you should be happy? And it'd be worth saying "thanks" to that user, I think.

Quite probably, they looked at your account and saw it was registered in 2006 - which it was; and, there were about 15 edits or something back then...so, from a casual glance, you don't "look" like a new user. Which is good and bad, I suppose. In this case - if RE had realised you'd only been active for a few weeks, this probably wouldn't have happened.

Anyway - we're all good, I think. Cheers,  Chzz  ► 17:20, 27 February 2011 (UTC)


 * P.S. If you have not already, try enabling Popups in Special:Preferences (under 'gadgets'). And then, you'll see what most experienced users see, when they 'hover' the mouse over a user-name. And why, at a quick glance, they'd think you were a well-established user who'd been around for years!  Chzz  ► 17:24, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I shall trot over to Reaper's page and put up an extra 'thank you' over there. Yup, I originally registered way back when, and then real life got in the way (funny how it keeps doing that) so I was absent for ages ... then I scented out the old trail (mainly because of radical lifestyle change over the past month-and-a-bit) and got into some nose-down hunting again. And found some wonderful people, too (you included, you'ze an Angel, seriously). I shall play with the popups thing. (Update: I"gived" the Reaper a barnstar for random acts of kindness) :o)

Oh, and when I was talking about 'it' changine colour, it was me changing the userbox I was talking about! Just so's to kinda make a point about how easy it is to un-clone it from the puppy one, lol! ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 11:46, 28 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I've been here full-time since 2006 and I'm still scared of Popups!  Montanabw (talk) 19:04, 28 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Erm ... why? ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 21:34, 28 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm a machead and last time I tried, I couldn't get them to work. I also edit about half the time from home on a dialup, where everything is slower than you know what, even popups, which gets weird when trying to edit ...   Montanabw (talk) 18:45, 1 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm a Machead too (you know that!) I'm also currently trying out the pre-release dev version of OS 10.7 (Lion) .. wheeeee!  They seem to work OK for me.  But I can understand the dial-up thing - that would be really hard to cope with! ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 07:00, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Saddles
We could use more photos and info at Australian stock saddle. I see you're into those. Sources will help for content, but we don't have ANY photos showing what the panels/underside looks like (so many here are of felt, not leather), what kind of tree underlies an Aussie, what the girths and girthing system looks like, what the traditional stirrups look like (wider than traditional English ones), etc. If you need a break from Exmoor DNA, this might be simpler. And why oh why do they think it's a good thing to add the western saddle horn to some of them? (The swinging fender, I get, those are comfy, but the other hybrid stuff seems worst of both worlds -- I learned to ride western, but I HATE the Aussies that have western swells for a pommel, horrid things!) Also, over here, the knee rolls are  called "poleys" but Cg (our genuine Aussie horse person) says they are just "knee rolls." Anyway some expert help there may be valuable. Maybe pop any big changes on the talk page to be sure you don't get swatted with a newspaper... Montanabw (talk) 21:33, 28 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Hahahah! Newspaper, lol! It's traditional for Aussies to be serge-lined rather than leather-lined - wicks the sweat away much faster than the leather linings do, and also makes it more able to be switched from horse to horse as the panels don't solidify quite as much to one shape.  Trees - well, it's darned similar to the English tree, but a lot stouter / tougher. Suspended web seat, just like the English seat, is pretty standard. I think stirrups come in a heap of types (Oxbow and 4-bar brass are common in the modern Aussie types - dunno what proportion had which in traditional Oz-land).  The horny saddle? Fashion, m'dear!  Meant to tempt the wannabe-cowboys market. Real Oz riders wouldn't have dreamed of attempting to do anything foolhardy like roping steers - just drive 'em into a corral and chute 'em!  I can do pics (or find pics from my store) of how the girths work.  Soon.  I have a nice Trevor James saddle at the mo, which I'm s'posed to be selling on behalf of the New Forest's head honcho, so I'll get some good piccies from that for you.  I'll visit the Aussie saddle page some time over the next day or so - but what the chances are of finding verifiable sources will be,  I have absolutely no idea! ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 23:32, 28 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Photos alone will be well worth adding! Even if sources a little light, there's at least got to be a "how to buy a quality saddle" page somewhere in Au that could source the basics.  And you can get away with a lot in a photo caption.  There's a lot less fussiness in the tack articles until a controversy arises because no one seems to pay much attention to them, other than the most active editors.  (See the weakly-sourced western saddle). "Serge?"  A fabric?  Seems like a heavy felt to me...and doesn't the sweat really mess with and compress the fleece that fills the panels, even with a good saddle pad?  I'm so used to seeing leather on English saddles and the fleece over leather on a western tree skirt.  (oh yeah, a photo of the types of padding used would be good too, both there and at saddle blanket.)   Montanabw (talk) 19:09, 1 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The Trevor James saddlery page is good for stuff like construction on the 'best of the best' of the Aussies (though obviously very peacocky about how James Saddlery themselves do it). Many of the non-Aussie-made Aussies use sub-standard flocking (carpet remnant fibres, often); as and when I re-flock one (and they are bar stewards to re-flock!) I use pure white wool flock, which is what the topmost English saddles are flocked with.  I have a box of it as I buy it several kilos at a time, will get you a pic of what it looks like in the raw state.  With decent flock fibre, the sweat wicks along the fibres and passes out very easily at the ends (also provides something of a cooling effect).  Even a saddle cloth, provided it's of a relatively tight weave, will sift out most of the sweat and grease particles before they get up into the flocking.  Yer average Aussie saddle isn't flocked quite as hard as an English saddle, so the flocking can be awled about (or even knuckled!) through the serge lining as and when necessary.  Adding a little-known tip:  when you're re-flocking a serge-lined saddle, if you lay all the fibres out straight and parallel right along the bottom of the panel to a thickness of about an inch, before stuffing the rest of the panel above that, then it encourages the wicking effect to the pommel and cantle ends of the panel instead of up into the main stuffing kinda by capillary action. ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 07:08, 2 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Got a link to that site? Sounds like it's adequate until we can find something better.  Construction details are a lot of fun, thanks for sharing.   Montanabw (talk) 21:45, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

