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Indic date mess

Could someone who understands the dating system(s?) of India/Hinduism please clean up Ram Charan (guru) and Ram Kishor to conform to MOS:DATE and WP:USEENGLISH? The material pretty impenetrable, and often downright misleading, to anyone who isn't a Hindi speaker, and the material is veering back and forth between calendars in a very confusing way (probably even to users of that calendar system). There are probably a lot of other articles that need such cleanup, but lets start with these two.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:34, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

There's a lot of puffery in here too, but this is outside my area of comfort. @Kautilya3, Joshua Jonathan, and Ms Sarah Welch: This is more in your line, I think. Vanamonde (talk) 07:13, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
Indeed, mixing the dating systems is confusing and inappropriate. We should take all the calendars out except the BCE/CE, something an English reader would be familiar with. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 02:27, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Discussion at "Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:India/Quiz"

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:India/Quiz, which is about a lot of Portal pages that is within the scope of this WikiProject.  — FR + 07:24, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Velugupalli Annaram

This is a mess. Not just the usual unsourced praise.

It started off as "Annaram Velugupalli which is normally called as "Velugupalli Annaram" is a big village in Thungathurthi Constitution, Nalgonda dist, AP, INDIA".

Now it says "Annaram is a village in Thungathurthy mandal, Suryapet district, Telangana, India." And "Annavaram is called Annaram. This village was once a small site for a group of inhabitants. At that time the name was "Velugu palli Annaram". Later it was renamed to its current name Annaram". User:Gummadavelly123 has changed the infobox to call it Gummadavelly! I suspect that's simple CIR as there is such a village.[1] Doug Weller talk 11:32, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: you have come across an issue that goes beyond the usual competence/POV matters that effect such articles, and that may be of wider interest to this board than just the content of one village article.
As I learned when dealing with this AFD, in 2016 the Telangana state government completely reorganized the states administrative divisions: increasing the number of districts from 10 to 31, which necessarily meant redrawing the boundaries of the existing districts, creating/re-drawing the sub-districts (known as mandals), and reassigning villages into mandals/districts/revenue districts. Thus all wikipedia articles related to Telangana districts, mandals, villages etc need to be updated to reflect this, and while doing so we have to be careful to rely only on post-2016 sources for some of the information (for example, the 2011 census information about district/mandal populations is likely to be useless, since those figures don't reflect current boundaries; the census information for village levl population should be ok). One good news is that the state governemnt's website, and individual districts' websites (eg Sutyapet's), are pretty decent and can serve as authoritative and up-to-date sources for information about the administrative divisions.
More hands are needed to update/check the articles in Category:Districts of Telangana, Category:Mandals_in_Telangana, Category:Villages in Telangana by district etc. Any suggestions on how the effort can be automated/systematized are more than welcome! Abecedare (talk) 18:17, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Another controversial caste article

Could someone have a look at Kuthaliya Bora? The article isn't reliably sourced, but even though the content seems pretty anodyne, there are IPs who persistently want it speedy deleted because it is "against the community" [2]. – Uanfala (talk) 13:59, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

 Done ∯WBGconverse 10:32, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Khalistan_movement#RFC on Resurgence of the Khalistan Movement

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Khalistan_movement#RFC_on_Resurgence/Activity_of_the_Khalistan_Movement.--DBigXray 23:00, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Burari deaths

Hello. I have recently created the article for Burari deaths. It will be a lot appreciated if you would help to expand it. Thanks. —usernamekiran(talk) 17:21, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

@Usernamekiran:--Are you certain that this does not violate NOTNEWS stuff? ∯WBGconverse 04:21, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
@Winged Blades of Godric: it doesnt. It has a lasting effect on the people. It is already being mentioned in other articles as well, like this one. While searching for information, i had come across a few more similar articles in RS, but didnt pay much attention to them, and cant find them now. —usernamekiran(talk) 19:58, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
Might be and I don't have strong opinions, either ways.A better time to look into it's longstanding-ness would be a few months later:)∯WBGconverse 04:35, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
I have a weak opinion of this article as well, but I guess it will have good page count. Future notability is disputed though.--DBigXray 23:00, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

RfD notification: Ghazwatul Hind

A user has requested discussion regarding the redirect Ghazwatul Hind. You are invited to comment at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2018 July 27#Ghazwatul Hind. --BDD (talk) 15:57, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Custodian of the House of Mewar

Hi all, I was wondering if you could help. Recently there seems to have been some back and forth on Arvind Singh Mewar whether or not he is the 76th custodian of the House of Mewar or if it's his brother Mahendra Singh Mewar. There are sources for both and this appears to be a long running dispute which ended up in court (apparently). I haven't been able to find any conclusion. If you have any starting points that help solve this, this may be good as I have a feeling the real-life controversy finds itself on WP. I suspect some recent sources may not be available in English. Depending on what can be found, I both articles will need some work to state that they "claim" to be custodians, instead of stating this as fact. pseudonym Jake Brockman talk 16:20, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Disruptive editor

Can any admin have a look at the disruption done by this user? They are continuously adding original research at various caste articles. Thanks. - NitinMlk (talk) 07:06, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Have informed the user of discretionary sanction that can be applied in this topic-area. Please let us know if their conduct still does not change. Abecedare (talk) 14:34, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. Their sole edit after your notice is this one, which indicates that they haven't learned anything. - NitinMlk (talk) 21:54, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
That, unfortunately, is often the case with editors focused on this topic-area. The latest edit is perhaps too stale to sanction them for, but I have reiterated my warning and blocks/topic-bans can be applied if they still don't get the message. Abecedare (talk) 22:52, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. - NitinMlk (talk) 19:52, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Tamil-speaker needed for interwiki fix

In trying to do some cleanup at Nithyananda, I figured out that his Tamil-language article is at the wrong name, w:ta:நித்தியானந்தர், when it should be at w:ta:நித்யானந்தா, with interwiki Wikidata adjusted. Using the former spelling produces few reliable-source results, and using at as a search string at major Tamil newspapers produces nothing. Switching to the spelling without the extraneous diacritic on the last character brings up all the expected search results. Having it at the wrong name is going to impede efforts to properly source the Tamil-language article (and probably also the one on English Wikipedia – the subject is a Tamil speaker in Tamil Nadu, and most coverage of him is regional and probably in that language).

I don't know Tamil, so trying to effectuate this move myself over at ta.WP would be challenging and might not even be interpreted correctly, depending on how badly Google Translate handled the to-and-from-Tamil details. It's probably taken me longer to write this out than it would take for a Tamil-fluent editor to just make the move request at w:ta:பேச்சு:நித்தியானந்தர். :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:59, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Asked at wikita, HTH. --Titodutta (talk) 22:37, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
moved the page to the new spelling -- Balaji (Let's talk) 05:07, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

MfD for the quiz at Portal:India

See Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Portal:India/Quiz#Portal:India/Quiz. The discussion includes a suggestion to move the quiz pages to subpages of this project, which would require this option to be acceptable to the members of WikiProject India. Please consider discussing this option at the MfD page. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood) (talk): 16:32, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Expert attention

This is a notice about Category:Assam articles needing expert attention, which might be of interest to your WikiProject. It will take a while before the category is populated. There might be as few as one page in the category, or zero if someone has removed the expert request tag from the page. — Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)  23:21, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Opinions sought

Does my fellow-project-members think that all existing polytechnic colleges and industrial training institutes in India, automatically qualify for a standalone Wikipedia article? Or do they need to meet our subject-specific-notability criterion(s) for an organization or our general notability guidelines?

It may be prudential to note that all higher-secondary-schools and engineering colleges whose existence can be proved, by any means are undoubtedly kept in Afds.(Either they end in a NC or a keep.)

The reasons for auto-notability can be surmised as:-

All these almost-always manage to secure enough coverage in media-sources (I personally doubt it's validity in Indian circles) and it might not be plausible to trawl offline soiurces for every such article in AfD. So, to avoid a western-centric and search-capacity-specific bias, we mas-keep all of them.
Miscellaneous reasons include that schools are vital blocks of a society and we owe them an article or that articulated by DGG at this edit

A very-related RFC might be worth reading.

Thanks,∯WBGconverse 10:57, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

The DGT site says, In 1980, there were 830 ITIs and the number rose to 1900 ITIs in 1987. During 1990’s, the growth of ITIs had been steep and presently there are over 10,750 ITIs (2275 in Govt. & 8475 in Private Sector). I am very skeptical of the "presume sources exist" argument, and even if one accepts that we owe the reader coverage of such vital bodies, I don't believe that necessarily means that we need to have an article for each of these institutes that we cannot properly source or maintain; better if we start with list article(s) for the accredited ITIs. A particular concern is that if we lower our standards for sourcing and verification, wikipedia will become an even easier target for scam universities/institutes to promote their wares and thus become an accessory in fleecing students (see UGC's list of known fake universities; the list of fake and fly-by-night training institutes is likely to be several orders of magnitude longer). Abecedare (talk) 15:02, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
Absolutely.Agree esp. about the part of being used as a promotional tool. I've tried opposing a clique of editors on this presumed sources argument (I am yet to find any significant coverage of the several schools located in my area in any newspaper) but it's an uphill battle.Probably their American versions manage to secure some coverage in local dailies but it's just not the same over here. ∯WBGconverse 06:38, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Please check admin claim

User:ImSonyR9 has placed a tag that he has administrator privileges on English Wikipedia. Will someone please check whether it is in order or a false tag, and do the needful? - Chandan Guha (talk) 01:50, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

The editor is only part of the "extended confirmed" group. These are commonly copied as new editors copy the user page of another as a template to start with, so it's not always to mislead. I have removed the topicicon. If the editor restores it, I will not persist as user pages are allowed a lot of freedom as long as they don't infringe WP:NOTWEBHOST. Thanks for noticing, —PaleoNeonate – 02:51, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
Hmm well one could argue that the page would qualify for WP:U5 (it is similar to a social network profile with external links, etc)... —PaleoNeonate – 02:54, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. - Chandan Guha (talk) 03:21, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
@PaleoNeonate: While I cannot find a policy to support my position, common sense suggests the community would not tolerate a user claiming to be an administrator when they are not. Admins are often asked for help only they can provide; advice from admins also frequently is given more weight in dispute resolution. I distinctly remember a user, active on indic topics, who caught a lot of flak for edit-warring over an admin topicon (or the equivalent) on their userpage. It would be different if a user was claiming an incorrect WP:Service award, for instance; it would reflect badly on the person doing so, but isn't going to invite sanctions. Vanamonde (talk) 05:04, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
I also tried to find related policy just now but failed. —PaleoNeonate – 08:56, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Also looking the some the editor's recent edits, they have been adding names of district level officials without citing any source. We need to eventually consider whether such entries are maintainable (since a typical tenure for a DM is 2-3 years), but for now I'll limit my concern to verifiability. Any suggestions on how to deal with this? Abecedare (talk) 06:20, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
Admins names are highlighted in blue if you have the right script (and blocked users names are struck through with another script). Very useful. Doug Weller talk 15:15, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
Just looked at the user page - totally unacceptable, but rather than delete I've created Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:ImSonyR9. Doug Weller talk 15:18, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
@Doug Weller: I have the blocked users script, but not the other: could you point me to it? I would indeed find it useful. Vanamonde (talk) 17:04, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
@Vanamonde93: Here[3] but I see better ones than the one I'm using. Doug Weller talk 17:57, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
His userpage also claims he is a CheckUser, complete with wikilink. Doug Weller talk 18:15, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Karunanidhi

Hello team, a friend Indian Wikimedian (Tamil wiki admin) asked me a question over Telegram (messaging app). I first asked him to post the issue on article talk page. He started 3-4 sections there. I also suggested to post it on WT:INB (this noticeboard). Can someone of you please check Talk:M._Karunanidhi#Birth_name and the 2-3 sections after this? --Titodutta (talk) 22:44, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Quick note: I have consolidated the sections Tito mentioned under one heading on the article talkpage (new link). Input, especially from editors who can access and read Tamil sources, would be appreciated. Abecedare (talk) 00:25, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

New free resource available through The Wikipedia Library - Economic & Political Weekly

A new research source is now available for free access through The Wikipedia Library! Economic & Political Weekly is a social science journal published weekly. Access includes all recent publications in addition to archives going back to 1949. Their content is translated into a number of Indian languages, and some priority will be given to editors editing topics related to India. You can check out their website for more information, and apply for access on the Library Card platform! Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 12:10, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/Patna–Digha Ghat line

Hello. The nominator of this DYK nomination hasn't edited over the past few weeks, so an Indian editor is requested, if possible, to adopt this nomination so that it can proceed. Thanks. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 23:21, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Tended to by Abecedare:-) ∯WBGconverse 15:55, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Ajaib Singh

Not too long ago I cleaned up this article to conform better to our manual of style, including MOS:HONORIFICS. However an IP address editor recently contests this, posting insults on my talk page and reinserting "Sant", etc. It may be a good idea for more editors to watchlist this article. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 00:16, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

  • Watchlisted by me also, and I hope other editors will watchlist as well. I have a quite low threshold for requesting temporary semi-protection when articles on my watchlist are repeatedly disrupted by unregistered editors. MPS1992 (talk) 18:23, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
Many thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 18:38, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Biplab Kumar Deb

It has reached the Press and is a big issue in Tripura.

If I am reading the article history right, it was just a bunch of IP editors and one account holder adding the Bangladesh birth, without any reasoning/sources. And User:Adamstraw99 trying to keep them at bay, single-handed. Besides semi-protecting, warning the named-account, and thanking Adam, is there anything more we can do now? Abecedare (talk) 23:02, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
Abecedare There are some issues Business Standard states According to the citizenship certificate of Deb's father Hirudhan Deb, he is a citizen of the country since June 27, 1967.Now the article states His parents had migrated to India as refugees from Bangladesh before his birth in 1971.One of these statements is correct.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 23:15, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
@Pharaoh of the Wizards: Fixed with this edit. Jakichandan (talk) 00:39, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Jakichandan :The chief minister’s father, Haradhan, registered himself as a citizen under the Citizenship Act of 1955 on June 27, 1967, as a resident of Udaipur in Tripura,” said Sanjay Mishra, Deb’s media adviser.Was he resident in India in 1967 or did he came only in 1971.If he was a resident of Udaipur in 1967 and an "Indian citizen" then cannot be called a "refugee" from Bangladesh as the article mentions .Battlefield Wikipedia: Editors claim Tripura CM was born in BangladeshPharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 01:34, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

@Pharaoh of the Wizards: Actually this source is apparently responsible for the confusion about the date of migration of his parents. Based on this source I had revised the article through this edit on 4th August. However, this source seems to have wrong information regarding the date of migration of his parents.—Jakichandan (talk) 01:44, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
The Dhaka Tribune article says Hirudhan and his wife Mina Rani Deb migrated to India during the Liberation War of 1971. Biplab was born in India, but his mother conceived him while the family was in Bangladesh., which turns out to be incorrect. However, the way Jakichandan paraphrased the information, His parents had migrated to India as refugees from Bangladesh before his birth in 1971, is consistent both with the source article and with what we know now to be true, as long as one reads (as I genuinely did) the paraphrase as saying that the date of migration was "earlier than 1971 when Deb was born". Abecedare (talk) 02:50, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Only myself and User:Adamstraw99 have edited this article on 4th of August. Some sources cited in the beginning of this discussion seem to claim that vandalism on this page has continued "from 2nd August to 4th August". I can't see any vandalism on 4th August. Thanks. —Jakichandan (talk) 02:03, 9 August 2018 (UTC) @Abecedare and NeilN: Could you please take a look at the edits on 4th August in particular. Thanks. —Jakichandan (talk) 02:06, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

I think what they mean is that the vandalism had persisted till August 4th. That day you fixed it with this edit around 3:21 pm IST and since then the article has had correct information afaict (although details have been added). And thanks User:Jakichandan for your oversight of the article, and apologies for not crediting you too earlier. Abecedare (talk) 02:21, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
@Abecedare: Thank you so much. —Jakichandan (talk) 02:27, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Nano Ganesh

Notice

The article Nano Ganesh has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

A product from a company which is covered by some newspapers when won a competition. It does not fulfill notability criteria because it fails "significant coverage" after that event so fails WP:SUSTAINED. It is WP:NTEMP case in my opinion. WP:NOTPROMOTION may also apply.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages 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 page 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. Nizil (talk) 12:09, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Discussion at WP:THQ#Sikhareswar Jena

 You are invited to join the discussion at WP:THQ#Sikhareswar Jena. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:16, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Is there anyone belonging to WP:INDIA who might be willing to tyr and help this editor out? I've tried to provide some general advice, but I'm not familiar with the person this editor wants to write an article about. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:19, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
I searched for sources (at least inn English), and don't think the subject would meet wikipedia's WP:N guidelines. Will add my comment at Teahouse and see if that helps. Abecedare (talk) 13:31, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for your assistance Abecedare. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:25, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Vishwa Hindu Raksha Sangathan

This draft was difficult to read and I lately copy-edited it. I then attempted to look for sources but failed (and started a related discussion on its talk page). If you know about it, or know non-primary sources, your input is welcome. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 01:11, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

There are a few Hindi news sources that mention this organization, although some of them may not be reliable:
I don't think these sources are sufficient for notability as some of it is routine coverage and the organization is not the main subject of the article in the rest. —Gazoth (talk) 02:08, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the sources, I placed a link to this discussion at the article's talk page. —PaleoNeonate – 18:40, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
Thank you so much for looking up Hindi sources. I consider Navbharat Times and Bhaskar to be generally reliable. However, this seems to be from the "blogs" section and reporting about a social media incident. The Bhaskar link seems to be a local announcement. This looks like a fringe group at the moment, whose name has been mentioned a few times by local media. At the moment, I don't think it is notable.--DreamLinker (talk) 14:49, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
Abecedare also added more information about the sources at the draft's talk page. Fortunately it's currently in draft space. —PaleoNeonate – 19:26, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Category:People associated with the Bengal Renaissance

Category:People associated with the Bengal Renaissance has been nominated for deletion or renaming. Please see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 August 23. – Fayenatic London 07:52, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Need help with draft review

I could use some assistance reviewing User:Bhartiya00/sandbox. There's a few specific questions I have:

  1. What would be an appropriate English-language title for the article?
  2. The draft mentions Powari, and Powari indicates this is a dialect of Bagheli language. Would it make sense to just include the information there, or is this distinct/notable enough to deserve a stand-alone article?

