Talk:Vidya Bharati/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Dubious

It "is the single largest organization in the field of education as of 2007". What does that even mean? Most students? Most institutions? Most money? Most teachers? Obviously, this needs a reference so we can know what it even means. Good Ol’factory (talk) 01:06, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

POV

In my opinion, the entire text of the article is POV, probably lifted from the Organisation web site or some magazine verbatim. There is no point in copyediting any of it. We need to find reliable secondary sources and create new content. Kautilya3 (talk) 10:50, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Seconded. I mean, if somebody wished to copy-edit, I am not going to attempt to dissuade them, but copy-editing is mostly useful only after solid content has been added, and that is not the case here. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:29, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
Friends, I started it well before you two guys made this comment. I did some work and realized the POV and no-reference and copyvio issue and started working on those too. I purged entire sections! And I did wait few days for more content to come in, which did not happen so I consider I can continue with my work and improve it. If you think I should not, then just remove the tag from article page and leave me a message! Cheers! --AmritasyaPutraT 21:39, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
Ok, can one of you put POV tags on the sections? I will try and write new sections, and we can get rid of the old ones when it is done. Kautilya3 (talk) 22:14, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Copyvio

The philosophy etc section is a copyvio from here. Not attempting to deal with it myself, because the tag is still in place. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:57, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

It's more than likely that the rest is from the website, too. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:57, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

@Vanamonde93: So what does the tag mean? User:AmritasyaPutra removes it when he is editing, and puts it back when he is done, which seems backwards to me. Kautilya3 (talk) 22:09, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
Well, there's two different tags; he removed the {{copyedit}} tag, but inserted {{GOCEinuse}}. I'm raising the issue here, so long as he is "using" it, it's his hot potato. Vanamonde93 (talk) 22:12, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
@AmritasyaPutra: It looks like you got the {{GOCEinuse}} tag backwards. Can you remove it please, since you are not working on it any more? Kautilya3 (talk) 22:28, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

RSS

If the connection to the RSS is removed as part of a copy-edit, that would be the most ridiculous copy-edit I have ever seen. Vanamonde93 (talk) 14:15, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Go ahead, please add it with reference. Copy-edit does not deal with verification of content. Is the copy-edit tag removed, is it over? Regards. --AmritasyaPutra✍ 15:37, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
I will stop copy-edit. There are no references in this article and I suspect copyvio and was working on that but it would be wonderful if you can add more references before I proceed. I can copy-edit after that. Thank you. --AmritasyaPutra✍ 15:53, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
I do not intend to waste time inserting references, if your approach to them is the same as at ABISY. Having spent a long time finding and reading a scholarly work only to see it removed through an edit war, I am not inclined to do the same here without assurances of some kind from you. Vanamonde93 (talk) 22:33, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
??? --AmritasyaPutra✍ 00:47, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
I was clear enough; if you feel you can disregard any scholarly source on the subject, then I will waste no time finding them. I want an assurance that you will accept the use of such, unlike what you did at ABISY. Vanamonde93 (talk) 02:52, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
??? Go with the complaint to ANI -- Do not spoil this talk page! Provide them at least one diff where I deleted a scholarly reference on ABISY? PERIOD. --AmritasyaPutra✍ 02:19, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
I am "spoiling" nothing; you need to brush up your definition of a personal attack. This organisation is closely related to the RSS, and your copy-edit removed that. Those are facts you cannot deny. Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:23, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
Provide a diff link where I deleted a reference on this page or ABISY. --AmritasyaPutra✍ 03:07, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
I have myself added the provided reference with the mention of RSS. Thank you. --AmritasyaPutraT 21:13, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
Which is all I bloody asked for in the first place. Thanks. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:28, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
lol! You are unpredictably funny and stupid! Then why did you not merely say so instead of dragging ABISY here? I have never deleted any citation a matter of fact! Regards. --AmritasyaPutraT 21:33, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

who is indulging in PAs now? My first post here merely said that the link to the RSS should not be removed. Now you added it, so I thanked you. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:48, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

You. --AmritasyaPutraT 02:19, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
You call me stupid, and in the next sentence say that I am attacking you? Vanamonde93 (talk) 06:39, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Lede

Is there a principle that the first sentence of the lede has to be from the primary source, and the second sentence from a secondary sentence? If so, where can I find it? Kautilya3 (talk) 10:03, 13 September 2014 (UTC)


References

My preferred style of citing books is to use "ref=harv" in a Bibliography section that lists all the books. Then each citation can be written using "sfn" as {{sfn|Jafrelot|2011|p=193}}, which is short and nice without cluttering the main text. It is also nice to the reader who doesn't need to see the same book occurring 10 times in the References list with different page numbers.

In the Bibliography sections, I tend to list the books by the alphabet order of the author's last name.

