Talk:Parel Relief

Cleanup notes
Sorry for making a lot of changes in one edit. I felt that it needed some work before the DYK review and was trying to move that along. Let me try to explain the reasons for the changes I made: Let me know what you think. As mentioned at the DYK nom, I don't this will get to the main page unless at least some of this is addressed. – Reidgreg (talk) 16:56, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the link to WP:VAMOS. That and MOS:TITLE say to not use italics for names of archeological works. As for capitalization, generally we should treat something as a proper name if sources treat it as a proper name, so I'll leave that to you.  I did look for similar articles and found that most used non-italic with lower-case "relief".
 * ASI should be expanded as Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) on first mention in the lead and body, after which ASI can be used (MOS:ACRO).
 * The lead should summarize the article. I'd moved some things down which I felt weren't lead-worthy and then summarized them in the lead. For example, I felt that dated to the late Gupta period, in the 5th or 6th century AD by the ASI,[1] or "around 600",[2] or around 525–530.[3] was way too fragmented and confusing for the lead sentence. I moved it down into the body with some inline attribution of who was giving which dates, then summarized it in more general terms in the lead.
 * Similarly with The slab is about 3.06 metres high, or about 3.5 metres, I felt it was better to state it as a range, giving the extreme figures from sources.  However, if you think the ASI source is definitive I wouldn't object to having only that.  Whichever way, we should provide SI-Imperial conversions (MOS:CONVERSIONS).
 * I felt that the ASI national-protection designation helped to establish the notability of the subject and included that in the lead.
 * Per the sources, I noted that the work was "stylistically linked" to the dates. Otherwise, in an archeological context, a reader might think that it was carbon-dated or somesuch, which does not seem to be the case.
 * Whenever something is given subjectively – like more successful or the surrounding Shivas "emerge effortlessly" – we can't state that in Wikipedia's voice. So inline attribution ("according to...") to the source should be provided in these cases.
 * Uncommon loan words like gana and trimurti should be in italics (MOS:FOREIGNITALIC).
 * Various other little MOS fixes, some edits for tone, phrasing and flow.
 * Well I've done all I think is necessary or desirable. Bear in mind the article is tagged as using Indian English, which has a bearing on some points. There are many, many Indian articles which could do with a good copy-edit - nearly all of them in fact. Johnbod (talk)
 * Thanks for the changes. I've done copyedit on probably a couple hundred articles about South Asia, so I'm familiar with some of the issues.
 * I was unable to find the word gana in the Oxford English dictionary, Cambridge dictionary, Merriam-Webster, or Dictionary.com. Wiktionary notes gaṇa as a word in Pali, as does the article gana.  I'm not sure how commonly it is used as a loanword in India, but this is an international encyclopedia.  As this is an isolated foreign words that do not yet have everyday use in non-specialized English, MOS:FOREIGNITALIC recommends italic type.
 * I still feel that "emerge effortlessly" is too subjective for Wikipedia's voice. An article should not state that "genocide is an evil action", but it may state that "genocide has been described by John So-and-so as the epitome of human evil."  This can be resolved by giving the quote inline/in-text attribution.  If you don't want to say "according to x", you could alternatively say something like "It has been described that surrounding Shivas "emerge effortlessly" from the standing central figure". I do think it's a good use of an illustrative quote, BTW, I just feel that it skews slightly from the neutrality of Wikipedia's voice.
 * There's a tone issue in the group should be thought of, which sounds more like an essay, textbook, or a lecturer instructing a student. We should not tell the reader what to think, but present what reliable sources have said and let the reader decide on their own what they should think about it.
 * I feel that the second and third points ought to be addressed. I'm pretty sure that I've made the correct interpretation of foreign italics for the first point, but that's a cleanup issue and not as critical as the tone and neutrality. – Reidgreg (talk) 19:35, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
 * You won't get far writing about Indian Hindu/Buddhist art without encountering ganas, as this shows. "emerge effortlessly" is in quotes, which is enough. I might have attributed all that to Michell if he had the bio he richly deserves here, but I really hate the typical over-attributing of banal points to whatever unlinked book author the editor happens to have used, a very bad habit on WP. Johnbod (talk) 22:42, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree that that can look bad, but I feel that there's an overriding (though minor) policy issue. Describing points of view might help.  (For gana, I'll just note that this is a generalist encyclopedia, not an encyclopedia of Indian Hindu/Buddhist art.)  I think we've come to an impasse here, and will leave it to a new reviewer to provide a third opinion.  Feel free to ping me if you'd like to discuss further. – Reidgreg (talk) 13:04, 16 February 2020 (UTC)