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Help cleaning the article
Iam pretty new to wikipedia and i usually fix minor edits and try to get the quality of articles upto the standards, but this particular article seems a formidable challenge could any semi experienced wikipedian help me out? http://en.wikipedia.org/Karkala Djds4rce (talk) 04:46, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
- Greetings, the article actually isn't terrible in layout and copyediting, but as you note it is grievously under-sourced, and also has a lot of WP:UNDUE focus on lists of festivals and other topics that caught editors' fancies vice a more even-handed exploration of all aspects of the community. This is one of many examples of times where people add "stuff everyone knows" to Misplaced Pages, but has no sourcing to back it up. I haven't dug into this particular community, but for many similar articles it's difficult or impossible to source many of these assertions online, though the statements may be quite true, and may be sourceable to physical-print newspapers and books that don't happen to be online, and perhaps may be in local languages that many of our editors can't read. Not that either of those are inappropriate references, just that even figuring out what statement is proved by what ref can be most difficult.
- One thing I would suggest, if this particular page is of great interest to you, is to go to the article's Talk page and list out your concerns (structure, referencing, etc), and then post a {{talkback|Karkala}} message on the Talk pages of editors who were involved in writing it. It may well be that for an entire section someone might roger up and say "Oh, the history section came from "A People's History of Karnataka" by University of Tokyo Press (1988), I'll just go mark that as the footnote."
- Sourcing would be the key issue here, but as noted quite challenging, and the article isn't terrible aside from that (quite large) sourcing issue. If you're looking for somewhat easier tasks to tackle earlier on, maybe you could inquire here if anyone has a list of India articles needing more straightforward copyediting, wikifying, or tracking down just one good reference for WP:Notability? If you want to ensure that you're doing cleanup on articles that people actually read frequently, you can always check on stats.grok.se to see if Village X gets 20 reads a month or 1,000; personally, that's one way I figure out if a poorly-written article is affecting goodly numbers of readers. MatthewVanitas (talk) 17:21, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
- My goodness, someone obviously had a large amount of prose to unburden themselves of. I'll see if I can't overhaul the tone of the article, if nothing else; I don't know how many times I've done this for shorter articles on NPP, so this shouldn't be too much more difficult. I know some about the general subject, too, so I'll see what I can find for sources. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 20:53, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
- I'm in the process now of removing large amounts of content and rewording the rest. I'm trying to cut it back to bare bones, then rebuild it based on real, reliable sources; I don't want to leave in anything that looks dubious. If sources can be found, it can of course go back in, but I don't want to leave anything in that's potentially misleading. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:20, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
- I've done about all I can for the moment; when I have time this evening, I'll try to notify the main contributors to the article that I've stripped the article down considerably. I will be stuck at a library for several hours tomorrow morning, and my experience has been that they usually have what I'm looking for (I constructed Inau largely off a book I found there), so I will look around there. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:03, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages Online Ambassador for India Education Program
Be Online Ambassador for India Education Program please fill the form . To know more about Online Ambassador program Online Ambassadors India Education Program --naveenpf (talk) 11:08, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
Query re: source
Is http://sangwanparivar.com/ a reliable source? Non-English & so I thought that I would try here rather than at WP:RSN. - Sitush (talk) 16:42, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
- Not really, but it could be used as a primary WP:SPS source -- it's the caste/clan association website. —SpacemanSpiff 20:55, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
- OK. Thanks for that. I will revisit the situation tomorrow. This is exactly the sort of situation where the India project has a really useful purpose. - Sitush (talk) 23:18, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
Validity of Andhra Kshatriya customs?
Are these traditions unique to the "Andhra Kshatriya" class, or is this article just describing standard Hindu rituals they follow? The term itself seems a little in dispute too. MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:51, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
- While I'm tidying up Category:Raju, is there much validity to this article: List of towns from which Raju surnames have been derived? MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:56, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
- And one more: Raju surnames? MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:58, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
- Raju surnames has my BS meter pinging, although I'd like to do a more extensive search (just done a quick glance so far). No comment on the others just yet. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:05, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
- And one more: Raju surnames? MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:58, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
Category:Articles which use Indian English
Hello All!! This category Articles which use Indian English has only 211 articles under it. Can this be merged with the Category:WikiProject India articles? The template that read "This article uses Indian English dialect and spelling. Some terms that are used in it differ from or are not used in British..........." can be added to the template of WikiProject India articles. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 11:38, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
- I'm not an expert on the issue, but might there not be legit articles about non-Indian or extra-Indian topics which are in Indian English? Maybe articles on certain kinds of business or technology, poli sci, or maybe some articles about neighboring countries like Sri Lanka and Nepal? And what of the Pakistan articles? Is "Pakistani English" sufficiently distinct from "Indian English" that a division is drawn? MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:39, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
- Perhaps this is a good time to have a discussion on whether we need this category and the associated Indian English template at all. Written English in India is similar to British English, though American spelling is catching on as well. In what way does an article - Ganges to take a random one :) - differ when it is written in 'Indian English' from what it would look like in some other English? Is there a substantive reason for the existence of these templates? --rgpk (comment) 21:04, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
- I see differences in phrasing which I assume relate to cultural issues. As far as spelling goes, yes, when the spelling is at all correct (!) then it seems generally to follow the British English pattern. I agree that US spellings are catching on, as indeed they are in Britain itself, but I've never fully understood the "Indian English" differentiation as far as spelling goes. I simply do not see any difference between that and one or other of US or British English. Perhaps mine is a limited experience, based as it is on a subgroup of India-related articles.
- Examples of phrasing include using "places like A, B and C", where traditional British English would probably say "such as A, B, and C", and general usage of what would nowadays be considered somewhat archaic words in mainstream British writing/commentary - "knobbled", "nabbed", "copped" and those sort of things. Not wrong, but not now commonly found, for example in BE newspaper writing. I must admit that such phrasings grate with me in an encyclopedia but they are not worth fighting over and they do appear to be mainstream in India, eg: The Hindu and similar sources use them. Is that what is meant by "Indian English"? Or is it a reference, for example, to the Indian numbering system? There is certainly a place for a note reflecting that system because otherwise people start moving commas about & make a nonsense of things.
