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Featured articleLightning Bar is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on January 23, 2011.
Did You Know Article milestones
DateProcessResult
July 23, 2009Good article nomineeListed
December 13, 2009Peer reviewReviewed
February 16, 2010Featured article candidatePromoted
Did You Know A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on May 29, 2009.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that although the Quarter Horse Lightning Bar is known as a racehorse and father of racehorses, he won a roping contest once?
Current status: Featured article

GA Review

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Lightning Bar/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Overall this article is good. I just have one thing I want tweaked:

  • What exactly is Colitis-X? Since it's a redlink adding a bit of info may be helpful to the reader

I'll put this on hold, and will pass it upon fixing. Wizardman 03:59, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Colitis-X is a rather odd virus as not much is known about it. I've added a bit in, that help? Ealdgyth - Talk 13:26, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good now, so this is a GA. Wizardman 14:37, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Recent wikilinks.

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Question: Should a couple of wikilinks to go the glossary or to the article? Specifically "Foaled." We have the article "foal" but I do understand that here the verb form is used. And the glossary does link to the article. I guess I'm sort of asking for thoughts for use in other articles too. Montanabw(talk) 20:25, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I went to the glossary because here we're using foal as a verb, which isn't covered in the article (and which is why we have a glossary!) Ealdgyth - Talk 20:39, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Makes sense. Montanabw(talk) 20:12, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Lead paragraph

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I am frankly amazed at the literary standard of this which is due to appear on the Main Page tomorrow, and bewildered as to how it got past FA.

  • Quarter Horse race horse, especially when all blue linked, is not comfortable reading.
  • Bred and owned his entire life by Art Pollard, Lightning Bar's sire, or father, was... This tells us that the sire was owned and bred by Mr Pollard, which I suspect was not the intention. But it doesn't tell us who Art Pollard is or was, or where he was based: if he is not notable, and we know no more about him, why name him? And semantically, the suggestion is that Art's whole life was spent as owner of the horse.
  • Having been told what breed his sire was, the equivalent information for his dam seems a strange omission.
  • from Louisiana, noted for breeding race horses that ran short distances: Curious bit of info about a state to put in the lead, but is it still noted for that? If not, it should say, "then noted for..."; if so, "that run short distances".
  • he managed to achieve high speeds on the track: I thought the aim of racing was to get results, not high speeds. I could acheive a high speed during a 1500m race, but still finish last because I didn't sustain it.
  • was trained as a team roping horse Did he appear in rodeos as a team roping horse, or merely train? It seems odd that the reader is assumed to have so little knowledge of equine matters that they need sire and dam to be explained, but this discipline is named with no explanation.
  • To declare that his most famous son is among his more influential offspring seems to be a truism.
  • Lightning Bar died in 1960 at the age of nine, the result of a viral infection: Lightning Bar was not the result of a viral infection. His death may have been, in which case Lightning Bar would have been the victim of such an infection.
  • the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame Did that really seem to anyone the best literary style?

