Talk:Kota people (India)/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer:  Arctic   Night  21:05, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Hello, I am the reviewer for this one and will be adding some comments here as I go. I will let you know what my adjudication is at the end.  Arctic   Night  21:46, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Lead
 * "They are one of the many tribal or ethnic groups indigenous to the region. Others include Todas, Badagas, Irulas and Kurumbas." - This is rather choppy - are you able to put this into one sentence?
 * "They have maintained a life style as a jack of all trades such as potters, agriculturalist, leather workers, carpenters, and black smiths and as musicians for other groups." - Not entirely sure what this means. Are you able to clarify this? I think it's the introductory bit ("as a jack of all trades such as") that confuses me, as the article says that they're jacks of all trades but then go on to say which specific field they work in...
 * "Since the British colonial period they have availed themselves of educational facilities and have improved their socio-economic status and no longer depend on the traditional services provided to make a living." - the word "and" is used twice.
 * "Some anthropologists have considered them to be a specialized caste as opposed to be a tribe or an ethnic group." - I would make this change myself, but I wanted clarification first - is it "as opposed to being"?
 * "at some time in BCE." - I'm not sure if this is grammatically correct - maybe something like 'at some time before Christ' or 'at some time before (date)'?
 * "and had some similarities to Todas and other tribal people in neighbouring Kerala and the prominent Nair caste." - 'and' is used three times.
 * "It was informed by a fraternal polyandry and polygyny where possible." Not entirely sure what this means. 'It was informed by'? I don't think polyandry can 'inform' something...
 * "Kota religion was unlike mainstream Hinduism and believed in non-anthropormorphic male deities and a female deity." - Christians believe in something, I don't believe Christianity believes in something. I thought that would be the best way to demonstrate the problem, as I'm not sure how to do that otherwise!
 * "They’ve had specialized groups of priests to propitiate their deities on behalf of the group." - No contractions please.

Identity
 * In this section, the first few sentences read, "they... they... them" and so on, using a pronoun but never clarify what proper noun the pronoun is referring to. It needs to be made clear that the section is talking about Kotas!
 * "Socio-economic" is spelled "socio economic" once in this paragraph. We need consistency, so pick one (I would suggest socio-economic).
 * "But Kotas are relatively successful group..." - Do not start sentences with 'but' unless there are extreme circumstances!
 * "Kotas are relatively successful group that makes its living as agriculturalist, doctors, post masters and availing themselves of any government and private sector employment." - This needs to be reworded for grammar.
 * One sentence reads something along the lines of, "Few anthropologists consider them to be servants, but Kotas reject the notion that they are servants." The clauses here don't agree - which one is it that is correct?
 * "...according to Emeneau..." - Who is Emeneau? The full name should be used, along with the position of that person (is this person an anthropologist studying the Kotas? If so, the article should say this).
 * The section is out of order. The section currently is ordered like this:
 * Indian government classification
 * Consideration as a service caste
 * Naming conventions: Kota/Kov
 * Consideration as a service caste


 * The sentences about being or not being a service caste should be together.

History
 * "Although many fanciful theories..." - 'Fanciful'? That is not an encyclopedic word, unless it's from a quote (and if it is, the article needs to recognise this).
 * "M haplogroups is considered to have..." - Is this meant to be 'are considered'? I'm not sure.
 * "the buffalo rearing Toda neighbours" - Should be 'their' and 'buffalo-rearing'.
 * "in return for Toda’s buffalo milk..." - Shouldn't this be 'in return for the Toda's'?
 * "Origin myth of Kotas postulates" - This needs a quick copyedit...
 * "Since the early 19th century, missionaries, British bureaucrats, anthropologists and linguists of both Western..." - What does this whole paragraph have to do with the Kotas? I cannot see any relevance at all, and would recommend that it be removed.

Society
 * "inter- and intra-village", not "inter and intra village"
 * "A woman marrying a man is also expected to have conjugal relationship with all his brothers although children born out of this relationship are strictly considered to be her husbands." - This should be reworded to make it clearer. I also think it should be "was also expected", not "is also expected", as the past tense is used in other areas throughout this article.
 * "Studies since 1960’s" - should be "Studies since the 1960s" I think, if you agree please make the replacement.
 * Polyandry - Demography - Women's position should be Polyandry - Women's position - Demography header-wise, as polyandry is clearly more related to the status of women than demography is.
 * "helped out in many economic activities" - such as? What is an economic activity?
 * "In a fraternal polyandrous situation they were expected to share their husband’s brothers as sexual partners." - This has already been stated in a previous section.
 * "Women who became possessed to flute music are called Pembacol and were consulted during important village decisions." - What does this mean?

Religion
 * "Their major deities are A-yno-r also divided into big or Doda-ynor" - this should be reworded for grammar.
 * The citing needs work here, and indeed in other areas of the article. The citation comes after the statement that needs sourcing, not the person's name. For example, "According to Mendelbaum,[22] the mother goddess was married to two brother gods, a reflection of the fraternal polyandry prevalent in society." should be "According to Mendelbaum, the mother goddess was married to two brother gods, a reflection of the fraternal polyandry prevalent in society.[22]"
 * "Kotas had a number of religious festivals during the colonial precontact and immediately after the colonial contact period. It ranged from praying to their rain god Kannatra-ya or titular deity Kamatra-ya." - These sentences need to be copy-edited.

General comments
 * This article needs a serious copy-edit. There are many grammatical flaws in this article - some I have fixed, some I have pointed out here, but I am sure I have missed some. Before this article can be promoted to Good Article status, it needs to be well-written. At the moment, the grammatical flaws make me think that this article is not well-written.
 * Please use either the Citation templates or the various Cite journal, Cite web, etc. templates - not both. I saw the use of both Citation templates and Cite journal - these should be standardised.
 * If I may interject, the mixing of the two types of citation templates is not a GA criteria and is generally acceptable. The mixing is only an FA criteria. Racepacket (talk) 04:28, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Please use UK spelling or American spelling, not both. I would recommend British spelling, as this is an Indian article.
 * Avoid weasel words. "Some anthropologists..." - who?
 * If you're wondering what the 'not focused' mark in the checklist below is, keep in mind what I said above about an entire paragraph not being necessary. This comes up time and time again - there are sentences on the Todas that don't need to be in this article.

For the time being, I will definitely not be able to pass this article to reach Good Article status. In addition, I do not feel that I will be able to put this article on hold, as many articles with minor flaws are. This article requires a fundamental rewrite of some of its sections that simply do not work together as one, and it desperately requires a copy-edit. So, unfortunately, I will not be able to pass this article today, nor do I feel that I will be able to put it on hold. The only other option available to GA reviewers at this point is to fail the article. Please nominate this article again should you feel that it is ready for another crack, but only once you have fixed the issues highlighted here.  Arctic   Night  21:48, 26 January 2011 (UTC)


 * GA review (see here for criteria)


 * 1) It is reasonably well written.
 * a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
 * 1) It is factually accurate and verifiable.
 * a (references): b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):
 * 1) It is broad in its coverage.
 * a (major aspects): b (focused):
 * 1) It follows the neutral point of view policy.
 * Fair representation without bias:
 * 1) It is stable.
 * No edit wars, etc.:
 * 1) It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
 * a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass/Fail:
 * 1) It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
 * a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass/Fail:
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass/Fail: