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Scope

Hi Doug. Great project idea. I'm not sure about production of herbs, isn't that more horticulture? I took the liberty of making some changes to "Scope", I believe Solin is a type of Linseed, although the latter could be the European term. I think hay production should encompass all forage crops as this has now become so specialised. Also, same old correction of pesticides, which is the term for all crop protection chemicals. I know this is an ongoing transatlantic discussion, but canola and rapeseed are the same. I don't know what fababeans are, but soya is an important crop. Tom 07:24, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Linseed is actually Flax. Solin is a low-acid variety of Flax, but has different production concerns. Putting "Linseed" and "Flax" is basically like saying "cars", and "automobiles". You are right about pesticides - that's a mishap on my part from the many years of using them. It should read insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides. Canola, and rapeseed are not the same. They have a completely different use, and very different agronomic concerns. Canola typically yields in the 50 - 70 bushel range, while rape is abour 20 - 35, if I'm not mistaken. There are already articles on both of them; they just need to get flushed out a bit. I will add Soybeans - Fababeans are an important crop in Canada, they are a tall, lush plan with long pods. The brown beans they produce are used in human food, but more importantly swine, dairy, and beef rations. The herbs that I meant were Borage, Hemp, and other herbs grown like field-crops. ChristianH158 13:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Linseed and flax are the same species. But flax varieties are taller and are used essentially for fibre, while linseed varieties are shorter and are combined for grain. Never heard of Solin, must be American. Canola is called "double low" rapeseed in Europe but North American Wikipedians don't seem to want to accept this (if you've seen the article Talk discussion). I agree about the "herb" crops. These are called "alternative crops" in Europe. Tom 14:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I think then we have a bit of a discussion on this - Here in Canada, we only grow one variety, and we call it Flax/Linseed (they are used interchangeably). I'll describe the crop a bit, and you could then share which one you know it as. Our 'flax' grows to about 30 - 50cm. It yields about 18 - 33 bushels to the acre, and has a deep-red seed colour. Seeding rates are around 40 - 56 lbs/acre, and it weighs 56lbs/bushel. Which one does this sound to you? Perhaps we should create both Flax and Linseed, and just mention that they are known interchangeably in North America? We generally just call it "Flax" though. Regarding "Canola" no one here knows what "Double-low rapeseed" is - I just phoned a Crop Extension Specialist with Manitoba Agriculture to confirm this. "Canola" was originally developed in Canada, and is trademarked here, so I think we should call it "Canola", and link an article "Double-Low Rapeseed" to it. I'd think the country of origin's name stands above all else? ChristianH158 14:53, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I guess I should add... we only grow that type of "Canola" here, we don't grow regular rapeseed, and I'm not aware of any being grown for years... ChristianH158 15:05, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

It is an interesting argument; essentially in Europe the word "Canola" is unknown and not used. Only "rapeseed" is recognized. When double low varieties were developed, a Canadian firm trademarked the name Canola to promote double low vegetable oil. In Europe it's just called "rapeseed oil". Now that very little high acid / glucosinolate rape is grown, there is no need for a distinction, but 99% of European rape oil and grain would in fact be called Canola in North America. I think the difficulty North Americans have is the idea that we should call it something other than rapeseed as this, to them, conotates high acid / gluco rape. In Europe if you grew this you would still colloquially call it "rape", but on the buyers contract it would be called "high erucic acid", or "high glucosinolate" rape.

Linseed / flax: In France, mainly flax is grown, the crop is just like yours. Specialist machinery is used, to pull it up and lay it flat on the ground; to turn the swaths while keeping all the stems pointing the same way; and special round baling again to keep the stems all pointing the same way. At the scutching mill the flax is used for quality linen. Linseed grain is a by-product and yields are very low. In the UK,linseed is grown for grain and combined using a slightly modified combine. It is very short strawed and yields around 3 tonnes per hectare, about the same as an average rape / canola crop. The straw is useless for flax and used to be burnt but now is ploughed in. Picker-headers work well for combining this. Tractorboy60 16:02, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

What I'm concerned about is the fact that those of us here in Canada/US have very little clue on what Rape is. People not involved in Agriculture here think "Rape oil" is a sexual aid... On the other hand "Canola" is a very common word that everyone knows (canola oil, GM-Canola, etc.) The "Old Timers" know what rape is, and still call it that, but it hasn't been used in the past 20 years; at the elevator we always sell canola, the contracts state "canola", etc. I guess it's a cross-Atlantic dispute.
For Flax, that is very strange... we usually round-bale the straw, and either burn it, use it for bedding, or sell it to a processing plant that turns it into fibre-boards. It has a reputation for being tough to cut, and also for taking long to decompose, but I've never heard what you describe as "Flax" here before. ChristianH158 16:35, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

General Scope

Wow, I set up a Project in my user space and two people start talking about it and editing the Project Page without me, most projects can only dream of being so lucky! And I'd never even bothered to "watch" the page. Actually, I am amazed that this project wasn't here long before any of us. I see the scope as being pretty broad - basically all cultivated plants (thus it would include horticulture and where I live it would also include forestry (I guess that's technically silviculture), most animals domesticated for human use (food, fiber, dairy, draft - in other words Livestock or if you prefer Livestock and Poultry, and all implements (hand tools to combines) and organizations (e.g. Fairs, granges, the USDA, and the FAO) which support the same. On the other hand horticulture already has a project Wikipedia:WikiProject Horticulture and Gardening, so we are the logical parent but that Project will take care of those topics and we probably shouldn't tag them with {{WPAgriculture}}. Some day there should probably be a WikiProject Livestock or at least a major Working Group/Task Force under this project (probably simultaneously tied to WP:MAM), but one step at a time. This is probably a top level project, I don't see a logical parent, there being no WikiProject Civilization! Pretty much parallel to a project like Transport (which is NOT a good model by the way - it has it's own scope issues).


One thing we should do once we have our house in some order is work on Portal:Agropedia and the horrendous template {{farming}} (which among other things has some POV issues. But this is more strategy than scope.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 05:50, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, seems Tom & I got a bit carried away here! I think your summary is pretty accurate... Agriculture is an extremely large topic, and encompasses quite a bit of humanity (We all need food, after all). ChristianH158 12:51, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I think there are some quite profound problems; the quality of a lot of articles are really quite poor, e.g. under cattle, there is a section called husbandry which is shockingly poor. I know these problems need expert attention but there is the question of time available. Organisation of articles and duplications are a similar issue, e.g cattle - dairy cattle - milking - dairy farming, and for all I know others; could really do with a more professional organisation. What image should be aimed for on Portal:Agropedia, does anyone have any ideas? Tractorboy60 13:52, 10 October 2007 (UTC) Wait, forget that, I see what you mean. I think the template reflects all that is wrong with public perception of agriculture. People have fears and ignorance that lead to unjustified criticism and erroneous perceptions. Knowledge and reason is forced out. The question really is, how do we get it back? The problems with the articles I mentioned above are the same- not enough of the content of articles were written by people who knew what they were talking about. It is difficult to arrive at an article and gain an editorial foothold. Once you're there you can be harder about accepting new dubious material. The crap that's already there will stick harder the longer that it has been there. If you act too strongly you lose credibility. People with POV think you just have the opposite POV and not just rationality. Tom15:54, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

You're right. I've been reading quite a few ag-topics, and have found things that just anger me. It seems most articles were written by people who know nothing of how dinner got on their table. The question is, where do we start? ChristianH158 22:55, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
We get credibility back by stripping these articles down to facts about the topics. The fears and criticisms that people have are not appropriate for the articles, at least not the main articles. If they are widespread fears or criticisms they may be notable enough to justify coverage somewhere, but look, Chicken has a section called Chicken#Issues_with_mass_production that is nearly the length of the rest of the article! Chickens are raised the way they are raised, whether readers like it or not. Yes there should be a mention probably of free-range and other extensive management concepts. Yes, salmonella is a notable topic - but wait, it doesn't even have it's own section on the article, even tho' I believe it's carried by about 25% of chickens in the United States according to the USDA (I may have to do some digging to find the cite for that), it's mentioned only once (not counting the "table of chicken diseases") under Chicken#Humane_treatment!
Yes, we have some serious work to do folks. And we do need to have priorities. Obviously the Portal and the template are very important. Those will be first impressions for a lot of users.
Probably articles should be tackled by level - so that we start with things like Cattle, Chicken, Domestic pig, Sheep on the animal side and Wheat, Oats, Maize on the grain side, etc. Moving on to the breeds of animals, the lesser ag species (e.g. Goat, Domestic Goose, Waterbuffalo), and the truck crops later. I have a pretty good idea that the animal articles are the worst off and the cereals probably aren't so bad - so we probably want to start with the animals. We'll probably want a few subpages for strategy, etc. once we launch this in Wikipedia space.
I've made some edits to the To Do List and Articles Needing Attention. The Project Page should be a basic outline of our strategy.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 23:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
I think the project page might want to be adjusted so that it is clear that all the articles this project deals with should fall within the Category:Agriculture. This isn't to say that this project would necessarily be the primary project for all those articles, but does indicate where the articles should be placed. John Carter 23:03, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Not sure what you're getting at. Are you saying we should limit the scope to things that are already in Category:Agriculture as opposed to Category:Forestry, or are you saying there are a lot of areas not covered by the TOC style scope we have listed?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 03:01, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

How Do I? Question

I don't know if this is a good place to ask it... However, I was wondering, how do I redirect an article, to another one? I.E. Oat milling -> Oats ? ChristianH158 12:55, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Make sure the page is empty (transfer the contents), then write #REDIRECT [[newpage]] on the first line of the empty page,or use the toolbar button #R. Tractorboy60 13:42, 10 October 2007 (UTC) A, thank you Tom! ChristianH158 14:17, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Articles with obvious POV

As if the "humane treatment" section of Chicken wasn't enough someone went and changed it to "inhumane treatment". And it's semi-protected! Apparently some people just don't want an encyclopedia.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 05:36, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I managed to remove a section in Cattle which was all about environmental damage and how becoming vegetarian could help (seriously). The section was as long than the one on husbandry. Tom 07:11, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

That's a model for us all. Great job ensuring you had consensus before making the move and showing concern for the editors whose opinions didn't belong in that article.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 19:06, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
You know, I've found this is the best way. If you cover everything according to neutral POV you effectively disarm the activists as they have no credible way to get their crap back in. Sometimes it's difficult to have neutral POV but this and patience-patience-patience... Really, does it matter whether the bad stuff is reverted today or in a month's time if it makes the truth easier to maintain? The 5 day rule is useful, I don't remember where I saw that... The REAL problem is when you try to get into an article already "owned" by POVers and I wonder whether that is the reality on Chicken for example? Tom 19:55, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Funny how these discussions focus the brain. The big problem with POV in our case is that where there is an ongoing (perceived) problem there is a continual generation of activism, mis-representation of facts, and junkscience. The effect of this is to spawn more and more websites reflecting the POV which can then be used to further the argument on Wiki. The voice of rationality and reality has no such resource base to use. Why? Because there is no need for it; husbandry knowledge is based on:

  • Tradition
  • Experience
  • Research
  • Education & Training
  • Care and passion for animals (contrary to POV accusations)

Our resources are professional text books and services. These also can be incorporated into Wiki references. I have quite a collection but unfortunately we have just moved house and they are all still packed up and I can't access them as the place is a building site right now. We can't fight this using web resources. If we want our edits to stick we need citations. Tom 21:12, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I have some good resources, some are dated, but the facts are mostly still good. I have several of Ensminger's books, too. There are real issues with the large corporate concerns, at least in America. Like any other large corporations, corporations don't have feelings and they often tend to chase short term rewards at the expense of longer term issues. These overshadow the small producers and the tradition of Agriculture. People can disagree about whether to use certain chemicals or even any chemicals, or whether chickens should be raised in battery cages or on range. But an exposé on Tyson or ConAgra doesn't mean that ordinary chicken farmers or cattlemen don't respect their livestock and the place of Agriculture in society.
There is discussion on chicken about the intelligence of chickens. This may well be true, it may even deserve to be on the page, but why under "Humane treatment". Pigs are intelligent, but we still eat them. Horses are intelligent, but some still eat them. Anyone who doesn't think cattle are intelligent should spend time with working steers.
Could some of the issues be addressed by referencing out to Corporate farming, which was apparently at some point broken out from Agribusiness?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 23:36, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Domestic/Cultivated vs Wild Issues

This is an area I think deserves attention too. Most of the domesticated/cultivated species of animals and plants respectively have wild relatives still around (Cattle being the biggest exception). In any case, the domestic varieties have taxonomy info boxes which come down from the Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life. There are several problems, 1) I doubt very highly that these are really flexible enough as they stand for domestic species (though I may be wrong). 2) If they were, I wouldn't know how to tweak them. Obviously we don't want two boxes - but I don't know how to work with the one we have. I think we need to be able to have the boxes identify domestic varieties AND several things about them that are specific to domestic varieties. An example would be the conservation status of rare breeds of livestock. 3) Wikipedia:WikiProject Horse breeds has a breed template which they use on all varieties of domestic horse but on the main Horse page they use the taxobox. Is that a good model? Maybe this should be discussed with Project Horse Breeds and or Tree of Life?

Another related issue is that some domestic animals are only varieties of wild forms, a prime example is Domestic duck which save one species (muscovy), are just mallards and if you let them breed naturally they will often revert to wild colorings (and many breeds will also regain flight if not fed concentrates). Muscovy is actually a good example, the taxonomy box on the article lists its conservation status as "LC", whereas I believe most populations are domestic. Obviously, this too would need to be coordinated with Tree of Life.

Thoughts anyone?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 22:22, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I guess this is partially answered at: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life#Taxoboxes. Still, I think there is a need to look at this issue and develop a general info box for Livestock/Poultry as well as possibly other Ag topics and ditch that horrible {{Agriculture}} behemoth. --Doug.(talk • contribs) 23:06, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Article Review?

Hi,

I just finished re-writing Oats (my first article re-write!) and was wondering if I could get one of you more seasoned wikipedians to have a look. It's in my userspace right now: User:ChristianH158/Agriculture/Oats ChristianH158 01:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)


Christian, I've gone through it pretty thoroughly. I put all of my comments on Talk:Oats. Hope my comments are not overwhelming and as I say there, I'll try to do some of the work myself. Overall the article looks very good. I didn't see it before, but I note you say that you added the whole Agronomy section, awesome.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 04:26, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

{{WPAgriculture}} and other template issues

(broken out from immediately preceding discussion)

I'll try to take a look, getting late here though, may have to wait. But this brings up a good point, we may want to develop our {{WPAgriculture}} a little more to include assessments and importance, if not more. I made it in a hurry with no other members yet. At this point it could stand more information.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 04:26, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

{{Farm}} and {{WPFarm}} are both available. Wondering if we should rename {{WPAgriculture}} to {{WPFarm}} to make for less typing and start developing a new template (just ditch the one in use called {{Agriculture}}) called {{Farm}} as a general Ag infobox.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 23:01, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I have copied {{Infobox Horse}} to User:Doug/WikiProject Agriculture/Infobox so we can work with it towards developing a basic breed infobox.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 15:45, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Makes you wonder if some people confuse "encyclopedia" with "blog". Tom 20:43, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Urgent issues

Keep an eye out. I just noticed that WP:F&D has notices at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Food_and_drink#Merge.2Fsplit_Proposals that we would probably like to get involved in. They were proposing merging Bean and Legume of all things! There's also a proposal to merge Legume and Loment, Bean and Pulse (legume). Someone got aggressive with all those nominations.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 19:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I chimed in on that, however I won't be able to do much editing in the next few days; we finally have some sunshine, and I've got a couple days of harvest left to go! ChristianH158 02:51, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Antique Farming?

I'm wondering if we should also include antique (heritage) equipment / methods? We certainly don't use threshing floors, or stationary harvesters anymore. ChristianH158 00:16, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Most definitely, if anyone knows anything about them or wants to write about them, they should certainly be included (and if no body does one of us should pick up the issue anyway at some point). The topics are certainly notable.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 03:56, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Livestock vs. "Livestock & Poultry" (and stubs)

There is some discussion on Talk:Livestock about whether livestock includes Poultry. The discussion is all very dated but no consensus can be determined from what is there. The arguments in favor of including poultry in livestock make sense and some have support from dictionaries or encyclopedias, but the arguments that it isn't that way in the real world have support from University web-sites. On the Livestock article page, the definition uses the term "animals" which obviously includes poultry, however there is but one reference on the entire page to poultry under a discussion of livestock raised indoors. There is also one photo of a poultry barn.

