Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics/Archive 21

News and question
Portal:Hinduism has become a featured portal recently. Should this portal be listed in the featured portal heading of WikiProject India/Featured and good content? My own view is yes, it should be included as Portal:India and Portal:Hinduism are related portals (as mentioned in both the portals) and also Hinduism is a major religion in India. Please comment. Meanwhile I'm being bold and adding it to the featured portal list.--Dwaipayan (talk) 16:47, 6 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Hinduism is a world religion and should not be relegated to one nation (esp. one where there is a separate law for Hindus/moslems/Christians - even Pakistan has equality of all religions in the law). Baka man  06:07, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of all references to BB Lal, Jane Mcintosh and SP Gupta in IVC articles
User:Fowler&fowler is deleting each and every reference to these three archaeologists in Indus Valley Civilization -related articles, seemingly for "political" reasons. Input on the talk page of the IVC article would be appreciated. Talk:Indus_Valley_Civilization --RF 16:58, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Vitthalbhai Patel
Vitthalbhai Patel article linked to this project has mean, unsubstantiated sentences pejorative to the subject leader, and add no credible information. Can someone help to verify or edit out ? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.182.10.31 (talk) 00:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC).

Dalitstan
This article is currently on VfD. Could someone take a look? TIA Pavel Vozenilek 22:05, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

List of notable people from Gujarat
There's a page, List of notable people from Gujarat. I'd like to point out that all people with wikipedia articles are notable, and that since there is no analysis on this, it would probably be better off as a category (if it is indeed worth keeping). I hope someone interested will look into this. Thanks. --Sopoforic 02:10, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Indian portals
From discussions on this page for the past few months, I understand that a lot of portals are being created which is welcome. But we should ensure that these portals are listed on Portal/Directory and Portal:List_of_portals. IMHO, the former one is more important since it contains information on whom to talk to if you have specific queries on a particular portal. What ya think, members? The Silent Contributor 10:55, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree, and its equally important to have the portals updated regularly. A stale portal is not a good thing &mdash; Lost (talk) 10:58, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Delhi FAC
Delhi has been in the featured article candidacy since 31 January. Please comment there. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 15:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Hinduism in Mexico
The article name, Hinduism in Mexico, doesn't seem to be well-suited to the content. Most of the article discusses Indians in general instead of specifically Hindus. That is a large difference. I think there should be a move to a more appropriate name; can someone confirm the proper name for an ethnic Indian residing in Mexico? +A.Ou 05:49, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism on Vishnu page
Some one is methodically vandalizing Vishnu page, please help me as I dont know how to handle it--Khammam 09:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Wildlife of India
Kindly contribute to this article when you get time, and request others too.

Thanks

Atulsnischal 17:22, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:INDIA newsletter
Anyone got time to write the next edition of the India newsletter? I am going to be very busy for the next two months but will have time to run my bot for delivery if someone can create it &mdash; Lost (talk) 10:57, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmm, we could make it bi-monthly. Unfortunately not much seems to happen these days. We need more penpower so we can talk about something. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:21, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I think bimonthly is a good idea. We'll probably have some events to talk about in that timeframe:) &mdash; Lost (talk) 16:15, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Indira Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi
Could people put this on their watchlist if they have not already done so? Thanks, Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:24, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I have taken the articles under my watch though I shall not be doing any edit to these pages unless something highly unusual is spotted by me. In general, I am trying to keep myself away from any controversial contents for the sake of my mental peace :) --Bhadani 10:42, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I have also watchlisted them but they seem to suffer more from POV edits than vandalism &mdash; Lost (talk) 05:05, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Request for information about sub-project structure
There is an interesting discussion going on at WikiProject Cities (discussion here) about the best way to organize the relationship between parent and descendent projects. WikiProject India has been pointed out to us as an example of the use of "sub-projects" within a parent project, rather than "descendant projects" within a parent project.

