Jrh1980

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Hello, Jrh1980, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions, especially your edits to Bhandari caste. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

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Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or click here to ask for help here on your talk page and a volunteer will visit you here shortly. Again, welcome! Sitush (talk) 20:08, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Sourcing

It was great to see you trying to source new material at Bhandari caste but unfortunately you were citing sources that are not considered to be reliable. In particular, British Raj sources are almost never suitable for use on Wikipedia and this was confirmed only very recently in a community discussion at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard. The "states series" of The People of India relies heavily on those sources, even though it often does not adequately acknowledge the fact. For this reason, I've had to revert all of your recent additions to that article.

If you can find properly academic source from post-1947, for example, then that would be very useful. Feel free to ask if you have any doubt regarding whether a source is or is not ok. Thanks. - Sitush (talk) 20:12, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi Sitush, Thanks for your comments. are you saying that the works published by Anthropological Survey of India (AnSI) are not correct. the one is referred was from 2004. If you believe that AnSI is wrong or not credible, do you have any scientific or academic proof for the same?

Also what proof exists that non British sources, pre independence, are not biased. How would you vouch that a particular author from a particular caste is not biased since the many scholarly passages such as Manusmriti are disputed with their very interpretations of caste and many of the summaries are disallowed by Inidan constitution. How do news articles that you have cited, count as academic work?

Thanks jrh

We do not need scientific or academic proof. Wikipedia works on the basis of WP:CONSENSUS and the consensus is that while the "national" series (published by Oxford University Press) is reliable, the "states" series (published by a host of different outfits as the volumes rolled out) is not. For example, numerous examples of plagiarism from the Raj sources have been found within the "states" series. Academics should not plagiarise and if they do then they are almost de facto pariahs within their community. You won't find those volumes cited in any other academic work of note precisely because of issues such as this. - Sitush (talk) 20:23, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

The note here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People_of_India#The_People_of_India_.281992.E2.80.93.29 describes the the problem you mention, and is the very issue that the government of india has tried to solve, and lists specific ways they have done this. I do not think you can discredit the work of the government as it is clearly not a particular-caste proponent. You cannot cite that lack of scholarly articles as the reason as the very nature of indian history has focussed on a very narrow section of castes and opinions. As such yor definition of scholarly articles needs to be expanded. For example, who would write about the depressed classes of india, who have not even been allowed to attend school.

thanks

jrh

I wrote that article. In fact, governments are far from neutral. As the article says, the exercise was considered by other academics to be politically motivated. As you are probably aware, caste politics are alive and well in India and they impact life on a daily basis, especially through things such as the reservation system (OBC, Sc, ST etc), which has itself been driven by the various governments. You may or may not be aware that the government of India also manipulates, for example, the depiction of its own borders: they do not allow certain types of map to be published because they believe they are in the right in their disputes with, for example, China and Pakistan. Governments are not neutral. - Sitush (talk) 20:33, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi Sitush

Your objections carry a personal opinion and hints at attempts to discredit both government work and published scholarly work. Your comments also seem to be biased towards/against particular castes and as you are very well aware attempts to suppress particular castes is not uncommon in india. This is not in spirit of wikipedia. i am going to flag this discussion and point this to government officials who can best audit your work and intent. Legal opinion will be taken on your comments and actions, and communicated to wikipedia officials.

Thanks

jrh

Could you clarify the above comment? While it is appropriate for Wikipedia editors to review other editors' conduct and provide suggestions, it is not an accepted practice to refer edits to off-Wikipedia persons for review. Your use of the term "Legal opinion" also means that you may be running afoul of the prohibition against threats of legal action. Making legal threats is a serious infraction and will generally result in the user's account being blocked until the matter is resolved and/or the threats are retracted. —C.Fred (talk) 20:48, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi Fred,

Please do not misconstrue my comment as a legal threat. It is not so. However i feel Sitush's actions are not appropriate. I have cited my sources, you can read them. They were published as recently as 2004, after a careful review of the British versions. I have also asked for proof of the claims by the previous editor, and he does not have any, against the particular work or text. If he thinks that reports from Anthropological Survey of India (AnSI) is biased, he needs to prove it. He also claims that the government is biased or not neutral, which is both a serious claim, since there is no abuse of any caste/community in the articles. It almost appears to me that the editor is imposing his own views on caste. Since i am in no position to respond to this assertion, i do wish to see this corrected. If there are other opinions or ways to go about it , please let me know as i am relatively new to wikipedia.

Thanks

jrh

Please re-read your comment above. The phrase "get a legal opinion on possible vandalism of particular castes on wikipedia, which you know is a crime in India" is a clear legal threat. Whether it's your intent or not, the message causes a clear chilling effect on discussion. You need to retract that part of your message. —C.Fred (talk) 21:11, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Ok i will redact those statements. However i do wish to see this corrected.

(edit conflict) Jrh, I edit a wide range of caste-related articles on Wikipedia, from tribals through to Brahmins. I'm not Indian, I don't live in India and I have no vested interest in denigrating or promoting any particular caste or group of castes. People have said that they will take legal advice regarding my actions relating to caste articles on plenty of occasions. They are free to do so, of course, but any legal threat on Wikipedia will result in the account being blocked until the legal issue is resolved.

The consensus regarding Raj sources and AnSI is not limited to a few articles but is in fact widespread. Please don't think that I am picking on the Bhandari. - Sitush (talk) 21:15, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi Sitush

I think your edits are misplaced in this case and not in the principle of wikipedia articles. Again, you need to understand that just because some community is not "researched" in your accepted norm does not mean that the facts are wrong. Since you claim to have knowledge on indian culture, you would know that for a lot of communities, government and in some cases even British, are the only credible sources. Yes there could be errors among other things, but they need to be dealt on a case by case basis, instead of making a global claim or discrediting an entire institute like AnSI. Also you should desist making comments on affirmative policies of Indian Government, since that topic should be kept as objective as possible and free of prejudicies. I understand that since you are not Indian, you may not be aware of these subtleties. India is still a new country and the resources to have new independent research like in Western Countries is not realistic for thousands of such communities.

