Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Mahavira/archive5

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) 25 November 2019 [1].

Mahavira

Nominator(s): Capankajsmilyo^{(Talk | Infobox assistance)} 05:54, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about an important figure in the Indian history and Jainism who preached non-violence and renunciation. Capankajsmilyo^{(Talk | Infobox assistance)} 05:54, 6 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The nomination was not transcluded to WP:FAC; I've now done so. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:25, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Capankajsmilyo, may I ask what you've done to address the concerns raised at previous reviews? I'm looking at a diff of changes made since February this year, and the majority of those are formatting niceties; the major problem, that of the article not distinguishing between historical fact and articles of faith, is still present, as far as I can tell. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:29, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Prose comment: As well as the concern raised above, there are still prose issues. I've just read the lead, and noted the following:

"In the Jain tradition, it is known..." The point about "traditions" is that they are not "known", i.e. established by evidence. They are "accepted", without concrete evidence. Replace "known" with "accepted" or, as you had in an earliuer version, "believed".
"He abandoned all worldly possessions at the age of 30...": In the main text, you modify this to 28 or 30, so perhaps here you should say "at the age of about 30".
What is "moksha"?
"a contemporary to" → "a contemporary of"
"variedly" is OK, but not much used. Perhaps "variously"?
"his place of birth are also..." → "...is also"
"...is necessary for spiritual liberation" → "are necessary..." etc
"by about the 1st century" – BC or CE?
Continuing that sentence is the parenthetical "(when they were first written down)". That seems odd: they were lost at the same time that they were first written down?
Be consistent in use of either BC or BCE
Explain "nirvana", or link it.

These are minor points, easily resolved, but this is just the lead, and such issues may well persist. I'll watch to see what other reviewers make of the nomination before reviewing further. Brianboulton (talk) 16:20, 12 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot Brianboulton! Corrections have been done according to your points. Capankajsmilyo^{(Talk | Infobox assistance)} 00:57, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per issues raised in FAC #2. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:53, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, since the nominator has chosen to ignore my fairly straightforward question, despite their having been active on this FAC since then. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:52, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose, on the same grounds pointed to by Nikkimaria, and those brought up by Vanamonde, Squeamish Ossifrage, and Midnightblueowl in the other FACs. The nominator deserves credit for his efforts to bring such an important article to FA standard and for assembling a good collection of academic sources to support it, but I'm going to state at length the reasons for opposing, because the nominator unfortunately doesn't seem to have fully registered the criticisms of those reviewers.

The biggest problem is the lack of distinction between Jain beliefs and history. The lead, for instance, still says "He expounded the spiritual, philosophical and ethical teachings of the previous tirthankaras from the remote pre-Vedic era", even though pre-Vedic India was prehistoric and any particular figure claimed to have lived in prehistory is likely to be legendary. The article makes some gestures toward distinguishing tradition from fact, but the largest such gesture, the "Historical Mahavira" section, is remarkably scanty and leaves unanswered a lot of questions that may occur to the reader. For instance, Parshvanatha's historicity is apparently a contentious subject, which leads to the question of whether Mahavira was raised in a preexisting tradition descended from Parshvanatha or came up with his ideas independently. Do any of the sources cited in the article address this point?

A lot of articles on semi-legendary figures start by describing the major sources for the figure's life and summarizing what they say, then summarize what historians believe to be true about that figure and mention the points on which those historians disagree. We even have an FA on the semilegendary founder of a religion (Jesus) that exemplifies this approach. Doing that for this article will require rethinking the entire topic, stripping the article down to its skeleton, and rebuilding it. And that's not just required for the article to pass FAC; as it stands the article fails WP:Neutral point of view and thus does not even qualify for GA status. The GAN doesn't seem to have taken GA criterion 4 into account.

I know this is harsh, but this article seems to have gotten into a loop of being nominated and failing at FAC, and I want to be very clear about the kind of work that should be required before it's brought here again. During the third FAC, Ian Rose suggested bringing in another collaborator. Finding a collaborator may be difficult but would help. If possible, I recommend finding somebody knowledgeable about the kind of historical analysis that a legendary subject requires, or somebody knowledgeable about Indian history. I'm somewhat knowledgeable about the former but not at all about the latter, so I'm afraid I could only make general suggestions myself. A. Parrot (talk) 21:13, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid there's a real sense of deja vu for me here, brought out particularly by A. Parrot's comments above, so I'm going to archive this and ask (again) that such comments as this and those of the other reviewers be taken note of before considering another try. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:04, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 14:05, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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