Talk:India/Archive 34

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

What the page needs most in light of the recent RfC (continued)

(To KnowledgeHegemony), why is improving on what we already have a hindrance to adding new stuff? If somebody (or a few editors) start cleaning up the article for prose etc, why does everyone else have to stand back and lose creativity? Do you see how the WP:CONSENSUS interpretation and team work in this article has destroyed its wikiness on which it relied to reach the very FA status that the "core" editors are trying to protect? It is bordering on a group ownership. Consensus can be good thing only when applied wisely. There is a difference between being protective and being possesive. I am honestly concerned.Rueben lys 23:07, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

  • I do not like the Tagore image. I personally find it dull and showing the picture of the person is not that useful. Maybe an image that depicted his work would be better. However, who the hell cares what he looked like in context of the culture text. There are far better choices than Tagore image, including the Toda image. The RFC was never FOR the Tagore image and I personally did not vote for its inclusion when I voted against Toda image. --Blacksun 09:58, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

The Tagore image should be reverted back to the Toda since there was a debate on the image, and changing the image without a clear consensus is disruptive to civilized debate. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:04, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

No images on South India, Rotation etc.,.

I see absolutely zero images from South India. India is a diversified country and all regions should be summarily represented. While it will be difficult to ensure that all states get representative images, the least that can be assured is that bigger geographical regions get a representation. South India has on offer images like:


and many more. And no, not the Toda Image, which is hardly representative of anything, let alone South India. East India, which was also not represented, now has a good Rabindranath Tagore image. The fact that it is the sole representative of that region is a good enough reason for it to remain in the article.

Since this proposal of mine is bound to attract a no, no, no way by the Toda group, (since that's what they say for any changes to the article), I have a suggestion. Since this is going to be a perennial question which will crop up time and again, I think we should have a rotation policy for images in each section. We can select may be 7 good images in each section and then rotate them one by one per week, images which are good and those that reflect the diversity of India. If people are not open to this, I am proposing to replace the Ajanta image with a South Indian one for two reasons:

  1. The image is no where near any good quality or visually appealing, though it is a featured picture
  2. Two images for Maharashtra, (other one being the BSE) is too much of weight for just one state of India. Thanks -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 17:06, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes... like I'd already proposed above, I think rotation is the way to go. I am positive that it can be implemented by combining the rotation mechanism for featured pics being used on the India Portal and Saravask's mechanism. On the Portal:India page, I think there's just one subpage being used for the pic mechanism. Here, let us have a subpage for each section (Economy, History, Culture etc.,) and let us start by categorising all the good pics we have under those categories.
Categorising all the pics that have been featured until now on the India portal and other state portals will be a good place to start. I'm confident that the nitty-gritties can be worked out but people have to come around to accepting rotation 'in principle' atleast. Otherwise, we'll be having the same problems and same pointless debates in future also. There's almost four times as many states and union territories in India as there are sections in this article. Even if we expanded the article enough to fit two pics in every section, there's going to be discontent about some region/state or the other being under-represented.
Also, with rotation, there is going to be nothing sacrosanct or "icon(ic)" about any picture. The Mysore palace or the Brihadeeshwara temple(that 'South Indian Hindu temple') will be treated on par with the Taj(that 'North indian muslim cemetry'). A pic of Infosys or of Tidel park(from the Chennai article) will compete on equal terms with the BSE pic. And so on.. I hope further discussion will center around how we are going to implement the rotation scheme rather than whether to even adopt it or not. And if rotation isnt an option for the usual suspects, I too insist that the Ajanta pic should go for the reasons Amar cites. Sarvagnya 17:44, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to be rude, but the "rotation" idea strikes me as stupid. It almost sounds as if there were people who enjoy the endless image discussion this page specializes in. Imagine we can have them every month! --dab (𒁳) 17:58, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi dab, instead of commenting on an idea as "stupid", if you have a better idea to end the image issue once and for all, please bring it to the table. It all started with the continued insistence of few people on the Toda image and will surely spread to other images as well. Currently, rotation seems to be a "workable" solution, lets give it a try. If not for anything, I am sure that it will reduce the copious amount of bickering that currently goes on for images. Thanks -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 01:38, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
With all due respects, nothing could be more stupid than continuing to hold on dogmatically to something that clearly is not working.. atleast not without lot of people losing lot of sleep over it. There has to be a less stressful way of doing this and I dont see why we shouldnt give rotation a try. If it works, then we have a model for all of wikipedia to follow(if it suits their convenience ie.,). If it works, it will also mean that it will free up a lot of time of a lot of people here to actually work on improving other aspects of the article instead of bickering over images on the talk page. Even if it doesnt work as well as we'd like it to, it certainly cant end up worse than what it is now.
I originally opposed this idea when Sarvagnya first suggested it, but I'm beginning to see the wisdom behind it. Even if the toda image had been relevant and/or notable for the article, it still shouldn't have been a permanent fixture, forever eliminating more relevant and notable images — or images that showed more diverse aspects of Indian Culture. And imagine having this discussion only once a month! What joy! (though I think it wouldn't come to that). ॐ Priyanath talk 18:11, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
Rotation has been talked about before: F&f rotation1, F&f rotation2, F&f rotation3, F&f permanent fixture? As you can see, I too had once entertained such thoughts; however, I now feel, in an FA like India, the quality of the picture is very important. If the India pages had a surfeit of Featured Pictures or even near-Featured-Picture-quality pictures, rotation would be another thing. I still don't understand why there isn't more of a push to get India-related pictures featured. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:41, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
This "push" should come from within,Fowler. I have tried to get numerous india images featured. I also support deleting the Ajanta caves image because one can barely makeout anything andit doesnt show much. I think if we move the Taj image to the history section where the ajanta imageis not, wecan have more space for the culture section. It can be under thetitle: "The Taj Mahal was built under islamic rule in india" or something like that. The ajanta image is dull. Nikkul 20:42, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
There is some benefit in a "rotation" system but the biggest problem with it is that the image debate will never go away. Half of the discussions here would be forever about images. Perhaps we should try to feature pictures from regions not represented here at the moment, add those and leave it there. GizzaDiscuss © 22:32, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
The status quo is not working. These debates are causing us to neglect other issues (referencing, copy-editing). I am one of those who prefer the Toda, Apatani, and Ajantha images, but I also agree with Blacksun: it's time to move on.
Read Raul's fifth law. Others will come along and fight to replace whatever images we (ultimately) agree upon here. We need a smart solution to prevent such episodic and time-wasting deadlock.
We should offload all of this "which image belongs here" stuff to (Portal:India/Selected picture candidates. There, people can propose or argue for the promotion of whatever image(s) they want. We should use the Portal:India/Selected pictures image pool to stock the "article-wide rotations" proposed by Sarvagnya.
If we don't try something new, this will never end: more and more new people will come along, saying "but BIMARU, which has almost 400 million people, is not represented". They will argue against the Taj pic, against Ajantha (we're already beginning to see now). Meanwhile, traffic to this site continues to rise ... Saravask 00:08, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
I've pretty much echoed above what Saravask says here. I hope we can, without further ado, start exploring the means and logistics of putting this rotation thing in place. Sarvagnya 01:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes please, this is the way forward. And I dont see the need for "only featured pictures" to make it to the article, a good near-featured picture is good enough. -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 01:30, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes to rotation. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 01:44, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Note - I have created this page. Further comments are on the same page. Request everyone to take a look. And Saravask, do you think your mechanism can draw from a pool like this? Is it workable? Please weigh in. Sarvagnya 01:48, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I just left a note to Nikkul on his talk page here. I thought it would be good for people to take a look at the comment. Sarvagnya 02:47, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Section break

