# Talk:Mérens horse

"Ariegeois pony" is not official name since 1998, see the french official registration of the breed, name is "Mérens" or "Mérens horse" (cheval de Mérens in french). Thanks--Tsaag Valren (talk) 16:31, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing this out. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 01:23, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
Did you fix this in the List of horse breeds?  If not, could you do so?  Probably was in the pony section, no problem moving it up to the horse section under the new name).  Montanabw(talk) 03:46, 5 April 2011 (UTC) Never, mind, you did. Thanks.  Montanabw(talk) 04:36, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Went in and did some work.   Intend good-faith edits. Excessive hyphens frowned upon at wiki, and slightly colloquial use of words "is held at" best to replace with terms used by both US and UK English speakers when possible.  Fine line between term of art and jargon, I admit, but at least it isn't boring. Montanabw(talk) 20:26, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I've been criticised for using hidden text for commenting on various articles. I accept that criticism, so I'm moving here the more recent parts of the discussion that has taken place within this article in that format. One obvious disadvantage of hidden text is that the author of a comment is not immediately identifiable. I have taken the liberty of adding "JLAN" to represent myself and "MTBW" to represent User:Montanabw in a few places for clarity; what was hidden is italicised below, with the visible text of the article in Normal. Single indent is my last revision, double indent that of MTBW. 

still occasionally referred to by the older name JLAN: translated from fr:wikipedia, I'll polish in due course and add a whole lot more, that article is fine of Ariegeois pony
become black as they grow. JLAN: it's taken from the breed description
but may MTBW: bleaching out is also something pretty common- develop a distinctive reddish cast in the winter; foals may be born black, silver-grey or "coffee-coloured", but become black as they grow. JLAN: it's taken from the breed description MTBW: yeah, but some things obvious to ALL breeds don't need to be included...I've chopped "has a silky coat and straight legs" from dozens of articles! LOL!
rabicano flecking on the flanks is appreciated MTBW: that's not a great translation -- desired? valued? accepted? fashionable? JLAN: agree(!!!)I couldn't find the right word, will put it when I think of it. The average height of the Mérens is 1.49 m for males (14.2 hands, 58-1/2 in.) and 1.45 m (14.1 hands, 57 in.) JLAN: please do not substitute measurements in hands for these figures; the heights are those given in the source, the horse is measured in metric units for females. The weight range is 350 to 500 kilograms (770 to 1,100 lb) JLAN (after placing metric units before avoirdupois): metric, it's a horse from France, home of the metric system! Also you shouldn't use 'between' when the limits of the range are joined by 'to', it's tautological.
rabicano flecking on the flanks is popular with breeders. MTBW: made up something for now, feel free to tweak
I hid the whole of the following section, for reasons which at the time I thought were good; I now realise that I should have deleted it outright (MTBW rewrote it in concise and accurate English in the subsequent edit, but did not remove the dead link to cowboy frank):

The breed has a head JLAN: well I'm pleased to hear that it has a head! Though actually it's the horse that has a head. that is small and refined, a neck JLAN: a neck too, that is SO cool! that is strong and short, a long back, a solid shoulder, and well-rounded hindquarters. They JLAN: who? he has been talking about a single breed up to now! are also valued for their hardiness and disease resistance. MTBW: cowboyfrank admittedly not a great site in general (JLAN: boy you can say that again!), but unless dangerously wrong (JLAN: I would say dangerously wrong, yes, at variance with the published characteristics), until a better physical description is added, at least there is one During the winter the breed develops a distinctive reddish cast to their coat JLAN: yes, that's what I said earlier, except that I didn't say 'their' because I didn't have a plural subject to refer back to.
the horses are mostly in north-western JLAN (after restoring the hyphen to north-western): PLEASE don't introduce unnecessary errors, or indeed any errors at all, given that a necessary error is a bit hard to imagine!; it's enough of a struggle getting them out the first time around. English is my mother-tongue, I do know at least the basics of how to speak and write it Italy, and the breed register is held at Cuneo JLAN (after restoring 'held at' from previous edit): if you want me to put in here WHO the breed register is held by, I can do so, but it seemed to me to be unnecessary detail
Only two foreign breed registers MTBW: "register" is also a weird use -- usually "stud book" or "registry" are used..."register" would normally reference the actual document
the horses are mostly in northwestern MTBW (after again removing the hyphen from north-western): my dictionary doesn't hyphenate this Italy
the breed register is located at Cuneo MTBW (after again editing out the word 'held'): "held" is a colloquialism, usually meaning "to hold" Must get heavy holding all those books! ;-)