Please leave your comments on the draft page. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:28, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Uniformity across Indian language articles

Hey all, there's an inconsistency across the various Indian language articles, and I was wondering if this was on purpose:

  • Hindi links to the article about the Hindi language.
  • Malayalam links to the article about the Malayalam language.

But then we have:

(And maybe more.) Should we bring these into consistency with one another, i.e. should Hindi and Malayalam be moved to Hindi language and Malayalam language? Sometimes it's confusing to remember all the exceptions when creating piped links. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 16:21, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Kalyanasundaranar RfD

More eyes would be welcome at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2018 August 24#Kalyanasundaranar, especially to help to discern the relationship between the name "Kalyanasundaranar" and the current target, the poet Pattukkottai Kalyanasundaram. Best, – Arms & Hearts (talk) 20:36, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Help needed for an edit request

Could one of you see the edit request at Template talk:New Jalpaiguri–New Bongaigaon section? Thanks. L293D (☎ • ✎) 13:17, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Full movie at Infobox

Hello team, I have noticed a few articles such as Dushman (1939 film), where YouTube full movies are added on infobox. Should we add full movie on infobox? I am a bit reluctant. Opinion? Regards. (pinging User:Cyphoidbomb) --Titodutta (talk) 11:42, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

@Titodutta: Dicey, from a copyright perspective. Some of them may be in the public domain, but how do we know that a copyright wasn't renewed or something like that? As for whether or not the infobox is the right place for that, I'm not sure. If the point of the image in the infobox is to identify the subject, what identifies the subject better than the entire film? On the other hand, the image that's in the infobox is just a blur with some kind of logo, so that seems an odd choice. I wonder if this isn't more of a WikiProject Film question, rather than an India-specific issue. Regards, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 14:34, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
No Titodutta ( Only the official website of the movie can be allowed in the infobox (if that is lacking, quite often the production house website hosts the content on one of its webpages, so the movie webpage on the production house should be linked to). If neither is online, which is quite rare, just leave it blank if no movie website. Commercial websites like youtube and netflix etc also carry the paid subscription of many movies, but posting such links on infobox or Ext link will amount to WP:PROMO and spam. So kindly remove any such youtube link as soon as you see it on a movie page. ( Cyphoidbomb this is a valid topic for this page since we have a WP Indian cinema taskforce)--DBigXrayᗙ 12:02, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
Titodutta, Nothing of that sort in infobox is allowed (there was some discussion regarding it, at some place).If you are very sure that the copyright has lapsed and it's in public domain, feel free to provide an external link. ∯WBGconverse 14:05, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/Patliputra University

Hello. This DYK nomination has been stuck for over a month as its nominator has not edited in several weeks. If anyone is willing to adopt or at least help out with the nomination, this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 01:39, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

@Narutolovehinata5: I would have a look at it; don't promise anything, though. I will get back to you in the next 24 hours.
Regards, SshibumXZ (Talk) (Contributions). 22:20, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
@Narutolovehinata5:  Done.
Regards, SshibumXZ (Talk) (Contributions). 22:21, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Handling of deleted schwas in transliteration of Hindi words

How should deleted schwas be handled while transliterating Hindi words? Should the transliteration stay faithful to the Devanagari script, or should it be a phonetic transliteration? SshibumXZ and I were discussing the transliteration of भारत का सर्वोच्च न्यायलय at Talk:Supreme Court of India. I was of the opinion that the transliteration should be phonetic (which would result in the transliteration "Bhārat Kā Sarvocc Nyāyālay"), while SshibumXZ felt that the transliteration should be literal (which would result in the transliteration "Bhārata Kā Sarvocca Nyāyālaya"). The section on handling dropped schwas in Devanagari transliteration supports my position, although the entire section is unsourced. Has there been any previous discussion or consensus on this? —Gazoth (talk) 20:23, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this has been discussed before but I don't believe there has been any formalized consensus. And yes, though unsourced, the Devanagiri page is correct about how (at least) informal transliteration systems handle schwa deletion in Hindi. However, one problem with following that advice is that we'll often get into the alternate debates about whether the word being transliterated is in Hindi or Sanskrit (not relevant in the case of भारत का सर्वोच्च न्यायलय, but...)
So, my suggestion is to bypass the whole issue by, say, following the ISO 15919 directive, "Inherent a with a consonant shall always be transliterated." (Clause 8, Rule 2). This, at least, gives us an unambiguous transliteration. Abecedare (talk) 21:36, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
While you're right about the rule giving an unambiguous transliteration, it is very hard to ignore the schwas that are supposed to be deleted when I try to read the transliteration, making Hindi phrases sound very weird. I guess I have to just deal with it. —Gazoth (talk) 12:20, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
@Abecedare and Gazoth: I guess we can always leave a note informing the reader about the deletion of schwa in Indo–Aryan languages.
Regards, SshibumXZ (Talk) (Contributions). 22:23, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Eyes requested at Thirumurugan Gandhi

Hi all, I don't know who Thirumurugan Gandhi is, but I get the sense they're some kind of controversial political figure. Anyway, there's been an uptick of editing recently, with some POV stuff going on back and forth. More eyes would be appreciated on this subject if you could please add the article to your watchlist. Thank you, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 21:56, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Cyphoidbomb, looking into and that needs a drastic copy-edit, at the very minimum.Spiffy might have been helpful but he's on a vacation...... ∯WBGconverse 14:04, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
No idea at all, may be notable, I've never heard of him, as you can see most of the newspieces are from local area pages. —SpacemanSpiff 10:38, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Tagging sub-pages of Portal:india as historical

Is there consensus to tag all the sub-pages of Portal:India as historical (Except for those currently used at Portal:India)? I was bold and decided to mark a bunch of pages as historical but now I want to open a bot request (there are around 402 pages and pressing the save button 402 times will give me Carpal tunnel syndrome ) so I need consensus before I apply Tagging will be done by appending {{Historical}} to each page .Pinging @Titodutta, RegentsPark, Dwaipayanc, Path slopu, and Ritwik.m07: as people who are most probably interested in this (mainly people who commented on the Portal:India/Quiz MFD). — fr + 14:41, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Just run an AWB task, pointing to the consensus. ∯WBGconverse 14:48, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
Please explain what is the meaning of Historical tag? What is the difference between archiving a page and marking it as Historical? Will the page remain accessible after it has been marked as Historical? --Ritwik.m07 (talk) 16:34, 28 August 2018 (UTC)
Ritwik.m07 Basically nothing changes except for informing users with the tag on top saying that the page is inactive. Look at this page for an example. BTW, AFAIK you cannot archive such pages. — fr + 09:56, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
I would think that portals should be marked {{Hysterical}}, and not {{Historical}} as I don't see any value in retaining these eye that have far outlived their utility and are nothing more than POV and vandal magnets. However, my view is in the minority as a recent community consensus at one of the pumps decided. —SpacemanSpiff 10:41, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Flood coverage

Do we have an article on the 2018 floods in India (not just Kerala)? An anon pointed out at Talk:2018 Kerala floods that 16 people have died in Kodagu in Karnataka. There are also a considerable number of flood-related deaths in other states: Uttar Pradesh (191), West Bengal (183), Maharashtra (139), Gujarat (52), Assam (45), and Nagaland (11). utcursch | talk 17:15, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Why? We get too many half-cocked, frantically created articles on such subjects as it is - WP:NOTNEWS. - Sitush (talk) 12:56, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Rigveda culture

171.60.209.86 (talk · contribs) is adding "Rigveda culture" to the 7th millennium BC timeline, along with other dubious additions to timelines that don't match their parent articles. I'm pretty sure there's no such culture. Doug Weller talk 07:41, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Regarding the Vedic culture, Abhyankar is definitely not WP:RS. Even when attributed, it's WP:UNDUE WP:FRINGE. Same old Indigenous Aryans WP:POV pushing; probably WP:NOTHERE. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:37, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Kamsali

Is this a community or a caste? I think it's a caste given the few sources I've seen. Doug Weller talk 15:50, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Note

I will no longer be editing India-related articles, where by India I mean the Republic of India, born 26 January 1950. The advent of the metaphorically professional graduate students with infinite time, obsessive bias, and ready access to sources which they have failed to fully comprehend has made this decision both inevitable and irrevocable. When I began editing India-related articles in August 2006, I had much more energy and enthusiasm to counter bias. I don't any more. I would like to thank some fantastic people I met along the way such as Nichalp, Saravask, Ravichandar, RegentsPark, and Sitush. There were many others whose names I don't recall just this minute. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:54, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Persistent, disruptive edits

Take a look at [4], and compare to [5] and [6] - plus lots and lots of anonymous edits on many of the same pages. Same type of POV-pushing, modification, misrepresentation, or deletion of sourced info regarding dates in ancient history, after being told many, many times about the need for reliable citations. This is getting quite tiresome... Avantiputra7 (talk) 06:08, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

I've blocked them as a suspected sock of Yaditiva. Almost certainly the same account. --regentspark (comment) 14:11, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
RegentsPark, Can you mention the block over here, please? I launched the SPI but failed to note it over here:-) ∯WBGconverse 15:01, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
done. --regentspark (comment) 15:22, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello,
Please note that Jahangir, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of Today's articles for improvement. The article was scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Today's articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing!
Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:05, 3 September 2018 (UTC) on behalf of the TAFI team

New/upcoming Indian movies

I'm trying to add new movies coming in and I get this taken off https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:C/o_Kancharapalem Can you take a look at it, get it approved? I want the movie articles to be out there, so that people come in and edit them to be more informational. Can't it have minimal information to stay on wikipedia? When the movie has media attention is when people would come in from google search and add info. It's critical that the article is live now --SpArC (talk) 15:01, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

SpArC, Wikipedia works in the opposite manner.We create something 'iff it has achieved significant coverage in reliable sources.Also see the procedure to disclose a conflict-of-interest, our anti-promotional ideals and our notability guideline for films. ∯WBGconverse 15:19, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
Winged Blades of Godric (talk · contribs) This does have media coverage and interest which is why I created the article in the first place. SpArC (talk) 15:30, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
Please read WP:CRYSTAL. For movies, mere coverage is not enough. I actually don't think we're tough enough on this and as a consequence we get a lot of promo stuff. - Sitush (talk) 20:32, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
FWIW, the movie to which the article refers would pass the CRYSTAL requirements, no problem, but I've seen many over the years that seem not to do. I'm not sure why this specific one has been put in draft space, although we shouldn't be using IMDb as a source. - Sitush (talk) 21:00, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
Sitush Could you use your powers to get that published? I'm not familiar with the review process and posted here asking for help. SpArC (talk) 21:27, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
Sorry but no. I have no more powers than anyone else and at present I do not feel I am well enough to make judgments or potentially get myself involved in controversy - I need to stay stress free. There are plenty of other people who watch this talk page and I am not going to challenge any outcome. I have a dislike of how Wikipedia treats movies anyway, believing that there is no need for us to become effectively an alternative to IMDb etc, so I am probably not best placed to deal with what will likely become a snowball of requests, interrogations and recriminations in the topic area. - Sitush (talk) 00:01, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Sitush, I completely understand. I too, don't want to get into the administrative mess and the argument blackhole of wikipedia. I faced this several years ago when I created my account and now remember why I left. I will leave it to the 'process' to pick it up. SpArC (talk) 00:22, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
@SpArC: hi! I have reviewed your draft and it—in its current state—meets neither Wikipedia's general notability guidelines nor Wikipedia's subject-specific guideline for movies. There is more context over at your talk page and at the draft page.
Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 06:38, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Raksha Bandhan

Can someone help, I am having difficulty following the lede here, not to mention lacking any reference:

novel form of patriarchy invented on the Indian subcontinent, and celebrated by those either still living on the Indian subcontinent, or those living in other parts of the world whose ancestors sojourned on the Indian subcontinent after humanity's common origin in Africa. The aim of the rite was to ensure that the female offspring—who had survived infanticide that is—be no threat to inheritance. Consequently, before a female had learned enough arithmetic to calculate areas of rectangular plots, she was married to a boy the number on whose village's roadside milestone was higher than she could count. This ensured that the brighter the female the farther from the family property she would be seeking her marital bliss. However, to ensure that this bliss might not become unbearable, she was allowed to return to her natal home once a year; at the same time, the dreaded daughters-in-law were packed off to their natal homes. On the last day of this monsoon month, the traditional day of her departure, in order to ensure that she not overstay her welcome, or worse yet, begin to eye the family property, she was treated like a princess by her brothers, made dizzy with grand pledges of loyalty whose oratory usually put Cicero to shame, and showered with jewelry made of gold from Kolar and diamonds from Golconda, all made available from the profits off the land the brothers had in effect stolen from her. All she needed to do in return was to tie a cheap thread on their wrists. Most females on the Indian subcontinent and those whose ancestors had sojourned on the Indian subcontinent went to their graves without any clue that they had been had. --Gian ❯❯ Talk 04:00, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

@Gbohoadgwwian: eh, except for the usage of the word 'sojourn' in the wrong manner, the lede is reasonably understandable; my concern is that the article isn't neutral, represents a—probably—fringe school of thought, and uses weasely-y words. I think a significant rewrite may be in order. Just my opinion, though.
Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 04:12, 1 September 2018 (UTC); edited at 04:13, 1 September 2018 (UTC) and 05:04, 1 September 2018 (UTC).
@SshibumXZ: Yeah, it reads more like someone's opinionated blog than an encyclopedic summary of the festival. I got confused with diff, I had read it recently I believe and it reads like a new article now, can you help me put it back to earlier version. When I tried doing specific undo it disallowed, when I reverted a bunch it said the article is in use do not edit, so I self-reverted. --Gian ❯❯ Talk 04:21, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
@Gbohoadgwwian:  Done: I have reverted the article to its last good version. However, as those lines were added by Fowler&Fowler [sic], a well-respected editor in good standing, I will not re-revert if they add those lines once again.
Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 05:04, 1 September 2018 (UTC); edited 05:06, 1 September 2018 (UTC).
Oops, wrong username; meant to ping Fowler&fowler.
Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 05:06, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
It was none of the above. It was a tongue-in-cheek goodbye to that article and in fact to all India related articles that I've edited since August 2006. There is still some unencyclopedic text left. If you'd like to, you could revert it to: this version. Among other things, it will also remove the "inuse" sign. (See section below.) Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:29, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: So, your idea of a tongue-in-cheek is to vandalise Wikipedia? Have to say that is not something that would be received by most in the best of tastes.
Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 06:45, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Opinions sought

I need some third, outside opinions over at Talk:Constitution of India#Scope of the article; request for opinion.
Regards, SshibumXZ (Talk) (Contributions). 22:16, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

The first thing you will need to do is to remove the nonsense about the longest constitution "on earth," to to explicitly and at the outset, acknowledge its debt to the Government of India Act, 1935, to state that large parts of it (75-80% according to some1) are taken verbatim from the Act, that there were accusations of plagiarism,2, that its length owes directly to the fact of GOI35 being the longest act passed by the British Parliament 3. (Parenthetically, the debt goes back all the way to Macaulay's Notes on the Indian Penal Code of 1834-36, written in his exceptional prose and argued with logic that only his acute (though slightly perverted) mind could could marshal. If you don't, then forget FA, it wont make GA. I for one, if I have the time, will make sure. Sorry, to be blunt, but the article is terrible. I don't have the time to improve it, but I can at least make sure that it does not undeservedly receive a Wikipedia imprimatur. This is all I have time for. I mean this. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:02, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: oh, rest assured I am not even thinking of taking it to GA right now, heck, I even downgraded its status from ‘B’ class article to a ‘start’ class article. One of my books, The Republic of Rhetoric by Abhinav Chandrachud lists out stuff like the GOI35, GOI19 et al. Of course he also criticises Macaulay for, inter alia, being a bit too anti-free speech and anti-dissent.
However, as Constitution of India: A Contextual Analysis by Arun K. Thiruvengadam points out the Indian constitution isn’t the exact same as the Government of India Act 1935; there are unique creations such as the Election Commission of India (the executive was responsible for conducting elections in GOI35) and then there are things copied[FBDB] from other constitutions like the separation of powers and judicial review from the United States Constitution.
Heck, I am thinking of adding a criticism section pointing out the Indian constitution’s various flaws. I have to say that your presumptions smelt of malice.
Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 09:10, 4 September 2018 (UTC); edited 17:49, 4 September 2018 (UTC).

Udit Narayan's birthplace

Need some eyes at Talk:Udit Narayan#Birthplace: Different news reports variously state that Udit Narayan was born in Bhardah village of Saptari district in Nepal, or that he was born in the Baisi village of Supaul district in Bihar, India.

I've created a list of relevant quotes from different news articles at Talk:Udit Narayan#Survey of sources. Need inputs on how to handle the 'birthplace' bit in the article body and infobox. Cross-posted to WT:NEPAL utcursch | talk 17:35, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Help needed finding sources for Vishnu Puran (TV series)

It was suggested by the article's creator that looking for help finding sources for Vishnu Puran (TV series) should be posted here. Thank you in advance for any help you can offer. StrayBolt (talk) 01:41, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

What's with all this transliteration?

On the one hand we say Indic scripts are not allowed in the lead; on the other, user:ShibhumXZ is retitling alternatively Government of India related pages with English transliteration of Hindi names (some of which sound like they are made up on the fly). In other words, if this was the Turkish language Wikipedia, or the Malay-language (used in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore) Wikipedia, languages whose script is Roman, how will be making the arguments in WP:Turkicscript, WP:Malayscript as we did in WP:Indicscript? If a page has very notable alternative title, as India does Bharat, one which is used with some critical frequency in the English language, it is OK to parenthetically add it, but adding large strings of transliterated text has the same issues of cluttering up the lead with incomprehensible sounds, as do long strings of script do with symbols. Is there some WT:INDIA consensus about this? It seems silly that the Supreme Court of India, which has since 1947, and certainly before, delivered all (and I mean all) its judgments in English has a transliterated Hindi name attached to it. PS You say goodbye to India-related pages, and you realize that, forget your absence, even in your distracted or occasional presence, it is already sinking to depths hitherto unknown. PPS BTW, what is with this Government of India offices? Since when did they become notable? Is there no conflict of interest that Wikipedia is aiding the government in advertising its various departments? PPPS As usual, it is much easier for India-related-pages editors to spin off new pages, with doubtful notability, than to improve the existing pages. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:57, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Supreme Court of India is भारत का सर्वोच्च न्यायालय, it is officially so. Can you share diff/link to the article page/change that you are referring to? --Gian ❯❯ Talk 09:36, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
It is? Its own website fails to mention it (see [here; the Hindi Wikipedia has a slightly different title), but on Supreme Court of India page infobox, we have this transliterated nonsense. Where is the precedent of using it in English-language sources? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:35, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: Oof, so much to answer, let’s go through this point-by-point, shall we?

