Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics/Archive 45

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Vikramāditya needs attention

I'm not sure if this is the right place to bring this. The article no longer has a lead and seems full of OR. Earlier versions, eg [1], had a lead. Not my field but it needs attention. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 07:48, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Mumbai Images

There is currently a discussion on Talk:Mumbai for changes in the images on the Mumbai article - requesting WP:India editors for their views. Around The Globeसत्यमेव जयते 16:58, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Lanco infratech

A couple of editors who look like company employees (they don't edit other stuff) keep reverting my edits on the Lanco Infratech article which I created some time back. Their edits read like a company brochure and has no citations. I have added a discussion page to discuss issues. They visit the article much more frequently than I do; I don't want an edit war. Help requested. mukerjee (talk) 12:41, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Came in and reverted back to your NPOV version. Article seems to be suffering clear attempts to remove mention of controversies associated with the company (backed up by reliable news refs), and to add blatant POV terms like "impressive" to praise the company. Accompanied, of course, by Edit Summaries from the advert editors accusing Mukerjee of "POV" and personal motives, and threatening to tell an administrator. I'd recommend at least a few other editors add this page to their watchlists so we can keep an eye out for future attempts to take the warts off and make the page a promo brochure. MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:42, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

New India related project

I have put in a proposal to setup a new project to the WikiProject Council to tackle some issues related to nomenclature that I'm seeing all over Wikipedia - from the 2011 Cricket World Cup article to Ganga and many others. Please participate in the discussion at the project proposal council board to determine the viability of such a project. Zuggernaut (talk) 14:50, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Citation templates now support more identifiers

Recent changes were made to citations templates (such as {{citation}}, {{cite journal}}, {{cite web}}...). In addition to what was previously supported (bibcode, doi, jstor, isbn, ...), templates now support arXiv, ASIN, JFM, LCCN, MR, OL, OSTI, RFC, SSRN and Zbl. Before, you needed to place |id={{arxiv|0123.4567}} (or worse |url=http://arxiv.org/abs/0123.4567), now you can simply use |arxiv=0123.4567, likewise for |id={{JSTOR|0123456789}} and |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/0123456789 → |jstor=0123456789.

The full list of supported identifiers is given here (with dummy values):

  • {{cite journal |author=John Smith |year=2000 |title=How to Put Things into Other Things |journal=Journal of Foobar |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=3–4 |arxiv=0123456789 |asin=0123456789 |bibcode=0123456789 |doi=0123456789 |jfm=0123456789 |jstor=0123456789 |lccn=0123456789 |isbn=0123456789 |issn=0123456789 |mr=0123456789 |oclc=0123456789 |ol=0123456789 |osti=0123456789 |rfc=0123456789 |pmc=0123456789 |pmid=0123456789 |ssrn=0123456789 |zbl=0123456789 |id={{para|id|____}} }}


Obviously not all citations needs all parameters, but this streamlines the most popular ones and gives both better metadata and better appearances when printed. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:58, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Next Pune meetup - 12 March 2011 at SICSR


AshLin (talk) 04:38, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Konkani Language articles need attention

three articles Konkani Phonology, Canara Konkani and Konkani Script need contributions.Imperium Caelestis 06:08, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Request

  • I request editors to have a look at this discussion, and achieve a consensus. I am going on a Wikibreak for some time. Hope to see that issue resolved once I come back! Yes Michael? •Talk 14:33, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of S. R. Bhosle Krida Sankul Stadium

The article S. R. Bhosle Krida Sankul Stadium has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

I dont find any information on this stadium in Google News or Google Book Search, in fact I have never heard of it before

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

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

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Around The Globeसत्यमेव जयते 07:32, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

FLC nom - List of international cricket centuries at Brabourne Stadium

List of international cricket centuries at Brabourne Stadium has been nominated for WP:Featured List status - the flc is ongoing here - [2]. Around The Globeसत्यमेव जयते 07:38, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Devasahayam Pillai

just like to apprise folks of the heavily POV ridden Devasahayam Pillai, edited by editor(s) with WP:COI . thanks Arjuncodename024 16:34, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Naxal articles

Please feel free to chip in to discussions Talk:Maoist_Communist_Center#Fork and Talk:Communist_Party_of_India_(Marxist–Leninist)_People's_War#Referencing. I'm in dialogue that is so far proving futile with another editor, which refuses to discard a source that confuses India and Nepal as well as making factually incorrect claim on whether MCC and MCCI are two separate entities. --Soman (talk) 21:02, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Choosing topics for Wikipedia for Schools (Offline Ed) - Indian version : #1 Cities

Hello friends,

Article selection for Wikipedia for Schools (Offline Ed) - Indian version has begun. I have started selecting articles. I chose Geography as a relatively uncontroversial topic to begin with. The first items added were the states & union territories - uncontroversial, just added them all. The next I have selected are Indian cities.

User:AshLin/Work_list

Any that you feel should be removed/added? Your thoughts on this issue? AshLin (talk) 18:38, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

As I've said above, we need to put this project on hold until we add an additional step to the 8 steps you list above. The additional step I am talking about should address the problem of NPOV in India articles due to a systemic bias, specifically British bias. We should treat this only next to the "censorship" step in terms of importance and priority. There are four sources of bias that I am aware of:
  1. The racist bias in 18th, 19th and early-mid 20th century British literature. Some of this can easily and has in the past crept in to Wikipedia articles.
  2. The odd British nationalist editor who wants to glorify the British Empire will edit articles from a viewpoint that is alien to India school children.
  3. The Brown Sahib Indian editor.
  4. University professors who have a strong anti-India POV and who can indulge in WP:OR (which is their day job).
Disclaimer: None of this is directed at any individual editor in particular but these types of editors do exist on Wikipedia but the great majority are most likely introducing bias unintentionally.
If you want to proceed with the project, I would recommend dropping all articles that deal with Indo-British history until the above issues are addressed.
It is not the case that there is no solution to this problem but it might take a while before we clean up the articles. Some possible solutions that come to my mind:
  1. Develop a tool that detects article references from years XXXX to XXXX in articles that fall under relevant projects.
  2. Develop a tool that searches articles under relevant projects for key offensive words.
  3. This may be controversial, but it might be worth looking at the contributors to an article to check for known editors who have a known POV issue.
  4. Another topic that should be dropped from the offline version is any article that falls under the Indian caste-system. Many of these articles are horrible and need substantial clean up.
Zuggernaut (talk) 06:36, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Related discussion

Editors here will be interested in an ongoing discussion on honorifics and titles at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(Indic) LeadSongDog come howl! 18:33, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Very confusing article at Rajbanshi

Rajbanshi appears to be about some community associated with Koch and Assam, but I'm having real trouble understanding the article, and the footnotes are very oddly formatted. I've at least added some wikilinks to dump the {deadend} tag, but if anyone is interested in this topic it could use a whack. MatthewVanitas (talk) 18:36, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I think the strange footnotes are because the article and footnotes were duplicated from Koch dynasty. I haven't actually read the article (and don't plan to); it may be a merge candidate. Shreevatsa (talk) 06:41, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

What is an "ACCL" medal (British India)?

On this page/section, Maratha#Military_service, there are several medal names which appear to have no article. Are any of these redirectable to other existing articles? I'm particularly unclear as to what an "ACCL" is. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:57, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

No mention of it on Maratha page now, so assume its resolved. It should read, AC (Cl I) or II or III as relevant (AC=Ashoka Chakra) which became Ashoka Chakra, Kirti Chakra and Shaurya Chakra respectively. AshLin (talk) 17:49, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Delhi Akshardham Fire in 2009

There is a ongoing discussion on inclusion of this information at Talk:Akshardham (Delhi). Around The Globeसत्यमेव जयते 07:50, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Concern regarding one sub article of Ankleshwar

Recently I found that in the wiki page of Ankleshwar a town in Gujarat there is an article at end which is named as Notable people. It seems to be very annoying since encyclopedias shouldn't contain this section and also there might be few people who have not done anything but their name is up. What to do in such case, delete it ??

Rangilo Gujarati 18:11, 14 March 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rangilo Gujarati (talk • contribs)

What I tend to do is this: put [[wikilinks]] up on all names, see which are red. I leave those that are blue, and of those that are red I leave only those that seem like they would definitely rate an article at some point in the near future. All others I put in hidden tags, along with something like this: <!-- DO NOT RESTORE THESE NAMES TO THE VISIBLE LIST UNTIL THEY HAVE THEIR OWN WIKIPEDIA ARTICLES TO PROVE NOTABILITY -->.

So, that's one man's method. MatthewVanitas (talk) 18:37, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Meaning of rajgharana, thikan

These two words are used in the article Lodhi, and a gBooks search hasn't cleared up the issue. Meanings? Worth having articles on? MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:28, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

User:Dcmpuri/Swami Nigamananda

This is a userfied version of an article, evidently written by an enthusiastic follower, which has been in and out under many different titles and was most recently deleted after WP:Articles for deletion/Swami Nigamananda. The author appealed to me as the closing admin, and I have told him that I will not change my decision, so that he will have to go to WP:DRV, but suggested that the article will have a better chance if he can improve it, and userfied it to give him the opportunity. It has a major problem of non-neutral tone, and it needs to be clearer whether people other than the Swami's disciples consider him important enough for notability. Any help or advice for Dcmpuri (talk) would be appreciated. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 22:36, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I've offered my services on his Talk. Looking at gBooks, there are at least a few scholarly mentions of the man that establish at least some basic notability. We can probably scrap those together with some very basic biographical data from the more POV-but-published sources, and then maybe cite a few POV items as "his followers believe XYZ". Bob's your uncle. And then watchlist to make sure people don't sneak back in to turn it to hagiography. MatthewVanitas (talk) 00:12, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami has been requested to be renamed, see Talk:2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami . 184.144.160.156 (talk) 03:26, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Concerns about Lodhi Rajputs (and other self-serving tribe/caste articles)

I noted that Lodhi Rajputs set off my internal alarms, with its emphasis on Kshatriya status, and explanation that some god told them to take up farming (a classic "methinks though dost protest too much" in such articles." Sure enough, I looked it up on gBooks, and already found several references basically saying "they're poor farmers who started claiming affiliatins with Rajputs and Kshatriya in the early 1900s". Example here[3]. Of all Wiki bad habits, re-writing history to make yourself look good is high on my list of annoyances, so I'm looking to tackle this one, as I did with Kunbi previously. Kunbi still gets frequent IPs coming in to remove the (clearly footnoted) term "Sudra" and insert "Kshatriya".

Just wanted to bring this common problem to editors' attention. If anyone else has seen similar problems but doesn't feel comfortable correcting them, let me know and I'll see what I can do. I have no dog in these fights, and wouldn't know a Lodhi from a Kunbi if I ran into him on the street, but I'm just annoyed at people self-praising their community by telling stories completely against academic consensus. MatthewVanitas (talk) 14:38, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't see the problem with the stories (besides terrible writing). The myths and legends that are current in a caste and what a caste believes about itself are interesting and anthropologically important. Obviously, that a god told them to take up farming is a legend that cannot be mistaken for a statement of fact, so your "rewriting history" comment doesn't make sense to me. (If it's written as history instead of as legend, anyone can fix it easily.) BTW, there's a source confirming the existence of this particular legend, here. Shreevatsa (talk) 14:54, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
I'm totally fine with "here's a legend they believe [footnote]". Your ref is a great one, glad you found and added. My concern is that the lede of the article claimed Rajput/Kshatriya history, and an unfootnoted claimed etymology, while the same book you footnoted basically says "they started claiming higher caste status a few generations ago." The legend itself is fine, though similar articles have a tendency to perform WP:OR and start citing directly from the Puranas or the Vedas to say "the group mentioned here eventually became our group, so this is proof that we're descended from Lava", etc. For Lodhi Rajput, would you support having the article clarify their claims vs. academic consensus? As well as the fact that it's mostly them calling themselves Lodhi Rajput, so I think the title should be Lodhi and the "Lodhi-Rajput" debate explained in Etymology or similar. MatthewVanitas (talk) 16:08, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
I don't think we disagree. :p This is not my area of expertise (or even interest); I was just reacting to the "telling stories" line. Of course articles must ideally be well referenced, etc. I was just pointing out that stories are probably the most important thing about a caste, considering as how a "caste" is essentially a fiction, whose existence depends on some common beliefs (stories) shared by its members, about the world and about themselves. If you have sources that say they started claiming Kshatriya status in 1900 (or whatever), that is also a noteworthy fact worthy of being in the article. The thing about stories and legends (unlike facts) is that it's fine (and more informative) if they are contradictory! Your Google search shows that a lot of sources call them "Lodhi Rajputs" so that may be worth mentioning also. Anyway, I usually don't edit caste articles, so I'll stop here. :-) Shreevatsa (talk) 16:36, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Good deal, I think we're pretty much on the same page: their own personal fictions are cool so long as the fact that they believe XYZ is documented. I'm just going to go and make sure that any documented "they believe XYZ but it's simply not true" are accounted for. Then I'll try to get a few more editors to watchlist it to prevent folks coming back in and putting "... are all noble warriors of kingly heritage." pseudo-history. MatthewVanitas (talk) 17:15, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

You're right -- few of these articles use proper attribution. Instead of "According to a legend mentioned in the Puranas, the people of this caste are the descendant of Krishna", they read "Krishna also belonged to this caste".
Unfortunately, pretty much every non-stub article on Indian castes is full of legends, mythology and pseudo-history presented as facts. The articles about the castes claiming Kshatriya status are the worst -- several of them list Rama, Krishna or some other Hindu god in the "Notable <caste name> people" section. Others claim every other famous Indian emperor as one of their own based on some fringe theory in a obscure book published by the local caste association. Some go as far as claiming European descent from the Greeks or some other famous 'warrior tribe'.
I've tried monitoring several of these articles in the past, but it's a stressful job with tens of caste patriots undoing your attempts to make these articles look encyclopedic. I stopped bothering long ago, because nobody except people from these castes (and sometimes, their 'rival' castes) reads these articles. utcursch | talk 06:34, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Chaotic merge at Paramara (Rajput group)

This article existed as several forks under three different spellings (this group can apparently be spelled about a dozen different ways). I've merged the articles, but I focused mainly on preserving content more than on fine-tuning the merge. This would be less excusable, except that all versions were pretty messy as it was, but now at least all the spellings redirect there and all content is in one place. The article (now with all spellings) gets about 3k views per month, so not huge, but big enough to chip on if someone would like to tweak a Rajput article. MatthewVanitas (talk) 16:26, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Daisy Ogle

The article Daisy Ogle has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

a search for references found no published (gBooks) support for this subject. Fails WP:V and WP:N

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

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

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 17:22, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I did a basic gBooks search and already found several references. I added one basic one and removed the Prod tag, replaced with a {{ref-improve}} tag. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:44, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

WPENGVAR template:Indian English

{{Indian English}} use of the flag is in question, see Template talk:American English

184.144.160.156 (talk) 02:59, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Proposed rename of article entitled "Nirmala Srivastava" to "Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi"

Hi all, do you think that the above should be done? I know there is a policy of not using honorifics on Wikipedia but I think this person should come as an exception since she is more widely known by the honorific title. For example I have compiled this list of academic sources which are used in the article:

Judith Coney, Sahaja Yoga: Socializing Processes in a South Asian New Religious Movement (1999) – Sri Mataji Nirmala Devi, shortened to Sri Mataji (used most often). Only one reference to Nirmala Srivastava.

Hinduism Today - Mataji Nirmala Devi

Kakar, Sudhir (1984) Shamans, Mystics and Doctors: A Psychological Inquiry into India and Its Healing Traditions - Mata Nirmala Devi

Holiest Wars: Islamic Mahdis, Their Jihads, and Osama Bin Laden 2005 by Timothy R. Furnish & Michael Rubin - Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

Inform brochure - Her Holiness Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi Srivastava

http://www.irelandyoga.org - Shri Mataji

Thorax International Journal of Respiratory Medicine - HH Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

Barrett, David V. The New Believers - Shri Mataji

I'm sure as time goes on she will be even less known by the name she was born with and more widely known by her spiritual name considering the worldwide following she has. Freelion (talk) 02:33, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Please refer to the article's talk page for further discussion. Freelion (talk) 00:09, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Do India and Srilanka share a Land Border

There seem to be referances on wikipedia about a small atoll on Adams Bridge that forms one of the smallest land Borders (between India with Srilanka). This is ofcourse refuted by many other pages. How can this issue be addressed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.50.14.235 (talk) 09:54, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit-warring at Ram Rahim Singh

I'm not an expert on the subject, but there has been a lot of reverting going on at this article for the last few weeks. If anyone with knowledge of the topic would care to look over the article and comment on the talk page, I would appreciate it. —Torchiest talkedits 20:17, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Coming in to reinforce you; thanks for taking the lead on this. Ran citation tool to clean up the refs (and better expose the non-RS ones), took some junk out of the lede, removed the "Mr." throughout. The main issue I see at this point is figuring out how much of the charity work is better-covered in the article about his organistion, vice his personal article, and then sorting out the coverage of accusations against him. The current article has a goofy slant of "here are terrible and unjust defamatory accusations against him by shadowy accusations", so just need to scope the refs and change that to "He was accused of XYZ in July 2008, but a magistrate in Haryana dismissed the case for lack of evidence.-footnote-". Lots of POV pushers there, so watching for my good edits to be challenged. MatthewVanitas (talk) 17:35, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for that. I also ran the citation tool about a week ago, but my edits got reverted and lost in the shuffle. Luckily, some of the truly awful cites, like direct links to images, seem to be permanently out of the article, so some progress has been made. —Torchiest talkedits 20:57, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to delete portal - Portal India/Quiz

Portal:India/Quiz has degenerated into a quiz which has nothing whatsoever to do with editting Wikipedia. As such, since Wikipedia is not a blog, webspace provider, social network, or memorial site, it is prosed to delete this page. The afficionados of the Quiz are free to move it offline to Wikia or elsewhere.

The issue was brought to notice on the talk page by me (Diff) and during a quiz (Diff) but no interest is shown by anyone into making it relevant to Wikipedia.

This post is for informing all and for discussion before I post it at WP:MFD.

AshLin (talk) 09:53, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Nowhere has it been said that this quiz either intends to improve Wikipedia or that it's got anything to do with editing India-related articles. I think it's good that editors are given a chance to socialise. The quiz introduction clearly says, "[it] is run as a friendly competition to test and improve your knowledge of India. Most importantly, it's supposed to be fun."
Having said that, it is a very essential page and many of the mentioned topics in it have most under-developed articles and very often, don't have articles. This is used to motivate editors, but it's not this quiz's goal.
I quite frankly can't see why this harmless quiz which has been there for years now would disturb anyone. Shahid • Talk2me 14:58, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
Well, of course, this is not a place for socialising. But I am in favour of retaining it. It was proposed here that each question be prepared around a redlink. Also, I don't think many DYKs are coming out of this. I am aware that this has not been happening much of late, but this is a great opportunity for editors to find out things that need to be edited, or created, or improved. Yes Michael? •Talk 15:33, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
No one says that editors shouldn't socialise! There is #irc chat, the wikimedia sendmail lists, personal email, Twitter, Facebook etc. This is Wikipedia and as per policy NOT a place for socialising. So all I'm saying is if its not helping Wikipedia, move it somewhere else.
From what is apparent, there is no attempt for the last few quizzes to improve Wikipedia. As per the stated aims, they are supposed to update the DYKs on Portal India but please check the history of the quiz page and editors contributions for yourselves.
Shahid, if there is no quiz, there is zero difference to Wikipedia. On what grounds do you say that it is essential? Mike, if it has to be retained, it has to visibly contribute to Wikipedia through every question! As of now, its just adding feel good factor. Let's face it - these quiz editors are spending more time on these then on edits and no contribution is coming out of that time. I can't stop them from using their time as they like. However, this travesty in the name of improving articles can certainly be got rid off. AshLin (talk) 15:54, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
I think we should let Ashlin win the current round.. :p -- Longhairandabeard (talk) 19:26, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, that would be nice but better still would be someone proposing to fundamentally change the nature of the quiz so that it serves both the purpose of fun and contributing to Wikipedia. I have been waiting for someone to suggest this but it does not seem to have to struck anyone's mind as the ideal way to resolve this issue. AshLin (talk) 04:19, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Test case

User:Vishwaprabha started the first question of the current quiz with :

UP has 4 of them. Next come Kerala, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu with 3 each and Andrapradesh, Bihar and Karnataka with 2 each. 5 more states and 3 union territories (including Delhi) have just one each.
What are they?