Hi, Sarvagnya. One possibility is that your subpage be made into a single template. It should accept one parameter: {{{subject}}}. "Subject" can be "culture", "history", or whatever. The template itself would match this parameter with internal lists of images along with their respective captions. Another idea is to have a bot auto-rotate hard-coded images directly—no template needed. This would cut down on page load times. Ganeshk is a professional programmer who speaks ParserFunctions better than I do. He also programs bots (see Ganeshbot); we can ping him about using Ganeshbot. Saravask 03:07, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
I kind of get the drift of what you're saying.. but not entirely comfortable with the technicalities myself. I've pinged Ganesh for help. In the meanwhile would you be able to put together the template mechanism in your sandbox? To me, the template sounds like the 'least resistance path' for now. A bot may take longer to code and we could probably adopt it in the long run. Let's see what Ganesh has to say. Sarvagnya 03:37, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes. We can test it in one section. Saravask 23:26, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
This bot would require dedicated hosting to run continuously and change the images on a timer. A bot running on the m:Toolserver may be an option. I currently do not have the expertise and the access required to set this up at the Toolserver. Please check with WP:BOTREQ, someone might volunteer to help. Regards, Ganeshk (talk) 01:11, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
The discussion whether rotation should be implemented on the India page, should be conducted on this page and not cloistered away somewhere else. If the decision is made to go with rotation, fine, the action could move elsewhere, but not until then. I am not as hopeful about this scheme as Saravask (even though a year ago I was advocating rotation myself as I indicated above). A number of issues need to be considered:
  1. Is rotation needed? Clearly at least two country FAs manage without it, as well as the on-line tertiary sources.
    1. Australia September 2006, Australia October 2007
    2. Bangladesh September 2006, Bangladesh October 2007
    3. Britannica Online and Encarta Online too manage without rotation.
  2. A conscientious editor on the India page, could treat the new rotation idea as a blessing in disguise, since it might get the argumentation and debate out of the way. But that editor then has two choices: (a) trust people whose past choices of images were demonstrated by what they supported here, or here or, (b) get in the fray themselves. Clearly (a) is not a good choice, because the images selected for the India page, could suffer in quality, and in their wake cause the very time-wasting deadlocks we are trying to avoid; however, (b) is not much better. It is really the current situation in disguise, the difference being that the conscientious editor is now spending time arguing on some other page, but arguing nonetheless, and not editing text.
That is the reason why I think image quality is very important; the Wikipedia Featured Picture process makes the image decision making more objective and less prone to personal or group biases. As I mentioned earlier, I still don't see why so little effort has been made to get India-related pictures featured. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:29, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Images that arent featured pictures are not inferior to other images. And an images quality is not defined by whether or not it is a featured picture. Certain photos can have 900*900 resolution and can be featured picture quality, but will never attain that status. Relevancy is more important. We've already had this discussion before. Nikkul 05:30, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Rotation is needed because the featured countries mentioned above are not even remotely as diverse as India is; with respect to language, culture, arts and variety. A featured picture is a featured picture because of various reasons and not because of its association with any country. Insistence of featured picture is not a requirement for an article to qualify/remain as an FA and the two articles that have been pointed out (Australia and Bangladesh) contain very few featured pictures. And its high time that Fowler stops his "holier than thou" attitude ridiculing other editors for nominating pictures (by the way, he himself says that there is no effort being made for featuring India related images and taunts editors who have made the effort. What does he want finally?). Also, may I point out that his nomination for getting a picture featured was not a smooth-sailing effort either and invited considerable opposition as well. -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 06:14, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
>>> Quoted by: "Also, may I point out that his nomination for getting a picture featured was not a smooth-sailing effort either and invited considerable opposition as well."
The proper link is this because it shows that the true status of the nomination. I was going to include that example, but didn't in the end because I thought it would be gloating on my part. Do you know what the picture is? It is a historic picture of the Taj Mahal taken by photographer Samuel Bourne in 1869. It hasn't been turned down; the decision awaits receipt of the high-res version from the British Library. If the image wasn't great, the Wikipedia FP people wouldn't still be waiting (four months later) on the nomination, they would have summarily dismissed the picture like they did the other two I mentioned above. I submitted the best resolution public domain scan of the image that was available at that time, knowing fully well that the resolution was low. (Please see Indian star's comments as well.) Mick Stephenson, a profession photographer, and a regular on WP:FP discussions, had this to say:
“ "At first I thought the worst of it was the fogged upper half of the original print, but the scan is just too small to properly appreciate the image in almost any respect. You get an idea of the exquisite detail of the original print ... where the "zoom" facility lets you see a small portion at a time of what appears to be the print at 100%. Stunning. The below-par submission here should not be promoted without a proper attempt to acquire a better scan ... I'd be happy to attempt to contact the source and get hold of it, assuming no-one has recently done so of course." ”
Mick then himself contacted the British Library and is in extended negotiations with them, not just for the Bourne image, but other BL images as well. And guess who opposed the nomination with these comments, "Oppose' - cant see anything special in this photograph except that its claimed to be very old. And the 'historic' pitch is moot because this photo doesnt show anything about the Taj that we cant see today."? The fact that these same people, and now you, are aspiring to be the arbiters of the next generation of images that go on the India page, doesn't give me much confidence. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:52, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Shall I make it more clear. There were issues and oppositions in the images that others wanted to be featured and there were issues and oppositions to the image that you wanted to be featured (not just one single opposition that you have biasedly mentioned above, but others as well). But that does not give you any right to ridicule or taunt or say that the other nominations were useless where as yours was better. By the way, I dont need a confidence vote from you. Thanks -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 09:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

