Wikipedia:Featured article review/Rajshahi University/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed 18:57, 22 May 2008.

Review commentary

 * WikiProject Universities, User:Shmitra, WikiProject Bengal, Notice board for Bangladesh-related topics, WikiProject Bangladeshi Universities notified.

I'm nominating this article for review as it has several inherent drawbacks. Consider this caption for one of the images:"A list of the martyrs of Rajshahi University during the Liberation war." The usage of the word "martyr" is a clear violation of NPOV. Besides there are so many citation-needed tags- Ravichandar My coffee shop 10:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Without commenting on the article itself, I don't see much problem with the usage of the term 'martyr' in the context of the 1971 Bangladesh War. Martyr is often used to describe soldiers who die in a war. --RegentsPark (talk) 21:20, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Typical POV. The term "martyr" is serious POV. A martyr is "someone who dies fighting for a good cause". Terming the war as a battle of "liberation" or the soldiers as "martyrs" would be a violation of POV- Ravichandar My coffee shop 04:37, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Everything is POV. The acceptable POVs are those that are supported by reliable sources. No body is a "terrorist" unless labeled so by an authority, and cited as such (see Martyrs' Cemetery or Martyrs Monument in Midway). If there is a contesting view then there would be a need for consensus or a presentation of both views. That too would have to be appropriately weighted, to prevent fringe views getting equal importance.
 * If you are interested to take things to that extreme "independence" is a POV, and so is "war". There has been debates going on to define these words for way too long, involving not just morons, but great philosophers as well (ooops, POV there). How do you propose to establish that "liberation" is more POV than "independence" or "revolution" (see American Revolutionary War or Irish War of Independence)? This particular stand on POVs is granted by consensus, and if you really want to change the convention I would suggest that you go for the Village Pump.  Aditya (talk • contribs) 06:00, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * WTA - That's not correct. We say things like "Hamas has been designated a terrorist group by the US" and so forth. If a professor writes a book saying that someone is a war criminal/freedom fighter/terrorist, then the POV is attributed to someone. The rules say that you can't state terrorist/marytr/FF/liberation as "Wikipedia POV", ie, without qualification. A lot of articles about 1971 Bangladeshis use "is a freedom-fighter" - That's not allowed just because Bangladeshi professors or Banglapedia regard it as such. A Pakistani could also use the word "reactionary" or some other perjorative term, we can't use that in WP as WP's POV. In the case of "Martyr's Cemetery" and "Patriot's Cemetary" etc, that is there because it is the official title. That doesn't mean that if we write a bio on a guy who is buried there that we use "..is a martyr/patriotic militant".  Blnguyen  ( bananabucket ) 06:13, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Stuff like Munshi Abdur Rouf, Abul_Monjur and Noakhali District use disallowed nationalist POV like martyrs and freedom fighters as a statement of fact.  Blnguyen  ( bananabucket ) 06:20, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed, but only in part. As you see yourself, it is not to be used indiscriminately. When a particular installation is designated as "martyr's cemetery" by the builders, it's fine to say so. When a particular war has been accepted as a "war of revolution" by reliable sources, better if by accepted authorities, it is fine to call it so, with appropriate citations, of course. I have real discomfort with the Bangladesh articles using POV terms in abundance, much like I dislike those elsewhere. But, that doesn't mean that I'm ready to agree to unnecessary absolutions. Not yet.
 * Anyways, coming back to real issue at hand, the article itself. I have a feeling that the entire "Criticism and controversy" sections needs to rewritten. No use writing something first and then finding sources to back whatever I want to put in there. I believe the contrverssy section is not addng up due to a simple reason - it is trying to be too soft and too neutral. That attempt is hardly supported by sources. The "Activities" section is even worse. Much of it is original research, which is very regrettable. Wikipedia is not a compendium of truth, it is rather a place for verifiable facts. The spirit is pretty missing here.
 * But, I also believe these problems are not big enough to be addressed. Let's put some work into it, and it will be fine. In the worst case scenario, it may have to go through a FARC before tidying up. Say what? Aditya (talk • contribs) 06:59, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * BTW, we are not discussing other crap here, are we? Lt's keep the flaws of the rest of Bangladesh-related articles out of this discussion. Aditya (talk • contribs) 07:20, 24 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment on the word Martyr: I checked dictionary and couldn't verify the definition of the word martyr that Ravichandar has provided. The appropriate definitions that I could find from Dictionary.com are: A person who is put to death or endures great suffering on behalf of any belief, principle, or cause. or A person who suffers death or hardship for what he or she believes etc. As such I fail to understand exactly what is inherently POV about this word.  Arman  ( Talk ) 10:33, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * In most cases, you will only see one side calling a person a martyr, never the other. Why is this so? Because it's all a matter of opinion. We're building a neutral encyclopedia here, not some tribute pieces to Bangladeshi heroes. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not love) 00:28, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * All that is nice and true. The only problem is that the list is described as such by the builders, and it is clearly written on the top of the list. In fact, the caption is only a literal translation of the description on the list. How do you people propose to make it NPOV? When descrbing the "United States of America" do we use a footnote that says - "United is the descriptor used by the writers of the Declaration of Independence, in which case "Independence" was another epithet used by the same group of people", and then put a couple of in-line citations to support the explanation? I am sure we don't do that. Let me see if I can make this NPOV enough for everyone. Aditya (talk • contribs) 04:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

