User talk:Abecedare/Archive 9

Working with Svr014

I just reviewed the exchange you had with Svr014, and wanted to give you a pat on the back. Nice coaching work, there. —  X  S  G  17:53, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. If it eventually results in good contributions to wikipedia articles, it would be worth the effort. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 17:56, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

AGF

If you are making a comment directed at me and not the article, post it on my talk page, not the article talk page. --William S. Saturn (talk) 01:05, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with that principle, and make exceptions only in order to prevent discussions from tethering off the edge and devolving into personal recriminations. Abecedare (talk) 01:10, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

It wasn't personal at all. I was discussing the absurdity of the viewpoint. --William S. Saturn (talk) 01:11, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Fine. If you still think your conduct was appropriate that is your choice, and I am not going to argue with you over this. Abecedare (talk) 01:22, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Iyer

I know it's stupid to keep contributing to Wikipedia because Wikipedia sucks big time and miscreants and POv-pushers are the ones who have their say. Anyway..-The Enforcer_{Office of the secret service} 13:40, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I find that you had removed loads of information from Iyer article providing a link to the Iyengar talkpage on the summary. Now, was I the person who added the information ever a part of the discussions. Or was I ever given the opportunity to express my opinion over the removal of text.-The Enforcer_{Office of the secret service} 14:12, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Ravi, I am not sure what you are complaining about:

1. Regarding SVR014: I have tried to guide the user without biting, but it should be clear that I too disagree with some of his edits and talk-page conduct. See the section above, especially my response to his complaints against you.
2. Regarding Iyer: I removed the following single sentences from the article:

Iyer men and women are slightly different in physical makeup and complexion to the average Tamilian and this, along with the social practices and customs of Iyers are regarded as evidences of an "Aryan origin" for Tamil Brahmins.

which I found was not supported by the attached references. I left an explicit edit summary ("reemove text unsupported by citations. See Talk:Iyengar#Iyengar_article_sources") explaining my reason. If you disagree with the removal, you have all the opportunity to discuss it at Talk:Iyer.

Let me know if you found any of my actions objectionable, and I'd be happy to mend it or explain my reason. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 15:50, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I am sorry. I thought you removed the whole paragraph. I have a hard copy of "History of the Tamils from Earliest Times till 600AD" by P. T. Srinivasa Iyengar as well as Gilbert Slater's book with me. However, I am presently away from home. Anyway, I will provide the exact sentences used in the book the coming Saturday or Sunday. Cheers. -The Enforcer_{Office of the secret service} 13:46, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. That would be great. Abecedare (talk) 04:36, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Everything under control here? I can't say I'm up to speed with this or s Indian casts/tribes. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 13:58, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Short version: SVr014 added some information to Iyengar that I found were not supported by the attached. After much back and forth, during which he gave me quotes and page numbers from the references, Svr014 admitted that he had copied the sentences from Iyer and made up the quotes! At that point I removed the sentence from Iyer article too. Now its possible that we just need to fix the page number or rephrase the sentence for accuracy, and that can be discussed with Ravi on the article talk page. Abecedare (talk) 04:36, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Abecedare, please note that I did not make up those quotes, I just had the page numbers. Oh, I forgot to inform you that I got those quotes from a pal in the US who had those books. That's why it took nearly one whole day to get those quotes which were outdated and not useful, in my opinion. Please do not accuse me. This is my humble request to you. Yes, I got the information from Iyer article. I am a new user and am new to WP culture. Please prevent anybody from biting me. I want to take a break for good. Do not know whether I will come back or not. I feel really bad about the treatment I got on WP. Anyway, we all live and learn. You told me that Wheelar's book is not a good source. Likewise, I believe that Gilbert Slater's book as well as the book by Sri P.T. Srinivasa Iyengar are also NOT good sources as they are outdated, and out of context. Hope this explains my side of the story. Svr014 (talk) 15:47, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Abecedare, I apologize for not checking with the accuracy of the quotes given to me by my pal from the books authored by Wheelar, Slater, and Iyengar. Please accept my sincere apology once again. She (my pal) is a Hindu Tamilian who knew a lot about Iyers and Iyengars. Henceforth, I will make sure that the information that I present on WP (if I do so in future) is as accurate as possible. Like I said before, we all live and learn. I cannot carry the can any further. You are welcome to pass the buck in editing Indian articles on WP, not to mention other articles. Have a nice day! I need to take leave now. Svr014 (talk) 17:09, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

My sincere elucidation

Abecedare,

1) I used the word IF in the first sentence in the reply to Ravichandar84. The meaning of IF is here. It is just a guess and not a certain word.

2) The second remark was a friendly caution with the accompanying words 'Have a nice day'. No harm.

3) This was my feeling and guesstimation. I am an American and I felt discriminated against because of Ravichandar84's conduct.

Please stay neutral. I will duly follow advice. I am assuming good faith in people who trust me and my work. I respect all the editors who respect me and my work. This includes you, as well. Please help me protect my account and interests on WP. This is a sincere request to you. Awaiting your reply. Have a nice day! Svr014 (talk) 18:16, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok, Will consult with my mentor and you. I request you to help me and protect my account. I need your help. Thanks. Svr014 (talk) 18:19, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Dear Abecedare,

I did NOT speculate about any editor's caste. I am sorry that you misunderstood my remarks. In future, I will ask you for guidance while responding to concerns. Please note that assume good faith is for all editors which includes Ravichandar84. I do not understand why he is accusing me of socks instead of assuming good faith. Please help me as I requested you before. I need your guidance to respond to any false allegations engineered by anyone no WP. I will also consult my mentor. Please understand me. Please help me. Svr014 (talk) 19:16, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Please help me. Please guide me. Thanks and have a nice day. Svr014 (talk) 19:24, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Dear Abecedare, Please protect my account and interests on WP. Please protect me so that no other user bites me. I am a new user. I do not know who Mr. V was. I will follow advice, and will think twice before making any posts on talk pages. Please help me and guide me. This is my sincere request to you. Please protect my account. I do not want anybody to block me. Svr014 (talk) 14:02, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Mumbai GA