- As an aside, one thing that fascinates me on a cultural level is the contradiction between excessive politeness & downright rudeness in talk page messages, which reflects a long-lost Victorian/Edwardian subservience clashing with the modern era (IMO). "Dear Sir, thank you for pointing that out. You are wrong and a complete bastard" is a (paraphrased) example. Please excuse me, but I do find it rather amusing. And I tend to roll with it - it is not just my hearing aids that have a filter built into them! I stress: no offence intended in the above. - Sitush (talk) 23:18, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
- Sitush, you raise some good points. In particular, the one about the Indian numbering system is interesting because it is a clear difference between usage in India and usage in the rest of the world. The question then is whether we should follow the 'lakhs' and 'crores' numbering, or stick to the more universally accepted millions and billions (and trillions, though it does make the mind boggle!)? --rgpk (comment) 00:51, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
- It's not spelling differences as much as the additions to vocabulary. South Asian dialects have a larger set of accepted loan words which vary by region, some of them like Jungle, Mango etc have become common in all varieties of English while others like mofussil, lakh, crore etc aren't used outside of the regional varieties; likewise words that are considered archaic in BE are still part of regular vocabulary in IE -- "eve teasing" etc. The phraseology isn't very different from BE, but the main point to note here is that while BE has undergone a lot of change in sentence construction etc over the past century or so, the change isn't identical in SA dialects. e.g. "xyz expired on March 15th" is still an acceptable (and possibly viewed as gentler according to some sources) way to phrase "xyz died on March 15th". Spelling in sources fluctuates a bit, while The Hindu typically sticks to traditional BE spelling, The Times of India and Hindustan Times are far more accepting of AE spelling, in fact just last week I was reading a ToI source for an article and it used both varieties of spelling within the same article. We'll need to handle this on a common sense basis -- most sources related to government will have commentary in Indian English (legal reviews, newspaper articles, etc etc), likewise many newspapers use lakhs and crores when they refer to governmental works, but when it comes to talking about the revenues of Airtel or Reliance they switch to millions and billions. Same is the case with literature -- works by authors like Mulk Raj Anand, even the more recent ones are in IE and typical critical commentary is the same and therefore those articles ought to reflect that, OTOH authors like Tishani Doshi write in a more dialect-free way incorporating elements of BE, IE and AE and typical commentary follows the same pattern and in such cases our article should reflect that. —SpacemanSpiff 06:49, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
- Sitush, you raise some good points. In particular, the one about the Indian numbering system is interesting because it is a clear difference between usage in India and usage in the rest of the world. The question then is whether we should follow the 'lakhs' and 'crores' numbering, or stick to the more universally accepted millions and billions (and trillions, though it does make the mind boggle!)? --rgpk (comment) 00:51, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
- Perhaps this is a good time to have a discussion on whether we need this category and the associated Indian English template at all. Written English in India is similar to British English, though American spelling is catching on as well. In what way does an article - Ganges to take a random one :) - differ when it is written in 'Indian English' from what it would look like in some other English? Is there a substantive reason for the existence of these templates? --rgpk (comment) 21:04, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
- It sounds like the ToI writers need a manual of style ;) "Expired" is a very good example of the phrasing issue, btw, and I must admit to changing that when I have seen it. My mistake: it never crossed my mind that it was IE. Most of these things are pretty trivial, as indeed are the differences between BE & AE, and I think that the policies etc exist mainly to prevent warring over minutiae.
- However, I do think that the numbering issue is significant, and that using the Indian system is confusing. The fact that it is not even used consistently in India lends some weight to an argument that it would be better to abandon usage of it on en-WP except when it appears in direct quotations. Doing so would doubtless irritate a fair few of the 1 billion (sic) people in or connected with India, but there are another 5 bn (?) or so for whom presumably it means absolutely nothing and requires click-through links in order to understand. And, of course, this is en-WP, with its inherent bias. However, this is to drift away from the subject area of this thread. - Sitush (talk) 09:23, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
- I'd disagree on this, while the numbering system may find inconsistencies in newspapers etc, reporting by the companies itself is in Indian nos -- Tata Steel, Airtel etc. WP:ENGVAR and WP:TIES exist for a reason. Just like we would accept an article about American breakfast to include biscuits in a manner that no one outside of the region has heard, it should be the same for other other national/regional varieties. Lakh and Crore can easily be wikilinked in an article to provide a definition. After all, the English speaking population of South Asia is a significant part of the English speaking population in general. If this needs changing, then WP as a whole should take a stance on a preferred variety of English, it shouldn't be based on specific words/phrases/topics. —SpacemanSpiff 10:00, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
- Surprisingly many replies! (Though few drift aside.) But back to the point. When i see a category i see its two purposes. (Tell me more if there are any). First; i can sort out articles of similar category to go through them. Second; i read its template, which i consider as some sort of disclaimer. In this particular category i doubt anyone goes on searching all articles on wikipedia that use Indian-English. And even if someone does that, he wont be much satisfied to see so few articles & above all they all reading very much similar to other english forms. Now about the second part of the template disclaimer, i find it little informative. But if at all it is supposed to act as a disclaimer to avoid questions like "Why did you use 'lakh' instead of 'hundread thousand'? ", the same can be achieved by adding that disclaimer in the template of WikiProject India articles.
- And as to the point of English used in various sources; English is the global language & it will be modified by its users & thus some times accepted by others too. Chapati, chutney, etc. are found in Oxford dictionary. Times of India uses small "i", unless its the start of the sentence. & i really doubt WP will be able to take any stance on language to be used in any article. (Except obviously for the aricles that specifically deal with languages.) Interestingly i also found that Indo-Pakistani relations is categoried under both Indian & Pakistani English, as if someone can makeout difference on which sentence belongs to which one. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 14:33, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
And.... What happened? -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 12:54, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
- Dunno. I'm not sure whether Sitush and SpacemanSpiff are supporting the use of ENGVAR or not. Perhaps a straight survey would help?
Survey: Do we need a separate Category:Articles which use Indian English or should it be merged with Category:WikiProject India articles
- Merge: No. Since there is little difference between written Indian English and British English, we don't need a separate category. --rgpk (comment) 16:33, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
- Keep as is. There are 211 entries in the list, and I guess most of them are legitimate entries. They are independent dialects, just like Category:Articles which use New Zealand English, Category:Articles which use Trinidadian English, Category:Articles which use South African English, etc. All these mirror BE in terms of spelling, but it's the vocabulary and phraseology where they differ. However, this doesn't mean that anything under Category:WikiProject India articles should belong in the English variety cat either. —SpacemanSpiff 17:02, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
- Keep: there can certainly be articles about concepts non-Indian or extra-Indian that are written in Indian English, and clearly articles about India that happen to be written in British or American English. I think this merge assumes total overlap. MatthewVanitas (talk) 18:05, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
- The two categories mean different things. Articles on primarily Indian topics should certainly use Indian English style where relevant, but WP India tagging means "related to India in some way" rather than "specifically Indian topic" - there are plenty of articles tagged with WP India which are written in British English or American English because that's their primary association. Shimgray | talk | 18:21, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
- Keep as is. This is definitely needed for articles where usage of distinct Indian terms (mofussil, eve teasing etc) is heavy and footnotes are needed to explain them. --Sodabottle (talk) 04:41, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- Keep as per Sodabottle. I see no need to use phrases such as "he expired on ..." but there is a need to use examples such as Sodabottle provides & for that reason the category is useful. Has anyone any idea what "they were winked" means? - Sitush (talk) 12:17, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
- Never head that phrase but it illustrates my problem with a 'using Indian English' guideline. Since there is no reliable dictionary or phrasebook for Indian English, who is to say whether a particular phrase or word is being used legitimately? --regentspark (comment) 13:03, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
