Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Narendra Modi/1

Narendra Modi

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Modi/1&action=watch Watch article reassessment page

Result: Continued Listing as GA. Winged Blades of Godric^{On leave} 11:22, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

I have been frequently watching articles of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, that are written much better than this article, they are rated at C class. I am surprised this article qualified as GA. Article has tons of issues, raised entire last year[1] and even recent times, but I am writing down how it fails GA criteria.

Fails #2, because the article has BLP violation, on lead it claims or at least tries to push Modi to be complicit of 2002 Gujarat riots, despite the whole claim is a dead horse following the clearance. Allegations (especially refuted) should be never on lead and if they should be on the article, sources need to report the events after the acquittal, in place of pushing less accepted thoughts. However this article with the sentences such as "His administration has been considered complicit", "is generally considered by scholars to have been complicit",(giving 3 sources all dating years before he was acquitted of all charges) with such wording it treats the allegations as obvious convictions. Genuine issues with BLP have been raised before on talk page, but ignored.[2]

Some good examples would be, that we don't see mention of Obama's alleged illegal warring in Libya on Barack Obama,[3] we don't see Putin's alleged role in the bombing of Moscow building. Even the article of Kim Jong-un is less negative. So why we are seeing similar claims on the article of Narendra Modi?

Fails #3 because it still gives minimal or no details about his output of last 3 years as prime minister, although it provides a huge section for 2002 Gujarat riots, which could've been reduced to 3 sentences without requiring a section. The lack of details about his relationship with other countries, encouragement in sports,[4][5] is also missing, more could be provided.

Fails #4 lacks neutrality; like we can see, other than that the lead is unnecessarily balanced to the extent that it is too repetitive (mentioning Hindu nationalism identity twice as well as "2002 Gujarat riots") the last part of the lead is itself childish, with its claim that Modi is "controversial", because every politician even mayor happens to be controversial. Large amount of content has been also forked from 2002 Gujarat riots to the section Narendra Modi#2002 Gujarat riots. Article has trivial material like criticism for "half-sleeved kurta", which is not even encyclopedic.

Fails #5 its not stable; few examples of edit warring[6][7][8][9] can be found and content dispute still continues, with editors other than me, finding genuine problems with the sourcing.[10][11][12]

I would say that this article really lacks even basic requirements of B-class, let alone GA. I would be one of the editors posting on the talk page, but first the GA rating would need to be removed as GA rating itself serves as justification for not removing/modifying the content. Lorstaking (talk) 08:05, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

• This "reassessment" is quite absurd, and shows only that this user has not read the relevant policies. The article does not say Modi was complicit in the riots. It says scholars consider his government to be. If readers are unable to distinguish between "Narendra Modi" and "the government headed by Narendra Modi" that is their problem, not Wikipedia's. Modi has not been acquitted. He has not been acquitted, because he was never tried for any crime. He was investigated by a supreme court committee. The committee found insufficient evidence against him. This fact is mentioned in the lead, quite appropriately. What Wikipedia says about Obama and Putin is quite irrelevant here, and should be raised on those talk pages. The notion that the riots are given undue weight is once again absurd. The riots are given three paragraphs, despite the huge coverage they receive in scholarly sources: see [13]. In contrast, his Prime Ministership is given 27 paragraphs. Indeed, the section about his prime ministership was so long that folks asked for it to be trimmed. I do not even understand most of the other complaints about neutrality. The complaint about "controversial" is, once again, quite misguided; many major political figures are controversial, and if sources describe them as such, then so must we. Vanamonde (talk) 10:58, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

I believe we need to go by the common standards of writing articles and it is relevant to look at other articles. Since multiple editors had raised concerns over the sentences, it had to be resolved rather than keeping on mainspace. And if you want to preserve the preferred sentences, then don't expect having better rating. If article doesn't say Modi was complicit, why it even mention his role? He wasn't acquitted? It is still WP:UNDUE, it rather reads as the article has been designed to claim him as complicit because he was the Chief Minister of the state government at the time and he has been largely singled out in the entire riots. If you are saying that he hadn't been tried for any crime it makes even more WP:UNDUE to mention the entire riots in the article. The lead is providing undue weight to allegations. Yes every politician is controversial and it is childish to mention that on the lead or entire article, and here, it has been mentioned that Modi is controversial but after repeating the already mentioned subjects. Lorstaking (talk) 11:34, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Due weight is not based on what editors like, or how many editors like something. It is based on coverage in reliable sources. For example, of the 9000-odd scholarly sources that mention Narendra Modi, approximately 2000 also mention the riots. The numbers are even higher for the sources that cover this in detail. Thus, per WP:DUE, the weight given to the riots is very very low. If you want to change this, you need to demonstrate that there are things in sources of equal weight that are not being covered in the article. Otherwise, this just sounds like WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Vanamonde (talk) 11:57, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

