Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics/Archive 47

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Noticeboard for India-related topics. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 40

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Archive 45

Nallur, Tirupur

I moved this this recently-created article twice:

Nallur,Tirupur --> Nallur, Tiruppur
Nallur, Tiruppur --> Nallur, Tirupur

I'm confused about the difference between Tirupur and Tirrupur. Please help.

National symbols of India

I have one a major reconstruction of the top importance article National symbols of India, and look to nominate it for GA or FA, please give some suggestions. ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ ^Talk ^Email 09:26, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Ahrar party

I'm a bit confused with Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam and Ahrar Party (India). They seem quite identical, but is this the same subject? The editor who wrote them also wrote Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam which got redirected. He refuses to discuss anything with anyone so I can't ask him. --Muhandes (talk) 18:46, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

They clearly both have their origins in the same pre-partition party, but Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam aeems to be about the subsequent party in Pakistan while Ahrar Party (India) is about the party in India. 20:47, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Both articles currently discuss a pre-partition party. In addition they state very similar leaders, same establishment date etc. I would really appreciate it if someone with some understanding took a quick swipe at it and made sense of both articles. --Muhandes (talk) 08:21, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Merging district with principal city

I am sure that I have seen examples of separate articles for a district and for the principal city of that district. I know for sure that it happens at a higher level (eg: Delhi & NCR). Is there any policy/guideline regarding this in the context of India? - Sitush (talk) 11:28, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

They shouldn't be merged, they are separate entities in terms of governance, territory, demographics etc. Actually Delhi is two articles -- New Delhi and Delhi -- the latter is about the National Capital Territory. —SpacemanSpiff 11:47, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

No, I do not believe that they should be merged either. I was just curious if there is some sort of project guideline stating this. - Sitush (talk) 11:50, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Project self-assessment?

Hi. :) Some of you know me as User:Moonriddengirl. I'm not here in that capacity, though, but as one of my assignments under my contract for the Wikimedia Foundation, as its temporary community liaison. I've been asked to talk to a few projects and see if I can inspire some self-assessment: WMF wants to know what you think you guys are doing well and what might be improved. It would also be good if we can get some dialogue going on how projects can help welcome and nurture newcomers interested in their areas. This information will be compiled into a report to help understand the dynamics of projects and also to generate ideas for best practices for other communities.

If you're willing, I'll set up a subpage so we can talk without overwhelming this one and keep the conversation concentrated in one area. That page will be included in my report to the WMF along with my summary of the conversation (which I will present for your approval before submitting).

Are you guys willing to chat? --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:28, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Great, let's do it. Zuggernaut (talk) 14:16, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Conversation is fine, but I'm afraid it'll be all the banned (or topic-banned) users, such as Zuggernaut, Yogesh Khandke, Realhistorybuff, Thisthat2011, all with various gripes and agendas, who will be holding forth on this sub-page. Expect a lot of systemic bias nonsense from these editors. Unfortunately, many editors, confuse the unreconstructed family myths of their childhood for the real deal. They are distraught that the real India portrayed in Wikipedia (and most other encyclopedias) is not the India of the golden age—of past or future—they've long fantasized about. Some editors are also under the impression that by gaining the ear of the WMF—the powers that be, in their view—they can reverse the community sanctions imposed on them, which too they attribute to systemic bias. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 14:37, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

PS Upon further reflection, it probably is a good idea. I forgot that there are many neutral and articulate editors, such as Saravask, RegentsPark, SpacemanSpiff, AshLin, MatthewVannitas, Sitush, and others, who doubtless will also be chipping in. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 14:47, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

IMO, Stoking topic banned users is uncalled for. 167.219.48.10 (talk) 10:19, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your frank input. :) I can make clear, if this is a concern, that the Wikimedia Foundation does not control Wikipedia and does not override community decisions with respect to bans. The Wikimedia Foundation is not really interested in content disputes, but only the way that projects work, including the challenges that you face. They realize that one of those challenges may be dealing with frustrated people, and seeing that in action can also have value in itself. Yours is the first project to which I've spoken to mention this issue, which might make it doubly beneficial to hear from you. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:49, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) :No Maggie, I really meant it when I said let us go ahead with this. The signing up of the 1000 editors from Pune is good news already. The Wikimedia Foundation is progressing in the right direction if they are serious about expanding in India. A discussion of this nature can help us identify catalysts that will accelerate these efforts. Furthermore, you will get feedback from people who cannot or do not want to attend meetups and the upcoming conference in Mumbai. I look forward to the self-assessment. Zuggernaut (talk) 14:51, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Good idea Maggie, will join in. Lynch 7 14:54, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Hmm! Something good might turn out from this (than the usual skirmishs which have been filling up the archives.) But Maggie, do note that this community has tendency to disrupt everything & for that you need to be very strict to maintain it as a discussion itself & not a battle-field. (I am not pointing at anyone. Don't block me!!!) -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 15:18, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd be happy to participate, even/especially with the editors with whom I've disagreed. Setting aside the personal, I recognise that some of the current disagreements, particularly those in caste-related articles, are emblematic of some larger institutional issues. To what degree these are Endemic Bias by Western editors, and to what degree these are POV/COI issues by Indian editors, is an issue that is important to at least bring up. Setting aside the personal, these clashes represent larger issues, so even if I or Zuggernaut feel our side is the "correct" one, the fact that we have these disagreements points to larger principles underlying the diverging viewpoints. I've actually been meaning to set aside some time to talk with Zuggernaut/MangoWong/ThisThat2011 to address, in the very abstract, these viewpoint issues. While I don't believe their viewpoint is endemic to all Indian editors, I believe their views are shared by enough Indian and India-topic editors that some sort of unified approach is necessary.

One question, given that several prominent India-topic editors are currently under topic bans, is there any plan to cut them an exemption specifically for the purpose of this WMF discussion? Given that those who are topic-banned are often those who've been accused of disruptively POV pushing, I'd submit hearing their side would help understand why people are concerned/upset by some current WP content, and to hear from the other side why they've labeled those banned as POV pushers. Again, the intent would be to keep it all in the very abstract, Wikipedia:Beware of the tigers, etc. but to try to explore the cause behind the endless array of people showing up to make dramatic changes to caste articles, often resulting in clashes, edit wars, socking/meating, bans, etc. MatthewVanitas (talk) 17:17, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

given that several prominent India-topic editors are currently under topic bans, is there any plan to cut them an exemption specifically for the purpose of this WMF discussion?. There are lots of other Indian editors who contribute regularly and and without making a fuss. We have better things to do - like building an encylopedia - than shouting "endemic bias", "endemic bias" and create drama in general. The ones you refer to are a tiny part of the indian en wiki community. So going down this path is an extremely bad idea. Would provide every indef blocked or topic banned editor a backdoor to circumvent community consensus and overcome editing restrictions. This WMF discussion/exercise should be conducted under normal en wiki rules. If someone's editing sanctions prevents him from entering into it, he shouldnt be given any special exemption. --Sodabottle (talk) 17:58, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Oh god! This is just gonna be like ANI & other fight-posts. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 20:32, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Shhhhhhh. <g> Just open that subpage, semi-protect to limit new IPs and get on with it. There is a wider consensus regarding who can/cannot contribute and this project cannot over-ride the wider consensus. Right now I cannot even work out what it is Maggie/WMF are wanting to see. I'll just go with the flow, I guess. - Sitush (talk) 20:46, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes keep IPs out. They are inherently evil. All IP editors should be banned. Registered users FTW! —167.219.48.10 (talk) 10:15, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

New IPs, I said. The reasons being (a) most such new IPs probably cannot comment usefully to such a debate, although doubtless some will be experienced users on dynamic ranges - tough, just register (it is arguably more anonymous to register anyway since most people cannot then track your location etc); & (b) it limits the "logged-out" editing activities that have recently occurred in India-related discussions at ANI & which resulted in some post facto IP range blocking. There are ways round it, for those that care enough. - Sitush (talk) 10:58, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Interesting! I'd like to say my bit too.-The Enforcer _{Office of the secret service} 05:50, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Project self-assessment launched

Wikipedia:WikiProject India/Self-assessment

Thanks for your willingness to participate. I look forward to seeing what you all have to say. :) I will probably not become involved in the conversation, although I may remove misplaced comments (for example, there are no unregistered users on the list of members, so unregistered users should not be responding in the member sections). I don't want to influence the outcome, but would rather just let you all express your own opinions. I typically will return when the conversation is quiet for a few days to make sure I clearly understand the global view.

Since you are the first project I've approached with concerns that the conversation itself could become disruptive, though, I will be following it more closely than I usually do. I would hope that semiprotection will not be necessary, but it would be poorly done of me to launch a conversation that interferes with your work and then just leave it to interfere. I'll try to take what steps seem necessary to make sure that doesn't happen. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 11:35, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

No offense intended, Moonriddengirl, but some of the questions on the new page start from strange places. "What could make this project fail?" seems to suggest there is some criterion for "failing", but I'm not sure what's meant by that, unless it's about the project getting to the point of doing more harm than good. "How can this project expand?" supposes that expanding would be a good thing and that the project can decide to expand. On a point you raised above, which is not mentioned in the new set of questions, I'm not sure that projects (as such) can be expected to welcome and nurture newcomers, and I haven't myself observed any projects which collectively carry out activities like that. Both welcoming and "nurturing" are done by a small number of individual editors. If anyone knows of any projects with an ethos along those lines, it would be helpful to point us towards them so that we can see what they do. Moonraker (talk) 03:39, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Bilaspur, Uttar Pradesh

Got a question about two articles Bilaspur, Uttar Pradesh and Bilaspur, Rampur bih articles say they are in Rampur District, Uttar Pradesh. So are they about the same city or is there two towns with same name in same district? Gman124 (talk) 14:08, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Looks like that. The two articles should be merged, perhaps into Bilaspur, Uttar Pradesh. --rgpk (comment) 14:15, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

okGman124 (talk) 14:21, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Since they both have an active history, you'll need to do a history merge. Either a lurking admin can do this for you today or I'll do it tomorrow. --rgpk (comment) 14:27, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Article Shivaji needs more supervision - gets 54K hits/month

The article Shivaji could use some more Watchers and experienced editors to keep an eye on it. Even if they cannot invest time in expanding or improving it, help in limiting vandalism, uncited additions, sections blanking, etc. would be great. The article averages 1,800 hits per day, so even relatively brief disruptions are seen by many readers.

My understanding is the Shivaji is among the most famous of figures in the history of Maharashtra and of the Maratha community, so the article is both popular and also subject to POV pushing from one side or the other, and even some good-faith attempts to balance it have fared poorly due to their editors being unfamiliar with Wikipedia conventions. Ideally, it'd be great to keep this as a comprehensive, well-referenced, and well-illustrated article, and one that refrains from glorifying or attacking Shivaji. My outsider's reading is that a good chunk of the article, if the verbiage is calmed down a bit, shouldn't be too controversial, and those controversies currently fought over (primarily his ethnic origin) could be at least partially defused by a good section detailing the different narratives. These fixes will not stop the ongoing IP tampering (whether vanadlism or clumsy good faith), but more watchlisters will help.

Thanks for any support in minimising damage to this very prominent article. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:41, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Though not an expert on the topic, I ended up stepping in to break up feuding as to whether Shivaji was or was not a Rajput. Currently trying to guide folks into creating a section that addresses both arguments without undercutting or building up one or the other, and without recourse to "but you can see this isn't true because this 1835 document clearly states". If anyone wants to help out smoothing things over, that'd be great. Alternately, the article could still use some help removing extensive POV: "Shivaji's genius is to be seen", "he was compelled by Dharma", and the like. MatthewVanitas (talk) 14:14, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I've having some trouble with multiple editors who insist that the Rajput theory is the only credible one (need to look into this, but I'm pretty sure it's not the exclusive academic theory), and they keep reinserting a bulky series of entire paragraphs (including one entire para quoting an 1817 British source) smack in the middle of another section with no transition. I've tried explaining how it needs to be concise, use the latest and most reputable secondary sources, etc. but I'm getting shouted down with large arguments about minutiae and what such-and-such Persian document said and what 19th century British scholars wrote, so nobody is paying attention to my points about NPOV, V, etc. I'm about to hit 3RR, and also folks are getting personal and accusing me of having some agenda, so I could use some support here. Again, this article gets 1,500 hits a day, so is worth a bit of effort. MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:29, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Pageview statistics for WikiProject India – August 2011

Anna Hazare tops the list at 1.2 million hits last month. Top 100 most viewed articles in August 2011 are listed here. — Ganeshk (talk) 02:55, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi Ganeshk, This is interesting --naveenpf (talk) 07:37, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Naimisaranya

I need your help in dealing with this article. The principal author claims that "Naimisaranya is a Divya Desam in Pandya Nadu and that the temple is built in the Dravidian style of architecture. The map in the infobox shows Uttarakhand while the section "Location" claims that the place is located 45 kilometres from Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. Now, Lucknow is quite a far distance from Uttarakhand border definitely over 45 kilometres. I guess, in this case, either three different places have been integrated into a single article or part of the article is a hoax.-The Enforcer _{Office of the secret service} 04:41, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Naimisaranya is one of few Divya Desams in North and not in Pandya Nadu. [1][2][3] --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 16:23, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Global Education Program in India

As many of you are aware, the Wikipedia India Education Program works with teachers and students to encourage Wikipedia in the classroom. The basic idea is that teachers ask their students to edit Wikipedia articles instead of submitting traditional reports, assignments, etc.

It's running majorly in 2 colleges in Pune (Symbiosis School of Economics and College of Engineering Pune). We already have over 1000 students enrolled from just these 2 colleges. Most of these students have gone through one or more out of a total of 35 introductory, basic editing and refresher sessions conducted by Campus Ambassadors.

It’s good to see big numbers but I thought I’ll also share with you some articles that the students have been working on. It’s really inspiring to see their progress!

User: Abhilasha369 started a new article Robinson Crusoe Economy
User: basic.atari is working on article Human Capital
User: SaurabhKB is editing Self-organizing list
User: Aishani Sharma on Social preferences
User: Jinchurikidan has been actively editing the article on Animation studio

These is still some way to go on these articles but I think they are fantastic starts! The 5 users and articles above are just illustrative. You can also track progress of the entire program here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:INDIAEDU

Please do reach out to the students (not just the one's listed above) and offer help and encouragement. Please do help them out on their articles as well. While they have been trained, they're going to need a lot of support because they are almost entirely newbies. Please do also leave kind words for the Campus Ambassadors. They've been doing amazing work!

Nitika.t (talk) 15:54, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Nitika,for posting this on WP:IND ; Very warm welcome to WP:IND. --naveenpf (talk) 05:05, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Can we have a section for Online Ambassadors in Wikipedia:INDIAEDU page. So the people who are interested can sign in and help. Thanks --naveenpf (talk) 03:35, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Category discussion:Former pupils by secondary school in India

Category:Former pupils by secondary school in India and its various sub-categories have been nominated for renaming to a consistent form. The discussion is here. Timrollpickering (talk) 01:27, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Moving the discussion to WP:INEI --naveenpf (talk) 03:58, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Education in India

WP:INEI invites your help on standardisation of Lists of institutions of higher education in states -- naveenpf (talk) 02:52, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Online Ambassador for India Education Program

Be Online Ambassador for India Education Program please fill the form [4]. To know more about Online Ambassador program Online Ambassadors India Education Program --naveenpf (talk) 11:08, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Query re: source

Is http://sangwanparivar.com/ a reliable source? Non-English & so I thought that I would try here rather than at WP:RSN. - Sitush (talk) 16:42, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Not really, but it could be used as a primary WP:SPS source -- it's the caste/clan association website. —SpacemanSpiff 20:55, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

OK. Thanks for that. I will revisit the situation tomorrow. This is exactly the sort of situation where the India project has a really useful purpose. - Sitush (talk) 23:18, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Validity of Andhra Kshatriya customs?

Are these traditions unique to the "Andhra Kshatriya" class, or is this article just describing standard Hindu rituals they follow? The term itself seems a little in dispute too. MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:51, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

While I'm tidying up Category:Raju, is there much validity to this article: List of towns from which Raju surnames have been derived? MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:56, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

And one more: Raju surnames? MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:58, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Raju surnames has my BS meter pinging, although I'd like to do a more extensive search (just done a quick glance so far). No comment on the others just yet. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:05, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Help cleaning the article

Iam pretty new to wikipedia and i usually fix minor edits and try to get the quality of articles upto the standards, but this particular article seems a formidable challenge could any semi experienced wikipedian help me out? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karkala Djds4rce (talk) 04:46, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Greetings, the article actually isn't terrible in layout and copyediting, but as you note it is grievously under-sourced, and also has a lot of WP:UNDUE focus on lists of festivals and other topics that caught editors' fancies vice a more even-handed exploration of all aspects of the community. This is one of many examples of times where people add "stuff everyone knows" to Wikipedia, but has no sourcing to back it up. I haven't dug into this particular community, but for many similar articles it's difficult or impossible to source many of these assertions online, though the statements may be quite true, and may be sourceable to physical-print newspapers and books that don't happen to be online, and perhaps may be in local languages that many of our editors can't read. Not that either of those are inappropriate references, just that even figuring out what statement is proved by what ref can be most difficult.

One thing I would suggest, if this particular page is of great interest to you, is to go to the article's Talk page and list out your concerns (structure, referencing, etc), and then post a {{talkback|Karkala}} message on the Talk pages of editors who were involved in writing it. It may well be that for an entire section someone might roger up and say "Oh, the history section came from "A People's History of Karnataka" by University of Tokyo Press (1988), I'll just go mark that as the footnote."

Sourcing would be the key issue here, but as noted quite challenging, and the article isn't terrible aside from that (quite large) sourcing issue. If you're looking for somewhat easier tasks to tackle earlier on, maybe you could inquire here if anyone has a list of India articles needing more straightforward copyediting, wikifying, or tracking down just one good reference for WP:Notability? If you want to ensure that you're doing cleanup on articles that people actually read frequently, you can always check on stats.grok.se to see if Village X gets 20 reads a month or 1,000; personally, that's one way I figure out if a poorly-written article is affecting goodly numbers of readers. MatthewVanitas (talk) 17:21, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

My goodness, someone obviously had a large amount of prose to unburden themselves of. I'll see if I can't overhaul the tone of the article, if nothing else; I don't know how many times I've done this for shorter articles on NPP, so this shouldn't be too much more difficult. I know some about the general subject, too, so I'll see what I can find for sources. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 20:53, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm in the process now of removing large amounts of content and rewording the rest. I'm trying to cut it back to bare bones, then rebuild it based on real, reliable sources; I don't want to leave in anything that looks dubious. If sources can be found, it can of course go back in, but I don't want to leave anything in that's potentially misleading. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:20, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I've done about all I can for the moment; when I have time this evening, I'll try to notify the main contributors to the article that I've stripped the article down considerably. I will be stuck at a library for several hours tomorrow morning, and my experience has been that they usually have what I'm looking for (I constructed Inau largely off a book I found there), so I will look around there. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:03, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Pambar River

The article on Pambar River says that the river originates in Kerala and joins the Kaveri River at Karur while according to this source, the Pambar river formed the boundary between the Thanjavur Maratha and Ramnad kingdoms. Now, both Thanjavur and Ramnad are situated far to the east of Karur and if the Pambar flows into Tamil Nadu in an easterly direction from Kerala, it is not possible that the same river forms the boundary between the two kingdoms if it had already merged with the Kaveri. I need some clarification on this.-The Enforcer _{Office of the secret service} 18:07, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

The Kaveri tributary originates in Kerala. The other one could be a similar named small river -- I don't think there's really anything of importance in Ramanathapuram other than Vaigai, right? Also, based on the TN topography, it'd be difficult for a river to meander from near Thanjavur to Karur and then make a trip right back on reaching Karur.—SpacemanSpiff 18:23, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Sources also mention another Pambar, a tributary of the Ponnaiyar. Now how do I create articles for these rivers; I mean, how can I disambiguate them. There are two rivers flowing in Tamil Nadu, so I cannot name either of them as Pambar River, Tamil Nadu; and then the one which originates in Kerala also flows through a substantial chunk of TN-territory.-The Enforcer _{Office of the secret service} 02:55, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Use the main river as a disambig?. For example Pambar River, Kaveri and Pambar River, Ponnaiyar?--Sodabottle (talk) 04:00, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

This would mean that there are three Pambars right? The one that joins Ponnaiyar is neither of the original two mentioned by Ravi. And the second one doesn't have an obvious main river (at least not one that I've been able to find), so the main river dab might not work well. —SpacemanSpiff 05:15, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I've a suggestion. As Sodabottle says, we might name the Kaveri tributary as Pambar River, Kaveri and the Poonaiyar tributary as Pambar River, Ponnaiyar. I observed that the second one (the one without a main river) is also known by its Sanskrit name "Sarpanadi", as per this source. We can very well name the article as Pambar (Sarpanadi) River. What do you say?-The Enforcer _{Office of the secret service} 08:55, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

In which case wouldn't the Ramnad one be Paambar and not Pambar? Also, for the Kerala one I think it should be Pambar River, Amaravathi as it joins Amaravathi which in turn joins Kaveri. The Kerala one is clearly Pambar, the Salem/Krishnagiri one that joins Ponnaiyar appears to use both spellings. —SpacemanSpiff 09:06, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I think that, though, their official name is "Pambar", the other two are also spelt "Paambar". The names of the rivers should, actually, be transliterated in English as "Pāmbār" as per IPA, I guess. I'm not sure, though. Anyway, we need not spend more of our precious minutes thinking just of the name to give to the article. As of now, I'll create Pambar River, Amaravathi, Pambar River, Ponnaiyar and Pambar (Sarpanadi) River. If there any issues we will sort it out later-The Enforcer _{Office of the secret service} 09:56, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

New article, your attention needed

I ran across Foreign Education Provider Bill in India while doing NPP^{[you can help!]}. It looks like it may be a useful article, but I don't even know where to start to fix it up. So I thought I'd bring it to your project's attention. Cheers. → ROUX ₪ 20:04, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

IEP article, copy paste problems with it, will need to check the sources to see if everything's a copyvio. —SpacemanSpiff 20:13, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I've checked, and it's been cut and pasted from several different websites and a PDF (the entire intro is from a pdf file I can link to if necessary). I didn't find anything substantial original content. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 20:15, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

The article itself may be useful. There appears to be a lot of discussion - but little action :) - on the bill itself. I suggest, if someone is interested, that all the current text be removed and replaced by a bill summary and its reception as discussed in reliable sources. --rgpk (comment) 20:21, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Hold of on writing an article for a few days at least, the student appears to be keen on writing it and is seeking help to address the copyright concerns. —SpacemanSpiff 08:09, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

A series of templates for welcoming editors who are interested in India topics

I feel there's a need for creating a new series of templates for welcoming new editors who are interested in India related articles. A new and simple template ({{Welcome-India}}) was recently developed based on the generic {{Welcome}} template. From the discussions at the talk page of the new template and recent discussions elsewhere, I feel we can develop at least five other templates:

A template for encouraging bilingual/multilingual editors to edit Wikipedia in regional languages (Marathi, Gujarati, Malayalam, etc)
A "heavy-duty" template as discussed at the talk page of {{Welcome-India}}
A template for editors coming on-board via the India Education Program
A template which lists various India articles that can be improved (could be a list from the Collaboration dashboard or some other list based on which articles we would like to develop to GA/FA class)
A template which emphasizes (with examples and illustrations) why sticking to WP:Sources, WP:V, WP:MOS, WP:COPYVIO, etc are important

Feedback, comments and suggestions for other new templates are welcome. IF there is sufficient interest, I will also post a message to the Welcoming committee so we can utilize their experience in developing such templates. Zuggernaut (talk) 03:37, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Please check Wikipedia:WikiProject_India/Outreach#Links --naveenpf (talk) 11:40, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Template:ContributeToTamilWikipedia also exists. On a larger perspective, welcoming needs to be studied and meta:Wikimedia_Fellowships/Proposals/Evaluating_welcome_messages has more details. Do apply if you are interested. Srikanth (Logic) 11:56, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Summarising my concerns from the template talk for folks who weren't in that discussion: I understand that this template may have been used to welcome editors who happen to be in India who have yet to edit a single article; if so, I would say that it is presumptive to assume that an editor living in India is interested in editing India-topic articles, vice engineering, South African history, native faunae of Polynesia, etc. Secondly, I have great concern that the Indian topics are generally underrepresented on wikipedia and you can help counter this imbalance... is soapboxing and setting up an unnecessarily adversarial editing environment. Not to read too much between the lines here, but this smacks of "hey, you're Indian and have an obligation to come and counter these Britisher lies". I'm not disputing that there is EB throughout Wikipedia, however I question whether this is a healthy way to address it, particularly as many of the folks concerned about EB have yet to produce any actual clear statement on addressing EB issues in WP:India. In said absence, there has been an unhealthy tendency to use "endemic bias" to mean "I can't find any citations to back up my claims, but I know it's true, so I'm a victim of Endemic Bias." There are very valid concerns about the academic world, including Indian academics, addressing India from a priveliged position which does not give fair shrift to oppressed/minority/female portions of society, but riling up folks with a generic call to "address an imbalance" does nothing to work those issues. MatthewVanitas (talk) 13:58, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that line needs to come out. What evidence is there anyway that "Indian topics are generally underrepresented on (sic) wikipedia"? Compared to....? There are certainly a lot of articles in the en-WP now on Indian-related topics compared to many countries, possibly considerably more than, say, China, given the English language and internet-access distribution in India. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 14:17, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I, too, am unhappy with the under-representation phrase and feel that it may have been used to crowbar a position, which various contributors have defined as a need to achieve a "critical mass" of Indian contributors. I am not sure how one would measure representation (one-sixth of world population should = one-sixth of articles, for example, does not necessarily work because notability has to be taken into account). There are problems with existing India-related articles and, yes, more articles of a decent quality are always welcome, but the real issue is quality.

I see nothing inherently wrong with the Norwegian welcome template, as discussed in passing on the talk page for this one. If there must be such a thing - and I am not convinced of the merits, nor the user-targeting methods that have been adopted - then that seems perfectly ok. - Sitush (talk) 14:52, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Looked at various WikiProject charts, and here are the overall article numbers by national Projects:

India 88,536
Pakistan 12,597
United States 143,49
China 37,253
United Kindom 7,206. Component parts (presuming some overlap): England 22,634 - Scotland 13,733 - Wales 10,283 - Northern Ireland 5,978
Germany 55,240
France 80,136
Spain 25,428
Greece 25,546
Indonesia 9,495
Chile 5,906
Egypt 6,209
Nigeria 5,233

Arguing what's over/under-representative is tricky. Should it ideally be proportional by population? That doesn't sound right, but much any other measure ("how much important stuff happens there?") would be extremely subjective. In any case, suffice to say that the United States is over-represented, which is not surprising considering its large population of computer-owning English speakers, and massive media and publishing output that makes it easy to Google up info and create articles. At 88K, India is certainly no slouch, and well ahead of many non-Anglophone Western European countries. Could India have better coverage, both in academia and on Wiki? Indubitably. However, chronic underrepresentation is not necessarily accurate. I'd say a far more serious issue facing WP:INDIA is a large number of low-quality articles (particularly populated areas, and some popular-culture topics). Personally, I address communitatrian-sectarian POV/CoI issues, but I'd argue even those take a back-seat to poor sourcing. Now, the lack of sourcing in some areas points to Endemic Bias amongst scholars, publishers, and scanners, which results in just simply not enough info on India topics being easily available to Wikipedia editors, so while WP suffers from that larger EB, I don't think it's the epicentre thereof.

Forgive the long reply, but just wanted to get the stats out. I submit that EB would be a good issue to address, and maybe even a WP:INDIA suggested policy document could be drafted, but having it in the welcome template (especially with the contentious term "underrepresented" which is wikilinked to WP:Endemic bias) is not conducive to a healthy start at WP:INDIA. MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:08, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Another exciting source of India images

Found another; perhaps we could start a sub-page somewhere in the project to list photo resources that could be mined for Public Domain photos? The following are from a series of 1868-ish British publications. I'm unclear as to UK copyright laws, but is it safe to guess that photos in an 1877 book are fair game?

The people of India: A series of photographic illustrations, with descriptive letterpress, of the races and tribes of Hindustan, originally prepared under the authority of the government of India, and reproduced by order of the secretary of state for India in council

There should be some good ethnographic pics of various castes/jatis in there, so I'll go perusing. Anyone else support having a resource page somewhere on the project for places to find images? MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:56, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the pics are fair game. Images are not really my thing but a subpage would be useful. It would be useful also for standardising access to old works, where my preference is to use www.archive.org and www.hathitrust.org where possible - archive.org's search/index system is not good at title/author level, so anything that speeds up location of a particularl volume etc would be A Good Thing. - Sitush (talk) 20:35, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Recent move of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha articles

A move discussion is initiated to move the articles back to their original names at Talk:House_of_the_People_(India)#Requested_move --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 05:39, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Nawin Seetharaman (Tamil / Hindi actor, director, journalist etc)

Hi folks. I see a lot of clearly notable articles about Indian cinema (and related topics) get declined because the reviewers aren't familiar with the topic area. So I thought I'd put this latest one up here, even though to me it looks non-notable, to see if anyone can make sense of the mess of links and so forth and establish if there's more to it than there seems to me. User:Csbalaw/Nawin Seetharaman. Apparently a lot of the material is in either Tamil or Hindi. Thanks very much! --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:54, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Unlikely to be notable. The film roles are unnamed roles (xyz's friend) in one probably some level of notability film and another in a not-so-notable film, he's written a few poems that have been published under letters to the editor kind of sections on a not so well known website, a couple of short stories on his website, and a couple of translations. I don't see anything at all that would show notability.—SpacemanSpiff 19:16, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Hey, at least write the name of the language used in English. Not all are gonna Google it & find out that its "Tamil" written in Tamil-Animeshkulkarni (talk) 21:12, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, if I'm understanding you correctly, that was mostly the problem I had with the draft article - so much of it (especially the links and references, which is what would or could have proved notability) were in languages I can't read. Oh well, we tried. Thanks to you both for your help. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:40, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Cleanup at Kallar (caste) and the interesting issue of "criminal" groups

I've started cleanup at Kallar (caste), and like a few other Tamil castes this is one where the British "criminal" tribes/castes designation comes up. It had been very subtle in the article itself, mostly coming up in years-long edit wars about whether the very word kallar means "thief". That said, some glancing around showed the British did indeed label these folks as a class of bandits. However, there's some great more modern research (by Indians and non-Indians) arguing that the British were labeling rather legitimate taxation and sovereignty measures as "banditry" in an ongoing process of delegitimising non-British authority in the region. I still think it's valid to mention the British's accusations, but through 3rd-party research, and in the context of the fact that the British certainly had their own incentives; as the American saying goes "don't steal, the Government hates competition."

It's an interesting subject, and the subject of the Kallar is well-covered with some good books in Preview mode on gBooks where you can read goodly portions of it. Just wanted to broach the issue of how best to neutrally describe "criminal" castes and their modern rebuttals to British chroniclers, and to invite over anyone else interested in some cleanup on South Indian caste articles. MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:18, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the Mukkulathors (Kallars, Maravars and Agamudayars) were fiercely independent communities and a major hurdle to British expansion in South India. Many of the important generals during the Polygar Wars hailed from these three communities (eg. Puli Thevan, Marudhu Pandiyar, etc). This might have been one of the major reasons why the British labelled them a "criminal tribe". However, it is also true that members of these communities, were in general, ruthless marauders who occasionally stooped down on villages belonging to Dalits or Nadars and destroyed them, or atleast this is what the article Sivakasi riots of 1899 claims. "Kallar" is a Dravidian word meaning "thief" and it has the same meaning in Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada (I don't know about Telugu). The word does not mean anything else.-The Enforcer _{Office of the secret service} 05:49, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

The population stats are highly inflated. Please check them out.-The Enforcer _{Office of the secret service} 05:55, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Will do, population stats are often pretty messed up. Also the Joshua Project tends to be a go-to source, despite is being a Christian missionary site which is mainly presenting the data for proselytisation efforts, and often its own footnotes (for the cultural data) are just non-RS fansites and the like. Just not a scholarly resource.

Thanks for the overall input, that was about my read on it too. Certainly an interesting people, and worth writing about accurately. Not a related group, but same general region, I'm also doing cleanup of Mukkulathor, mainly chopping out a bunch of data redundant to other articles, so if anyone is interested in Tamil castes, your voice at Talk:Mukkulathor would be helpful. Plus, if there are any Tamil speakers, I need the Tamil spelling; the ta.wiki article has a disambig in it so I'm not clear what part of it is the actual name.

Thanks for informing here. After the "cleanup", I too would like to do another "cleanup" for OR lies &/ synthesis &/ misrepresentations &/ unreliable sources &/ amateur sources &/ cherry picked sources &/ passing comment sources &/ off topic sources &/ misinterpreted sources &/ lead fixation &/ S***** fixation &/ defamatory material &/ undue material &/ sources with mysterious credentials etc.

Villages in Karjat taluka

Under the letter S in Villages in Karjat taluka, there details of Shinde really need cleaning up. Chris857 (talk) 23:19, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Done To keep the consistency there is no need of promoting details.

Talk:List_of_suktas_and_stutis#Requested_move

Could someone answer the question in this move request? Thanks. --regentspark (comment) 20:35, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bhubaneswar temples project

There appears to be a student project adding articles about temples in Bhubaneswar. Those of you who patrol User:AlexNewArtBot/IndiaSearchResult‎ might have already noticed a number of temple-related articles created by newbies.

The group hasn't announced itself, but RHaworth has created a list of users who appear to be part of this effort at Wikipedia:Bhubaneswar temples project. Several of the articles created by these users are tagged for cleanup, while most of the articles for creation requests by them have been denied because they don't satisfy Wikipedia's guidelines.

Please go through the contributions of these users and help fix/clean-up the articles created by them. utcursch | talk 12:50, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Nedumpally

Can someone please take a look at the article Nedumpally. 218.248.72.195 (talk · contribs) -- same as Ashleypt (talk · contribs) -- has added a huge chunk of text about Indus Valley Civilization, Aryans, Dravidians etc. in the article. This text has no direct connection to the topic of the article. He also keeps removing {{citation needed}} tags for claims like "one of the earliest and largest families" and "have reached Kerala from North India after 1000 BC". Many of the references cited are from Wikipedia pages or unreliable sources (e.g. geocities/angelfire pages).

I've express my concerns about the article at Talk:Nedumpally#Irrelevant_information. The anon user keeps reverting my edits without addressing any of these concerns (here's the last revert).

Since I was involved in editing the content, I don't want to start an edit war or block the user. It'd be nice if someone else can mediate. utcursch | talk 15:11, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

User:Ssriram mt's edits

I'm having a few problems in explaining Wikipedia policies and guidelines to User:Ssriram mt. The user has been violating some of Wikipedia's policies and not heeding my advice.

For example, consider the following articles which the user had created.

When I moved this articles to "Taamaraiyaal Kelvan Perumal Temple" and "Purushotama Perumal Temple" explaining that the name in the infobox should be the same as the subject of the article, the user had reverted it back. Now, I need some help and also some expert opinion on what the name of the article should be.-The Enforcer _{Office of the secret service}

In that case the name in the infobox should be changed and not the article name. There is no problem changing the infobox name if it is not within the guidelines. It is indicated in the source about the temple name. The changes can be discussed in the talk page rather than merely making an unsourced renaming. S Sriram 15:24, 22 September 2011 (UTC)ssriram_mt

I'm asking for third party opinion in this case. Of course, you've already voiced yours.-The Enforcer _{Office of the secret service} 04:47, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

At 3RR on Dera Sacha Sauda (controversial Indian movement) and need outside opinion

The article Dera Sacha Sauda was previously full of a bunch of propaganda, including literally saying something like "You are always welcome to visit the holy premises of the Dera!" Myself and a few others did a big cleanup, removed primary sources (except for quoting the org about its mission statement, etc). There were some anti-DSS folks who pushed it a little too far getting vivid about accusations of misdeeds by the organistion (which even the US Congress has referred to as a "cult"), but we trimmed those down to be more factual, and tried to make sure that one particular news agency's exposes didn't get undue.

Now we have an editor who's been going into this article, and that of DSS's leader Ram Rahim Singh, and is removing mentions of the actual court cases (but leaving the cites) and modifying the section start: "In the 2000s, the organisation received attention due to several controversies involving its leader, Saint Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Ji Insan which were earlier found false and a paid conspiracy." He's backed off slightly from removing all the details, and from claiming that "all" (there are many cases) were dismissed. However, I'm concerned that overall he's trying to sanitise DSS and Singh's reputations on wiki, and frankly a look at a variety of RSs seems to indicate the group and figure are viewed rather skeptically. I would appreciate any help in finding some balance to ensure the article is neither sanitised nor a scandal-page, and feedback as to whether User:Vikas.insan (who is a DSS SPA might not be fully good-faithing. MatthewVanitas (talk) 17:00, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Signpost

Hello, yes, I am Belugaboy of the Wikipedia Signpost's WikiProject Report desk, and your upcoming interview for November will be conducted by me. We shall start with the questions approximately two weeks before Halloween, but right now, I need information on the project itself. For example, what month of what year it was started, the number of FAs and GAs it has under its scope, any Featured Pictures would be appreciated, as well as a list of the most active members. What else, ah, yes, it will be published on the 14 of November, so we have plenty of time. Please respond on or before 30 September, as I have real life matters to attend to myself. Warm regards, Belugaboy^{cup of tea?} 01:33, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject_India/Featured_and_good_content. --regentspark (comment) 19:00, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

That page hasn't been updated in a long time. The current list (bot updated) is at WP:INRC. —SpacemanSpiff 08:23, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Vedic period - its end, terminus ante quem for all vedic sanskrit literature

The end of all vedic sanskrit lierature, its terminus ante quem is not 150 BCE as noted in Wikipedia, but it extends down to 1500 AD. Please refer to Cambridge History of India, volume I, 1987, edited by EJ Rapson, published by S. Chand & Company Limited, Ramnagar, New Delhi-110055. It gives us the last date of addition of custom of sati (widow-burning)as 1500 AD in its footnote. Please see its page 96, line 18 with its footnote. It states: "Rigveda is innocent of widow burning .... The direct authority for the custom .... owes its existence to a daring forgery of quite a modern date. And then in its footnote, it states: see Wilson, J.R.A.S., Vol. XVI, pp. 201 sq. ; Fitzdward Hall, J.R.A.S, ns. vol. III, pp.183-92, who traces it to Raghunandana (1500 AD).

