Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sri Lanka/Archive 4

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Archive 5

Nomination of Ranjit Uyangoda for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Ranjit Uyangoda is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ranjit Uyangoda until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.PierceBrosnan007 (talk) 07:22, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Kingsley C. Dassanayake

I just started a stub for him, can someone add your beautiful script for his name?--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 15:13, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Cannabis in Sri Lanka needs improvement

We have a new article Cannabis in Sri Lanka, but it could really use improvement and expansion, especially from anyone who can read Sinhala sources. With a little polishing, it'd also be really useful to make a translated version for Sinhala Wikipedia since it's a topic of increasing interesting these days. Goonsquad LCpl Mulvaney (talk) 03:01, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

2016 Community Wishlist Survey Proposal to Revive Popular Pages

Greetings WikiProject Sri Lanka/Archive 4 Members!

This is a one-time-only message to inform you about a technical proposal to revive your Popular Pages list in the 2016 Community Wishlist Survey that I think you may be interested in reviewing and perhaps even voting for:

• Fix and improve Mr.Z-bot's popular pages report

If the above proposal gets in the Top 10 based on the votes, there is a high likelihood of this bot being restored so your project will again see monthly updates of popular pages.

Further, there are over 260 proposals in all to review and vote for, across many aspects of wikis.

Thank you for your consideration. Please note that voting for proposals continues through December 12, 2016.

Best regards, Stevietheman — Delivered: 18:08, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Media upload of historical photographs of Sri Lanka

Dear editors,

I would like to draw your attention to a media upload that may be of relevance to this page:

The Temminck Groll Collection consists of 2,641 historical photographs taken by the Dutch architect and architectural historian Coen Temminck Groll (1925-2015). The photos were taken in regions with which the Dutch have had historical relations, including countries in Africa, South America and Southeast Asia (see the category description for a full listing). The photos were taken during Temminck Groll's travels and study of 'shared cultural heritage' (heritage of the Netherlands located outside the country’s borders) and mainly date to the 1960s and 1970s. The photographs were digitised by the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands and made available to Wikimedia Commons in the context of the project The Netherlands and the world. If you have any questions about this upload, or have other media requests regarding Dutch shared cultural heritage, don't hesitate to leave a message at the project page!

Kind regards, --AWossink (talk) 14:55, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

The Gazette of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka Extraordinary

This source is used roughly ~586 times in ~155 articles according to WP:JCW. It is currently the most highly cited source on Wikipedia without an article or redirect. If this is a notable publication, it would be really nice to have an article on it. Or have this redirect to some entry somewhere. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 00:41, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

It already exists as The Sri Lanka Gazette. I have created a redirect.--obi2canibe^{talk contr} 22:21, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Photography equipment for Wikimedia Community User Group Sri Lanka

Hello everyone! I am pleased to announce that established editors now have the option of using WMF-funded photographic equipment to add or improve photo content relating to Sri Lanka on the Wikimedia projects. Please click on the above link for more info, including the process to obtain the equipment on project/task basis. Best regards, Rehman 14:58, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Rfc: List of Mahinda College alumni

Please comment here. Another editor is hoping to take this list to WP:FL.--Obi2canibe (talk) 17:42, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Notice about adminship to participants at this project

Many participants here create a lot of content, may have to evaluate whether or not a subject is notable, decide if content complies with BLP policy, and much more. Well, these are just some of the skills considered at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship.

So, please consider taking a look at and watchlisting this page:

• Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Optional RfA candidate poll

You could be very helpful in evaluating potential candidates, and even finding out if you would be a suitable RfA candidate.

Many thanks and best wishes,

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 05:40, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Netherlands and the World Exchange Platform is online

Wikimedia Nederland launches the Netherlands and the World Exchange Platform. The platform aims to stimulate global re-use of Dutch collections on non-European cultural heritage. In particular, it aims to stimulate collections on countries with which the Netherlands have had historical ties. These countries include Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Brazil, Ghana, Suriname, South Africa, and others.

The platform also aims to foster contacts between Dutch cultural heritage institutions and Wikimedia contributors across the globe. However, participation is not limited to Wikimedia contributors. Anyone can participate, making it relevant for education and research as well.

Key properties:

• Dutch heritage institutions can post offers on (parts of) their collections that are relevant to non-European countries
• Wikimedia contributors gain insight in the contents of Dutch collections and can make requests for digitalisation.
• Knowledge exchange and cooperation are key concepts.

The platform is easy to use. After registration, users can post offer/requests notices, depending on whether they are looking for material, or want to offer material for re-use. Statistics on re-use are also available.

The Netherlands and the World Exchange Platform is part of the program The Netherlands and the World. This program is supported by Wikimedia Nederland and aims to make available knowledge and content on non-European countries.

Regards, --AWossink (talk) 14:55, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Merging Ragging in Sri Lanka into Hazing

There is a merger discussion here you may wish to contribute to.--Obi2canibe (talk) 08:21, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

New merger proposal of Ragging in Sri Lanka into Ragging

There is a new merger proposal. Please comment at Talk:Ragging#New_merger_proposal Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:46, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Upcoming "420 collaboration"

You are invited to participate in the upcoming "420 collaboration", which is being held from Saturday, April 15 to Sunday, April 30, and especially on April 20, 2017! The purpose of the collaboration, which is being organized by WikiProject Cannabis, is to create and improve cannabis-related content at Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects in a variety of fields, including: culture, health, hemp, history, medicine, politics, and religion. WikiProject Sri Lanka participants may be particularly interested in the following: Cannabis in Sri Lanka. For more information about this campaign, and to learn how you can help improve Wikipedia, please visit the "420 collaboration" page.

---Another Believer _(Talk) 14:30, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Popular pages report

We – Community Tech – are happy to announce that the Popular pages bot is back up-and-running (after a one year hiatus)! You're receiving this message because your WikiProject or task force is signed up to receive the popular pages report. Every month, Community Tech bot will post at Wikipedia:WikiProject Sri Lanka/Archive 4/Popular pages with a list of the most-viewed pages over the previous month that are within the scope of WikiProject Sri Lanka.

We've made some enhancements to the original report. Here's what's new:

• The pageview data includes both desktop and mobile data.
• The report will include a link to the pageviews tool for each article, to dig deeper into any surprises or anomalies.
• The report will include the total pageviews for the entire project (including redirects).

We're grateful to Mr.Z-man for his original Mr.Z-bot, and we wish his bot a happy robot retirement. Just as before, we hope the popular pages reports will aid you in understanding the reach of WikiProject Sri Lanka, and what articles may be deserving of more attention. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at m:User talk:Community Tech bot.

Warm regards, the Community Tech Team 17:16, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Speedy deletion problem

Hello, I was writing an article on Professor Valentine Joseph (A Sri Lankan academic), but when asking for help on the teahouse, my article got deleted because I didn't say that I have the authors permission to quote from a page. I would have deleted/re-written the quote from elsewhere if they had warned me but Fuhghettaboutit deleted it. I was wondering how I could undelete it - I have written on their talk page. Should I ask on one of my article reviewer's talk page? E.g NewYorkActuary. Thanks in advance, Anish Mariathasan. Heptanitrocubane (talk) 14:17, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi. Noted that this is currently being handled here. Rehman 02:32, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Hello Rehman. Yes, it is being dealt with - it wasn't at the time of asking the question. :)Heptanitrocubane (talk) 12:03, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

No worries. I was going to userfy it for you, before noticing that thread. Happy editing! Rehman 12:07, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Opinion

I was wondering if anyone could give me their opinion on my Draft:Valentine Joseph. It is about a Sri Lankan academic. Is this enough to show he is notable? Do I need an infobox? Thanks, Heptanitrocubane (talk) 20:52, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Battle of Vedalai?