• Support stripping of good article status. As per all the points noted. I had brought this page on Biography of living persons noticeboards a few years ago[14] because of source misrepresentations, but not much has changed in fact worsened when it comes to WP:NPOV. The comparison of the lead is somewhat worse than what it used to be years ago, despite Narendra Modi is himself highly applauded internationally for his efforts.[15][16][17][18] However this article continues to paint a negative image of him. D4iNa4 (talk) 12:00, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

• Can we give much weight to the opinion and cherry-picked sources of someone who socked using multiple accounts and has/had a very distinct pro-Hindutva agenda? I think not. You're entitled to your opinion, yes, but it should count for little in any neutral assessment 0f any article related to Indian politics. - Sitush (talk) 11:42, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

• Support - For all the reasons described.VictoriaGrayson^Talk 15:24, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose, obviously. No substantive evidence has been provided that the article violated WP:DUE. No concrete suggestions for improvements have been made that have any basis in policy. And I do not often play this card, but the fact is that the inexperience of some of these folks with the GA process in showing: whereas Midnightblueowl, who reviewed this, for instance, has a hundred GAs and nearly as many GA reviews; and I have 20 of each myself. Vanamonde (talk) 16:09, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
• Delist Yes there are huge amount of BLP, NPOV violations. I was one of the users who raised issues on talk page[19] but I was met with dissatisfaction even after providing much better sources than what this article has. Controversial edits were made without consensus days before GA started. Capitals00 (talk) 16:21, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
• Comment Oppose: I was the editor who reviewed this at GAN and, after a lengthy discussion with Vanamonde (which entailed a range of prose changes), the article was passed as a Good Article. I am not thoroughly convinced by Lorstaking's argument that it fails the GA criteria. Rather, this looks to me as if it is more of a content dispute and an editor potentially using GAR as a means of pushing a POV. There is of course a pro-Modi lobby here at Wikipedia as in the real world and I am wondering if this attempt to have the article change may have more to do with concealing criticism of Modi than genuinely adhering to Good Article criteria (if I am wrong on that, I apologise, but I think we need to bear it in mind as a possibility). Editors have raised comparisons with articles like those on Putin and Kim Jong In, although both of these articles are in a fairly sorry state (the Obama article is rated FA but frankly it shouldn't be and will probably be delisted soon). It would be better to hold the Modi article up against other FA-rated political biographies like Vladimir Lenin, Nikita Khruschev, and Nelson Mandela. How does it stack up against those in its coverage of controversies? Unless very clear evidence can be presented that this article misrepresents the Reliable Sources then I would suggest dropping this issue. Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:06, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

@Midnightblueowl: You are comparing biographies of dead people with a BLP, is there some difference? 2 of them being communist dictators and one of them being someone who had been jailed for 27 years. All I find no more than one negative sentence on Nelson Mandela, Nikita Krushchev and Vladimir Lenin on lead, while Narendra Modi's article lead is smaller and contains 3 negative sentences. Also I am not seeing any content forking on these 3 articles either. So your comparison with this articles is largely uncomfortable. Yes there are issues with sourcing like it has been already mentioned, "giving 3 sources all dating years before he was acquitted of all charges", that's how POV pushing has been done of this article. How come one cannot provide the sources for those claims that came much after the court verdict? Obviously because such source would differed the preferred POV. Issues have been well raised on talk page entire time if you haven't observed, if you really want to compare the article, then try doing so with other Indian political leader GA, Mayawati, you will find this article's quality is actually bad. Capitals00 (talk) 22:25, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

I still think that this is primarily a content issue that could be dealt with in a more appropriate manner. For instance, why wasn't this raised as a Talk Page section first? (Or was it?). For me, GAR just seems like the wrong place to be raising these issues at this stage. Midnightblueowl (talk) 22:52, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

@Midnightblueowl: I had raised few issues,[20] but they hadn't been answered appropriately and in fact I was told by this same user that article is GA that's why information should stick. You have asked above if this article has misrepresented sources, I find a bunch of misrepresentation on lead itself.