James Saddlery site. There's a mass of links in their left-hand border that you can browse through :o) ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 23:15, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

New_Forest_pony
 Chzz  ► 07:07, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Seen, thanks!


 * And re. Dales Pony - User_talk:Chzz - fixed, I hope.  Chzz  ► 17:16, 4 March 2011 (UTC)


 * :o( still don't look right :o( ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 17:42, 4 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Looks right to me. I've replied again on my talk page.  Chzz  ► 18:00, 4 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm getting like my hair - lunatic fringe! ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 18:55, 4 March 2011 (UTC)


 * +replied  Chzz  ► 19:00, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

thinking about antiquity
I like Kim's idea about a history of the horse in England. Sometimes you take a step back to get a step forward. I suggest you do up another sandbox (just make it a redlink like I did for you with the Exmoor one and then click on it) and pop in some basics, run it past Richard and me first, and then Kim. Then once it's up we can do the "summary with wikilink" in all the other ancient UK pony breed articles. Do you like that idea? Montanabw (talk) 21:24, 5 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Great idea! While I was looking around for bits on other UK breeds, I came across some nice reference stuff for antiquity, Romans, pre-Romans, etc., as well as various references to bones and so on.  We could combine with a history of horse transport, horses used in the mining industry, battle, and all that. ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 06:02, 6 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Got your email, sent test messages back to both addresses and then the articles. "e-me" as to their safe arrival (or not). Your messages may get trapped in my spam filter, but I'll keep an eye on it for them.  You might want to take a peek at pit pony, by the way.  And give Ealdgyth a heads up that we are looking into an article on the history of the horse in the UK, she's the creator (or at least lead editor) of the articles on the General Stud Book and that sort of stuff. She'll be very good on medieval stuff.   Montanabw (talk) 19:42, 7 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The sandbox is up and running! ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 10:33, 8 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry I've been neglectful lately (that real life thing...). I did some tweaking of your sandbox, a wee bit of copyediting and a way lot of just popping in a proposed rewrite of a couple of things.  I think you can pick the right wikilinks to the various prehistory articles and save yourself a lot of time quoting dates for eras (particularly because even the experts seem to disagree on some of the boundary dates...)  After that, your #1 task will be to have that neutral point of view by the time you're done.  ("Some experts think the horse became extinct in Britian between X and Y based on evidence A, B, and C, but other experts say they did not based on evidence D, E and F"). By the way, for stuff to swipe, be sure to check out Horses in the Middle Ages. My co-editor on that, the lead editor, actually, was living in the UK at the time and had some access to great resources.   Montanabw (talk) 06:33, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I shall forgive you - but only coz I luv yew! I think it will take me a while to get the whole article looking how I want it to (and I shall try very hard not to get into the "it's my article" mindset, too!). Chzz has helped out with tidying some citations up for me (great guy, don't know if you've come across him). I do want to stay relatively neutral on the 'went extinct' thing, but there's very little to suggest that it did happen, and rather a lot of archaeology to support the fact that it didn't - how else could 3500 BC remains be being found (post North Sea inundation, pre-domestication, and so on. And let nobody suggest to me that that's the remains of the very few surviving animals and that no others were there, lol!). The fact is that we have little in the way of mesolithic remains anywhere, very probably because most of them are now drowned in the sea beds. Richard keeps quoting Yalden (which I don't have a copy of) - but how many others are suggesting the same thing? I'd like to have more sources for it (which haven't been superseded) before giving it as much weight as the many finds of horse remains dating from and after the glaciation period. As far as I can make out, Yalden seems to be one dissenting voice - maybe Richard can dig us up some more dissenting voices so we can air their views? I have given Ealdgyth a heads-up on the article, but have yet to hear back (I think she's busy!)  At the moment I'm working through pretty much in chronological order, but if anyone wants to jump in with stuff from a later period that would be great (it's lonely playing in the sandbox all by myself, lol!) ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 08:52, 13 March 2011 (UTC)