Hey guys. Just noticed there's a 'Battle of Vedalai' page on the to do list, put in sometime back in 2013 by BlackKnight see link. As far as I can tell, this is a battle that took place in South India. Is there any particular reason why it's on our list?- ක - (talk) 17:57, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Cricket in Sri Lanka

WP:Cricket and its talk page have been dominated in recent weeks by a succession of deletion debates about some fairly obscure Sri Lankan first-class cricketers. Is there anyone here who might take an interest in improving coverage of Sri Lankan cricket and might also be able to source material for some of the more difficult cricket biographies? Johnlp (talk) 23:04, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

List of brackishwater and introduced fish of Sri Lanka

I'm confused by the content of this page. Does it list fish that are both brackishwater and introduced (not native to Sri Lanka)? Or does it list both non-native fish and brackishwater fish? If so, which ones are which? I think this would also be confusing for many readers. See Talk:List of brackishwater and introduced fish of Sri Lanka#Brackishwater and Introduced? for the talk page discussion on this matter. Input would be appreciated. --HighFlyingFish (talk) 19:39, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Ministry pages

Having edited a number of articles having to do with government ministries, I've come across a very wasteful and pointless exercise some of us seem to have been engaged in. If you have a look round, you'll notice that, for example, there's a page for the Ministry of Ports and Shipping (Sri Lanka), as well as one for the Ministry of Highways, Ports & Shipping and a page for Minister of Highways, Ports & Shipping.

Can we please have some sort of organized set of guidelines for these situations? At the rate Lankan ministries are reshuffled and renamed, this can go to ridiculous extremes.

I suggest something like this: let's say there's ministry A. After a certain election, it gets combined with another ministry B to become ministry of A and B. If this is the case, don't make a new page for "Ministry of A and B". Just edit the individual pages of A and B to say that on xxxxx date, the ministries were combined as Ministry of A and B. Also, don't create a new page for 'Minister of A and B'. Just add the minister's name in the table listing ministers on each page (Ministry for A and Ministry of B), and if pages exist for 'Minister of A' and/or 'Minister of B', just say "The current Minister in charge is Xxxxx, who is the Minister of A and B".

This would cut down on the number of pages we have to maintain. We aren't a very active community at all, and it shows- there's tonnes of pages created (all with good intentions, I'm sure) that are outdated since new pages have been created to replace them and everyone forgot about the old ones.

Now let's see how many people on the 'active users list' bother to reply to this post ;) No point in you guys being 'active' if you don't communicate and agree to any common set of rules. - ක - (talk) 07:06, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

• Hi. I have done exactly what you explained above, about a year or two ago. But all the efforts were reverted by the author of the original articles, and I didn't have much time to follow up back then. I strongly support your suggestion, and am ready to assist with the cleanups once consensus is reached. Rehman 13:00, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Hi @Rehman:. Only just saw your reply- how do we go about establishing a page for common guidelines for editing Lanka-related articles? - ක - (talk) 13:54, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Hello @Jesuschristonacamel:. We could gain consensus here, and then proceed to make change. I believe that is the simplest way. Link this conversation to related areas (like Talk:List of ministries of Sri Lanka), and set a deadline. After which, the changes could be made based on consensus here. Cheers, Rehman 05:36, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

@Rehman:: Well, I'm obviously all for it :D - ක - (talk) 17:26, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

I think that the plan outlined above seems like a reasonable and logical way to proceed. The reverter need to show up here and explain why their approach is the way to go. Carptrash (talk) 18:46, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguation links on pages tagged by this wikiproject

Wikipedia has many thousands of wikilinks which point to disambiguation pages. It would be useful to readers if these links directed them to the specific pages of interest, rather than making them search through a list. Members of WikiProject Disambiguation have been working on this and the total number is now below 20,000 for the first time. Some of these links require specialist knowledge of the topics concerned and therefore it would be great if you could help in your area of expertise.

A list of the relevant links on pages which fall within the remit of this wikiproject can be found at http://69.142.160.183/~dispenser/cgi-bin/topic_points.py?banner=WikiProject_Sri_Lanka

Please take a few minutes to help make these more useful to our readers.— Rod ^talk 18:50, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Adam's Peak title change

based on WP:COMMONNAME i propose this page need to rename to Sri Pada or Samanalakanda . please discuss in the talk page. Eeriyaka (talk) 23:05, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Nomination of B. W. Wijetunge for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article B. W. Wijetunge is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/B. W. Wijetunge until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Hack (talk) 00:45, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Index of Sri Lanka related articles

Hi I noticed that while there are all-inclusive index articles for most countries (e.g Index of Japan-related articles or Index of India-related articles), there isn’t one, unusually, for Sri Lanka. I’m interested in starting one myself and wondered if anyone knew why there isn’t one currently, or if there’s any objection to having one? Thanks, Mccapra (talk) 09:45, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

It was not considered to have one for SL. Go ahead Like --AntanO 09:57, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Great thanks. My new project. Mccapra (talk) 11:05, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

The article now exists at Index of Sri Lanka-related articles. If you are creating or editing an article about Sri Lanka, please consider adding it to the index. For example, there is very little in there yet about cricket. Thanks Mccapra (talk) 10:11, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

@Mccapra: Thank you very much for idea and contribution! I have initiated to expand the list like Index of Japan-related articles. So far, I have collected list of articles and creating one by one. Anyway, I would like to hear your comments as well as your contributions. The lists that I have created (List 0-9 & List A) could be missed some articles and added irrelevant articles. Therefore, I need review. Thanks! --AntanO 04:31, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Lists are created and ready. See {{TopicTOC-Country-Sri Lanka}}. However, give me some time to add some more link. I will Let you know once I complete. --AntanO 06:40, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

A-E lists are updated. Could check them while I update rest of the lists? --AntanO 09:48, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi AntanO thanks for your messages. I’ve been out today so only just come back to see what you’ve done. Wow! I can’t believe how fast you’ve worked. You must have been working fir ages to collect all those articles. I think the index looks really great now.Mccapra (talk) 11:01, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Other Wikiproject members should know that while I started this index article off, about 95% of the work has been done by AntanO who has evidently been researching and preparing content for such an index for a VERY long time! Mccapra (talk) 11:23, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

there is a problem with this however. The material does not follow the standard for an English-language index, in which items are listed by surname. In the current index for example, C. Sandanayake is indexed under C rather than under S where it should be. This means that if you don’t know someone’s initial, they are impossible to find on the index. This doesn’t make sense.Mccapra (talk) 13:31, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

my guess is that there are around 50,000 articles in the index, of which about 15-18,000 need to be removed and replaced. Does anyone have any bright idea about a way to speed this up? Mccapra (talk) 16:28, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

I have done all updated. Again I request you all to review and take necessary action. I agree with Mccapra and expect your response. Thanks --AntanO 03:03, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Hi AntanO I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of days, and I have some suggestions. My problems with the changes you’ve made are:

• firstly and most importantly, that around 1/3 of articles are wrongly placed, meaning this article can’t function as an index.
• secondly, some letters have more than a thousand articles. I think it’s not helpful to have this number of articles displayed under a single letter. The best way is to divide them further, as in Index of Japan-related articles, where if you select ‘A’ you get a subordinate menu offering Ab, Ac, Ad, Ae etc.
• I don’t think it’s much help to number all the articles in each list. Other indexes I’ve seen in Wikipedia don’t do this.

