Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics/Archive 26

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:Noticeboard for India-related topics. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Can you guys upload some photos who's Indian copyright has expired because they were taken more than 60 years ago? such as the one that is already there on the Indira Gandhi page? I saw some expired ones on this page of past famous leaders: [1] Can someone upload it to the appropriate pages? Thanx Tri400 13:51, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Can anybody verify this highly unlikly article? The only source I could find is this blog according to it the law is about protecting people from being accused of witchcraft not prosecuting witchcraft. Mieciu K 23:57, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I stumbled on WikiProject Dravidian civilizations today. Regards, Ganeshk (talk) 01:33, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Could someone rewrite this mess into an encyclopedia article? Corvus cornix 07:21, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Could someone who knows India have a look at this article. If it was about an Australian ethnic group then single article contributer User:Deepaksharma555 would have had his house firebombed. It has been tagged as non-notable since Deepaksharma555 created it. Thanks, Garrie 23:09, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that the stub Patparganj, which has long been tagged with notability concerns, should be merged somewhere - but I'm not sure to which article. If you can help with this matter, please add your comments to the article's talk page. Thanks! --B. Wolterding 10:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

A Help Page post suggests that Bhardwajs and Bhardwaj should be merged and placed into a new article entitled Bharadwaj since Bharadwaj is the more proper spelling of the surname. Some assistance on this matter would be appreciated. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 23:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Well spotted! I have requested deletion of the redirect page Bharadwaj so that the space is clear for us to move Bhardwajs (whew! its hard to keep track of the spelling variants :-) ) Abecedare 23:31, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Proceed at will! Ryan Postlethwaite 23:33, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that was quick Ryan! I have made the page move. Jreferee, please see if it is what you had in mind. Abecedare 23:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Since this looked like it might be more of an issue of which descents of Bharadwaja spell their last name more correctly (Yikes!), I thought it best to let someone more familiar with the topics to address the matter. If you are happy with the results Abecedare, then I am happy. Thanks for the assistance. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 00:52, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

This article from the pioneer illustrates the context of a page like this.Bakaman 00:08, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The Category:South Asian Canadians and natioanl subcats (Category:Indo-Canadians, Pakistani, Sri Lankan) have been fragmented by the new addition of Category:Canadians of Indian descent, and unwieldy caste categories like Category:Canadians of Jat descent and religio-nationalist stickering like Category:Canadians of Parsi descent. The discussion is located at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_June_22#X_by_descent.Bakaman 16:12, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Lucknow will appear on the wikipedia main page very soon (linked to a did you know story) Victuallers 21:31, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

La Martiniere Lucknow is in today's Did you know section on the main page. Is there any chance that someone for Wikiproject India could take a look at it. We could do with some help from some Indian editors. The article is now probably very close to being a good article, but really deserves to be a featured article. It is a very timely article as this year marks the 150th anniversary of the Indian Mutiny. The school played a key role in the Siege of Lucknow with many of the staff and pupils being awarded an Indian Mutiny Medal. Dahliarose 11:04, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

This page uses a pakdef.info article as source for Indian casualties, which is absolutely ridiculous. can anybody improve on that? 203.200.35.36 12:06, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

The Balti wine article is up for AfD. Admittedly, I've never heard of this Indian wine before so as a member of the wine project I'm going to do a little research and see what I can contribute to the article. I suspect that ultimately it would be better served merged as paragraph section into an article on Indian wine, which unfortunately doesn't exist at the moment. I was wondering if members of the India project would be willing to help in working on these two articles, especially the Indian wine one? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 18:19, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

This article was created recently. I speedily deleted an earlier version of it for lack of context, but it has now been recreated with enough context to keep. However, it really needs clean-up, and I am very ignorant on the subject of peoples of India. I'm sure the article's creator would appreciate any assistance with clean-up and sources. Thanks! --Ginkgo100^talk 00:05, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

A few months ago, I posted on Talk:Subhash Mukhopadhyay (physician) a question about why Dr. Mukhopadhyay was denied recognition by the West Bengal government for becoming the first physician in India to achieve in vitro fertilisation and in fact the first outside the UK. Can anyone provide any information about that? --Metropolitan90 18:12, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Replied in the article talk page.--Dwaipayan (talk) 08:41, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Had Maize spread out of Mesoamerica by 200 CE? It seems unlikely.

