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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Marwari horse/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by SandyGeorgia 00:15, 14 March 2010 [1].

Marwari horse

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Marwari horse (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Nominator(s): Dana boomer (talk) 01:11, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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This article relates the history of a rare breed of horse from India, about which there is not much information available. The article has been generously copyedited by Malleus, peer reviewed by Ruhrfisch, reviewed for GA by Casliber and looked over by several horsey editors. As of a few moments ago, there are no dabs or dead links and alt text is present. To answer one possible question in advance, I have not used the book presented in the Further reading section (Legend of the Indian horse) because it is basically a coffee table book. Lots of gorgeous pictures and touching personal anecdotes about the breed, but not much in the way of sourcing, or even page numbers. Kelly is a recognized expert on the breed, but I decided to not use the book because of the informal nature of it and because it had nothing new to add to the article. Dana boomer (talk) 01:11, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • You are, as usual, quite correct. I don't know if the image is a copyvio or not (the site came online the same year the photo was uploaded, so no real way to know whose image it was first), but the uploader has a history of copyvio issues. I've removed the image from the article and tagged both the derivative and the original image for deletion. Dana boomer (talk) 02:43, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments, questions and suggestions by Sasata (talk) 20:11, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • "…and comes in all colors, although pinto colors tend to be the most popular." All colors? Red? Purple? Blue? Are pinto colors the most popular or most common?
  • "The Marwari are descended from native Indian ponies crossed with Arabian horses, possibly with some Mongolian influence." Does this mean that there's Mongolian horse blood in the breed, or that Ghengis and his mates did some horse breeding back in the day? (sorry about being disingenuous, just trying to tighten the wording)
  • Does the link to Mongolian horse through Mongolian work, or do you want me to make it more explicit?
  • "…as well as riding and packing." Not quite sure what packing is… putting packs on the horse?
  • link for breed society?
  • Linked.
  • "No matter what their geographic origin, horses that receive a nutritious diet from the time they are foals generally tend to be taller and larger." Is this not true of most living organisms?
  • Yes, I suppose. Do you think it should be removed? My argument would be that in a country with as much poverty as India the difference would be even greater between horses owned by the rich and those owned by the poor, but I can definitely see where you're coming from.
  • Based on how the original source reads ("We have noticed that our foals and fillies are reaching higher and broader proportions by virtue of sustained and complete nutrition. "), I'm not quite sure that it supports exactly what is said in this article. I'd be inclined to remove it. Sasata (talk) 03:49, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Removed.
  • link studbook (hmm, I see it's linked later in the section "1900s to today", but there it is two words)
  • Linked the instance in the Characteristics section, but left the link in the History section also. Changed the first instance to two words.
  • "Horses that have the white markings of a blaze and four white socks are considered lucky." blaze?
  • "…Marwaris came mainly from the Marwar region while Kathiawaris came from the Kathiawar peninsula." To me it would read better with "came" replaced by "are"
  • Changed.
  • "Kathiawaris tend to have slight facial differences from the Marwari, as well as being slightly taller in general." maybe switch "as well as being" with "and are"
  • Changed.
  • "There are correct proportions that horses are expected to have, based on the width of a finger, said to be the equal of five grains of barley." are the barley grains arranged end to end? (joking)
  • While seeing your comment about being joking, I honestly never really thought about that. I would assume so, but I don't think the ref said.
  • should thoroughbred really be capitalized?
  • link pack horse
  • Done.
  • "The registration process includes an evaluation of the horse against the breed standards before it is photographed, its unique identification marks and physical dimensions recorded, and then cold branded with its registration number." Sentence needs tweaking for harmonization of subject-verb agreements
  • Played with this a little bit and ended up splitting into two sentences and rearranging a bit. Does it work better now?
  • "In late 2009 it was announced that the Marwari horse, along with other Indian horse breeds, would be commemorated on a set of stamps issued by the Indian government." who announced it?
  • Tweaked a bit. Better?
  • UK based needs hyphen
  • Done.
  • "A 2005 study was conducted to identify past genetic bottlenecks in the Marwari breed, and it was found that, in the DNA of the horses tested, there was no evidence of a genetic bottleneck in the breed's history." Sentence construction is somewhat cumbersome and inelegant
  • Split into two sentences. Better?
  • "However, since the population numbers have decreased rapidly" why not "population" instead of "population numbers"?
  • I was apparently being verbose that day. Changed.
  • "A 2007 study of all Indian horse breeds except the Kathiawari found the Marwari to be the most genetically distinct breed of the five studied." Clarify "most genetically distinct"
  • What I'm trying to explain is that the other four are fairly closely related to each other. While still related, the Marwari is more genetically distinct from the others than the others are from each other. I'm sure that last sentence made absolutely no sense, but if you can get the general idea of what I'm trying to say, would you have a suggested wording that would work better for the phrase in question?
  • I looked at the original source, and it seems like you could add a sentence or two to develop this idea of genetic distance. For example, the paper mentions that the other Indian horses are smaller than the Marwari and thought to be evolved from Tibetan ponies, unlike the Marwari, a possible explanation for the increased genetic distance. Sasata (talk) 03:49, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, my problem is that I've lost access to the full version of the article since I added it to the article. Since you appear to have access to it, would you possibly be able to e-mail it to me?
  • Thanks for the e-mail! I have added some information from the study into the relevant paragraph - let me know if it looks right. I am not a geneticist, so if I have completely misrepresented the study feel free to yell at me :)
  • maybe link "light draft" to draft horse?
  • Linked.
  • "Despite the fact that the breed is indigenous to the country, cavalry units of the Indian military make little use of the horses" Don't most military units these days use automated transport?
  • India actually has the only remaining operationally-ready, fully horse-mounted regular regiment in the world, as well as using horses ceremonially for several other units.
  • "Marwaris are also used to play polo, sometimes playing against Thoroughbreds." why is it important to point out they play against thoroughbreds?
  • Because Thoroughbreds and Thoroughbred crosses/derivatives are basically the horses to play polo on, see Polo pony. If Marwaris can compete against them, they're doing pretty good :)
  • link strain?
  • Linked to bloodline, which goes to heredity, which is a pretty sucky article but will have to do for now.

Thanks for the comments, Sasata! I think I've addressed everything, except for one question on a clarification that you asked for. Please let me know if you have further comments! Dana boomer (talk) 00:42, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support Dana and I have been emailing about sources; I couldn't come up with anything relevant other than 1 journal article that's not easily accessible to either of us, and a number of studies that could only be of possible interest to horse scientists (eg. characterization of semen proteins, etc.). Am satisified with respect to 1b/1c. Also, I've promised to work on a distribution map, and will slip it in the article when the pile on my plate gets a bit more manageable :) Sasata (talk) 18:06, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for the support and help, Sasata! I have requested the one article at the reference request area, just to check for any tidbits that may not already be in the article, but I highly doubt there is anything significant that has not already been mentioned by another source. Dana boomer (talk) 22:07, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
multi-colored - does this just mean piebald/skewbald? Would it be easier to just write those? Or does it mean ones with promient socks and blazes as well?
Changed, and thank you for the comments/support! Dana boomer (talk) 13:23, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments The usual careful work, but some queries
  • several image captions repeat the article name, contra MoS
  • Could you please point out the section of the MOS that states this? I looked through Wikipedia:Captions, which is the MOS guide regarding image captions, and I don't see anywhere that says this (although I may have missed it).
  • What made you choose AE spelling, given that the horse is so closely tied to BE India?
  • Because I habitually write in AE, hadn't even thought about BE and no one had mentioned it so far? I think I've changed everything to BE, but may have missed a few, so please check my work!
  • Wow, I missed a few didn't I? Thanks for the check...
  • it comes in all equine colors, although pinto colors tend to be the most popular. – I think the second "colors" is unnecessary
  • Changed to "pinto patterns".
  • Overuse of "breed" - three in two consecutive sentences in first para, four in three sentences in "1900s to today"
  • I've gone through the entire article and pruned a bunch. is more pruning still needed?
  • Research studies have been conducted - is this research different to/earlier than the 2005 work? If so, it needs a reference.
  • Nope, this is just an introductory sentence to the two studies listed.
Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:05, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I believe I've taken care of the issues above; please let me know if further work is needed. Dana boomer (talk) 22:25, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support on 1a. I enlarged a few pics; please account for the level of detail. In fact, the manuscript is still indecipherable at 270px. It was just a speckle at the default 220 size. Tony (talk) 05:09, 10 March 2010 (UTC) PS the "hands" measurement/conversion template: why not en dashes, at least for the conversions into inches and metrics, which takes up rather a lot of clutter-space? Tony (talk) 05:11, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi Tony, and thanks for the support and comments. Would you have a problem with me using the "upright=" parameter to increase image size based on a percentage of preferences, or do you prefer the pixel sizing for some images? Also, I'm not sure exactly what you're suggesting with the hands template - where would you like the en dashes? Are they something you want in the template, or were you suggesting to just do the conversion by hand? Dana boomer (talk) 12:59, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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