On the one hand we say Indic scripts are not allowed in the lead; on the other, user:ShibhumXZ [sic] is retitling alternatively Government of India related pages with English transliteration of Hindi names (some of which sound like they are made up on the fly)

Yeah, is there a very strong connection between the two? I started adding IAST transliterations because of a comment on India, which said that IAST transliterations don’t come under the purview of WP:INDICSCRIPTS; I figured that if it were some sort of a controversial statement the likes of you would’ve already removed it.
To the best of my knowledge, those transliterations are correct; feel free to cross-verify, though.

Is there some WT:INDIA consensus about this?

Nope, you’re free to acquire one, though.

It seems silly that the Supreme Court of India, which has since 1947, and certainly before, delivered all (and I mean all) its judgments in English has a transliterated Hindi name attached to it.

I mean the least you could’ve done is to go through Supreme Court of India’s talk page, because if you did, you’d know that I have already accepted that adding the IAST transliteration to the page of SCI wasn’t the best of things and have invited people to revert it if they will.

PS You say goodbye to India-related pages, and you realize that, forget your absence, even in your distracted or occasional presence, it is already sinking to depths hitherto unknown.

My hero!

PPS BTW, what is with this Government of India offices? Since when did they become notable? Is there no conflict of interest that Wikipedia is aiding the government in advertising its various departments?

Would you be so kind as to give me an example? If you mean government ministries like the Ministry of Home Affairs (India), Ministry of Defence (India) or the Ministry of Finance (India), then you’ve got to be kidding me, of course they’re notable. And nope it’s not a conflict of interest, I don’t know what sort of mental gymnastics you went through to think that it is one, though.

PPPS As usual, it is much easier for India-related-pages editors to spin off new pages, with doubtful notability, than to improve the existing pages.

If you’re talking about me, then: (a) cheap shot; (b) the ‘autopatrolled’ right is vested in my account, so, at least one admin thinks that the I create notable pages at a prolific enough rate for them to be not reviewed by a new page patroller; and (c) Wikipedia is an ever-growing encyclopaedia, it’s only natural for it to have new pages added to it, also, I would like to point out that I am also improving existing pages as well, so, it’s not as if this account’s primary motive is to create more and more pages.
Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 10:05, 4 September 2018 (UTC); edited 10:07, 4 September 2018 (UTC), 11:04, 4 September 2018 (UTC), 11:09, 4 September 2018 (UTC) and 14:38, 4 September 2018 (UTC).
" IAST transliterations don’t come under the purview of WP:INDICSCRIPTS" Who made that comment, and what reason did they give? And did they also say that no new consensus was needed for this new practice? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:24, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
"Nope, you’re free to acquire one, though." No, you've introduced a new practice. You need to acquire the consensus. I am objecting. And I'm sure others will, if they pay attention. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:27, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
One-by-one time again, yay!

" IAST transliterations don’t come under the purview of WP:INDICSCRIPTS" Who made that comment, and what reason did they give? And did they also say that no new consensus was needed for this new practice?

Boy do I have some stuff for you! So, I went through some edits ranging back to 2014(!). And this what I found:
This edit by SpacemanSpiff added the comment that current exists in the article, do note that his edit summary implies that the aforementioned edit was some sort of a revert, however, I couldn't find any previous version having that comment, you're free to try, though.
Also, it's interesting to note that the correct transliteration for India was added by Arvind Iyengar with this this edit.
One further thing to note would be that before Iyengar added the correct transliteration, an incorrect transliteration along the lines of 'Bharat Ganrajya' existed with a comment saying, "Do not add non-Latin scripts, per the consensus reached at WP:IN"., going as far back as the 3000th latest edit (as far back as I could care to check) on India by Sachukurian at 04:12, 16 March 2014 (UTC).
So, all in all, a transliteration—in some form or the other—accompanied by a comment of some configuration has existed for at least 4.5 years and you're opening your eyes about it now. Some deep slumber you went into there, mate.
As for your comment—

"Nope, you’re free to acquire one, though." No, you've introduced a new practice. You need to acquire the consensus. I am objecting. And I'm sure others will, if they pay attention.

Nope, all I did was to be bold (bear in mind WP:BRD is an essay, a widely followed one, but an essay nonetheless). The burden of discussion falls on you.
Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 14:38, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Oops, forgot to ping you, @Fowler&fowler:, sorry!
Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 14:42, 4 September 2018 (UTC); edited 16:16, 4 September 2018 (UTC).
@SshibumXZ: Bharat, or Bharat Ganarajya is different. It is found in English-language sources, for example Britannica whose article on India, written by the foremost international academics of the day, begins with: India (alternative titles: Bharat, or Bharatvarsha, or Republic of India) ... But you need precedent in the sources for any WP convention. Where is the precedent in the English language sources for rendering Supreme Court of India, in the English transliteration of its putative Hindi name, as it is in its infobox? Its own website doesn't have it. Or as Winged Blades of Godric very rightly says, where is one for the top loaded clutter in Uttar Pradesh State Election Commission? But ultimately, the issue is one of encyclopedic information. Are we adding any encyclopedic information in an English-language encyclopedia by adding English transliterations of Indic scripts? How is that better than adding the Indic scripts themselves? We are not talking here about Romanizations, such as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi for a Gujarati name. Those issues have been long settled. But here we have titles consisting of English language phrases, whose unanimous usage in English-language sources is that title's English phrase. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:52, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: Very well, I do concede that adding transliterations in lede lead (pun intended) to a lot of cluttering. But, where are we on adding transliterations to infoboxes? My only basis for adding them is the comment over at India's infobox which has stayed–in some shape or form—for at least 4.5 years; what do you opine about that?
Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 16:16, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict)SshibumXZ, F&F has his own voice but I believe the objects of his concern were articles like Uttar Pradesh State Election Commission rather than the ones you mentioned.(I'm not stating that he was pointing at this specific example but rather at the type, that he might refer to......).Do you think that the reader is any better served by the individual boiler-plate articles at Category:Election commissions in India or at something like State Election Commisions in India where each of them can be devoted a section.
F&F, apologies if I missed your point.∯WBGconverse 12:51, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@Winged Blades of Godric: each individual SEC most certainly deserves its on Wikipedia entry, the only things in common among them would be that they'd all be headed by a state election commissioner and that they'd be responsible for conducting elections to local bodies. Apart from that, SECs diverge a lot in structure, procedures of appointing the commissioner, prerequisite for a commissioner et al. I can assure you that they would not in the least be "boiler-plate", much less having "doubtful notability". A similar example would be that all state police forces are headed by a director general of police, have other similarities and have the same responsibility of maintaining law and order, but there are enough differences among them to merit individual articles for them, especially considering—much like 'panchayats'—'public order' and 'police' come under the State List and are states's prerogative. Also, just in case you don't know, SECs are not "Government of India offices", but are independent, constitutional bodies responsible for conducting elections to urban and rural local bodies in India, that's why I gave the examples of MHA, MoD and MoF.
Not to mention, individual articles for the federal electoral commission and provincial electoral commissions in Canada exist already on Wikipedia.
As for your suggestion of creating "something like State Election Commisions in India [sic] where each of them can be devoted a section" Although—as I have pointed it out already—I do not agree with a mega article listing out various SECs along with the Delhi SEC, but a mega article called 'State election commissions in India' listing out things that uniform among the various state SECs and the Delhi SEC is a good idea, I will think about working on it.
Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 14:38, 4 September 2018 (UTC); edited 19:45, 4 September 2018 (UTC).
As usual, very cogently argued by RP. How will we transliterate the State Election Commission of Kashmir whose official language is Urdu. When it comes to Urdu names, how will you transliterate the letters in Urdu for which there is no agreement on romanization (without diacritics)? Urdu script is so difficult, much harder than any Brahmi-derived script of other Indo-Aryan languages, because of the redundancies. Some romanizations (which are literal and not phonetic) will make a distinction between the Urdu/Persian/Arabic letters "se," "suad," and "seen," which have the same sound in Urdu, but not in Arabic. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:08, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) @RegentsPark: as I have already said, my only argument for adding IAST transliterations to India-related articles is the comment over at India's infobox, the comment—existing in way for at least 4.5 years—still stands, other than that, I am afraid I have no argument but WP:ILIKEIT.
@SshibumXZ: since WP:ILIKEIT is not the best of reasons, perhaps you could agree to just stop adding these transliterations and we can all move on to other things?--regentspark (comment) 17:28, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@RegentsPark: see: #Proposal.
Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 19:40, 4 September 2018 (UTC); edited 20:42, 4 September 2018 (UTC).
RegentsPark is correct - this is an attempt at an end-run and I am wondering if there is also a bit of subtle nationalism going on, even if unintentional. For example, just because something may exist does not in itself make for an encyclopaedic topic - even if related to India - and we already have far too many specious articles without adding more. It is fine to be eager but it is the same core group that end up having to maintain all of this dross, long after the creators have gone (and not infrequently after they have gone due to being sanctioned in one way or another).
I'm pretty sure that there was consensus not to use IAST, which was mentioned around the time of the various discussions that resulted in INDICSCRIPT. Even if my memory is incorrect, the use of IAST needs to stop. Now. And the recent additions need to be reverted. - Sitush (talk) 16:25, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@Sitush: As far as I can tell, no, none of the many discussions on Indicscripts explicitly disallowed the usage of IAST—or any other—transliterations in articles pertaining to WP:India, it may have been implied, but, it was sure as fuck not debarred categorically. Also, see: #Proposal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SshibumXZ (talk • contribs) 19:40, 4 September 2018 (UTC) edited 20:42, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Ok, and my apologies. Perhaps what I recall was IPA, although that seems unlikely. In any event, it is proof that I need to keep away from this place for a bit longer. - Sitush (talk) 23:37, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Proposal

Based on the above discussion, I would first of all, like to apologise for adding unnecessary IAST transliterations and would further like to propose the following policy for using IAST, as some sort of a formal conesus on the usage of IAST transliterations on Wikipedia:

All IAST transliterations are henceforth banned from Wikipedia, as they can be used to circumvent the long-standing and near-unanimous policy of not including Indic scripts in infoboxes and ledes of Wikipedia articles.
Notwithstanding that, an IAST transliteration can nonetheless be included in the infobox of an article if there are strong reasons for such inclusion.
Reasons for inclusion may include—but would not be limited to–
  1. Official name, as in India; or
  2. Commonly used name in English-language sources.

Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 19:40, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

  • Comment — Pinging users who participated in the preceding discussion: Fowler&fowler, Winged Blades of Godric, RegentsPark and Sitush. Also, should this be a WP:RfC, or is a normal run-of-the-mill discussion regarding this good enough?
    Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 19:40, 4 September 2018 (UTC); edited 20:42, 4 September 2018 (UTC).
  • Please shut down this proposal, all that's needed is to use some common sense, there's no need to ban something. If things get out of hand at a few articles or with a few editors and results in waste of time then we always have the ability to use WP:ARBIPA. Right now, this just seems to be a one-off case due to a mistaken belief and there's no need for alarm bells to result in bans etc. —SpacemanSpiff 02:15, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
    • The proposal is too vague to be implemented expeditiously. But ARPIBA is not the answer, as there too, people will be posting the announcement on talk pages, and there will be endless low-grade warfare in the guise of rule-abiding back and forth; if sanctioned, admins will need to justify their decisions, consult with others, etc., in a process, in which much time will be wasted. It is better to simply add a line to WP:INDICSCRIPT saying, "In an India-related page whose title contains an English language phrase, avoid adding the title's Indic language translation, or the latter's English transliteration." Once, in place, all you need to do, is add the link and refer to the line number. Otherwise, I fear that the creeping pro-Hindi linguistic nationalism will keep creeping. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:10, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment :: I think the big problem is going to be when we give room for discussion with words like "Strong reasons" it will be always a night mare with edit warring on what you mean by " strong" & how to measure this ? Shrikanthv (talk) 09:35, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
Again for India article itself if your are considering IAST - it is not Bharat it's Bharatha in Sanskrit , can you see the possibility of edit warring with this ? Shrikanthv (talk) 09:55, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment This proposal is too broad. Keep in mind that the India Wikiproject includes articles not only on the Indian Government agencies, which seems to be the immediate motivation for this proposal, but also on Indian religions, languages, and literature (among many other topics). Can one even imagine writing an encyclopedic article on any of those topics without using IAST (or, other appropriate) transliteration system? As Spaceman says, rather than trying to formulate one-size-fits-all rules we should be using common-sense and follow the practices used by the best available sources in the relevant topic area.
For example, with regards to Supreme Court of India there is no purpose served in us first translating the name into Hindi and then transliterating the Devanagiri into Latin script; that does seem like an (unintentional) end-run around WP:INDICSCRIPTS. On the other hand, we of course need to provide a transliteration and translation for the the Supreme Courts motto यतो धर्मस्ततो जयः. So even in that one infobox we have, IMO, valid and invalid use of transliterations. Abecedare (talk) 16:20, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Proposal 2 Much easier to simply add a line in INDICSCRIPTS: "Avoid supplementing English language phrases in the title or body of an article with Indic languages translations, whether rendered in an Indic script, or its Romanization (transliteration or transcription in the English alphabet)." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 07:42, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Reliability of Indian news websites being discussed at WP:RSN

I think the discussion at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard regarding the reliability of a swathe of Indian news websites might be of interest to frequenters of this board. See Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Scroll,_OpIndia,_The_Wire,_The_Quint,_The_Print,_DailyO,_postcardnews,_rightlog_etc.. - Sitush (talk) 15:07, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Unusual Raksha Bandhan (Rakhi) images

Does anyone have, or knows someone who has, unusual images of Rakhi or Raksha Bandhan from before the 1980s. (The later ones, once India's economy opened up and the internet homogenized the world, are mostly posed.) If you do, will you consider uploading them on WP? I can't promise they'll be included in the version of the article I am currently writing, but I'll give (their inclusion) my best shot. The older the better, especially if you have any from the 1940s or 50s. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:06, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Devanagari text of early Hindi short story

Does anyone have access to the Devanagari text of what is often considered the first original short story in Hindi. It is "Raksha Bandhan" by Vishwambhar Nath Sharma "Kaushik" published in 1913? If so you you email the pdf to me or direct me to the link? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:12, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Chief Minister of Delhi improperly moved; needs admin attention

In January 2018, a now-blocked editor improperly moved the content at Chief Minister of Delhi to List of Chief Ministers of Delhi. Although "List of Chief Ministers of Delhi" is indeed the right place for the article, and should not be moved back, the "move" was done via copy-and-paste. Could an administrator please fix the edit histories etc? Thank you!—indopug (talk) 13:18, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

This should be fixed through a history merge. I have requested a merge per the procedure outlined here. —Gazoth (talk) 13:28, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Press Information Bureau images

I have recently completed a batch-upload of images from Press Information Bureau, Government of India to Wikimedia Commons, totalling about 110,000 images. The collection contains a lot of images of politicians and government officials active in the last 15 years, photos of official government events and famous people meeting politicians. If you are looking for images related to any of these topics, try searching Commons once again. The uploaded images are in the category Files published by Press Information Bureau. If you want to help with categorisation of uploaded images, the tracking category is here. —Gazoth (talk) 21:02, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. Some pictures are indeed very beautiful and encyclopedic. But there's always the potential for propaganda. Consider, c:Category:Files_from_Ministry_of_Culture_published_by_Press_Information_Bureau (please fix the red link). How do we know these are people of different faiths? Which non-Christian in North India bothers with Christmas? In the current political dispensation it is positively dangerous to do so. How is the boy offering namaaz when the vast throng below has either long ended theirs or are yet nowhere near beginning? I believe this requires a discussion. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:39, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia's NPOV policy is not applicable to Commons. As long as images are within the project's scope, they are perfectly fine. —Gazoth (talk) 11:09, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
See the last line on text: "For the reasons given above, it may not always be possible for file names and related descriptive text to be "neutral". However, neutrality of description should be aimed at wherever possible, ..." Are we free to change the titles to more NPOV ones? For example, description: "The title of the photograph, supplied by the Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Culture, Government of India, states, 'A boy offering Namaz on the occasion of Id-ul-Zuha at Jama Masjid in New Delhi on January 1, 2007.'? I mean in the Commons data itself. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:08, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
Sure, you are free to do so. You can also rewrite the caption entirely to reflect just what you can observe from the photograph. However, if you are planning to use automated or semi-automated tools to prefix all descriptions with in-line attribution, there should be a discussion first. In-line attribution is fine in specific cases where the validity of caption is in doubt, but there is no reason to dispute the supplied captions in most others. —Gazoth (talk) 00:47, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
Fowler&fowler, With due regards, you're wrong.And, this's the not first time, I've seen you indulging in original research about photographs and based on wrong presumptions.
Whilst, I cannot attest to the correctness of the title of this particular photograph, Which non-Christian in North India bothers with Christmas is rather out of sync with the reality.Obviously, not every non-christian has an adoration for Christmas but a blanket statement, in the like of your's, is invalid enough.
And, as much as I have not any liking for the current ruling dispensation, the perceived danger in current political setup is obviously overblown.
As to the case of namaaz, I believe that the photographer asked a random subject to oblige, for the sake of the photograph.∯WBGconverse 05:25, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
A random subject to oblige for the sake of the photograph? And was the random subject a Muslim or did the also bring an outfit for him to wear? The rules about offering namaaz after the congregational prayers have ended in a mosque are complicated. If you ask two random subjects, it will be considered a second congregation, and problematic, as far as I'm aware. Do you know what that neon sign is? It is "Hail Mary full of Grace ..." in Hindi: "Pranam Mariyam Hamare Liye Prarthna Kar." Muslims do pray in the mosque for Jesus, as he is a prophet in Islam, but, seriously, Hindus, and not the poor Hindus, are praying outside (not "in" as the title claims) a Catholic Church in Delhi on Christmas eve? Oh, I do know they sell tinsel trees in the fancy markets, and presents are exchanged, but prayer, a prayer for others and well-heeled Hindus of the photograph? Sounds like nonsense. They might have turned out because of curiosity or delight at seeing the decorations, but prayer is something else. The title in any case in ungrammatical; it says, "A cross-section of people from different faith offering their prayer to Jesus Christ by lighting the candle in a church on the eve of Christmas, in New Delhi on December 24, 2009." Is the intended version "different faiths" or "a different faith?" The second actually does speak more accurately to Indian religious pluralism, in which people of any faith are allowed to worship their own god(s). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:03, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Regardless of what a picture purports to show, I'd take informational pictures issued by any governmental body with a pinch of salt. They are, by definition, publicity images designed to show this or that event in the best possible light. Unless there is a dire need for a particular image (a building, a person, an important event like a peace treaty) for which no other image is available, best to eschew their use in our articles. (Ideally, of course, we should be skeptical of all images because most are poorly sourced.) --regentspark (comment) 16:08, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