I’m not sure what kind of file you’ve stored these tens of thousands of articles in off wiki, so I don’t know technically what may be the best way of dealing with them. But anyway, here’s my suggestion:

1. I’m going to ask you to roll back all your edits except for one. This section you added works fine – Index of Sri Lanka-related articles (0–9). If you can take the numbers off and split it up by number, that would be great. All the other material you added needs to come out, I’m afraid.

2. Off wiki, if it’s possible, collect all the articles about people which follow the format Initial letter + Surname, (e.g. F.R. Ellis, put them into a single list and sort them alphabetically by surname (maybe someone has a script for this?) and then add them to the article under the correct letter for their surname.

3. Off wiki, collect all the one-word articles and insert them into the article alphabetically.

This will leave a residual number of several thousand articles that have more than one word in the title and are not initial + surname. I will work through these with you manually to put them under the correct letter.

Does this sound like a workable plan? Does anyone else have other suggestions? Thanks Mccapra (talk) 17:14, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Hi AntanO what do you think about these suggestions? We can’t just leave the article as it is I’m afraid because it no longer works properly as an index. I’m very happy to work with you on sorting all the material you’ve added, but I don’t believe it can stay in it’s present format. Do you think it might be helpful for us to ask for a Third Opinion on this? Mccapra (talk) 13:16, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Hi, I am sorry I missed your comments. Look at 0–9 & A. I have mistakenly included some unwanted articles in list. Also, I don't know which one should be in and out. I am not clear about names since Sri Lanka's practice differs than others. (eg: J. R. Jayewardene – Here, J.R. is much famous, but Premadasa is much easy. Again Ranil is famous than Wickremesinghe). Therefore, I requested others to comment. What do you think? --AntanO 07:10, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Hi AntanO. I think 0–9 is absolutely fine because everything is in the correct order so this section works as an index. However A is no good. For example the article A. J. M. Muzammil must be filed under ‘M’ for this to work as an index. Filing it under ‘A’ just means nobody can find it. If I’m looking for an article about a Sri Lankan politician called Muzammil I’ll go to ‘M’, see it’s not there, and assume there is no such article. Why on earth would I go to look under ‘A’? The way you have set this index up requires a user of the encyclopaedia to always know what the first name of a person is (which they often won’t), and then always use that to search.

An index article works by a standard set of rules that apply across all articles. It does not depend on whether a person is better known in their own country by their initials. Margaret Thatcher was commonly known in Britain as Mrs T, but that doesn’t mean you find her indexed in Wikipedia under ‘M’ for Mrs.

In the case of Ranil Wickremesinghe, if there is a good chance that some people might search for him under ‘Ranil ’ rather than ‘Wickremesinghe’, the answer is that he needs two entries on the index, the main one under W. and another one under R linking to it.

I agree with you it is hard to know which should be in and which should be out, but because you have added thousands of articles, the only way to do it is to take them all out (except 0-9, which is fine) and then rebuild it systematically.Mccapra (talk) 01:14, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

In Mahinda Rajapaksa case, Mahinda is first name and Rajapaksa is family name. In Velupillai Prabhakaran case, Velupillai is father's name and second one is first name. Likewise, using name differs in Sri Lanka. I just wanted to tell the practice in Sri Lanka. Anyway, I have no objection. I don't understand the line the only way to do it is to take them all out. Already, you can mentioned to revert my edit. What does it mean? Once you created article you cannot revert, but delete. --AntanO 02:54, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Hi AntanO yes I understand that not all names in Sri Lanka follow the same order. Velupillai Prabhakaran will probably need an entry on the index both under P and under V. Because names do not all follow the same format, they will have to be added manually unless some better general process can be found.

What I am asking you to do is to leave the 0-9 section you added and roll back all your other changes so that we can begin adding all the articles individually and manually, in the proper place. I believe you have the ability to roll back. Thanks Mccapra (talk) 09:06, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I think we can move to appropriate places. Also, it is easy to remove unsuited articles. --AntanO 15:44, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes we can move them into the right places and I’m happy to work with you on this. It will be a very big project. However the published index must be ‘clean’ so we need to strip the article back to this revision so we have a clean start. We can work off wiki to sort the new articles out, and add them in day by day.Mccapra (talk) 22:00, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

No problem, but I suggest to work in individual article. I think that would be easy. What do you think? If you have some idea, do and i will follow. --AntanO 03:05, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Otherwise, you/we can add this revision to proper places.

Thanks. I’m busy today but I’ll make a start tomorrow evening.Mccapra (talk) 13:32, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Members of Parliament, 1947

I've just completed articles for every member of the 1st Parliament of Ceylon, would appreciate a second set of eyes to check whether there are any errors. I appreciate that some of them are just stubs however in those cases there was little information to go on. Otherwise I'll make a start on the members of the 2nd Parliament of Ceylon. Dan arndt (talk) 08:33, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Good work Dan, I've been following your work closely and I like seeing your new articles. I have some suggestions, of course most common name is the standard, but could we try to use a first name and last name formula when we can? Also when listing each office in the info box I think it would be best if we can list each office by hierarchy and from most recent position at the top to least at the bottom, such as this here: I. M. R. A. Iriyagolla. Other than that, your work looks great. Thanks!--Blackknight12 (talk) 12:45, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Please come and help...

Greetings! I have recently relisted for the third time a requested move debate at Talk:List of Sinhalese monarchs#Requested move 1 January 2018, regarding a page related to this WikiProject. Your opinion and rationale are needed so a consensus can be achieved. Thank you and Happy Publishing!  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  19:46, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Restarting Index of Sri-Lanka Related Articles

I've just started work again on this article and I'm afraid it is much worse than I realised. AntanO has imported thousands and thousands of articles which have nothing to do with Sri Lanka - Kannada films, Bangladeshi politicians, Pakistani cricketers and goodness knows what else into an index of articles about Sri Lanka. The whole thing is such a total mess now - even before we get to the question of alphabetical order - so I've reverted his edit, gone back to the version I left ten days ago,and will continue to add articles, one by one, which are actually about Sri Lanka, and which are in the correct order.Mccapra (talk) 13:41, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

I've been following this topic and I think that is a good idea. The previous edits were not very organised and off topic. The new version is looking good. I also suggest you to use this: Category:WikiProject Sri Lanka articles. Its all the articles within WikiProject Sri Lanka. Every article here should be sufficiently related to Sri Lanka and hence can go into the index.--Blackknight12 (talk) 14:58, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Confusion regarding sport shooter, Malee Wickremasinghe