No images from (Region X) is not really a good argument. Are there any images from, say, West Bengal or Assam or any of the seven sister states? What about Punjab? When you start demanding pictures from South India, each state can ask for a photo of its own in this page. And pretty soon, we have a huge photo gallery of all states of India .... that, by any measure, won't be a pretty sight. --Ragib 06:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes.. we are in fact, contemplating representing all states equally (and not just regions) and that precisely is why we need rotation. Once we have a bot(hopefully) taking care of it.. it will simply run through a pool of pictures and choose the next one in the list. If there is a shortage of pics for any state, it will simply move on to find the next pic/state. In the unlikely case of there being no pics at all from a particular state, there's very little or nothing we can do. Its unfortunate and we'll have to live with it. Sarvagnya 06:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Ragib, if not me, some one in future, will raise the same question again, leading to same old arguments. We want to close this issue once and for all by implementing a rotation policy. Thanks -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 06:42, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, in that case I'd have to say the rotation idea is very dumb. India has, at last count, 28 states, and 7 union territories. Are you suggesting a rotation of 35 images by a bot? Such instability would certainly be a basis for edit war and lead to WP:FARC. --Ragib 06:53, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Ragib, why do you feel that it will lead to edit wars? And why do you think it will be moved to WP:FARC? I have exactly the opposite opinion that if we do not summarily represent images of India, questions will get asked again and again which may lead to edit wars and WP:FARC. If any state (or region) feels misrepresented, all it needs to do is to find out a good picture and then add it to the bot. If you think that the rotation idea is dumb, do you have a better idea to address this, since whatever has been discussed till now (Toda et al...) has not lead to any solution. By the way, we already have a precedence of rotation in Portal:India and various other portals, which is working fine, so this suggestion is definitely workable. Thanks -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 07:03, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I don't have to have a better idea to call a spade a spade. In a top level country page written in summary style, you can't possibly discuss all 28 states and 7 union territories. Per WP:FACR, a featured article "has images and other media where they are appropriate to the subject". Now, are you going to discuss something about all 35 subdivisions in *this* article? Then how on earth would you make an image relevant? Such images are fine in the individual state pages, but trying to force-feed images from all 35 entities into the top level country page is indeed a very dumb idea in my opinion. Also, this article is NOT a portal page. The distinction between a portal and a top level country article is very clear. Thanks. --Ragib 07:19, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Ragib, you are entitled to call a spade anything you want. Since you had called the spade, a "dumb spade", I wanted to know if you have any suggestions on how do you think your "dumb spade" can become a "good spade". It is fair enough that you do not have any ideas at this moment. For people who have spent KBs and hours of time on this talk page, is it so difficult to identify a set of relevant images that are representative of India's diversity. And just to make everyone understand the reason of why I am pushing for rotation: lets take a hypothetical example, where you have good images of Qutab Minar, Taj Mahal, Hampi, Mahabalipuram, Konark, Char Minar, Gol Gumbaz etc., and for the sake of the larger audience, lets assume (though it is not exactly required) that all are featured pictures. The article definitely cannot accommodate all those images. So, how would you select the correct set of images to display. The obvious answer would be to discuss it in the talk page, which is exactly what is happening but not leading to any solution and pages have been spent discussing this again and again. No rocket science is needed to understand that portals and articles are different, but there is nothing to stop a working idea being used in portals, to be used in articles as well. Thanks -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 08:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Ragib, I may have been a little too quick to react to your message, but I've been thinking about it for some time. I think I'll sleep over it and I'll share my thoughts in detail in a day or two. Rotation however, seems inevitable to me. Consider this for example - the Mysore Palace is a site of immense historical and cultural significance(about which I've written in detail on one of these talk pages in the past) and whats more, it is India's number one tourist attraction. The number of visitors visiting the palace exceeded that of Taj in 2006. Now tell me, what is so special about the ajanta painting that it should find a place ahead of the Mysore palace? There surely are other deserving pics like this from other states also. A picture of the Sun temple, Konark is another historically very important picture that comes to mind. Obviously lot of people here think that it is not fair for taj and bse and ajanta to squat on the page till the end of time.

Logistically though, what perhaps needs to be pondered over is the size of our 'pool'. Right now, I'm leaning towards picking just one section to implement this with a pool of photographs picked conservatively from available ones. We could perhaps decide on a minimum resolution, size etc., for pics to even make it to the 'pool'. As for pics of some states you mentioned, especially the NE states, I really dont know how else it can be remedied without somebody actually uploading them on wiki. It is a case of systemic bias, yes, but sadly, not one we can do anything about. I mean.. if there are no pics, there are no pics. Right? Sarvagnya 09:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Some comments about choosing pictures — I think everyone wants to make sure that only high quality images deserving to be on the India page should be part of the rotation. A few sentences at Talk:India/Rotation would help narrow the pool before people even try and place low quality or non-relevant images. Here are a couple of starting points: "Images must be relevant....and be of sufficient notability" to the India article (per WP:IMAGE); images, in thumbnail size, should clearly show a distinct aspect of India that is relevant to the article; images should be of high quality, and of relatively high resolution for those who want to see more.
To clarify the last two points — I'm willing to guess that 90-99% of people scrolling through a large article do not ever click on a particular image. For that reason, the thumbnail alone should clearly make the point. I can imagine even some featured images might not show well in thumbnail size, but I don't have any examples. Conversely, since the vast majority of people don't click-through to see the high rez version of an image, I don't think it's important that images be Featured images. But it is important that they be high quality, and high rez enough that a larger size is available for those few who do click-through. ॐ Priyanath talk 19:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Why rotation doesn't make sense

