# Talk:Rocky Mountain Horse

Hello. I was notified that you undid my edit to the Rocky Mountain Horse article, and I was a little puzzled as to your reasoning. You claimed that the "edits exceed scope", which is not a Wiki term I am familiar with. Allow me to explain my edit: Firstly, the previous version of the article did not explicitly state the effects of the silver dapple gene on the breed's color, rather stating that "chocolate" was the result of the gene, completely ignoring the effects on the mane and tail. Ergo, I reworded the statement to clarify. Secondly, the "link to candy bar article" which you claim is not needed was actually a link to this article describing the color "chocolate". I felt that, since there was an actual Wiki article about the color, it would be more beneficial to link to it instead of having the word "chocolate" in quotes littered about. Ironically, the word "flaxen" was linked to the article for flax in the previous version, which I had edited to link to flax (color) which is more accurate (but which you also reverted). In the future, you would do well to actually examine edits and pay attention to links before you willy-nilly undo someone's work. Zargabaath 17:28, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

The original phrasing did, in fact, reference silver dapple:  "Chocolate is the result of the relatively rare silver dapple gene."   I do see the need to rephrase that a bit and just did so; however, I stand by my reverting of your edit, as your wording was not particularly copperplate, either:  We don't link to ordinary color articles like black, brown, etc.  Point acknowledged on flaxen, an odd color word, so a link is appropriate there, and I agree with you on that, also rephrased the overuse of "rare" and "chocolate."  "Scope" was shorthand for "scope of cited source," where it appeared that you went a bit beyond what the citation allowed us to say.  Where we link coat colors, it is usually to articles about the color in horses, where the genetics and variations are also described.  Putting "chocolate" in quotes is deliberate, to signal the reader that we are using particularly unusual jargon that is not standard in the horse world.  Also, silver dapple is neither more or less a "mutation" than is black itself, so phrasing was a bit awkward.  So, in the future, YOU would do well to not trot over here and snark at me, but rather to take the issue to the talk page of the article in question and per WP:BRD discuss.  Some of your points are well-taken, but getting into a snit because you were reverted is not going to get you anywhere, getting reverted is life on wikipedia, and it is not "willy-nilly". Montanabw(talk) 18:20, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
I don't believe it's fair for you to reduce my very justifiable query to a "snit" or to accuse me of "snarking at you". Please assume good faith. You did not provide a concise explanation for your reversion, so obviously I'm going to address you directly and not on the article's talk page. Now that you've provided some semblance of a rationale: The silver dapple gene IS a genetic mutation and it IS rare, so referring to it as such is not a stretch. In fact, the cited source (of which you claim I exceeded the "scope") refers to the gene as a "missense mutation" right in the title and details its rarity. (I did not even use the word "rare" in my edit, I simply recycled the instance where it already appeared in the article, so "overuse" is a bit of an exaggeration). Also, "chocolate" is actually a commonly used term in the "horse world", particularly pertaining to the Rocky Mountain Horse, so it's interesting that you would claim it to be "unusual jargon". Assuming for the moment that it is "unusual" though, would that not be even better reasoning for why it needs the link for clarification? If it's acceptable for flaxen, does doing it for "chocolate" hurt the article? Remember that the information is not meant only for those familiar with the equine world, it needs to be comprehensible and informative for the general public. Zargabaath 15:40, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
First off, you may not have noticed that I DID agree above with SOME of the reasoning behind SOME of your changes and did another edit or two to the article to address them, though I reworded what you said a bit.  Second, this is a Good article by wikipedia standards, this means that everything in it has been - and must continue to be - sourced and to a reliable source.  Though the article talks about rarity of the gene in general, this isn't the article about the gene, so it doesn't have to be in the lead, as the color is relatively common in the Rocky Mountain horse, not rare for that breed.  There is also no need to add a bunch of unnecessary adjectives, this is an encyclopedia, not PR for the breed registry.  and- the breed people love to talk about the rare color, they aren't so anxious to admit that it is also linked to vision problems...  GA status also means that we hold to certain conventions about wikilinking, particularly as regards to links to common words (like colors) that everyone knows about red, yellow, blue, green, "chocolate" - when we link horse coat colors, we link to the coat color articles, which have discussions of genetics and other items; we don't link to articles about the color, illustrated by a picture of a chocolate bar.  I later unlinked flaxen for the same reason.  "Chocolate" is a word that some horse people do use to describe the color, particularly those trying to sell horses of that color, but it isn't common in the sense that bay, gray, and chestnut are common; it's popular with the "I just looove pink ponies and magic unicorns" little girl crowd, but for mainstream horse people, who know you don't ride the color, now that we know what makes the coat color occur, using the genetic description of silver dapple is more professional; hence, the signal that "chocolate" is jargon.  (Also avoids the "eats shoots and leaves" problem of inadvertently implying that you can eat the chocolate horse...)  Montanabw(talk) 18:09, 2 October 2013 (UTC)