Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics/Archive 8

Mailing list
I was wondering if it's a good idea to have a mailing list of Indian wikipedians (like a yahoogroup.) Of course, we'll have a code of conduct regarding what not to post on the list, so that it conforms with wikipedia policies (eg no campaigning, etc.) A majority of Indian wikipedians are not regular, and a mailing list will help them keep abreast of what's happening even if they don't log in often. The mailing list would also help us discuss general wikipedia issues like any meetings we might organize in future, or things like how to make wikipedia more popular in India. We might also have a kind of weekly or monthly "newsletter" describing new India-related things happening on wikipedia, depending upon how enthusiastic people are. Would this be useful? deeptrivia (talk) 03:52, 5 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a good idea, although I am not sure how a mailing list works exactly.  D a Gizza Chat  ©  03:58, 5 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, an example is yahoogroups. When you send a mail, all members receive it. deeptrivia (talk) 04:32, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
 * There is a long forgotten wikipedia-India specific mailing list. HPN has the details. =Nichalp   «Talk»=  08:23, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
 * What is HPN? deeptrivia (talk) 13:26, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Ha ha: User:HPN :D =Nichalp   «Talk»=  14:25, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

This may help. --Gurubrahma 18:28, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Cool. So then how does it work? How does one subscribe to wikimedia-in? deeptrivia (talk) 19:25, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I wasn't sure myself, did some digging around - these are the relevant links - and . Someone may want to kickstart it and let us know so that we can shamelessly free-ride ;) --Gurubrahma 05:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

It seems we all just have to subscribe using, and then wikimediaindia-l@Wikimedia.org will be the address at which mails can be sent. Nothing really to kickstart here :) deeptrivia (talk) 05:35, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, but the group is primarily for Indian language projects. So, I wanted someone to enter the waters and see how welcome we are and how relevant that listing is in view of our purposes. Of course, you can turn back and say that "Inglees" is an Indian language ;) --Gurubrahma 07:17, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Okay I subscribed. There are 20 members as of now. I guess it isn't a veru active list, but would have a better insight in a few days. deeptrivia (talk) 15:08, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

This is a nice idea to remain in touch and exchange of views and news. Let us try to make the idea a practical reality. --Bhadani 16:30, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I somehow landed on Kanada wikipedia - posted a message on the talk page and got a reply from HPN on my talk page. I am pasting his reply below for wider circulation: "Mail me at hpnadig AT gmail DOT com. I currently have populated a list of long time Indian contributors who had shown interest in Indian Chapter. The focus is more on Indian languages projects than the English Wikipedia. The plan is to hold an IRC meeting soon. Cheers." --Bhadani 15:10, 7 March 2006 (UTC)


 * This list is dead. So it's ideal for all of us to infest and start using, as if it were actually meant for us. deeptrivia (talk) 19:31, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Indian Featured articles
I am particularly happy that we have had an increase in India-related featured articles recently. :) I've gone through the List of featured articles and I've listed a few high priority articles that should be elevated to featured status, hopefully by the end of 2006.


 * 1) Art, architecture: Taj Mahal
 * 2) Awards: Param Vir Chakra, Bharat Ratna
 * 3) Education: Any college or university / IIT
 * 4) Food and drink : Any
 * 5) Geology: Geology of India
 * 6) History: History of India, Military history of India (any more will do)
 * 7) Law: Supreme Court of India, Constitution of India + 1 legal case
 * 8) Literature: any
 * 9) Economics: State Bank of India
 * 10) Music: Jana Gana Mana
 * 11) Government: President of India, Prime Minister of India, Parliament of India, Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, Government of India
 * 12) Biographies: Manmohan Singh, APJ Abdul Kalam, Indira Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Amitabh Bachchan, Sachin Tendulkar
 * 13) Transport: Air India
 * 14) Military: Indian Army, Indian Navy, Indian Air Force, Military of India (+3 wars)
 * 15) Geography: Flora and fauna of India
 * 16) Places: Delhi, New Delhi, Kolkata + All other cities and states also welcome

