Talk:Economy of ancient Tamil country

Peer review
I have requested a peer-review at the India peer-review page and also at the  General peer-review page. Please provide any feedback in one of those pages. Lotlil 02:47, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Agriculture
So you are saying that working in agriculture was more respected than being a military leader, a brahmin teacher, writer, poet, king, warrior, temple priest, diamond merchant etc.? --Mattisse 00:31, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Not me, the sources say so.Lotlil 02:49, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Copy edit
Why don't you look at what I have done so far and decide whether you want me to continue. Regards, Mattisse 14:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions
Have you read Featured article criteria? Also, the article must comply with the Manual of Style and Summary style. Regards, --Mattisse 14:54, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, I did. But, if you find anything not in accordance with policy, let me know. Lotlil 15:14, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the sources section, I think you should remove most of it. Can you find other articles that deal with the economy of an ancient civilization to model after? Or find India articles on ancient civilizations and see how they deal with the sources issue? I'll look around and see what I can find. The way it is now it dominates the article as it is by far the largest section in the article. --Mattisse 16:43, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Give me a couple of days to straighten out the sources section, I think I can remove a lot of fat from it and bring it inline with the other sections. During the peer-review, I was specifically asked to include this section. One thing we could do is move it to be the last section of the article. What do you think? Lotlil 16:49, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, I think putting it at the end would be better. --Mattisse 16:58, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * History of Tamil Nadu - this article deals partly with ancient history and is a Feature Article. It has good sources for the ancient history and is candid about what is really known and what can be speculated. --Mattisse 17:06, 28 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Brāhmī script
 * Tamil-Brahmi
 * Indian inscriptions
 * Edicts of Ashoka
 * Halmidi inscription
 * Radiocarbon dating
 * Thermoluminescence dating
 * Hathigumpha inscription

There is some article (which at this moment I cannot find) that explains about radio-carbon dating and so forth. Sources of ancient Tamil history while not an excellent article, does point out the perils of taking literature literally -- that literature is fanciful and presents an ideal world. It is the use of radio-carbon dating that has opened the world to archaeology which is more scientific and reliable. The problem is that for generations, literature was relied on for information about ancient cultures, but in the last twenty years there has been very important scientific breakthroughs. --Mattisse 17:32, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I think I'm losing you again. It's beyond question that archaeology and inscriptions are way more reliable than literature, if that's what you want to explain with the links. Yes, literature is art and subject to misleading, even wrong, portrayals. But isn't all of this common knowledge that the historians would be aware of? We are only relying on their scholary interpretations, without deciphering any archaic poems ourselves, right? Now, like you rightly pointed out above, if we use poetry to say agriculture is the most respected occupation, we are doing origingal research. And, I agree such statements should be removed, or at least qualified appropriately. Also, like I have mentioned in the sub-article, no historian would give an all-encompassing legitamacy to the entire body of Tamil literature. They point out there are portrayals of idealism. But, they don't stop at that: they do say there are sections of literature that seem to be in line with what we understand from other sources and hence some of the descriptions seem to be real.
 * As an example, let's say archaeological surveys have unearthed different kinds of seeds from a certain site - say of x,y,z crops. The archeologist proposes in a published paper that this proves people of that region grew x,y and z crops in that time period. And, let's say, contemporary literature mentions that those people grew x,y,z,a,b,c and d crops in this region, with possible hyperbole of how there were mountains of produce yielded by the fertile lands. It may be unfortunate that archaeology doesn't support the growing of a,b,c and d crops. But the literary claim about people having grown them isn't so out of place. So, if a reputable historian choses to give legitimacy to this tidbit from literature and makes a sober assertion ignoring the hyperbole, that all these crops were grown, I don't think he's way out of line. Even more so, when there are multiple historians agreeing with this interpretation.
 * Which is why I think, to address POV concerns, we should present the sources that the historians themselves have used (mentioning unequivocally that the major source is literature) and let the reader make up their minds about the legitamacy of the account. But, then, I need to make sure the section itself doesn't distract them too much from the subject matter. Lotlil 18:35, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) It depends when it was written&mdash;before or after the newer methods were discovered. But you do what you want. It is your article. --Mattisse 19:23, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Copy-edit and MOS
En dashes, not hyphens, for page and year ranges. No dots at the end of captions that are not complete sentences. Please audit for overlinking, especially common words and repetitions (looks messy and dilutes the important links). The huge runs of references (eight in a row) are just over the top: can you ration them? Tony 08:51, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the feedback, I'll fix these issues. Lotlil 13:51, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Who's your paddy?
"The Tamils cultivated paddy, sugarcane..." Maybe I'm being finicky, but, since when is "paddy" a crop? TREKphiler  hit me ♠  08:55, 29 July 2009 (UTC)