- Delete: 1) Refering clause "Non-defining_characteristics"; the language used in these articles doesnt define these articles. These pages can very well be written in Chinese or Norwegian (probably many of them already are) without affecting the contents & the purpose of having them. 2) Quoting from Which_categories_should_be_created; "...They should be the categories under which readers would most likely look if they were not sure of where to find an article on a given subject." Now if a reader wants to know who wrote the Indian national anthem, he would most preferably go after the "WikiProject India Articles" than "Indian English Articles". 3) Above all, there is no distinctive line of difference between British, Indian & Pakistani English. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 13:52, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Pambar River
The article on Pambar River says that the river originates in Kerala and joins the Kaveri River at Karur while according to this source, the Pambar river formed the boundary between the Thanjavur Maratha and Ramnad kingdoms. Now, both Thanjavur and Ramnad are situated far to the east of Karur and if the Pambar flows into Tamil Nadu in an easterly direction from Kerala, it is not possible that the same river forms the boundary between the two kingdoms if it had already merged with the Kaveri. I need some clarification on this.-The EnforcerOffice of the secret service 18:07, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
- The Kaveri tributary originates in Kerala. The other one could be a similar named small river -- I don't think there's really anything of importance in Ramanathapuram other than Vaigai, right? Also, based on the TN topography, it'd be difficult for a river to meander from near Thanjavur to Karur and then make a trip right back on reaching Karur.—SpacemanSpiff 18:23, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
- Sources also mention another Pambar, a tributary of the Ponnaiyar. Now how do I create articles for these rivers; I mean, how can I disambiguate them. There are two rivers flowing in Tamil Nadu, so I cannot name either of them as Pambar River, Tamil Nadu; and then the one which originates in Kerala also flows through a substantial chunk of TN-territory.-The EnforcerOffice of the secret service 02:55, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
- Use the main river as a disambig?. For example Pambar River, Kaveri and Pambar River, Ponnaiyar?--Sodabottle (talk) 04:00, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
- This would mean that there are three Pambars right? The one that joins Ponnaiyar is neither of the original two mentioned by Ravi. And the second one doesn't have an obvious main river (at least not one that I've been able to find), so the main river dab might not work well. —SpacemanSpiff 05:15, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
- I've a suggestion. As Sodabottle says, we might name the Kaveri tributary as Pambar River, Kaveri and the Poonaiyar tributary as Pambar River, Ponnaiyar. I observed that the second one (the one without a main river) is also known by its Sanskrit name "Sarpanadi", as per this source. We can very well name the article as Pambar (Sarpanadi) River. What do you say?-The EnforcerOffice of the secret service 08:55, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
- In which case wouldn't the Ramnad one be Paambar and not Pambar? Also, for the Kerala one I think it should be Pambar River, Amaravathi as it joins Amaravathi which in turn joins Kaveri. The Kerala one is clearly Pambar, the Salem/Krishnagiri one that joins Ponnaiyar appears to use both spellings. —SpacemanSpiff 09:06, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
- I think that, though, their official name is "Pambar", the other two are also spelt "Paambar". The names of the rivers should, actually, be transliterated in English as "Pāmbār" as per IPA, I guess. I'm not sure, though. Anyway, we need not spend more of our precious minutes thinking just of the name to give to the article. As of now, I'll create Pambar River, Amaravathi, Pambar River, Ponnaiyar and Pambar (Sarpanadi) River. If there any issues we will sort it out later-The EnforcerOffice of the secret service 09:56, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
New article, your attention needed
I ran across Foreign Education Provider Bill in India while doing NPP. It looks like it may be a useful article, but I don't even know where to start to fix it up. So I thought I'd bring it to your project's attention. Cheers. → ROUX ₪ 20:04, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
- IEP article, copy paste problems with it, will need to check the sources to see if everything's a copyvio. —SpacemanSpiff 20:13, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
- I've checked, and it's been cut and pasted from several different websites and a PDF (the entire intro is from a pdf file I can link to if necessary). I didn't find anything substantial original content. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 20:15, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
- The article itself may be useful. There appears to be a lot of discussion - but little action :) - on the bill itself. I suggest, if someone is interested, that all the current text be removed and replaced by a bill summary and its reception as discussed in reliable sources. --rgpk (comment) 20:21, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
- Hold of on writing an article for a few days at least, the student appears to be keen on writing it and is seeking help to address the copyright concerns. —SpacemanSpiff 08:09, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
- The article itself may be useful. There appears to be a lot of discussion - but little action :) - on the bill itself. I suggest, if someone is interested, that all the current text be removed and replaced by a bill summary and its reception as discussed in reliable sources. --rgpk (comment) 20:21, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
A series of templates for welcoming editors who are interested in India topics
I feel there's a need for creating a new series of templates for welcoming new editors who are interested in India related articles. A new and simple template ({{Welcome-India}}) was recently developed based on the generic {{Welcome}} template. From the discussions at the talk page of the new template and recent discussions elsewhere, I feel we can develop at least five other templates:
- A template for encouraging bilingual/multilingual editors to edit Misplaced Pages in regional languages (Marathi, Gujarati, Malayalam, etc)
- A "heavy-duty" template as discussed at the talk page of {{Welcome-India}}
- A template for editors coming on-board via the India Education Program
- A template which lists various India articles that can be improved (could be a list from the Collaboration dashboard or some other list based on which articles we would like to develop to GA/FA class)
- A template which emphasizes (with examples and illustrations) why sticking to WP:Sources, WP:V, WP:MOS, WP:COPYVIO, etc are important
Feedback, comments and suggestions for other new templates are welcome. IF there is sufficient interest, I will also post a message to the Welcoming committee so we can utilize their experience in developing such templates. Zuggernaut (talk) 03:37, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
- Template:ContributeToTamilWikipedia also exists. On a larger perspective, welcoming needs to be studied and meta:Wikimedia_Fellowships/Proposals/Evaluating_welcome_messages has more details. Do apply if you are interested. Srikanth (Logic) 11:56, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
- Summarising my concerns from the template talk for folks who weren't in that discussion: I understand that this template may have been used to welcome editors who happen to be in India who have yet to edit a single article; if so, I would say that it is presumptive to assume that an editor living in India is interested in editing India-topic articles, vice engineering, South African history, native faunae of Polynesia, etc. Secondly, I have great concern that the Indian topics are generally underrepresented on wikipedia and you can help counter this imbalance... is soapboxing and setting up an unnecessarily adversarial editing environment. Not to read too much between the lines here, but this smacks of "hey, you're Indian and have an obligation to come and counter these Britisher lies". I'm not disputing that there is EB throughout Misplaced Pages, however I question whether this is a healthy way to address it, particularly as many of the folks concerned about EB have yet to produce any actual clear statement on addressing EB issues in WP:India. In said absence, there has been an unhealthy tendency to use "endemic bias" to mean "I can't find any citations to back up my claims, but I know it's true, so I'm a victim of Endemic Bias." There are very valid concerns about the academic world, including Indian academics, addressing India from a priveliged position which does not give fair shrift to oppressed/minority/female portions of society, but riling up folks with a generic call to "address an imbalance" does nothing to work those issues. MatthewVanitas (talk) 13:58, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
- Yes, that line needs to come out. What evidence is there anyway that "Indian topics are generally underrepresented on (sic) wikipedia"? Compared to....? There are certainly a lot of articles in the en-WP now on Indian-related topics compared to many countries, possibly considerably more than, say, China, given the English language and internet-access distribution in India. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 14:17, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
- I, too, am unhappy with the under-representation phrase and feel that it may have been used to crowbar a position, which various contributors have defined as a need to achieve a "critical mass" of Indian contributors. I am not sure how one would measure representation (one-sixth of world population should = one-sixth of articles, for example, does not necessarily work because notability has to be taken into account). There are problems with existing India-related articles and, yes, more articles of a decent quality are always welcome, but the real issue is quality.