I'll start a proposed re-write shortly. Kevin McE (talk) 18:01, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I really don't think that these Mr Angry type postings are very helpful: "it is completely outrageous that this article managed to get through the FAC process in it present state. It looks like it was written by an illiterate five-year-old with dyslexia." You believe that a few sentences could be improved, so why not just quietly improve them? Malleus Fatuorum 18:28, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say that: I explained every difficulty I found with the text, and promised to come back with a counter-proposal, which I have now done. I can't "quietly improve it", because it is listed for the Main Page tomorrow, so that text needs changing too. Kevin McE (talk) 18:52, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What you said was "I am frankly amazed at the literary standard of this which is due to appear on the Main Page tomorrow, and bewildered as to how it got past FA". Hence Mr Angry. Malleus Fatuorum 19:48, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Now what you have failed to do there is to distinguish between the descriptions of a response, which I reported, and value judgements, which I did not. But as there is sensible discussion towards a consensus, let's not dwell on that. Kevin McE (talk) 19:53, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So it wasn't you who posted "Can you have a quick look and see whether you agree that it is a grammatical and stylistic nightmare. I would tell some of the more able 11 year olds that I teach that they ought to be able to be clearer than this: how did it get through FA?"[1] Malleus Fatuorum 20:35, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the above, plus the miscalculated length of stud career and a couple of other issues that came to light from the sources, would be addressed with this intro:
Lightning Bar (1951–1960) was an American Quarter Horse which raced and later became a stud stallion. He was bred by his lifelong owner Art Pollard of Sonoita, Arizona, and was the offspring of Three Bars and a mare from Louisiana, a stronghold of the breeding of sprint horses. He raced ten times, with four victories and four other top three finishes, but his racing career was cut short by illness after only one year. After racing, he became a show horse for two years, and had some success as a team roping horse. As a breeding stallion he sired seven crops, or years, of foals, among which Doc Bar was the best known. Lightning Bar died of a viral infection in 1960, at the age of nine. He was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Association's Hall of Fame in 2008. Kevin McE (talk) 18:38, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"some success" is not correct as to the team roping career - he went to ONE team roping. "trained as a team roping horse" is correct here. You also need to note that his sire was a Thoroughbred, otherwise you imply that Three Bars was a Quarter Horse, which isn't correct. And "became a stud stallion" is not correct either, it's not a phrasing used in the breeding industry. Better would be "became a breeding stallion" Ealdgyth - Talk 18:43, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Becuse he only went to one, he had "some success" in that discipline. But it seems equally untrue to say that it was trained for team roping: it was brought to an event in the understanding of the owner only to parade: would and won its(his) only team roping event be a happy compromise?
My horse knowledge is based on UK racing, so I proposed "stud stallion" on the basis of the vocabulary of that industry, and a desire to reduce repetition of breeding, but I have no problem with your proposal: my priority in that first sentence was to break up the "Quarter Horse race horse" phrase.
Quarter Horses are not well known where I am: if the sire was not an AQH, is it necessary that the dam was, or can one breed an AQH without any AQH ancestry? I thought the previous phrasing invited a comparison that was unfulfilled, and that's what I was keen to get away from. I'd be very happy with a valid comment about the mare other than ascribing a tradition to her state of origin, that section of my proposal is the one I'm least happy with. Kevin McE (talk) 19:11, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In the 30s, 40s, and 50s, Louisiana was quite noted for breeding "short horses", i.e. Quarter Horses, so anyone knowlegeable about QHs is going to expect some mention of her Louisiana ancestry. As for the breeding, you can breed a QH to a TB, and have a foal registerable in the AQHA, and if the resulting foal has some success in the show ring or in racing, they are given "full" papers with the AQHA. This is what happened with Lightning Bar - his father was a TB, and his dam a full QH, and LB earned his full papers on the race track. We can probably just drop the team roping bit, it's not really required.
So lets try:
Lightning Bar (1951–1960) was an American Quarter Horse which raced and later became a breeding stallion. He was bred by his lifelong owner Art Pollard of Sonoita, Arizona, and was the offspring of Three Bars, a Thoroughbred, and a Quarter Horse mare from Louisiana, a stronghold of the breeding of sprint horses. He raced ten times, with four victories and four other top three finishes, but his racing career was cut short by illness after only one year. After racing, he became a show horse for two years. As a breeding stallion he sired seven crops, or years, of foals, among which Doc Bar was the best known. Lightning Bar died of a viral infection in 1960, at the age of nine. He was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Association's Hall of Fame in 2008.
