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] ] ] <small>—Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 06:59, 13 October 2007 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot--> ] ] ] <small>—Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 06:59, 13 October 2007 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

==What the page needs most in light of the recent RfC (continued)==

(To KnowledgeHegemony), why is improving on what we already have a hindrance to adding new stuff? If somebody (or a few editors) start cleaning up the article for prose etc, why does everyone else have to stand back and lose creativity? Do you see how the ] interpretation and team work in this article has destroyed its ]ness on which it relied to reach the very FA status that the "core" editors are trying to protect? It is bordering on a group ownership. Consensus can be good thing only when applied wisely. There is a difference between being protective and being possesive. I am honestly concerned.] 23:07, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
*I do not like the Tagore image. I personally find it dull and showing the picture of the person is not that useful. Maybe an image that depicted his work would be better. However, who the hell cares what he looked like in context of the culture text. There are far better choices than Tagore image, including the Toda image. The RFC was never FOR the Tagore image and I personally did not vote for its inclusion when I voted against Toda image. --] 09:58, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

The Tagore image should be reverted back to the Toda since there was a debate on the image, and changing the image without a clear consensus is disruptive to civilized debate. ] ] 18:04, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

==No images on South India, Rotation etc.,.==
I see absolutely zero images from ]. India is a diversified country and all regions should be summarily represented. While it will be difficult to ensure that all states get representative images, the least that can be assured is that bigger geographical regions get a representation. South India has on offer images like:

* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
<br>
and many more.
And no, not the Toda Image, which is hardly representative of anything, let alone South India. East India, which was also not represented, now has a good Rabindranath Tagore image. The fact that it is the sole representative of that region is a good enough reason for it to remain in the article.

Since this proposal of mine is bound to attract a no, no, no way by the ''Toda group'', (since that's what they say for any changes to the article), I have a suggestion. Since this is going to be a perennial question which will crop up time and again, I think we should have a rotation policy for images in each section. We can select may be 7 good images in each section and then rotate them one by one per week, images which are good and those that reflect the diversity of India. If people are not open to this, I am proposing to replace the Ajanta image with a South Indian one for two reasons:
# The image is no where near any good quality or visually appealing, though it is a featured picture
# Two images for ], (other one being the BSE) is too much of weight for just one state of India. Thanks -- ]<sup><small>]/]</small></sup> 17:06, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
:Yes... like I'd already proposed above, I think rotation is the way to go. I am positive that it can be implemented by combining the rotation mechanism for featured pics being used on the India Portal and Saravask's mechanism. On the Portal:India page, I think there's just one subpage being used for the pic mechanism. Here, let us have a subpage for each section (Economy, History, Culture etc.,) and let us start by categorising all the good pics we have under those categories.

:Categorising all the pics that have been featured until now on the India portal and other state portals will be a good place to start. I'm confident that the nitty-gritties can be worked out but people have to come around to accepting rotation 'in principle' atleast. Otherwise, we'll be having the same problems and same pointless debates in future also. There's almost four times as many states and union territories in India as there are sections in this article. Even if we expanded the article enough to fit two pics in every section, there's going to be discontent about some region/state or the other being under-represented.

:Also, with rotation, there is going to be nothing sacrosanct or "icon(ic)" about any picture. The Mysore palace or the Brihadeeshwara temple(that 'South Indian Hindu temple') will be treated on par with the Taj(that 'North indian muslim cemetry'). A pic of Infosys or of Tidel park(from the ] article) will compete on equal terms with the BSE pic. And so on.. I hope further discussion will center around ''how'' we are going to implement the rotation scheme rather than whether to even adopt it or not. And if rotation isnt an option for the usual suspects, I too insist that the Ajanta pic should go for the reasons Amar cites. ] 17:44, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to be rude, but the "rotation" idea strikes me as stupid. It almost sounds as if there were people who ''enjoy'' the endless image discussion this page specializes in. Imagine we can have them every month! --] <small>]</small> 17:58, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

:Hi dab, instead of commenting on an idea as "stupid", if you have a better idea to end the image issue once and for all, please bring it to the table. It all started with the continued insistence of few people on the Toda image and will surely spread to other images as well. Currently, rotation seems to be a "workable" solution, lets give it a try. If not for anything, I am sure that it will reduce the copious amount of bickering that currently goes on for images. Thanks -- ]<sup><small>]/]</small></sup> 01:38, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

:::With all due respects, nothing could be more stupid than continuing to hold on dogmatically to something that clearly is not working.. atleast not without lot of people losing lot of sleep over it. There has to be a less stressful way of doing this and . If it works, then we have a model for all of wikipedia to follow(if it suits their convenience ie.,). If it works, it will also mean that it will free up a lot of time of a lot of people here to actually work on improving other aspects of the article instead of bickering over images on the talk page. Even if it doesnt work as well as we'd like it to, it certainly cant end up worse than what it is now.

::I originally opposed this idea when Sarvagnya first suggested it, but I'm beginning to see the wisdom behind it. Even if the toda image had been relevant and/or notable for the article, it still shouldn't have been a permanent fixture, forever eliminating more relevant and notable images &mdash; or images that showed more diverse aspects of Indian Culture. And imagine having this discussion ''only'' once a month! What joy! (though I think it wouldn't come to that). ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 18:11, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Rotation has been talked about before: , , , ? As you can see, I too had once entertained such thoughts; however, I now feel, in an FA like India, the quality of the picture is very important. If the India pages had a surfeit of Featured Pictures or even near-Featured-Picture-quality pictures, rotation would be another thing. I still don't understand why there isn't more of a push to get India-related pictures featured. ]] 19:41, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

:::This "push" should come from within,Fowler. I have tried to get numerous india images featured. I also support deleting the Ajanta caves image because one can barely makeout anything andit doesnt show much. I think if we move the Taj image to the history section where the ajanta imageis not, wecan have more space for the culture section. It can be under thetitle: "The Taj Mahal was built under islamic rule in india" or something like that. The ajanta image is dull. ] 20:42, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

::::There is some benefit in a "rotation" system but the biggest problem with it is that the image debate will never go away. Half of the discussions here would be forever about images. Perhaps we should try to feature pictures from regions not represented here at the moment, add those and leave it there. <b><font color="teal">]</font></b>''<sup><font color="teal">]</font></sup>'' <sup><b><font color="teal">]</font></b></sup> 22:32, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

:The status quo is not working. These debates are causing us to neglect other issues (referencing, copy-editing). I am one of those who prefer the Toda, Apatani, and Ajantha images, but I also agree with Blacksun: it's time to move on.

:Read ]. Others will come along and fight to replace whatever images we (ultimately) agree upon here. We need a smart solution to prevent such episodic and time-wasting deadlock.

:We should offload all of this "which image belongs here" stuff to (]. There, people can propose or argue for the promotion of whatever image(s) they want. We should use the ] image pool to stock the "article-wide rotations" proposed by Sarvagnya.

:If we don't try something new, this will never end: more and more new people will come along, saying "but ], which has almost 400 million people, is not represented". They will argue against the Taj pic, against Ajantha (we're already beginning to see now). Meanwhile, ] 00:08, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
::I've pretty much echoed above what Saravask says here. I hope we can, without further ado, start exploring the means and logistics of putting this rotation thing in place. ] 01:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Yes please, this is the way forward. And I dont see the need for "only featured pictures" to make it to the article, a good near-featured picture is good enough. -- ]<sup><small>]/]</small></sup> 01:30, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
::Yes to rotation. ''']''' ('']'') 01:44, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

'''Note''' - I have created ] page. Further comments are on the same page. Request everyone to take a look. And Saravask, do you think your mechanism can draw from a pool like this? Is it workable? Please weigh in. ] 01:48, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

::I just left a note to Nikkul on his talk page . I thought it would be good for people to take a look at the comment. ] 02:47, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

===Section break===
:::Hi, Sarvagnya. One possibility is that your subpage be made into a single template. It should accept one parameter: <code>{{{subject}}}</code>. "Subject" can be "culture", "history", or whatever. The template itself would match this parameter with internal lists of images along with their respective captions. Another idea is to have a bot auto-rotate hard-coded images directly—no template needed. This would cut down on page load times. ] is a professional programmer who ] better than I do. He also programs bots (see ]); we can ping him about using Ganeshbot. ] 03:07, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
::::I kind of get the drift of what you're saying.. but not entirely comfortable with the technicalities myself. I've pinged Ganesh for help. In the meanwhile would you be able to put together the template mechanism in your sandbox? To me, the template sounds like the 'least resistance path' for now. A bot may take longer to code and we could probably adopt it in the long run. Let's see what Ganesh has to say. ] 03:37, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::Yes. We can test it in one section. ] 23:26, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

:::::This bot would require dedicated hosting to run continuously and change the images on a timer. A bot running on the ] may be an option. I currently do not have the expertise and the access required to set this up at the Toolserver. Please check with ], someone might volunteer to help. Regards, <font color="navy">] (])</font> 01:11, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

:The discussion whether rotation should be implemented on the ] page, should be conducted on ''this'' page and not cloistered away somewhere else. If the decision is ''made'' to go with rotation, fine, the action could move elsewhere, but not until then. I am not as hopeful about this scheme as Saravask (even though a year ago I was advocating rotation myself as I indicated above). A number of issues need to be considered:
#Is rotation needed? Clearly at least two country FAs manage without it, as well as the on-line tertiary sources.
##,
##,
##Britannica Online and Encarta Online too manage without rotation.
#A conscientious editor on the India page, could treat the new rotation idea as a blessing in disguise, since it might get the argumentation and debate out of the way. But that editor then has two choices: (a) trust people whose past choices of images were demonstrated by what they supported , or or, (b) get in the fray themselves. Clearly (a) is not a good choice, because the images selected for the India page, could suffer in quality, and in their wake cause the very time-wasting deadlocks we are trying to avoid; however, (b) is not much better. It is really the current situation in disguise, the difference being that the conscientious editor is now spending time arguing on some other page, but ''arguing'' nonetheless, and not editing text.
:That is the reason why I think image quality is very important; the Misplaced Pages Featured Picture process makes the image decision making more objective and less prone to personal or group biases. As I mentioned earlier, I still don't see why so little effort has been made to get India-related pictures featured. Regards, ]] 03:29, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

::Images that arent featured pictures are not inferior to other images. And an images quality is not defined by whether or not it is a featured picture. Certain photos can have 900*900 resolution and can be featured picture quality, but will never attain that status. Relevancy is more important. We've already had this discussion before. ] 05:30, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

::Rotation is needed because the featured countries mentioned above are not even remotely as diverse as India is; with respect to language, culture, arts and variety. A featured picture is a featured picture because of various reasons and not because of its association with any country. Insistence of featured picture is not a requirement for an article to qualify/remain as an FA and the two articles that have been pointed out (] and ]) contain very few featured pictures. And its high time that Fowler stops his "holier than thou" attitude ridiculing other editors for nominating pictures (by the way, he himself says that there is no effort being made for featuring India related images and taunts editors who have made the effort. What does he want finally?). Also, may I point out that ] was not a smooth-sailing effort either and invited considerable opposition as well. -- ]<sup><small>]/]</small></sup> 06:14, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

::: >>> Quoted by: "Also, may I point out that ] was not a smooth-sailing effort either and invited considerable opposition as well."
::::The proper link is because it shows that the true status of the nomination. I was going to include that example, but didn't in the end because I thought it would be gloating on my part. Do you know what the picture is? It is a historic picture of the Taj Mahal taken by photographer ] in 1869. It hasn't been turned down; the decision awaits receipt of the high-res version from the British Library. If the image wasn't great, the Misplaced Pages FP people wouldn't still be waiting (four months later) on the nomination, they would have summarily dismissed the picture like they did the other two I mentioned above. I submitted the best resolution public domain scan of the image that was available at that time, knowing fully well that the resolution was low. (Please see Indian star's comments as well.) ], a profession photographer, and a regular on ] discussions, had this to say:
{{cquote|"At first I thought the worst of it was the fogged upper half of the original print, but the scan is just too small to properly appreciate the image in almost any respect. You get an idea of the exquisite detail of the original print ... where the "zoom" facility lets you see a small portion at a time of what appears to be the print at 100%. Stunning. The below-par submission here should not be promoted without a proper attempt to acquire a better scan ... I'd be happy to attempt to contact the source and get hold of it, assuming no-one has recently done so of course."}}
::::Mick then himself contacted the British Library and is in extended negotiations with them, not just for the Bourne image, but other BL images as well. And guess who opposed the nomination with these comments, "''Oppose''' - cant see anything special in this photograph except that its claimed to be very old. And the 'historic' pitch is moot because this photo doesnt show anything about the Taj that we cant see today."? The fact that these same people, and now you, are aspiring to be the arbiters of the next generation of images that go on the India page, doesn't give me much confidence. Regards, ]] 08:52, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

:::::Shall I make it more clear. There were issues and oppositions in the images that others wanted to be featured and there were issues and oppositions to the image that you wanted to be featured (not just one single opposition that you have ''biasedly'' mentioned above, but others as well). But that does not give you any right to ridicule or taunt or say that the other nominations were useless where as yours was better. By the way, I dont need a confidence vote from you. Thanks -- ]<sup><small>]/]</small></sup> 09:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

No images from (Region X) is not really a good argument. Are there any images from, say, ] or ] or any of the seven sister states? What about Punjab? When you start demanding pictures from South India, each state can ask for a photo of its own in this page. And pretty soon, we have a huge photo gallery of all states of India .... that, by any measure, won't be a pretty sight. --] 06:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
:Yes.. we ''are'' in fact, contemplating representing all states equally (and not just regions) and that precisely is why we need rotation. Once we have a bot(hopefully) taking care of it.. it will simply run through a pool of pictures and choose the next one in the list. If there is a shortage of pics for any state, it will simply move on to find the next pic/state. In the unlikely case of there being no pics at all from a particular state, there's very little or nothing we can do. Its unfortunate and we'll have to live with it. ] 06:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
:Ragib, if not me, some one in future, will raise the same question again, leading to same old arguments. We want to close this issue once and for all by implementing a rotation policy. Thanks -- ]<sup><small>]/]</small></sup> 06:42, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

::Well, in that case I'd have to say the rotation idea is very dumb. India has, at last count, 28 states, and 7 union territories. Are you suggesting a rotation of 35 images by a bot? Such instability would certainly be a basis for edit war and lead to ]. --] 06:53, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

:::Ragib, why do you feel that it will lead to edit wars? And why do you think it will be moved to ]? I have exactly the opposite opinion that if we do not summarily represent images of India, questions will get asked again and again which may lead to edit wars and ]. If any state (or region) feels misrepresented, all it needs to do is to find out a good picture and then add it to the bot. If you think that the rotation idea is dumb, do you have a better idea to address this, since whatever has been discussed till now (Toda et al...) has not lead to any solution. By the way, we already have a precedence of rotation in ] and various other portals, which is working fine, so this suggestion is definitely workable. Thanks -- ]<sup><small>]/]</small></sup> 07:03, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

::::Actually, I don't have to have a better idea to call a spade a spade. In a top level country page written in summary style, you can't possibly discuss all 28 states and 7 union territories. Per ], a featured article "has images and other media where they are '''appropriate''' to the subject". Now, are you going to discuss something about all 35 subdivisions in *this* article? Then how on earth would you make an image relevant? Such images are fine in the individual state pages, but trying to force-feed images from all 35 entities into the top level country page is indeed a very dumb idea in my opinion. Also, this article is NOT a portal page. The distinction between a portal and a top level country article is very clear. Thanks. --] 07:19, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

:::::Ragib, you are entitled to call a spade anything you want. Since you had called the spade, a "dumb spade", I wanted to know if you have any suggestions on how do you think your "dumb spade" can become a "good spade". It is fair enough that you do not have any ideas at this moment. For people who have spent KBs and hours of time on this talk page, is it so difficult to identify a set of '''relevant''' images that are representative of India's diversity. And just to make everyone understand the reason of why I am pushing for rotation: lets take a hypothetical example, where you have good images of ], ], ], ], ], ], ] etc., and for the sake of the larger audience, lets assume (though it is not exactly required) that all are featured pictures. The article definitely cannot accommodate all those images. So, how would you select the correct set of images to display. The obvious answer would be to discuss it in the talk page, '''which is exactly what is happening but not leading to any solution and pages have been spent discussing this again and again'''. No rocket science is needed to understand that portals and articles are different, but there is nothing to stop a ''working'' idea being used in portals, to be used in articles as well. Thanks -- ]<sup><small>]/]</small></sup> 08:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Ragib, I may have been a little too quick to react to your message, but I've been thinking about it for some time. I think I'll sleep over it and I'll share my thoughts in detail in a day or two. Rotation however, seems inevitable to me. Consider this for example - the ] is a site of immense historical and cultural significance(about which I've written in detail on one of these talk pages in the past) and whats more, it is India's number one tourist attraction. The number of visitors visiting the palace exceeded that of Taj in 2006. Now tell me, what is so special about the ajanta painting that it should find a place ahead of the Mysore palace? There surely are other deserving pics like this from other states also. A picture of the ], Konark is another historically very important picture that comes to mind. Obviously lot of people here think that it is not fair for taj and bse and ajanta to squat on the page till the end of time.

Logistically though, what perhaps needs to be pondered over is the size of our 'pool'. Right now, I'm leaning towards picking just one section to implement this with a pool of photographs picked conservatively from available ones. We could perhaps decide on a minimum resolution, size etc., for pics to even make it to the 'pool'. As for pics of some states you mentioned, especially the NE states, I really dont know how else it can be remedied without somebody actually uploading them on wiki. It is a case of systemic bias, yes, but sadly, not one we can do anything about. I mean.. if there are no pics, there ''are'' no pics. Right? ] 09:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

:Some comments about choosing pictures &mdash; I think everyone wants to make sure that only high quality images deserving to be on the India page should be part of the rotation. A few sentences at ] would help narrow the pool before people even try and place low quality or non-relevant images. Here are a couple of starting points: "Images must be relevant....and be of sufficient notability" to the India article (per ]); images, in thumbnail size, should clearly show a distinct aspect of India that is relevant to the article; images should be of high quality, and of relatively high resolution for those who want to see more.

:To clarify the last two points &mdash; I'm willing to guess that 90-99% of people scrolling through a large article do not ever click on a particular image. For that reason, the thumbnail alone should clearly make the point. I can imagine even some featured images might not show well in thumbnail size, but I don't have any examples. Conversely, since the vast majority of people don't click-through to see the high rez version of an image, I don't think it's important that images be Featured images. But it is important that they be high quality, and high rez enough that a larger size is available for those few who do click-through. ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 19:23, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

==Why rotation doesn't make sense==
:All the people who are complaining about unfairness, need to ask a basic question: "Whom is this article written for?" Is it written for people, like the disputants, who already know a lot about India, who consider the page "representation space," and who are jostling to fill that space with what they consider are fair representatives? Or is it written for newcomers who ''don't'' know much about India and are looking for, in the Misplaced Pages India article, a short and sweet introduction to India, that will then allow them to probe deeper in the manner they want to? If the answer is the former, then, really, a new India page needs to be created, we could call it ], and let the disputants work out their ideal representation of both image and text, be it through through rotation or expansion. If, however, the choice is the latter, then one has to consider this. If after reading the article an average reader decides they are interested and want to probe further, the lack of representative images will be a moot point, because in the more detailed daughter articles they will find many more images; if, however, they decide not to probe further, then the images, representative or not, will not have made much of a difference, as they likely will have been forgotten. In any case, how will ''rotation'' help; on any given day, what will be presented on the India page will be a limited choice of images. Are we then expecting this average reader to come back day after day, or month after month for their complete edification? Will the Tuesday reader, who missed the Taj, then have to come back on Thursday to view it? And speaking of rotation, why stop with images, why not rotate text as well. It would certainly be more representative. Everyone's new sections could be accommodated that way. ]] 11:21, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

::Fowler, just so that I understand clearly. Are you trying to say that at the end of the day it does not matter what images the article contains? -- ]<sup><small>]/]</small></sup> 11:35, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
:::No, I'm not saying that. Just that the summary style, in some sense is a summary style of both text and images. What you see in the article is a compact description of text and images, with a clear understanding that complexity is achieved by clicking on the links. ]] 11:43, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
::::Of course, I am not suggesting that the same images remain in perpetuity. I think a once a year image discussion and change, in conjunction with a remainder-of-the-year drive to get India related images featured, should be ample. ]] 12:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

:Fowler, look at the homepage. If a staid and chaste Ivy League university can use a rotating tableau (updated upon reload) to represent its diversity, then why not try it here? It's a engaging feature; I often sit there and continually reload the site just to see what image it will show next, or whether they've added any new images to the rotation. Does this detract from Cornell's dignity or hinder visitors in any way? No.

:Misplaced Pages's culture is that of openness and experimentation ("let's give it a go"), not excessive fear ("oh, but 'X', 'Y', and 'Z' might go wrong, so let's not try anything"). Experimentation is how an FA gets built: we try new things. If something goes wrong, then we sit down, figure out what it is, and fix it. If we find there's no way to fix it, we say "okay, this isn't working" and chuck it. ] 17:05, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
::But there's the difference. Cornell is not doing it because they are claiming that this is more representative. They are doing it because it is an engaging graphics device and more importantly because they have professional photographers who take these images. (My own institution has a similar web page (at least some of the time) and a graphics department devoted to producing these images, where in one 15-minute appointment the photographer will take up to thirty or more pictures and then maybe pick one, if they think it is worthwhile.) However, an image like the ], will never make it to the Cornell rotation list. If we had even five featured or even ] images like ], I would be all for rotation, as I have said above, and as I said before many times beginning in Nov 2006. Furthermore, the FPC process will make the India-page contributors more illustrations-savvy. I am still mystified why among all the people who object to the current crop images there hasn't been much of a drive to get other pictures featured. I just nominated on the FP peer review the ] image of ], and might also submit the ] image once I have examined it more carefully. And I plan to write to him too asking for more, since he has some images of other regions like the Rann of Kutch. If I can do this, why can't the others? We have two other Featured Pictures: a ] (I can't decide if it is a FP, but it sure is ]) wearing a hat made with the beak of the ], and the ] image. If people want to use those for rotation, I don't have any problems. ]] 18:40, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
:::If you detest the Mysore image, you are free to argue for its demotion. Others will disagree; the point is that all of that discussion will occur on the ] demotion page, freeing up this talk page for more urgent matters. ] 20:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
::::But that is my point: I don't want to discuss that picture either on the ] page or on some other page. How will moving the discussion elsewhere help? I will be distracted away anyway from my primary task of adding to or copyediting the text. It's best to let the FPC process take care of it, and their judgment on the Mysore Palace image was pretty definitive. I repeat what I've said above: the discussion whether rotation should be implemented on the ] page, should be conducted on ''this'' page and not cloistered away somewhere else. If the decision is ''made'' to go with rotation, fine, the action would move elsewhere, but not until then. For the record, I have cast my vote ''against'' rotation, unless the decision on which images to include (or not to include) is made during the FPC process and not on ]. ]] 21:04, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
::For those (and I certainly ''don't'' include you in that list Saravask), who thought I was unreasonably attached to the Toda image, I'd like to say, they got it completely wrong. I am attached to a representation, ''especially in the text'', of (the culture, the economy, and the health of) rural, tribal, and "low-caste" India (which, as DaGizza has so eloquently expressed above, is more than 70% of India). I don't have any problems, for example, with the Nishi image, which I only discovered this morning, replacing the Toda image, or for that matter, some other FP or near-FP quality image replacing the Toda image. In other words, I don't want a mandatory rural/tribal/low-caste image there no matter its quality; were there were only five FPs or near FPs and none of them were about rural or tribal India, I wouldn't have any problems choosing them instead. ]] 19:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Fowler, this is yet another rehash of the same ire-inspiring scheme: more episodic 300-kilobyte ]es over fixed images. How long will it be before the ] go at each other again? We've had this problem for years; it's time to try something else. ] 20:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
::::Whose ire? Misplaced Pages is not about people who follow Talk page discussion and apparently get irritated. It is about adding to the Pages themselves. The last time, we had a Toda hut discussion was in June; between that time and mid-September, none of the people who are now so worked up about the fixed images, saw fit to add even a sentence to the India page. The last discussion with Rueben lys about the Indian independence movement, although long drawn out, produced ]&mdash;for which I had to read or re-read over two dozen books (in their hard copies) to make sure I was being objective&mdash;whose finished lead will go into the History of India page and through it into the India page. Most of these image discussants were not a part of that discussion. What did they produce for the India page then? Even during this past RfC, I managed to completely rewrite ], and with ] kept working on changing the references to the Harvard format. I too have other real-life commitments. What did my interlocutors do during that time? Since last March the page has not been locked up once. And I have not reverted anyone (other than Rueben lys), unless it was vandalism or gross POV, until I made a few Toda-Tagore reverts. ]] 21:29, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::Good for you. ] 23:20, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::Congrats. Thank you for your dedication. I think we're all volunteering our time here. ] 07:49, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
*Whoever posted the image of the tribal dress - too bad it shows more of her face and hardly any dress. Try again.--] 10:04, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
::It was Nikkul. I have removed it. Nikkul, please add your image to Saravask-Sarvagnya's rotation link or in a new section about tribal "dress," not here. This is a discussion about the pros and cons of rotation, not about its prospective constituents. ]] 11:00, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

==Why doesn't anything make sense in this article==
This article is all that Wiki should not be.

* This article is being owned, possessed, protected, squatted by a "core group" of editors who do not want to involve any one else into making improvements to this article. They are willing to change their loyalties in the manner of "I also supported this idea few days, months, years back, but I do not think it is a good idea now", just to be disruptive and ensure constant opposition to change
* You need to beg, salute, plead these editors for any changes you want to make.
* The attitude of these set of editors is demotivating and alienates many editors who may have genuinely good suggestions and comments on improving the article. It is a pity that admins take no note of constant ''personal'' taunts and put-downs that some editors here are involved in.
* Most of what is talked is gibberish and nonsensical and a plain effort towards disruption
* People want to spend GBs on discussion on whether a sentence needs to be added to the article - such a waste of time and energy.
* Childish Wikitalk on you better agree to me, else I will be pushing everything to Rfc, ANI or ArbCom gives a feeling of what the heck...

Good bye guys, I have better things to do on Misplaced Pages article mainspaces than to get involved myself in this nonsense. The constant opposition is simply not worth the effort. Hopefully (that is a big hope), when things are better in future, may be I would be willing to contribute to this article. Till then, enjoy your fights and bickerings over few bits of data. Believe me, I will be shocked if my rotation idea sees the light of the day. Anyways, I am not bothered, fortunately Misplaced Pages gives me other good avenues for satisfaction. -- ]<sup><small>]/]</small></sup> 05:26, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

::I know I'm an American citizen living far far away from India (]) but I think I know what Indian Bureaucracy feels like after spending time on this page. lol ] 07:04, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

:::I do have to agree. Comments such as this: "As I have said repeatedly earlier, there are lots of India-related pages that need help, and yet, you still keep insisting on working on a page that is a long-standing featured article and doesn't need help; why don't you help with the pages that need help?" are not encouraging. There was also mention that we should stop editing the article since it has already gotten featured(its in the archives somewhere, i couldnt find it but its there). I do think that a couple of editors feel they own the page. I think certain admins are themselves involved in sarcastic taunts. If you'd like I can def find proof. I think the few editors who feel they own the page dont want to see change. And I think they value certain things like featured image status over relevance. I def see alliances . I dont see how anything will get done if we just point to the archives. ] 07:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
::::Thanks for quoting me. :) ] ] 16:55, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

==Tagore image does not make sense==
I posted above too, but since this page has a habit of getting GB of new text per day I am posting it here too:
I do not like the Tagore image. I personally find it dull and showing the picture of the person has ZERO utility. Maybe a good image that depicted a famous work by him, but who the hell cares what he looked like in context of the culture text? There are far better choices than Tagore image, including the Toda image. The RFC was never FOR the Tagore image and I personally did not vote for its inclusion when I voted against Toda image. --Blacksun 09:58, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
:I agree. How about replacing Tagore with ], which is a ] image? ]] 13:23, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
::Yes, the Tagore image does not gel well with the rest of the page. It seems abrupt and out of place. --] 14:44, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
:::The Tagore image ''emphatically'' meets ]: "Images must be relevant to the article they appear in and be of sufficient notability (relative to the article's topic)" and the placing of images "near relevant text". The Buddha image doesn't come close, in a section where Buddhist iconography, sculpture, or worship isn't even hinted at. And there is ''nothing'' at ] that recommends featured or near-featured images at all, much less over relevant and notable images placed near relevant text. ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 23:57, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Out of place? Atleast Tagore is mentioned! The todas are not mentioned at all. ] 23:53, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

==]==
The sentence on classical dance forms in the Culture section of the India page was changed ] to include ]: {{cquote|Many ] exist, including ], ], ], ], ], ] and ]}}

Reliable sources, however, consider Yakshagana to be Folk Theatre and not Classical Dance. According to the signed Encyclopaedia Britannica article, ], , , ], ], , , . From: ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Online. 12 Oct. 2007, "Four distinct schools of classical Indian dance—''bharata-natya'', ''kathakali'', ''kathak'', and ''manipuri''—exist in the 20th century ... In 1958 the Sangeet Natak Akademi (National Academy of Music, Dance and Drama) in New Delhi bestowed classical status on two other schools of dance—''kuchipudi'', from Andhra Pradesh, and ''orissi'', from Orissa." ''Yakshagana'' is not in that list. The Britannica article was written in 1979 (so it is dated) in terms of what might be the classical dance forms in 2007, as designated by the Sangeet Natak Academy; however, in the section it does say:

{{cquote|After the decline of Sanskrit drama, '''folk theatre''' developed in various regional languages from the 14th through the 19th centuries ... The most crystalized forms are the ''jatra'' of Bengal, the ''nautanki'', ''ramlila'', and ''raslila'' of North India, the ''bhavai'' of Gujarat, the ''tamasha'' of Maharashtra, the ''terukkuttu'' of Tamil Nadu, and the '''''yaksagana'' of Kanara'''.}}

The ] website itself says, (see ): {{cquote|More than 25 important forms of '''traditional and folk theatre''' from different States will be featured together with traditional forms of the respective States of the North-East. These will include such well-known traditions as ''Tamasha'' of Maharashtra, ''Bhavai'' of Gujarat, '''''Yakshagana'' of Karnataka''', ''Therukoothu'' of Tamil Nadu, ''Nautanki'' of Uttar Pradesh, ''Prahlad Natak'' of Orissa}}

Lastly, the Sangeet Natak Academi website lists eight classical dance forms: Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kathakali, Kuchipudi, Manipuri, Mohiniattam, Odissi, and Sattriya, one folk dance form, ], and Creative Dance/Choreography as the areas it makes its major national awards in (see ). Since both Britannica and the Official SNA consider ''Yakshagana'' Folk Theatre and not Classical Dance, I am removing it from the list of classical dances in the Culture section. If and when there is a section or paragraph devoted to the "Folk and Tribal Culture of India," we can reconsider its inclusion. ]] 16:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

:Yakshagana is a '''classical''' folk art form and it includes dance among other things such as music, spoken word etc. Thanks, - ] <sup> ''']'''</sup> 16:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
::Yes, I understand that. But the reliable sources, consider it Tradition and Folk Theatre and ''not'' Classical Dance. Tradition and folk theatre includes dance and music, and many others like Jathra, Prahalad Natak, Therukoothu are just as old. (See and click on "introduction." and read quote: "Being a theatre form, unlike a dance form, it is more plural(istic) and dynamic.") ]] 17:29, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Easy solution would be to add text about tradition and folk theater. It is definitely culture worthy. --] 23:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

==New Additions==
Reading the discussion above, there seems to be a general consensus for some new sections or sub-sections (whether formal or not). The topics that I am aware of are:
* Religion in India (originally suggested by Priyanath, however, it seems to be losing momentum)
* Science and Technology in India suggested by Rueben lys
* Rural Urban Divide (or something to that effect, suggested by DaGizza)
* Folk and Tribal Culture (suggested by Priyanath, seconded by DaGizza and Fowler&fowler)
*Sports in India (suggested by KnowledgeHegemony(?))
* Others?

Please list any others you are interested in. ]] 18:15, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

::For the record, I never suggested a religion section - in fact I think it's unnecessary. What I did suggest was that Religion needs to be more prominently mentioned in the culture section. Religion has an effect on Culture that warrants a subsection (at least as much as a Folk and Tribal Culture subsection, based on relevance). Here is what I said: "There actually does need to be some discussion of the influence of all religions in India on Culture, not just in passing as it's done now. And it should be more than in increase of 5% because of the relevance of religion on Indian Culture. I've had the sense this issue is being avoided due to past disputes along these lines, but it does need to be addressed in this article, IMO." ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 19:26, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

:I'm sorry I have to do the dirty job, but ] has just created a number of subsections including religion (in demographics) that are still in the process of being finalized on this talk page. I left a message on his talk page, but since he didn't respond and kept editing the India page, I ultimately had to revert. His edits for the most part have no edit summaries. ]] 18:57, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

::It would be better to add subsections ''''Income, human development and social class'''' and ''''Science, technology, and transportation'''' within section ''''Economy'''' and subsection ''''Language'''', ''''Religion'''' and ''''Education and health'''' within section ''''Demographics''''. ] 19:03, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
:::I do understand that's is your point of view, but it might not be DaGizza's or Blacksun's or Rueben lys's. We are trying to arrive at a common consensus on what to add. I would urge you to revert until other peoples' points of view have been accommodated. ]] 19:08, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Here is what I propose:
*Culture section
#Religion in India
#Folk culture in India
*Science and Technology
*Transport
*Sports

] 19:18, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Religion should not be included within ''''Culture'''' section, because religion is a topic of ''''Demographics''''. Science and Technology, Transport is a topic within ''''Economy''''. Sports can be included within 'Culture'''' section. ] 19:24, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

:I agree with Nikkul, that there should be a 'Religion' subsection of Culture, along with a 'Folk and Tribal' subsection. See my comments just above. ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 19:28, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
::It is standard practice to mention religion in demographics. This does not mean that cultural aspect of religion like festivals etc. cannot be mentioned in culture. --] 22:46, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
===<s>Boldeness</s> Boldness desired===
I would encourage all editors, including the likes of Otlemur, to be ] and contribute to the main article as they seem themselves capable and fit. If and when such edits are inherently undesirable, they will nominate themselve for dispute and deletions. Till then, such edits, or the lack of them, is what is or will prevent the article from being improved.] 21:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
:Look, Rueben, to use your own writing above as an example, when an editor is looking at a sentence like your first sentence, I agree it is easy to fix it. Replace "seem" by "deem" or "consider" and change a few other things. If the writing is like your second sentence, one can't fix it, but one could leave a tag requesting explanation of "inherently undesirable." However, when the writing is like your third sentence, which is both poorly written and difficult to interpret, what is a neutral editor to do? Remember that deletions too are a form of boldness. Speaking more generally, why can poorly written and poorly argued sentences be allowed to be inserted with unchecked abandon in the name of boldness, but not be allowed to be deleted with equal abandon&mdash;by the editors who look on in horror&mdash;also in the name of boldness? Why should the onlookers then have to polish the rungs of a ladder that clearly will not support the weight? Why should the onlooking editors then have to run a New Age writing school, give everyone "an A for effort and allow the endless additions to stand?" (as Saravask had once ] so aptly put it).
:Why can't the ''bold'' editors, for their part, take a writing class or work through a writing book and learn to express themselves clearly first? Why can't the ''bold'' editors take a Indian history or economics course, read some scholarly books, and learn what historical or economic methodology is about, rather than continuing to copy snippets of text from Google Books and paraphrasing them for their half digested arguments? Well, the inability to truly answer these questions (not parrot the Misplaced Pages dogma that ''anyone'' can edit) is what leads to edit wars. That's what happened yesterday. Blacksun saw the article degenerate from a tight decently written article to a junior high-school blog on MySpace in a few surreal hours. Clearly, he had to do something. ]] 10:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

:::Because, Fowler, reading a ] was never a prerequisite for editing a wikipedia article, ] was. As for the quality, grammar, and c/e mistakes, I think what you've just said is probably the biggest example anybody could give about what is wrong with this article and what's stopping this article from improving. I've said before, if an editor feels strongly about something as simple as this, ''improve it'', but it is the flimsiest ground for deletion and I think also disrespectful of the editor who had made it/] 10:50, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

::I propose we create a ] for those wanting to make changes to the article. Their content might be beneficial, but if there are plenty of spelling and grammatical errors, we can weed those out before the additions go onto the actual page. <b><font color="teal">]</font></b>''<sup><font color="teal">]</font></sup>'' <sup><b><font color="teal">]</font></b></sup> 10:41, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
:::That, actually, is a very good idea. Why didn't anyone think of that before? I mean not a sandbox for whole article, but just a space where people can leave their potential additions and indicate where they want them to go. ]] 10:50, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
::::PS Your suggestion is quite similar to the consensus that was reached in the I conducted in February this year, but it has the benefit that it moves the text-editing problem to another page, thereby freeing the ] for more important discussions. Although this is formally similar to the Saravask-Sarvagnya idea of a separate page for image discussions (which I oppose), it is really different. For images, we already have a sifting process, the FPC review; however, for the frequent inclusion of few sentences or even paragraphs, we don't, it has to be done ourselves, until a possible yearly peer-review. ]] 11:04, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

::::To Rueben, no matter how good one's intentions are, if the additions are almost incomprehensible, there is very little value in adding them. And I don't mean insult you or anyone else with that remark. It is simply the truth. If 99 out 100 people read a particular sentence and don't properly undetstand it, what is its use? It might as well not be there until it can be expressed clearly.

::::If you disagree with me, fair enough. However, I encourage you to at least make use of the ''Show preview'' button before you clik ''Save page'' in edit mode. That way you can at least fix the obvious errors in your changes. <b><font color="teal">]</font></b>''<sup><font color="teal">]</font></sup>'' <sup><b><font color="teal">]</font></b></sup> 11:07, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::To: DaGizza, One thing we can do is to go ahead and create the sandbox and also start a group of users (a collective of sorts) who volunteer to participate in it. Membership would be voluntary. Rueben or Sarvagnya would not have to join the group. But at least for the sandbox users, there will be discussion and help and improvement available, because the text will be presented in manageable bits and the spirit will be one of cooperation. And, who knows, it might have a beneficial effect when others see the quality of the sandbox-initiated edits. In a sense we are supplementing the WP dogma about "being bold" (which I agree has its place and time) with ]. ]] 11:43, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

::::::Yes, I think having a voluntary membership will start to create a more egalitarian atmosphere. Nobody can accuse anyone else of ]ership anymore. <b><font color="teal">]</font></b>''<sup><font color="teal">]</font></sup>'' <sup><b><font color="teal">]</font></b></sup> 12:19, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

==Simply Ridiculous==
Rueben states: "(Undid revision by User:Blacksun. Per wiki, WP:VERIFY, and WP:OWN, WP:BOLD (per talk page banner) these were '''justified and desirable edits''')"

Let us take few examples of Rueben's '''justified and desirable''' edits:<br />
1) Science and technology in India forms a major '''commitemnet''' for both the Govt and Private sector in India.<br />
''Even if we ignore the obvious typo, what the hell is that sentence supposed to mean? How is that even remotely a quality sentence?''<br />
::It is supposed to mean that both the government and private sector have made the improvement of sceince and technology infrastructure as a major goal. I think it is pretty self-evident!<br>] 11:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
:::In that case, the word ''forms'' should be changed to ''is'' or ''has become.'' The setence you wrote above explains it better than the current sentence. <b><font color="teal">]</font></b>''<sup><font color="teal">]</font></sup>'' <sup><b><font color="teal">]</font></b></sup> 11:18, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

2) India posseses one of the world's largest scientific and technological infrastructure and manpower, which in '''''' was worth Rs 30 billion, up from the Rs 10 million in ''''''.<br />
''I repeat, what the hell?? Again even if we ignore the typos and shoddy sentence structure, the claim is simply false.''<br />
::The claim is made by the High commission of India in London, which claims it is the third largest in the world, and gives those exact figures. So you're alleging that the India government is lying, or dont know anything about this but still making a fuss.<br>] 11:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Yes, I actually do claim that the High commissioner is not a credible source then. If we did have one of the largest scientific infrastructure and manpower, we would not be so far behind in the matter where it counts: patents, peer reviewed journal publications, and number of PHDs. Just because the High Commission of India in London says something does not make it true. I am sure one can come up with irrelevant statistic but the fact is that we are fairly behind in current science if you consider the most widely used metrics: Publication and citations of those publications. Ignoring this is nothing short of dubious. If you do not believe me just open the recent Nature journal article where they are talking about state of Russian science. In it they have a nice list of countries and metrics associated with their status in Science. We were not doing that great. --] 01:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
:::I think the shoddy sentence structure refers to ''argest scientific and technological infrastructure and manpower.'' I don't believe you can have a "large infrastructure" and "large manpower" but rather a "lot of manpower" and "highly developed infrastructure." Also why the comparisons from 1947 (Just curious, we could use 1997 data for example) <b><font color="teal">]</font></b>''<sup><font color="teal">]</font></sup>'' <sup><b><font color="teal">]</font></b></sup> 11:18, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

::The sentence says "one of the largest", which probaby could be changed to "amongst the largest". Or incorporate your text instead.Incidentally, the comparisn is to 1947 figures because that was the only figure found on the HCI website to be compared to.] 11:27, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
3) India also has major ongoing collaborations with a number of countries, including those on space science with Europe, and on Biotechnology and allied fields with Asian countries, '''inclusing''' South Korea.<br />
::Again, sourced from the of the government of India.] 11:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
4) ''Multitude of two line sections which would never pass a FA review.'' <br /><br />