We do not have enough active editors on Wikipedia to help. It's a personal choice. No one gets paid here. This was a really a tough task, dear. I had to break my bones. I am sure if YellowMonkey nominates the other Indian City FAs at FAR, none of them will survive. These days, Indian FAs are getting delisted at FAR at a very fast pace. Whenever I check the FAR page, I can find at least one India related FAR. Tell me, is it possible to save Rail transport in India with just 27 citations (majority are unreliable). Kensplanet^T_C 04:36, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, I think Indian articles have been hit harder by the changes to (1c) than articles from other countries because most of how heavily older Indian articles have relied on websites, particularly ones that are now ineligible as non-RS. Old discussion here seemed to indicate a reluctance to use books instead whatever is on google (see Nichalp's comments). And when I close FARs I see that Indian articles have a much heavier reliance on wesbites than other countries' FAs. In the old days, even recently in 2007, I made a big fuss on Hispanic Americans in World War II about a whole pile of family memorial websites and lobby groups being used but a group of Hispanic editors voted their way to FA anyway. Even some old FAs have independent blogs as references. The way to save FAs is to pre-emptorily renovate them gradually, because it can be difficult for a 3rd party to work out which books the info came from if the original author has retired. I suppose some kind of incentive scheme could be implemented. The problem is that many people do the least they can to get a FA, in which case it will be left behind quickly, or won't improve an article at all until it gets sent to FAR.

A lot of FAs from all places need a complete rewrite because some of them were written ages ago when standards were not high and some even have glaring holes in the coverage with entire sections absent. So doing everything on the run at FAR is hard. Since early 2008 there have been 7 Australian articles in FAR (since I can remember all of them, I use it as an example)

• Cynna Kydd - Expanded a bit to keep up to date. Kept a bit weakly early 08
• Shrine of Remembrance - Had 0 citations. Bilby (talk · contribs) and Melburnian (talk · contribs) completely redid it, 2X expansion, basically a new article. Kept mid 08
• Waterfall Gully, South Australia - Expanded a bit, more books were read up on. Broadened. a Bilby job. Kept late 08
• Dietrich v The Queen - Small expansion, added cites from legal textbooks. Kept March 09
• Sydney Roosters - Had no cites, inconsistently formatted, copyedited. Kept. Luckily, most of the info could be easily found in a general rugby league history book and only took me 2 hours to add about 50 footnotes. Kept May 09
• Lake Burley Griffin - Had to completely rewritten/expanded 3x due to random and large gaps in the coverage, unreferenced. Currently on FAR
• Cane toad - Had to be completely expanded on biology/environment and also a more international balance. Effectively a new article mostly by Bilby. Currently on FAR

That's 3/7 that had to be completely changed already. It can be pretty hard to save articles on FAR without pre-empting it, unless a lot of people will chip in, and this is rarely the case. As far as Australian articles go, most of them used reliable textbooks a lot, so even if there are no footnotes, there is a chance that the article follows the structure of one of the books and about 50% of the content can usually be cited in about 4-5 hours, eg in this list I was able to source Flag of Australia almost completely, and a lot of some others like Thomas Playford and Australia at the Winter Olympics in about 5 or so hours from a book, although that doesn't mean that they don't have other issues. Which shows the benefits of using good sources; they never go out of date and don't need maintenance. Most websites go dead eventually, bits and pieces scattered everywhere, and many of them no longer meet (and never should have met) the RS criteria, and when you google each page only fits about one sentence of the article, as well as the fact that online sources also yield a heavy slant towards tertiary sources. A lot of old internet-researched FAs are like that... YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 06:00, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Also, I can't close FARs that I nominate.... so if I nominate Indian articles I can't close them. And the other closers are a lot more lenient than I or the FAC standards, so if I nominate an article you should be able to save it easily. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 06:00, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

An FA star is only valuable to the degree that it truly reflects an articles quality; earning or retaining a FA star by vote-stacking, reviewers' apathy, or by leniency of FA/FAR closer is essentially meaningless (except for editor's or project members' ego, perhaps).

As a reader, I am happy to see wikipedia's FA quality standards rise to value authoritative and quality sourcing instead of being satisfied by the minimal standards set by WP:RS. Unfortunately, WPINDIA articles have not kept up with improving standards due to various reasons:

1. Firstly, many of the senior project editors have retired or are less active due to which many FAs have actually deteriorated from the time they were originally promoted; especially since there are so may editors interested only in adding peacockery and decorative images (see all the debates at Talk:Mumbai archives; or see how this template went from [1] to [2]).
2. Secondly consulting offline books and academic articles requires time, effort and access to resources that are not universally available - that I think explains the over-reliance of WPINDIA articles on poor-quality web and news sources.
3. Thirdly, most editors working on Indian and Hinduism articles have a science/technology education and very few are formally trained in history, literature or other humanities; this does not matter when writing articles on general topics but shows through most clearly when one reads articles on Indian history which are often based on generic or GOI websites, outdated and popular literature, instead of relying on quality modern scholarship or even standard texts in the field.
4. And then of course there is the POV pushing and inter-nation and inter-state rivalries, but those problems are systemic on wikipedia, and not limited to Indian articles. These issues just mean that articles on certain topics (for example anything to do with Kashmir, India-Pakistan etc) will simply never be FAs.

In the short term, I don't see any easy way to overcome these shortcomings, and many current FAs are likely to lose their stars. Hope we see more active editors, and editors with more diverse interest who take up content creation and maintenance. Abecedare (talk) 08:09, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, if you follow the right methodologies, you can still do alright. A science/engineer can write on history and a mathematically-challenged person can write about maths. Emmy Noether was written mainly by a person who claimed to have not completed high school maths. But if it is about technical details it can be difficult and some articles appear as though the author paraphrased while still being unsure of the technial content, giving the tone a funny feel. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 15:34, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Given that I almost exclusively edit in areas that are not areas of my real-life expertise, I certainly agree that one can make useful contributions outside one's field of education. It finally boils down to methodology though: one way is to write down what one already knows and then look for sources that support those statements; the second way is to look for good sources first, and then write down what they say. An expert in an area can get away with the first approach, but dilettantes taking that way usually end up producing an imbalanced article. Abecedare (talk) 04:07, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of pointless articles and numerical stunts, a whole pile of subcontinental wikipedias got removed from the front page display because the writers mostly made empty stubs to inflate the article count Template talk:Wikipedialang YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 03:17, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Looking through the links in that discussion I found this "year" category on Hindi wikipedia with 1500+ articles. All the articles that I spot-checked said "X is an ordinary year in the Gregorian calendar" or "X is a leap year in the Gregorian calendar" and then contained some blank sections (Events, Births and Deaths). Not necessarily bad as honeypots, as long as these stubs were not created solely to inflate article count. Abecedare (talk) 04:07, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Discussion in Talk:Iyengar