The discussion ran from 4th to 9th March. When specifically queried by me as to what use this was to Wikipedia,

And how is all this helping develop India articles?

User:Vishwaprabha has this to say:

That very page List_of_international_airports_in_India is currently an orphan. I think it can be linked quite well with other related articles.

Please check history of List_of_international_airports_in_India (Diff). There is no effort from User:Vishwaprabha to de-orphan the article. No other improvement to this article took place during that time from Users Vishwaprabha, Prasad, Shahid or reuben_lys. In fact, except for User:Shahid (Shshsh), Users Vishwaprabha, Prasad, or reuben_lys did no edits other than the Quiz during that time.

As far as the Portal is concerned, there is not a single edit of the main Portal page between 19 January and 14 March 2011. As far as Portal:India/DYK is concerned, the last DYK was added on 16 Feb 2010. No prizes for guessing how many rounds of quiz took place since then. AshLin (talk) 16:17, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I rest my case. AshLin (talk) 16:09, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with AshLin that there hasn't been anything going on there which could be seen as constructive to Wikipedia. However, I still think it should be retained. I do not know if we can actually formulate rules which say that every question must be formed around a redlink, but if such a rule can be made, then it should be. Yes Michael? •Talk 03:31, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Good idea, MikeLynch. A set of guidelines for a question could be laid down, such as:

  • The question asked must be based on a proposed DYK or fact (with reference), red link to be created, expansion of stub, etc to be included in WP.
  • After the question/answer banter, we could specify that two requirements be met before the next question is asked :
    • The follow-up edits which contribute to article mainspace around that question should be shown with a diff by the guy who had asked the question/answered it correctly.
    • The DYK for India:Portal must be added by the guy who had asked the question/answered it correctly.
  • Rest unchanged.

It is not the existance of the quiz that bothers me but the contrast between the great interest shown by participants of the quiz on one hand and the complete apathy to improve WP & Portal:India on the other. My aim was not to be a spoilsport by deleting the quiz, though I have no doubt I may be seen in that light but to get people around to change their approach. It is sad that the only meaningful little discussion on this is between you and me - both non-particpants of the quiz. AshLin (talk) 04:29, 19 March 2011 (UTC)


I dont see why the quiz needs to be deleted. It in fact serves a very important function of bringing India related topics to attention. Wether or not they are red links does not really matter, because there's only so many red links you're going to have (especially given the vast number of Indian wikipedians) before you start accepting or actively seeking or promoting unencyclopaedic entries. What matters is that under developed articles can also recieve attention. I can specifically point to the article on Virendranath Chattopadhyaya which came up in the quiz as an already developed article but brought to my attention the topic of the Indian freedom movement abroad especially during World War I, from which I developed a large number of articles in the Category:India House, Category:Hindu-German Conspiracy, Category:Anushilan Samiti. Perhaps, what you are looking for are guidelines which refine the questions from pedantic trivialism, but I feel that effort should be aimed more at the users who pose such questions rather than a frustrated attempt at deleting the page altogether. rueben_lys (talk · contribs) 13:06, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
PS: In addition, the very DYK that has been pointed out above, with the image of Pandurang Sadashiv Khankhoje exemplifies my case. I created that article at the fag end of an inspirational spur on the topics identified as lacking from the very portal quiz that is being proposed to be deleted. rueben_lys (talk · contribs) 17:37, 21 March 2011 (UTC)



Need for change

Firstly, my apologies for my very nasty and aggressive manner of speech on this issue. There is no excuse for not being civil.

Secondly, I was not really interested in deleting the quiz but in getting people to change their ways but obviously it was quite the wrong way to go about it.

Thirdly, I still feel that our current model encourages one-upmanship and competition and doesn't help the purpose of the quiz. We need to change the model so that people still enjoy participating and Wikipedia also benefits.


Perhaps we could have some experienced quizzer volunteer to coordinate each quiz in turn, where all the editors on India topics can submit questions and answers, DYK style. Whosever question gets asked gets a point and and whoever answers it gets a point too. After getting say, ã hundred points or so, a person can win an India Quiz barnstar. If they get maximum points in a quiz, they can put up a user infobox as is already being done.

Anyway, this is my last post on the issue. The community needs to change the way the Quiz is structured not because someone threatens to delete the page but because it is the right thing to do. AshLin (talk) 03:26, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Some problems with articles on Indian train services

Hi all,
I've found some possible problems with a large number of articles on train services in India. Some could be fixable but many are so short on notability/sources that deletion may be the best option. There's a a thread over at WikiProject Trains' talkpage; suggestions from the WikiProject India community would be very welcome. bobrayner (talk) 11:34, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Pics/cites for Raasta roko/Rail roko (protest technique)

Ran across the term Raasta roko, and there's an okay stub giving the basics. Unreferenced though, and this is also a case where a photo would make a great visual impact. Anyone have or no where to find CC photos of such protests? MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:25, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Do we need a page for Ek Noor Khalsa Fauj?

I ran across mention of this Indian militant group online, but we have (as best as I can tell) no article. Do we need an article for them, and/or a redirect to an existing article? MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:29, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Recent changes made in the titles of a number of Indian State Legislature articles

The titles of a number of Indian state legislature articles, namely Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha, Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Parishad, Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha, Maharashtra Vidhan Parishad and Bihar Vidhan Parishad were changed by the User:Good Olfactory without any prior discussion. It is well known that the state legislations of a number of Indian states are more widely known as the Vidhan Sabha and the Vidhan Parishad and the Indian Legislative Bodies website has mentioned them in the same way.[1]. Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assemebly website (http://uplegisassembly.gov.in/) and Bihar Legislative Council website (http://www.biharvidhanparishad.gov.in/) have also mentioned similarly. I want to draw the attention of the WikiProject India members on these changes and request them to kindly share their opinions. I feel the titles of these articles should be reverted back till the consensus is formed. Thanks.

References

  1. ^ Legislative Bodies in India]

Joy1963Talk 04:08, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

hmm i am in two minds about this. Many en wiki policy pages about naming explicitly state the preference is for the english name, if there is one. But on the other hand, the hindi names are used as primary names in these cases. Joy, can you initiate a move proposal in one of the talk pages (for all the moves together) and post a link here. --Sodabottle (talk) 16:20, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
I have already placed a move request in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly page and here is its link: Talk:Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly#Requested move. Is it sufficient?Joy1963Talk 17:10, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

POV edits on Mughal Empire and South Asia History Template

Is there some admin around for South Asia related topics? (I know that RegentsPark is away and both Abecedare and Ragib are on longish wikibreaks.) I don't know if Spaceman is an admin, but if there is someone around could they examine the edits being made by a user, HotWinters (talk · contribs), that, at least to me, seem anti-Muslim. For example, he has changed the lead of the Mughal Empire page from stating that it was an empire in South Asia, to one of being a Central Asian empire based in Uzbekistan that ruled the Indian subcontinent. (The subtle anti-Muslim message being that the Mughals were foreigners and hence occupiers). He has pasted a large chunk of text from the Babur page to the Mughal Empire page (presumably to give his edits a sheen of respectability, since the pasted edits are sourced). This diff will give you an idea. He has tampered with a long-standing template Template:History of South Asia, where he has changed "Muslim Period" (which label is used by Britannica, as well as history texts), to Early Modern (1100 to 1800), even though the Early Modern Period refers to the period 1500 to 1800, all because he doesn't like "Muslim" in there. I suspect he might be a returning POV warrior. The pattern of edits seem vaguely familiar to stuff I've seen before. Unfortunately, I don't have time. Could some admin please look at his edits. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:44, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Please sort it out with the editor per WP:BRD, assume good faith and don't jump to conclusions about the editor being a "returning POV warrior". If the person is in violation of a policy and shows no signs of improving after being made aware of the violation, report him to ANI. Zuggernaut (talk) 15:52, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Like I said, I don't have the time. That is why I'm requesting some admin to look into HotWinters (talk · contribs)'s edits. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:00, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

The Fowler&fowler (talk · contribs) is paranoid about the my edits due to his apparent "Pro Muslim" POV i guess. My edits on Mughal Empire page are completely sourced. I have elaborated the "early history" section as per the given data, the section was badly under written. The user deleted all my edits only to push his POV. The way he has deleted the Central Asian part of the Mughal Empire clearly reflects his geographical and nationalist POV. He is reading too much into my edits like his example that I am implying that "Mughals were foreigners and hence occupiers", I have just wrote sourced facts which can be corrected(if required). This casts a shadow over his intent of editing. The Template section was improved by me in accordance with the set standards of period classification like "Middle Kingdoms" and "Early Modern" Kingdoms. ThanksHotWinters (talk) 16:01, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I've been around long enough on Wikipedia to smell out anti-Muslim or anti-Pakistan when it comes my way. Here are some examples from HotWinters:
How is that an ANTI MUSLIM pov? Did I delete her being a muslim or being a Pakitsani? HotWinters (talk) 17:17, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
How is this even related to islam? HotWinters (talk) 17:12, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Plz go through the discusion on Talk page. HotWinters (talk) 17:15, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Well, what should one make of them? His history is full of such edits on South Asia related pages. Am I really paranoid? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:51, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes you are being Paranoid...cite me one Anti-Muslim edit(suggestive), you have pro muslim and I may say anti India pov written all over your edits. You are paranoid and being an Islamophile which is apparent from all ur recent edits and discussions. HotWinters (talk) 17:10, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Need merge of Ahirs and Aheer?

Ran across Ahirs, which is a right mess. Also noted Aheer, which seems to be about the same people. Between the two articles and their various spellings, they appear to get some 6,000 hits a month, which is not insubstantial. Anyone have any objections to merging these two pages? Any objections to such a merge? Anyone interested in that task? MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:10, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Move request

[Inappropriate canvassing removed. Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:02, 31 March 2011 (UTC)] Please participate in the discussion at the move request section. Zuggernaut (talk) 02:23, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Best not to forum shop, Zuggernaut, in the hopes that editors who read this notice board, who you have somehow divined to be "Indian," will naturally vote for "India" on a page move they hitherto knew nothing about and a page they have made no contribution to. I think you've been upbraided before for canvassing. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:30, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
ANI or WP:DRR is the right place for this if you think so. Might I add that your assumption that people who are active here will vote "for India" is a failure of AGF which has become a pattern with you. Zuggernaut (talk) 04:37, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
Not my assumption, my dear, but rather your hope. Please read my sentence carefully. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:16, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

proposal to merge Tata Airlines with Air India

I have proposed Tata Airlines be merged with Air India. Reasons listed on Talk:Air India, where I have started a discussion on the same. Around The Globeसत्यमेव जयते 08:38, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Varad bardoli

New stub - should it be Varad Bardoli or Varad, Bardoli (or something else?), or is it OK as it stands? Please move if necessary and update the dab page I've just created at Varad while stub-sorting it. Thank you. PamD (talk) 16:42, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Moved it to the later title and updated the dab page--Sodabottle (talk) 07:57, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

India vs Pakistan cricket match

Can you guys update 2011 Cricket World Cup knockout stage with information on the India vs Pakistan cricket match with references so we can stick it up on the front page? There are a bunch of references at this discussion -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:56, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Cool, its updated now. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:20, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Scorecard

There is an ongoing discussion of inclusion of a scorecard on Talk:2011 Cricket World Cup Final. Around The Globeसत्यमेव जयते 06:14, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Problem with regions of Kochi?

Hi. I'm looking for competent help. I don't have the slightest expertise on Kochi or on administrative subdivision systems in India but I recently came across Category:Regions of Kochi and it doesn't feel right. Kochi is a city so its subdivisions should be neighbourhoods or something of the sort. And there are in fact categories Category:Neighbourhoods of Kochi and Category:Suburbs of Kochi city. Now the thing that really confused me at first is that articles such as Kadavanthra use the term "region of Kochi". However, this is a recent change by Austria156 (talk · contribs) who created the regions category and similarly tweaked other articles so that they fit in the cat. To my untrained eye, this looks like nonsense that should be reverted but like I said, I lack even the slightest bit of expertise so help would be appreciated. Pichpich (talk) 22:58, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Pichpich. Your concern might be true. Having two different categories for the same thing. But when I created the Category:Regions of Kochi, there was specific reason why I did so. Category:Neighbourhoods of Kochi contains place names which are not really part of Kochi, and Category:Suburbs of Kochi city contains places which are part of downtown Kochi. The problem here is that editors from Kerala mistake 'neighbourhood' for something outside but on the periphery (a notion followed from a neighbouring house, among non-native speakers of English) of the city rather than within the city. Also the word 'suburb' is not really followed by many editor who are non-native speakers of English. So I wanted to avoid the ambiguity. It was in good faith. But if other editors feel that the categories should be merged or that one of them be deleted, then let us go ahead. I would like to see opinions from more editors, and particularly those from Kochi. Anyway, thanks Pichpich for your help. A third-person perspective always help in situations like this. Thanks. Austria156 (talk) 23:14, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

My concern is that "region" usually has a specific administrative meaning so the category's title is misleading (and so are the edits that qualify this or that neighbourhood as a region. From what I understand of your comment, the problem should be solved by improving the consistency of inclusion criteria in the neighbourhoods and suburbs categories and not by creating a third category. Pichpich (talk) 05:40, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
Thats true Pichpich. So what next? Delete Regions of Kochi? Please make your conclusion. Then we will check the traffic on the page and delete it. At this point it wont be difficult. It is still young - could be done manually. Thank you. Austria156 (talk) 15:32, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

India at FAR

I've nominated the India page for an FAR. Its History and Culture sections need work. Please help improve it. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:01, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Sudarshan News

Has anyone heard of this? I quickly looked on google and nothing much was coming up apart from blogs...? Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:49, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Anybody reads Tamil?

thumb|Nalvar sequence? As per the image description, these are the nalvars: Appar, Manackavasakar, Sundarar and Sambandar. However I can't figure the sequence. Can someone please read the Tamil names of the figures written above them in the photo and confirm the sequence so I can crop the figures and add them in individual articles. Thanks. --Redtigerxyz Talk 05:06, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

the order is (from left to right) - Sambandhar, Navukkarasar/Appar, Sundarar, Manickavasakar--Sodabottle (talk) 05:25, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
All of the titles of these deities have a prefix which is on the first line what is it? Shree perhaps?Yogesh Khandke (talk) 06:45, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
They are saivite saints not deities - the Nayanmars. In tamil Sambandar and Navukkarasar's names are usually (but not always) prefixed with a "thiru" (similar to sri). but for Sundarar and Manikkavasagar no prefixes. (the honorific is the "ar" suffix here)--Sodabottle (talk) 08:23, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
In the image the names have prefixes written, on the wall behind the statues, is it Thiru Sambandar, Thiru Navukkarasar, and Ar Sundarar and Ar Manikkavasagar?Yogesh Khandke (talk) 08:31, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
The exact words in the wall are "thirugnanasambandhar, thirunavukkarasar, sundarar and manikkavasagar". the "ar" is a plural suffix, not a prefix. Their actual names would be "gnanasambandan, navukkararasan, sundaran, manikkavasagan", but the "an" suffix is never used and out of respect the "ar" suffix is used. The "thiru" for the first two is some times used and sometimes not (omitting them doesnt signify disrespect)--Sodabottle (talk) 08:53, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
Red/Soda I have added the images on the Nayanmars page, with the names as written on the wall behind them. I have not placed a space between Thiru and GnanasambandharYogesh Khandke (talk) 09:22, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks Sodabottle and Yogesh. Have added the image to various articles.--Redtigerxyz Talk 11:39, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

election images

Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal elections are on. i would like to remind wikipedians living in those places. please. anything relevant. --CarTick (talk) 18:34, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

if someone can get a free image of this rupee note. --CarTick (talk) 13:54, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Are Kunbi, Kurmi, and Kunabi all the same thing?

We have separate articles for Kunbi, Kurmi, Kunabi and Maratha Kunabi, but even within each article they seem to use the terms interchangeably. Are these all the same group of farmers? MatthewVanitas (talk) 18:13, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Montage for Economy of India

Suggestions are invited for images to include in a montage to be created for the infobox of the Economy of India article. Please join the discussion here. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 07:01, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Reactions to my Shudra citations

I've been trying to crack down on caste puffery, so I've been tracking down the names of some of the major Shudra clans and checking their pages, and invariably they include an uncited claim, often in the first sentence, emphatically stating that their clan is Kshatriya (warriors). So I've been googling up multiple scholarly refs, putting in Shudra with proper cites, and to be fair including comments about how a given caste may be major landowners or socially respectable despite being Shudra (when specifically stated so in the source), or that sources note the caste claims to be Kshatriya but this is against the academic consensus. I've been getting some hostile pushback from IPs on this. If folks wouldn't mind adding Kurmi, Kunbi and Patidar to their watchlists, I'd appreciate more eyes watching for sneaky Shudra-->Kshatriya changes, particularly when done while leaving the footnote in place, as though the source says the opposite of what it says. If I change more articles, I'll mention them here in hopes of getting more folks to Watchlist and fend off POV-pushing from IPs, or from new accounts such as "KurmiKshatriya" who's been messing with my addition. MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:12, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Major cleanup underway at Kayastha; help would be appreciated

Greetings, I'm doing a major chop on Kayastha (a sub-caste of scribes in India), removing caste puffery, adding proper citations about the controversy of their varna designation, and generally trying to hack out unref, OR, and other unsuitable materials. If folks have any chance at all to chip in, it'd be greatly appreciated. Likewise, even watchlisting and keeping an eye out for upset editors removing my (full footnoted) notations about their possible Shudra status (an unpopular topic) would be appreciated. Thanks! MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:27, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

It is Peculiar System Now

The Varna system of Hindus is a peculiar system now. Whether a scribe is a Sudra or not is a difficult question.In a Democracy Everyone is a Sudra but the status is neither determined or imposed , it is overdetermined . Every one has to be Sudra in the new sense. Scribe is a Official caste , so they had to serve .So definitely they are Sudras.Even the Vaidyas or Rajvaidyas had to serve , may be not to serve all , as Hindu apartheid prohibited them.That is why It was Buddhist who first established University to serve education to all. So Baidyas were also sudras.

And that is why all of them want to relate them to the Brahmin. But one peculiar thing they dont mention is that Two varnas represent professional engaement.Sudra is a bashing one. Fifth varna , or candala is outcast, excluded to extinction. And no One mentions the Political power and hegemony a community needed to Equate them with Creator God. Rather each feigned something else and scripted nasty gossiping and Force-Imposed on others . The funny wretched people , each and everyone , showed the same symptoms of Illness.117.194.193.123 (talk) 14:05, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Help request

Moving Subhash Chandra Bose from En to Hindi Wikipedia. Could someone help me with a user who is trying to do this. They are complaining that the copy-paste is resulting in square characters, which makes sense since the languages are different. Is there a way to do this easily? Ocaasi c 15:19, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Request for help for a caption to an image to be used in Indian theatre article

Dear Wikiproject India, could someone please translate the following for me into English: മലയാളം: കൂടിയാട്ടത്തിലെസുഗ്രീവൻ. It is the description of this image in the commons. I understand that it's from a Koodiyattam performance, but I'd like to be able to credit and wikilink (if possible) the performer and/or the character depicted. Many thanks,  • DP •  {huh?} 18:17, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

User:Salih or User:Tinucherian should be able to help as they read Malayalam. —SpacemanSpiff 17:46, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
Many thanks, I'll leave a note on their talk pages.  • DP •  {huh?} 10:31, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

New articles on indigenous bagpipes of India

From C. R. Day, Plate XVI

Noting a lacking in WP bagpipe coverage of the traditional bagpipes of India, I created the following:

  • Mashak, a bagpipe in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and bordering Pakistan; the term is also used for the adopted Scottish pipe
  • Titti (bagpipe), played in Andhra Pradesh
  • Sruti upanga, played in Tamil Nadu (with picture!)