List of Chief Ministers of West Bengal is at FLC

List of Chief Ministers of West Bengal has been a featured list candidate for nearly two months now, and the nomination is in danger of stagnating. I hope you can take the time to post a review at the FLC page; I welcome any suggestions or criticisms you have for the article.—indopug (talk) 06:58, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

@Indopug: depending on the motive of the list, shouldn't it be titled 'list of chief ministers of West Bengal' per MOS:JOBTITLES? That would be so because 'chief minister' is—in itself—a common noun and should be minisculised. Name of offices should also not be written capital letters unless they are signifying a title, which they don't seem to be in list of Chief Ministers of West Bengal.
JOBTITLES seems to be for capitalisation within articles, specifically, biographies. So, within this WB CMs article, a sentence reads "Trinamool leader Mamata Banerjee is West Bengal's incumbent chief minister", but the article-name itself follows numerous high-profile examples such as List of Presidents of the United States.—indopug (talk) 05:12, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
@Indopug: as far as I know, MOS:JOBTITLES isn't limited to biographies, I had asked a WP:GOCE coordinator a similar question a few months ago and his/her reply was that MOS:JOBTITLES isn't limited to biographies. Also, I see your list of Presidents of the United States and I raise you list of governors of Punjab (India), list of governors of Goa and list of governors of Uttar Pradesh.
Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 13:52, 21 September 2018.
The Indian governors' articles were moved en masse sans any discussion by a single editor. If I were less lazy I'd go about trying to move them back. Looking at JOBTITLES again, it says "Richard Nixon was President of the United States" and "Richard Nixon was the president of the United States" are correct. Is the article in question not a case of the former; i.e. using the term Chief Minister as a title? (note that the article is not named "List of the chief ministers of West Bengal").—indopug (talk) 06:33, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
Indopug, didn't know about the mass moving of articles on state governors. As far MOS:JOBTITLES goes, I think we can both agree it's confusing, however, from what I can infer, titles have to be capitalised, whereas offices have to be written in minuscule. So, my question is what is the list of Chief Ministers of West Bengal about? Is it about the list of people who have borne the title of chief minister? Or is the list of people who have occupied the office of chief minister? Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 15:08, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Konkani

Currently this page is redirected to Konkani language, but I think it should be a disambiguation page because there are so many pages related to Konkani like:

Please express your views. Regards!-- Godric ki Kothritalk to me 12:52, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

The presence of other articles related to Konkani doesn't mean that it has to be a disambiguation page. Konkani language is the primary topic and is the one most often referred to when the word "Konkani" is used in isolation. Page view analysis and Google searches confirm this. However, a wider discussion on this could be useful as there were no responses to redirect discussion at Talk:Konkani. —Gazoth (talk) 09:20, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
Okay I withdraw this proposal. Thanks! Godric ki Kothritalk to me 16:38, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Ole Chandan district

Notice

The article Ole Chandan district has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

no such distict, perhaps a smaller unit?

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages 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 page 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. Xx236 (talk) 13:20, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Hi, Please see m:CIS-A2K/Events/Copyright workshop: South India. We specially encourage female contributors to apply. Regards, Yann (talk) 13:46, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Kachwaha Dynasty (Dhanchoha)

What do we do about Kachwaha Dynasty (Dhanchoha), created by a long-gone SPA who removed the 2016 speedy deletion nomination? I could redirect it to Kachwaha but I have no idea if this lot are even notable - the huge graphic is claimed to be own work and so the entire page is prima facie original research. - Sitush (talk) 18:00, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Now at AfD. - Sitush (talk) 02:01, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Request for comment

An RfC is taking place at Talk:Regional power#RfC:_On_quality_of_sources which may interest the editors of this community. Thanks. Usman47 (talk) 15:03, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

The local man

I have been working for sometime on urban pages in Barrackpore subdivision. I have added maps and referenced information on many of the pages. Those who are interested may please have a look at such pages as Naihati, Bhatpara, Titagarh, Kamarhati and other pages. In the process of developing these pages I have been running into problems regarding bogus claims. I have been able to handle most of these and set the pages in order. Now, one editor is insisting on Durganagar not being in Barrackpore subdivision but in its being a part of Kolkata and Kolkata district. Kolkata district is well defined as covering the Kolkata Municipal Corporation area. Kolkata is a little vague and ill defined, but by all means, the entire Dum Dum area is administratively a part of Barrackpore subdivision. My edits on the Durganagar page have been reverted. Durganagar is a small place – a neighbourhood spread across Dum Dum and North Dumdum municipalities. I feel that the page is viewed mostly by people from that area only and hardly anybody from outside ever has a look at the page. Moreover, since nobody else seems to be interested, I am giving up. Let the local man propagate, as best as he thinks. Cheers. - Chandan Guha (talk) 09:00, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

@Chandan Guha: I assume you are referring to the edits to Durganagar by AmitMondal1299 (talk · contribs), who also seems to be editing as 103.101.213.134 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). As you say, whether a place is a "city neighborhood" is often a fuzzy concept in India. However, we should be able to conclusively determine whether Durganagar falls within Kolkata district, North 24 Parganas district, both, or neither. Do you or AmitMondal1299 have any sources/maps that would help resolve this issue at least? Pinging @Titodutta: who may have more information and thoughts on the larger dispute. Abecedare (talk) 17:10, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
@Abecedare, Chandan Guha, and AmitMondal1299: I must note that there is no such thing as 'Kolkata district', that was a failed proposal of the West Bengal government. The Kolkata city—in its current state—comes under the jurisdiction of various districts (major being the North 24 Parganas and the South 24 Parganas) and hence has many district magistrates, also interesting to note would be that Kolkata Metropolitan Region comes under various units of two different police forces (West Bengal Police and Kolkata Police). The only thing that can be described as purely Kolkata would be the jurisdiction of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, which is ceremonially headed by Kolkata's mayor. The West Bengal government's proposal was supposed to rectify this jurisdictional mess, whatever happened to it.
Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 17:28, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
There always was a Kolkata district - only some parts of the city were in other districts. In 2011, Census Operations have defined Kolkata district as the Kolkata Municipal Corporation area. Please see Kolkata district for references and linked maps. Moreover, the problem here is not with Kolkata district but with Barrackpur subdivision of North 24 Parganas district. There are no question marks about the administrative limits of the latter. Durganagar is too small a place for its mention separately on maps. It is a neighbourhood spread across Dum Dum and North Dumdum municipalities. Both the pages have links to maps showing these to be parts of Barracpore subdivision. The map is also available here [7]. The relevant map is on page 379. The airport is marked on the map, Durganagar is near the airport. AmitMondal1299 (talk · contribs) has also made arbritary unsourced changes on the Dum Dum page. I have reverted these changes, but he is likely make them again. If there is need for any more clarification, please feel free to ask. - Chandan Guha (talk) 18:22, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
@Chandan Guha: as far as I know, the Kolkata district you're talking about is in name only, in that it has no district magistrate [8] or superintendent of police [9] and naturally has no sub-division or police circle, much less having smaller divisions. People in the Kolkata district have to avail basic government services from neighbouring districts (real districts, if you will), this was one of the reasons behind the proposal of creating a Kolkata district, proper. But, last I checked, that proposal is still in some purgatory.
Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 18:35, 20 September 2018 (UTC)


Once again I would like to point out that the problem here is not with Kolkata district, but since you have raised the point, Kolkata district is administratively handled by the Administrtative Officer of KMC, a senior IAS officer. It has a full fledged police organisation headed, not by a superintendent of police, but a much higher ranked Commissioner of Police. See Kolkata Police Force for more details. Cheers. - Chandan Guha (talk) 18:45, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
You can also see - Divisions of Kolkata Police - Chandan Guha (talk) 18:51, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
@Chandan Guha: again that's what I am saying. Please reread my comments. The Kolkata Municipal Corporation acts as both the district and the municipality for Kolkata, unlike say Chennai (Greater Chennai Corporation and Chennai district) or New Delhi (New Delhi district and New Delhi Municipal Council), which automatically means there are no sub-divisions in Kolkata (just wards and boroughs), ipso facto AmitMondal1299 is wrong.
Now off topic, Much of what one considers Kolkata isn't under either the KMC or Kolkata Police (North 24 Parganas is also considered a part of Kolkata and so is South 24 Parganas) and people in Kolkata district—especially in its southern pockets—have to avail basic state government services from neighbouring districts. See: this (from The Telegraph) and this (from The Times of India).
As far as having a commissioner of police goes, Barrackpore (a part of North 24 Parganas) has one, that doesn't equate it to not having a superintendent of police for its "rural areas" (as in North 24 Parganas).
Of course, this is of no importance to matter hand, I was just compelled to reply given your reply.
Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 19:06, 20 September 2018 (UTC); edited 19:10, 20 September 2018 (UTC), 19:14, 20 September 2018 (UTC), 19:16, 20 September 2018 (UTC) and 19:18, 20 September 2018 (UTC).


  • Ok, as I understand it (I am numbering the items, so others can more easily point out if I get anything wrong):
  1. Kolkata district is coterminous with the area covered by Kolkata Municipal Corporation (this part is supported by the Kolkata District census handbook).
  2. This KMC covered area may also be called Kolkata city "proper". The Kolkata metropolitan area though extends to North 24 Parganas and other districts.
  3. Durganagar is a neighborhood spread across Dum Dum and North Dumdum municipalities.
  4. Dum Dum and North Dumdum municipalities are in North 24 Parganas district (this part is clear from the corresponding district handbook)
Therefore if (3) is true then it clearly follows that Durganagar is in North 24 Parganas district and in Kolkata metropolitan area (though not in Kolkata-proper; nor in Kolkata district).
@Chandan Guha: is there a way we can verify (3)? And @AmitMondal1299: can you specify what part of the above you disagree with, and why you think Durganagar is in Kolkata district? Abecedare (talk) 19:03, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
In the district census handbook map the airport is marked. Durganagar is west of the airport. That area is clearly shown in the map as North Dumdum municipality. Maps and other materials do not clearly show Durganagar extending into the Dum Dum municipal area. At this point, we may not split hairs on that point. AmitMondal1299 (talk · contribs) also mentions Durganagar being in North Dumdum municipality. Even if we ignore the extension into Dum Dum municipality North Dumdum municipality is clearly in North 24 Parganas, and by no means in Kolkata district.
Nimta police station under Barrackpore Police Commissionerate has jurisdiction over North Dumdum municipal area [10] See Table 2.1 in the booklet for North 24 Parganas. Also see [11] - see list of police stations.
North Dumdum municipality is included in the Kolkata Metropolitan Area for which the KMDA is the statutory planning and development authority. [12] and [13] KMDA maps in these volumes show the municipalities (along with KMC) which are included in KMDA. KMDA does not have any administrative functions. Durganagar is part of North Dumdum municipality.
Similarly, 2011 census included North Dumdum municipality in Kolkata Urban Agglomeration. Again only as part of North Dumdum, Durganagar is also part of Kolkata Urban Agglomeration. This does not affect its administrative position in any way.
The KMC area (or Kolkata district) is referred to as the "core area" of Kolkata by some historians. The larger area is generally referred to as Greater Kolkata.
I hope I have been able to clarify the situation. Cheers. - Chandan Guha (talk) 02:21, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
In this Google map [14], published by North Dumdum municipality in its website (you have a link to this site in North Dumdum page - serial no. 2 of the references), an outline of the area covered by North Dum municiplity is shown. On enlarging the map one gets the location of Durganagar sub post office, Durganagar railway station and other Durganagar locations, as being within the limits of North Dumdum municipality, although Durganagar does not appear as a place. - Chandan Guha (talk) 08:47, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the information Chandan. Given that AmitMondal1299 has not responded, I think it would be fine to edit the Durganagar in line of the above discussion. I'll watchlist the page, and can chime in if Amit/IP continue to change the sourced content without explanation. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 15:20, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
You can decide on what to do. Cheers. - Chandan Guha (talk) 15:31, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
@Abecedare: I am anxiously looking forward to some action on your part. Cheers. - Chandan Guha (talk) 01:04, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
Chandan Guha and Abecedare, I have boldly reverted to the last sourced version, there really is no need for unsourced stuff in an article, especially in light of the above discussion, which clearly demonstrates that Durganagar—although a part of the Kolkata Metropolitan Region and under the jurisdiction of the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority—is ever so clearly a part of the North 24 Parganas district, if there's more IP vandalism, we can always semi-protect the page. Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 14:40, 24 September 2018 (UTC); edited 21:23, 24 September 2018 (UTC).
Thanks SshibumXZ. Those IPs are apparently User:AmitMondal1299, who now seems to be editing while logged-out. I have told the user about wikipedia's socking policies and if they continue, they can be blocked or the article protected. I will leave the actual editing of the Durganagar and related articles to editors who are more familiar with the subject. Abecedare (talk) 17:08, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
SshibumXZ and Abecedare, Many thanks for the action taken. Please keep an eye on the page. Cheers. - Chandan Guha (talk) 21:14, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
@Chandan Guha: will do. Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 21:23, 24 September 2018 (UTC); edited 21:24, 24 September 2018 (UTC).
@Abecedare: Thanks for the action taken. Cheers. - Chandan Guha (talk) 00:46, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
@Abecedare: Please have a look at the Durganagar page. Cheers. - Chandan Guha (talk) 11:15, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
Abecedare and SshibumXZ. I think it is time to shift this topic to the archives. Many thanks for the interest you have shown and the support you have extended. Cheers. - Chandan Guha (talk) 19:08, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
Chandan Guha, no problem. This thread will be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III; no need for manual archiving. Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 19:13, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Requesting comment on talk pages for requested move

I was hoping to get your comments / views on the following talk pages on the requested moves raised by me
Talk:Modi Ministry
Talk:List of committees of the Indian government
Cheers--Politicoindian (talk) 22:29, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Norwesters

There is a suggestion to merge Norwesters with Nor'wester (Bangladesh). Those who are interested in the topic may participate in the discussions at Talk:Norwesters. Cheers. - Chandan Guha (talk) 18:56, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

There also is a suggestion that the article be renamed Kalboisakhi. I am not sure if Kalboisakhi is there in languages such as Assamese, Odiya and Hindi. Those who are knowledgeable about it may please provide information and their opinions on the topic at Talk:Norwesters. Cheers. - Chandan Guha (talk) 13:39, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Dishayen?

Hi all, has anybody ever heard of a Hindi series called Dishayen? The article currently claims it began in 2001, but IMDB, which has virtually no info, says 2004. I can't get any significant Google hits on "Purbi Joshi" and Dishayen. I see a potential title sequence on YouTube (can't link because of potential copyvio) but still unclear if this was a real television show, or a web series or what. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Is this one of those cases where maybe having Indic script in the lead/infobox would have given me a slightly stronger lead? Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 01:59, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Hello, Cyphoidbomb. This interview from Screen (magazine) contains some details about Dishayen. It mentions that Dishayen was "premiered on DD on October 8, 2001", although I am not familiar with the reliability of this source. This article of The Hindu also discusses few details of it. And this book shows that Dishayen was active in 2002 (as the source cited under the relevant table is from 2002). - NitinMlk (talk) 21:42, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
@NitinMlk: Hey, thank you very much for taking the time to look into this. It's much appreciated. I'll add these to the article. Screen India appears to have been part of Express Group, so I think it's OK here. Thanks! Cyphoidbomb (talk) 22:08, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

An initiative on Meta

. . . might be of interest. m:Indic-TechCom. They (User:Jayprakash12345) have written a couple of short javascript codes (see "Tools" page). Those may be basic tools, still, it is good to see someone is working to improve things. Another good thing is this project is focused on India-related things and requirements. I do remember an assessment script of this project was/has been broken for long. Perhaps, some of us may get a little help from here? --Titodutta (talk) 19:58, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Linking to Hindi WP

See Talk:Yashpal#Interwiki_links. - Sitush (talk) 08:00, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Visalaandhra Publishing House

Are Visalaandhra Publishing House a self-publishing outfit? - Sitush (talk) 12:09, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Sitush, slightly better than one with a pay-to-publish model but not suitable for any encyclopedic use:-) ∯WBGconverse 09:00, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Reprints of Raj era texts

Are modern reprints of Raj era texts reliable if the publisher that does so is Oxford University Press? Specifically, the anthology of historic texts being added here. - Sitush (talk) 23:02, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

The introduction to the book over here is interesting.
I guess, my opinion would be yes for verifying trivial information but no as to sourcing any complex analyses or case. ∯WBGconverse 09:16, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

I realise that there are templates for linking to Commons, WikiSource, WikiQuote etc but should we always actually provide the link to fellow Wikimedia projects? I don't have a problem with linking to Commons (which is not the same as saying I don't have a problem with Commons itself) but increasingly I am seeing things such as this link by Acharya63. Click through and it just seems to me like a complete waste of time for the reader and, worse, it isn't really validated information. We may as well link to a blog or a self-published book if we're going to do this sort of thing, yet the reader may actually think it is valid because the project carries the imprimateur of the Wikimedia Foundation. Alternatively, the reader might fall off their chair laughing and come to the conclusion that if the WMF countenance that sort of stuff then maybe this Wikipedia project is also just a toy and should be ignored. - Sitush (talk) 09:51, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

  • I guess we can't have any control over Wikitionary stuff but any link to such unsourced rubbish OR doesn't belong over en.wiki (esp. in mainspace), in any form or manner. Reverted and I would like an explanation from Acharya63, as to why he deemed the insertion fit enough. ∯WBGconverse 11:14, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
Other wiki projects should definitely not be linked in a way that makes them appear to be a part of the en.wiki. Clearly marked as non en wiki links and used circumspectly is probably ok if they provide additional value (which this one does not). --regentspark (comment) 12:37, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
Hi Sitush , regentspark and ∯WBG, I agree. I should not have linked it especially given the unreliability of the latter page. Thanks for reverting my changes. Thanks Acharya63 (talk) 15:24, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Deccan Chronicle plagiarism

