Category talk:Horse breeding and studs

Proposal for at least one daughter category

This started on my talkpage as a discussion with User:Montanabw, but continuing it here makes it more accessible, in theory at least, to other editors. I don't think that people, i.e. biography articles, belong in this category, "Horse breeding and studs". "Studs" refers to the farms themselves, obviously, and they all are or should be in the daughter Category:Horse farms. In my view "horse breeding" should cover foundational terms (mare, stallion), concepts (Thoroughbred breeding theories), laws (Jersey Act), medical conditions (Mare reproductive loss syndrome), organisations (Equus Survival Trust), and so on. It should not cover people.

It seems to me that there should be a daughter category for breeders of non-racing horses: this is logical, useful (because there are quite a few of them), and tidy (nicely parallel to the existing daughter category of Category:Racehorse owners and breeders).

Any objections?

As it happens, all or almost all of the people in question are or were breeders of the Arabian horse. That would suggest Category:Arabian horse owners and breeders or Category:Arabian horse breeders. (I have just written an article on a significant Arab stud and want to put it and its owners in the right categories.) If there are left-over articles, i.e. of any horse breeders who aren't breeders of Arabs, perhaps we could think of another daughter category.

Thoughts? BrainyBabe (talk) 21:29, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

OK, here's the deal: First off, to move everything from "horse breeding and studs" to "horse farms" sounds amateurish A "stud" IS a "horse farm". "Farm" implies a lack of class and quality. (Some horse operations are "studs" some are "ranches" and so on... ) However, that is merely annoying and I'm not going to make an issue out of it other than to engage in my usual rant about how this is one more example of how WP has a systemic bias against things rural and agricultural. Oh well. Montanabw^(talk) 22:21, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure how best to reply to so many points, made in swift and uninterrupted succession, but saved as separate edits. Perhaps I shall take each edit by itself. Yes, I am aware that a stud is a horse farm, and no, I am not suggesting moving "everything" into Category:Horse farms. I don't perceive the connotation of amateurism, but perhaps that is an American perspective. BrainyBabe (talk) 23:00, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Yup, that was my intent, makes it easier to figure out where we agree or not. Yes, it's an American perspective, or at least an American west perspective. Not a huge deal, but at the moment we have ""Horse breeding AND studs" - so we have articles about the breeds, the science of breeding, and the farms/ranches/studs that produce them. I suppose there is another idea here: To have a parent Category: Horse breeding, fully (or at least partially) diffusing into Category: Equine reproductive science and management, Category:Horse breeders, with subcats for the racehorse breeders and whatever else that needs subcats, intending to include "studs", "farms" or what have you. Articles like studbook selection would be a gray area and probably would need to be multiply categorized. I'd also cross-categorize horse breeders into the category for their respetive breed of horse, as people interested in that horse breed would want to find major breeders to read about. What do you think? Montanabw^(talk) 22:25, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

More to the point: On one hand, I suppose "horse breeding and studs" could become a fully diffused category and there is a reasonable argument for that. Montanabw^(talk) 22:21, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

If by " a fully diffused category" you mean one in which all articles end up in daughter categories, no, I do not think that is necessary or desirable. As I stated above, this category is ideal for laws, medical conditions, organisations, and so on. It is not coincidental that there are only one or a few of each of these. BrainyBabe (talk) 23:03, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

But not the "...and studs" part... see my comment above for a possible solution, though. And we don't have organizations in this primary category at all, we already have the sub-cat [Category:Horse breed registries‎]]

