Talk:Open defecation

"See also" section to be deleted?

Should I integrate the important words under "see also" into the text and then delete the "see also" section? EvM-Susana (talk) 19:54, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:36, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Delete the photo from WWI soldiers ?

I am wondering if the photo from the WWI soldiers should be deleted as their bums are visible and perhaps that is degrading? EvM-Susana (talk) 19:54, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Might be okay in a section about the history of the practice. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:34, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

How much detail for the health impacts?

I am proposing to put only the basics about the health impacts and to rather refer the reader to the page on sanitation, where we would have more about the health impacts. It would be double work otherwise to have lots on health impacts in this article and lots in the article on sanitation. But the important thing would be to make sure people know that they can find more on the other page. An alternative option is to create a new stand-alone article called "Lack of sanitation" which would describe all the problems and isues with lack of sanitation (health, environment, gender, human rights, personal well-being, safety). What do others think about this idea? EvM-Susana (talk) 17:08, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

That new sentence about the UNICEF campaign "Take poo to the loo"

Someone added a sentence about that UNICEF campaign in India but this sentence is missing real content, how about adding something about the significance of this campaign, its methods, scale, impact and so forth? Otherwise it seems just like a link to get people to click on the website link (and should possibly even deleted as it is not adding "real value" like this?). Needs an objective statement about what this campaign has achieved this far, how it is perceived by others, how much longer it will go on for etc. EvM-Susana (talk) 20:50, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Too many references to newspaper articles in the lead

Randhwasingh, I appreciate that you have taken an interest in this article and added references. However, you are not really adhering to good Wikipedia style: There is no need to cite multiple newspaper articles for the same sentences. Also newspaper articles and websites/blogs are not really suitable sources. Those figures are better quoted from UNICEF/WHO documents (Joint Monitoring Program). So I think they should be deleted again. I am referring to the last two articles of the lead section. EvM-Susana (talk) 15:27, 10 March 2015 (UTC) EChastain, did you see what I wrote here on the talk page? I think we should actually remove some of these superfluous links to arbitrary newspaper articles. These are not good sources. EvM-Susana (talk) 22:30, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

EvM-Susana, in general it's not usually necessary to have any citations in the lead, as ideally the lead is an accessible summary of the article and the material should be cited in the body of the article where the subject is discussed more thoroughly. Also, newspapers aren't necessarily unreliable; see Verifiability - reliable sources and Reliable sources - news organizations for nonmedical articles. There aren't that many sources to the article, and it's great that other editors are at least reading the article and looking for sources. In my eyes, this is a worse citation in the first sentence than newspapers known for fact-checking. Since this article is about cultural practices, mentions in appropriate newspapers can provide insight into how this problem is being regarded in the cultures most affected by open defecation and the success of efforts being made to remedy the problems. EChastain (talk) 12:24, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

I am also happy that people are taking an interest in this article. I think it's good if the lead also cites the sources, see e.g. this article about malnutrition. I still think it doesn't make sense to provide 3 very similar references for this simple sentence: "This is 47% of the India's population". And four very similar sentences for this sentence: "Indonesia (54 million people) and Pakistan (41 million people) are at second and third spot behind India in open defecation." The most reputable source should be used, which is the documents by UNICEF and WHO (JMP). If the newspaper articles are deemed important, they could be cited elsewhere in the article, where it fits, but not for these two sentences. I will change that when I get around to it. EvM-Susana (talk) 12:58, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

EvM-Susana, as I said above, the lead ideally doesn't have citations. The citations belong in the relevant sections of the article summarised in the lead. EChastain (talk) 13:30, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

EvM-Susana, I removed it per my edit comment that it's possibly wrong. It seems it only counts rural people in India, and doesn't include those in cities who practice open defecation. I'll leave this article to you, if you don't want to collaborate. EChastain (talk) 21:48, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Where does it say that the ideal lead doesn't have citations? In my work with medical articles, I see citations in leads all the time.

Secondly, I just re-checked that figure and it's correct. See here the JMP data: http://www.wssinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/resources/JMP_report_2014_webEng.pdf We have quite accurate data for open defecation for each country, page 15. It is for total, not just for rural. 48% of the total population, data is for 2012. - what's that got to do with me "not wanting to collaborate??" EvM-Susana (talk) 21:54, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Did you bother to read the links I gave to the MOS above? Whatever, I've removed myself from the project as I don't like to work in situations where there are owership issues. As I explained, that figure only counts rural people, so it's misleading. Carry on! EChastain (talk) 21:59, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

And did you bother to read the link I sent you for the JMP data (by UNICEF and WHO) for India? http://www.wssinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/resources/JMP_report_2014_webEng.pdf page 15 in the table it clearly says: 12% open defecation in urban areas, 65% open defecation in rural areas. Total 48%. Total population in India in 2012: 1,236,687,000. Multiply that with 48% gives 593 million people. So where is the problem? EvM-Susana (talk) 22:05, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

EvM-Susana, yes I did. That's how I knew it was only counting rural people and was therefore wrong to use that figure in the article as the total number. But it seems you have an agenda and not an open mind. So I'll leave you to your suite of Sanitation articles and not waste my time anymore trying to improve them. Happy editing! EChastain (talk) 22:09, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

please point me to the row in the table that I am then misreading. Maybe I am blind. I am calculating 593 million Indians openly defecating, using the third last column in that table. What figure are you calculating from that table?EvM-Susana (talk) 22:11, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Let's try to clear this up. We are all looking at table beginning on page 44 of the JMP report, are we? This has three different sections - urban, rural and total for each country for both improved water and improved sanitation. The world total page as a percentage of the population practicing Open Defecation (page 64) is given as 14% of 7050 million which is 987 million. Which is about 1000 million (a billion). India has 48% of 1040 million, which is 594,000. Which is nearly 600,000. It also states that 65% of rural people are practicing Open Defecation (all page 52). Indonesia has 22% of 246 million, which is 54 million (page 52), Pakistan has 23% of 179 million, which is 41 million, Nigeria has 23% of 169 million (page 52), which is 39 million and Ethiopia has 37% of 91 million, which is 34 million (page 50). Now, admittedly the table does not give those numbers - but it does give estimates of the total percentage practicing Open Defecation and the total population - so it is an easy calculation. Allowing for some rounding, the lead is correct and the JMP is a reliable source. There is nowhere else to get estimates of this. JMWt (talk) 20:50, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

And about the citations in the lead: This section says WP:LEADCITE "The verifiability policy advises that material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and direct quotations, should be supported by an inline citation". In any case, I have no problem if you want to remove citations in the lead. In fact I am the one who said right from the start that there are too many citations for the last two sentences! This is how the whole discussion started. So if you are saying that the lead should not have inline citations, then let's remove them (and rather have them in the body of the article).EvM-Susana (talk) 22:11, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

EvM-Susana, just to let you know that you twisted my wording so that it's inaccurate. You already have the source, but apparently you're not going to use it accurately so I'll remove it. I regret I spent so much time trying to improve this article. EChastain (talk) 23:03, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