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Farooq alvee (talk • contribs) 07:51, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Redacted. – Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:11, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

You are not supposed to reveal your password to anyone. You should keep it a secret so that nobody else can access your account.MW ^ℳ 09:47, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Caste names needing local-language transliteration

I'm going through the caste articles one-by-one to see which have been tampered with (Pasi (caste) had to be rolled back to a version almost a year old), need ce or unref tags, are mis-cat, belong in a larger umbrella cat, etc. In that process, I'm also noting those article which don't have the caste name in their local-language spelling. I'd like to compile them all here, and if folks know the spelling, please add it to the article or the list (indicating which language it is if necessary); if you add it to the article, please do add it or check it off the list so somebody else doesn't spend time on it. Thanks for any help. MatthewVanitas (talk) 17:01, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Transliterations needed

Agri caste – Gujarati, Marathi
Ahirwar –Hindi, Kari Boli
Ambashtha – Hindi?
Anuppan – Kannada
Arayan – Malayali
Arunaradhya - ???? (in Karnataka)
Ashtagrama Iyer – Kannada, Tamil?
Audichya Brahmin - Gujarati
Badhiphul – Hindi?
Bakho – Urdu
Banai (tribe) -??? Sub-tribe of Koches
Bangar (caste) - ???
Banjara – Lambadi, Hindi?
Bansphor - Hindi, Awadhi, Khari Boli

Namburu

This page needs some serious cleanup. Chris857 (talk) 17:51, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Shamli

The recent edits of this article are a mystery to me; perhaps someone with a knowledge of the area could have a look (Crusoe8181 (talk) 09:39, 28 September 2011 (UTC)).

requesting to organise the workshop in indore

i was thinking to organise a one day seminar over wikipedia at our college campus before wikiconference to introduce wikiconference in INDORE and to aware the students of central india with wikipedia concept. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Avitesh (talk • contribs) 15:15, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

I guess it'd be better if you went through one of these channels. Thanks, Lynch 7 16:35, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Varna status in the lead of articles

Varna status...ah, what a painful topic. Here's what little I know: with the exception of one editor I've encountered so far, everyone seems to agree, in general, that varna status is complicated. Everyone seems to agree that, legally speaking, varna status has no validity in post-independence India, though most (but not all) editors seem to agree that there is still a lasting legacy. As MatthewVanitas pointed out on Talk:Lodhi, obviously it still matters to some people, at least in so far as they take a lot of effort to make sure that the article on their own group clearly and aggressively includes "kshatriya" claims. In dozens of articles, editors are fighting about exactly what references are needed to verify what status a given group has, especially in contested cases (which is, well, a lot of them).

A month or two ago, I believe that a fairly decent consensus was achieved to remove varna status from Infoboxes (and the hard-coded infoboxes that many of these articles use), simply because it's too complicated to be covered there (though I don't think that "decision" has actually been implemented everywhere). More recently, there has been some discussion about whether or not varna status should be mentioned in the article lead. Basically, the same arguments have been proposed as for the template--that varna status is far too complicated to be summarized in one or two sentences, and that often when citations are used, they don't present the whole picture or, in our attempt to summarize an issue, we start to brush up against WP:SYNTHESIS. Myself, I'm not fully convinced either way, but I thought that a centralized discussion here might help us see if there is any sort of general consensus on the issue. I considered making this an RfC, but I think we can keep it "in house" for the moment, as I'm not really trying to set a "rule" as much as I am to get a discussion going on how to handle this difficult issue.

So, what do others think? Should we remove all mentions of varna status from the leads of all such articles (note, of course, that this means removing both Shudra and Kshatriya claims from the lead)? Should we remove it in all cases, except where there is a clear consensus to include? Should we remove it in all cases, except where there is no dispute whatsoever (if someone knows of a good example, please point it out)? Or is there really no way to set an over-arching rule that applies to the entire category of articles? Qwyrxian (talk) 00:08, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I was the one who expanded the {{infobox caste}} based on MatthewVanitas' request. I think that the varna status in the infobox should stay because the infobox is optional to use and the varna status parameter in that infobox is optional too. It can be useful in the cases where there is no dispute. You and I were thinking on the same lines when you thought of an RFC. I would go even further - given the 100s or articles we have on the caste system (and this will only grow over the next decade as we get rid of the systemic bias), we should consider a policy or a guideline for this. Perhaps we can have a policy/guideline called Biographies of living communities on the lines of WP:BLP. When a dispute arises, we should remove varna claims wherever they cannot be sourced to rock-solid, academic literature from authors of excellent repute in this specific area. We must make it a point to use current sources (perhaps from the last decade or two) for present-day claims about varnas. Zuggernaut (talk) 03:28, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

On the infobox issue, Zuggernaut, you are very much in the minority. This is because for the vast majority of articles we deal with, the varna status is disputed (usually of the form "Generally grouped as X, but claim kshatriya status"). And then it takes a paragraph or twenty to explain exactly who claims what. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:38, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

As I told MV, I am not really attached to the infobox and don't really care if it is truncated or even deleted altogether. It's good to see progress on this. Zuggernaut (talk) 04:04, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I think the varna will be anyways mentioned in the intro, if the varna identity has always been central to the caste's identity. For example, the intro of a community like Deshastha Brahmin would be "Deshastha Brahmins are a Brahmin sub-caste". In other cases, it's not important to mention the varna, esp. if the status is disputed.

It is a misconception that all the Jatis/castes/communities have always been strictly classified in a particular varna. The concept of varnas is based on occupations, not castes. While some Jatis have traditionally been associated with a single occupation, several others have shown considerable mobility (see sanskritization). Most of the Brahmincal texts about varna system say things like "craftsmen are Sudras", but not something like "XYZ community belongs to the Sudra varna".

Most of the sources cited for varna status are from the texts written in British India. These texts reflect the status of a particular caste at that time, not in earlier or modern times. So, it's better to avoid the discussion of varna in the intro in most cases. utcursch | talk 06:55, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

IMO it is important that we should remove varna claims wherever they cannot be sourced to rock-solid, academic literature from authors of excellent repute in this specific area. I see no sense in continuing to use substandard sourcing. We want to be a high quality encyclopedia. Why should we be using amateur sources/ off topic sources/ OR / synthesis/ cherry picked material etc. to write articles. I think substandard sourcing is at the root of most of the present trouble on caste articles. The "varna status of X caste is disputed" entries in our articles are all synthesis. There are no sources to say that the varna status of any caste is disputed. How can we invent disputes? It is complete OR. These disputes simply do not exist. Neither in India, nor in the secondary sources. If there was some dispute, there would be at least two rival groups in India who dispute the status of each other etc. Otherwise, there would be secondary sources with titles like "The varna status of Foo caste"/ "Is Foo caste Brahmin?". Then they would go on to argue whether Foo caste is/is not Brahmin etc. If there would be "dispute" among secondary sources on this, they would also attempt to deconstruct each other's arguments. There are no such sources. No source says that there is any dispute. This "dispute" exists only on WP. This is in violation of WP:NOR. We don't get to invent disputes which do not exist. And saying that the varna status of X is disputed is misleading too. The common reader will take it to mean that there is some such dispute in India. There is no such dispute in India. About noting the varna status in lead, except for the situation outlined by Utcursh, IMO it should not be noted in lead. It is only the SC/ST/OBC status which is relevant in modern times. The varna discussion should go in a historical section near the bottom. Thanks and regards.MW ^ℳ 12:22, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

While I don't disagree with the comments above, I don't think we need new policies to deal with this issue. If a Varna status is clear and unambiguous, then there is nothing wrong with including it in an infobox or elsewhere. The fact that the Indian government has outlawed these sort of distinctions has no bearing on wikipedia. If a Varna status is ambiguous, then we don't state it, unless the the ambiguity itself is worth noting (i.e., reliable sources discuss the ambiguity). If two reliable sources say different things, "X is a Y" and "X is a Z", then we say something along the lines of "Sources differ on whether X is a Y or a Z, (ref1) (ref2)". If there is a controversy amongst editors about the status, then examining the reliability of sources (WP:RSN is good resource for that) and the normal consensus seeking and dispute resolution mechanisms are perfectly capable of dealing with that controversy. Removing Varna status entirely makes little sense since, apparently, that is what distinguishes these social groups. --regentspark (comment) 13:01, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

The phrase "their varna status is disputed" is one which has recently been coined by, IIRC, Fowler&fowler.. It would no less accurate to say "There are differing opinions regarding their varna status", which would remove some of MangoWong concerns and is factual. It is a formula that I have used in the past. MW has raised these issues over and again, it has been examined at WP:RSN and WP:DRN and in all cases the sources were found to be ok & MW's interpretation of WP:OR, WP:SYNTH etc denied. We should not censor.

Detail of the varna needs to be mentioned where it applies to a community (and this may include some non-Hindu communities, as I seem to recall that for some reason this occasionally happened). It needs to be mentioned because it is historically significant to many communities & is widely discussed even today, but it does not usually need mentioning in the lead and, indeed, I have never mentioned it in the lead unless a statement to that effect already existed. I am generally not keen on infoboxes for caste articles and there has been a discussion about it on one of the template talk pages fairly recently. - Sitush (talk) 13:16, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

What might be useful, bearing in mind the comments of utcursch above, is some sort of boilerplate introduction paragraph that could be used in the article body for those situations were there are differing opinions: a brief explanation of the complexity/fluidity of varna, supported by some agreed reliable sources (eg: Susan Bayly is rock solid). - Sitush (talk) 13:19, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I think RGPK's suggestions can solve most of the difficulty here. Saying Sources differ on whether X is a Y or a Z, (ref1) (ref2) seems OK to me, (as long as we don't use passing comments from off topic sources/ unreliable sources etc. to do this. We should be using sources in a policy compliant way only). And I disagree with the findings of the DRN, which Sitush refers to above. That material has not been reinserted into the Yadav article. If anyone reinserts that synthesis from unreliable sources again, I am likely to take it further for reconsideration. As for the result at RSN, it said that the matter should be discussed somewhere else because most of the users at the RSN would be unfamiliar with what constitutes an RS on Indian topics of this sort.MW ^ℳ 14:41, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I can't recall if it was F&F or myself who used "disputed", but I agree with MW that "differ" is a more open/literal term, and we have plenty of cases where sources differ. That said, there certainly are cases where, say, Source X says "the Brahmins say Shudra, the Foos say they're wrong and its Kshatriya", so there "dispute" would certainly be accurate (Kayastha and Nair, I think, address those issues). Agree with MW that "disputed" is best used in places where a literal debate/confrontation over the label is described by secondary sources. I'm a little less clear on the best word when Source X does not include the idea "says they're wrong" but clearly states two diverging opinions; "differ" would still be safe, but depending on larger context and supporting evidence it may be an actual point of conflict.

Regarding MW's "It is only the SC/ST/OBC status which is relevant in modern times." ... yes and no. We do not have crystal-clear officially applied varna labels in the modern day, but the issue continues to underlie social situations, and the WP readership seems well-nigh fixated on them. That is what dragged me into this caste situation in the first place, seeing uncited Kshatriya claims in so many caste articles it was a wonderment that any physical labour ever got done in medieval India, what with all the warrioring and ruling. So far as which Shudra claims are synthesis and which are not, best to leave those for the individual articles, but it is certainly clear that there are many, many uncited Kshatriya claims that need to be footnoted, and 90% of the time there is either no Kshatriya evidence or there is a "well, they claim Kshatriya, but it's complicated". MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:11, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

...WP readership seems well-nigh fixated on them. What the readership is interested in has no role in deciding article content. Article content is controlled by WP:DUE considerations.MW ^ℳ 15:45, 22 September 2011 (UTC) The folks who insert rubbish OR kshatriya claims are vain people. They don't get to indicate what constitutes encyclopedic material.MW ^ℳ 15:57, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I completely agree with MW's last point: I've seen some caste-related articles featuring content that was included as a rebuttal to fantastic claims made by the vanity brigade. Some random dude belonging to the caste adds "This caste is of pure Caucasian ancestry" or "All great emperors of India belonged to this caste". In response, a hardworking Wikipedian with good intentions goes on a research spree and spends time writing 4-5 paragraphs disproving these theories. In reality, such content might not be important enough to warrant more than 1-2 sentences in the article. The random dudes should not get to decide what constitutes encyclopedic material. utcursch | talk 16:18, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Focusing on the behavioral aspects of this only, I feel MangoWong has been right most of the time. Admins then need to ask questions likes, why has he been taken to ANI on so many occasions, why was so much time wasted on the talk pages of so many articles (I have most in the category watchlisted), why were there accusations of sockpuppetry. Something has not worked here. Zuggernaut (talk) 16:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Can there be a clarification on what constitutes Reliable Sources? MW mentions above "as long as we don't use passing comments from off topic sources" and has made many comments in caste talk pages over the last few days on this very subject. I am concerned that unless this is clarified, disputes will continue.JanetteDoe (talk) 16:32, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that's necessary because each source needs to be evaluated independently. The 'shudra' comment source was found wanting in the Lodhi article and the others can be similarly evaluated. It is impossible to make a general statement about 'passing comments'. It depends on who said it, how it was said, and the way in which the material was used in the article. --regentspark (comment) 17:23, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Have fun then. I'll be over in the corner loudly thinking "I told you so".JanetteDoe (talk) 17:37, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi JanetteDoe. I think I should explain a bit more. Currently, at the talk:Lodhi, we were discussing a book which has only one instance of "Lodhi" in the whole book. So, there is only one sentence in that book which contains the word "Lodhi". When the source was first introduced into the article, it was done (apparantly) by looking at the latter half of this sentence only. I don't think that a book which has only one instance of the word "Lodhi" could be an RS for that article. And I don't think it is good to say something by looking at half of a sentence only. There is also another source in that article which does not even have half a sentence to support what it is supposed to support. It is a complete fake source. Then there is an encyclopedia which is being used as a source. Encyclopedias are tertiary sources and WP is supposed to be written from secondary sources. There are good reasons for not using tertiary sources and I think I need not explain those reasons. On another article ( Yadav), I had a similar issue when I saw that we had a sentence synthesized from four sources. All four sources were problematic in some way or other. One of the sources was about Benaras, a city in India. It contained an anecdote about one particular person where it was mentioned (within brackets) that he is associated with X varna. That was being used to say that the Yadavs are X varna. That looks like a passing comment to me. Another source (about education etc.) had a table which was meant to show literacy rates of various castes in 1901, 1911, 1921, 1931. The table noted (in a bracket I think), the Yadavs as X varna. That was also being used to adduce that the Yadavs are X caste. This too looks like a passing comment to me. None of these sources were about Yadavs, and did not make any effort to discuss or establish their point about the Yadavs. This is why passing comments from off topic sources, unreliable sources etc. is becoming a concern. The WP:NOR is clear in saying that passing comments should not be used and anything sourced from passing comments is OR.MW ^ℳ 18:13, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Whether something is reliable in support of a statement does depend on the context, and therefore RegentsPark is correct. However, before you fall for any possible rewriting of Wikipedia history regarding MangoWong;s points above, you may want to read Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_4#Yadav (it is collapsed, so hit the show link). That gives you the full story rather than a potted one. - Sitush (talk) 18:32, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you both for your explanations. I have followed the soap opera at length as it moved from Nair to Ezhava to Kurmi to Yadav to Lodhi to Kayastha. I marvel it has continued so long unchecked, hence my comments above and at ANI.JanetteDoe (talk) 19:17, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I am not familiar with the events at Nair and Ezhava articles. Could you please provide your view of things. It may be useful to have a look at the "big picture".MW ^ℳ 12:06, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

(Copied, more or less, from my post at Talk:Lodhi. Don't have more time.) This seems to be an especial problem with tilling and herding castes, such as Kurmi, Kachi, Koeris, Ahirs, Gwalas, Lodhis, .... For the Lodhi, for example, both the shudra classification by the British and the assertions of kshatriya past by the Lodhis themselves should be discussed in as much detail as is appropriate in a separate section. I don't really even object to them being in the lead, but only if they appear as the summary of the article that the lead is supposed to be. (As it was, they were appearing only (or primarily) in the lead. I do understand though that "shudra" was put in there as a response to the vacuous claims of Kshatriya origins by various IPs and SPAs.) As I see it, from a reading of the Baylys, primarily Susan, but also Christopher, many of the agricultural and pastoral castes were more or less outside the formal varna system and had remained so for many centuries. They were considered non-patrician (or non-elite or middle-to-low caste) social groups, but more crucially, clean. In other words, the twice-born, primarily the Brahmins, could have non-polluting interaction and dealings with them (buy their wheat or milk, drink water served by them, etc.). When in the mid-19th century, the patrician groups, for economic reasons, began to downgrade these groups, the groups reacted by claiming twice-born (mainly Kshatriya) status. All sorts of "founder myths" began to appear soon thereafter. Unfortunately, from a social progress perspective, these non-partician groups didn't show the courage of the Satnamis or the Kabirpanthis or later of an Ambedkar, who were able to reject the caste system altogether; instead they took to claiming dubious upper-class origins. Everyone and their brother was soon claiming direct descent from the Sun or the Moon. In my opinion, this was especially tragic for the Kurmis, who were so much more admirable, in terms of their work ethic, than the shiftless Brahmin and Rajput farmers whose customs they were now endeavoring to adopt. It did, however, give them political and economic power in the century to follow. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 16:47, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that a book which has only one instance of the word "Lodhi" could be an RS for that article. I covered this in another Talk page (glad we're centralised here now), but I contest this point. For extremes: we might have a book on Indian ceramics which mentions the Lodhi 130 times in reference to their pottery, but even if said books mentions "the Lodhi Kshatriya use a cross-hatch left-hand pottery wheel" and such phrasings at several points, that does not make the book RS for Kshatriya claims since the author is not interested in caste politics, so is using the term "Kshatriya" incidentally. In contrast, if a book uses "Lodhi" once, but in an explicit context of "And then in the 1901 census... X, Y, and Lodhi were listed as Shudra castes" and the book itself is largely about caste identity and politics by a scholar of sociology/poli-sci/history/ethnology, then I argue it's an RS, and that the mention though brief is not "passing" but explicit. I do, however, agree with MW that said source along cannot support "Lodhis are Shudra", but can address the literal statement "the 1901 census listed the Lodhis as Shudra". That particular fact wouldn't rate going in the lede, but could definitely go in Caste Politics as a historiographic example explicitly backed by an RS. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:32, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

if the varna identity has always been central to the caste's identity I don't do Brahmin topics generally, but my vague impression is that most Brahmins' status is uncontested, save a few groups that "rediscovered" Brahmin status, or Brahmin groups accused of losing their varna through failure to uphold standards. On the opposite end, are Dalit groups generally non-contentious, at least in terms of not having a claim to be of the four varnas? I know there are certainly Dalits that don't like being called "Dalit"; on Talk:Pallar we had folks asking us not to use that term, but major Indian newspapers were noting the Pallar among the Dalits as late as a couple weeks back. So is "Foo is a Brahmin caste" okay 80% of the time provided we check around for contradictory statements? Is "Foo is a Dalit caste" generally okay in the lede, or is there a better way to address that issue? Regarding Vaishya, my impression is that that one is usually a bit more complicated, particularly as, like the Kshatriya, the Vaishya are said to have died out in the distant past. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:46, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

You are right in your observations. It is usually the Kshatriya/Vaishya like castes that have varna disputes. I will try to explain this is plain words. The Brahmins were the ones originally who affixed varnas. There are many dominant/successful communities in India that fall under this Kshatriya/Vaishya grey area. The Brahmins in an obvious attempt to undermine these really established and powerful groups' credentials viewed them as Sat-Shudra instead of placing them in boxes of Kshatriya or Vaishya. Because Brahmins thought "well these guys will behave like bigshots (which they already are for all practical purposes) if they ritually become dvijas Kshatriyas or Vaishyas, so lets create a new ridiculous class Sat-shudra and give it to them". Mostly Jats, Kayasths, Patels in the north and Reddys, Vellalars, Nairs, Kammas of south fall into this Sat-shudra category. I mean sat-shudra category is so ridiculous it is oxymoronic. Sat-shudra literally means a clean servant. Does it really matter if a servant is clean? His clothes will be disheveled 5 minutes into his day job. LOL. This sat-shudra is one of the wily inventions of the Brahmins. Well a few more pointers about varna related issue. If a group is OBC and historically Shudra and a caste editor is claiming otherwise, 99% chance are that he is wrong. OBC + historically shudra = most likely unequivocally shudra. Now if a caste is Forward(FC). FC + historically sat-shudra = chances are most definetely a varna dispute candidate and most definetely has kshatriya/vaishya functions but viewed as shudra as you can infer from above. Cheers Foodie 377 (talk) 03:19, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Outcome/way forward?