I'm reproducing for your sake the contents of page 55,56 and 57 of the book. Regards.-The Enforcer_{Office of the secret service} 04:09, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Gayatri Mantra

Hi Abecedare, Gayatri Mantra is another important article that's been an edit-war magnet because it hasn't been very well sourced. I've been trying to clean it up and reference it, and would appreciate other opinions on the talk page (the last three sections there). And anything else you would like to add or change, of course. Regards, Priyanath ^talk 20:25, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

My first reaction at looking at the article right now was, "Well, it looks better sourced than most Hinduism related articles". :-)

Nice work! I agree with your comments on the talk page and will try to do my bit to improve the article over the next few days. A quick observation: the article does not mention that the verse is in Sanskrit - blinders, eh ? Abecedare (talk) 20:55, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Blinders, indeed...I figured you would see some things I was completely missing. Thanks, Priyanath ^talk 21:00, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Gandhi talk page

I've posted a reply on the definition of "pre-eminence" on the Gandhi talk page. Reply at your leisure. NeutronTaste (talk) 21:45, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for pinging me about this; I somehow missed your reply! I have now added further comments on the article talk page. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 02:53, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Gita

I found your justification for reverting rather sad. "Couldn't Verify" != "I'm Too Lazy To Read the Source". On the 1000BC claim, I am only parroting claims made by a wide range of experts across disciplines. 300 - 600BC is quite a narrow range, which does not take in the uncertainty with which numerous academics have approached the subject.Pectore^talk 16:38, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

See my reply and quote request on the article talk page. Abecedare (talk) 16:45, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Santhigiri and Karunakara Guru

Take a look? Both at AfD. Gnews gave me 102 hits for Santhigiri and 44 (mostly trivial) for Karunakara Guru, but if Manmohan Singh inaugrated a centre with his name and K. R. Narayan considered him a guru, I'm sure something can be found. Can you look for something? The articles are in bad need of editing though to actually insert refs in. Cheers -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 21:38, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

My initial instinct is to propose merger of the two articles, but it is possible that both articles merit being kept. I'll take a more thorough look later (perhaps this weekend) and add my comments to the AFD debates. By the way, the articles need to be checked for copyvio; in my experience such lengthy articles written from a devotee POV are often cut-n-paste efforts. Abecedare (talk) 03:08, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Damn! There are copy vios within the article, I'm going to delete/rewrite now. I'm not against a merge of the two either. Man, all these AfD clean ups are distracting me from my primary goal of getting R. K. Narayan to GA/FA status ASAP, just a bit disappointed that one of our best writers has a very disorganized page. Cheers. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 03:17, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Sigh, I suspected copyvios, since typically a person who puts in the effort to write a 100K+ wikipedia article from scratch usually makes sure it is at least close to encyclopedic in tone, which these article are not. It may be best to revert to a pre-copyvio version (if any) and builkd up from there, since rephrasing previously copied text is a derivative work and, some argue, is not allowable either.

Improving our article on R.K. Narayan is a very worthy goal; go for it! It's weird how we share interest in Narayan and C&H; if you also have a taste for Wodehouse, it will make me wonder if our real-life paths have ever crossed or paralleled (I know, I know that's a logical tautology) ... Abecedare (talk) 03:38, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Right ho! -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 03:52, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I've cleaned up Santhigiri to a barebones but well referenced level. Take a look and let me know if you think something else needs to be added immediately. Saw that you cleaned out the copy pastes on Karunakara Guru so will go reference what's left on that for now. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 19:15, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Nice work on Santhigiri.

I haven't really added anything to the Karunakara Guru article, just removed the copyvio, which was 98% of the page! Anyway, based on my review earlier this week, I think both articles deserve to be kept on wikipedia; I'll add my comment to the AFDs this weekend. 19:23, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment

TRUTH ABOUT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA II

Are you interested at all in the TRUTH about Barack Hussein Obama II? From the deletion of 100% FACTUAL COMMENTS, IT IS APPARENT THAT YOU ARE DOING EVERYTHING TO SUPPRESS THE TRUTH. What is up with that?

Maxframe (talk) 08:50, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Please discuss this on the article talk page. Abecedare (talk) 16:48, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

DOROTHY MCEWEN INFORMATION

Will you please get the Dorothy McEwen information posted promptly as submitted? This has been going on since 2007 and I have given you permission to use my copyrighted material posted on our DigitalResearch.biz web site multiple times including again yesterday. Thank you for taking care of this and getting this information up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mad Pierrot (talk • contribs) 16:09, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Maxframe ANI

I've started an ANI about Maxframe at WP:ANI#User Maxframe's conduct. Just letting you know in case you want to add anything. [mad pierrot][t c] 17:16, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject India Newsletter, Volume IV, Issue 2 – July 2009

Project news File:India 1947 India Flag 3 and half annas.jpg A number of India-related articles have lost their featured article status, including Sikkim and Mumbai. The article about Gandhi was also demoted for referencing and image quality issues. Since then, Mumbai has been brought back to good article status, thanks to the efforts of Kensplanet and others. Transport in India was promoted to good article status, thanks to the efforts of Rsrikanth05, SBC-YPR and GDibyendu. Several new workgroups have been formed: WikiProjects Railways in India, Education in India and Transport in India. Please join us if you're interested in those topics! To do... The articles that have been selected for our latest collaborations of the month are history of Mumbai, Indian Railways, rail transport in India, Indian general election, 2009 and telecommunications in India. We need your help to improve them! These India-related articles are currently on featured article review: Kerala (FAR), Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (FAR) and rail transport in India (FAR). Would you allow these articles to lose their FA status? Wikipedia Takes Chennai – a scavenger hunt and free-content photography contest – has started in Chennai, along the same lines as Wikipedia Takes The City. We look forward to more contributions from you. To get started, go to the noticeboard. »