• "His administration has been criticised for failing to significantly improve health, poverty, and education indices in the state" cites [21] but nothing like this can be found there. And the other source it cites is [22], which the other user with access had already confirmed that there is no use of "criticise" in entire document.
• "His administration has been considered complicit in the 2002 Gujarat riots" is using sources[23](from 2007) that doesn't even mention Narendra Modi, while other one doesn't use the word "complicit" or anything same[24], it only says "accused of failing to stop" which is far from any complicity.
• None of the sources claim that he is controversial nationally and internationally both. Sources must cite it exactly otherwise it is WP:SYNTH/WP:OR. [25][26] only states the controversy regarding 2002 Gujarat riots, none of the sources tell that he is controversial for his "Hindu nationalist beliefs", and "cited as evidence of an exclusionary social agenda" is not supported by any sources.

And that's with the lead alone, I would be finding more misrepresentation of sources, but for now this seems enough alone to maintain that article is in really bad shape. Capitals00 (talk) 23:22, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

These "objections" are mostly hot air. I responded to Capitals00's points on the talk page. I supported two of his five proposed changes, and explained the problems with three others. He neglected to respond; that is not really my issue. As with Lorstaking above, it would appear that Capitals00 is unable to tell the difference between Modi and the government run by him. Thus, the sources in question need to discuss his government, which they do. He also seems to want to see the exact sentence from the article in the source, which of course is impossible, because that would be a copyright violation. The article is largely based on scholarly sources; replacing them with media sources, which you folks seek to do, would definitely make it worse. The Shani source most certainly mentions Modi, and directly states that the rioters had help from the authorities. On page 169. Have you even read that page, Capitals00? I thought not. I have yet to hear a substantive objection to anything in this article. Pankaj, this is not a vote; supporting complaints of no substance does you no credit, and does not help your cause. If you folks had kept track of the GA review, you would have seen that Midnightblueowl actually raised substantive issues, and that I acted on most of them. Vanamonde (talk) 10:13, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes you have used a partisan source from 2007 to make a problematic claim doesn't adhere to NPOV. How about use a source that comments on the clearance? Capitals00 (talk) 15:17, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

The "clearance" is just one aspect of the issue and has been dealt with time and again. For all the news stories that report it, you'll find a bunch of academic/clearly independent sources etc that continue to raise the issues. You need to appreciate that the media in India tends to be particularly slavish to both politicians and the legal system. We usually need to look elsewhere for genuine analysis: even a couple of non-Indian sources from reliable publishers would trump an entire months' reporting. We give more weight to some sources than others for a reason. - Sitush (talk) 11:48, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

• Support removing GA for reasons stated above. -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 04:08, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. The nominators reasoning is invalid. Looking at each point:

1. Doesn't fail #2. The body of the article clearly contains many scholarly sources on the complicity of the Modi administration in the 2002 riots. The nominator raises the "acquittal" argument which has been much discussed and, to summarize, Wikipedia gives more weight to scholarly sources and less weight to government commissions or court judgements.
2. Doesn't fail #3. At least not per nominators arguments. The lack of details about his relationship with other countries, encouragement in sports,[14][15] is also missing, more could be provided - these are WP:CRUFT and I'd say that the article would fail GA status if they were included!
3. Doesn't fail #4. "Controversial" is well documented (and much discussed on these talk pages). I'm surprised (or perhaps not) that it is being raised again.
4. Doesn't fail #5. Yes, there is edit warring but the content is reasonably stable. Edit warring occurs because various POV editors raise points similar to what the nominator is raising but they haven't been getting much traction. There is no reason why an article on a controversial subject cannot be a good article despite the presence of POV pushers as long as they are kept at bay. In a sense, the fact that the nomination is merely reiterating the various issues that keep getting raised on the talk page but never get anywhere shows that the article is actually quite stable!
5. As I state above, the issues raised by the nominator all are content issues that have been raised multiple times on the talk page but have not gone anywhere because they either want to remove information well backed up by reliable sources or add information from less reliable or primary sources. When you find that your content choices are not getting traction, the traditional way to deal with that is through dispute resolution. Not by seeking to demote the article. We have a well referenced and comprehensive article and that makes this a "good" article.--regentspark (comment) 14:37, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

• You seem to be saying that many editors raised concerns with the edits but their concerns were totally ignored. So we are claiming him to be complicit in the disguise of his state? That's WP:UNDUE and doesn't deserve anywhere entire article, because there are enough academic sources that have commented on his clearance, and I had provided them on the talk page but I am not seeing them to be included, instead we are seeing sources that were published years before the clearance. Most of the negative content is clearly not "well documented" like I have highlighted out above. Capitals00 (talk) 15:17, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