I am lost. Seems like there is some confusion or misunderstanding going on. I never cite page numbers when I cite a document in a Wikipedia article; and I don't see others doing it either unless they use a different citation style where they use Source and then Full reference. Anyhow. Let's see what others have to say about this issue. Just to re-iterate that about 600 million people in India (in total - not just in rural areas) are currently estimated to do open defecation based on the report by WHO & UNICEF from 2014 which provides data from 2012. Let's leave it at that and move on. You are right, it's taken up too much of our time already. EvM-Susana (talk) 23:21, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

To clarify, yes we need citations in the lead as part of the translation project. I would replace those 4 poor references with one good reference. We should stay away from newspapers generally for medical content.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:55, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Page numbers

EvM-Susana, Page numbers are needed when the material isn't readily accessed. The point is to verify your facts by providing citations. For example, when you cite this or (especially) this, where is the reader to find what you're refering to? If you look at articles that are considered "Good" on Wikipedia, like Irataba or "Featured", like Horace Greeley, see how the citations are formatted? Unless you're using short citations, like Maggie Gyllenhaal, you need page numbers for the reader. How is the read supposed to know what you mean when you use this as a source? Do you really expect each reader to download and read all those, looking to verify your facts? See Wikipedia:Citing sources for how to use a source more than once so that the page numbers will be correct for each citation. EChastain (talk) 00:07, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

OK, have done a major clean up operation for the references and page numbers. Have referenced the JMP report with pages numbers in each case (I find the JMP report so well structured that I didn't think page numbers are necessary to find things, but no problem; now it is very clear). I have also moved the newspaper citations to a new section on society and culture. I think this is a good solution and hope that everyone is happy with it. I think it was all a bit of a misunderstanding. The article is much better now, I think. EvM-Susana (talk) 09:25, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

EvM-Susana, thanks for fixing up the article. It does read better now. This citation still needs page numbers. Also you should be careful about adding references to the advocacy organisation with which you are associated, such as the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance which doesn't appear to contain the quote that you cite to it (at least I couldn't find it). It may be seen as WP:COI if you do. Other editors have been reminded not to add their own organisations to articles.

Perhaps your statement above: "I find the JMP report so well structured that I didn't think page numbers are necessary to find things" is the source of the problems I have trying to work on any sanitation articles that you reign over. It's not what you "find ... so well structured" that's important, but rather what the reader's experience is. I do think the opinions of someone besides you should be included in the suite of articles over which you have jurisdiction, especially since you don't seem to have a wide comprehension of the wiki ways. I might have been willing to remain part of the project if this were the case. Best wishes in your future editing. EChastain (talk) 14:17, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

For information, the link you've highlighted above is simply to an article in the SuSanA library. The article is not actually by SuSana, but by SQUAT. And I think it is quite helpful to have the link to the library page rather than straight to the pdf for those who want to read a summary rather than the whole article. This is not a whole lot different to linking to a journal abstract page rather than the pdf of the full article.

Rather than just tag and criticise, it'd be helpful if editors actually read the sources and added page numbers etc where necessary. JMWt (talk) 18:35, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Page numbers are needed for books (or at least chapter numbers). For your articles and short documents they are not. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:56, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

JMWt, your position is that this is a reasonable source that I should have read and threfore added page numbers to, rather than tagged? EChastain (talk) 19:55, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Where in the page is there a reference to wssinfo/documents? I was refering specifically to the post I was replying to - which refers to the JMP report 2014, and the SQUAT (Sanitation Quality, Use, Access, and Trends): Evidence based sanitation advocacy for India report. Yes, I think it would be more helpful if you would read and correct the errors you see from these references rather than just tagging. The point here is to make these articles better, isn't it? Tagging in and of itself is not making anything better - if you think page numbers are important, read the documents and add the page numbers. And complaining about SuSanA as being an advocacy group is rather ridiculous - akin to suggesting that a engineering organisation is not a place to find books, expertise and experiences about engineering. JMWt (talk) 20:10, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

JMWt, you can't see it because it's been fixed! Thanks to my tagging it. EChastain (talk) 23:46, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Radical re-write of anonymous user

There was a radical re-write of an anonymous user recently (3 Nov). The comment was made that the article was "bashing" developing countries. This is definetely not true. It is describing something that is a health issue in developing countries, not in developed countries - and therefore raising awareness about a serious problem! Some of the edits were good but many were not good, including a lot of unexplained removal of content. I am going to undo the whole lot because unfortantely the editor made all the changes in one edit so it would take me too long to pick out the good from the bad. The re-structuring that the editor made was not justified in many cases. Let's rather discuss when a re-structuring is necessary before changing it all in one go! EvMsmile (talk) 12:01, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

I have put a lot of the copy edits back in now, but I disagreed with the large chunks of text that were removed and the different structure that was proposed. Please discuss further here. EvMsmile (talk) 12:40, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

refs

Almost all the refs on this page need attention, I discover. I can't remember how many of them were put in by me, but I think many of those which use <ref name=":2"> type formatting were added by @EvMsmile: - and we subsequently discovered why this wasn't a useful way to use the ref names when they broke. In practice when adding a ref, please don't use numbers and please also use one of the citation templates (web, news, book etc). It was probably me that started doing it wrong on this page so I'm probably largely talking to myself, but it is going to take quite a lot of work to get all the references properly sorted out. Doof. JMWt (talk) 20:36, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

I had a look at the refs and couldn't see any red entries - but does that mean you already fixed them all? If yes, thanks! - I usually try to use a citation template; it's possible that those references were copied from other articles. EvMsmile (talk) 11:05, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

It isn't that they're red, it is just that they're not properly formatted and therefore risk breakages. Unfortunately someone now needs to go back and manually fix them. JMWt (talk) 11:19, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

I've fixed most of them. JMWt (talk) 09:45, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

Additional reference by Duncan Mara

A paper from 2017 by Duncan Mara could contain useful info that could be added in the next round of improvements. I have so far cited it once. It's called "The elimination of open defecation and its adverse health effects: a moral imperative for governments and development professionals". The full paper is available here. EMsmile (talk) 14:23, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Latest data from JMP2017 report

Hi, User:Mfarazbaig. I really like the table you have inserted today! I have moved it to the left to make it more noticeable. However, I don't know how to get the spacing around the table right. Could you please fix that? Also, we should really use the data from JMP (2017). I have added that reference now and updated the figures in the tables. The easiest and most up to date place to grab them from is the WAHSwatch website: https://washwatch.org/en/countries/eritrea/summary/statistics/ - which is using the latest data from JMP in 2017. The rest of the numbers in the article also still need to be updated, rather than using the JMP report from 2015. I will do it when I find the time, or perhaps someone else gets to it before I do. EMsmile (talk) 21:42, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

@EMsmile: The table wasn't working on the left, so its back on the right side. I have updated the whole article using JMP 2017 data. Pls don't remove the World Bank ref again (you never know when they update their data). The only thing now left is to keep it safe from vandals. Thanks. - Mfarazbaig (talk) 06:58, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

:@Mfarazbaig: It's a pity. Surely there should be a way of making it work on the left side as well. I can ask some other Wikipedians about this. I don't understand why the table needs 3 references, however. Don't you think it's confusing to users to have 3 references that all give the same numbers (as they are all based on the same dataset)? Is it in case one of them gets broken in future? By the way, if you have an interest in sanitation, how about joining us at WikiProject Sanitation and at our Sanitation Wikipedia drive before 19 November? See here for more information. EMsmile (talk) 10:32, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Vandalism