Any comments? Kautilya3 (talk) 14:51, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

I went ahead and did it to see what it looks like, and I have to admit it is a lot cleaner! Kautilya3 (talk) 16:05, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
@AmritasyaPutra: By the way, please don't start edit-warring while we have an "under construction" on. There will be plenty of time to fight later. Kautilya3 (talk) 16:07, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
If you want to check out how it would look like you can try in user space. Thank you. --AmritasyaPutraT 16:17, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
You say WP:CITEVAR, but that is for established pages. This page is just being built. Since I have done all the work of converting the references, what is the problem? Kautilya3 (talk) 16:38, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict)@AmritasyaPutra:, WP:CITEVAR states that Kautilya3 needs to obtain consensus for changing the reference format; but as with BRD, if you invoke CITEVAR, you need to explain yourself. CITEVAR can be the reason for the revert, but it is not an argument in favour of one format or the other. What is your objection to {{sfn}} formatting? Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:56, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
Per brd Kautilya3 needs to engage in discussion not revert yet again. He did more than change citation style, introduced mistake in reference, removed some wiki link, introduced grammatical error, and few more besides violating citevar. The introduced style did not suit the small article -- looks odd, it also introduces two hops to actual reference, and creates yet one more section of not-content to this article. "objection to sfn" belongs to sfn talk page. --AmritasyaPutraT 17:17, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
No, that is a misunderstanding of both WP:BRD and WP:CITEVAR. In both cases, those guidelines may be invoked to remove some content/formatting because you object to it; but the guidelines themselves are not an objection to the content. If you revert Kautilya per BRD, then you need to provide a substantive objection. Is the content UNDUE? Is it poorly sourced? Is it bad english? Something. Likewise, if you change {{sfn}} back to the normal format, then you need to provide a substantive objection. Is it harder to read? Harder to use? That discussion definitely does not belong on the sfn talk; it belongs here, because it is the appropriateness on this page that we are discussing. Vanamonde93 (talk) 19:00, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
Further note; CITEVAR applies to "established" citation styles. The content in the article has been gutted thanks to the copyvios that had to be removed; so it really has no "established" style. It was a 4kb article, for goodness sake. Vanamonde93 (talk) 19:09, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

I am making a clean start, and there is a lot to say here. First of all, User:AmritasyaPutra's first revert [1] was on the grounds that my Bibliography entries were "irrelevant". I hold that he is wrong about that. All those articles and books I mentioned do discuss Vidya Bharati. Secondly, I don't agree that WP:CITEVAR applies here, because we are rebuilding this page from scratch. It is not an "established" page. However, I am happy to debate the choice of the right reference format. I am also happy to give him "priority" because he started working on this page first and did a lot of admirable clean-up. However, I would like a proper discussion to take place.

Here are the issues I see:

  1. We use references for two reasons: (i) to demonstrate support for what we say in the text (ii) to give the reader pointers to literature for further reading. I have been calling these two kinds of things "References" and "Bibliography" respectively. One could also call them "Notes" and "References" respectively. The terminology doesn't bother to me too much. The second list, which I will call "Bibliography" to avoid confusion, should list a small collection of well-chosen books/articles in an organized manner, so that the user can go to the library or book-shop and get the material. The "Notes" list can be haphazard, as it usually is. The {{sfn}} template allows us to present the two lists separately.
  2. I agree that {{sfn}} requires two levels of access, which is not nice. So, this will likely involve a trade-off.
  3. If we decide not to use {{sfn}}, I am willing to do the work to to convert them to list-defined references format. Both of these methods have the advantage that the references are contained in one single place, rather than being peppered through the source.
  4. Note that we are going to list the same source multiple times with different page numbers. So, if we don't use {{sfn}}, then the page numbers are going to appear inline with increased clutter, and the references get listed in a jumbled order rather than alphabetically.