From the editors... Wikipedians in Bangalore organised a meetup on 5 July 2009; thanks to Tinu Cherian for hosting the event! Arunram and Tinu Cherian wrote extensively about the meetup, which was also covered by Wikizine, Headlines India and The Wikipedia Signpost. Photos have been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Sunil Abraham from the Centre for Internet and Society has offered to help host such events in the future. All in all, the meetup was a great success. Watch out for the next meetup! » Nichalp, an Indian bureaucrat and major contributor to more than 23 India-related featured articles and lists, was desysopped over allegations of paid editing and using sock puppets. An RfC about paid editing was opened as a result of this incident. A prolific editor and administrator, Bhadani is among the top ten Wikipedians by number of edits across the English Wikipedia. Congratulations to Bhadani for also making the most number of edits among Indian Wikipedians! Are you subscribed to wikimediaindia-l to learn about the latest developments of forming the Indian chapter of Wikimedia? Did you know that there are IRC channels for Wikipedians interested in India like you? Check them out at #wikipedia-in connect and #wikimedia-in connect! Wikipedia's India quiz remains a hotspot of the community by continuing to attract old and new Wikipedians. You are invited to join in and have fun! This is your newsletter, and you can be involved in the creation of the next issue. Any and all contributions are welcome – so feel free to join in! Simply let yourself be known to any of the undersigned, or just start editing! — Ncmvocalist, RegentsPark, [sd] and Tinu Cherian Project · Portal · Members · Noticeboard · Discussion+

To stop receiving this newsletter, or to receive it in a different format, please list yourself in the appropriate section here. Delivered automatically by -- Tinu Cherian BOT - 14:23, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

ANI

Stopthenonsense has brought you up at ANI, FYI. Priyanath ^talk 22:36, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Hopefully the ANI complaint will help attract more eyes to the article. Abecedare (talk) 23:06, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Walloped. It was Kalarimaster (talk · contribs) YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 04:16, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

R. K. Narayan

Since he was a Tamilian, was born in (according to refs) and mostly lived in, and died in Madras, I've reverted addition of Kannada name twice. What's your take on this? cheers. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 04:55, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Added my comment on the article talk page Abecedare (talk) 19:22, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi Abecedare...

... Are you from India ? Just curious. You may not disclose it if violates your privacy... -- Tinu Cherian - 05:56, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Tinu, for the sake of maintaining at least a veneer of online privacy, I prefer not to confirm any personal information (nationality, gender, religion, education, age etc) on wikipedia. I realize that this is a bit silly since quite a bit about my real-life biography would be guessable by anyone familiar with my editing history, but I hope you'll humour me this personal idiosyncrasy. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 06:36, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Thatz ok! I understand :) The reason of this question asked is WP:IND_EDITS ... -- Tinu Cherian - 06:40, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh, hadn't seen that list before. Perhaps we should merge the two tables into one anyways - after all the national origins/citizenship of the editors is irrelevant; all that matters is their interest in India-related articles. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 06:47, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Another candidate for the list: User:Ragib, who is an a long-standing admin and especially active on Bengal related articles. Abecedare (talk) 06:53, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I suggest merging the list too - nationalities and national origin are better left off wikipedia. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 12:48, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Ditto what Abecedare and RegentsPark have said - merge lists, add Ragib, and give editors the space to not list their nationality/religion/residence/birth/etc. Priyanath ^talk 15:18, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Question for you & your talk page watchers

Is World Gazetteer a reliable source? This source has been cited to change the ranking of Indian cities - Bangalore, Madras, Calcutta. The site doesn't even have an about us section, the FAQ sections have responses that say "I have" etc, meaning it's one person's calculations. Suddenly I've found that Chennai is no longer the fourth largest city, but the fifth, and Bangalore has moved from fifth to third citing this source. Indian census is not due until 2011, so until then, shouldn't those figures be used? If we consider sites like this that provide estimates as RS, then I guess there's no problem, but if not maybe this needs to figure as a discussion on some noticeboard, since page changes are based on non-RS info? -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 22:09, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

The site is a one man effort, operated by Stefan Helders, and it relies on various official as well as tertiary sources for its statistics. On the plus side, it has been used as a source by several other publications that we would regard as reliable: The Time Almanac, The Europa World Year Book 2003 (Taylor & Francis), The Middle East and North Africa 2007 (Routledge), Far East and Australasia 2008 etc. So it seems to have a reputation for accuracy and fact-checking that WP:RS requires.

I think it is ok to use it as a source for non-controversial claims (i.e., don't use it for Palestine population in Jerusalem) if better sources for comparable data are not available. We should also make sure that we specify the nature of the data, example population figures based on 2001 census versus 2009 population estimates.

You can also raise this question at WP:RSN, for wider input. Abecedare (talk) 00:17, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I found two previous threads on RSN where this has been discussed before: [3], [4]. My reading of the conclusion both times is that it is borderline but acceptable source; the discussion was not very broad in either cases - so if there is a current dispute, the question can be reopened. Abecedare (talk) 00:24, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll leave it for now, there seems to be some reverts and unreverts of the fourth largest vs fifth largest on Chennai over the past week, if it continues, then I'll open a discussion at RS/N to get consensus; but irrespective of that, I'll open a discussion on the talk pages of all affected articles (I can count three now), because the population is given per the 2001 census and ranks are given based on this site which is an extrapolation of sources beyond the census. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 00:43, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Amita Malik

I have not added anything to this article since March 2009 Protozoan (talk) 11:07, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I was referring to the March 6 edit in which you cut-and-pasted Outlook and dearcinema.com articles on wikipedia. I left a note to make sure that you realized that your subsequent edits on March 19 (made after CultureDrone's message) were not sufficient to resolve the issue. Please see WP:COPYVIO and WP:Plagiarism for the relevant wikipedia policies. Abecedare (talk) 16:11, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Those were works in progress. In any case I have not added to that article as I am only an occasional editor at Wiki. I am concerned though that you have entirely removed all the good and CONSTRUCTIVE work User:Kojozone had put into that article and for which I had thanked him/her. I feel that you should replace most of it. Protozoan (talk) 09:42, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Moving articles

Thanks for letting me know. I'll keep that in mind. Sorry for the trouble. --Shruti14 ^{talk • sign} 14:40, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

New RfA

In case you don't follow RfAs, ThaddeusB is being considered. Thought you might want to know. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 17:43, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I just finished adding my support at the RFA, when I saw the orange bar! Abecedare (talk) 17:51, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Indian Armed Forces

There are a string of edits by an IP 59.94.xx that I can't make heads or tails of, they don't look bad, but there's some significant content changes and the some of the refs are blogs. Can you take a look? It's a lot of edits over some time. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 16:22, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I looked over the diff from the pre-IP edits July 9th article, and didn't see any obvious cause for concern. There are some minor changes I'd quibble with (example, replacing Indian Armed Forces by भारतीय सशस्त्र सेनाएं in the Infobox), but the most significant changes are the addition of:

• Indian Peace Keeping And Anti-piracy Mission section, sourced mainly to UN docs and some news articles.
• Integrated Space Cell subsection which is unsourced.
• Indian Anti-satellite weapon subsections which is speculatively and thinly sourced to a blog and an opinion column.