If anyone can help by providing non-English language sources, the spellings in the local languages, translation to Indian-language wikis, or photographs, I would be most appreciative. Hopefully you will enjoy learning from reading these articles as much as I enjoyed learning from writing them. MatthewVanitas (talk) 05:50, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Sivaji Ganesan

I request anyone of you to do a peer review. --Thalapathi (Ping Back) 07:23, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

contains a lot of weasel words, peacock terms and honorifics. i know it is difficult to remove them as indian film reporting is extremely adulatory in tone, but try and cut these out before applying for peer review. else the peer reviewer's focus would go straight to this and not the other parts.--Sodabottle (talk) 08:04, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Yes, and added to that, some CN tags are still floating around, and there are bare URLs in the refs. It would be good if you could expand the Early life section. Yes Michael? •Talk 08:26, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Requesting comment in discussion

It would be great if there are more editors participating in the discussion going on at Talk:Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Regards, Yes Michael? •Talk 17:44, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Found an awesome source for historical images!

"Calcutta Kayasth" från en 19th Century bok

I was looking for a generic image for Kayastha, one that would show one in their historical profession of scribe. I stumbled upon a 19th century book "Les Hindous" by a Belgian artist called Solvyns. His work (clearly out of copyright) has simply scads of historical images of different Indian social classes and the like. If anyone is looking to illustrate caste/tribe articles using public domain images, his work bears a hard look. You can probably Google up a lot of his work, but here are two links: [4], [5]. Hope folks can dig some interesting illustrations out of here for hard-to-depict articles. MatthewVanitas (talk) 02:03, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Enquiring about the way to add my id to membership list

Hi, do let me know please. Thanks..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. 18:08, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Do you mean here? --rgpk (comment) 18:14, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
How to add my name to this group..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. —Preceding undated comment added 21:29, 29 April 2011 (UTC).
Go to the page, find your relevant section (T in this case), add your name in alphabetical order, by typing # {{User|Thisthat2011}}. Yes Michael? •Talk 05:11, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
Thanks..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. 19:32, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Help Request at India as a rising superpower

Want help to make this article India as a rising superpower better. 158.142.161.127 (talk) 19:37, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Help: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. Vol III, Art IX. p.199 ?

Prof. H. H. Wilson's Historical sketch of the pandyan kingdom. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. Vol III, Art IX. p.199. i am trying to get hold of this article. your help will be much appreciated. --CarTick (talk) 11:52, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure you have the right reference? I have jstor access to the journal but don't see anything by Wilson in Volume III. --rgpk (comment) 13:20, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
thanks for checking. the information may be wrong but i copied it correct. --CarTick (talk) 14:20, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
Do you have a title? I don't see anything that is obviously about the Pandyan kingdom (there are about 50 articles in total - a prolific writer, Professor Wilson). --rgpk (comment) 15:01, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
i got the information from the 50th page of this book. please see the footnotes on that page. almost at the end of the page. --CarTick (talk) 15:08, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
Here's the link to the: abstract of the article and to an addendum. It won't be available on JSTOR. You'll need someone who has a subscription to Cambridge Journals. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:32, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
great. that is about 30 dollars for the article and the cost/benefit ratio doesnt sound very promising. --CarTick (talk) 15:51, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
I have online access to volumes 2, 4 and 5, but not volume 3. Go figure. --rgpk (comment) 17:56, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

oh. no. :) --CarTick (talk) 17:58, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Proposed rename, Kaveri River -> Kaveri

Please see the proposal at Talk:Kaveri_River.

The reasoning should also apply to many other rivers of India; notably the Narmada, Godavari, Tungabhadra, and many smaller rivers. For some where the term 'river' would help in disambiguation, e.g. the River Krishna and the River Bhima, it should be considered whether these should have the 'river' as a prefix or a postfix. Imc (talk) 16:38, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Imc (talk) 16:38, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Koireng articles

Hello. WikiProject India has two articles, Koireng and Koireng Tribe, that both appear to address the same topic. Is this intended? --Stfg (talk) 18:46, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Seo Analyzt

The article Seo Analyzt consists of what seem to be song lyrics, in transliterated Hindi or a related language. For example, the first sentence is "Tum Ko udaas zindagi me abki baar kabhi na karenge." Would anyone here be willing and able to identify what language it is and whether or not it is lyrics from a song? Thank you. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 18:19, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

It is a case of speedy delete. --Redtigerxyz Talk 18:29, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
Please note that the "nonsense" speedy deletion criterion does not apply to "coherent non-English material". --Metropolitan90 (talk) 19:43, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

New artciles

Wikipedia:WikiProject India/New articles is not working since 22 March. Can someone please fix it. Thanks Shyamsunder (talk) 09:33, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

13th Meetup of Wikipedians in Pune, Maharashtra - please note details and register.

A reminder for the 13th Meetup of Wikipedians in Pune, Maharashtra. Please see the meetup page for details and indicate your attendance. The intended purpose of the meetup is:

to discuss the Campus Ambassador Program and forthcoming WikiConference 2011.


Highlights - Hisham Mundol, National Director, India Program & Bishakha Datta, Global Trustee, Wikimedia Foundation will be present for the meetup.


AshLin (talk) 04:13, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Seeking Help to improve the WikiProject India Article, Swami Nigamananda

Dear Friends,

Can you help me to improve this article,Swami Nigamananda, according to Wikipedia standard, as I have received the following alerts:

  • This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling. You can assist by editing it. (May 2011)
  • This article may contain wording that merely promotes the subject without imparting verifiable information. Please remove or replace such wording, unless you can cite independent sources that support the characterization.

Dcmpuri (talk) 14:08, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Feedback requested at User:Gespee/Purswani (Khudabadi Sindhi clan)

I believe that Gespee (talk · contribs) requests a review of his userspace draft User:Gespee/Purswani. I request someone to do the needful and help him out. Regards, Yes Michael? •Talk 14:31, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Every single article in Category:Maratha clans needs work

The category Category:Maratha clans is largely the work of one editor, who I've been prodding for two years to learn WP formatting and copyedit his slapdash work. The articles are full of caste-puffery, unsubstantiated legendary claims, and almost all references are unlinked (though in some cases the books themselves are on gBooks), which is not encouraging for Verifiability. If anyone is interested in tackling Maratha topics, this would be a great place to chip in. The user has a relatively standardised section of "Details" including heraldry, devaks, favourite colours and ice-cream flavours, etc. that is rather clunky inline but could make (if referenced) a very nice infobox with Maratha flag and such niceties. Thanks for any help in sorting out this mess of otherwise interesting topics. MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:19, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Most of the names in that category are last/family names and could belong to any caste, not just the Maratha caste. This is especially true of the feudal titles which have now become last/family names for many centuries. For example, the article on the "Dhumal clan" names Sardar, Deshmukh, Patil, Vatandar, Rao, Inamdar as the last names, all of which are found in other castes in Maharashtra since they all relate to titles of village administration. The category could be renamed to Maratha family names or something similar. IMO, the only true "Maratha clans" are the four or five families who played a major role in the creation of the Maratha Empire - Bhonsle (Shivaji), Bhonsles of Nagpur, Gaekwad, Shinde (anglicized to Scindia) and Holkar. I've been topic banned from this area so I'm going to steer clear of this for now. I hope someone else will take it up. Zuggernaut (talk) 03:33, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

You say, "the articel needs work", however, that should not start with deleting bulk of the material related to the different clans!! Zuggernaut, when he worked on the Deshastha article at least put a CITATION needed tag before deleting it. That gave editors like me plenty of time to put the appropriate verifiable references in. On the other hand, Mr. Vanitas, by your impatience, you have deprived Wikipedia readers of an important resource. 24.187.26.104 (talk) 12:42, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

First off, if you have an account, please log in so we know who's talking. Second, to which changes are you referring? Can you provide diffs? Some general accusation that I'm deleting material is pretty unhelpful without actual links to diffs. Further, the burden is not on me to provide material justifying deleting uncited material, it is upon the writer to justify inclusion. Far too many of the Maratha articles have been egregiously bad for several years, and my attempts to copyedit have faded out as my work is not simply reverted, but undone over time by baffling re-introductions of terrible copyediting and POV. If you have concerns about my editing on specific articles, please let me know with actual details and links to diffs. MatthewVanitas (talk) 17:27, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

In August 2009, you removed bulk of the article and basically reduced an article on the biggest Marathi community to a stub! Yes, granted, the article did not cite suitable references, however you could have worked on that to find them. The original author who worked on Khandoba as well as this article was subsequently banned for using threatening language. I guess that did not help matters. Regardless, I think your actions have deprived Wikipedia users of great resource on the Maratha community. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maratha_clan_system&oldid=310092834 Anandbharti (talk) 00:44, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I will make no apologies for the changes to Maratha clan system; the article was in a spectacular state of disarray, and was subject to hourly changes from IPs which completely removed any credibility of the (completely unreferenced) data. Since that uncredible data was removed, unexplained/unreferenced IP edits have dropped to near-zero, and the article clearly and concisely explains the basic concept. If you'd like for there to be a list, perhaps you could find an old list in a book on GoogleBooks, and we could add a link saying "here is a representative list from British India in 1893." That way IPs could not tamper with it, but the info would be readily available.
The Maratha articles are still horribly formatted and undereferenced, and, for example, a huge portions of the footnotes at Bhoite make zero mention of the term "Bhoite", so to quote general Maratha history and then extrapolate it to the Bhoite specifically is WP:Original research and rightly should be removed. MatthewVanitas (talk) 17:49, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
The category on the clan system is WP:OR. It should be converted to a category titled something like "Family names of the Maratha caste". Still, I feel it is best not to delete or remove content unless it is an issue of vandalism, offensive content or copyright violation. There is indeed a 96 kuli clan system but it isn't well defined who is included or excluded from the 96 clans. Claims of who belongs to the clan of 96 are competing, controversial and not verifiable in secondary sources. An in-depth GA/FA level article dedicated to the clan of 96 would be a very good idea. Zuggernaut (talk) 02:34, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Serious concerns about sourcing in Maratha clan articles

I've been perusing some of the footnotes at Bhoite; prior to my recent work, the vast majority of these footnotes though evidently pulled straight from GoogleBooks provided no link. Formatting them and clicking the links, I've been finding so far that zero of the references I've checked contain the word "Bhoite", "Bhoites", or any variant spelling. I'm wondering whether User:Starrahul is simply adding general Maratha footnotes to an article about a very specific clan. Looking at GoogleBooks, I'm seeing mentions of individuals name Bhoite, and mentions that Bhoite is one name of a Maratha clan, but zero thus far to indicate to me that they're a notable stand-alone topic. If this is the case, and is the case at quite a few other articles by the same user (which form almost the entirety of the category), it might be necessary to completely wipe all those articles, and just try to build up the Maratha clan system article. MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:52, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Any reason not to merge Kurmi and Kunbi?

A bunch of refs seem to use these terms interchangeably; any reason I shouldn't just merge them into a combined article (which would get about 5,000 hits a month)? MatthewVanitas (talk) 22:26, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I'm finding at least some refs[6] that draw a distinction (and I think the Kunbis have a stronger association with Marharashtra). Probably best to develop them separately? Then again, there are other refs[7] basically saying "they're the same thing, and people just call themselves by one name or the other." MatthewVanitas (talk) 01:15, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
Oh, and how do you spell "Kunbi" in Marathi? There's no native-language term given in the lede. MatthewVanitas (talk) 01:22, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
Merging the two is not a good idea. As you found, Kunbi is the ethnic group belonging to that caste in Maharashtra and Kurmi are probably found in several North India states - completely different ethnicities. Zuggernaut (talk) 02:43, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
Kurmi = कुर्मी in Hindi/Awadhi (if written in Devnagari script)
Kurmi = کرمی in Urdu/Awadhi (if written in Nastaliq script)
Kunbi = कुणबी in Marathi
Kunbi = કુનબી in Gujarati
I believe that both are different also at Joshua project there are seperate entries for Kurmi & Kunbi but entry for Kurmi reads, "The Kurmi are also known as Kunbi." although entry for Kunbi doesn't even mentions the word Kurmi. Also, Joshua projects lists Kunbi as primarily Gujarati people (although there is large concentration in Maharashta also but many people there are of Gujarati background).--Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haidertcs 03:14, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the translits! At this point, it does appear that they are separate ethnicities (with distinct lines of legendary descent?), who fulfill very similar societal roles in different areas. I'll continue to expand separately, and I'm particularly trying to get in even-handed treatement of the Kurmi's claims to Kshatriya varna. On both articles I put (heavily footnoted) mentions of Shudra varna, but as I've come to learn apparently people get very upset when you do this regardless of footnoting. I'm not doing it to be malicious, but in quite a few cases where an article has uncited text like "Group X is the awesomest of Royal Kshatriya Warriors descended from Ram himself... and they're just farming because Kshatriya can farm according to the Laws of Manu", it turns out that practically every academic source files them as Shudra.

In the case of the Kurmi, they have an intriguing political history of advocating for Kshatriya status, so I'm trying to depict that angle. I expect that as soon as page protection lapses I'll have to refile immediately once the IPs start blanketing the article in "Kshatriya" (while leaving my footnotes in place as though they said the direct opposite of what they say). MatthewVanitas (talk) 13:13, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm drawing a blank thus far; anyone have any idea of where to find historical (free) images of Mahrashrta Kunbis, and/or Kurmis of any type? I'd like to illustrate the articles, but all I could find was a WikiC image of Goan Kunbis. I'm not sure how distinct of a group they are, so I've given them a separate subsection of Kunbi vice a separate article. Perhaps it might be useful (if OR can be avoided) to make a page-bottom template listing the various "Kurmi-Kunbi diaspora" castes of India? As mentioned above, the "link" between these groups may be more occupational than genetic, but if some academic verifiability of their relationship can be found, I think a nav-template would help bring these articles together across the disparate states. MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:05, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Majority of people belonging to the Maratha caste can be rightly described as kunbi. It was only a century ago when a ruler of Kolhapur urged the kunbi caste to call themselves Maratha. Prior to that, the words Marathi people and Maratha were synonymous and applied to all castes from the region that is now the State of Maharashtra. The kurmi caste is from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Having said the above, both castes are the traditional peasant class of their respective regions.Anandbharti (talk) 02:07, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

India related articles under attack

Some India related articles are under attack. The importance of them is not being understood in Indian context. The list can be found at User:Anna Frodesiak/Silver sandbox. Help and save them. thanks. Mahesh Kumar Yadav (talk) 13:53, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Looking at the concerns raised by Anna Frodesiak, I think that it will better if you have a chat with her, and address them properly. Yes Michael? •Talk 14:19, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Election Results

I have scrapped through the Election commission site and have all the results here. People interested in creating election articles may find it useful for bot tasks. Let me know if any other data is required in csv form, i can try scrapping. Srikanth (Logic) 06:08, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Renaming discussion

Talk:List of Indian inventions and discoveries#Gordian Knot ballot box. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 13:43, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Need comments on this RFC - [| discussion]

Hi, Need your views and comments. One should also go through ['no consensus' discussion]. ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 10:54, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Prod on Haryanvi music

I have just prodded this article (I'm one of the editors working on articles created by User:Maheshkumaryadav). I've found a few online sources that seem to indicate that Haryanvi has a unique, local type of music, especially the style called Raagani, but I can't find even one reliable source. If anyone can find even a single source, I think we can save the page and un-prod it. If anyone has a print source to verify the existence of this field, please add to the article. Thanks Qwyrxian (talk) 07:09, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Major cleanup underway at Category:Maratha clans

I'm undertaking a top-to-bottom cleanup of the articles in Category:Maratha clans. The actual cat was created by me, since User:Starrahul had created dozens of Maratha clan articles dispersed willy-nilly, so I thought it best to group them in a cat. Zuggernaut opines above that the cat name is OR, however I would argue that there exists in reliable sources a concept that there is such a thing as a Maratha clan system, so I don't see the harm of grouping together therein names which purport (and are noted to so purport in RSs) to belong to the Maratha clan system.

Starrahul has a pretty consistent modus operandi of writing highly POV pro-Maratha articles and adding in "References" what appears to just be a copy-paste of the gBooks hits for whatever keywords he's using. No gBooks links, no proper cites, generally no page numbers and generally no footnotes. He also tends to have "Clan details" sections which are horribly clunky in the article but would probably make a great infobox (though not with the Maratha Empire flag in every one). For a contrast between what I'm cleaning up and the originals, here's a before and after dif of Chavan. His "format" is pretty constent, so it makes it easier to chop.

At this point, I'm not so much trying to build these articles as simply clean them. I think I'm good to tackle the cleanup alone, but I would really appreciate it if someone can help me build an infobox for the "clan details" info which appears on each page. Has anyone here built one before?

Just letting folks know what I'm up to; Starrahul was rather upset about this a few weeks ago, but appears to have wandered off. If he continues to produce this "format" and not follow WP format (which I've been messaging him about for literally three years), then I suppose we'll have to sort something out

Hope folks find this interesting, and again I could really use some help with the infobox. MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:56, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Starrahul and I have had problems because of some of the reasons you state above. He is obviously an enthusiastic editor and if we are able to get him to be a regular here and more importantly stick to WP policies, that will be a great step forward in the improvement of Maratha articles.
Regarding the Maratha clan system, what I'm saying is that the category is WP:OR, i.e, I've not seen sources that clearly classify the Maratha caste in this manner. Obviously, the clan system does exist but should we create a category when there is no clear definition about who is inside and outside of those 96 clans? Here's what the Britannica says about the Maratha clan system:


I would have loved to help with the infobox but I'll wait until my topic ban goes away. Zuggernaut (talk) 16:35, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Anyone know the modern/common names for these castes?

