Talk:Landrace/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Removed

Resolved
 – No objection to removal, nor any sourcing of alleged facts in over 5 years.

Removed the following from the article until it can be sourced. It's uncited and appears to be original research. This is a very unconventional use of the term landrace. Cannabis landraces do occur but sativa, indica, and ruderals are names at either the species or subspecies rank, whereas landraces are at the variety or form rank. Sativa and Indica have broad geographical distribution in a variety of ecosystem types, and no botanist would refer to them as landraces. Ruderalis is sometimes described as feral hemp and this usage may describe a landrace.

Cannabis
Further information: Cannabis

The genus Cannabis consists of three landraces that are geographically isolated: Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica and Cannabis ruderalis. Botanists often refer to these three cannabis landrace as separate species or subspecies types.

--Chondrite 02:32, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Is the very odd Norwegian Lundehund a landrace?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Lundehund:

The Norwegian Lundehund (The Mostad Dog) is a small, rectangular Spitz type dog. The Lundehund has a great range of motion in its joints, allowing it to fit into narrow passages. The head can be bent backwards along the dog's own spine, and the forelegs can turn to the side at a 90-degree angle to its body, much like human arms. Its pricked, upright ears can be sealed nearly shut by folding them forward or backward.The Norwegian Lundehund is polydactyl: instead of the normal four toes a foot, the Lundehund has six toes, all fully formed, jointed and muscled. The outercoat is dense and rough with a soft undercoat. The Lundehund is adapted to climb narrow cliff paths in Rost where it natively would have hunted puffins. ... The breed has a long history. As far back as 1600 it was used for hunting puffins along the Norwegian coast. Its flexibility and extra toes were ideal for hunting the birds in their inaccessible nesting locations on cliffs and in caves.

http://lundehund.com/the%20lundehund.htm:

>in one and the same breed we find a whole series of unusual anatomical characteristics. Some of these characteristics are found, but only sporadically, in other breeds. The lundehund is rare but is also remarkable--what other breed of dog is marked by so many unusual characteristics? The lundehund has at least 6 toes on each foot; can close its ears so that the ear-canal is protected against dirt and moisture; has neck-joints which enable it to bend the head backwards over the shoulders, so that the forehead touches the back--this is useful when the dog has to turn in a narrow passage. Furthermore, this dog has extremely mobile fore shoulder-joints, so that both front legs can stretch straight out to the sides.

Is there really any other type of canid where that kind of flexibility can be found? Or the ability to seal the ear canal?

Also: http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=743

Videos: http://varoyrhs.com/it/skattekammer/lundeh.tysktv/index.htm http://varoyrhs.com/it/skattekammer/lundehunden/index.htm

--Falange (talk) 15:46, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Cats

Resolved

Needs a section on cats. Quite a number of established cat breeds are based on landraces, and are called "natural breeds" in the cat sphere. Some examples include Manx (cat), Egyptian Mau, Norwegian Forest Cat and Kurilian Bobtail, among many others. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 05:46, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

"Split personality" article structure

The most obvious problem with this article is that the plant-interested editors have approached the topic from a botany science generalist perspective, and geeked out on theory while avoiding nearly all specifics, meanwhile the animal-interested editors have approached it from an animal husbandry and fancier specialist view and "Jim-Bobbed" out on barnyard breeds and their nomenclature while avoiding everything high-falutin' and scientific. It needs countervailing balance in both directions. I suggest that the structure of the article is correct, except for the flora/fauna divide. We need serious zoological, not just botanical, science citations on genesis and survival of landraces and how they related to biodiversity, sustainability, etc. We also need "oh, I know what that is!" examples non-nerdy readers can relate to of what plants, not just animals, qualify as landraces, which ones are called landraces but aren't, what varieties are derived from which landraces, what new landraces have developed from feral cultivars, etc. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 09:10, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Ferrets as a landrace

Stale
 – No sources offered, and seems unlikely.

Considering that ferrets were domesticated some 2,500 years ago and are not found in nature in their domesticated form (in fact they have terrible survival instincts), should maybe a bit be put in along with the other animals as a landrace? groovygower (talk) 13:13, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

It would need a citation. I wasn't able to find one. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:57, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
I'd say no, a landrace actually has to be pretty good at surviving on their own, and it's more about animal breeds than animal species. Montanabw(talk) 22:15, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
@Sminthopsis84 - a citation of what? Do you mean ferrets' appalling survival instincts or their breeding for domestication? groovygower (talk) 17:49, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm skeptical that domestic ferrets can ever for a landrace, because they're too dependent upon us. There does not appear to be any opportunity for them to freely breed, regionally, in large numbers over a long period of time, but in a way that sufficiently isolates their local genepool from those of neighboring areas. They're almost exclusively indoor pets, and usually die if abandoned rather than form feral populations (no matter what the California legislature's "ban ferrets!" fears are).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:53, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Article improvement

Some really good work on this article! Would suggest putting the "terminology" section back up at or close to the start of the article, though, as the "what is a landrace?" question is something that should be discussed up front. Also, have these sources been used yet? Montanabw(talk) 02:42, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Not yet. I have literally 20+ tabs on sources open and have just been hitting one after another and trying to integrate facts from them in ways that flow well for the reader. (For this reason it's important to not remove any citations to the same source just because they're consecutive sentences; it's very likely that something from another source will be inserted between them in short order or they'll be forked into separate paragraphs.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:05, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
And you're still removing them almost two months later. Please stop.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:07, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

To-do: Routine factoids that need citations before GA

Let's not pepper the article with pointless (or WP:POINTy) {{citation needed}} tags. Those are for genuinely challenged material, with their own talk page threads, not for marking a spot where a citation will eventually need to be for completeness. This includes dicdefs, stuff in the lead that already sourced in the body, stuff in this mostly summary-style article that's already sourced in the main articles on various animals to which it links, and so on. I've been converting these to <!--cn--> comments, in addition to the <!--See those main articles for sources.--> ones that were already there, so the reader is not assaulted with an army of nit-pick tags, but we can find them easily to finish sourcing the trivia later.

  • Meanings of Spanish raza: Can all be sourced with probably 2-4 dictionaries. Mabye even 1, if I can find my unabridged Velasquez, but online ones will surely do. This has some of them, including "race" in the ethnic sense, "race" in the biological sense (but only with human examples), as well as "breed", "pedigree" and "stock" in agricultural/husbandry senses. This is like #26 on my list of "build a proper citation" stuff.
  • "Natural breed" and "traditional breed" - more dicdefs (or more like "fancier book or breeder magazine defs"); five seconds on google shows they're real, the actual work will be adding how they differ, with sources either defining them or showing clearly the difference in usage.
  • Plant variety (law) - dicdef (it's very definition rules out landraces qualifying)
  • Heirloom plant - dicdef (it's definition does not preclude landraces qualifying)
  • "Farmers' variety" - tagged with a "plant?" HTML comment. Unknown. Picked it up from a botantical source, but no effort's been put into seeing if it's never applied to animals. Absent an actual statement to that effect in reliable sources, it's impossible to prove a negative like that. Meanwhile, no assertion is made that it applies to animals.
  • British Landrace breed and it's derivation from other breeds named "Landrace", not from a landrace - covered in detail at that aritcle, inlcuding which breeds; info appears in two different places in article and can be pared down (make the general point without repeating the specifics)
  • similar notes about "Landrace"-named breeds not actually being landraces, but derived from them. Just the fact that they are formal, conformation breeds with breed standards and pedigreed breeding demonstrates that.
  • Mountain dog being a "type" classification that includes unrelated breeds and landraces - see that article for details

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:19, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

  • I disagree, cn tags make it easy to find the problem places. This article wouldn't even pass GA at present with the sourcing it has (I should know, I've helped with over 40 of them) Montanabw(talk) 22:28, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
    • No suggestion has been made that this article is ready for GA with its current sources. Why excessive "drive-by" tagging is undesirable has been explained to you on your talk page, with a link to the guideline about that, but you deleted it, an indication that the notice was read and acknowledged. Also, your "easy to find" rationale applies equally to HTML comments as it does to tags that browbeat our non-editor readers.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:41, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

      PS: That said, please stop using HTML comments for chit-chat, snide remarks, and what seem like abortive objections of some kind. If you have an objection, raise it on the talk page like everyone else does. Any tag for which no talk page discussion can be found indicating what the problem might be may be freely removed by anyone.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:54, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Wild species

