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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 05:16, 28 April 2018 [1].

Faith in Buddhism

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Nominator(s): Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 07:26, 30 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the nature of faith in Buddhist traditions. I am nominating this featured article for review because I think it is ready for FA. I've tried to get the article to comply with the criteria, but there is much i don't know about since this is my first nomination. The article heavily relies on tertiary sources like encyclopedia articles, due to the broad nature of the topic, but it also contains many secondary sources. It is at GA now.Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 07:31, 30 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • I really hope this gets some reviewers with a solid grounding in Buddhism. It strikes me there are many points where things and terms mentioned need explaining quickly. I hope to read through slowly & bring some here, but it is hard going for most Western readers, & me, though I know more about Buddhism than many. Johnbod (talk) 19:17, 3 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay, we can work on that. Can you give me some terms or paragraphs to start with, John? Thanks.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 21:57, 3 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

comments by outriggr

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April, 5
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This is an ambitious undertaking. Excellent work. I have looked at the lead only, and have the following comments.

Thanks for your efforts, outriggr. I should have started an FA sooner, as I can see now that i have written several articles that may have to be rewritten considerably. Well, better late than never. I'm going to go through this chronologically. Here goes:
  • "serene commitment in the practice"--I am not clear if "serene commitment to the practice" would be more idiomatic, or if it would change your meaning ignore this
  • Why use "dhamma" throughout the article as a pipe to "dharma", when the latter word is much more familiar to an English-speaking audience?
  • "the community of spiritually developed followers, or the monastic community seeking enlightenment"--is the "or" separating two different things, or attempting to define the first thing (the community)? If it is defining the first thing, I would reword, such as by using a dash: "the community of spiritually developed followers—the monastic community seeking enlightenment".
  • is there a reason to not have an article ("a") before the noun in " A faithful devotee was called (a/n) upāsaka or upāsika"?
  • "for which no formal declaration was required"--I don't know what this means, but I can guess.
  • Same with "Early Buddhism valued personal verification highest". What is personal verification?

Those are questions I have after two paragraphs, and my concern is that I could continue this list of "things I don't quite follow" throughout the article. It is undoubtedly a difficult topic to explain clearly, and I hope you will continue to clarify as necessary. Outriggr (talk) 00:07, 5 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Bring it on!--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 19:08, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
My feeling exactly - also I suspect my list from the first 2 paras would be as long, but mostly different. Johnbod (talk) 00:59, 5 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I will start working on this this weekend.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 13:09, 6 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
April, 7
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I would suggest that the article needs a thoughtful copyedit throughout, ideally by someone with knowledge of the subject, and that you take a second look at every paragraph to examine if it adheres to the topic of Faith closely enough to remain. I acknowledge the difficulty (or impossibility) of such a clean separation from other articles about Buddhism.

Alright, I'm doing this after the other comments are fixed.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 19:08, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • One example: I don't believe the current third paragraph of the lead is necessary; the lead is quite long enough without it.
  • Another: the beginning of the History section is not an introduction to the section, but rather mentions a couple of concepts that are never stated again.
  • Is it possible to choose between Sanskrit or Pali words, and be consistent? I can see that, depending on the word, either variant may be more familiar for someone with a passing knowledge of Buddhism, but most of the time it will be Pali. We need "dharma" and "sangha", not the other variants. And for a given word, the Pali or Sanskrit may not be used consistently, and it may be capitalized inconsistently.
  • I have changed some terms for consistency, but early Buddhism used Pāli or a predecessor, and Mahāyāna Buddhism used Sankrit, Chinese and Japanese. I believe I'm following scholarly convention as in the sources cited.
  • As for spelling errors, I'll print the text and copy-edit once more.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 19:08, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • There seems to be a somewhat disproportionate mention of Sri Lankan Buddhism.
  • Positive: The use of references appears to be excellent. :)
  • Thanks :-)

I should mention that I am choosing some criticisms that didn't require too much engagement with the content, so there is potentially a lot more where that came from. Outriggr (talk) 04:24, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I've just warmed up.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 19:08, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The way i see it now, is that none if the paragraphs need to be completely deleted, but some sections should cut to the chase more quickly, as the introduction is too lengthy, compared to the part that actually deals with faith. To fix this, it would require some trimming. Is this what you mean?--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 19:29, 7 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think I have addressed all issues now, Outriggr.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 14:21, 11 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
April, 16
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Thanks for your responses Farang Rak Tham. Just one comment up to the start of the "History" section now. Hopefully I'll get to read more later.

Thanks!--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 17:23, 16 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Faith in early Buddhism focused on the Triple Gem, that is, the Buddha; his teaching (the Dharma); the community of spiritually developed followers, and the monastic community seeking enlightenment (the Saṅgha)." We talked about this sentence above; now it seems to enumerate four parts of the "Triple Gem". I understand that the last group is the sangha, but it's still a windy sentence. At the least, I would expect an "and" to follow after the last semi-colon as the third thing. Outriggr (talk) 01:57, 16 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • "This does not mean that Buddhism's approach of reality developed in isolation: at the time when Buddhism arose, there was a trend of critical caution in understanding reality amongst Indian religious communities." It's not clear to me how this sentence relates to the text before it.
  • The phrasing is a bit awkward as well ("approach of reality", "there was a trend of caution in understanding...").
  • Is the present tense ("Faith is") appropriate in the discussion of Early Buddhism?
  • I think it mostly works, but that one paragraph beginning feels wrong.
  • "Faith then leads to many other important qualities on the path to the end of suffering..."--this doesn't sound specific, or formal, enough for an encyclopedia article. Outriggr (talk) 04:29, 16 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
April, 22
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  • Thank you for all your helpful edits, Outriggr. In this edit, you have started to edit the see above and see below templates. I am not certain in what way these were malfunctioning at first, but currently, they link to an old diff. Perhaps we should fix that. Maybe we can just leave out the link?--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 11:11, 22 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • I fixed that in the next edit.
    • I don't think I will complete a review here. (On the FAC talk page, there is currently a discussion to the effect that reviewers should not draw FACs out line by line when we find issues with the clarity of writing. :-)
      • Okay, but where should I ask someone to help improve the clarity of writing, then? Peer review nominations of religious articles do not attract many reviewers.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk)
    • As a final comment, many book references are linked to web sites which host PDFs in full. While this is at the moment useful for e.g. reviewing the use of sources, those files are almost certainly copyright violations, and we aren't supposed to link to copyright violations here. Regards, Outriggr (talk) 03:47, 23 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for helping to comment, Outriggr! Too bad you can't continue the review.--Farang Rak Tham (Talk) 08:15, 23 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Coord note

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This has been open almost a month without attracting sufficient commentary to determine consensus to promote, so I'll be archiving it shortly. I appreciate the difficulty of bringing such an article to FAC, particularly when the Peer Review didn't garner any comments. Given the concerns with clarity that Outriggr noted, you might consider giving the FAC mentoring scheme a try to help prepare for another attempt here. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:15, 28 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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