For what they are worth, my comments are as follows:

None of the above was even marginally productive; the net improvement to the article was negligible
It is both discourteous and unnecessary to edit another user's regional spelling or hyphenation usage. North-western is so written in British English, and so entered in dictionaries such as Chambers 20th Century, which does not admit of an unhyphenated spelling. If hyphens are to be removed, then packhorse, saddlehorse, northwestern but why not also carriagedriving?
In normal British English usage, a register is a regularly maintained official document, list or record in which data is entered; a registrar is the person who has the task of entering the data or maintaining the record; and a registry is the place where the register is kept. The Oxford American Dictionaries give(s) the same meanings, but also lists the first of the three as a secondary meaning for registry. Since register has the same meaning in both varieties of English I suggest it should be used throughout the Equine project, while of course respecting the right of those American bodies that choose to call the record a registry to do so. The difference between a stud book and a breed register is something that I would like to see clarified, as I am quite confused on the subject; I suspect I may not be alone
The word "held" is not a colloquialism but a good Anglo-Saxon word meaning, among many other things, to keep or maintain. Books are held by libraries, money is held in escrow, data is held in data banks, prisoners are held for questioning, gold reserves are held at Fort Knox, and the breed register for the Mérens horse in Italy is held by the Associazione Provinciale Allevatori of Cuneo. Where is the colloquialism, what is the problem? Would "kept" be preferable?
"Making up something for now" is not an acceptable editorial practice and constitutes original research
Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:15, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Hidden text comments are an informal way for someone to pinpoint a particular change to another editor when only two people are working on an article, it becomes impractical for bigger changes, but can speed things up in certain circumstances.  If an issue is controversial, then one person can take it to talk, but it's silly to move in a hidden comment like "I added a comma". Hidden comments allow mere explanatory commentary to stay off the talk page and just be tossed when read.  As for the rest, WPEQ overwhelmingly is written in US English, with the Australian forms of "UK English" almost as common as the "straight UK" forms.  So no, words like "held at" and "register" just sound stuck up and silly, but if you must say "held by," at least make it "held by" the registry AT the town or city it's located in, which is at least comprehensible to us Yanks -- but not "held at" the town or city itself, which just sounds odd.  Ditto hyphens, which I acknowledge are more common in UK English, but even there becoming mildly archaic (please don't tell me you would argue for "to-day" as proper modern English!).  Heck, even I over-hyphenate by wikipedia standards; a bot goes through these articles on a fairly regular basis and does a search and destroy on my stuff.  As for the rest,  I sincerely and in good faith edited the article to improve it and to restore things that were improperly tossed.  I'm not going to argue with you point by point.  Tag things if you have issues, improve or correct what can be updated with better (or new) sources, and because the article was originally created in US English, per wikipedia policy, keep it there. The ones YOU started, by the same WP Policy, can be UK English all the way, and for those I know a good UK-based grammarian we can call upon to further discuss hyphenation issues.  Montanabw(talk) 01:43, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

He-he, I have no idea what I want, I just translated 'attacchi' the first way that came into my head; but my guess is that they do not mean combined driving, but maybe arena driving contests, whatever those are called. I made a stub for carriage driving, perhaps someone some day will expand it. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:11, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Groovy.  Saw the stub.  Maybe if the UK has competition rules (British Horse Society or whomever sanctions competition) you could add an external link to them for later on in that article.  Montanabw(talk) 16:26, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Which is it, Mérens or Merens? The title and first sentence use the accent mark, but it looks like the rest of the article doesn't. Chris857 (talk) 00:41, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

In french there's an accent. In english, I don't know --Tsaag Valren (talk) 09:35, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
In this case, we'd keep the accent if possible, I think the WP:MOS supports this.  Montanabw(talk) 20:58, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Rabicano on the flanks.... mmmh "légèrement rubican" it's not rabicano. I don't know the word so here's a photo : http://530050.m53.gulliver.com/client/530050/prod/V_530050_366_1264953020.jpg. with the flank "rubican"
I think I've forgotten some things about Mérens in españa in the fr. article...  --Tsaag Valren (talk) 09:35, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
Oh, they're dapples! Thanks for the picture - that made it much clearer. Are you going to be adding stuff on Spain to the French article? If so, let me know and I'll translate it over. Dana boomer (talk) 11:46, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
And in that example, they are probably related to excellent coat condition, not the same as a dapple gray.  (I had a bay mare who would dapple in the summer when her coat was at its finest...)  Montanabw(talk) 21:00, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Mérens horse/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs) 13:29, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

I propose to take on this review and will be studying the article in detail shortly. On first inspection it looks like a well-written, comprehensive article. I see good use has been made of the French language equivalent. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:29, 6 June 2013 (UTC)


### First reading
In the lead section, you need to be careful to be consistent as to whether "Mérens" is singular or plural. For example you say "In the past, the Mérens was ..." and in the next sentence "Today they are mainly used as saddle horses ..."
"In the second half of the 20th century, the population sharply declined, as mechanization transferred work in the cavalry and agriculture fields to machines." - The word "fields" is not ideal here. Are you referring to fields on a farm or uses such as for cavalry work and agricultural work?
"... between 1975 and 1985 their population rebounded, leading them to be considered an example for the conservation of rare breeds." - I guess its not the horses that are the example but the conservation methods used.
"... and recommends efforts focused on its preservation." - perhaps "... and recommends that efforts should be focused on its preservation."
"The head a straight or slightly concave facial profile, a flat forehead, and wide, short ears." - This sentence lacks a verb.
The article needs to be consistent about the breed's name. It starts off "Mérens" and changes to "Merens".
"Merens are found mostly in northwestern Italy, in the provinces of Cuneo and Turin, but in the past years it has spread to other mountain regions ..." - Confusion over singular and plural again.
"In 1950 in Senegal, the Merens was used in attempts to create a horse tougher than the native M'Bayar, but it was not enough to revive the Merens." - To what does the "it" in this sentence refer?
"He moved the efforts of farmers towards breeding a pony, ..." - This needs clarification.
"A few members of the breed are bred for their milk, ..." - This is rather awkwardly expressed.
That's all for now. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:34, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
Thank you very much for the review! I should have a chance to address the above points this afternoon; if not, then definitely tomorrow. Dana boomer (talk) 11:46, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
I think I have addressed all of the points above. Please let me know if you have further comments. Thanks, Dana boomer (talk) 16:32, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
I found a few other "Merens", mostly among the references, which I altered for you. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:10, 8 June 2013 (UTC)


### GA Criteria
1a The article is well written. Certain phraseology referred to above has been improved.
1b The article conforms with the MOS guidelines as to layout, section headings, spelling etc.
2a&b The article is well referenced and has inline citations for all contentious statements.
2c There is no original research as far as I can see.
3a&b The coverage is broad enough and the article does not include irrelevant material.
4 The article is neutral
5 The article has been enlarged by the nominator beginning in April 2013, incorporating material translated from the French Wikipedia. The article is stable.
6 Some images are in the public domain, having been created over one hundred years ago, others are appropriately licensed.
7 The images are relevant to the topic and have suitable captions.
Overall assessment - Pass.

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In 2000, the Mérens breed was chosen by Jean-Louis Savignol to launch the first breeding farm for certified organic horses intended for leisure use rather than human consumption. The horses are fed a natural diet, dewormed with a mixture of garlic and clay, treated using a combination of homeopathy and osteopathy, and moved high into the mountains during the transhumance each year.
Big issue here is the claim that the horses were "treated using a combination of homeopathy and osteopathy" is much like saying, "received no medicine". Of course, the owners likely used these pseudoscientific approaches, but if we don't contextualize this, it implies in Wikipedia's voice that these approaches are properly "treatments". Workshopping a way to write this so that it is compliant with WP:NPOV/WP:FRINGE while communicating the same content would be great.
jps (talk) 14:10, 18 November 2023 (UTC)