So ya I disagree with the so-called '''justified and desirable''' edits. It has been a while since I encountered such utter disregard for the article to push one's agenda.--] 00:53, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, a number of the references provided Otelmur ae from , which can now also be used to expand the S&T aticle as well. Do you see how this is an improvement?] 11:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
:While nobody is going to claim that the passage was FA quality or even anywhere near FA-quality, I certainly see 'potential' in it. The additions certainly dont qualify as ] and I would certainly give passages like that atleast a few days to a couple of weeks before I nuke them. This is the kind of 'revert on sight' that has put off people from contributing to this article for over a year now. This article has remained immutable for far too long and its time we got a little WP:bold and see how it goes. There is always a stable version we can rollback to if we lose our way. ] 01:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
::This has been discussed before - I am sure Fowler can dig it up. Some of the most respected editors and biggest names on Misplaced Pages were of the opinion that massive changes like this to a stable FA article like India should be talked on the discussion page first. In fact, I think I was one of the few who was not too happy with it. The changes made are nothing short of drastic and POOR QUALITY (saying its not near-FA quality is being generous). It is not reverse on sight - I never reverse things unless it is completely out of place. --] 01:29, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Having a science and technology section was proposed on this very page a few days ago and didnt meet with any extraordinary opposition. So there certainly is reason to think that people are not opposed to the idea, atleast 'in principle'. And there are always going to be some 'to set the ball rolling' edits which will be less than perfect. That is no reason to revert them or we'll never set the ball rolling. If everyone here could just take a deep breath and hold tight for a couple of weeks to a month, there will be 'material' changes in the article for the better. A short-term state of flux and temporary bloat in the article is inevitable if we have to expand/improve the article. Its time we came up with a 'new and improved' ] And with all due respect to the likes of Nichalp, while there are good edits and bad edits, but there are no "biggest names" in wikipedia, atleast not in this context. Also, the "no edits without discussion" line has been refuted several times already. Short of changing wikipedia's very fundamentals, such arbitrary moratoria on adding info to the article dont fly. ] 01:48, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
::::There is no reason that a reader should suffer through bad quality for "a week or month" when the same process can be done without that happening. There is a very good reason why we have tools like sandbox. Also, when you state "While nobody is going to claim that the passage was FA quality or even anywhere near FA-quality" - I beg to differ - Rueben finds them '''desirable''' and '''justified''' as per his edit summary. Why should I have any faith in either of you? - If you were looking for a unified way towards working on expanding the article, you just lost one supporter. And no, I did not mean Nichalp when I said "biggest names" in wikipedia. --] 01:55, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::And there is no reason why an article shouldnt be used as a sandbox once in a while(like once in two years or something). There is a very good reason we have <nowiki>{{underconstruction |section}}</nowiki> tags meant for article space on wiki. Feel free to use them. A sandbox is very useful when creating articles from scratch. I use it all the time. But in some cases, where there are more people standing by and willing(hopefully) to contribute, there is no reason to invoke wiki-red tape and not 'build' it where constructive criticism will be forthcoming real time. Also, given the history of ] on this article, no editor is going to spend weeks in his sandbox, do his very best, bring it over here for display only for his contributions to be summarily dismissed. Edits with potential are meant to be ], not reverted; atleast not without giving them a fair chance. ] 02:12, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::It is very hard to give constructive criticism when edits have been made to almost every section of a stable FA article. It becomes even that much harder when the edits have typos and unverifiable claims. On top of all that when you defend such edits as '''desirable and justfied''' you end up with even less room for cooperation.--] 02:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
::I agree with Blacksun. The changes being made are ridiculous, unsourced, and shabby. I only reverted only once because it seemed that Otolemur wouldn't take no for an answer. I am glad Blacksun reverted his edits in ''toto''. ]] 01:41, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

::Otelmur shouldn't ''have'' to take no for an answer. His edits had a good reference, the main article had afew reference, quite simple to read through and add to this one. I am terribly concerned now in light of Fowler's earier comment above about having to read a book or have a scholarly degree in something before being allowed to write. Misplaced Pages is a ], it is not a conference of Neurosurgeons nor the journal Nature that only Albert Einstein and his student should be allowed to "publish".] 11:14, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
<br />
''Wow India page is now a SANDBOX. Go ahead, clutter it and then say it has potential. Sorry, but 'QUALITY' doesn't matter here, sorry no scope for that. If you add quality you will be rubbished as a wannabe Einstein. Also if you still have a problem with quality do not remove it but please fix it (ie. Yah, yeah wash others'dirty linen please). Also add an image here and an image there (especially if its one from ''your'' city or state).''
:What's left to say folks. This page is soon going into the ]. The only thing that makes sense to me is the ] solution.
''As for the subsectioning:''<br />
Personally, I am not happy with these developments:( If you want to include subsections everywhere or else remove subsections. But if that is what people want then History, Politics, Culture, Government, Geography should also have subsections.]] 13:52, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

KH, if you dont want to wash somebody else's dirty linen, you really dont have to. But that also does not mean that others have to be dictated on what or how to edit because of that fear. I am really surprised at some of the opinions that are being expressed in this page, which has shown blatantly that some of the editors ''demand'' that either they be consulted because they consider themselves experts, or indicate that they have somehow earned the right to dictate the course and content somebody else's contributions to this page. I must say I find Fowler's (and Dagizza's) opinion on the sandbox idea in this current page more sensible, compared to some of the other opinions (including some of yours as well as some others') that seem to be dangerously possessive, red-taping and un]. Please take a calm look a the situation and appreciate that the article needs to move on beyond what it was in 2004 or 2006, and the most genuine method would've been individual (and yes,uregulated) contributions, followed by a general cleanup and improvement of that same content to better quality. In fact, I think that is how this page started in the first place and came to reach the FA status.] 16:50, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

:I'm also concerned about the possessiveness being shown to this article. Yes, the recent addition has typos and poor writing, but is definitely worth considering, rather than dismissing out of hand. Articles ''do'' improve when new editors are ''welcomed'' rather than attacked. Even though this is a FA, it's a very poor one, and needs a fresh look. So what if it gets messy, that's Misplaced Pages. And the article ''is'' improving with the recent attention it's been receiving. ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 17:08, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
::A bloated articles is not necessarily improved. ] ] 17:58, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
:::I agree. One with more references, and information that is less vague and listy are the improvements I've seen so far. ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 19:43, 13 October 2007 (UTC)



india is more commonly known as Hindustan than Bharat...i dont think i've ever heard anyone call it bharat in my life...maybe in books, but not verbally. <small>—Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 17:16, 21 October 2007 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

== Why subsections should or shouldn't be created ==

I looked at a bunch of country pages and it seems at least in my sample they split two to one between those that have subsections and those that don't. Here they are with some parenthetical remarks of mine.

;With subsections:

*] (long-ish) (the structure copied by Otelemur)
*] (FA) (long-ish)
*] (long-ish)
*] (sub-sub-sections!) (long-ish)
*] (reasonable length)
*] (FA) (reasonable length)
*] (Former FA) (reasonable length)
*] (reasonable length)
*] (very long)
*] (too long)
*] (sub-sub-sections!)

;Without subsections:

*] (FA)
*] (FA)
*] (tourism, holiday, sports) (FA)
*] (FA)
*] (FA)

I am personally against subsections altogether. The reason for this is that when topics are covered in paragraphs only, but not in subsections, the writer has to pay attention to coordination between paragraphs, has to develop broad themes for comparison (rather than saying in sub-section 8 above). Consequently the prose is tighter (more coherent).
However, I also realize that sometimes there is a need for sub-sections. If a section too long then an average reader usually prefers some guidance in the form of subsections, and I'd like to hear what others think. ]] 00:48, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

:Subsections make a particular section more easily understandable. For example in the section ''''Economy'''', creating subsections titled ''''Income, human development, and social class'''' and ''''Science, technology, and transportation'''' would split a particular topic in more specialized parts; through the first subsection it would be easy to find the human development of that particular economy and in the next subsection it would be easy to find the factors behind the economy namely technology and transport. However, ''''Science and technology'''' can be created as a separate section as in the articles ] (FA), ] etc. because ] and ] plays a key role in determining the country's ], ], ] and even ]. ''''Tourism'''' also can be created as a separate '''section'''. But the subsections in this article should be concise and '''to-the-point''' as detailed discussion will be in the main articles. And sub-sub-sections should not be created as this makes the topic unnecessarily complicated and lengthy. ] 10:38, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
::Misplaced Pages is not a travel guide. As such, sections on tourism on a country page are almost always frowned upon. Furthermore, having too many subsections can be noisy too. They should be used only when their is a real need to do so. --] 10:51, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Making a separate tourism section does not convert wikipedia into a traveller's manual. However I agree with your point of view that separate tourism section should not be created on a country page. This will make the article unnecessarily lenghty. As tourism is a part of a country's economy, so very concisely and to-the-point one or two lines about the tourism industry can be added in the ''Economy'' section. But subsections ''''Income, human development, and social class'''' and ''''Science, technology, and transportation'''' in the ''''Economy'''' and ''''Language'''', ''''Religion'''', ''''Education and health'''' in ''''Demographics'''' section are needed. These subsections split the relevant sections into more specialised parts and make the topics more easily understandable. ] 11:48, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
::::Well, lets see if we can agree on a few things. Ottolemur, what Blacksun is saying is that a page like ], which on my screen, shows four sub-sub-sections on one page, is a bit of an overkill. Don't you agree? <small>—Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 12:12, 13 October 2007 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

I agree with your point of view. The article you linked has sub-sub-sections. As I have mentioned above, sub-sub-sections should not be created. But ''''Income, human development, and social class'''' and ''''Science, technology, and transportation'''' are not sub-sub-section, these are necessary subsections. ] 12:24, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

:OK. (That, BTW, was just an example. It doesn't really matter that they are subsubsections, the point is that ''had'' they been subsections, visible four to a page, they would have created a lot of clutter.) Don't get me wrong I'm not saying that we should ''never'' have subsections, just that there should be a minimal length for them and if they fail to be that length, they should really be absorbed in the main text. Yesterday, I created an experimental edit which I immediately reverted for this purpose. Please look at section. Do you agree that anything shorter than this Indian Independent Movement section (which would then allow more than two subsection headers to be displayed on the page) would really be too short for its own independent sub-section? That is obviously my opinion, but I think we can arrive at some length principle like that. ]] 12:44, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

The subsections ''''Income, human development, and social class'''' and ''''Science, technology, and transportation'''' have something separate and more specialized than a general discussion on economy. ''''Income, human development, and social class'''' has related discussion on economy. In ''economy'' section country's GDP, major industries, economic policy etc. can be added. For example, the subsection ''''Science, technology, and transportation'''' deals with the factors behind the economy. In a country page, there should be discussion on the country's scientific and technological progress. And transportation is a key factor behind country's economy. So these big factors should be added with a separate subsection. The length of a subsection is a factor, but emphasis should be given on the weight of the subsection, the necessity of the subsection. Subsections should not be created unnecessarily, they should be created only where they are necessary. ] 13:17, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
:Thanks for the suggestions, but these are not recommended by ]. Instead of including all such information here, could you help the relevant articles instead? Thanks! ] ] 17:55, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

== ] ==

In light of ], I propose we create a Talk:India/Sandbox for those wanting to make major changes to the article. Since not everyone may like this proposal, those who wish to try it out may add their name below. As I said in the Boldness section, which is linked above, I hope this will spark a more ] environment where accusations ] go away.

There are two ways it could be done as I far as I see. We can plonk the current India article and go from there except people who wish to make conflicting changes can't show it. I think each user having their own section, where they quote what sentences/section in their opinion needs improving and then reveal their planned changes. Other users can then copyedit the planned changes if there are issues with spelling, grammar and ]. Very major changes can also be objected of course and will be disabandoned if consensus disagrees.

If anyone sees any huge obstacles with this idea please let me know. I expect the users who agree to this to stop any major editing to the main ] article until a consensus forms. Only minor changes and vandalism reverts would be allowed. This page is where essentially all the ]ness can be unleashed. <b><font color="teal">]</font></b>''<sup><font color="teal">]</font></sup>'' <sup><b><font color="teal">]</font></b></sup> 13:00, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
:Yes, I agree the first option of dumping the whole page doesn't make much sense for a long article like India. Another option would be to make it a "text review" along the lines of the ] (which is a lower-level version of the Feature picture review); in other words, people would leave their potential changes, say from a sentence long to a paragraph long, and various people would leave their comments and suggestions. That way the editor who initially put up the text for review, still does the final revising and has more of a sense of control at having created the text. In in that way of thinking, it could be called ], rather than sandbox. Anyway, more anon. ]] 13:08, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

==]==
Hi, In keeping with DaGizza's suggestions, I have created a peer-review and sandbox subpage ] (shortcut ]). It is modeled on the picture peer review for Featured Pictures, but in addition includes a Work Area or Sandbox. The page describes how to request text for peer review or communal edit, with a demo example, DemoText. Please take a look at it. The page is for text that can vary in size from a sentence up to a large paragraph (approx. 250 words), but is not for entire sections of the India page. Indeed one the underlying principles of the page is that addition of new text is best done in manageable bits. I will set up a list of volunteer "reviewers" on that page as well. Please let me know what you think and please sign up if you like the idea. ]] 15:33, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
:At the end of the day, if some users want to use the India page itself as a sandbox, we can't stop them, unless we get into mediation. But this way, at least among the editors who choose to use this approach, there will be more camaraderie and less headache, and hopefully this will help in producing better prose as well. ]] 15:55, 13 October 2007 (UTC) Last updated: ]] 21:26, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

===Willing to volunteer===
;Note: Please see ], especially the description and principles. The only commitment required is that to using this process over unilateral edits made directly to the India page. Minor edits (corrections of typos or grammar, reverts of vandalism etc.) obviously do not require this process. Volunteering doesn't mean commitment of any specific time, just a willingness to help out when you can and in whatever fashion you can.

*]
*]
*] <small>—Preceding ] comment was added at 16:38, 13 October 2007 (UTC)</small><!--Template:Undated--> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
*] (see ])

So I'm kind of confused. So by signingup, one would promise not to make edits without first doing it in the sandbox, then showing everyone, making sure its okay, and then adding it to the India page? ] 20:32, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
:Yes. (Commitment to not making non-trivial edits directly to the India page without first submitting the edit to the peer-review and getting feedback from others. This peer-review is for textual edits, not pictures.) ]] 20:51, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
::PS Please also see the "principles" in ]. ]] 21:46, 13 October 2007 (UTC) Last updated:]] 11:01, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

:::Oh ok, thanks ] 06:12, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

==], ]==
I have created two sandboxes, one each for the Economy and Demographics sections. I dumped the 'stable' versions of both sections on the respective pages and then proceeded to bring over the new additons/expansions. Please check the history of the two pages to understand. After bringing over the new additions, I proceeded to cpedit the economy page and have somewhat 'normalised' it to include both rueben/Otolemur's additions and the text that already existed. Of course, there were some repetitions and I got rid of them. I request that editors take a look at it and just start editing it. The titpr idea seems lame to me in that I fear there will be more talk and less work. ] 18:10, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

:sheesh.. i put in some forty minutes of effort into that ] page and an overzealous admin deletes it! Can Sarvask or Gizza or somebody please undelete it asap. Thanks. ] 18:19, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
:Update - okay.. an admin has undeleted it. So can we all start cpediting those pages instead of blogging on titpr? btw, how can i find out who undeleted the page? is there a way? ] 18:31, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
::You are of course welcome to your method. I am sorry I shall not be a part of it. ]] 18:50, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
==Removal of ] from list of classical dances in ] section==
{{tlx|editprotected}}

] has continued to insert ] in the list of classical dances in the culture section. Although in section ], I have provided irrefutable evidence (including a signed Encyclopaedia Britannica article written by some of the best known experts on South Asian arts all of whose web sites I have provided) that Yakshagana is considered to be ''traditional theatre'' and not classical dance, ] and ] have continued to revert the page to their version with edit summaries that don't make sense. In one edit summary ] claimed that it was a ''classical'' folk art form. Even if that were accurate, it would not make it classical ''dance'' but rather classical ''theatre'' (the term for which is "traditional theatre"). Consequently, it would not be listed with the other dances like ] and ]. In another edit summary ] wrote (see ), "Yakshagana ''is'' Classical, the same way Kannada is classical.. politically motivated babudom doesnt get to decide classicality of humanities for a 'pedia." Again, I don't know what that means, but the signed Encyclopaedia article says clearly that Yakshagana is folk theatre. I request that Yakshagana be removed from the list of classical dances. If and when we have a section or a paragraph on "Folk and Tribal Culture of India" (which includes classical forms), we can reconsider ''Yakshagana's'' inclusion. Since the Yakshagana edit had nothing to do with the later edit wars that shut the page down, I request that this edit be made; otherwise, Misplaced Pages will be putting out inaccurate information with full awareness of the inaccuracies. ]] 23:38, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
::Yakshagana is more accurately usually referred to simply as 'dance' by connoisseurs and lay people alike. Kathakali is much in the same mould.
Yakshagana is no more or no less theater than Kathakali is, for example. If the Enc. Britannica calls it "theater"(as in drama/skit), they dont know what they're talking about or more likely that ''you'' dont know what they're talking about. And Yakshagana is not a "folk" art in the strictest sense of the word either. Yakshagana too, like all other classical dances of India traces and attributes its technique to the encyclopediac "Natya Shastra" - the same Natya Shastra to which kathakali and manipuri and bharatanatyam and almost all dance forms of India owe alliegiance to. The theme and subject of the performances are also drawn from the Mahabharata, Ramayana or the Puranas unlike "folk" or "tribal" arts. For a more in depth view into it, get your hands on book by ], no less, and take your ill informed nonsense elsewhere. ] 17:15, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

:Inaccurate information in the article huh - kindav like how India has amongst the biggest scientific infrastructure and manpower in the world, yet somehow we publish less articles in peer reviewed journals (quantity) than twelve other nations () and do not even figure in top 20 for citations (quality). But hey, if the High commissioner of India in London claims otherwise, it must be true and verifiable! I think you do not need to worry about accuracy of the article at this moment. --] 01:28, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

::Blacksun, maybe you should look up ] and ] and also what the article says before acting smart. It says ''infrastrusture'', then it says "ManPower", then it says "budget". As for the HCI lying 's another article (sourced from a journal) that says something similar.] 11:37, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
:::PS:If you still believe you have a point to make, I suggest you add it to the article.] 11:42, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
::::How does that say something similar? Computer science = science? When did that happen? BTW, India's contribution to articles in peer reviewed computer science journals is dismal too. Furthermore, 30 billion Rs = approximately 1 billion USD. I know of many countries whose budgets dwarf this. Stop throwing wiki dictionary at me and try to understand it yourself first. '''Good infrastructure + large manpower = high number of publications'''. You have not shown ANY credible data to back up that qualifies the tag for Indian science infrastructure and I have shown that we are SEVERELY LACKING in number of publications and also number of PHDs. Furthermore, the idea represented by that sentence (at least to me) is that we are at the forefront of cutting edge science, which is unfortunately false. --] 09:05, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::Inclusion of Yakshanaga is against ](especially in the ] style of ]) ]] 13:22, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::Oh yeah? ] 17:16, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

===Reliable Sources ''Not'' YouTube on Yakshagana===
I produce a ''signed'' Encyclopaedia Britannica article on "South Asian Arts" written by some of the world's best known experts: ], , , ], ], , , and in addition the website of the ] (The National Academy of Music, Dance and Drama of India); in contrast, ] has produced
a one-paragraph advertisement in the Hindu newspaper: , a page from a tourist travel guide, whose reference to "Yakshagana" says in its entirety, "Karnataka Janapada and Yakshagana Academy (Tel. 2215509), Canara Finance building, Nrupathunga Rd, hold folk music and dance performances, including (obviously) Yakshagana dance from the Mangalore region." and
a video from YouTube: .
His tourist guide, BTW, seems to suggest that Yakshagana is ''Folk'' Dance. What is this, an attempt at farce?

According to the signed Encyclopaedia Britannica article, ], , , ], ], , , From: ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Online. 12 Oct. 2007, "Four distinct schools of classical Indian dance—''bharata-natya'', ''kathakali'', ''kathak'', and ''manipuri''—exist in the 20th century ... In 1958 the Sangeet Natak Akademi (National Academy of Music, Dance and Drama) in New Delhi bestowed classical status on two other schools of dance—''kuchipudi'', from Andhra Pradesh, and ''orissi'', from Orissa." ''Yakshagana'' is not in that list. The Britannica article was written in 1979 (so it is dated) in terms of what might be the classical dance forms in 2007, as designated by the Sangeet Natak Academy; however, in the section , which is a completely different section from "Dance," the Britannica article does say:

{{cquote|After the decline of Sanskrit drama, '''folk theatre''' developed in various regional languages from the 14th through the 19th centuries ... The most crystalized forms are the ''jatra'' of Bengal, the ''nautanki'', ''ramlila'', and ''raslila'' of North India, the ''bhavai'' of Gujarat, the ''tamasha'' of Maharashtra, the ''terukkuttu'' of Tamil Nadu, and the '''''yaksagana'' of Kanara'''.}}

The ] (India's National Academy of Music, Dance and Drama) website itself says, (see ): {{cquote|More than 25 important forms of '''traditional and folk theatre''' from different States will be featured together with traditional forms of the respective States of the North-East. These will include such well-known traditions as ''Tamasha'' of Maharashtra, ''Bhavai'' of Gujarat, '''''Yakshagana'' of Karnataka''', ''Therukoothu'' of Tamil Nadu, ''Nautanki'' of Uttar Pradesh, ''Prahlad Natak'' of Orissa}}

The Sangeet Natak Academi website lists eight classical dance forms: Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kathakali, Kuchipudi, Manipuri, Mohiniattam, Odissi, and Sattriya, one folk dance form, ], and Creative Dance/Choreography as the areas it makes its major national awards in (see ).

The Yakshagana Cultural Magazine, itself considers Yakshagana to be a "theater form" and not a "dance form." See: and click on "introduction." and read quote: "Being a theatre form, unlike a dance form, it is more plural(istic) and dynamic.") ]] 18:02, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

'''Bottom Line:''' Why don't we Request a Mediation, and let the Mediation Committee decide who has the more Reliable Sources backing them up? ]] 18:02, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


:I added the youtube and other references you mention right next to ''"...lay people alike"''. It was meant to just show the perspective of the lay person and I thought the intention was conspicuous. Well, perhaps not.. if one is bent only on splitting hairs and quoting things out of context. Someone who uploads a yakshagana video on youtube surely isnt a Texan cowboy. He or she certainly knows what they're talking about when they matter-of-factly call it a "dance".
:And again, it doesnt surprise me that you ignored atleast three books by serious scholars which also I cited (and instead chose to harp on the youtube link). Of course, couple of them were in support of the fact that Yakshagana is a "dance-drama" much the same way Kathakali is a "dance-drama". You obviously have no inkling about any of these arts. How many Yakshagana performances have you been to that you're so sure of yourself to the point of being pompous with your half-knowledge?
:Well, let me split this up for you. Yakshagana has elements of music, dance and drama in it. It has a smattering of dialogues too. The allusion to theater refers to the fact that the performance usually narrates a story/episode (''prasanga'') and multiple dancers take part in it and each one plays(dances, to be precise) a 'role'. A 'troupe', akin to a drama troupe presents the performance as against the typical bharatanatya or kathak or kuchipudi etc., which is solo. That is about it. Otherwise, it is a dance drama or a kind of ballet... and "Dance drama" is "dance", not "drama". For that matter, Kathakali is almost exactly the same genre as Yakshagana. If Kathakali is "dance" in your book (or anybody's book, for that matter), then Yakshagana is dance too. Yakshagana is always nominally dance or dance-drama first. "Theater"/"Folk theater" etc., comes into play only when we get into the semantic details.. and those semantics are pointless and out of the scope of a summary article.