=Nichalp  «Talk»=  14:59, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Sardar Patel Peer Review
Hi All - I request your help and advice on making Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel an FA. There are many issues with the article, and I need the aid of all. Rama&#39;s Arrow 16:22, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The other list of articles
Just as the list of India-related FAs is on the rise, so is the case with the list of India-related articles for deletion. Today, I added fifteen tagged articles (10 AFD, 5 PROD) to WP:DSI - please watchlist that page, if you have not done so already and participate actively in the discussions there in. I can't help but wonder how many are being speedied apart from these. --Gurubrahma 16:26, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Policies and Procedures
Further to Portal_talk:India, can contributors familiar with the various India-related articles' policies/guidance update the "Conventions" section in the Notice board? I have added one or two, but I feel this section should be more comprehensive to help both new and regular contributors. AreJay 21:03, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

KN wikipedia Meet
Hi, As I have already added elsewhere, a meet will be organised in Bangalore on April 2, 2006 Sunday by the Kannada wikipedia. Please us this form to register if you are interested in attending the meet. You may contact Hariprasad Nadig if you have any questions, etc.,-- Pamri • Talk 04:10, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Please don't forget post the photos and the minutes of the wikimeet. :) =Nichalp   «Talk»=  10:13, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Question on Indian topic
I just transfered a block of text to create the new article on Malabari paratha. Should this be considered a flatbread? Rmhermen 17:00, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Featured pic candidate?
I was thinking of nominating this picture for FP status. Does it look like a reasonable picture? We could choose other pictures from commons:Category:Mohandas_K._Gandhi. I like this one, but it has issues like size and graininess. deeptrivia (talk) 04:05, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


 * It needs to be touched up. =Nichalp   «Talk»=  04:24, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


 * This is as good as I can get it to look. Unfortunately, the shadow pixels of the original image are badly damaged and eaten up...not a whole lot can be done about lighting, I'm afraid. However, I have eliminated most of the graininess. Hope this helps some. AreJay 04:38, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

A unified scheme for transliteration
I've been editing lots of articles related to Sikhism and Punjabi and I've come to a bit of a problem. There appears to be no unified way of representing and highlighting transliterations. The general consensus is to work towards IAST (which is extended to other Indic scripts with the use of ISO 15919). However, there is no style guide as to the naming of articles or when and where to use exact transliterations. So far in Wikipedia we have IAST, Bolly-trans and DIY transliteration :D

I recommend we should come to some sort of unified approach. For example, at the beginning of any article that uses an Indian word, we show the original script and we transliterate it using IAST. If there are alternative spellings we also list them. So for the Punjabi word 'Gurdwara' we start off with:

"A Gurdwara (ਗੁਰਦੁਆਰਾ, ' or ਗੁਰਦਵਾਰਾ, ')..."

This could be simplified to another template that follows the form ? At the end of the transliteration section we could include a question mark [?] that links to a page detailing the transliteration scheme.

I recommend that in title names itself we try *not* to use IAST accent marks because this appears to be the general Wikipedia policy. The actual title should indicate its pronounciation (e.g. guradavārā will become Gurdvara) and in most cases, making the distinction between similar letters is not required in English (e.g. 'r' and 'ṛ').

My ideas might not be brilliant, but I really do think we need a unified scheme for when and where to use transliterations. Should we use them only at the beginning of an article to explain a particular term or should we use them throughout and article? Should we have IAST article names or not? It'd be good to get a discussion going.

Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 15:32, 12 March 2006 (UTC)


 * One suggestion: For titles, in case there is an established transliteration (even if it's a bit wrong in indicating pronounciation), we can use it, following the common names convention. So we would choose gurdwara (642,000 google hits, but there's no 'w' in Indian languages) over gurdvara (730 google hits.) deeptrivia (talk) 15:45, 12 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Indeed, I agree. What do you feel about using transliterations in text?  E.g. Pāṇini?  There is a huge inconsistency as to what is properly transliterated and used.  Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 18:20, 12 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Absolutely. Inside the text we should follow an unambiguous and well establised transliteration scheme. Still a bit unsure about cases where an imprecise transliteration has become so standard (eg Gurdwara) that IAST transliterations will look a bit out of place. In case of Pāṇini, I'd feel like using IAST. Two things to note: One, enforcing IAST everywhere would make writing cumbersome to some extent, and two, I guess a significant number of wikipedia users would be children and/or unfamiliar with IAST, and they might get put off on seeing so many strange symbols. Would be interested in seeing what others have to say. deeptrivia (talk) 18:44, 12 March 2006 (UTC)


 * My personal preference would be to only include the IAST transliteration in the opening paragraph of the article. We should derive a plain-ASCII article name from this transliteration unless a standardised English transliteration exits (e.g. Gurdwara).  The way we derive the article names should be consistent across the scripts.