An HTML comment asked if we really need to address wild horse and wild ass/donkey in the equine section, when we're not addressing bison and buffalo in the bovine section. Assuming we even stick with this summary-style format, "wild cattle" is not a common term confused with wild species of bovine, but "wild horse" at very least is very frequently misapplied to feral domestic horse populations. Maybe the wild asses bit can be dropped as overexplanation (I just deleted it), and I wouldn't add more of that to the bovines. But I would keep the wild horse material, as many readers are not going to understand the difference. Wild goat at least should be likewise distinguished, from landrace ones, probably.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:19, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm OK with that bit as is for now. Point taken. Agreed. Montanabw(talk) 22:30, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

PoV issues

  1. After "Some conservation agencies today do not clearly distinguish between [breeds and landraces]", I removed a note that this was "because there is no formal definition that is universally accepted", for neutrality, original research and verifiability reasons. There's no source for it, there are in fact widely accepted formal definitions, there's no such thing as a "universally" accepted definition of anything, and none of that sort of thing is plausible as the reasoning behind organizations choosing to include landraces among "breed" conversation efforts (it's more likely that, because the point of these efforts is biodiversity, and we know that this is best retained in landraces not highly homogenous breeds, that the definition was very intentionally widened to include landrace populations, and there are even projects (like the one already cited) that focus on them.
  2. The following, in an illustration of definitional confusion in one of the footnotes, was suggested to be WP:SYNTH, but is not: "An FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA) guideline accepts and tries to harmonize seven different definitions of "breed", many of them even more vague than biological race Others some entirely dependent upon breeders' marketing." Direct quotation can be performed from the source already cited, to beleaguer these points, but it's probably overkill, given that this is in a footnote, not main text.

    If we really want to go there, this should suffice: 'An FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA) guideline accepts and tries to harmonize seven different definitions of "breed". Several of them even more vague than biological race (e.g. organisms "that, through selection and breeding, have come to resemble one another and pass those traits uniformly to their offspring", "a line of descendants perpetuating particular hereditary qualities", and "a group for which geographical and/or cultural separation from phenotypically separate groups has led to acceptance of its separate identity") Others entirely dependent upon breeders' marketing ("a group ... that the governing body of [an commercial organization] has agreed to recognize as [a breed]", "a group of domestic animals, termed such by common consent of the breeders .... it is their word and the breeders’ common usage is what we must accept as the correct definition", and "A breed is a breed if enough people say it is".'

    Or the whole bit could be rewritten, hopefully without losing the point, that many of the available "definitions" are either so broad as to be meaningless, or so narrow and organization-specific they have no practical use outside their original context. One specifically says "a group of domestic cats (subspecies felis catus) that the governing body of (the cat Fanciers Association) has agreed to recognize". I think it's important that readers (who read footnotes) get the gist of this without being browbeaten with long quotations and their details. Technically, this bit needs to be modified to attribute it to a paper, Woolliams and Toro (2007); in my marathon of sourcing I missed that FAO didn't create that list of definitions of "breed", but copied it from an earlier source. Will fix that. Anyway, it's essentially a WP:AGF problem to tag something like this as WP:SYNTH when the tagger couldn't be bothered to read the source.

    Revised it substantially to focus more on FAO and their own definitional difficulties: 'An FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA) guideline tries to harmonize seven different definitions of "breed", from a survey of definitions from various sources by Woolliams and Toro (2007). Some of them even more vague than biological race, and other entirely dependent upon breeders' interests. They ranged from so broad as to be meaningless, to be so narrow as to be only applicable to the breed recognition process of a single cat fancier organization. An FAO definition (the fifth in the list) is vacillates between definition based on definable and easily identifiable characteristics, or, conversely, simply having undefined "acceptance of its separate identity" as a breed.'

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:06, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

WP:NOR issues

  1. One serious pitfall here is that the majority of reliable sources on landraces are plant-focused, and this can lead to more than one kind of original research problem. This botantical (and especially agronomic) focus seems to be due especially to the conservation focus on the biodiversity of crop plants, a huge global issue right now, but there are other reasons, like the term originating in reference to plants, etc., faster plant landrace extinction rate, greater importance of plant landraces to food supplies, etc. At any rate, the most obvious OR that can arise:
    • Refusal to take sources at their word. If a source, which happens to focus on plants or be published in a botany journal, makes a clear statement about landraces in general (or related topics, like ecology in general, genetic diversity in general, etc.), it is original research to recast that statement as necessarily applicable only to plants. Just report what the source said without editorializing about what might have been meant. Other sources can inform us about how the field(s) interpret the research; that's not our job here. It may be appropriate to observe that the source was botanical, if it's unclear whether non-botanical landraces were intended to be included in the material being quoted/cited.
    • Putting words in the sources's mouth. If a source clearly says something about plant crops specifically, it cannot, from that source, be generalized explicitly to animals. In reality, we know that the vast majority of observations about plant landraces are true of animal ones and vice versa, so an animal-focused source is liable to be available somewhere, e.g. on JSTOR. But there are exceptions to this cross-applicability, due to the differences in lifecycle (plants are less mobile, reproduce passively, sometimes reproduce asexually, are increasingly if not mostly preserved ex situ in seed banks, have in an actual majority of cases already gone extinct or become hybridized, etc.
  2. Another serious one that has long been going on in a large number of articles on breeds and landraces is a variety of the fallacy of equivocation, in the form of fixating on the loosest possible definition of, e.g., "breed", and insisting that the broadest, most expansive interpretation is the one always intended or appropriate. Aside from the problem of forced reinterpretation of what sources actually mean, Wikipedia's mode of coverage is to always prefer clarity and precision over vagueness and ambiguity. What this probably means is that the article at Breed needs an overhaul as well, accounting for very wide definitions used by some conservation groups (whose concerns are preservation of genetic diversity, not nomenclature), down to extremely narrow technical ones, with the focus of the article remaining on general purpose, common sense definition it's already working with.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:48, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Found a book by Sponenberg. I'd say his assessment of animal breeds/landraces, etc.is as close to a gold standard as we will find. If you find someone better, do tell, but his assessment of "classes" of breeds (from landrace to modern types of various sorts) and the plusses and minuses of each was excellent (see new source I added to animal section. Montanabw(talk) 22:34, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Skipping the tl;dr

Let's sort out specific edits to the article, I'm tired of dealing with your endless pontificating above, which, though I've read it, is just more of your usual tl;dr. The FAO and Sponenberg are highly reliable sources, and that is the end of this story. It's clear that landraces ARE "breeds" by many definitions and I'm done debating this issue. Now, let's get on to getting it right. I say if it doesn't have a source, it's tagged, and if the tag isn't resolved in about two weeks, that bit will be tossed. WP:V, WP:CITE and WP:RS are policy. Montanabw(talk) 22:27, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

You don't get to declare when discussions are finished, nor which ones have merit. You're welcome to leave any discussion that doesn't interest you. You also can't demand discussion per WP:BRD] then refuse to participate in it, which you do with marked frequency on multiple talk pages. I think you seriously need to review all the relevant policies, which you cannot even correctly identify. WP:Verifiability (WP:V) is one. WP:Citing sources (WP:CITE) and WP:Identifying reliable sources (WP:RS) are not, they are guidelines. Some of your edits appear to transgress our other two key content policies, WP:No original research and WP:Neutral point of view (as addressed in two threads above, and one below, so far). You also don't get to decide what are and are not "highly reliable sources"; that's a consensus, not personal, determination. WP:Consensus = another policy. I'm not even getting into behavioral policies here, having already done so on your talk page several day ago, again.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:35, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Conformation/show breeding

