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Famine in India

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because…I would like to get feedback on what needs to be done before I nominate the article as a GA.

Thanks, Zuggernaut (talk) 19:08, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Jappalang
  • Dablinks (tool in the box on the right of this peer review page) shows 2 disambiguation links; please fix them.  Fixed Whig link
  • Checklinks show 1 dead link; please fix it. The link that requires subscription for access should also be noted to be one (e.g. format=subscription needed).

Lede

  • Define what level of famines is this article on: nation-, state-wide, or both?  Fixed by Wikilinking South Asia

Ancient India

  • "... who recommended that the good king ..."
    Who is this "good king"?  Changed article
  • "Yet other measures included construction of public works, canals and embankments, sinking wells and even migration was encouraged."
    Grammatical issue: "The X included A, B, C, and D was encouraged." "D was encouraged" does not fit in with the overall sentence structure.  Broke sentence in to two
  • "The stone and metal inscriptions provide information on several famines before the 16th century"
    This is a complete sentence and should be ended with a period. Since it is an item in a list of supposedly incomplete sentences, it should be rephrased into an incomplete sentence.
  • "... in order to ..." is wordy compared to "... to ...". Done
  • "In the Famine in the Deccan and Gujarat, ..."
    Why is famine capitalised here? Done
  • "... caused equal ruin both in ..."
    At least one of these words is redundant. Done
  • "While studying Indian Famine Codes, ..."
    What are Indian Famine Codes? Done
  • "... bear a cultural bias regarding the causes of the famine because they "reflect the view of a handful of Englishmen.""
    Putting aside the issue of the long "snake" of a sentence that this clause is part of, I am curious why Florence Nightingale's efforts in trying to educate her countrymen about India's famines are disregarded here.[1][2] From the source provided (a university publication no less), her thinking was aligned with what is later presented. Why was her part glossed over here? Certainly, as a notable figure, her views would not be unheard; this does not fit in with the meaning (that the Englishmen were ignorant over the causes) I read behind the clause pointed out here. Note that the source (which should be stated as an essay by Brian Murton, and not a book by the editors Currey and Hugo) points the cultural bias to the government resources he was researching. In regards to the meteorological data, this university source pointed out that politics had some part to play in the data presented by the British government (and the policies implemented).[3]  Added Nightangle content, mentioned that Murton's comments are in an essay

British rule

  • "... £60,000–1M."
    "M" is an informal abbreviation, more suited to newspapers than an encyclopaedia.[4]  Now using million
  • "The 1901 Famine Commission found that twelve famines and four "severe scarcities" took place between 1765 and 1858."
    Unsourced. Provided source - Desai, Raychaudhuri, Kumar, 1983, page 477
  • Please split up the super-huge paragraph; it makes reading tedious. In fact, there are several other passages of equal or greater length. Splitting them into smaller paragraphs would help ease the experience of the article's readers (I am not reviewing content in detail from this point on partly because of this). Large paragraphs have now been split in to smaller ones
  • "According to Cormac Ó Gráda, ..."
    Who is Cormac? What credentials does he have to vouch for him as an expert for what he is to say? The same goes for the other quoted names without credentials.  Added credentials for O Grada and Murton
  • Why is "1800 - 1825" using spaced hyphen?  No longer uses a spaced hyphen

British response

  • "Policies of laissez faire were ..."
    Why is laissez faire not in italics here whereas they were in the previous section?  It's in italics now

Infrastructure development

  • "... total credit of <graphic symbol for rupee>33,994 crore ..."
    Rupee or crore (what is a crore?), which is it?  "Crore" is an Indian unit and it's coming from the {{INRConvert|33994|c}} template.

Maharashtra famine

  • "'famine'"
    Why single quote marks?  Removed quotes

Other issues

  • "... if further action wasn't taken ..."
    What is with the contraction?  Changed to "was not" in two places

Sources

  • Why are the BiblioBazaar-published sources listed twice?  Duplicate sources were already removed in an earlier edit
  • BiblioBazaar is a reprinter of public domain sources.[5][6] Listing their publications without showing their original publication dates can be misleading and brings up the question of why are more modern sources not used (especially in light that these BibilioBazaar sources are used for figures, and that Google Books show 487,000 hits for "famine India"[7])?
  • The Cambridge world history of food has volumes.[8] Where is "VI.4: Famine" located?  Volume and page numbers have now been provided

Images  Contacted original up-loaders of the image

  • File:Madras famine 1877.jpg
    Fails WP:CITE#IMAGE: is it scanned from a personal copy or taken from a website? Furthermore, Illustrated London News does not feature a Famine in India piece on May 26, 1877,[9] so of what origin is this image?
  • File:Famine in India Natives Waiting for Relief in Bangalore.jpg
    It is not indicated why this is in the US and UK public domain (for this image to be on Commons). While one can satisfy the US requirement with {{PD-1923}}, the UK copyright status is less clear. If it was a young engraver, say 18-20 years old in 1877 and he lived to 90, that would mean the 70-year-pma commence from 1950 and ends in 2020s. PD-UK-unknown requires "reasonable enquiry", which means one has to ask the current owner of Illustrated London News if they have records of who the engraver is and check the issue for signs of whether the artist was indicated elsewhere. This would have been better uploaded to Wikipedia instead...

I also believe getting a copy-editor could help tighten and smooth the prose of the article. Jappalang (talk) 02:58, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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