The first addition seems fine, while the latter two should be better sourced or deleted. It is even possible that different editors made these additions.

Of course there are larger issues with the article with over-reliance on popular non-authoritative sources, and with so many important sections being mere stubs while the IBMDP section is overly lengthy - but such deficiencies are par for the course on wikipedia. The article is actually better than I expected, since the topic is probably a magnet for nationalist chest-thumpers and anti-national pooh-poohers alike.

Let me know if you had some specific edit or content in mind that I overlooked in the broad review. Abecedare (talk) 17:04, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

This appears to be ok, but I don't know if it should be a replace; this I think is good faith, but I don't think these are branches of the navy, a quick gsearch didn't prove anything to me; this looked a bit like OR; there was another section that added reference 40 (dubious at best, a blog with 57 followers, although the text in the blog is likely from RS, just couldn't find that myself), I can't find that diff right now. A lot of this look ok, but I just wanted to make sure, especially since Shreevatsa and I uncovered some large scale copy-paste/copyright vios on RK Narayan by a 59.xx IP :) cheers -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 17:39, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

The Integrated Space Cell was undue recentism (see this Press release) and not deserving a section of its own in the article. I have removed it from this article, although a sentence on it can be added to the ISRO page. I have also removed the "branches" added to the Indian Navy, which I think was just a good-faith attempt to add "see also" links. The Indian Peace Keeping And Anti-piracy Mission should be summarized and made into a subsection of the Military history of India section, which needs to be retitled and rewritten from scratch. The Indian Armed Forces certainly do not have a 5000 year history; they were created during the Colonial period and most of the section should be devoted to the post-Independence wars and skirmishes, which it does not even mention! Hopefully someone will work on the article so that it contains more encyclopedic content and less fancruft.

Side note: The 59.xx range covers millions of dialup and broadband users in India and possibly elsewhere, so we will find all kinds of good and bad edits coming from that range! Abecedare (talk) 19:01, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Thx, I don't know why I keep the India and Armed forces pages on my watchlist, I only notice the changes but don't know enough to take any action! I did a whois for some of the IPs and they appeared to be from Queensland, which is why I thought it was a bit weird. cheers -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 19:16, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't require much domain knowledge to judge the merits on 99% of edits to these pages; the ability to look up and understand sources and a bit of common sense is sufficient. You clearly have those abilities so you can be bolder in re-editing or reverting changes that you think are deficient. Once in a while, you and I will make an error but that can always be resolved through talk page discussion. Just my 2c. Happy editing!Abecedare (talk) 19:29, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Daily pioneer

What is it anyway? Is it just this one writer you have an issue with or is it with the entire newsmagazine? --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 21:08, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Removal of PROD from India Resource Maps

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About Babuji and Lalaji images files

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Babuji_Maharaj.gif

As you rightfully indicated, they are copied from http://www.sriramchandra.org, I have already provided specific link in the information section of the image itself. The basic belief this system or any pure spiritual organization brings in is that everything is nature given and hence free to share, so there is no specific copyright information to this. I am a follower of this particular system. If you still insist that I should get it licensed or copyright protected, I do not know how to can you advice or point me to a sample approach? - Thanks, Rvrk —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.126.193.82 (talk) 05:59, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I realize that you didn't intend to hide the source of the image, but your contention that these are in public domain was mistaken, or at least unsupported. In order to establish if the images are indeed freely licensed or released into public domain, we need an affirmative statement from the webmaster of the website that these images can be used under a free license on wikipedia and elsewhere. You can read more about how to request such permission at this page. Don't worry if the images you uploaded get deleted in the meantime, since once you have obtained the permission and emailed it to OTRS, you can always re-upload those files. Let me know if you have any further question. Hope this helps. Abecedare (talk) 06:20, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Gayatri Mantra 2

Hi Abecedare, have you found any references yet that prohibit non-Brahmins from reciting the Gayatri Mantra? I'm very curious about when that might have begun, and whether/when it's clearly stated in scripture, or if it's later interpretation by people with a certain conflict of interest :-) . What I've seen in scripture so far is prescriptive and not proscriptive. Thanks, Priyanath ^talk 03:12, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll check by this weekend and let you know. The problem is that I read (or rather browsed through) several sources on Gayatri Mantra in close proximity, and while I remember the gist of the contents, I'll have to look through carefully as to the exact language and page numbers. Thanks for the reminder though - it is easy to get spread thin on wikipedia! Abecedare (talk) 03:23, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I found some discussion on the topic in Gonda's Indian Mantra article. Instead of quoting from it here, I'll take the lazy way out and email you the paper since it has lot of information that can/should be added to Gayatri Mantra, Mantra and other articles, and you are more disciplined and likely than I am to complete that task. :-) Abecedare (talk) 05:14, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I just sent out the email. See page 260 of Gonda for discussion of Vedic Mantra-twice borns and page 290 for how Gayatri Mantra is forbidden to sudras and women (unfortunately the paper does not cite the exact text and verse where this rules are laid). The article has lots of useful information that is worth adding to Gayatri mantra including its use/adaptation in Puranic texts, by other sects and in Indonesia. Gonda is an established authority on Vedic Hinduism, so it would be good to use him as a source.

I have also emailed you Frits Staal's The Sound of religion, mainly because it contains useful information on the intonation of Gayatri Mantra (pages 55-56), that should also be added to our article. Happy editing. Abecedare (talk) 05:46, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for both. I'll get into them in the next couple of days. As far as 'more disciplined', that's going to need multiple reliable sources to convince me.... Taimni (perhaps not technically a reliable source), in his book Gayatri also mentions the sudras and women angle, without citing anything. So it still leaves me wondering whether it's a prohibition from God (vedas) or later discrimination by man. From what I've seen, Kshatriya and Vaishya had their own different 'Gayatri' mantras (because they were based on the Gayatri metre), so that only adds to the confusion. Priyanath ^talk 16:56, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

As I understand, Kshatriya and Vaishya have their own Savitri mantras, RV 1.35.2 and RV 4.45.5 (or RV 1.35.9) in the tristubh and jagati metres respectively. This is mentioned in Gonda (p. 285) and Staals (p.56).

