Wikipedia:Peer review/Appaloosa/archive2

Appaloosa

Previous peer review

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because we would like to take this article to FAC and would like an outside (non-horsey) opinion on it before we do. Its last PR was over two years ago and there have been quite a few changes made since then. Comments on jargon are especially appreciated, as well as thoughts about whether the layout makes sense.

Thanks, Dana boomer (talk) 18:32, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

In addition, we'd like a good review of the history sections to be sure we have some cross-disciplinary review! Thanks. Montanabw^(talk) 20:59, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Curtis Clark (talk · contribs) comments

• "In 2007 the registry generated more controversy by allowing the use of two drugs banned by major international equestrian organizations but allowed by other stock horse organizations." Which registry? The original or the new one? Which drugs? This is rather vague for the lede.

There has only ever been one registry, Oh yeah, that reallyminor new one, have to see if its even still around, but we can clarify that. Thanks --MTBW

• "The original Appaloosa also tended to have a convex profile..." I assume this means the head in profile, as exemplified by the accompanying photo?

Yes. Is there a better way to phrase that? --MTBW

"Convex face"?

Looks like Dana got that? --MTBW

• "Quarter Horse mares crossed on Appaloosa stallions produced horses suitable for sprint racing and halter competition." Halter competition as quarter horses? It seems like any breed could have halter competitions; why would adding quarter horse make this more likely?

Will clarify, in Appy competition,-- MTBW

• "Most foals are born with lighter colored coats than they will have when they shed their baby hair with the exception of gray horses, which are born dark and progressively become lighter." Implication is that this refers to Appaloosa foals, but iirc it is true of foals in general. Needs clarification.

It was also a verbatim copy from the source. Whoops! I fixed that, hope it's clearer now. If we can find more sources on the weird things Appy foal coats do, it would be fun to add, not sure if we can find a source. --MTBW

• According to Leopard complex, it is an incomplete dominant. Are unspotted horses heterozygous for Lp, or is the spotting suppressed by other genes?

We don't know, the genetics haven't been completely deciphered. We did run this section past Countecanter, our genetics guru, and she edited and updated it a bit, maybe six months ago or so. However, one working theory is that homozygousity creates the more vivid patterns while heterozygousity creates the solids, maybe the varnish roans, the minimal spotting, but does keep the sclera and striped hooves. The spotting is probably not suppressed other than by things like Gray or Dominant White -- stuff that suppresses all other colors! We probably need to do another run over to the Appaloosa project to see if there are updates. But for now, assume that this is about all we know. Montanabw^(talk) 21:20, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

• (Interesting rope bridle on the Nez Perce horse--it might be useful in a tack article if it isn't already in use.)
• There may be no sources for this, but I'd be interested to know how many horses accompanied Chief Joseph's group, vs the horses left behind.

Have not found sources, I might be able to find something if I personally go over to the historical society library and dig into history on the Big Hole battle. Montanabw^(talk) 21:20, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

• "unless the owner DNA parentage-verifies the horse"--it's clear what that means, but it sounds awkward. Is the verb "DNA parentage-verify" in common use? If not, perhaps "unless the owner verifies the parentage through DNA testing".

I like your wording, though "parentage verified" is lingo we do use. --MTBW

• "Any horse that shows Appaloosa markings carries the "Leopard" or Lp gene, which must be present in at least one parent." Technically it's the dominant allele of the gene (every horse has the gene, most with the wild-type allele). "Gene" and "allele" are used incorrectly interchangeably a lot, and I'm not sure you need to fix it, but geneticists will always wince when they see it used that way.

Feel free to help us on that. I would be glad to see that fixed as I get a little fuzzy on usage myself (I do "get" the difference between a gene and an allele, but not well enough to phrase stuff properly! Can you help, or point us to someone who can? --MTBW

'Any horse that shows Appaloosa markings carries the Lp allele of the "Leopard" gene, which must be present in at least one parent.' The wording makes sense if Leopard complex has the terminology correct, but I'm not sure whether it's true. Does that seem right to you?--Curtis Clark (talk) 01:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Maybe better: 'Any horse that shows Appaloosa markings carries at least one Lp allele of the "Leopard" gene; each parent can provide either the Lp allele or the "wild type" lp allele found in most other horses.'--Curtis Clark (talk) 01:44, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Check my edit on this in a second or two, see if it works. Montanabw^(talk) 23:12, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

It's still rather dicey (technically, every horse has two alleles of the Leopard gene, just as every human has two alleles of the sickle cell anemia gene; it's which alleles they have that's important). If your reference doesn't fully cover this, there are two possibilities:

• Leave it dicey, avoiding charges of WP:OR but causing the few geneticists who read it to roll their eyes.
• Write it accurately, which may result in WP:OR accusations (unjustified IMO; it's no more OR than performing simple math on referenced numbers)

You might want to ask KimvdLinde for a second opinion; she has impeccable geneticist cred, and I'm sure she's dealt with this before.--Curtis Clark (talk) 14:35, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Good idea to ask Kim. I've been so damn burned with being three words off and getting screamed at for OR (mostly by a certain blocked editor we both know), and then the bashing of poor user:Rlevse over a SOURCED paraphrase that someone deemed a copyvio that I wonder how anyone can write anything these days. Montanabw^(talk) 18:52, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

WAHOO! and HELP! Just found this, November 2010 article: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2052.2010.02119.x/pdf May answer all needed questions. Montanabw^(talk) 19:10, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I've skimmed the reference and read the changes to the article, and I'm happy with the way you've worded it. When I read it, I nod my head, "Oh, wow, interesting," rather than "I wonder what's really going on".--Curtis Clark (talk) 04:56, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks again. If you wish, take a look over at talk and tell us what you think of Kim's idea that we create a table for the coat colors,with thumbnail examples? Montanabw^(talk) 04:48, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

• Done for now.

Thanks for all your comments. Very helpful! Montanabw^(talk) 21:20, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Very interesting article!--Curtis Clark (talk) 01:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. If you know another non-horsey reviewer who is familiar with FA criteria, send them over for a look-see! Montanabw^(talk) 23:12, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Mike Cline Comments

• This statement Ultimately the Nez Perce drew the line at the Wallowa Valley of Oregon. While their leader, popularly known as Chief Joseph, was attempting to negotiate a new treaty, a small group of warriors attacked settlers in 1877. in the Nez Perce War section is factually incorrect and not actually supported by the Malone cite referenced. At the time of the attack on the settlers, all the bands of Nez Perce, including Joseph's were camp at Tolo Lake enroute to the reservation. Howard had given them 30 days and Joseph and others were complying. The revenge attacks resulted from some inter-band jealousies that erupted in warrior-like behavior beyond the control of the chiefs. The war started when Howard sent troops to punish the Nez Perce, despite the fact they were complying with his orders.

More to come

I'd be thrilled if you have an additional source for Tolo Lake, which I can't find in Malone. I'll see if I can tweak the article per what I do have. Please see if I am now in line with Malone, Roeder & Lang, p. 135, which states (typos mine) Montanabw^(talk) 06:20, 13 December 2010 (UTC):

"For a dozen years, the nontreaty bands, including that of Chief Joseph in Oregon's Wallowa Valley, continued to live in the traditional way, off the reservation. But by the mid-1870s, increasing white settlement in these areas led to heightened demands for removal of the nontreaty Indians to the reservation, The whites' demands finally came to a head in early 1877. In May, one-armed General Oliver O. Howard, Civil War hero and commander of the army's Department of the Columbia, conferred at Lapwai with Joseph and the other nontreaty chiefs. Howard ordered the chiefs to move onto the reservation within the impossible deadline of thirty days. In mid-June, as the nontreaty Nez Perce gathered east of the Snake River, several bitter young men of White Bird's band struck out angrily and killed a handful of white settlers."

If you need a source: Nez Perce Summer, 1977, Jerome A. Greene, pages 1-24 --Mike Cline (talk) 11:34, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi again Mike. I have reworked that section to Malone, (more than just the para above), supplemented by another source for some minor details. I think that what happened was the the Appaloosa museum stuff got tangled up with the Malone stuff and possibly the Haines source added in yet more. We've found some previous material from the Appy sites to be unreliable and some was put in about 2007 and even the Appy site has updated since, thus I'm glad you put your eagle eye to this! I took some of it apart sentence by sentence and put it all back together again with a footnote after almost every statement. Let me know if this is an improvement and remains readable. Montanabw^(talk) 08:44, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

BW, have read the rewording and it is much more accurate. I am winging my way east at the moment and will be away from my library all week, but did remember that in one of the last two issues of the Montana Magazine of Western History, there was a very good piece on the Nez Perce War. It might provide some insights not contained in the more dated literature. Good luck with the review --Mike Cline (talk) 14:22, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll have to trot over to the library and take a peek. New stuff always useful! Montanabw^(talk) 19:47, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Comments by Sasata (talk) 03:47, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• I did a literature search as requested (Web of Science and JSTOR), but came up mostly empty-handed. Most of the articles were case reports, or dealt with genetics of color patterning and blindness. The one good-looking review is unfortunately in Italian.

Title: Historical and morphological review of the Appaloosa breed of horse, with consideration of colour inheritance. (Italian)

Author(s): Lubas, G.; Bertani, P.

Source: Annali della Facolta di Medicina Veterinaria di Pisa Volume: 41 Pages: 348-355 Published: 1988

Title: GENETIC-RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN BREEDS OF HORSES AND PONIES IN THE NETHERLANDS

Author(s): BLOKHUIS, HJ; BUIS, RC

Source: ANIMAL BLOOD GROUPS AND BIOCHEMICAL GENETICS Volume: 10 Issue: 1 Pages: 27-38 Published: 1979 see [1]

Unfortunately I don't read Italian (and I don't think any of the other editors do either), so the first is pretty much useless to us. Also, both of these are rather outdated (1988 and 1979), and with as many advances as have been made in genetic testing and historical research over the past 20-30 years, I would be wary of relying on them too much. However, thank you very much for conducting the search; it's always good to know that someone else has looked and found nothing/not much too! Dana boomer (talk) 14:15, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• if you have JSTOR access, check out JSTOR 453271 for a brief discussion on the name Appaloosa and its variations, and JSTOR 454356 for a bit more of the same (let me know if you'd like me to send PDFs).

• Both of these look quite interesting (judging by the title alone; I can't get JSTOR to give me even a preview). Could you please e-mail them to me? Dana boomer (talk) 14:15, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• PDFs sent. Sasata (talk) 17:05, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

While I'm here, a complimentary nitpicking:

• replace the remaining page range hyphens in the refs with endashes
• make sure page range format is consistent (e.g. pp. 92–95 vs. pp. 296–7)
• current ref 19 (Sponenberg, Equine Color Genetics, p. 93) gives the book title, while earlier instances with same author don't
• format of current ref #36 (Spencer III) needs format tweaking

• I"m not sure what the problem with this is? It uses the cite journal format... Dana boomer (talk) 14:15, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• Shouldn't "Western Livestock Journal: 50, 53–55." be formatted like "Western Livestock Journal 50: 53–55."? Sasata (talk) 17:05, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• Nope. It's pages 50 and 53 through 55. No issue or volume number. Any way we can make this more clear? The cite journal template doesn't automatically include "p." or "pp." and if we include them manually it will make this one different from all of the other journals we're citing. Dana boomer (talk) 17:33, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• Ah, I see... in that case there's nothing more to do (that I can think of). One last nitpick: citations from the templates all have fullstops after them, while the shortform cites for books do not, so you might wanna add them to make everything consistent. Sasata (talk) 21:57, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• Are you sure that's necessary? We haven't had any problem with this format in other recent horse breed FACs, see Marwari horse, Cleveland Bay and Haflinger (horse). Dana boomer (talk) 22:52, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• Definitely not necessary, just depends how consistent you want the refs to look (I've seen it requested at FAC before... not by me). Sasata (talk) 23:24, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• #44 has stray <
• change et.al. to et al.
• there must be some way to format the template so it doesn't show "pp. Rule 204 A 1, 2, 3." maybe put it in the "id=" parameter or something

• I don't think cite web has an id= parameter (at least, not that I could find in the template documentation, and when I tried it it didn't work). I used the work= parameter instead; this isn't exactly what it's for, but it looks OK, IMO. See what you think. Dana boomer (talk) 14:15, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• Good enough. Sasata (talk) 17:05, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• why is the pdf in ref #66 showing in lower case while all the others are upper?
• #70, 76 needs commas
• #77 should be Ride 'em, not Rid' em
• #87 has author display in different format than the rest. Also, it is volume 6, issue 1
• does #90 really need to give the authors credentials? (DVM, MSc)
• "Richardson, Bill and Dona (1968)." even if they have the same last name, I think it standard to give both names in full.
• Several of the image captions are complete sentences and require periods.

• I think I've done this, but may have missed some. Dana boomer (talk) 14:15, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

• I'll save the rest for the FAC :)

• Thanks for the comments. I think I've taken care of all of the above, and have left replies for a few of them. Dana boomer (talk) 14:15, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for the imput, Sasata. Anything we can fix prior to FAR, the better. My blood pressure hates rush jobs! And thanks also to Dana, who fixed some of MY screwups!  :-) Montanabw^(talk) 21:53, 28 December 2010 (UTC)