Talk:Indian Military Academy/GA1

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Reviewer: Spinningspark (talk · contribs) 11:58, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

I'll be providing a full review in due course, but for now, one sentence jumped out at me; IMA now trains over approximately 400 gentleman cadets a class... It can't be both "over 400" and "approximately 400". Choose one or the other. Also "gentleman cadet" should be either linked, explained or glossed as it is an archaic term few would now understand. Also per class is preferable to the ambiguous a class. SpinningSpark 11:58, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

• IMA now trains over approximately 400 gentleman cadets a class... ; changed completely to sanctioned capacity of 1650. Removed mention of cadets per class. Each year the number varies greatly - example 600 in June 2010 (The Hindu) & 459 including foreign cadets in June 2019 (ET). Simplifies the lead.
• Also "gentleman cadet" should be either linked, explained or glossed - I had thought that this explanation currently in the article would be enough - A trainee on admission to IMA is referred to as a Gentleman Cadet (GC). One reason for this is that the Academy expects its graduates to uphold the highest moral and ethical values. Please confirm that this is not enough and I will go ahead and try the linking to Cadet#India or try a better explanation. Please explain what glossed means. DTM (talk) 13:41, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

  Gloss means gloss (annotation), but there is no real need to do that here because Gentleman Cadet is available as a link. SpinningSpark 18:15, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

This helped too Wikipedia:Glossing sources DTM (talk) 03:15, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

I was talking about glossing unfamiliar terms in the article, not glossing sources. I am not a great fan of that practice, and it is not a GA requirement (or any guideline requirement). It is certainly not universally done by editors, but feel free to adopt it if you like it. SpinningSpark 10:08, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Noted. Thanks. DTM (talk) 10:46, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

• Also per class is preferable to the ambiguous a class - done above

DTM (talk) 13:34, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

The lead should be a standalone summary of the body of the article, like a mini article. It should make sense to a user that reads only the lead. Therefore, anythign that needed linking in the body of the article should also be linked in the lead if it is important enough to appear there at all. SpinningSpark 17:00, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

• I had been hesitating to expand the lead, but the comment helped. Made the expansion of the lead. DTM (talk) 12:13, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Detailed review follows. If you wish, you may add an indented comment after each item. Please do not strike through completed items or add tick marks or other graphics. That will interfere with my own system of tracking progress.

Lead

• "...which form the focus of the training aimed at making cadets prepared for combating contemporary conflict realities." Makes this a very cumbersome sentence and difficult to understand. It would be better as a second, simpler sentence, perhaps "The focus of the training is preparing cadets for contemporary conflict realities." Not even convinced that it is really adding anything at all - surely this is what all militaries are doing in training.

Removed. Done.

• "...to name a few" is unnecessary and vague. If we have an actual or approximate number, then use that, otherwise leave it out.

Removed vauge wordings. Adding an exact number.

• "...among other honours", another vague phrase. Expressions that lack precision come under WP:WTW which is a GA requirement.

Rephrased. Done.

• "Raising Day". I don't think this term is used much outside the Indian subcontinent. Perhaps it could be glossed with "Raising Day (founding date)" or something similar.

Explanatory footnote added.

• "gentleman cadet" needs linking

Linked.

Demands for an Indian military training academy

• "Until World War I, Indians were not eligible for commission..." Is this accurate? The following paragraph implies that Indians were not eligible for officer training until after WWI. The source says that a few already serving men were granted commissions during the later years of the war. I also read in the same source (p. xiii, p. 11) that a lesser commission was available to Indians from 1901. This all needs clarifying in the article. Introduce at least enough information so that there is no longer an apparent contradiction between the two paragraphs.