All the people who are complaining about unfairness, need to ask a basic question: "Whom is this article written for?" Is it written for people, like the disputants, who already know a lot about India, who consider the page "representation space," and who are jostling to fill that space with what they consider are fair representatives? Or is it written for newcomers who don't know much about India and are looking for, in the Wikipedia India article, a short and sweet introduction to India, that will then allow them to probe deeper in the manner they want to? If the answer is the former, then, really, a new India page needs to be created, we could call it India (comprehensive), and let the disputants work out their ideal representation of both image and text, be it through through rotation or expansion. If, however, the choice is the latter, then one has to consider this. If after reading the article an average reader decides they are interested and want to probe further, the lack of representative images will be a moot point, because in the more detailed daughter articles they will find many more images; if, however, they decide not to probe further, then the images, representative or not, will not have made much of a difference, as they likely will have been forgotten. In any case, how will rotation help; on any given day, what will be presented on the India page will be a limited choice of images. Are we then expecting this average reader to come back day after day, or month after month for their complete edification? Will the Tuesday reader, who missed the Taj, then have to come back on Thursday to view it? And speaking of rotation, why stop with images, why not rotate text as well. It would certainly be more representative. Everyone's new sections could be accommodated that way. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:21, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Fowler, just so that I understand clearly. Are you trying to say that at the end of the day it does not matter what images the article contains? -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 11:35, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
No, I'm not saying that. Just that the summary style, in some sense is a summary style of both text and images. What you see in the article is a compact description of text and images, with a clear understanding that complexity is achieved by clicking on the links. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:43, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Of course, I am not suggesting that the same images remain in perpetuity. I think a once a year image discussion and change, in conjunction with a remainder-of-the-year drive to get India related images featured, should be ample. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Fowler, look at the Cornell homepage. If a staid and chaste Ivy League university can use a rotating tableau (updated upon reload) to represent its diversity, then why not try it here? It's a engaging feature; I often sit there and continually reload the site just to see what image it will show next, or whether they've added any new images to the rotation. Does this detract from Cornell's dignity or hinder visitors in any way? No.
Wikipedia's culture is that of openness and experimentation ("let's give it a go"), not excessive fear ("oh, but 'X', 'Y', and 'Z' might go wrong, so let's not try anything"). Experimentation is how an FA gets built: we try new things. If something goes wrong, then we sit down, figure out what it is, and fix it. If we find there's no way to fix it, we say "okay, this isn't working" and chuck it. Saravask 17:05, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
But there's the difference. Cornell is not doing it because they are claiming that this is more representative. They are doing it because it is an engaging graphics device and more importantly because they have professional photographers who take these images. (My own institution has a similar web page (at least some of the time) and a graphics department devoted to producing these images, where in one 15-minute appointment the photographer will take up to thirty or more pictures and then maybe pick one, if they think it is worthwhile.) However, an image like the Mysore Palace, will never make it to the Cornell rotation list. If we had even five featured or even near-feature quality images like Sakyamuni Siddhartha Gautama, I would be all for rotation, as I have said above, and as I said before many times beginning in Nov 2006. Furthermore, the FPC process will make the India-page contributors more illustrations-savvy. I am still mystified why among all the people who object to the current crop images there hasn't been much of a drive to get other pictures featured. I just nominated on the FP peer review the shikara image of User:Doniv79, and might also submit the Golden Langur image once I have examined it more carefully. And I plan to write to him too asking for more, since he has some images of other regions like the Rann of Kutch. If I can do this, why can't the others? We have two other Featured Pictures: a Nishi tribal (I can't decide if it is a FP, but it sure is near-FP) wearing a hat made with the beak of the Great Indian Hornbill, and the Red Panda image. If people want to use those for rotation, I don't have any problems. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:40, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
If you detest the Mysore image, you are free to argue for its demotion. Others will disagree; the point is that all of that discussion will occur on the WP:PINSPC demotion page, freeing up this talk page for more urgent matters. Saravask 20:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
But that is my point: I don't want to discuss that picture either on the Talk:India page or on some other page. How will moving the discussion elsewhere help? I will be distracted away anyway from my primary task of adding to or copyediting the text. It's best to let the FPC process take care of it, and their judgment on the Mysore Palace image was pretty definitive. I repeat what I've said above: the discussion whether rotation should be implemented on the India page, should be conducted on this page and not cloistered away somewhere else. If the decision is made to go with rotation, fine, the action would move elsewhere, but not until then. For the record, I have cast my vote against rotation, unless the decision on which images to include (or not to include) is made during the FPC process and not on WP:PINSPC. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:04, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
For those (and I certainly don't include you in that list Saravask), who thought I was unreasonably attached to the Toda image, I'd like to say, they got it completely wrong. I am attached to a representation, especially in the text, of (the culture, the economy, and the health of) rural, tribal, and "low-caste" India (which, as DaGizza has so eloquently expressed above, is more than 70% of India). I don't have any problems, for example, with the Nishi image, which I only discovered this morning, replacing the Toda image, or for that matter, some other FP or near-FP quality image replacing the Toda image. In other words, I don't want a mandatory rural/tribal/low-caste image there no matter its quality; were there were only five FPs or near FPs and none of them were about rural or tribal India, I wouldn't have any problems choosing them instead. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Fowler, this is yet another rehash of the same ire-inspiring scheme: more episodic 300-kilobyte moshes over fixed images. How long will it be before the Guelphs and Ghibellines go at each other again? We've had this problem for years; it's time to try something else. Saravask 20:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Whose ire? Wikipedia is not about people who follow Talk page discussion and apparently get irritated. It is about adding to the Pages themselves. The last time, we had a Toda hut discussion was in June; between that time and mid-September, none of the people who are now so worked up about the fixed images, saw fit to add even a sentence to the India page. The last discussion with Rueben lys about the Indian independence movement, although long drawn out, produced User:Fowler&fowler/Short History Indian Independence Movement—for which I had to read or re-read over two dozen books (in their hard copies) to make sure I was being objective—whose finished lead will go into the History of India page and through it into the India page. Most of these image discussants were not a part of that discussion. What did they produce for the India page then? Even during this past RfC, I managed to completely rewrite India#Geography, and with user:KnowledgeHegemony kept working on changing the references to the Harvard format. I too have other real-life commitments. What did my interlocutors do during that time? Since last March the page has not been locked up once. And I have not reverted anyone (other than Rueben lys), unless it was vandalism or gross POV, until I made a few Toda-Tagore reverts. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:29, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Good for you. Saravask 23:20, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
Congrats. Thank you for your dedication. I think we're all volunteering our time here. Nikkul 07:49, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Whoever posted the image of the tribal dress - too bad it shows more of her face and hardly any dress. Try again.--Blacksun 10:04, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
It was Nikkul. I have removed it. Nikkul, please add your image to Saravask-Sarvagnya's rotation link or in a new section about tribal "dress," not here. This is a discussion about the pros and cons of rotation, not about its prospective constituents. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:00, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Why doesn't anything make sense in this article

This article is all that Wiki should not be.

  • This article is being owned, possessed, protected, squatted by a "core group" of editors who do not want to involve any one else into making improvements to this article. They are willing to change their loyalties in the manner of "I also supported this idea few days, months, years back, but I do not think it is a good idea now", just to be disruptive and ensure constant opposition to change
  • You need to beg, salute, plead these editors for any changes you want to make.
  • The attitude of these set of editors is demotivating and alienates many editors who may have genuinely good suggestions and comments on improving the article. It is a pity that admins take no note of constant personal taunts and put-downs that some editors here are involved in.
  • Most of what is talked is gibberish and nonsensical and a plain effort towards disruption
  • People want to spend GBs on discussion on whether a sentence needs to be added to the article - such a waste of time and energy.
  • Childish Wikitalk on you better agree to me, else I will be pushing everything to Rfc, ANI or ArbCom gives a feeling of what the heck...