I suggest we apply to have this page protected against vandalism. Do you all agree? It seems really tempting for people to change the figures that are quoted in this article. Very annoying. EMsmile (talk) 10:33, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

It looks like the Lead of this article has been protected against vandalism? (No edit or edit source option there) That means you've also protected it against being made more readable. As is, this leads gets a 35 (out of 100) and the whole article gets a 34. I have a person who would like to work on readability. Is there a way she can do that?PlanetCare (talk) 20:56, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

No, this article is not yet protected. You can tell as there is no lock symbol at the top right. The lead can be edited with the normal edit button at the top line. Welcome to User:Pouchak for working on this article! Don't forget to put a reference after the fullstop of a sentence if you are adding completely new content, thanks. EMsmile (talk) 21:25, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, EMsmile! Pouchak, EMsmile called it an "edit button." I would call it the "edit" tab at the top of the page. Click on that tab, and it automatically opens the page to the Lead....so it is possible to edit the lead for readability. Be careful about leaving in existing links (to other Wikipedia pages) and leaving in existing references, while you work your magic with readability. PlanetCare (talk) 21:31, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Improving Readability

Two of us have worked together to make the lead paragraph easier to read. This may not get much better, as "sanitation" and "defecation" (both necessary) are already 4-syllable words. This version does use shorter sentences, and it uses more words to establish causality "therefore" while also being able to start a new sentence.

I think it's a better lead for taking some of the details out. It is now only 4 paragraphs, as recommended. If more material is added to the body of the article the lead may need to be made longer. Readability is now 34. PlanetCare (talk) 17:12, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Strongly support Lindsmbrown's edit of changing "love" to "prefer" This takes away the risk of exaggeration to say that large of a group of people are similar in their "love" of anything. Their actions tell us only that they prefer one thing to another.PlanetCare (talk) 17:34, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

I have inserted (OD) in parentheses after the title and sometimes used OD in the text to see if that would improve readability. It did get the lead up to 41.PlanetCare (talk) 18:25, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

I haven't rechecked this, but in general, I am not sure that we need to "push" the abbreviation OD. The word "open defecation" is already quite short. I would only use OD in the ODF abbreviation and even then, not really in text, just perhaps in table captions or alike. Do you think it improves readability to have more accronyms? I am not sure on this one. (same with WTD, I prefer in general to spell it out as World Toilet Day) EMsmile (talk) 23:34, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Better images to support the text?

I think we could do better when it comes to finding an image to support the lead paragraph. I'm not sure what the one that's here is trying to depict. I'm concerned about being disrepectful, or encouraging disrespect, if we use a photo of a person squatting. Any ideas? PlanetCare (talk) 00:45, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

It's a difficult problem to find good images to show open defecation. I think the photo in the lead is not bad as it shows a person squatting but from a distance so it doesn't violate their personal rights, I think. It is a scene from India, which is where open defecation is most common on a global level. So that also makes sense. But sure, we could hunt around for better ones. I am not sure if photos of feces lying on a beach are much better though? They take away the behavior aspect, and would only show feces. But it's an option (perhaps not necessarily for the lead but for the main article). Another option could be to show a map from the JMP reports which shows where open defecation is most widespread in the world. We have used maps in the lead for other articles, e.g. the one on malnutrition - oh wait, that one uses an orange ribbon - not ideal, I think!? But perhaps due to a similar issue about respect for people's privacy? See here an example from stunted growth which uses a map. It would remove the concern about disrespect but it would also make the article more abstract. Thoughts? Maybe User:Doc_James as an opinion? EMsmile (talk) 09:50, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Not sure either. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:56, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

I disagree with the new globalize tag

I don't quite understand why you, User:Daniel Case added the globalize tag to this article. The article clearly describes the situation in developing countries in general. Yes, India is mentioned often because open defecation is very widespread there. But we cannot "globalize" it by talking about the situation in e.g. Europe, where open defecation is not an issue. Therefore, what do you want us to do? What are we meant to change in order to remove the "globalize" tag again? I don't understand, please help. EMsmile (talk) 22:09, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

@EMsmile: Well ... I placed this tag because I had linked here from The Mad Pooper, a recent instance of public defecation in the U.S. Maybe this does happen in Europe as well; I don't know.

Apart from that, though, I get what you're saying, that this article is about the public health problem created when people in developing countries must defecate on the ground in disused outdoor areas because of lack of access to proper toilet facilities. But still ... while the article does allow that it's a problem in much of the developing world, so much of it focuses specifically on India. I was thinking as I read it, could we not have some more material about how this problem presents in Africa, in specific countries there? Or in Asia, or Latin America? The sources have got to be out there.

And in light of the issue that brought me here, perhaps we could create another article, possibly to be titled public defecation (currently a redirect to this one), to be about defecation in public where proper facilities are available and where doing so violates social norms? Daniel Case (talk) 05:54, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for this additional information. I am quite baffled that there would be a separate article on The Mad Pooper which is just about one woman defecating in the open for unknown reasons. Really, do we need an article on that? When millions of people are forced to defecate in the open for lack of toilets? The term "open defecation" is quite specifically linked to the "lack of toilets" issue. I am not sure about public defecation, e.g. people defecating in open spaces to annoy other people? If you have more instances and references about that than just that one case in Colorado, then yes, perhaps a separated article is indeed warranted.

But I disagree that the article is too focused on India. Look in the section about prevalence, there is even a table there giving the top-10 countries for open defecation. So the data for other countries is included in the article. The fact that no examples are given in the examples section does not warrant the globalize tag. I would therefore suggest that it be removed. EMsmile (talk) 16:10, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Meanwhile, I have come up with a compromise that might work: I have started a new section under "Society and culture" called "Public defecation for other reasons" where we could collect information on that topic. I have added your The Mad Pooper page link there (even though I am still not sure if it deserves a mention; I like the description in there though about people suffering from fecal incontinence and therefore having to defecate in the open for that reason. Actually, we could link fecal incontinence from see also. EMsmile (talk) 16:28, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

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Figures about India

User:Aumnamahashiva, I see that you've updated some figures for India, using other sources than the JMP reports. It is difficult to estimate exact figures but the JMP reports are giving "official" numbers by UNICEF & WHO. So I think that they should not be deleted but perhaps both sets of figures mentioned side by side? Or else it could be said "more recent estimates put the figures at...". - Another thing is that perhaps in this article we should not harp on that much about India (at the moment the figures are mentioned in several places). Perhaps only mention the key figures for India once but then not repeat them again. Rather put the information here: water supply and sanitation in India? What do you think? EvMsmile (talk) 11:05, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

I see that people are often changing the data for India but without giving any references for new data. That's not good. It may well be that the number of open defecators is falling rapidly in India but if you have new figures then please provide a reference to go with the figures! - And I have now moved the India information into one section under Country Examples. Before that, it was spread out in several places.EMsmile (talk) 01:58, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Can we stop fiddling with the data please?!