:And sadly for you, none of those you name are actually the biggest names in Yakshagana research. Not even close. They're just researchers who have researched in allied fields and who Enc. Brit. thought were good enough to write a couple hundred words about Yakshagana. The only one among those scholars you mentioned who even comes close to being a credible Yakshagana expert is perhaps Ramanujan, who again was a linguist, quite far removed from Yakshagana research. If there is a 'biggest' name in Yakshagana research at all, it probably has to be Dr. Shivarama Karanth. The Ramanujans and the Shivramamurthis are in all likelihood, just recycling Karanth in their 'research'. As for Karanth himself, he uses the word 'folk' in his book and then hastens to qualify it thus -
{{cquote |When I use the word 'folk' here, I dont mean in any disparaging sense. Its components like music, dance and costume are highly sophisticated and cannot be mastered without long study and practise. To me, Yakshagana is as classical as Bharata Natya or Karnataki or Hindustani music. The term 'folk' is used here in the sense that all along its patrons have been the people at large and not the royalty. Its artists belong to the very class of villagers who often throng to these all night performances }}

:He offers more qualifications throughout the book. In fact, he seldom uses the word 'folk' without qualifications. So it is not upto you to simply wave a measly Enc. Brit article by half-experts in the field and matter of factly stereotype and straitjacket Y as 'folk' art.
:Yakshagana is 'classical' in the true sense of the word, not in the idiosyncratic and cooked up sense that the babudom comes up with when called upon to do so by their political masters. A govt., body 'bestowing' an art or a language the status of 'classical' is ludicruous and doesnt belong in this article. If it pleases you create an article titled ] and take your rant there. When I say classical Yakshagana, "classical" is wikilinked to ], not to that idiocy you're championing. Similar discussions have taken place wrt ] and that article now rightly mentions Kannada and Telugu(not sure about telugu, should check) in the list. The bottomline is this - something is 'classical' when researchers think it is 'classical' and not when a pseudo secular govt., decides to prostitute its soul and rigor in research at the altar of opportunistic politics. If we were to go by govt., listings, Sanskrit wouldnt have been ] until around 2004 or 2005. bottomline is, if it is semantic tomfoolery that you're bent on, go ahead and reword it.. cpedit it. there's just no case to remove it. ] 17:20, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
:<small>note: i'd typed this response yesterday.. but couldnt post it.. i see that fowler continues to split hairs below.. i'm not sure I'll be replying for too much longer.. </small>
:::I am not sure what to make of this "reply" since it was posted an hour after I posted my initial post below and half an hour after I posted my last post (signed with stamp) below. The post above accuses me of not reading some authors, when those authors (''e.g.'' Shivarama Karanth) are extensively quoted in my post below. If ] had written the response yesterday as he claims and if the response was already old (in light of my post below), then there was no reason to post the response. As for ]'s offer for me to "reword it ... cpedit it," I propose to do just that tomorrow. ]] 19:22, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
===Shivarama Karanth's Book on ''Yaksagana''===
::In a post above in this section, ] exhorted me to, "For a more in depth view into it, get your hands on book by ], no less, and take your ill informed nonsense elsewhere." Well, I did get my hands on the book (in the hard copy) and I read the relevant chapters, and I am now able to quote from ]'s source itself:
:*From: '''Karanth, K. Shivarama'''. (1997). ''Yakṣagāna'' (Forward by H. Y. Sharada Prasad). Abhinav Publications. 252 pages. ISBN 8170173574. "As I look at the '''traditional ''Yakṣagāna'' theatre''' of today, I feel impelled to look back towards its 'stage' ..." (p. 21) Since the earliest known '''''Yakṣagāna'' play''' belongs to 1564 AD, we can safely assume that ''Yakṣagāna'' plays or ''prasangas'' orginated prior to AD 1500. A good number of '''''Yakṣagāna'' plays''' are now available to us ... The present theatrical form of the '''''Yakṣagāna'' play''' consists of three different mediums of expression, language, music, and dance, besides costume and make-up. The written songs and verses of the '''early plays''' have survived, ... Its '''spoken prose''', never learnt by heart but always improvised on the spur of the moment, has vanished. (p. 24) "The '''''Yakṣagāna'' folk-theatre is no isolated theatrical form in India. We have a number of such theatrical traditions all around Karnataka... In far off Assam we have similar plays going on by the name of ''Ankia Nat'', in neighouring Bengal we have the very popular ''Jatra'' plays. Maharashtra has ''Tamasa'''''. (p. 26) In some Indian folk plays we find songs and speeches interwoven as in ''Yakṣagāna'' or ''Tamasa''. In some, elaborate gesture takes the place of speech as in ''Kudiyata'', ''Kathakali'' or ''Kuchipudi''. In some, written prose is spoken by characters and in some, all speech is extempore as in ''Yakṣagāna'' and ''Tamasa''." (p. 26)
:*From: '''Karanth, K. Shivarama'''. (1997). ''Yakṣagāna'' (Forward by H. Y. Sharada Prasad). Abhinav Publications. 252 pages. ISBN 8170173574. "'''Yaksagana plays are often likened to ''Kathakali'' plays of Kerala or ''Kuchipudi'' plays of Andhra... ''Kathakali'' of Kerala has its own musical style, but it eschews the spoken word entirely. Instead it uses a gesture language. But ''Yakṣagāna'' employs the speech medium extensively in depicting its dramatic situations.''' Here, the function of dance is not total but only partial, though all the characters who appear on stage do dance ... '''The essential difference between a ''Yakṣagāna'' drama and the other two systems is the role of speech.''' Possibilities of using dance medium along with music for the total expression of a drama are there (in ''Yakṣagāna''); at places it (''Yakṣagāna'') needs further exploitation for better articulation." (p 103).
:*From: '''Karanth, K. Shivarama'''. (1997). ''Yakṣagāna'' (Forward by H. Y. Sharada Prasad). Abhinav Publications. 252 pages. ISBN 8170173574. "''Yakṣagāna'''s dance form consists mostly of the ''nṛtta'' aspects of footwork and rythmical body movements&mdash;including those of the neck, arms and palms. It contains some fine postures, body flexions, as well as a few squatting, jumping and reeling movements. '''What it lacks is a stylised gesture language employing symbolic ''mudrās'' to depict parts of speech. The few gestures and symbols used are the ones that one normally uses in his day to day conversation'''.... This is not to assert that ''Yakṣagāna'' has the most perfect variety of dance. '''Because of the importance given to the spoken word, certain rhythmic forms like harmony of body lines and gestures have not been studied and cultivated, and consequently the aesthetic aspects of grace and meaning suffer.''' (p 104) Charms of the female personality are revealed through various movements, postures, eye, neck, shoulder, and palm movements. '''But in certain postures that are considered basic to ''Yakṣagāna'', I feel there is more ugliness than charm.'''" (p 104).
:*The reference, from The Newsletter of the Indira Gandhi National Centre of Arts (IGNCA), Vol. V September - October 2002, (provided by ]) itself says: "Dr. Karanth has made a singular contribution to the preservation, reformation and propagation of the '''great Indian theatrical art ''Yakshagana'''''... In the academic session, ... Shri K. Mohan ... said '''the traditional Yakshagana theatre was largely untouched by his innovations'''." ]] 16:51, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

==Removal of content from lead by Otolemur==
{{{tlx|editprotect}}
User Otolemur in edit removed a large fragment of the sentence: {{cquote|Gradually annexed by the ] from the early eighteenth century and colonised by the ] from the mid-nineteenth century, India became a modern ] in 1947 after a ] that was marked by widespread use of ] as a means of social protest.}} without any edit summary or explanation of his action (let alone his motivations). Furthermore, what remains now: {{cquote|Gradually annexed by the ] from the early eighteenth century and colonised by the ] from the mid-nineteenth century, India became a modern ] in 1947 after ].}} is not only missing an article, but is abrupt and tautological. Since this edit too, of a sentence that had been stable since last November, had no connection with the subsequent edit-wars linked to the lock-down, I request that it be reverted and the original text be reinstated. ]] 12:13, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
::I fail to understand ''why'' Otelmur made the change to sentence? ]] 13:18, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
:Could Otelmur be asked to explain his edits? ] ] 13:19, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
::An introductory paragraph should be as short as possible, as the detailed are discussed in mother articles. In a introductory paragraph contents like this is unnecessary. This line should be added in history section. The second paragraph in the introduction should be deleted as this makes the introduction unnecessarily long. ] 14:10, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
:::But you didn't remove the entire second paragraph, just a large fragment of one sentence (from which you removed an article, indicating you knew you were removing the fragment, and not the paragraph). Besides, ], ], ], ], ] (all FAs) and the ] all talk about history in their lead. What Misplaced Pages rule are you implementing by your edit? ]] 14:29, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Otolemur, can you provide us with the requisite wikipedia ] guideline that says that the lead has to be "as short as possible"? As far as the guideline on the ] goes, four paragraphs seems ok to us. Please do get familiar with wikipedia guidelines before making drastic edits. And another point: Please do not unnecessarily compare the India article to other featured country articles: This article is one of the oldest featured articles, and most other country articles have been modelled on this. ] ] 15:25, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

::::Quoted from Nichalp: '''This article is one of the oldest featured articles, and most other country articles have been modelled on this.'''
:::::I myself didn't know this, and I imagine many newcomers don't know this either. So, I am highlighting it once again for everyone to see. ]] 21:37, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::Leads are supposed to be thorough outlines of an entire article. Social protest by means of nonviolent civil disobedience was a very important part of pre-independent India. <span style="background:#E0FFFF;color:#007FFF;font-family:Georgia;">] (])</span> 02:57, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
::This sentence was originally created after '''months''' of debate and getting feedback from dozens of users. I believe it also satisfied almost everyone's concern. Yes, you should not have to ask for every edit you make but it is also worth considering the flip side. --] 09:04, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Well, I left another message on Otolemur's talk page requesting him to answer further questions posed for him here; however, that message too by Otolemur. ]] 10:48, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
::::I left a "Final Message" on Otolemur's talk page a few hours ago, but that too was deleted from the talk page (see ). Since Otolemur is consistently refusing to respond here to the questions posed for him and moreover is deleting content from his talk page, I request the attending administrator to reinstate the entire sentence in its original form. Regards, ]] 13:32, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

==A Straw Poll for Subsections==
User Otolemur has not only added subsections to the ] page, but to the United States and Pakistan pages as well. On the US page his edits have changed the Table of Contents from to , and given his on that page, he is likely to add more subsections there. He did the same on the Pakistan page, but after being , decided to temporarily . Since some of his newly created subsections on the Pakistan page were three lines long, and those on the currently locked-down India page are only a hair's breadth longer, his approach appears to be one of selecting subtopics and creating the subsections first and then filling them up with text. I am myself of the opposite school. I prefer to add the content first, to develop it, and only then, if the text suggests it (by its theme and length), do I create subsections. I am not necessarily against subsections, but I prefer to create them towards the end of text development; besides, I feel that this early straight-jacketing of contents prevents exploration of themes that might otherwise arise.

Since the India page is currently locked down&ndash;consequently, since time is of the essence&ndash;and since one of the bones of contention antecedent to the lock-down was the creation of the many subsections, I suggest that we conduct a simple straw poll rather than pursue more protracted forms of consensus building. Please cast your vote below. Please sign.

;1. For subsections now:


;2. Against subsections at the present stage (of text development):
#]] 13:36, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
#] 18:00, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
#--] (]) 19:46, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
#It should the last of our concerns (Not saying that in a negative way, but it only should be considered once the expansion has taken place. The appropriate number and which subsections to be added can only be decided then) though I understand Nichalp's point and would only support if they are absolutely necessary. <b><font color="teal">]</font></b>''<sup><font color="teal">]</font></sup>'' <sup><b><font color="teal">]</font></b></sup> 22:37, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
# Strongly leaning towards all time though but you never know. --] 08:59, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
#Yes, not for now. Maybe after the text review. ]] 13:21, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
;3. Against subsections at any time:
# It looks downright ugly and makes for a poor read. ] ] <small>—Preceding ] comment was added at 13:41, 14 October 2007 (UTC)</small><!--Template:Undated--> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
# I agree with Nichalp, too many subsections makes the text choppy and moves an encyclopedia article more towards a dictionary article. ] 18:42, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I think if we can put this (minor) issue behind us, we can proceed with more important issues such as what new sections are needed (if any) and how much to expand the article by (if at all), and get the show back on the road. Regards, ]] 13:36, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

== some minor cleanup ==

{{tlx|editprotected}}
Obviously, this doesn't need to be edited immediately, but the second paragraph has some serial comma issues. It's important for consistency above all, here. The text of my suggested change follows, to replace the second sentence of the second paragraph of the introduction.
<blockquote>
Four major world religions---Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism---originated here, while Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism arrived in the first millennium CE and shaped the region's variegated culture.
</blockquote>
--] 22:00, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

:Well, this topic has come up before on this page. The ] is not as common in British and Indian English (used on this page) as it is in American English. Consequently, on this page it is used only if it is needed to resolve potential ambiguity. Since no ambiguity arises in the sentence under consideration, the serial comma is not used. Regards, ]] 03:12, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

== First suggestion on ] ==

I have started making use of this page. I intially only wanted to copyedit a sentence on health in the demographics section but I then realised the references citing the sentence don't exactly say what is stated in the article. <b><font color="teal">]</font></b>''<sup><font color="teal">]</font></sup>'' <sup><b><font color="teal">]</font></b></sup> 23:08, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
:I've added some suggestions there. ]] 03:13, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

== Recent science related additions==
This sentence was recently added to the article: "Science and technology in India forms a major commitemnet for both the Govt and Private sector in India. India posseses one of the world's largest scientific and technological infrastructure and manpower, which in was worth Rs 30 billion, up from the Rs 10 million in ."

Ignoring the choppy sentence structure, I have serious issues with the verifiability of some of things it stays. My argument is based on some reasonable assumptions, as follows,
# Number of peer-reviewed journal articles and impact factor is a strong indication of status of science in a country. This criteria was used to quantify and qualify science and technology in following articles:''"Time for a fresh start", "The battle for Russia's brains", "Breaking up is hard to do", Nature, 449, 2007'' - Furthermore, there is a precedence for using this criteria to gauge scientific growth of a country.
# Another assumption I make, rooted in common sense, is that there is a strong correlation between availability of scientific infrastructure + manpower and number of publications + citations.

Now, the only clear evidence that has been presented so far in support of this statement is that the above statement was made by the High Commisioner of India in London (can someone actually give me that link, I have missed it). I state that the high commissioner of India in London cannot be regarded as a credible evidence for such a statement. If we were to use every public figures statement as a credible evidence, articles on countries like China and Pakistan might look very different.

The evidence that I present is as follows,
# India ranks 13th on the number of publications. It is behind much smaller countries like Netherlands and Italy, where manpower is an issue. ()
# India is outside of top 20 on the number of times the publications (above) are cited by other people. This is an indicator of poor quality of research being done, generally speaking. ()
# Post-graduate scene in India is weak as indicated by lack of PHDs. , M A Pai.

So, my point is that even though India has made great strides in science and technology, she is still behind the developed nations in terms of funding and infrastructure available for science. As a result, lot of Indian students go to the west for doing their PhD and also settle there due to lack of funding and exciting research being done in India. The sentence in its present form goes against assumption #2 and makes it seem like India is at the forefront of research. As such, it really needs to be rephrased heavily. --] 09:53, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
::bah! Instead of giving us a 500 word thesis to read, simply go ahead and reword it to what you think would be an accurate description of India's standing in S&T (just leave a ''"cpedit"'' in the edit summary). This is how it works on all other articles in wikipedia -- people keep rewording it until the prose finds a nice balance and reflects the sources while also taking care of other concerns like NPOV, UNDUE, WEASEL, PEACOCK etc.,. All this happens one step at a time and usually it doesnt take very long before a piece of prose fits snug into the rest of the article. The predilection of some here for straw polls and rfcs and ani reports and arbcoms for every 5 words added or removed from the article is sickening, to say the least. ] 18:59, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
:::That is also how articles fall into a vicious cycle of edit wars. Case in point.--] 21:48, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
::::No. That is how articles improve in a ]. Edit warring happens when one or more parties become wedded to a particular wording. At the moment, there is no reason or evidence to believe that either party is wedded to its own wording. Those who added it, did so because it was felt that a few lines about science and tech in India was needed and they just wanted to make a 'start'. Unless you disagree(you havent said so) that it is even required in this article, you'd want to start chipping away at the wording and produce ''your'' version. There is always a middle ground which can be reached with iterative interpolations of different 'takes' of the same issue.
::::Other things like which section this content should be a part of, etc., can be decided as we go. Also, talking of sections, a section on "Education" would make sense(it is a part of most state articles) and it would also make sense to weave this S&T bit into it. ] 22:02, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::Firstly, you are making an assumption that every new addition is worth keeping after some polishing. Let me make myself crystal clear: I find almost all the new additions not worth keeping. So polishing it, in this case, would be akin to deleting it. Furthermore, if I want to discuss an addition in the talk page, I will do so. If you find reading clearly explained reasoning not worth your time then don't bother responding to it. Need not worry, I will provide a copy edit that states "as per talk page." --] 14:10, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
:I hadn't been paying attention to this Science and Technology issue earlier, but I agree with Blacksun that the number of citations is a very important indicator of the strength of ''research'' (in the different fields of science and technology) and that India's absence from the top 20 is a sign of its poor performance. It might have great educational institutions, it might have large-scale software development, but, its performance in scientific research is poor. At the very least this statement will need to be included with a statement about India having the largest pool of scientists of any country in the world (or words to that effect that have already been added). ]] 11:22, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

==A Straw Poll for Potential New Additions==
Since the straw poll for sub-sections seems to be moving along, I thought it might be time to have a straw poll for new additions. I have created a set of choices below which allow the voter to choose between anything from no expansion to the addition of a full section. ]] 18:19, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

'''Definition:''' A ''Large paragraph'' is approximately 250 to 300 words; a ''small paragraph'' is 125 to 150 words. Those are the approximate upper limits.

*'''Religion'''. (Daughter article ])
#Full section
#(Large/Small (please choose one)) paragraph within (], ] (please choose one)
#No addition/expansion in any form needed at this time
*'''Votes''':
**(Example) 2, small, culture, signature.
** 3 ]] 18:19, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
**3, not needed.--] (]) 21:49, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
** 3,Blanket no new sections from my end. The article is bloated enough. ] ] 01:20, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
** 3, Blanket no new sections at this time. --] 13:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
** 3 - No need. ] 03:41, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
** 3 - No new sections at this time as the article is very bloated. ] 17:39, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
** 2 - Large Religion is big in india ] 02:19, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
** 3 - Blanket NO NEW SECTIONS. Article is already super-sized. --] 21:44, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

*'''Science and Technology''' (Daughter article ]
#Full section
#(Large/Small (please choose one)) paragraph within (], ] (please choose one)
#No addition/expansion in any form needed at this time.
*'''Votes:'''
** Most needed 1,] 03:41, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
**(Example) 2, small, culture, signature.
** 3, not needed at this time. ]] 07:52, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
**2, small, within Economy.--] (]) 21:49, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
**3,Blanket no new sections from my end. The article is bloated enough. ] ] 01:20, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
** 3, Blanket no new sections at this time. --] 13:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
** 3 - No new sections at this time as the article is very bloated. ] 17:39, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
** 2- Large. It is rather important to economy ] 02:19, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
** 3 - Blanket NO NEW SECTIONS. Article is already super-sized. --] 21:44, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

*'''Folk and Tribal Culture''' (Daughter article ] (not created yet)).
#Full section
#(Large/Small (please choose one)) paragraph within ]
#No addition/expansion in any form needed at this time.
*'''Votes:'''
**(Example) 2, small, signature.
** 2, Small, ]] 18:19, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
**2, small, within culture.--] (]) 21:49, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
**3,Blanket no new sections from my end. The article is bloated enough. ] ] 01:20, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
** 3, Blanket no new sections at this time. --] 13:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
** 3 - No new sections at this time as the article is very bloated. ] 17:39, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
**3- no need ] 02:19, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
** 3 - Blanket NO NEW SECTIONS. Article is already super-sized. --] 21:44, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

*'''Education and Health''' (Daughter article(s): )
#Full section
#(Large/Small (please choose one)) paragraph within ]
#No addition/expansion in any form needed at this time.
*'''Votes:'''
**(Example) 2, small, signature.
**2, Small, ]] 18:19, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
**2, small, within demography.--] (]) 21:49, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
**3,Blanket no new sections from my end. The article is bloated enough. ] ] 01:20, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
** 3, Blanket no new sections at this time. --] 13:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
** 3 - No new sections at this time as the article is very bloated. ] 17:39, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
** 3 ] 02:19, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
** 3 - Blanket NO NEW SECTIONS. Article is already super-sized. --] 21:44, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

*'''Sports''' (Daughter article: )
#Full section
#(Large/Small (please choose one)) paragraph within ]
#No addition/expansion in any form needed at this time
*Votes:
**(Example) 2, small, signature.
**3 ]] 18:19, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
**2, small, within culture.--] (]) 21:49, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
**3,Blanket no new sections from my end. The article is bloated enough. ] ] 01:20, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
** 3, Blanket no new sections at this time. --] 13:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
** 3 - No new sections at this time as the article is very bloated. ] 17:39, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
** 2 small ] 02:19, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
** 3 - Blanket NO NEW SECTIONS. Article is already super-sized. --] 21:44, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
**1, A new section. ] 03:41, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