I double checked the source and it does say maize was in common use back then. Possibly due to the flourishing overseas trade?Lotlil 14:37, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I made this navagation box as a one off for Tourism in India, maybe it could be used for other articles that are in the template. I got the links for all the different places from the tourism in India article, so hopefully they are relevant to the title of the template, does anyone have an opinion. User talk:Mindys12345

I think some modifications will be required. Either rename it to "Hindu pilgrimage sites in India" or include pilgrimage sites of other religions also (like Harmandir Sahib). — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 07:43, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I would be open to renaming it to something more appropriate and adding other regions would be a good idea. Someone who knows more about than me would probably have to do it though. User talk:Mindys12345

Comment/question:

• There is a related Template:Hindu holy cities though it is miscapitalized and underpopulated.
• Do we list the city as the site of pilgrimage (e.g. Delhi) or the specific house of worship if applicable (e.g. Lotus Temple) ?
• Is there any prominent Indian city that is not a potential pilgrimage site ? For example, most of us wouldn't think of Mumbai as one, but it does contain several prominent houses of worship of various faith (Haji Ali, Mumba Devi Mandir, Banaji Limji agiary, Knesset Eliyahoo, Afghan Church etc.). Is there an accepted criterion for judging whether a place is a "pilgrimage site" ?

My main concern is that the template is likely to become very unwieldy. Category:Places of worship in India shows just how places of worship there are in India, although I guess not all of them would qualify as sites of pilgrimage.

Aside: The list Hindu pilgrimage sites in India (on which I assume this template is based) is missing some prominent places, such as Mathura, Shirdi. Abecedare 08:50, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Also: I have this to save a bit of room in certain articles:

As part of the Notability wikiproject, I am trying to sort out whether Indraneil Sengupta is notable enough to have an own article. I would appreciate an expert opinion. If you can spare some time, please add your comments to the article's talk page. Thanks! --B. Wolterding 14:53, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, he is notable, being covered in The Hindu and Times of India.Bakaman 16:39, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

... and has an IMDB entry. Abecedare 17:39, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I have been noticing many articles for colonies that have the same name in different cities. Sadly, none of the articles that I have come across have followed the naming conventions. No individually distinguishable information can be presented in such articles. If a colony is popular or has historical significance for some reason then the article should be titled "Colony name (City/Town, India)", not just "Colony name". This would also be in line with Wikipedia naming conventions. I suggest a guideline be added in Indian geography categories to stop this non-sense trend. — Aksera 17:55, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I'm working on the Uncategorized category Wikiproject. I'd like to create a subcategory of needed categories relating to this project, Category:Uncategorised India articles. Similar categories already exist for France, Italy, and Germany. You could refine it or alter it to be better suitable for project needs. Just a humble suggestion. :) -Ebyabe 17:49, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi India folks. You might be interested in this AFD, or helpful in improving the article on this Indian Publisher so it is not deleted: [2]. I apologize but I could not figure out how to list on the articles related to India AFD page. Abridged ^talk 20:44, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I realise the above-mentioned page is not about India, but I've just put this article up for peer review (here), and was looking for a wide audience - I'm thinking editors interested in Indian history might have a few ideas on how to improve this Indonesian article. Note the time period (1945-50) is the same as an important episode in Indian history! I'd be most grateful if any could offer suggestions or even edit the article directly. thanks Merbabu 12:49, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Some serious work need to be done in Tourism in India. Although I don't think the state-wise breakup is a good approach, I started out by arranging them in alphabetic order and was cleaning up sections one by one until I was intervened abruptly by bang, bang, bang, three consecutive reverts by two different users. I have tried to explain in the talk page why I was cleaning up the article and since then it seems some minor cleanup has been done on that article by those users. I let it go for now because users insist on keeping their version. This article needs some major work. Gnanapiti 20:21, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if you have seen this page before, but user:Hindutashravi seems to be indulging his appetite for irredentist myth-making by claiming areas of Xinjiang for Ladakh and Kashmir. Hindutash Davan is the historical name of a pass in the Kunlun Mountains, which connects Sumgal on the Karakash River to Hotan. In the 1909 Imperial Gazetteer Map of India, it was clearly not a part of Kashmir. (See map on right; top right of map.) There are a number of other pages: Karakash River, Hotan that have similar false claims. I would urge editors keep an eye out for similar inaccuracies. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:30, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

PS I have since found some references and have begun to fix the article. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:38, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

The Daltonganj article recently came up in a question on the Help desk (permanent link). The article needs much work. Could someone with knowledge of the area please see to it? Thanks. --Teratornis 02:44, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