I am not familiar with the details of how sub-projects work on a day-to-day basis. Would someone contact me here or on my talk page, to help us out. Spamreporter1 18:27, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Did you know
...we are a exemplar project nominee? I quote, (WikiProject India) Another of the projects which has successfully integrated a number of child projects into a comparatively effective unit. -- Ganeshk  ( talk ) 04:43, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

That WP India is the longest template on Wikipedia.


 * Well, I don't know if it's true, but it certainly has some truthiness. — Ambuj Saxena (☎) 04:55, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Portal:Tamil Nadu news
I have recently started updating the news section of Portal:Tamil Nadu. Please take a look at it. Can someone advise me on what kind of news articles are to be added? Should I add anything and everything that is happening in TN? The Silent Contributor 12:20, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikiproject Indian cities and user Nikkul's image additions
has expressed concern about the lead in section in Indian cities, and have added a table with an image on top of the Infobox Indian urban area, claiming that it improves article look-and-feel and should be used.

I have suggested him to look into this project's article format, but he has re-inserted the hard-coded table on top of the infobox/locator map at New Delhi, Chennai. Since I am not a member of the Indian cities project, and don't know about the consensus regarding article format, can someone look into his edits and see if that image-style adheres to whatever structure you guys came up with, for the city articles? Please let him know the format. Thanks. --Ragib 00:21, 18 February 2007 (UTC)


 * To me, looks better with the map being the only picture in the box. De gustibus non est disputandum, but coming up with a representative image for each town will be needless introduction of a subjective parameter we can do without. deeptrivia (talk) 00:32, 18 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I tried explaining this to him, but apparently he has re-inserted the photos to New Delhi and also to Chennai. Since I'm not getting the message clear to him, perhaps if someone else can look into the articles, and fix them, it will be great. Thanks. --Ragib 00:58, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Additional discussions about the same topic with this user can be found in Talk:Mumbai. =Nichalp   «Talk»=  08:24, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I actually added a comment here, but someone deleted it. I dont see why it would be such a bad idea if we were to incorporate a picture that a city is known for in the infobox. The wikipedia city infobox makes space for this as does almost every other wikipedia city page. An infobox without a defining image makes the cities look dull. since wikipedia recommends this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_City) and since most other cities have this, then why cant we? Nikkul 00:04, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

And im sure someone is going to argue, "the fact that other cities do it does NOT mean that we must" so let me just say in advance, wikipedia is not myspace. Its an encyclopedia. We're expected to conform to the given procedures. This is not a place to demonstrate creativity, its rather a place where geography topics are to conform to the given infoboxes. please refer to Karachi or islamabad if you would like to see what i mean by incorporating an image within the infobox. And an infobox with an image and a map can be viewed at beijing --Nikkul

Tipu Sultan: spelling
On the Talk page of Tipu Sultan, I and Aslamt are engaged in a dispute with Kanchanamala about why the spelling of the name Tipu in this article is at variance with all modern scholarship about Tipu Sultan, and with the spelling currently found on Indian museum websites. If we cannot resolve this issue, it may be sensible to try to tackle this matter via a Request for Comment. We would be interested to hear the opinions of Wikipedia editors who are active in WikiProject India on this issue. Thank you Mick gold 17:39, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Creative Commons India
I've made two new CC licence tags, now that we have an India-specific legal version. (Launched on 26 Jan). See commons:Template:Cc-by-2.5-in and commons:Template:Cc-by-sa-2.5-in. Happy tagging your images. :) =Nichalp   «Talk»=  19:29, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

EVIDENCE FOR Relation between Sengunthars/ Kaikolars and Devadasis
1. The following is quoted from a legitimate third party website. http://globalindiamissions.org/newsletter/nwsltr0802.htm

'''The Kaikolan are a large Tamil and Telugu caste of weavers. There are seventy-two subdivisions (nadu or desams). Their name comes from a mythical hero and from the words "kai" (hand) and "koi" (shuttle). They consider the different parts of the loom to represent various gods and sages. They are also known as Sengundar, which means a red dagger, which is traced to the legend of the earth being harassed by demons, which led to the people asking the god Shiva to help them.'''