"Indians were not eligible for commission as officers in the Indian Army. Following the Indian military experience in World War I, where Indian soldiers proved their mettle.... the keywords to note here are officers and soldiers. Here the differentiation attempted is that of the higher officer ranks and lower ranks. Natives were always below the rank of lower most officer rank of Subaltern, as pointed out on p. xiii which you have also noted. It goes onto say that "in reality the highest rank obtainable by a native before the Mutiny (1857) was a Subedar (Subedar rank exists even today in the Indian Army rank structure as a Junior commissioned officer rank). Even after the mutiny and "thirty years later the C-in-C General Lord Roberts too was not prepared to accept natives in the officer cadre. He believed that natives were "neither physically nor morally their equal and that however well educated and clever a native might be and however brave he may have proved himself, no rank that they could bestow upon him could cause him to be considered as a equal to the last joined British subaltern." When presidency armies were abolished and formed into the Indian Army... "the highest rank to which a native soldier of India rise was still Subedar." With the formation of the Imperial Cadets Corps in 1901, the process of Indianisation of the officer cadre of the army began. However this was only for scions of state rulers and princes and even after training they were still not allowed into the regular army, only the Imperial Army and Imperial Service Troops. In 1905, natives were allowed to officer only Indian troops and were not allowed to rise above company or squadron officers, as such they were in no way equal to commissioned British officers. Natives were also not allowed to officer engineers or artillery. etc etc.... jumping to WW1... "when the final count of taken at the end of the war, the Army-in-India had lost 53,468 men."... there was a severe shortage of officers. "The sacrifices that Indians had made in this war broke the resistance of the British Government as well as the Indian Government to the Indianisation process."... In 1918 the Montagu–Chelmsford Report praised the services of the Indians during the war and acknowldeged the need of Indianisation of the Army. Ten vacancies were reserved for Indians annually at Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Even though commissions were now open in principle to Indians there was no college to train them in India....... hence IMA in 1932. So 1918 to 1932 is the struggle of getting a college in India open...IMA. [Preface xi - xv. History of the Indian Military Academy – M. P. Singh (Brig.)]

Now as you have said clarification is needed in the article. I was stumbling which how much clarification was needed. I didn't want the history section to become too long, I hope with that in mind I haven't made it oversimplified and too short.

Accordingly I will go ahead and add something to clarify this contradiction "Until World War I, Indians were not eligible for commission as officers in the Indian Army. Following the Indian military experience in World War I, where Indian soldiers proved their mettle". DTM (talk) 07:45, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

I have rephrased the sentences. Hope this clarifies things. DTM (talk) 14:29, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

I've copyedited this a little and ticked it. SpinningSpark 17:46, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

• "Following the Indian military experience in World War I, where Indian soldiers proved their mettle,..." This is sailing close to editorializing. Suggest "Following Indian military performance in World War I,..."

Done, changed to suggested.

Inauguration to Independence

• Why is Railway Staff College italicised? It probably shouldn't be.

Done. Italics removed.

Post-Independence

• "...a number of trainers and cadets left for Britain and Pakistan." Why did they leave? Was it the same reason for both countries? What were the consequences of this exodus? The sentence stands orphaned of any context and the reader is going to wonder why it is there at all.

Done. Rephrased and expanded for more context.

• "...following the Sino-Indian War..." makes it sound like the dates given are the dates of the war (which I don't think is the intended meaning). I suggest "After the Sino-Indian War of 1962, special measures were introduced. From 1963 until August 1964, the duration of..."

Done. Rephrased as suggested.

• "During this time..." This is unnecessary and misleading. Westmoreland was not there while any of the mentioned wars were "hot". Just the date is sufficient.

Done. Removed.

• New colours are mentioned several times, but no images given. There is File:Regimental Colours of the Indian Military Academy.png on Commons.

I did notice that the image, but I think I will leave it out for now. Thanks.

Campus

• "Drill Square". Is this a proper noun? I doubt that it should be capitalised. Likewise "Central Library". These are just common terms.

Done. Capitalisation removed.

The second one is still capitalised. Is that deliberate or an oversight? Also one in the infobox

Oversight. Done.

• Italicising proper names like Chetwode Hall and Khetarpal Auditorium is unnecessary and deprecated by WP:ITALICS.

Done. Italics removed.

Athletic facilities

• "Tons Valley to the Northwest of the campus, which is bounded by..." Simpler "Tons Valley to the Northwest of the campus is bounded by..."

Rephrased as suggested leaving out "is bounded by".

• "...forks and bends..." This is a strange phrase and I'm not sure I understand it. Does it mean the facility lies in the fork of a river? Or just along its banks?

Removed mention and rephrased to make it more clear.

• "...and the Épée Fencing Modern Pentathlon." Modern pentathlon is an event, not an activity and it shouldn't be capitalised. I think this actually should read "...and épée fencing from the modern pentathlon."

Rephrased as suggested.

• "...with its pillars and columns of Dholpur stone..." What is the difference between pillars and columns? And is the stone any different from the rest of the monument? Why not just say "...made of Dholpur stone..."? If Dholpur stone has some special significance here then it should be explained.