The article Rail transport in India has been in Featured article review for some time now. Main issues have been addressed. Please see the article's entry. Now the article needs a review for the langusge issue. Can any one please go through the article for improving the language? Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 05:11, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Someone, have a look at padayatra. I personallz cannot trace the origin of the term, but the info in the current article is obviously wrong. --Soman 12:45, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I have nominated this for deletion. Please voice your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Biaora level crossing accident. Circeus 01:01, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The article on Kashmir has "kashmir" spelt wrongly in the devanagari script, i dont know how to correct it, and i dont know where else to post this comment of mine, sorry if i've voilated any talk page guidelines! Vineeta.sastry 15:24, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

That is the correct spelling in Kashmiri, I think. I is transliterated as Kashir. deeptrivia (talk) 04:58, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

CNN-IBN has recently renamed one of its weekend shows to Weekipedia.[3][4] It's a wonderful recognition of the growing popularity of Wikipedia, but I was wondering if there might be some legal issues involved here. The word Weekipedia is undoubtedly a play on the word "Wikipedia", which is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia foundation. Can some of our legal experts comment on this?--thunderboltz^(TALK) 14:01, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

This isn't related to India though, is it? I think asking Jimbo is a productive next step. Gizza^{Discuss ©} 01:19, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Posting this here because it is indirectly related. I'm tired of wasting my time. If one reads the whole discussion at Talk:Pakistan_Studies#Pakistani_opinion_needed, it would be clear what's going on. Regards, deeptrivia (talk) 15:13, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

At first glance, the article seems to be in quite a bad shape. Honestly, it sounds more and more like a "What Prof. Jalal says" type discussion. Perhaps looking into and discussing other sources will improve the article a lot. The focus of the article is still not clear to me. There are already articles on Human rights in Pakistan etc. etc. that may deal with most of the subject matter. --Ragib 18:37, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

You're right about the article being unbalanced. I tried a lot to find other reliable sources that would balance the article. I added the section of "Outside interest", etc. But such information is hard to come by. There are lots of sources listed in external links on the article which have not been incorporated yet in the text. However, all of them are critical. Please add any material you might find to make it more balanced, but from my search, it seems like Pakistan Studies is derives most of its notability because of its criticism. deeptrivia (talk) 20:12, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

We could add many more sources including lots of articles from Pakistani newspapers, like this, this, this, this, this and this in case there's too much of Dr. Jalal. Also, there are reports that some revisions have been made this year to take care of some objections. See this. These should be mentioned in a new section. There are lots of ideas on how this could be improved, and we're all ready to work on them. The current problem is the behavior of an editor, like complete disregard (or ignorance) of things like WP:NOR, WP:RS, which almost borders on trolling and strongly reminds me of three editors banned for a year a few months back. Please check out the current "objections". None of them seem to be aiming at improving the article. Some of them are due to miscomprehension of English. Others due to complete ignorance of how wikipedia works. deeptrivia (talk) 22:55, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of the very specific racial, political, sociological and cultural definition of the term Black people, which does not include Dravidians, User:Vmrgrsergr is adding the image you can see on the right to the article. Looks like a violation of WP:NOR to me. deeptrivia (talk) 20:15, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

As part of the Notability wikiproject, I am trying to sort out whether KSS Bhat is notable enough for an own article. I would appreciate an expert opinion. For details, see the article's talk page. If you can spare some time, please add your comments there. Thanks! --B. Wolterding 12:34, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

It is given to understand that the Army Institute of Technology Pune is only for wards of Defence personnel, why is the civilian population denied the right to apply to the Army Institute technology at Pune? The Defence personnel not only enjoys the right to send their wards to the top institutes of India which is managed by civilians, but at the same time prevent the civilian population in getting access to Army institute of technology at Pune which is unfair and I guess must be illegal.Why as a citizen of India,should a civilian be denied the right to apply to Army Institute of technology at Pune?

                           --Drillman 14:41, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

A wikiproject for idol series here contains very less participation from Indian Idol side. If someone is following the TV program or knows about the program, please feel free to join it. Thanks--Eukesh 15:31, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Goa has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Gizza^{Discuss ©} 05:36, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering why there is no "Indian Television" department under the "Arts and Entertainment" section in the Project Organisation. I beleive Indian Television plays a serious part in scope of "India" just as well as the Cinema and Literature deparments. So is another deparment going to be added soon or does this WikiProject need to be discussed about it first? Because I am not quite keen in expanding any of the other deparments that are avaliable to expand at the moment. Thank You. --Bhavesh Chauhan 01:09, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