The Poultry article and Talk:Poultry have no mention of the word "livestock", except that I have tagged the article as a {{livestock-stub}} (there being no {{poultry-stub}} to tag with, though there ought to be. At least for stub tagging, we probably ought to use {{livestock-stub}} rather than the more general {{agri-stub}} for the time being. I would suggest we propose a {{poultry-stub}} as a sub-type of {{livestock-stub}} rather than on the same level as livestock. Comments?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 01:15, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Generally on farms, we consider Poultry, geese, and turkeys to not be "livestock". Sheep, goats, bison, cattle and elk are considered livestock when they are raised by farmers. Most of the drugs we use also note "For use with all livestock" but they are not for birds. I think the argument is that birds are "alive"(live), and "kept for use" (stocked) so the words should apply, but for whatever reason, don't. ChristianH158 13:32, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
College agriculture courses in the UK have not included poultry production on the grounds that it has become a specialisation. Publications and journals also take this view and the advisory field is also completely detached. The poultry stub could arguably be under livestock but should maybe come directly under agriculture? Tom 19:46, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I've nominated {{Poultry-stub}} for creation at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Proposals#Cat:Poultry_stubs. But I think I messed it up. I guess I don't understand the difference between stubs and stub categories.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 00:25, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

As part of my efforts on the H5N1 related pages, I read a great deal of scientific literature on poultry raising practices and poultry are very very definitely called "livestock" by scientists and policy makers and corporations. WAS 4.250 18:55, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Definition of Agronomy

Take a look at the discussion at Talk:Horticulture, also look at the definition at Wikt:Agronomy and the definition proposed on Portal:Agropedia. As well as the sources we've both cited and tell me what you folks think. Should everything else be changed or is the definition being proposed at Horticulture unduly restrictive. There have been a couple of partial reverts, so you may want to look at the history for Horticulture as well. I'm not stuck on removing the contrast to Agronomy at Horticulture but I'm concerned that there are only two people involved in the discussion and apparently some disagreement among the sources, when so many pages are affected by the outcome. --Doug.(talk • contribs) 21:50, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I would take the horticulturalists' view that Agronomy is limited to the domain of Agriculture.I am slightly confused though, with the idea of Horticulture being a sub-division of Agriculture. This is a new concept to me as I know that the "hortics" with whom I was at college would have disagreed totally with this. I have always thought of these as two different sciences and would not dream of overlapping my knowledge into horticulture. A bit like doctors and dentists maybe? Tom 10:21, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
But do you see Agronomy as limited to "field crops"? That limitation doesn't seem warranted, but I may be all wet.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 18:49, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I am not able to give a proper reply here, as I lack the knowledge of horticulturalists concerning their technical requirements, but yes, to my mind I do feel that Agronomy specifies large scale, large area concerns, and would apply with difficulty to horticultural affairs. Having said that, I feel no more confident than you, Doug. Tom 19:10, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

{{farm-stub}}

{{farm-stub}} is currently redirecting to {{Agri-stub}} (together with {{Agriculture-stub}}, but {{farm-stub}} is only used on about a half-dozen pages. Should we start using it because it's probably easier to remember than "Agri-stub", or should we change all the instances of it and kill it?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 03:54, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

It resulted only in the deletion of {{farms-stub}}. There was some argument that Ag could be ambiguous - it's a country code, it can stand for any number of titles, like "Attorney General", etc. The only issue with farm-stub is that it seems it could be ambiguous whether it is intended to cover the entire field of agriculture or just articles on farms. Even if they all stay around it seems like we ought to settle on one. {{Agri-stub}} is the main one that the others link into and is the one we are currently using, but it is not the most intuitive by a long shot.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 04:19, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Change all the instances of {{farm-stub}} and kill it. Tom 09:29, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
What rational (we'll have to nominate it for deletion) and so which one should we be using and/or advocating the use of?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 17:35, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
I've been marking stuff with {{Agri-stub}}. The rationale should be that we don't need 2. Tom 20:38, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
You mean we don't need five!? Should we try to get rid of {{Ag-stub}} and {{farming-stub}}, too? {{Agriculture-stub}} seems to have a lot linked to it, so deleting it would require a lot of fixes and might affect page histories too, so probably not a good idea to mess with that one.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 00:06, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Quite. Any tag with a manageable number of fixes could be made redundant. Tom 19:38, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of a shortcut

I found that the shortcut WP:AG redirects to Wikipedia:WikiProject Arcade games. Besides being unintuitive and ambiguous, Project Arcade Games is inactive. Although I'd like it to redirect here, AG can stand for a lot of different things, mostly as an acronym. Right now, you'll note, WP:FARM is a shortcut for this project. I doubt there will ever be a whole project specifically on farms, so it's probably safe.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 17:40, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Agrochemical POV

Take a look at Metolachlor. This is just one example of some chemical sites among the stubs that I have been trawling through. They couldn't even give one line of good encyclopedic content so eager were they to embark on their anti-chemical POV. I've done some work on Acetochlor (not without some trouble with an administrator editor, actually he was very nice), but there is so much to do... Tom 20:58, 20 October 2007 (UTC) Actually there's worse. Look at Roundup. I didn't even "Agri-tag" this as they are welcome to it. I did tag glyphosate though, and expanded it, as it is a much better encyclopedia article about the same thing. Just shows what emotions the word Roundup generates, and proves they don't know what they're talking about. Tom 21:10, 20 October 2007 (UTC) Look at the hatchet job that was done on a contributor called User:Ttguy. Tom 21:14, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Wow! Those are bad. I'm an advocate of organic and all that, but the articles above aren't worthy of an encyclopedia. I'll put them on the needs attention lists if you haven't already.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 01:13, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Corn vs Maize

Not sure what just happened with the above two articles. Corn seems to have moved to Maize but Talk:Corn still exists. Doesn't look like there was any discussion, but I can't tell for sure.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 00:49, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Moving the Talk:Corn can be tricky if the two articles histories over-lap in time. I think an admin is required to splice the two together. Personally, I've vowed never ever again to get involved in a Wiki naming dispute. For what it is worth, in agricultural college, corn always had to be written as corn (maize) or corn (Z. mays) but there really was never any confusion. The real confusion is with corn meaning grain. I seriously didn't get what the Repeal of the Corn Laws had to do with England at all. :-) Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 03:17, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Wether disambiguation

Someone reverted the Wether page to a redirect to Sheep! I reverted and made it into a disambiguation page in accordance with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages).--Doug.(talk • contribs) 18:04, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Launched into Wikispace

As you can see, this is no longer in Userspace. I had to get help with the move because there's a new project out there plastering "this is part of the list of basic topics in x" banners all over the place and instead of putting one at the top of the actual talk page, they created a talk page for the old redirect "Wikipedia:WikiProject Agriculture", I was able to move the main page over the redirect but not the talk page over their silly banner. I have tried to clean up the mess of userspace links, but if you see something I've missed please fix it. There is no real need to fix old links to userspace on talk pages or userpages unless you're making a substantive edit anyway, they'll just redirect here. But what we do need to find are any links on this project and project talk page that still link to locations in my userspace and that aren't just sandboxes for things that haven't been settled on yet. Also any references to the Project Proposal should be replaced with a link to the Project or other appropriate location, since the proposal has been removed.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 22:16, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Assessment

The project is now fully set up for assessments. John Carter 22:33, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks John, I've posted a note to your userspace enquiring further about categories, I'm still trying to understand them.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 23:21, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm all for switching to the portal. I know nav boxes irritate some editors. On the other hand, portals seem to generate flack from some quarters as well. No way to win. But I do prefer portals. So down with {{farming}} and hooray to Portal:Agropedia. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 03:02, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Barley cultivars

There was a recent change to Barley#Cultivars. Could someone with knowledge and/or recent references check this.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 04:46, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

There are some errors, a good site is [1]. If anyone has some time? Tom 16:34, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

North American/British Isles/etc translations

Per wikipedia guidelines, if an article is started in UK or US English, it should usually be kept that way (with some exceptions. See Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English and also Wikipedia:Manual of Style and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (spelling) Montanabw(talk) 19:07, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

There seem to be quite a few agricultural things which have different terms in different English-speaking parts of the world (not least "corn" of course). I was wondering if there was some need for an agricultural glossary page of translations? In the meanwhile, does anyone know whether there are other terms for these UK ones, which I have failed to find in a search:

  • Single suckler cow – a beef cow rearing its own calf.
We call them critters "cows" over here, it's the normal way for cows to act! (smlles) What's really WEIRD is how people raise dairy calves! (grin).Montanabw(talk) 19:01, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
"Single suckler" was originally to distinguish from "multi-suckler", a dairy cow rearing her own and two or three more calves, either suckling directly or being milked just for that. Not often done now in UK commercial farming – most of the poor dairy blighters are bucket-fed or shot. Generally single-suckler is now used to distinguish a dedicated beef breeding herd from a dairy herd or a non-breeding beef herd (one just fattening stores).--Richard New Forest 12:13, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Terminal sire – a beef bull used on dairy cows to produce crossbred beef. Also a meat ram used on upland sheep for meat lamb production.

--Richard New Forest 21:00, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

That's one to ask the Dairy cow people, beef cattle folks occasionally crossbreed dairy lines to improve milk production in beef cows (for nursing their own calves...), but it's not a major thing, so I don't know the answer to that question.
Skewald and Piebald are Brit terms for pinto/paint horse colors, they don't have exact analogues in North America though. Corn is the one that always drove me nuts as a history student in college. Ealdgyth | Talk 21:50, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
I've dealt with skewbald etc in Pinto horse. The British term for pinto is "coloured". Skewbald & piebald are subtypes of either, though it seems these terms are not often used in American English. Possibly piebalds are rare there anyway, with less Black Horse heritage?--Richard New Forest 14:29, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
We have plenty of black and white pintos, we just break the colors down based on how the white patterns show up, not what the base color is. Never really looked into the history of why we use tobiano and overo, although my guess is they came from the Spanish and Mexico, like a lot of our western riding terms. And I own a pinto three quarters Arabian that's a real nice liver chestnut tobiano! Ealdgyth | Talk 14:36, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Please oh please will folks in general leave the assorted Pinto/Paint/Piebald/Skewbald/Overo/Tobiano/Sabino/ god knows-what-else-with-spots horse articles to the horse people -- and those horse people who actually know what they are doing! Some clarification of British terms is fine, but be careful. Not to shut down anyone (those of you who know me know I am just an anal-retentive quality control geek with a snarky streak!), but I spent hours, and hours, and HOURS (hell, days!) about a year ago cleaning all those up, merging, editing, tossing out endless galleries of My Pony Susie Isn't she CUUUUUTE? stuff, etc., etc. (Also did a huge rewrite on Appaloosa, which still isn't up to my standards, but I just got tired of working on it. Oh, also cleaned up all the dilution gene articles, too.)
Hey, Richard New Forest, if you want a project related to British useage, maybe look at Oddbald and see if we should move that to a new article titled "Tri-Coloured" or not. That one sounded archaic and goofy to me, but what do I know, I'm a Yank! Piebald and Skewbald probably could use some cleanup, I didn't mess with them beyond some superficial editing because of the very thing that I didn't want to make assumptions about language. But good heavens, OF COURSE we have piebalds! We just call them "Black and White Pintos" in several breeds (or, for those who care about precision, Tobiano or Overos). They also sell for big bucks. BTW, am also ripping my hair out over the genetics stuff, did a bunch of editing on Tobiano to that end, and it appears that no one really has a clue exactly how Overo works, except that acts mostly like a recessive, except that it might be polygenic with some incomplete dominant characteristics, whereas Tobiano appears to be a true dominant, except they haven't found the exact gene, only six affiliated markers--oh gawd, spot genetics is making spots appear in front of MY eyes! =:-O OK, sorry, had to vent, thanks for the psychotherapy, I feel much better now!  ;-D
Oh, and current research matters so much too! I also just recently tossed out a bunch of junk someone put in Sabino horse about lethal white syndrome because they apparently still have the confusion between overo and sabino. But oh, please, DO be careful with the "spot" articles! They can always use more sources and footnotes (Ealdgyth??) for some of what is in there, of course, and maybe the phrasing could be smoothed out, but dear oh dear... Sorry to rant, I just do not need another editing war in my life right now! Montanabw(talk) 19:01, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Why does everyone look at ME for footnotes??? Are ya'll saying I'm just the sort of nitpicking person who loves to read through prose someone else wrote and then pull books out of her library to put source citations to the statements? (whimpers) Ealdgyth | Talk 19:07, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Um, yep! (grins). No good deed goes unpunished! LOL! Actually the "spot"articles are reasonably footnoted, thank god for UC Davisand the Paint Horse Journal for putting all their stuff on the web.Montanabw(talk) 20:22, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Some more:

  • Cattle crush (BI). A (rigid) cage with headlock to hold cattle for tagging, drenching, or other management tasks. Is this the same as a cattle squeeze (NA)? (This term not used in UK.)
  • Rearing (BI). Raising (NA).
  • Stores (BI). Feeders (NA).
  • Chickens (BI, NA). Chooks (Aus, NZ, sometimes BI – rhymes with books).

--Richard New Forest 12:13, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

All this spot discussion sounds like a good argument for a really close relationship between the proposed WP Horse and this project. ;)--Doug.(talk • contribs) 13:36, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
BTW, Richard, how do you see the difference between "Rearing" and "Raising"? I (in New England, for reference) would say that am "raising" Nubians but I would likely say that my does are "rearing" their kids. Not sure that I'm typical though.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 13:36, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
In UK usage "raising" would not usually be used at all in this sense. However, as with many things the American usage is being absorbed and it might be used, especially in an American context. I might well say an American was "raising hogs" , but if I did it myself it would be "rearing (or keeping) pigs" (and they'd be rearing their piglets too).
  • Pig (BI) – the species. Hog (NA).
  • Hog (BI) occasionally used, especially to mean a boar.
  • Hogget or hog (BI) – a young sheep.
  • Pound or pen(BI). Corral (NA).
  • Drift (BI, especially ponies in New Forest). Round-up (NA).

--Richard New Forest 16:31, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I think a cattle squeeze is the NA term for a cattle race, Richard, rather than a crush? The word "hog" used to be used in Britain to denote a contract rearing arrangement whereby pigs were taken above bacon and pork weight by ad-lib feeding them to produce "heavy hogs". This has almost certainly died out now as the fat cover must have been tremendous. Tom 16:51, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

In the western United States, a "squeeze chute" (but not a cattle "squeeze," that sounds a little too friendly!) is a thingamajig that we run them critters into that has a lever that closes the sides in on them, trapping them, and holds them still for branding, veterinary care, etc... A "chute" or "cattle chute" (or, rarely, a "run" or "runway") is a long narrow enclosure, sometimes with a series of gates that can be raised and lowered, that you run cows (calves, steers, whatever) into to keep them lined up straight (such as before they go into a squeeze chute or are loaded onto a truck) We also colloquially say "raising" anything (including Cain and hell!) (grins). "Rearing" is what a horse does when it goes up on its hind legs, though we do acknowledge that certain folks not from 'round these parts might refer to "rearing" children. Out west, we say "pig" all the time to reference the species in general, reserving "hog" for a REALLY BIG pig (usually male, fattened for market), "hog" as a generic term is more of a southern thing, particularly if pronounced "hawg," as in "them there hawgs." Hope this helps. Now, tap 'er light and die with yer boots on!  :-D Montanabw(talk) 17:19, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

How's this? Cattle race
More:
  • Drench (BI). Liquid veterinary medicine given by mouth, with a drenching gun (or bottle). Also drenching.
  • Lookering (BI). Checking animals are where they're supposed to be, and right way up ("count the legs and divide by four"...). One who lookers is a lookerer.
"Tap 'er light"..? What's that? --Richard New Forest 21:34, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
We use "drench", "pound" is somewhat archaic but is used in New England particularly for historical areas (i.e. speaking of a place that was once a pound as if it still were a pound, even though no one has kept animals there for a century - often part of a commons), "pen" is common. "Hog" is pretty much synonymous with "pig" here, though the terms do have different meanings, see Talk:Pig#Nomenclature for further discussion, all of the links I posted were U.S., though my reference for "pig" is subpar, that's part of the reason that's on the talk page not the article.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 05:46, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Another thing is that many terms are only even known among producers. For example, few people who don't raise pigs would have any idea what a shoat was, or a barrow, or a gilt, and few non-producers outside of major production areas would differentiate pigs from hogs. Many people who have nothing to do with goats refer to Nannies and Billies and have no knowledge of the term wether.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 05:58, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Portal link?