An Arabian horse owners/trainers/breeders category isn't a bad thing, but: I don't really see the need to make the all breed parent category fully diffused, plus, on registration papers, many individual people who own farms or studs are listed by their individual name as breeders, not just the corporate entity of their farm, and absent that, creating daughter categories for some horse breeders and not others could be a real nightmare. Montanabw^(talk) 22:21, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I am glad you agree that Category:Owners and breeders of Arabian horses "isn't a bad thing", whatever its formal title may be. I don't know what you mean by "the all breed parent category" (perhaps you could provide a link). As I indicated above, it might be possible in future to consider a category for people who breed horses that are not racers (or Arabs), if that becomes significant. BrainyBabe (talk) 23:07, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I mean, do we want 350 separate breed categories with one or two entries each? I think not. Maybe Quarter Horses and Arabians, but even there, I kind of think we can wait; a general "Horse breeders" should do the trick -- and it could include both individuals (such as Lady Wentworth) and farms/studs (like Crabbett, Hampstead, etc) If an individual breed starts to make up 40 or 50 articles, maybe its own category is a good idea. I think Arabians (and FYI, I am an Arabian owner myself) are in a gray area for having enough entries for their own category; I don't want to start a bad precedent for over-categorizing things. Montanabw^(talk) 22:25, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

We also have the problem of having many, many breeds: I don't really see why the Arabian and part-Arabian horses breed category is insufficient to add the owners/ breeders for people who are looking for information on Arabians, right along with the named horse articles and breed spinoff articles. We're talking a couple dozen at most. No need to overdo categories.

Certainly there are many breeds. I'm not sure what you mean by calling Category:Arabian and part-Arabian horses "insufficient". I would take that category title to mean, named horses, and that is indeed the vast majority of its entries.BrainyBabe (talk) 23:15, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

See above for the many breeds issue. I definitely agree that the title is mostly for named horses, but I also see it as for relevant issues, such as genetic diseases common to the breed, or the breed registries, or some major breed competitions. I don't see a real problem listing major people affiliated with the breed there as well, at least so long as they don't have their own breeder category (and when they do, it should be both a subcat of horse breeders AND the breed, so people can use the category to find the articles). I'm pretty inclusive, I guess. Montanabw^(talk) 22:25, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

There is a different need for race horses, especially Thoroughbreds -- over at WikiProject Horse racing, there are something like 9000+ articles, many about race horse breeders, mostly for Thoroughbreds. So they mostly have their own category tree. For everything else, we have a bit over 3000+ articles tagged by WPEQ, including articles cross-tagged by both projects. So outside horse racing, I see no real need to create a daughter category for just a few articles, as the horse breed category can encompass breeders as well, cross linked here to the horse breeding category for those searching for breeders of any breed, not just one. We start doing breed-specific categories, well, there are 350 horse breed articles on WP, do we want a breed category for all of them, even when there are zero or at most 1-2 articles? No. Montanabw^(talk) 22:21, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I quite see that articles linked to Thoroughbreds and horse racing could easily swamp any endeavour. You refer to "just a few articles" but I see a couple of dozen biographies of Arab horse breeders. It strikes me that once there are more than a handful - certainly more than ten - of any given thing, it is a service to the readers of Wikipedia to group them together somehow, for ease of reference. BrainyBabe (talk) 23:15, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I suppose you see 10, I like to see 40 or 50, but that's just individual preference, not a huge deal. I don't think WP has a hard and fast guideline. For me, it's "what can I see on one page" and from having spent years on a dialup before getting high speed internet, I used to just HATE having to open new pages and wait for them to load... so I just have a "the fewer pages the better" view of categories. Montanabw^(talk) 22:25, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

In general, I also have long been concerned that too refined categorization for things with few entries means "Balkanization" of articles to the point that no one can find anything. But that's an IMHO, I guess, not a moral issue. So there are my thoughts. More categories for the sake of categories is not a good thing. Montanabw^(talk) 22:21, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps you misunderstand me. I have not expressed any qualms about the over-refinement of categories, but the reverse. I agree that categories with one or two entries makes a mockery of the idea of a category. (However, even if there were a fictional Category: Horse farms in Ruritania with but two or three entries, it would not make these articles hard to find, in my opinion.) I am more concerned with categories that have grown shaggy or clogged, that have daughter categories that are not fully populated, while the mother category is unreadably full of articles that need to be pushed further along the tree branches. Categories for the sake of categories can be tiresome, but a lack of categories when there are a group of articles that have a clear commonality does not serve our readers. BrainyBabe (talk) 23:22, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't think we are all that far apart on this, see above. For some purposes, even big categories are needed, as with horse breeds where we deliberately keep it non-diffusing even where we may also have subcats that are repetitive (it is actually critical for things like maintaining List of horse breeds and seeing how many total breed articles are on WP, as subcats can become duplicative (the "by nation" ones especially -- as many as five nations can sort of claim the Lipizzan, for example) Montanabw^(talk) 22:25, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

So: forward. Basically, what do you think of the notion of:

1. Rename this category to just "Horse breeding" but make it fully diffusing other than for stuff with no clear subcat (Equus Survival Trust might not diffuse, for example)
2. keep most if not all existing subcats, but create subcat "Horse breeders" for the people and farms/studs and move all the individual people who breed horses and stud farms into it, plus make racehorse breeders a subcat of this category
3. Look at how many breeds need their own "breeders and important other people" category - Arabians possibly, yeah, I suppose so, I guess. Maybe come up with a standardized naming scheme "Foo breeders" or something
4. Add a subcat with a name something like " Equine reproductive science and management" or whatever (open to a less clunky name) for all the science type articles you view as being in this main category
5. Dunno what to do with stuff like "Thoroughbred breeding theories" -- here we have another issue with "Foo breeders" versus "Foo breeding" Hmmm... thoughts?

Let me know. Montanabw^(talk) 22:25, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. I find the threading veers between repetitive and contradictory, so your proposals are a useful step forward. I have just read Wikipedia:Categorization to help my thoughts. The part about "Category:Opera" (the topic) versus "Category:Operas" (a list of operas) was helpful in this context.

1. I think renaming the main category "Horse breeding" is a good start, and consistent with that guidance.

--Agreed. I think a move would be best (see my comments at the end of list) but I agree. --Montanabw

2a. The existing subcategories "Horse breeds" and "Horse breed registries" are clearly important and I wouldn't wish to tamper with them.

--Agreed. Montanabw

2b. (As above, I question the usefulness of categories with only a couple of articles - both Category:Equine genetics and Category:Horse hormones are this tiny. I'd suggest deleting these categories. Not a major issue for now.)

--(Actually, I think they are underutilized, as there are a ton of genetic disease articles as well as coat color articles that could be put there. Not sure about the hormones one; maybe that could be tweaked... but as you say, irrelevant to this conversation; one brushfire at a time!) --Montanabw

2c. So that leaves Category:Horse farms and Category:Racehorse owners and breeders as the two existing daughter categories. You propose "Horse breeders" for people and farms, and "Racehorse owners and breeders" as a subcat of that. I would prefer to see a clear separation between individuals (e.g. Annie Henrietta Yule) and organisations or commercial entities (e.g. Hanstead Stud). So I'd propose "Horse breeders" for people and "Horse farms" for the studs. "Racehorse owners and breeders" would then become a subcat of the former, for those articles that refer to people (the Queen, for instance), and "Racehorse breeding farms" (or "Racehorse stables" or "Racehorse studs" or whatever wording seems best) as the corresponding category, at the same level, for businesses such as Claiborne Farm.

--Here I disagree. (setting aside the racehorse category for now) It can become quite difficult to sort out people and farms and may encourage content forking. For example, Sheila Varian is a horse breeder, her farm is Varian Arabians, for which It woulld be silly to create a virtually identical article as the woman and her farm are pretty much inseparable. Likewise, William Robinson Brown and Maynesboro Stud. Conversely, Crabbbet and Hanstead made sense to be split from their founders as their founders did a lot of other things plus the farms existed for multiple generations. Likewise Claiborne or other corporate entities like Coolmore Stud. Thus I strongly favor Category:Horse breeders for both, with subcats added as needed (e.g. "horse breeders in Ireland" etc.) --Montanabw

3. Other breeds and their breeders: this could prove useful. I suspect that relatively few breeds will warrant such categories, but your suggestion of "Foo breeders" sounds fine.