I see that people were contiously changing the country data. I have now re-arranged things so that we have a table with several columns. The one column shows the data from 2015 which was reported by JMP in 2017. I have just re-checked those figures and re-entered them very carefully into the table. These numbers should now not be changed anymore! (unless you can detect an error on my side). If you see new data reported somewhere, put it in the column on the right, together with the year and the source of the data. Hopefully this will now stop people from changing again and again the data from 2015 (reported in 2017 by JMP). EMsmile (talk) 03:22, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

I have again changed the figures for India in column 2 and 3 back to the JMP data from 2017. Do not change this! Updates can be added to the 4th column, but column 2 and 3 should stay like this until the next report by JMP comes out (note government data is OK but it is the JMP data that is comparable across countries). EMsmile (talk) 02:55, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

I see that you User:Ehrenkater had changed the column headings here in November. Your intention was noble - I think you tried to simplify it - but I think people don't read the text above the table but only the table itself. So they didn't understand that the 3rd column is meant to remain unchanged and show the JMP data from 2017 for comparison purposes and NOT be updated each time the Indian government puts out a new figure! Those new figures are meant to go into the 4th column. EMsmile (talk) 03:01, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 September 2019

Please add the following comment under section

Simple sanitation technology options

"Ecosan Services foundation" promotes UDDT (Urine Diversion Dehydration Toilets) in India which aims to promote hygienically safe toilet system to convert human excreta into nutrients used to increase agricultural yeild with Minimal use of Water across India under Swachh Bharat mission initiated by government of India . [1] Aditya Shailendra Patel (talk) 06:32, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: According to the page's protection level you should be able to edit the page yourself. If you seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. NiciVampireHeart 12:59, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

California

The California section of this article needs significant expansion. The prevelance of open defecation in many of CA's major cities regularly makes national news, and has resulted in the reincarnation of medieval diseases such as Typhus. It has reached such a degree that apps have been created to map out the locations of feces. Neglecting this only further contributes to the racist and "third world" bigotry of the article. 2600:387:5:805:0:0:0:2D (talk) 02:39, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Sadly, you are correct that there is a major problem with this in California. I have often observed this during my visits there. I don't follow a lot of local California media, so I defer to others to expand the coverage. Reify-tech (talk) 14:29, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Only SF is mentioned at the moment, but there is also coverage in LA, as well as outside of California, such as Miami. Donkey Hot-day (talk) 11:34, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

What's "racist and "third world" bigotry of the article" about this article (referring to the comment by IP user number 2600 etc. - who has already been blocked I now see)? If you have information about open defecation in wealthy countries, feel free to add it. There is no doubt that the scale of the problem is bigger in developing countries though. Nothing racist about that. EMsmile (talk) 02:18, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Request to remove article protection

This is not a political article. This is not a controversial article. This is not an article concerning living persons. Why exactly is it necessary to lock it? 2601:18F:4101:4830:A43A:AFE9:A646:C931 (talk) 00:13, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

It has to be protected because sadly, it attracted lots of vandalism. Just see the article's history. It seems any article that deals with bodily functions is prone to vandalism. In addition here, a lot of people were changing things when they didn't like the figures that were provided for India (where open defecation is/was still very common). EMsmile (talk) 02:16, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

It seems that article protection has been removed. But I'm not sure if locking it will really help, as the people changing the India figures seem to be active users with a high number of edits. Donkey Hot-day (talk) 11:34, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Broken link, and new source for data

Since it's not allowed to edit the article, I wanted to inform the editors that this link, cited as a source for several numbers in the page, is broken: https://washdata.org/sites/default/files/documents/reports/2018-01/JMP-2017-report-final.pdf. Further, I think this is a good source for future numbers, as it showcases percentages and trends from JMP rather clearly: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.STA.ODFC.ZS?most_recent_value_desc=true. Thanks. 183.83.128.218 (talk) 02:54, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, I have removed the link to WASHwatch now as that project and website has ended, sadly. It wasn't any different data but just a nice way to access the data.EMsmile (talk) 12:25, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Numbers in the JMP table don't seem supported in sources

I checked the data and they seem to only show the total percentage of people practising this, not the number of people. Should it perhaps be adjusted to just percentages instead? Donkey Hot-day (talk) 13:32, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't understand your point? Currently the table shows the percentage figure and the total number. That's good, isn't it? EMsmile (talk) 12:13, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

The sources listed, like: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.STA.ODFC.ZS, don't seem to show the numbers just the percentages out of the total population. It was same with the other JMP report that I found on google (after seeing source #3 was broken). Of course if you have a source for the numbers, then great, presenting it here would work. Donkey Hot-day (talk) 01:48, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

The tables in the JMP report Appendix show percentage listed and total population next to each other. So I just multiplied one with the other to get the absolute numbers. That's OK, right?EMsmile (talk) 05:19, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

I did not see the total population listed in the sources. Could you explain how to make it visible? Donkey Hot-day (talk) 12:38, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

See e.g. for Afghanistan on page 76 in the third column here: https://www.susana.org/en/knowledge-hub/resources-and-publications/library/details/2805 - it says: 32 527 total population in thousands, so that's 32.5 million people. Does this answer your question, User:Donkey Hot-day? EMsmile (talk) 03:03, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

I guess, although I'm not sure how rounding would/should be calculated. Well regardless, I'll be adding a few other entries to the table. Donkey Hot-day (talk) 06:36, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

India & Hinduism

The section India & Hinduism, which keeps being deleted by one editor, is sourced to multiple reliable sources including UNICEF and the BBC. This is an issue which directly affects the health and life expectancy, of many Indians, and needs to be explained in our article. Wikipedia is WP:NOTCENSORED and repeated deletion on a basis of WP:IDONTLIKEIT is not acceptable. The editor has been warned about edit warring, but has continued to delete this section. - Arjayay (talk) 14:24, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi @Arjayay:The opening sentence itself is misleading in this section. None of the three cited sources even BBC nor Unicif refer about "Street defection". The key issue is diluted with equating Open defecation to just Street defecation and misleading.

And on other part of the section, as you claim "Sourced from UNICIF and BBC" none of the sources you are stating are UNICIF and BBC, but surely are scholarly journals citations. again misleading. In following sentence of the ame section, you attribute open defection mainly with Hindus and cite Journal of Development studiea but strangely you miss, from same journal "It is also the case that Hindus and non-Hindus are both heterogeneous groups with substantial variation in sanitation behaviour: many Hindus do use latrines regularly, and many non-Hindus do not" (emphasis mine) Plz see (Apeendix-A2) of same source. I wonder, Why? is this WP:BIAS? But clearly is WP:UNDUE , Thanks Santoshdts (talk) 11:51, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi Santoshdts, firstly, thank you for discussing this here, rather than edit-warring.
You called me to this section, and keep using "you" - "you claim", "you state", "you miss" etc. whereas a quick look at the edit history will show that I did not originate any of this text, so I suggest you ask/discuss the detail of this with the editors who actually wrote it.
Personally, I think the difference between "open defecation" and "street defecation" is a semantic argument, but I'm sure this could be reworded.
Furthermore, I am not sure what you mean by "none of the sources you are stating are UNICIF and BBC" - as both of these are clearly cited in the section.
My contribution was merely to stop the PoV mass deletion, of a very important issue, supported by multiple reliable sources, which directly affects the health and life expectancy of many Indians. The problem needs explaining and resolving, and is not helped by simply deleting it and trying to pretend that it does not occur. - Arjayay (talk) 15:11, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi @Arjayay: Iam absolutely sorry for appropriating the part of section in the page to you. I should have referred to the edit history of the page, I apologize for my mistake.