I have a doubt regarding a name of a sport shooter which confused me when I try to write an article about Malee Wickremasinghe a 1994 Commonwealth Games medalist in shooting. But when I attempted to write that article, I found an existing article with the title Malini Wickramasinghe who was also a Sri Lankan sport shooter born in 1964. But the article creator as mentioned that she has competed only at the Olympics. I even couldn't verify that Malini Wickramasinghe is the same person who could also be referred to as Malee Wickremasinghe. Please help me out with this if possible. Thanks in advance. Abishe (talk) 17:36, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

@Abishe: It could be that whoever created the Malini Wickramasinghe didn't do much research and was only focused on the Olympics. This source says Malini Wickramasinghe (born 22 July 1994) took part in shooting events in the 1996 and 2000 Olympics. This source says that a K Wickremasinghe took part in shooting events in the 1994 Commonwealth Games. Could be the same person but Wickramasinghe is a common name. You need to do some digging to see if Malini Wickramasinghe and K Wickremasinghe are the same person.--Obi2canibe (talk) 21:32, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

2018 anti-Muslim riots in Sri Lanka

The article 2018 anti-Muslim riots in Sri Lanka describes the violence between Muslims and Buddhists which was held in Ampara on the month of February. A few weeks later on 5 March 2018, there was a similar violence between Muslims and Buddhists in Kandy. Can we add the recent Kandy incident into this particular article rather than having 2 separate articles. Abishe (talk) 09:41, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

April 2018 at Women in Red including Sri Lanka

		Welcome to Women in Red's April 2018 worldwide online editathons. Focus on: April+Further with Art+Feminism Archaeology Military history (contest) Geofocus: Indian subcontinent Continuing: #1day1woman Global Initiative
		To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list or Women in Red/international list. To unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list. Follow us on Twitter: @wikiwomeninred

--Ipigott (talk) 16:23, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Ministry pages II

A reminder to all and sundry that we never reached a proper consensus on the matter of Sri Lankan government ministries, last discussed at the end of last year. There is also the matter of how best to deal with brand new ministries that are made up and disbanded as governments go along.- ක - (talk) 08:48, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

List of currently active members

How accurate is this list? I ask, because I notice myself and a couple other users don't seem to be showing up on this list at all, despite our work on articles that come under our project, while editors that haven't been active for years still show up. Maybe time for an update to the coding or whatever?- ක - (talk) 08:41, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

• Have you added your name to the list? I am guessing that the Bot that was doing the active list might not be functioning anymore. Dan arndt (talk) 09:09, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

The bot indeed seems to be dead because of outdated code, by the looks of it. Should we keep the list up, do you think? Maybe a way to go would be to edit the Members page and move inactive users (say, those that have not made any edits in the past 6 months) to a subsection called 'Former members'?- ක - (talk) 10:43, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Agreed but there must be a better way than having to update it manually. Dan arndt (talk) 12:47, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Recent edits to SriLankan Airlines

There's been a couple of recent edits to fleet size by IP users, and I'm not too familiar with SriLankan's stats to check them out. Could someone who's a bit more knowledgeable have a read of the page and see if this is up to date and factual? I'm also a bit worried we might stray into CRYSTALBALL territory, since I've noticed Lankans like hyping up stuff on wikipedia before anything actually happens. - ක - (talk) 15:33, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

2018 Sri Lanka floods

I have created the article on the recent flood, 2018 Sri Lanka floods which started around 19 May, 2018 and please help to expand the article. Abishe (talk) 11:29, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Sri Lankan actors/actresses

I noticed that we have very small area of articles regarding actors and actresses of Sri Lanka. Even though some have been made, they not up to the standards. Therefore they will be deleted soon due to Wikipedia guidelines. So if anyone can improve those articles and make new articles is a good attempt. Cheers. Gihan Jayaweera (talk) 11:52, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

• @Gihan Jayaweera: I understand your point and I also noticed that we are not having sufficient quality articles about Sri Lankan actors, film directors and singers. I have recently created about a popular actress Deepani Silva who was also caught for an accident in Bandaragama on 28 May 2018. So I would like to help in creating film biographies like this. Abishe (talk) 06:30, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

• Abishe, just make sure that any article you create addresses the criteria under WP:ANYBIO and WP:NACTOR. This means providing evidence that the subject has significant coverage in multiple independent reliable secondary sources. Dan arndt (talk) 07:54, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Janindu Mahesh

Hi, please note that there is persistent vandalism to promote Janindu Mahesh or Janindu Mahesh Chandresekara including hijacking Sri Lankan singer articles and adding fake credits to many Sri Lankan film articles. The vandal seems to be the person himself and is not notable so please revert any edits mentioning him, also he is removing real credits when he does this. One editor and 2 sockpuppets blocked so far, thanks Atlantic306 (talk) 13:54, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

• In fact, at last count the initial user, Divyanka Babu, has used 15 confirmed sockpuppets, 1 unconfirmed and 2 unconfirmed IPs. Dan arndt (talk) 08:01, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject

The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.

Portals are being redesigned.

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The discussion about this can be found here.

Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.

Background

On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.

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Removing broken 'Current members' list on project page

Title says it all. The code running the "currently active members" section has been dead for a while. A message to the creator I sent months ago has not been answered, and it appears he's no longer it. I suggest removing the section from the project page- it's pointless keeping an outdated list there, and it's a disservice to editors who joined after the code stopped functioning. - ක - (talk) 18:59, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Since there has been no comment from anyone on the matter, I've taken it as a sign of there being no objections to the proposal and gone ahead and removed the list from our portal. - ක - (talk) 06:32, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Sri Lankan reliable sources

What are examples of Sri Lankan reliable sources? — Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)  02:31, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

• @Mr. Guye: in what context? Dan arndt (talk) 02:58, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
  • @Dan arndt: Entertainment. I guess I should have specified that.  — Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)  03:03, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Establishing Guidelines for Political Articles Conversation

This is an open discussion. Feel free to discuss the issues below:

Honorific Styling of Politicians (The Honourable, Honourable, Hon.)

Different editors have been using their own styles on political articles of Sri Lanka and it is making things inconsistent. I would like us to establish some guidelines on this amongst us so we can be consistent. User:Dan arndt keeps using Hon., user User:Obi2canibe keeps using Honourable while I use The Honourable since it is more widely used. I hope I am not missing anything on this? - LionCountry25 (talk) 09:37, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

A good point. I've been meaning to ask this same question after seeing Dan's edits. The British politicians' pages all seem to have "The Honourable", and since our system is based off of theirs, I think we'd need a specific reason as to why changing it to "Hon." is needed.

I'd also like to point out we need action on the section below. - ක - (talk) 10:03, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

We do not have to follow the British system. The Sri Lankan Parliament's directory of members uses "Hon." but the Hansard uses "The Hon.". There is no right or wrong answer and there are no rules against abbreviating honorifics in the infobox. Given that Dan has already brought some consistency by changing most references to "Hon." why do we want waste time changing them to something else. Our time could be better spent on other things.