Resolved

Let's discuss phrasing of "show-quality" versus "conformation-bred" versus my compromise attempt "show-bred." We probably need to look at definitions and technical language here. Breeding to a conformation standard may or may not be problematic, depending on the goal and the size of the gene-pool. However, "designer breeding", notably in show dogs, IS a problme. Thoughts? Montanabw(talk) 21:16, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I see I began to discuss this a while back but forgot to sign. So re-signing and re-raising the issue. Original wording was "show quality" then it was changed to "conformation-bred" but that is not defined. "Breeding" itself is not the problem, nor is conformation itself, it's weird, irresponsible breeding. Montanabw(talk) 21:16, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes, the terminology is important here. You can actually have conformation breeding without being show bred as well. A good example of this is the Clun Forest sheep, which forbids competitive showing but is bred to a standard of conformation. Steven Walling • talk 22:17, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes. Conformation is simply phenotypic adherence to a predetermined standard; all breeding for show is breeding for conformation, but all conformation breeding is not show breeding. A large number of dogs, for example, are bred to conform to published breed standards for both appearance and (especially) behavior, e.g. herding, game pointing, and sled pulling, without any showing-related intent at all. Supposing that there's some difference in genetic risk factors between animals bred for conformance to standards geared toward performance, and those bred for show conformance isn't plausible; genes do not magically know whether your horse or cat or rabbit is going to be examined by some judge and given a ribbon. More to the point, it's original research. It is also a WP:NPOV problem, wherein someone wants to make an entirely unclear distinction between what they term "designer breeding" (and "weird, irresponsible breeding", whatever that means to them) and some other kind of breeding, undefined, and unsourced. It's also original research to lay this at the feet of "irresponsible" breeders; what our sources say here is that intentional breeding, generally, results in smaller genepools, higher risks, and less vigor. We have no source at all for the idea that conformation breeding (which is what all breeding to a breed standard is) is not problematic; our sources explicitly say that it is. The main reason so many organizations are trying to preserve free-breeding landraces is because they're a genetic storehouse, while formal breeds are genetically weaker and more susceptible to diseases and other problem; this is a huge, international agri-political matter, and it has nothing at all to do with animal shows.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:14, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Provide sources. I will consider your position once I see the research or the definitions or whatever. You personally have zero credibility with me, as whenever I ask you for research, you either cite to wikipedia or to some wort of cherry-picked material that sometimes doesn't even support your position when read in context. I would agree that landrace breeds are generally a good thing to preserve; I also agree we have an unsourced paragraph. All that said, your other comments are not supported as strongly as you think: the work "Bred for Perfection" (cited elsewhere, or just google it, it's in Google books) discusses specific problems with breeding to a show standard that is to the detriment of a breed's overall usefulness, but that is not the same as creating a breed or conformation standard in the first place. Intentional breeding does make for a smaller genepool, when overdone can lead to assorted Bad Things, but hybrid mutt vigor is also overrated. I'd say dog breeds are probably the worst offenders at the problem of over-breeding until their purebreds are crap (have a friend just lost a purebred dog to a form of cancer that is probably linked to this sort of thing), but we need sources, sources, sources. And to stop edit warring. Montanabw(talk) 20:42, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
What are you going on about? No one is citing Wikipedia itself, and no one is cherry picking but you (and misrepresenting what sources actually say, as I've had to correct you on with regard to horses in this very article.) All other editors involved – myself, Steven Walling, and Gaddy1975 whom you originally contradicted – are telling you you're wrong on this. You need to try to establish consensus; there already is one here, based on the sources already cited in the article from the lead on down, that your fringe theory that, as if by genetic magic, only breeding for show purposes can lead to the negative genetic effects discussed in the article. Come to think of it, I'm going to note this at Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard; way more watchers are needed on this and the Breed article, to put a stop to your campaign to weaken these articles down to a "'breed' is defined as 'anything two breeders want it to mean'" nonsense position. You also need to look up what WP:EDITWAR means; you've already hit WP:3RR in your zeal to revert two other editors. PS: Your continual insistence on engaging in ad hominem attacks like commentary on others' personal credibility with you is going to come back to haunt you.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:44, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
I do not believe, SMC, that your assessment of "consensus of three editors" ( @Steven Walling:) reflects 100% support of your views. I have asked for sources, as the paragraph in question has none for what we are discussing, which is the question of the "conformation-bred" versus "show quality" (the original) versus "show-bred" as the proper terminology for "the kinds of breeding which make bad things happen."
Also, SMC, do not threaten me; you just reverted for the fourth time, though it has been over 24 hours since your first revert, so I am choosing not to report you for edit-warring. Also, your comments about others' behavior (including your assessment of mine) actually reflects what you are doing to others, and I have pointed this out to you a number of times. (your citing wiki was a cite to the "breed" article on some other page where you are creating drama, I can't track all your tl;dr postings, I have to eat and sleep, something you apparently do not need to do, judging by your voluminous output) Montanabw(talk) 21:57, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
There doesn't have to be a 100% support of my views; There's 100% opposition to yours; two editors who've explicitly preferred the wording you keep reverting, and the third telling you you're wrong. See WP:TE.
No one's threatening anyone; I'm making an observation that patterns of verbal abuse do no go over well when later re-examined. I'm quite certain they'll be later re-examined, because the pattern is not even slightly abating, but only getting worse. Virtually every post you make on an page in which I'm also involved in the discussion constitutes an ad hominem by you. You seem unclear on the concept. There's a difference between raising concerns about editorial behavior and trying to "win" an argument by avoiding addressing the merits of it and instead distracting with claims and aspersions about the opposition. You also keep harping on this idea that my arguments are invalid or can be ignored and dismissed because you choose not to read and address them, but Wikipedia doesn't work that way. You seem to have truly enormous amounts of time for editwarring, but somehow near-zero time for reading and responding to anything you suspect may contradict you. Why is that? One can fairly suggest that more time reading and discussing, and less time reverting are probably in order for you. Why do you keep insisting on re-posting of source citations that are already in the article? You'll simply label it more "tl;dr" anyway. If you want to re-cite the ones already in the article at that paragraph, too, then feel free. Meanwhile, there is no source at all, anywhere for the POV you are advancing, and the one you are opposing is clearly supported by all cited sources. PS: No, I have not done four reverts in a row. I undid your revert of someone else (at which point you should have stopped and engaged in discussion, because multiple editors were, and still are, disagreeing with you). You re-reverted. I then made a substantively different edit [1], that links to Conformation#Animal breeding; while this incidentally undid your change again, it went beyond the reverted material and added content; it wasn't a revert. You reflexively reverted that, twice, all the while barking about editwarring. See the concept of unclean hands a.k.a. WP:KETTLE in WP terms.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:07, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

tl;dr. I will not be WP:BAITed by you. I have asked for sources on the issue of what "conformation-bred" means (there are no citations for that) versus "show-bred" versus "show quality" and I have seen nothing from you but your usual rants and attacks at me personally. I even asked if you thought the material in a specific book Bred for Perfection might clarify the matter. I even left your last (fourth) reversion. Now, how about getting off your soapbox and doing a little actual research? I could be convinced by proper research; I will not be beaten down by bullies such as yourself. Montanabw(talk) 23:38, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

It is, of course, important to clearly define all terms in context, such as the terms "conformation," "show," "bred," and "quality." Meanings should be clear, and here on Wikipedia, text should be as objective as possible. But getting back to my original edit, let me explain why I changed "show-quality" to "conformation-bred," which then became the compromise "show-bred." It is a common misconception that purebred, pedigreed animals are "superior" to mixed-breed or landrace animals. There are two reasons for this. One is the definition of the term "superior." Superior in what sense? If you can measure a certain phenotype, such as obedience, running speed, or wool production, then yes, you can speak of superiority in some way. Beyond that, though, is the common misconception that purebred animals are healthier than non-purebred animals. Non-purebred animals can have much higher genetic diversity, and therefore much lower rates of genetic disorder and morphology-related health problems. Pedigreed animals may have certain traits that some people deem desirable, but these traits may or may not be advantageous for the animal itself, and they may have come about through line-breeding (incest) or other methods that lead to inbreeding depression. The term "show-quality" reflects a bias in favor of breeding practices that can weaken or harm animals, and against breeding practices that can promote the health of animals instead. This was why I changed it to "conformation-bred," and why the compromise term "show-bred" was acceptable. --Gaddy (talk) 03:22, 24 September 2014 (UTC).

Stop talking about others and focus solely on the editorial content of this article, discuss edits not editors per WP:TPNO, WP:CIV and WP:NPA. Dreadstar ☥ 14:03, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Your response to every disagreement, page after page, month after month, is "tl;dr", and this does not go unnoticed. We have a behavioral guideline at WP:IDHT about such refusals to acknowledge disagreement and engage in discussion to resolve it. Your own personal, unsourced definitions and "explanations" of things are not germane to this article or discussion. It's clear that you have an intense personal POV against people who breed show animals and have convinced yourself that breeding for other forms of conformation is somehow immune to negative genetic effects, but that isn't Wikipedia's problem. Anyway, last I looked no one objects to the current wording, with "purebred" in the first case and "conformation-bred" in the second, so we don't need any further drama about that paragraph, thanks.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:04, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
SMC, yes, that was my edit, by the way. Gaddy was also OK with "show-bred" which was my original compromise that you reverted four times. The reason I say "tl;dr" to you is because you say nothing of substance, you don't present sources, you don't review source material, all you do is attack other people. I'm sick of your shit. Montanabw(talk) 01:27, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
It's a mutual feeling, I assure you. You wouldn't know if I say anything of substance, because you don't read it, by your own admission. I don't re-cite sources already cited; demanding citations that have already been provided is just more WP:IDHT from you, a time-wasting game. I also don't engage in the kind of original research and source distortion you're regularly performing here. That's the number one form of crap that needs to stop. Our more "itemized", if you will, discussions below may well solve both of these problems and lead to more collaborative editing. I hope so. PS: Yes, I know it was your edit. Which is why I'm surprised you're still using this thread to stir up trouble. I'm just going to mark it {{Resolved}}; we've already moved on to other matters.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:46, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Actual article writing