"From the Binodpur gate, the residential halls named after Nawab Abdul Latif, Shamsuzzoha and Madarbux are located to the north, while Sher-e-Bangla hall[citation needed] and the oldest dorm Motihar Hall[9] lie to the west.[citation needed]" has been tagged twice for citation. An, I have no clue why. When it was first tagged, I understood that it was for the claim of "oldest dorm" and that has been cited. If someone really wants to be silly enough to ask citations for geographic locations of the dorms per cardinal directions, Wikipedia may be in dire problem. This trigger happiness with tags doesn't seem to apply to any other featured articles here, and I believe all of them passed through community consensus. Are we sure that we need a cite to tell Belgium lies to the north of France and Spain to the south? Aditya (talk • contribs) 04:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I was just commenting on the word "martyr" in a general context. I don't have a problem if you have a quote that includes the word "martyr". It's clearly being attributed to someone or something. However, the article does have other issues: it is poorly referenced (some sections do not even contain any refs), the lead is underdeveloped and there are MoS issues (discrepancies with spelling out numbers). Nishkid64 (Make articles, not love) 04:57, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I personally have no inclination towards using high-sounding epithets, unless it comes from a source. And, my entire argument was that since it was called so by the builders, it is perfectly alright to say so. I have tweaked the copy of the caption to that end. But, now I am faced with a new problem - this geographic location thing. Any idea about what to do about this? I have also noticed that there are problems in the article, and I am getting around to them. Pressed with time it's not happening too fast. But, its happening alright. A few more hands there would have been appreciable. But, well... Aditya (talk • contribs) 05:14, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * "In the 2005–06 fiscal year, the UGC granted 59 crore taka (around US$10 million) to the university; the university was expected to raise another 3 crore taka from its internal resources." I have removed this part from Organisation and administration section. It looked trivial, wasn't cited and didn't sit well with the rest of section. Aditya (talk • contribs) 05:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Largeness of Shabash Bangladesh looks mighty suspect. Can someone provide cite? I couldn't find any. The bit on largeness may have to if there's no source supporting the fact. Aditya (talk • contribs) 13:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Missing info - History from 1964 to present is very short. There is only one line on it. In 1964 there were hardly any students, now there are 25,000 but the growth is not documented. There appears to be an undue weight on political issues, unless it recognised that the uni is more of a political org than a uni. Also, there is no hard data on funding, commercial sponsorships, rankings etc, unlike other FAs on unis, since Unis' performances are usually compared to their competitors. Compared to other university articles, there is a lot missing.  Blnguyen  ( bananabucket ) 03:05, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, there may be some necessary information missing. But, there is no need to continuously compare to other universities, unless that is an ironclad law. Most of these other universities seem to have their social, cultural and political impact missing from their articles. An university doesn't have to become a political organization to have a social impact. There is certainly a reason why many people refer to grad-schools instead of universities. It is a pity to find universities to play smaller social roles than Hollywood starlets, it is a bigger pity to find that endorsed as an encyclopedic standard. For now let's stick to facts, and not a comparative bias. Aditya (talk • contribs) 04:07, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Well there is no ironclad law, but even without a law it's pretty obvious that for any organisation, it is normal to discuss who funds it, how heavily funded it is. And for any organisation, it is normal to measure its results and if it has succeeded, so academic indicators are usually provided.  Blnguyen  ( bananabucket ) 02:08, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
 * That part has already been agreed to. Aditya (talk • contribs) 04:44, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

 * ''Suggested FA criteria concerns are POV (1d), referencing (1c), and comprehensiveness (1b). Marskell (talk) 18:14, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Delist - The issue of "Martyr" seems only one of the many things needing fixing. The suggested concerns seem fair and the article indeed needs quite a bit of work in almost every section. I also note that there has also not been a real concerted effort to improve the article since it was FARed.. which is not reassuring. As it stands, the article certainly is not FA-grade. Sarvagnya 01:26, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * There may be other issues with the article but I don't see why you object to the way martyr is used in the caption. If the encryption translates to martyr, then what's wrong with that? --Regents Park (Feed my swans) 02:01, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmm.. if "Martyrs' monument" is what it is called.. well that is what it is called. But using "martyr" in the text as an adjective or a verb is not encyclopedic.  Anyway, imo, the "martyr" issue is the least of the article's concerns.  That is what I intended to suggest in my delist comment above.  Sarvagnya 01:07, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Delist - Still has missing sections on history/growth, performance indicators and budget, unsourced sections, and once the info is down pat it still has (1a) and MOS to fix. But nothing new has happened since Apr 30.  Blnguyen  ( bananabucket ) 04:49, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Is it possible to expound a little on 1d, like Blnguyen has done for 1c and 1b? BTW, some of the "citation needed" tags may need a bit of explanation, like there's a tag for the Rokeya Hall while a source for all hostels been provided (yep, a hall is a hostel there). Aditya (talk • contribs) 05:07, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
 * And, I wouldn't mind a delisting as well. The prose isn't too good (probably that's generating this amazing hoo-haa over POVs), there's this problem with MOS (too short intro and all), not laid out well enough, not too many support (like when you say a Faculty of Biology, there's no chance of learning about that, a ring of tiny articles can solve that easily). I'd say, let this article lie low for sometime, and when the problems are fixed take it back to FAC. Say what? Aditya (talk • contribs) 06:42, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.