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  • 21 Aug, 2019

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Talk:Nair

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Citation style

I'm be trying to work this article for a possible GA nomination (depending on how much I do), and will be making some changes to the existing revision. For starters, would anyone be opposed to a transition to parenthetical references? The first issue that I observe here is that both parenthetical and ref tags are present, warranting a change to a consistent citation style for this article. BreadBuddy (talk) 13:46, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There was a consistent style. Why not stick with that? As far as GA goes, it likely won't happen: it has been mooted before, and indeed I am by far the major contributor to the article, but it never quite hits the mark. Believe me, if I thought it was GA stuff I would have taken it there years ago, not hopped on to someone else's work. - Sitush (talk) 13:59, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If you feel that I am trying to hop on your work here and pass it on as GA, you can have my assurance that I will be doing much to expand and reorganize the article. Regarding the citation style, the source code shows both ref style and parenthetical references as of the current revision. Can you please clarify of the consistent style you are referring to?BreadBuddy (talk) 14:43, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You misunderstand CITEVAR. That is about consistent output, ie: not the source code but rather what that code renders. That's the lesson WP:FA teaches, anyway.
As for expanding/reorganising the article, well, I can't stop you trying but if you don't propose it here first there is a fair chance that things will be reverted. There is a long, long history here with which I suspect you are unfamiliar. An awful lot of things have been tried/proposed before and if they were worth it then they're already in the thing; the chances of you proposing anything radically different are slim to none, in my opinion, but feel free.
You might think this is arrogant of me but that is not the intent: it is simply the reality. The reality is also that this article has been the target of massive sockfarms and pov-pushing etc over the years, involving death threats and the like at times. It has never been ready for GA and likely never will be, although a trawl through my own talk page should pick up a naive comment from me perhaps a decade ago when I did ponder the idea. MatthewVanitas, by the way, also did much here back then, although they drifted away from caste stuff and have only recently returned to it. The topic area is toxic, hence the sanctions in place. - Sitush (talk) 15:13, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and parenthetical referencing is rarely used so why do you think it would be better than the more common variants? - Sitush (talk) 15:17, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I wonder if you mean Harvard style refs, eg: {{sfnp}}, when you refer to parenthetical referencing. It's the only thing I can think of that makes sense. However, take a look at one of my FAs - William Beach Thomas - and you will see that it is perfectly ok to present citations as we currently do here. I would agree that those sources here which are cited multiple times should be converted to something similar to {{sfnp}} and I would also agree that converting the old style of rendering Harvard to sfnp might make things a little easier to maintain. The sources which are cited once, however, need not be changed and one thing I have learned the hard way is that Harvard style citations confuse the heck out of many contributors anyway, so less may actually be better than more. - Sitush (talk) 15:45, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If this article is as dangerous as you say it is, then I will certainly take caution. When I looked at the edit history, I found that this article had been subject to five edits this year (most recent from February), with two of them being minor edits and the other three being from you; so I am under the impression that this article was not under any ongoing controversy or day to day changes as of recently.
Anyway, parenthetical references just refers to any type of citation that involves parentheses; the most recognized method being the Harvard method in which author-date and page number are presented. So yes, Harvard refs can be a type of parenthetical reference. Now the issue we are trying to resolve is that the article lacks a consistent style of referencing. Coming back to what you said earlier, WP:CITEVAR does not specify anything relating to consistent output. In fact, it states that having one consistent style on an article with inconsistent citation styles (e.g., some of the citations in footnotes and others as parenthetical references) is an improvement because it makes the citations easier to understand and edit.
The bottom line is, the article needs one or the other. It's also mentioned at WP:PAREN that if parenthetical references are used, then the article cannot use the other style. The reason I've proposed this is because the article already has parenthetical references, and it has the advantage of removing the clutter from all the templates. Not to mention that the full citation need only be given once (no matter how many references there are to it). BreadBuddy (talk) 16:55, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If you believe that parenthetical referencing is too complicated, I am willing to reach a consensus by choosing the other citation style. The styles more or less boil down to preference as there are pros and cons to both. BreadBuddy (talk) 17:02, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
BreadBuddy, you need to do a lot more reading if you think this article is stable/not controversial. The only reason there have been so few edits recently is because it is under pretty draconian edit restrictions and you need to understand why that is so before you start throwing around statements about wanting to expand it big time and reorganise etc. A bull in a china shop style is the last thing we need here. What exactly are you trying to achieve with the content? It does look like someone coming along to put a bit of polish on something and take a lot of kudos away for doing it, especially since you have no past involvement and clearly very little understanding of the background.
I've got doubts that you actually understand the implications of the various citation styles also. I do know that if I was starting over at this article, a Harvard style is the last thing I would select because it really doesn't work well with people who often have trouble forming any sort of citation. As for your interpretation of CITEVAR, well, you are welcome to interpret it that way but you're not interpreting it in the manner that happens at WP:FA, as I have indicated with the William Beach Thomas article. FA is a stricter venue than GA when it comes to policies and guidelines and, ultimately, it is the process to which all articles should aspire. If FA says the style used at the WBT article is ok, then it is ok here too. - Sitush (talk) 17:39, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, your work at History of the Punjab, which you have also nominated for GA, is a very good example of the problems that new contributors tend to have with Harvard-style cites. There are at least 30 reference errors at that article, not to mention a bunch of poor phrasing. It has no chance of passing GA as it stands and we certainly do not need those sort of problems importing into as sensitive an article as this one. I think you are chasing stars, sorry. - Sitush (talk) 17:51, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
For now I'm going to table the referencing issue, as you feel that the references are fine as is. I'll do some reading and come back to it if need be. My referencing work on the History of the Punjab is not relevant to this article, and if it fails GA, I'll learn from what I did wrong and apply it here and elsewhere; but this does not mean that I am not allowed to go for a GA on this article. BreadBuddy (talk) 18:13, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Your ability to form citations etc elsewhere in the recent past is very relevant to what you propose here, especially your belief that those efforts were somehow an improvement. As for the rest, I'm going to leave a note at your talk page. It is only advisory - I'm not saying you are overstepping but you do need to be aware that this is a tricky topic area. - Sitush (talk) 18:21, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Image revert

