Talk:Periyar/GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

I will be reviewing this article over the next several days. If you have any comments on the article, you are welcome to post them below. SBC-YPR (talk) 12:38, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Final review
Thank you for nominating this article for good article review. I have assessed it against the six good article criteria, and commented in detail below:

1. Writing:
 * (a) Prose
 * The article needs more copy-editing. It still contains several sentences with spelling or grammatical errors. Some of the more glaring ones are:
 *  At the age of nineteen, he was married to Nagammai and had a daughter who lived only till 5 months. Nagammai passed away a couple years later.
 * Suddenly Periyar questioned to himself as to why and how the Brahmins can obstruct the non-Brahmins from taking meals
 * he could get rid of the evil of untouchability and that the backward and depressed class people could be enabled to have proper education
 * These were made as the themes of his platform for the rest of his life.
 * The Dravidian Association became known with the urban masses and students
 * Oral and written media were used mostly in Tamil
 * For over fifty years Periyar was educating the common people on all aspects of life through his speeches...but who knew practically nothing about how people were propagating blind beliefs and caste distinctions for selfish ends(entire paragraph)
 * Periyar argues by asking how are we to believe that a man has an iota of sense or rationalism in doing these things. He also asks why sosciety would give things only to Brahmins, fall at their feet?, or even to the extent as to wash their feet and drink that water.
 * However, this too was misused by bridegrooms which resulted in making most parents beggars
 * It was not unusual for a Brahmin child back then of seven or eight years
 * His influence in the State departments have started employing women also in police departments and the Center has started giving them posts in the army
 * His propaganda for equality of the sexes have resulted in securing the girls right over ancestral property along with the male children
 * Periyar has placed importance on the indigenous languages of the Dravidian peoples.
 * there was nothing in the Kurla that was against ethics of the Bible.
 * Periyar was a radical advocate of anti-Brahmanism who sometimes called Brahmin women of immorality
 * During the 1970s of his last years,
 * (b) Manual of style
 * (i) Lead section:
 * The name in the lead paragraph should be changed to reflect the 'complete name (rather than just "E.V."), in accordance with naming conventions, as also discussed in the peer review.
 * Given that Periyar hailed from and spent most of his life associated with Tamil Nadu, I'm not sure if the Kannada transliteration of the name is necessary.
 * (ii) Layout:
 * The following sentences in the intro :Those who had a dislike for Periyar accused him of attacking Hinduism and the Brahmin community. But his was targeted against Brahminism and not Brahmins, and the manipulation of Hinduism and not Hinduism as a faith. He was listed amongst the top 100 most influential people amongst Tamil society of the 20th century. seem to be out of place there and could be moved to the "ideals and criticisms" section.
 * The paragraph on the "philosophy of self-respect" seems to be out of place.
 * The last line of the article (Other films on social awareness created by Gnanashekaran were Moha Mullu, Oru kan oru parvai, and Barathi) seems to be irrelevant.
 * (iii) Peacock terms and weasel words need to be removed. Some instances include:
 * He was a man who indicted Indo-Aryan India in the harshest terms for its exploitation, imposition, and marginalization of the indigenous Dravidian peoples who were non-Brahmin.
 * But, the shame inflicted by the Brahmins at Kasi upon him without the least mercy, made a deep wound in the heart of Periyar and thus inflamed intense opposition towards Indo-Aryan cultural imposition, casteism, and their creation of innumerable gods.
 * Periyar did not expect personal or material gain out of this movement and probably derived pleasure out of the work itself.
 * To a human being it is protection of his self-respect that is his birth right and not swaraj ('political freedom'). 
 * The terms tan manam or cuya mariyadai meaning 'self-respect' are traceable in ancient Tamil literature and the sense conveyed is said to be a virtue highly valued by the Tamil people and speakers of Tamil.
 * It is well known that this is the result of Periyar's continuous propaganda against this social disgrace.
 * (iv) Style:
 * Much of the article has been written in the present perfect simple tense, and it would be a good idea to change it to the simple past tense, as per the MoS (For example, instead of "Periyar has placed importance on", use "Periyar placed importance on" or "Periyar laid importance on").
 * (v) Links:
 * Heavy overlinking is present throughout the article, and must be removed in accordance with WP:CONTEXT. Some of the more frequently overlinked words include Brahmin, Tamil Nadu, Dravidian, Aryan, Self-respect movement, Tamil language, Tamil society, education, Madras, rationalism etc. It is sufficient if these words are linked only the first time they appear on the page.
 * Some irrelevant words have also been linked, including Kasi, eradicate, superior, inferior, presidency, love marriage, institutions, domination, degeneration, urban, expenditure, manipulated etc.
 * Links inside quotations need to be removed.
 * Consider using piped links. For instance, instead of "Varanasi (Kasi)", try Kasi (the link to Kasi is a disambiguation page that is irrelevant to the context). Similarly with "Madras Presidency (Tamil Nadu)" etc.
 * The links in the "External links" section should be edited and formatted as per WP:LINKS.
 * (vi) Quotations:
 * The article seems to contain too many quotations. While most of them have been cited well, paraphrasing some of them would make the article look a lot better.