There's a book online from the early 19th century which has a ton of pics of daily life in India, including representatives of many castes. I'd love to add more of these as illustrations to caste articles (as I did at Kayastha). The only problem is that I can't find articles on most of these castes. Are the castes listed under Wikipedia as different names, or are these castes which have no coverage (obsolete, no article written yet, nobody will admit being descended from them, etc). Such caste names include (also noting several Indian/Hindu festivals/events where I need to find the articles):

Thanks for any help pointing me to which articles these images might go to! MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:57, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Most of them are also occupation names of the castes. See some links inline --Redtigerxyz Talk 17:48, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
{{British English}} name {{Indian English}} name
Doams, basket makers Domba, Doms
Moorda-shos, undertakers. Removers of corpses Dom
Puttooas painters Chitrakar
Jogee, cloth merchant, weaver Jogi
Sonaur - Bunnyas. Money lenders Bania
Sonaur - Bunnyas. Money lenders Sunar
Nays, Shaving Barbers Navhi, Nabhik, Gurav
Beyde Vaidya
Ras yatrah, celebrations of the loves of Krishna Raas Lila
Gwallah, Milkseller Veershaiv Gavali Samaj
Mauls, snake catchers Mang Garudi
Tantys, Weavers Tanti, Shimpi in Maharashtra
Komars, potters Kumbhar
Moochees, Tanners, shoe makers Mochi (caste)
Dhobys, Washermen Dhobi
Maulys, Flowermen Mali caste
Brijbasis, a hindu tribe Nat (caste)
Rathyatra: Procession of the Gods in their car, Jagganath Puri, Ratha Yatra
Chaun Jatrah (Celebration of the bath of Jagannath) Jagganath Puri
Kirtan sung at the festival of Hari Kirtan
Gwallahs, cow herds Dhangar
Zuggernaut (talk) 03:20, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
Changed a link above. Dhnagars are usually described as shepherd. Gwallah seems to be ग्वाला or ग्वाल (Gwala/Gvala), the generic word for a cowman or dairy-man or cowherd in Hindi. --Redtigerxyz Talk 06:27, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
Awesome! Thanks for the clarifications. Is it just coincidence that a lot of the ones you give are Bengali castes, or is it just that you know the Bengali ones better, or the 19th C. author just happened to cover a lot of Bengali castes? MatthewVanitas (talk) 17:55, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
Glad I could help. Most caste names in the Indo-European linguistic group are likely to have similar sounding names. However when you upload pictures, it is important that it goes to the article on the right regional variation of the caste group. For example, if your picture of a member of the Mali caste is from Maharashtra then it is important that the caption denote that since a member of the same caste from a different state (if it exists in that state) belongs to a different ethnicity and will obviously look different. Zuggernaut (talk) 02:26, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
Most of them seem to be Bengali becuase most of the 17th to 20th century English research scholars in North India were based in then Indian capital of Calcutta and in those time Benngali learned people were specs thru which English saw, read & deciphered most of North India. That is why you have B in place of V or W and J in place of Y angelical name of Hindi equivalent & usage of O or OU in angelical words because in Bengali (& also in Eatsern Hindi including Awadhi, Behari, Bhojpuri, etc) they use B & tend to round most of the words e.g. Vardhmaan in Hindi will be Bardhamoun in Bengali or Yatra in Hindi is Jatra or Jotra in Benagali & that is why they changed Calcutta to Kolkata ;) --Sayed Mohammad Faiz Haidertcs 03:27, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Found a site with more and higher-quality images from the same historical source: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00routesdata/1700_1799/solvyns/gwalla.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00routesdata/1700_1799/solvyns/solvyns.html&usg=__5eSKQtJN178N8kUVuy_qimm4ZTA=&h=734&w=500&sz=86&hl=en&start=3&zoom=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=UBZb1G8ZSPUtLM:&tbnh=141&tbnw=96&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dgwalla%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us%26biw%3D1245%26bih%3D847%26tbm%3Disch&ei=X23WTZyLN869tge2taCtBw . Will look through those and see which can be used to illustrate caste articles. MatthewVanitas (talk) 13:34, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Veershaiv Gavali Samaj, retitle "Gavali (caste)"?

An illustration of a Gwalla by Francois Balthasar Solvyns, circa 1800 CE

Is there a distinction between "Veershaiv Gavali Samaj" and "Gavali", or am I okay to move it to the simpler title? I almost wonder if it has the long title because the originator didn't know how to disambiguate from Gavali (a town). Any objections on rename? MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:07, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, there are several sub-groupings in the Gavali caste. Gavali is the generic name and the editor was probably trying to differentiate between this group from other groups like Ahir Gavalis and the Yadav Gavalis. Zuggernaut (talk) 02:37, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
Given that the article is unreferenced, and there is no Gavali (caste), what say I move it to that title, and anything that appears to be specifically Veershaiv I put into a subsection (tagged "unreferenced")? It just seems undue to have an article about a subgroup before there's a group article. MatthewVanitas (talk) 17:34, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
Okay, I merged the two articles into Gavli, neatened it up a little bit though it still needs work. Also created redirects to Gavli at the following: Gowli, Gowlu, Gawli, Gavali, Gawali, Gauli, Gavadi, Gouli, Goalla, Gopa, Godla. Does anyone note any names on this list that should not redirect to Gavli? Also ran into a bit of confusion with various sources mentioning that the Dhangar and the Ahir are the "same" as the Gavli, though nothing quite convincing enough to try to merge all three (rather large) articles that have been developing separately. Any thoughts? EDIT: added cool pic from the old Solvyns engravings.) MatthewVanitas (talk) 13:31, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
The merge seems alright for now. We can split it into different Gavli sub-castes if those sections grow long enough to merit their own articles. I've not seen some of the spelling variations of Gavli but that doesn't mean they should not redirect to Gavli. AFAIK, Ahir and Dhangar are distinct castes so separate articles are good unless Redtiger or someone else presents credible sources that show that the castes are the same. Zuggernaut (talk) 15:31, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
Are the Gwalvanshi the same as Gavli, a related group, or which? Should that article be merged in, or somehow mentioned in Gavli, or are they just similar names? There aren't many gBooks hits for "Gwalvanshi", but mainly they appear to be a sub-branch of Ahirs. I know that Ahirs fall into the general West Indian herdsman family, but not sure how heavy a cross-over of Gavil/Goalla/Gopa they are. Thoughts?

help with naming

i am planning to create an article for the 3rd term chief ministership of J. Jayalalitha. i would want the article to specifically deal with the third term, not the first and second, because i believe enough has happened in both terms to deserve their own articles. i am not sure how to name the article though. suggestions welcome. for the starters, here is a stupid idea Chief ministership of Jayalalitha - 3rd term. --CarTick (talk) 15:50, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

J. Jayalalitha's third term as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. already made it. better suggestions still welcome. --CarTick (talk) 12:08, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
That's a great new article. I would have preferred "Chief ministership of Jayalalitha, 3rd term" or "Chief ministership of Jayalalitha (3rd term)" on the lines of George W. Bush presidential campaign, 2004. Zuggernaut (talk) 16:38, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
Thanks Z. i based it on George W. Bush's second term as President of the United States. your ideas sound good too. i will incubate it for a while and see how it goes. --CarTick (talk) 19:22, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
It's no big deal and the current title seems fine as well. Zuggernaut (talk) 15:32, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Kasturi (TV channel) or Kasthuri TV

Hello. I am hoping someone might be able to sort this out for me. While cleaning up the disambiguation page Kasturi I came across the articles Kasturi (TV channel) and Kasthuri TV which I believe to be about the same television channel. As I know nothing about the subject, it would be great if someone with a bit more insight could decide what the title of the page should be and merge the other there. For instance is it Katsuri or Kasthuri?; I see the offical website says Kasthuri so maybe this is the correct name. France3470 (talk) 17:52, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

"Kasthuri TV" would be the more apt name. i have merged and copyedited the content. A history merge needs to be done.--Sodabottle (talk) 18:34, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Articles that have excessive DABLinks and part of Wikiproject India

I am looking for a list of Pages in this project (wikipedia India) that have excessive DABlinks on them. (I am hoping to clean them up.) How do I go about finding a list of those articles - that have both: 1. Excessive DabLinks, and 2. Belonging to this project.

Thanks, Ram —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ramnarasimhan (talk • contribs) 18:40, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Not part of the project, but you might want to begin by looking through Articles with links to disambiguation pages on the toolserver. This displays the article pages with the most links to disambiguation pages. There are always lots of Indian topics so it shouldn't take you too long to find some by just browsing. -France3470 (talk) 19:44, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Debate at Nair over Kshatriya vs. Shudra classification

there is a discussion about whether Nairs are Kshatriyas or Shudras or both — i know it sounds weird — and whether the article is accurately characterising the reliable sources in this topic. here is the link. will appreciate inputs from project page watchers. thanks. --CarTick (talk) 23:33, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

(Changing title to be more specific) I haven't gone into the various sources, but as a general rule I'm very leery of groups which claim to be Kshatriya, and then flip out when someone notes the plethora of sources identifying them as Shudra. I've posted on that page in support of properly cited Shudra inclusion, along with noting any properly cited claims to Kshatriya status. What the Nair are is immaterial, the important thing is to note the history of the ways they've been classified. MatthewVanitas (talk) 02:54, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
We're getting kind of swamped here with a bunch of folks who are adamant against any taint of the word "Shudra" in the article, despite plenty of cites showing that the Kerala Brahmin considered the Dravidian Nair to be Shudra due to their lack of descent from ancestral varnas. Granted, they fulfilled a Kshatriya-like role, and some British and other commentators reckoned they may actually have Kshatria roots; but we're not trying to eliminate the word Kshatriya, while the other side is trying to eliminate the word Shudra rather than actually portray the complicated issue of varna in Southern India. If anyone wants to weigh in (and note, their tempers are running high), it would help. They've already filed an ANI complaining about CarTick and I, not that I think it will go anywhere. It's not that I don't understand that Shudra status is controversial, but the lengths people will go to to remove explicit academic references is disenheartening. MatthewVanitas (talk) 04:50, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Addition of Indian language scripts for places

I had added Tamil script to the article for Malleswaram article because of the considerably strong Tamil presence in the neighbourhood. However, User:Abhishek191288 has been repeatedly removing it from the article. I have no qualms about my edits being reverted. I will definitely not protest if User:Abhishek191288 was to tell me that the Tamil presence in Malleswaram was not strong enough for Tamil script to be added. However, User:Abhishek191288 reasons that he has been reverting my edits because of the fact that "Tamil is not the official language of the city". Now, we have so many instances of places for which non-official language scripts have been added.

Actually it was me who once told Abhishek that we mostly keep official languages and the script of the language from which the name comes from. There is no official policy for this (i think they tried a few times to hash out a policy for this, but failed due to no consensus). It is my opinion it is better we stick to official languages /origin languages, because native script signifies ownership for a lot of people and we get many edit wars because of that. I am glad you have bought this up in the noticeboard. Its time we had a wider discussion on this issue.--Sodabottle (talk) 17:45, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
Mangalore article is an FA and I guess in the discussion, someone had emphasized that scripts in other "significantly spoken" minority language like Konkani and Beary be included. Besides, Tulu is the most widely spoken language in the city. However, I guess, the official language is Kannada and not Tulu.-The EnforcerOffice of the secret service 17:49, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
Cities are probably a different deal altogether. It would not be wise to compare cities to localities, and draw conclusions from that. As Sodabottle says, we'll probably get a lot of edit wars if we include non-native languages. Lynch7 •Talk 17:58, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, maybe, for "cities" or "localities" with homogenous populations, the "official language" benchmark might come good. But in places wherein the most official language is not spoken by even half the population, I think we should mention the other "important" languages, too.-The EnforcerOffice of the secret service 18:03, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
The only good reason for including a non-Latin script that most English speakers cannot read is to provide a reference for the name's pronunciation and transliteration. When altlang links are available to articles in other wikis, this becomes unnecessary. Another answer might be to move the names in other scripts to a 'The name xxx' section, thus taking the arguments away from the lead. Imc (talk) 19:32, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
If this was to be the case, then usage of the International Phonetic Alphabet would be enough. Why should we provide the pronunciation in the locally-used script in the first place. After all, it is pretty obvious that a lay user of Wikipedia from the UK or USA will not be able to read something written in Devanagari or Tamil script or a person from Gujarat or Punjab will not be able to read Chinese or Korean.-The EnforcerOffice of the secret service 12:26, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I have never been a big fan of too many scripts in the lead: it distracts the readers and means nothing to a vast majority of them. i would just stick with one language. --CarTick (talk) 23:59, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with CarTick here, with a further alteration that if there are articles in alternate languages space, then the links to them are sufficient for the users. Only in absence of such links do we need to include the official language text. Pronunciation needs to be in the English language, in the English wiki. VasuVR (talk, contribs) 15:09, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I wish to propose a rule for usage as a benchmark for inclusion of local language scripts in Indian geography articles. I suggest that the following scripts be included.

  1. Native language script (or the script pertaining to the language from which the place name is derived)
  2. Majority language script
  3. Minority language scripts, provided the proportion of speakers of the particular minority language is atleast 1:2 to that of the majority language. Example 1: if lang1 is spoken by 50% of a city's population and lang2 is spoken by more than 25% of the city's population, then scripts pertaining to both lang1 and lang2 be given in the lead. Example 2: If lang1 is spoken by 40% of a city's population and lang2 and lang3 are each spoken by more than 20% of the city's population, then scripts for both lang2 and lang3 be provided.-The EnforcerOffice of the secret service 12:52, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

(Fact check note) Urdu and Punjabi are also official languages of Delhi. FYI.[8] --rgpk (comment) 13:43, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

As Mike points out that rightly, you cannot compare Malleswaram (as it's a locality) to the cities you have mentioned. Agreeing to what Sodabottle says, it's best if we stick to the official language of the place. With regards to Mangalore, Konkani and Tulu are not a minor languages, they're spoken by a significant population in Mangalore. With regards to Belgaum, Hosur and KGF, I do not know why Marathi, Kannada and Tamil titles respectively have been mentioned. Per what Sodabottle says, these language titles may have to be removed from these three city articles. —Abhishek Talk to me 14:31, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
I've never said that Konkani and Tulu are minor languages in Mangalore. I only said that Konkani and Beary (not Tulu) were "minority languages". Belgaum, Hosur and KGF have as much Marathi, Kannada and Tamil speakers respectively as there are Konkanis in Mangalore.-The EnforcerOffice of the secret service 14:40, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
Konkani is the official language of Mangalore unlike Marathi for Belgaum, Kannada for Hosur and Tamil for KGF. —Abhishek Talk to me 14:45, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
Though I doubt your assertion, it does not explain why Beary script is given.-The EnforcerOffice of the secret service 14:51, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
In the discussion whether to add Telugu and Kannada script for Hosur or not, there have been references made to the Mangalore article. And it was on basis of the fact that Mangalore article has scripts in four languages in the lead that the decision to include Kannada and Telugu script for Hosur appears to have been taken.-The EnforcerOffice of the secret service 14:59, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
The population of localities is quite mobile, unlike those of cities. It is not fair to compare cities to localities. Lynch7 •Talk 16:03, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
Maybe, but Bangalore itself, due to the IT industry, has a huge floating population. And then, it is pretty clear from the article that the foundation of modern "Malleswaram" was laid by a Tamilian and there is a significant Tamil population in the neighbourhood. Now, I don't think there are going to be mass migrations to other areas thereby causing significant changes in demographic patterns. Anyway, the issue is not limited to localities alone, right. -The EnforcerOffice of the secret service 17:55, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Major cleanup underway at Yadav (merge with Ahir?)

The article Yadav has been, probably for years, a confused mish-mash of caste-cruft, terribly copyediting and footnoting, etc. I've waded in, put in clear references noting they're generally classed as Shudras while themselves claiming to be Kshatriya. A huge portion of groups noted as Shudra in academic sources are adamantly described as Kshatriya all over Wikipedia, so I've been trying to track those down and "teach the controversy."

To start out, I'm using http://reftag.appspot.com to convert bare gBooks links into proper cites (there are over 100 footnotes, so it's taking a while). I've also removed some iffy "cn" material, and also removed some large portions which are only footnoted to the Vedas and whatnot, since nobody there is qualified to be interpreting ethnology based on milleniae-old scriptures, so that's pretty clear OR.

A large portion of the article also appears to (probably improperly) conflate the Yadav with the legendary Yadavas, while as I understand it other refs note that the modern Yadavs are simply a farmer caste that adopted a catchy/legendary name in recent centuries. The article also goes way too far in depth on the legendary end, considering that such material is already covered under Yadavas.

The article also has large portions that are redundant to existing articles, or need to be chopped on their own, like multi-paragraphs of individual sub-clans. There also appears a strong case to be made that Ahir and Yadav are the same thing, and the two articles apparently use a lot of the same pictures, address the same history, etc. Note that Ahir and Yadav, and their various redirects, get over 10,000 hits a month, so leaving the articles so sloppy is showing a bad side of Wiki to a large number of readers.

If anyone wants to wade in to help out, it would be greatly appreciate it. It'd also help just if folks can watchlist the page, as I'm getting IPs diving in regularly to remove clearly-cited info on the Shudra classification. Thanks! MatthewVanitas (talk) 03:02, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't have time to help with the articles, but the Rajputs are the most celebrated example of Shudras (or pastoralists outside the caste system) who managed a backdoor entry into Kshatriahood by volunteering their services in various armies. (See, for example, Burton Stein's History of India'). The early medieval period (600 CE to 1200 CE) saw a great deal of this happen all over India. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:58, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
Shivaji and the Marathas are another example. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:02, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
PS Quote from Asher and Talbot's India before Europe (CUP 2006; pages 238-39): "The Marathas along with many peasant cultivators throughout the subcontinent were considered members of the fourth or shudra varna in the four-fold class system of orthodox Brahamin thought. Traditionally, however, the only legitimate kings were those born in the kshatriya varna, ranked just below the Brahmins. The solution to the problem of Shivaji's status was a new genealogy created for the occasion (his "coronation") that traced Shivaji's ancestry back to Rajput roots, for Rajputs were widely accepted as aristrocratic kshatriyas." I've deliberately picked a (new) college history text since it has been vetted for WP:DUE. There are of course many specialist monographs that attest to this. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:10, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
PPS This is a controversial area. In cleaning up these articles, one shouldn't be implying that "frontdoor" entries are somehow more legitimate than "backdoor" ones. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:45, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Certainly; I have no dog in this fight, I just hate historical whitewashing. If a given group was legally declared Kshatriya by the British in 1893, I'm definitely including that, but I'm not going to anachronistically pretend that they weren't treated as Shudra for the previous two centuries. Legitimacy is pretty immaterial in these cases, it's just a matter of attempting to accurately depict how a given group perceived itself and was perceived by others over time. Just the problem I get is IPs and others pushing back against anything which calls into question their legendary narratives or "compromises" the prestige of their caste. Personally, I don't see what's so embarrassing about being descended from farmers; I realise it has larger socio-political significance in India, but accomodating people's hurt feelings isn't a valid reason to bowlderise history. Thanks for bringing up some great points, and I'll proceed with due caution. MatthewVanitas (talk) 05:54, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Rajputs are Shudras or Kshatriyas?
quite surprising and interesting info about rajputs. i personally dont think these classifications matter anymore, but they are still facts. i am with MV in that i dont understand why the some of these caste members — which i believe is only a tiny vocal minority — are running away to embrace this dubious kshatriya status. this shameful behavior of not being able to get to grips with their own self and history is embarassing. one guy in the Nair talk page questions whether we are deliberately attempting to imply that nair women are prostitutes for adding information related to polyandry among nairs long time ago. MV's post in the Nair talk page about people with these caste last names, living abroad specifically, want to make their heritage look good in front of an international audience makes sense. --CarTick (talk) 18:41, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
I emphasise that I'm trying to WP:AGF with the other editors individually, but as a generality I'm having a hard time finding any motive for the extremely emotional POV-pushing we're seeing on Shudra caste inclusions, other than that some editors are somehow affiliated with these castes and taking any "hit" to caste prestige personally. I concur with CarTick that it is a sad form of self-denial to be unable to face legitimate academic histories of one's background. History may not always be pretty, but we're not going to get anywhere lying to ourselves about it. I also agree that many of these caste designations aren't so vital in the modern day, and clearly plenty of "Shudra"-descended persons are very succesful, but the raw nerve struck by bringing up such history is certainly demonstration that many of these wounds have not yet healed. Not to apply an overly-American "Horatio Alger story" value to it, but one would hope that people would eventually reach the point where they could say, "yes, my ancestors pressed oil or tapped toddy, but they played an important role in our society, and today I'm an investment banker, so anyone who wants to look down on X caste can go stuff it." MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:22, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
Agree with Matthew and CarTick. I think the best we can do is to report the unvarnished reliably sourced history without making any judgements. As for drive-bys, all we can do is to remain vigilant. Since you (Matthew) have advertised the page here, many more people will have it on their watchlist and be able to help you counter vandalism. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:43, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
PS As for Rajputs, they were not necessarily Shudras, but outside the caste system, i.e. even below the Shudras. In the early medieval age (600–1200 CE) as the agricultural economy grew and land began to be cleared, many people living in the uncleared land (forest people, tribals, pastoralists) had to be accommodated into the caste system. Many were deemed "untouchable" (below the Shudras), however, some were allowed entry at a higher level if they joined the army. The Rajputs, according to Stein and others, belong to the latter category. Their origins are uncertain. Some think they are descendants of Huns. They themselves when not claiming descent from the Sun god have claimed it from the Sakas. Some think they were herders in a part of the country (Rajasthan) that was not very attractive to the developing Vedic culture in the Punjab and the Gangetic plain, and consequently they didn't need to be accommodated until much later. Anyway, this is a little off-topic, as the discussion is about the Yadav/Ahira, so I'll stop. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:43, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

To categorize all Rajputs "below" Shudras is wrong. In fact, any effort to "definitively" categorize them in the Vedic caste system is flawed as they were (most likely) foreigners (invaders from Central Asia) who assimilated in the Indian social order. They were christened later, where the leaders were accorded the caste "kshatriyas" and followers "shudras" (Ahirs, Jats, Gujjars etc.). "Yadavs" (Ahirs) are classified by the GoI under either SC/OBCs if I am not mistaken.