Not for the first time, I have caught out the Deccan Chronicle plagiarising our articles, as per this removal just now. There have also been occasions when it has quite clearly copy/pasted from The Hindu (they were not agency reports). Is it time that we consider it to be de facto an unreliable source? - Sitush (talk) 12:04, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Hi Sitush, what's the plagiarism here? I'm a bit confused. The link you included in your edit summary (this) shows the removal of See also links. For what it's worth, in 2016 I caught a few major sources plagiarising our content. See this. Deccan wasn't one of them, though. :) Cyphoidbomb (talk) 22:19, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
My point was that the text of the article at the end of July 2017 is identical to that published in the Chronicle in August 2017. The diff is to show the content of the article at that date, not the specific nature of the edit. Does this make sense? - Sitush (talk) 22:28, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Sitush yes, I am aware of this problem with Deccan Chronicle. I had found this on 2 more articles. I added templates {{Backwards copy}} e.g. on Talk:Suresh Chavhanke and other places noting the same, so that our articles aren't flagged for COPYVIO. I also shot their entire editorial team a mail informing them about the plagiarism and licensing terms. Expectedly, they never replied back to the mail. --DBigXrayᗙ 19:31, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Thanks. I will add that template to the article talk page. I can't remember which other articles I've seen where it has happened - there have been quite a few. Let me ping Diannaa for possible input. - Sitush (talk) 16:28, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping. I have nothing further to add but thanks for the info. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 00:53, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Translation needed

Can someone please check this to see whether it mentions the Koli people or Kori caste and whether it shows him self-identifying as a member of either of those communities? Thanks. - Sitush (talk) 08:18, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

  • It does not mention the caste and the self-identification (I somehow read Hindi, hi-2 or 3, however you may use Google Translate also for Hindi, and also Telugu, Tamil, they are doing fine). --Titodutta (talk) 17:08, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Thanks. I do use GTranslate but it has a character limit that means umpteen back-and-forths copy/pasting chunks of text. And for some reason I could not copy from that particular web page anyway. - Sitush (talk) 18:29, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
Sitush, since the problem has been solved, I might as well chime in; as a native Hindi speaker, I can confirm that Titodutta's analysis is correct, in that, Kovind does not identify himself as a member of either Koli people or Kori caste. The article talks about a lot of things, including—but not necessarily limited to—Kovind's thoughts on Christians, Muslims and reservation, but, self-identifying as either a Kori or a Koli is not one of them. Also, even if the source confirmed that Kovind is a member of either of the two aforementioned communities, I am not too sure of its reliability. Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 16:08, 18 October 2018 (UTC); edited 16:08, 18 October 2018 (UTC).
Great, thanks. I think these caste claims often get added after the citation has been placed, usually by a drive-by IP contributor. They're a nuisance. - Sitush (talk) 16:30, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
But that said, does the source support the rest of what it is used for in the Early life section at Ramnath Kovind? - Sitush (talk) 16:33, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
Sitush, unless I am mistaken that source isn't being used in the section for early life at Ram Nath Kovind; it's used just one time for backing up a claim as to whether Kovind ever said that Christians and Muslims were "alien" to India [nation]. The source verbatim quotes an article written by Kovind. The articles goes into depth explaining his view on why converted Christians and Muslims should not be accorded reservations as Scheduled Castes and cites the British, Nehru, Patel, Ambedkar and the Supreme Court of India. But, as far as I can see, there's no mention of him saying that either Muslims or Christians were (or are) alien to India or the notion of caste(s). As the aforementioned incident purportedly happened during a press briefing, I really don't see why this source has to be used in the article for Ram Nath Kovind. Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 17:01, 18 October 2018 (UTC); edited 01:10, 19 October 2018 (UTC).

How to deal with this disruptive IP editor?

Most recently as [15], clearly the same extremely persistent disruptive editor who has been changing sourced info and falsifying dates in Indian history for months. Three blocked named accounts: [16], and has also been persistently trying to get around the blocks by making the same edits anonymously: for instance, [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], etc...

Admins don't even take it seriously, because the IP changes every now and then, so nothing can be done without having posted good-faith warnings for each new IP's talk page. Yet, it is easy for occasional disruptive edits through a new IP to slip by. For instance, falsification of a quote on the Surya Siddhanta page went uncorrected for 4 months. Are there any more steps that can be taken? I have never seen anything like this before. - Avantiputra7 (talk) 06:11, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Unless they are hitting the same articles over and over again or the IP range is narrow, I suspect we have to deal with disruption like this the hard way, ie: revert when it is seen and then check contributions from that specific IP address for any other similar efforts. - Sitush (talk) 16:25, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
@Sitush: This is by no means a comprehensive list, but these are some of the articles that have been hit multiple times: Bhāsa, Vātsyāyana, Indian logic, Nyaya, Nyāya Sūtras, Vaisheshika, Vaiśeṣika Sūtra, ‎Kanada (philosopher), Indian classical drama, Pingala, Pāṇini, Sushruta, Jyotisha, Vedanga Jyotisha, and Brahmi script. So far, I have been keeping an eye on them as much as I can. - Avantiputra7 (talk) 03:34, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Regarding surname lists & religion stuff

We have a large number of Indian surname list articles, and many of them contain religion/caste/gotra/tribe-related details of those surnames. This approach leads to BLP violations, as there is a longstanding consensus on this project that a living person should only be connected with a caste or religion if there is self-identification. Few randomly searched examples of such BLP violations are Joshi, Pathak, Pandey, Mishra, Tiwari, Khatri, Kapoor, Khurana, etc. But this problem can be solved by mentioning that the listed people may or may not have association with the clan, e.g. see here.

Second problem is that these surname list articles are used by various editors to create an article about a caste, clan, tribe, etc. which otherwise fails WP:GNG. So some editors have raised the point that these lists should not be used to promote non-notable clans/tribes, and that if any such clan/tribe is indeed notable then it should have its independent article, which might also contain list of those people who self-identify with that clan/tribe. But if this approach is followed in the case of these type of articles, then the surname list article will always remain an unsourced stub, while the clan article will contain the info which should've been part of the surname list article. On top of that, we will end up with two articles about the same topic.

Anyway, I just want to know whether or not we should add religion/gotra/clan/tribe-related reliably sourced details in these South Asian surname list articles. Once we will have a consensus regarding this, there will be much lesser disruption on these types of pages. Thanks. - NitinMlk (talk) 22:37, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

The wording you mention in your first paragraph was devised by me when some people insisted on retaining even the briefest mention of a caste where one or more sources themselves gave a passing mention etc. It was one person in particular, I think, who went on a spree of trying to get articles about non-notable castes kept in AfD discussions by turning them into lists. I'm not particularly keen on keeping the wording because what I commonly find is that people then try to expand what is basically a surname list by adding reams of unsourced or unreliably crap about the caste, taking it back to the mess that it often was prior to the AfD. I'd rather ditch mention of the caste altogether in such articles because pure surname lists seem to attract less of that type of activity - even mentioning the caste, which then forces the wording, seems to act as a honeypot. And, of course, I still maintain the caste is not notable and that the end-run was motivated by a ridiculously inclusionist approach and a lot of wikilawyering.
Pure surname lists do not need sources. They should comprise blue links to articles which, in theory, should themselves be sourced. All we are saying in the list is "here is someone who is notable,has an article and has the name". - Sitush (talk) 03:39, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
The real problem lies with WP:APO/S, and I guess solution for the above issue lies in making few tweaks there. Although that's just an essay, all sur(name) lists follow its guidelines. As clear from the WP:APO/S#Articles, we just need two notable people with a particular surname/name to create a "notable" surname/name list. At the same time the essay mentions that these list articles follow MOS:LIST. So these surname list articles enjoy the best of both worlds – they are supposedly inherently notable (provided there are at least two biographies with a particular surname/name), and at the same time they can contain all the stuff that's otherwise confined to notable lists, although these sur(name) lists don't satisfy WP:NOTESAL most of the time.
I agree with you that notable surnames/names should have their separate articles, while the surname/name lists should just contain the entries of notable biographies. Example of that is Spencer (surname) and List of people with surname Spencer. Note that the Spencer's surname article & surname list just have the links of each other in hatnotes. And that should be the case in general, i.e. the article for a notable surname should be separate from its surname list. And if the surname is not notable then we shouldn't insert its half-baked details in its list page. But to make this happen, we will have to make few changes at the WP:APO/S, and I guess the editors there may not agree for the same. - NitinMlk (talk) 20:27, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
Some of the Indic lists were called "List of ..." at one point but they got renamed for consistency and, I think, to enable the mention of castes etc as I say above. No chance of me remembering which ones. I have never seen APO in my 10 or so years here, so perhaps it isn't an essay in the class of, say, WP:BRD. While the latter is pretty much a de facto policy, essays generally do not even have the advisory weight of a guideline, let alone the "must do" of a policy. - Sitush (talk) 02:55, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
WP:APO/S page basically summarises the standards & practices followed on the name/surname lists. But that's just an essay, and doesn't really have weight of a guideline, as correctly pointed out by you. So we can discard that essay in the relevance of the present issue.
Now, if someone starts removing caste/clan/religion-related reliably sourced content from such a large number of South Asian surnames lists, then they should be able to back up their edits by giving a link of some policy, guideline, RfC, etc. which clearly states that these surname lists should just contain the links of the relevant notable biographies. But I am unable to find such guideline page as of now. So, what should be done in that regard? - NitinMlk (talk) 20:39, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
I suppose it could be argued that, as a surname list, the mentions of caste are not relevant and that a separate article should be created for the caste, if notable (which almost certainly will not be the case because of their origin in AfD discussions that I alluded to above). - Sitush (talk) 08:21, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Along with the relevance of mentioning castes in the surname lists, there is also an issue of the WP:NPOV regarding these non-notable clans. Let's say a caste, tribe, clan, etc. has only one or two passing mentions in the reliable sources, but these passing mentions are highlighting only a negative or a positive trait of that community. In that case, the relevant surname list can easily be turned into an attack/fan page. But if the clan is notable then we will have enough material to covers all attributes of it, which will also take care of the POV. So, it clearly makes sense to not add details of the non-notable castes/clans in the surname lists.

Having said that, these surnames do originate from the relevant castes/clans/tribes, and that info is sort of relevant to these pages, esp. when the wording introduced by you has already taken care of the BLP violations. More importantly, there is practically no such guideline which stop such additions in these surname lists. And the surname lists from all over the globe contain all sort of half-baked info regarding the origin of the surnames, although I am familiar with the WP:OSE.

I guess the anthroponymy community won't agree to change their practices in general. But that doesn't stop us from developing a consensus regarding the removal of castes from these surname lists. You must be familiar with the best way to develop such consensus. So, I guess you can start an RfC or something, and we will have the community's consensus, which will in turn help in developing some standard approach regarding these South Asian surname lists. - NitinMlk (talk) 21:29, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

@NitinMlk: sorry for the delay in responding. There is a problem with so-called local consensus, ie: where a project decides on a solution to an issue. They can do it and often people outside the project will not care less but if there are objections from outside then it can very quickly become messy because the consensus of the wider Wikipedia community counts for more than that of the India (or whatever) project. This was a difficulty with the discussions about WP:INDICSCRIPT and I think it might be in this instance, too, because the most strident inclusionists and the "systemic bias is everywhere" forseers probably will not accept removal even when it is a passing mention. They're likely to argue that the passing mention issue only applies to the notability of an independent article about the caste, not surname list. Well, that's my suspicion at any rate. It is very frustrating for the reasons you have given. - Sitush (talk) 16:40, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
Sitush, thanks for the reply. Any sort of wider discussion on this issue will most probably have healthy inputs from the WP:APO members, and they will most probably not agree to remove the passing mentions of castes, tribes, etc. BTW, I just noticed an old discussion at the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthroponymy/Standards – see here – which is relevant to some of the points made in this discussion, and the responses in that discussion sort of support your above suspicion. - NitinMlk (talk) 23:53, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

On the origin of communities

Religious beliefs and folk-lore aside, we all descend from apes. If we have two communities which are today treated as being distinct, bear different names and dwell in different places yet may share some common post-ape origin, do we maintain two articles for them or just one article? I am thinking at present specifically of those articles relating to Tamil communities whose presence lies mostly in South India and in Sri Lanka and where, for the last year or more, Xenani has been adding information specific to Sri Lanka into articles that previously were mainly about South India. Taken to an absurd conclusion, we could lump all our articles about all communities everywhere in the world under Ape.

I acknowledge that some connection needs to be made between, say, the Paravar of South India and the Bharatha of Sri Lanka, either via See also, an in-text link or perhaps a paragraph or so in both articles on the migrations etc. Should we be going into much more depth than this? And should we seemingly be relying on snippet views of often obscure books, using quite specific search terms, to achieve that end? Xenani disagrees with me regarding this across a range of articles, of which Karaiyar is another example.

For what it is worth, Xenani has also said that they actually had access to all of these obscure books and are just providing the links to Google Books for courtesy reasons. I'm sorry but I've tried to AGF the latter aspect and am at breaking point: I've got occasional access to some great libraries, including what are known as copyright libraries in the UK such as at Cambridge University, and I struggle to find them. But it would seem that Norway - a great country but not, I think, one with a reputation for interest in subcontinental history etc - has an abundance of the things. - Sitush (talk) 05:17, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Hi Sitush. Regarding the Paravar article. You reverted a whole bunch of edits because you were disagreeing with me adding content related to Sri Lanka on the South Indian article of Paravars. I agree that there is no need for adding such information however I had only added one sentence about the Bharathas in the lead. Then there was another sentence in the history section regarding Sri Lanka that I added, which you could just have removed. In stead you simply reverted all edits made by me without giving a proper respond in the talk page. You responded very late and haven't responded other articles you made reverts on, even when I mentioned you several times (I am a newbie and didn't know about pinging) and when you did answer were only some of the questions answered, which is in none way constructive and creates no consensus. As quoted by WP:BRD-NOT
"BRD is not a valid excuse for reverting good-faith efforts to improve a page simply because you don't like the changes."

If you would first start a discussion before make such a huge revert, then it would be much easier for creating consensus and avoiding edit war. Xenani (talk) 20:12, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

I haven't looked carefully but @Xenani: how is this a WP:RS? --regentspark (comment) 12:47, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Hi regentspark. The source is definitely not WP:RS and I did remove it. It was added back when Sitush restored the article to another version. Xenani (talk) 19:50, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

That is quite possible. I did a lot of cleaning up of some Sri Lankan material many months ago but got pushed out by someone whom I vaguely think is now blocked for LTTE or similar pov-pushing. In trying to rein in Xenani's exuberance, I have done a couple of big reverts and something may have slipped through. It can be fixed but the bigger issue needs resolving, too: I'm extremely unhappy with Sri Lankan Tamil communities getting two bites at a cherry/creating a maintenance nightmare, and I have a lingering suspicion that there is some ethnic pov stuff going on and that the sourcing is not "full view" as claimed. - Sitush (talk) 20:00, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Capitalisation

Excuse me, but I find that almost every page had at least one or more uncapitalised nouns. Could you guys please fix them? Thanks. Oshawott 12 ==()== Talk to me! 10:36, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Oshawott 12, hi! Can you elucidate a bit as to what you mean. It's not explicitly clear which pages pages you're referring to? Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 10:50, 25 October 2018 (UTC); edited 13:07, 25 October 2018 (UTC).
Thanks for the reply. I find that many small pages about small villages and towns have spelling mistakes or nouns not capitalised. Mostly, these pages only have one sentence as a stub, so I would like to ask you guys to fix these problems. I also found that mostly, even templates and categories get affected, which tangles up a whole bunch of articles and pages when trying to fix the capitalisations. If you guys could fix that, ot would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Oshawott 12 ==()== Talk to me! 11:13, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
I'm not sure I get the "you guys" part? Isn't this supposed to be a collaborative encyclopedia? If you see something that needs fixing, fix it. --regentspark (comment) 14:44, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

No one is caring my words at "Internet censorship at India".

I contribute Wikipedia articles through talk feature. I contributed some important information here Till now users of that page didn't respond to my words. I can edit it but I cant take the risk of it. User ColinFine suggest me to post my problem here. Ram nareshji (talk) 04:27, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Maurya Empire

This article is in desparate need of some citation work. Anybody would like to volunteer? Thanks in advance Capankajsmilyo(Talk | Infobox assistance) 12:35, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

User:Nipe Cold

Can editors with knowledge of topics related to India please review the contributions of Nipe Cold (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)? There is a discussion about disruption and low quality edits, which are mostly about India-related topics, from this user at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Nipe_Cold. Thank you. -- Ed (Edgar181) 14:58, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Communism in India

Communism in India is currently marked as {{dabconcept}}, i.e. in need of being turned from a DAB page into a proper article. I agree. Communism in Kerala is a sizeable article, but Communism in India is a rather mediocre DAB page?