'''Traditionally, one girl in every family was set apart to be dedicated to temple service and becomes a "Devdasi" (meaning female servant of god). In the temple, the girl is considered married to the temple deity but in practice becomes a prostitute, especially to the Brahmans and she learns traditional music and dancing.'''

2. The following is journal research article with abundant valid references. This is as legitimate as it gets.

This article talks in much detail about how women from the Sengundhar/ Kaikola caste get into the sacred prostitution in temples.

"Contending identities: Sacred prostitution and reform in colonial South India Priyadarshini Vijaisri A1, A1 Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi" South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group Issue: Volume 28, Number 3 / December 2005 Pages: 387 - 411

To view the complete article just register, its free.

Here are the links :

http://journalsonline.tandf.co.uk/link.asp?id=jv31l27518262711 If you cannot access it then just go to the following page and follow one of the links

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Contending+identities%3A+Sacred+prostitution+and+reform+in+colonial+South+India

3. This is taken from another legitimate webiste http://www.go2southasia.org/l_peoples.html of a world renknown organisation recognised by many countries. They have no gain in just picking on the Sengunthar caste.

'''The KAIKOLAR people are a caste of weavers 1.5 million strong in southern India. They are Hindus and view different parts of the loom as representations of various gods and sages. Traditionally, each Kaikolar family sets aside one daughter to serve in a Hindu temple. That daughter is considered married to the temple deity—often the Hindu destroyer god Shiva. In practice, the daughter becomes a temple prostitute.'''

All 3 of the above references are quite legitimate and I can quote many more. There is no question of coincidence or any error in any of these sources. Please comment.

Times of India

 * Times of India

Dear Indian friend,

The leading Indian National Daily Times Of India has praised improtance of simple still user friendly ideas like Wikipedia, an online free encyclopedia, in T.o.I.'s editorial Dated 31st January 2007. Wikipedia is a non profit activity very usefull in benefitting all Indian languages. Please read on the linked editorial and forward it to all proud Indian friends you know by email. Thanks,

Mahitgar ११:३३, ३१ जनवरी २००७ (UTC) Please click on the link below to go to the page. If you think someone you know would like to read it too, do mail it to them. Check This Out!!!

मै     हिंदी विकिपीडिया का सदस्य  हूं मी मराठी विकिपीडिया चा सदस्य आहे

Jimbo in Chennai
In case, it is convenient, please come to Chennai on 25th February, 2007. Jimbo's visit to Chennai is confirmed though his schedules for other Indian cities are still not known.
 * WikiCamp]
 * Participants]

I have received a request from core group of persons organising the event to request wikipedians to participate in the event. Thanks. --Bhadani 18:12, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * What about Jimbo's Delhi trip, will he be meeting Wikipedians there as well?. Vjdchauhan 07:20, 19 February 2007 (UTC).
 * Jimbo has replied to similar query about Delhi on his talk page, see User_talk:Jimbo_Wales —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Vjdchauhan (talk • contribs) 06:38, 21 February 2007 (UTC).

Importance ratings
I believe inconsistencies occur in the rating of some Wikipedia articles by the criterion of importance. I point out the following example: Aamir Khan holds the highest importance rating ('top') whereas the article dedicated to an Indian icon such as Rabindranath Tagore obtained a lower importance rating ('high'). Should there be a review of the rating/s or rating procedures of one or both article/s? AppleJuggler 06:21, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * It depends on the tagger. Many people just tag whatever they want. Some guy tagged his own article FA class when it was clearly start/B class and did not have references. And I guess the rating may be different in different projects. Sachin Tendulkar would be top wrt cricket, but on India generally maybe less so, Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:22, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