As JanetteDoe pointed out above, this has been going on for a good 4 months now at caste articles like Nair, Ezhava, Kurmi, Yadav, Lodhi, Kayastha, etc. The conversations at many of these articles have centered around the same Shudra issue. The behavioral pattern here has been something like "if the IPs add WP:PEACOCK stuff to articles then we are going to respond by adding stuff in the lead (even though the article bodies have near-zero content on the topic and by completely ignoring WP:LEAD which clearly states that the lead is supposed to be a summary of the article) reminding readers that they are Shudras (a loaded term that is potentially libelous) first and foremost. Clearly this is not the way to respond to drive-by IPs.

Nobody is condoning or is likely to condone the the edits of the drive-by IPs whose aim is to make their own caste people look better. We have policies to deal with these IPs. However an experienced editor, User:Sitush, does seem to have a behavioral problem in this area of Indian castes and if anyone proposes a topic ban, I would be the first one to support it. Zuggernaut (talk) 13:36, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

You make a very valid point. Drive by IPs happen all the time in all sorts of WP articles. That alone should not be the reason why Varna is discussed in caste articles. Editors are free to describe in detail the varna of the particular caste and address all issues. Jumping on the varna issue just when a drive by IP shows up is emotional and reactionary behavior. Even if editors jump in when a drive by happens, fine, just that they should be diligent enough to write something about the varna status and not just leave the infamous "shudra stamp". Because in many cases the varna would be disputed. Foodie 377 (talk) 16:22, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Any talk of topic ban for Sitush is ridiculous. He is an experienced, knowledgeable, and prolific editor. Moreover, most of us have very little experience of the kind of insistent POV pushing he and MatthewVannitas have to deal with. Caste puffery is not just perpetrated by drive-bys; more commonly it is perpetrated by POV-pushers who keep reappearing under different usernames and IPs, i.e. regulars masquerading as drive-bys. I will oppose any topic ban for Sitush or MatthewVannitas. Let us be very clear. The criminals are the reincarnating POV pushers; not Sitush and MV, who are editing within Wikipedia guidelines. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 18:50, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

This isn't the right place to make proposals about editors being topic-banned - Zuggernaut has no business raising it here in that manner, please take allegations like this to WP:ANI. Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 18:58, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

While I agree with a guideline on avoiding unnecessary varna stuff in the lead, a topic ban on editors like Sitush would be completely wrong.

Editors like Sitush and MatthewVanitas have been doing the completely thankless job of fixing caste puff pieces -- if anything, they should be given a barnstar for their efforts. Such articles have been lying in a bad state for years. I tried fixing several of these articles a couple of years ago, but gave up because of completely irrational behavior from drive-by caste propagandists, threats and personal attacks. I stopped fixing these articles after an editor advised me not to bother about them since only people belonging to these castes read them.

I started editing these caste-related articles again a few days ago, and I've already been called a "goon" and threatened with an arrest for "cyber crime". It's not surprising that editors like Sitush, who have to deal with such users on a regular basis, overreact sometimes.

Try cleaning some of these caste-related articles, keeping them on your watchlist and protecting them from drive-by 'my-caste-is-awesome' users. Believe me, it's not an easy task. utcursch | talk 20:55, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I am not familiar with the events following your attempt to rid the articles of puffery. So, I accept that what you say about your own experience is correct. However, in the present case, the situation seems to be different. All the trouble seems to start after the "cleanup". It is not just a cleanup. Anyone and everyone gets labeled as S*****. They want to say that everyone in India is a S*****. And they don't want anyone else to touch their versions of the articles. As soon as anyone says or does anything on these articles, he/she is an absolute sock/meat puppet/ canvassed from orkut/ SPA/ caste warrior/ POV pusher/ tendentious/ mycasteawesome ed/ does not know English etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. MW ^ℳ 01:53, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

WP:ANI - Sitush (talk) 01:57, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Almost 100% of the people who tried to oppose you guys have been blocked/banned &/ driven away / driven into becoming SPs. How do I get any support at ANI? I will not take it to ANI.MW ^ℳ 02:21, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

You are right MangoWong. Not to mention the 2-3 admins who blindly support Sitush & Co in insulting various Hindu-related topics. A lot of people like me have given up editing Wikipedia because of these people's bullying. Some of the editors have even written to Jimbo Wales. No use. I agree with you. These is no point in taking this to ANI, when the admins themselves are so much biased. Axxn (talk) 04:44, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Which were the articles in which you had difficulties. Please also describe the difficulty in brief.MW ^ℳ 06:56, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Axxn, I've never been involved with the article on your caste (Nair), but for the record, the users like Shannon1488 were blocked for sockpuppetry, which was confirmed by the checkuser clerks. These users were blocked by a number of different admins (much more than 2-3). Now if you're claiming that there is some anti-Nair conspiracy by Wikipedia admins worldwide, I can't really help you. Angry Nair editors have accused Sitush of "calling Nairs as dogs", which is not even true. The text is sourced, and clearly mentions that it's a mythological, non-derogatory story. Ancient Hindu texts hold dogs in respect (see Shvan). If you associate dogs with something derogatory, it's your problem. When I first came across Nair article a couple of years ago, it was all about how Nairs are like Samurais and awesome warriors etc. The article is in much better shape now. People who question blind glorification of a caste/community are not automatically "biased" or "insulting various Hindu-related topics". utcursch | talk 07:24, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

MangoWang, Sitush and MatthewVanitas have edited several caste-related articles, where they have not made any attempt to insert the word Shudra. You're just looking at what you want to look at. The users who have been blocked have been blocked for personal attacks, incivility and sockpuppetry. Nobody forced them "into becoming SPs" -- they did so because they tried to compensate the lack of sources with strength in numbers. About the issue of overemphasis on the varna status: I've agreed with you before -- there have been overreactions to the puffery attempts. Thanks to your efforts, we've at least some consensus about avoiding it (esp. in the lead), and things should be better now. Unless we all stop thinking of each others as enemies with some personal agenda, we cannot resolve issues like these.

By the way, you need not censor the word "Shudra" with asterisks -- it is not an offensive term like "nigger", and is common in scholarly discourse (the Dalit icon Babasaheb Ambedkar wrote an entire book on the topic: Who Were the Shudras?). Most of the castes in India have been mobile across varnas, and if there are solid sources which say that they were classified as Shudra at one time, I do not see any reason why the fact should not a little mention in the article. utcursch | talk 07:24, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

They do not use "solid sources". They use bullshit quality sources, OR, misrepresentations, synthesis, misinterpretations etc. for S***** fixation and other defamatory material. In addition to that, if anyone points out weaknesses in their material, they indulge in an endless amount of ABF, incivilities, accusationmongering, argumentativeness and do not accept anything when weakness in their material has been explained clearly and even start saying completely absurd things when they have no logical argument left and continue to try to do the same thing again and again through some means or other. How do I AGF with that?MW ^ℳ 08:20, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

P.S. My use of asterisks is due to some other reason. Please do not bother about that.

If you feel that they're being unreasonable any time, you can resort to formal dispute resolution. I don't think the current disputes require something like ArbCom intervention -- they can be easily dealt with mediation from someone not involved in editing caste-related articles. utcursch | talk 08:48, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

I (with help from others) have been taking down rubbish quality material put in by them, with or without DR, despite the endless harassment. When I take down some rubbish material, they put in some new rubbish material. Googlebooks can provide an endless supply of rubbish sources, you see. Even if I manage to take down 5/10 instances of rubbish material through DR, they could keep reinserting the same sort of thing through new rubbish sources. There is also an endless amount of OR, synthesis and misrepresentation which one can do. What do I do with that?MW ^ℳ 09:23, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

That's what the dispute resolution is for. Let a third party determine whether the material being added classifies as "rubbish" (in your opinion) or not (in Sitush's opinion). utcursch | talk 10:52, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

What do I do about refs which have been put in by "reading" them through the googlebooks snippetview only or by reading the latter half of a sentence only or by not knowing who or what the author is?MW ^ℳ 14:26, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

MangoWong, if you think a non-reliable source is being used to support a controversial statement, the best thing to do is to point out why. Then, if you feel that you're not being listened to, bring it up to a wider audience. A brief note on this page always helps. Repeatedly saying that a source is 'rubbish' or protesting about sensitivity on a talk page is not helpful because it quickly becomes disruptive. There are many editors here who are good at evaluating the quality of a source and whether it is being used appropriately or not, and you will get a fair answer from them. Reasonable people, discussing issues in a reasonable way, will not find themselves blocked or banned for any reason from wikipedia. --regentspark (comment) 14:46, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

This is true for content in areas where the number of editors with a broad grasp of the subject matter are in a majority. Zuggernaut (talk) 05:17, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

I've had many a productive collaboration with User:MatthewVanitas, two examples of which can be found in the history of this page ([5], [6]). However the environment has been poisoned ever since User:Sitush entered the fray with his reactionary and emotional edits, which have ignored basic Wikipedia policies for months and months. While I did propose a new guideline/poilicy above WP:BLC on the lines of WP:BLP, I feel it might be an overkill now since I discovered WP:BLPGROUP today. WP:BLPGROUP could have been applied to Sitush's as well as to the IP edits. I am surprised why it wasn't done so.

I agree with Utcursch's overall spirit but formal resolution methods are too time consuming for people who can spare only a few minutes in an editing session. Regarding Ambedkar, he died more than half a century ago so his book is hardly recent content. Indians do not use and have not used these terms for generations now so we need recent/modern sources using these terms to substantiate the claim. Also, the article on Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar (still a virgin article, untouched by Sitush), simply states his caste, the Mahars (also a virgin article), and moves on to discuss his many accomplishments. Compare this with articles like Barrack Obama, African-Americans, United Negro College Fund, etc and you might start appreciating where the term can and cannot be used. Not entirely unrelated is the fact that The National Commission for Scheduled Castes, after consultation with the legal department, has asked the state governments not to use the word ‘Dalit’ in official documents, saying the term was ‘unconstitutional’. [7] Zuggernaut (talk) 05:17, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Really? That's another example of misrepresenting what I have or have not done. - Sitush (talk) 06:31, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

I had not brought up WP:GROUP etc. because I was facing great resistance to nursery level stuff from core policies like WP:V and WP:NOR.MW ^ℳ 08:21, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Let me start with the dog controversy itself as utcurschhas pointed out . sitush has used sadhashivan as reference in both nair page & ezhava page. sadhashivan is a ezhava himself and a glorifier of his own community [please read the book to see more ridiculous clams] . ezhavas because of there new found status & power after independence and eradication of feudal system in kerala wants to be known as superior race [there are lots of credible sources to show that they where basically toddy tappers |http://www.iias.nl/iiasn/28/IIASN28_28_2.pdf].So ezhava historians are working 24/7 to insert brand new history like sadhashivan is doing. they are simply calming kerala brahmins & nairs to be inferior & ezhavas chera kings. let this kind of reference be used in ezhava page only [as he represent that community]. why in nair page?? we have recommended sitush pretty high number of times to remove that statements as that dog statement itself is saying it is wrong. sitush is keeping it for his own fulfillment of ego. I also agree with the above senior editors that sitush is unfit for WP editing.I suggest removing him from Indian cast related topics.Sesshomaru666666 (talk) 07:37, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Look, I am getting fed up of all these misrepresentations, which until today I have been ignoring. Please prove that I was the person who originally introduced Sadasivan to the Nair article. I am not even sure that I did so for the Ezhava one but definitely did not for Nair. This continued, and growing, campaign is based on inaccurate, oft-repeated statements. As anyone who edits Wikipedia should know, it is best not to believe everything that you read. Now, either take my conduct to WP:ANI or stop this. - Sitush (talk) 08:27, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Besides as far as i know ,according to WP law this dog sentence only represents small minority view & should not be in any article. So its ok to remove it right sitush? & its really sad to hear terms like 'fed up' from such a senior editor.even though we differ in our oppinion its nothing personal. Sesshomaru666666 (talk) 09:30, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Sitush seems to have started editing extensively 24/7 from 1-1-11 only. Even though the account is earlier, not much editing prior to that date.MW ^ℳ 09:40, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

This thread is deteriorating into gratuitous statements about editors rather than about content. MangoWong, your last statement above is completely off the wall and I suggest you strike it out. For the rest, please take any issues you have with a particular editor to WP:ANI, this is not the right forum for that sort of thing. --regentspark (comment) 12:20, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Setting aside arguments about personal behaviour best saved for ANI:

The "dog" etymology on Nair is cited from Kerala-jatyachara-nirnayam (a Brahmin work), and I haven't seen any evidence that this violates WP:FRINGE. Regarding as that dog statement itself is saying it is wrong, this is again where a lot of complainants on the Nair page fail to understand that even incorrect theories are of historical importance. We have several etymological options on that page, and clearly no more than one can be right, but the fact that people did try to tie Naga to Nair shows the thought process of the community, their priorities and interests, etc. Similarly, the dog story represents one Brahmin take on the issue, and Nambudiri-Nair issues played a significant role in how the Nair were classified/viewed.
Zuggernaut, it's an interesting argument, but reading the policy I really don't see how Wikipedia:BLPGROUP can be read to say that caste articles get extra-special protection. First off, BLPGROUP seems more to be about "legal persons" such as corporations, etc. Further, when it mentions A harmful statement about a small group or organization comes closer to being a BLP problem than a similar statement about a larger group; and when the group is very small, it may be impossible to draw a distinction between the group and the individuals that make up the group. I strongly doubt that it refers to a caste of 50,000 or 100,000 or 1.8 million people, rather than a corporation of six people where comments about the corporation are almost equivalent to comments about the leader of the six. Yes, caste articles should certainly follow WP:V and such, however I disagree that we should "avoid hurting feelings" in caste articles. Clearly, we shouldn't go out of our way to insult people or provoke riots, but if a properly sourced description of the controversy of Shivaji's Rajput status kicks of riots in Maharashtra (and it is my understanding such has happened in recent decades over print media), then that's on them, not us. MatthewVanitas (talk) 13:51, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

If BLPGROUP is not applicable then we need a policy or guideline (WP:BLC) as discussed above. I will wait to see how this discussion is closed and will discuss with the Wikimedia Foundation after that, if necessary. Zuggernaut (talk) 03:31, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

AARRGGHHH!!!! Why is castism the only topic discussed in this Project? Just like how you haven’t paid attention to improve various other pages, why can’t you do the same with these when you have no knowledge and also sense to get a consensus with each-others? Churches and Convents of Goa, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, doesn’t have the list of churches and convents in it. Garden City Bangalore doesn’t have list of gardens in it. Take a look at this shabby list; List of hospitals in India. Mohammed Rafi’s page says he has sung “…4,516 Hindi film songs, 112 non-Hindi film songs, and 328 private (non-film) songs from 1945 to 1980.” Our list List of Songs by Mohammed Rafi has only around 2000 songs. See these red links here Padma Shri Awards (1954–1959). Even 2010–2019 list has red links.
Lets give you all a nice piece to read & understand. Caste based on character. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 14:57, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

^ℳ, I was saying senior than I am, not in comparison with you guys .

ok back to topic..MatthewVanitas it is not just a specific issue , its an overall issue in his[sitush] way of editing. He is too aggressive at the same time losses his cool fast. a few IPs pretending to be from a community comes & calls him names, Hes totally against that community he is editing. He puts what ever things to make them looks bad. Thats not right!. Another thing is you can add all the datas you wanna say about a community but you can do it with out hurting community members feelings with well selected words. sitush is just causing trouble by placing controversial things in ledge itself!. He is asking for trouble & when he gets it he is already 'fed up' with everything. One example of his edit is nair page , Am sure every one here will agree nairs were nobles had previlages & considered as an upper cast,only below namboothiri brahmins & kshatria kings. But when you read the page sitush has created you may even start to think this guys should have got SC reservation! This flipping of social status happens in lots of sitush articles especially when some IPs are troubling him. I will have to say he is not mature enough to deal with cast related topics which require verry good deal of sensitive handilings.Sesshomaru666666 (talk) 03:37, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree with regentspark here--this is not the place to express your problems with other editors. If you think Sitush is uncivil, go to WP:WQA. If you think his editing is so bad that he needs to be sanctioned (i.e., blocked, topic banned, etc.), go to WP:ANI. If you want to generally gripe about his problems and take the community's feelings about what he has done wrong, open an WP:RFC/U. If you specifically think he's made improper edits on an article (i.e., you're not complaining about him as a person but a specific point in a specific article), go to WP:RSN for issues on reliable sources, WP:NORN for issues on original research, WP:NPOVN for issues on neutrality, and WP:DRN for more complex problems on a single article. Wherever you go, be ready to present specific diffs (examples of edits) that demonstrate whatever you thinkis wrong. If you don't want to do that, then, and I say with as much kindness as I can muster, keep quiet. Many of the comments above are unsupported criticisms that come exceedingly close to, if not cross over into, personal attacks. Wikipedia has a specific set of processes to address complaints against other editors. Bringing up the complaints at each and every article, in every section of every noticeboard, etc., is not the way we handle things. Bringing up unsubstantiated complaints and refusing to follow our processes is itself unacceptable and can lead to blocks, topic bans, and the like. Qwyrxian (talk) 07:06, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

'keep quiet' this is how WP admins handle things regarding sitush?!...I see!!!! i will do that then.

btw thanks for taking your time to explain all procedures Qwyrxian Sesshomaru666666 (talk) 13:38, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

It is not how WP admins "handle things regarding sitush". It is how WP admins handle editors who have great energy to complain, but no energy to make coherent, cited arguments on WP:DRN.JanetteDoe (talk) 17:38, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. I have absolutely no problem if anyone wants to pursue some form of complaint or sanctioning against Sitush. I would be happy to participate in such a discussion, and accept that, while I find Sitush's editing to generally be positive, perhaps I'm not seeing something and welcome the input of the community. What is absolutely not allowed, under WP:HARRASS, WP:NPA, and WP:CIVIL, is to just wantonly insult, criticize, and fight Sitush (or any editor) in every single venue except the ones where a solution can actually be found. If you want Sitush off the project (or off Indian articles, or Indian caste articles or whatever), do it by getting community consensus that he's actually done something wrong--don't do it just by harassing him everywhere you can. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:31, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:International Society for Krishna Consciousness/Archive 1#Request Move

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:International Society for Krishna Consciousness/Archive 1#Request Move. Elizium23 (talk) 15:27, 29 September 2011 (UTC) Elizium23 (talk) 15:27, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Category:Articles which use Indian English

Hello All!! This category Articles which use Indian English has only 211 articles under it. Can this be merged with the Category:WikiProject India articles? The template that read "This article uses Indian English dialect and spelling. Some terms that are used in it differ from or are not used in British..........." can be added to the template of WikiProject India articles. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 11:38, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on the issue, but might there not be legit articles about non-Indian or extra-Indian topics which are in Indian English? Maybe articles on certain kinds of business or technology, poli sci, or maybe some articles about neighboring countries like Sri Lanka and Nepal? And what of the Pakistan articles? Is "Pakistani English" sufficiently distinct from "Indian English" that a division is drawn? MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:39, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps this is a good time to have a discussion on whether we need this category and the associated Indian English template at all. Written English in India is similar to British English, though American spelling is catching on as well. In what way does an article - Ganges to take a random one :) - differ when it is written in 'Indian English' from what it would look like in some other English? Is there a substantive reason for the existence of these templates? --rgpk (comment) 21:04, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I see differences in phrasing which I assume relate to cultural issues. As far as spelling goes, yes, when the spelling is at all correct (!) then it seems generally to follow the British English pattern. I agree that US spellings are catching on, as indeed they are in Britain itself, but I've never fully understood the "Indian English" differentiation as far as spelling goes. I simply do not see any difference between that and one or other of US or British English. Perhaps mine is a limited experience, based as it is on a subgroup of India-related articles.