As far as "Street defecation" and "Open defecation" Thanks for agreeing on terming it appropriately. Now on "BBC and UNICIF" what I meant was, none of these sources are cited other than for the Opening sentence of the section starting with "Street defecation". Also, some of the sources cited, also say "many Hindus do use latrines regularly, and many non-Hindus do not" in the same journal. Ofcourse there are many sources connecting Hinduism to open defecation. But selective part from the journal is referred and other parts ignored. Isin't that POV Pushing? Somemore sources quoted, discuss about other factors like lack of availability of water, etc. related to open defecation, but the editor has sidelined most of them and considered only one aspect. What I wanted to convey is, most of the sources referred discuss many aspects of open defecation, but are not summarized in the article. Clearly Pushing a POV. Thanks Santoshdts (talk) 16:12, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

"street defecation" is also another term used, but I've changed it to "open defecation" to be consistent with the rest of the article. A short summary of the scientific papers is given that Hindus who live in non-Hindu majority areas do use latrines (toilets) due to social norms being different in those areas. Since this is more of a larger epidemic in India, it's focused more on the causes that pertain to india, whereas the rest of the article talks about open defecation in other nations and by other groups. But if you want we can have longer summaries of these papers, although I tried to keep it short and simple to make it more information dense Qayrawan (talk) 17:04, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Arjayay Santoshdts Qayrawan Abecedare I am sorry people but can anyone please enlighten me on how this section is being informative, let alone targeting?? Many countries still practice open defecation, even so more than India. It’s illogical to mention a particular country. Countries like Nigeria, Indonesia, Pakistan have worse conditions. I think the editors are Muslims from pakistan which have some kind of agenda. If you want you should also mention worse conditions about your country as well. I would suggest that the previous section on country examples is restored. If you look at the edit history someone deleted country examples which mentioned countries and their initiatives and only added india and hinduism. Simply dedicating India as a section is weird, obviously racially motivated and misinformative.

You don't have a 121.6.114.20 But India contains 70% of all global open defecation. It is a very serious health issue that affects many Indian peoples. I don't know why you want to remove a very informative section. There already is a data table on other countries, but the fact that you mention "Muslims from pakistan" suggests you are one of those radical hinduvata trolls that commonly vandalize Wiki pages on India which talk about serious issues within India, for example this public health crisis many Indians suffer from. Please avoid vandalizing this page for political reasons, it's sourced to multiple reliable sources and even the scientific papers are made by Indian scientists who are concerned about this health issue. ----Qayrawan (talk) 00:44, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

"But India contains 70% of all global open defecation." Simply outdated. Most new reliable sources cited on article, unless they are reporting before 2015 itself, didn't document it exceeding 7% and recognise progress made by India throughout the decade. Counting on google results, new sources, campaigns and news don't even emphasize on India that much. Nevertheless, that exceptionally high old statistics from 2011 census of were no less dubious as they always mismatched with data collected earlier or later. Did you even bother to read stats section and compare old revisions gradually changed throughout years before initiating edit war? Any further personal attacks by referring other editors as "vandal" will be reported immediately. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 10:59, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Those are government studies, but surveys from RICE state although there is improvement these figures are overblown. For example RICE states in a 2nd 2018 survey that "44% of rural people over two years old in rural Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh defecate in the open.[2] "said RICE's Khalid. "But this is such a big farce because open defecation by no means has been eliminated."[3] Please avoid misusing warnings, there was no personal attack, it's well know there are lots of trolls in the India/Pakistan/China wiki articles who often try to promote their politics and censor information that looks negative for the current Indian government, hence why a lot of them are locked frequently. If you look through the edit history of Open Defecation for example, you find that it's blanked and vandalized many times by non-registered IPs and non-confirmed accounts ----Qayrawan (talk) 17:03, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi, could someone Plz define what "Other Hindu villages" mean in this article? As none of the sources cited with respect to this phrase explain this. Thanks Santoshdts (talk) 13:02, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

I have deleted the recently added click-baity section heading that was more suitable for an online news article than for wikipedia. The whole India & Hinduism section needs a rewrite to improve organization and tone, and rely less on anecdotal news-reports and primary surveys, and more on review articles and authoritative reports that I am pretty certain have been written. Also needs to discuss the Swachh Bharat Mission. Abecedare (talk) 15:39, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

The majority of it is primarily from Diane Coffey's book "Where India Goes" (2017), a very authoritative and information dense book on this topic which is the primary source for that while subsection, with news sources being used as secondary reference. Also added in the Clean India campaign Qayrawan (talk) 17:17, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

It seems that Hari147 is continuing to vandalize this page and edit warring. I'd recommend Ymblanter block him from this page, as blocked from it before for vandalizing by 331dot. He also seems to have removed several reputable sources from the page, and instead is continuing to replace it with non reputable sources and "claims" that contradict sources such as the BBC and UNICEF. He keep inserting the false statement " only 5% of the total population have no access to toilets and are still doing open defecation." yet according to unicef it's as high as 35%. ----Qayrawan (talk) 18:35, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Qayrawan I'd suggest you stop this blame game and misleading people. Your contribution edit history shows that u make selective editing and make most edits to topics primarily involving and glorifying Islam like [4]. It wouldnt take too long for anyone to add studies and facts discrediting whatever u have added. Studies have proven that Islam is the most extremist and terrorizing religion . Muslim women are the most oppressed in muslim-majority countries.. These are just the tip of the iceberg. I do not blindly add this without any neutral views nor without following proper editing. Furthermore, what i have edited is content that is well-sourced as well as not undated, like what you have done. My point here is that i do not add content that is not only unfamiliar to me, but also content that speaks much about my point of view POV Pushing which you have done. This article has already been protected and locked from any editing whatsoever. I would suggest you show some respect and refrain from making any targetted edits. You have not initiated any discussions before adding the content, similarly to all other articles u have edited. --Hari147 (talk) 13:19, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

This is a topic on open defecation, and a section on India. You're bringing up irrelevant topics and resorting to PERSONALATTACKS. Your talk page also seems to be full of several other violations and multiple instances where you have been blocked from many articles including Open Defecation for various reasons. It is a problem on wikipedia that there are many trolls who go around trying to censor information. This is not a place to spread a political agenda, SOAPBOX this is a health crisis. You have already been blocked from editing this page once for edit warring. Stay on topic. For example your edit with "Country examples" isn't consistent. You've also removed several reputable sources from CNN and UNICEF and replaced them with government claims WP:NPOV which are not neutral claims and the other articles from BBC/CNN have shown the problems with these claims. Not to mention there is just one country in the country examples, if there were multiple nations, then yes we'd give each country it's own section, but the only country thus far is India, not to mention it does not have a lead either. But ignoring that do you have any reason as to why you removed the articles from BBC/CNN and UNICEF? Both which are reliable sources? ----Qayrawan (talk) 15:51, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Qayrawan you have still not understood the context with what i have said. Yet you are sticking to that one part where i mentioned about Islam. I am simply stating facts that you have no point of view when you made a post titled "India and hinduism". I am not a fond editor in wikipedia to be a perfect editor, but you have now resorted to PERSONALATTACKS when you refer a user as a "hindutva" above. This is recent data released by the indian government. If the reports are questionable you add in reports that suggest that. Instead you have started to vandalize and attack this article by posting not only outdated data but also deleting existing ones as well. Furthermore, adding links to hinduism is at all irrelevant and extremely biased views. You have clearly shown a lack of point of view, respect as well as proper discussion with editors. This article has been safeguarded. Please refrain from making any further nonconstructive edits. --Hari147 (talk) 17:32, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