- I see nothing inherently wrong with the Norwegian welcome template, as discussed in passing on the talk page for this one. If there must be such a thing - and I am not convinced of the merits, nor the user-targeting methods that have been adopted - then that seems perfectly ok. - Sitush (talk) 14:52, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
Looked at various WikiProject charts, and here are the overall article numbers by national Projects:
- India 88,536
- Pakistan 12,597
- United States 143,49
- China 37,253
- United Kindom 7,206. Component parts (presuming some overlap): England 22,634 - Scotland 13,733 - Wales 10,283 - Northern Ireland 5,978
- Germany 55,240
- France 80,136
- Spain 25,428
- Greece 25,546
- Indonesia 9,495
- Chile 5,906
- Egypt 6,209
- Nigeria 5,233
Arguing what's over/under-representative is tricky. Should it ideally be proportional by population? That doesn't sound right, but much any other measure ("how much important stuff happens there?") would be extremely subjective. In any case, suffice to say that the United States is over-represented, which is not surprising considering its large population of computer-owning English speakers, and massive media and publishing output that makes it easy to Google up info and create articles. At 88K, India is certainly no slouch, and well ahead of many non-Anglophone Western European countries. Could India have better coverage, both in academia and on Wiki? Indubitably. However, chronic underrepresentation is not necessarily accurate. I'd say a far more serious issue facing WP:INDIA is a large number of low-quality articles (particularly populated areas, and some popular-culture topics). Personally, I address communitatrian-sectarian POV/CoI issues, but I'd argue even those take a back-seat to poor sourcing. Now, the lack of sourcing in some areas points to Endemic Bias amongst scholars, publishers, and scanners, which results in just simply not enough info on India topics being easily available to Misplaced Pages editors, so while WP suffers from that larger EB, I don't think it's the epicentre thereof.
Forgive the long reply, but just wanted to get the stats out. I submit that EB would be a good issue to address, and maybe even a WP:INDIA suggested policy document could be drafted, but having it in the welcome template (especially with the contentious term "underrepresented" which is wikilinked to WP:Endemic bias) is not conducive to a healthy start at WP:INDIA. MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:08, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
User:Ssriram mt's edits
I'm having a few problems in explaining Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines to User:Ssriram mt. The user has been violating some of Misplaced Pages's policies and not heeding my advice.
For example, consider the following articles which the user had created.
When I moved this articles to "Taamaraiyaal Kelvan Perumal Temple" and "Purushotama Perumal Temple" explaining that the name in the infobox should be the same as the subject of the article, the user had reverted it back. Now, I need some help and also some expert opinion on what the name of the article should be.-The EnforcerOffice of the secret service
- In that case the name in the infobox should be changed and not the article name. There is no problem changing the infobox name if it is not within the guidelines. It is indicated in the source about the temple name. The changes can be discussed in the talk page rather than merely making an unsourced renaming. S Sriram 15:24, 22 September 2011 (UTC)ssriram_mt
Another exciting source of India images
Found another; perhaps we could start a sub-page somewhere in the project to list photo resources that could be mined for Public Domain photos? The following are from a series of 1868-ish British publications. I'm unclear as to UK copyright laws, but is it safe to guess that photos in an 1877 book are fair game?
The people of India: A series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan, originally prepared under the authority of the government of India, and reproduced by order of the secretary of state for India in council
There should be some good ethnographic pics of various castes/jatis in there, so I'll go perusing. Anyone else support having a resource page somewhere on the project for places to find images? MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:56, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
- Yes, the pics are fair game. Images are not really my thing but a subpage would be useful. It would be useful also for standardising access to old works, where my preference is to use www.archive.org and www.hathitrust.org where possible - archive.org's search/index system is not good at title/author level, so anything that speeds up location of a particularl volume etc would be A Good Thing. - Sitush (talk) 20:35, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
Recent move of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha articles
A move discussion is initiated to move the articles back to their original names at Talk:House_of_the_People_(India)#Requested_move --Redtigerxyz 05:39, 18 September 2011 (UTC)
Nawin Seetharaman (Tamil / Hindi actor, director, journalist etc)
Hi folks. I see a lot of clearly notable articles about Indian cinema (and related topics) get declined because the reviewers aren't familiar with the topic area. So I thought I'd put this latest one up here, even though to me it looks non-notable, to see if anyone can make sense of the mess of links and so forth and establish if there's more to it than there seems to me. User:Csbalaw/Nawin Seetharaman. Apparently a lot of the material is in either Tamil or Hindi. Thanks very much! --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:54, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
- Unlikely to be notable. The film roles are unnamed roles (xyz's friend) in one probably some level of notability film and another in a not-so-notable film, he's written a few poems that have been published under letters to the editor kind of sections on a not so well known website, a couple of short stories on his website, and a couple of translations. I don't see anything at all that would show notability.—SpacemanSpiff 19:16, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
- Hey, at least write the name of the language used in English. Not all are gonna Google it & find out that its "Tamil" written in Tamil-Animeshkulkarni (talk) 21:12, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
- Yes, if I'm understanding you correctly, that was mostly the problem I had with the draft article - so much of it (especially the links and references, which is what would or could have proved notability) were in languages I can't read. Oh well, we tried. Thanks to you both for your help. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:40, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
- Hey, at least write the name of the language used in English. Not all are gonna Google it & find out that its "Tamil" written in Tamil-Animeshkulkarni (talk) 21:12, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
Cleanup at Kallar (caste) and the interesting issue of "criminal" groups
I've started cleanup at Kallar (caste), and like a few other Tamil castes this is one where the British "criminal" tribes/castes designation comes up. It had been very subtle in the article itself, mostly coming up in years-long edit wars about whether the very word kallar means "thief". That said, some glancing around showed the British did indeed label these folks as a class of bandits. However, there's some great more modern research (by Indians and non-Indians) arguing that the British were labeling rather legitimate taxation and sovereignty measures as "banditry" in an ongoing process of delegitimising non-British authority in the region. I still think it's valid to mention the British's accusations, but through 3rd-party research, and in the context of the fact that the British certainly had their own incentives; as the American saying goes "don't steal, the Government hates competition."
It's an interesting subject, and the subject of the Kallar is well-covered with some good books in Preview mode on gBooks where you can read goodly portions of it. Just wanted to broach the issue of how best to neutrally describe "criminal" castes and their modern rebuttals to British chroniclers, and to invite over anyone else interested in some cleanup on South Indian caste articles. MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:18, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
- Actually, the Mukkulathors (Kallars, Maravars and Agamudayars) were fiercely independent communities and a major hurdle to British expansion in South India. Many of the important generals during the Polygar Wars hailed from these three communities (eg. Puli Thevan, Marudhu Pandiyar, etc). This might have been one of the major reasons why the British labelled them a "criminal tribe". However, it is also true that members of these communities, were in general, ruthless marauders who occasionally stooped down on villages belonging to Dalits or Nadars and destroyed them, or atleast this is what the article Sivakasi riots of 1899 claims. "Kallar" is a Dravidian word meaning "thief" and it has the same meaning in Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada (I don't know about Telugu). The word does not mean anything else.-The EnforcerOffice of the secret service 05:49, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- The population stats are highly inflated. Please check them out.-The EnforcerOffice of the secret service 05:55, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- Will do, population stats are often pretty messed up. Also the Joshua Project tends to be a go-to source, despite is being a Christian missionary site which is mainly presenting the data for proselytisation efforts, and often its own footnotes (for the cultural data) are just non-RS fansites and the like. Just not a scholarly resource.