(Hidden agenda: Template:Asia topic calls Communism in India, and User:DPL bot is reporting errors for WP:INTDABLINK violations. Turn Communism in India from a DAB page into a proper article, and not only DPL bot and DABfixers but also, most importantly, readers will be happy.) Narky Blert (talk) 03:17, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Notability

Is there any point in creating micro-stubs on certain authors from those who have won the Sahitya Academy Award, the highest literary award in the nation, awarded by the National Academy of Letters? I guess all of them pass NAUTHOR but whether some of them pass GNG is highly debatable.In some of the cases, the sole coverage is limited to their receiving the award and might be made to fall under the purview of BLP1E.On a side-note, I know for a certainty that Sahitya Academi publishes a short biography of the winning-author(s), (probably including a short review of other works), that is thus-far missing from my two creations.Pinging DGG, who usually have some interesting opinions:-)∯WBG<spanve at least brief review. style="color:#00F">converse 15:28, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

authors, especially prize-winning authors, usually write more books. If there is a stub, people will add more material. It is much easier for beginners especially to add to an existing article, than to start a new one. The structure is already there, at least some of the necessary links are there. As you said, there will ofter already be the basic biographical data,pe an `eossibly even a portrait. There are, or ought to be, links to library catalogs. There will almost certainly be wikidata, to automatically link to tother language versions--the many Indian languages who are developing content.
the previous books as well as the present ones, will always have brief reviews. BLP1E is not intended to rule out such content. The GNG is not meant to interfere with such content. That's why we have specialized guidelines, to help us become an encyclopedia, not an abridged encyclopedia of the famous and the popular celebrities. That's why we have the rule permitting stubs. That's why we have the policy, NOT PAPER. DGG ( talk ) 15:56, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
But I would ignore Wikidata and library catalogues, except for using the latter to produce a list of works. They add nothing, and I wouldn't even trust Wikidata for that. Also, using Wikidata for interwiki links is a disaster waiting to happen, as noted in a thread not too far above referring to how some degree of judgement needs to be made before cross-linking projects. A lot of our fellow Indic 'Pedia projects are still very poor, and Wikidata itself is appalling. The less integration between Wikipedia and Wikidata, the better until Wikidata gets its house in order, which is likely to be years off. The idea that we should provide links to other projects because that will help develop those projects is not in fact the purpose of Wikipedia, and since open wikis are not reliable sources (even our own), we should not in my opinion link to them.
Writing books is not itself sufficient to justify an article. Winning a big national prize, however is fine. I think the Sahitya Academy actually has a bunch of language-specific prizes - does it also have an overarching prize?
It certainly isn't the case that all prize-winners write another book, or wrote one before, although most will have done as DGG says. It doesn't really matter anyway if they've won something at a national level. I don't think state-level prizes are going to cut it, though, because they seem often to be very parochial and even politicised. - Sitush (talk) 18:59, 20 October 2018 (UTC)
In order of importance:
1. writing a book does not make anyone notable. at the very least, it has to get published and read. And by this we usually mean get published by a reputable publisher, and widely read, and reviewed, and collected by libraries. Writing a dingle best-seller is in my opinion enough for notability--writing two certainly is. What I said about "write more" was of course a simplification. Writers awarded a major prize at the end of their career or after their death will not write more, and there are authors who have published one one significant book, or even only one book total. And, for that matter authors who have gotten not merely notable but famous for a small amount of published or even unpublished verse of fiction, and in a few instances, even unpublished verse.
2. Usually prize does mean major national prizes, though because of the nature of publishing (and some other fields), prizes that might seem local from centers like London or New York are in fact of national or international significance. And determiing if a nation prize is actually major can be a matter of judgemetn.
3.The idea that we should provide links to other language WPs is very much part of the purpose of WP. The English WP is particular has the practical responsibility of being the source for many of the smaller WPs. That our articles can be found and translated is important, & needs to be facilitated. .
4. Until I saw the current state of Wikidata demonstrated Friday at WM-NA in Columbus, I would have said the same about WikiData. I cannot say I trust it, but neither do I trust Wikipedia. WD's usually going to be almost as good. The two problems with it are a/ that if it has multiple sources ofi nformation it adds them all, without necessarily trying which one is right. b /it does not have data quality indicators. But WP has the same flaws to a very considerable extent.For that matter, so do library catalogs, such as WorldCat. There is no secondary source that is fully reliable for books, and all primary sources need interpretation. To find out when a book was actually published, and who the author actually is, normally amounts to a research project. I'll be glad to explain about the uncertainties in all of this. It's my profession, and the more you know, the more you know not to trust the data. I know how this would be done for a true scholarly encyclopedia , and I also know we do not have resources to do that, nor do I think the our method of editing ever really could do it. WP is a ready-reference tool, whose virtues are free availability and wide scope. . DGG ( talk ) 13:59, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

I'd consider the Sahitya Akademi Award(s) to be sufficient for notability, irrespective of the language. Current standards at AfD is that a two bit-part actor with two minutes of screen time in two episodes is sufficiently notable, then why on earth do we have ridiculously higher standards for academics and authors? As for Wikidata, I'd be very hesitant to use it, as while some correct info might be there, a lot of junk collated from other wikis also gets in, and worse, many of the promo sockfarms here have figured out how to use it to their advantage. —SpacemanSpiff 15:15, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Rename request Discussion at Talk:Jaggi Vasudev#Requested move 20 October 2018

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Jaggi Vasudev#Requested move 20 October 2018. DBigXrayᗙ 14:07, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Diwali wishes

File:Diwali lighting at Pataleshwar Caves Temple Maharashtra.jpg
Diwali lighting at Pataleshwar Caves Temple Maharashtra
Diwali (Festival of lights)
Enjoy the festival of lights

शुभ दीपावली to everyone. --DBigXrayᗙ 11:26, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

List of Indian Nobel laureates

Hi everyone,
List of Indian Nobel laureates is on FLC nomination. Please provide your valuable feedback, reviews, comments and support on the same. Thank you. The Herald (Benison) (talk) 08:10, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Rajive Dhavan

Can someone familiar with Indian entrepreneur-related articles have a look at Rajive Dhavan, an article I recently came across. The article is a messy pickle, I really don't know how this got accepted by an AFC reviewer and then—presumably—reviewed by a new page reviewer – there are a lot of references, including some from reputed outlets like The Hindu and the Business Standard, but, a good-few of them are interviews, some are interviews and the rest are self-published or primary sources. I would have AFDed the article myself, but, I don't feel entirely comfortable in doing so, hence, a little help would be much appreciated here. Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 04:00, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Editors in this WikiProject may be interested in the featured quality source review RFC that has been ongoing. It would change the featured article candidate process (FAC) so that source reviews would need to occur prior to any other reviews for FAC. Your comments are appreciated. --IznoRepeat (talk) 21:46, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Need help with a translation

Can anyone offer an accurate translation of the Urdu phrase haraam ki boti? It's the term used in India for the part that is discarded after female genital mutilation (FGM). Sources translate it as "immoral lump of flesh", "sinful flesh", "source of sin", "clitoris", "unwanted skin", and "cut and thrown away". Google Translate gives me "harvested beans"!

A debate rages as to what FGM in India entails exactly. Its supporters say only skin is removed. Its opponents say flesh is removed too. Therefore, I need a translation where I know the translator hasn't added their own view. SarahSV (talk) 01:03, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Look for the equivalent Arabic, there is no equivalent in Hindu/Urdu as it was not part of the culture. IMO FGM is a good enough on English Wikipedia. --Jaydayal (talk) 04:35, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
@Jaydayal: thanks for the reply. We do use the term FGM on Wikipedia. I'm trying to find out what the phrase haraam ki boti means in English, because that's apparently one of the terms used to describe FGM. SarahSV (talk) 19:05, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
SlimVirgin, if my knowledge of Hindi and Urdu serves me correctly, 'haram ki boti' should mean 'forbidden pieces of skin' or 'forbidden [and small] pieces of skin', do note, though, that 'skin' is easily replaceable by 'meat'. 'Boti' probably has its roots in the Indian Subcontinent, whereas, 'haram' has an Arabic origin; this is one confusing phrase. Also, sorry for the delay in replying! Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 18:13, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
SarahSV, Haraam means "ill gotten" or 'forbidden'. "Boti" literally means [25] morsel of flesh. The word is generally used for meat. I have never seen a usage of the word boti to refer to skin. Hope it helps. --DBigXrayᗙ 00:27, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
We have a big article on Haram in Islam/Arabic - basically "forbidden". As well as pork, alcohol etc, it also covers good/sacred etc things forbidden to some. Especially in Indian contexts, "unclean" covers some of the meaning. Johnbod (talk) 14:27, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Question about where to put info about individual Indian villages

I found a Time Asia article about how the Indian village of Pokhale, Warana, Maharashtra got media (satellite TV and internet) beginning in 1997 https://web.archive.org/web/20010211182046/http://www.time.com:80/time/asia/magazine/2000/1016/cover_sb1.html

Where should I put this info? Pokhale is redlinked, and Warana leads to a place in Australia.

WhisperToMe (talk) 23:27, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

use the redlink. --DBigXrayᗙ 00:00, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
@DBigXray: If that source is enough for a village, I could start it's own article. I'm wondering, though, which municipality it is a part of. WhisperToMe (talk) 11:13, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
WhisperToMe yes, this article makes the village notable enough. Warananagar is the closest city it seems so it can be used as a municipality in Kolhapur district. [26]--DBigXrayᗙ 13:43, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
Warana, Queensland has disam, so Warana, Maharashtra could be started straight away, if there's anything else to say about it. Johnbod (talk) 14:21, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
Thank you! I started Warana, Maharashtra. It might help to get additional clarification/references for how/where it falls in the municipal structure, but it's a great start! WhisperToMe (talk) 14:32, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Recent name changes of cities in India

I noticed several IP editors trying to change the names of a few cities in India (Allahabad division, Allahabad district, List of tourist attractions in Allahabad, Faizabad district -- see the article histories). After seeing the small havoc this is creating among vandal fighters, I researched the topic and found that some city names seem to be changing. (See UP cabinet approves renaming of Faizabad as Ayodhya, Allahabad as Prayagraj, for example.) Other older news seems to be telling a story that the name changes are under dispute and not finalized. Would someone from this project change the article names and adjust the content if necessary? Image file names should also be changed if necessary. Cheers! - tucoxn\talk 15:33, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

User:Tucoxn yes we are aware of these disruptive edits by IPs. Several of the experienced editors from both sides of this issue have debated it at length on Talk:Allahabad here are the conclusions based on my understanding.
  • These "Official name" renames are going on, none of these renames have completed the procedure, so technically none of these new names are official. (even though some reliable sources claim official name based on statements made by CM)
  • Even if these renames are completed it will only require a one line mention in the lead as official name and addition of official name parameter in the infobox.
  • The article titles are decided by WP:COMMONNAME and not OFFICIAL name. So until the mainstream media use of the new word overtakes the old name, we will not rename the articles. This may take several months, several years. e.g. Bangalore is still there on common name title and not official name.
  • Till that happens we will have to deal with the IPs and new users who are not familiar with our naming policies. the articles may need page protection and move protection. --DBigXrayᗙ 16:36, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the concise explanation. Faizabad district, List of tourist attractions in Allahabad, and Allahabad division are now semi-protected for 1 week, after which these pages will be automatically unprotected. Additional requests for protection might be needed at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. - tucoxn\talk 19:17, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
User:Tucoxn, You are welcome. Feel free to refer to this section for requesting future page/move protection. --DBigXrayᗙ 20:09, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Proposals to deal with issues due to the City Renames

Folks, if these news articles are true, there is a long list of upcoming renames. IPs and new editors are generally unaware of the Wikipedia WP:COMMONNAME policy which opens the flood gates for a lot of disruptive edits and headaches for vandal fighters and page watchers. While we can apply the semi-protection move protection on the page, we should discuss and also think of other ways since it is not in the project's interest to protect large number of pages for long periods of time.

Proposal 1

Use Wikipedia:Editnotice that prominently explains that if you are here to replace the existing name with new official name, then desist. (something of that type) and also add relevant comments in the Infobox and the lead explaining the same. (Clarify: This will be applicable for articles that are at the receiving end of rename related disruptive edits.)

Pinging User:Cpt.a.haddock User:SshibumXZ User:Thomas.W who had participated in these rename debates. for their opinion on this proposal.--DBigXrayᗙ 20:09, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

  • I'm generally skeptical as to the effectiveness of edit-notices, but they also have no associated disadvantage, so I would support a carefully worded edit-notice warning editors about COMMONNAME and the need for name changes to be implemented rather than announced. Also, since I'm here, I might as well mention that I'm generally uninvolved in this name-change fracas, and I would be willing to semi-protect relevant pages if there's any sign of disruption: so feel free to ping me if I'm online. Vanamonde (talk) 21:10, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes, I'd be happy to place the notice, if we reach a consensus for it here. Policies governing these are somewhat fuzzy, but as long we create an informational edit-notice (rather than one implying some sort of editing restriction) I think local consensus is enough to add it to relevant pages.
    If, on the other hand, we want to create such a restriction (I don't think you're proposing that, DBX, I just want to make sure) I think we'd require wider community discussion. Vanamonde (talk) 21:44, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
  • To clarify these edit notices will be put on Indian city articles on need basis. The need being "Article history overrun by name changes and subsequent reverts". I feel that instead of having such a discussion on the talk page of every Indian city/settlement article it is better to discuss it here (to prevent duplication of efforts) and point to this consensus everytime this measure is implemented on an Indian article on this long list.--DBigXrayᗙ 22:12, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
  • yes WBG, I became aware of it just yesterday. I think TE's are allowed access based on the trust. So Please keep a watch on this thread along with VNM, thanks. --DBigXrayᗙ 16:23, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
  • FWIW, if prominently displayed inline comments above the lede and next to the name parameter within the infobox haven't deterred these editors, I'm not sure that edit notices will be more helpful. But, as Vanamonde has noted, it won't hurt either. Also, along with semi-protection, these pages should also be move protected.—Cpt.a.haddock (talk) (please ping when replying) 15:43, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
  • ...And it was moved 3 times in a week, clearly a move protection is needed there, I have requested at RFPP, I think these articles should be move protected after instances of undiscussed moves. A successful RM discussion should be the only way to move these disputed title articles. --DBigXrayᗙ 16:19, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Reliable source for existence/notability of a village

Barzi is a stub which was created in Feb 2017. It was immediately tagged as unreferenced and for notability, indeed PRODded as "non-notable place". I removed the "notability" tag and dePRODded it, saying "All populated places are considered notable".

But it is still there, unreferenced, no co-ordinates.

Googling confirms that it appears to exist, but my question to you experts is this: What Reliable Source should be used to confirm this village's existence? It appears in a lot of all-India websites ([27] [28] [29] etc), but I don't know which are reliable. Any suggestions, for both this and future unreferenced Indian populated places? I know links are sometimes made to the census info: is that the best?

I don't focus on Indian articles particularly but come across a lot of them while stub-sorting. PamD 09:03, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

PamD, see this discussion. ∯WBGconverse 12:34, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, @Winged Blades of Godric:. I see that most sources are unreliable, as I thought, and @Utcursch: recommends using "District Census Hand Books or another suitable source". Any advice on other "suitable source"s? The census is pretty cumbersome, requiring me to open a 474-page pdf file. But I've added a source to this particular article, and the population too. PamD 17:56, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Tarini Charan Choudhuri

Can anyone assist in tracking down information on this early 20th-century Indian scholar and educator? Researching Tarini Choudhury Govt. Girls H.S. & M.P. School, which is at AfD, suggested that there are a number of schools named for this person (him?) under either "Choudhury" or "Charan", and I find mention of a History of India in Bengali, plus An Outline of the History of Sanskrit Literature, which was published in a second revised edition in 1916. There may even be an article on Bengali Wikipedia, for all I know; I can't read it. Yngvadottir (talk) 20:15, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your post here, Based on my searches and this Autobiography,[1] I strongly believe The school's name is "Choudhuri", so the current name is good. For some reasons Telegraph while writing about its notable and highly awarded alumni Mamoni Raisom Goswami, calls it "Chandra".[2] This local newspaper[3] calls it "pioneering institution for girl education, the Tarini Choudhary Government Girls Higher Secondary and Multipurpose School". To me it looks like a reasonably notable and historical school of Guwahati. Please note that all these sources I referred are in English language, while the local language is Assamese.--DBigXrayᗙ 21:57, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Goswami, Mamoni Raisom (1990). The Unfinished Autobiography. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers. ISBN 978-81-207-1173-0.
  2. ^ https://www.telegraphindia.com/states/north-east/schools-recall-priceless-pupil/cid/327691
  3. ^ https://www.sentinelassam.com/news/shortage-of-staff-leaves-hs-schools-in-lurch/
I saw the autobiography too, but didn't add it or any of the other obituaries of Goswami that I saw. (And I found we were also already citing a source that gives an additional notable alumna: Nirupama Borgohain). I hope the school article gets kept, but my interest was piqued by this educator. There's obviously a problem of different transliterations, and the antiquated source I found mentioning the History of India specified Bengali, so I'm thinking he was a Bengali writer, but I honestly don't know; however, the variations in the name of the school suggested to me that everybody there knew his name was Charan as well as Choudhuri. I suspect he was pretty eminent and would merit an article. Just hoping someone can shake sources loose :-) Yngvadottir (talk) 22:06, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Issue with image on Gwalior State

An IP editor keeps removing an image on this article saying that the article is not about the British. The image shows Mahadji Sindhia entertaining two British officers and is in a section that discusses Sindhia making a treaty with the British and as such seems a reasonable image to include. Can anyone with an interest please comment at Talk:Gwalior State. noq (talk) 11:17, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Thakur of Kapurpur

Could someone have a look at Thakur of Kapurpur? – Uanfala (talk) 16:58, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Unsourced Geneology looks fit for deletion. User:Uanfala what is your concern actually ? --DBigXrayᗙ 17:15, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
Well, I was hoping for someone to evaluate the situation and do the needful :). I'm wary of proposing deletion myself in areas where I don't have any background. – Uanfala (talk) 17:23, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
OK, User:Uanfala I have PRODed it. --DBigXrayᗙ 20:15, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
Thanks! But oh look, now there's also Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Samrat Singh Jaunpur. Btw, the ping didn't work: in order to trigger a notification, a mention needs to be on a newly added line (see WP:ECHO). Not that there's really a need to ping me here: I've started this thread, so I'm watching it. – Uanfala (talk) 20:22, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
Well then, keep a watch, if the SPI blocks him, then this article can be G5ed. cheers and thanks for the note on ping. appreciate it. --DBigXrayᗙ 20:33, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
Now deleted. --DBigXrayᗙ 20:24, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Community Wishlist Survey 2019

Need support for the proposal. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Wishlist_Survey_2019/Maps/Maps_Improvements:_Vector_Structure,_Disputed_Borders,_Cleaner_Style --naveenpf (talk) 05:36, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Velukkudi Krishnan - vandalism?

Hello, Velukkudi Krishnan looks like it has undergone some vandalism. Some of the recent edits look constructive, but some do not. Please could someone take a look? I'm not familiar with any of the topics covered in the article, so I can't tell how to fix it. Thanks. DferDaisy (talk) 16:11, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Today's article for improvement: Kalagnanam

I can't see if it's a specific book with prophecies or simply the genre of such writing, but the article is ceratinly an odd read. It has a longish list of "fulfilled prophecies", my favourite one of which is:

A man with no mustache will emerge to country and Flag will fly on Great Mountains ~ About Jawaharlal Nehru ruling India and first Indian flag on Mount Everest on 29.05.1953

— Govinda Vakyam 24.