The Rajputs regard themselves as descendants or members of the Kshatriya (warrior ruling) class, but they actually vary greatly in status, from princely lineages, such as the Guhilot and Kachwaha, to simple cultivators. Most authorities agree that successful claims to Rajput status frequently were made by groups that attained secular power; invaders from central Asia as well as patrician lines of indigenous tribal peoples were probably absorbed in this way. There are numbers of Muslim Rajputs in the northwest, and Rajputs generally have adopted the custom of purdah (seclusion of women). Their ethos includes an intense pride in ancestry and a mettlesome regard for personal honour. They seek hypergamous marriages (i.e., the bride marrying into a social group higher than her own).

The Rajputs; origins seem to date from a great breakup of Indian society in northern and northwestern India under the impact of the Hephthalites (white Huns) and associated tribes from the mid-5th century ce onward. Following the breakup of the Gupta empire (late 6th century), invading groups were probably integrated within the existing society, with the present pattern of northwestern Indian society being the result. Tribal leaders and nobles were accepted as Kshatriyas, the second order of the Hindus, while their followers entered the fourth (Sudra, or cultivating) order to form the basis of tribal castes, such as the Jats, the Gujars, and the Ahirs. Some of the invaders’ priests became Brahmans (the highest-ranking caste). Some indigenous tribes also attained Rajput status, such as the Rathors of Rajasthan and the Chandelas and of central India. Rajput ancestry can be divided between Suryavanshi (House of the Sun; or Solar people), or those descended from Rama, the hero of the epic Ramayana; and Chandravanshi (House of the Moon; or Lunar people), or those descended from Krishna, the hero of the epic Mahabharata. A third group, Agnikula (Family of the Fire God), is the group from which the Rajputs derive their claim to be Kshatriyas. Rajput habits of eating meat (except beef) and other traits suggest both foreign and aboriginal origins.

Encyclopedia Britannica: Rajputs, retrieved 2011-05-25


— Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.182.79.218 (talk • contribs) 20:41, 25 May 2011

It's off topic, unsigning IP from Mumbai. Take it up somewhere else. Not here and not on my talk page. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:42, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Sivakudil‎

The article Sivakudil‎ has been proposed for deletion. The proposed-deletion notice added to the article should explain why.

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

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

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Kerala geography article; nearly unintelligible, and I can't find any gBooks hits for verifiabiity. Anyone know of any resources to add, alternate spellings, etc.? MatthewVanitas (talk) 05:59, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
Looks like a single building - an ashram/school and not a geographic location. here is the building.--Sodabottle (talk) 15:01, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Unsuprising problem at 36 royal races

Table of contents detailing the applicable chapter

I saw this title while perusing a cat, and thought "I bet you anything that the list in the article does not match the list in the reference". Sure enough... 37 names. No doubt due to someone from Caste X saying "wait, why is my name not on there? Better add it!" and then castes A, B, C, all the way through J, K, L come in and add names, remove names of castes they don't like, etc.

If we leave it editable, random people are going to come in here and add or subtract names, with good or ill intentions. Since Tod's book is out of copyright, probably the easiest way around this is just to scan an image of that page of the book, post it here as an image, and have the article be about the concept while the list remains an image which cannot be tampered with. Thoughts? Any other articles that need a similar non-tamperable image for lists, etc? MatthewVanitas (talk) 05:03, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

I wonder if this article meets Wikipedia:Notability. utcursch | talk 14:35, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
There seem to be a lot of hits on gBooks, though almost mention them in the context of the original author and his attempt to catalog the Rajputs. In any case, I did a total rewrite, and gave a direct link to a free eBook of Tod's Rajasthan but did not attempt to replicate the list inside the article, for fear of it being tampered with again. Anyone have any idea better than making a screencap of the actual paper list and posting it as an image? That should avoid any temptation to add/subtract clans from the list. EDIT: I went ahead and used gBooks "clip" tool to get a snapshot of the ToC page. Thoughts?MatthewVanitas (talk) 14:33, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Historiocity of the term Hindavi Swarajya

In Talk:Shivaji an IP a year or so brought up concerns that it's anachronistic to refer to Shivaji's fight against the Moghuls as Hindavi Swarajya (Indian self-rule), arguing that no such concept as "Hindavi" existed at the time. I've looked it up on GoogleBooks, and though a lot of sources mention that Shivaji's movement was a form of Hindavi Swarajya, I can't find any absolutely explicit ref that he used those exact words. I did, however, run across academic debate as to whether this meant Shivaji's struggle was on behalf of Hindus/dharma/cows, or a more general secular movement against Moghul militancy with the "Hindvai" referring to some early concept of a greater non-Moghul India. Does anyone have any thoughts on this, better way to interpret the refs, etc? Also, in the article itself we don't have any native spelling thereof, though again I'm not sure whether spelling it in Hindi would have anachronistic issues, or whether it was originally Marathi, or what. MatthewVanitas (talk) 16:36, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Important Wikipedians Meetup in Pune - Campus Ambassador Training (04-05 Jun 2011)

There is a lot happening in Pune next week. We have a lot of visitors in town who would especially like to interact with the Pune Community. Our help and cooperation has been sought for the Campus Ambassador training event next weekend. Our MEETUP DATE IS NOW CHANGED FROM 11 JUN TO 04 JUN 2011 (Saturday) at 1800 hours at SICSR, Atur Centre, Model Colony. Room No 704. 7th floor.

Hisham Mundol, National Program Coordinator, who is leading the Campus Ambassador programme, Bishakha Datta, Trustee, and Tinu Cherian, the quintessential Indian outreach activist, will also be coming for and participating in the meet - a rare treat for us.

We have a number of people visiting us from abroad. Frank Schulenburg, Head of Public Outreach and Annie Lin, who leads the Ambassador Program are visiting Pune for the Campus Ambassador training event on 04-05 Jun 2011. We also have P.J. Tabit coming down to India between June 1st and August 21st to support the launch of the Wikipedia India Education Program. PJ is a Campus Ambassador in the US and is on the Ambassador Steering Committee for Wikipedia.

We also have Tory Read who is coming over to document and write the exciting story of how Wikipedia is developing in the world. She will meet and interact with prominent Pune Wikipedians during that time. Tory will be in Pune for the Campus Ambassador training and after Pune, will be going around from one Wikipedian community to another in various cities of India.

Broadly speaking, the campus ambassadors will be trained on 4th and 5th Jun by the outreach team comprising lndian and foreign Wikipedians. In the evening on Saturday, the campus ambassadors and the outreach team will be present for our meetup.

AshLin (talk) 12:47, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

IPL 2011 in the main news.

Hi, could we have some support for the IPL 2011 being posted in the main news? The discussion is going on here. Chocolate Horlicks (talk) 02:51, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

This got posted. Thanks. Chocolate Horlicks (talk) 04:48, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Template:Infobox caste

I've just expanded the {{Infobox caste}} ten fold based on the recent caste related posts here. Please help improve the infobox so we can have all attributes about a caste in one place, irrespective of the regional variations. A general note - please use care in calling a caste Shudra. The caste system was more or less fluid until the arrival of the British so if a particular caste group "upgraded" themselves, we could potentially cover it in the body of the article somehwere (if there is consensus) but we are not in the business of determining whether the caste is presently Shudra or not. A few other things to keep in mind while editing caste articles:

  • The constitution of India made the caste system illegal in 1950.
  • The United Nations repeatedly calls for treating the caste system as racist system and calls it a human rights violation (the India government repeatedly rejects it).
  • Pretty much the only original inhabitants of India are the Adivasis (and their equivalents in other states) and other marginalized groups, most other castes are migrants to India albeit from thousands of years in the past.
  • Caste is a sensitive issue even in the new millennium and has led to violence very recently. Shivaji has been the icon of Maharashtrian identity for more than 3 centuries. He enjoys a position of absolute and unrivaled veneration without any parallel in the history of Maharastra. Please utilize caution and care while editing content about Shivaji, whether it is in article space or talk space. Zuggernaut (talk) 03:31, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
I take it this largely applies to my recent work. In response:
  • I definitely recognise the caste system is now legally a historical vice current issue. I think I've taken care to emphasise the historical nature thereof in articles, and indeed I think a lot of articles over-emphasise caste, mainly in terms of promoting an "illustrious history" which generally does not line up with academic info.
  • I realise caste is sensitive, and I think that, except for a few of my earliest edits that I'll check back on, I was pretty clear on maintaining "group X says A caste, group Y says B caste", "teaching the controversy", etc. vice just saying "they're Shudras." I feel this is particularly well-covered at Kayastha where the lede simply says "it's a complex issue" and then a "varna controversy" section lays out quite a few historical interpretations. Not that such hasn't resulted in some hostile posts, and threats to take up cash collection to form a legal defense fund and sue Wikipedia to get the term "Shudra" removed from Kayastha...
  • Regarding Shivaji; the current article is decently written, though a bit hagiographic. I'm not immediately aware of any school of thought outright defaming Shivaji (though some such thing must exist). The article does definitely gloss over the issue of whether Shivaji was true Kshatria descended from Ram, or whether he was a Kunbi-type aristocrat of agriculturalists, whose great military successes forced the Brahmins into a quick "re-appraisal" of his background given his prominence. That said, certainly it should be approached academically and with all proper referencing, but we can't censor the controversy. So far as it being an issue leading to violence: WP has ticked off far, far, far more people, and often more hostile people, during its existence. If we can include controversial (well-cited) materials about Jesus and Muhammad, I see no reason to pussy-foot about the topic of Shivaji. He's a very interesting figure, clearly a successful and important figure, and we owe it to the readers to lay out the full story, even warts-and-all, as best as we can. MatthewVanitas (talk) 05:57, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
Zuggernaut: I have no idea what you're implying in your coy post on MatthewVanitas's talk page:

My recent post at WT:IN was not aimed at you or your recent work. It was a general note and it may or may not apply to other editors who may or may not have a tarnished editing history when it comes to India, Hinduism and caste topics. Zuggernaut (talk) 06:24, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I would like to suggest that you scratch your entire post about Shivaji. You are treading too close to the area of your topic ban. I agree with MV, no reason to pussyfoot around Shivaji, just because one state in India is allegedly sensitive about it. That is a problem, but not Wikipedia's problem. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:57, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
i have read about the Shivaji controversy in one of Indian history books; cant remember which one, i will provide the reference if i will find it again. i agree with MV and Fowler that people's sensitivity should not be a deciding factor in wiki editing. However, i do not see that Z is overstepping his topic ban in this case. --CarTick (talk) 16:11, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
You don't? How do you interpret his post on MV's talk page then? I made a post about Shivaji here (and provided a reference for his Shudra status before his "coronation.") Zuggernaut is supposed to stay away from getting into arguments with me. (See the thread above about Aheers and Yadavas above.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:45, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
Well, Fowler&Fowler. It is easy to be righteous when the effects of a person's editing is not in his vicinity. As part of a Wikipedia community in Pune doing outreach, with a major campus ambassador initiative going on here, there is an off-chance of things being wilfully misconstrued by unscrupulous elements. I am not being paranoid - there is an existing history regarding this issue. Neither am I suggesting censorship but I'd like to be very clear in my mind about the academic basis for this and we would need to be completely convinced ourselves as to the correct state of affairs as we have to face the issue on the ground. I have left a message asking User:MathewVanitas for some references to the topic and a reminder for about this but he has not cared to respond to me. This is a live issue and just being righteous about the whole affair does not make our real world problems go away. AshLin (talk) 17:31, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry AshLin, haven't meant to be ignoring you. I was just catching up on a bunch of small tuning issues before launching into the Shivaji topic. It's going to be a big one, and I had a lot of small things on my to-do list. Further, the Shivaji article isn't grievously bad, so it's more a long-term interest in making sure the intricacies are laid out. Also, nothing stopping you from glancing at GoogleBooks while I'm off on other stuff, so please don't hold up on my account. I've still got a bunch of stuff to sort out at Yadav and Ahirs, but can maybe sideline those if you want to form up a formal crew to tackle Shivaji. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:05, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

AshLin, Shivaji's former shudra (or non twice born status) should not be seen as a defect, but rather a part of his strength. There are a number of books that mention this. I have already quoted from (a) Asher and Talbot (India before Europe, Cambridge University Press, 2006) upstairs. You will also find mention in: (b) Susan Bayly's Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age, Cambridge University Press, 2001. Here's what Bayly says:

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:21, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

PS Here's another view from Xenophobia in Seventeenth-Century India by Gijs Kruijtzer, Amsterdam University Press, 2009:

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:51, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

PPS Here's Ananya Vajpeyi (himself/herself) in "Śudradharma and the legal treatments of caste" in Hinduism and the Law, edited by Timothy Lubin, Donald R. Davis, Jayanth K. Krishnan, Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:06, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

PPPS Just so that all the quotes are in one place, here is the one from Asher and Talbot (India before Europe, Cambridge University Press, 2006):

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:25, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

PPPPS The issue of Shivaji's caste is not new; it has been talked about for at least 150 years. Here's Rosalind O'Hanlon in Caste, Conflict and Ideology: Mahatma Jotirao Phule and Low Caste Protest in Nineteenth-Century Western India, Cambridge University Press, 2002, talking about Mahatma Jyoteeram Phule's biography of Shivaji (1869), A Ballad of the Raja Chatrapati Shivaji Bhosale (sic):

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:27, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the references, Fowler. This is helpful for considering the issue on its merits. I shall look for these references and more. MathewVanitas, no issues. A single line reply about your tight schedule would have been helpful though. Since, I myself am primarily tied up in outreach at the moment in detriment to my editing :-P , I would not suggest disrupting your planned editing schedule at the moment. My own interest is however more on the military aspects of Shivaji's work. AshLin (talk) 03:56, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

AshLin: Very welcome. Good luck with your meeting. Here is one last quote from Maria Misra's Vishnu's crowded temple: India since the Great Rebellion, Yale University Press, 2008.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:11, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Request for comment

Discussing rename of prejudicial term "Chink" to more appropriate article title06:39, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Major cleanup underway at Ahirs

This article has quite a few problems, and I'm working to fix them now:

  •  Done Way to many links needing Disambiguation
  •  Done Too many images not directly related to the subject (except might need to remove that Mahabarata map too)
  • (partial) Too many ELs, some of dubious credibility and applicability, and in some cases origin not noted in cite
  • (partial) Various footnotes not done as full citations; I've fixed some of the GoogleBooks ones using http://reftag.appspot.com , which I recommend highly
  • Way too much emphasis on claimed/legendary Kshatriya descent, and no description of the Ahir classification as Shudra cowherds, milkmen, etc.
  • Lede is too convoluted and unclear; I've done some minor fixing, but it talks too much about history theories and not enough about the modern notability of the Ahir
  • History section is way too long and focused on the Abhiriya, with little mention of how applicable that ancient group may be to the modern Ahirs. This article should link to whatever claimed ancient groups, and then explain the theory of descent, rather than just list out a whole claimed multi-millennium history.
  • The section on modern Ahir caste-politics is too short; there was some major early 19th C. moving and shaking as the Yadavs, Ahirs, etc. sought to define themselves as Kshatriya
  • The History and Distribution sections have significant overlap with Yadav. The info needs to go one way or the other, or be covered in one and linked/summarised in the other, or the two articles need to be merged.
  • The Military section was word-for-word the same as in Yadav; same again, there needs to be some differentiation, or remove it from one article or the other entirely.
  • Sourcing/footnoting needs extensive improvement throughout.

Those are just a few major observations. I've done some extensive copyedit and re-org which I think has helped, but there's plenty more to be done. MatthewVanitas (talk) 16:27, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

The article Yaduvanshi Ahirs is a train-wreck, and appears to be largely the same info as Yadav and Ahir. Anyone have any opinions on twhat to do about this? It's bad enough having massive Ahir/Yadav overlap, but this third article seems pretty redundant. Are there Ahir groups who do not claim descent from Yadu? MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:20, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
Whoops, answered my own question, there are are also Nandvanshi and Gwalvanshi Ahirs. That said, those other groups seem synonymous with some other "Yadav" sub-sets, with Gwalvanshi looking awfully like Gavli. So is the point that there were a bunch of agricultural castes, and at various points they started to claim disparate mythic statuses, then united under the term "Ahir", and then later grouped larger still under the term "Yadav"? It's probably far simpler than it sounds, I think some of it is just the ebb and flow of names complicating things. MatthewVanitas (talk) 22:33, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorting Ahirwar/Aharwar vs. Ahar issue

The article now called Aharwar (I've put in a move request to "Ahirwar" as a far more common name on gBooks) had a lot of material that was actually about the Ahar (caste). I couldn't find any substantiation of a link between the two, so to be on the safe side I formed a new Ahar article, and sequestered all cites so that only the specific terms Ahirwar/Aharwar and Ahar appeared in their respective articles. Does anyone have any belief and/or supporting evidence that these are the same group of people, or are other editors conflating similar names? Note too that the old version of Aharwar had the usual "yeah, totally definitely Kshatriya" and "Rajput clan" claims which I've been unable to substantiate anywhere, as well as claims to be descended from Parmal's warriors. The latter may indeed be their legendary history, but I just couldn't find any RSs.

I did find, however, some association of Ahirwar with some Chamar castes, some weaver castes, and also the Mochi (caste) of Nepal, though I'm holding back on those at the moment to make sure I'm not conflating like names. Thoughts? MatthewVanitas (talk) 17:55, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs - the final surge

Since early in 2010, many editors have assisted in the referencing or removal of over 90% of the Unreferenced Biographies of Living People, bringing the total down from over 50,000 to the current 4,861 (as of 16:01, 1 June 2011 (UTC)). Thank you for all of the work you've done to date, but we are now asking for your help in finishing this task. There are two main projects which are devoted to removing UBLPs from en.Wikipedia:

All you have to do is pick your articles and then add suitable references from reliable sources and remove the {{BLP unsourced}} template. There is no need to log your changes, register or remove the articles from the list. If you need any help, or have any comments, please ask at WP:URBLPR or WT:URBLP.