Just spent about two hours reviewing your changes, SMC. Just so you know, your editorializing was WP:SYNTH. I tossed some, but not all, material with cn tags - that was a judgement call as to what is likely or not likely to ever find sources, can always be re-added if sources found. I restored some formatting - the books we are apt to wind up citing page by page need to go at the "sources" section I made at the bottom - this works, I have multiple FAs where it is done. I think you are right (NOTE: I THINK SMC IS RIGHT ABOUT SOMETHING!!!!!!) to go through the rest of the FAO article, and for that reason, I moved it to the bottom with the other book sources, as we are apt to need to cite it page by page. I attempted to locate every source cited and verify everything, but that will take more hours than I have at the moment; that said, we may have some problems with things not verified by material cited, not sure where original sourcing came from (you, me or someone else) in some cases. to avoid my own tl;dr, here's where I am at: Montanabw(talk) 03:28, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

  1. Given the controversy in this topic, everything must be sourced; MOS will back this.
  2. Most explanatory commentary is WP:SYNTH and to be avoided. Encyclopedic tone and all that.
  3. Snippets and abstracts can work so long as we confine what we say to what they say
  4. Sourcing as one goes is critical, at least stick in the raw url - reflinks will be fixed eventually - but preferable use the template and complete your own citations
  5. I cannot locate more than the abstract of Camacho Villa, even via a university database. If you have a full text access somehow, say so, and we can figure out how I can get a copy
  6. Harlan 2 was published in 1971 not 1975, I found full text in JSTOR.
  7. Cannot locate full text for Harlan1, if you have it, say so. Otherwise, we may have to toss what cannot be verified from third party sources

All for now. Better to work on the article than rant about it. Montanabw(talk) 03:28, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I've temporarily WP:BRD reverted this, as you radically changed enormous amounts of the article without any explanation at all for most of the changes, and many of them aren't workable. Actually, in the interests of peace, I'm going to self-revert that. It's 2am, I'm tired, and going through it all will take many hours. It will be more productive to do this a bit at a time, than BRD it and risk another revertwar before the problems can even be addressed. I want to be clear that I have over a dozen major objections to your rewrite, however. I'm right now in process of going through the changes and trying to either work them back in, or documenting on the talk page why particular ones are problematic. All of this argument-by-edit-summary hasn't been working (in part because I make stepwise edits with individual rationales for each, while you keep overhauling the entire thing in your image without rationales; whatever the reasoning for doing that, it's not effective for collaboration.) I'm going to take you at your word: "FWIW, note the work occurring at landrace. If SMC and I can agree on content of that article, there is hope.... I think that so far we ARE getting somewhere - with some snark and sniping, yes - making progress. "[2]. See also "You are doing good work on the landrace article. It's not easy to write where the research leads and to stay within what can be meticulously sourced. If you and I can agree on content in there, there is hope"[3]. We both clearly want to come to agreement on the content. On specific points you raised:
  • The WP:MOS doesn't have anything to do with sourcing, but, yes, of course material must be sourced.
  • Please don't change citation style, per WP:CITEVAR. You also really, really need to stop asserting that just because of your GA/FA focus that your way is always best. It's deeply insulting to other editors, but you do this frequently (not just toward me). WP has no tenure system, and it's a fallacious argument anyway – all of our citation styles are reflected in numerous GAs and FAs.
  • I also think you are right about things sometimes; we have collaborated productively before.
  • I don't call "tl;dr" on anyone. More clarity is better than brevity that lacks it, and all this stuff will just be buried in an archive some day; we're not writing literature on these talk pages. This entire project consists about 95% of paragraph after paragraph of detail-oriented text, and we can all handle such material or we would not edit here. I'd like your agreement to stop ignoring what I post, with those dismissive "tl;dr" comments. If you can't find time to find out why someone is disputing your edits or seeking to refine them, you're not in a position to wonder why, to treat it as disruption, and to keep forcing your version in. I'm not trying to lecture you, I'm trying to find a middle ground. I won't have to lengthily re-explain things and trigger your frustration if you don't ignore me the first time around. I have to observe that I made many of the points, in sections above, that you are now re-making because you didn't read them. It took far longer to write this section on your part than it would have to read and agree/disagree with what I'd already written. Let's not repeat that pattern, or this page will be two miles long by Oct. Is a bullet list like this easier for you to parse? I prefer regular paragraphs, but don't really care much either way.
  • I'm also seeking full-text sources; I have JSTOR access and some others. Irritatingly, Camacho Villa, et al. 2005 isn't on any of them so far. I live near several universities, and may be able to get at this through their libraries, but I have real-world work to do and rent-day is approaching, so I'm not likely to get to this until Oct.
  1. I disagree with you that this article is actually controversial; this is almost entirely a two-editor personality dispute, but whatever.
  2. Agreed on SYNTH, but this applies to some of your own additions.
  3. Agreed on abstracts & snippets; WP:RS covers how to use them already.
  4. Agreed on sourcing-as-you-go, which is what I've been doing (other than for non-controversial dicdefs that you've been controverting anyway; I think I can be forgiven if that seems WP:POINTy, but whatever). Disagree on copy-pasting URLs; it only takes a few minutes to do a proper citation, and failure to do so can look like either an attempt to misdirect or insufficient caution to have interpreted the source correctly if someone is that rushed.
  5. 👍 Like, re: Harlan 1971.
  6. Will look for Harlan 1; I don't see any grounds for removing what is already sourced to it, in the way it is already sourced. What do you see as the exact WP:V/WP:RS problem, given point #3, above?
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:01, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
  1. MOS is shorthand, I am referring to citation formatting, whatever subpage that's on this week
  2. The sources I am putting at the bottom as "Sources" are the ones where we are (or are going to be) needing to cite multiple pages, i.e. Foo pp. 2-5, Foo p. 10, etc. This is the only real useful way to have the full citation in the article. This is not a CITEVAR issue: a CITEVAR issue would be if i wanted to do LDR format or something (which actually wouldn't be a bad idea, but it's a LOT of work). As for my GA and FA contributions, I've used several different formats, but most with a "sources" section for the books) I've also survived reviews by User:Eric Corbett, User:Dr. Blofeld, and User:Nikkimaria, among others who are among the toughest reviewers on WP. So I believe I have some credibility; I am not insulting others.
  3. We collaborate well when we previously agree; it's resolving disagreements that's the problem. I strongly dislike having my motives questioned, you do not know what I am thinking, so cease making assumptions. I read the Camacho abstract as suggesting controversy in defining landraces, but I chopped that word.
  4. A wall of text doesn't help prove a case. Present source material, with URL links and specifics. I am not seeking argument, I am seeking evidence. Your opinion and mine is not relevant, it's the sources that matter. (And yes, I have been swayed by evidence; many times)
  5. I also cannot find Camacho Villa in full text and I don't want to drop $40 to buy it, I'll go broke editing wiki if I start down that road!
  6. Your "non-controversial dicdefs" are things I think are dubious or synth. WP:CITE trumps WP:POPE; verifiability is a pillar. I agree that using the proper citation templates is best, but was extending an olive branch if you found citing things to be difficult. Montanabw(talk) 05:26, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
  7. Yay, we agree.
  8. What I am finding is material that the cited sources I can find do not verify; so if it's Harlan1, we have no clue...
  1. ...
  2. It's not the only useful way, and yes it is a WP:CITEVAR issue, and your personal credibility about why one method works isn't being challenged and has nothing to with whehter other methods work or with CITEVAR. I really don't care much right now; it can be dealt with later.
  3. You did not chop controversial"; I did. There's an entire #"Controversy" novel synthesis removed section about this and related WP:OR on your part. Saying "I read the [source] as suggesting [X]" is pretty much OR by definition. See also your markedly similar statement, "I read Sponenberg to say that landraces ARE an early stage of breed development, (even if not all get standardized) hence, the word 'breed' in a general form applies to landraces in the sense of distinguishing them from mongrels, which I think is a crucial..."[4] (emphasis in original). Elsewhere you've said Sponenberg says landraces are and early form of breed. But Sponenberg absolutely does not say either of those things or anything like them; here's the original wording: "Throughout horsebreeding's long history, several pathways have been used to form breeds. One mechanism for breed formation includes a landrace stage." It bears no resemblance to your statement at all other than using some of the same words.