- Thanks for the overall input, that was about my read on it too. Certainly an interesting people, and worth writing about accurately. Not a related group, but same general region, I'm also doing cleanup of Mukkulathor, mainly chopping out a bunch of data redundant to other articles, so if anyone is interested in Tamil castes, your voice at Talk:Mukkulathor would be helpful. Plus, if there are any Tamil speakers, I need the Tamil spelling; the ta.wiki article has a disambig in it so I'm not clear what part of it is the actual name.
- Thanks for informing here. After the "cleanup", I too would like to do another "cleanup" for OR lies &/ synthesis &/ misrepresentations &/ unreliable sources &/ amateur sources &/ cherry picked sources &/ passing comment sources &/ off topic sources &/ misinterpreted sources &/ lead fixation &/ S***** fixation &/ defamatory material &/ undue material &/ sources with mysterious credentials etc.
Villages in Karjat taluka
Under the letter S in Villages in Karjat taluka, there details of Shinde really need cleaning up. Chris857 (talk) 23:19, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
Done To keep the consistency there is no need of promoting details.
Talk:List_of_suktas_and_stutis#Requested_move
Could someone answer the question in this move request? Thanks. --regentspark (comment) 20:35, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Varna status in the lead of articles
Varna status...ah, what a painful topic. Here's what little I know: with the exception of one editor I've encountered so far, everyone seems to agree, in general, that varna status is complicated. Everyone seems to agree that, legally speaking, varna status has no validity in post-independence India, though most (but not all) editors seem to agree that there is still a lasting legacy. As MatthewVanitas pointed out on Talk:Lodhi, obviously it still matters to some people, at least in so far as they take a lot of effort to make sure that the article on their own group clearly and aggressively includes "kshatriya" claims. In dozens of articles, editors are fighting about exactly what references are needed to verify what status a given group has, especially in contested cases (which is, well, a lot of them).
A month or two ago, I believe that a fairly decent consensus was achieved to remove varna status from Infoboxes (and the hard-coded infoboxes that many of these articles use), simply because it's too complicated to be covered there (though I don't think that "decision" has actually been implemented everywhere). More recently, there has been some discussion about whether or not varna status should be mentioned in the article lead. Basically, the same arguments have been proposed as for the template--that varna status is far too complicated to be summarized in one or two sentences, and that often when citations are used, they don't present the whole picture or, in our attempt to summarize an issue, we start to brush up against WP:SYNTHESIS. Myself, I'm not fully convinced either way, but I thought that a centralized discussion here might help us see if there is any sort of general consensus on the issue. I considered making this an RfC, but I think we can keep it "in house" for the moment, as I'm not really trying to set a "rule" as much as I am to get a discussion going on how to handle this difficult issue.
So, what do others think? Should we remove all mentions of varna status from the leads of all such articles (note, of course, that this means removing both Shudra and Kshatriya claims from the lead)? Should we remove it in all cases, except where there is a clear consensus to include? Should we remove it in all cases, except where there is no dispute whatsoever (if someone knows of a good example, please point it out)? Or is there really no way to set an over-arching rule that applies to the entire category of articles? Qwyrxian (talk) 00:08, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- I was the one who expanded the {{infobox caste}} based on MatthewVanitas' request. I think that the varna status in the infobox should stay because the infobox is optional to use and the varna status parameter in that infobox is optional too. It can be useful in the cases where there is no dispute. You and I were thinking on the same lines when you thought of an RFC. I would go even further - given the 100s or articles we have on the caste system (and this will only grow over the next decade as we get rid of the systemic bias), we should consider a policy or a guideline for this. Perhaps we can have a policy/guideline called Biographies of living communities on the lines of WP:BLP. When a dispute arises, we should remove varna claims wherever they cannot be sourced to rock-solid, academic literature from authors of excellent repute in this specific area. We must make it a point to use current sources (perhaps from the last decade or two) for present-day claims about varnas. Zuggernaut (talk) 03:28, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- On the infobox issue, Zuggernaut, you are very much in the minority. This is because for the vast majority of articles we deal with, the varna status is disputed (usually of the form "Generally grouped as X, but claim kshatriya status"). And then it takes a paragraph or twenty to explain exactly who claims what. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:38, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- As I told MV, I am not really attached to the infobox and don't really care if it is truncated or even deleted altogether. It's good to see progress on this. Zuggernaut (talk) 04:04, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- I think the varna will be anyways mentioned in the intro, if the varna identity has always been central to the caste's identity. For example, the intro of a community like Deshastha Brahmin would be "Deshastha Brahmins are a Brahmin sub-caste". In other cases, it's not important to mention the varna, esp. if the status is disputed.
- It is a misconception that all the Jatis/castes/communities have always been strictly classified in a particular varna. The concept of varnas is based on occupations, not castes. While some Jatis have traditionally been associated with a single occupation, several others have shown considerable mobility (see sanskritization). Most of the Brahmincal texts about varna system say things like "craftsmen are Sudras", but not something like "XYZ community belongs to the Sudra varna".
- Most of the sources cited for varna status are from the texts written in British India. These texts reflect the status of a particular caste at that time, not in earlier or modern times. So, it's better to avoid the discussion of varna in the intro in most cases. utcursch | talk 06:55, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- As I told MV, I am not really attached to the infobox and don't really care if it is truncated or even deleted altogether. It's good to see progress on this. Zuggernaut (talk) 04:04, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- On the infobox issue, Zuggernaut, you are very much in the minority. This is because for the vast majority of articles we deal with, the varna status is disputed (usually of the form "Generally grouped as X, but claim kshatriya status"). And then it takes a paragraph or twenty to explain exactly who claims what. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:38, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- IMO it is important that we should remove varna claims wherever they cannot be sourced to rock-solid, academic literature from authors of excellent repute in this specific area. I see no sense in continuing to use substandard sourcing. We want to be a high quality encyclopedia. Why should we be using amateur sources/ off topic sources/ OR / synthesis/ cherry picked material etc. to write articles. I think substandard sourcing is at the root of most of the present trouble on caste articles. The "varna status of X caste is disputed" entries in our articles are all synthesis. There are no sources to say that the varna status of any caste is disputed. How can we invent disputes? It is complete OR. These disputes simply do not exist. Neither in India, nor in the secondary sources. If there was some dispute, there would be at least two rival groups in India who dispute the status of each other etc. Otherwise, there would be secondary sources with titles like "The varna status of Foo caste"/ "Is Foo caste Brahmin?". Then they would go on to argue whether Foo caste is/is not Brahmin etc. If there would be "dispute" among secondary sources on this, they would also attempt to deconstruct each other's arguments. There are no such sources. No source says that there is any dispute. This "dispute" exists only on WP. This is in violation of WP:NOR. We don't get to invent disputes which do not exist. And saying that the varna status of X is disputed is misleading too. The common reader will take it to mean that there is some such dispute in India. There is no such dispute in India. About noting the varna status in lead, except for the situation outlined by Utcursh, IMO it should not be noted in lead. It is only the SC/ST/OBC status which is relevant in modern times. The varna discussion should go in a historical section near the bottom. Thanks and regards.MW 12:22, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
While I don't disagree with the comments above, I don't think we need new policies to deal with this issue. If a Varna status is clear and unambiguous, then there is nothing wrong with including it in an infobox or elsewhere. The fact that the Indian government has outlawed these sort of distinctions has no bearing on wikipedia. If a Varna status is ambiguous, then we don't state it, unless the the ambiguity itself is worth noting (i.e., reliable sources discuss the ambiguity). If two reliable sources say different things, "X is a Y" and "X is a Z", then we say something along the lines of "Sources differ on whether X is a Y or a Z, (ref1) (ref2)". If there is a controversy amongst editors about the status, then examining the reliability of sources (WP:RSN is good resource for that) and the normal consensus seeking and dispute resolution mechanisms are perfectly capable of dealing with that controversy. Removing Varna status entirely makes little sense since, apparently, that is what distinguishes these social groups. --regentspark (comment) 13:01, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- The phrase "their varna status is disputed" is one which has recently been coined by, IIRC, Fowler&fowler.. It would no less accurate to say "There are differing opinions regarding their varna status", which would remove some of MangoWong concerns and is factual. It is a formula that I have used in the past. MW has raised these issues over and again, it has been examined at WP:RSN and WP:DRN and in all cases the sources were found to be ok & MW's interpretation of WP:OR, WP:SYNTH etc denied. We should not censor.
