This article is within the scope of WikiProject Equine, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of articles relating to horses, asses, zebras, hybrids, equine health, equine sports, etc. Please visit the
project page for details or ask questions at the barn.EquineWikipedia:WikiProject EquineTemplate:WikiProject Equineequine articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Somerset, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
Somerset on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SomersetWikipedia:WikiProject SomersetTemplate:WikiProject SomersetSomerset articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Devon, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
Devon on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.DevonWikipedia:WikiProject DevonTemplate:WikiProject DevonDevon articles
A fact from Exmoor pony appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the Did you know column on 17 June 2014 (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that although fanciers of the Exmoor pony(pictured) claim it was purebred from an isolated wild population since the
Ice Age, modern research shows they share much of their DNA with other breeds?
Apologies for taking a couple of days to get to this:
First, are you planning on taking this through GAN or straight to FAC? Personally, I like to take articles through GAN, just to get an extra set of eyes, but it's up to you. The article is very high quality, as it stands.
The last sentence of the lead is a little jarring, just hanging out by itself. I'd suggest combining it with one of the other paragraphs or moving things around so that you can expand the last paragraph. For an article of this length, either two or three paragraphs work per
WP:LEAD.
What makes ref #1 (Everything Exmoor) a reliable source?
Make journal refs consistent - either always give publishers or never give them. Compare refs #7 and 8.
Ref #11 needs to be formatted as a journal, not a web ref, and needs the journal/publisher info fixed.
Ref #36 (Wynmalen, Henry) needs a page number.
What make all four parts of ref #37 reliable sources?
Characteristics, "It shows a distinctly different jaw structure..." Is there any analysis as to what this means or why the breed has developed this way?
Modern DNA studies - link haplotype on first occurrence, not further down.
Modern DNA studies, "the lack of sufficient pre-domestication DNA samples...until more samples have been analyzed." Redundant.
Uses, "Exmoor ponies won the International Horse Agility Championships in 2012." Multiple ponies won the championship in a single year?
Smith, Morrison in References but not Notes.
Overall it looks pretty good. I've made a few minor tweaks, but nothing major.
Dana boomer (
talk) 14:50, 29 May 2012 (UTC)reply
Oh, and: I don't think there is too much of an emphasis on the genetic stuff, given the number of studies that have been done using Exies and the amount of mythtorical stuff that is out there. The article is not overlong, so I think the stuff fits well.
Dana boomer (
talk) 19:12, 29 May 2012 (UTC)reply
I agree that the "purebred since Adam and Eve" stuff is an issue for the Exmoor, so detail helps. That said, don't call the primitive wild horse a "Tarpan," that's a specific subspecies. ;-)
Montanabw(talk) 22:59, 29 May 2012 (UTC)reply
Beginning to work on this for buffing to GA status (which should be fairly easy, given all the work that has been put into it). A lot of the above comments are still outstanding, so I'll be striking them as I work on them.
Dana boomer (
talk) 19:17, 14 April 2014 (UTC)reply
More work. I love it when I find a source that says "a bunch of other mythtorical sources are incorrect and here's why". Jaw stuff is hooey, kind of like backbone stuff in Arabs. Still looking at a few spots. Would like to find better sources than Everything Exmoor for the "many fanciers say they were bred pure" stuff, but it'll work if it needs to.
Dana boomer (
talk) 16:24, 15 April 2014 (UTC)reply
A landrace, not a breed?
I have a very strong feeling that this is not a formal,
selectively bred breed, recognized by any fancier/breeder organization, but is in fact simply a
landrace. All the facts in the article seem to support this. If so, this article has to be rewritten and recategorized to stop making the
unverifiable and
blatant original-research claim that it is a
breed. — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 08:05, 2 January 2013 (UTC)reply
It is a horse breed as horse breeds are defined, it has a registry and a breed society. Please don't do this. You are messing up multiple articles here with these moves and actions against consensus. You have raised this issue at WikiProject Equine (WPEQ) and it needs to be resolved there before you go into any individual articles.