    No one is questioning your motives. The hypothesis (not assumption) I've made, based on long interaction with you, is that you feel there's a special cachet or imprimatur associated with the word "breed" and that using the word "landrace" instead of or without "breed" is something like a demotion. You confirmed this on my talk page in far more emotion: To say a landrace isn't a "real "breed" is an insult! To deny landraces the status of "breeds" just because there is no registry or written set of pedigrees implies they are poor quality mongrels of unpredictable genetics and no particular value. Just because people didn't..."[5] Has nothing to do with your motives, but it'd directly related to WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. Everyone has biases. We're only good editors here when we allow people to point them out and try to work around them instead of pretending they don't exist.

  4. Text does help prove a case when it consists of proof of the case. You wouldn't know when you won't read it. Discussion is the only way to resolve issues like the one in point 3 above, about sources and how to interpret and apply them. You wouldn't know if you won't read and participate in the discussions. You keep demanding citations for things that are already cited and accusing others of WP:SYNTH. Not constructive. See also WP:KETTLE.
  5. Who's insulting whom now? My citations are generally impeccable, and I actually work on the citations templates themselves, sheesh. I hope you realize that every time you make a WP:SYNTH claim without providing a detailed rationale why that policy is being violated, you're violating WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF at least. Not constructive. If you actually can demonstrate a genuine novel synthesis – explain what is being synthesized, from what, and why it's wrong – then that would be actually constructive. Otherwise it's just name-calling.
  6. For once.
  7. You'll have to be more specific. This is the third place on this talk page (that I can remember) that you make vague claims about the sources not matching what the article says, without being able to back that up. Given that you're blatantly misinterpreting FAO, Sponenberg and more, I remain highly skeptical, sorry.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:11, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Pachyderm in the chamber

Unaddressed above is the elephant in the room. You and I both clearly believe that the other may be pushing a POV. It's unclear what POV you think I could be pushing. The one it seems to me (I'm expressing my perception, not making an accusation) that you could be pushing, perhaps without realizing it, is that "breed" and "landrace" really have no clear definitions ever to anyone, that any source that does not settle on a definition is proof that none exists, that this and related articles should only reflect this "undefinable" idea, and that preventing the application of the word "landrace" to any horse article is of paramount importance because there is some special cachet or imprimatur associated with the word "breed". Even if I'm imagining this, the overall scope of your edits, and particularly your resistance to mine, in this topic area is having an equivalent effect.

I think there's now a really, really obvious solution, where everyone gets what they need. We have a reliable source for the term "landrace breed" as being used, by the FAO at least, as synonymous with "landrace", and their expansive definition of "breed" that doesn't just mean "standardized breed", which is what our Breed article covers. As long as we're clear what we mean and linking to the right articles, an article like Kiger Mustang (whatever name it really needs to be at) can say something like (in compressed form) "Kiger Mustangs are a breed of horse... The feral population is a landrace breed... Two projects to develop the landrace into a formal, standardized breed, have resulted in pedigreed populations known as the Kiger Mesteño and Kiger Horse...". Most of our dispute has been over equivocation or "operator overloading" of the word "breed" to mean something specific or general, without cluing in the reader as to which is intended. This has led nowhere good. With the proposed change to the terminological approach (as long as it's clear they're FAO definitions, not universal ones), then just like magic, there's nothing to fight about any longer. (Well, not on this anyway. We still have some article naming disputes, and hopefully the conformation- vs. show-breeding issue is resolved as of earlier in the week.) I would not advocate this use except where editors refuse to accept the term "landrace" without getting into lengthy disputes about it, and so far that seems to only with regard to some horse articles; there's no reason to apply this approach to, say, Van cat.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:01, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

It appears that your POV is that a "landrace" is not a "breed"; my view is that a landrace and a standardized breeds are BOTH a form of "breed", broadly defined, at least in the animal kingdom. My understanding is that your view is that a "breed" can only be some sort of formalized thing with a written registry, pedigreed animals, and so on. My view is that Sponenberg's and the FAO's defnitions, indicating that a landrace is a form of animal breed, are superior and more accurate. Have I stated YOUR position accurately? Montanabw(talk) 04:03, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
No, our position is the same, other than you are conflating Sponenberg and FAO's defintions, which are not identical (same phrase "landrace breed", but Sponenberg does not cite FAO or vice versa, and FAO has very particular internal defintions with regard to 'conservation units" and such that have nothing to do with Sponenberberg's model). I've been trying for days to get you to see that we no longer have a substantive major disagreement, only small ones (like what exactly Sponenberg says) but (on my talk page) you accused me to playing some "heads I win, tails you lose" game. We're arguing the same damned point. That's much of why this editwarring is so frustrating.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:11, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
There IS no "universal" definition of "breed" or "landrace" as far as I can find in what research I've looked at. Beyond that, I am not sure what your definition of a "breed" is, as you contradict yourself at times. The line between a "landrace" and a "breed" is very fuzzy and ill-defined, particularly where the FAO, which I view as a highly reliable source, conflates the two terms. The word "landrace" itself seems to be of recent use with animals, imported from the world of plant crops. It is clear that "breed" is not a concept biologists spend much time defining; their focus is on species and subspecies. Thus, the work of defining breeds is left to animal science experts, such as Sponenberg, who I hope we can agree upon as an expert and a reliable source, particularly on rare breeds, which are often landraces/landrace breeds. He defines landraces as a stage of breed development and essentially treats them as breeds-without-a-registry. Montanabw(talk) 04:03, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
Show me contradicting myself; diff please. And you're still mischaracterizing Sponenberg, and I can prove it. (Actually, I already have twice, but I have no expectation that I won't have to do it again.) No one said anything about a "universal" definition (other than Camacho Villa, whom you've been mis-spinning as well, as I prove several threads lower down. Note that this is not "attacking" you, being a "bully", "impugning your motives", or any other incivil term you use against me all the time, it's just pointing out sourcing errors and actually demonstrating that they're errors instead of suggesting that there is one but then refusing to put up.) The line between landrace and standardized breed ("breed" is ambiguous in the context by itself) is not at all fuzzy or ill-defined; the bright line between them is programmatic breeding to fix specific traits, as we already have various sources telling us, in various specific phrasing.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:11, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
Finally, I completely disagree with your analysis of the Kiger Mustang; I am not going to continue the debate at the closed RfC here, either. The genetics of the two are virtually identical. Perhaps in 50 years there will be sufficient divergence in the two populations that the feral Kiger Mustangs still left on the range (if there are any) will retain landrace characteristics, while the "registered" ones, if not periodically infused with landrace bloodlines, will be significantly diverged from their ancestral bloodstock. But they aren't now, and it is a false dichotomy to split them. Montanabw(talk) 04:03, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
Cite your sources. You have no reliable source for these statements at all. But it's not relevant here. For the third time, how to tweak the wording in that article to accurately reflect what we're actually agreeing on (see above) is not related to the split-or-rescope proposal at that RfC. I'm not trying to re-open the RfC, I'm talking about something different.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:11, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Comments about others

Alright folks, per WP:TPNO, WP:CIV and WP:NPA, article talk pages are meant to discuss only the editorial content of the article and not make comments about other editors. If you wish to discuss behavior, then take it to your user talk pages or follow WP:CONDUCTDISPUTE. Everyone needs to stop commenting on each other on this talk page, this includes all accusations of misbehavior, edit warring, motives and other types of comments about other editors. Dreadstar ☥ 15:47, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I've removed this comment because I asked you to stop commenting on other editors here. Do not continue this disruptive behavior. Dreadstar ☥ 14:06, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Again, removing off-topic comments about other editors. Dreadstar ☥ 14:23, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The important part of it was that I've asked Montanabw for formal WP:Dispute resolution and she's refused, so it's unclear what the next step is. Ideas welcome, in user talk.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:51, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
I do not recall seeing a formal request for dispute resolution. Was it buried in some wall of text that I tagged as tl;dr. Certainly there has been no formal request on my talk page. However, I do think it's a waste of time because I am not going to subject myself to bullying and intimidation nor to the ill-spirited attacks that impugn my motives. Montanabw(talk) 04:58, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
There was a formal request, and an ARBATC notice you also paid no heed to, on your talk page. You responded to the request with "I'm listening", but shortly thereafter went to Jlan's page, said you refused to engage with me in any dispute resolution, blamed me for all disputes, and exhorted Jlan to also refuse DR (to which Jlan indicated no agreement). Would you like diffs again? I've posted them three times before (at AN, at an RM, and at Dreadstar's talk page).