To start a new workgroup there should be a number of interested people, a clear outline and goal. =Nichalp «Talk»= 13:11, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I am willing to start a new workgroup with a clear outline and a goal and I know a couple of Wikipedians who constantly help me update Indian Television-related articles. These people could possibly be invited to help participate in this workgroup. I'm also 100% sure that more people will come participate to help achieve consistency, quality and accuracy in all Indian Television related articles and to create comprehensive pages about these articles. If someone believes this workgroup isn't necessary or if you just wish to comment about this new workgroup, please leave a response. Thank You. - Bhavesh.Chauhan 17:59, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, since no one seemed to object. I created the Wikiproject for Indian Television. There's one new participant excluding myself. -Bhavesh.Chauhan 03:48, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

As at 1 June 2007 222 people have received the Padma Vibhushan award, India's second highest civilian honour. .The full list is here[5].However the related category has less than 100 pages. Can we all create pages for remaining people who received the second highest civil award. Shyamsunder 7:38, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. Maybe to start with we can complete the list on the Padma Vibhushan page to see what red links show up. Abecedare 03:09, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Can someone ( perhaps an administrator) look at the discussion page of Jat article and the talk pages of the major editors involved and take appropriate action to settle the issues.Thanks.Shyamsunder 18.18, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I request ayurved sholers to formulate a plan to make Units of each performance of treatment activity so that evidences can be obtained for each and cirtification can de done at different levels —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.231.245.3 (talk • contribs) 11:00, 17 July 2007 (UTC).

Greco-Buddhism has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here..Blnguyen (bananabucket) 05:05, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

It has been proposed by me (SpecialWindler) that a new bot go through and assess certain articles. These certain articles are categorised in the Unassessed category but also in an Assessed category (either as FA, A, GA, B, Start or Stub). However there are many articles which have been assessed as one thing while another project has yet to assess the article. The bot's proposal would be to assess the unassessed article as the other projects assessment, which would save time for that assessment.

Take Talk:Shane Perry as an example, it is rated as Start for the WikiProject Biography but unassessed for the Rugby league WikiProject. Would it not save the time of the Rugby league assessment team to have it assessed as Start by a bot. However the problem is that various WikiProjects have different assessment criteria. While most projects base it of this {{Grading scheme}}, some may not and wouldn't like a bot to do that.

If you would like to make a suggestion about this bot proposal you may want to add a suggestion at this page under the section "Comments from WikiProjects", in which you should state which WikiProject you come from. You may also want to look at the background of this proposal at Bot requests (under "WikiProject assessing" section) and then Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team (under "bot" section).

This message was substed from this page to alert some WikiProjects whether this bot is a good idea, to see if it can be run. It is planned that some WikiProjects will not like the idea and can be excluded from this bot, if it does go ahead. Thankyou. SpecialWindler talk 10:12, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Kaziranga National Park has been nominated for FAC .Kindly support at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Kaziranga National Park. It needs some immediate minor copy editing. Help needed. Amartyabag ^TALK2ME 05:43, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Hello all, How about collaborating on Dr. Abdul Kalam page for Featured article of the day on July 25, 2007. July 25, 2007 will be the Last of Dr. Abdul Kalam as the president of India. --Phoe6 14:52, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Did Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and Atal Bihari Vajpayee ever received this award. As per external link mentioned on Bharat Ratna page they did not but this name appears on Bharat Ratna page. Vjdchauhan 17:22, 20 July 2007 (UTC).

Any parties willing to help improve this article should indicate their support at the WP:ACID page. Thank you. John Carter 19:45, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Please visit my website www.mudaliars.co.nr and correct the article named Mudaliars or replace it with the existing article in Wikipedia titled "Mudiraju" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.92.33.188 (talk • contribs) 17:50, 12 July 2007 (UTC).

I am very impressed by the level of detail on Indian topics, as almost every article I find on the subject seems to be of at least a moderate standard, and many are excellent. Would this be the right place to put in a request? I'm interested in the development of democracy and the Legislative councils under British rule, and early political parties and the like. Is it possible that such an article could be developed?

Again, I'm not so sure where to put this, but if any Indian editors do read this, thank you for doing so.

Cheers, Michael ^talk 01:44, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the category Category:Proposed states and union territories in India is unnecessary . By the way who has "proposed" these new states ?. This category should be scrapped .Any comments.Shyamsunder 08:38, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Not all are proposed but some (Telangana, Bundelkhand, Harit Pradesh and Purvanchal) will be proposed soon (after Presidential Elections) by UPA Govt as per Indian Express news paper, check [6].

May be we can wait for this proposal or rename to more appropriate one which means demanded for new states. Vjdchauhan 13:21, 22 July 2007 (UTC).