On a related note, I note that LionCountry25 has started removing the "MP" honorific from infoboxes of former MPs (e.g [1]). Again, there are no rules on this. Wikipedia is meant to give historic information, we do not contemporise information to the present day. If we did, we would have to remove honorifics from all deceased biographies.--Obi2canibe (talk) 14:19, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Essentially I’ve been working on creating articles on early Ceylonese politicians I noticed that there were inconsistencies in respect to the use of honourifics across all of the country’s articles on politicians. After examining MOS:HON, I identified a number of issues, firstly an honourific is not part of an individual’s name and shouldn’t be listed as such, which is why there is a specific heading for such, ‘honorific_prefix’. Which is why it is frustrating when LionCountry25 keeps on reverting edits to include the title Sir as part of an individual’s name, when it is contrary to WP guidelines. Secondly there are no guidelines for the use of ‘The Honourable’, ‘Honourable’ or ‘Hon.’. In fact the guidelines for British politicians is to not include that term of honourific at all in their title. Which brings us back to Sri Lankan politicians - where there is no consistency - as a result I’ve been working through all the articles to establish a consistency. I’d have to conclude with Obi2canibe there are other more important tasks but I’m prepared to keep working on this one for the time being. Dan arndt (talk) 02:17, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Since Sri Lanka follows the British Westminster system, we have adopted British style of honorifics. As such the practice is clear serving Member of Parliament with have the honorific The Honourable with Hon. as shorten form and post nominal letters MP after their name. If they die in officer or leave parliament, they continue to use the honorific, yet stop using the post nominal letters MP. We can continue this practice for articles in in Wikipeida too. Cossde (talk) 03:39, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

The explanation provided in the description on honourifics states “In the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, as in other lower houses of Parliament and other legislatures, members refer to each other as honourable members etc. out of courtesy, but they are not entitled to the style in writing.“ Given the directories published by Parliament of Sri Lanka describe politician’s title as Hon. all I’ve done is reflected this in the politicians articles to ensure consistency. Dan arndt (talk) 04:18, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree with - ක - and Cossde. Since we follow the British system we should follow their example and use the full title The Honourable as it is more respectable and it would be consistent with articles in UK and other commonwealth countries. Yes Obi2canibe and Dan arndt I do agree we don't have to follow the styles of UK and we all agree we have to keep things consistent, and yes we are spending way too much time in this topic for not a great reason. But we should establish this so we don't do this anymore. Dan arndt like I mentioned before I use Sir in front of names because it is been used in UK articles and they have consistently used it. But Dan arndt I really don't understand why you have to give an alternative name, the only possible explanation is that it is what you prefer. Obi2canibe yes, I did remove the suffix of few MPs because yet again due to the same reason as they do in UK articles. Yes there is no guidline, but UK articles have consistently done that to all recent politicians. In those articles they have a section called Styles of address where they have put the styles of the politician from birth to death. I just want to establish a style that we can all follow - LionCountry25 (talk) 04:50, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Clearly honourifics are not part of an individual’s name - title’s like Sir, Dr. and Prof. are not included as part of an individual’s name, which is why the guidelines outline they aren’t to be used as part of an individual’s name. Arguing just because doesn’t make it correct. Dan arndt (talk) 07:54, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

The Hansard style was not known to me, which is why I asked if there was a specific reason why the honorific was being changed. I don't feel strongly about this either way, but my feeling is we should just stick to 'The Honourable'. 'Hon.' is an abbreviation of it anyway, and I don't think it's terribly important to be consistent with the Hansard.

As for the postnominals, I think 'MP' should be removed from the pages of deceased politicians. They're not entitled to its use, and if we're going to be sticklers for one rule (consistency with the Hansard), then we should follow other rules as well: we can't pick and choose. As Obi2canibe said, while there is no hard and fast rule about whether 'Hon.' or 'The Honourable' is correct; however, there is one about the use of 'MP', as Cossde pointed out.

On the matter of the Sir/Dr thing, I agree with what others have said here. They're not part of the name, they're a honorific title.

If I'm pushed to make a final decision, I'd say keep 'Hon.', but 'MP' needs to go.- ක - (talk) 08:04, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Dan arndt, since you brought up that point actually haven't change honourifics such as Sir, Dr. and Prof.. And on your explanation of Hon. being used on the parliamentary website of Sri Lanka, they actually do the same in UK [2], even the Australian Hansard [3]. The wikipedia users of UK chose not to i'm guessing since there is no point in providing an alternative name and it shows more respect

Furthermore what I noticed was that they only use The Honourable title to members who were only members of the cabinet in the past or present eg:Dennis Skinner - LionCountry25 (talk) 15:44, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Concur with the view that MP should only be used as a honourific for a sitting member of parliament not a former MP. Happy to make the necessary changes to reflect that. Dan arndt (talk) 14:08, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Just a note to User:Jesuschristonacamel and others, I think you should get out of your head the notion that Sri Lankan politics follows a British system or think that it is based on it. It may have been after independence but it does not anymore. Sri Lanka has its own style of governance that has emerged, changed and adapted since independence. Sri Lanka is not a Westminster system it is a Semi-presidential Republic system, which was actually modelled on French governance. That does not mean we should follow either French or British customs as Sri Lanka has developed its own and we should follow that.

User:LionCountry25, respect has nothing to do with this. We, on Wikipedia, are just conveying information in a neutral way. We are not supposed to take sides. Please don't bring up respect as a reason.

As for my thoughts, I have to agree with Obi2canibe, some editors here are do not know how to be productive with their time. I agree that MP should only be used as a honorific for a sitting members of parliament and not a former MPs, that makes sense. As for the the title "The Honourable", it doesn't really matter so much, just as long as they are consistant. But if I were to choose one, it should be "The Honourable", as the "The Hon." and "Hon." are just shorthand ways of "The Honourable".

It Also seems some mass reverting and changes has broken out before we have come to a consensus here. I think it would be best if users don't start until we have a consensus here. On the other hand maybe we have a consensus on the MP discussion?--Blackknight12 (talk) 11:56, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

@Blackknight12: A debatable point. The only example of French influence is the addition of the President. In all other respects, this is still an adaptation of the Westminster system. The colonial influence is still heavy on Parliament and literally everything else across the State system. To pretend otherwise is just being obtuse for the sake of pushing a nationalist agenda and pointless chest-beating. If that's what this is, I am not interested in having this discussion with you. I've made my opinion clear in my last reply in this thread, and that's all there is to it. I still feel there is little point in abbreviating then linking to the page for The Honourable, but if it gets rid of the MP postnominals, I'm all for it. - ක - (talk) 12:12, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Like Blackknight12, I have noticed that the editor who started this discussion has started making changes unilaterally before the discussion has finished. This shows a lack of respect for other editors. Why bother starting a discussion if you intend to do as you please anyway?--Obi2canibe (talk) 22:10, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Just to add, when I said that there are no rules, I meant Wikipedia rules (policies and guidelines). Sri Lankan rules and customs have no bearing on how we structure content on Wikipedia.--Obi2canibe (talk) 22:15, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

As clearly stated by other editors above, there are no rules/guidelines as the use of the term on Wikipedia and each jurisdiction deals with them in accordance with local custom/requirements. All that I have put in place over the last few months is to ensure that each article is consistent with other similar articles - i.e. all articles on Ceylonese/Sri Lankan politicians are now consistent in their use of "Hon.", which is the way that Sri Lankan Parliament's directory of members uses. At this stage I thought the general consensus would be that we leave the current status quo until such time as there was a general agreement that a change was necessary.