Please provide diffs in user talk that prove your four accusations, of bullying, intimidating, attacking ill-spiritedly, and impugning movies, and keep the discussion in user talk; otherwise the post above is precisely the kind of WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL violation Dreadstar just administratively told neither of us to post here.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:06, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

POV promotion of vague FAO and OED definitions

I've undone (in an isolated edit, so the changes can be seen with no confusion) the rather extreme promotion of the vague and overbroad FAO and OED definitions as if they were mainstream. It was already well-documented why they are not. The OED is an extremely summarized, tertiary work and cannot trump more specific, much less peer-reviewed sources. Same goes for the FAO guideline, an internal work of international governmental bureaucracy concerned (again, as already documented) with ensuring equal legal, conservation treatment of landraces and formal breeds, not distinguishing between them. It is also one which relies principally on another self-published work of the FAO, not external, reliable authorities. The very goal of the FAO guideline's glossary definitions is to blur those distinctions on purpose, as a legal fiction; and the OED never addresses them, or even the distinctions between different meanings of "breed", at all.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:28, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Provide a "mainstream" source then. Since when is the Oxford English Dictionary not a reliable source for definitions? And what source is better than the FAO? I'm sincerely asking. We have a couple of longer definitions from Camacho Villa and Sponenberg, but they dovetail with the others. Absent BETTER sources (with full, verifiable citations), we are using the"best" sources here. Montanabw(talk) 04:06, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
The version you keep reverting already cited better sources. Mainstream dictionaries are never better sources for technical terminology like this than peer reviewed materials from the field in question. We would never in a million years use OED's definition of fast Fourier transform if it were vague and did not jibe with definitions from mathematical works. Governmental bureaucracy paperwork that makes up its own definitions for terms as the agency intends to use them internally as legal terms of art are never better sources for technical terminology like this than peer-reviewed sources from the field in question, either. We would never in a million years use the US Army's definition of "antibiotic" if it was so vague that it contradicted usage in quality medical sources.

Your desire to insert these excessively vague definitions into the article lead as if generally accepted, reliable and broadly applicable is disputed. The FAO definition is being taken out of its extremely limited context and misrepresented as a consequence. The OED definition is too ambiguous to be useful in the lead, and will just confuse readers, because the usage of "breed" in that construction is undefined. If you want, we can simply open an RfC about this.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:08, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

  • I've undone addition of this stuff into the lead again. What part of WP:BRD is unclear? Montanabw, you were bold, you've been reverted, now discuss, please.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:18, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Here, I've now sourced the problem with the OED's imprecision with multiple citations to peer-reviewed sources that contradict it. In short the OED is incorrect this time (and it wouldn't be the first time). High-quality secondary sources trump tertiary ones, per WP:RS. I've also shown that the FAO source very clearly distinguishes between landraces and standardized breeds in both its glossary and its main text; quoting it out of context to seem like it's including the former among the latter, by obscuring the fact that it defines "breed" and "standardized breed" differently, while WP itself and most other sources do not, is impermissible under both WP:NOR and WP:NPOV (and WP:ENC - we're here to do the opposite of confuse our readers). Sources trump WP:ILIKEIT. I think we're done here.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:09, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
PS: Note also that the FAO sources already cited prove my point further: One example of general and specific use in the same document, is an article in a UN FAO journal that refers to "landrace breeds" in its title, but distinguishes between formal breeds like Nguni cattle, the Boer goat and "indigenous pig breeds" on the one hand, and "indigenous sheep landraces" on the other." –Ramsay, K.; Smuts, M.; Els, H. C. (2000). "Adding Value to South African Landrace Breeds Conservation through Utilisation" (PDF). Animal Genetic Resources Information (27). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: 9–15. So, why exactly is there an argument about this?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:37, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Once again we have a "do it my way or else, and now we're done" response out of you. Yes, asking if the OED and the FAO are "fringe theories". Sheesh. You just don't get it do you? I'm the one who is done discussing. Montanabw(talk) 04:35, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Since when is the bold-revert-discuss cycle, and verifiability with reliable sourcing, "my way"? Isn't it our way? No one has suggested that OED or FAO are fringe in any way. The FAO source is being selectively quoted out of context, and is an internal document relating to legal categorization for conservation purposes, not a scientific source. The OED definition is proven to be contradicted by multiple, peer reviewed sources. Facts, not my opinion or PoV. The only mention of WP:FRINGE on this page is in an earlier discussion, now resolved, in which a certain party appeared to be advancing the novel, pseudo-science theory that negative genetic results could only come from "weird" and "designer" breeding for "show" purposes, when we already had reliable sources say otherwise. You're "done discussing"? Per BRD, the R of the B stands if the D is refused. Was there something new to add here that has to do with improving the article?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:04, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Note: the OED is at oed.com, not oxforddictionaries.com. —Neotarf (talk) 18:45, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

"Controversy" novel synthesis removed

This was added by Montanabw, buried in a huge edit of unexplained changes to almost every part of the article:[6]

The concept is not without controversy. Until 2005, there was not a widely accepted definition for plant landraces,[1] and in animals, the FAO notes, "The interaction between landraces and standardized breeds has involved considerable give and take".[2]

The opening sentence is both PoV-pushing and novel synthesis. We have no source that says anything like this. It's a view arrived at by one editor, by synthesizing completely unrelated facts, taken out of context. The first of these is not an accurate description of what the source (Camacho Villa, et al., 2005) says, which is (in their published abstract) "the lack of an accepted definition to define the entity universally recognized as landraces"; the paper itself cites various definitions, and advances a new "working definition". We can't in WP's voice declare this to be "the" accepted definition, as the same edit did elsewhere, twice in different ways. I've resolved that problem as of this writing. The article already provides reliably sourced other definitions going back a century, and this material isn't even exhaustive.

The FAO quote is a non sequitur. It may be important to include it, but only with its actual meaning and original context. It was not in any way referring to a confusion between or inability to distinguish between landraces ("landrace breeds" if one insists on FAO's internal jargon) and standardized breeds. The quote itself clearly shows that the FAO does distinguish between the two when it suits them. It was an observation of the developmental relationship between them, which can run two ways. It belongs with the material from another source, about landraces sometimes being a step in breed creation. We probably need an section about this in the article, but we certainly cannot misrepresent the FAO source as supporting the idea of no distinctions or definitions. This problem has been fixed in this edit. The confusion here is probably arising from the FAO's glossary of terms it uses internally, in which it is legally conflating "landraces or landrace breeds" and "standardized breeds" for genetic resource conservation purposes. It's another form of novel synthesis to suppose that the delimited usage in the one sense can be interpreted in a different context in a way that the very FAO text in question contradicts.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Camacho Villa 2005 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ In Vivo Conservation, pp. 4–5

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:46, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Clarification: Read the wording closely. A accepted definition of something "universally recognized" as something so defined is not the same thing as an accepted definition that's good enough for most cases. It's highly unlikely that Camacho Villa's definition qualifies either ("universal" is a high point to aim for); we certainly have no RS that it does, though some newer papers cite that one (in ways not examined here yet).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:01, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
Please stop attacking me. Assume good faith. I looked at the actual sources you cited and could not verify your version of the lead; the works didn't say what you said. If you think the OED and the FAO are not reliable sources, I do beg to differ. Or at least, provide BETTER sources. Montanabw(talk) 04:53, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
No one is attacking you [or assuming bad faith]. You're making quite a [questionably good faith] claim yourself, here, though. Prove it. "The works didn't say what you said" is so vague as to be meaningless. [I already did provide better sources, peer reviewed ones.]  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:17, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
I reverted to the previous consensus version (prior to your most recent set earlier that day of several dozen changes) and then very carefully reviewed your material, keeping what appeared to be properly sourced. Then I looked at the sources themselves to fix some things, and started (but ultimately gave up on ) trying to be certain that everything in the article actually reflected what the source said; I found many things where the sources didn't match the article; we actually have a nightmare here that is going to take weeks to sort out even if we can agree on changes. I have diligently tried via my university database to find the Camacho Villa paper in full text, but Wiley and Science direct both came up empty. And frankly, that paper probably needs to be cited page by page, also. And, most of all, it's just about plants, not animals. If you recall which database you searched to find full text, I'd be interested in knowing, I might be able to request it via ILL. In the meantime, if you raise this Camacho Villa source beyond what is in the abstract, then copy and paste the blockquote with page number for review (not inside a wall of text, please, my eyes are tired, I have a cataract) so all can review the context. Montanabw(talk) 04:53, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
Pushing your version against a WP:BRD return to status quo ante is an anti-WP:Consensus action. Propose your changes here. Ask others what they think. Seek agreement. I'm also looking for the same source (JSTOR and Oxford both came up empty). You not having it in hand doesn't justify ignoring BRD protocol, which you insist upon when others want to add something and you disagree. Good for goose, good for gander. You've still not addressed one bit of the objections I've raised to your desire to insert the FAO verbiage in the lead, BTW.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:17, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

