Talk:Banker horse/GA1

GA Review

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I will take this on, and aim to get comments back within the next few days. — BillC ^talk 07:55, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

• Saving reviewer's time: links check out with tool. ₪Ceran →(cheer→chime →carol) 00:59, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

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GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

   Very readable prose. Some minor manual of style issues, which I have listed further below.

   With regard to the date formatting in the references, this can be dropped. Still a few more to deal with or respond to at this point in time, though.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   I haven't fully checked this yet, and will return to reply on this later today. However, the referencing shows no sign of OR.

   References 1 & 2 give height data for a Colonial Spanish Horse, not specifically a Banker; and [1] has no reference to pacing or ambling. Has the page changed since it was referenced? Is the description of a Colonial Spanish Horse adequate for a Banker? The references all look to be to authoritative sources (though see my minor comment below about HowStuffWorks).

   Reference [1]? The statement in the article is cited from reference [2], which mentions both the breed and the ability to gait. --Yohmom (talk) 23:52, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

   Yes, sorry, my mistake. Strike the bit about gait. — BillC ^talk 01:48, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

   No problem, after a while things tend to blend together. I re-referenced the height bit and am working on the weight range. On the ALBC's page, the Banker horse link is really a re-direct to CSH, hence the previous citation. Anyways, I should be able to get a weight within the next few minutes. --Yohmom (talk) 22:24, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

   The Sponenburg reference also refers to the CSH's of the present, and seems to include the Banker strain. --Yohmom (talk) 00:06, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   I will return to this also today, as there are some issues arising from the peer review in November I would like to check.

   I've taken a look at other horse breed GAs, and this is certainly on a par in terms of breadth and depth. The peer review from November/December brought up about 12-15 issues that were then marked as 'not done', which I have taken a look at. I myself am satisfied that these are now complete, either falling into the category of done (e.g. "The intro ought to be fleshed out more", "Look at the guidelines at the Horse breeds task force"), or (IMO) not important ("Didn't any people die when they ran their cars into horses?", "A bit more information on what Q-ac is?"). The peer reviewers can of course raise their opinions should they wish to.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   Article is NPOV.

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars etc.:

   No edit wars now or in the recent past

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   All images are copyright free and are properly captioned.

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   Some issues relating to style, and references. — BillC ^talk 19:02, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry it's taken me so long to respond. It's a very well-written article, and as soon as the issues in this review are dealt with, I will be pleased to pass it for GA. — BillC ^talk 06:40, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Some MOS points and questions:

• Should 'Spanish horse' be linked? At present it is a redirect to Andalusian horse.

• I linked it, but to Colonial Spanish Horse instead.--Yohmom (talk) 23:07, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• Verb-subject agreement: "The Banker horse is a...", but "They are descended...".

• Addressed, at least by section.

• Try to avoid "it has been proposed" in the lead, because the question that comes immediately to mind is "by whom?". I understand the body of the article goes into more detail, but it might be better to simply say something like "The breed may have become feral..."

• Done...I think. In an attempt to avoid beginning three consecutive sentences with the word "the," I started the sentence off with "It." Is that allowed?--Yohmom (talk) 01:59, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• Avoid double brackets, though I see the same practise is adopted in other horse GA articles.
  • We have yet to find a way to give this conversion without the double brackets. If you have a better way to do it, please let us know. Dana boomer (talk) 14:29, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
    • I have had a dabble and created Template:hands, which, given a numeric value, provides a conversion into inches and centimetres. The usage is: {{hands|13.2}}, which produces: 13.2 hands (54 inches, 137 cm). At the moment, this isn't much use to your project, since you seem to use a lot of ranges: ("between 13.2 and 15.0 hands"), which I guess you would want to format something like "between 13.2 and 15.0 hands (54 to 60 inches, 137 to 152 cm)". Give me some time, and I'll see if I can add a 'range' parameter to the template. — BillC ^talk 08:59, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
      • Allright, play with it and see what you can get. We had one template for a while that seemed to work, until we discovered that it was considering the number after the decimal as a tenth, instead of a fourth, which was giving us wonky readings. But, if you can figure out a template that will give us correct conversions and doesn't use nested brackets, we'll gladly take it :) Dana boomer (talk) 17:36, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
        • Actually, first take a look at what I just did to the article. If you add the parameter "disp=/", it displays the conversion with a "/" in between instead of nested commas. What do you think? Dana boomer (talk) 20:32, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
• What is the total population of Bankers on the islands?