Cheers, Kautilya3 (talk) 13:06, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Kautilya3 you have editing against citevar, brd and misunderstood burden. Read citevar, it is from the first time a reference is added, I pointed it to you before too. There is no "established" concept like you keep peddling. You just added a new section called Bibliography with no relation to content, you want to say that was justified? Happy to debate -- you are only happy to revert. I told you to have your way I will not spend time/energy having mock discussion with you. You must not change citation style without consensus and that has already been forcefully changed by you. You must not revert and discuss per brd but you two reverted four times. Burden means the one who makes new changes have to justify and that is Kautilya3. If you had the least little bit of decency you should have arrived at consensus here before forcing your way. Like I said, have your way. Thank you. --AmritasyaPutraT 02:28, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Once again, you misunderstand how this works. BRD, and CITEVAR, both say that you need to discuss the revert. All you have been saying is "brd! Brd!" That is not a reason to keep the content out. If you have such a reason, please share it. Kautilya has listed his reasons for the change, and you have provided none against. Vanamonde93 (talk) 02:46, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
From WP:CITEVAR: Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style merely on the grounds of personal preference. If the article you are editing is already using a particular citation style, you should follow it; if you believe it is inappropriate for the needs of the article, seek consensus for a change on the talk page. As with spelling differences, unless there is consensus to change, defer to the style used by the first major contributor. But it was forcefully changed four times before any kind of consensus. Why don't you follow citevar, keep the original style and seek consensus for change? Dear Van I have given my reason and Kautilya3 has noted it. Can you see his "I agree..." above? --AmritasyaPutraT 04:09, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Why must you be so evasive? I have read through CITEVAR, so quit quoting it at me. Tell us, in plain words, what your objection to {{sfn}} is. If you have said it once, then repeating it should not be difficult. Vanamonde93 (talk) 05:26, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
If Kautilya3 can see it, why can't you -- why do you want anyone to repeat what is said a few lines above? It is you who claimed the four consecutive insertions without consensus where per policy so I pointed out to you it is not. Van, you brought in brd first and you have mentioned it six times already and I have mentioned it three times. --AmritasyaPutraT 05:45, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
@Vanamonde93: His objection is that sfn requires two steps to get to a reference. Fair enough. However, I have pointed out that it involves a trade-off. The price to pay for using reflist is to clutter the main page with a lot of page numbers. @AmritasyaPutra: what do you say about this point? (There is no need to fight. I have already conceded that you have priorioty. OK?) Kautilya3 (talk) 08:23, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
If you want my inputs: It introduces two hops to actual reference in this small article, and creates one more section of non-content in this small article. I also feel the earlier format did not clutter the main page with lot of page numbers, this was not cluttered: link. Regarding your concern of using a source more than once with different page numbers, it can be easily addressed, see this: WP:NAMEDREF, you need not change the citation style for it. --AmritasyaPutraT 08:41, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Ok. I have converted the references back to the reflist format. There is indeed increased clutter of page numbers. But I think it is not overwhelming (yet). Kautilya3 (talk) 11:25, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, you don't have to clutter! You have kept it partially harv style now, did you follow the earlier link and find any clutter? No, right? Check these featured articles, they are not cluttered: Chris Gragg, Isopoda. I am no expert at this but if you want Harv style it has to be followed in the entire article for each reference, not for a selective set. This also might help you remove the clutter: link. Thank you. --AmritasyaPutraT 13:06, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
In your old version, you had the Ewing book repeated twice for different page numbers. The more page numbers you have to cite, the more repetitions you would have. What I have done is indeed the method recommended for footnote-based references along with page numbers: [2]. This is not the "harvard" style. Harvard style is what we had in the morning, which you didn't like. Kautilya3 (talk) 15:01, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes, you are right about the book, that can be fixed -- I am saying that, and gave relevant link to help out! I have used sfn myself in articles that I have created -- no personal aversion to any style -- it is about suitability and citevar. Thank you. --AmritasyaPutraT 15:16, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Reference style

So, this edit at 14 september 2014 changed the reference style from inline to sfn, and this edit at 16 september changed it to - what's it called? I think it looks awful!

Personally I prefer sfn; it gives a very good overview of sources, and is very handsome when you're editing.

Regarding the change of style: I agree with AmritasyaPutra that it should have been discussed first. Ah, it's a great topic for disputes... I've had a few too, in my Wiki-career. Are you finished already discussing? ;)

Best to all of you, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 09:54, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: Thanks for the wishes! I don't know if the discussion had been concluded. I think both of us dislike the way the page looks like now, but AmritasyaPutra forced me to do it. The problem actually started earlir with this revert [3] of AmritasyaPutra, who maintained that there should be no such thing called a "Bibliography" section. If we had such a section, both reflist and sfn styles could have been combined without interference. At that time, AmritasyaPutra had locked the page, and so I was writing my text on my own computer where I used sfn style for books (as I normally do). When Amritasya unlocked the page, I had the problem of merging his changes with mine, which I did and uploaded the merged text. If Amritasya had allowed me to have a Bibliography section, this problem would not have arisen. Kautilya3 (talk) 10:21, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
I love Bibliography-sections. Have a look at User:Joshua_Jonathan/Sources. I can easily copy-paste a source, and use sfn to refer to it. It's great. And a bibliography-section gives a neat overview of sources. Very useful if you want to know more. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:27, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Kautilya3 Eh? Could you stop that personal commentary on me please? Check the last response in that section and check the body, I repeated several times in the end keep it your way I don't care, and if you want to keep it the earlier way which I used remove the rn tags and gave you the relevant doc. You can check I have not touched the article after I said I will not be editing it -- do you really choose to overlook it? I had not locked it, I was doing a major cleanup and you yourself above admitted it was admirable work. --AmritasyaPutraT 10:33, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Enough... Please, stop biting. It won't work. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 10:39, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
okay, I had also said it is indeed cluttered and that was not exactly what was before. --AmritasyaPutraT 11:04, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