It would appear that the editor who started this discussion is disrespecting everyone else by ignoring the points raised by other editors in this discussion and making unilateral changes removing honorifics such as MP , where they are sitting members on the basis that they are not cabinet members without even mentioning this intention in this discussion or making changes on the basis that that's how some other commonwealth countries deal with it. Noting that most other countries however have the same sort of inconsistencies that used to prevail here - it almost seems that that editor wants to go back to case where all the articles are treated differently dependent upon the view of the article's creator.

I thought that we had a consensus on the use of the honorific, "MP", whereby it only applies to a sitting member of parliament however it would not appear that LionCountry25 has a different view to everyone else and is making changes accordingly. As previously indicated I am prepared to go back through all the articles on former politicians and make those changes to ensure that once again we have consistency but will await everyone else's feedback first. Dan arndt (talk) 03:17, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

I do apologise for the reversions, as I myself was also under the impression that we should wait till we sort this out. Unfortunately Dan arndt did not for reasons unknown and he has even reverted my reversion as I speak! I am also on the agreement that MP should only be assigned to sitting MPs. If I removed the MP form a sitting MP that was probably by accident. With regards to the Hon. in the parliamentary directory, that is how they do it in the UK [4], and Australia [5], yet the use The Honourable instead of Hon. in Wikipedia articles. I am not sure why Dan arndt hasn't seen this? Blackknight12 yes I agree we do not have to follow the UK structure as such but like - ක - pointed out it has a strong influence to date because of historical reason and it would be a good guide to follow for Sri Lankan articles. I also have my doubts about Sri Lanka being a Semi-presidential system but that's a debate for another time. Like - ක - and Blackknight12 mentioned I too am in favour of The Honourable instead of The Hon., Hon. or just Honourable. Finally I would like to mention, forget about what I said about non cabinet MP's not having a prefix. That only limits to Australian and UK articles as their websites only give it to cabinet members - LionCountry25 (talk) 07:39, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Dan arndt you might want to recheck your point on MOS:HON as another user on Winston Churchill has mentioned otherwise - LionCountry25 (talk) 07:44, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Dan arndt We are all waiting for your response!! - LionCountry25 (talk) 05:35, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

I didn’t realise that my comments were any more important than any other editors (not certain who the ‘we’ are that you refer to or have you elected yourself as the spokesperson for everyone else here?). I was under the impression that this was a group discussion, which was why I was allowing everyone else ample opportunity to provide their feedback, without pressuring them or trying to dominate the debate. Dan arndt (talk) 01:35, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

OK Dan arndt. However, I would kindly appreciate you letting us know your thoughts on what I mentioned about What I mentioned about the point it mentions Hon. on the Parliamentary website vs using The Honourable on the Wikipedia page. What I meant by "We are waiting" is that most users on this conversation seem to agree with using The Honourable instead of Hon. or Honourable and your are the only one who prefers Hon., hence your opinion matters to this. I would like to move to a conclusion on this topic soon so we can focus on other things - LionCountry25 (talk) 06:17, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Firstly I disagree with your sweeping statement that 'most users on this conversation seem to agree with using The Honourable instaed of Hon.' and that I am the only one who prefer Hon. (refer to other users comments: If I'm pushed to make a final decision, I'd say keep 'Hon.' and Given that Dan has already brought some consistency by changing most references to "Hon." why do we want waste time changing them to something else.). If anything I would say that the result of this discussion is that there is no consensus view - which means one of two things we go back to a situation where there is no consistency and depending upon the editors point of view we either have no honorific, or The Honourable, The Hon. or Hon. which would appear to be nonsensical or we just leave the current status quo and don't make any changes to the way things currently are - allowing us all to concentrate on other more important issues. Dan arndt (talk) 08:07, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Dan arndt the current status quo is too fluid which is the reason for this conversation! My opinion is based on the comments I read from others which you pointed out if that editor had to make a final decision he would go with The Honourable rather than something else. Yet again you have avoided my main question regarding my Hansard findings, which defeats your argument fo using Hon. You are also getting the MOS:HON wrong: § Knighthoods, lordships, and similar honorific titles - LionCountry25 (talk) 09:17, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

OK, so if no one has anything else to say can we come to a conclusion. Most of us in some level seem to agree to Sticking to The Honourable over Hon. or Honourable? and I don't see the point of coming up with an alternative rather than what is given. Dan arndt, - ක -, Obi2canibe, Cossde, Blackknight12 - LionCountry25 (talk) 05:06, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Once again you are being presumptuous and a touch arrogant in saying that there is a consensus view that we change all the articles from Hon. to The Honourable. If anything there is obviously not a clear consensus at all. In these cases the usual course of action is to stay with the current status (i.e. no change from the articles as they currently are). Dan arndt (talk) 06:25, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

BTW if you check the recent Hansard transcripts they all state Hon. not the long form, The Honourable. Dan arndt (talk) 06:30, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Dan arndt, this is the exact message I was trying to get to you in my last few comments. In the Australian Hansard reports [6] and UK [7] both have the same as the Sri Lankan hansard reports. Yet in Wikipedia they use The Honourable in full! - LionCountry25 (talk) 10:46, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

All the more reason to leave the articles as is, ie Hon. Dan arndt (talk) 11:33, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

As I said before, it doesn't really matter to me so much, just as long as they are consistant. And as Dan arndt is the only one who is doing any productive work here, rather than wasting time and effort on petty issues, I suggest we stay with what we have. I support Dan arndt. The fact that Australia and the UK does it their way, should not have any weight here, for as I said before Sri Lanka also has its own way of doing it and we need not rely on other countries for the reasons I stated above.--Blackknight12 (talk) 12:00, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Fully agree with Dan and Blackknight12's comments. LionCountry25 - many Sri Lankan politician articles are in a poor shape, poorly sourced and often no more than stubs. Spend a couple of hours trying to expand on these articles. You'll be amazed how much difference that makes.--Obi2canibe (talk) 22:54, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, Obi2canibe yes I want to improve these articles as much as you do and I have been gathering sources for those articles while this is happening. Might I also remind you the fact that Dan arndt came up with his own theory § Knighthoods, lordships, and similar honorific titles when it is clearly stated. I don't want to waist my time as well which is why I am not happy to put an alternative to such a simple phrase!! And no Dan arndt it is not a UK or Australian style it is a Wikipedia style!! and no I am not happy with the current status as you are the one who stubbornly changed all of this to your preference. And before you guys say that is my preference, I will say my preference is the norm of things and not coming with an alternative!! - LionCountry25 (talk) 03:16, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

I think that this discussion has played itself out. It has been over two weeks and there has been no further comment/input from any user. The general consensus is that we stay with the format that we currently have (i.e. Hon.) for politicians. It is consistent with the term used in the Sri Lanka Hansard and the Parlimentary Directory. Dan arndt (talk) 00:25, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

No Dan arndt this is not the end of it. As I pointed out the norm in Wikipedia has been leaving things without abbreviating as I have pointed out and as everyone can see. I was waiting for others opinion on this but the only thing i'm getting is silence - LionCountry25 (talk) 07:12, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