India (country examples)

In this section that was renamed to "Country examples" there is only 1 country. This does not seem appropriate, and would seem more appropriate if there were multiple country examples each with enough information to get their own subsection. However this problem of open defecation is primarily very prevalent in India. It's not very likely to find as much information on other nations like Nepal, which also has lots of open defecation, for those nations to get their own section. Although this information on other nations is already present in the rest of the article. There is just so much of this article/and newspapers/ government studies that is speficially about India, it should get it's own section as to not confuse it with other nations such as in Africa, China etc... ----Qayrawan (talk) 16:50, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

As far in the article subject is concerned, most of the sources cited base their study on South Asia. There were many references to Nepal made by not referring to Nepal and attributing the figures and statements to India in earlier versions, which I have corrected. My question is, What is some content on Nepal doing in Section named India?

In another instance, on Corruption in India, it says: Drinking water is contaminated by human feces, and children are seen playing in their neighbors feces. Here, the source doesn't discuss anything about corruption in India or corruption anywhere in the world (Strange, it been sitting there in a section named Corruption). It's just makes a passing reference to a study that, 23% of 53% people with improved sanitation in India dispose of childrens feces unsafely. And goes on to discuss that's it's a prevailing practice through out the world AND not exceptional to India. Does this statement need to be there in Corruption subsection of India? There are many more such things I find misleading in the whole section on India, which I Shall update later.

That's a summarization of the Foreword and Introduction in the source. (Coffey, Diane. Where India Goes .2017) Chapter 8 is entirely devoted to a more in depth analysis into government corruption and the role of the Indian state, but I'm not sure if I should copy paste and make the section too long as that would be akin to plagiarism. Even if I did summarize the whole chapter, the sub section would be so long it might as well get it's own section,or wikipedia page. So I summarized it as Coffey summarized it in her introduction. The content on nepal, is just a similar study showing the effects of hinduism in a neighboring nation, since both India and Nepal are very closely linked and share many of the same social issues ----Qayrawan (talk) 19:13, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@Qayrawan: In my comment above, I never mentioned anything about a books by Coffey, Diane, Where India goes.2017. Iam sure you should not copy paste the content on wikipedia. And as far as your Nepals' assumption: It's wikipedia, you PoV doesn't matter and I am sure you consider Nepal as a Sovereign Country and it should not consume space in some other Countries content. Hence, it would not be a fair practice to merge some aspects of one country in a different country. However, you did not reply to my other pointed query, which discusses other sources and surely NOT the books you mentioned. Santoshdts (talk) 19:29, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

The stuff about "children playing in their neighbors feces" is sourced to that book. I summarized what the introduction of the book stated. But I've moved that part to it's own section in "Case of Ramila" since it technically didn't talk much about corruption but was an example of the consequences of government corruption. The book is very informative on India and is primarily about it, but the book does talk about neighboring nations such as Bangladesh and Nepal, and other nations that went through epidemics of open defecation, such as Ethiopia, and the cultural differences/similarities between India and these other nations and why some things work for them and why they don't for India. But yes I agree that part should be moved to it's own section since it's primarily a case story about a family in India as an example of the norm in many of these rural areas, which I already did and moved much of the government stuff from the opening paragraph to the government corruption section and added some more stuff from the book ----Qayrawan (talk) 20:26, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@Santoshdts: I've modified the Government Corruption section to this see: [5] do you agree? and moved the ramila story to it's own sub section. ----Qayrawan (talk) 20:30, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@Qayrawan: Here again: One case, as is the average in with many other children comes from Sitapur, a district in Uttar Pradesh where 80% of rural households defecate in the open. Drinking water is contaminated by human feces, and children are seen playing in their neighbors feces you cite the same reference, instead of clearing the doubts, you Now move it to some other section. Where do you see the content in your source matching your story of Uttar Pradesh? Can you link some case, somewhere in the world and connect it to India? Iam not sure wether Case of Ramila is eligible to be added in this page as this page is Not a Biography of Ramila (?). And also you have moved some major part of Swachh Bharat Mission to Corruption section. It's really confusing. As I said earlier, still there are may such random linkages in the section to be cleared. Plz hold your edits untill, matter gets resolved. Santoshdts (talk) 20:47, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

And here you say The stuff about "children playing in their neighbors feces" is sourced to that book. but cite this. Why's is that so? Don't you think that's misleading? Santoshdts (talk) 20:54, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@Santoshdts: It can be renamed to something else, but it shows what many children suffer through and what many families go through, you can move it to below "government corruption" so it flows better. Although there is a chapter in (Coffey, 2017) that is specifically about children in general accruing health illnesses from open defecation, if you feel this section focuses too much on a single case study, and Ramila's case can be summarized to just one or two sentences.

The Swachh Bharat Mission (i'll just refer to it as the Clean India Mission from now on) is also filled with corruption such as under funding, false and unrealistic promises. Hence why I moved it to government corruption, many agencies such as RICE, and Accountability Initiative state this. The corruption itself is about the Clean India Mission and how funds are embezzled out or not received. The reason is that the opening paragraph isn't suppose to be long, it's a short summary of all the subsections. So like 1 sentence summarizing each subsection.

And for the world bank citation it's a secondary source (i avoid relying too much on that book for citations) stating the same thing on how children are playing in feces, but do you want it to have it's own short summarization? Something like "In many rural households, the feces of children are improperly disposed of due to the belief that the feces of children is less dangerous than that of adults." something along that line? ----Qayrawan (talk) 21:05, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Ok, let's take this at a time.

• You can Rename it whatever you like. The question is How Notable are Ramila or Nina to be included in this page? And is this a Biography page? I Propose deletion of this passage in which ever section it exists.
• Again You can Call it whatever you like, Swachh Bharat Mission or Clean India Mission doesn't matter nor you views unless backed by reliable sources to support your views. And not some random linkages from various sources and arriving at a predetermined conclusion.
• Now, all in your above comments, you were praising the book. Now you are avoiding to cite from the book? As far as rephrasing your content on " childrens' feces...drinking water" and linking it to rural India. where is your source? your World Bank blog as a source doesn't discuss THIS. (verifiability is of central importance on Wikipedia).

Now. you moved the "childrens feces" story from Government Corruption to some other section. How do you justify that? Santoshdts (talk) 21:23, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

• Qayarawan is a blocked sock and has a history of falsifying sources. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 03:26, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Summary, please?