The Gayatri metre is strongly associated with Brahmins (tristubh with kshatriya; and jagati with vaishya) in the Vedas - this is another of the triads. This paper goes into great details about this issue and lists two tables of such triadic linkages. Don't know if this is useful in any particular wikipedia article though. Abecedare (talk) 17:25, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I was going from this source[5], which is probably is not a 'reliable source' but talks about the "Gayatri written in the tristup metre" for Kshatriyas and "the Gayatri written in Jagati metre presided over by Savita" for vaishya students. Then there are the different Gayatri mantras for other deities. See Grimes Ganapati: Song of the Self, where he says that "each deity has a gayatri mantra" as a way of introducing Ganesa's gayatri mantra.[6] I'm writing this before having the time to read those articles you sent, and the one you just linked, so hopefully it will become more clear! Priyanath ^talk 01:32, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I have seen similar passages in other google books too (don't ask me which ones!). My guess is that in this context "gayatri" is a compact way of saying "a mantra equivalent to the Gayatri Mantra (RV 3.62.10) but meant for Kshatriyas", rather than a mantra in Gayatri metre - since a Gayatri metrical mantra cannot be in tristubh; right ?

As to the second point: Yes, there are several other Gayatri mantra (i.e., mantras in Gayatri meter) dedicated to other deities. This is discussed in Staals (and perhaps even in Gonda), and maybe we should add a sentence or two in the article for disambiguation purposes, since none of the other mantras will merit an article of their own. Abecedare (talk) 01:52, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I think you're right about the 'equivalent' part, since it's not in Gayatri metre, of course. Since it wasn't a particularly reliable source, then there was a question in my mind. Yes, it would be good to have something said about the different Gayatri mantras. At least that way I won't be the only one who is confused :-). Priyanath ^talk 02:05, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Aus-Ind

Inflated the cricket section but it might need a forking to a separate article that would easily be pilfered from existing articles, as I've already done. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:04, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I am mainly trying to impart some structure to the article and seeding the sections. All these sections can and should be expanded, so I don't think we need to worry about relative sizes just yet. The previous version (even without User:Ankitsingh83's edits) was really horrendous. Abecedare (talk) 03:10, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Sock says Nishkid YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 07:34, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Proposal

Since January 2008 last year, I've been fed up of the flame-fanning by sections of the media, over events involving bad behaviour by a small number of individuals, mainly for personal gain of the belligerents and perpetuated by tabloid (and some allegedly broadsheet) media. Have you ever been to an internet cricket forum and noticed the increase in us vs them rubbish since 2008? Before I only noticed Pakistanis and Indians sledging each other about issues outside of sport, but now the India v Australia one is much worse (at least on the BBC one). At the same time I see some of them cite some of the better and sourced Wikipedia cricket articles, including some GA/FAs to back up their sporting arguments. So in theory, if we develop these bilateral articles with sensible stuff, we can help to purge the sensationalist rubbish that has been drummed into a lot of people's heads by the media, who are trying to spin every cheap shot by any old criminal or cricketer seeking to get around the rules into a war.... A bit idealistic but worth a few hours in my opinion (sending to a few people) YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 07:49, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Copyright question

<edit conflict> I couldn't find this info on Wikipedia:Public_domain but Template:Non-free book cover says that low res images of book covers could be used to discuss the book, I haven't been able to find much else. Do you know if it's ok to scan images of book covers and post on WP for articles discussing the books or the author? cheers -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 03:08, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I have seen this done on wikipedia but that does not necessarily mean that it's ok. I think the best way to find out where the precedent draws the line would be to look at Author and book FAs and see what they do; images in recent FA's at least are scrutinized for WP:NFCC compliance quite carefully. I spot checked the list and find only To Kill a Mockingbird using a non-free book cover, but my search wasn't thorough.

My personal take: a non-PD book cover image won't qualify under NFCC unless the cover itself is significant enough to merit discussion in the article. So for example, if R. K. Laxman illustrated any of R.K. Narayan's books, we could justify their addition. Alternatively, copyright in India expires in 60 years (see {{PD-India}}), so we could use covers from pre-1949 books (if you have any lying around :-) ). Abecedare (talk) 03:30, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Update Apparently my personal take was stricter than WP:NFCC's prescription. The policy on Images allows, "Cover art from various items, for identification only in the context of critical commentary of that item", but not "An album cover as part of a discography, as per the above." So I think the use your propose would be okay as long as the particular book is dicussed in the article. Abecedare (talk) 03:35, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Perfect, thanks; don't know why I didn't see that. I was specifically thinking of using the covers from Talkative Man - Kabir lane house illustrated by Laxman, The Grandmother's Tale and Selected Stories - to discuss the recurring theme of pyol and swing and A Horse and Two Goats for the plot discussion since that is one of the best stories ever! I still have to create the latter two articles though. We currently have an image of Lawley statue available in Commons. I also need to create a list of notable persons of Malgudi as many span books. cheers -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 04:01, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I haven't read "A horse and two goats" , which is great since I can look forward to it now! Is it a short-story or an anthology ? Abecedare (talk) 04:09, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

It's an anthology with the that carries the name of the lead story. The lead story is based in a village supposed to have been Avvaiyar's birthplace, and he wrote this a little while after the scripting for the movie. Researching for and writing this article, I've collected too much trivia in my head now, all interesting, but of very little relevance to an encyclopaedia article. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 04:35, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/ThaddeusB

I wanted to take a moment to delivery a personal thank you (not "thank spam" :)) for your involvement in my RfA. (It passed 117-2-7 in case you hadn't seen.) I appreciated that you took the time to write a detailed support and the kind words you wrote brought a smile to my face. If you ever need assistance with anything (administrator or otherwise), please don't hesitate to ask as I will be glad to help.

Thanks again, ThaddeusB (talk) 04:40, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Hello, Abecedare

I modified the entry for the Aryabhata satellite. I made a few more inclusions, only regarding a short explanation of what I mentioned outside of the original edit suggestion, explaining SCWPM.