If you read through the comments above it is clear that all the other editors involved have given their opinions, which in summary (& correct me if I’ve interpreted it wrongly) have agreed that in respect to Ceylonese/Sri Lankan politicians we will use the abbreviated honorific of Hon. So I’m not certain who the ‘others’ are that you are referring to. Dan arndt (talk) 10:43, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

I think the discussion has come to a close. Its been inactive for a while and it seems like everybody who had something to say has said it by now on this minute issue. User:LionCountry25, you should use your time wisely to move on and create some new articles and help expand WikiProject Sri Lanka.--Blackknight12 (talk) 15:13, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Blackknight12, we have not come up with any conclusion here have we? so how can we say this comes to an end. Dan arndt no one has given a good reason for abbreviating The Honourable into Hon. something I don't understand why we have to do when the rest of the world follows the same protocol (of not abbreviating) - LionCountry25 (talk) 21:25, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

At the risk of repeating myself, all the editors here bar LionCountry25, have each agreed to formatting the Ceylonese/Sri Lankan politicians articles with the abbreviation of Hon. in the infobox. I have previously given my reasons, which have been accepted by all involved. We can therefore call this discussion closed and all move on to more productive things.Dan arndt (talk) 09:39, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

I want it on the record that I didn't fully accept it. But then maybe that doesn't matter, seeing as, other than you, apparently everyone else here is being unproductive and petty, according to Blackknight. Good to know only barnstarred editors' contributions are truly appreciated here. If nothing else, this thread has shown how truly fucked this Wikiproject is: you lot will come out and hammer down other editors for going against your opinions, but ask for just an ounce of constructive collaboration (as I've done several times on these Talk pages), and everyone goes mum. On top of that, you've now avoided addressing the matter of an openly biased nationalist within the ranks of this Wikiproject, something I asked around about below. - ක - (talk) 16:52, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

List of ministries of Sri Lanka

For anyone unfamiliar with this topic, it relates to the List of ministries of Sri Lanka. This is a list of articles that I think needs a final decision to be arrived upon, since we can't keep making new articles or moving them when whoever is in power decides to combine the Ministry of Health with the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, or splits the Ministry of Education so a Ministry for Libraries comes into being. Some way of combining/linking these pages together needs to be thought of. It's embarrassing if we can't even maintain the articles to do with the State, tbh. I think, @Rehman: you had some ideas? - ක - (talk) 10:03, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

One solution is to convert the ministry articles into list of ministers articles and use generic terms (e.g. agriculture, education, health, housing, transport) rather than the specific term used by the Sri Lankan government. See Template:Types of government ministers and Category:Government ministers by portfolio for more generic terms.

So, for example, Ministry of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine would become List of health ministers of Sri Lanka. Whenever there's cabinet reshuffle we can simply slot whoever is responsible for health into the list article, irrespective of their official title, and we don't have to rename the article.

Most of the ministry articles started life as ministers articles but it was Rehman who unilaterally decided to rename the articles several years ago ([8]), causing the present headache. We could continue to keep the ministry articles but they would not have a list of ministers in them, they would just link to the relevant list of ministers article(s). This is how a few of the ministry articles currently work (e.g. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Sri Lanka) / Minister of Foreign Affairs (Sri Lanka)). In some cases the ministry articles may link to more than one list of ministers article e.g. there is currently a Ministry of Higher Education and Culture which could link to List of higher education ministers of Sri Lanka and List of culture ministers of Sri Lanka.

If we decide to go down this route, in order to maintain edit history, the existing ministry articles need to be renamed list of ministers and new articles created for the ministry.

We need to get rid of some of the obscure ministries (e.g. Ministry of Botanical Gardens and Public Recreation, Ministry of Coconut Development and Janatha Estate Development, Ministry of National Heritage) as these will be almost impossible to keep up to date irrespective of which format we decide upon. I'd suggest redirecting these Cabinet of Sri Lanka.--Obi2canibe (talk) 14:19, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree with you on these points, with a few exceptions. Firstly, I think we should retain the 'ry' articles, and do away with the lists (unless the lists are absolutely massive), simply because a List of Ministers would have no real way of containing info about the Ministry and what it does, where it's located etc. Well they could, but it'd look awkward.

I do agree that the ultra-specific Ministry names and the obscure ones need to go. However, rerouting the obscure ones to the Cabinet page en masse could be problematic, since (and I may be wrong here) some of these aren't Cabinet ministries, are they?. Perhaps we could redirect the obscure ones that are in the Cabinet to the Cabinet page and the rest to something like 'List of Non-Cabinet Ministries of Sri Lanka'? On that page, we could have a list of links to the non-Cabinet ministries that do have Wiki articles, and brief sections in prose about the ones that dont. That allows us to have a good way of separating the Cabinet ministries from the non-Cabinet ones too.- ක - (talk) 08:18, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

@Jesuschristonacamel: We can continue to have ministry articles for the major ministries. In my example, we can continue to have the Ministry of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine article with all the current content except that the "Ministers" section would not have a list of ministers, it would just link to a separate List of health ministers of Sri Lanka article. I think that lists of ministers, wherever they are located, are important. We shouldn't get rid of them.

I'm afraid all of the obscure ministries were indeed cabinet ministries, not non-cabinet/state ministries. Every entry on List of ministries of Sri Lanka was a full fledged cabinet ministry. At one point during the Rajapaksa regime there were around 60 cabinet ministers, each with their own ministry. Even now there are over 40 cabinet ministers.--Obi2canibe (talk) 22:03, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

@Obi2canibe: This is seriously weird- I remember writing something completely different in my opening paragraph in my last reply, which is supposed to read: "I agree with you on these points, with a few exceptions. Firstly, I think we should retain the 'ry' articles, and do away with the minor ministries, keeping the lists in the Ministry article (unless the lists are absolutely massive), simply because a List of Ministers alone would have no real way of containing info about the Ministry and what it does, where it's located etc. Well they could, but it'd look awkward." Either I'm developing amnesia, or my phone simply erased blocks of text from my reply.

So in summary, we keep the major ministries (Finance, Defence, Health, Agriculture etc) with their base names (i.e.- "Health" as opposed to "Health, Nutrition, Indigenous Medicines, Somethingelsewe'vegiventhisguybecausewewanthiminourcabinet"), moving the lists to a separate article linked to each other. All non-major ministries get redirected to the Cabinet page.

On the point about the importance of lists- how do you propose we handle lists of ministers for one-off ministries or the non-major ones? I don't think those are notable enough to have articles with lists for just a couple ministers. Maybe a list of lists-type article, listing all non-major ministers there were, arranged by title. - ක - (talk) 07:57, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

@Jesuschristonacamel: Thanks, I think we're almost there. In respect of the minor/one-off ministries, I agree that they aren't notable. We already have the various cabinet articles (e.g. Sirisena cabinet) which list every minister so I don't think there is any need to create a new list.--Obi2canibe (talk) 14:29, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

@Obi2canibe: So, no list of one-time ministers whose ministries no longer exist? For instance, there was a ministry for libraries under Mahinda. I take it that, in your plan, his name will not appear anywhere on Wikipedia? - ක - (talk) 19:20, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

@Jesuschristonacamel: Your library minister should appear in Rajapaksa cabinet. And as a minister he should definitely have an article.