Thanks

jrh

I understand your concern regarding sourcing ill-documented communities. I am also well aware that India's tradition of oral history means that there is much that is "known" that is not written down. Nonetheless, this is Wikipedia and Wikipedia's policies apply. There is nothing to stop communities publishing information elsewhere on the web but any information given on Wikipedia has to comply with, for example, the reliable sources policy. It isn't good enough to say that "because there are no alternatives, we should use X even though it isn't reliable". I actually think that there probably is much more that could be said about the Bhandaris using reliable sources but, as is quite common, the conflux of the name being used both for the community and as a surname/last name makes it difficult to track stuff down. - Sitush (talk) 21:46, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

There is a recent discussion here regarding Raj sources. There are literally hundreds of similar discussions scattered around the project on the talk pages for articles such as Yadav. - Sitush (talk) 21:51, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi sitush

Actually, i am saying that AnSI is correct about Bhandari and even some other communities like Sonar. I do not think you are correct in disallowing AnSi as a source for this case, which is the point i am trying to make. It should be on a case by case. Why do you not travel to India and talk with the neighboring castes, since i may not be someone you would want to believe. I understand that having same caste name and last name may come across as confusing to you, but it is very common for us Indians. But you are not allowing me to write anything, and discrediting all local journals and literary work and even work by government agencies calling them biased in this case. In fact what you are promoting is a very narrow view itself. I understand your concern if i write this without any sources, but since you have a stong suspicion about ansi, i feel that one way to eliminate this is to have people from ansi respond to your edits, and that may result in much more corrections than Bhandari caste alone. Again your fears are misplaced in the case of Bhandari caste group, infact if you let me expand this article, you will only enrich the knowledge base about these unfamilar-for-wikipedia communities like bhandari's, sonars, chamars, lingayats etc. As i said, the accepted norm of what is acceptable needs to be reviewed on a case by case basis. The attempt to generalize this with Yadav discussion page is also flawed. Please understand this is case by case, do not generalize.

thanks

I am not sure this discussion is heading in a constructive direction. There is no proof being presented about why the 2004 source is not admissible. There are unlawful claims that the government is biased etc which are not applicable to this case. Examples of oral tradition, examples of caste names being confused by last names, none of which is applicable to my edits. The experience of editing many caste and tribal articles along with a self appointed verdict of not being biased and not picking on a particular caste are noted, which is hardly any basis of a valid argument. A self written wikipedia article is quoted as a basis for judgement to say that a credited 2004 government effort is unreliable as it draws on certain British observations. This is the same basis as an well intentioned US based editor misjudging a cultural aspects of a foreign land based on some google searches and past experience with editing similar articles or generalizing the entire concept because of lack of sufficient understanding. Due respect should be given to work that may not be native to you but is still factually correct, unless you can disregard it using proof, or based on feedback from so many of wikipedia users that a certain fact is incorrect, who actually think that the quality of articles on these pages is much more than that self appointed judges who do not give a fair chance to others to bring up a topic and have it improved.

There is not much i can do here unless request to have my edits reinstated. I am really not afraid of being banned, as there is nothing unlawful in any of my points i am making. Surely, the right facts have to be surfaced, and brought before the people. These edits and knowledge are in public domain, and we should make every effort to make sure things are correctly represented, not just based on some third party judgements. As a reader, i find it very offensive to see wrong comparisons being made with some other unrelated discussions. I can reach out to subject matter experts and ask them to review this including government officials who probably have experts to assess what these edits mean both from an historical and cultural aspect wrt current scenario and be editors perhaps or raise some issues that need to be addressed and also reach out to press, which is quoted by the editor as a citation in this case, so that more readers like myself become aware of what quality lies beneath the stuff they read on wikipedia and how reliable these edits really are.

There are no threats here but a genuine effort to improve the quality by perhaps more knowledgeable editors and experts.

Please find me some sources that cite AnSI or find me some positive peer reviews of it. That is a major test for reliability when it comes to supposedly academic work. - Sitush (talk) 06:31, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

These articles by well-known and recognized journals/peers cite people of Maharashtra, 2004 edition which i have used for citation.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=12180992508547600529&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=en

you can also look up related articles here http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=related:kZCsGyaUC6kJ:scholar.google.com/&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:4998:EFFD:600:CCF6:56B7:5586:1317 (talk) 22:40, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Its been a week since this page has been updated with what sitush requested. Please read the papers(as i have) before making any further comments. I would want to go ahead and replace my edits.

thanks!

July 2014

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. You appear to be engaged in an edit war with one or more editors according to your reverts at Bhandari caste. Although repeatedly reverting or undoing another editor's contributions may seem necessary to protect your preferred version of a page, on Wikipedia this is usually seen as obstructing the normal editing process, and often creates animosity between editors. Instead of edit warring, please discuss the situation with the editor(s) involved and try to reach a consensus on the talk page.

If editors continue to revert to their preferred version they are likely to be blocked from editing. This isn't done to punish an editor, but to prevent the disruption caused by edit warring. In particular, editors should be aware of the three-revert rule, which says that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. While edit warring on Wikipedia is not acceptable in any amount, breaking the three-revert rule is very likely to lead to a block. Thank you. Sitush (talk) 20:34, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Jrh1980, you are invited to the Teahouse!

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Reference Errors on 24 September

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