Good bye guys, I have better things to do on Wikipedia article mainspaces than to get involved myself in this nonsense. The constant opposition is simply not worth the effort. Hopefully (that is a big hope), when things are better in future, may be I would be willing to contribute to this article. Till then, enjoy your fights and bickerings over few bits of data. Believe me, I will be shocked if my rotation idea sees the light of the day. Anyways, I am not bothered, fortunately Wikipedia gives me other good avenues for satisfaction. -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 05:26, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I know I'm an American citizen living far far away from India (Los Angeles) but I think I know what Indian Bureaucracy feels like after spending time on this page. lol Nikkul 07:04, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
I do have to agree. Comments such as this: "As I have said repeatedly earlier, there are lots of India-related pages that need help, and yet, you still keep insisting on working on a page that is a long-standing featured article and doesn't need help; why don't you help with the pages that need help?" [1] are not encouraging. There was also mention that we should stop editing the article since it has already gotten featured(its in the archives somewhere, i couldnt find it but its there). I do think that a couple of editors feel they own the page. I think certain admins are themselves involved in sarcastic taunts. If you'd like I can def find proof. I think the few editors who feel they own the page dont want to see change. And I think they value certain things like featured image status[2] over relevance. I def see alliances [3]. I dont see how anything will get done if we just point to the archives. Nikkul 07:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for quoting me. :) =Nichalp «Talk»= 16:55, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Tagore image does not make sense

I posted above too, but since this page has a habit of getting GB of new text per day I am posting it here too: I do not like the Tagore image. I personally find it dull and showing the picture of the person has ZERO utility. Maybe a good image that depicted a famous work by him, but who the hell cares what he looked like in context of the culture text? There are far better choices than Tagore image, including the Toda image. The RFC was never FOR the Tagore image and I personally did not vote for its inclusion when I voted against Toda image. --Blacksun 09:58, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. How about replacing Tagore with Sakyamuni Siddhartha Gautama, which is a near-feature picture quality image? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:23, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, the Tagore image does not gel well with the rest of the page. It seems abrupt and out of place. --Keynes.john.maynard 14:44, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
The Tagore image emphatically meets WP:IMAGE#Image choice and placement: "Images must be relevant to the article they appear in and be of sufficient notability (relative to the article's topic)" and the placing of images "near relevant text". The Buddha image doesn't come close, in a section where Buddhist iconography, sculpture, or worship isn't even hinted at. And there is nothing at WP:IMAGE that recommends featured or near-featured images at all, much less over relevant and notable images placed near relevant text. ॐ Priyanath talk 23:57, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Out of place? Atleast Tagore is mentioned! The todas are not mentioned at all. Nikkul 23:53, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Yakshagana

The sentence on classical dance forms in the Culture section of the India page was changed sometime last November to include Yakshagana:

“ Many classical dance forms exist, including bharatanatyam, kathakali, kathak, kuchipudi, manipuri, odissi and yakshagana ”

Reliable sources, however, consider Yakshagana to be Folk Theatre and not Classical Dance. According to the signed Encyclopaedia Britannica article, Sivaramamurti, Calambur, J. A. B. van Buitenen, Edward C. Dimock, C.M. Naim, A.K. Ramanujan, Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy, Balwant Gargi, Pramod Chandra. "South Asian arts: Techniques and Types of Classical Dance" From: Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 12 Oct. 2007, "Four distinct schools of classical Indian dance—bharata-natya, kathakali, kathak, and manipuri—exist in the 20th century ... In 1958 the Sangeet Natak Akademi (National Academy of Music, Dance and Drama) in New Delhi bestowed classical status on two other schools of dance—kuchipudi, from Andhra Pradesh, and orissi, from Orissa." Yakshagana is not in that list. The Britannica article was written in 1979 (so it is dated) in terms of what might be the classical dance forms in 2007, as designated by the Sangeet Natak Academy; however, in the section "South Asian arts: Folk Theatre" it does say:

“ After the decline of Sanskrit drama, folk theatre developed in various regional languages from the 14th through the 19th centuries ... The most crystalized forms are the jatra of Bengal, the nautanki, ramlila, and raslila of North India, the bhavai of Gujarat, the tamasha of Maharashtra, the terukkuttu of Tamil Nadu, and the yaksagana of Kanara. ”

The Sangeet Natak Academi website itself says, (see here):

“ More than 25 important forms of traditional and folk theatre from different States will be featured together with traditional forms of the respective States of the North-East. These will include such well-known traditions as Tamasha of Maharashtra, Bhavai of Gujarat, Yakshagana of Karnataka, Therukoothu of Tamil Nadu, Nautanki of Uttar Pradesh, Prahlad Natak of Orissa ”

Lastly, the Sangeet Natak Academi website lists eight classical dance forms: Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kathakali, Kuchipudi, Manipuri, Mohiniattam, Odissi, and Sattriya, one folk dance form, Chau, and Creative Dance/Choreography as the areas it makes its major national awards in (see here). Since both Britannica and the Official SNA consider Yakshagana Folk Theatre and not Classical Dance, I am removing it from the list of classical dances in the Culture section. If and when there is a section or paragraph devoted to the "Folk and Tribal Culture of India," we can reconsider its inclusion. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Yakshagana is a classical folk art form and it includes dance among other things such as music, spoken word etc. Thanks, - KNM Talk 16:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I understand that. But the reliable sources, consider it Tradition and Folk Theatre and not Classical Dance. Tradition and folk theatre includes dance and music, and many others like Jathra, Prahalad Natak, Therukoothu are just as old. (See yakshagana.com and click on "introduction." and read quote: "Being a theatre form, unlike a dance form, it is more plural(istic) and dynamic.") Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:29, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Easy solution would be to add text about tradition and folk theater. It is definitely culture worthy. --Blacksun 23:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

New Additions

Reading the discussion above, there seems to be a general consensus for some new sections or sub-sections (whether formal or not). The topics that I am aware of are:

  • Religion in India (originally suggested by Priyanath, however, it seems to be losing momentum)
  • Science and Technology in India suggested by Rueben lys
  • Rural Urban Divide (or something to that effect, suggested by DaGizza)
  • Folk and Tribal Culture (suggested by Priyanath, seconded by DaGizza and Fowler&fowler)
  • Sports in India (suggested by KnowledgeHegemony(?))
  • Others?