PS: The version you reverted to (undoing a lot of cleanup edits, I might add) was not any "previous consensus version" at all; I dispute a large number of your edits dating to early August, and many more this month; I simply haven't gotten to addressing them yet. Both of your big, mass edits with no rationales for anything you're doing are problematic, as are all your "tossing" this, "tossing" that deletions of material that was often already reliably sourced. Much of what you reverted was me undoing non-consensus changes you made. So no, not "the previous consensus version".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:01, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

  • Montanabw, I'm still waiting for you to support the claims that "The works didn't say what you said" and "I found many things where the sources didn't match the article". I've mostly been finding these issues in your edits. No specific problems have been identified relating to any specific source in the material you keep replacing in the lead (despite the ongoing dispute about doing so). Meanwhile (see updates one thread above this) I've reliably demonstrated why the FAO and OED definitions are problematic. More to the point of this thread, they do not support any of the OR notions of "controversy" (emotive editorializing and WP:SYNTH), of no generally accepted definitions until 2005 (misreading the source), much less of FAO implying the terminological or conceptual interaction has involved a lot of give-and-take (totally changing the meaning of the source, which was speaking of actual transfer of genetic material, i.e. animals getting it on.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:01, 29 September 2014 (UTC) This request has been clarified below.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:56, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

SMC, you are back to tl;dr. I have a life, a job and frankly, a completely unrelated shitstorm elsewhere on wiki - a totally unrelated topic (a BLP is involved, which must take priroity). You just keep hammering the same things as far as I can see. The article a year ago was mostly about plants. The article now has more on animals, but you seem to be creating OR and then accusing me of OR, you do SYNTH, then accuse me of SYNTH. I ask you for sources, you tell me I need sources - I find sources, you say they aren't acceptable but as far as I can tell you haven't actually found anything yourself. I'm tired of your ill-will and personalization of the issues. Until you can learn to focus only on specific content and quit going off with your endless rants, and compromise more often than once in a blue moon, you are going to find yourself very few supporters here. Montanabw(talk) 04:27, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

NB: I've addressed the personalized remarks at my talk page. I seem to recall that admin Dreadstar warned both of us to stop making personalized remarks here. I count seven independent personal attacks in that single paragraph.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:49, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
Adding a stand-out, bulleted paragraph asking someone to support article-related claims they are making about reliable sourcing is not "tl;dr", it's asking someone to support those claims. Repeat: The above editor has not addressed one bit of the objections I've raised to their insertion of the FAO verbiage in the lead. Repeat: Propose changes here. Ask others what they think. Seek agreement. If someone finds themselves engaged in "shitstorms" on WP, that's probably an indication to try to do some things differently. If these tempests of feces are thought to be interfering with someone's life and work, that probably goes quadruple. Those matters do not seem to relate to improving this article, which is unrelated to those affairs (or to a BLP elsewhere). I've provided sources when asked (actually, I'd already provided them before being asked). I have to note that the above missive did not address the concern raised, so I'll raise it again. Before I do, I'll note that a time-tested WP:Tendentious editing technique, that works only when people don't control their tempers and keep feeding the cycle, taking the bait, is to refuse to acknowledge or address issues raised, so that they get exasperatedly raised again in new, longer, more detailed explanatory wording, and then to claim "cleverly" that those raising the concerns are drowning them out, harassing them, being incivil, or otherwise being unreasonable. I've seen this pattern many, many times in my 9-or-whatever years here, and should remember more readily that it's more productive to just directly (even more concisely) repeat the on-topic, article improvement requests, than to re-state them with further explanation and rationale. Maybe I'm not actually seeing that pattern here at all, but I have a strong suspicion the calmer tactic will work anyway, simply because light is better than heat.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:38, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Renewed request for proof

We're still waiting for any support for the claims that "The works didn't say what you said", and "I found many things where the sources didn't match the article", and (several times here, above, in edit summaries) "creating OR and... do[ing] SYNTH". No specific problems have been identified relating to any specific source in the material the above editor keeps replacing in the lead (despite the ongoing WP:BRD dispute about doing so). Meanwhile (see updates one thread above this) I've reliably demonstrated why the FAO and OED definitions are problematic. More to the point of this thread, they do not support any of the OR notions of "controversy" (emotive editorializing and WP:SYNTH), of no generally accepted definitions until 2005 (misreading the source), much less of FAO implying that terminological or conceptual interaction has involved a lot of give-and-take (totally changing the meaning of the source, which was writing of actual transfer of genetic material).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:38, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Split

Obviously this is going nowhere. Dreadstar ☥ 00:32, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

SMC and I may have found common ground with the idea of splitting this article into separate pices on plant and animal landraces. While there are some shared general concepts, there are sufficient distinctions to justify two articles. Posting here for other interested editors to comment and discuss. Montanabw(talk) 06:10, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

  • We could have, maybe, but that common ground has not been found at all. WP:CFORK that will double rather than halve this content dispute. WP:SUMMARY is a perfectly fine model; we don't have enough agreed-upon content here to split this into separate, encyclopedic articles, but we might someday (not today).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  04:26, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
  • Thought error and insult #1: Saying "this looks to me like just a WP:POVFORK". That's rude and does not assume good faith. I busted my butt to take time at your talk page to go over everything point by point, only to you respond, basically, "OK, but only if I get my way with everything!" I called it a "heads I win, tails you lose'" approach and this is precisely why it isn't worth wasting bandwidth discussing things with you because the word "compromise" doesn't seem to be one you understand. Montanabw(talk) 04:31, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
    • "POVFORK" is an insult? You mean like this one? I've addressed these personalized remarks at my talk page. I seem to recall that admin Dreadstar warned both of us to stop making personalized remarks here. I've bent over backward to offer several forms of compromise, and it's not being accepted. I don't see that as an article talk page problem. It's certainly not a "does this split proposal make sense for the article scope and content?" discussion, is it?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:11, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

      PS: I've struck "POVFORK" and used a more neutral shortcut that I'd forgotten existed. If we think that the POVFORK shortcut is problematic under WP:CIVIL or something, WP:RFD exits for a reason.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:43, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

SMC, you fail to see that you are attacking, refusing to assume good faith, and generally being all the things you are saying I have done. You also do a brilliant job of setting yourself up as the victim when you are actually the bully. There is no working with you; there is only fighting you to a standstill or kowtowing to anything you say because you never, ever seem to drop the WP:STICK. You clearly have not assessed my edits, you just keep mass reverting and then swallowing them in walls of text. I shall be back to this article eventually; it is clear that I am not going to get anywhere with you here until you learn that you are not always right. Montanabw(talk) 20:00, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
I've addressed the personalized remarks (or, rather, previous ones of identical character) at my talk page, per admin Dreadstar warning both of us to stop making personalized remarks here. This is not an article talk issue, and is not related to this split proposal. Assessing your edits: I've assessed them very carefully, and the edit history of the article clearly demonstrates that I'm working with the ones that are not the subject of above disputes in which you repeatedly refuse to provide reliable-source or policy rationales. I've actually avoided (and in one case, noted above, self-reverted) mass-reverts of your edits.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:22, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

landrace v. land race v. Landrace

The OED distinguishes between "Landrace" (upper case, one word), the Danish breed of pigs and "land races" (lower case, two words), some type of (I think) informal breed of wild or domesticated animal. This was in the online version (oed.com), in the supplemental part of things yet to be published, not the one already published. Since compound words generally develop over time through use, and words that began as two separate words may become hyphenated or joined into one word, this may be something in the language that is currently undergoing change. So this spelling (?) difference needs further investigation in terms of primary topic and redirect issues. —Neotarf (talk) 17:14, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

The one I'd like to see in this article is the lowercase, one word, "landrace" as was seen in an earlier version of this article: A '''landrace''' is "a local [[cultivar]] or animal [[breed]] that has been improved by traditional agricultural methods."<!--verbatim--> <ref name="OED">{{cite web |url= http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/landrace |title=Definition of ''landrace'' in English |work=OxfordDictionaries.com |date=2014 |publisher=Oxford University Press |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |accessdate=August 5, 2014}}</ref> . SMC does not agree it should be there; I wold welcome an assessment of the value of the OED as a potential source for this article (both possibly for landrace breeds--Danish, etc. and the general concept) from someone not him or me. Montanabw(talk) 05:24, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
Remembering back that far, my issue with it was WP:UNDUE favoring of one particular dictionary's definition. The terminology section should cover varying definitions, and the lead should summarize the gist in a way that gets "what is a landrace?" across clearly and succinctly without wallowing in nit-picky definitional conflicts. We do this well at thousands of articles, so it should not be that hard to do here. 2601:643:8302:1D50:72CD:60FF:FEAA:C075 (talk) 09:32, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
The spaced-apart "land race" spelling also occurs, but is archaic; it's fully compounded as "landrace" is almost all modern sources. I would add the spaced spelling as an alterative in the "Terminology" section.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  16:08, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
I wouldn't list it as a simple alternative, particularly given that it is archaic. If there is a specific context, we could provide it, but not absent context. Montanabw(talk) 05:07, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
I can't find any modern use of the spaced version that's context specific, and when it occurs at all in non-historical sources it's mostly in blogs and other WP:SPS. Mentioning it as historical in the "Terminology" section should be enough; it's probably too obsolete to put it in the lead. 2601:643:8302:1D50:72CD:60FF:FEAA:C075 (talk) 09:32, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Laundry lists of landraces