Some kind of pattern here: History of India, History of Indian Caste system, Vedic Age, Proto-Indo-Europeans, Rigveda. Nearly 40 edits at terrific speed. Can some one look into this please. I am not sure what ought to be done.--Shahab 17:14, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Dear sir, The word Punjabi Bania in your Wikipedia is not correct due to following region:- 1)Agarwal bania or vaish is on of the largest subcaste of vaish caste

 in India.They are divided in following manner:-

a) According to their places or inhabitation(last two Used only by agarwal people in old days now eliminated)marwari means resident of marwar (all caste and people) including Agarwal bania and jain.

   (1Marwari 
   (2)Purabiye(Eastern)
   (3) Pachihiye(Westran)

b)According to rules:-

   1) Bisa Aggarwal:- twenty rules were subscribed for an Aggarwal of model    character. Those who followed all rules were called Bisa Aggarwal.
    2) Dassa Aggarwals:- followers of ten rules were called Dassa Aggarwals

2) The Agarwal and Jain Community of punjab is migarated from Hindi speaking area mainly Rajasthan and Haryana.

3)Agroha (Hindi Speaking village)is mythological origin(May be right or wrong) of Agarwal during Mahabhartha priod.

4)We are not calling Agarwal or jain community of Nibhoring state of Punjab i.e Jamu and Khasmir and Himachal Pardesh as Khasmiry Bania or Himachaly Bania ,Even the word Haryanbi Bania is not used .

5) The Agarwal and Jain Community is also migrated to other part of country but we are not calling them Bengaly Bania,Bihary Bania Marathy Bania or Nepaly Bania.

6)In hindi speaking area caste system was rigid and only vaish or bania caste people was doing bussinac work in old days but in punjab caste system was not rigid .People of Khatri , Arora and sood caste doing bussinace work of punjab.We can call them bussinac community of punjab.For brrowing other state people you can not create new caste system for punjab.

7) In history we never heared the word punjabi Bania.At present we never call the agarwal or jain caste people residing in punjab as Punjabi Bania.

8) If a Khatri , Arora or Jat caste people of punjab migrate to other part of country can we call them Bihary Khatri ,Arora or Jat ,Bengaly Khatri , Arora or Jat ,Tamil Khatri / Arora or Jat! Even we can not place Khatri , Arora or Jat in caste system other part of India.(Jat are orignal of inhabitation of Punjab ,haryana ,U.P,Rajasthan, etc.)

9) We can call Agarwal and Jain caste as one of the bussinace community

   peole of Punjab not Punjabi Bania.

10)All over India there is no state or language based division of caste system

  for agarwal or jain.So, please do not divide grate Agarwal or  jain people in the     name of State or Language . 

Thanks. Arun

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kuarun (talk • contribs) 14:46, 27 July 2007 (UTC).

• Chief Justice of India
• Chief Election Commissioner of India
• Chief of Army Staff of the Indian Army
• Chief of the Air Staff (India)
• Chief of Naval Staff of the Indian Navy

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Vjdchauhan (talk • contribs) 01:17, 28 July 2007 (UTC).

Naturally, as you guys are pretty much owning everyone else in terms of featured articles, I was wondering if someone could teach me how to tweak a project banner such that two importance categories pop up. For example, at Jallianwala Bagh massacre, Indian history places the article at Top, while the mother project places it at High. Both importance fields are popping up. What exactly is the code to create a custom importance field? Thanks in advance, everyone. Pandacomics 11:01, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Replied on user talk page. Regards, Ganeshk (talk) 16:02, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Shiva is a candidate for the WP:ACID collaboration. Any interested parties should feel free to indicate their willingness to help improve the article there. Thank you. John Carter 16:58, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Apparently a new concept on wikipedia. I don't quite like it, but if this is the way everyone's going, perhaps we should consider having something for WP:INDIA as well. deeptrivia (talk) 23:38, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

It is a shame that the ads rotate at random. It would make more sense if, for example, members of WP:INDIA were allowed to advertise WP:INDIA on their user page but not projects that have no relevance to them. If a new user discovers someone else's user page, it is more than likely that they share interests and editing areas. So why would that new user should be encouraged to join WP:MUSIC or WP:CLIMBING when they found a user who shares an interest in say, Classical Indian art? Perhaps this is a issue that should be brought up on Template talk:Wikipedia ads. Gizza^{Discuss ©} 09:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Can someone try to (permanently) get rid of the spam and other unencyclopedic material on this page? I tried doing it before, but the anons and spammers keep returning. I would greatly appreciate any help. Thanks Gizza^{Discuss ©} 05:54, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Looking at the article history, perhaps semi-protection is called for before an attempt is made to clean up the article. Even the lead sentence is hilarious; apparently Bathinda "is one of the oldest and most famous cities of the Punjab state of north-western Indiafor all sorts of intoxicants." Abecedare 05:59, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Wow, what a mess! If one deletes all that is unencyclopedic and extraneous to the subject, the article will be reduced to a stub. And if one then removes all that is unsourced, even the stub will disappear. :-) Abecedare 06:10, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