Thank you for any assistance you can provide. The-Pope (talk) 16:01, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Was just about to post something like the above. Many countries are now empty Spain for example, hopefully some more effort for a final surge in India Unreferenced BLPs. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 23:26, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
While this is only tangentially related, I want to add that I have found that many of the Indian BLPs I have come across, even when they have sources, are badly under sourced, and, much worse, contain negative or contentious statements that are not supported by sources. Alternatively, they are occasionally filled with puffery. I started coming across a number since I was drawn into working issues related to Corruption in India. While getting every BLP at least minimally sourced is a good starting step, it is the bare minimum. I strongly encourage anyone encountering non-neutral statements of Indian biographies, or unsourced contentious statements, to remove them immediately. Puffery is never acceptable (even when sourced), and policy is clear that negative statements aren't something we can just slap a "citation needed" tag on and hope they get filled in eventually. I don't mean to be unfair here--BLPs from other countries can be equally as bad. But I feel like there is an extra problem in India, possibly because even mainstream journalists in India engage in the same type of behavior; I get the feeling that what is acceptable in terms of criticism and lack of neutrality is simply different in India from the way Wikipedia works. Qwyrxian (talk) 04:00, 2 June 2011 (UTC)


Updating with new census information

I just updated the Churachandpur district article with information from the 2011 Census (http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/prov_data_products__manipur.html). We can probably update a bunch of other articles too. Sancho 17:50, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

We need check whether AWB can be used for that --naveenpf (talk) 04:00, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
Be sure to attribute it correctly, to paraphrase or re-present the material in a different way to avoid copyvio. The material is copyrighted. AshLin (talk) 06:08, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
How does a copyright apply to a number? Such as the population of a particular district? Is that even copyrightable? I think their claim may be over-reaching. Sancho 18:56, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
The copyright would apply to creative presentation such as a table with a list of villages in a district and their population, but not to the specific population data itself. —SpacemanSpiff 19:00, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
Thats something we cant rule on. All we can do is cite the use & if a table or sets of numbers are to be used, arrange them differently. AshLin (talk) 19:03, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
It seems that we're all in agreement that updating the infoboxes for district and provincial articles with the latest figures would not infringe on copyright. Is that correct? Sancho 19:50, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
As long as you provide the ref in the infobox next to the data itself, I think that should be correct. AshLin (talk) 23:02, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Major dischord at Nair, more eyes requested on this high-traffic article

Greetings, there has been some significant dischord at the article Nair, covering the social/caste group of South India. There has been some significant back-and-forth about sourcing, a few key contested sources, concerns abour "leaps of OR" versus "common sense conclusion", etc. This is one of the larger caste debates I've seen in the last few months, so if we can get a few fresh, neutral eyes in there it would be most helpful. Note also that the article Nair, even before this flare-up, gets near 15,000 hits a month, so a very high-traffic article and worth putting some attention into. Thanks for any added perspective. MatthewVanitas (talk) 13:46, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I second the above. It is getting quite fraught at times. - Sitush (talk) 20:25, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

sockmaster alert

A longterm sockmaster/disruptor Anwar.Saadat / Shinas has become active again recently. Those who were active in Wikiproject India in 2006 or 2007 might remember him as the guy who used to oppose all Indian FA reviews and RFAs of Indian admins. After a long socking career, he was finally caught and indef blocked in December 2010. After laying low for a few months he has become active again. Among his usual activities is to remove all references, wikilinks and categories to "hindu", "India" and other related terms from india related articles. I have been filing SPIs and getting his socks blocked. But he is now vandalising articles beyond my usual watchlist space. I am attaching a few diffs to show what he usually does. If you come across a new user or an IP from 117.193.40.0/19 range doing these things, please report to SPI (or let me know and i will file the SPI). Sample diffs [9] [10] [11]--Sodabottle (talk) 14:56, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

New cat Category:Indian castes by profession

Noting that many castes have an ancestral/theoretical profession, I've formed Category:Indian castes by profession. I'd appreciate any help in fleshing out this cat. MatthewVanitas (talk) 18:05, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

This is a fantastic idea, but be prepared for blowback. you might also want to make a note on the category page that this doesnt mean a lot in the modern sense. --CarTick (talk) 18:26, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
Right now I'm sticking to what the articles themselves assert; so I'm not (yet) trying to label anyone a blacksmith unless pretty much the lede says "traditionally involved in blacksmithing." I'll think on a caveat for "these are historical, not necessarily modern" for the cat-page, though if you have a good brainstorm feel free to jump in. Right now I have fishermen, blacksmiths, leatherworkers (only found one, maybe because it's not considered prestigious and many articles may "omit" it?), weavers (pre-existing cat), barbers, etc. I dunno, maybe "carpenters" would be good? "Doctors", oil-pressers, toddy-tappers, or are those too specific, or were there indeed entire castes where those were (nominally) their profession? MatthewVanitas (talk) 18:30, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
I can see this becoming a bit of a magnet but it has a valid function. There may be issues with subdivisions. Eg: the Kaniyar (school teachers and kalari teachers were very different things); and the Nair, who appear not to have been a coherent caste in the first instance. I'll keep an eye on it. - Sitush (talk) 20:29, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
If the basis for cat inclusion is extant/non-contested description as "traditionally XYZ occupation" within the article/lede, I don't necessarily expect the cat will be any more magnetic than the article statements themselves. Thoughts? MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:44, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
I can see two issues but, please, do not think because of this I consider the cat to be problematic. Far from it. The first issue is that it assumes a "policy" regarding its basis, which I think would need to be made clear just as CarTick's point about the historical nature might need to be made clear. The second is that, well, I think it is fairly common knowledge that the caste articles are generally pretty poor. Just because it is in the lede as uncontested does not mean that it is right: there are so many castes that the contests tend to be concentrated on a (relatively) small number. Each time I delve into caste articles I find a myriad of dependent articles (usually sub-castes, if you'll forgive my poor phrasing) all asserting equally dodgy statements. Although I will admit that my experience is limited more or less entirely to south India. But we have to start somewhere, and this cat is as good a place as any.
It is a good and useful category, but it may need a fair bit of policing. - Sitush (talk) 23:00, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Fully agree that the caste articles are generally dodgy, though when I did a recent bounce through a few of the fishing castes (among others) I did note that a decent scattering of the "working class" castes actually aren't too bad. A little dependent on one or two colonial sources, but with decent footnoting and little/no caste-cruft. I figure that those are cases where the caste has either faded out or assimilated into something else (so fewer folks deeply invested in that caste's public image), and/or cases where the current members of that caste aren'te well-represented on Wiki or even the internet, so fewer emotionally-charged people tampering with the articles.

Overall, I agree article-dodginess can impact the cat, but I don't reckon that the cats will make things any more dodgier than before, and if anything can be a "tripwire" where we can track tampering if articles start zapping in/our of given profession caste cats. So share your basic concerns, but don't think the second-order effects will be any worse than what we're dealing with already. MatthewVanitas (talk) 18:45, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

proposed deletion of template Infobox Indian jurisdiction

Dr. Blofeld (talk · contribs) has proposed replacing {{Infobox Indian jurisdiction}} with {{Infobox settlement}}. Discussion is taking place at TfD. —Stepheng3 (talk) 18:28, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Another awesome PD photo source: OldIndianPhotos.in

I've stumbled across a few awesome archives of historical India images. It'd be great if other folks specialising in some of these areas and cultures can help comb through and find pics (make sure to click on them for the largest version) to upload to WikiCommons and add to the article. I've found several great sites, but here's a particularly good one with higher-res images: http://www.oldindianphotos.in/2010/10/photograph-of-two-men-and-two-women-of.html . MatthewVanitas (talk) 22:15, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

good find, good job. --CarTick (talk) 15:18, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Enthrian dispute

Can I get a third party opinion of [edit] which is now locked? Can the company's revenue report of 179 crore be taken to mean the same as box office gross? Are the sources that were there already considered reliable? If not, what can be done, as it seems that aren't many sources for Tamil films deemed reliable. BollyJeff || talk 19:19, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Support requested for an Indian languages Wikipedian event in London

Hi,

I am currently discussing the arrangements for a London event supported by WM-UK and hosted by a large London museum (mid July) where we would help improve some articles about India related artefacts and create the same topics in Hindi and other language Wikipedias and there may be associated presentations and discussion to help the host institution with the topic of e-volunteers. It would be very helpful to assess potential interest and guarantee a couple of volunteers with suitable language skills that can help with facilitating the event. I would appreciate any comments and suggestions here or on my talk page or by email if you would prefer to make confidential comments. Cheers Fæ (talk) 08:56, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Update - confirmed the arrangements for this event, it's a great location and going to be engaging for the public. So far I have had no replies from anyone with Indian language skills, so come on, drop me a note. Fæ (talk) 18:49, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
Why dont you post a message on Wikimedia-India list? AshLin (talk) 02:41, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
Second that - the mailing list is the place to go for this kind of activities. please post a note there.--Sodabottle (talk) 06:21, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll get on to it. Fæ (talk) 06:22, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Support request posted to email list and the registration page is now live at V&A Wikilounge. Thanks Fæ (talk) 10:12, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Excessive overlap of Yaduvanshi Ahirs and Ahirs

I've been looking over Yaduvanshi Ahirs, and of the footnotes I could access from #1-27, only a handful even used the term "Yaduvanshi Ahir". It does appear that the term itself is notable, but spot-checking is leading me to believe that 90%+ of the article is referring to the Ahirs in general, rather than specifically the Yaduvanshi branch. I'm starting to think that the whole article's actual mentions of the Y. Ahirs specifically constitutes maybe a paragraph, and could just be merged into Ahirs in a section on the three primary branches thereof (along with Gwalvanshi and Nandvanshi Ahir subsets). Would anyone else like to spot-check this and weigh in at Talk:Yaduvanshi Ahirs? MatthewVanitas (talk) 17:30, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Update: I've trimmed out all material not specifically related to Yaduvanshi Ahirs, and ended up with just a few sentences, which I plan to merge into Ahirs. MatthewVanitas (talk) 18:20, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Explain distinctions between Ahir, Yadav, Yaduvanshi Ahir?

I'm trying to sort out the whole Ahir situation, and it's looking more and more like Yadav is either synonymous with Ahir, and/or is the label for a sub-set of Ahirs who've taken the name Yadav at different points in history. Given that according to MS Rao, "Yadava" denotes "Ahirs who claim themselves to be Yadavas"[12], are "Yadava" and "Yaduvanshi Ahir" synonymous? The other problem I have is that other editors are trying to link the ancient Abhira and Yadava to the modern Ahir and Yadav, and thus fill the "History" sections with descriptions of those ancient tribes, but best as I can tell these links are more assumed/theoretical than a concrete chain of descent. Given that there were also medieval Abhira and Yadava groups (not just dim-past ancient), does anyone have a good handle as to how late the history should cut off to tell the story of these modern pastoral castes? MatthewVanitas (talk) 18:20, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

EDIT: I'm seeing some vague mention that the Abhira/Yadava kingdoms faded out around the Moghuls circa 1400 AD. If anyone has insight about the transition to the modern castes, that'd be most helpful. MatthewVanitas (talk) 18:57, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Abhinav Bharat

This article needs to be split into two articles, but I'm not sure how and in particular how to title them, can anyone help? Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 12:08, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

possibly into 1) Abhinav Bharat (Hindu nationalist organisation) and Abhinav Bharat (Indian charitable trust) --Sodabottle (talk) 12:39, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
I may be confused, but even the nationalist organisation seems to be a charity trust. Dougweller (talk) 13:10, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
Ah My bad!. The other AB doesnt seem to be notable except for the name confusion. Can we make the article about AB the hindu nationalist organisation alone and add a hash note at the top that this not the other AB and remove all references to the other AB from the article?--Sodabottle (talk) 13:13, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

List of blood donation agencies

I've been trying to deal with the link-farmishness of the current list of blood donation agencies, but I'm not 100% sure what the concept of "blood donation agency" means in other parts of the world. I don't want to randomly demolish the list just because there isn't a Wikipedia article on some of these organizations, and the India part of that list is quite long. Anyone have any suggestions on what would be considered a "notable" blood donation agency, or even just a primer on how blood donation is handled in India? SDY (talk) 01:06, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Need help

Hi I need help in creating New article and Articles alerts for both roads WP:INR and railways projects WP:INRI --naveenpf (talk) 03:22, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Merge Lawmaking procedure in India with Parliament of India

Please comment on the proposed merger of Lawmaking procedure in India with Parliament of India at Talk:Parliament_of_India#Merge_Lawmaking_procedure_in_India_with_Parliament_of_India.-- R.Sivanesh ✆ © 20:33, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Uttaran

While fixing typos on the Uttaran page, I noticed this page has history of edit wars and vandalism. Maybe semi-protect it from IP addresses? --Trelawnie (talk) 01:54, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Ethnic population

Where I get information about ethnic composition of the population by states of India?--Kaiyr (talk) 15:18, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Check Demographics of India. MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:22, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
There is no.--Kaiyr (talk) 15:26, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
Did you scroll down to the "Ethnic" section?
The first sentence there probably sums up what your problem will be. Do note that there are some linguistic and religious stats, but it appears the Indian govenrnment is rather firm on avoiding ethnic/caste friction by not endorsing such distinctions. We encounter the same issue in caste articles, where post-Independence censuses no longer register caste. MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:30, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
... Which is precisely the reason why I am opposed to using the "Population" heading in the Indian caste template. The only figure that can go in there is an old one, it was often hopelessly unreliable due to social aspirations "interfering" with the data, and it is misleading because it ignores the diaspora etc as well as being hopelessly out of date. Even adding "as at the census of 1941" (or whatever) will just confuse people. - Sitush (talk) 16:05, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
A whole lot of Indian caste/ethnic infoboxes are pretty much WP:Disinfoboxes, in that they generally add little to nothing that is not already properly covered in the lede. Personally, in most cases I'd be fine just using the upper right corner for a nice historical/anthropological image of a representative member, maybe the name in English and Local Language, and that's pretty much it. That would also avoid the whole "Classification" issue where folks like to jam in "Kings, warriors... and stonemasons" or "Absolutely positively Kshatriya and descended from gods". In the meantime, "Claimed Kshatriya, but classified by others as Shudra" is serving as a consensus compromise in many cases. MatthewVanitas (talk) 17:21, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
I agree. I seem to recall seeing somewhere a suggestion that the caste infobox template be abandoned. I just wish that it was. - Sitush (talk) 17:26, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Where I get information about lingustic composition of the population by states of India?--Kaiyr (talk) 07:44, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
  • Thank you! What is ``SCHEDULED LANGUAGES``?--Kaiyr (talk) 08:58, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

University Institute of Engineering & technology, Panjab University

Kindly Access the page and help in removing the Notability Tag from it. Panjab University is Chandigarh's pride and UIET is an in-campus engineering college in Chandigarh and one of the top engineering colleges in India. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sarvpriye (talk • contribs) 10:16, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Template:Infobox caste Usage

For those who are interested - the usage of the caste infobox is pretty simple. Here's a fictional example of how you populate it. Zuggernaut (talk) 11:19, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Iyer
ஐயர்
JātiDhobi
GotraKashyap, Atri, Atreya
VedaRig Veda
Kuladevi (female)Mahalaxmi
GuruAdi Shankara
ReligionsHinduism
LanguagesTamil
Original stateTamil Nadu
Populated statesTamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat
EthnicityNegroid
Migration to India10 AD
Population2 million
Feudal titleZamindar
LineageLunar
EndogamousYes
Notable membersGandhi
SubdivisionsAhir, Yadav
Related groupsChandraseniya Kayastha Prabhu
Historical groupingShudra
Disputed groupingKshatriya
StatusScheduled Caste

Plastic recycling and biopolymers in India

This article needs serious attention. Background is as Talk:Plastic recycling and biopolymers in India and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Plastic Recycling and the need for Bio-polymers in India. Voceditenore (talk) 11:59, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Current move requests

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi → Mahatma Gandhi or Gandhi. Arjuncodename024 05:54, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Assistance requested

Hi there, WP:URBLPR is attempting to reference all unreferenced biographies of living people. Vir Singh (author) is currently marked as unreferenced, and I have had no luck finding references online from reliable sources. It has been nominated for deletion before, and was kept - see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vir Singh. If anyone can assist with referencing, or thinks it should be deleted, then any help would be greatly appreciated. Regards, The-Pope (talk) 13:27, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

I had tried sourcing this when it came up on the unref BLP radar, but after looking around a lot I believed this ought to be deleted. Part of the problem with the prior AfD was that it mixed this Vir Singh with another on worldcat because he isn't the author of the books in the first three, he's basically added a "companion" version to those books. As for the next list, he's basically the editor there. BTW, this one also is part of a CCI -- Wikipedia:Contributor_copyright_investigations/20101122 which has yet to be touched. —SpacemanSpiff 13:35, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Too many images on Mandu, Madhya Pradesh

This article though short contains too many images. I do not know anything about the subject of the article, hence notifying here so that it may be cleaned up. —  Abhishek  Talk 15:26, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Please Peer Review Institute of Chartered Accountants of India

I have recently nominated Institute of Chartered Accountants of India for peer review. I humbly request that someone peer reviews the article.

Baghel, Baghela, Vaghela

Aren't Baghel, Baghela, Vaghela dealing with the same subject? And if so, what's the best name for that article, Baghela? There was a very old merge proposal of Baghel and Baghela that wasn't followed through. --Muhandes (talk) 08:53, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Anyone? --Muhandes (talk) 20:54, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Baghel/a seem to be the same article, so I'd merge those two barring any objections. Vaghela seems to be about a dynasty vice the overall clan, so I'd deconflict that with Baghel and see what's left, ensuring Vaghela focuses on the historical dynasty rather than the modern community. EDIT: Note that Vaghela seems to be the same as Vaghela dynasty, so there's a merge there as well. MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:27, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll see what I can do. Seems like it will be mostly a cleanup job - these articles are in a very sad state (I'm using very delicate language here) --Muhandes (talk) 21:48, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

A new hoaxer

We have got a new serial hoaxer in India related articles. He uses to isp connections - a tata photon one and a airtel gprs one. Common ip ranges are 14.96.0.0/16, 14.99.0.0/16 and 223.177.0.0/16. He changes dates [13], [14], [15] and adds false information [16] [17] [18]. Sometimes he mixes good edits with outright hoaxes to deceive watchers. Please be on the lookout for edits from the above mentioned ip ranges. --Sodabottle (talk) 18:17, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Can anyone make sense of Kachwaha?

This article is bafflingly bad: anyone familiar with the context and can help straighten this out a mite: Kachwaha ? MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:59, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

I have just knocked 11kb off the article. There are a ridiculous number of absolutely unencyclopedic articles relating to India, full of cruft, copyvios, POV and more. Whether there are more of them than exist in other subject areas is moot but it definitely is time to start getting bold in this particular area. The toleration of rubbish has gone on too long. Like most of us, I have a limited amount of time to devote and the subject matter is enormous, but there is no reason for allowing utterly, blatantly unacceptable material to exist. Just delete the obviously unacceptable on sight, add to your watchlist and try your best to resolve issues where contributors are prepared to meet you halfway. Seriously, folks, I am about to get tough on this. I've done my bit sourcing and debating on umpteen such articles and will continue to do that, but I am totally fed up of seeing things as contained in this article. They fail the most basic of policies and, sorry, if the contributors cannot comprehend those policies and guidelines then that is their problem.
MatthewVanitas is being polite and correct in raising such issues here. I'm just going to do it, in those instances where the transgressions are clearly massive. We need to get a grip. If someone thinks that my actions somehow breach collaboration etc then feel free to take it to ANI etc. - Sitush (talk) 22:59, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

A recent move - List of roads named after Mahatma Gandhi

I recently moved an article/disambiguation page to List of roads named after Mahatma Gandhi. Feel free to contribute if you are interested in the topic. The list has the potential to grow significantly and surpass similar lists like List of streets named after Martin Luther King, Jr.. Any help in adding well sourced (currently lacking) information is greatly appreciated. Zuggernaut (talk) 06:34, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Grave doubts on Kurmi Kshatriya, Kurmi History , Kurmi clans,

An editor has recently been doing a lot of edits on Kurmi issues, mostly (and largely breathlessly) jamming mentions of Shivaji and how his status confers nobility, Rajput lineage, Kshatriya status, etc. on the Kurmi. He created the above three articles, and at a first glance I'm seeing a lot of SYNTH, OR, and attempts to cite the Puranas and the like to explain how the Kurmi are awesome and powerful. Is anyone seeing any positive material in this, or do we need to wipe these three articles, and then check his edits to see what similar POV/promotional material has been inserted into other articles? I'm seeing a lot of concerning movement in his contribs: [19]. MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:39, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Kurmi Kshatriya is a crock, for sure. The IPs may well mostly be the article creator when logged out. It is also somewhat concerning that there is a high degree of familiarity with WP markup etc being shown from the word go. It could well be a sock, although we cannot rule out someone who has been here for a while and just decided to register recently. - Sitush (talk) 20:45, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
I think that these articles need pulling. I have found numerous close paraphrases, copyvios and instances of plagiarism & have only touched the tip of the iceberg. - Sitush (talk) 00:45, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
I have now slapped a CSD on Kurmi History for copyvio etc. I suspect that my tag will be refused because it is a melange situation, but just for everyone's info ... - Sitush (talk) 01:02, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
I was directed here by Sitush regarding possible copyvio issues. Looking initially at Kurmi History, it seems much of the article was copied from other Wikipedia article w/o attribution. I attributed two sections in edit summaries. Possible copyvio aside, piecing together an article with other articles isn't a good way to create and original article w/o blatant duplication. I am not an expert on this subject, but it appears at face value that Kurmi Kshatriya is a duplicate of Kurmi with a different spin. The concern of POV forks and compilation of other articles is the main concern for their sustainability. I think they should be redirected to Kurmi. Since a lot of the text is or may be copied from other Wikipedia articles, it can make a copyvio investigation more difficult. Specific sources would be most helpful. The articles can be listed at WP:CP or I can take a closer look if in fact text appears to be copied from a non-mirror, if you would all like.--NortyNort (Holla) 11:12, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Update: I have found copyvios in at least one of the articles which were unattributed copy/pastes into Kurmi History, being Scindia. I think that there are more in the thing than just the one I have so far identified -some phrases seem very familiar to me. A redirect of Kurmi History back to Kurmi seems to be the most obvious first step now, then a trawl through any donor articles. - Sitush (talk) 11:18, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Feel free to list any of these at CP, even if the text has been removed, so a rev del can eventually occur. I will look a little closer at the others here shortly.--NortyNort (Holla) 11:26, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Kurmi clans was entirely plagiarised from the Syed Siraj ul Hassan source. I have deleted all content and redirect to Kurmi. - Sitush (talk) 11:46, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Kurni history now redirected to Kurmi. After ploughing through it, there appeared to be no useful, relevant content. - Sitush (talk) 13:12, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Help with improving Medico Friend Circle

This page is an orphan and is unreferenced and many other issues. Unlikely to receive much attention, so posting here. I will be having a go at it this weekend, but am in fact "loosely" associated with the subject - so would much appreciate independent help with improving the article. prashanthns (talk) 12:31, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm ready to help. Jisha (Talk) 12:52, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Great! Thanks. Feel free to discuss/bring up any matters on teh talk page. prashanthns (talk) 15:05, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

RS noticeboard on Minal Hajratwala

See Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Amina_Abdallah_Arraf_al_Omari.2C_Minal_Hajratwala regarding an RS noticeboard entry on the Amina Arraf/Minal Hajratwala interaction WhisperToMe (talk) 18:11, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

2010 Barack Obama visit to India for deletion

2010 Barack Obama visit to India has been nominated for deletion. Please participate in the discussion - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2010 Barack Obama visit to India. Zuggernaut (talk) 14:15, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Help identifying a temple picture

What is this?