Examples of phrasing include using "places like A, B and C", where traditional British English would probably say "such as A, B, and C", and general usage of what would nowadays be considered somewhat archaic words in mainstream British writing/commentary - "knobbled", "nabbed", "copped" and those sort of things. Not wrong, but not now commonly found, for example in BE newspaper writing. I must admit that such phrasings grate with me in an encyclopedia but they are not worth fighting over and they do appear to be mainstream in India, eg: The Hindu and similar sources use them. Is that what is meant by "Indian English"? Or is it a reference, for example, to the Indian numbering system? There is certainly a place for a note reflecting that system because otherwise people start moving commas about & make a nonsense of things.

As an aside, one thing that fascinates me on a cultural level is the contradiction between excessive politeness & downright rudeness in talk page messages, which reflects a long-lost Victorian/Edwardian subservience clashing with the modern era (IMO). "Dear Sir, thank you for pointing that out. You are wrong and a complete bastard" is a (paraphrased) example. Please excuse me, but I do find it rather amusing. And I tend to roll with it - it is not just my hearing aids that have a filter built into them! I stress: no offence intended in the above. - Sitush (talk) 23:18, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Sitush, you raise some good points. In particular, the one about the Indian numbering system is interesting because it is a clear difference between usage in India and usage in the rest of the world. The question then is whether we should follow the 'lakhs' and 'crores' numbering, or stick to the more universally accepted millions and billions (and trillions, though it does make the mind boggle!)? --rgpk (comment) 00:51, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

It's not spelling differences as much as the additions to vocabulary. South Asian dialects have a larger set of accepted loan words which vary by region, some of them like Jungle, Mango etc have become common in all varieties of English while others like mofussil, lakh, crore etc aren't used outside of the regional varieties; likewise words that are considered archaic in BE are still part of regular vocabulary in IE -- "eve teasing" etc. The phraseology isn't very different from BE, but the main point to note here is that while BE has undergone a lot of change in sentence construction etc over the past century or so, the change isn't identical in SA dialects. e.g. "xyz expired on March 15th" is still an acceptable (and possibly viewed as gentler according to some sources) way to phrase "xyz died on March 15th". Spelling in sources fluctuates a bit, while The Hindu typically sticks to traditional BE spelling, The Times of India and Hindustan Times are far more accepting of AE spelling, in fact just last week I was reading a ToI source for an article and it used both varieties of spelling within the same article. We'll need to handle this on a common sense basis -- most sources related to government will have commentary in Indian English (legal reviews, newspaper articles, etc etc), likewise many newspapers use lakhs and crores when they refer to governmental works, but when it comes to talking about the revenues of Airtel or Reliance they switch to millions and billions. Same is the case with literature -- works by authors like Mulk Raj Anand, even the more recent ones are in IE and typical critical commentary is the same and therefore those articles ought to reflect that, OTOH authors like Tishani Doshi write in a more dialect-free way incorporating elements of BE, IE and AE and typical commentary follows the same pattern and in such cases our article should reflect that. —SpacemanSpiff 06:49, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

It sounds like the ToI writers need a manual of style ;) "Expired" is a very good example of the phrasing issue, btw, and I must admit to changing that when I have seen it. My mistake: it never crossed my mind that it was IE. Most of these things are pretty trivial, as indeed are the differences between BE & AE, and I think that the policies etc exist mainly to prevent warring over minutiae.

However, I do think that the numbering issue is significant, and that using the Indian system is confusing. The fact that it is not even used consistently in India lends some weight to an argument that it would be better to abandon usage of it on en-WP except when it appears in direct quotations. Doing so would doubtless irritate a fair few of the 1 billion (sic) people in or connected with India, but there are another 5 bn (?) or so for whom presumably it means absolutely nothing and requires click-through links in order to understand. And, of course, this is en-WP, with its inherent bias. However, this is to drift away from the subject area of this thread. - Sitush (talk) 09:23, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd disagree on this, while the numbering system may find inconsistencies in newspapers etc, reporting by the companies itself is in Indian nos -- Tata Steel, Airtel etc. WP:ENGVAR and WP:TIES exist for a reason. Just like we would accept an article about American breakfast to include biscuits in a manner that no one outside of the region has heard, it should be the same for other other national/regional varieties. Lakh and Crore can easily be wikilinked in an article to provide a definition. After all, the English speaking population of South Asia is a significant part of the English speaking population in general. If this needs changing, then WP as a whole should take a stance on a preferred variety of English, it shouldn't be based on specific words/phrases/topics. —SpacemanSpiff 10:00, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Surprisingly many replies! (Though few drift aside.) But back to the point. When i see a category i see its two purposes. (Tell me more if there are any). First; i can sort out articles of similar category to go through them. Second; i read its template, which i consider as some sort of disclaimer. In this particular category i doubt anyone goes on searching all articles on wikipedia that use Indian-English. And even if someone does that, he wont be much satisfied to see so few articles & above all they all reading very much similar to other english forms. Now about the second part of the template disclaimer, i find it little informative. But if at all it is supposed to act as a disclaimer to avoid questions like "Why did you use 'lakh' instead of 'hundread thousand'? ", the same can be achieved by adding that disclaimer in the template of WikiProject India articles.

And as to the point of English used in various sources; English is the global language & it will be modified by its users & thus some times accepted by others too. Chapati, chutney, etc. are found in Oxford dictionary. Times of India uses small "i", unless its the start of the sentence. & i really doubt WP will be able to take any stance on language to be used in any article. (Except obviously for the aricles that specifically deal with languages.) Interestingly i also found that Indo-Pakistani relations is categoried under both Indian & Pakistani English, as if someone can makeout difference on which sentence belongs to which one. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 14:33, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

And.... What happened? -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 12:54, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Dunno. I'm not sure whether Sitush and SpacemanSpiff are supporting the use of ENGVAR or not. Perhaps a straight survey would help?

Survey: Do we need a separate Category:Articles which use Indian English or should it be merged with Category:WikiProject India articles

Merge: No. Since there is little difference between written Indian English and British English, we don't need a separate category. --rgpk (comment) 16:33, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
Keep as is. There are 211 entries in the list, and I guess most of them are legitimate entries. They are independent dialects, just like Category:Articles which use New Zealand English, Category:Articles which use Trinidadian English, Category:Articles which use South African English, etc. All these mirror BE in terms of spelling, but it's the vocabulary and phraseology where they differ. However, this doesn't mean that anything under Category:WikiProject India articles should belong in the English variety cat either. —SpacemanSpiff 17:02, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
Keep: there can certainly be articles about concepts non-Indian or extra-Indian that are written in Indian English, and clearly articles about India that happen to be written in British or American English. I think this merge assumes total overlap. MatthewVanitas (talk) 18:05, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
The two categories mean different things. Articles on primarily Indian topics should certainly use Indian English style where relevant, but WP India tagging means "related to India in some way" rather than "specifically Indian topic" - there are plenty of articles tagged with WP India which are written in British English or American English because that's their primary association. Shimgray | talk | 18:21, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
Keep as is. This is definitely needed for articles where usage of distinct Indian terms (mofussil, eve teasing etc) is heavy and footnotes are needed to explain them. --Sodabottle (talk) 04:41, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
Keep as per Sodabottle. I see no need to use phrases such as "he expired on ..." but there is a need to use examples such as Sodabottle provides & for that reason the category is useful. Has anyone any idea what "they were winked" means? - Sitush (talk) 12:17, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Never head that phrase but it illustrates my problem with a 'using Indian English' guideline. Since there is no reliable dictionary or phrasebook for Indian English, who is to say whether a particular phrase or word is being used legitimately? --regentspark (comment) 13:03, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
- Here you go RP: Lonely Planet, Edinburgh Univ Press. —SpacemanSpiff 12:30, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
  - I'm not spending my ill-gotten gains on the BBC! What does "they were winked" mean? (Also, does LP count as reliable? Their sources are usually friends and family.)--regentspark (comment) 13:26, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
- We too have a lengthy article called Indian English. But there is no need for a category. Read my points below. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 12:57, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
Delete: 1) Refering clause "Non-defining_characteristics"; the language used in these articles doesnt define these articles. These pages can very well be written in Chinese or Norwegian (probably many of them already are) without affecting the contents & the purpose of having them. 2) Quoting from Which_categories_should_be_created; "...They should be the categories under which readers would most likely look if they were not sure of where to find an article on a given subject." Now if a reader wants to know who wrote the Indian national anthem, he would most preferably go after the "WikiProject India Articles" than "Indian English Articles". 3) Above all, there is no distinctive line of difference between British, Indian & Pakistani English. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 13:52, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Uuuhhh!!! Dead again! -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 14:52, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

-Animeshkulkarni (talk) 12:11, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

You seem to be misunderstanding things, this is an assessment category, not a mainspace article category. It is perfectly reasonable to have this as an assessment category as explained above. —SpacemanSpiff 13:09, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Oh i see! Sorry for the hoopla then! Strike the hammer. Keep it! -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 13:46, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Party name for Mayor/CM in city articles

Recently in articles like Chennai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Mumbai etc, there have been edits where the party name of the leader was put after their name in the infobox. Since this is happening in all Indian articles, I thought I'll leave a note here. Also worthy of note is the article India, where party names are mentioned after the leader's name. My opinion is that party names should be included, as is done in United States. In any case, I think we should develop an India-specific guideline on this. Relevant diffs: [8], [9], [10], [11] etc.Lynch 7 16:26, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Seems reasonable, I'm guessing CM is going to be included only for Delhi, no other city? —SpacemanSpiff 18:29, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have been clearer. Well, this situation is not going to be limited for cities, and it may well extend to State articles, or even other LS/RS constituency articles. I was thinking of something like a blanket guideline concerning all politicians in infoboxes of cities/states/country. Lynch 7 18:36, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, party names for the head of a state sounds reasonable in a state article. But I don't think it's woth mentioning in a city mayor's case. — Abhishek ^Talk 14:14, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

If you are mentioning mayor's name, there is nothing wrong in mentioning party's name too. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 12:04, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Yep, since they are all politicians. Presidents or Governors are a different matter. Lynch 7 15:36, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Urgent help required - link fixing for disambiguation!

I came across some new pages on rail lines, and discovered an unholy mess with wikilinks (confusion between various spellings of Jayanagar, Jaynagar, Jainagar, and the 'other' Jayanagar (Limbini) .....)

So I fixed those links I found to be wrong, re-named a page, addid disambig links to three pages, and created a some disambig for the various spellings ...

Which has left a humungous list of links needing to be checked / fixed from the disambig pages! I really can't do all this myself (I'm only a poor new page patroller, not an India enthusiast)!

WikiPedia needs your help! Here's a list of the pages which need to be checked so make sure that the links are pointing to the correct place:

the list!

Many thanks, in advance for your help in tidying up. :o) Pesky (talk …stalk!) 06:20, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Merge proposal - Ahir/Yadav/Yadava

There has been a merge proposal for the Ahir, Yadav and Yadava articles. This could be quite significant. Discussion is at Talk:Yadava#Proposal_to_merge_articles_Yadav_.2C_Ahir_and_Yadava. - Sitush (talk) 23:34, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Some Wikipedian in Chennai?

I'm trying to figure out what happened after 1915 to E. W. Middlemast (recent DYK), Professor of Mathematics (1910–) and Principal (1915) of Presidency College, Chennai. He seems to have vanished off the face of the earth. Could some Wikipedian in Chennai call the College (preferably someone in the History department) and ask them if they have any information, especially something that can be cited? (Please also see Talk:E. W. Middlemast for some more info.) Fowler&fowler «Talk» 22:38, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I will have a word with St John's, Cambridge. All Cambridge University colleges produce journals for their members and they usually contain obituaries etc. That might be a route into the lost years. - Sitush (talk) 22:50, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I found:

"Journal - Indian Mathematical Society" from 1916 (snippet view), looks like minutes of meeting mention: "Middlemast, being unavoidably absent from India" [12].

Also, from 1949 [13], snippet again saying "EW Middlemast, a Cambridge Wrangler and the third President of the Society, was for long Professor of Mathematics in one of the premier colleges of this University and later its Principal. To crown this record of which any University ...". And that's exactly where it cuts off.

Hope this helps.JanetteDoe (talk) 23:08, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Great, Sitush! St John's also brought out The Eagle (run by subscription). The last issue on Google Books (full view) is Volume 29, 1908. Among the list of subscribers it has: "Middlemast, E. W. (Effective until 1910): Bishop's Gardens, Adyar, Madras." (See: St. John's College (University of Cambridge) (1908). The Eagle: a magazine supported by members of St. John's College. Printed by W. Metcalfe. Retrieved 4 October 2011.) Fowler&fowler «Talk» 23:22, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Done. I also know a few maths bods there at other colleges, so hopefully this can be resolved. The Eagle sounds like a junior common room journal rather than a formal alumni publication to which I was referring, but either would be better than nothing. The JCR journals tended to have chequered publication histories. That for my college was known, on and off, as The Sex, being a (then) daring reference to the name by which the JCR was known - "The Sexcentenary Club", in honour of the then 600 years' of college existence. The tendency of students to challenge mores was alive and well back in the 1880s, it seems. - Sitush (talk) 23:30, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Sitush. JanetteDoe: For the 1916 Journal, see full quote on the Talk: E. W. Middlemast page. For the 1949 Journal, the full quote says: " EW Middlemast, a Cambridge Wrangler and the third President of the Society, was for long Professor of Mathematics in one of the premier colleges of this University and later its Principal. To crown this record of which any University may well feel gratified, the President-elect of this Conference, my friend Dr. Narasinga Rao is another distinguished alumnus of this University." :) So, it doesn't really help us much. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 23:33, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

There is this, though from 1906 and not directly includable. The book seems useful for the various caste articles though (assuming it isn't already being heavily used). --regentspark (comment) 23:57, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I saw that. Thurston was a biological determinist (see quote from Susan Bayly in Kurmi#Eighteenth_and_nineteenth_centuries right after the picture gallery). Middlemast also wrote an article on Hinduism in some collection somewhere (I remember coming across). Fowler&fowler «Talk» 12:01, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm still hoping some Wikipedian from Chennai will call the Presidency College. I remain hopeful that Presidency College, Chennai will have some information about Middlemast. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 12:04, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

"Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society". 10 (6). Indian Mathematical Society. December 1918. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help) cited in Kanigel, Robert (1991). The Man Who Knew Infinity. Washington Square Press. p. 315. claims that E. W. Middlemast died during Ramanujan's absence from India. Considering the date of the particular issue in which the obituary is recorded, we might come to a conclusion that Middlemast might have died sometime in late 1918. But we can never be sure about it unless we have a copy of the journal with us. Kanigel, meanwhile, does not specify any date, not even the year-Ravi _{My Tea Kadai} 03:27, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I fear we won't receive a proper response if we call the Presidency College, Chennai.-Ravi _{My Tea Kadai} 03:32, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I cannot see it all but he was listed in Alumni Cantabrigienses - see here. This could well be shown fully here, but note the "approximate" lifespan. I have not heard back from St John's yet. - Sitush (talk) 09:24, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Ayyavazhi

Hello Wikipedians, i have been reading Wikipedia articles about Indian religions frequently of-late. It came to my notice that the article on Ayyavazhi is heavily corrupted with fake, sub-standard and fake sources. Notwithstanding that the article says Ayyavazhi followers declare themselves as "Hindus", the article makes many attempts to project it as a separate religion (an example source: "The following morning and evening dailies calls Ayyavazhi as a separate religion.." and lists some Tamil newspapers - source#5). In Template:Religion_topics, it is listed as a separate religion amongst Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism and Sikhism. The article is heavily biased and many of the sources used are evangelist publications and tangential references to local Tamil dailies. The person/persons who have developed this article has shed a terrific amount of effort to fabricate this "fake" article.

If i had the time, inclination and the youth to reform the article, i would have done it myself. I just wanted to bring the above to the notice of active wikipedians. Thanks for listening. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.170.105.241 (talk) 17:53, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing it to light :-) We will surely look into it. However, I suggest you not to edit the article as you appear to have strong views on the subject.-Ravi _{My Tea Kadai} 00:47, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Kua dham bagar

I've proposed this article for deletion because it is completely unreferenced but so lacking in coherence and context that I cannot find any sources to verify the claims. Could someone check this out, perhaps using more appropriate search terms/spellings? I'm completely unfamiliar with the area. Voceditenore (talk) 11:32, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Pulikkottil Joseph Mar Dionysious I (Mar Thoma X )Thoma X !!!!

In case anyone cares about Wikipedia naming conventions. For my own part I will move to somewhere I feel I can contribute usefully. Crusoe8181 (talk) 04:19, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Few Strange Categories

Resolved

Found some strange categories added in Kiran Bedi. Someone do the needful. I dont know how to do.

-Animeshkulkarni (talk) 15:00, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I have nominated the first of those two for discussion. The second should follow. - Sitush (talk) 15:07, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Both cats now deleted. - Sitush (talk)

Restoring Indo-Pakistani War of 1947

Request members to Kindly review, multiple issues on article Indo-Pakistani War of 1947, Thanks--dBigXray (talk) 22:46, 10 October 2011 (UTC)--dBigXray (talk) 22:50, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Yajaka Brahmans

Jogendra Nath Bhattacharya refers to "Yajaka Brahmans". I cannot find a suitable link for this Brahmin community and wonder if there may be alternate names (JNB was writing > 100 years ago) or if it is one of those groups that really has not yet got an article. Any ideas? - Sitush (talk) 17:25, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I found the following refs, which may be helpful as starting points

The Mahabharata [14] mentions them pages 37 and 77

A Sanskrit-English dictionary [15], p. 850: "Yajaka: a sacrificer, one who offers sacrifices or obligations for or to". First published by Oxford University Press, 1899, several subsequent reprints in Delhi, most recent 2005, author: By Sir Monier Monier-Williams.

Indian witchcraft [16]: p. 14: "Buddhist and Jaina texts justifiably state that secular Brahmanism, during the advent of those religions, composed of spells, charms, incantations, exorcism, witchcraft, occultism, sooth-sayings and so on. They rightly referred to the Atharva-veda as the Brahmanical origin of popular occultism which the high-priests (purohita) and Yajaka classes of Brahmanas amply utilised." Publishers Abhinav Publications, New Delhi, 1981

I hope this helps.JanetteDoe (talk) 22:29, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

So they are just Brahmins who performed Yajna & is not some special caste as such. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 07:15, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you for the information. I'll sort something out so that a link can be provided, maybe via a redirect. - Sitush (talk) 07:51, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Critical response to Adaminte Makan Abu

This article - Critical response to Adaminte Makan Abu can be merged to Adaminte Makan Abu. very redundant. 117.201.244.115 (talk) 10:38, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Agree. — Abhishek ^Talk 10:40, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Ofcourse. provide comments here....Talk:Adaminte Makan Abu --Animeshkulkarni (talk) 16:43, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

NOTE: As this topic deals with Indian cinema, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Indian cinema task force should be the right forum to discuss this. I know that it is as good as dead. But thats the reason why it should be used. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 16:47, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

wp:OR on Homi J. Bhabha

the article Homi J. Bhabha (the architect of the Indian nuclear programme ) has also been changed by User:Ironboy11(now blocked After my complaints) with Original research. but his editings on these pages remain. Some one with expertise/interest can look to restore this and other India related articles that he has disrupted. Thanks--dBigXray (talk) 17:01, 10 October 2011 (UTC) field of the article = Indian nuclear program --dBigXray (talk) 17:10, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I have sorted this article out by reverting his changes and will look further into any other India related articles he has edited. Thanks, GoldRock23^{(talk - my page - contribs)} 15:55, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Weigh in?

