User talk:Chalian

Welcome!
Hello, Chalian, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions, especially what you did for Saliya. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! Sitush (talk) 18:07, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Introduction to Wikipedia
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * How to edit a page and How to develop articles
 * How to create your first article
 * Simplified Manual of Style

Saliya
Hi, I am sorry for reverting your contributions at Saliya because I realise that you are a new contributor and are keen to improve the article. Among our policies is that statements made in articles almost always require a reliable source to support them, and some of those made by you did not. In fact, the one source that you did use is generally considered here not to be reliable, ie: Edgar Thurston. I've added this talk page of yours to my list of watched pages, so if you have any queries then you can ask here and I will see them. Happy editing. - Sitush (talk) 18:10, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Saliya
Appreciate your concern about the quality of the article. However, I have observed your corrections have made the article completely absurd with no context for the paragraphs. I'm sure Edgar Thurston might have made many mistakes. But why those particular statement is unreliable is unclear. In fact, that's a matter of fact observation with no interpretations attached.

For other parts, I suppose you can keep the 'citation needed' tag. We can work together to find the sources. Since the caste is faceless I'm sure not many research might have been done. Though I won't be surprised the authentic research that would come in future might have sourced information from Edgar Thurston and William Logan's works.

I haven't made any good faith corrections. If you check Duarte Barbosa's work there was no qualitative statement(Saliyas related to Nairs by blood and hence bore arms) that was given in the article. So, you don't have to revert that part. Thanks. Chalian (talk) 18:25, 4 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi. I have around 1,000 caste-related articles on my watchlist and am embroiled in lengthy discussions concerning at least three of those right now. The Saliya one is not going to get a lot of attention from me any time soon. I understand the difficulties of sourcing communities that are, as you describe it, "faceless" but that does not mean we relax our standards. What it means, in fact, is that if we can find no reliable sources then the article should be deleted. Thurston and Logan are not reliable and, aside from Singh's The People of India series are very rarely used as authorities by modern academics. Thurston, in particular, is a major problem: he was a scientific racist with no command of the native languages, little expertise in ethnography and not much more in statistics. In fact, he was more of a gentleman-scholar than an anthropologist or similar. I'll try to take a look at the article but, as I've just explained, it is not going to happen overnight. Feel free to drop me a note as a reminder at User talk:Sitush. Thanks. - Sitush (talk) 18:34, 4 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I believe it's better either to delete the article completely or keep the 'citation required' tag instead of keeping it in present absurd state. Your words on Thurston sounds more like ad hominem since the statements I have sourced have no racist connotations. By the way, do you accept MN Srinivas's works? Chalian (talk) 18:44, 4 April 2013 (UTC)