Hello India experts. File:Picture 104.jpg, a photograph of some unidentied gopuram, is up for deletion because it lacks an identification. The upload was the editor's only edit. It seems like a potentially useful picture, if only we knew what it was. Can somebody identify which temple this is? Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:03, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Replied at the FfD. It's the Suchindram temple. —SpacemanSpiff 08:47, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
Brilliant, thanks. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:18, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

BOLP debate on Admiral Arun Prakash's links to nephew Ravi Shankaran

The article Arun Prakash had a section detailing the the fact that his wife's nephew is the primary accused in the Navy War Room scandal, which happened during his tenure. All claims related to this were well-referenced. The article stated clearly that he himself was not charged of any wrongdoing; the language also was quite neutral. However, user:funnyrat was repeatedly removing all references to his relationship with Shankaran, which I had been updating with more citations each time. In my last edit, I mentioned that funnyrat may be someone connected with the subject. Now user:funnyrat has claimed to be Arun Prakash himself, and has initiated a discussion at the biographies of living persons noticeboard, where another user is supporting him. The present article has removed all five citations (there are no references left). I feel that an encyclopedia entry for Arun Prakash is incomplete without a reference to his nephew being involved in one of the larger spy scandals of recent history. Please check out. mukerjee (talk) 05:40, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Delete Category:Ruling Kurmi Clans?

This appears to be yet another cat that's only going to attract mischief, and another manifestation of the ever-popular argument: "there was a Fooian king once, so they're a royal people." We already have Category:Ruling Hindu clans (which I'm not excited about either), and we don't even have a Category:Kurmi, so I think this cat is both POV and premature. Does anyone have any argument for it? I'd like to take it to WP:CFD, but given that it's a bit of a technical topic I thought some debate here would be good first. MatthewVanitas (talk) 17:15, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Looks delete-worthy. None of those are "ruling" clans, and the classification of some of them as "Kurmi" is debatable. utcursch | talk 18:17, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
Delete, for the reasons MV states. I have no idea whether Utcursch is right or not but their comments go to prove MV's point - it will become a nightmare. - Sitush (talk) 16:52, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Suggesting a page on police reforms

Hi,

Suggesting here a page on Police reforms in India. I read somewhere(don't remember) that a draft is also submitted by a Parsi lawyar. I am sure there are many references available including books on the exact topic: eg. Police reforms in India: an analytical study, Police Reforms In India :A Sisyphean Saga, Police Reform Debates in India (2007), then links 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Plus some interesting discussions on bharat-rakshak.com - 1, 2.

Also please note a similar page on wikipedia - Police Reform Act 2002 - an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Also, a minor paragraph mentions this in a page here on Wikipedia. ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 16:42, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Geez, are we going to have an article for every piece of Indian legislation etc? In any event, why not create it yourself in user space, then people can have a better idea of how you plan to show it. - Sitush (talk) 16:50, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. I think the article is notable. I do not understand what do you mean by "how you plan to show it". ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 17:30, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I think what he's suggesting is that rather than write a full article while having folks debate notability, you first write a basic draft, maybe an intro paragraph and some key points or outline, on your userspace first. Then you can bring it here, get people's views on how it can be developed, and then launch. That way, if it turns out that it's not working out, you'll know early on vice after putting a lot of work into it. MatthewVanitas (talk) 17:34, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply too. ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 17:51, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
Legislation is notable but proposed legislation ain't necessarily so. Furthermore, just because it is notable does not mean we should have an article on a piece of legislation. To do so almost certainly would require specialist knowledge in order to do it justice (forgive the pun). The last thing we need is yet another really poor quality India-related article.
Furthermore, Wikipedia is not a news site, so if these are indeed merely proposals then there is an argument that there should not be an article for them until they crystallise.
So, to get a better idea of what you intend it would make sense to draft something in your userspace. You appear to be interested in it and it would be quite nice if you actually did some contributing to other than talk pages. You never know, you might even enjoy it! - Sitush (talk) 17:38, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
Thank you again for your lengthy reply. There are many pages on Wikipedia with much less notability. I would also say that it is better to have a poorly written article than no article at all. ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 17:51, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
Well, you may be wrong. Over 800 articles about (inherently notable) Indian villages were deleted recently precisely because they were poor. Why not just do as I suggest? What have you got to lose? - Sitush (talk) 18:04, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
As it is, the topic was about a suggestion, for which Sitush & MatthewVanitas are giving advise on what should I do about it(exactly like Talk:Kashmiri_Pandit#Neutrality on a page about Kashmiri Pandits). I guess you have a good understanding on how a topic is poor and therefore worth deletion. However we have not reached anywhere neat such a stage and this is just a suggestion to to see what are the views on others on the topic.
Now I read your replies, I think others should also comment on the topic suggested and not what your suggestions are. Lets no keep on stretching your suggestion, which is not the topic of discussion and welcome others' suggestions too. ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 18:19, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Amongst the goals of the Wikimedia foundation, two are relevant to discussions such as this one:

  • Increase the number of articles from 17.9 million to 50 million.
  • Increase the number of editors to 1 billion with the focus being on the Global South (with Indian being the primary target in this area).

ThisThat2011's disposition is to follow Wikipedia rules and policies as he learns them (he is still new, having joined only a few months back). This post to create a new article is a positive one and while I have not looked at the history of exchanges between Sitush and ThisThat2001, I am concerned at the kind of treatment he is getting here. I hope we can stay focused on improving and creating articles instead of making remarks like "and it would be quite nice if you actually did some contributing to other than talk pages". Legislation is perhaps one of the most important activity in a democratic society and even if we have a stub for every single legislation (failed, passed or proposed) in the Indian parliament, that will be an important addition to Wikipedia. Zuggernaut (talk) 04:05, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

ThisThat2011, The topic itself is notable if written according to our policies. If i remember correctly "draft is also submitted by a Parsi lawyar." was the author's own original research (how he wanted the reforms to be) and it got deleted for being an essay/OR. I second MV's advice, draft a basic version with sources (dont use the forum ones, as they are user generated content and would not pass our RS standards). Avoid opinions like "why police reform is needed" and "what reforms are needed" and base it on facts - what was proposed before, implemented before and what is being proposed now and by whom etc. Once you are done with the userspace draft, ask for third party review. --Sodabottle (talk) 04:55, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Thisthat2011, User:Suyogaerospace is very interested in the Indian police, more specifically Mumbai police. You may find him a willing collaborator. AshLin (talk) 05:11, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
These How To's might help as well:
Zuggernaut (talk) 05:38, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Unintelligible after 5 years: Leva Patil

Can someone more familiar with this community take a look at this article and tell me if there's anything worth salvaging? I'm tempted to just AfD it, since there's zero sourcing and it's extremely hard to follow. The community does appear to be notable, but I think we'd be better off hacking it to zero and starting a new stub based on actual refs. Thoughts? MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:38, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

My opinion is to add {{fact}} tags and keep the article since this is a sizable community with a distinct identity in Maharashtra. An excellent source (in that it covers every single caste group and community in India) is Kumar Suresh Singh's work done for the Anthropological survey India. It comes in numerous volumes and parts and will definitely yield at least 5-10 citations for this caste. The one that I've used in the past came under ISBN 8179911004 and the title "People of India: Maharashtra, volume xxx, Anthropological Survey of India" but there's also a "Communities of India" or something like that. Zuggernaut (talk) 04:13, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
Okay, Notable subject, but rather than leave a bunch of uncited stuff, why not just start it afresh from proper sources? Some of the current content may well be accurate, but there's no way to separate the wheat from the chaff wihtout refs. Under "do no harm" it'd be better to risk removing some good-but-uncited data than to risk leaving in nonsense. MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:24, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Featured lists

i see that very few articles count under the featured list section of India portal. how do we include the articles in featured list's list? i have a suggestion. List of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in India. the article is not even rated. concered people please look into this. i dont know how to do it. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 07:38, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Featured lists go through the process listed at WP:FLC (and criteria listed at WP:FL). If you'd like you can work on it to get it up to par on those conditions and nominate it. General convention is that you also let the top 1/2 contributors to the article of your intent to nominate as they may have some ideas on the same (VishalB might be a start for this). I'll take a look at the article soon and comment on the talk page. It looks good and a few edits should make it ready for FLC. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 07:47, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
The list is already in good shape and we should not have trouble getting it to pass the featured list criterion. I would be glad to help out in a secondary/supportive role, making fixes and small changes to the list. I've added it to my watchlist. Zuggernaut (talk) 05:14, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Islam article

A certain referenced statement that i think is important has been removed from the article "Islam in India". As it can not be edited by IP users, i am not able to edit it. see its talk page. 117.204.84.41 (talk) 02:39, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Could you specify which statement please? ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 14:17, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Varna list at Jāti - any basis in RSs?

A recent edit at Kurmi substituted the link Jāti where previously we referred to them as a "caste", so I went to check out the article. It raises some interesting points, particularly regarding the British uses/misunderstandings/interpreatations of community jatis, though I'd feel a lot better about is if it had footnotes.

That said, there is a nice, clear-cut list of where the communities fall, in the section Jāti#Classification_of_castes. This looks extremely problematic, as a) it has no footnotes whatsoever, b) this is precisely the kind of list that draws in IPs to say "what? the Foo caste aren't Vaishya, they're noble and awesme Kshatriya warriors! EDIT!" Already I note the Kurmi (where we are currently endlessly debating the K vs. S issue) is filed smack dab in Kshatriya, apparently by an IP since it's mis-capitalised "kurmi". If this list is not sourced, it is completely useless. Further, even if it were explicitly sourced, it presents a massive vandalism risk, and I submit that if there is some cite-able list (not necessarily authoritative, even just a "as per the Raj in 1901, here's their list"), it must be put into some non-tamperable format, such as a separate template with a high protection level and watchlisters, or as a image scanned from an original text, as I used to deal with the constant tampering at 36 royal races.

For the moment, I will WP:BEBOLD and remove this uncited list. Here is a link to the pre-deletion version for anyone curious, or those who have a strategy to add some form of list for historical perspective: [20]. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Kerala State Football League

This new article is by Indianfootballwiki (talk · contribs) who I have just blocked for repeatedly creating hoax articles and adding false information. My first thought was to delete it, because I am suspicious of anything this author writes, but the list here does not contain any of the fantasy football clubs he invented, and more or less agrees with the list headed "Kerala Clubs" at the foot of this page. Comments welcome. JohnCD (talk) 18:47, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

looks ok. AFAIK, there are no hoax clubs in the list.--Sodabottle (talk) 08:13, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Renaming

A number of categories starting with word "Indian" are proposed to be renamed see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 July 14 and Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 July 13 .Shyamsunder (talk) 10:39, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Need some opinions on Talk:Kurmi#Undue_weight_on_.27Shudra.27_varna

This talk page is a noticeboard and is not meant to be a discussion forum. Content issues are better handled on article talk pages. For dispute resolution, see WP:DR. For Issues about behavior, take it to either of WP:WQA or WP:ANI. --rgpk (comment) 12:32, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi,

Need some opinions on Talk:Kurmi#Undue_weight_on_.27Shudra.27_varna.

After presenting sources, I have been getting warnings on my page when I pointed out how a discussion is stretched after Synthesis. What I have presented is reliable sources, and what it is turned into is "swaying" of authorities by Kurmis, etc. and then I am given second warning after my comment here.

Need opinion on way ahead. ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 20:06, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Hm. The warnings overlapped your "synthesis" contribution. That was a sort of edit conflict on different pages, if you understand what I mean. However, your tendentiousness in the debate which you refer to appears to be matched by one you are involved in at Romila Thapar. The common denominator is you, so perhaps there is a lesson to be learned? - Sitush (talk) 20:14, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
In that case, I request comments on Romila Thapar page also.
Also, Sitush, please explain how my 'tendentiousness' on Romila Thapar page effect the topic of concern here. ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 20:26, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
I have already explained. It is because you are the only common factor in the two articles. I didn't add - but do now - that you have received numerous warnings for tendentious and otherwise disruptive editing since May. You really do need to curb this, erm, tendency.- Sitush (talk) 20:29, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
Could you present standards for your views on "swaying" authorities logicline please before giving numerous warnings? I requested on the talk page and I am requesting it now and all I am getting it is warnings. Where are the standards that say warnings can be given when someone points out synthesis? ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 20:39, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
What you're calling "synthesis" is attempts to explain to you on Talk how you're mis-reading the sources. Nobody is attempting to put this "synthesis" into the article, I'm just pointing out that your "hey guys here's my source so let's go ahead and change the article" posts are quite inaccurate and should not be used to change the article. You are showing a clear pattern of making wild assumptions based on sources which say no such thing and trying to insert them into the article, and when called out on that you jumped on me for adding the slightest amount of interpretation on the Talk page. What's the WP term for that again, where you over-react to criticism by trying to find any trace of the same in others? MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:20, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
MatthewVanitas, the substance mentioned is clearly from reliable sources. Let others also decide what is 'my interpretation' etc. when the substance is mentioned a clearly reliable source. ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 20:26, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
Nobody is doubting (most of) your sources, we're doubting your taking "in 1924 they formed the Kurmi Kshatriya Organisation" and using that to conclude "we should remove the cited term Shudra and say the Kurmi are Kshatriya". But by all means, let's have some outside opinions. I do note too that if you'd phrased this request in a neutral way ("can we get some neutral eyes on a discussion at Kurmi?") as opposed to coming in asking for help against alleged unfair allegations, Sitush and I wouldn't have been inclined to have to reply to your counter-accusations here. MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:34, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
Yes I am requesting comments, not sending comments on tagteaming if you have noticed. ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 20:39, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
Tagteaming? That is quite an allegation. And you cannot prove it because it is not true. Read WP:Tag team. - Sitush (talk) 20:46, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
The only allegation I see here is "Tagteaming? That is quite an allegation"! It is not true. ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 20:51, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
So why the hell did you raise the phrase, then? It was a sly allegation and it is factually incorrect. - Sitush (talk) 20:58, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
That is another allegation. Though there is no comment where the logicline of 'swaying' authorities came from. ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 21:02, 12 July 2011 (UTC)


We should consider the point raised by Humour Thisthat2011. They are worthy of merit. Please keep all discussions related to a page on that page. This side discussions is not helping the cause of the Kurmi page. I will create a ling about this discussion there. This would help others to participate in this very important discussion. 80.84.55.196 (talk) 04:52, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

A notice is served to MatthewVanitas(here) and Sitush(here) on introducing the word 'Shudra' at prominant positions and repeatedly insisting on keeping so on pages related to Hindu Jatis such as Kurmi and Yadav.

Some legalities as per this link. Advising editors to desist from such a behavior. ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 08:39, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

That is a legal threat. Bye bye. - Sitush (talk) 08:42, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
How is this a legal threat? Can someone point out any legal document that can throw some light on the subject under consideration please? ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 08:52, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Humour please understand wp:SYNTHESIS, a source says kurmis formed an organisation in 1924, that had the word kshatriya in it, to use that for a source is wp:SYNTHESIS, you need explicit statements, "Kurmis are Kshatriya". Please do not mis-understand me. Just trying to explain how wp:SYNTHESIS works as far as I understand it. I dont care who is what every one is human.Yogesh Khandke (talk)
Yes I have added some reference in discussions here & here. Though I am yet to understand how laws in India carry no weight on Wikipedia. By Indian standards, calling Indian Jatis as Shudras would not be appreciated I think. ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 09:18, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Humour please see talk:Kurmi, also please look at wp:FORUMSHOPPING.Yogesh Khandke (talk) 10:57, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia doesn't operate from India, doesn't have an India office, so Indian laws don't apply perhaps, are you referring to the Atrocities act?Yogesh Khandke (talk) 10:59, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
WP does have plans for expansion in India and there is good reason for WP to stay clear of troubles with laws of any country, including India. It is irresponsible to lead the project into unnecessary problems.-MangoWong (talk) 07:59, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not subject to the laws of India, period. Therefore, there are no "unnecessary problems" involving content and those laws. This is a facade for "let's do it my way" and I am becoming frustrated by the number of people who, having failed to get their way using Wikipedia's guidelines etc, now resort to India's laws in an attempt to almost bludgeon their POV into various articles. Yes, there is systemic bias here but there always will be such bias in en-WP until the entire world has access to a computer, access to all sources, the time to use both of those and the ability to write/read in the English language. Even if a critical mass of India-based contributors develops that mass would have to overturn not merely consensus on an article but two of the very foundations of Wikpedia, ie: verifiablity using reliable sources. You need to bear in mind that consensus is not a vote and that any !voters who base their opinion on unreliable sources etc are discarded. To be honest, if the Five Pillars irk you then why not try WikiAlpha instead? They allow original research, they do not insist on notability etc - it is quite anarchic, actually. - Sitush (talk) 11:51, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Do you have a brain? I mean, a brain--which can logically process information? I have already explained that WP has plans to expand its operations in India. If WP is to have an office in India, how will its office not be subject to Indian laws? You are trying to lead this project into unnecessary trouble. As a Wikipedian, I am trying to stop you. Please stop living in an imaginary world and come to terms with the reality. It is interesting that you yourself say that a large number of users object to your edits. Why do you think you only are right? Are you omniscient?-MangoWong (talk) 12:41, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Some users, many of whom have been proven to be sockpuppets and meatpuppets, have indeed objected to certain things. The problem is, as I have said previously, their objections ignore the policies and guidelines. Having an office in India (if indeed that is the plan) will make no difference to the legal situation, since the servers etc are not and will never be in India so long as India has draconian legislation. The country is well known for (eg) clamping down on press freedom & for endemic corruption in politics etc - it would make little sense to move the servers to a location where they might be shackled. - Sitush (talk) 14:05, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