My main concern is factual accuracy. I don't generally get too worked up about people switching my prose around, but it needs to stay accurate. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:20, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely. But the accurate information needs to be clearly communicated. And in the interests of accuracy, the change in the number of breeding years was important (1954-60 inclusive = 7 seasons). I bow to your subject knowledge as to the relevance of a Louisiana mare. I'm quite happy with this proposal, can we put it up here and ask an admin to change the extract in the TFA text? Kevin McE (talk) 19:53, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think that's rather poorly written, e.g., "Lightning Bar ... was a horse which raced ...". The second sentence is also too long, and contains a rather awkward "and ... and". "He raced ten times, with four victories ...". "With" never makes a good linking word. Malleus Fatuorum 19:33, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No problem with who or that in place of which in the first sentence.
No problem with making the ownership a separate sentence from the parentage. At least it no longer can be read as though LB's father was Art Pollard, as one of my household understood the previous drafting.
I think you will find the word with in frequent use in such contexts in the English language, but you are very welcome to make a counter-proposal. Kevin McE (talk) 19:53, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I do indeed, and it's almost invariably wrong, as it is here. Malleus Fatuorum 20:31, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Do we have something or is the current article lead reworked? I think ya'll are down to the grammar/polish point... Ealdgyth - Talk 21:50, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The lead paragraph identifies the dam as an un-named mare from Louisiana, but the pedigree chart identifies the dam as Della P. Is Della P the dam? LarryJeff (talk) 21:17, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Della P is the dam, She's also named as such in the body of the article. Lead's don't always give full information, it's meant as a summary of the article. Ealdgyth - Talk 21:28, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think that LarryJeff may have confused dam with second dam. (I'm becoming quite the horsey expert! ;-) Malleus Fatuorum 21:29, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I was noticing that expertise being displayed! I'm impressed! (and also still up to my eyeballs in code, did I mention I'm teaching a class on this (old, outdated, clunky) code on Tuesday and Wednesday??? ) Ealdgyth - Talk 21:39, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
After many years of running training courses on software I couldn't give a rat's arse about it now ranks only slightly above sticking red hot needles in my eyes. Not that I'm suggesting that your software isn't world-ranked stuff, of course. Back to horsey stuff though, I even had the confidence to tell Dana boomer what a pathetic pile of shit her Jutland (horse) article was.</JOKE> Malleus Fatuorum 00:15, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, I did not confuse dam and 2nd dam; not sure why you thought I did. Yes, I understand the lead is a summary but replacing the horse's name with "a quarter horse mare" is not a summary. I added the name in the lead. LarryJeff (talk) 17:12, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Because you very clearly said "The lead paragraph identifies the dam as an un-named mare from Louisiana", when it did no such thing. Malleus Fatuorum 17:30, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I see now. I could have worded that more clearly. I simply meant that the dam's name was not given in the paragraph, not that the paragraph actually stated she had no name. And, since the 2nd dam actually was an un-named mare, well .... LarryJeff (talk) 18:05, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Pedigree section

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What do the little stars in front of Midge and McGee's names mean ? Thank you, have a nice day. 85.169.175.167 (talk) 11:29, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They mean that the horses were imported into North America; I'll add a note to explain. Malleus Fatuorum 15:07, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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Citation updating

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Ealdgyth Hi, I was in here August 20 and updated the Hall of Fame link. Going through my list today, I realized I needed to adjust the format per the one you wanted per your edits yesterday. Everything is good here now in this featured article. I made minimal changes. I am trying to be very careful with featured articles. Thanks for your help and patience. dawnleelynn(talk) 21:46, 1 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note

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I'm not seeing where the statistic of seven crops of foals is cited. Marking as satisfactory with those note at WP:URFA/2020. Hog Farm Talk 16:42, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It was "helpfully" corrected in the body by someone not knowledgeable about the weirdnesses of the AQHA computer records. His get record summary says "8 foal crops" but there are actually only seven years of foals given - 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, and 1961. The additional "foal crop" is actually two Appendix registered horses that don't have a foaling year listed so they are counted as an additional "foal crop" because of the stupid way the AQHA computer is programed. (Don't ask). I've re-double checked against the get record in my files and seven is correct - and I've corrected the body of the article ... again. Ealdgyth (talk) 17:09, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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