I'm sensing resistance to my suggestion. I was just responding to your comment. If you have a better suggestion please say so.--Obi2canibe (talk) 20:57, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Just a thought. Is there an option to create a separate 'List of former and minor ministries of Sri Lanka', that way the 'List of ministries of Sri Lanka' won't be as unwieldy, with the inclusion of all these obscure/minor ministries that have been created over time. Then for Ministries to keep them under their main portfolio (i.e. Finance, Health, Education, Agriculture, Housing etc.) with a redirect from those historic minor ministries or ministry names to the primary name/function, as opposed to creating a new article every time there is a name change. The primary articles could then note when previous name changes to the ministry occurred and what the current name is. Dan arndt (talk) 07:55, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Oh no, no resistance. Just curious. I'm all for this plan then. I think Dan's suggestion is a good addition too, but I don't know if the main article listing name changes would be useful. - ක - (talk) 04:32, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

You can create a list of minor ministries but I don't see what use they would be and they would be duplicating content from the cabinet articles anyway. It's just creating unnecessary work. Frankly, I would get rid of List of ministries of Sri Lanka completely, it serves no useful purpose.

For the ministries we have use the current official name, not a generic name, in order to comply with WP:NCGAL. So we need to use Ministry of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine, not Ministry of Health (Sri Lanka). We would have to re-name the ministries every time there is a name change but this shouldn't be problem if we have 10/20 ministry articles instead of 40/50.--Obi2canibe (talk) 23:12, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

But this just makes this entire discussion pointless- WP:NCGAL invalidates everything we've been just talking about. Renaming these articles are going to be an absolute pain. - ක - (talk) 18:01, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

If we can reduce the number of ministry articles to fewer than 20 the task of renaming articles isn't too onerous. In fact I have been keeping the most of the major ministries up to date. It's the minor ministries which are the problem.--Obi2canibe (talk) 22:43, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Hmmm.... So do we call it a day and say we've reached a consensus here? - ක - (talk) 18:39, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

OK, can you summarise the consensus - I can't see the woods for the trees!--Obi2canibe (talk) 22:56, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Ethnicity of Politicians?

All the articles made by Obi2canibe have include the ethnicity of politicians. It is not a field in the infobox of a politican! - LionCountry25 (talk) 16:06, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I think you’ll find that at the time that these articles were created there was a field for enthnicity however following a discussion it was agreed that this field was no longer applicable, so it is really just a legacy issue rather than an intentional inclusion/variation. As a result it is just a case of removing the field were they occur. Noting that they do not appear in any case as they are an excluded field. Dan arndt (talk) 14:16, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

So we are in agreement we can remove these 2 fields Obi2canibe and Dan arndt - LionCountry25 (talk) 07:39, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Obi2canibe and Dan arndt, I would appreciate it if you two can respond to this soon please - LionCountry25 (talk) 06:19, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't have an issue with the remove of the ethnicity field as I don't see it as being relevant. Dan arndt (talk) 07:43, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

@Dan arndt: On a related note, what is the policy or consensus- should one exist on our Project- on mentioning ethnicity in the lead? Obi2canibe's biographies, which are ostensibly on Tamil individuals (nothing wrong with that, that's his area of expertise), start with "XXXXX was a Sri Lankan Tamil", a practice that's not followed as a rule on Sinhala/Moor/other minorities' biographies. This was recently a point of contention between me and said user, which you will find here. This same user is now the subject of a discussion for needlessly categorizing articles based on ethnicity, here. He has so far not offered any explanation for this obsession with separating articles by ethnicity. I believe the community here (yes, all five active users!) need to decide what the upshot of this is going to be. - ක - (talk) 06:28, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

I’m not aware of any specific policy on the use of ethnicity in either infoboxes or articles. I personally do not feel there is a need to state an individual’s enthnicity unless it has a bearing on the individual’s notability. For example the issue of entnicity is relevant in respect to early Ceylonese politicians as ethnicity played an important role in voting on legislation etc. In articles such as economicists and engineers the issue of ethnicity has really no bearing on the individual’s notability and shouldn’t necessarily be included. I don’t believe that it should be included in the infobox, using the same approach that applies to religion where this has now been specifically excluded as a field. Dan arndt (talk) 05:04, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

This is something I have noticed quite a long time ago too. While I think ethnicity is important when you are in the field of politics, it shouldn't define nor should politicians be divided by what ethnicity they belong to. Ethnicity should definitely be recorded in the article but I do agree that politicians should not be introduced as a Sinhalese or Tamil politician, but rather a Sri Lankan politician. Ethnicity can be further elaborated in the lead if it is important to their policies, otherwise can be mentioned in their personal life section.--Blackknight12 (talk) 11:53, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

RfC on election/referendum naming format

An RfC on moving the year from the end to the start of article titles (e.g. South African general election, 2019 to 2019 South African general election) has been reopened for further comment, including on whether a bot could be used move the articles if it closed in favour of the change: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (government and legislation)#Proposed change to election/referendum naming format. Cheers, Number 57 15:40, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

On the origin of communities

There is a discussion here at the India Project noticeboard that is of relevance to this project. - Sitush (talk) 05:35, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

WP 1.0 Bot Beta

Hello! Your WikiProject has been selected to participate in the WP 1.0 Bot rewrite beta. This means that, starting in the next few days or weeks, your assessment tables will be updated using code in the new bot, codenamed Lucky. You can read more about this change on the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team page. Thanks! audiodude (talk) 06:47, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!

A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.

– Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Arjuna Ranatunga

Hi, the page Arjuna Ranatunga is a poorly written. Any can lend a hand for copy editing? THE NEW ImmortalWizard(chat) 18:58, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Asia/The 10,000 Challenge

Sri Lanka has no articles coming in for it! Please get involved!♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:51, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

• Dr. Blofeld I think you'll find that there has been a number of Sri Lankan articles included on the list. Hopefully some of the other active editors will include their contributions as well. Dan arndt (talk) 02:55, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

"letter-in-the-shoe" incident? Grassmere? F. R. Senanayake and R. G. Senanayake?

Please consider commenting at ongoing AFD, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Grassmere, Colombo. What was the "letter-in-the-shoe" incident? Is it somehow related to Sri Lankan independence? Are F. R. Senanayake and/or R. G. Senanayake important? --Doncram (talk) 15:43, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Disputed Images

There has been a recent dispute over which image best depicts the Galle Lighthouse, with an editor recently replacing the longstanding image with one that they have recently taken. The two images in question are as follows:

• 
• 

It would assist in the determining which is the more appropriate image for editors to indicate their preference so that the current dispute can be settled once and for all. Dan arndt (talk) 02:53, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

@Rehman:, @Obi2canibe:, @Abishe:, @AntanO:, @Blackknight12:, @ChanakaW:, @Gihan Jayaweera:, @LionCountry25:, @Muhandes:, @Sobreira:, @Roundtheworld:, @Prabhupuducherry:, @Cossde:, @Janakacombank:,

Discussion moved to Talk:Galle Lighthouse. Please comment there. Thank you. Rehman 04:42, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

RfC on how read situational reports

Please find the discussion on my talk page about how to record the number of coronavirus patients based on Epidemiology Unit of MoH reports. Your comments are valued.--Chanaka L (talk) 10:16, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

I also ask others to involve in this matter.--L Manju (talk) 16:23, 28 March 2020 (UTC)