- Detail of the varna needs to be mentioned where it applies to a community (and this may include some non-Hindu communities, as I seem to recall that for some reason this occasionally happened). It needs to be mentioned because it is historically significant to many communities & is widely discussed even today, but it does not usually need mentioning in the lead and, indeed, I have never mentioned it in the lead unless a statement to that effect already existed. I am generally not keen on infoboxes for caste articles and there has been a discussion about it on one of the template talk pages fairly recently. - Sitush (talk) 13:16, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- What might be useful, bearing in mind the comments of utcursch above, is some sort of boilerplate introduction paragraph that could be used in the article body for those situations were there are differing opinions: a brief explanation of the complexity/fluidity of varna, supported by some agreed reliable sources (eg: Susan Bayly is rock solid). - Sitush (talk) 13:19, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- I think RGPK's suggestions can solve most of the difficulty here. Saying Sources differ on whether X is a Y or a Z, (ref1) (ref2) seems OK to me, (as long as we don't use passing comments from off topic sources/ unreliable sources etc. to do this. We should be using sources in a policy compliant way only). And I disagree with the findings of the DRN, which Sitush refers to above. That material has not been reinserted into the Yadav article. If anyone reinserts that synthesis from unreliable sources again, I am likely to take it further for reconsideration. As for the result at RSN, it said that the matter should be discussed somewhere else because most of the users at the RSN would be unfamiliar with what constitutes an RS on Indian topics of this sort.MW 14:41, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- I can't recall if it was F&F or myself who used "disputed", but I agree with MW that "differ" is a more open/literal term, and we have plenty of cases where sources differ. That said, there certainly are cases where, say, Source X says "the Brahmins say Shudra, the Foos say they're wrong and its Kshatriya", so there "dispute" would certainly be accurate (Kayastha and Nair, I think, address those issues). Agree with MW that "disputed" is best used in places where a literal debate/confrontation over the label is described by secondary sources. I'm a little less clear on the best word when Source X does not include the idea "says they're wrong" but clearly states two diverging opinions; "differ" would still be safe, but depending on larger context and supporting evidence it may be an actual point of conflict.
- Regarding MW's "It is only the SC/ST/OBC status which is relevant in modern times." ... yes and no. We do not have crystal-clear officially applied varna labels in the modern day, but the issue continues to underlie social situations, and the WP readership seems well-nigh fixated on them. That is what dragged me into this caste situation in the first place, seeing uncited Kshatriya claims in so many caste articles it was a wonderment that any physical labour ever got done in medieval India, what with all the warrioring and ruling. So far as which Shudra claims are synthesis and which are not, best to leave those for the individual articles, but it is certainly clear that there are many, many uncited Kshatriya claims that need to be footnoted, and 90% of the time there is either no Kshatriya evidence or there is a "well, they claim Kshatriya, but it's complicated". MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:11, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- ...WP readership seems well-nigh fixated on them. What the readership is interested in has no role in deciding article content. Article content is controlled by WP:DUE considerations.MW 15:45, 22 September 2011 (UTC) The folks who insert rubbish OR kshatriya claims are vain people. They don't get to indicate what constitutes encyclopedic material.MW 15:57, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- I completely agree with MW's last point: I've seen some caste-related articles featuring content that was included as a rebuttal to fantastic claims made by the vanity brigade. Some random dude belonging to the caste adds "This caste is of pure Caucasian ancestry" or "All great emperors of India belonged to this caste". In response, a hardworking Wikipedian with good intentions goes on a research spree and spends time writing 4-5 paragraphs disproving these theories. In reality, such content might not be important enough to warrant more than 1-2 sentences in the article. The random dudes should not get to decide what constitutes encyclopedic material. utcursch | talk 16:18, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- Focusing on the behavioral aspects of this only, I feel MangoWong has been right most of the time. Admins then need to ask questions likes, why has he been taken to ANI on so many occasions, why was so much time wasted on the talk pages of so many articles (I have most in the category watchlisted), why were there accusations of sockpuppetry. Something has not worked here. Zuggernaut (talk) 16:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- I completely agree with MW's last point: I've seen some caste-related articles featuring content that was included as a rebuttal to fantastic claims made by the vanity brigade. Some random dude belonging to the caste adds "This caste is of pure Caucasian ancestry" or "All great emperors of India belonged to this caste". In response, a hardworking Wikipedian with good intentions goes on a research spree and spends time writing 4-5 paragraphs disproving these theories. In reality, such content might not be important enough to warrant more than 1-2 sentences in the article. The random dudes should not get to decide what constitutes encyclopedic material. utcursch | talk 16:18, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- Can there be a clarification on what constitutes Reliable Sources? MW mentions above "as long as we don't use passing comments from off topic sources" and has made many comments in caste talk pages over the last few days on this very subject. I am concerned that unless this is clarified, disputes will continue.JanetteDoe (talk) 16:32, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- I don't think that's necessary because each source needs to be evaluated independently. The 'shudra' comment source was found wanting in the Lodhi article and the others can be similarly evaluated. It is impossible to make a general statement about 'passing comments'. It depends on who said it, how it was said, and the way in which the material was used in the article. --regentspark (comment) 17:23, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- Have fun then. I'll be over in the corner loudly thinking "I told you so".JanetteDoe (talk) 17:37, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- I don't think that's necessary because each source needs to be evaluated independently. The 'shudra' comment source was found wanting in the Lodhi article and the others can be similarly evaluated. It is impossible to make a general statement about 'passing comments'. It depends on who said it, how it was said, and the way in which the material was used in the article. --regentspark (comment) 17:23, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- Can there be a clarification on what constitutes Reliable Sources? MW mentions above "as long as we don't use passing comments from off topic sources" and has made many comments in caste talk pages over the last few days on this very subject. I am concerned that unless this is clarified, disputes will continue.JanetteDoe (talk) 16:32, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- Hi JanetteDoe. I think I should explain a bit more. Currently, at the talk:Lodhi, we were discussing a book which has only one instance of "Lodhi" in the whole book. So, there is only one sentence in that book which contains the word "Lodhi". When the source was first introduced into the article, it was done (apparantly) by looking at the latter half of this sentence only. I don't think that a book which has only one instance of the word "Lodhi" could be an RS for that article. And I don't think it is good to say something by looking at half of a sentence only. There is also another source in that article which does not even have half a sentence to support what it is supposed to support. It is a complete fake source. Then there is an encyclopedia which is being used as a source. Encyclopedias are tertiary sources and WP is supposed to be written from secondary sources. There are good reasons for not