Please list any others you are interested in. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:15, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

For the record, I never suggested a religion section - in fact I think it's unnecessary. What I did suggest was that Religion needs to be more prominently mentioned in the culture section. Religion has an effect on Culture that warrants a subsection (at least as much as a Folk and Tribal Culture subsection, based on relevance). Here is what I said: "There actually does need to be some discussion of the influence of all religions in India on Culture, not just in passing as it's done now. And it should be more than in increase of 5% because of the relevance of religion on Indian Culture. I've had the sense this issue is being avoided due to past disputes along these lines, but it does need to be addressed in this article, IMO." ॐ Priyanath talk 19:26, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry I have to do the dirty job, but user:Otolemur crassicaudatus has just created a number of subsections including religion (in demographics) that are still in the process of being finalized on this talk page. I left a message on his talk page, but since he didn't respond and kept editing the India page, I ultimately had to revert. His edits for the most part have no edit summaries. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:57, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
It would be better to add subsections 'Income, human development and social class' and 'Science, technology, and transportation' within section 'Economy' and subsection 'Language', 'Religion' and 'Education and health' within section 'Demographics'. Otolemur crassicaudatus 19:03, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
I do understand that's is your point of view, but it might not be DaGizza's or Blacksun's or Rueben lys's. We are trying to arrive at a common consensus on what to add. I would urge you to revert until other peoples' points of view have been accommodated. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:08, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Here is what I propose:

  • Culture section
  1. Religion in India
  2. Folk culture in India
  • Science and Technology
  • Transport
  • Sports

Nikkul 19:18, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Religion should not be included within 'Culture' section, because religion is a topic of 'Demographics'. Science and Technology, Transport is a topic within 'Economy'. Sports can be included within 'Culture' section. Otolemur crassicaudatus 19:24, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Nikkul, that there should be a 'Religion' subsection of Culture, along with a 'Folk and Tribal' subsection. See my comments just above. ॐ Priyanath talk 19:28, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
It is standard practice to mention religion in demographics. This does not mean that cultural aspect of religion like festivals etc. cannot be mentioned in culture. --Blacksun 22:46, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Boldeness Boldness desired

I would encourage all editors, including the likes of Otlemur, to be be bold and contribute to the main article as they seem themselves capable and fit. If and when such edits are inherently undesirable, they will nominate themselve for dispute and deletions. Till then, such edits, or the lack of them, is what is or will prevent the article from being improved.Rueben lys 21:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Look, Rueben, to use your own writing above as an example, when an editor is looking at a sentence like your first sentence, I agree it is easy to fix it. Replace "seem" by "deem" or "consider" and change a few other things. If the writing is like your second sentence, one can't fix it, but one could leave a tag requesting explanation of "inherently undesirable." However, when the writing is like your third sentence, which is both poorly written and difficult to interpret, what is a neutral editor to do? Remember that deletions too are a form of boldness. Speaking more generally, why can poorly written and poorly argued sentences be allowed to be inserted with unchecked abandon in the name of boldness, but not be allowed to be deleted with equal abandon—by the editors who look on in horror—also in the name of boldness? Why should the onlookers then have to polish the rungs of a ladder that clearly will not support the weight? Why should the onlooking editors then have to run a New Age writing school, give everyone "an A for effort and allow the endless additions to stand?" (as Saravask had once once so aptly put it).
Why can't the bold editors, for their part, take a writing class or work through a writing book and learn to express themselves clearly first? Why can't the bold editors take a Indian history or economics course, read some scholarly books, and learn what historical or economic methodology is about, rather than continuing to copy snippets of text from Google Books and paraphrasing them for their half digested arguments? Well, the inability to truly answer these questions (not parrot the Wikipedia dogma that anyone can edit) is what leads to edit wars. That's what happened yesterday. Blacksun saw the article degenerate from a tight decently written article to a junior high-school blog on MySpace in a few surreal hours. Clearly, he had to do something. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Because, Fowler, reading a scholarly book was never a prerequisite for editing a wikipedia article, verfiabillity was. As for the quality, grammar, and c/e mistakes, I think what you've just said is probably the biggest example anybody could give about what is wrong with this article and what's stopping this article from improving. I've said before, if an editor feels strongly about something as simple as this, improve it, but it is the flimsiest ground for deletion and I think also disrespectful of the editor who had made it/Rueben lys 10:50, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
I propose we create a Talk:India/Sandbox for those wanting to make changes to the article. Their content might be beneficial, but if there are plenty of spelling and grammatical errors, we can weed those out before the additions go onto the actual page. GizzaDiscuss © 10:41, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
That, actually, is a very good idea. Why didn't anyone think of that before? I mean not a sandbox for whole article, but just a space where people can leave their potential additions and indicate where they want them to go. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:50, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
PS Your suggestion is quite similar to the consensus that was reached in the RfC I conducted in February this year, but it has the benefit that it moves the text-editing problem to another page, thereby freeing the Talk:India for more important discussions. Although this is formally similar to the Saravask-Sarvagnya idea of a separate page for image discussions (which I oppose), it is really different. For images, we already have a sifting process, the FPC review; however, for the frequent inclusion of few sentences or even paragraphs, we don't, it has to be done ourselves, until a possible yearly peer-review. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:04, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
To Rueben, no matter how good one's intentions are, if the additions are almost incomprehensible, there is very little value in adding them. And I don't mean insult you or anyone else with that remark. It is simply the truth. If 99 out 100 people read a particular sentence and don't properly undetstand it, what is its use? It might as well not be there until it can be expressed clearly.
If you disagree with me, fair enough. However, I encourage you to at least make use of the Show preview button before you clik Save page in edit mode. That way you can at least fix the obvious errors in your changes. GizzaDiscuss © 11:07, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
To: DaGizza, One thing we can do is to go ahead and create the sandbox and also start a group of users (a collective of sorts) who volunteer to participate in it. Membership would be voluntary. Rueben or Sarvagnya would not have to join the group. But at least for the sandbox users, there will be discussion and help and improvement available, because the text will be presented in manageable bits and the spirit will be one of cooperation. And, who knows, it might have a beneficial effect when others see the quality of the sandbox-initiated edits. In a sense we are supplementing the WP dogma about "being bold" (which I agree has its place and time) with WP:COOPERATE. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:43, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I think having a voluntary membership will start to create a more egalitarian atmosphere. Nobody can accuse anyone else of WP:OWNership anymore. GizzaDiscuss © 12:19, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Simply Ridiculous

Rueben states: "(Undid revision by User:Blacksun. Per wiki, WP:VERIFY, and WP:OWN, WP:BOLD (per talk page banner) these were justified and desirable edits)"

Let us take few examples of Rueben's justified and desirable edits:
1) Science and technology in India forms a major commitemnet for both the Govt and Private sector in India.
Even if we ignore the obvious typo, what the hell is that sentence supposed to mean? How is that even remotely a quality sentence?