*'''Transportation''' (Daughter article: )
#Full section
#(Large/Small (please choose one)) paragraph within ]
#No addition/expansion in any form needed at this time.
*Votes:
**(Example) 2, small, signature.
** 3 ]] 03:38, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
**2, small, within Economy.--] (]) 21:49, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
**3,Blanket no new sections from my end. The article is bloated enough. ] ] 01:20, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
** 3, Blanket no new sections at this time. --] 13:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
** 3 - No new sections at this time as the article is very bloated. ] 17:39, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
** 2 Small ] 02:19, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
** 3 - Blanket NO NEW SECTIONS. Article is already super-sized. --] 21:44, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
**2 - A small section.] 03:41, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


*Blanket no new sections from my end. The article is bloated enough. ] ] 01:20, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
*Blanket no new sections at this time. --] 13:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
* The article as it stands is bloated and needs pruning before any new sections can be considered. ] 17:39, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
*Blanket NO NEW SECTIONS. Article is already super-sized. --] 21:44, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
*In principle, article is not superlong (22k prose), so yes to new sections if appropriate. ''']''' ('']'') 01:42, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

==A Straw Poll for Rotation of Images==

Finally, the last issue that is dogging the page&ndash;the problem of images. Rotation of images was proposed by some people and opposed by others. I had originally created a simple straw poll below, but since some votes were ambiguous, I have clarified the categories, so that there is no confusion. Since a number of people have already expressed their opinions, I am adding their names (for or against). Please correct if I have made a mistake. ]] 18:58, 15 October 2007 (UTC) Updated: ]] 16:49, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

*'''For Rotation of Images (with decision on image quality made at ] and with no "Featured Quality" condition on image):'''
#{{user|Sarvagnya}}
#{{user|Saravask}}
#{{user|Amarrg}}
#{{user|Blnguyen}}
#{{user|Nikkul}}
#--] (]) 21:51, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
#{{user|Chanakyathegreat}}
#{{user|Blacksun}} - If pictures are picked carefully this provides greater flexibility.
#{{user|Priyanath}} Whatever scheme is implemented, images need to fulfill at least the minimum requirements at ]: "a variety of material near relevant text" and "must be relevant to the article ... and of sufficient notability (relative to the article's topic)" (featured images are not mentioned as a requirement at ]). Greater regional variety is needed.
#{{user|KNM}} Rotation concept is certainly an experiment and, if implemented successfully, would certainly address issues such as the one we just had in Culture section about Toda image. - ] <sup> ''']'''</sup> 01:42, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
#{{user|Amartyabag}}] ] 05:19, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

*'''Conditional For/Against :'''
#Perhaps we should try to feature pictures from regions not represented here at the moment, add those and leave it there. <b><font color="teal">]</font></b>''<sup><font color="teal">]</font></sup>'' <sup><b><font color="teal">]</font></b></sup> 22:32, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
#<s> I agree with DaGizza. Get pictures from South India (and other regions not currently represented) featured (at ]) and leave those pictures in the article for some time. I am not necessarily against rotation, but would only support it if the images being rotated are ] or ] like ]. ]] 18:58, 15 October 2007 (UTC)</s> Please see my post ] below. ]] 18:57, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
#Against, unless all of the images in the rotation are ]. And even then I am not sure it is a good idea...] 03:01, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
#Only if all are ] ]] 05:38, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
#For. Provided the images are Featured quality, are regionally balanced, pertinent and so on. ] ] 01:21, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
# Support only if there is a strict process for rotation based on prior discussion on the talk-page here, feature-quality images, relevance and stability (i.e. rotate maybe once a fortnight :P ) - I think we need to question just how many of the current images should be placed in this "rotation" bearing in mind that I can't imagine an article on India not having an image of Mahatma Gandhi or the Taj Mahal :P ] 17:16, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

*'''Against Rotation of Images:'''
#{{user|Ragib}}
#{{user|Dbachmann}}
#]] 18:57, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

===Discussion===
Just to clarify my position, I am not totally against a rotational system (this was what I wrote before ''There is some benefit in a "rotation" system but the biggest problem with it is that the image debate will never go away. Half of the discussions here would be forever about images. Perhaps we should try to feature pictures from regions not represented here at the moment, add those and leave it there.'') but I do other some other concerns. One of the criteria in ] is stability. Traditionally, it has nearly always referred edit wars and drastic content changes, not image changes. However, if one sees inactive ], ] and ], you will notice that stable versions of articles will be of importance for Misplaced Pages in the future. Regardless of its quality, the India article has high priority and a particular version may be tagged as "stable" in the future. <b><font color="teal">]</font></b>''<sup><font color="teal">]</font></sup>'' <sup><b><font color="teal">]</font></b></sup> 22:41, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, though I doubt anybody has thought of the range of images that will used, I would be keen to know how regional balance will be brought about. I think it would be unfair to give every state and union territory equal coverage, because would be giving ] weight to some of the tiny states. At the same time, using a previous example, giving 300 times the coverage to ] than ] is unrealistic too. These issues would be need to be discussed before any application of a rotation system. <b><font color="teal">]</font></b>''<sup><font color="teal">]</font></sup>'' <sup><b><font color="teal">]</font></b></sup> 22:41, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

:I too am not necessarily against rotation (see my posts , , going back to November 2006), however I prefer the pictures to be "] or ] like ]." ("Near-feature quality" means that they came awfully close to being selected in the FPC review, but weren't selected in the end.) It is not enough to just have "high-res" images, it is the composition of the image that is equally important, and in my opinion the best expertise available for such quality image selection is at ]. ]] 04:01, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

::The best case would be having FPs from different parts of India and about differents aspects of India. If we had an excess of those I wouldn't mind rotation. Having said that, I think quality (and I mean the upmost quality) should only have preference ]. Though I wouldn't mind non-FPs, they have to decent images, not shoddy and ugly images that dull the page. <b><font color="teal">]</font></b>''<sup><font color="teal">]</font></sup>'' <sup><b><font color="teal">]</font></b></sup> 05:01, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

:::One more thing I can suggest, which I think can end this debate about the use of photos in the culture section. Lets select 1 photo from each state (if available) related to the culture of the state and we can change these photos every fortnight (15 days), much importance can be given to any picture of festival which falls during the period. This was what i proposed exactly 2 months ago. ]. ] ] 05:16, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

::::Added to problem of maintaining balance that DaGizza mentioned above is another problem I've alluded to ]. Since the average user who reads the India article for information likely reads it in one sitting (or at least doesn't keep coming back day after day), the images presented to the user will be unbalanced anyway, no matter how often the images are rotated. What does rotational balance mean then? A kind of statistical balance over a large number of readers? In other words, what any one reader will get by way of image content will be unbalanced, but the 180,000 yearly readers (of the India page) together will carry balanced image content in their ]? Imagine if we rotated text in the same way: would any one be satisfied? ]] 08:41, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::Rotation image does not mean anything for someone who will visit India article just once. However, there is no evidence to suggest that this is indeed the case amongst the "average reader." Another benefit of a rotation image is that it makes it less likely to have giant arguments over which image to pick when there are three or four equally good candidates :P --] 14:04, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

:::: I notice the use of phrases like "regional balance" without specifying the context - linguistic, cultural or historic regions or the traditional north-south divide or even perhaps the unofficial regions listed ]. Personally I would prefer the latter as it simplifies the task of deciding how much a particular region is being represented. ] 17:16, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

:::Complicating the matter further is that there is a world of difference between images ] (as formulated by ] in his post ) and the images being collected on ]. ]] 19:01, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

We all agree that one image can never represent Indian culture in its entirety. Rotating images can get closer to doing this than having one image and saying THIS represents India in all forms. ] 17:42, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
:Why are you fixated on the notion that the image "has to be" a true objective representation of "India". Nobody is contesting that. ] ] 17:56, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

One small observation -- all the talk about rotation seem to be for appeasing *editors* of the article, and NOT the *readers*. One common argument I see above is regional balance. Well, that again is for appeasing editors from different regions ... who want to see an image from their region showed here. But we are forgetting that the actual readers of the page are likely to be people who want to know about India, and would come to the page for learning about it in a nutshell. Do the pro-rotation editors think that users will come to the page again and again in each rotation cycle, so that the rotation of images will give them a regionally-balanced view? I hardly think so. Thanks. --] 18:48, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

:Ragib, I would like to ask you; If you dont think the rotation will give a regionally balanced view, then how would you solve the problem of showing people an image of India in a nutshell? According to you, which one image sums up Indian culture in a nutshell? Which one image shows literature, architecture, food, sports, festivals, tribes folk culture, urban culture, etc? ] 02:14, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

::I must say, Ragib has a valid and a strong point - ''Do the pro-rotation editors think that users will come to the page again and again in each rotation cycle, so that the rotation of images will give them a regionally-balanced view?'' Will someone care to reply? ]] 08:48, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
:::These points have been touched upon and answered before. Ultimately, readers get to read what editors write. If they dont like what they read, the doors are open and they're free to jump in and edit (we all were readers before we became editors. Right?). Its ], remember. And editors follow the wiki process.. of which consensus is a major part. And somebody's favourite pics(whoever put them there long back) squatting there for eternity is not consensus. Give me one good reason why I shouldnt replace the Ajanta pic or the BSE pic or even the Taj, for that matter. Just dont give me the "its a FP" crap. If you think there's any anamoly here, you should probably put it down to wikipedia's own faults. But then, wikipedia wouldnt exist without some of its faults. ] 10:00, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

:::''"...all the talk about rotation seem to be for appeasing *editors* of the article, and NOT the *readers*...."'' - how did you assume that readers are pleased with the article's present state or its choice of images? And what makes you so sure that they'll be displeased with 'rotation'? ] 10:05, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
::::The point that Ragib is making and that I have made in ] above, is not whether readers will be ''displeased'' with rotation, but rather that they won't know the difference between images that have been "squatting there for eternity" and those that have been squatting there since the onset of the new rotational cycle, no matter how short it might be. As for not telling you "its a (sic) FP," need I remind you that there is no consensus as of yet for rotation without the FP-condition. The vote stands at 10 to 8 for rotation (without the FP-condition). If the vote of 18 to 16 ''for'' the Toda dairy images was deemed ''not'' to be a consensus, then 10 to 8 for rotation (without the FP condition) is not consensus either. ]] 11:31, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

== Neither Tagore nor Toda... for now ==

In order to avoid an edit war both the images have been removed. Tagore's image has not gone under the scanner(ie.voted for) till now hence its unfair to replace the Toda pic with it. PS:Those who voted against Toda never said that their vote implied support *for* Tagore.Eg. Blacksun doest want the Tagore image. Nikkul wanted the image of ] and Thoreulylazy wanted a pic of ].

Whereas Toda had ''no clear'' consensus (against:for =17:18 or if Amargg's vote is added will be 18:18). Though "no consensus" should imply 'keep' (thats what is the rule in AfD). But still I removed it cause I am not so sure about that. ]] 17:03, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

:The AfD analogy is not valid. There was no consensus for keeping such a controversial image, and there was no WP policy supporting the forced insertion of an image that is not relevant to the article. To the contrary, see ]: "Images must be relevant to the article they appear in and be of sufficient notability (relative to the article's topic)" and ]: "Articles that use more than one image should present a variety of material '''near relevant text'''." The Tagore image fulfills the only relevant WP policies that apply to placement of images in this case. ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 17:10, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
::"Forced insertion that is not relevant to the article" -- I'm sorry but the placement of a picture is always going to be subjective. Please do not call it "not relevant". ] ] 17:15, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
:::I agree with K-H and Nichalp. Besides if an image is absolutely needed for now, why Tagore, why not the "The Recognition of Shakuntala" which is explictly mentioned in the text and which is a classic painting by Raja Ravi Verma (1848-1906). No one can say that ] is ''more'' representative than ]. ]] 17:18, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
::::You know I'm not calling the hut pic "not relevant". For the toda article it's extremely relevant. But for this article, the image is not relevant "to the article's topic", and not of "sufficient notability". These are WP policies on placement of images in articles. Nor is it placed "near relevant text". The Tagore image ''does'' fulfill all of these very clearly written WP policies on placement of images. ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 17:42, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
]
:::::(To Fowler&fowler) Thank You! For suggesting an image that has some mention in the article! I think we're getting somewhere. In terms of relevance, I think Tagore is more relevant, but it seems we can now actually discuss images in terms of "relevant to the article they appear in and be of sufficient notability (relative to the article's topic)" and one that can be placed "near relevant text". The Shakuntala image certainly meets WP policy on image choice and placement, along with the Tagore image. If others feel Shakuntala is more appropriate, I wouldn't oppose it (though I still prefer Tagore). ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 17:52, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::::To Priyanath: The "Recognition of Shakuntala" image became "relevant" only because I added the sentence, "The earliest works of ] were transmitted orally and only later written down.<ref name = Sanskrit>{{Harvnb|MacDonell|2004|p=1-40}}</ref> These included works of ], such as the epics ] and ], and the drama ],<ref name = Sanskrit/> and those of the ] in ]." two weeks ago. In the previous version of the sentence which had no explicit mention of "Shakuntala," the painting above would have been just as irrelevant as the Toda dairy. Similarly, if no mention were made of Tagore in the text, his image too will be irrelevant. Conversely, I can easily amend the sentence, "The ] displays notable regional variation." to the sentence "The ] displays notable regional variation, from the unique barrel-shaped huts of the ] to the ] of rural ]." That would easily make the Toda image as relevant as Tagore. ]] 18:29, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::::: You are correct Fowler. However, I think that culture section needs an arts or literature related image. India related articles generally tend to be light in this area even though India has a rich history of art and literature. Come to think of it, usually Asian literature and arts is under-weighted in the world. Besides, we already have Taj for architecture. I have no problem switching Tag with Toda if you wish but I am sure others might protest. --] 08:53, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::::I love the recognition of Shakuntala image. Please replace Tagore image with this one asap.--] 08:52, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::::I would support the replacement of Tagore with Shakuntala. Tagore himself is not culture (I don't mean to offend him in any way) but what he wrote was culture. Similarly, I wouldn't like an image of Kalidasa or Raja Ravi Varma. However, this is a ''painting'' of Raja Ravi Varma about the ''play'' that Kalidasa wrote. It is highly pertinent to culture in that sense, unlike Tagore's image which is more suited for a biography or history section. <b><font color="teal">]</font></b>''<sup><font color="teal">]</font></sup>'' <sup><b><font color="teal">]</font></b></sup> 09:29, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::::::If others think the Varma image is relevant, then I'm fine with it. Toda is still not relevant or notable for this article, though, compared to so many other images that definitely meet WP policies. If there's to be a third image, it should be literature or dance- now that we have architecture and painting represented. ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 15:34, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::::::After Sarvagnya's revert and comment, I searched for relevance of the painting fowler put in place of Tagore. A Google search for *recognition sakuntala varma* (without quotes, to give the best possible chance of results) gives less than 1,000 results, many of them Misplaced Pages mirrors. "Rabindranath Tagore" gives 1,230,000. Why, fowler, do you keep replacing notable and relevant images with obscure and not-relevant-for-this-article images? Is this some kind of game? Is there some kind of hidden agenda? If we are ''not'' going to have an image rotation scheme, then we must have the most relevant and notable images - like the Taj Mahal, and Tagore. The only way we can have images that represent minority and regional groups, is to use rotation. Until then, we must stick with those images that ''most'' represent India - like Gandhi, Taj, Tagore, main national government building, etc. ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 00:29, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::::The painting is about Kalidasa's Abhijnanashakuntalam ("The Recognition of Shakuntala"), not about Raja Ravi Varma who happens to be the painter. Don't know what your Google search means or for that matter any of Sarvagnya's incoherent edit summaries, but here is Britannica on Kalidasa: "Sanskrit poet and dramatist, probably the greatest Indian writer of any epoch. The six works identified as genuine are the dramas Abhijñanasakuntala (“The Recognition of Sakuntala”), Vikramorvasi (“Urvasi Won by Valour”), and Malavikagnimitra (“Malavika and Agnimitra”); the epic poems Raghuvamsa (“Dynasty of Raghu”) and Kumarasambhava (“Birth of the War God”); and the lyric “Meghaduta” (“Cloud Messenger”). In drama, his Abhijñanasakuntala is the most famous and is usually judged the best Indian literary effort of any period... The epic myth is important because of the child, for he is Bharata, eponymous ancestor of the Indian nation ... As in all of Kalidasa's works, the beauty of nature is depicted with a precise elegance of metaphor that would be difficult to match in any of the world's literatures." The Britannica devotes more than twice as much space to Kalidasa as it does to Tagore, who for all his achievements, is not quite in Kalidasa's league. Similarly , one of the benchmarks of "classics" status have published , but have yet to publish anything by Tagore. ]] 05:24, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::::::I know what the painting is about - and it's nowhere near as notable as the taj or Tagore. You know that, and I think everyone else here does also. (P.S. There is not even a single mention in the article about Kalidasa. Your ] edit is all about the painting. You know that these far-less-relevant pet images of yours are against WP image policies and standards - for what reason, I can only guess.) Rotation. ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 15:44, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

:::::: Dear ], can I kindly request you to grant me the same clarity of expression that I present you in all my writings, whether here or on the main India page?
::::::*]'s quote: "I know what the painting is about - and it's nowhere near as notable as the taj or Tagore."
::::::**''What'' is not "nowhere near as notable?" The painting is about the greatest literary work in Sanskrit literature, ]? That, I'm afraid, is more notable than anything put out by the ].
::::::*]'s quote: "You know that, and I think everyone else here does also. (P.S. There is not even a single mention in the article about Kalidasa."
::::::**There is mention of the ], whose author is none other than ].
::::::*]'s quote: *"Your ] edit is all about the painting."
::::::**What edit? My edit is not "all about the painting," it is about the dramatic work. The fact that the painter's name appears first in the caption is just a literary device; it can be easily changed.
::::::*]'s quote: "You know that these far-less-relevant pet images of yours are against WP image policies and standards - for what reason, I can only guess.) Rotation."
::::::**Again please don't attribute motivations, especially when you do a less than stellar job of clarifying what they are. I sincerely hope this post will encourage you to express yourself more unambiguously in the future. Warm regards, ]] 20:58, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) I think the picture of Sakuntala is a wonderful idea. In addition to what Fowler's said, it seems to me that it simultaneously represents several aspects of Indian culture - the high Sanskritic culture represented by Kalidasa's play, the folk culture of which the Sakuntala story has become part, and recent art as represented by the use of a Ravi Varma painting. I really don't know what to say in reply to the suggestion that Kalidasa's works are less notable than Tagore. If google hits are going to be the criterion, Aishwarya Rai (1.93 million) and Amitabh Bachchan (1.73 million) produce more hits than Rabindranath Tagore (1.48 million), which is a fine example of why we don't use Google to decide what's more notable. -- ] 22:41, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

==Need opinion on Nikkul's North Block image==
This is the photoshopped image by user Nikkul: http://en.wikipedia.org/Image:NorthBlock.jpg

This is the original image: http://flickr.com/photos/nimrodbar/31437132/

I have serious quality issues with the photoshopped image: tacky and cgi "fake" looking - like one of those concept images for a new building that is planned. Nikkul mirrored one half of the image and pasted it on the other half to "get rid of the people" - and also did some lighting effects. So now we have people who should not be there + the image looks fake on inspection - because well it is fake! I discussed this with Nikkul about it but we seem to disagree on this. I would like to know what other people think. I find the original image just fine (with the people). --] 09:02, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

:Are you sure those two links you provided above are ''exactly'' the same picture? I understand the people may have been edited out but the cars in the parking area are different. Regarding which image is better, I think the Flickr is because it looks more natural as well as not as blurry and dull. <b><font color="teal">]</font></b>''<sup><font color="teal">]</font></sup>'' <sup><b><font color="teal">]</font></b></sup> 09:49, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
::Nikkul took the left half of the image and pasted it on the right half. That is why you have the soldier in the front on both sides. --] 09:53, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Haha, after realising that you tend to notice how freakishly and unrealistically symmetrical Nikkul's image is. <b><font color="teal">]</font></b>''<sup><font color="teal">]</font></sup>'' <sup><b><font color="teal">]</font></b></sup> 10:05, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
::::<s>Nikkul, you should be ashamed of yourself. After all you've been through on the India page, you go back to the goofy stuff. Why?</s> ]] 10:09, 19 October 2007 (UTC) PS. Nikkul, I apologize for my choice of words. I didn't mean to be demeaning. You are someone who is clearly interested in improving the image content on India-related pages, and everyone can see that you have talent and drive, so why not use them more productively? ]] 10:30, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::He's lucky that there wasn't a distintive cloud formation or something. Having said that, shrubs that do not exist magically appear in Nikkul's version. Such an image has no place at all on Misplaced Pages, let alone the ] page. <b><font color="teal">]</font></b>''<sup><font color="teal">]</font></sup>'' <sup><b><font color="teal">]</font></b></sup> 10:18, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::: That was my feeling to on the matter. I have uploaded the original image over the edited one as it is used in various other articles too. Hopefully, user Nikkul will see where we are coming from. It is a good image he obtained from the photographer and there is no need for editing it. --] 11:15, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::: Please Nikkul, don't put that mirrored image back - or other heavily photoshopped images. The non-tweaked images are fine, and I for one appreciate the effort you put into finding good images. Just try and restrain your artistic impulses... ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 15:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::::Again, I just thought taking out the people would make the image look cleaner. The image hasnt been changed besides that (no clouds added or anything). And since the building is symetrical, i dont think it really matters. Seriously, I dont think people really care if there is an extra bush on one side of the Parliament building. Personally, I think the mirrored image looks very similar to the actual and is much cleaner. Still, if there is such an opposition to mirroring it, I have no problem at all leaving it the way it is now. Afterall, I am the one who uploaded it. Anyway, dont try to demean me. I have contributed a lot to wiki, much more than one realizes (see my userpage if u want proof). ] 01:51, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::::::I most sincerely appreciate that you've put so much effort into finding and uploading so many good images. Images are extremely important to articles, as the never-ending image disputes here prove. Thanks, ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 02:04, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::::::Yes, I don't think anybody doubts your good intentions Nikkul. I just hope you realise that editing an image so much makes it look fake. Why do we have to change things when there is so much real beauty in India? <b><font color="teal">]</font></b>''<sup><font color="teal">]</font></sup>'' <sup><b><font color="teal">]</font></b></sup> 04:21, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

==Yakshagana Redux==
Why are we calling ] a dance form when it is a type of theater as shown by Fowler with half a dozen credible citations? If you want to mention Yakshagana then hammer out an acceptable line for folk theater in the culture section instead of giving false information to the reader. If you disagree with categorizing Yakshagana as folk theater instead of dance then please provide some evidence. I might have missed the dance form sides reasoning in all the other things that came up recently.--] 11:35, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

:How about something like this, which is the most accurate?