That is understandable (e.g., rating are dependent sometimes project-wise). With no coordinating personnel, outcomes such as this sometimes occur, even within the scope of a single project (see 'A tale of two importance ratings', where 'relative importance' and assessor subjectivity play influential roles). It struck me as quite a curious condition, it not anything else. AppleJuggler 06:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I think top should on country-projects should be restricted to President, Prime Minister, Head of Army, National heroes/revolutionaries, etc, not megastar actors or sportspeople. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:32, 14 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I have updated the template to allow for importance to be rated at the workgroup level. That should solve the problems like above. For example, To set importance for cinema, you would use cinema-importance=Top. Regards,  Ganeshk  ( talk ) 06:09, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

A clever idea, Ganeshk. Just two problems: First, all assessed articles need to be re-tagged and this can be quite time-consuming. Second (which is the worse of the two), if we have two types of importance ratings, one by cinema and one by importance to India (i.e. WikiProject India), this will really confound the rating assessment process -- there will be wrangling as to why something needs to have x rating in one project and y rating in another, and it is not really practical to 'partition' importance by project and then hope to obtain any meaningfulness out of it -- what is one to make of two importance ratings for a single subject (that the subject is of 'top importance' but at the same time of 'low importance')? Besides, the complications introduced by this into the assessment process -- greater workload/inefficiency/a greater demand of subjectivity -- render the endeavour not worthwhile. Less complication and confusion is better than more. I believe it's best to stick with a single importance rating, just as it has always been. The optimal way to get around this problem is to appeal for greater objectivity on the part of assessors when they assess an article, particularly if it involves for example a film star whom the assessor really adores (to minimise the bias that may emerge). AppleJuggler 04:38, 16 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I have not removed the 'importance' tag. Please see WP:IND box. You will notice all the ratings are still there. Aamir Khan is a Mid importance article with respect to India. Click the Show button on the talk page template. It will indicate the importance rating at the parent project level and also the workgroup level.


 * The importance ratings until now have been tagged with respect to India project (atleast that was the intention). The new importance ratings will be some work at the individual workgroup level. Regards, Ganeshk  ( talk ) 07:26, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Noticed that there are 'two' importance ratings (one for India and one for Indian Cinema). This still poses serious problems (please read my comment above). Thanks, AppleJuggler 07:31, 16 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I accept it will be time consuming. Importance unlike Class tag is related to the workgroup. An article of Top importance in one workgroup will be of Mid or Low in another. Many articles fall under the scope of the multiple workgroups. So a tag at the workgroup level helps to do rating correctly. See this discussion. It is not a question of objectivity, it is indeed true that importance differs between workgroups. Regards, Ganeshk  ( talk ) 18:07, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I think this is a good solution. We should have very selective articles as top importance at India level. &mdash; Lost (talk) 05:59, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