2. Sourcing:
 * (a) References
 * The article seems to be quite well-referenced, and rather systematically too. Compliments to the editors.
 * (b) In-line citations
 * A few more inline citations linking to webpages could be added.
 * (c) Original research
 * Other than a couple of sentences listed in the neutrality section below, the article seems to be free from original research.

3. Broadness:
 * (a) Topic coverage
 * The article seems to be quite comprehensive in its coverage of the topic.
 * A few lines about the last twenty years of Periyar's life could be added to the "Biography" section.
 * (b) Focus
 * Some of the sections and sub-sections, including Self-Respect, Anti-Hindi campaigns, Vaikom Satyagraha and Self-Determination of Dravidistan need to be shortened and material hived off to the respective subpages. In particular, I think the section on Tamil language and writing and Social reform could use separate articles of their own, with the latter incorporating much of the subsections on eradication of caste and service to the backward classes.

4. Neutrality:
 * The sentence He was a man who indicted Indo-Aryan India in the harshest terms for its exploitation, imposition, and marginalization of the indigenous Dravidian peoples who were non-Brahmin sounds like an opinion and violates NPOV. It needs to be reworded.

5. Stability:
 * The edit history reveals that the article has bee quite stable over the past month, without any edit wars or major disputes.

6. Images:
 * (a) Copyright status
 * The images are tagged, and have vaild descriptions.
 * (b) Relevance and captioning
 * The image of Periyar's funeral should be moved from the "Biography" section to the "followers and influence" section.
 * A few more images would be ideal.

As a result of the above review, I have placed the article on hold. This gives editors up to one week to address the issues raised (although if constructive work is underway, the hold period will be extended). I will regularly check back here to mark off those issues that have been satisfactorily resolved and to address any questions and comments you may have.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or believe the article is ready for a re-review. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 09:20, 13 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. If is helpful another checklist page was created here. Each item will be crossed when it is completed. Regards. Wiki Raja (talk) 10:08, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Compliments, a lot of good work seems to be going into improving the article. I will continue to check this page as well as the checklist page and post further comments, if required. Please feel free to contact me for any clarifications. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 12:42, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

First Reassessment
The hold period has expired today, and I find that over the past week, editors have been putting in efforts to incorporate the suggested comments into the article. Most of the necessary copyediting has been carried out, and I will clean up a couple of minor errors that I noticed. A couple of other things that need to be addressed before the article can be promoted: As a result of the above, the hold period has been extended by a further week and another reassessment will be carried out then, at the end of which I will take a final decision as to the promotion of this article. In the meantime, I will regularly check back here to mark off those issues that have been satisfactorily resolved and to address any questions and comments you may have. Please feel free to contact me on my talk page for any clarifications. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 11:47, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The content of the article needs to be downsized to satisfy the requirements of summary style and article length. In particular, a sub-article on Periyar and social reform is definitely required in order to shorten the cumbersomely long Principles section. Similarly, the other points for condensation that I brought up (Re: s. 3(b) of the review above) need to be looked into.
 * About the point of Periyar being a Kannadiga, I do not find it anywhere in the article. Please incorporate it with a suitable reference.
 * Photos are only a recommendation and not a requirement, and I will not insist on them for promotion of the article. I understand that it may not be possible to get free-use images of Periyar easily.
 * Will continue to work on it. Thanks. Wiki Raja (talk) 00:15, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Pleased to bring to your attention that all the suggestions for GA review have been complete as seen on this page here. Regards. Wiki Raja (talk) 07:19, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Second reassessment
The extended hold period expires today, and editors have been doing a great job over the past week in restructuring the article. I have performed a couple of copy edits, and things look fine on that front. However, despite the efforts that the editors have been putting in, the concerns about summary style and article length still persist. I have put down a few pointers below, which I hope the editors will be able to address adequately in order to ensure promotion of this article to GA status.