Considering that some people consider placing links to portals on article pages "bad form", what would the rest of you think about placing a link to the portal in the project banner instead? John Carter 17:36, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it's a great idea. I initially intended to have one, but may have left that on one of my sandboxes. Please add if you could. The only further comment I have is that this damned {{farming}} also known as {{Agriculture}} is far worse than a portal. I've been replacing it where I can get away with it but this does result in the portal being on the article page. It's just that the infobox is getting so long that it's useless and it seems to be a subtle implementation of a certain anti-ag POV as well. It seems the argument that it is too long and should be replaced with the portal would win some over but to eliminate it entirely would just tick off those folks who are even now adding links to the infobox to make it even longer (it's longer than some of the pages it's on).--Doug.(talk • contribs) 18:02, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
The agriculture list page and the portal and the template need to be fixed. The template should be shorten down. The list should be expanded. The portal should be updated. Please stop removing the navigation template from article pages. The portal link is already on it and using nav boxes is standared practice. Portal links in place of nav boxes is a bad idea. WAS 4.250 19:23, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
I just now cut the size of the template in half. If that gets reverted, someone here please deal with that. Thanks. WAS 4.250 19:26, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Link to portal included in template. If you'd like to see a particular image there, let me know which one and I can "probably" include it in the white box. There are supposed to be ways to "collapse" navbox templates like that to show only a selected part of the content of the template, although I personally haven't a clue how that actually gets done. Maybe we should look for one that is collapsible (I know MILHIST has several such) and ask someone there how the same thing could be done here. John Carter 18:11, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

multiple project tags and such

Hi, Not sure if we really need to tag all the horse breed articles for wikiproject agriculture, especially given that they are not going to be of great importance and all should already be part of WikiProject Horse Breeds (which seems to be a subsection of wikiproject mammals, wikiproject tree of life, etc., not sure how that hierarchy works, don't care deeply, but the endless tags get a bit old). To that end, I tossed the tag I spotted in one article. However, should you disagree, and want to tag all the horse breed articles, then go to list of horse breeds, where we have at leat 100 articles that need tagging! (grin) Montanabw(talk) 18:20, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

There isn't any horses project because it looks like no one ever proposed one. It might be possible to ask the Horse Breeds project to expand their scope a little to cover all horses, though. That's probably be the most logical thing to do. John Carter 19:09, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
I suggested to Montanabw that they should set up a WikiProject Horses but for some reason got turned down... Ealdgyth | Talk 19:11, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I have no clue how to even set up a project, (Doug just did, got any advice?) So it isn't that I don't want one, it's just that, as I told John over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Horse breeds, we seem incapable of keeping up with the three horse projects I already know about. It seems that there is already a Thoroughbred racing project, which is under pretty good control as far as racehorse biographies go, but needs help with organizing the variations within the sport, the horse breeds project (and dual parentage works for me, BTW), but it is already not coping with the triple digits worth of articles in wiki, plus the utter and complete disaster that is Wikipedia:WikiProject horse training that someone expects me to fix, except that my interest is in actually writing articles and I have no interest in starting a flame war with the "I love Monty Roberts" natural horsemanship crowd, which I will if I allow myself a free rein (so to speak). (I'm more a Monte Foreman type than a Monty Roberts type! (grins). So, all I have to say is that a wikiproject Horse is fine, I just am not the person to take it on. Oh, and because horses land simultaneously as animals and with sporting events, there is yet another "dual parentage" question. Anyway if we do, we need to bring in some of the people who aren't here but have contributed tremendously to the equestrianism sport-focused articles, like Users Eventer, Culnacreann, etc. (Eventer probably started at least half the horse articles in wikipedia, we really must include her!). OK, just reading the preceeding, I realize that I am getting snarky again, so I'm all for what anyone else wants to do, I'm just not the one to get it started! Montanabw(talk) 20:32, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

There is now a proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Horses for a project which would deal with all articles related to horses which aren't covered by any other extant projects. John Carter 21:24, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
I'd really like to see Horse breeds become Horses, it would make a lot more sense then having two separate projects. Is Horse training inactive or nearly so, or is it just a mess. I might be possible to make it a task force or a full merger with Horse breeds into Horse. I understand if the Thoroughbred folks have an active project it might be necessary to keep them separate.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 17:38, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
      • But however you want to do it, I'd be glad to help, it's not difficult, but I highly recommend starting out with it on your userspace until you have five to ten members unless you are able to just bring everyone over from breeds, in which case you just up-scope the project as it is (much much easier and better for Wikipedia than leaving it out there to die. Let me know what you need for help. I'd also suggest that it could become a task force of this project (or a joint task force between Ag, Mammals, and even sports if you wish, hosted here - task forces are much easier to deal with their joint status as WP:MILHIST has shown (and some of those task forces are giant)). I've been thinking since before I started this that we needed a subproject or task force for livestock. Since horses are the only area of this topic to have any projects yet, we should work together to determine how we want to evolve. The WP:MILHIST model of task forces has a lot to say for it - though I suspect it's fairly complicated technically, I'm sure we could get help.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 17:44, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

On another matter, though that of tagging, which is what started this thread, yes it is important to tag "low importance" articles (this is in response to an edit summary comment by Montanabw at Talk:Arabian horse. I've been listing most minor breeds as "low" importance just because our scope is so huge. If at some point a subproject/task force/working group for Livestock or an individual species (such as horse already has in various forms) is created then it would be rather higher on their radar, but it's still important to us, just too low on the radar to focus on. For example, I just assessed Gloucestershire Old Spots (a rare breed of pig) as low importance. It's of very high importance to those who are involved in small scale sustainable agriculture and the preservation of heritage breed genetic material, which includes me personally, but it's not very high on the Agriculture project's scale. Pig and Domestic pig are both likely high importance and the major breeds likely mid importance, whereas the article Livestock is probably one of Top importance, though that's just my view, that's all subject to discussion and personal point of view. You were right per my comment above to remove the tag on Arabian horse but for the reasons above (there being an existing sub project), not the importance to this project. Absent the the horse projects, I would have likely tagged Horse as high importance and Quarter horse, Belgian horse and Suffolk Punch (an East Anglian draft horse) as mid importance (the last two more for historical reasons).--Doug.(talk • contribs) 17:38, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd recommend shooting WikiProject Horse Training and putting it out of its misery, but the people who started it and then told me I was in charge might take issue with that. Montanabw(talk) 17:26, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Why don't we do this (just an idea, not telling you what to do): Upscope Wikipedia:WikiProject Horse breeds to Wikipedia:WikiProject Horses and immediately move Wikipedia:WikiProject horse training to Wikipedia:WikiProject Horses/Horse training task force instead of shooting it, corral it, it's such a narrow scope that it really ought to be part of a project not a project in its own right. If people feel it necessary to continue to have a breeds task force or working group, fine, but I'd still upscope the current project first rather than creating a new one. If Thoroughbreds want to remain on their own, fine, they're a child of either Horses or Horse breeds, in any event. Thoughts?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 04:23, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Dairy Cattle

I am going to write an article called Mastitis (cattle). Also, however I turn things over, there will inevitably come a time when Dairy cattle and Dairy farming will need to be merged, as there is too much common material. Half of the former is about cattle rearing which should be covered under Cattle. The rest is common to both. Tom 10:17, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Great ideas (the article and the merger). I've noticed too that the Dairy farming article is geared towards cows, whereas Dairy farming worldwide predominantly involves small scale raising of goats. Wondering if we can make Dairy farming more generic and have Dairy cattle, Dairy goat, etc redirect to it. At the same time is there some need to cover the dairy breeds and can that be done in a generic article or do we need specialized articles to discuss that. I'll take another look at Dairy farming and post further comments their for discusson.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 13:43, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
I think I'll carry on with improving both articles and see what comes up and what ideas occur. They both lack coherent content too much for a solid proposal right now. Tom 14:33, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Reverted edits to Project page

I just reverted two edits to the Project page by WAS 4.250. Some of the edits to parentage/related projects made sense and I may go back and re-implement, but don't find it appropriate for an editor who hasn't even listed himself or herself as a participant to make changes to matters we are discussing here (such as the portal/nav box question), at least not without discussing the matter here. Also find WAS's instructions for us to take care of the nav box that consensus here seems to oppose or at least lean heavily against the very existence of to be a bit presumptuous. This is our project though, so if you feel I'm out of line in reverting, let me know. Oh, WAS has put the navbox back on List_of_agriculture_topics, I can't stomach the list to begin with but ever so much more so when it has the navbox on it which is horribly redundant.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 04:45, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Ownership