Montanabw(talk) 23:19, 2 January 2013 (UTC)reply
It is most definitely a breed, and also a landrace. The Exmoor Pony Society was founded in 1921 to establish a stud book to ensure continuation of the true pure-bred Exmoor Pony. The breed is recognised by the
Rare Breeds Survival Trust as "endangered". To claim that calling it a breed is "blatant original research" and "unverifiable" is absolutely beyond the pale. The boot is very much on the other foot, here – for you to make the decision that it's "not a breed" is what is blatant original research. Not even "research", either, as it would appear that you didn't make much of an effort to find out whether there was an official breed registry ... so all that it really is is a totally uninformed personal opinion. Wikipedia article titles are not intended to comply with your own ill-researched / unresearched personal opinions.
Pesky (
talk) 08:36, 4 January 2013 (UTC)reply
SMc, based on your comments over at WPEQ, I think you are using some of the same standards used for dogs and cats on horses and livestock. There is enough of a difference between these animals that I don't think your analogies hold for livestock, which are simply not managed in the same manner as household pets, nor do they have litters, etc. While I think your intentions to clean things up are well-intentioned, I'm afraid that when it comes to naming conventions, the dab rules are really mostly observed in the breach. Note here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neapolitan
Move
Why was this article moved? Natural disambiguation is preferred over parenthetical. I think the new title fails
WP:AT, because "Exmoor (pony)" is not actually used by sources and it's an implausible search term.
bobrayner (
talk) 09:42, 2 January 2013 (UTC)reply
This was a move against the longstanding consensus of WPEQ and there is a much larger issue to be resolved before anything gets moved.
Montanabw(talk) 23:19, 2 January 2013 (UTC)reply
I have moved it back. If anybody genuinely feels that "Exmoor (pony)" would be a better title, an
RM is the next step.
bobrayner (
talk) 23:29, 2 January 2013 (UTC)reply
This talk page move stuck, but not the main article, see your talk page.
Montanabw(talk) 22:13, 3 January 2013 (UTC)reply
Yes; presumably because the redirect was edited by the same person who did the move. That's not good.
bobrayner (
talk) 01:44, 4 January 2013 (UTC)reply
The article says "Exmoor fanciers claim the breed is descended from wild ancestors and has been bred pure since the Ice Age, and thus is more than 100,000 years old", but the last ice age was only 10,000 years ago, not 100,000 years.
George Ponderevo (
talk) 00:38, 22 January 2013 (UTC)reply
Hehe! Well, there were certainly ponies there throughout the most recent ice age (that area of the UK was farther south than the ice sheets; AFAIK the farthest-south that glaciation ever came was just to the north of London.) But ... equines appear to have been resident in the UK for - according to the fossil records - at least 500,000 years. Take your pick! I'm hoping to get back to working on this article soon, but Real Life is being obstaclous just now. Nice to see you taking a look at it :D
Pesky (
talk) 18:21, 23 January 2013 (UTC)reply
Reference to any ice age is probably misleading in that case, as most people will associate "ice age" as the last cold period 10,000 years ago.
George Ponderevo (
talk) 18:42, 23 January 2013 (UTC)reply
During and since the last ice age would be OK, I think. Or whatever - I'm not personally greatly fussed about it.
Pesky (
talk) 20:01, 23 January 2013 (UTC)reply
So can we just say something like "Exmoor fanciers claim the breed is descended from wild ancestors and has been bred pure for the last 100,000 years"?
George Ponderevo (
talk) 01:15, 24 January 2013 (UTC)reply
What does the source say? On that note, we have had a long discussion (involving a few now-inactive trolls at times) about the
history of horse domestication theories and need to be a bit careful in handling the romantic notions of some breed aficionados. (see my
sandbox)
Montanabw(talk) 01:44, 24 January 2013 (UTC)reply
Actually, the more I look at that the less sense it makes. Bred by whom 100,000 years ago? And isn't every breed descended from wild ancestors?
George Ponderevo (
talk) 02:08, 24 January 2013 (UTC)reply
I'll see if I can tweak this. Basically, because of the fairy-tale nonsense that most of these older breeds have going, to not mention the belief at all will result in every 10-year old girl who likes ponies (and breeders who still feel 10 years old in their hearts) will go in and keep adding it over and over. I'm looking at the source material to see what I can glean from there.