It is my intention to try and get other banknote collectors to elaborate on articles that relate to our hobby of collecting banknotes, look for articles that relate to a particular banknote, and notify either myself or modify the article themselves.

I have made note of several errors that have been floating around the internet for a while.

One regarding erroneous reports of the c from Malaysia. Which I have as yet not opened my mouth about. It has been described as the Pioneer spacecraft, which it most closely resembles, I have also seen it described as the Malaysian MEASAT communications spacecraft, which it is not.

First point on that, Earth orbital satellites carry solar cells. The spacecraft on the image does not. It has RTG's. These are deep space probe power cells, which Voyager, Pioneer, New Horizons carry. The fact that if you look closely at the image on the banknote, the spacecraft has 3 RTG's instead of 2, relegates this image as pure banknote engravers free license. In other words, the spacecraft on the Malaysian 2 ringgit banknote is purely ficticious. It does not exist in reality, it was never built.

It does however most closely resemble the Pioneer craft, which may have been the intention.

If it was the intention of the engraver to represent the pioneer spacecraft, then, they have made a gross error.

The Pioneer spacecraft posses only 2 RTG's and one instrument boom.

RTG's always have vanes on them, which all three booms on the banknote image display.

It is also my intention to look for any error regarding this and correct it.

I hope my modification for the Indian banknote is appropriate and approved for English, and information content.

All the best to you and yours. Kevin VK3UKF.

Vk3ukf (talk) 16:29, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

A few points:

1. Thanks for your addition to Aryabhata (satellite) article. I have adjusted the formatting etc a bit to comply with wikipedia's manual of style.
2. Bank notes are potentially copyrighted, and their images cannot be uploaded on wikipedia commons, which accepts only free content. The File:India2RupeesSatelliteA.jpg will need to be deleted from there, but you can upload it on English wikipedia instead, as long as you add a {{Non-free media rationale}} under fair use.
3. I am not knowledgeable enough about numismatics to comment on the issue you raise about the spacecraft depicted on the Malaysian banknote. However you can still add the information to Malaysian ringgit as long as you have a reliable source (such as a book or an article) that identifies the spacecraft. Keep in mind that a fundamental policy on wikipedia is verifiability so any information that is added should be supported by external published sources, and we cannot rely on our own analysis.

Let me know if you have any questions. Happy editing. Abecedare (talk) 18:39, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Addition of industry data on poverty in india page

Hello Abecedare, Please see the links I have added on poverty page. The numbers clearly are in conflict. On one side the page implies India is below poverty in sub-sahara Africa, and on other hand it is becoming a top market (numbers wise) on various industry figures. This means something somewhere is not being computed correctly. The section I added is critical to infer poverty data as "not consistent". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amolkekre (talk • contribs) 18:59, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

If there is a reliable source that argues that the numbers are in conflict then we can add that to the article. Barring such a published analysis, we cannot add our own opinion that something is wrong with the numbers. See also my comment on the article talk page. It would be best to continue the discussion there so that other interested editors can also participate. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 19:06, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Abecedare, thks for pointing me to that (~ ~ ~ ~ = Amolkekre (talk)) 21:28, 30 July 2009 (UTC) and the sign button. I did not know and will use it in future. In terms of being an original source Census Data on Household Amenities is as original and official as it gets. You are correct is saying that it does not explicitly challenge the NCEUS number. But if one source says 80% of the country goes hungry every day and another says 50% is obese due to overeating; then one should be able to claim that they are conflicting even if they do not do so explicitly. The only logical reasoning left in case you ask for explicit conflict is that someone is feeding a big percentage of citizens with free food, which would be irrational. Is the only allowed way on wikipedia to address this is to create a separate "conflicting poverty analysis" page and simply list these sources there? Please advise.

I have added the asset information from the 2001 census to the article (see diff). While I was at it, I have also rewritten the introduction to the article so that it summarizes the whole article instead of focusing solely on poverty estimates. However, the article still needs a lot of work, and if you wish to devote some time to expand and edit it based on reliable sources, that would be most welcome.

As for the different estimates: I don't see the NCEUS numbers (77% of population earning <$2 PPP per day) as necessarily contradicting the asset ownership information in the 2001 census (which anyways corresponds to households and not raw population). And in either case, on wikipedia we are not allowed to add our own analysis of different sources - as long as the sources are reputable and relevant we summarize what they say and leave it to the reader to judge their claims. Abecedare (talk) 04:11, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Re:Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Penright/Triumph Of Truth (Who Is Watching The Watchers?)

Deleted offending material as requested from User:Penright/Triumph Of Truth (Who Is Watching The Watchers?)
Have deleted offending material as you all requested from User:Penright/Triumph Of Truth (Who Is Watching The Watchers?) according to Wikipedia rules that you have pointed out about not appearing to attach any living person or organisation on in a Wikipedia article. Please would you all be so kind to review your individual "to keep" or "to delete" decisions in the light of the revised edit on this article, many thanks again for all your contribution, thoughts, advice and guidance as you all have a lot more experience at this than I. Penright (talk) 22:21, 3 August 2009 (UTC)Penright (talk) 23:30, 3 August 2009 (UTC)Penright (talk) 23:34, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Your inputs please

Hello can you pls provide your inputs here : Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#The_Indian_Institute_of_Planning_and_Management ? The dispute is over the usage of Careers 360 article. I feel that it is a WP:RS, but as an uninvolved editor, your inputs will be very helpful. Thanks. --Nvineeth (talk) 07:46, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Have a unstable internet connection today. Will add my comment at RSN once I have had a chance to google the website. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 18:18, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the inputs. --Nvineeth (talk) 06:31, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Kanchanamala

My good friend Abecedare, I appreciate your greetings. Thanks.Kanchanamala (talk) 19:56, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Hello Abecedare

i do not understand your speedy deletion criteria for ayyangar photo of the former lok sabha speaker .it is in public domain as it was clickedmore than 60 years could you please elaborate on the speedy deletion criteria. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Princeofdark07 (talk • contribs) 10:29, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

We need some evidence that the photograph was published before 1949 before we can claim that the image is public domain in India. Do you have any such indication ? Abecedare (talk) 10:34, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Sadhvi Ritambhara

I contested PROD, and tried to add only verifiable info to the article, but I've only been able to find negative stuff, so I stopped. Would you be able to find something and expand to at least a stub level? cheers. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 21:55, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we'll find truly biographical sources for her detailing birth, childhood, education etc, but there are plenty of sources detailing her central role in the events leading up to the Babri Masjid demolition (redlink!!!). All these sources undoubtedly will discuss her firebrand speeches, and as long as we represent the sources accurately without injecting our personal POV, we should not be too concerned about whether the overall picture is positive or negative. She is a polarizing figure, and a neutral article should reflect that.