[7] this was the version (which still has a few sections with tone problems and mostly unsourced) I managed to reduce it to. I think most of the Indian editors will be suprised at how much rubbish the thousands of Indian city/town articles have. Personally, I would prefer that we have no Indian FAs but at least every article is of moderate quality than to have 50 FAs but 90%+ of the articles embarrassing (no sources, spam, magazine brochure and geocities stuff). Gizza^{Discuss ©} 07:27, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Hello to everyone who reads this. I've recently become involved in an issue with an Indian page, Ghosh which seems to have two different sets of people, one of them wishing to post information with a less than favorable slant, and another (whose name is Ghosh) who seeks to have the article cleaned up and improved with citations and references. (That person is not qualified to do it, as their level of English is not one that would allow them to improve the article's readability.) They have asked that I intervene, as they have stated that there seem to be two different articles being copied/pasted/reverted and that much of the information is incorrect and unkind.

I come to you all, as I am completely unqualified to perform the actions that are required. I know very little about Indian culture or religion, much less the lineage/history of names. Therefore I could neither spell-check it, or edit it for neutrality. This issue has been going on for some time now, and I initially got invoved while on RC patrol, simply to correct some formatting errors and obvious spelling errors. (Like the leading spaces before sentences, leading to the unformatted box). Also, it seems that someone is feeling every word needs to be "wiki-linked" and words like 'warrior' 'support' 'before' etc. were all wiki-linking, making it extremely distracting. There are also issues with capitalization, but again, not having a knowledge of which words are proper names, I'm unable to properly attempt to edit it.

I have the impression that the person(s) who seek to improve the validity and neutral voice of the article are willing to discuss it on the talk page, but those who continue to revert to the other version are not willing to discuss it, leading to a very one-sided edit war between the two. I have since backed away from the article, and encouraged the persons participating in the talk page to try to not take it seriously, and that I'll do my very best to get an expert to assist.

It is my hope, that someone who has a good knowledge of the culture and history could head over there, and perhaps make it their "pet" project for a time. I'm hoping that once there are references, and a standard of neutrality is implemented, then it will be easier to bring the article in line, and the edit wars will stop.

Thank you sincerely in advance for any assistance you can provide. ^Ariel♥Gold 15:53, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Has anyone had a chance to take a look at this? The edit warring continues, and without an expert, it is impossible to tell what is unbiased, and what is factual. It would be very much appreciated if someone could take a peek and help that article's stability. Thanks! ^Ariel♥Gold 21:09, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Has anyone else noticed the following likely socks and determined which is the primary? See:

• User:Flameoffire
• User:Truthalwaysprevails
• User:Truthfulnesswins
• User:6589743new
• User:86597one

Buddhipriya 19:39, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

From the similarity of names, see also User:Satyameva jayate, whose activities were almost all on Narendra Modi and The Hindu. Imc 11:40, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Can someone please render Taiyar (Be Prepared), the Scout Motto, into Hindi? Thanks! Chris 15:09, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi, please keep an eye on the Telangana Rashtra Samithi page. Its edited by partisans frequently, and needs serious wikification. --Soman 06:33, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I'm not sure about using British India flag for people born before 1947 like here. What do you people think? -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 10:22, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I share your concerns. Furthermore, what flag will be used for Indians prior the British Era? Gizza^{Discuss ©} 11:11, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem lies in usage of flags overall. Many historical figures cannot be fitted into modern national boundaries at all. The usage of flags should either be discontinued in cases where the birth occured before modern nation-state boundaries were established (in Europe, post-WWI would be an ok bench-mark, post-decolonialization in most of the 3rd world.) or scrapped completly. --Soman 11:18, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Moreover, its absolutely superflous to state 'Madras Presidency, British India', instead of just 'Madras Presidency, India'. --Soman 11:20, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, there is a tendency for flags to be used as method to WP:OWN the article by nationalists. Perhaps flags should only be used for people who "lived under the flag." Gizza^{Discuss ©} 11:27, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with both of you. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 11:48, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think flags should ever be used for the birth location. Birth location is a geographic place. A flag connotes anything from citizenship all the way to loyalty to patriotism. WP:FLAG says:

"Not for use in locations of birth and death

The use of flag icons in the birth and death information in a biographical article's introduction and/or infobox is strongly deprecated, as flags imply nationality. Many people born abroad due to traveling parents never become citizens of the countries in which they were born or do not acknowledge such citizenship even if they possess it. For example, actor Bruce Willis was born on a US military base in Germany, so putting a German flag in his infobox could lead the casual reader to think he is a German citizen. Many people die on foreign soil due to war, vacation, or accident without claiming nationality."