{{cquote|] covers a wide range of traditions and regional styles. ] is split mainly between the North Indian ] and South Indian ] traditions. Famous representatives of Hindustani tradition are ]-player ] and ] ] and of the Carnatic tradition, vocalist ] and ]-player ]. Highly regionalised forms of popular music include ] and ]; the syncretic tradition of the '']'' of ] is one of the best known forms of the latter.

Indian dance too has diverse ''folk'' and ''classical'' forms. Among the well-known ] are the '']'' of the ], the '']'' of ], the '']'' of ] and ] and the '']'' of ]. Eight dance forms, many with narrative forms and infused with devotional and ] elements have been accorded ] by the ], India's National Academy of Music, Dance, and Drama. These are: '']'' of the state of ], '']'' of ], '']'' and '']'' of ], '']'' of ], '']'' of ], '']'' of the state of ], and '']'' of ].<ref name=all3/> The last named, traditionally performed by celibate monks of the ] tradition, most notably on ] island in the ], is now performed by both women and laymen.<ref name=all3>'''1.'''], , , ], ], , , From: ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Online. 12 Oct. 2007. '''2.''' ] (National Academy of Music, Dance, and Drama, New Delhi, India). 2007. . '''3.''' Kothari, Sunil. 2007. . Royal Holloway College, University of London.</ref>

India has many forms of ], which include music, dance, and improvised or written dialogue. Often based in ], but, in addition, incorporating elements from medieval romances, and news of social and political events, these forms include the '']'' of state of ], the '']'' of ], the '']'' and '']'' of North India, the '']'' of ], the ''terukkuttu'' of ], and the '']'' of ].<ref>'''Karanth, K. Shivarama'''. (1997). ''Yakṣagāna'' (Forward by H. Y. Sharada Prasad). Abhinav Publications. 252 pages. ISBN 8170173574. Quote: "The ''Yakṣagāna'' folk-theatre is no isolated theatrical form in India. We have a number of such theatrical traditions all around Karnataka... In far off Assam we have similar plays going on by the name of ''Ankia Nat'', in neighouring Bengal we have the very popular ''Jatra'' plays. Maharashtra has ''Tamasa''. (p. 26) In some Indian folk plays we find songs and speeches interwoven as in ''Yakṣagāna'' or ''Tamasa''. </ref> ''Yakshagana'', in particular, has undergone innovation in dance and theatre, which includes performances of Shakespeare.<ref>Hapgood, Robert. 1983. "''Macbeth'' distilled: A ''Yakshagana'' production in Delhi," ''Shakespeare Quarterly'', Vol. 31, No. 3. (Autumn, 1980), pp. 439-440.</ref>}}
<div class="references-small" style="-moz-column-count:3; column-count:3;">
<references/>
</div>
]] 11:47, 19 October 2007 (UTC) Last update: ]] 11:16, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

::'''Excellent'''. Now thats what you call, accurate and appropriate detailing. Please improve ] & ] with this piece of information. ]] 13:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
::'''Excellent''' - can we get a comment from the people who were edit warring over Yaksagana? --] 13:56, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
----
* Yakshagana is a dance-drama first and then 'folk theater'( whatever that is supposed to mean). Yes, it is folk theater but it is a dance form, dance-drama to be precise. "Theater" just doesnt cut it. Shadow play performances is a form of folk theater too; so is pantomime; so are the performing arts of our gypsy tribes. I can give any number of references that Yakshagana is "dance-drama". Also, Kathakali is dance-drama too(the net is rife with references for this too). If Kathakali is "dance", then Yakshagana is "dance" too. I can give references which put both Kathakali and Y in the same genre - ie., "dance-drama".
* Also, Yakshagana is as much classical as it is folk. When I use classical, I use it in the sense that serious researchers use, ie., as ]. The reason I am making this point is because researchers treat Yakshagana and the other "folk-arts" listed above differently. For instance (correct me if I am wrong), I've never seen anybody describe terukkoothu a 'classical' art form. Same with jatra, nautanki, ramlila etc.,. Same with 'tamasha'. Talking of 'tamasha', it is also nominally "dance", not "theater".
* That Bharatanatya is ''of'' TamilNadu is loose. And POV. Yes, Bharatanatya was revived in the early-mid decades of the 20th century in TN.. before that it was practised by Devadasis all over India(atleast south India)... and much before that it had a following all over the south(atleast). ] Queen Shantala was a well known exponent 1000 or so years ago.
: This much for now. gtg. ] 16:50, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
::Well, let's have your references then. The word for "classical folk theatre," is "traditional theatre," not classical dance. Folk theatre, as you indicated earlier is not a perjorative term. Your primary reference Shivarama Karanth, which you touted earlier, clearly not only thinks of it as folk theatre, but also doesn't think Yakshagana is as well developed a dance form (in terms of its stylized gestures) as Kathakali or Kuchipudi, as I have shown in the quotes from his book above in the subsection ]. Be aware though that I have also already looked at a dozen other references on JSTOR and other academic catalogs that classify Yakshagana as very much theatre. The main point being the presence of spoken prose lines, which Kathakali and Kuchipudi don't have and the absence of an elaborate syntax of stylized gestures, which K & K ''do'' have. I will await your references. And please only academic papers or scholarly books or .edu web sites. ]] 18:21, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
:::PS I don't know in what sense you are using the word classical, but if you mean the ''age'' of the art form, it is no older than ''Jatra'' or ''Tamasa''. According to Karanth (and EB) the first known performances go back to the 15th century AD. ]] 18:25, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

== Protected ==

Whatever you guys used to end the "new additions" dispute, you should use it for the Shakuntala-Tagore dispute. ] 05:27, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
: What dispute? Everyone including Priyanath is ok with using Shakuntala image. Do you have a problem with it?--] 10:41, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
:Never mind - I see that we had another edit war.--] 10:45, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
:: As long as completely subjective standards are used for images ('I like it', 'I don't like it') we will continue having an endless edit war over them. We need to use ''subjective'' standards: i.e., ''most'' notable and relevant to the article. Images like Gandhi, Taj, the main national government building, Tagore, all meet the only subjective standards on images - notability and relevance. The other option is rotation, which will allow regional and less familiar (but perhaps notable in some specific way) images to have their time in the article.
:: I move that we use this time to implement rotation, which has worked so well in the Flora and Fauna section. ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 15:24, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
::: Again, the painting is an illustration of '']'', one of the great works of world literature. That ] is no slouch himself (please see the new footnotes I have added in the ] below) only adds to the illustration. Regards, ]] 17:08, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
:::: Thank you - I'm pleased that the community is getting to decide which of two good images is most appropriate for the article. ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 18:37, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
::::PS As for the Flora and Fauna images, some are too low-res, and at least one of the tigers (the one licking its paw or about to lick it) might not be a Bengal tiger. The coloring and body proportion looks Siberian to me, but I could be wrong. ]] 17:08, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

==]'s unclear and inaccurate edit summaries==
] made a number of edits yesterday whose edit summaries once again fail to rise to an acceptable level of clarity or accuracy. Here are the edit summaries:

*Edit summary1: "removed condescending "regional" crap. all languages are equally national or regional. also removed peacock about most recogniseable face - "show" dont "tell") for .
**No, all languages in India are not equally regional. As we found out in the long-drawn out dispute over the infobox languages (see my exhaustive secondary sources ], Hindi (spoken by 40% of the population) and English are ''lingua francas'' for different regions of the country in ways that the other "regional" languages are not. For example, ], in contrast, is spoken by only 4.3% of India's population.
::*oh.. you want to play the 'percentage' game? Fine. Lets start with "..Hindus form 80% of India's population..".. now let's get an image of a 'fine example' of "Hindu" architecture to replace the Taj (there's plenty of them and they're even on the World Heritage list, just like the taj). And how about qualifying every non-Hindu entity with terms like "minority", "miniscule minority", "regional" etc., every step of the way. ] 21:57, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
*Edit summary2: "rm a ] "recognition" of shakuntala.. it isnt ] enough.. duh; also bringing back tagore."
**Again, the edit summary is as infelicitous in language as it is inadequate in clarity. As I have already pointed out above, ] is widely considered the greatest literary work in the Indian tradition in ''any'' period. Nothing by Tagore is in that league. (See my .)
*Edit summary3: "removed a weasel of a quote (not even a quote actually) and reworded caption)" (in reference to the quote in the Taj Mahal caption) in edit.
**The quote is a precise quote from the UNESCO World Heritage Site brief description: The Taj Mahal is the "jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world's heritage." See .
*However the most perplexing of ]'s perplexing edits is his first one, which didn't have the benefit of his usual edit summary, and which changed the long-standing sentence, "The most popular holidays are ], ], ], ], ], ], the two ]s, ], ''']''', ] and ]," to the sentence, "The most popular holidays are ''']''', ], ], ], ], ], ], the two ]s, ], ] and ]."
**Would ] care to explain what he was attempting to accomplish by that edit. Need I remind readers that ] made his India page debut and that too concerned ]. ]] 14:18, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

:Fowler - I think you have your own explaining to do in justifying the continued addition of less than notable and relevant images to this article. Your circular 'logic' in explaining the addition of the Verma painting as being more notable than all the combined works and achievements of Tagore is a bit of a stretch, to put it civilly. An need I remind readers that you have systematically reverted and attacked any 'outside' editors who attempt to edit the India article, violating ]? Does anyone here wonder why a major country article has so few editors, and so few new editors? ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 20:20, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

::Dear ], As I have patiently explained above once already, the painting is about ], which is not only the greatest work of Sanskrit drama, but also one of the great works of world literature. There is nothing in Tagore that compares with Kalidasa's masterpiece. See the references in the straw poll below. Regards, ]] 21:01, 20 October 2007 (UTC)



==A Straw Poll for choosing between two images for the culture section: Śakuntalā and Tagore==
]'s '']'', the "supreme work of Sanskrit drama,"<sup>'''a'''</sup> and "usually judged the best Indian literary effort of any period."<sup>'''b'''</sup> Painting by ]<sup>c, d, e</sup> (1848-1906) of ], ]]]
] - Asia's first<sup>'''f'''</sup> ]<sup>'''g'''</sup> and composer of ], played a major role in reviving several art forms such as the ].<sup>'''h'''</sup>]]

;Footnotes:
*'''a'''. Kalidasa. 2001. ''The Recognition of Śakuntalā: A Play in Seven Acts''. (edited by W. J. Johnson. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 192 pages. ISBN 0192839114. Quote: "Kalidasa's play about the love of King Dusyanta and Sakuntala, a hermitage girl, their separation by a curse, and eventual reunion, is ''the supreme work of Sanskrit drama by its greatest poet and playwright (c.4th century CE)''... The pioneering English translation of Sakuntala in 1789 caused a sensation among European composers and writers (including Goethe), and it continues to be performed around the world."
*'''b'''. ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' (Gerow, Edwin; signed article). (2007) . (2007). In ''Encyclopædia Britannica Online''. Retrieved October 20, 2007. Quote: "Kalidasa: Sanskrit poet and dramatist, probably the greatest Indian writer of any epoch... In drama, his Abhijñanasakuntala ("The Recognition of Śakuntalā") is the most famous and is usually judged the best Indian literary effort of any period... As in all of Kalidasa's works, the beauty of nature is depicted with a precise elegance of metaphor that would be difficult to match in any of the world's literatures."
*'''c'''. ]. 1893. ''Chhinna Patrabali''. Quote: "'''I spent the entire morning looking at Ravi Varma's pictures. I must confess I find them really attractive.''' After all, these pictures prove to us how dear our own stories, our own images and expressions are to us. In some paintings, the figures are not quite in proportion. Never mind! The total effect is compelling." (Quoted in Mitter, Partha. 1995. . Cambridge University Press. p. 179)
*'''d'''. Mitter, Partha. 1995. . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. ''xxix'', 505. ISBN 0521443547. From: '''Chapter 5. The artist as charismatic individual: Raja Ravi Varma''', pp. 179-218. Quote: "The glittering career of Raja Ravi Varma (1848-1906) is a striking case of study of salon art in India &ndash; the 'artistic genius' who embodied the virtues expected of an academic artist. In the year following his death, '']'' (Calcutta) described him as the greatest artist of modern India, a nation builder, who showed the moral courage of a gifted 'high-born' in taking up the 'degrading profession of painting'. It is curious in retrospect that the artist also hailed by the ] as the finest in India, never crossed the threshold of an art school. Nor did he originate in an urban environment. Ravi Varma Koil Tampuran was born on 29 April 1848 into an aristocratic family in the remote province of ]. The Varmas of Killimanoor were allied by marriage with the rulers of ]... '''Ravi Varma's spectacular canvases influenced the pioneers of the Indian cinema, ] and Baburao Painter, much as Victorian art inspired the Hollywood director ]. The opulent beauties of Indian cinema and calendars can lay claim to their descent from Varma's heroines'''."
*'''e'''. Guha-Thakurta, Tapati. . New York: Columbia University Press. Pp. ''xxv'', 432. ISBN 023112998X. Quote (p. 338): "Srimani, in particular, anticipates the art criticism of ], published in the journal ''Sadhana'' in the early 1890s, where, applauding the new mythological paintings of ], he discovered in them the "right" combination of academic realism and the lyric emotions of the Sanskrit texts. (See Balendranath Tagore, ''Chitra o kabya'' (Calcutta: Brahmo Samaj, 1894), pp. 97-113.)"
*'''f'''. {{Cite web|url=http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990823/tagore1.html|title=Rabindanath Tagore: Asia's First Nobel laureate...|accessyear=2007|accessmonthday=October 3|publisher=Time Asia|work=}}
*'''g'''. {{Cite web|url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1913/index.html|title=The Nobel Prize in Literature 1913|accessyear=2007|accessmonthday=October 3|publisher=Nobel Foundation|work=Nobel Prize Winners}}
*'''h'''. {{Harvnb|Massey|2006|p=186}}
*'''i'''' '''Regarding Notability: article on "Indian Literature" in Columbia Encyclopedia mentions Tagore. It does not mention Kalidasa. '''{{Cite web|url=http://www.bartleby.com/65/in/Indianli.html|title=Indian Literature|accessyear=2007|accessmonthday=October 21|publisher=Columbia Encyclopedia|work=}}
:'''Comment:''' That is because by "," the Columbia Encyclopedia means the literature in the modern "vernacular languages of India." It has separate pages for , , and ; the first two are much longer than their page on Indian literature. Kalidasa and Sakuntala are both mentioned in the page on Sanskrit literature. In addition, Columbia's page on , clearly states, "Tagore drew on the classical literature of India, especially the ancient Sanskrit scriptures and the writings of Kalidasa." ]] 21:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

===Vote===

====For ''The Recognition of Śakuntalā'' image====
#]] 20:49, 20 October 2007 (UTC) Last updated: ]] 00:10, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
#] 22:41, 20 October 2007 (UTC) (see )
#<b><font color="teal">]</font></b>''<sup><font color="teal">]</font></sup>'' <sup><b><font color="teal">]</font></b></sup> 06:10, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
#--] 12:48, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
#] 11:08, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
#] <sup>\] \]</sup> 14:32, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Comment:I dont understand why anyone would pick an image of the person that is Tagore over an example of art and literature that is Recognition of Sakuntala. Adding an image of Tagore does very little to the overall value of the article. Why? Because the image does not increase the value of the text regarding Tagore. The picture is just an image of a man. He is not famous for his picture but his great literature and deeds which are already mentioned in the article. I just dont understand why this is so hard to understand?? --] 12:48, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
::Note that in the Culture section of the ] article, two out of the three images are of England's greatest poet/author, Shakespeare (a painting of him, no photographs available), and a statue of a composer. Images of great artists ''do'' add to the value of an article, especially when they are as notable as a Shakespeare or Tagore. The Sakuntala painting is also an attractive addition to the article&mdash;less notable than Tagore, certainly, but a big improvement over the image that, unbelievably, held that spot for the last year. ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 16:56, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Priyanath, England is not a FA article and I do not agree with putting Shakespeare picture in culture section either. Please, please, please - explain to me how does putting a mug shot of Tagore (or Shakespeare) add to the value of the article. They are not famous for how they LOOKED but for their work. For example, I would rather have an image of a play written by Shakespeare than his picture. If you can explain to me this I have no problem supporting you. --] 21:59, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
::::The picture is there not to educate people about how Tagore looked! It is there to pay tribute to a person who rendered yeoman service towards enriching and propagating 'Indian culture'. For that matter, every "mugshot" that we have on wikipedia is because those people have signal contributions in their own fields to their name. I could use your argument to get rid of each of those mugshots. ] 22:11, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::I see - so we are supporting inclusion of image of Tagore not to educate people but to pay tribute to Tagore. Stupid me of thinking that this was an encyclopedia. --] 22:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

:Even if we are to assume equal cultural significance of the two images, the Sakuntala painting is more pleasing aesthetically. The Tagore image stands out, and looks odd with the rest of the page. Mug shots on the page would make it look ugly, and would take something away from the page. Would we ever consider changing the Gandhi-Nehru image to Gandhi's mugshot in the History section? --] 11:17, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

====For ''Tagore'' image====
#{{user|Priyanath}}
#{{user|Fundamental metric tensor}}
# {{user|Sarvagnya}}
Comment: The fact that a few people have studied something (like the todas or shak) and published something on the internet doesnt mean it '''has''' to be included on wiki india.Image is also unclear. I'd prefer a temple or diwali image, but if that cant be done, i prefer tagore over shak ] 23:14, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
:Recognition of Sakuntala is not only a great illustration of Indian art history but also an example of literature in Hinduism. It is a very nice image that conveys the place of art and religion in Indian society. I am surprised you do not find value in it. --] 12:50, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Note: Nikkul didn't say that he did 'not find value' in the Sakuntala image - he's only saying, like many others, that he would 'prefer' the Tagore image since it is more relevant, notable, and appropriate for this article. ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 20:08, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
::I have replaced the old image by a clearer one. Also, I have added more footnotes, which make the point that both the popular Hindu art and Indian cinema art of the 20th-century (and today) have been profoundly influenced by Varma's work. ]] 16:48, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

'''Comment''' - Nobody here needs any education in Kalidasa's stature and standing and we could do with a little less dumping of random info and filling of pages by Fowler. That said, the fallacy lies in even pitting Tagore and Kalidasa against each other. Thats comparing apples and oranges and downright ridiculous. It is the likes of Tagore that have saved the Kalidasas and the Ravi Varmas and the Manipuri dance and other art forms for posterity. Tagore brought the 'out of sight, out of mind' northeast into the national mainstream through his efforts in rejuvenating Manipuri dance. Kalidasa did no such thing. Kalidasa may have been a great poet and all that, but saying that he was the greatest of any age to write anything is streching it too far. I could argue that Sangita Ratnakara by Sharngadeva is the greatest literary work <u>pertaining to "Culture"</u>. As far as pure literary content goes, Kalidasa may have few peers but it can easily be argued that the Sangita Ratnakara had a far more profound impact on Indian culture than abhignyanashakuntalam. It is, after all, the bible of all classical music in India - all of India. Both Hindustani and Carnatic traditions revere it and draw their most basic concepts from it.

The point I'm trying to make is, if we kept fishing, we can keep adding names and works to the article. And then, we can backdoor images like the "recognition" of shakuntala which ride solely on contrived and clumsily fitted sentences. Yes, I am arguing that not just the image but even the very mention of Kalidasa doesnt belong in this article. Kalidasa's works, towering as he is/was, dont compare with the the Ramayana or the Mahabharata. I would have no problem with the Kalidasa pic once we have rotation in place. If we cant have rotation, then we cant have Kalidasa. Not unless the the article is expanded. We cant have selective expansion just to suit somebody's POV. These are the same people who come up with word counts of other people's contributions and troll no end on talk pages about why it shouldnt be kept. So its time they walk the talk. We dont keep humoring nonsense forever. ] 19:44, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
:Dear ]: Misplaced Pages values reliable secondary sources &ndash; academic monographs, university level textbooks, signed articles by experts in tertiary sources, and internationally recognized academic journal articles &ndash; not what ''we'' believe or think. I would kindly request you to provide for your assertions the kind of sources and citations (such as monographs published by Cambridge University Press or Columbia University Press, or signed articles in Britannica) that I have provided for mine in the ]. Regards, ]] 21:57, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
:Sarvagnya, Shakuntala is a character from Mahabharat. Any user who is interested in the image will click on it and then see that it is part of Mahabharat and become interested in it. That is why I support this image - in one stroke you have a sampling of a lot of things important to Indian culture. Image of Tagore however adds NOTHING more than what is already present in text - it is just a picture of a man. If Tagore was considered the most handsome man of last century, it might make sense to put his image. However, this is not the case. This has nothing to do with Kalidas or Tagore but the fact that we are presenting a work of art that requires being seen to enhance the value of the text. I have absolutely nothing against Tagore, having actually worked on getting that article to FA status even. --] 22:07, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
::Thanks for enlightening me with that factoid about Shakuntala. It was news to me. huh. And if Shakuntala can open up the reader to the Mahabharata and Hindu mythology in general, then both ] and ] can open up the reader to various other facets of Indian culture. For that matter, Manipuri dance is also steeped in Hindu mythology. ] 22:21, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
:::*sigh* - I would support a good image of Manipuri dance over Tagore too. Not because I think Tagore is not important but -as I have stated few times now- he is not famous for how he looks. Looking at his image does not enhance the text in the article. However, image of Shakuntala or Manipuri dance helps the reader picture what it actually is. It is just that simple - I feel like this has nothing to do with the image but chronic need to oppose everything and anything that is Fowler. --] 22:27, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::Hi Blacksun, I understand your argument, and respect and appreciate it. I just don't agree with it. For one, I don't think Tagore's is a 'mug shot'. It's actually a striking image, imo. I also believe that an image leads the reader to learn more about the subject of the image (just like you do). I don't think images are ''just'' for visual interest. Otherwise I would support adding Featured Pictures even when they aren't relevant to an article.