@Sitush: You can’t revert me with the reason of the picture ‘having consensus’.

Anyway, there was a discussion in 2013 in which there was clear consensus that the image would be replaced. I think, you were invoked in the discussion and had agreed that you had ‘little interest for images’. About a year later around the November of 2014, the image was added again by an editor. This was against that very clear consensus, but you did not revert the editor. It’s been there to this day, which I guess means that this is the consensus you’re talking about. However, that’s not the main point here. The lead image shows a half naked adolescent girl. Removing the picture is not about preference, its about the fact that it’s a very poor choice to include in the article, especially the lead. The following policy and guideline agree.

  • Though Wikipedia is not censored, MOS:SHOCKVALUE says that the lead image should be selected with care. It states that the lead image should follow the principle of least shock. A naked child, out of all images, definitely has shock value.
  • This may have been the dress of the time, which is totally fine. But the problem is that this image should not be in a highly controversial, high traffic article like this one when we have many alternatives that already serve the same purpose as WP:GRATUITOUS states. BBuddy (talk) 18:00, 8 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I still have little interest in images. I have a great deal of interest in the amount of socking that has gone on here over the years, however, and the howls of protest at every perceived slight. You seem to be pandering to that with many of your recent edits, which is concerning for obvious reasons. There have also been numerous discussions about that image and, indeed, about many things: if it doesn't make the Nairs look good, they don't want it in. - Sitush (talk) 18:07, 8 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Well first of all, if you want to discuss my recent edits, I'd be more than happy to do that. However, this section is about image use. I can assure you that I'm not here to glorify or degrade the Nairs, but you're breaking good faith with these accusations. I'm going to ask you to stop making this discussion personal. BBuddy (talk) 18:18, 8 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It wasn't my intention to make it personal. I was setting out the history of the development of this article. Historically, when someone turns up and started making big, often sanitising/glorifying edits and concentrating on other Nair related articles, they almost invariably tended to come from one of the sockfarms. That's a fact; that's why the big notice is at the top of this page; and in large part it was the problems with this article that lead to the sanctions regime for castes being instigated. It is also what you seem to be doing, so you can't really be surprised if it brings back bad memories of duplicitous time-wasters and pov-pushers etc, not to forget the stuff that happened off-wiki.
Do what you want. I'm not in a fit state to argue the toss at the moment and am already fighting fires elsewhere when I'm not supposed to be doing for health reasons and wanted to avoid. It would probably be better if I take another break, as I did until Christmas, and then review changes etc when I return. - Sitush (talk) 19:24, 8 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It's your opinion if you interpret something as degrading or glorifying. I will continue to stick to high-quality sources say for any statements that I happen to add. Furthermore, I have and will continue to give solid explanatons to back up the edits that I make. I knew the topic was controversial so I either have given clear policy based reasonings or have called out obvious misrepresentations. In addition to this, I have added many inline citations to avoid controversy and distortions.
While editing the article, I read through a lot of the archived talk pages on this article to make sure that I don't introduce problems that were already fixed in the article. Some discussions involved pov drivers who would accuse you of pursuing an anti-Nair agenda. I'm sure that for a well meaning editor like yourself, those slurs were quite hurtful and exhausting. I ask that you stop implicitly trying to associate me with these sockfarms and pov drivers; its hurtful, breaks good faith, and it comes across as a red herring. Regardless, I hope you understand that I respect the edits you have done for this article and hope that you cease making our interactions personal. BBuddy (talk) 21:46, 8 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Edit request at WP:RFP

This has been posted at WP:RFP: "Edit-request: Please change the section title Polyandry to Polygamy and the main page link to Polygamy in India, because it talks about polygamy, not exclusively about polyandry, read the section. 2409:4073:211E:2145:942C:4A16:91A5:C3F4 (talk) 13:29, 1 December 2020 (UTC)".[reply]

As this talk-page is protected, I just drop this here; no comment on the merits. Lectonar (talk) 08:15, 3 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

title ambiguity

There seem to be references to "Nair" as castes, as an ethnic group, as a surname, and as a dialect. Is this article supposed to be a broad-concept article about this? In either case, there also seems to be a persistent ambiguity with meanings at Nair (disambiguation), most of which seems to be about a consumer product in the US. I've disambiguated links from the template namespace to be able to analyze Special:WhatLinksHere/Nair better. --Joy (talk) 08:52, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]