What that section doesn't address is placing a flag on the birthplace of someone born under the occupation of an invader. If someone were born in WWII occupied France, would the German Flag of that era be appropriate? A flag does have many connotations, while a birthplace is merely a geographical location. Traditionally, in encyclopedias, birthplace is about the geographic location, rather than citizenship and/or loyalty to a flag/government.. For so many reasons, I agree with WP:FLAG - it shouldn't be applied to birthplace in the bio infobox, period. ॐ Priyanath talk 15:52, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Flags are overused, misused, and misrepresented. People who were born and died before 1947 ... between the years of 1858-1947, were technically citizens of British India (with separate passport issued for them). Their nationality is officially "British Indian". However, adding flags for birth location often tends to confuse the readers. --Ragib 18:31, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree with Sundar, Gizza, Priyanath, Ragib et al. It is amazing to see that the infoboxes of national leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Charles de Gaulle, Mao, Lenin, Ziaur Rahman have no national flags; while Bobby Deol does.

This is another area where we need a India specific MOS. My personal suggestion would be:

• Don't use flags for places of birth/deatch in any biographical articles.
• Use of flags, may be justified to indicate nationality of national leaders and other persons who represent India say, in international sporting competitions. Although even this may need further thought to figure out what to do for pre-1947 biographies, persons with multiple natioonalities etc.

Is anyone, with wide enough experience with India-related articles willing to take up this task ? Abecedare 01:58, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

One national leader does have a flag in his infobox. Mahatma Gandhi is waving the British (India) flag in his article, oh irony of ironies. Maybe someone should also add a sound file that automatically plays God Save the Queen when you open his article :-) . I fully agree with Abecedare re: no flags for place of birth/death in bios, period. The second point needs some serious discussion regarding where and when flags are appropriate. ॐ Priyanath talk 04:07, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

An additional point. Flags have also become subject to controversy on WikiProject tags on talk pages. Gizza^{Discuss ©} 04:10, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Two other section in WP:FLAG that are relevant (in addition to the ones mentioned above) are: sections Don't rewrite history and Use historical flags in contexts where the difference matters. British India (or, more correctly, the British Indian Empire) was a legal entity, which was represented in the League of Nations, had its own Olympics teams, and as mentioned by user Ragib, issued its own passport. Thus, in the India at the 1924 Summer Olympics, clearly the flag displayed is the correct flag, since, players marched under the flag of British India in the opening ceremony, received the gold medal to the tune of "God Save the King" (George V was King-Emperor in 1924), and traveled using a British Indian passport similar to this one. I agree that the flag should not be gratuitously displayed with mention of places of birth or death; however, if it is displayed with nationality information, it needs to be the historically correct flag. For better or worse, Gandhi was a citizen of British India for most of his life. There is no irony in that; those are the facts. You might decide that nationality doesn't merit a flag in Gandhi's infobox, but if you are going to display one for it, it has to be the flag of British India (until 1947) and not India (= Republic of India). The same goes for usage, as in the post of the user above who complained about "Madras Presidency, British India." You cannot replace "British India" with India (=Republic of India). For example, would you then write, "Jinnah was born in Karachi, Bombay Presidency, India (=Republic of India)?" As for other tertiary sources (like Britannica and Encarta), they do use "British India," as in the examples below:

Replacing British India with India (disambiguation) was advocated by user:Rama's Arrow, but that discussion never reached any consensus, and, in my opinion, was an unsatisfactory solution in the first place. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:38, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree fowler, that when appropriate, the correct flag should be shown, perhaps with Olympic athletes for example, to demonstrate the flag they were representing in the year they were in the Olympics (but not next to their birth and death in the infobox). The point is that there should be no flag in Mahatma Gandhi's (and other bio articles) birth and death location in the infobox because WP:FLAG strongly deprecates that, and for some very good reasons. I believe that's what I said. The irony was that other national leaders listed by Abecedare didn't show a flag, and Gandhi's did — apparently my irony was too subtle — along with my attempt at humour about playing God Save the Queen when you opened his page. I'll use <humour></humour> and <ironic-humour></ironic-humour> tags next time rather than the less obvious ":-)" ॐ Priyanath talk 14:36, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Fowler's explanation on which flags to use when we do use flags, but I also agree with Priyanath on limiting the use of flags in general since they are often superfluous, add very little to the article and can create confusion more than anything else. Gizza^{Discuss ©} 03:37, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree also, regarding which flags to use. It was the misuse of flags for birth and death that caused the dissonance that started this thread. Where flags are truly appropriate, then of course the proper flag should be used. Note that the page I linked to is actually titled Wikipedia:Don't overuse flags. It's well worth a read. ॐ Priyanath talk 04:04, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I concur with both F&F's and Priyanath's positions (since I see no contradiction in them). If I may summarize the above discussion, I think we all agree that

1. Using flags to mark places of birth/death is both gratuitous and deprecated by WP:FLAG and they should be removed from infoboxes.
2. Flags may be used to mark nationality in some cases, with due care taken that the "correct" flag(s) is/are used.

Clearly further discussion is needed to hammer out the details of point number 2, but we seem to have consensus on point number 1. If so, can go around removing flags marking places of birth/death , or is there some objection to that ? I hope that this discussion leads to something actionable and not just serve as an outlet for us to vent. :-) Abecedare 04:07, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

By all means, feel free to begin removing flag icons from birth/death places. I removed several last week, before this discussion even began. One has already been put back, by a bot of all things![8] ॐ Priyanath talk 14:34, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I disagree that saying India=Republic of India. The present Republic of India is the direct continuation of British India, it is the same entity as British India which obtained independence. The fact that its borders are not identical to British India is not relevant, the political entity didn't cease just because some areas were separated from it in 1947 (just as it didn't cease to exist when Burma was separated from it in 1947). There was also Portuguese and French possessions in India at the time, however its not really necessary to disambiguate British India from these possession as they were very small. --Soman 11:05, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

No, I'm afraid the direct administration of Burma in 1937 (when Burma ceased to be a part of the British Indian Empire) is very different from what happened in 1947. The main difference was that the governing entity changed in 1947. The sovereign nations that were created in 1947, now India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, are all successor states of the former British India. Even the name "India" was by no means certain up until the last minute. Jinnah was famously furious when he learned in 1947 that the name was going to be "Union of India" instead of "Union of Hindustan." Among other things, the relation of the princely states to the Viceroy was a unique arrangement that didn't last after 1947. For example, if Kashmir had been a province of British India (and it likely would have been one if the British had not sold it to the Dogras in 1846), it would (as a province with greater than 75% Muslim majority) have most certainly been awarded in toto to Pakistan, and the resulting Union of India would have been much smaller. Even as late as July 1947, the rulers of Hyderabad and Kashmir were talking to their Conservative MP friends in the British parliament in the hopes of ordering arms from British firms for their future independent countries. In light of the realities of 2007, it is easy to look at 1947 and imagine that everything that happened was inevitable, but that is by no means the case. It is important in Wikipedia that we preserve complexity and not promote nationalistic perspectives, whether of Britain, India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:03, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Burma was obviously a misprint. I disagree regarding the description of history on the transfer of power in 1947. Two states where created out of British India. But the passage to independence is not identical, in the sense that the founders of Pakistan chosed to sececeed from India, they chosed to form a separate entity. This was not forced upon them, it was a choice they made. Their choice of political path does not render the continuity between pre-independence India and the modern state of India as null. --Soman 10:28, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I feel this discussion has strayed off the original topic, which was about the usage of flags. It seems to only stengthen my belief that adding flags when they are not necessary will only create confusion and debate because of the technical connotations the flags have. Gizza^{Discuss ©} 22:38, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Agree with above. Simply write the place name and a link... the flag is unnecessary for the birth/death sections or infoboxes of biographies. Shruti14 ( talk • contribs ) 19:13, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I've begun removing flag icons from the birth/death section of bio infoboxes. To prevent people from continually re-adding them back, I insert hidden comment tags just above the 'place of birth' line in the infobox. The tags hide the statement "Do not add flag icons to place of birth/death, per Wikipedia:Don't overuse flags". For the non wiki-mark-up inclined, you can see how this works by going to Mahatma Gandhi and looking at the edit view. The statement is hidden from the normal article view, but shows up when someone tries to edit the article. ॐ Priyanath talk 19:25, 9 August 2007 (UTC)