• The credible (that I can find) was done in 1926...so it is a bit dated (especially since that was before management), but I'll throw the info in anyways.

• Found new source, not as credible, but more recent.--Yohmom (talk) 21:55, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• "Exotic species" should be linked.

• Done. Linked to Introduced species--Yohmom (talk) 03:14, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• There is inconsistency in date format in the references

• This is probably due to a combination of "citation" and "cite xyz" family templates being used in the article. The article needs to be standardized to one family or another, as they don't tend to play well together and, as Bill mentioned, make references inconsistently formatted. Dana boomer (talk) 14:29, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• Erm...how exactly do I fix this? I have used this consistently. (What is "citation" and "citation xyz"?)Should I be using something else, or did I just fill in the dates wrong, or...?--Yohmom (talk) 23:07, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• Ok, let's see if I can explain this in an understandable manner... *grin* Basically, there are two "families" of templates that you can use for citing references on WP. For one of them, the reference template will start out with "citation". For the other, it will start out with "cite something" (cite web, cite journal, cite book, etc). From what I understand, as I said before, these two templates don't play well together in articles, so you are supposed to only use one or the other. One of the things that isn't consistent between the two is date formatting - it's not your fault, it's just that the different templates format dates differently. Here's what we can do - it looks like most of the references are already in "cite xyz" format; would you like me to change the "citation" ones over to "cite xyz" for you? I don't mind doing this, but don't want to step on any toes. Dana boomer (talk) 23:20, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• Yay! I love it when people reply almost instantly! That makes total sense, and your manner was quite understandable. Since this project is a grade, I feel that I should at least try first to sort out the citations. Don't go too far though, I may need you to put on your knight-in-shining-armor costume and come save the references...--Yohmom (talk) 23:43, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• Allright, sounds good. I should be on WP for another couple of hours tonight, so just drop me a note here if you need help. Dana boomer (talk) 23:54, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• Ahh! The Blythe reference (# 11) seems to be in the "cite journal" template, but the date is still coming out all wonky...--Yohmom (talk) 03:08, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• Grrr...stupid templates. This would be the point where we throw up our hands in disgust. BillC, if you have had the patience to read through this discussion, here's your final answer on why the dates are different: They keep changing around the templates, and so the date formatting on the cite web template does not match the date formatting on the cite journal template. It's the templates fault, and unless they change the date formatting for the entire cite journal template, there's nothing that we can do about it. If you have a suggestion, please let us know, but this has been an issue since we first started using these templates and we have yet to come up with a solution. Yohmom, I'm sorry I didn't mention this, I had completely forgotten about it. One problem solved, but not the symptom that brought it to our attention... Dana boomer (talk) 03:16, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• It appears that I have three options. ( A.) Convince "they" to stop changing around templates...(I, personally would not recommend this choice unless "they" will be easily convinced with a bribe of slightly burned oatmeal raisin cookies.) (B.) At least change them all to the same template, regardless of discrepancies. (C.) Throw up my hands in disgust...So what now?--Yohmom (talk) 03:52, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• Sorry, bad habit of mine to refer to random people with a vague "they". "They" in this case refers to the wiki-gurus who actually understand all of the really complicated coding stuff...and I'm not sure as to their propensity to be bribed with oatmeal raisin cookies, burned or otherwise :) As for changing them all to the same template family, that is the correct thing to do, regardless of other discrepencies. And as for what we do now, we hope that BillC will have mercy on us and pass the article despite the fact that the dates are messed up because it's not our fault that the templates give wonky dates! Dana boomer (talk) 17:36, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

• All have been switched to the same template. --Yohmom (talk) 21:55, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• A sentence or two (at most) on the islands would be useful: area, distance from mainland and dominant flora.
• HowStuffWorks may not be the best of sources, despite its article being written by a PhD. A standard geographical textbook may be a better bet for this reference.

• Addressed. Now cited to NOAA.--Yohmom (talk) 01:51, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I hope Yohmom doesn't mind me butting in, but I've added a couple of replies to the comments above. I'll leave the content work to her, but had a couple of comments on formatting stuff. Dana boomer (talk) 14:29, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I've managed to really mess up the order of things above, but hopefully you can see what I've written. Please check through the references to make sure they line up with their sentences, and respond to my first set of comments, and then we're there. — BillC ^talk 19:02, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

GA Pass

Congratulations for the effort you've put in. It's a Good Article. — BillC ^talk 23:28, 13 January 2009 (UTC)