:::::I am not opposed to the Sakuntala image, I just think the Tagore is more appropriate. I know you aren't against Tagore the person, and haven't made the belittling comments about him that fowler has. If the community supports Sakuntala here, I will not remove it. As I said above, it's a huge improvement from the pic that's been here for the last year. When I originally 'supported' the Sakuntala image, it was only tacit support since nobody had opposed it yet. When there was opposition, then it was time to get more feedback. I've learned that it's better to trust the larger community than one editor's wordy campaigns for certain images. I think with some editors here, it's less a matter of opposing all things fowler than a matter of lack of trust, after toda and alot of uncivil comments and specious arguments on f's part. If the community supports Sakuntala, then I would happily and sincerely accept, even if it's not a strong consensus (i.e., only the slimmest majority). And I think it would end this image discussion once and for all. ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 22:53, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
::::::I fully agree that it is a striking pose. I love that image but just don't find it suitable in the culture section. But I will accept your decision - I hope people vote for Shakuntala :P --] 23:00, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::::I do see Blacksuns point that he is not known for how he looked, hence his works would be more relevant than his photo. This is why I prefer having an image of something else like a diwali picture or a dance or something that shows india and not just indian architecture like the taj and toda image did because there is more to culture than architecture. ] 06:31, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
:::::::: Why not vote for Recognition of Shakuntala then? It is a great image that shows that art exists outside of western hemisphere and has deep roots in religious culture. <small>—Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 09:01, 22 October 2007 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

====For A Hindu temple or Diwali image====

#{{user|Nikkul}}

=== For another image in the Culture section ===

#{{user|myname}}

==Bengal or Siberian?==

]

Hi, Do we know for sure that the tiger is a Bengal tiger? The coloring, the paw-size, and body proportion look Siberian to me, but I could be wrong. If we don't know that it is a Bengal tiger, then it should be removed. Thanks. ]] 17:22, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Guess edit stops the relentless nitpicking and abuse of process in the tracks. ] 19:21, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

:I've removed the "edit protected" template to get this article out of ]. Basically, since the article isn't protected now, the template doesn't belong here. -- ] 22:33, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

== Image Files ==

Okay so I've been seeing random images of animals and now of culture under something called an imagefile. I'd just like to know
*when this was started,
*why it hasnt been discussed on the talk india page,
*who chose the images
*what criteria is used to evaluate quality of images
*where the image bank is
*why paintings are now appearing in the fauna section
*how many images there are
*how can one insert the images

] 06:38, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
:I am not sure what is going on with that. --] 11:26, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
::I don't know either, but the template is ]. I have left a number of messages on its talk page: ]. ]] 12:56, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
:::I'll reply in ~8 hours. ] 16:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
:Answers:
:*
:*See ]
:*Anyone can choose images. We're informally building a test pool now. Eventually all the selections/removals will be done at ].
:*We're using our best judgment per ]. Eventually we'll judge pics at ].
:*See {{tl|image file}}
:*If you don't like it, you can remove it or debate against it.
:*As many as people decide at ].
:*Like
:We're starting this new thing the way ] began: at first, articles were hand-selected by good-faith contributors based on "refreshing, brilliant prose". Then, as more people got interested, the consensus-based ] and ] processes matured. Thanks. ] 01:04, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I have tried adding a couple images under people...If you could please tell me in detail how to add images,that would be great. <small>—Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 02:22, 23 October 2007 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
:Do what Sarvagnya did :
:#Add the image code under the right section at the end of the list. Number it.
:#Update the ] number. If you're adding two images, increase it by two. If removing three, subtract three. ] 02:44, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
:::Thanks Saravask - I don't think there's a Barnstar big enough for you. ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 03:41, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
::::I second that. :) ] 03:50, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
:: I think we should take things slowly. I am not sure if I like the idea of having a pool of dozens of images for one placeholder. My two cents. --] 19:55, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

==A Straw Poll on the inclusion of ] in the list of classical dances==
This follows up on earlier discussions in the sections ], ], ], and ]. The current sentence on music and dance in the culture section, which includes ''Yakshagana'' in its list of classical dances, reads: {{cquote|] covers a wide range of traditions and regional styles. ] is mainly split between the North Indian ] and South Indian ] traditions. Highly regionalised forms of popular music include ] and ] like ]. Many ] exist, including ], ], ], ], ], ] and ]. They often have a narrative form and are usually infused with devotional and ] elements.}}

The three choices for voting are:

===Choice A: Expanded version with separate paragraphs on Music, Dance, and Theatre===

This choice replaces the current paragraph above with the three short paragraphs (one each for music, dance and theatre) shown in Fowler&fowler's post (immediately following Blacksun's post) ''']'''

Votes:
# ]] 10:55, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

===Choice B: Remove ''Yakshagana'' from the list of classical dances===

This choice removes only ''Yakshagana'' from the list of classical dances in the current version displayed above.

Votes:
#{{user|MyNameHere}}

===Choice C: Keep current version with ''Yakshagana'' listed as classical dance===

This choice keeps the current version of the paragraph (unaltered).

Votes:
#{{user|MynameHere}}

== Rotation So Far ==

From what I have observed, I think rotation is great. Over the last few visits to the actual article, I saw different faces of India esp the fauna section and also the culture section that I had never known existed (like the longtail squirrel) . I know that we have some ways to go before the image files are finalized, but I think this concept is very very progressive.

I think its the only way to solve the problem of showing India in all its forms instead of limiting Indian culture to just the Taj Mahal and the Toda Hut. And being one of the first people who brought this concept to the India page, I am very happy that of its success. I am actually very impressed by how much I can learn each time I visit the culture section or the fauna section.

To anyone who opposes the rotation, I'd like to ask them how they intend to solve the problem of showing India's cuisine, dress, dance, festivals, architecture, literature, sports, traditions, etc. etc. etc. in 2 pictures. ] 07:36, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
: eh, I know I supported rotation but I am not happy with the implementation so far. Also, I dont know if I am happy with using a high number of images for each place holder. In my opinion that takes away from the more relevant images as they dont get shown as often. When I supported rotation, I had imagined a scenario where each addition to the pool would be discussed first and we would agree as a community on a small pool of images to be shown. Lets see how it goes. On a more technical note, I find the method of addition bit confusing - I know user Saravask explained it above but I am still confused heh. --] 08:31, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that is going to happen pretty soon...thats also what i had imagined and I think that we're going to do that very soon. I love how the rotation has virtually eliminated the debate about Tagore, something else, or Toda. It has ended edit wars, etc. ] 14:34, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
::Its well programmed by Saravask. But the images ain't regulated. There should be a nom procedure. But its looking fine. Lets hope this works out well.]] 14:38, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
:::I think it's an excellent start, considering the history. People's good will has been noteworthy. Everyone here probably sees a few images they think should be removed, and I bet they are different images for each person. That must mean it's working :-). ]&nbsp;<small><i>]</i></small> 16:44, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

==The potential emptiness about rotations==
This is an involved point, so please bear with me. Although I had suggested rotation on this page in November 2006 (see , , ), I hadn't then thought about it with any care. More recently I came to oppose rotation because I didn't see it solving the so-called problem of balanced image content for the average ''reader'', who likely doesn't go to the article enough times to catch all the images. This was the subject of my post ]; Ragib made the same point more eloquently in his post ''''''. In the end, I voted to support rotation ''with the FP-quality condition'' in the ], thinking that image quality was the biggest problem related to rotation. However, even if all our images were Featured Pictures, there potentially is an even bigger problem looming ahead: the danger of all images becoming ''vanilla'' images, and leaving no affect or memory in the typical reader.

This struck me only this morning, when I was looking again at some of the images in the Encarta article on India. One of them, in particular, had struck me many months before when I first saw it. The picture shows a music class in the ] in progress in ], with four girls, each holding their instrument, and listening to their teacher. Under it was this caption: {{cquote|"The Kalakshetras school of dance and music is located in Chennai (formerly Madras), India. These students are learning to play the vina, a traditional instrument in classical Indian music. This school is for the wealthier members of Indian society. Education for the majority of the population remains a problem due to lack of funds and the large number of different languages and cultures within the country."}} One of the points that the caption makes, that "classical culture" is the province increasingly of the wealthy few, is a subtle point and bears repetition when it is made visually. I, most certainly, had almost forgotten the image, even though it was one of my more vivid experiences from that Encarta article. The image's many points would most certainly have been lost, had the image been replaced by another image making some other point. Memorable images require return visits. They require stability within the text, for them to settle in, as it were, in our consciousness. This to me potentially is the ultimate emptiness about rotations; they could turn even well-crafted images into vanilla images. Either the complex points like that in the Veena caption will not be made, or, when made, will not stick, because of their profusion.

People don't have to reply to this post, since it is a conjecture; however, I would be happy if they think about this possibility as this rotation trial unfolds this week. Meanwhile, however, I am changing my vote to "against rotation." ]] 18:46, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

::People come here to get information now, not in the future. Most people are not like you. If someone likes an image, they will note down what it is showing. If they really like it, they will save the image to their computer. I have done that so many times when I used to be a reader on Misplaced Pages. '''Misplaced Pages changes'''. It isnt made so that the same things stay forever. Also, given that India has 1 billion people, each contributing his or her bit to Indian culture making it awfully hard to show all aspects of Indian culture in one or two images. The Toda image, that you support as being placed where the rotation is, for sure does not show aspects of majority Indian culture. This is an encyclopedia. Unlike what you think, Readers dont come here to carefully examine images to see the "vernacular" aspects of India (which dont represent India at all, but rather .0001 percent of it). This is an encyclopedia. People want quick and relevant information. They dont care what .001 percent of India is doing when the 99.999 percent doesnt follow that at all. I dont see how anyone can support the Toda image with a straight face. Anyway, to conclude, this is an encyclopedia. This is not an art exhibition. Misplaced Pages changes. That is why we have that edit this page button on the top that encarta doesnt. Dont expect images to stay forever. ] 01:19, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

== "" for "In larger states, districts may be grouped together to form a division." ==

Could this that states "The state is divided into seven administrative divisions and 39 districts.", along with similar ones work as citations for "In larger states, districts may be grouped together to form a division." that has been tagged with a .--]<small>]]</small> 20:42, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
:More Links - shows 9 divions. The under the "District and Divisional Administration" section states "Each division consists of certain districts". ''Is this remove--tag-worthy?'' Could somebody cite, please? --]<small>]]</small> 20:58, 24 October 2007 (UTC)


== Subdivisions of India == == Subdivisions of India ==
Line 994: Line 94:
:::Well again, im talking about politics section image.. It should be Image of ] right? Unanimous? ] 15:05, 28 October 2007 (UTC) :::Well again, im talking about politics section image.. It should be Image of ] right? Unanimous? ] 15:05, 28 October 2007 (UTC)


==BSReddy changes== == BSReddy changes ==

Is there a consensus to accept or reject the changes made by BSReddy? ] 06:14, 28 October 2007 (UTC) Is there a consensus to accept or reject the changes made by BSReddy? ] 06:14, 28 October 2007 (UTC)


Line 1,088: Line 189:
Did anyone observed that the offical map of India has a cut on its top? Samething carried out in "Free Access To All Human Knowledge” A Video Appeal From Misplaced Pages Founder Jimmy Wales " video clipping too. Has Indian govt. accepted the new map or what? The maps displayed along with the article are fine but the map displayed as offical locator on earth has a cut on the top, same also in the video clipping of wikipedia... <small>—Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 01:15, 1 November 2007 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot--> Did anyone observed that the offical map of India has a cut on its top? Samething carried out in "Free Access To All Human Knowledge” A Video Appeal From Misplaced Pages Founder Jimmy Wales " video clipping too. Has Indian govt. accepted the new map or what? The maps displayed along with the article are fine but the map displayed as offical locator on earth has a cut on the top, same also in the video clipping of wikipedia... <small>—Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 01:15, 1 November 2007 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->


==Amba Vilas palace image + Caption== == Amba Vilas palace image + Caption ==

1) I find Amba vilas place image not important enough to be part of the rotation system.<br /> 1) I find Amba vilas place image not important enough to be part of the rotation system.<br />
2) I find the image quality to be poor. Only thing you can tell is that it is a big structure with small domes on top.<br /> 2) I find the image quality to be poor. Only thing you can tell is that it is a big structure with small domes on top.<br />
Line 1,123: Line 225:
:::::::::Sarvagnya, even after your own turned out to contradict your tall claims you still don't seem to accept you were wrong (and that the article got the better of you). Anyways, it that it was a "gem" of a "cock and bull story" that you spun.... ]] 14:00, 4 November 2007 (UTC) :::::::::Sarvagnya, even after your own turned out to contradict your tall claims you still don't seem to accept you were wrong (and that the article got the better of you). Anyways, it that it was a "gem" of a "cock and bull story" that you spun.... ]] 14:00, 4 November 2007 (UTC)


=="Śakuntala" and Mysore Palace (continued)== == "Śakuntala" and Mysore Palace (continued) ==

Is the "Śakuntala" image a representation of ], the home state of its artist? ], who created the rotation template and wrote much of the ] FA, clearly didn't think so; otherwise on '''October 23''', he would not have made . In case this is not clear, let me explain: while the summary mistakenly points to the ] image as an example from Kerala, it implies that it does not regard "Śakuntala" as ''also'' representing Kerala; otherwise, a few edits later, Saravask would not have allowed ] to re-add the Trisoor/Pooram image (). Is the "Śakuntala" image a representation of ], the home state of its artist? ], who created the rotation template and wrote much of the ] FA, clearly didn't think so; otherwise on '''October 23''', he would not have made . In case this is not clear, let me explain: while the summary mistakenly points to the ] image as an example from Kerala, it implies that it does not regard "Śakuntala" as ''also'' representing Kerala; otherwise, a few edits later, Saravask would not have allowed ] to re-add the Trisoor/Pooram image ().


Line 1,130: Line 233:
:It is a gross disrespect of other editors to remove Sakuntala image. It is one of the few images that actually was voted on and had 6 (for) vs 3 (against). How can you remove that image and replace it with something NO ONE HAS EVEN BOTHERED TO VOTE ON?? This is disruptive and arrogant. --] 09:14, 4 November 2007 (UTC) :It is a gross disrespect of other editors to remove Sakuntala image. It is one of the few images that actually was voted on and had 6 (for) vs 3 (against). How can you remove that image and replace it with something NO ONE HAS EVEN BOTHERED TO VOTE ON?? This is disruptive and arrogant. --] 09:14, 4 November 2007 (UTC)


==Origin of ]== == Origin of ] ==

*]'s edit summary: "removed dubious "chicken" claim. what? people around the world werent eating chicken before Indiians taught them?" *]'s edit summary: "removed dubious "chicken" claim. what? people around the world werent eating chicken before Indiians taught them?"
*Encyclopaedia Britannica's article on Fowl (lead sentences): "Chickens are descended from the wild red jungle fowl of India and belong to the species Gallus gallus. They have been domesticated for at least 4,000 years." ]] 20:22, 1 November 2007 (UTC) *Encyclopaedia Britannica's article on Fowl (lead sentences): "Chickens are descended from the wild red jungle fowl of India and belong to the species Gallus gallus. They have been domesticated for at least 4,000 years." ]] 20:22, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

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/Infobox /Economy /Demographics —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sarvagnya (talk • contribs) 06:59, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Subdivisions of India

Why is "Subdivisions of India" required as a separate section on the page? There is a navigation box for "States and territories of India". The map with all the states marked on it, along with the three column list of states and UTs, does not look good on the page and doesn't really inform a reader much about India, other than the first sentence, which could simply be integrated to another section. The list is really not required there, is it? Has there been a discussion on these lines before? I'll shut up if there has been one. The US page doesn't have a similar list, and countries like Australia with just a few states, or UK with its mention of its four parts can't be the reference. Then again, there could be many arguments in favor of sticking to the list that is in place, like somebody is going to point out. --KeynesJohnMaynard 21:34, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

This really requires a response from someone more experienced on this page (like user:Nichalp or user:Ragib), however, I will note that some pages like FAs Peru and Germany that do have the subdivision sections, have more sophisticated navigation options there. I made a post about it on this page here, but got no response. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:09, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
The answer lies here: Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Countries =Nichalp «Talk»= 02:46, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Coastline

When it comes to facts about India, govt of India should and willl be the final authority. Somebody (seemingly peeved at the fact that 7500 > 7000) has changed the statement concerning the length of Indian coast line. That guy ( I beleive green-something) thibks that since CIA website says that the length of Indian coastline is 7000, that figure should be there. That green-something should refer the following govt of India link to get his facts right: http://india.gov.in/knowindia/profile.php. The coastline lenght is 7500 and not 7000. I am presently not able to see the edit button (blv the article is in semi-protected state courtesy overzealous and numerous incursions from the likes of Green-something) ELSE would have restoed sanity at once.

An aside for green-something: In addition to being an enviro friendly color, green also signifies something else. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Texankudiya (talk • contribs) 16:55, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

When it comes to facts for any topic on Misplaced Pages, all you need is a reliable source and there is nothing wrong in quoting the CIA Factbook. Do you really think the CIA wants to mislead people about the length of the Indian coast? Since you have provided a source, I have changed the figure accordingly. An aside for you, why get so worked up about this that you feel the need to make crass remarks? All you had to do was to offer the source and request the number be changed. If you are that concerned about this article, your account wouldn't have a grand total of two edits. Grow up little boy/girl and don't be so territorial. Green Giant 02:08, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Green*, with the kind of activity that can be seen around your name, it will be naivete to presume that your are not aware of Govt of India resources. Your misplaced zeal reminds me of an old incident wherein one of our neighbours started shouting that Indian Ocean needs to be renamed coz it has 'India' in its name. You were so very prompt to change the stat of 7.5k to 7k. Good alacrity!! Whether CIA wants to mislead or not is besides the point, what is important to note here is that whatever an institution of CIA'a calibre and stature does is not without reason or agenda. Definitely, when they do it, there will be reasons behind seemingly the most inoccuous ommissions or commissions. Get out of your unifocality, dear. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.169.135.192 (talk) 04:21, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

What in perdition are you waffling on about? What "activity" around my name? What "misplaced zeal" are you talking about? To be honest I don't really spend my spare time trawling through Gov't of India resources. Do you really imagine that the Gov't of India doesn't have agendas, in the same way every other government has it's agendas? Your high opinions of it's resources suggests you are the unifocal one here. You won't find me heaping praise on the UK Gov't websites. Just stick to facts from reliable sources and quit being partisan. Green Giant 05:37, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Green Guys are not expected to be so restive. Y, on universe, r u being so touchy. My "...so much of activity " stuff seems to have ignited incomprehensible ferocity. Stay cool, uncle. As for your 'partisan' rejoinders, my research seems to point otherwise. Anyways, authenticity has been the beneficiary of this spat. I am glad that my activism has paid expected and positive dividends.Texankudiya 11:21, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

No reason to regard a Government of India web site a reliable source for everything. And the CIA is probably not the best either, when it comes to the precision we aspire to in Misplaced Pages. :) Reliability here really belongs to the academic literature of geography, oceanography and allied fields where the coastline is studied. Their view seems to be that both estimates above are wrong: From: "Loss of marine biodiversity - Conservation of sea turtles along the Orissa coast," by Nayak, L., Journal of Indian Ocean Studies. Vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 141-146. 2005. "The coastline is one of the most spectacular gradients on earth since it forms the transition between the saline, aquatic environment of the ocean to the dry, air-exposed land over a distance of several metres. The total length of the world's coastline amounts to several million kilometres, India's coastline is about 8129 km and Orissa's coastline is 480 km." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 07:17, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, I can't guarantee that 8129 figure above, since that paper was being read by a "character reading" software and there are many misprints in the version that I got to view. However, here are two reliable references, the first being the most accurate:
  • From: "Coastal processes along the Indian coastline" V. Sanil Kumar*, K. C. Pathak, P. Pednekar, N. S. N. Raju and R. Gowthaman (Ocean Engineering Division, National Institute of Oceanography, Dona Paula, Goa 403 004 India), in Current Science VOL. 91, NO. 4, 25 AUGUST 2006, pages 530-536. "The Indian coastline is about 7517 km, about 5423 km along the mainland and 2094 km the Andaman and Nicobar, and Lakshadweep Islands (Table 1). The coastline comprises of headlands, promontories, rocky shores, sandy spits, barrier beaches, open beaches, embayment, estuaries, inlets, bays, marshy land and offshore islands. According to the naval hydrographic charts, the Indian mainland consists nearly 43% sandy beaches, 11% rocky coast with cliffs and 46% mud flats and marshy coast. Oscillation of the shoreline along the Indian coast is seasonal."
  • From: Government of India, Ministry of Environments and Forests. 2005. REPORT OF THE EXPERT COMMITTEE ON COASTAL REGULATION ZONE NOTIFICTION, 1991 (Chair: Prof. M. S. Swaminathan). "India has a coastline of about 7,500 kms of which the mainland accounts for 5,400 kms, Lakshadweep coasts extend to 132 kms and Andaman & Nicobar islands have a coastline of about 1,900 kms." (From the introduction, p.3)
So, I think, 7500 would be an accurate figure for the general mention. Which means that the Govt. of India website numbers are pretty accurate, although they don't give the breakdown for mainland and islands. I'll add the more detailed reference in the geography section. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 07:53, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Ajanta Image

