Help:How to mine a source: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 09:21, 12 July 2017

Revision as of 20:58, 6 September 2017

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* Most specimens were then found on the Isle of Man. [This was long before the world-wide explosion of cat breeding.]

* Similar cats were also found in Cornwall and Crimea. [That they are exactly the same as Manx cats as Barton seems to suggest is not credible from a modern, post-genetics perspective; i.e. on that point of heredity, Barton cannot be a reliable source.]

**[We know from the [[Japanese Bobtail]] and [[Kuril Islands Bobtail]] that stunted-tail cats are a common type of mutation in insular, isolated populations but {{em|not}} necessarily the same mutation.]

**[But we also know from other sources that Manx cats were popular as [[ship's cat]]s, so they could have simply spread to Crimea by ship. [Needs more sources. We can't draw any conclusions yet; that would be [[WP:NOR|original research]].] Other sources also mention them in Denmark, etc. [This is all interesting enough to mention, without advancing a theory.]

**Cornwall is not very far from the Isle of Man. [Again, we can't put words in the source's mouth, but simply noting this is enough to let the reader think about it; one of them might even find some evidence we're lacking that Manx cats originally came from Cornwall, or Cornish tailless cats originally came from the IoM.]

*As of 1908, the breed was uncommon. Barton implies clearly that they are declining. [It's tempting to say "even on the IoM", but honestly the original passage is a bit vague, and an inference that specific would be another form of OR.]

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*It is not the only defining characteristic of the breed. [Barton does not elaborate much, but Lane did; we now have two sources making it clear very early in the days of the "cat fancy" that Manx are distinctive in more than one way, and where Barton does specify, he does so in a consistent manner with Lane. I.e. this is a really good thing to double-up citations on.]

*Manx do not [[breed true]]; i.e. not every pure-bred individual exhibits all defining traits of the breed, like taillessness.

**This is also true of various, though not all, other pure-bred varieties of domestic animal, including. [this took someSome outside reading] informs us that this is true of two canonically tail-suppressed dog breeds, the [[Old English Sheepdog|Bobtailed Sheepdog]] and the [[Schipperke]], both of which are frequently born partially or fully tailed and are frequently [[Docking (dog)|tail-docked]]. [This is an interesting point, and even the fact that it's not all about cats is likely interesting to the reader; broadens the perspective.]

**Barton actually twice {{em|recommended}} [[Docking (animal)|docking]] of partially-tailed Manx, though he later also specifically states that this is sometimes done for fraudulent purposes. [And he even thinks thatthe tailless catsbreed areis ugly; so he at least thinks of the breed as intrinsically a breed, albeit one he disfavors, rather than as defective cats that don't constitute a breed; this puts him in agreement with other late-19th-century sources that already consider this a legitimate breed.]

*Tail suppression is the most visually obvious of the breed's defining characteristics.

*Manx also have long back legs. [Other sources say this, but it's nice to have another {{em|period}} source indicate it was an early, natural trait, not the result of later, e.g. American, breeding.]

*With short or no tail and long legs they thus have a rabbit-like rear half. [Lane and others said this too, but it's nice to have another early source indicating this was always the case, and always the perception.]

*Manx are of any coat color. [In the context, this can only mean any coat color normal for a European cat]; coatthe color.cat [Obviouslyfancy at that time did not extend further, and it obviously cannot include [[point coloredcoloration]] oran otherwiseother Asian cat traits; we know from Lane and, well, all other early cat fancy literature that in this era, Siamese and other "exotic" breeds were very rare curiosities in the West, and their genes were not being spread around yet.]

*Black was the most common color of the original, native Manx breed being written about at the turn of the last century, before controlled breeding of cats became a big deal. [Lane corroborates. [We also have tentative info from another source, not yet in the article, that this ismay actually no longer be true even on the IoM, but once was.]

*Barton is actually quite hostile to the breed, and his derogatory remarks are worth quoting directly in full. [They're a sharp counterpoint to Lane's enthusiasm (he owned one of the earliest championship Manx show cats), and are the earliest on-record cat expert hostility toward the breed. It's good to have this viewpoint balance for countering possible [[WP:Undue weight]] resulting from Lane's favoritism. [This is a theme that actually carries through to the current day, and will soon be its own "Controversy" section in the article. This short little Barton piece is even more important than it seemed!]

*Docking of non-rumpy specimens was performed not long after birth. [This is no longer common practice today, and illegal in many places, including most of Europe.]

*Docking was sometimes performed for fraudulent purposes, to pass off regular cats as Manx by cutting their tails off. [We knew this already from cat Web forums, but actually needed a reliable source for it to add it to the article.]

A quick scan shows that what we can glean from and source to this article – what we can determinedly {{em|mine}} from it – is, in combination with other facts that have to be connected (without [[WP:SYNTH|novel synthesis]]) to and weighed against the details in this source, actually {{em|more material than the entire full text of the source}}! And that's before we've written it out in reader-friendly, explanatory prose.