--I think we agree here. I'd prefer just letting other breeds hang out in the generic Category:Horse breeders, rather than "other breed breeders" or "Breeders of other breeds" ;-) - as "other" will be, basically, "everyone not breeding Thoroughbreds, Quarter Horses and Arabians" LOL One example I can think of right now is Piber Federal Stud. We also have the cases where some farms have multiple breeds, such as Marbach stud.--Montanabw

4. Equine reproductive science: I see no need for another subcat. (Are there other equivalent categories for the human breeding of other commercially valuable species? Articles, yes, but categories?) These articles are few enough that they do not confuse the reader. I think they can stay undiffused within Category:Horse breeding. I don't see all that many "science type articles".

--I'm open to further discussion. Maybe we could just leave the topics undiffused and see how many articles land there. Nothing stops us from creating more categories later if needed. Maybe, though, we should see if it includes topics like embryo transplant, artificial insemination and (though I loathe the topic) cloning. There may also be the "horse hormones" thing. I could see Equine genetics could perhaps be a subcat?? --Montanabw

5. Likewise the one article Thoroughbred breeding theories. I think it can stay where it is.

--Yeah, not sure what to do with that. TB breeding has it's own weird little world. --Montanabw

About 18 loose, uncategorised articles, such as the ones I detailed at the top, would remain in "Horse breeding", undiffused. I think these are entirely appropriate.

--That doesn't appear unreasonable. Montanabw

If it is your impression that any proposed category changes (or additions or deletions) might prove contentious, you may wish to alert others at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion. BrainyBabe (talk) 01:59, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I've inserted my thoughts on each above. I think we are very close to a consensus. I doubt that anyone outside the horse projects will care, and I actually doubt anyone else there will care much (recent drama on infoboxes seemed to have drawn no interest) so did we ping those projects? If not, maybe we should, but I actually favor being bold once we have a workable solution. I think CfD is just a troll-attracting drama board. :-P We may need admin help to move this category (best this discussion be preserved) but I can probably tap a cooperative admin to do it. Montanabw^(talk) 23:31, 19 December 2013 (UTC) Follow up: Pinged both horse projects about our discussion. Montanabw^(talk) 23:34, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for these thoughts. I don't know what you mean by "both horse projects", but as no one else has contributed here, I take it that what we are doing is sufficiently uncontentious.

1. Yes, rename this to Category:Horse breeding, or move it if you prefer. Would you undertake to do this now, by asking your friendly admin? I don't know which comments at the end of which list you are referring to.
2. We still disagree. Thank you for the links and specific names. I quite see that it would be silly to have almost-identical articles on a person and her business, when the person has devoted her whole life to that business, and she is its sole proprietor. In those cases, a redirect is useful; if the article is about the person, it could be within Category:Horse breeders, and if it is about the business, then Category:Horse farms. Readers would find them, either way. However, my library reading suggests that most significant historic studs were owned by people who did other things too, and most current or future studs that reach WP notability will be commercial consortia with multiple owners and managers. In addition, in rummaging around WP, there does seem a pretty firm division of categories between people and their businesses. You propose subcats such as "horse breeders in Ireland". We already have Category:Horse farms (in 14 countries) and Category:(19 nationalities of)racehorse owners and breeders.
3. Foo breeders: Yes, I suspect there will be a handful of breeds that reach critical mass for their own subcat, and all the rest can stay in Category:Horse breeders, undiffused. Go ahead and create the three that you think need to be there.
4. I agree, leave the remaining topics undiffused within Catogory:Horse breeding and see what happens.
5. Likewise. BrainyBabe (talk) 19:57, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I think you and I are the only ones who care enough to sort this out; I was also referencing WIkiProject Horse racing as the"other" project, but so far they haven't weighed in on much either, including someone who majorly screwed up the race horse infobox (sigh). I think so long as we only tweak these parent categories and leave all the horse racing subcats mostly alone, there will be little fuss. So, I think we agree on everything except the breeder/farms dichotomy It's a fine line between a breeder business/person and even an owner sometimes, Claiborne farm is both, for example. Calumet Farm is now a corporate entity but with one "real" owner. But the solution could wind up being "horse breedERS and farms" instead of this "horse breegiING and studs" - which frankly, would be OK with me, but...let's maybe just let that sit and mull it over a wee bit more, perhaps an even more suitable solution will present itself. Hmmm.... Are you saying we could create redirects within article space? I think it's more work but less "drahmah" to manually move everything into Horse breeding and empty this category. If you are up for going through the articles and manually changing their categories, I am too. Montanabw^(talk) 02:56, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying that you were referring to Wikproject:Horseracing. I don't see that project as immediately relevant to what I am attempting to do.