Anyone interested? – Uanfala (talk) 22:02, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi:: @Uanfala:! Im interested would like to participate. Will let you know If I come across anything interesting or significant. (Purplecart (talk) 11:36, 28 November 2018 (UTC))

Villages

There are more than 100 villages in Category:Villages in Kamrup district alone. Are they notable at all? Marcocapelle (talk) 09:48, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Marcocapelle, yep, anything and everything that is populated and officially recognised is considered notable pursuant to WP:GEOLAND. Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 10:08, 1 December 2018 (UTC); edited 10:17, 1 December 2018 (UTC).

List of Rajasthan Royals cricketers

Please participate in this discussion. Thanks. Sa Ga Vaj 04:13, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Assistance needed with editor adding unsourced edits

Seeking assistance with trying to get Sid54126 (talk · contribs) to cite sources for his many changes to India-related articles. This seems to be mainly in the area of names of legislative assembly constituency districts, especially in UP, and what with all the renaming going on, we do need editors in that area willing to take that on. The content of his edits might be okay, but he has never added a source in dozens or perhaps hundreds of edits. Also, he has never responded to repeated pleas and warnings at his talk page to cite sources. This editor either is unwilling to follow verifiability policy, or perhaps does not understand English sufficiently to do so. (I left one brief, google-translated warning in case that was the issue; if the translation is rubbish, please fix it up.) Whatever the problem is, he needs a wake-up call. I've been unable to get through to him; if anyone can help explain this to him, I'd appreciate some assistance at User talk:Sid54126#Stop making unsourced changes to India articles. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 19:54, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Simultaneously to my placing the above notice, user Sid54126 reverted my revert, here, with his rationale in the edit summary, and also responded (for the first time ever, afaict) at my Talk page, here, with his view about sourcing, which does not agree with my interpretation of verifiability policy. (And his English is just fine.) I will hold off reverting further edits by this user until other editors here have chimed in on this. My current view is that this user needs to either source his changes or be blocked, but I'd like to know what others think. Mathglot (talk) 20:13, 5 December 2018 (UTC)


Dear Mathglot (talk), I have sourced my changes to the page List of constituencies of Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly. Please check that sources. These sources are relevant to Indian election topics. Thanks for understanding my "just fine" english. Thanks, Sid54126 (talk) 20:33, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

You haven't sourced your changes. Websites placed in a list at the top of the article cannot be a replacement for citing your individual changes with footnotes; otherwise, the list would serve equally as well as a reference for all future changes made to the table, even if made by malicious trolls adding fake information to the table. That would make the article unverifiable. You must source your changes following verifiability policy, by using references. If you are unable to do this, you can issue an Edit request on the talk page of the article (here's how), and someone else can add the information for you, along with a reference. If you are unwilling to do this, then you should be blocked from editing.
You have avoided communicating with other editors until a block was threatened. Now that you have started to communicate, you are still insisting on your point of view and edit warring at the article while discussing, contrary to WP:BRD. Please revert your reverts, and discuss first. (P.S., please read WP:THREAD about replying to comments at Talk pages.) Cordially, Mathglot (talk) 21:06, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
Mathglot The google translate message was accurately translated to Hindi. Sid54126 please respond to talk page messages when asked. --DBigXrayᗙ 07:03, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Could an admin lock List of current Indian chief ministers for experienced editors only?

Following assembly elections, trigger-happy editors and IPs are often over-eager to make changes of the List of current Indian chief ministers featured list. These usually quickly devolve into edit wars as the IRL political situation is often very fluid. Therefore could an admin lock this page for experienced editors only? I've found that it's most sensible to make changes only when a new chief minister is sworn in by his governor. Thank you,—indopug (talk) 14:20, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

indopug, WP:RFP is the right place to make such a request. There is hardly any disruption on the page to merit a protection. please revert the additions if not reliably sourced. --DBigXrayᗙ 14:23, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Article on Terrorism in Pakistan

I made a proposal here, but all the permutations and combinations have been rejected by another editor and so, I thought that someone experienced can only add it. Please add what is proposed there to the article in a way that is acceptable according to the rules. It was copied from the List of fatwas article, from the section titled, "Fatwas against terrorism, Al-Qaeda and ISIS". I also wrote about the Trump administration withdrawing aid citing its dissatisfaction with Pakistan's counter-terrorism, but it has been removed as can be seen here. Please modify and add that back to the article in a way that others will accept it, according to the rules. Thanks!-Karumari (talk) 16:35, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

No. Cesdeva (talk) 15:15, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Huge Amount of Paid Editing and Paid article creation is done in India for schools.

Huge Amount of Paid Editing and Paid article creation is done in India.

Please Take a look at these articles most of the artcles are just "GRADE SCHOOLS" and we all know that grade schools are not notable at all. The citation provided are not independent, and grades school are not notable these types of articles are created by such private school to attract students so they can increase their PROFITS, it's a very common practice in india. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#G11 And also check who creates such advertisements he should be banned from editing Wikipedia there are more than 1000s of such non-notable paid advertisements in English Wikipedia.

You are my last hope for Independent Wikipedia in India. parents are forced to pay high fees in these schools as we all trust wikipedia, and these schools take advantage of it.

i am just a user with no rights like you, so i can not delete them all requested for deletion of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delhi_Public_School_Ghaziabad and it got deleted.

LIST OF SUCH SCHOOLS BY STATE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_schools_in_India

Nuksanhai (talk) 13:11, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

I hope you all (everyone in WP:India) have a wonderful Christmas and a happy new year.

Warmest wishes, Cesdeva (talk) 18:02, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks User:Cesdeva Thanks a lot for the kind wishes. Wish you and everyone here at the WP:INDIA a Merry christmas and a fun filled new year ahead. cheers.--DBigXrayᗙ 19:42, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Access a source at the-ken.com

I need to access

for BGR-34. Any help will be immensely appreciated:-) ∯WBGconverse 07:00, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Requested move

There is a requested move at Talk:Hindu that may need your opinion. Please come and help. Paine Ellsworth, ed.  put'r there  15:30, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Category:Indian radio programs or Category:Indian radio programmes

See this category discussion. Marcocapelle (talk) 21:38, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Phuraloung

Please  take a look at this article to help me determine whether it meets wikipedias guidelines. The article is Phuraloung and it seems like the entire article is created by a single guy. Vif12vf/Tiberius (talk) 15:45, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi WT India members, I moved this request here from my talk page, as I would appreciate more eyes and opinions on this article that was brought to my notice by fellow WP:RCP contributor. --DBigXrayᗙ 22:32, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

The article reminds me of the Voynich manuscript. Nukeable abomination, however a bit of source reading suggests there's a viable topic behind it. I've deduced that 'Phra lung' is a religion tied to the Tai Ahom people. It involves elements of Hinduism, Buddhism, local Animism and ancestor worship.
The mentions of 'society' in the article perhaps refer to the attempts from 1967 onwards to get Phra Lung more recognised and to differentiate it from Hinduism.
Not my cup of tea, but I think someone more academic could get it to scrape GNG. Cesdeva (talk) 00:50, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
User:Cesdeva appreciate your kind reply. --DBigXrayᗙ 01:03, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
It is a mess. I did a bit of copyediting etc but it needs a lot of work. - Sitush (talk) 01:56, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article review/India/archive3

Hello all, I have requested Wikipedia:Featured article review/India/archive3 be reviewed. There are tons of issues with this article. I have listed some on the review. Please feel free to add more. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 01:25, 5 January 2019 (UTC))

And I have left the following response there: "user:Highpeaks35 is a new, and somewhat tendentious, editor. He doesn't know what an FAR involves. Moreover, the information he has given above is false. India became an FA in 2004, has remained one since, having gone through a drastic revision during a successful FAR in 2011. There wasn't much wrong with the article (in terms of meeting the featured article criteria) until he himself began to randomly, and prolifically, add text and images a few weeks ago. When his effort was stopped, and the article restored to its original form, in which it sits locked now, he struck upon this FAR idea, although it was being discussed on the talk page as an option if editors such as he could not be stopped. He thinks an FAR will allow him to restore his edits. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:24, 5 January 2019 (UTC)" Apparently, Highspeak35 thinks that an FAR involves others performing a review, and pronouncing judgment." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:38, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Wide-ranging BBC News story

I wouldn't usually do this because people can find information themselves but this story by the BBC is potentially useful to a very wide range of India-related articles, from state to social and women's issues to politics etc. I'm just throwing it out here and, doubtless, native India media has also reported on it in various forms. It's just a potentially very useful composite article, whether you agree with it or not. Feel free to use, to ignore or to dig around and see what else is out there. - Sitush (talk) 01:54, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi there. Very relevant story. Alcoholism among men, especially young men, is becoming a big problem in North India. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:42, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Dispute at FA India, feedback needed

Featured article India is was under full edit protection, following edit-warring primarily in the area of a content dispute regarding rotating images. The Talk page has grown 88kb since January 1, dominated by two editors contributing the bulk of the increase. The dispute needs calm, reasoned, policy-based feedback by uninvolved editors, in order to try and find a consensus for moving forward. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 22:18, 4 January 2019 (UTC) updated by Mathglot (talk) 08:53, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Om Thanvi

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Om Thanvi.  — fr + 09:28, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Nana Farari - Hindi translation

Hi, can anyone see what in this book relates to Nana Farari and whether or not it supports the claims made in the article? There is a bit of a competence problem going on with the creator. - Sitush (talk) 19:15, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi Sitush, The link you gave points to an Index page that does mention the name Nana Farari a dacoit who finds a mention on page 232, unfortunately Page 232 isnt visible in this book preview. Meanwhile I have found another source [30] that I am guessing is probably the same content in English. Hope it helps. Regards. --DBigXrayᗙ 19:34, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. That other source was in the article and I removed it because it appears to be a compilation of primaries. I can't find anything else in English, which doesn't bode well for WP:GNG but is of course not definitive. - Sitush (talk) 19:41, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
@Sitush: Your book is the Hindi translation of J. H. Hutton's Caste in India, OUP, 1946. Pharari appears in the English original at the bottom of page 251 and top of 252. Quite a grizzly fellow if the story is true. He was from Nasik in the Bombay Presidency. There should be more material on him. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:59, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
Excellent, thank you. - Sitush (talk) 21:07, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

@Sitush: It seems that Farari/Pharari was shot dead by the police in 1931, so the bit about him becoming a Robin Hood character after independence is not true. I don't know if this was one of your primaries, but it does have some information. Great Britain. India Office (1932), East India (progress and Condition): Statement Exhibiting the Moral and Material Progress and Condition of India, H.M. Stationery Office, pp. 547–548 (The same content was published in House of Commons papers and India in the year 1930-31) Relevant quote: "Another impressive incident occurred on the 28th of September. For many months previously, parties of special police had been on duty in the hilly country round Trimbak, in the Nasik District, in order to track down a notorious dacoit by the name of Nana Farari. These parties were under the direct control of a sub-inspector. On the date mentioned, the sub-inspector deputed a head constable and one other constable, both in disguise, to try to obtain information regarding Nana who was suspected to be in the vicinity of Torangan. The head constable went as directed towards Torangan, and chancing to hear shots in a jungle, soon discovered that he and his companions had come upon Nana Farari and his confederates. One Kalya, an intimate of Nana's, was standing on guard with a gun whilst the rest were sitting down. The head constable immediately decided to attack the gang and opened fire with the revolvers with which he and his single subordinate were armed. There is little doubt that two shots took effect as bullet marks were found on Nana's body when he was shot dead at a later date. On this occasion, however, the gang made good their escape in the dusk. The quality of the head constable's pluck and determination is emphasized by his lack of familiarity with a revolver. His action was undoubtedly responsible for putting Nana out of action for some months. In the final encounter with Nana in April 1931, the same officer again showed a complete disregard of danger. During the year, no less than 5 policemen were killed and 57 injured, mostly while on duties connected with the Civil Disobedience Movement. Many others received slight injuries from stones thrown by mobs on various occasions. In Bombay City, the activities of the Congress were very intense, and Civil Disobedience assumed a particularly severe form. From April until the end of the year hardly a day passed without there being some procession, demonstration, meeting, or outbreak of disorder, and the strain imposed on the police was very great. Not only had they to work for exceptionally long hours at tasks which were arduous, distasteful, and frequently dangerous, but they were exposed to every kind of abuse and vilification in public and in the press, and were at times assaulted in the streets." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:25, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Call for bids to host Train-the-Trainer 2019

Hello everyone,

This year CIS-A2K is seeking expressions of interest from interested communities in India for hosting the Train-the-Trainer 2019.

Train-the-Trainer or TTT is a residential training program which attempts to groom leadership skills among the Indian Wikimedia community (including English) members. Earlier TTT has been conducted in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.

If you're interested in hosting the program, Following are the per-requests to propose a bid:

  • Active local community which is willing to support conducting the event
    • At least 4 Community members should come together and propose the city. Women Wikimedians in organizing team is highly recommended.
  • The city should have at least an International airport.
  • Venue and accommodations should be available for the event dates.
    • Participants size of TTT is generally between 20-25.
    • Venue should have good Internet connectivity and conference space for the above-mentioned size of participants.
  • Discussion in the local community.

Please learn more about the Train-the-Trainer program and to submit your proposal please visit this page. Feel free to reach to me for more information or email tito@cis-india.org

Best!

Pavan Santhosh ( MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:52, 6 January 2019 (UTC) )

Page move request >> South Asian pickles to Desi pickles

Hello all, I would like to draw your attention to this page move request at South Asian pickles to Desi pickles or at least Indian pickles. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 00:03, 7 January 2019 (UTC))

ITV Sources

Hi, This is to invite a discussion about Indian television, the question being why do Indian television articles consider Indian film sources at WP:ICTF as reliable. Why is there no separate guideline and information about sources particularly for television. Because Indian media works very differently for films and television. It is incorrect to consider those sources as the only reliable sources for television because the focus of most of those sources is on film and bollywood coverage. There should be a separate set of sources that should be discussed and considered reliable for ITV because generally they are considered unreliable and any edits including them are reverted no matter how true, genuine and notable they might be. MiaSays (talk) 09:37, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

MiaSays, (considering that you are not speaking about Great Britain), what the heck is ITV? ∯WBGconverse 12:33, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
Winged Blades of Godric, I think that it probably means Indian Television << FR 12:39, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, seems so :-) ∯WBGconverse 12:49, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
Winged Blades of Godric I think it's pretty evident if you read the whole paragraph. The only thing I'm talking about is Indian television and the need to discuss it's sources.MiaSays (talk)
I grant you that, understanding notability of any subject (and writing articles) in these areas is quite difficult given that we don't trust low quality source with little editorial control and that there is ample amount of promotional-paid-spam; in reliable national-media (TOI is the poster boy), in these areas which are useless to us.
At any case, can you give us an example of a source that you propose to use in these areas? ∯WBGconverse 12:56, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
Winged Blades of Godric, Ofcourse! I can list two sources which properly cover Indian television, Pinkvilla and BollywoodLife. I know most people will probably say that these aren't reliable enough but I'm suggesting these just because these are two sources which really cover Indian television, the show launches, awards, information about actors and basically everything that is required. But since only Indian film sources are considered, these are considered unreliable. As far as I have seen, they cover Indian television well enough and post confirmed content and not rumours. Secondly, I'd like to add another source, Biz Asia. It is a reliable source of UK Ratings of Asian television shows as well general updates and information. These are just my suggestions on the basis of which sources 'properly' cover Indian television. If not these, other sources anyone thinks can be discussed because there really is a NEED to discuss and finalise atleast 2-3 sources that do proper and not just vague coverage of Indian television. MiaSays (talk) 07:47, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Help with a delete discussion on an Indian political party

Hi fellow Wikipedians! A delete discussion is currently going on here - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Akhil Bharatiya Jan Sangh . I'm pretty sure that, if there are any sources that would show notability for this political party, then they would likely be in Hindi or another local language and not in English. Anyone have an idea where they might be found? Feel free to point them out in the discussion if you do know where to find them. FOARP (talk) 13:40, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

History of India needs major work

History of India is up to 338kb, and need of some major restructuring, splitting, and move of content to child articles. Meanwhile, new editors are dropping in anywhere from 1k to 10k, without considering WP:SS. Please chime in with your ideas at Talk:History of India#Size split and summary style. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 11:37, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Reference reliability

I am asking for comments regarding a discussion here on Talk:Chudasama dynasty#Reverting to older version for rewriting with new source. User:Sitush had opined to invite comments before going forward. Please express your opinion. More details on Talkpage.-Nizil (talk) 05:11, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, please could people respond at that talk page, not here. I will likely be keeping out of it as I've got to stay away from anything that might be stressful (no offence to Nizil - it's just the subject area). - Sitush (talk) 06:19, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
Sitush, nobody seem interested to discuss. :( What should I do? -Nizil (talk) 13:52, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Racism in British India

The article Racism in British India was redirected to Presidencies and provinces of British India in 2013 (due at least in part to serious NPOV concerns), but I have just reverted that as the topic is not discussed at the target. Please leave comments at Talk:Racism in British India#Redirected if you wish to discus this. Thryduulf (talk) 16:56, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Now draftified per talk page consensus. - Sitush (talk) 22:14, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Using Wiki-userbox : political parties

Hatting as OP blocked for socking (Skymhnty), pages/userboxes deleted, proposal didn't fly, nothing more to do here -- DBigXrayᗙ

Wikitext userbox where used
Political Party:
{{User:Tuwein/bjp_support}} Lua error: expandTemplate: template "User:Tuwein/bjp_support" does not exist. linked pages
{{User:Tuwein/modi_bjp}} Lua error: expandTemplate: template "User:Tuwein/modi_bjp" does not exist. linked pages
{{User:Tuwein/inc_support}} Lua error: expandTemplate: template "User:Tuwein/inc_support" does not exist. linked pages
{{User:Tuwein/inc_rahul}} Lua error: expandTemplate: template "User:Tuwein/inc_rahul" does not exist. linked pages

Can any one tell me if we need to have a consensus to get these Infoboxes at Wikipedia:WikiProject_India#WikiProject_India_userbox_templates — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tuwein (talk • contribs)

I doubt that you can have such a poll on a Wikiproject, consensus or not. It would go against the very grain of Wikipedia. How did you make the connection between such a blatantly political poll and an encyclopedia with strict guidelines about NPOV and neutrality?Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:27, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
Oh, gosh. I know there is huge scope for people to do as they wish on their userpages but I dislike these just as much as I dislike those that appear for other countries. If I had my way, think anyone who posted one should be automatically disbarred from editing any political articles relating to the country involved. (That won't happen but it is what should happen.) And your SHOUTING in the section title doesn't help - I am fixing that now. - Sitush (talk) 20:48, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
I'm actually amazed that someone who has had a registered account for two days can even grapple with creating such boxes! - Sitush (talk) 20:50, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
what about if i post these here at Wikipedia:Userboxes/Politics, I think that would be best. Where it will find friends, for example
This user is in favour of EU enlargement in a westerly direction.
EPP This user voted
EPP in 2014

User:S.Örvarr.S/Template:EU

This user hopes the UK
NEVER adopts the Euro.