using tertiary sources and I think I need not explain those reasons. On another article ( Yadav), I had a similar issue when I saw that we had a sentence synthesized from four sources. All four sources were problematic in some way or other. One of the sources was about Benaras, a city in India. It contained an anecdote about one particular person where it was mentioned (within brackets) that he is associated with X varna. That was being used to say that the Yadavs are X varna. That looks like a passing comment to me. Another source (about education etc.) had a table which was meant to show literacy rates of various castes in 1901, 1911, 1921, 1931. The table noted (in a bracket I think), the Yadavs as X varna. That was also being used to adduce that the Yadavs are X caste. This too looks like a passing comment to me. None of these sources were about Yadavs, and did not make any effort to discuss or establish their point about the Yadavs. This is why passing comments from off topic sources, unreliable sources etc. is becoming a concern. The WP:NOR is clear in saying that passing comments should not be used and anything sourced from passing comments is OR.MW 18:13, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- Whether something is reliable in support of a statement does depend on the context, and therefore RegentsPark is correct. However, before you fall for any possible rewriting of Misplaced Pages history regarding MangoWong;s points above, you may want to read Misplaced Pages:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_4#Yadav (it is collapsed, so hit the show link). That gives you the full story rather than a potted one. - Sitush (talk) 18:32, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- Thank you both for your explanations. I have followed the soap opera at length as it moved from Nair to Ezhava to Kurmi to Yadav to Lodhi to Kayastha. I marvel it has continued so long unchecked, hence my comments above and at ANI.JanetteDoe (talk) 19:17, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- I am not familiar with the events at Nair and Ezhava articles. Could you please provide your view of things. It may be useful to have a look at the "big picture".MW 12:06, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
(Copied, more or less, from my post at Talk:Lodhi. Don't have more time.) This seems to be an especial problem with tilling and herding castes, such as Kurmi, Kachi, Koeris, Ahirs, Gwalas, Lodhis, .... For the Lodhi, for example, both the shudra classification by the British and the assertions of kshatriya past by the Lodhis themselves should be discussed in as much detail as is appropriate in a separate section. I don't really even object to them being in the lead, but only if they appear as the summary of the article that the lead is supposed to be. (As it was, they were appearing only (or primarily) in the lead. I do understand though that "shudra" was put in there as a response to the vacuous claims of Kshatriya origins by various IPs and SPAs.) As I see it, from a reading of the Baylys, primarily Susan, but also Christopher, many of the agricultural and pastoral castes were more or less outside the formal varna system and had remained so for many centuries. They were considered non-patrician (or non-elite or middle-to-low caste) social groups, but more crucially, clean. In other words, the twice-born, primarily the Brahmins, could have non-polluting interaction and dealings with them (buy their wheat or milk, drink water served by them, etc.). When in the mid-19th century, the patrician groups, for economic reasons, began to downgrade these groups, the groups reacted by claiming twice-born (mainly Kshatriya) status. All sorts of "founder myths" began to appear soon thereafter. Unfortunately, from a social progress perspective, these non-partician groups didn't show the courage of the Satnamis or the Kabirpanthis or later of an Ambedkar, who were able to reject the caste system altogether; instead they took to claiming dubious upper-class origins. Everyone and their brother was soon claiming direct descent from the Sun or the Moon. In my opinion, this was especially tragic for the Kurmis, who were so much more admirable, in terms of their work ethic, than the shiftless Brahmin and Rajput farmers whose customs they were now endeavoring to adopt. It did, however, give them political and economic power in the century to follow. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:47, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- I don't think that a book which has only one instance of the word "Lodhi" could be an RS for that article. I covered this in another Talk page (glad we're centralised here now), but I contest this point. For extremes: we might have a book on Indian ceramics which mentions the Lodhi 130 times in reference to their pottery, but even if said books mentions "the Lodhi Kshatriya use a cross-hatch left-hand pottery wheel" and such phrasings at several points, that does not make the book RS for Kshatriya claims since the author is not interested in caste politics, so is using the term "Kshatriya" incidentally. In contrast, if a book uses "Lodhi" once, but in an explicit context of "And then in the 1901 census... X, Y, and Lodhi were listed as Shudra castes" and the book itself is largely about caste identity and politics by a scholar of sociology/poli-sci/history/ethnology, then I argue it's an RS, and that the mention though brief is not "passing" but explicit. I do, however, agree with MW that said source along cannot support "Lodhis are Shudra", but can address the literal statement "the 1901 census listed the Lodhis as Shudra". That particular fact wouldn't rate going in the lede, but could definitely go in Caste Politics as a historiographic example explicitly backed by an RS. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:32, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- if the varna identity has always been central to the caste's identity I don't do Brahmin topics generally, but my vague impression is that most Brahmins' status is uncontested, save a few groups that "rediscovered" Brahmin status, or Brahmin groups accused of losing their varna through failure to uphold standards. On the opposite end, are Dalit groups generally non-contentious, at least in terms of not having a claim to be of the four varnas? I know there are certainly Dalits that don't like being called "Dalit"; on Talk:Pallar we had folks asking us not to use that term, but major Indian newspapers were noting the Pallar among the Dalits as late as a couple weeks back. So is "Foo is a Brahmin caste" okay 80% of the time provided we check around for contradictory statements? Is "Foo is a Dalit caste" generally okay in the lede, or is there a better way to address that issue? Regarding Vaishya, my impression is that that one is usually a bit more complicated, particularly as, like the Kshatriya, the Vaishya are said to have died out in the distant past. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:46, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
- You are right in your observations. It is usually the Kshatriya/Vaishya like castes that have varna disputes. I will try to explain this is plain words. The Brahmins were the ones originally who affixed varnas. There are many dominant/successful communities in India that fall under this Kshatriya/Vaishya grey area. The Brahmins in an obvious attempt to undermine these really established and powerful groups' credentials viewed them as Sat-Shudra instead of placing them in boxes of Kshatriya or Vaishya. Because Brahmins thought "well these guys will behave like bigshots (which they already are for all practical purposes) if they ritually become dvijas Kshatriyas or Vaishyas, so lets create a new ridiculous class Sat-shudra and give it to them". Mostly Jats, Kayasths, Patels in the north and Reddys, Vellalars, Nairs, Kammas of south fall into this Sat-shudra category. I mean sat-shudra category is so ridiculous it is oxymoronic. Sat-shudra literally means a clean servant. Does it really matter if a servant is clean? His clothes will be disheveled 5 minutes into his day job. LOL. This sat-shudra is one of the wily inventions of the Brahmins. Well a few more pointers about varna related issue. If a group is OBC and historically Shudra and a caste editor is claiming otherwise, 99% chance are that he is wrong. OBC + historically shudra = most likely unequivocally shudra. Now if a caste is Forward(FC). FC + historically sat-shudra = chances are most definetely a varna dispute candidate and most definetely has kshatriya/vaishya functions but viewed as shudra as you can infer from above. Cheers Foodie 377 (talk) 03:19, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Outcome/way forward?
