Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates/India/archive1

India

Article is still a featured article.

The standards for Wikipedia's featured articles are of a much higher standard than the India article. On my first read through, I came across several glaring points which would have not made it through the nomination phase.

1. Not comprehensive. There is no mention of the unique (for lack of a better word) caste system that was in place for much of India's history, the Jammu and Kashmir conflict which dominated world news, the assasination of the previous prime minister Indira Gandhi, or the Congress party's latest win in the 2004 elections. Considering these were events which were of significant impact in India's history, there were not even mentioned in this article.
2. Lack of easily verifiable references and citations. Verifiability is an important tool in Wikipedia's goal to become a complete and accurate encyclopedia. From the superlatives in the lead in — "[i]t is the world's second fastest growing economy as of 2004" — to the media section — "[t]he total number of registered newspapers in India, as of 2003 was 55,780" — the interested reader would be wondering where the quoted numbers come from, or whether the numbers are reliable. The "facts" stated in this article are not easily verifiable. comment - I do understand that there is currently dispute over the referencing of articles. However, the criteria clearly states that references must be easily verifiable. In all honesty, just a listing at the bottom does not make the numbers and facts easily verifiable at all, as the user would have to figure out himself/herself which reference refers to which point.
3. Lack of neutral point of view/Use of weasel terms. From the "Sports and games" section — "Many blame the Indian government for not having an active sports policy and allowing for the breakdown of the sporting infrastructure. Others choose to criticise the perpetual media fixation on cricket as a distraction from other sports." As stated in Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words, "[t]his doesn't really give a neutral point of view; it just spreads hearsay, or (worse) couches personal opinion in vague, indirect syntax." Concern was mostly addressed. I am still concerned about "[c]hess, carrom, polo, and badminton are some other games and sports that are said to have originated in India." Very interesting point, but is it possible for you to show me some factual prooof? I would be most interested.
4. Dubious copyright status of images. I am not very sure about copyright rules, but for Image:Bangalore Infy.jpg, the "Terms and Use" from Infosys website states that "[s]ubject to the terms and conditions set forth in these Terms of Use, Infosys grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, limited right to access, use and display this site and the materials thereon." However, the image was tagged as "The copyright holder allows anyone to use it for any purpose." Perhaps this is wrong? Concern was addressed
5. Numerous grammatical/style errors. Just to list a few: comment - don't want to appear like nitpicking, but if this were to stay as FA, blatant errors should not be around. I would have done a correction myself, but university is taking up much of my time.
   • The Indian economy is the fourth largest in the world in GDP... First instance of the use of "GDP" but no explanation of what it is. comment - should be gross domestic product, not Gross Domestic Product
   • ...its dynamic nature is manifest in its willingness to respect and tolerate foreign ways and practices. - should be "manifested".
   • ...making it an unofficial member of the Nuclear club... - "Nuclear" should not be capitalized, the phrase should really be in quotation marks. comment - quotation still at the wrong place.
     

These said, this article hardly has compelling, or "brilliant" prose. I cannot honestly say that this is Wikipedia's best work and the contents are really not unique on the internet (see What is a featured article).

—Travisyoung 02:16, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. The page conformed to all the September 2004 guidelines for a FA. Let me disect your objections.

1. "Not comprehensive" events according to you is not a criteria for objection. The History section is a summary, and a very good one. Indira's Gandhi's assasination may be important but it didn't change India. The events listed over here in the History section are key events that have transformed India, nuke explosions, Babri Masjid etc. Similarly the caste system was included at one point of time, but ran into a lot of POV problems and was removed.
2. As far as the congress winning the 2004 elections. It was mentioned in back then, but somebody has removed them.
3. I'm sure the weasel terms can be cleaned up after a copyedit.
4. The images were added later, and some were subsequently changed. It can be easily removed.
5. References at that time were not mandatory. That is why the page lacks references. We'll add the references.

I wish you had mentioned this on the India talk page so that we could improve on the page. A lot of water has passed since it was a FA. Nichalp 18:26, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. This article is fairly comprehensive. All the details are covered in the main history of india, it doesnt need to be mentioned here. Its a matter of personel opinion as what needs to be further mentioned in the section. Also you have only mentioned that the history section is not comprehensive. I dont think one section being non comprehensive is a criteria for removal from FA. If the whole article lacks comprehensive content please mention them explicitly.