I've come to this talk page after a few weeks of absence. I have an interest in this article and was involved some years ago in creating/improving it. Could someone please fill me in which the recent changes that took place in April? I took a look at the article history but was confused. Was there an edit war? Also why are there all these paragraphs crossed out on this talk page? What does that mean? I assume that there was debate about whether India should be mentioned prominently in the article or not. India has made some big progress on reducing open defecation (see Swachh Bharat Mission) but prior to 2015 it was the country with the largest number of people doing open defecation, as per data by WHO and UNICEF (JMP). It might be an uncomfortable truth for some. Perhaps the argument was over reducing the mentioning of India and more treating this article as a general article about open defecation without going too much into country specific examples? Perhaps the India data is better off being explained and updated in a sub-article, like that one about Water supply and sanitation in India. EMsmile (talk) 14:07, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Pinging previously active editors to my question: User:Aman.kumar.goel, User:Santoshdts, User:Qayrawan, User:Hari147. EMsmile (talk) 01:41, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

References

The table in prevalence and trends

@User:Vanamonde93 you had deleted the last column of the table in prevalence and trends but I've now put it back in. I agree it's not ideal that the last column only shows figure for India and Pakistan but rather than deleting it, the better course of action would be to try to find updated figures for the other countries as well. A lot has changed since 2015, especially in India (see also Swachh Bharat Mission) so it would be incomplete to only show those JMP figures from 2015 and not to point out that the current estimates of people doing open defecation in India are in fact much lower. - Probably soon (next year maybe) we will have new data from JMP for all the countries, in which case we can add another column to the table for comparison purposes.EMsmile (talk) 02:12, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

@EMsmile: This would be true if you could find an independent source making the same claim (rather than a government press release), and if you removed the figures for Pakistan, because at the moment the table is presenting 2018 figures from the Indian government in comparison with 2015 figures from Pakistan as though they are equivalent. Pakistan's 2015 prevalence is already documented in the previous column; why is it here? Vanamonde (Talk) 02:30, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

@Vanamonde I don't know about the Pakistan figures, I haven't looked into those. Where did Wateraid get 22% from for the same year? But the bottom line is that I think it's fair to show the readers that these figures change over time and change with different methods of reporting. So if we removed that column we would have no way of showing that. I think a government press release is regarded as an OK source for Wikipedia (not the greatest but not worse than a newspaper article which is also allowed as a source). If you feel strongly about the Pakistan figures, we could delete them as the UNICEF one is likely the same as JMP and the WAterAid one is from 2015 so not "more recent". Or we change the heading in that column to "Figures from sources other than JMP". EMsmile (talk) 04:23, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Re: Pakistani numbers; I would suggest deleting them altogether from that column; it's not a meaningful comparison, and is misleading given the title. Re: press release; the trouble with government press releases is that they are designed to show the government in the best light. Every government does this. If the numbers were in fact verified by an independent assessor, they ought to be available from an independent source. If they are not, it begs the question why not. Vanamonde (Talk) 04:56, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I'll have to agree with Vanamonde's reasoning here that govt. data cannot be relied upon therefore his removal of the column makes sense. --119.153.37.136 (talk) 19:10, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

• I have removed the extra column for Pakistan, pending any argument to keep it. I am still concerned by the use of government data for the Indian section, and by the fact that we feel the need to have an extra column for one country (who is to say the data haven't changed for the others?) but I will wait to see what further arguments are made here before doing anything further. Vanamonde (Talk) 14:55, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

@Vanamonde: The data has changed for all the countries since that JMP report was published last but nowhere has the change been as drastic as for India. So it's important to keep that column and to start populating the column for the other countries as well when that data comes to light. And it's possible that the government data is "exaggerated" but it is not up to us to judge that. We provide the data and the source. The reader will have to draw their own conclusions. If you have other data, with sources, then that should be provided as well for a balanced article. The issues for the India data are also discussed here: Swachh Bharat Mission. Is that article wiki-linked well enough or does it need to be linked more prominently? There have been so many changes to the India content of this article that I have lost track a little (I had asked about this earlier, scroll up on the talk page - no answer was provided). EMsmile (talk) 14:52, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

@EMsmile: "We provide the data and the source" is a bit misleading. We're claiming, in Wikipedia's voice, that an independent source supports those numbers, when the only source we have for them is a government source. Can you find an independent source making the same claim? Vanamonde (Talk) 15:38, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia guidelines explain very clearly what is regarded as a reliable source, see WP:RS. Note this page talks about "reliable" not "independent". The sources given (even newspaper articles) count in the Wikipedia standards as "reliable sources". It is up to the critical reader to make up their own mind which sources are more credible than others. This is not up to us. But if there is conflicting information then we need to present differing data as well. For the India situation this is explained quite well here (although I want to beef up that section as well): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swachh_Bharat_Mission#Survey_results . I don't want to repeat the same information in this article but want to make sure the two articles are well linked. @User:Sparsh85, any comments from your end? - See also this section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Biased_or_opinionated_sources "Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject." EMsmile (talk) 02:54, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Have you read the policy you are quoting? Independence is mentioned as an important criterion in the very first sentence; and in the section you are citing, it says "When dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider [...] the level of independence from the topic the source is covering." Whether the source has an opinion doesn't matter, but whether the source is independent matters very much. The source here is a government source; the claim it is used to cite needs an independent source. Vanamonde (Talk) 03:37, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

It's not like we are dealing here with a highly controversial topic (such as Donald Trump, climate change, conspiracy theories about vaccination and like) - it's just open defecation figures in India. It's a fact that the prevalence of open defecation in India has reduced. Are you saying the government of India data cannot be trusted at all? Do you have better references at hand that prove this? If so, please provide them. How much do they differ? I think this is turning into an academic discussion... It is possible and likely that the Indian government data is a big exaggerated. It is unlikely that they are off by a huge margin. As soon as someone has better, more independent, more reliable data at hand, they are very welcome to add it to the article. Taking out the government-supplied data completely would be wrong in my opinion. Have you read the paragraph that I linked in the article on SBM? Here some other articles are cited. I think that is sufficient to provide the balance that Wikipedia asks us to provide. Like I said: if better publications come to light I would be the first to say let's utilise them! So far I don't have any at my fingertips, apart from those cited in the article on SBM. Also for your info, the data that is provided in the third column is by WHO and UNICEF (so theoretically independent) but they also rely on information that is provided to them by Indian government officials... EMsmile (talk) 06:54, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Indian politics is covered by WP:ARBIPA; a topic under discretionary sanctions is controversial on Wikipedia by definition. Furthermore, you added criticism of the Swachch Bharat campaign yourself; and you're claiming it's not controversial? We use data from WHO and UNICEF because they are independent organizations endorsing the things they publish. That's a critical difference. More importantly, data supposedly from a third party are being cited to a government source. How do you not see a problem with this? Vanamonde (Talk) 15:19, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

I have changed the caption heading again to make it clearer that this is government data. But let's be more specific, which of the two bullet points do you think is wrong? This is what we have so far:

+++++

• 6.6% or 88 millions in 2018 according to NRASS conducted by Independent Verificatiom Agency (IVA) of World Bank
• 1.4% or 19 million in January 2019 according to data collated by the Government of India

+++++ Which data and source would you like to include in the table in addition? Which reference do you have at hand that gives better data for the current situation? EMsmile (talk) 01:52, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Bullet point one claims to be sourced to an independent organization, but is in fact a government source. It needs an independent source, or needs to be framed as a government statement, at the very least. I still belive it does not belong here, per WP:DUE, but what's currently in the article is a more serious problem. Whether I believe in the actual number is irrelevant. Vanamonde (Talk) 01:59, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Ah well, that's easy to change. I have changed it now. Better? Let's keep a look out for more recent data, independently sourced, and add it when we find it. EMsmile (talk) 02:05, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:30, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

The numbers are changing in what seems to be inappropriate ways. I can understand the need to find sources showing improvements but for the changes to India, Pakistan, Niger, the Philippines etc., they should be made in the 'more recent estimates' column, not the one for JMP. Donkey Hot-day (talk) 09:41, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

As much as I know, no independent survey covers the whole of India. NARSS 2018-19 is the last survey by the government of India. Till the time, we have an independent source, I suggest we add results from survey conducted by Research Institute of Compassionate Economics (RICE) in rural areas of 4 states in North India. I will also try to find other independent studies. But, they will likely cover only a state or parts of it. Sparsh85 (talk) 17:57, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

References

Should China still be listed on the table of open defecation countries?