Would you like to weigh in at the discussion in Talk:India on some 40 odd images? I know that's a lot, but a simple Yes/No would be adequate. Of course, if you choose to comment at more length, it would be even better. The India page is now the second most-viewed country page (after the US) and the 15th page overall, so having a set of high quality representative pictures becomes even more imperative. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 17:02, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Thakur Deshraj reliability as a source

Is the Hindi work on Jat history written by Thakur Deshraj reliable? It is frequently cited in articles here but GScholar cites are minimal (that might be a language issue) and even GBooks does not demonstrate much useful support. I am a bit concerned about his own neutrality after reading the article on him: he appears to have been heavily involved in advocacy. - Sitush (talk) 11:24, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Hard to say. Since he was not an academic, we'd have to examine his works to figure this out. The question that needs to be answered is: what kind of sources (if any) does he use in his book Jat Itihas? Is there an english language translation available online (I couldn't find one)?--regentspark (comment) 14:41, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I've not been able to find a translation either, although I also rather think that more than one author has written a book using that title. I presume that there are Hindi speakers who could assist? - Sitush (talk) 14:47, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Anyone? - Sitush (talk) 17:17, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Indian government site copy/pasting Wikipedia article?

Hi there. A warning: this might be a newbie question.

I'm cleaning up some district articles and came across a page -- Siwan district, Bihar -- which had very long passages with no citations (not an uncommon occurrence). So I decided to search for some phrases on the official site and, lo and behold, there was the "source". Time for some blanking. Here is the page before my scrub and this is what it looks like now.

So after finishing what I'd considered a job well-done, I then looked at the history to see who specifically had done this. But instead of finding one anonymous IP pasting a massive block at the same time, I saw it had been done incrementally by many IP addresses (though they may all be the same person). It then hit me: I would never consider a passage a copypasta job if it were found on a random site, because obviously it may have been copied from Wikipedia. But should I now lump district government sites into the same category? Was I therefore too rash in blanking these passages? And if it WERE originally written here, what should we do to passages like this, which don't contain any references and probably never will? I feel terrible deleting someone's hard work, but in a lot of these cases they're holding the article back.

Thanks for your advice; if you think I've gone too far I'll undo my latest revisions to that page. PhnomPencil (talk) 15:58, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

reporting Multiple wp:POV, reference removal, wp:OR, section blanking on Indian articles.

there has been several instances of wp:POV, reference removal, wp:OR, section blanking etc on Indian articles. on articles like Operation Python, INS Khukri (1958), Sinking of PNS Ghazi, Operation Brasstacks, Operation Dwarka and others by lTopGunl (talk) also known as Hassanhn5(talk) i also doubt an instance of Wikipedia:Sock puppetry because of similarity of lTopGunl (talk) with (now blocked)User:Ironboy11 it needs to be checked though. Interested editors can look into these. regards--dBigXray (talk) 13:07, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:IND EDITS

Hi! I've recently tried to update the page Wikipedia:IND EDITS containing a list of top Wikipedians from India by number of edits. However, I found it extremely difficult to go beyond 50 and hence I stopped. I feel that, for maintenance reasons, it would be better if we reduce the list to the top 50 Wikipedians alone. Also, while there were few Indian Wikipedians with 1000+ edits when the list was created sometime in 2008-09, the same is not the case today. Your views on the same are welcome.-Ravi _{My Tea Kadai} 03:25, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Disruptive Image Changes on India Page by User:Saravask-- Removing featured images without discussion & consensus.

User: Saravask has been adding images as he pleases without any discussion or consensus. Wikipedia policy states that major changes must be first discussed and agreed upon on the Talk page BEFORE they are implemented on the main page.

I left a message for him on his Talk page asking him to stop unilateral edits, I also made a section on Talk: India asking people to discuss image changes first. But he has continued to add images the way he feels.

Here He changed a FEATURED Taj Mahal image to another one with NO DISCUSSION whatsoever!
Here He changed the Biodiversity Image Rotation (which had multiple pics that had been agreed upon by 20+ users) to just 2 images with no discussion.
Here he replaced an image in the Government section with an image of the interior of the parliament WITHOUT any discussion!
Here he changed an economy image also without any discussion.
Here he added an Environment image with no discussion or consensus.
Here he changed a Defense image with no discussion on talk.
Here he has added his own images of BSE without waiting for consensus on the Talk page.

Here he has once again reverted to his own images after multiple requests for discussing his images on Talk: India.

These edits above are extremely disruptive. Wikipedia's policy is to discuss major changes before. User;Saravask has started an edit war by adding his images directly with no discussion. We need to stop such disruptive behavior. Can someone please help and make sure that the main India page does not get undiscussed image additions by User:Saravask? Nikkul (talk) 04:41, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

The discussion is ongoing on the Talk:India page. If you wish to comment, please comment there. Thanks. --regentspark (comment) 14:27, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Update on WikiProject India in WikiConference India 2011

I have been requested to present a three-minute update on Wikiproject India (as representing en:WP) at the WikiConference India 2011 in mid-November. Requesting suggestions as to what could be included and any points that may be added. If any one would personally like to volunteer to present this instead of me, that too is acceptable for consideration. AshLin (talk) 03:16, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Including a summary of the project self-assessment would help (Wikipedia:WikiProject_India/Self-assessment). Zuggernaut (talk) 03:46, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Hindu_deities#Popular_deities

A dispute is ongoing on the Hindu deities about the use of the word "deity" and "god" in the article and its replacement "avatar of Brahman". I request your comments - a third opinion - to reach a consensus as the discussion is just becoming a debate between two users. Thanks. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 17:50, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I also request a second opinion for this debate as we're getting nowhere - Redtigerxyz keeps on altering stuff I've put in the article and adding the citation needed tag to everythig I've put in, even though it is all reliably sourced. Someone needs to come and sort this dispute out. Thanks, GoldRock23^{(talk - my page - contribs)} 15:37, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

This discussion has concluded. Thanks, GoldRock23^{(talk - my page - contribs)} 16:07, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Hindu_deities#330_Million_Gods

We need a second opinion in this discussion as Redtigerxyz seems to be contantly adding citation needed and RS tags to the corresponding section (which I created and wrote) in the article Hindu deities even though I have provided a source recommended by the British Educational Authorities for the study of Hinduism in major exams such as GCSEs and A-levels. I'm at a loss for what to do and how to respond. Please feel free to join this discussion - it requires little or almost no previous knowledge of the subject. Thanks, GoldRock23^{(talk - my page - contribs)} 15:49, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

This discussion has concluded. Thanks, GoldRock23^{(talk - my page - contribs)} 16:07, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Signpost

Hello, there, my name is Belugaboy, and as you probably know (and you darn should), due to a huge matter in India around mid-November (that I cannot think of off the top of my head), the entire Wikipedia Signpost on 14 November will be dedicated to YOU as a project, and I have the honor of conducting your WikiProject report. I need some help from you, though. As I am not a participant of this project, (and due to my lack of Indian knowledge I have no intention of doing so in the forseeable future) I need information. I need the following data from participants of the project:

Who will be participating in the interview
When the project started (What month of what year)
The amount of FA's and GA's (A's would be nice, too)
Who started the project
- Optional but helpful: Current coordinator(s), if any.

If you do decide you'd like to participate in the interview, the interview can be found here. Do NOT WORRY about the bottom where it says "Next week," I will fill that in myself after I get word from my colleagues.

Happy editing and good luck! Belugaboy^{cup of tea?} 20:45, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm not sure what the 'huge matter in India' is in November. But, 14th November happens to be the birthday of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India and is celebrated as Children's day in India so, I guess, it is a good time to feature the India wikiproject :) --regentspark (comment) 20:50, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I think "huge matter" is WikiConference India 2011. — Bill william compton^Talk 21:23, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh right. That. Too self-referential for me to remember :) --regentspark (comment) 21:34, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it is that, sorry, my mind was at a blank right then. Belugaboy^{cup of tea?} 22:38, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry to bother you, but I still need information, and I have gathered some. I still need from you:

Users participating in the interview
What month of what year the project was started, and by who.
Coordinator, if any.

PLEASE respond on my talk page. Thanks! Belugaboy^{'cup of tea?} 20:58, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

You can go ahead and start answering the questions now, if you choose to participate. Thanks!

Mega Drive/Genesis console

Hi! I saw a YouTube ad which shows the Mega drive being marketed in India:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck6hE2uCrPY

So, was it released as the Mega Drive (I assume it's a yes since India is PAL, but I just wanna make sure) Which Indian company sold/distributed it, and what year? Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 20:10, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Standardized place/article names?

I seem to recall that there was discussion in the past about how to name cities in India...but I can't find anything other than a proposed set of conventions apparently deleted as a contribution by a banned editor. Do we have a current consensus? If yes, could someone point me to it? Either way, there is a proposal to move Hyderabad, India to Hyderabad, moving the current page to Hyderabad (disambiguation). My instinct tells me this is wrong, but I can't figure out why; it would help if regular WT:INDIA members commented on that requested move. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:33, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Ram Swarup Joon as a reliable source

Ram Swarup Joon is cited quite a lot across various articles but has minimal hits on GBooks and GScholar, at least under his full name. Using an alternative spelling garners only a few more references, viz. Ram Sarup Joon. Of course, the lack of hits may be in part because they simply have not filtered through Google's systems, although his major (and perhaps his only) work - History of the Jats - has apparently been in English translation for some time. That book is of course the one that has what appears to be a typo in the publisher's name: "Jaitly Painting [sic] Press".

My bs alarm has been ringing on and off for a while about this source, which seems sometimes to be used for POV-type statements. Is the person or the book reliable per the reliable sources policy? I ask here rather than at WP:RSN because of the subject-specific nature and the fact that apparently he originally wrote in Hindi. - Sitush (talk) 09:52, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd use it carefully and treat it more as a primary source than as a secondary source. The writer was a soldier who wrote a history so it is likely based on his own perceptions of an oral traditions and religious texts. My suggestion is that any material from that source that is contested be included only if it can be verified from other sources. --regentspark (comment) 13:14, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Rgpk. Should be treated as primary source for caste reinvention and improvement by the Jats in the first third of the 20th century. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 18:54, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Can I ask for clarification, please? Are you both saying that Joon can be used, for example, as an example of the caste reinvention/"sanskritisation" genre and nothing much more than that? I've found 59 article that use him as a source, although there may be others if a slightly different search phrase was deployed. Quite a few appear to refer to his lists of clans/gotras - how would they fit into the scenario? He clearly fails the WP:ACADEMIC test, if we were talking here about notability rather than reliability. - Sitush (talk) 00:36, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

My take on this is that the source is primary and not reliable. Anything that is less than certain and is not supported by other independent sources can be deleted. (The practical implication is that Joon is fairly useless as a source.) --regentspark (comment) 01:19, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. That is pretty much my take on things but it is better to invite opinion in at least a vaguely neutral way. I'll wait a little before doing some cleaning up, just in case some alternate views surface. I think that I will also investigate more generally whether both the article about Joon and that about his book should perhaps head towards AfD (this was not my original intention, but the omens do not look good). - Sitush (talk) 01:31, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not have any list of reliable sources. Reliability is a very subjective matter. If we have to rely only on google search then what is the need of Wikipedia. We have to rely on printed matter also. It should be verifiable. This type of biased approach towards relying on history published by Britishers only be stopped. Britishers had wasted interest and wrote history accordingly. We do not rely on their history. Let us have a neutral and unbiased approach. burdak (talk) 03:04, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

You are correct that we don't have a list of reliable sources. Instead, we have a general policy, found at WP:RS. When editors aren't sure, or there is a disagreement, we discuss the issue together and try to reach consensus. Three editors above all agree that the source is, at best, a primary source, which means that it can't be used to verify any facts other than about itself. Given the descriptions above, I also concur with this analysis. Thus, if an editor finds Joon being used as a source somewhere, they are probably in most cases okay to remove it; whether or not they keep the underlying content would be an issue of how contentious it is, though they should at a minimum mark it as needing a citation needed and at most actually remove it and explain clearly in an edit summary. I don't understand what you're talking about regarding google searches. No one is suggesting we use only online sources, but, similarly, no one should be suggesting that just because something is printed in a book is it suddenly a reliable source. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:34, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

You hit the nail on the head about the British bias and the vested interest part. However, these sources are valuable in some aspects, particularly in areas of data collection, censuses, cartography, and other objective areas. We cannot discard the sources altogether. A better approach is to use the sources judiciously. Zuggernaut (talk) 04:06, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't disagree with you Zuggernaut, but the problem with generic statements like 'use the sources judiciously' is that it is unclear who that 'judicious' decider is. We solve half of the problem by avoiding primary sources like Ram Swarup Jain because primary sources, whether British or Jat, are likely to be biased. We go to secondary sources, and I agree that we should prefer modern secondary sources over older ones, to sort through the various claims by primary sources. If these secondary sources are biased as well, then so be it, because it is not for a wikipedia editor to decide what the 'truth' is. An encyclopedia does not publish truth, it publishes received wisdom. --regentspark (comment) 13:27, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Resorting to commonsense is the best idea if judiciousness raises your suspicion. WP:VNT may make more sense in the Western context since the primary and secondary sources there do a pretty good job of getting the truth right. Due to a systemic bias in the real world (things such as lack of funding and grants for research, especially in social sciences, unscrupulous publishing houses, little interest in things other than engineering, medicine, etc), applying WP:VNT to India situations might be being overzealous. VNT works only to the extent that you do not upset people or whole communities. Once a threshold is crossed, there can be trouble and we should avoid that. Zuggernaut (talk) 03:46, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Zuggernaut, resorting to common sense is impractical because what appears to be common sense to one person can easily be nonsense to another. It is better to stick with verifiability because that is the best arbiter of what is commonly believed. Also, I don't agree that the an encyclopedia should actively seek to censor itself based on what some editors believe would be upsetting to some communities. We don't invent anything new but only report, in an encyclopedic format, what is already out there. --regentspark (comment) 18:16, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Keeping in mind that the Wikipedia community, though virtual, exists in the real world with real world issues is what common sense is. Zuggernaut (talk) 03:13, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Please allow me to throw in my 2 cents. WP is basically a common sense free area. These dated British sources and other amateur sources are generally biased, saying wrong things (in the sense that they keep talking on the basis of obsolete racist theories of anthropometry, and other obsolete theories like “Aryan Invasion Theory” etc.) They are also known to say many things which would be factually wrong, and (as already noted) biased due to vested interest. If we try to judge what part of these (basically unreliable) sources is reliable/unreliable etc. we are doing OR. That is against WP:NOR. Instead of doing OR on our own, it is best to let contemporary scholars in the field judge what part of these sources is reliable, how reliable it is, how relevant it is. If these dated &/ amateur sources are saying something important and worth noting, the contemporary sources would explicate on it, and IMO we should source these things from contemporary academic sources only. Only historians or academics are qualified to use these sources judiciously, and we should not take it upon ourselves to do what we are not supposed to be qualified to do. Using unreliable &/ obsolete &/ amateur sources means we are writing a poor quality encyclopedia. Writing a poor quality encyclopedia is not the goal of this project. Even if we are going to use sources with vested interest etc. we should warn the reader about it. We should attribute the POV of the source clearly, or show what other problems which these sources might have. Although this may reduce the “biased source” complaint, it still does not address the “unreliable” issue. Lastly, it seems racist to regard only amateur British sources as RS, even when they are obsolete, but not amateur Indian sources. Same standards should apply to sources regardless of ethnicity etc. Basically, my view is that we should not be using obsolete &/ amateur sources and should stick with contemporary expert sources. Thanks.MW ^ℳ 08:21, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

If the modern secondary sources are also biased, there is something which WP eds can do. It should be easy to attribute the bias through some other secondary source.MW ^ℳ 14:15, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Of course. Provided the other secondary source is reliable. My point is that we can't just say that 'the brits are biased' and rewrite things ourselves. Wikipedia editors are not qualified to speak as experts. --regentspark (comment) 15:00, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

My point exactly. The bias would need to be attributed through some reliable secondary source. We can't do it on our own. If we use some Brit source and say 'the brits are biased' in article space, it would necessarily require a reliable secondary source to do so.MW ^ℳ 18:26, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Without delving into psychology etc too much, MangoWong has a rosy-eyed view of "contemporary expert sources". They will contain biases just as older sources contained biases. What we hope is that they are "standing on the shoulders of giants". To be sure, they are to be preferred where available but never, never assume that they are any less biassed than their predecessors. They require assessment. This obession with "Britisher" bias is a little disconcerting, if not entirely unexpected: yes, much that was written during the British colonial period is a dubious merit but, equally, much that is written now by contemporary commentators is of dubious merit. Like it or not, we deal in many instances with hypotheses rather than facts, although this is something that perhaps scientists appreciate more than the average Joe.

We should not dismiss sources written by the British any more than we should dismiss sources written by Indian people, nor should we always dismiss sources merely because they are "old". We should judge them each on their merits and in the situation that they are being used, and consensus applies. - Sitush (talk) 00:53, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree that we need to take into account ALL points of view. In fact if there is a notable difference between contemporary opinion and older opinion (think Charlie Chan), you can make a section discussing this. WhisperToMe (talk) 19:04, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Vera - assistance on a botanical article

Can anyone provide sourcing/refutation for the statements at Red_aloe_vera#Assertions_of_medicinal_properties regarding usage of the plant in India? - Sitush (talk) 14:14, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

How about this? AshLin (talk) 08:50, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

India Page Final Dem Img Rotation Vote

There is currently a vote going on to decide the final images to be selected in the Demographics Image Rotation. Some new images were added to the pool. Please carefully see the new proposals and vote for your favorite images that best represent the people of India.

Please vote here.

Thanks. Nikkul (talk) 05:17, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

The voting has been relocated here. I request everyone to please add your image choices. There are 47 images, we need to select only 8. We need lots of people's choices to get any kind of consensus. AshLin (talk) 08:46, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Kunbi

I am trying to promote the Kunbi article article to a GA level article and all help in knocking these off the todo list will be very helpul:

Add information on Sickle cell disease
Add information on farmer suicides of the Kunbi community which is claimed to be disproportionately high
Adding an infobox would be helpful
~~Import this picture to Wikipedia: [17], search the web and add more pictures~~
Move non-Maharashtra Kunbi content to their own articles (Gujarat, Goa, Karnataka)
Expand/improve daughter articles:
If some of the sources are reliable:
1. Farquhar, J. N (2008), The Crown of Hinduism, READ BOOKS, ISBN 9781443723978, retrieved 5 October 2010
Provide sources for these people (that they are Kunbi) from the List of Kunbi people so they can be included in a summary format in the Kunbi article:

The same todo list is at the top of the talk page of the article. Zuggernaut (talk) 03:59, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

You are trying, you say, to promote this article to GA level, but you have made your first edit on October 6. On that day and on October 9 you made a flurry of edits, some of which, as I can see at a glance, are inaccurately paraphrased, as in your description of M. N. Srinivas's notions of caste mobility. (I haven't made any edit to Kunbi yet, but perhaps I should say, I'm trying to promote it to FA, and ask for help.) The article has been wobbly for quite some time. It is nowhere near GA and unlikely to be so any time soon. Not sure what the point of this far-into-the-future intention is, unless it is to pre-empt or smother the debate that is taking place there (in common with many non-elite occupational caste articles). Fowler&fowler «Talk» 19:30, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

...do I smell something burning...MW ^ℳ 01:57, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Pictures have been added. Would love some sources on Sharad Pawar, Atul Gawande, Rajnikanth, Sandeep Patil, etc. Zuggernaut (talk) 01:50, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

If you have specific books or articles in mind as potential sources, someone on WP:RX may be able to help you. JanetteDoe (talk) 05:06, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

See my response at Talk:Kunbi#Notable_Kurmis. Zuggernaut (talk) 13:18, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Kunbi received a few peer review comments which are logged at Wikipedia:Peer_review/Kunbi/archive1. Please feel free to fix the article per the peer review (most of them are minor copy-editing related fixes, disambiguation fixes, etc). Zuggernaut (talk) 04:14, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I want to make sure it is understood that the article has not received a complete peer-review yet. user:Finetooth, a superb reviewer, has, to her/his credit, stated clearly, "I realized when I started reading this section (3. Maratha-Kunbis) that I was in over my head. I know virtually nothing about the caste system in India, and the article uses too many terms with which I am unfamiliar for me to follow it very well. There's a great deal of detail in this section, but much of it is strange and new to me, and I can't decide what to say about it. I must beg off at this point in commenting on this and the later sections (a few footnotes excepted). I hope the few comments I've posted here are of some use to you. Sorry I can't be of more help."