I am opposed to the Ajanta image because:

  1. It is very unclear - I used to think my monitor was the reason I couldnt see the image, but after getting a new HP tx1000z, I still have a hard time making out the image.
  2. Theres already a Maharashtra image - Few people have gotten upset regarding the regional balance.
  3. Image isnt really mentioned in text
  4. The caption doesnt relate to history

Proposal:

I would like to suggest replacing the Ajanta Caves image with the Taj Mahal image under the caption: "The Taj Mahal was built in 1648 by the Mughal dynasty" (or something similar) because:

  • The Taj Mahal is more a historic artefact than a current cultural thing
  • It would give us more room in the cultural section.
  • The caption right now relfects Taj's historic nature

Let me know what you guys think. Nikkul 19:40, 20 October 2007 (UTC)


  • I am completely and irrevocably against this idea. The Taj Mahal does not belong to the history section. If the Taj Mahal had not been built, the history of India would have been no different. The culture of India, however, would have been different. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:06, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
  • If the Ajanta Caves had not been carved, India's history would not have differed at all. Similarly, if the Taj had not been built, it would not have affected present day Indian culture. Nikkul 23:07, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, you do have a point in your first sentence. I disagree with your second sentence. The construction and the continued presence of the Taj Mahal have had a profound influence on Indian culture (on later styles of architecture, on popular styles today, and on how Indians think of their culture). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Well again, im talking about politics section image.. It should be Image of Indian parliament right? Unanimous? Lara_bran 15:05, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

BSReddy changes

Is there a consensus to accept or reject the changes made by BSReddy? WhisperToMe 06:14, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Here is my case:
Hindi, English are official langauges for the union government of India. Telugu , Kannada , Bengali, Hindi are official languages for respective state governments in India.
If Telugu which is spoken by 80 million people is official language in of the indian states then how come only hindi, english would be classified as official languages of India.
I have no problems if english and hindi are listed as official languages of union govt of India.
Andhra pradesh is part of India. So if a decision is made to list union govt's official languages as official languages of India , then telugu is also an official language of India
India is comprised of its people , its state govts and its union govt, not just its union govt. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.36.214.142 (talk) 06:23, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
The U.S. has no official languages at the federal level, yet Louisiana, a state, has French as an official language. That does not mean that the French for "United States" should be listed in the main article, since French is only official in Louisiana - No other states have French as an official language. WhisperToMe 06:27, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
A country has a national langauge(s). A govt has official languages(s).
India does not explicitly declare any language as its national language(s).
A state govts official language or a union govts official langauge should not be written as official languages of that country if there are multiple official langauges in the state and union govts.
either explitly state whether it is state or union govt or include all official languages of the states and union as offical languages of that country.
India and US are different. India is no new found land. Bsreddys 06:32, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Hindi and english are official langauges of the union govt of India.... and not whole of India
But then why are they listed as the only official languages of India(but not union govt of India) Bsreddys 06:36, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
If telugu is spoken by 80 million people and if they are indians and telugu is official language of one of the states of India then how come telugu is not official language of India??? yes I would agree if you say telugu is not official language of union govt of India. Bsreddys 06:42, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
India is not same as union govt of India. union govt and state govts and its people together form India.
Hence you cannot just only include hindi and english as official languages of India.
FYI India also does not have any language(s) declared as its national langauge(s).
an official language need not be accepted as national language but a national language in general would be its official language or one of its official languages. Bsreddys 06:47, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Also scheduled languages makes no sense ?? are they scheduled for some event or something ??? Bsreddys 06:50, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
And one of the user says official is implicit in scheduled languages. I dont think so. There is every need to make it explicit. There is official ness in whatever comprehension when a language is official recognised by union govt of India(by means of including it into the eigth schedule) and when a language is official langauge for one its state. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bsreddys (talk • contribs) 06:54, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/Official_languages_of_India

wiki details on official langauges of India. Bsreddys 07:06, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

You guys came too late...There was a whole arguement that took place last month. Go find it read it. personally i think we should go to the official site of india and list the languages that it says there. there are hundreds of languages which r spoken by Indians which do not need tobe listed. If you want to seewhat languages areofficial in Andra Pradesh,go to the page that says Andra Pradesh. Dont come here!!!!! this is the india page. if the government says Hindi and English and X and Y areofficial languages of India, then Hindi English, X and Y ARE official languages of India. Nikkul 07:49, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Dear BSReddys: Nikkul is correct and so is WhisperToMe. Besides you have violated 3RR many times over. I have left this message on the presiding admin's talk page. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:51, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

If you want to seewhat languages areofficial in Andra Pradesh,go to the page that says Andra Pradesh. Dont come here!!!!! <----------- Nikkul... you dont have to me tell me dont come here... mind your words... I am an indian I will come here... who are you to tell me dont come here ???? you get lost from here.... you dont come here ....

Hindi and English are official languages only for the union govt of India... not whole of India. And "scheduled languages" dont mean anything ... 75.36.214.142 17:52, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

If you want to seewhat languages areofficial in Andra Pradesh,go to the page that says Andra Pradesh. Dont come here!!!!! <----- Dear flower, You have already seen the calibre and potential of Nikkul. If the founder fathers were all like Nikkul this country would have disintegrated long back.

and regarding whispertome, he does not even know what are national langauges of India. He even pasted on my talkpage that hindi and english are national languages of India ... which is not correct and far from truth. A person who knows about india should be moderating this site... my 2 cents ... my 2 rupees ... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.36.214.142 (talk) 18:01, 28 October 2007 (UTC)


Dear BSReddys: Nikkul is correct and so is WhisperToMe.

> Dear flower, You have already seen the calibre and potential of Nikkul. If the founder fathers were all like Nikkul this country would have disintegrated long back.

and regarding whispertome, he does not even know what are national langauges of India. He even pasted on my talkpage that hindi and english are national languages of India ... which is not correct and far from truth. A person who knows about india should be moderating this site... my 2 cents ... my 2 rupees ... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.36.214.142 (talk) 18:08, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Standard Urdu has approximately the twentieth largest population of native speakers, among all languages. It is the national language of Pakistan as well as one of the 23 official languages of India. <======= I got this from one of the wiki reference. So what is urdu ? is it one of the official languages of India?? It makes no sense to just quote the official langauges of the union govt as the official langauges of the whole country. Also India has no national langauges.

As a large and linguistically diverse country, India does not have a single official language. Instead, the Constitution of India envisages a situation where each state has its own official language(s), in addition to the official languages to be used by the Union government. The section of the Constitution of India dealing with official languages therefore includes detailed provisions which deal not just with the languages used for the official purposes of the union, but also with the languages that are to be used for the official purposes of each state and union territory in the country, and the languages that are to be used for communication between the union and the states inter se. 75.36.214.142 20:59, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

User BSreddy / 75.36.214.142,

All im saying is that you shouldnt expect to see the official language of Andhra Pradesh listed as the official language of India if India doesnt list that language as official. If you want to see the the official language of AP, then go to the AP page where ull find the official language of AP as said by the govt of AP. Here ull find the official language of India as said by the government. Also, learn to sign your comments. This is an encyclopedia not a gathering of India's forefathers.Nikkul 04:56, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

BS Reddy, do you have any sources to back up your claim or is it your personal interpretation? =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:29, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


Based on hindi and english being official langauges for the union government you are trying to extrapolate them to be the official languages of the whole country.

Based on Telugu being in part of the "official languages commission" of India and based on it being the official language of state of telugus with 80 million population I am extrapolating to be one of the official languages of India . Because India is made of union govt and state govts... not just union govt.

And dont tell me not to come here. I am a telugu Indian and I will come here. If at all you guys go and visit hindi prachar sabha site. OK

63.119.227.6 17:58, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

As you can see here, Bsreddys (talk · contribs) was blocked for 48 hours at 00:40 on the 29th of October. That he is editing as an IP at 17:58, is a violation of the block. At the very least the block should be increased by another day. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:11, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Only person doing any extrapolation is you. Everything we have said is backed by scores of respected sources, both Indian and foreign. And please, learn to sign in. --Blacksun 09:30, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
He can't (sign in); he's still blocked. (Notice, he was signing in earlier.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:09, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

BS Reddy, we're inviting you to a civilized conversation. Please cite reliable and independent sources that contradict the fact that Hindi and English have been given official status by the Constitution of India as the official language of the Union. The page, may we add, is the article on the Union of India. Unless you can come up with reliable sources to cite your claim, I suggest you stop wasting everbody's time on your personal ideas. =Nichalp «Talk»= 19:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Buddha Image

Isn't this Image of the same statue better? --Lokantha 03:41, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

CITATION REQUIRED - OFFICIAL MAP HAS A CUT ON TOP

Did anyone observed that the offical map of India has a cut on its top? Samething carried out in "Free Access To All Human Knowledge” A Video Appeal From Misplaced Pages Founder Jimmy Wales " video clipping too. Has Indian govt. accepted the new map or what? The maps displayed along with the article are fine but the map displayed as offical locator on earth has a cut on the top, same also in the video clipping of wikipedia... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.236.243.16 (talk) 01:15, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Amba Vilas palace image + Caption

1) I find Amba vilas place image not important enough to be part of the rotation system.
2) I find the image quality to be poor. Only thing you can tell is that it is a big structure with small domes on top.
3) It has very suspicious and non-qualified caption: "Most visited tourist attraction in India"
If rotation is going to be used to put images like this with captions like that in the article, I am afraid I made a mistake supporting it. --Blacksun 13:19, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

A monument which was estimated to have attracted more visitors than the Taj aint important? Good luck with your argument. Sarvagnya 17:15, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I guess we pause the rotation for now and first screen all images through consensus and filter out the poor ones. Only after this procedure, should we continue the rotation. KnowledgeHegemony (talk • contribs) 13:40, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree with both Blacksun and KH. To user:Sarvagnya, According to this article, over a hundred "paintings by Raja Ravi Varma are the prized possessions" of the Mysore Palace. Since user:Sarvagnya has just seen fit to remove the painting of Sakuntala by Raja Ravi Varma, might he also consider removing a fake Maharaja's 1912 monument to poor taste that houses over a hundred such paintings? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:50, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Sakuntala image was removed from rotation? I dont really understand how the rotation code works. However, Sakuntata image better be in rotation or I am going to be upset. --Blacksun 15:03, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Someone wanted to remove it and did it. The reason - one photo per state. Smart isn't it. Wow! Now I am really starting to like Misplaced Pages. KnowledgeHegemony 15:22, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Very smart indeed. Just the way somebody removed a significant effort like rotation from the article today without having the courtesy to inform the relevant people that it is going to be removed. Wow! Amazing! We all better start liking Misplaced Pages for the way it is, we dont have an option -- ¿Amar៛ 16:30, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
  • sigh*. I dont need a tribune article to tell me that the Mysore palace houses RV's paintings. I've been visiting the Amba Vilas and other palaces in Mysore for as long as I can remember. And each time, a good part of my visit is spent staring in awe at the paintings. Anyway, which part of "one pic per state - rm shakuntala image. the trissur pooram is more typically picture postcard Kerala." do you have trouble understanding? As for your pathetic "..monument to ugliness/poor taste", you might want to impress that upon the millions who throng to even just get a glimpse of the palace each year. huh. dont know why I bother dignifying your BS with responses. you troll me into it. dont you? Sarvagnya 20:17, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Can you get a RS for your claim that it is the most visited in India and only then put a caption like that or else its an empty statement.
And dude, I have been to Amba Vilas and Taj Mahal both. Obviously, theres no comparison between the two. So plz don't compare the WONDER with Ambas.

KnowledgeHegemony 11:05, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Well KH, for one, I am not comparing the two. I leave such inanities to the likes of you and fowler. More importanly though, I have a sense of history which you clearly dont seem to share. The Mysore palace was where the likes of Nalvadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar, Sir MV, JC Wodeyar, Sir Mirza Ismail and such other visionaries held court. The Mysore palace is where the seeds of Indian democracy were sown through their pioneering attempts at creating institutions which today have morphed into our legislative assemblies and councils. The deeds of these gentlemen serve India richly to this day. They changed the history of Karnataka and India in ways the begum who rests in your WONDER wouldnt even have dreamt of. In short, its surely a far cry from the hapless begum of yours who died trying in vain to add to her litter. Like I said, it calls for a bit of objectivity and knowledge of history to appreciate things like this. Come back when you've done some reading. Or better still, go back(to the palace) after you've done some reading. Places of historical interest arent zoological gardens where you go, gape at the monkeys and come back. Sarvagnya 19:55, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
user:Sarvagnya said: "In short, its surely a far cry from the hapless begum of yours who died trying in vain to add to her litter."
"add to her litter?" That doesn't display a "sense of history;" it does, however, constitute misogyny, since Mumtaz Mahal likely had no choice in the matter when she became pregnant for the 14th time and later died in childbirth. I implore you to retract those words. They are ugly and uncalled for. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 09:09, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
Your prejudice is showing. You can chose to live your life with hate. Just dont bother to use wikipedia to spread it because you will be stopped. And I still do not see any evidence for "most visited tourist site" in India claim of yours. Maybe I missed it? --Blacksun 10:16, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
What venom dude! By the way whats this- "your Begum" and "your Taj Mahal"?? Why do make (and take) things so "personal(ly)"?
Also stick to the debate. I never talked on historical aspect about the Amba Vilas and clearly was talking in terms of architecture (since photos put up in Culture section are concerned with architecture). So please don't bother to flaunt your historical knowledge on a debate which concerns with architecture. Cause that amounts to BS (as you call it). KnowledgeHegemony 10:39, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
Also where is source for "the most visited monument in India" ? KnowledgeHegemony 10:54, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

"Haven't you guys understood by now that I don't put things down unless I've checked the sources. Amazing!". It is just that I dont spin "cock and bull"(as Amar puts it) stories from my sources as someone here is wont to. Sarvagnya 19:29, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Dear user:Sarvagnya:
  • The incorrectly worded and grammatically shabby report from The Hindu, that you have yourself quoted incorrectly, says, "Better known as the “Mysore Palace”, the Amba Vilas is among the most visited monuments in India and attracts more number of tourists than the Taj Mahal. Well, almost. The number of visitors to the Mysore Palace in 2006 was 25,25,687 and as per the Archaeological Survey of India figures while the figure was 25,39,471 tourists visited the Taj Mahal in Agra."
  • What the report doesn't tell you is that the Mysore Palace is not a ticketed monument of the Archeological Survey of India. In fact, the ASI has no interest in the Mysore Palace, because the latter, having been completed in 1912, is not old enough yet. Who then is compiling the Mysore Palace ticket numbers? Maybe ASI is, but we need some reliable indication of that.
  • The same newspaper also had another report, which quoted an official of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage as saying, “the Taj has always been the most visited and most popular Indian tourist destination. People abroad consider the monument synonymous with India.” Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:31, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
PS And then there is this also "reliable" report from the Indian Express .... Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:02, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
Well now (after this revelation) please remove the caption- "most visited monument in India". It would further fool readers who come Misplaced Pages's India page. KnowledgeHegemony 08:21, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
"Revelation"? What revelation? If you want to change the caption to read "...one of the most visited..", go ahead.. who's stopping you? That doesnt however, call for irrelevant drivel on the lines of "...it is not a ticketed monument of the ASI.. so who keeps count" etc.,. The directorate of archeology and museums, GoK takes care of the monument and feel free to take your 'grave' concerns about visitor count to them. Or perhaps to the Director General of Epigraphy(ASI) who operates out of his office in the palace complex. Whatever it is, take it offline and stop filling pages here, for, you seem to impress only the Kuntans and nobody else with such blather. Sarvagnya 08:41, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
The revelation that we cannot take what you say seriously as you not only write inaccuracies but defend doing so. --Blacksun 09:10, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Sarvagnya, even after your own source turned out to contradict your tall claims you still don't seem to accept you were wrong (and that the article got the better of you). Anyways, it that it was a "gem" of a "cock and bull story" that you spun.... KnowledgeHegemony 14:00, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

"Śakuntala" and Mysore Palace (continued)

Is the "Śakuntala" image a representation of Kerala, the home state of its artist? Saravask, who created the rotation template and wrote much of the Kerala FA, clearly didn't think so; otherwise on October 23, he would not have made this revert. In case this is not clear, let me explain: while the summary mistakenly points to the Toda image as an example from Kerala, it implies that it does not regard "Śakuntala" as also representing Kerala; otherwise, a few edits later, Saravask would not have allowed user:Sarvagnya to re-add the Trisoor/Pooram image (see here).

A week later, on November 1, user:Sarvagnya deleted "Śakuntala." What was his justification? His edit summary says: "one pic per state - rm shakuntala image. the trissur pooram is more typically picture postcard Kerala." The "Śakuntala", however, was there in the rotation template first. (In the straw poll, "Śakuntala" received more votes than Tagore.) Why then did user:Sarvagnya unilaterally add the Trisoor/Pooram image if he thought "Śakuntala" already represented Kerala? And why did he then wait one full week to delete "Śakuntala"? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:58, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

PS I have reverted user:Sarvagnya's unilateral deletion of Śakuntala. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:04, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
It is a gross disrespect of other editors to remove Sakuntala image. It is one of the few images that actually was voted on and had 6 (for) vs 3 (against). How can you remove that image and replace it with something NO ONE HAS EVEN BOTHERED TO VOTE ON?? This is disruptive and arrogant. --Blacksun 09:14, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Origin of Chicken (food)

  • user:Sarvagna's edit summary: "removed dubious "chicken" claim. what? people around the world werent eating chicken before Indiians taught them?"
  • Encyclopaedia Britannica's article on Fowl (lead sentences): "Chickens are descended from the wild red jungle fowl of India and belong to the species Gallus gallus. They have been domesticated for at least 4,000 years." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:22, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Aren't we talking about chicken as a food product here? That apart, why did you revert all of Sarvagnya's edits which were reasonable and productive? Care to explain addition of WP:UNDUE in the article? Gnanapiti 20:31, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
DFTT. Its obviously a pretext to continue revert-warring.Bakaman 23:16, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I am talking about chicken as a food product. They were domesticated first in South Asia. Haven't you guys understood by now that I don't put things down unless I've checked the sources. Amazing! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:43, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
LOL! Your source does not necessarily imply that Chicken (food) originated in India. It only says that Chickens descended from wild red jungle fowl of India. Now, obviously the first thing early humans thought of on seeing an animal was food! If your source said that Chickens were first domesticated in India, then your claim was valid. God.. its commonsense. --Lokantha 04:37, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
They were not even domesticated first in South Asia. This book says it is Thailand. And even this one says the same thing. And even this one. - I think I have said enough. So much for self-glorification and checking of sources, huh... -- ¿Amar៛ 04:46, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
To user:Amarrg and user:Lokantha: There are two issues involved here: (a) which is the original domesticated breed (in poultry farming terms) that produced the breeds that are eaten around the world, and (b) which is the ancestral progenitor(s) (in phylogeographic terms) in the wild of all the breeds. They are both further treated on my subpage: User:Fowler&fowler/Chicken. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:27, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I swear I thought this was the talk India page where people discuss things about this article. If you have a problem with Sarvagnyas edits about chikens, discuss them on the chicken page which is not this one (i think) Nikkul 07:32, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
(unindent)hey KNM, why did you have to change the section heading? you just robbed the poor guy the chance to wallow in his adolescence. hmm.. never mind, I'm sure he will come up with another gem. for now, this chicken and fowl spectacle sure is enough to keep us amused for the next few days.  :) Sarvagnya 16:37, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Is it chicken and fowl spectacle or cock and bull spectacle? -- ¿Amar៛ 16:48, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I suggest we leave out the mention that chicken sugar etc originated in India. Such a fact (contentious/little known) needs to be backed by more references, and we could very well expand on it on the article of cuisine of India. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:15, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Sure, Nichalp, no problem. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:06, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Archive

This page needs to be archived ASAP. =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:19, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I just added the archive bot User:MiszaBot, which will archive all discussions older than thirty days now. Gizza 06:31, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
Okay, in line with WT:INB, I changed it to ten days since this is a very active page. Gizza 06:34, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Removing Image rotation templates

In the Straw Poll for Rotation of Images a majority voted for - For Rotation of Images (with decision on image quality made at WP:PINSPC and with no "Featured Quality" condition on image. But no WP:PINSPC quality procedure has taken place now that 2 weeks are over. Hence, in respect of the the "Consensus poll" I am removing the templates. Continuing with it (ie.without the quality check) is a mockery of the civil discussions which took place on the matter and the people who voted. Hence I am removing it for now. Once the correct procedure is followed we can put the templates back. KnowledgeHegemony 14:10, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Let us decide on where to discuss the images. I think we need to have all the images on display somewhere on a talkpage and then under each image, there should be a discussion. Do let me know where this is takin palce. Nikkul 21:56, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Culture Of India Additions

"Indian cuisine is characterized by a wide variety of regional styles and sophisticated use of herbs and spices. The staple foods in the region are rice (especially in the south and the east) and wheat (predominantly in the north)."

I think having two lines to describe the cuisine of india is rediculious. There is so much variation and diversity that we need to mention. The sad thing is that actual dishes that r popular havent even been mentioned. Only four ingredients have been mentioned.

There has been a lot of talk of expanding the culture section and I think this is one example of something that needs to be expanded.

Nikkul 22:16, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

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