I don't know how much time I will be able to devote to this article, but for now I have added a few book references as Further reading to the page; these should eventually be converted to references. It would be best to use book sources as far as we can, though news sources may be unavoidable especially if/when the Liberhan Commission's report is released.

Final note: Her name is variously transliterated as Ritambhara, Rithambara, Rithambhara etc, and it helps to search for variants. Abecedare (talk) 00:03, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I found a lot of sources on that, but was hoping something else could be found too. I'll look up gbooks previews for anything in detail. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 04:31, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I expanded her pre- and post-Ramjanmabhoomi movement activities. Now "only" the middle, and main, section needs to be written to make for a decent start-class article. Feel free to jump in and take over that task. :-) Abecedare (talk) 05:59, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I saw that, good work. I didn't really think about the spelling variations when I searched, so found only the Ramjanmabhoomi related stuff. I'll take a look today/tomorrow, before Shreevatsa has notes for the middle of RKNarayan's life to get on with that article. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 20:00, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

It's interesting that despite a pretty extensive google books, news and Nexis search, I still haven't been able to determine her birth name or year! Unfortunately, archives from early 90's Indian newspapers, which covered her extensively, are not always online. For example, I found several references to a 1991 (?) TOI Sunday magazine article on Rithambara, but couldn't access the actual article.

Anyway, we still should have enough sources to write a decent summary about her involvement in the Ramjanmabhoomi movement. It would be nice to fill in that section, since that is what she is primarily known for. Happy editing. Abecedare (talk) 20:21, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Osho involvment

You were largely involved in the rajneesh renaming discussion, please dont let me have to bother going over your edits. Off2riorob (talk) 19:43, 17 August 2009 (UTC) Also when you came to that discussion you had also previously commented on another osho matter.

you are not uninvolved at all, as was your claim, you have previously commented in regard to osho and expressed your opinions before. Off2riorob (talk) 19:52, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Replied at user talk page. Abecedare (talk) 20:28, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Hamsa-Sandesha

Please could you offer some feedback on this page: Hamsa-Sandesha
In particular, suggestions on the use of IAST vs. plain Roman. Will readers' browsers be able to display IAST characters?
Also would it be a good idea to title the page:
'The Hamsa-Sandesha of Vedanta Desika', or just using the IAST title: Haṃsasaṃdeśa?
With thanks,
opfallon (talk) 09:06, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Oliver, that is another lovely article you have written!

I think the title is fine as it is. It is best to avoid IAST in article titles, but include it in the first sentence - as you have done. I'll go through the text in the next day or so and standardize the use of IAST, and reference formatting etc - but those are just minor style issues.

I think the main critique one can have about the article, is that it is not always clear if all the statements are supported by secondary sources, or if some are the result of unpublished analysis. Once I have made a second, more careful, reading through of the article I'll let you know if and where it could benefit from additional inline citations.

In the meantime I'll strongly encourage you to nominate it for a Did you know ? section that appears on wikipedia's main page. I can help you with the technicalities of the process. Let me know if you are interested. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 09:45, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much Abecedare for your positive feedback.

I will take note of your formatting changes and incorporate them into any future articles.

The content was written jointly with a friend who has produced a translation and edition of the poem. When the book is published we can add references to that. In the meantime it would be useful to see where you think it needs citations.

I would very much like to nominate it for a Did you know ? but it might be better to wait until the book is published later this year.

There is very little quality material on most Sanskrit literature on Wikipedia, so we are adding to it as we edit and translate texts. I hope the fact that we are doing this as we publish in the real world does not contravene Wiki-conventions.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Opfallon (talk • contribs)

I have gone through the article and made some formatting changes and some minor copyedits. I have tried to leave explanatory edit-summaries to clarify my thinking behind each edit, but if you have any questions please feel free to ask. You'll note that I have converted some IAST transliterations to simple English transliterations: my aim in this is to strike a balance between scholarly accuracy and accessibility to the general reader. Unfortunately there is no standard accepted wikipedia guideline on this issue, but another user and I had discussed the issue a couple of years back and he had helpfully summarized the discussion in form of some recommended practices.

As for references: I think it would be useful to add some citations to the Genre, Metre, and the Views and criticism sections. Also currently the Sources section is citing the verse itself for explaining its relation with Ramayana and Meghaduta; it would be advisable to add a secondary source instead, where such analysis has been published. However since none of these claims are far-fetched or controversial, unless alternate sources are currently available, we can wait till your friend's book is published.

Regarding DYK: this feature is meant to highlight newly created articles and bring them to the attention of other editors and readers. Therefore an article can be nominated for the purpose only within 5 days of its creation. I think it would be worthwhile to nominate Hamsa-Sandesha in the next day or two.

Regarding the last point you raise: wikipedia has policies regarding conflict of interest and using wikipedia for advertising, but frankly I don't think you or your friend need to be concerned about either issues. The articles you have created are on clearly notable subjects, and are not based solely on your own published writing either. The fact that you have expertise on the topic does not preclude you from creating or editing these articles, as long as the articles are well- and widely-sourced. It also helps that you edit under your true name and have listed your published book on your user page, so no one can accuse you of trying to use underhanded means to drive book sales! In summary, it's useful to be aware of the relevant policies but you don't really have anything to worry about. Happy editing! Abecedare (talk) 23:15, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much Abecedare, I will add citations as suggested.

I have just looked at the DYK nomination process, and like many things on Wikipedia, it is dauntingly confusing to a newbie like me. I've copied the template and am going to make the substitutions and put it here for you to see. I am not at all sure where I am supposed to post it to start the process.

I think I've done it now!

opfallon (talk) 18:27, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the process can be confusing, but you got it just right.

I have added a specific citation in the article lede for Hamsa-Sandesha being modeled on Meghaduta since at DYK they want to be sure that the hook is factually correct as attested by reliable sources. Lets see if the reviewers have any questions or suggestions. It would be good to check Template_talk:Did_you_know a few times over the next 2-3 days while the nomination is being considered; I too have the page watchlisted. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 22:48, 19 August 2009 (UTC)