Removed. "Pillars and columns" in architecture can have different meanings as per a quick search. It then becomes even more clear when a visual of the monument is laid out. Dholpur stone is unique for its colour, heritage, and qualities (and references would have been used if mentioned). But I am removing mention of both 'pillar and coloumns' and 'Dholpur stone' as now I don't see the necessity of having it in the short section.

• "...pays homage to the alumni of the Academy who have fallen in the course of action..." this is emotive and contains a WP:EUPHEMISM. Something like "...commemorates the alumni of the Academy who died in action..."

Thanks for the suggestion. Changed as suggested.

• "...just weeks after the Kargil War." That suggest the monument was built as a result of that war. The cited source says nothing about that, so I assume the timing is just a coincidence (and it was actually four months, not weeks). Suggest "...shortly after the conclusion of the Kargil War."

Rephrased as suggested.

Gentleman cadet life

• The last two paragraphs (starting at "The freshman GCs hail from diverse backgrounds...") is a little promotional. It sounds like it was written by the Academy PR department. You need to ask what fact each statement is delivering to the reader. If there isn't a fact in there, or it isn't an attributed opinion, then it doesn't belong in an encyclopaedia article.

I have heavily edited the last two paragraphs of gentleman cadet life, and in the same edit placed a new paragraph in training to add a little more depth to this entire section, trying to make it more encyclopaediac. If more needs to be done I can try.

That's a lot better, but there are still a couple of things I don't like; "makes well-rounded men", it is a matter of opinion (and therefore not neutral) what amounts to well-rounded. It is also vague on what it actually means. If it means the cadets have a balanced education as expanded on in the new passage, then say that instead. "test of the GC's mettle", the word mettle, to me, gives a positive connotation without saying anything definite, so again, not neutral. If you want to provide an attributed quote saying those things that would be fine. It is saying them in Wikipedia's voice that makes it problematic.

I have removed the phrase "makes well-rounded men". And as suggested, I have converted the following line with the word 'mettle' into a quote. - The official website of the Indian Army describes the training as "a test of one's mettle and capabilities, and in psychological terms a foretaste of what the trainees would face in the battlefield".

Training

• The second para (beginning "With the mission of grooming future military leaders...") contains more PR sounding non-encyclopaedic phrases. It needs a general cleanup.

First round of cleanup done here. If more is needed I can do a bit more.

• Quotations should not be in italics

Done.

• CQB, LOMAH, TBSR. Militaries love their initialisms, but they are usually not helpful to introduce in an encyclopaedia article unless they are going to be used later. The spelled out names should not be capitalised.
• We don't seem to have an article on LOMAH and it is not terribly clear to the uninitiated what this is. I suggest a short addition to clarify, there are plenty of sources available.
• "The nature of training at the Academy is dangerous and cadets have died during training." The sources only relate to one incident, so unless we know of other deaths, the article should say it is one incident ("two cadets died of dehydration on a 10 km run in 2017" or something similar). The inquiry has surely concluded by now and it would be good to have the conclusions in the article. Also, a more general point can be made by adding to the article the Academy's requirement that cadets get insurance against death and disability (in the NDTV source). That shows that the Academy is expecting injuries.

Passing Out Parade

• I don't believe this should be capitalised. Also appears in several other places in article

Removed capitalization from full form 'passing out parade'. The short form POP has been retained. Numerous sources do use 'POP'.

That's fine, more significant than sources using it, the abbreviation is used later in the article so needs introducing. I note that you also removed capitalisation from some terms I hadn't asked for. Some of these were 50/50 and a few were definitely wrong to remove caps. In particular, I have put back "Patton tank". Type names of equipment are usually capitalised, and things named after people are always capitalised. SpinningSpark 12:36, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Notable alumni

• More euphemisms and other WP:WTW; "been called upon to render service" = "served", "made the ultimate sacrifice" = "died in action"

Done.

Images

• File:Indian Military Academy, Dehradun, Uttrakhand, India.jpg, the infobox lead image, is watermarked with a copyright notice. Some of the user's other uploads have been deleted for exactly this reason. I have raised the issue with Commons. It is not resolved yet, but you may eventually need to find another lead image.

Infobox image replaced. Done. I hope the image replacement image for the POP section is ok.