It is supposed to mean that both the government and private sector have made the improvement of sceince and technology infrastructure as a major goal. I think it is pretty self-evident!
Rueben lys 11:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
In that case, the word forms should be changed to is or has become. The setence you wrote above explains it better than the current sentence. GizzaDiscuss © 11:18, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

2) India posseses one of the world's largest scientific and technological infrastructure and manpower, which in [[2006] was worth Rs 30 billion, up from the Rs 10 million in [[1947].
I repeat, what the hell?? Again even if we ignore the typos and shoddy sentence structure, the claim is simply false.

The claim is made by the High commission of India in London, which claims it is the third largest in the world, and gives those exact figures. So you're alleging that the India government is lying, or dont know anything about this but still making a fuss.
Rueben lys 11:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I actually do claim that the High commissioner is not a credible source then. If we did have one of the largest scientific infrastructure and manpower, we would not be so far behind in the matter where it counts: patents, peer reviewed journal publications, and number of PHDs. Just because the High Commission of India in London says something does not make it true. I am sure one can come up with irrelevant statistic but the fact is that we are fairly behind in current science if you consider the most widely used metrics: Publication and citations of those publications. Ignoring this is nothing short of dubious. If you do not believe me just open the recent Nature journal article where they are talking about state of Russian science. In it they have a nice list of countries and metrics associated with their status in Science. We were not doing that great. --Blacksun 01:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I think the shoddy sentence structure refers to argest scientific and technological infrastructure and manpower. I don't believe you can have a "large infrastructure" and "large manpower" but rather a "lot of manpower" and "highly developed infrastructure." Also why the comparisons from 1947 (Just curious, we could use 1997 data for example) GizzaDiscuss © 11:18, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
The sentence says "one of the largest", which probaby could be changed to "amongst the largest". Or incorporate your text instead.Incidentally, the comparisn is to 1947 figures because that was the only figure found on the HCI website to be compared to.Rueben lys 11:27, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

3) India also has major ongoing collaborations with a number of countries, including those on space science with Europe, and on Biotechnology and allied fields with Asian countries, inclusing South Korea.

Again, sourced from the [dst.gov.in Dept of Science and Technology] of the government of India.Rueben lys 11:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

4) Multitude of two line sections which would never pass a FA review.

So ya I disagree with the so-called justified and desirable edits. It has been a while since I encountered such utter disregard for the article to push one's agenda.--Blacksun 00:53, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, a number of the references provided Otelmur ae from [fas.org], which can now also be used to expand the S&T aticle as well. Do you see how this is an improvement?Rueben lys 11:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

While nobody is going to claim that the passage was FA quality or even anywhere near FA-quality, I certainly see 'potential' in it. The additions certainly dont qualify as nonsense and I would certainly give passages like that atleast a few days to a couple of weeks before I nuke them. This is the kind of 'revert on sight' that has put off people from contributing to this article for over a year now. This article has remained immutable for far too long and its time we got a little WP:bold and see how it goes. There is always a stable version we can rollback to if we lose our way. Sarvagnya 01:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
This has been discussed before - I am sure Fowler can dig it up. Some of the most respected editors and biggest names on Wikipedia were of the opinion that massive changes like this to a stable FA article like India should be talked on the discussion page first. In fact, I think I was one of the few who was not too happy with it. The changes made are nothing short of drastic and POOR QUALITY (saying its not near-FA quality is being generous). It is not reverse on sight - I never reverse things unless it is completely out of place. --Blacksun 01:29, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Having a science and technology section was proposed on this very page a few days ago and didnt meet with any extraordinary opposition. So there certainly is reason to think that people are not opposed to the idea, atleast 'in principle'. And there are always going to be some 'to set the ball rolling' edits which will be less than perfect. That is no reason to revert them or we'll never set the ball rolling. If everyone here could just take a deep breath and hold tight for a couple of weeks to a month, there will be 'material' changes in the article for the better. A short-term state of flux and temporary bloat in the article is inevitable if we have to expand/improve the article. Its time we came up with a 'new and improved' Wikipedia India article 2.0 And with all due respect to the likes of Nichalp, while there are good edits and bad edits, but there are no "biggest names" in wikipedia, atleast not in this context. Also, the "no edits without discussion" line has been refuted several times already. Short of changing wikipedia's very fundamentals, such arbitrary moratoria on adding info to the article dont fly. Sarvagnya 01:48, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
There is no reason that a reader should suffer through bad quality for "a week or month" when the same process can be done without that happening. There is a very good reason why we have tools like sandbox. Also, when you state "While nobody is going to claim that the passage was FA quality or even anywhere near FA-quality" - I beg to differ - Rueben finds them desirable and justified as per his edit summary. Why should I have any faith in either of you? - If you were looking for a unified way towards working on expanding the article, you just lost one supporter. And no, I did not mean Nichalp when I said "biggest names" in wikipedia. --Blacksun 01:55, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
And there is no reason why an article shouldnt be used as a sandbox once in a while(like once in two years or something). There is a very good reason we have {{underconstruction |section}} tags meant for article space on wiki. Feel free to use them. A sandbox is very useful when creating articles from scratch. I use it all the time. But in some cases, where there are more people standing by and willing(hopefully) to contribute, there is no reason to invoke wiki-red tape and not 'build' it where constructive criticism will be forthcoming real time. Also, given the history of ownership on this article, no editor is going to spend weeks in his sandbox, do his very best, bring it over here for display only for his contributions to be summarily dismissed. Edits with potential are meant to be fixed, not reverted; atleast not without giving them a fair chance. Sarvagnya 02:12, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
It is very hard to give constructive criticism when edits have been made to almost every section of a stable FA article. It becomes even that much harder when the edits have typos and unverifiable claims. On top of all that when you defend such edits as desirable and justfied you end up with even less room for cooperation.--Blacksun 02:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Blacksun. The changes being made are ridiculous, unsourced, and shabby. I only reverted only once because it seemed that Otolemur wouldn't take no for an answer. I am glad Blacksun reverted his edits in toto. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:41, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Otelmur shouldn't have to take no for an answer. His edits had a good reference, the main article had afew reference, quite simple to read through and add to this one. I am terribly concerned now in light of Fowler's earier comment above about having to read a book or have a scholarly degree in something before being allowed to write. Wikipedia is a wiki, it is not a conference of Neurosurgeons nor the journal Nature that only Albert Einstein and his student should be allowed to "publish".Rueben lys 11:14, 13 October 2007 (UTC)


Wow India page is now a SANDBOX. Go ahead, clutter it and then say it has potential. Sorry, but 'QUALITY' doesn't matter here, sorry no scope for that. If you add quality you will be rubbished as a wannabe Einstein. Also if you still have a problem with quality do not remove it but please fix it (ie. Yah, yeah wash others'dirty linen please). Also add an image here and an image there (especially if its one from your city or state).