No. I'm saying that many editors raised concerns but that their concerns were shown to be invalid. A good example is the "clearance" issue you've repeatedly raised on this talk page. As has been explained (e.g. here), we give more weight to scholarly sources and "clearances" don't mean much (though, of course, they can be mentioned). "Controversial" is another much discussed example. So, no, nothing is being ignored. Rather, the changes sought by you and others are not making their way into the article because, again as I say above, the things you want removed are well supported by reliable sources. --regentspark (comment) 16:21, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Much has been already discussed here or there, I would point out that one needs to see Barack Obama#Foreign policy, an FA article, that details his activities and relationships with other countries, we can't find same for Modi. And all of the sources used in the foreign policy section of Narendra Modi are one year older. Article is lacking updates. Lorstaking (talk) 16:44, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

You should then be listing what specific updates you're seeking on foreign policy etc. I'm trying to assume good faith here but it does seem odd that your very first edit to the talk page is a GA reassessment. --regentspark (comment) 16:52, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

• By initiating this discussion I was only telling that the article fails GA criteria and if editors are ready to work on it they should, but it seems that while most editors oppose the current article, not everyone is ready to work on it. After seeing more of these comments, it becomes concerning that article includes is contrary to WP:BLP, contains misrepresentation of sources, non-neutral content and WP:OR. It can be assured that the article is no where near the quality of C-Class articles such as Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, either. But I think we are going around in circles, it is better to seek community opinion for the GA now. Lorstaking (talk) 16:44, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose - RegentsPark has analysed the issues well. Modi has a troubled past, and it would seem that his fans would like it to disppear. As far as the facts are concerned, Modi has never been investigated, charged or acquitted. He was only "questioned". The Special Investigation Team has determined that there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute him, which was accepted by the Supreme Court. This makes no difference whatsoever to the scholarly assessments of Modi's conduct, which we report faithfully. The objections being repeatedly made on the talk page as well as here basically leads me to the conclusion that all this business needs to be covered in much more detail than done at present. I will be happy to work on that. This really makes no difference to the GA status. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:04, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Oppose-This reads more like a content dispute than that of a reassessment of GA criteria. As summed up by other editors above the article does not fail GA in fact the changes suggested in the review would certainly fail this article.It must be remembered that the article serves to report what ever is the opinion of reliable sources and not what is considered to be the truth--⮘RADICAL SODA^(FORCE)⮚ 11:00, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose what appears to be primarily a political rather than quality-based reassessment. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:20, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
• Support This article doesn't meet WP:NPOV and portrays an overwhelmingly negative tone. It needs substantial copy-editing in order to meet GA status. --RaviC (talk) 14:44, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
• Comment I haven't checked who the author of this article is. I hope they won't mind my saying that the article has a much bigger problem than one of meeting or not meeting certain WP criteria. The article has no narrative, no affect. It has been drained of all life blood. It reads like a list of events in a person's life. You might as well rename it Modi sutra and park it at FLC. Is the author really interested in writing this? If so, forget about GA, FA, ..., go read a bunch of books on Modi. Then reread them. Then put away all your books away and write. I mean this sincerely. And, if you are not interested in writing it, then why are you? Good luck. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:12, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
  • PS. Thinking this over. It might be that the author is trying too hard to tread a narrow, circumspect, path, given Modi's detractors and supporters, given the lack of any scholarly work on his life, Modi's own tendency to be highly secretive. If that is the case, then perhaps the author should wait until such scholarship etc appears. There have to be backstories. A person can't just announce at age 62 that he has a wife, whom he married as a teenager and later deserted citing high principles, and it all happened in an emotional vacuum for both parties. A 17-year-old boy of very modest means in 1967, couldn't just run away from home, turn up in all kinds of exotic Himalayan locations, return home two, or was it three, years later with no tangible recollection of these trips in the memories of others, nor explanation of how he was able to afford them. By listing these events in a highly cautious, non-judgmental, tone, the article appears to give credence to them. This in turn makes the article less credible. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:07, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

As you well know, F&f, Wikipedia articles are not "written". They accumulate mass over time and periodically cleaned up. I doubt if there is anybody with an NPOV frame of mind who is seriously interested in "writing" an article on Modi. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 14:09, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