As JanetteDoe pointed out above, this has been going on for a good 4 months now at caste articles like Nair, Ezhava, Kurmi, Yadav, Lodhi, Kayastha, etc. The conversations at many of these articles have centered around the same Shudra issue. The behavioral pattern here has been something like "if the IPs add WP:PEACOCK stuff to articles then we are going to respond by adding stuff in the lead (even though the article bodies have near-zero content on the topic and by completely ignoring WP:LEAD which clearly states that the lead is supposed to be a summary of the article) reminding readers that they are Shudras (a loaded term that is potentially libelous) first and foremost. Clearly this is not the way to respond to drive-by IPs.
Nobody is condoning or is likely to condone the the edits of the drive-by IPs whose aim is to make their own caste people look better. We have policies to deal with these IPs. However an experienced editor, User:Sitush, does seem to have a behavioral problem in this area of Indian castes and if anyone proposes a topic ban, I would be the first one to support it. Zuggernaut (talk) 13:36, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
- You make a very valid point. Drive by IPs happen all the time in all sorts of WP articles. That alone should not be the reason why Varna is discussed in caste articles. Editors are free to describe in detail the varna of the particular caste and address all issues. Jumping on the varna issue just when a drive by IP shows up is emotional and reactionary behavior. Even if editors jump in when a drive by happens, fine, just that they should be diligent enough to write something about the varna status and not just leave the infamous "shudra stamp". Because in many cases the varna would be disputed. Foodie 377 (talk) 16:22, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
- Any talk of topic ban for Sitush is ridiculous. He is an experienced, knowledgeable, and prolific editor. Moreover, most of us have very little experience of the kind of insistent POV pushing he and MatthewVannitas have to deal with. Caste puffery is not just perpetrated by drive-bys; more commonly it is perpetrated by POV-pushers who keep reappearing under different usernames and IPs, i.e. regulars masquerading as drive-bys. I will oppose any topic ban for Sitush or MatthewVannitas. Let us be very clear. The criminals are the reincarnating POV pushers; not Sitush and MV, who are editing within Misplaced Pages guidelines. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:50, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
- This isn't the right place to make proposals about editors being topic-banned - Zuggernaut has no business raising it here in that manner, please take allegations like this to WP:ANI. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 18:58, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
- While I agree with a guideline on avoiding unnecessary varna stuff in the lead, a topic ban on editors like Sitush would be completely wrong.
- Editors like Sitush and MatthewVanitas have been doing the completely thankless job of fixing caste puff pieces -- if anything, they should be given a barnstar for their efforts. Such articles have been lying in a bad state for years. I tried fixing several of these articles a couple of years ago, but gave up because of completely irrational behavior from drive-by caste propagandists, threats and personal attacks. I stopped fixing these articles after an editor advised me not to bother about them since only people belonging to these castes read them.
- I started editing these caste-related articles again a few days ago, and I've already been called a "goon" and threatened with an arrest for "cyber crime". It's not surprising that editors like Sitush, who have to deal with such users on a regular basis, overreact sometimes.
- Try cleaning some of these caste-related articles, keeping them on your watchlist and protecting them from drive-by 'my-caste-is-awesome' users. Believe me, it's not an easy task. utcursch | talk 20:55, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages:Bhubaneswar temples project
There appears to be a student project adding articles about temples in Bhubaneswar. Those of you who patrol User:AlexNewArtBot/IndiaSearchResult might have already noticed a number of temple-related articles created by newbies.
The group hasn't announced itself, but RHaworth has created a list of users who appear to be part of this effort at Misplaced Pages:Bhubaneswar temples project. Several of the articles created by these users are tagged for cleanup, while most of the articles for creation requests by them have been denied because they don't satisfy Misplaced Pages's guidelines.
Please go through the contributions of these users and help fix/clean-up the articles created by them. utcursch | talk 12:50, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Nedumpally
Can someone please take a look at the article Nedumpally. 218.248.72.195 (talk · contribs) -- same as Ashleypt (talk · contribs) -- has added a huge chunk of text about Indus Valley Civilization, Aryans, Dravidians etc. in the article. This text has no direct connection to the topic of the article. He also keeps removing {{citation needed}} tags for claims like "one of the earliest and largest families" and "have reached Kerala from North India after 1000 BC". Many of the references cited are from Misplaced Pages pages or unreliable sources (e.g. geocities/angelfire pages).
I've express my concerns about the article at Talk:Nedumpally#Irrelevant_information. The anon user keeps reverting my edits without addressing any of these concerns (here's the last revert).
Since I was involved in editing the content, I don't want to start an edit war or block the user. It'd be nice if someone else can mediate. utcursch | talk 15:11, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Ram Swarup Joon as a reliable source
Ram Swarup Joon is cited quite a lot across various articles but has minimal hits on GBooks and GScholar, at least under his full name. Using an alternative spelling garners only a few more references, viz. Ram Sarup Joon. Of course, the lack of hits may be in part because they simply have not filtered through Google's systems, although his major (and perhaps his only) work - History of the Jats - has apparently been in English translation for some time. That book is of course the one that has what appears to be a typo in the publisher's name: "Jaitly Painting Press".
My bs alarm has been ringing on and off for a while about this source, which seems sometimes to be used for POV-type statements. Is the person or the book reliable per the reliable sources policy? I ask here rather than at WP:RSN because of the subject-specific nature and the fact that apparently he originally wrote in Hindi. - Sitush (talk) 09:52, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
- I'd use it carefully and treat it more as a primary source than as a secondary source. The writer was a soldier who wrote a history so it is likely based on his own perceptions of an oral traditions and religious texts. My suggestion is that any material from that source that is contested be included only if it can be verified from other sources. --regentspark (comment) 13:14, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
- Agree with Rgpk. Should be treated as primary source for caste reinvention and improvement by the Jats in the first third of the 20th century. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:54, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
- Can I ask for clarification, please? Are you both saying that Joon can be used, for example, as an example of the caste reinvention/"sanskritisation" genre and nothing much more than that? I've found 59 article that use him as a source, although there may be others if a slightly different search phrase was deployed. Quite a few appear to refer to his lists of clans/gotras - how would they fit into the scenario? He clearly fails the WP:ACADEMIC test, if we were talking here about notability rather than reliability. - Sitush (talk) 00:36, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
- My take on this is that the source is primary and not reliable. Anything that is less than certain and is not supported by other independent sources can be deleted. (The practical implication is that Joon is fairly useless as a source.) --regentspark (comment) 01:19, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
- Thanks. That is pretty much my take on things but it is better to invite opinion in at least a vaguely neutral way. I'll wait a little before doing some cleaning up, just in case some alternate views surface. I think that I will also investigate more generally whether both the article about Joon and that about his book should perhaps head towards AfD (this was not my original intention, but the omens do not look good). - Sitush (talk) 01:31, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
- My take on this is that the source is primary and not reliable. Anything that is less than certain and is not supported by other independent sources can be deleted. (The practical implication is that Joon is fairly useless as a source.) --regentspark (comment) 01:19, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
- Can I ask for clarification, please? Are you both saying that Joon can be used, for example, as an example of the caste reinvention/"sanskritisation" genre and nothing much more than that? I've found 59 article that use him as a source, although there may be others if a slightly different search phrase was deployed. Quite a few appear to refer to his lists of clans/gotras - how would they fit into the scenario? He clearly fails the WP:ACADEMIC test, if we were talking here about notability rather than reliability. - Sitush (talk) 00:36, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
- Agree with Rgpk. Should be treated as primary source for caste reinvention and improvement by the Jats in the first third of the 20th century. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:54, 23 September 2011 (UTC)