I just reverted on the project page because my contribution was reverted due to ownership issues. No one at wikipedia is allowed to own pages. Period. Please discuss the changes and arrive at a consensus. I will agree to join with any majority opinion. WAS 4.250 06:17, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Obviously, but it is just common courtesy for non-project members to approach talk pages of Wikiprojects they aren't involved in before making any major changes. You don't need rules and regulations to tell you this, it's common sense. Not that I even care about the changes, or know what they are, its irrelevant. IvoShandor 06:52, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
This project is just now beginning and its founder is claiming that such and such changes are appropriate on articles and templates that I have a prior history with. He is absolutely right that changes are needed. This project is a wonderful development that I wish to encourage. I want to help it move in the right direction. My edits are to help. Reverting them because I was already editing these agriculture articles before this project was set up is nonsense. WAS 4.250 07:12, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
You have to understand how a move like that is going to be seen by most WikiProject members, imagine if you just changed the 800+ member WP:MILHIST page. I don't know what the dispute is about, it appears you have a problem with what people think about the template. Either way, when someone reverts your change the answer isn't to revert again, this can only incite an edit war, teh answer is to discuss. Re-reverting again can easily be construed as disruptive. Bad form all around on your part, in my opinion. IvoShandor 07:37, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

(moved here from User_talk:Doug)

You don't get to own any page at Wikipedia. Anyone is allowed to edit any page. "Them's the rules here." I think your efforts are wonderful and I will contribute to agriculture articles and projects in the future just as I have in the past, but I'm not a joining kind of guy. See Talk:Factory farming for some interesting background. Let's work together. I'm sure we can. WAS 4.250 06:26, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I fully understand this, and I believe I was fairly clear about it above. Yes, I think there is an issue of etiquette involved in editing a Project page without discussion by a non-member, but I understand that you do have that right, even without joining. However, this issue has been discussed on this talk page and I believe consensus supports my position, or at least the position that we have no position yet and don't want to use the navbox until we've come to one. I see that you have reverted my changes, even though I tried to modify them substantially from the original to accommodate your position and remove the suggestion that bare portal links should be placed on articles. My reverting your edits (which you haven't discussed, you just placed a comment here and made them) is not WP:OWN. That being said, I agree, we need to work together and I respect your non-joiner position. I will refrain from a second reversion on principle - God wouldn't it be silly to have someone invoke WP:3RR for a project page! Maybe John, who I believe is fairly neutral, could take a look at the most recent edits and give us his thoughts, sorry to drag you in John.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 12:04, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
I tend to agree that it really is probably at best a violation of civility for someone who is not a member of a project to seem to "dictate terms" of a project's activities. Certainly, anyone can Be bold and make changes. However, when those changes go against the apparent wishes of the project members themselves, as indicated by Doug's reversions, and are not first suggested on some talk page, then the project's "official" members can and are more than permitted to revert such changes. In effect, it could probably be argued that any attempt of an outsider to determine a project's actions could be considered vandalism or ownership itself. The regular rules of wikipedia do not necessarily apply to Project pages, as they aren't really about "content" but about the apparent goals and activities of the members of the project. Regarding the "suggestions" made, I have nothing against any of them, but am not myself sure that they need to be separate out as they now are. Most of the suggestions are, in fact, standard procedure for any existing project. I can and do have some reservations about giving them the prominence they now have, however, because I'm unsure that we want to limit ourselves to a single navbox for agriculture articles, which seems to be implied in the language, and tend to think that a single list, which it currently is, generally isn't the best way to go, particularly if there are a lot of articles involved. One major list with links to other, more specific lists, I think generally works better. On the basis of the above, I tend to think that maybe specifically including those three tasks in a separate section, as is done here, might not be the best way to reference them, particularly given the reservations regarding one of the templates which were noted in Doug's own, now-removed, comments. John Carter 13:44, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
  1. What is a member? In my opinion, editing the project page makes me de facto a member whether I officially join or not. Formalisms are stifling and it is fully in wikipedia tradition to not insist on formalisms.
  2. What is the project? This project just got started and is defining itself. I choose to help.
  3. What is the relationship of a project to articles, article page templates, and portals that it tags. Not ownership. Project members can decide what goes on their project page and each person can decide what they wish to contribute, but discussion about what to do with each of those pages belongs on its talk page as prior contributors to those pages (like me) need to be part of the discussion.
  4. Top down versus bottom up. My work at wikipedia is mostly bottom up. This talk is mostly about organizing top down, which is great. The idea of a template that links to articles with other templates in some tree or web like fashion is sometimes useful. With agriculture, the problem lies more in the need for articles to be written in the first place. Wikipedia is very lacking in agriculture data. My prior ag work here involved mostly a tree like structure under industrial farming.
  5. Recommendation: Be bold. Find an obvious improvement and make it. If someone disagrees and reverts then it wasn't an obvious improvement, so try improving something else. That's how we got to be what we are today. Add a sourced agriculture fact. Add a link to the list of agriculture articles. Create a template for a subset of ag articles and replace the ag template on a couple pages with it. Make it happen. WAS 4.250 17:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Your comments above basically do not address the fundamental objections which have been raised to your actions, which include observing rules of civility. By definition, a WikiProject is a collection of editors who have banded together to improve articles. Those individuals who choose to not join the project are welcome to edit the articles with which that project deals, as always. However, it can be and is very problematic when an outsider chooses to attempt to tell others what they will do. Your actions have done exactly that. That crosses the line of being bold. To later attempt to revert those edits made by individuals directly involved in the group of editors who have banded together, is potentially even more problematic. I do not disagree with you about the need for improvement of content. However, your tactics to date have hardly helped to endear you to any of the individuals who have to date been involved with this WikiProject, and without a spirit of cooperation any project like this is doomed. Your own actions to date have hardly met the definition of "cooperation", but rather of "demand". I myself have done similar things on project pages where I'm not a member, but that is generally just adding a sentence like "This project will work with those articles contained in Category:Name of project". If and when a member of the cooperating members of the project reverts those edits, there's really nothing I can or would do, as I have no authority to tell them what they can and cannot decide to focus one. However, it is very problematic when someone who is not a member of a project attempts to tell others what they will do, as that could be seen as declaring ownership of the actions of other editors. John Carter 17:52, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
I humbly apologize for not understanding the social significance of this. WAS 4.250 18:06, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
It is rather the significance of cooperation and consensus which were, and are, most important. John Carter 18:08, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes. Of course. I have already agreed to join with whatever the majority decides. "We already decided it" is not allowed at wikipedia as that is the position of ownership. This constant revisiting of decisions makes for difficulties, but is how wikipedia got to where it is. WAS 4.250 18:32, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
No, that's wrong. Doing that is how to ensure that nothing ever gets done but commenting on decisions. It is in fact counterproductive. So is an outsider seeking to dictate to others what they do. That has already been discussed in several policies and guidelines. While it is possible to change things later, it is good form to request that, rather than seek to tell others what they should do. The individuals who joined the project agreed with the existing terms; for someone else to come around later and tell them that they have to do something else, not discussing it in advance, is poor manners, unlikely to win friends, and probably counterproductive. Having said all that, I don't mind actually addressing the concerns you put forward, but would like to see the others agree to it and probably better integrate them into the existing project page. John Carter 19:06, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Truce