I just took a look at the comments. I didn't realize that people are thinking the article is too critical of Modi. My sense is that by using circumspect language it is too easy on him. As for as GA criteria are concerned, it certainly meets them. So, I oppose removing it from GA status, but generally wanted to tell the authors to rewrite it with some verve, when they eventually submit it for FA. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 06:33, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: Thanks for coming by. This topic is so contentious that making any changes to it is fraught with difficulty; and if that were not enough, there is a string of people who come by wanting to turn it into a hagiography, and another (less common) set who want to add the odd insulting statement. Keeping the article on the straight and narrow between these is inevitably going to make it rather dry, and very circumspect in tone. Does it go too easy on Modi? That's a complicated question. Scholarly sources are, on the whole, more critical of him than this article. The print media has a mixture of attitudes; and the visual media, from what I have heard, is rather more supportive of him. What that tends to mean is that anybody trying to move the article from being based on media sources to scholarly sources is going to run into the same cluelessness that is being trotted out on this page. Hence the circumspect tone. If you want to help move it towards a more balanced outlook, you are more than welcome. With respect to your initial point, though, I'm not sure I agree it's a problem. For a contemporary political figure, providing narrative of any kind is a questionable enterprise, because really we do not know how history will see his figure; and so we need to be a lot more wary using heavy editorial voice than in an article on, say, an 18th century figure on whom most scholarship is already in. Vanamonde (talk) 07:23, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

• Support per OP. Note that this article qualifies for WP:BLP. Crawford88 (talk) 04:38, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

• The OP has made no policy-based arguments, and therefore a comment that only says "per OP" should carry no weight whatsoever. Vanamonde (talk) 07:58, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

• Support Seeing as this article would fall under the aegis of WP:BLP and clearly violates the Balance guideline "Beware of claims that rely on guilt by association, and biased, malicious or overly promotional content", there is no justification whatsoever for conferring GA status upon it. Karodimal (talk) 20:42, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

• Note: As of this posting, this editor has made exactly three edits to Wikipedia to pages besides this one. Vanamonde (talk) 07:58, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

• Comment : I feel the article is fairly neutral and to achieve this has both affirming and denying sentences in single sentence! could be night mare to read, definitely not a GA Material. since with lot of PR companies constantly working and he is still active public figure which is going to be constantly updated would really not prefer to keep it as GA --Shrikanthv (talk) 05:31, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
• Comment I haven't read the article for a while (I'll make the effort soon) but many of delisting supporters above are familiar to me from past discussions here and elsewhere regarding issues related to what might be called right-wing politics in India. Such people continually try to massage criticism out of articles/promote image-enhancing stuff. Most of the arguments above are old issues, discussed time and again with the same people - just check the archives and consider whether we really want articles such as this to be written by people with a clear political agenda.

Fowler's point regarding general prose/structure etc, by the way, would be valid if this were a candidate for FA but it is not and it is highly unlikely ever to be. That it does take on the appearance of a list in places is entirely because of the aforesaid supporters, as a trawl through the history over the last few years would demonstrate. - Sitush (talk) 11:24, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose delisting I've read the article now and it appears to meet the GA criteria. The objections are mostly from new-ish accounts and the usual pro-Modi suspects who have pretty consistently wanted to glorify the man. The article could be improved, sure, and I have no doubt that there will be new academic sources etc as time goes on, but it satisfies the criteria and that is all that matters in this discussion. - Sitush (talk) 11:04, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
• Support Fails Point 4 is true. Just now corrected a major update error was true 6 yearsa go is not true now Washington Post clearly tells he was denied us visa but now Modi made a historic address to Congress and BBC ,Guardian and Telegraph also tell he has risen from Pariah to world leader.He was contraversial before he became PM is true but not now after he became the Prime minister he is world leader today.His image has made 100% U turn after 2014.BBC Pariah to friend: Narendra Modi and the US come full circle

  Telegraph From pariah to 'rock star' world leader: Narendra Modi prepares to visit Britain

  Washington Post Once banned from the U.S., India’s Modi set for historic address to Congress

  Guardian Narendra Modi: from international pariah to the G20's political rock starChantrises (talk) 14:04, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

  As I pointed out on the article talk page, the articles linked by you consistently indicate that Modi is still controversial. It seems to me that many users don't understand the meaning of the word controversial. Look it up: Giving rise or likely to give rise to controversy or public disagreement; subject to (heated) discussion or debate; contentious, questionable; disputed[27] No one can argue with a straight face that this doesn't fit Modi. There is nothing wrong with being controversial, all it means is that opinions differ on the person. A rock star can, for example, be controversial. Academic papers are often controversial. Heck, the effect of humans on the climate is controversial. Of all the points about Modi, love him or hate him, the statement that he is controversial is perhaps the most accurate. --regentspark (comment) 17:13, 13 November 2017 (UTC)