Thank you for pointing out the need for references. They will be added soon. According to the talk page of this page, before listing any article for removal of FA status due to lack of references, you should mention it on the talk page of the concerned article and wait for 2 weeks atleast before nominating. Ditto with dubious copyright images. You could yourself take them out.

I have done minor copyedits to some sections which could have some problems with POV, but please point out if there is a major POV problem. The section you cited is now corrected. Grammer and style mistakes are no criteria for FA removal. Articles are edited all the time and inevitably spell and style mistakes creep in. We do correct them as we come across them. You could too have corrected them. kaal 22:46, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Remove/Comments. Namaste Nichalp and Kaal (I am assuming that both of you are Indians please correct me if I am wrong. :)) First of all, please accept my apologies for not discussing my objections on Talk:India first. It was an oversight on my part, as the India article came up when I clicked on "Random page" and I only had a read through the article once.

I appreciate the fact that as a country article, a lot of cultural and national sensitivities are involved. As pointed out by both of you, it is common courtesy that concerns should be raised on the contested article's Talk page first. However, this is non-binding and provisions have been made in the {{farc}} template to address your concerns [1].

Nichalp rightly pointed out that "[a] lot of water has passed since it was a FA," and Kaal pointed out that "[g]rammer and style mistakes are no (sic) criteria for FA removal. Articles are edited all the time and inevitably spell (sic) and style mistakes creep in." While I agree that over time there might be changes made to the article, I firmly believe that a high standard must be maintained for a featured article. Being a featured article once does not mean that the article will remain a featured article indefinitely, if standards do drop after the article's feature. It is precisely because "[a] lot of water has passed since it was a FA," this article is no longer of feature article standard.

Let me reiterate what is stated in Wikipedia:What is a featured article — Exemplify Wikipedia's very best work. Represent what Wikipedia offers that is unique on the Internet. The whole "Sports and games" section did not have a neutral point of view, spelling/grammatical mistakes were evident throughout the article, and most important of all, there was a glaring lack of references. I appreciate the fact that references were not mandatory at the time of nomination, but the guidelines have changed now. Surely there must be some effort to ensure that the article conforms to the current guidelines; remember, "[a] lot of water has passed since it was a FA." Once again, I firmly believe a featured article should be of a higher standard than the India article I saw when I first read it.

I do agree that I could have done the edits myself as pointed out by Kaal, but given my time constraints (my life does not revolve around Wikipedia, LOL) I am sadly unable to do so. Some people might point out that this only weakens my position in commenting on how this article is undeserving of being a featured article, but that goes against the spirit of Wikipedia. My only wish is for the India article to exemplify Wikipedia's very best work, not to antagonize the current contributors.

That being said, I would be happy to withdraw my nomination for removal if I am thoroughly convinced that the India article does indeed exemplify Wikipedia's very best work.

—Travisyoung 05:32, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I could understand if the page had missing sections and gross spelling errors which would qualify for a demotion. However with minor grammatical errors, which only a trained eye like you could spot it was very hasty of you to throw hot water on our painstaking efforts to add content which would be agreed by all. I disagree with you that there were spelling errors in the page, I had run the entire text through my spellchecker in MS Word XP, to weed out spelling errors. (There were no apparent grammmatical errors; but then, Word is not perfect). Yes, I too share the perfection you strive for. For want of appropriate images, some copyrighted ones were listed here. As soon as suitable free images are available, I'd be happy to replace them. Your inputs on the POV text were great, but I'd still wish you had used the talk page. You conform to very high standards of the English language, it would have been ideal if you had listed grammar quirks, such as the quotes instead holding it against the page. Nichalp 19:16, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)

All images are now tagged.

All comments made by Travis have been looked after.

• Weasel words removed
• Copyedits done
• Images Tagged
• Grammar corrected
• As for references, there are some issues to be sorted out regarding inline references. At the moment the references at the bottom suffice.

I take it that all the objections raised have been met.  =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 18:59, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC) I've referenced the sports section, the lead-in, and most of the demographics. The economy section, parts of the demographics and culture, I'll continue tomorrow on the lines of Wikipedia:Footnote 3. Also adhered to the additional comments, though I sincerely feel that you should be bold and correct the grammar instead of wasting time typing here what is wrong. I've removed the media section temporarily till I can reference the statistics.  =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 20:39, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

• Remove. Everyking 07:12, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Reason?  =Nichalp (talk · contribs)=
• Keep. Mike H 19:14, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. But please format the references correctly as at Wikipedia:Cite sources. - Taxman 13:17, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)