Montanabw(talk) 18:18, 24 January 2013 (UTC)reply
Quick note
Just lurking on the work being done on this article. Too bad ThatPeskyCommoner is not active on WP any more, she really knows her stuff; may ant to email her for a PR; I think the email link is still active and she didn't quit in disgust or anything, RL stuff bit into her WP time. Also, her
History of the horse in Britain and FA-class
New Forest pony may have good source material. (
talk page stalker)Montanabw(talk) 02:10, 15 April 2014 (UTC)reply
Yes, she did some wonderful work on this article. The history/DNA stuff is really solid, and I think in good shape for a GAN. My main focus at this point is replacing a few unreliable sources used for minor things, expanding a couple of spots that I had questions on when I read through the article, and doing a bit of source formatting. Nothing major, and probably nothing that will be significant enough to claim for WikiCup points, but this is another of the B-class articles that will be relatively easy to get to GAN with a bit of buffing.
Dana boomer (
talk) 02:44, 15 April 2014 (UTC)reply
Duplication in lead
Just looked at this article for the first time in ages (following its GA nom) and it has greatly improved, however I did notice that twice in the lead it says "there are estimated to be around 800 Exmoor ponies in existence" in the 1st para & "As of 2010 there were an estimated 800 Exmoor ponies worldwide." in the third. Is this deliberate?—
Rodtalk 13:19, 17 April 2014 (UTC)reply
I can't see any reason for the duplication, so I've removed the first mention.
EricCorbett 13:35, 17 April 2014 (UTC)reply
Richard Acland v Thomas & number of ponies
In the section on Recorded history and modern times it says 400 ponies were taken to Winsford in 1818; however the
Richard Acland linked was born in 1906. This looks as if it has been copied from the main Exmoor article & reproduced the error (which seems to have been copied onto lots of web sites). There are a whole bunch of
Acland baronets but I suspect it should be
Thomas Acland but don't have the source used as a reference to check.
This site says it was
Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 11th Baronet and was 30 ponies not 400 and
this site says it was 20.—
Rodtalk 13:44, 17 April 2014 (UTC)reply
Yes, Hendricks got this one badly wrong. I've reworked the beginning of the paragraph based on a better source - the majority of reliable sources seem to say 30 ponies, so I've gone with that. Equinetourism (the second link above) I wouldn't really consider a reliable source, more of a sales site.
Dana boomer (
talk) 00:09, 19 April 2014 (UTC)reply
date error in ref year = 2102
The current ref 2 to the Breed Standard includes a publication date of 2102. Having looked at the
web page referenced I would assume this should be 2012 but there isn't a date on it apart from copyright 2014. Are there particular dates when Breed Standards are published (perhaps in a book as well as the web site)?—
Rodtalk 14:17, 17 April 2014 (UTC)reply
Thanks for the note! It, of course, should have been 2012, but the rule book (which includes the breed standard) was updated in 2013. I've now tweaked the link and the date.
Dana boomer (
talk) 23:47, 18 April 2014 (UTC)reply
(
talk page stalker) Just a side note, Rodw, to ease your concerns, most horse breeds update their rule books annually, but usually the breed standard doesn't change (and when/if it does change, it's a historic big deal commented upon in other reliable sources as part of the breed history); I've got old rule books going back into the 1970s for some breeds and the language is identical to 2014.
Montanabw(talk) 04:07, 19 April 2014 (UTC)reply
(a) it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with
the layout style guideline
(b)
reliable sources are
cited inline. All content that
could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose)
It looks as though the article covers all encyclopedically relevant areas of the subject for which reliable third-party information is available. There does not appear to be any cruft or excessive detail mixed into the lot.
Spring in Wikipedia is lovely! Just avoid the articles on flowers... (
talk) 23:52, 6 June 2014 (UTC)reply
"The legs are short, with clean bone", as opposed to dirty bone? Needs rephrasing or explanation for non-specialists.
Tigerboy1966 07:51, 17 June 2014 (UTC)reply