Kunbi is based almost entirely on primary sources, the Anthropological Survey of India's printed and airbrushed field reports. Of these reports, no reviews, except one uncomplimentary one, is found in the secondary literature. Respectable authors don't cite these reports. Moreover, the article entirely lacks a history section, out of which, to be fair, the primary author is topic-banned, since a large part of it concerns the British years. I want to make sure, that no premature moves are afoot to nominate it for a GA review. It is nowhere near that level of completion. I have accordingly added a multiple issues tag to the article. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 16:08, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Old District names

Resolved

I'm working on an article where the subject was Collector of Chotanagpur c. 1774 but I have a source from 1842 saying that he was appointed Collector of "Ramgur and Palamow" in 1776. No idea what Ramgur is but I suspect Palamow is Palamu. According to Chota Nagpur Division, Palamu is a unit within it - this would probably make his 1776 appointment a "demotion" to a smaller unit, but that doesn't sound right to me.

Have I got the wrong Chotanagpur or the wrong Palamow? - Sitush (talk) 20:28, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorted all of this out, thanks. - Sitush (talk) 16:13, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Pramod Patil

Shouldnt this article be deleted??? -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 20:35, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Nominations of sports images for India page

The India page is now the 15th most popular page on Wikipedia and the second-most among country pages. Earlier this year, it was successful in keeping its FA status after an FAR. However, since the FAR process doesn't really review the content of images, and only cursorily reviews the quality, it was felt that the community should do this. A drive is now on to improve both the quality and content of images in the various rotation templates of the page. Nominations are invited for high quality images with innovative content for the sports section. Please see the announcement for further details. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 00:06, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Provisional population totals

Is it permissible to add the provisional population totals provided by the Government of India here for census results? I'm asking this because we're working on taking GA-article on Tiruchirappalli to FA and I don't want to take any chances.-Ravi _{My Tea Kadai} 16:29, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I dont think it should be a problem. Just mention in a footnote that it is provisional data.--Sodabottle (talk) 03:33, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Wiki Academy

Hi All,

We are planning to conduct 20-30 wikiacademies across India as a part of projects 2011-12 from Wikimedia India Chapter with help of volunteers(http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Geographical_distribution_of_Indian_Wikipedians).

Chapter is inviting proposals to conduct Wikipedia Academies or Workshops (Wikiacademies) in colleges/schools/institutions if interested please create a proposal @http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Wiki_Academy#New_proposals or email us @ chapter@wikimedia.in

For more details :- http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Wiki_Academy

Please spread the message and if you are willing you help in wikiacademy please do add your name @ http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Geographical_distribution_of_Indian_Wikipedians .

--naveenpf (talk) 01:22, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Zogam

Hi! This article has been in bad shape for a quite a while. For some reason, it has also had a good amount of copyrighted text added by anonymous edits. It's in some sort of sweet spot where it's not important enough to have experienced editors improve it but important enough where readers feel that more information needs to be added. I think if the article's quality improves, less copyrighted text will be added to it. If any of you have time, I think it would be worthwhile to make some improvements. Thanks for your time. OlYeller21^Talktome 17:28, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

The 10th and Present Nawab

While looking for images for the India page sports section, I happened upon the link, Nawab of Pataudi. I was saddened there to read about the recent death of cricketer Tiger Pataudi, then discovered there that he has a son who is a Bollywood actor, and finally was perplexed there by the sentence, "Actor Saif Ali Khan was recently made the successive Nawab." Upon clicking on the actor's link, I found the startling sentence, "He is the tenth and present Nawab of Pataudi." The sentence was cited to a news report "Saif Ali Khan is now the 10th Nawab of Pataudi". The Times of India. 1 November 2011. Retrieved 1 November 2011.!

As some of you will know the titles, privy purses, and all official roles they had, were all abolished by the Government of India in 1967. Curious, I skimmed through some other Wikipedia pages of children or grandchildren of the defunct rulers. They too are playing at being royalty, on Wikipedia that is. Here is a sample:

Maharaja_of_Jammu_and_Kashmir: "Last ruling Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir was Hari Singh, his son His Highness Dr. Karan Singh is the present titular Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir." A titular role is nonetheless an official role. Mr. Karan Singh has none as Maharaja.
The List of Maharajas of Mysore stops at 1966, but they have a second page, [Dynasty], which says, "Srikanta Datta Narsimharaja Wadiyar, (b-1953, ascended the throne in 1974- though a private affair)". Mr. Wadiyar's page says that he "is the present Maharaja of Mysore, and head of the royal Wodeyar dynasty that ruled the Kingdom of Mysore between 1399 and 1950."

I didn't look through the others, but I'm guessing that many are being incorrectly referred to as "Maharajas" or "Nawabs." This is the kind of issue, similar to caste-related issues, for which we may need some kind of a India-project consensus. Clearly they are not Maharajas or Nawabs in any sense of the word that the rulers of the princely states were. I look forward to some feedback. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 14:44, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

As I said earlier, your assertions do not matter, sources do, and they clearly state that he has assumed the title. Wikipedia works in accordance with what sources say, and many reliable sources have published the news regarding Khan becoming the 10th Nawab of Pataudi.

Apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks so. Shahid • ^Talk2me 15:15, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

:) The Abolition of Privy Purses and Privileges was the 26th Amendment of the Constitution of India passed in 1971. There is a Wikipedia page Privy Purse in India which discusses this. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 15:29, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

PS Whatever else you might say about the Government of India, you can't say it didn't find eloquent words to match the occasion:

The concept of rulership, with privy purses and special privileges unrelated to any current functions and social purposes, is incompatible with an egalitarian social order.

Fowler&fowler «Talk» 15:32, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Again, this kind of analysis makes no sense when we have numerous reliable sources publishing the news. The Hindu says, "Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan was on Monday anointed the tenth Nawab of Pataudi at a ceremony at his ancestral palace here over a month after his father Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi passed away." This is a fact, there's an image showing this, what you show here has little relevance. Please see WP:V to see how Wikipedia works.

Also note, according to The Hindu, "Pataudi gave up his title in 1971 when India abolished royal entitlements through the 26th Amendment to the Constitution of India." - it is mentioned, and yet the article clearly says that Khan has assumed the title. It is a perfectly sourced fact. Mind you, this goes in perfect sync with what WP:N and WP:V require, so unless consensus really takes place, no removals of this sort are acceptable. Shahid • ^Talk2me 16:08, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

How about this: the actor does not consider himself a Nawab. Here he is from a news report, Saif Ali Khan happy about being an ex-Nawab from the same newspaper which you have used to anoint him Nawab! To the question: "On October 31, you will become the next Nawab of Pataudi?" the actor says,

Royal titles ceased to be recognised by the Indian government in 1971. The title of Nawab and Maharaja are not recognised by the Indian government anymore. And rightfully so. We are a democracy and I am not under any misconception about me ruling any state or body of people. It's just a sense of tradition. As far as receiving the title and the ceremony from the villagers go, they are sentimental about tying the pagdi. Perhaps it is is something symbolic. And yes, I will be there for that. I have a lot of connection to Pataudi. I have spent a lot of time there and I love the place very much, but at no point, do I consider myself a Nawab.

I rest my case. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 16:12, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I did not use TOI at all, I used the The Hindu. You are again repeating something that does not mean anything. So yes, the Indian government does no longer recognise such titles, so what? The ceremony still took place and he assumed the title and that's something that has been covered ceaselessly in the press. The same article you've cited )which had actually been published before the ceremony took place) says, "The title of Nawab will soon be attached to his name." And this has been materialised. This is worth-mentioning. Shahid • ^Talk2me 16:21, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

As with formal royal offices around the world, the "symbolic" titles do exist in India though with no official sanction. The media loves to play up "royalty" - thus there will be no dearth of GNG for a person being referred to as a "maharaja" or "nawab". We shouldnt be removing all mentions of nawabs and maharajas. They should be covered in a way that makes it clear that the title is just a symbolic one - probably within quotes or using parenthesis.

Clearly they are not Maharajas or Nawabs in any sense of the word . I dispute this - they can clearly get the media to refer them as "maharajas" or "nawabs" and we shouldnt be whitewashing it out of the articles. Just make sure that the average reader knows that the title is self awarded and symbolic.--Sodabottle (talk) 16:39, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

But that's problematical. Do we have any sources which attest to an evolution of meaning of the term "Maharaja" as a result of the media's usage? As long as we don't, the media's usage is a primary source. We can't report that the media uses "maharaja" for descendents of former princes as a way of assigning them celebrity or ritual status. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 17:33, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

The Indian rulers no longer rule, their status having been downgraded by successive Indian governments in breach of the agreements made with them in the 1940s and 1950s. However, so far as I am aware none of those governments has never attempted to forbid the use of any of the princely titles by those who inherit them. The titles still exist, not least when they are used, and there are many parallels for this around the world. For instance, Wikipedia does not seek to expunge royal, princely or ducal titles based on German states which ceased to exist at the end of the First World War, nor, indeed, the titles of the Holy Roman Empire. So long as reliable sources treat inherited titles of honour as existing, we are bound to recognize them. Moonraker (talk) 18:10, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid the titles have been abolished (no ifs ands or buts) by the Constitutional Amendment. I'm sure I can find many references in short order. Why is Indian newspaper usage being suddenly regarded as sacrosanct? Indian newspaper routinely use the term "Pakistan Occupied Kashmir," but other than providing a footnote, Wikipedia's article about the region remains Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 18:23, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Another bogus article List of current Indian pretenders, a candidate for deletion. How are people getting away with making up this garbage? I wish I had more time. Where are the Situshes and MatthewVannitas when we need them. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 18:40, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Here by the way is Ramusack, Barbara N. (2004). The Indian princes and their states. Cambridge University Press. p. 278. ISBN 978-0-521-26727-4. Retrieved 6 November 2011., "Through a constitutional amendment passed in 1971, Indira Gandhi stripped the princes of the titles, privy purses and regal privileges which her father's government had granted." (p 278). The former princes might have lots of goodwill among the local people, but that's a completely different story. They lost the hereditary right to the title in 1971. The common man in the street has as much right to call himself Nawab as they do. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 19:04, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

A source which refers to "the titles, privy purses and regal privileges which her father's government had granted" strikes me as lacking objectivity. The Indian government in 1947 and 1948 was negotiating (often in bad faith) to persuade the princes to accede to India. It recognized (rather than "granted") the titles and privileges. It negotiated the privy purses, usually drawing on the states' own resources. In a narrow legal sense "The common man in the street has as much right to call himself Nawab as they do", but the "common man" in doing so could also be accused of a kind of fraud which a dispossessed Indian prince (unlawfully dispossessed, some would say) could not be said to be guilty of. Moonraker (talk) 19:30, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

As I said on Talk:Saif Ali Khan, there is, from what I see, a clear consensus that the info should not be removed both on this page and on the talk page (all the editors, apart from Fowler&fowler, support the inclusion in this way or another). The discussion is more about how we should write it. The sources you are citing do not really say much about Khan as he is not mentioned in them, so this does directly concern him. What matters the most is what reliable sources say, and reliable sources perfectly support what's on the page, and that's what Wikipedia should reflect. Now the question is how it should be reflected. And here I'm open to discussion.

regarding your assertion that "The common man in the street has as much right to call himself Nawab as they do." - well that's your POV and this argument does not make sense, as Khan did not call himself Nawab, he was given this title in a ceremony which has had major coverage in the press. Shahid • ^Talk2me 20:26, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid Shahid, a consensus has nothing to do with a vote; it emerges from the consensus of reliable sources. Speaking of reliable, since when did the views of some fresh-faced clueless cub reporter on the celebrity beat, making journalistic compromises while trying to beat the midnight deadline, become a reliable source on Wikipedia? The dispute has barely begun, and I'm about to go find the sources. (Please also see Talk:Saif_Ali_Khan#Nawab_of_Pataudi_....) Fowler&fowler «Talk» 22:37, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Not vote but majority view. "...it emerges from the consensus of reliable sources." - so, according to you The Hindu, The Times of India, The Indian Express, BBC, NDTV, etc., etc., are not reliable? Please... Shahid • ^Talk2me 23:47, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I think this boils down to a contradiction between two different sources. Ultimately I think the sources Fowler is submitting, including the constitution of India, and this source where the subject himself claims he is not a Nawab seem stronger and more reliable overall than news article claiming the contrary. Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 23:20, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I can't see any contradiction between two sources. The news reports (and there are many of them) never contradict the fact that the title has not been officially recognised by the Government since 1971. They actually do say so. Additionally, how come you say one Times of India report is more credible than another which came after it? Please elaborate (if you can, really). Shahid • ^Talk2me 23:47, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

(od) I think we're losing the forest in this discussion. The way I see it, we have two contradictory points. First, that there is no such thing as a Nawab, in the sense of a prince, duke, king, or whatever. That is amply borne out by the sources provided by Fowler. On the other hand, the title 'nawab of pataudi' is in use and has been, sort of, applied to Saif Ali Khan. This is borne out by Shshshsh's sources, though, because they're showing up only at the time of the 'ceremony', I'm not sure if they have staying power. Wikipedia can certainly present contradictory points, that's why we're all here. My suggestion is that we mention the ceremony, that, after all, is the focus of the news articles, and link Saif Ali Khan to the chain of Nawabs without explicitly calling him the 'Nawab of Pataudi' or the '10th Nawab of Pataudi'. That way, the reader is well informed about his background and not fooled into thinking that Nawabs exist as titular persons today. I've made a rough attempt to do so in the article itself and welcome opinions. --regentspark (comment) 02:55, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

RegentsPark - we have 294,000 results for a search of the term "10th nawab of pataudi" ([18]). No harm in mentioning explicitly that he is the 10th Nawab. Zuggernaut (talk) 03:09, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Zuggernaut, the problem is that he is not the 10th Nawab of Pataudi because there is no Nawab of Pataudi. I agree with your 'verifiability not truth' comment elsewhere but, in this case, it is clearly verifiable that he is not a nawab. (See also my comment below.) --regentspark (comment) 13:40, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry if I sound terse (due to my ban) but the title is there because there was a ceremony (he was almost forced in to it by the people) and he became Nawab and even though certain aspects of the title aren't there (the "benefits"), people still call him Nawab. This is true with the Scindias as well (Jyotiraditya). Almost everyone in Gwailor calls him Raja or something similar. But there never was a ceremony for him (or his father, I think) and thus we do not have sources, so no such claim should be made in Jyotiraditya Scindia. We are indulging in WP:OR by constricting the definition of Nawab to the very narrow view of the Indian government (and others). Details of what is and what was Nawab and the rest of the caveats can be discussed in it's own article. Zuggernaut (talk) 14:16, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Sources of abolition of princely titles, privileges, and purses in 1971

Here are the sources:

Naipaul, Vidiadhar Surajprasad (8 April 2003), India: A Wounded Civilization, Random House Digital, Inc., pp. 37–, ISBN 978-1-4000-3075-0, retrieved 6 November 2011 Quote: "The princes of India – their number and variety reflecting to a large extent the chaos that had come to the country with the break up of the Mughal empire – had lost real power in the British time. Through generations of idle servitude they had grown to specialize only in style. A bogus, extinguishable glamour: in 1947, with Independence, they had lost their state, and Mrs. Gandhi in 1971 had, without much public outcry, abolished their privy purses and titles." (pp 37–38).
Schmidt, Karl J. (1995), An atlas and survey of South Asian history, M.E. Sharpe, p. 78, ISBN 978-1-56324-334-9, retrieved 6 November 2011 Quote: "Although the Indian states were alternately requested or forced into union with either India or Pakistan, the real death of princely India came when the Twenty-sixth Amendment Act (1971) abolished the princes' titles, privileges, and privy purses." (page 78).
Breckenridge, Carol Appadurai (1995), Consuming modernity: public culture in a South Asian world, U of Minnesota Press, pp. 84–, ISBN 978-0-8166-2306-8, retrieved 6 November 2011 Quote: "The third stage in the political evolution of the princes from rulers to citizens occurred in 1971, when the constitution ceased to recognize them as princes and their privy purses, titles, and special privileges were abolished." (page 84)
Guha, Ramachandra (5 August 2008), India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy, HarperCollins, pp. 441–, ISBN 978-0-06-095858-9, retrieved 6 November 2011 Quote: "Her success at the polls emboldened Mrs. Gandhi to act decisively against the princes. Through 1971, the two sides tried and failed to find a settlement. The princes were willing to forgo their privy purses, but hoped at least to save their titles. But with her overwhelming majority in Parliament, the prime minister had no need to compromise. On 2 December she introduced a bill to amend the constitution and abolish all princely privileges. It was passed in the Lok Sabha by 381 votes to six, and in the Rajya Sabha by 167 votes to seven. In her own speech, the prime minister invited 'the princes to join the elite of the modern age, the elite which earns respect by its talent, energy and contribution to human progress, all of which can only be done when we work together as equals without regarding anybody as of special status.' " (page 441)
Cheesman, David (1997). Landlord power and rural indebtedness in colonial Sind, 1865-1901. London: Routledge. pp. 10–. ISBN 978-0-7007-0470-5. Retrieved 6 November 2011. Quote: "The Indian princes survived the British Raj by only a few years. The Indian republic stripped them of their powers and then their titles." (page 10).
Merriam-Webster, Inc (1997), Merriam-Webster's geographical dictionary, Merriam-Webster, pp. 520–, ISBN 978-0-87779-546-9, retrieved 6 November 2011 Quote: "Indian States: "Various (formerly) semi-independent areas in India ruled by native princes .... Under British rule ... administered by residents assisted by political agents. Titles and remaining privileges of princes abolished by Indian government 1971." (page 520)
Ward, Philip (September 1989), Northern India, Rajasthan, Agra, Delhi: a travel guide, Pelican Publishing, pp. 91–, ISBN 978-0-88289-753-0, retrieved 6 November 2011 Quote: "A monarchy is only as good as the reigning monarch: thus it is with the princely states. Once they seemed immutable, invincible. In 1971 they were "derecognized," their privileges, privy purses and titles all abolished at a stroke" (page 91)
Ramusack, Barbara N. (2004). The Indian princes and their states. Cambridge University Press. p. 278. ISBN 978-0-521-26727-4. Retrieved 6 November 2011., "Through a constitutional amendment passed in 1971, Indira Gandhi stripped the princes of the titles, privy purses and regal privileges which her father's government had granted." (p 278).

Fowler&fowler «Talk» 23:09, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Saif Ali Khan is not mentioned in any of them, is he? Which means, that the sources which do mention him have more relevance here. What you refuse to accept is the fact that he assumed the title, which was widely reported, and which definitely deserves a mention in accordance with WP:BLP and WP:V. Whether the title is recognised or not (it's not, and I'm not ignoring it) can be mentioned, too. That's it, why complicate it so much? Shahid • ^Talk2me 23:32, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Some of the sources quoted by Fowler&fowler misrepresent both what happened in 1947 and the 1971 amendment to the constitution. In 1971 the privy purses were abolished and a new article (363A) was added which stated that the rulers "shall cease to be recognised". That did not abolish the princely titles, which had not been created by the Republic of India or its predecessor states and could not be abolished by it. The actual changes are as stated below. Moonraker (talk) 01:52, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Deletion of article 291: this provided for the payment of the privy purses, free of tax.
Amendment of article 366 (interpretation of terms): alteration of definition of "Ruler"
Addition of new article 363A: Section 1 states that "The Prince, Chief, or other person who... was recognized by the President as the Ruler of an Indian State... shall... cease to be recognised as such Ruler or the successor of such Ruler"; while Section 2 abolishes the privy purses.
Deletion of article 362: this provided for "the personal rights, privileges and duties" of the princes.