 * The only time I think we should use IAST transliterations in-article is if an important term is used that isn't linked to an article. I think excessive use of IAST in an article makes it harder to read for most people.  Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 19:05, 12 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I've created an example template Template:Indic which is called by .  This results in:
 * Although not sure how to expand this to get optional extra parameters? Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 20:01, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Although not sure how to expand this to get optional extra parameters? Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 20:01, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Request review of Indic transliteration template
Hi, can everyone take a look at Template:Indic and Template_talk:Indic and see what they think? Thanks. Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 15:59, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Important announcement - Quiz
Hi all, happy Holi. I have started an India-specific quiz at WP:PINQ. The objective is to see that the articles refrred to in the quiz get more attention and that these questions be modified into "Did you know.." facts for WP:PIN, our portal. I know that there are several avid quizzers such as Nichalp, Tintin and Idleguy, so I expect that the quiz page would be swamped. Bless this venture, --Gurubrahma 10:52, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

INCOTW
Kolkata is this week's Indian collaboration of the week. Please contribute. - Ganeshk  ( talk )

Cultural regions of India


Am I the only one here who sees problems in this map? To begin with, I don't quite appreciate the discretization of cultural variations in this way. There's a Hindi saying about Indian culture that goes: Kos kos pe badale pani, char kos pe vani (The taste of water changes every 3 kms, and the language changes every 12 km.) In some regions in Europe which have been politically isolated for centuries, there are indeed sharp variations, where on two sides of the border people speak different languages. Now with unification of Europe, that's going away. In India, things always change uniformly over space. Even if we decide to draw these cultural borders, and even decide to use the crude approximation of using states as basic units, it's difficult to see, for example, why Gujarat would be in the north Indian cultural zone and not West. There are many such issues that can be endlessly debated. Also, since there's no published academic concept of such a classification, it's kind of original research. One suggestion I can think of would be to make a map that uses smooth gradients. Another would be to not have such a map at all. Would like to know what others think. deeptrivia (talk) 04:41, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I actually agree with deeptrivia completely. This image suggests things that are not as black-and white (or purple-and-blue) as they are depicted. And what is it even trying to depict? The classification on the basis of language is crude as it is. This is just strange- why is Gujarat north India? And what is the difference between the east and the north-east? Does it matter? And what do we base these distinctions on? In any case, the view is highly north-India-centric (surprise, surprise!) and seems to operate under the assumption that everything that is different is south or east india. Everything that is hindi-like is north india. The classification is deceptive in that it sounds geographical (north, south, east) but describes about culture. How is the culture of Gujarat grouped with Kashmir but not with Maharashtra? Or why are West Bengal and Maharashtra in categories of their own. This image has to go; thanks to deeptrivia for bringing it to our attention. DevanJedi 06:08, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
 * It's totally biased. Culture of a region varies ever 100 kms. =Nichalp   «Talk»=  16:03, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Interesting, isn't it? IMHO, a true map of the continent showing various cultures would be even more challenging and complex than the one that we have on Political integration of India. I think this one is sheer misleading. -- ΜιĿ ː talk 09:52, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is misleading. I too propose to remove the image. thunderboltza.k.a.D e epu Joseph


 * Here's a map of regional frontiers and cultural regions of India, from An Atlas of South Asian History, by Karl J Schmidt, ME Sharpe, Armonk NY, 1995. Thought it was relevant and interesting. deeptrivia (talk) 05:06, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Here is the version from commons (missed to flag this earlier). Cheers! -- ΜιĿ ː talk 13:41, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

indian selected
The selected article section on the India portal has just started. No article has been selected as yet after a community vote and review. I don't think it is right to add this template to existing articles that were randomly picked. I propose this template be removed from article talk pages that did not have selected article peer review. Your thoughts? - Ganeshk  ( talk ) 08:06, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
 * You're right. By the way, who used to select the articles earlier, or was it just that anybody could select anything at random.-- May the Force be with you! Shreshth91 ($ |-| ŗ 3 $ |-| ţ |-|)  08:56, 19 March 2006 (UTC)