Fowler&fowler as you said that It would go against the very grain of Wikipedia., just answer me what about friends at Wikipedia:Userboxes/Politics#Parties

One important thing to note is that any responsible citizen of any country would vote(the party that he/she supports), whether any one admits it on wikipedia or not we all support a political party. PROTIP: These info-boxes can help you guys determine if any editor has WP:CONFLICT to any of these parties. Tuwein (talk) 03:35, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
I am a responsible person and I have never voted - every politician I have ever seen or heard has been unworthy of my support, as has every party. Don't make assumptions. "Clever" people would not badge their COI here. People who know just how many problems we have with COI and Indian political articles would not create such userboxes. Just because it can be done does not mean it should be done. - Sitush (talk) 07:12, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
Sitush, I am really sorry you changed my heart. I will delete these now and will never ever think of creating such boxes. You are really an unbiased editor I am telling this on the basis of you contributions. Thanks Tuwein (talk) 16:45, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Admins need assistance

Hi, we have a report at WP:UAA that the username "land ka raja" is an offensive phrase in Hindi. English-speaking admins are unable to confirm that the term "land" is a Hindi term for "penis", finding only "lund" from online sources, but the reporting user insists that it is the same thing. We are unsure if the user is correct, or if this is a misunderstanding. Are there any Hindi speakers around who can assist? Thanks,  ~~Swarm~~  {talk}  07:43, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Admins have been assisted--DBigXrayᗙ 08:16, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

"Please use Indian English"

This discussion is about the use of Template:Indian English and Template:Use Indian English.

When I come upon a page with a template that entreats us to use {Indian English}, I am stumped. The article Indian English describes it as a dialect of English. It goes on to describe a series of spellings that, to me, are indistinguishable to from British English. If someone could point me to a definitive source for spelling that differs from British English -- or conjugation or syntax -- that would be great. Otherwise, the template is nigh-on meaningless, unless it is to use numbering that violates MOS:DIGITS. MOS:COMMONALITY tells us not to use crore or lakh. Any help is appreciated. Rhadow (talk) 19:33, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Written Indian English (IE) is probably not that different syntactically from standard British English. There are lexical differences here and there: batch mate (for class mate), common use of "fortnight" and "thrice," "back" to mean "ago" (I met him three years back), "out of station" (for out of town), "accomplish" (v) to mean equip ("accomplished him with the best tools"), "post" to mean after (I will do this post your arrival), and so forth. Traditional IE had many more, but with the advent of the internet some Indians have abandoned their uniquely Indian constructions, and with that are dying linguists' hopes of seeing a dictionary of Indian English. Spelling: IE scrupulously avoids Oxford spelling (-ize, -ization). For a Wikipedia user all that the "use Indian English" injunction means is that he or she should respect the constructions that are standard in Indian English but that are not shared with other varieties of English. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:13, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
Fowler&fowler, yeah, you're mostly right about what you wrote, including the stuff about the usage of 'fortnight', 'back' and -ise and -isation word endings ('realise', 'democratisation' et al.), but, I have to admit that I haven't ever encountered a person using 'accomplish' in the way you described, but, that's about it. Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 08:50, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the interesting details but are you suggesting that once {{Use Indian English}} appears on an article (and assuming it is a relevant topic), then "three years back" should not be changed to "three years earlier", for example? I would argue that "Use X English" refers mainly to spelling and date formats. MOS:COMMONALITY suggests that changing text to a form common to all varieties is best. That is rather vague, like many other guidelines. Johnuniq (talk) 08:52, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
@SshibumXZ: "Accomplish" does seem to be less common. It was legitimate usage in other Englishes not that long ago. e.g. "keep him from all power of evil, accomplish him with all good, and bring him up before Thy holy sanctuary ..." Many Indianisms do exist in other Englishes but are rare or archaic. "Needful" for "needed" would be such a word. @Johnuniq: "Three years back" is probably more common in spoken IE than written; so, yes, what you have suggested would be appropriate. But would I change "the ten accused were chargesheeted on the basis of electronic evidence?" Would I wikilink it to Chargesheet? I am not sure. What about "passed away" for died, also used in spoken Am E, but less often in written? Would I change "X passed away in 1928" in a WP article? I probably would. Would I change "fast unto death" to "hunger strike?" Probably not, in part because those two are not the same, the former not referencing a prison within the confines of which food is being refused. I do agree with WP:COMMONALITY, but also sometimes balk at making interventions of only minor rephrasing. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:45, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
This has been discussed here before. The template is, more than anything else, a product of Indian nationalists (anyone remember Zuggernaut, MangoWong etc?) and the Kumbaya singers. Fowler is correct in the analysis of differences between Indian and British English, which fundamentally relates to the fact that the Brits introduced English to India and then the language as spoken there got stuck in something of a timewarp. Hence, the use of "thrice" etc which are now contextually archaic in British English. There are a few specific exceptions but, generally speaking, copyediting Indian English into British English loses nothing and actually tends to make the article more accessible. For example, we simply should not say cops in an encyclopaedia, although it is commonly used in Indian news media; I think the frequent omission of the will just seem ill-educated to most readers; and the fairly common lack of spacing between initials just makes things harder to read. So, I polish the stuff and don't worry too much about national sensitivities; I can't recall anyone ever objecting. - Sitush (talk) 11:49, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
Hello Sitush, if we claim that this encyclopedia is in English, then the use of the definite article the is obligatory, whether or not we are implored to use Indian English. In the rest of the English-speaking world, the is the most common word in the language, delivering precision to any assertion. You are right, forgetting to use the is the result of unclear thinking, not the use of an equivalent language. Rhadow (talk) 13:18, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
Regarding passed away, we should not do it - see WP:DIED. Same with "met his maker", "attained moksha" and the umpteen other euphemisms for dying. - Sitush (talk) 11:53, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
Sorry, WP:EUPHEMISM. - Sitush (talk) 12:13, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
Hello Fowler&fowler, please direct me to a definitive source of the constructions that are standard in Indian English, else I cannot distinguish occurrences of {Indian English} from errors in standard English. Otherwise the tag is as vague as {do better}. As to your specific observations, common use of fortnight and thrice are mutually intelligible uses of archaic, but not foreign, words. Substitution of back for ago is not an uncommon usage anywhere in the English-speaking world. Batch mates, out of station, and accomplish are new ones on me, but they are insufficient to define an Indian standard dialect. As editors, we are unconcerned with phonology. In Wikipedia, there is no similar recommendation to create articles in Caribbean English or African-American Vernacular English. In both of those cases, institutions employ a national standard for written work, British English for the the first, and American English for the second. Both of those lects have more speakers for whom they are a mother tongue than the 0.1% of Indians for whom English is a first language. Rhadow (talk) 12:32, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

@Rhadow: The evolution and course of Indian English has been driven by the speech of second language speakers who now number 300 million and counting, and among whom are writers such as Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Vikram Seth, R. K. Narayan, Anita Desai, Amitav Ghosh, Jawaharlal Nehru, and so forth. Whatever it is, a dialect or not, a regional variety or not, linguists take it seriously. The late Sidney Greenbaum had some prescient thoughts about it, which I unfortunately don't remember precisely right now. I said above that there are not too many syntactical differences with standard BE. I meant coarse or crude differences; there are, however, many fine or subtle differences, that I myself am not too expert on, but that are the subject of a spate of recent books:

I think to hope that the "Indian English" tag will be removed after ten or more years is to wander into a fraught landscape and history. I would not touch it. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:42, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, Fowler&fowler, you make my point. Register and Spoken Indian English are irrelevant to the discussion of the written language of an encyclopedia. If "there are not too many syntactical differences with standard BE", then we are talking about a distinction without a difference. All the {Indian English} tag refers to are "fine or subtle differences". The result of the tag then will be that a small minority of WP editors will profess expertise, making an argument from authority likely to be a logical fallacy. Rhadow (talk) 14:17, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
PS The OED has some five hundred Indian English words, but half are of historical significance only, being part of the speech of Anglo-Indians, i,e the domiciled British in India (not in its later meaning of people of mixed British and Indian parentage who now comprise the 150,000 native speakers in India) and many are neologisms or portmanteau with English and vernacular parts. The best source of distinctive written Indian English would be Indian newspapers, especially The Statesman and The Telegraph of Calcutta, Times of India, Bombay, The Indian Express, and The Hindu. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:59, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Words like bungalow, you mean? Whilst I can pretty much always understand reports in The Hindu, the same is not true of The Times of India which, to be frank, often seems to contain a lot of ambiguity and contradiction even when it is intelligible - I'm not convinced that it is a good example of any form of English! All this said, I add {{use Indian English}} to articles and will continue to do so; if nothing else, it helps future contributors in understanding that, say, a quotation is indeed quoted accurately even if it looks a little odd to many of them. But I still generally polish the garbage in a British English way, sorry. And you're right: there is little chance of getting consensus to deprecate the template, if that is the ultimate point of this thread. - Sitush (talk) 14:19, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
@Rhadow: Well, register is an important difference even in written English. What might be informal or casual in AmE or BE might be normal in IE. Or what might be normal in IE might be archaic in BE. Sitush has given the example of "cops" being used in newspapers. There are many others I have come across. I have seen mixing of formal and informal registers in the same sentence, e.g. in this made up example "I saw at once the bloodied body below and the cops' helicopter above." This a common in newspaper columns. I am not disagreeing with you, but IE is being documented (see the corpora of Indian English: ICE-IND corpus and the Kohlapur corpus and the numbers of IE speakers is increasing with increased literacy in India. I expect the difference will grow as well. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:39, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
So Fowler&fowler, at your suggestion, I looked at the front page of today's Times of India. The article on Brexit was sourced in London and might have been edited at Reuters. Another article, "1.4 crore people take dip as Kumbh Mela begins". [[31]]. The lede reads, "The sacred baths began at break of dawn as the sun rose over the horizon and went on through the day till the last rays set over the Sangam, the chants of "Har Har Gange" reaching a crescendo as lakhs of people took a dip to mark the beginning of the beginning of the Kumbh Mela on Tuesday." This is the voice, tone, and attitude I should adopt as I write about railway stations? It's a fine piece of prose, lyrical, even, but has no place in Wikipedia. Dropping the before "break of dawn" was poetic. It recalls Homer: "When rosy-fingered Dawn came bright and early." If this the style I am to adopt for railway stations and dams, fine. I just need to hear it from others. Rhadow (talk) 15:26, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

@Rhadow: When someone starts talking like an ass, they can't expect to receive cogent responses. That is not directed at you, only an example of mixed registers. Why don't you rail at the pages that have

or

 ? All three country articles carry them. Ask them how reading Naipaul, Robertson Davies, or Patrick White will will help you write articles on the railroads. All the very best. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:52, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Fowler&fowler, ask me dat nuh! It have only two articles marked {Trinidadian English}. [register changes here] The article Trinidadian and Tobagonian English has itself been marked for two years {Use American English}. There are no articles marked {Australian English} or {Canadian English}. An encyclopedia needs to be written in a style appropriate to the reader unfamiliar with the topic. Lakhs and crores are as familiar to most people as guineas and furlongs, colorful language, but not useful in expository writing.
I am not railing, nor do I intend to be an ass. I only hope to normalize Wikipedia to a universally useful and mutually intelligible source of information. There is no reason for the encyclopedia to use flowery local language when encyclopedic style is more appropriate. I am happy to accept Oxford spelling for those national articles where it is used. All the best. Rhadow (talk) 14:12, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
@Rhadow: There are 93 thousand articles that say up top, "Use Australian English" when you edit the articles. (See Category:All Wikipedia articles written in Australian English). Over 4,000 say, "Use Canadian English." See Category:All Wikipedia articles written in Canadian English. The Wikipedia articles for these two countries, both FAs, have "This article is written in ..." (as displayed above). See Talk:Australia, Talk:Canada. See also Talk:Trinidad and Tobago, Talk:Trinidad for the respective Trinidad English signs. Over 1,200 articles are written in Jamaican English; see Category:All Wikipedia articles written in Jamaican English. Over a hundred are written in Nigerian English: Category:Use Nigerian English. 154 are written in Singapore English; see Category:Use Singapore English; over 2,400 use Hong Kong English; see Category:Use Hong Kong English. 12,000 are written in New Zealand English; see Category:Use New Zealand English. Some 2,300 use Pakistani English; see Category:Use Pakistani English. Over 5,000 use South African English; see Category:Use South African English. Over 108,000 use Indian English; see Category:Use Indian English. Over 198,000 are written in British English; see Category:Use British English. The remaining, millions and millions, are written in the Wikipedia default, American English. So, really, why even have British spelling, considering its output constitutes a minuscule fraction of all WP output.
This general discussion doesn't really belong to this page, whose discussions have more limited, modest, purpose; it does to the MOS pages or at the Village Pump. As for flowery language, it is a feature of all Englishes. All have their encyclopedic styles as well. Any Wikipedia editor edits a WP article by employing the variety of English with which they are most comfortable. If there is a lack of fit with the advertised language of editing, then others, with more knowledge of it, will usually step in and fix it. That is the simplest way to edit. In any case, you will not learn Indian English by reading one article in the Times of India, and interpreting that to be the norm.
You are not the first one who has come by here, trolling these pages, professing high purpose, but in the end offering little but thinly disguised sneering at the very idea of Indian English.
This is as far as can I go in engaging you. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:46, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

In case anyone is not aware, this topic is now being discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) Cesdeva (talk) 14:52, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

  • My two paise ("cents" ): Indian English preserves and uses some phrases/words of British English. For example (this many not be the best example, howver I can think of this only now) w. e. f "with effect from", see. --Titodutta (talk) 01:07, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

The template {{use Lilliputian English}} makes sense only as a question of stylistic consistency, not as an exhortation to change vocabulary or syntax in a way that makes it more familiar to Lilliputians, but less comprehensible in other parts of the world. The point of any of the "use English" templates is stylistic only, they are about consistency and not comprehensibility. They are there to help willing editors who wish to observe a consistency previously determined by first use by early editors, or by strong ties to a national topic. They do not trump clarity and intelligibility to the reader, which always come first, before any stylistic consideration.

I'd rather read an article with a mishmash of Trinidadian, Canadian, Zimbabwean, South African, and Australian spelling curiosities that is restricted to terms completely understandable to everyone, than an article written in one, 100% pure, national variety of English that uses numerous terms peculiar to one country and that leaves readers in other parts of the world scratching their heads in confusion. Which is why, for example, you should never write, "the MP tabled the motion" in a Wikipedia article, because either everybody in the U.S. will misunderstand it, or everybody in Great Britain will, since the term is a regional contranym; instead, you find a workaround that everyone will understand.

That applies to Indian English, because it has a fair number of terms that won't be well-understood elsewhere, but it applies equally to others as well, and if terms used in articles are common in AE or BE but are opaque in Indian English, than it's equally fair to require them to be changed to an expression that would be understood in the subcontinent as well as everywhere else.

The main problem with the {{use Indian English}} template for those willing non-Indian editors (like yours truly) who want to do the right thing, and who know how to write in either AE or BE and follow those templates, is that we will have no idea what to do with {{use Indian English}} when we see it, and will probably just ignore it, or assume that BE is close enough, and use that instead. Worse, we might perhaps be scared away entirely by the template and not bother to edit the article at all, to the detriment of the encyclopedia. Really, every article should just have a {{use World English}} template on it, and then when they all have it, they can all be removed because it will be a de facto standard. Mathglot (talk) 11:00, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

On a separate, subtopic: I must respectfully disagree with Sitush where he said, "I add {{use Indian English}} to articles and will continue to do so; if nothing else, it helps future contributors in understanding that, say, a quotation is indeed quoted accurately even if it looks a little odd to many of them." This is not a good usage of the template. For one thing, the template is likely to be distant from the actual quotation and missed. For another, a long article, on poetry, say, might have quotations from writers of AE, BE, Irish, Scots, Indian, and Australian English; then what template do you use at the top of the article?
In a case like this, do not tag the article, tag the quotation directly with {{lang-en-GB}}, {{lang-en-US}} or one of the other English dialect multilingual support templates. If a language template is missing, {{as written}} can be pressed into service: "Mighty Bhishma, hath he fallen? quenched is archer Karna's pride? / Drupad monarch of Panchala sleeps by foeman Drona's side?". Mathglot (talk) 11:29, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Is the FB page used as a source for Sathatha Sri Vaishnava‎ a reliable source?

Here's the link.[32] to the article. The FB page is at [33] Doug Weller talk 17:34, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Request to move Mustafabad, Haryana to Saraswati Nagar

There is a request to move the article Mustafabad, Haryana. The subject appears to have been officially renamed to Saraswati Nagar. The request was made on 2 January 2019, but so far has gained zero attention. It was relisted a first time to Wikipedia:Requested moves on 10 January. I have just relisted the discussion a second time, and made a note here, in the hope that someone from this WikiProject may be interested in participating. Renerpho (talk) 01:20, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Here, hold my beer. Cesdeva (talk) 01:38, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
Holding and watching. Renerpho (talk) 22:42, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Criteria for promotion from {India-railstation-stub}

I'm not personally convinced that the mere existence of a railway station makes it notable, but I don't argue it here. I would like some objective standards for removal of the {India-railstation-stub} tag. These articles are often short because there is nothing to say. I think the stub tag should be removed when the following criteria are met:

  1. The article has two references that are not from an official timetable site. A newspaper, for example.
  2. The lede is well written,
  3. The town or nearest town is wikilinked
  4. Indic script is removed in accord with WP:INDICSCRIPT
  5. The article has coordinates. A map is a nice-to-have
  6. Timetables are removed. The trains that pass do not confer notability.

What do you think? Rhadow (talk) 16:29, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Why not just use a new tag {{India Railway cleanup needed}} (or whatever), with application based on your criteria above. The worst articles would then populate that maintenance category. Problem solved. Cesdeva (talk) 16:11, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
I opened an RfC on the topic at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Trains#RfC_India_railway_stations. Rhadow (talk) 15:43, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
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