That's fine, but the discussion at Commons has not yet closed, see Commons:Commons:Undeletion requests/Current requests#File:Thennangur Temple,Tamil Nadu,India (3).jpg and File:Thennangur Temple,Tamil Nadu,India (2).jpg. It looks at the moment like this will be kept, so the original image will be ok. SpinningSpark 12:02, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to the discussion. I have restored the image. If at any time in the future there is any new problem will the infobox image, I can replace it again. DTM (talk) 06:56, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

• File:VCPremindraSinghBhagat.jpg (two places) is claimed to be uploaded "with permission" but no evidence of it actually being freely licensed is provided (no OTRS ticket) and no link to the source provided. It was apparently uploaded as part of this project. There is some discussion of copyright issues on the talk page, but no resolution.

Will this image File:Indian Officers Meeting.jpg be suitable as a substitute? A cropped version of course of the officer in mention. On the far right as per the caption on this page Surendra Singh Panwar. BUT, I don't think the crop would look too good, so I think it best if the image is removed. DTM (talk) 11:14, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

I went ahead and did a crop and placed it in the image. Since a battalion is named after him, it would be weird to have a image of the other three. But the problem is that the cropped looks out of place, it is an image of him from the side as compared to a portrait of the other three. Or is leaving the three ok, or should I just remove all four images? DTM (talk) 11:25, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

I won't comment on the quality of the new image or whether three images are better than none. That is an editorial decision. The issue for GA is that whatever images are used must be properly licensed. The new image also has a problem as it is claimed to be "own work" but clearly isn't as the uploader states he inherited it from his grandfather. If the photo was taken by a family member then it might be alright to tag it with Commons:Template:PD-heirs and remove the claim of own work. It would be preferable if the original uploader did this (but unlikely, not edited since 2015) rather than doing it yourself as you don't know for certain that the grandfather didn't acquire it from some other source rather than take it himself. In any case, I think the grandfather claim is highly suspect. The resolution of the image is so low that it is much more likely that it was scraped from some web page.

If you want to retain the original image, you need to either contact the uploader or the original copyright holder (Gerald Napier, from the Royal Engineers Library) to establish exactly what permission was granted. Either way, the image needs to end up with an OTRS ticket template to show that the permission evidence has been recieved by Wikipedia. The trouble we have at the moment is that the permission is vague; it might be for the VCR site only, or non-commercial only etc, which are incompatible with Wikipedia. SpinningSpark 11:08, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for outlining the correct procedure for getting the necessary permissions for the image. I will follow it up. For now, I have removed the image in question from the article. DTM (talk) 06:56, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

References

I was intending to only do a sample check on references, but I have now seen enough to concern me to look a bit deeper, so this review will take a bit longer yet.

• I'm not totally convinvced that bootcampmilitaryfitnessinstitute.com counts as a reliable source. It is a personal website. He does have one published piece, but not strictly quite in this field, so a very marginal case could be made for it under WP:SPS. The source doesn't seem to be used for a great deal; it might be better to use other sources if possible, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt if necessary.

Removed. This was used in two places. At the first location there were two cites, the remaining citation is enough and covers the content cited; and at the second place it has been replaced with another source.

• Make My Trip is a travel company and the referenced page is anonymous. That is not a reliable source

Source removed. Replaced.

• There is no sign at all that imamreza.net carries out any proper journalistic checking. The piece referenced is anonymous and the sites about us page has a call for user contributions. So my assessment is that this is user-generated content

Removed reference. Content referenced otherwise.

• bharat-rakshak.com seems to be an amateur site judging by its "Origins" page. But its well organised enough that we can probably give it the benefit of the doubt.

Removed the one use of bharat-rakshak.com as a reference. The content is already cited.

Spelling

• Variety of spelling is inconsistent; honor/honour, mold/mould. There may be others I've missed. Even Sword of Honour is not spelled consistently. I believe India follows British spelling so that is what should be used in this article.
• You restored an American spelling with this edit. I can only assume this was unintentional due to edit conflict, but I'm raising it here just in case there was a reason. SpinningSpark 08:23, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it was unintentional. 'Moulding' was correct. But I have made a few changes to this section, 'Gentleman cadet life', and the word has been removed.

That completes my review. The important issues to address as far as achieving GA status are;

1. Tone/WTW in some sections (criteria #1b and #4)
2. Licensing issues on images (criterion #6a)
3. Unreliable references (criterion #2b)

SpinningSpark 12:08, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Spinningspark, I have made a few updates to the article as per the review. I think I have covered all the points. Is anything left? Thank you. DTM (talk) 09:25, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Two problems remain; one image issue, and one tone issue. SpinningSpark 12:08, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

That's all good now and I'm promoting this to GA. Thanks for all your hard work on this page. SpinningSpark 08:28, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.