 * The process was started by User:Urshyam in the end of Feb and he has been selecting the articles till date. - Ganeshk  ( talk ) 23:52, 22 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, it can be removed, if majority is in favour of this. I saw the people were not responding for the process. So I have to select the picture randomly and I use the same tag which I should use after making comments by the people. Put your thoughts, Shyam  ( T / C ) 13:43, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Sita
I'm not sure how to deal with this page- I do not have too much experience with creating disambiguations appropriately. But it is clear that this (Sita) is not how the page should be. Any assistance with the page would be appreciated. Thanks! DevanJedi 01:29, 21 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Done. Redirected Sita to Sita Devi. Sita (disambiguation) already exists. - Ganeshk  ( talk ) 05:36, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Request for help on Ziyaret and Ziyarat
MPatel and I have started working on articles on Muslim pilgrimages to local shrines (not the Hajj). Ziyarat is about the general topic, Ziyaret is intended as a list of pilgrimage sites. I believe that there are such sites in India, tombs of Sufi pirs and the like. It would be nice if some of the Indian editors could contribute to the list of sites and especially nice if we could have pictures (public domain or creative commons). This is something that only WP could do -- working across borders, collaboratively, to produce a record of what I expect to be much beautiful architecture. Zora 09:07, 21 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I have taken some pictures of Haji Ali =Nichalp   «Talk»=  07:34, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Map requests from WP:HOI
Here are some requested maps for the History of India wikiproject. I've made these requests at WikiProject Maps/Requested and orphan maps, but I guess, it's a good idea to put it here too. Please feel free to add more requests, and of course, to contribute. deeptrivia (talk) 05:01, 22 March 2006 (UTC)



Featured pic FYI
FYI, Featured picture candidates/Gandhi and Jinnah is a featured picture candidate. It is not that great of a pic IMO, but just putting it out there FYI. Pepsidrinka 05:36, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Hindu law
An anon and a n00b are adding a lot to the above - their edits have changed the total structure of the article itself. It could also be a copy-vio though I haven't been able to find any sources to substantiate this. Someone may want to add the article to their watchlist and track the progress of the article. TIA, --Gurubrahma 04:47, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Promoting participation in underepresented languages
From looking at the list of languages by number of native speakers and comparing that to the success of their Wikipedia projects, a few jump out significantly. Of the top ten with the most speakers, 3 have Wikipedia projects that don’t even make it in the top 50—Hindi, Bangla, and Panjabi. Arabic is a top ten language that has an only somewhat larger WP at #37 with 11,000 articles. Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, and Gujarati are all top 25 languages that have less than 2,500 articles. I believe we can more successfully meet the mission of the foundation of getting the world’s knowledge to people if we successfully attract more participation to the projects for the most widely spoken languages.

I know many of you here speak some of these languages, and many of you contribute there too, but these projects simply haven’t attracted a critical mass yet. I think I know many of the factors why (demographics, interest, cultural factors, etc), but I haven’t figured out the best ways to tackle the problem. What are the most significant barriers to your participation or that of others? What ways can you all think of to successfully attract more participants in these languages? I know that each have a significant population of educated students, professors, and professionals that haven’t been exposed to the project. I also know that we only work on what is interesting to us, and that's perfectly fine, but I do think there is untapped potential. Thank you very much - Taxman Talk 22:20, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Upcoming Indian holidays
Hello. Can someone be so nice as to post the 2006 dates of Ugadi, Mahavir Jayanti, Rama Navami .... and other upcoming Indian holidays on the holidays section on Template:Current events, please ? I can't find the dates in the wikiarticles on most Indian holidays. Thanks. -- PFHLai 23:09, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

INCOTW: Jaisalmer
Jaisalmer is this week's Indian collaboration of the week. Please contribute and help it become a featured-standard article.. - Ganeshk  ( talk ) 04:36, 26 March 2006 (UTC)