 * The biography section is fine except for the part on Periyar and the Congress Party. I suggest that a separate article be created and the entire contents of this sub-section be moved there, retaining only the first paragraph in the main article. Also, there appears to be some discontinuity:
 * This happened months before Periyar's failure in getting the resolution regarding communal representation discussed - What is "this" being referred to here?
 * The principles and legacy sections heavily overlap - I suggest they be merged into one section (titled "Principles and legacy" or something else that sounds appropriate). Further,
 * The sections on "Social reform", "Eradication of caste", "Removal of caste names", "Inter-caste marriages" and "Service to the backward classes" could be merged into one, and condensed quite a bit to leave only a summary, moving the details (wages for farm labourers, Gandhi's views, Periyar's quotes etc.) to the sub-article.
 * Similarly, the sections on "Women's rights" and "Uplift of women" could be merged.
 * Condensation of the above sections and sub-sections can follow the layout of the section on Religion and atheism, which I must say has been done extremely well.

As a result of the above, the final reassessment has been postponed by another five days, during which the editors have time to make the necessary changes. AT the end of this, the final reassessment will be carried out and the article will either be passed or failed.

Please feel free to contact me on my talk page for any clarifications. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 11:14, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * All suggestions have been completed. All suggestions for the GA second assessment have been complete here. Wiki Raja (talk) 07:27, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Final Reassessment
Compliments to the editors for the efforts and excellent edits on the suggestions provided in the earlier review and reassessment. I have reassessed it for the last time against the six good article criteria, and commented in detail below:

1. Writing:
 * (a) Prose
 * The prose of the article is now quite clear, with errors in spelling and grammar having been removed.
 * (b) Manual of style
 * The article meets the MoS requirements for lead sections, layout, style and links. All the suggestions made in the review have been suitably incorporated.

2. Sourcing:
 * (a) References
 * The article was quite well-referenced even prior to the review, and has retained that status since then.
 * (b) In-line citations
 * New material added during the review has incorporated suitable inline citations.
 * (c) Original research
 * The article is now free from original research.

3. Broadness:
 * (a) Topic coverage
 * The article assesses all the main and relevant aspects of the topic.
 * (b) Focus
 * Extensive work has been done by the editors post-review to ensure that the article meets the requirements of summary style, and a lot of material has been hived off into sub-articles, retaining only essential points in the summaries in the main article.

4. Neutrality:
 * The article has a balanced outlook and projects the topic without bias. Suitable changes have been made to ensure that the article is in tune with the NPOV policy.

5. Stability:
 * Keeping in tune with its previous edit history, the article has continued to remain quite stable, without any edit wars or major disputes.

6. Images:
 * (a) Copyright status
 * The images are tagged, and have valid descriptions.
 * (b) Relevance and captioning
 * Additional images have been added, and existing images have been moved to more relevant sections.

As a result of the above, I have now passed Periyar E. V. Ramasamy as a Good Article, and listed it as such on the Good Articles page under Philosophy.

For the record, User:Wiki Raja, User:Wikiality123, User:Pharaoh of the Wizards and User:Ravichandar84 contributed significantly to this GA pass. Thank you for helping improve the standard of Wikipedia's content!

I look forward to seeing this article on the FA-list someday. I would, however, recommend a second peer review before you proceed to list this article for FA review. Good luck! Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 12:15, 2 February 2009 (UTC)