This matter got way out of hand. It was nasty to watch, let alone know that I was part of the cause. I hope we can all work together to make Agriculture better. I propose that we wait a few days before talking further about the list or the navbox, sort of a self-imposed cooling off period. Of course, anyone is free to try to improve those, but being an opponent of them to begin with, I will not be participating in any editing of those for a while (unless they start to get bigger and trend towards greater POV). If WAS and anyone else can make them better, Great! I do think we should come back to the matter in a few days though because I still believe that current consensus is not reflected by the info on our Project page. It's better to bring people in though than to work against them. There are plenty out there who are editing with an anti-agriculture POV, we don't need to fight with editors who want to improve the articles, especially about the content on the Project page.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 00:01, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the truce has been already agreed to by everyone involved. I do have a question however regarding the size of the current navbox, which tends to take up a lot of the page. Would anyone object to breaking it down into a set of smaller, less obtrusive templates, or somehow being able to show only the content directly relevant to a given article? I know such collapsible templates exist, though I have no experience in designing them myself. If that could be done, I think that it could potentially prove useful in at least many articles. John Carter 00:21, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Very early on (yeah like three weeks ago) while this was still in userspace, I suggested a horizontal navbox for the bottom of the page like some other projects have WP:LAW, for example. The resulting discussion leaned towards scrapping the whole thing, but consensus is shifting. Any interest in that idea? That would address the space issue. I think the link to the bare bones idea I had is still above somewhere.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 00:32, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm good at cut-and-paste, and could probably fix up a template that looks like that one. All we'd need to know, I think, is if the members would agree to that layout, and what articles, categories, or whatever should be included in it and where. John Carter 00:36, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I prefer a bottom of the page, horizontal bar myself, especially as those work better with stub articles. The side nav bars make articles very ... long even when they shouldn't be. Ealdgyth | Talk 00:45, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm not good at this, but I have had experience in the H5N1/Flu template area. Take a look at Template:Influenza which we use at the bottom of flu articles, and Template:Flu and Template:H5N1 which we use at the top. Perhaps something similar with small topic specific nav templates at the top of ag articles and a more comprehensive ag template at the bottom? WAS 4.250 06:27, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I just want everyone to know that I am done with this project, there is nothing I can contribute, and when all I do is make a suggestion I thought was a bit lighthearted and humorous to try and cool down a heated discussion and wind up with admins down my throat, everyone misunderstanding me, attacking my work and questioning my motives, in short, ruining my whole day, well this is why I don't like wikiprojects. This has been the single worst day I have had in the time I have edited wikipedia, which has now been over 18 months, over 6000 edits of over 1200 unique articles, well I obviously have nothing to offer anyone here. If you want my help with something specific, you know where to find me, but I am going back to what I like to do, which is work on articles. If you want to reply, do so on my talk page, I am taking this project competely off my watchlist and I won't be back. Montanabw(talk) 03:30, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry to see you go. I'm sure we all are. Please feel welcome to return anytime. Really. WAS 4.250 06:27, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Notice

Couldn't think of a better name for this section. Anyway, I've gone through Dairy goat and removed some of th US centricism. It still reads like a manual on keeping goats though. I did a google search for some more info on goats but all I got was manuals on how to look after them.

I also created some redirects here:

I also found this book on agriculture on wikibooks. It's under construction but it can still be used as a source--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 11:41, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

List of refernces

I think one useful think this wikiproject can do is compile a list of good references for ag topics. I recently found a really great book (On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee) that goes into depth about the chemistry of history of foods. I would recommend it for anyone taking on the major food articles like milk or grain as well a starting place for individual foods. It also has interesting information about the spread of various crops around the world.--BirgitteSB 15:16, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, we'll get to it. Most wikiprojects have a "Resources" section on thier page that has some good sources. As you can see, we're just starting off but we should get to it--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 16:47, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Is this best done as an article type page, like a list, or as a subpage of this project? If here, then maybe participants could annotate the reference if they actually have access to it, so we'd know which references are available without a transatlantic interlibrary loan. :)--Doug.(talk • contribs) 02:55, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I'd say we should put that book on. I'll keep my eyes peeled for more good sources--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 12:22, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I've added {{Sisterlinks|Agriculture}} to the page--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 12:50, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Template talk:Agriculture/workspace

I am creating Template talk:Agriculture/workspace for all interested people to work on re-creating this template as a navigation footer template and several topic specific top of the page navigation templates. WAS 4.250 22:33, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I put in some resources (examples and lists of articles and categories) and created a structure to be filled in with proposals. So if anyone wishes to cut and paste and propose, go for it. Until we create something better, the current agriculture template is better than nothing. WAS 4.250 23:19, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

article in need of work

According to the main WikiProject page, Holstein (cattle) was recently rewritten. When I just found it, it was a huge mess. It had a 500 pixels image and no lead section. This article needs major work. VanTucky Talk 06:34, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I wrote most of this article. What "major work" do you think needs doing? All that's missing is the introduction, which is about the only thing I didn't do. Take the trouble to look at how it was originally before you come barging in here with comments like this.Tom 22:05, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Notice of List articles

Page(s) related to this project have been created and/or added to one of the Wikipedia:Contents subpages (not by me).

This note is to let you know, so that experts in the field can expand them and check them for accuracy, and so that they can be added to any watchlists/tasklists, and have any appropriate project banners added, etc. Thanks. --Quiddity 20:12, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I have concerns about these lists, they were popping up places and their banners were being added, probably by a bot, to related pages, I think it must have been a bot because they ended up on redirect pages rather than the target pages in many instances. When I tracked them down, they appeared to be a part of a new project with one member and no proposal. I think they've gotten a few more members now, but I don't really care for the way these lists are being proliferated. They also seem to be redundant with both the portal and the navbox.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 20:43, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
I would phrase it different. We need nav templates, and a list page and a portal and a wikiproject page. But currently, in agriculture, they have not been coordinated. They were all created separately by separate people, and no one has taken the time to coordinate them properly. WAS 4.250 21:14, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
My bad, it wasn't the lists, which I guess have been around for a long time, so much as this project created around the lists, that I took issue with: Wikipedia:WikiProject Lists of basic topics.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 20:47, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm not a huge fan either. The lists are fairly recent, and are mostly the project of The Transhumanist, whom I've been arguing/discussing them with since they started. (he's quite the inclusionist/eventualist listmaker...) Please discuss further at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lists of basic topics. Thanks. --Quiddity 20:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
There is an ongoing debate over the usefulness of list articles that has been going on since categories were added years ago. Lists allow for sourcing, comments, and red-links. Cats don't. Red links are important as Wikipedia is a forever unfinished encyclopedia and identifying where work is needed next is an important part of the management process. WAS 4.250 21:19, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Somewhat true. However, on such "basic" lists as these, I think it is probably, more often than not true that the most "basic" articles already exist. Having said that, a good list can make a category redundant, by supplying not only the name of the article but some additional material as well, and might help reduce the constant multiplication of categories all projects experience. John Carter 21:32, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
It is hoped that at some point we will have the ability to do a boolean search on categories. (find all articles that are in cat A and B but not C) WAS 4.250 18:57, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

{{Cattle-stub}}

I have proposed {{Cattle-stub}} as an upmerged template within Category:Livestock stubs--Doug.(talk • contribs) 22:24, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

After going back and making a manual count of the cattle stubs in Category:Livestock stubs, I've changed the proposal from an upmerged template to a full stub category: Category:Cattle stubs. The proposal is available for comment at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Proposals#.7B.7BCattle-stub.7D.7D.2FCat:Cattle_stubs.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 23:01, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, I was a little pre-mature, I had my mental calendar set several days ahead. Hopefully no one will object.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 21:10, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
OK now it's good. Use it!--Doug.(talk • contribs) 04:21, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Got a bot to implement this. Now we just need to flesh out the stubs and create new ones from redlinks. :) --Doug.(talk • contribs) 06:15, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Breed lists

On our {{to do}} list one item is "Find a solution to the long breed lists on all the "Domesticated ________" pages." Take a look at Domestic pig for example. I suggest we move most of these long lists to stand alone lists.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 23:06, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Go for it. Most of building the encyclopedia is individual effort and not committee based. WAS 4.250 07:24, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone see a need for these lists to be named "List of _________ breeds"? That seems redundant to me. Any reason we can't just name these things "Breeds of _________" or even "_________ breeds"--Doug.(talk • contribs) 03:05, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think putting list in the title is helpful, it just makes it susceptible to AFDs, and limits possible expansion to a proper prose article. VanTucky Talk 03:39, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
There is a style guideline: Wikipedia:Lists_(stand-alone_lists)#Naming_conventions which says to name the articles "List of Xs" not "Xs", but I'm not sure that "X Breeds" is not so obviously a list to begin with that this rule would be necessary.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 04:02, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I think a good example is the long-term history of Guinea pig breed. This is an article which began as List of guinea pig breeds, and eventually morphed into what you see today. VanTucky Talk 04:06, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Interesting, though on the talk page the discussion seems to lean towards, "there are so few breeds that this could never be expanded into a "list"" and the idea is to cover the idea of a breed within the context of this particular species. Not sure that's true for Domestic pig or Cattle, where there are scores of breeds. Not that I disagree with you or I wouldn't have ever posed the question, I'm simply playing Devil's Advocate as I don't want to do something contra-guidelines without thinking carefully about it first.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 07:06, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Breed boxes

Work on breed boxes is centered at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Agriculture/Infobox.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 03:36, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll start working on the Livestock Breed infobox and note progress here. --BlindEagletalk~contribs 16:01, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Wheat

Your undo was correct. The verified reference is Jorge Dubcovsky and Jan Dvorak, "Genome Plasticity a Key Factor in the Success of Polyploid Wheat Under Domestication", Science 316 [Issue 5853], p. 1862, 29 June 2007.

Please watch this article. I have found and rectified a series of undetected vandalisms, but I suspect there may be more of them. Wugo 16:29, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Stub Categories

Category:Agriculture stubs is under Commerce (a heading not a category), this seems a little odd. Category:Agriculture is in the major category Category:Applied sciences and would seem to make more sense under Other Sciences or Technology, particularly as historically much agriculture is subsistence based and is not directly related to commerce at all. Alternatively Agriculture should be its own major heading, since it's sort of on par with "Commerce" as an historical endeavor of humans. As a side note, should we have a separate area to discuss categorization in general? There are a lot of issues with categories related to Ag.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 19:47, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean by a heading, not a category?--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 20:11, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
For some reason when you reach a certain hierarchical level, stub categories are organized under topics, which I called headings, rather than under the permcats they fall under. If you go to WP:SC you'll see what I mean. Category:Agriculture stubs is actually in the categories Category:Natural science stubs and Category:Botany stubs (which is redundant), and doesn't match the permcats (i.e. the categories for Category:Agriculture itself. But when organizing the stub lists they put Category:Agriculture under the heading "Commerce" which just doesn't make sense. --Doug.(talk • contribs) 21:46, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
I just got rid of the stub cats for Category:Agriculture stubs that weren't consistent with the permcats for Category:Agriculture but may get reverted.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 21:51, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

"Half of the world’s workforce — 52% of the female workforce and 46% of the male workforce — are in agriculture according to the World Bank’s latest figures [...] According to WTO figures, in 1998, out of about $6.7 trillion of world trade in goods and services, agriculture accounted for $0.5 trillion (over 8%) [...] The objectives are to further liberalize trade in services and to continue the agricultural reform programme in which WTO members have agreed gradually to reduce subsidies and tariff- and other barriers. The present programme for agriculture lasts six years (until the end of this year) for developed countries, and 10 years (to 2004) for developing nations. It includes reductions in export subsidies, trade-distorting domestic support, and import tariffs."[2] Agriculture is a lot more than just what happens on a farm. WAS 4.250 00:00, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Portal

Why is our portlal called "Portal:Agropedia"? Surely "Portal:Agriculture" would be a better name--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 20:11, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

It seems to have been a merge of Portal:Agronomy and Portal:Agriculture at some point in the past, and evidently that was the name they decided upon. John Carter 21:08, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Counting/sorting tools

Anyone familiar with any tools for sorting/counting category elements? For example, is there a tool out there whereby we could count all the elements of the Category:Agriculture? Preferably with an option for including or excluding subcats. Even better is there a way to output say all the members of Category:Livestock stubs that are also members of Category:Birds for example? In that case for ease in marking them as {{poultry-stub}}s.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 04:38, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm gonna ask on WT:MILHIST, they used something like that to compile their list of articles needing taggin for their assessment drive--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 20:33, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Great! The tagging functions can be done via a bot request, I did this with Category:Cattle stubs, as mentioned above. But often it is necessary to count how many members of a category there are in order to advocate for new stub cats or discuss scope, etc.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 03:30, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
They used a custom made perl script, which is bad news. I haven't got a clue how to work perl and I don't think we have any members who do. We could always ask Kirill Lokshin (talk · contribs) to do it, but he's busy with his own project and it would be...kinda bad manners. He did the WP:HIST template when I asked him though--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 18:59, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Add Criteria for B-Class status to template

John or anyone else know how to Add the Criteria for B-Class status to our template as {{WPMILHIST}} has?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 03:45, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I can do it if you want. Is it the same criteria or is there somewher I should be looking?--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 18:55, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
 Done put together at User:Phoenix-wiki/Workshop. You can paste it in when you want. All the crap will dissapear after assessment but you might want to make it collapsible, I dunno how--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 19:22, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Excellent, though we definitely need to make it collapse before we implement it. Thank you.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 21:18, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
PNo problem, I'll look into the collapsibility thing, it'sn on WP:HIST's banner and I'll put it in if I can find what bit of syntax does it or else I just ask someone on irc--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 21:36, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I have proposed that Dairy goat be merged into the main Goat article. See relevant discussion here. Thanks, VanTucky Talk 00:59, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I've replied there; by the way, I've noticed you have taken a lot of time and put a lot of work into Goat. Thanks for the hard work.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 04:52, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

New articles added

I just added Moose milk and Kostroma Moose Farm to the project. VanTucky Talk 01:06, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Awesome article! Thanks Van!--Doug.(talk • contribs) 04:56, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
At first I thought you wrote them! Then I saw the second which is pretty large and realized you had just tagged them. Still, you have brought us from having nothing above a B to having several FA and GA Articles just by going out and finding them! Great work.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 05:12, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Scope and {{farming}} tag

I'm getting tired of the tagging and categorization right now, but just to note, every article in {{farming}} should be in this project's scope. VanTucky Talk 02:03, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Good point, a bot could easily go through and tag the talk page for us, as well as anything in Category:Agriculture though not necessarily all subcats.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 04:45, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Help needed with Top Priority Article

I started trying to tweak, then re-write Agriculture#Genetic_erosion_in_crop_and_livestock_biodiversity. I cut out a bunch of junk and duplicative citations. Whether this even deserves it's own section heading in this article, I'm not sure. It is a legitimate concern about which a lot is written, but it seems like discussing the merits of a ban on land mines in the article War. I just know I'm going to get into a big fight there if I don't get some other points of view and other hands in the mix. Still might be unavoidable. Please lend a hand and meet me at Talk:Agriculture to figure out where to take this.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 04:43, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

More Stubs and Stub Cats

Category:Pig stubs/{{Pig-stub}} together with {{Domestic-pig-stub}} have been approved at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Proposals/2007/November#.7B.7BPig-stub.7D.7D_.2F_Cat:Pig_stubs.2C_and_.7B.7BDomestic-pig-stub.7D.7D_.28upmerged.29 I just haven't had time to create them. Anyone else is welcome to if they get there first, just please make sure you create the Pig cats too, even though those aren't really directly important to us, since that's the way it was approved (it was a change from my original proposal because some thought that we shouldn't skip over the Pig cat altogether, I didn't argue.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 02:51, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

unsourced garbage being added

Anyone care to help? WAS 4.250 (talk) 22:42, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, hell froze over

Hi gang,

I'm not really rejoining the project, but I am giving y'all a heads up because I know the horse people check in here once in a while, and, as this is still a relatively new project, there are folks with the whole project-creation protocol fresh in their minds. Wanted to let you know that while we have all been jawing about creating a WikiProject Horses, a youngster (at least, I think it's a youngster, though a pretty smart one) named User:4444hhhh has off and created Wikipedia:Wikiproject Equines. This is not a bad thing, (though I wonder about the plural title over the singular and if "Equine" rather than "horse" is appropriate...maybe it is, it incorporates mules, donkeys, zebras, etc.) but I'd just like you all to go take a look at it and offer some constructive suggestions, but PLEASE (trying to take my own advice), remember that we have a kid here and that we need to be nice. She (also making a guess, the horse virus and this level of enthusiasm tend to go with gender) has done what we didn't--get off our butts and make it go...but my concern is that she is flying solo, in danger of reinventing the wheel a little bit, and doesn't fully understand what all has already been done. I guess I am coming to you because I like her energy but I don't have the time to birddog it all by myself. The horse articles, however, are in DESPERATE need of organization (the categories are a mess, illogical, etc...) and there is all sorts of work that needs to happen for tagging, etc. So, I am all for the concept, I just fear somehow having a bunch of stuff get all tangled up and would like a few more eyes on things, if anyone wants to lend a helping hand. Montanabw(talk) 03:53, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

She also created a VERY nice Template:Equidae that I am already working on a wee bit. I never realized how handy these templates can be. The kid is irrepressible, I kind of like her. Montanabw(talk) 03:53, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

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