I have changed the references back to sfn format. Kautilya3 (talk) 14:30, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Reading Padmaja Nair

I am unable to find out who this woman is. The reference book (Religious political parties and their welfare work: Relations between the RSS, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Vidya Bharati Schools in India) linked in the article doesn't seem to introduce the author. Do we know anything about her credentials? Lets sort this thing first and then we will look at the statements taken from her article as reference. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 13:58, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Might be a pen name? Bladesmulti (talk) 14:10, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
She is listed as a "consultant" (contract researcher) on a DFID-funded project here: [4]. The value of this report is that it is more detailed than the other sources and it is available online. If you find anything questionable, please let me know and we can hunt for other sources. Kautilya3 (talk) 15:40, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
Moreover, the document is "Working Paper" and is not reviewed per the website. --AmritasyaPutraT 02:32, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Whoever inserted this book may have downloaded from somewhere, what was the website? Bladesmulti (talk) 03:07, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Hi Bladesmulti, I was referring to "http://epapers.bham.ac.uk/" which says "This ePapers repository contains material that has not been through a formal peer-review process". --AmritasyaPutraT 04:04, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
It was discussed before? You should really try RS noticeboard since Dharmadakshya has also questioned. Bladesmulti (talk) 04:15, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
I don't think it has been discussed before, this particular reference has been added one day back by kautilya3. --AmritasyaPutraT 04:17, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

It is listed in book stores with "University of Birmingham" as the publisher, e.g., [5]. So, officially it is a book. Unofficially, I can say that this kind of a publication is part of commissioned research projects by aid agencies, where somebody is contracted to do field research to collect source material and provide the basis for further analysis by the core research team. Their reports are made available normally to the agencies themselves or, in this case, to the wider academic community as source material that they can base their research on. I would use such a source only for factual information, not analysis. Kautilya3 (talk) 08:56, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Does she say 1978? The organizations's website and (Jaffrelot, 2011) both say 1977 as the formation year. --AmritasyaPutraT 09:22, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
That kind of confusion is not unnatural in founding an organisation, for instance, an opening ceremony happen in one year but the official registration a little later. We should use whatever date the organisation itself claims. Kautilya3 (talk) 10:54, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
I think you missed my point -- the article body has 1978 based on this source. The Infobox has 1977 which I had put earlier. --AmritasyaPutraT 13:09, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Ah, I didn't realize. I have now changed it to "1977-78" to account for the ambiguity in the sources. Kautilya3 (talk) 14:21, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
  • I wouldn't call this book reliable even if published by UoB. She bases her most content from "interviews" with ABC peoples. Read the reference list she jots down at the end of the book. In case we were to trust the authoress for such hearsay statements, she should independently have some notability of her own in the subject. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 12:30, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
With an academic work, it isn't just the author who makes it reliable, it is the publisher as well. A University publisher has editorial oversight, and as such endorses the work of the author. Vanamonde93 (talk) 22:34, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
"This ePapers repository contains material that has not been through a formal peer-review process". §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 05:02, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Missed that. Remove, or treat with a fistful of salt. Vanamonde93 (talk) 05:23, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, I am treating it with a fistful of salt: for facts, not analysis. However, User:Dharmadhyaksha is saying that even the facts might be questionable because they might be obtained from "ABC people." (I suppose he means the members/officials of the organisation.) I have been looking for corroboration from other sources for some of the wild claims. So, stay tuned. Kautilya3 (talk) 07:42, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough. Vanamonde93 (talk) 15:33, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
There were two items from Padmaja Nair which I thought were questionable: (i) the issue of BJP politicians giving the schools land, (ii) Vidya Bharati opening schools abroad. For the first item, I found corroboration from Sundar's article. So, I am retaining it. For the second item, I didn't find any corroboration. So, I am commenting it out. Kautilya3 (talk) 14:33, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Spelling of Name

Recently, some editors have changed the spelling of the name in the lead to "Vidya Bharti." It is true that the organisation's web site spells the name that way. However, on Google Books, "Vidya Bharti" gives about 300 hits whereas "Vidya Bharati" gives more than 3,000. So it seems a preponderance of the reliable sources use the old spelling. I suggest that we retain that. (The official spelling will be in Hindi/Dev Nagari anyway. This is just a question of how it is transliterated in English.) - Kautilya3 (talk) 02:10, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

I believe our policy weights common names over official names, unless there is a violation of NPOV involved. WP:COMMONNAME. Vanamonde93 (talk) 05:26, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Merger proposal

It has been proposed that Saraswati Shishu Mandir be merged into Vidya Bharati. I agree with the proposal, as they seem to be about the same organization. Jack N. Stock (talk) 04:11, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

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