Comment

In my view, Wikipedia should clearly indicate wherever required that the person is a pretender and that such titles no longer hold any meaning other than historic, genealogical or symbolic. This fact is well-understood by the populace. However, the titles continue to be bandied back & forth in newspapers and magazines, society pages, etc in non-scholarly settings. It may be considerd as a historical oddity or as part of the camp portion of Indian culture. It should be seen in that context rather than as a deliberate form of misrepresentation. AshLin (talk) 02:54, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

I broadly agree that princely titles within India should be treated as titles in pretense, that is the reality. However, I should hesitate to create a general rule which over-rides the specific sources for each page. A few successors of the last rulers still hold significant property and/or have local influence, perhaps based on holding elected office. In such cases the title can be seen as having some social or political meaning or effect. Probably none of us here knows enough about the status of all of the hundreds of unrecognized princes to generalize safely. Moonraker (talk) 03:45, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

The problem is without a overall general guideline/consensus, we will end up with more discussions like these in the future. Its better we thrash out something here--Sodabottle (talk) 04:48, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

I think AshLin has it right. The problem with accepting titles that have no titular meaning is that it opens up a pandora's box because any title awarded by anyone that has appeared in any newspaper becomes fair game. If a title is well known then it should be mentioned, with proper caveats, in the article. But, the emphasis should be on the caveats, not the title. --regentspark (comment) 13:36, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with RegentsPark's cogent formulation and with AshLin's as well. Most princes (despite cooked up dynasty histories) don't go back much beyond the break up of the Mughal empire. The ones who were lucky to own economically unproductive land, such as in Rajputana, Mysore, or Kashmir, were left alone by the British, and became instruments of indirect rule. After the rebellion, in which most sided with the British ("breakwaters in a storm " in Canning's phrase), they were favored a little more. But, at a whim, half asleep, with their pinky finger, the British could have dropped any one of them, and sometimes they did, as the Wodeyar ruler of Mysore found out in the mid-19th century. The media today might, for reasons of profit or plain ignorance, stretch the truth and give them glory, but we can't. I suggest something along the lines of what RegentsPark has added to the Saif Ali Khan page is as far as Wikipedia should go. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 14:20, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Following the death of his father, Saif Ali Khan was acclaimed ~~anointed~~ the Nawab of Pataudi by villagers of Pataudi State in deference to tradition, although the title carries no official or legal significance.

This is what regents has added to Saif Ali Khan article - not in the lead, but to the life section. I agree with this type of wording. --Sodabottle (talk) 15:03, 7 November 2011 (UTC) PS I've changed "anointed" to "acclaimed," as explained at the bottom of Talk:Saif_Ali_Khan#Nawab_of_Pataudi_.... Fowler&fowler «Talk» 15:29, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

I think this kind of approach is very suitable. AshLin (talk) 11:25, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Source for 2001 census data

I'm trying to find a 2001 census summary sheet for Kerala OBCs, similar to those for ST/SCs here. Basically interested in % of population, number of communities then classed as OBC, and analysis of religious beliefs. I cannot spot it on the censusindia website but surely it must be there somewhere. Can someone please double-check for me, while I go to the optician :( - Sitush (talk) 14:20, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Kolkata

I have nominated Kolkata for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.)--- Jayanta Nath ^{(Talk|Contrb)} 04:08, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Nice --naveenpf (talk) 08:24, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

The FAR has been placed on hold to give time to editors to identify deficiencies and work on the article. Interested editors should check out the article and fa requirements to see if FA status is retainable. --regentspark (comment) 19:51, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Joke Article on India persists for 8 months

Its amazing that the article http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Incredible_India&oldid=450099557 persisted from March to November 2011 with phrases like " Indian taxis and Autorickshaws are Incredible India but Indian traffic and driving style is not Incredible India." and " Indian weddings are Incredible India but bride burning and dowry is not Incredible India." 8 months? Seriously? I have rectified the article and added in relevant information about the Incredible India marketing campaign, but am afraid that the vandals will return. Tigerassault (talk) 14:45, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I find that incredible, not amazing. - Sitush (talk) 14:47, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Well many people in this project are busy with "important" articles on the caste system so such trivial matters must wait. Another 8 centuries. Zuggernaut (talk) 14:33, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Dr Bhupen Hazarika Article: Rogue editor

I am updating the Bhupen Hazarika article since after his death, but one editor is disrupting.

I am trying to resolve the dispute, but while doing so it might take some time and in the mean time the article will remain with wrong or incomplete information. Since after Dr Hazarika's death he is a topic of discussion in India and elsewhere and surely people will try/are trying wikipedia for information. So I want to sattel it quickly and update the article ASAP.

Please look at the discussion page of the article here and suggest how it can be settled in minimum time.

''''Prabhakar Sarma Neog'''' (talk) 04:31, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Urgent - Noteworthy Wikimedian Recongintion

Wikimedia projects have been active in India for a few years and the journey has been exciting. This has been made possible by the contributions of hundreds of Wikimedians across various Wikimedia projects, both Indian and non-Indian. WikiConference India 2011 is the first conference and largest congregation of Wikimedians in India across Wikimedia projects. The Wikimedia India chapter Executive committee believes it would be befitting to use this opportunity to recognize noteworthy contributions of some of the best contributors to our projects.

The objective of this recognition is to appreciate Wikimedians (contributing to India focused projects) from across Wikimedia projects and languages for their contributions. The purpose is as much to discover meritorious work and to highlight it as it is to provide a platform of recognition.

Though time is quite short (by midnight 13 16 Nov 2011 Indian Standard Time), I request that at least some meritorious people may please be nominated from editors who edit on India articles. This is not meant to be a competition but some kind of peer recognition of good work done.

The relevant link is here : http://wiki.wikimedia.in/NWR_2011

AshLin (talk) 06:15, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

List of current Indian pretenders

F&F's note above about List of current Indian pretenders caught my eye. I've left a note on that article's talk page, indicating that all of the information sourced to Genealogical Gleanings must be removed per WP:BLPSPS, and that a simpler solution may be to simply delete the article and begin it anew from sources that meet WP:BLP standards. Others may be interested in commenting there. Qwyrxian (talk) 01:12, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of how we come down on the deletion issue, Pretenders" is certainly not the term to use.

First, I've never seen the term "pretender" used for descendants of Indian princes, that is, until I saw it on Wikipedia (and I've read some sources in my time).

Second, the term "pretender" is usually used in constructions of the form "pretenders to the throne." The problem for the Indian princes is that (with one or two possible exceptions) they voluntarily signed away not just their states, but also their thrones, that is, the political power behind the throne (see also The crown). So what are they pretenders to? A title? A hollow crown? A hollow throne? A handout from the government, whose value, in the world of busy Indian billionaires, they would be ashamed to advertise?

Third, Wikipedia's pretender page notwithstanding, the term is not usually used when the "Monarchy" has been abolished democratically (for evidence, see Ram Guha's quote upstairs.) How are we using this term? A case of WP:OR?

Fourth, the term "pretender" does have its pejorative associations, as pointed out by Qwerxian, in Talk:List of Indian pretenders. There might be BLP violations. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 14:28, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Fowler&fowler says "they voluntarily signed away not just their states, but also their thrones". This is one of the many common misconceptions promoted by the political heirs of Vallabhbhai Patel, and promoted so successfully that some of them are almost universally believed. The princes needed to be persuaded to accede to one of the new dominions. However weak the position of many of them was, how many of them would have negotiated a deal in which they signed away their "thrones"? Perhaps for a huge amount of money some of them might have done it, but by and large the Government of India was bargaining with the revenues of the states themselves. Moonraker (talk) 22:40, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, they're just heirs to something that no longer exists, zero, zilch, nada. Their inheritance cannot be crystallised (thus, a vanity claim) & unless they self-refer as pretenders then it is OR. They're nobodies, at least in the context of princely titles etc. It might be argued that in this context most are not even notable. - Sitush (talk) 14:36, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Their inheritance cannot be crystallised (thus, a vanity claim) Well put, Sitush. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 14:49, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

notwithstanding OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, we do seem to be using the "pretender" term for abolished monarchies in wikipedia. eg. Ahmad Shah Khan, Maria Pia de Saxe-Coburgo e Bragança etc.--Sodabottle (talk) 15:16, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

European Pretenders

How about this with the EX-king Constantine of Greece. The Greek public abolished the monarchy in a referendum in 1974 and yet his family still uses royal titles.

Princess Alexia of Greece and Denmark, born on 10 July 1965 at Mon Repos, Corfu, Greece. She was married on 9 July 1999 in London to Carlos Morales Quintana.
Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece, Prince of Denmark, born on 20 May 1967 at Tatoi Palace. He was married on 1 July 1995 in London to Marie-Chantal Miller, who has been styled thereafter as The Crown Princess Pavlos of Greece, Princess of Denmark.
Prince Nikolaos of Greece and Denmark, born on 1 October 1969 in Rome. He was married on 25 August 2010 in Spetses to Tatiana Elinka Blatnik, who has been styled thereafter as HRH Princess Nikolaos of Greece and Denmark.
Princess Theodora of Greece and Denmark, born on 9 June 1983 in London
Prince Philippos of Greece and Denmark, born on 26 April 1986 in London

Jonathansammy (talk) 21:37, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

To Sodabottle and Jonatansammy, Well that is something to be taken up on those pages. Our concern is the Indian princely states. There is simply no precedence in the secondary literature for the term "pretender" for them. Like I said what would Saif Ali Khan be pretender to? A pretender to a throne is a claimant to the power behind the throne, not to some piece of ageing furniture. All the 62 square miles which constituted the state of Pataudi (that the British granted his ancestor in 1802) were signed away in 1947, when his grandfather signed the instrument of accession, as was all power behind the throne. The few remaining privileges went democratically in 1971 (by a vote in the lower house of parliament of 305 to 5). There is nothing to claim other than the turban. And this he already has. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 22:35, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

PS (Sodabottle and Jonathansammy) I have now fixed the Constantine II of Greece page. It turns out, he is not a pretender. I suspects some of the other pages you have listed might have similar incorrect statements. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 08:05, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

As I explained above, the 1971 amendment to the Constitution did not "abolish" any of the princes' titles. Such a title without sovereignty is hollow and ephemeral, and perhaps of little obvious value, but it is a real thing nevertheless. Moonraker (talk) 22:46, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

The sources I cite above are clear about abolition of titles. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 23:45, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

They are indeed clear but are also wrong. Moonraker (talk) 02:49, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Technically, the amendment derecognized the titles and the concept of successor of titles. So, as far as the state is concerned, the title don't exist (and it also explicitly derecognized the "successor" to a title concept though I suppose that wasn't necessary). So did it "abolish" titles? No. But, the clear implication is that a Maharaja cannot officially call himself a Maharaja, use the title in any official capacity, and cannot rule as a Maharaja. Can the Maharaja print "Maharaja of X" on a business card. Sure. But so can I (RegentsPark, the First Nawab of Wikipedia would go down well!). I'm not sure what we're quibbling about here but the notion of title is completely meaningless in a general context. Acknowledgement of the existence of a titular lineage in specific contexts might make sense when it is highlighted by reliable sources (as in the case of Pataudi) or might not make sense (as, imo, in the case of Loharu) when it isn't. Regardless, we can't call people the Xth Maharaja/Nawab of Y when he is patently not a Maharaja or Nawab of Y. --regentspark (comment) 03:59, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Almost to the end, that's very balanced, regentspark. We agree that the titles were not abolished, and also that "the clear implication is that a Maharaja cannot officially call himself a Maharaja" or else "use the title in any official capacity". (However, I only agree with all that because of the inclusion of the word "official", and I am not sure why it is there.) Nothing prevents this Maharaja from calling himself a Maharaja simply as the inheritor of a royal title. It's also clear that he cannot rule as a Maharaja, because the levers of power have been taken away from him, but that is not what we were discussing, which is the suggestion that the titles are so non-existent that Wikipedia should expunge them. Where I disagree with you is on "Regardless, we can't call people the Xth Maharaja/Nawab of Y when he is patently not a Maharaja or Nawab of Y". This Maharaja is an impotent heir to a famous name, just like almost all European dukes (including British ones), and indeed most inheritors of European royal titles. They all have no real power left except that of money, if they still have some, or that coming from some office which they have achieved for themselves, but nevertheless they are left with what might be called some "name magic" and with social influence based on vestiges of deference. Moonraker (talk) 04:25, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not saying that we should ignore the title. Rather, that we there are two things that we can't do with them. (1) We can't automatically assign a title. For example, if we dig up a heir of Bahadur Shah Zafar, we're not going to call him or her the Emperor of India regardless of what he or she calls himself. (2) We can't indicate the existence of a title or titular succession unless reliable sources happen to use the title in association with the person. Thus, it is ok to say (and we do say it) that Saif Ali Khan would have been the Nawab of Pataudi because Indian newspapers have highlighted that fact. It is ok to say that he was 'anointed, acclaimed, proclaimed' in a ceremony, because reliable sources say it was, and say it often enough for it to be notable. But, to say that Saif Ali Khan is the Nawab of Pataudi (or, worse, the 10th Nawab of Pataudi), is incorrect because reliable sources tell us that there is no Nawab of Pataudi. --regentspark (comment) 14:14, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

As has been pointed out numerous times, you will find about 1.5 million search engine results for "10th Nawab of Pataudi" (with the details of the ceremony that took place, images of Saif Ali Khan, how he was forced in to it by the people of Pataudi, etc), most of them from reliable sources. What's going on here is some WP:OR to fit people's narrow notions of what titles are. The meanings of titles evolve over time and you can certainly discuss that evolution in their respective articles such as Nawab or Chattrapati or Raja but not in the article on Saif Ali Khan, for example. Zuggernaut (talk) 14:29, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Zuggernaut, there are plenty of reliable sources that indicate that there is no extant Nawab of Pataudi, 10th or otherwise. Also, search engine results should be used with care and I hope you're not suggesting that we simply include everything that appears often enough on google search. For example, there are 2,560 "search engine results" for "User:Fowler&fowler". That does not mean we should have an article on that user. To add to that example, there are 347 million google search results that assert that 2+2=5. But, we don't say in our mathematics article that 2+2=5 because so many google hits exist to prove it. Rather, we point to this as an example of a mathematical fallacy. Similarly, if there are 1.5 million search engine results that talk about the Nawab of Pataudi, we mention the heritage of the individual but make it clear that the title is not a real one. There is no WP:OR involved in the proper presentation of verifiable information. --regentspark (comment) 14:57, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

RegentsPark has it right. The right to a hereditary title was indeed abolished, and has been interpreted to have been so by the reliable sources. "Titular" means "having the title and usually the honors belonging to an office or dignity without exercising the associated duties, functions, or responsibilities. (Webster's Unabridged)." The descendants of Indian princes were titular princes from 1947 to 1971. They are now officially nothing. If they drive around today in a car with license plate "Nabha 5" or "Patiala 1," they will get a ticket from the traffic cop. As RegentsPark might have said, Mr Khan is free to call himself Nawab of Pataudi, but so is the street corner Paan seller in Rangoon. They could, if they were notable for that, be reborn as Maharaja or Nawab, but only in (and no more than) the sense that Duke Ellington was a Duke, that Count Basie was a Count, that Gandhi was a Mahatma, or that Christ is King. The only difference is that reliable sources have noted the latter titles, and noted also that they were honorifics. The Indian princes, on the other hand, have been noted for little more than political impotence and degeneracy. They are usually the Nawabs of Broadie, Bawdy, and Gaudy. Naipaul got it right when he said, "Through generations of idle servitude they had grown to specialize only in style. A bogus, extinguishable glamour: in 1947, with Independence, they had lost their state, and Mrs. Gandhi in 1971 had, without much public outcry, abolished their privy purses and titles." Fowler&fowler «Talk» 16:43, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Yet you'll note that Duke Ellington is at Duke Ellington, primarily because that is what people are most likely to type in the search box. So moving an ex-ruler that is most commonly known by his regnal name on the grounds that he no longer rules would be out of line with our naming guidelines. Nightw 16:28, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Nawab of Pataudi is not a regnal name. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 07:59, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Didn't say it was... Nightw 09:03, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I am puzzled by the statement "RegentsPark has it right. The right to a hereditary title was indeed abolished...", as regentspark has a different view. He said (among other things) "So did it "abolish" titles? No." What Naipaul is quoted as saying shows just how much Naipaul is the victim of the re-writing of history. Apart from having it wrong (like so many others) on the supposed abolition of titles, to say "...in 1947, with Independence, they had lost their state" could hardly be more wrong, unless "state" means the Indian Empire, which I do not think it does. The Indian Independence Act 1947 released the states from their treaty obligations, including the suzerainty of the British crown, so that in 1947 the princes found themselves with complete independence and were able to negotiate terms for their future relationship with the Indian Union, if any. Most of them were so dependent on central institutions that they would not have been able to survive without the new India, which in any event was a military giant, so that the threats of Patel were not hollow ones. However, accessions were negotiated which India systematically failed to honour. In many places, that served the interests of democracy, but whether it did or not there is no good reason (except, perhaps, a political one) to rewrite the history of the period. Moonraker (talk) 20:48, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't interpret RegentsPark to have a different view in this matter. As for the rest of your post, it is your interpretation, not that of the reliable sources. As long as you don't alter Wikipedia pages in accordance with it, you have the right to entertain it. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 07:59, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Moonraker, while the right to use a title was not abolished, the right to use the title meaningfully and the right to succession of titles was. Obviously, as a democratic country, India can't remove the right of someone to call himself Nawab, but, instead, it now bestows that right on all its citizens equally and anyone can be a Nawab. In other words, the use or non-use of a title is a personal matter and we should treat it as such on wikipedia (i.e., only using it when reliable sources do and clarifying that the title is not used in the sense of a ruler). --regentspark (comment) 15:03, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Agreed with RegentsPark. user:Nawab&nawab 17:20, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

India page, sports section images: voting has begun

Voting has now begun on the 48 images nominated for the India#Sport. Please go to Talk:India#Sports_section_images_selection to view the nominated images. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 02:36, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

We are also collecting images for the Culture section. Nominations are invited for images for this section. Thanks. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 17:40, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

expert in Indian politics needed

Hi friends, there is currently a question on the Humanities Reference Desk that you may be able to help with. With thanks, 207.107.246.140 (talk) 21:00, 14 November 2011 (UTC) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities#parliamentary_standing_commitee_v.2Fs_departmental_standing_committee_v.2Fs_cabinet_commitee_in_india

Proposed deletion of Achal Prabhala

The article Achal Prabhala has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Article who fails to fulfill WP:BIO, specially "The person has made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in his or her specific field" (he has not done anything who will stay for history, he is only a worker doing his work) and Wikipedia:BIO#Articles_on_Wikipedians "their status as Wikipedian editors by itself has no effect on their notability (...) All articles should be judged solely by applicable content and inclusion guidelines and policies" (So be a wikipedian "per se" don't give him any reason to have an article). Besides that this article has a problem of had been created by his close friend Tinu, in violation of Wikipedia:Conflict of interest#Close relationships.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Béria Lima ^msg 00:05, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry but he seems to have done way much more than being just a wikipedian... I added a few words and lines to the article and some references that might help you realize (though I doubt it...) he is not just an average wikipedian like you and probably me... Your favorite bird, Capsot (talk) 20:25, 16 November 2011 (UTC)