What's left to say folks. This page is soon going into the dumps. The only thing that makes sense to me is the India/Sandbox solution.

As for the subsectioning:
Personally, I am not happy with these developments:( If you want to include subsections everywhere or else remove subsections. But if that is what people want then History, Politics, Culture, Government, Geography should also have subsections.KnowledgeHegemony 13:52, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

KH, if you dont want to wash somebody else's dirty linen, you really dont have to. But that also does not mean that others have to be dictated on what or how to edit because of that fear. I am really surprised at some of the opinions that are being expressed in this page, which has shown blatantly that some of the editors demand that either they be consulted because they consider themselves experts, or indicate that they have somehow earned the right to dictate the course and content somebody else's contributions to this page. I must say I find Fowler's (and Dagizza's) opinion on the sandbox idea in this current page more sensible, compared to some of the other opinions (including some of yours as well as some others') that seem to be dangerously possessive, red-taping and unwiki. Please take a calm look a the situation and appreciate that the article needs to move on beyond what it was in 2004 or 2006, and the most genuine method would've been individual (and yes,uregulated) contributions, followed by a general cleanup and improvement of that same content to better quality. In fact, I think that is how this page started in the first place and came to reach the FA status.Rueben lys 16:50, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm also concerned about the possessiveness being shown to this article. Yes, the recent addition has typos and poor writing, but is definitely worth considering, rather than dismissing out of hand. Articles do improve when new editors are welcomed rather than attacked. Even though this is a FA, it's a very poor one, and needs a fresh look. So what if it gets messy, that's Wikipedia. And the article is improving with the recent attention it's been receiving. ॐ Priyanath talk 17:08, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
A bloated articles is not necessarily improved. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:58, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree. One with more references, and information that is less vague and listy are the improvements I've seen so far. ॐ Priyanath talk 19:43, 13 October 2007 (UTC)


india is more commonly known as Hindustan than Bharat...i dont think i've ever heard anyone call it bharat in my life...maybe in books, but not verbally. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.179.160.44 (talk) 17:16, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Why subsections should or shouldn't be created

I looked at a bunch of country pages and it seems at least in my sample they split two to one between those that have subsections and those that don't. Here they are with some parenthetical remarks of mine.

With subsections
Without subsections

I am personally against subsections altogether. The reason for this is that when topics are covered in paragraphs only, but not in subsections, the writer has to pay attention to coordination between paragraphs, has to develop broad themes for comparison (rather than saying in sub-section 8 above). Consequently the prose is tighter (more coherent). However, I also realize that sometimes there is a need for sub-sections. If a section too long then an average reader usually prefers some guidance in the form of subsections, and I'd like to hear what others think. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:48, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Subsections make a particular section more easily understandable. For example in the section 'Economy', creating subsections titled 'Income, human development, and social class' and 'Science, technology, and transportation' would split a particular topic in more specialized parts; through the first subsection it would be easy to find the human development of that particular economy and in the next subsection it would be easy to find the factors behind the economy namely technology and transport. However, 'Science and technology' can be created as a separate section as in the articles Belgium (FA), Argentina etc. because science and technology plays a key role in determining the country's society, economy, foreign relations and even politics. 'Tourism' also can be created as a separate section. But the subsections in this article should be concise and to-the-point as detailed discussion will be in the main articles. And sub-sub-sections should not be created as this makes the topic unnecessarily complicated and lengthy. Otolemur crassicaudatus 10:38, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a travel guide. As such, sections on tourism on a country page are almost always frowned upon. Furthermore, having too many subsections can be noisy too. They should be used only when their is a real need to do so. --Blacksun 10:51, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Making a separate tourism section does not convert wikipedia into a traveller's manual. However I agree with your point of view that separate tourism section should not be created on a country page. This will make the article unnecessarily lenghty. As tourism is a part of a country's economy, so very concisely and to-the-point one or two lines about the tourism industry can be added in the Economy section. But subsections 'Income, human development, and social class' and 'Science, technology, and transportation' in the 'Economy' and 'Language', 'Religion', 'Education and health' in 'Demographics' section are needed. These subsections split the relevant sections into more specialised parts and make the topics more easily understandable. Otolemur crassicaudatus 11:48, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, lets see if we can agree on a few things. Ottolemur, what Blacksun is saying is that a page like this, which on my screen, shows four sub-sub-sections on one page, is a bit of an overkill. Don't you agree? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fowler&fowler (talk • contribs) 12:12, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your point of view. The article you linked has sub-sub-sections. As I have mentioned above, sub-sub-sections should not be created. But 'Income, human development, and social class' and 'Science, technology, and transportation' are not sub-sub-section, these are necessary subsections. Otolemur crassicaudatus 12:24, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

OK. (That, BTW, was just an example. It doesn't really matter that they are subsubsections, the point is that had they been subsections, visible four to a page, they would have created a lot of clutter.) Don't get me wrong I'm not saying that we should never have subsections, just that there should be a minimal length for them and if they fail to be that length, they should really be absorbed in the main text. Yesterday, I created an experimental edit which I immediately reverted for this purpose. Please look at this section. Do you agree that anything shorter than this Indian Independent Movement section (which would then allow more than two subsection headers to be displayed on the page) would really be too short for its own independent sub-section? That is obviously my opinion, but I think we can arrive at some length principle like that. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:44, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

The subsections 'Income, human development, and social class' and 'Science, technology, and transportation' have something separate and more specialized than a general discussion on economy. 'Income, human development, and social class' has related discussion on economy. In economy section country's GDP, major industries, economic policy etc. can be added. For example, the subsection 'Science, technology, and transportation' deals with the factors behind the economy. In a country page, there should be discussion on the country's scientific and technological progress. And transportation is a key factor behind country's economy. So these big factors should be added with a separate subsection. The length of a subsection is a factor, but emphasis should be given on the weight of the subsection, the necessity of the subsection. Subsections should not be created unnecessarily, they should be created only where they are necessary. Otolemur crassicaudatus 13:17, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions, but these are not recommended by Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries. Instead of including all such information here, could you help the relevant articles instead? Thanks! =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:55, 13 October 2007 (UTC)