I don't think it appropriate to have huge "laundry lists" of landrace breeds in this article, which is an overview. There may be a place for a "list of landrace breeds" as a separate article, but at least for horses, when I said there could easily be 50 or more horse breeds/types that someone could make a "Landrace" argument for, I am not kidding: We can start with the list of types at feral horse - there are 24 there. Add to that the Mountain and moorland pony breeds that are not also on the feral/semi-feral list, that's 8 more. To that we can also add everything on {{Horse breeds of Indonesia}} where we have 7 articles already and 22 breeds listed, then add 8 Japanese breeds. That's over 60 and not even starting to count the landrace breeds of the Asian mainland and several in the Americas. That's why I don't want a laundry list. Examples such as the Yakut and Mongolian are also discussed thoroughly at their own articles, and the editor wanting to add them was actually using outdated material that suggested (wrongly) that they were somehow connected to the truly wild Przewalski's horse, which they aren't. So, we can discuss the list issue, but the "expansion" tags on these sections would be better fixed by describing what makes each set of animals considered landrace breeds, not a (often highly debatable) list. Montanabw(talk) 19:26, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Hi Montanabw, While I'm not sure that I agree entirely with some of the conclusions (from what I can gather "domestic breeds" are not "landraces"), I do concur that it does not overly improve the Article to include a "laundry list" of breeds. I would support moving these to a "List" article. Hope this helps. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 10:14, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. Frankly, I think we have too doggone many "lists of horses" articles already, but I won't AfD something if someone else does it. We have these things called "categories" that also work well. The definitions of "breed", "standardized breed," "landrace", "feral animal" are all pretty fuzzy; scientists mostly concern themselves with species and even DNA studies can't really go beyond showing shared parentage or ancestry. What we are talking about here are all types of domesticated or once-domesticated animals, not "wild" ones. Beyond that, well, there's been a lot of sturm und drang about this issue, mostly going in circles. I think many of us are rather tired of the whole thing and view another round with some mild alarm!  ;-) Montanabw(talk) 16:17, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
The problem I've been frequently encountering is that aficionados who don't like (or don't understand) the term or concept landrace will remove it, and editwar to remove it, as a category from any article they feel proprietary about. They'll even remove it from an article about a landrace and efforts to develop a standardized breed from it ("It's a real breed now! Get rid of 'landrace'!"). They seem to feel that the term is some kind of "demotion" instead of a descriptive term about the nature of the breeding and adaptation. The only stable approach to documenting this properly is in prose, where we can cite sources, not with categorization, though I continue sporadically to try to categorize them properly.

I agree that a list is not ideal in this article, and it would probably be more helpful to redevelop the species sections into prose paragraphs along the lines Montanabw outlines, even if a stand-alone list is also created. It won't serve the readers well to simply move all the species-specific information out of the article and leave it a stub. I agree with about the above about there having been too much drama, which is why I've left this alone for so long.

Vectors of dispute: I think there are three problematizing factors are work: a) As Montanabw points out, the definitional boundaries are a bit fluid; b) breeders and fanciers are hell-bent on promoting their proprietary or favored variety as a breed no matter what, and anyone who disagrees can just get lost; c) not bothering to figure out what "landrace" means and why it's easier to classify something as a landrace than as a breed to begin with. A landrace is simply a distinct, regional population of a domesticated species, without perpetual and strict selective breeding by humans, and thus a population rather naturally adapted to its environs, even though fully domesticated. A breed in any of the more strict senses is something that has been carefully and consistently selectively breed, for and against specific traits. (And they change over time; there is no genetic "lock".) That a population has been subject to strictly controlled artificial selection in this way is a claim of fact that requires reliable sources. Many things broadly labeled "breeds" (generally by breed encyclopedias trying to be as inclusive as possible to outcompete similar publications from other publishers) are really landraces. It's not just breed book publishers, though. The DAD-IS database uncritically accepts any "breed"-related data from any governmental source in the world. Thus any US state or any random little republic can declare any population within its jurisdiction to be a "breed", even if there's no evidence of any kind that it is one, or what they mean by the term.

Broader cleanup: I think the ultimate solution for many species is to have "Category:Foo breeds" be a catch-all, with a landraces (or "landrace breeds") subcat, and separate subcats by organization for the registries that have standardized them ("Category:Cat Fanciers' Association standardized breeds", etc.). The good news is that the breed infoboxes could do a lot of this categorization automagically; if you added a link to an organization's breed standard, it would just add the matching category. (My earlier approach was to have "Category:Foo landraces" and "Category:Foo breeds" separate, with the latter only for standardized breeds. It's proven unstable for the above reasons.) For horses, I don't know what the best approach is, since there are no national much less world breed societies and fancier clubs that publish breed standards. I don't see a clear way to categorize the landraces except as a subcat of breeds and to keep adding the landrace cat. if people keep removing it from articles on which it belongs. But this won't separate out the truly standardized breeds from other definitions of "breed" that fall between landrace and standardized. 2601:643:8302:1D50:72CD:60FF:FEAA:C075 (talk) 09:23, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

(Re-indenting, for clarity); I'm the editor to whom User:Montanabw referred in their opening comment. I should point out that neither the summary text I added, nor the reference used, was outdated (being from 2009), nor did it conflate or connect the Prezwalski's horse with the Yakut. The preceding sentence made this quite clear with the qualifier that the wild progenitor of (all) domestic horses was quite thoroughly extinct. The sentence following merely stated that Yakut showed several superficial phenotypic similarities with the unrelated Prezwalski, rarely observed in modern horse breeds, and never in such abundance... Which has led some researchers from the University of Oklahoma to suspect that the retention of these archaic peculiarities are a likely indication that the Yakutian may have arisen from a separate domestication event. And that further genetic sequencing was underway to shed light on that possibility. It has nothing to do with the Prezwalski's horse, and is an ongoing study... I'm assuming your misrepresentation of my contribution was unintentional, but as I said, it made no such connection, nor is it outdated.
The Yakutian and Mongolian, while being regularly captured and occasionally bred in their native range, constitute true landraces, and not simply feral populations of a standardised breed; they perhaps stand alone as some of the few varieties of horses that were never standardised (with the exception of one segregated subset of the Mongolian, which was intentionally subject to some improvement with foreign stock). That caveat was also included in the prose of my contribution. I fail to see how those two additions, which were voluminously sourced, constitute adding to a "laundry list". I concede that would obviously be the case if we included feral varieties, which there seems to be a consensus against. But... Along with the Faroese and Icelandic, they uniquely stand out as among the most isolated varieties of horses on earth, that constitute true landraces. Quinto Simmaco (talk) 05:00, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
Basically, give me a single, uniform, universally-agreed-upon definition of an animal landrace - or "breed" or that matter. DNA can only distinguish species and parentage; it can't determine breeds - it can't say that one domesticated horse is a Thoroughbred and another is a Konik (it can only say they aren't closely related). I see it as more of a continuum from feral to landrace to standardized - Sponenberg uses something along that line. For categories, I feel pretty strongly that Category horse breeds remain non-diffusing and all breeds/types/landraces are there for the purposes of organizing and finding all relevant articles, I don't have any issue if people also want "child" or "sibling"categories for feral breeds, landrace breeds, or spotted pink unicorns. Montanabw(talk) 07:06, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Landrace vs Feral

So I had accidentally created the "Horse landraces" category, in that I thought it already existed. After categorizing a few other known horse landraces, I noticed that one had a "feral" category. In order for landraces to exist, you must have a feral population. But are feral populations sometimes excluded from landraces? I'm wondering if all of the articles and categories containing "landraces" and "feral" should be merged.Artheartsoul1 (talk) 02:05, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

NO, as there is a huge amount of debate over what is or is not a landrace... Sponenberg's analysis is that breed development is progressive; there isn't a real bright line... I think it is better to just have multiple categories and not fuss about having any particular breed be confined to one or the other... I also think it can be a useful thing to let reliable sources guide the articles themselves... 03:20, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
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