 * LOL! It's your sandbox, so you can throw me out and all my edits if you want, I shall not take offense! (Wikigryphons, like cats, like sandboxes and occasionally poop there instead of in the litterbox!)  On the "long mane" thing you mentioned on Kim's page, I don't think it's a mane at all, might be sootiness on the coat, might just be fire scorching, I didn't see "mane" when I looked at it.  I'm no expert on Ice Age Europe, so I'll defer to others on that.  I can only say that if the lab rats are of no help, you have to look for someone, somewhere (besides the tourist sites) that makes the claim, unfortunately, if it's your own theory (or my own or anyone's original theory), we can't put it forth here.  (Ironically, we can get an article published somewhere else, though -- as long as it's not self-published -- and then we can use it as a source--especially if someone else inserts it!)  All I do know is that the horse definitely went extinct in the Americas about the same time, so I'm prone to favor that angle, but I admit only because it happened over here, not because I actually have a clue about the UK!   Montanabw (talk) 04:35, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

The thing that said 'mane' to me was the shape, as well as the colour, of the 'black on the neck' on the spotted (dappled?) pics - it's just exactly the shape that a wild, untrimmed mane ends up - long and trailing at the wither end of the neck. Of course, I could easily be wrong - but I've never seen either a spotted or a dappled with just 'neck markings' (sooty or anything else) which looked like that, lol! At the moment, I'm of the opinion that any theory is as good as any other theory! You are more than welcome to keep playing in my sandbox. If you accidentally poop in there, just remember the pooper-scooper! Anyhow, we have no need to address the 'long mane vs. upright mane' issue anywhere at all in Wikiland, as far as I can see, so it's just another dog-toy to throw about for each other. (Do Gryphons play with dog-toys? I wonder!) What did you think of the body shape on those spotty-dappledy things? If you put those and the pangare-bay next to each other on the screen, the whole appearance is just so much different, it really struck me - they look more like modern horses, and particularly like some of the Iberian types. It would be easy to do a four-window spit screen, with the cave-pangare chappie top left, a Przewalski bottom left in the same pose, the cave-spotteds top right, and a Lusitano (dappled grey with a naturally-longdark mane) bottom right, in the same pose, do a screen-dump, and make a really good case for saying "Hey, look! This must be what they meant!" It's just a plaything, really. I do like that kind of debate .... reminds me of the Debating Society at school - did you guys have that kind of thing over in the USA? I was "lead" on a wacky debate we had once: "This House believes that flight is an inherent human capability." And I managed to sweet-talk it around so that we actually won the audience vote. Amazing. :o) ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 08:17, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

And here it is! (You might like to direct Kim to  it so she can have a smile :o) )  Just had to do that thing - we worked about ten hours solid yesterday finalising emptying the old house, and shuffling stuff from old-house to lock-up to mother's house.  And then had to blitz-clean the old house top to toe so the letting agency would like it :o)  So I am knackered, needed a bit of play-time, and my operated-on thumb is complaining mightily! (And just as an off-the-cuff example of my usual pain threshold, the Christmas before last I thought my arthritis was 'playing up' ... until I started getting numb bits ... trundled off to ER to get it checked out, and it turned out I'd acquired two fractures in said problematic thumb! Over-use dealing with saddle restoration - seems I'd been applying a bit too much pressure, lol!) ThatPeskyCommoner (talk) 10:20, 14 March 2011 (UTC)