The possible solution thought up by Ganeshk is praiseworthy, and this is doubtless. However, as I have argued above, having two importance ratings is superfluous and introduces unneeded inefficiencies for our purposes (and that for our readers'). For instance, the rating of articles by quality, viz. stub, B, A or FA, is quite quantifiable (see the quality scale): if an article is exceptionally written, then it is exceptionally written and assessable as such by the fine details delineated in the quality scale. The importance rating on the other hand is much more subjective. Not only has this has been acknowledged in the Wikiproject India assessment page (see here) but the very general guidelines for its assessment bear this out (compare importance scale). A single importance scale is nevertheless helpful and sufficient as a guide for the reader, and is rapid too. Introducing another level of subjectivity with a second importance rating slows down the reader. Further, it confounds the meaning of the importance rating: these two levels of subjectivities do not remain distinct (as in a 1+1 = 2) when applied to any one article; instead you would have an 'interaction' effect (1+1 > 2): questions can be raised during assessment like "why is this article more important by WikiProject India standards but not by, say, WikiProject Indian arts standards or vice versa?". This introduces then a third dimension of consideration when assessing an article. This not only introduces the grind of inefficiency into assessment, but the interaction of two subjective levels can confound, without adding significant extra value for the reader given the cost of maintaining such a system (and the cost for the reader in processing and judging two different importance ratings). Moreover is the fact that we have to tag a few dozen if not a hundred or more already-assessed articles with an additional cinema-importance tag. So is it really necessary? Are the benefits worth the costs? To conclude, I reiterate that a single importance scale, which has been the standard in Wikipedia, is simple, suffices and provides the best indication of importance for a reader (the Occam's razor principle). It is brilliant of Ganeshk to think up of this multiple-level importance scaling, but I urge us all to think through the outcome and value derived from such a system before implementing it. Thank you. AppleJuggler 15:15, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Please also see comments made here for clarity and possible ways of getting around the problem. AppleJuggler 06:28, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Punjab
I contacted User:DaGizza about creating a project for Punjab or possibly even a portal. He approved so I am asking more people now. The project is to be a collaborative effort between Indian Punjabi and Pakistani Punjabi and other non-Punjabi people, this should hopefully also generate good feeling between Indian and Pakistani sides.  — N o b l e e a g l e  [TALK]  [C] 09:41, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * We already have a WikiProject Bengal which joins the Indians and Bangladeshis together. Another possible project (if we have the members willing to spend some time) is WikiProject Kashmir. GizzaChat  &#169; 07:11, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Portal:Punjab has been created, I still have to create WikiProject Punjab.  — N o b l e e a g l e  [TALK]  [C] 07:24, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Sunil Ganguly
This article on the guitarist needs a bit of input. There are Google hits for a writer of the same name, but it isn't clear that there are strong enough published sources to support an article on the guitarist. He gets only very brief mentions in a book on the hawaiian guitar. The article has been tagged for notability since Sept 2006. Can anyone help? --Mereda 16:49, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Sai Kumar
Hi every Buddy i started topic Sai_Kumar Tollywood actor ,if some one can add more inforamtion in it.Thanks Khalidkhoso 03:03, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Talk:National Development Front
Certain users are unaware of mainstream newspapers. In fact one esteemed user suggested The Hindu was a pro-Hindu partisan paper. Baka man  23:27, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Marathi Language Wikipedia achives 1000 registered membership mark today!
With registration of userKrishna LondheMarathi Language Wikipedia has achived 1000 registered membership mark today!

Thanks to all Wikipedians who have been supporting Marathi Wikipedia through various means like interwiki linking etc.

With warm regards to you all,

Mahitgar 09:19, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Congratulations! It is indeed nice to see the regional language editions progressing well. Good luck!--thunderboltz(Deepu) 09:45, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

2 new Indian wikiprojects
Hi! I have created two new wikiprojects:
 * 1) WikiProject Regions of India
 * 2) WikiProject Geography of India

=Nichalp  «Talk»=  17:04, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Cool! But I do not understand why the talk page of WikiProject Geography of India links to the talk page of Notice board for India-related topics? If that is intentional, why does not the talk page of WikiProject Regions of India link there? Another question. In a city (or a state) talk page, what should be written in WPIndia template? Both, geography=yes and city=yes (or Bengal=yes etc)? Or just City=yes (or Kerala=yes etc) will be sufficient? IMO, both geography and any other specific project should be written. Right?--Dwaipayan (talk) 18:42, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I've added the redirect. To answer your question, geography=yes will only handle the topics defined in the projects (eg Rann of Kutch, Thar Desert, Rajmahal Hills, Zuari River). If we were to add cities and states to this (which already have their own project group anyways), the scope would become too inclusive and vast to manage, not to mention making the cities, states etc projects almost redundant. =Nichalp   «Talk»=  18:59, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok. Got it. BTW, Thar Desert did not have a WPIndia tag so far! --Dwaipayan (talk) 19:14, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I have asked Reedy Boy, the guy who created the plugin for tagging the India project to add all the new projects to the plugin. Once he does, I will start running the bot afresh. The project is blooming. Well done everyone!! &mdash; Lost (talk) 18:11, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Anything on Seagull Books?
Does anyone have any information/links on Seagull Books Calcutta, or Navin Kishore? Please add any stuff you have.

Rimi  talk  contribs 08:21, 27 February 2007 (UTC)