1. So: top level to be renamed, or moved, to Category:Horse breeding. Can you make this hapen?
2. You seem to be suggesting Category:Horse breeders and farms at the level below that. But you wish to wait. The redirects I suggest are for cases analogous to Sheila Varian / Varian Arabians. Where there is a given person who is notable only for a stud, and that stud has only one owner, and Wikipedia has an article either on the person or the business, then yes, I think we should create a redirect, so that a reader looking for either person or business name finds the article in question. I leave it to you to tell me how many fall into this category.
3. Foo breeders: are we agreed in creating these? I suggest Category:Arab horse breeders ("Arab breeders" sounds weird, out of context); Category:Thoroughbred breeders; and I believe you hinted at Category:Quarter horse breeders. Will you set these up or shall I?
4. You write "move everything into Horse breeding and empty this category". The move, yes; the emptying, only partially. There are, as I identified above, about 18 articles that seem fine to me undiffused, at least until better subcats exist. Yes I am prepared to work through recategorising those articles that need it. BrainyBabe (talk) 18:53, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Give me some time, I can, if you are not in a rush (but ping me if I drag my feet...)

1. Letting it sit did raise a solution: The WP Horse racing cats read "Foo Racehorse owners and breeders", so I propose we keep consistency and do the same. Avoids the whole mess of splitting them and the potential over-categorization problem that I'm fretting about.
2. "Arab" is problematic for obvious reasons, and it's mostly int he UK that "Arab" is preferred to "Arabian". Category:Arabian horse owners and breeders works for me, and hence [{:Category:American Quarter Horse owners and breeders]] (let's use the same name as the WP article) and the like.
3. Possibly also Category:State stud farms for Tersk, Piber, Marbach, etc., i.e. the ones publicly owned and run by a nation's government or quasi-governmental group.

Will all that work? Montanabw^(talk) 22:01, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Could you clarify "avoids the whole mess of splitting them" - I am not sure what "them" you are referring to, nor what splits you envisage.

Your rewording of Category:Arabian horse owners and breeders sounds good.

I can see that Category:State stud farms could be useful, but it's also inherently fuzzy, as some slide towards privatisation. At what level do you see this category? BrainyBabe (talk) 11:44, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

1. "Them" = Corporate breeding farms versus individual people who are breeders. 2. I'd put state studs at the same level as all other Foo breeders. I know there is privatization out there, but my thinking is if they were once, they are in. Lately, I think Yeguada Militar is in that status. If they ever go 100% into totally private ownership (as opposed to the foundation model most seem to be drifting to), or are broken up completely, that is probably something for the article individually. If there is some other weird changeover, then we reassess if we need a "Former state studs" category or something. Sorry I'm slow to work on this, other drama drawing my attention... If you want to create the Arabian category, go for it.Montanabw^(talk) 21:59, 3 January 2014 (UTC)