I had a look at the newest 2019 report using 2017 data as published by WHO and the JMP with the open defecation rate in China being <1% in line with other countries which do not openly practice open defecation. I was unsure of how to represent the data as % of the population as the data published does not give a precise % and just lists it as <1%.

Currently, I have amended the table to show 1% of the population however I would like some opinions on removing China from the table as there isn't much point in listing it as a country that practices open defecation as the data suggests that they have eliminated the practice. Sefog (talk) 19:41, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi Sefog, I think China should still stay in the table because in absolute numbers it is still top of the table (can that be right? did you update the absolute value figures as well). Also I am wondering if we should replace old values with new ones or if we should add additional columns to show progression over the years. I think showing how things have been changing would be valuable. EMsmile (talk) 03:14, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, I adjusted the numbers based on 2017 values which includes the absolute values. However, my point is according to the data provided by JMP the value is <1% which is in line with other countries where the practice is non-existant, as for now I have put the absolute value as <13 million however I am unsure how to represent <1% in absolute terms as the value may be anything between 0 and 13 million as the JMP report does not give a precise %, it is simply listed as <1%. If anyone has any ideas about how to represent this in absolute terms it would be much appreciated.

I also do like the idea of having progressive year on year changes to reflect progress in this field however I do not feel skilled enough to implement this. Sefog (talk) 10:44, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

I am undecided about the China question. Opinions by others? Take it out or leave it in? With regards to the changes from year to year, we can use the existing table in the article for that. The one columns shows the data from 2017 and the column next to it can show data that was published later. It doesn't have to be a year by year progression. We could just show two data points (one for 2017, one for 2021 for example). It would still show the trend. EMsmile (talk) 01:49, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

I personally feel that the statistics imply that China should not be listed in that particular table as the <1% value represents that open defecation is not a common practice, an example is that places such as the United States for example are listed as having <1%. If China is included in the table as having <1% or 13 million, it would also imply that the US having <1% or 3 million people open defecating as regular practice which I know is untrue and is potentially misleading. Sefog (talk) 20:23, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't think this is a good change that you made here, Sefog. Adding data from 2020 is good but why delete the previous data? It would be useful to see the trends. So I think it would be better to add a new column with the 2020 data and to keep the other columns. Also, I don't think we need to have all the countries listed. Previously, we had just shown the 15 countries with the highest number of people. EMsmile (talk) 05:10, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, I've tried adding the new data in addition to the old but I cannot make the page look readable in any way, if you could implement if it feel free to do so. I disagree with not adding other countries with high incidence of open defecation however as it implies that sanitation is not a problem in countries with lower population. In your previous list, countries such as Haiti and Madagascar would be omitted as in absolute values the incidence of open defecation would be low compared to countries such as India, however in percentage terms it shows that sanitation is an endemic problem in those countries with 18% and 47% incidence rate which is why I believe that the list should include data with high incidence rates in both absolute and percentage terms. If the majority disagree with me, I'll happily back down. Sefog (talk) 22:06, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Ideally, both the new & old data should be included (I'm not motivated to do it though). For countries listed, I think China should be included in the list as perhaps .23% per this reference to 2017 JMP data. China's % was also listed as 2% in 2015 or something, right? Either way, .23% or 2% of China's population is still a higher number than many other nations (due to being the most/2nd most populous country), even if they are very small percentages. Both absolute numbers & % to me are significant.

Btw, the UNICEF/WHO source you guys added keeps getting removed in place of individual govt data. The users involved seem to be engaged in disruptive editing. Donkey Hot-day (talk) 11:34, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

The India data

I can see from the recent revision history that editors regularly take out the "old" (2014) data about India. My plea would be to leave that in because it's important to show where India started from and how far they got since 2014. Secondly, the "new" data released by the Indian government is not always completely objective and there is a chance that there will be some slippage back. So I think it's important to explain why open defecation was high in India until 2014, how the SBM campaign helped to progress things and where we stand now. Further information is also here, which we have linked to: Swachh Bharat Mission.EMsmile (talk) 01:52, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Images used in this article

Hi User:Decjob, welcome to Wikipedia. I see that you are new and you proceeded with removing images from this article without discussing it on the talk page first. These images have been with this article for years and nobody has complained as yet. You talk about not mentioning particular countries. Well, open defecation is more of a problem in some countries than in others. Not mentioning countries would be like saying, let's talk about female genital mutilation but not say which countries have a high prevalence of it. - The photos are important to illustrate the problem. They are taken from far enough away to not be inappropriate. Let's keep them (some of them might need better captions though, but it's not a solution to remove the mentioning of the countries). EMsmile (talk) 13:33, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

I feel these images should not be specific about some nations. These problems are there in lots of places and these images are changed by different people from different countries to suit their needs. We should show general images not refering to any specific place beacuse there is a chance that people may add too many of them in the future to make issues here.

Please sign comments on talk pages with the four tildes, User:Decjob. I disagree with you. Open defecation is far more prevalent in those developing countries that have low access to WASH. It is/was a particularly big problem in India, there is just no way around it (see the figures quoted in the table). Are you trying to be overly politically correct? Again, it's like saying female genital mutilation is a problem "everywhere", rather than listing which countries have a particularly high prevalence of it. What is your definition of a "general image" versus a "specific image"? If we took out the country names in the image captions, people could still find out by clicking on the image anyhow. EMsmile (talk) 03:33, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Consistent data for prevalence and trends

Looking over the data, I believe that using a single reliable source for the data of open defecation should be used, as it is currently there is a mix of self reported statistics, values from the JMP and uncited data which is inconsistent with any cited data.

I propose we use the latest data from the JMP as listed on their website (https://washdata.org/report/jmp-2021-wash-households-LAUNCH-VERSION) for all current data as the latest 2021 statistics are now out and remove previous sources from self reported data as it conflicts with more consistent data from the WASH. I believe that using data from the JMP report which publishes their methodology is more consistent than self reported data which can be politically motivated (see the current edit of <2% for India whose citations do not mention any statistics of open defecation, only some erroneous information that toilets have been built compared to the reported 15% that the JMP has reported for 2020, a difference of 200 million people) Sefog (talk) 19:32, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

I second the proposal. Notwithstanding the erroneousness of the current India citations, there is also reporting from both foreign and local Indian media that the Modi govt statistics are questionable. This should apply to all govt data in this regard, so Nepal's cases should also be limited to the 4th column of the table, not the 3rd column. Donkey Hot-day (talk) 11:34, 8 September 2021 (UTC)