May I suggest that we stick to content issues and leave legal issues to lawyers. ThisThat, do note that your statement above is easily construed as a legal threat and you could have been immediately blocked for making that threat. Please lead WP:Legal and WP:WikiBullying carefully. --rgpk (comment) 15:10, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Given that bulk of those people who have brought up the "Wikipedia could be sued for using the word Shudra... I'm not threatening, I'm just reminding" angle on numerous caste articles in the last month are the same people who also fought the term Shudra along every other possible line of argument. It does rather appear that the "I'm just trying to help Wikipedia keep out of legal trouble" argument is quite disingenous, and just used in an attempt to remove a cited WP:IDONTLIKEIT aspect of caste history after other methods fail. Not that it matters in the slightest, but I would certainly hope that the Indian government would draw a distinction between calling a group "Shudra" in an attempt to defame them, and academic discourse which notes the historical use of the term. MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:16, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
I haven't been following this discussion but, and this is addressed to the editors that MatthewVanitas describes above, let's be clear about this. Any further legal threats or even mention of legal issues will be subject to an immediate block. That is the policy on wikipedia. --rgpk (comment) 15:20, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
MatthewVanitas, don't misrepresent facts. The article is asserting that Kurmis are Shudras. Not in a historical way. Secondly, I have never edited any caste articles, and do not even have a single comment on any of their talk pages. So, there is no question of my having said anything or failed/succeeded in anything.-MangoWong ([[User

talk:MangoWong|talk]]) 15:40, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Misrepresent? The article Kurmi currently says: They are regarded as being historically a Shudra (agricultural) class by academics, and as a backward caste by the government, which deprecates use of the Hindu varna ritual ranks,[4][3]. Explain how that is "not in a historical way". So far as your other contributions, nothing personal, but we've all been pretty on-edge about relatively new India accounts getting embroiled in caste issues since we've had extensive sockpuppeting, meatpuppeting, and off-site (particularly Orkut) canvassing resulting in very distracting mobbing of articles like Nair, Kurmi, Yadav, Ahirs, etc. Even having some brief history outside of India topics, or having a longer-running but little-used account become active, are still concerning since we've seen both "sleeper accounts" (sockpuppets started months ago and kept in reserve to allay suspicion directed at brand-new accounts) as well as a very popular technique of starting a new account, doing a few non-controversial edits on unrelated topics (Grand canyon, milkshake, Toyota Corolla) and then a day later suddenly barelling into caste arguments in a very familiar way, but with several inoccuous edits to allay suspicion of being a WP:Single purpose account for caste-warrioring.
In summary, the article says "historical", legal threats however indirect are unacceptable, and great caution is needed when debating caste issues (not insults like "Do you have a brain?") since frankly patience has worn thin for many parties after all these puppets and POV-pushers have dragged down the efficiency of a huge and sorely-needed caste cleanup. MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:51, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Claim Kshatriya status, but generally recognised as Shudra. Just look at the summary of the article. It says all. Where do you find the summary of an article--in the infobox. Did I put the summary there? What is this line doing if not asserting that Kurmis are Shudras?
Haaaaa. O MatthewVanitas, please let me know, is it a crime for a new account to edit or talk about caste articles? Do I become a sock/meat puppet or SPA simply for having a new account? Do you not need some reasonable proof before implying such demeaning characterizations? There have been crazy/fundamentalist/commercially interested/trolling/dicky etc. users all over WP. Does that mean I can automatically begin to talk about them in relation to you? And how can you see legal threats where absolutely no such thing exists?
I have only the vaguest idea about what is Orkut. And I am an SPA if I only take interest in one article. But you also make me one when I take interest in more than one. How can this be logical? Why bring this up even?-MangoWong (talk) 16:56, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
No-one has said that you are a sock, meat or SPA. There have been numerous proven examples regarding other users, however. You are incorrect about how the article represents sudras. FYI, infoboxes only appear in about 3% of WP articles, are not necessary and in the case of caste articles it is my contention that they should not be used. They are bling, usually inserted by relatively new editors. If you want to remove that infobox then you are welcome to do so as far as I am concerned. Population, classification etc are all pretty meaningless in these boxes & I have argued this for some time. - Sitush (talk) 17:06, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
MatthewVanitas did try to sully my name by bringing up these characterizations in relation to me. AFAIK, there has been one sock on that page. Even then, why bring that up in relation to me? And how could I be incorrect about what the article is saying? Claim Kshatriya status, but generally recognised as Shudra. What is this line doing if not asserting that Kurmis are Shudras? What else does it mean? (I would like to have a direct answer, no skirting!) And why do you try to obfuscate the issue by making it appear that I object to the infobox. No. I have no objection if the infobox stays. I only object to that one line in it. It should be changed. It can say anything as long as it does not mention "Shudra". Besides that, I think the article is focusing too much on "Shudra". There is no need to mention it in the lead. The rest of the article should also not focus too much on this. Plus there is no need to mention anything about diet etc.-MangoWong (talk) 17:56, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
You have misread MV. Regarding the article, why not take the matter there. That is where the discussion should take place and would have taken place if it were not for TT2011's rather non-neutral opening of this thread. However, I will tell you now that shudra is staying and the reasons why it is staying are explained on Talk:Kurmi. It is pretty much non-negotiable because it satisfies WP:V and WP:RS. - Sitush (talk) 18:00, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
So, you have no answer to my question? Who is being sly now? I don't think there is anything non neutral about bringing an India related issue to this page. It is meant for such issues. You might have described ThisThat2011's actions if he had taken it to individual users who were already in dispute with you. He did no such thing. Only you indulged in such actions. Bringing an issue here is perfectly neutral. I think it is better to continue with the issue here. It seems to make you misbehave less often. And simply because something passes WP:V and WP:RS does not mean that it is fit for inclusion in the article. There are lots of other things which have a bearing on inclusion.-MangoWong (talk) 18:30, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
The non-neutrality refers to the wording of the original message in this thread by TT, which was an issue raised within hours of this thread opening. Furthermore, the detailed debate should indeed occur on the article talk page, not here. Basically, it should have been worded something like "There is currently a dispute regarding XYZ at article ABC. Input from other people would be welcomed." The reason for not answering your other points was precisely because this is the wrong venue. As for what should or should not be in an article, well, if the content relates to the subject, complies with the policies/guidelines for verifiablity etc then it deserves a place in what ever the article may be. It is that simple. - Sitush (talk) 18:50, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
I might have seen more value in your non neutrality complaints if I could have seen you yourself behaving in a neutral way. You are no saint in this regard. You had taken to canvassing for support only from folks who can be expected to say things against TT2011. It is obvious that you had tried to organize a "wikikill" on a fellow ed with whom you had a dispute. You were obviously trying to do this as a way of avoiding discussion of the real issues. Doing something like this is not neutral and is one of the most despisable things that I can imagine a Wikipedian doing.

You are incorrect about how the article represents sudras. You have claimed on this page that my understanding of the issue is incorrect. I have already showed where the article asserts that Kurmis are Shudras. Despite this, how can my understanding of the issue be incorrect? Since you have made the contrary claim on this page, you should explain yourself on this page too. Besides this reason, another reason is that discussions on the Kurmi talk page seem to be unproductive because of your stubborn attitude. You seem to be less stubborn here. So, there is better chance of a productive discussion here, in a more public forum. There is no point going there and coming back here with a status quo in hand.-MangoWong (talk) 11:24, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

"Avoiding discussion of the real issues"? That is simply absurd; have you seen Talk:Kurmi where Sitush and I have tried, and tried, and tried, and tried to reason with an endless array of POV pushers who wander in, all to complain about literally one word in the article? Not a single one of them has managed to convince an admin (several have come by) or anyone at ANI or POV of the soundness of removing the term "Shudra". Does that not tell you something? You are simply one of a long line of complainants, not a single one of whom has gained traction at any outside arbitration venue, because simply put you are unable to come up with a legitimate argument that does not strongly smack of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. There are multiple sides to the story, we are including multiple sides, you and others want to remove one side of the story to spare hurt feelings about past (and continuing) discrimination within Indian society. MatthewVanitas (talk) 16:41, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
MangoWong, I have no idea what a "wikikill" is but can assure you that I mean no harm to anyone here. I have myself had a death threat recently, however, plus some other ridiculous stuff. If you could point me to one instance of this discussion here being "productive" then I would be grateful. The fact that you say "there is no point going there [Talk:Kurmi] and coming back here with a status quo in hand" speaks volumes: you are clearly set on achieving a change. That change is not going to happen from this venue, so you need to take it somewhere else. I have previously suggested the options to Yogesh K at Talk:Kurmi but they have been ignored on more than one occasion. - Sitush (talk) 17:00, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
Yes, there is an undue effort to avoid discussion of issues. Both the above posts are also efforts in the same direction. I have been claiming repeatedly that the article asserts that Kurmis are Shudras.
Claim Kshatriya status, but generally recognised as Shudra.
I have also asked what this line is doing if not asserting that Kurmis are Shudras. I have only silence from MatthewVanitas. Sitush claims my impression of the issue is wrong. I have been asking how my understanding is wrong, and I have no response from Sitush.
The long line of folks who object to one single word are users, not POV pushers. If there are tons of people who object to something, and only you two are rejecting the objections, maybe you are the POV pushers. Consider this possibility too. The folks who object to one word do not become POV pushers by virtue of objecting to one word. If someone writes the article on "African American" to basically say that African Americans are Negro, folks will have good reason to object endlessly. The same applies here. You two are the POV pushers. Moreover, none of you seem to have any real life familiarity with this subject. Because of your unfamiliarity, you don’t know how to apply common sense and discretion to this subject. You have no idea why this word is objectionable, and instead of asking, you make wild assumptions about discrimination, POV pushing, etc. And you seem to have picked lots of trash ideas from hostile Western sources which are out to vilify India. They have a single track line—India--weird, Hindu=demon. That most of them never ever visited India is of no consequence. Don't talk about draconian laws and frequent clampdowns on press freedom unless you have some good sources. MatthewVanitas I don't see why you keep saying out of context things? Why do you mention ANIs and inability to convince admins etc.? Presently, I am discussing these issues and I have never had the opportunity to get involved in any ANIs related to this issue. How could I be expected to achieve a success at nonexistent ANIs with nonexistent admins? If I have failed in any ANIs, show them. And admin opinion does not carry any extra weight in ed discussions on article issues. On article issues, while editing or commenting on article content, their opinions are valuable, but only as eds. And which admin did get involved with me in discussing article content related issues? You stop saying absurd things. And there are good reasons to not to focus too much on "Shudra". Ask what those reasons are before making assumptions. Its not about sparing hurt feelings. Its about not playing up "Negro"/slave trade/slavery in an "African American" article.
That you two are trying to avoid discussion is evident because TT2011 is the first ed who tried to discuss the issues in a comprehensive manner. And Sitush tried to organize a "wikikill" on him by indulging in blatant WP:Canvassing. [21] [22] Wikikill=trying to get someone banned/permanently blocked/somehow making someone unable to edit WP. That you are trying to avoid meaningful discussion is also evident by your taking an obfuscatory, circumlocutory approach on my question regarding the line in the infobox. Why don't you admit that the infobox line does make the assertion that Kurmis are Shudra. Why avoid admitting explicitly that the article is making a wrong assertion? Why talk about removing infobox when there is no objection to the infobox itself. And just a couple of days ago, you two were discussing the prospects of removing Indian eds from India related articles. Why do you want to do that if you do not want to have a free run at distorting India related articles without any discussion? [23]. At Dougweller’s talk page too, MatthewVanitas is arguing that indic centric eds be kept away from India articles.
One thing that is productive here is that your motives for your uncompromising behavior are becoming clear. MatthewVanitas has taken it upon himself to play up historical wrongs and wants to play up “Shudra” because of that reason, regardless of how Kurmis themselves feel about it. Sitush thinks that just because something passes WP:V and WP:RS, it is non negotiable. He has no idea that these policies have no bearing on material inclusion. They are about source selection only. Which material gets included, how much and where, is a whole different issue. And Sitush & co. also do not put any value to consensus.
Change is going to take place in the article. If you don't like it, you take it to some other venue.-MangoWong (talk) 10:20, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
They are bling, usually inserted by relatively new editors. Sitush, you say that infoboxes are usually inserted by new users. The implication being, some new user had put up the offending line. Just to make things clear, could you pleeeeaaaaaase specify which "neeeeeeeeeeew user" that waaaaaaaaaaaaas?-MangoWong (talk) 11:09, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
  • My personal suggestion would be to archive this thread; it has served its purpose of drawing attention to the ongoing discussion over at Talk:Kurmi. I see little to no point in having this discussion scattered over many noticeboards... Salvio Let's talk about it! 12:16, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Cleanup needed at Varna (Hinduism)

This thread has now served its purpose; if you wish to discuss this issue further, please do so here, which is the appropriate venue. Salvio Let's talk about it! 15:52, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I'm starting to wade into Varna (Hinduism), as the article is very convoluted, hard to read, repetitive, poor wikification, and far too much reliance on WP:Primary sources as opposed to secondary academic analysis. The article looks pretty quiet, no Talk movement since 2011. This article is "class=start" which is a bit ridiculous given how fundamental this is to Indian sociology. Yes, it's an obsolete and deprecated system, but it still goes a long way towards explaining how the current situation came to be. I'd appreciate anyone else interested in pitching in on this keystone of caste-system articles. MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:07, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Adding a quote from here:

while varna was generally accepted as the basis for identity, on the whole little agreement prevailed with respect to the place of the individual and the jati within a varna hierarchy. Srinivas, describing social relations in the mid-twentieth century, regarded such a “lack of clarity in the hierarchy” as “one of the most striking features of the caste system,” adding that “it is this ambiguity which makes it possible for a caste to rise in the hierarchy.”[30] Such ambiguity only becomes a striking feature, however, when observers expect to see the opposite, that is, a complete congruity between theory (varna) and practice (jati). Such expectations were increasingly palpable in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when India became for nascent (imperial) anthropology a “laboratory of mankind,” wherein scientific methods of observation (anthropometry among them) were expected to produce clear and straightforward sociological (and racial) patterns that conformed to varna-derived theories.[31]

Hope this helps. ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 06:25, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Just adding here, "India became for nascent (imperial) anthropology a “laboratory of mankind,” wherein scientific methods of observation (anthropometry among them) were expected to produce clear and straightforward sociological (and racial) patterns that conformed to varna-derived theories.[31]", a behavior very clearly exhibited still. ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 06:35, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
I'll have to dig more into those sources (and what it is they're citing in the "[30]" etc. footnotes), but at first glance this is indeed the kind of material that needs to be in the article. Again, not to make it British-centric, and of course the history of varna prior to the British needs to be dug into extensively. The articles are also weak on the modern Indian government's efforts to eliminate varna distinctions, attempts to use SC/ST and OBC to redress some long-standing repressions, etc. The first issue should be to try and smooth up the copyediting, and also remove any controversial uncited material or POV. Secondly, to improve organisation/flow and avoid repetition, third to expand the article using the sort of in-depth academic examination as you link above. Sound like a plan thus far? MatthewVanitas (talk) 14:49, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Most of the English Literature is colonial and post-Independence of India.
What I am trying to say is, it was because of Colonial history that many people lost social status (because of poverty, loss of authority, etc.), so also that colonial policies - that could order some Jatis out of some service like Police - that led to so called 'Swaying' authorities movements - is completely overlooked. When Colonial Authorities started making those rules, requiring iron-clad lines of varna (like skin color difference, misplaced in Varna system) for jobs, one can not blame any Jatis, like Kurmis, that didn't need such 'declarations of Varna' earlier. Hindu religious leaders are very clear on Kshatriya status, as pointed out earlier. ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 15:22, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
I am curious here, and well aware of past accusations about "Hindu Nationalists". If all of these issues were down to the colonial period (caste is, I believe, a Portuguese word), why is it that the various varna are mentioned in Sangam/Purana etc literature and why is it that those sources are used by many here to buttress their various contentions to ritual rank? The system existed before colonial times and all indications are that it was "enforced" in those early times, hence machinations such as hypergamy were employed to ameliorate some of the effects or, indeed, to bolster those effects (only the oldest son of a Kerala-region Brahmin could usually marry a Brahmin, for example). - Sitush (talk) 15:31, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
Look, let's leave the Kurmi issues on Talk:Kurmi and try and approach the varna and jati castes as broad conceptual articles. I would, however, dispute that "Hindu religious leaders are very clear", as there were plenty of divergences over time and place. Look at the contorversy over the coronation of Shivaji: he was suddenly "found" to be descended from Kshatriya clans when his military power simply could not be ignored, though it is quite possible he was of Kunbi Shudra origin. It was not done by some all-India consensus, it was done because some key local Brahmins saw the writing on the wall. I dispute your implication that the Brits somehow arbitrarily mis-filed some agricultural castes as Shudra as the Brahmins vainly struggled to haul out long-standing Kshatriya references for them; it appears (per sources, and we can get into that in article talk) that when the British started formally codifying things in a unified way, many jatis saw a chance to make a pitch for a higher varna, knowing that if they could convince the British, it would be hard for any other Indian groups (including the Brahmins) to contradict the Raj. That's how you get all those temple entry and other social upheavals at the start of the 20th century; jatis were redefining themselves in ways the orthodox Hindus disputed, but the jatis now could sue in British courts, etc. to press their case rather than simply accept what other communities decreed. Mandelbaum's "Society of India" has a great passage on this here: [24]. MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:36, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
About 'The system existed before colonial times and all indications are that it was "enforced" in those early times', is again partly true. There are many examples, as noted by different sects, of Kings ploughing fields, etc. Some Hindu movements also point out that, by Karma Yoga i.e. work, one could move across Varna. "when the British started formally codifying things in a unified way" is somehow anathema to Varna understanding, which is not too iron-clad at all.
The same book also says, that during and after 1941 Census, listing of Jati and Varna was eliminated, terminating the use of census as a tool for Jati mobility. So how are we on Wikipedia doing iron clad research on Jatis and Varnas?
About Shivaji, assertions that the contorversy over the coronation of Shivaji: he was suddenly "found" to be descended from Kshatriya clans when his military power simply could not be ignored, though it is quite possible he was of Kunbi Shudra origin, is again Synthesis. When there is a debate, one can not take sides and in your own words "it is quite possible he was of Kunbi Shudra origin" etc. Again Shivaji was considered as a Kshatriya by a Hindu priest is what you also mentioned, regardless of 'the writing on the wall' theory put forward from a Wikipedian admin.
What I can say is that whenever there are some debates/disagreements, it is not a job of Wikipedia to take sides and write authoritative History. ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 16:24, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Building on Sitush's point: it doesn't help the "varna doesn't matter" or "varna is a wicked Britisher imposition" case to note that a huge number of articles (and basically all of the ones with a current Kshatriya vs. Shudra fight) were quite happy to prominently list Kshatriya credentials in the start of the article, and spend substantial time justifying them. But once Sitush and I started trying to detail the undiscussed controversies (which are very clear in academic works), all of a sudden people wanted to start saying "oh, varna doesn't matter" once they realised they couldn't force out "Shudra" and keep all the Kshatriya puffery. The motives behind some of these argument are rather suspect, in that context. MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:56, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

If there are controversies, why is Wikipedia taking sides in a controversy?
As also, why are recognitions by Hindu priests ignored as social recognition, for example in case of Kurmis or King Shivaji? ..असक्तः सततं कार्य कर्म समाचर | असक्तः हि आचरन् कर्म.. Humour Thisthat2011 16:24, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
WP is not taking part in controversy. The aim is to keep it that way. - Sitush (talk) 16:26, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
TT2011, yet again you are spraying stuff around that is barely related to the subject heading & the thread is deteriorating in consequence. You first point was a good one but even then I knew exactly where you were going to go with it - it has become a very predictable routine. Can we try to stay focussed, please? Carping on about Kurmi/Kuni etc, reiterating points you seem unable to drop despite umpteen explanations, is distracting to say the least. As for this thread itself, it would probably be best taken on the to article talk page. - Sitush (talk) 16:36, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
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