User talk:Fowler&fowler

Blocked

You have been blocked for sloth.

Per consensus at User_talk:Drmies#Talk:Janjua. Your user page tells me that you are on a "wikibreak" since you are "traveling"--well, that is just unacceptable. First of all, "we were on a break" was soundly rejected as an argument, and it certainly doesn't mean you can go fuck the girl at the copy shop. Second, a netbook and some wireless access wouldn't set you back too much, and we demand (per ArbCom ruling 25.672a) 24/7 attention. I hope this is clear: our coverage of India is going to hell in a handbasket; Sitush needs a nap. So enjoy your "break"--if it doesn't end soon, you might find it lengthened. Drmies (talk) 15:32, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

As Gandhi before me had said in his famous ArbCom appearance, "I am, therefore, here to submit not to a light penalty but to the highest penalty. The only course open to you, Mr. Judge, is, as I am just going to say in my statement, either to resign your post or inflict on me the severest penalty." (Or, if you so wish, you could do both.) I hope the block will be of such length as would allow me to pass directly from 2011 to 2013. Please create a little black hole in space time and stuff my 2012 into it. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:41, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm an admin and thus cannot afford my clients such niceties. Hey, 2012 is only halfway through and if it's really bad perhaps it can only get better. Even Ross clawed hisself out of the hole of the copy shop girl. Take it easy, Drmies (talk) 17:21, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I sometimes feel that WP is a black hole in space/time. Then I see some banter involving friends and think, hey, if I am going to get sucked into some inescapable vortex & mashed into something infinitesimally small then at least I have some worthy company on the journey. Take care, F&f. I shall fettle Janjua in due course and then refer my prose etc to your tender ministrations, although that fancy optical reader gadget that you had might be called upon for the first part, - — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sitush (talk • contribs) 01:58, 28 June 2012‎

:) Thank you, Drmies and Sitush, for your humor and your kind words. Well, I'll be back home soon. Yay! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:41, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for June 28

Hi. When you recently edited Ganges, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Hardwar (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 14:02, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

EIC for comment

F&f, I'm traveling with lousy internet connectivity. Could you take a look at an editor concern expressed here? Stalkers welcome. --regentspark (comment) 21:08, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Done. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:19, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Mumbai

Hi! Since my start here, I have got 4 GAs of late but I'm not so good at copyediting. This article is a Former FA and current GA. I was starting my work to improve it and I need your assistance. Since, you are pretty good at it, can you please help me improve the article for FAN.  — TheSpecialUser ^(TSU) 06:53, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi

I appreciate your good work. But are you a Pakistani ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.172.44.192 (talk) 15:48, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes indeed. How did you guess? Here are some details of my family history, I come from a long line of navigators. The original Fowler and fowler were the pilots who steered the Indian tectonic place from Gondwana to Asia. However, soon after my ancestors spotted the shoreline of Tibet, they also saw some wise ass IPs from Karnataka pussyfooting on it. Disgusted, they choose, at the last minute, to disembark in northern Pakistan. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:17, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Appreciate the warning

As well, would you be able to tell me if you consider Royal Ark a reputable source? Also, I would like to include some mention of Karan Singh's family in the article, as there is no mention of it. Aumnamahashiva (talk) 19:09, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Royal ark is irredeemably unreliable. I'm afraid no more family history is warranted than what is already there, especially not long lineages. This is an encyclopedia, not a private web page. I will check Britannica for its entries (if any) for Karan Singh and Hari Singh. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:15, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Just checked Encyclopaedia Britannica. It has no entry for Karan Singh. Hari Singh doesn't have a page either, but is mentioned in the Kashmir page (in the section "The Kashmir Problem"). So, you see, encyclopedias generally don't provide family details. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:29, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much; I shall not rely upon it from now on. Aumnamahashiva (talk) 19:52, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Edit warring

Your recent editing history at India shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war. Being involved in an edit war can result in you being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly.

To avoid being blocked, instead of reverting please consider using the article's talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. See BRD for how this is done. You can post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection. The support of one editor does not constitute consensus. There are others who felt that the edit needed to be discussed first. There are others who even reverted you. Ubiquinoid (talk) 17:39, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

That's what I am saying: the support of one editor does not constitute consensus. No one reverted me, by the way, but someone just copied my post on their page and pasted it (with changed signature) on mine. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:43, 16 July 2012 (UTC) Updated. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:44, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

It takes more than one party to edit war. Pot, kettle. And note that at least 2 editors have reverted you. Ubiquinoid (talk) 17:47, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Can you name the other who reverted my revert of you? Orangewhitegreen has other issues. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:50, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Myself and owg - his issues (whatever they are) do not justify you believing that his isn't a legitimate revert, just as much as NeilN's may or may not have been. Ubiquinoid (talk) 17:55, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't talking of NeilN, but rather of this edit by an old Wikipedia admin. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:59, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Noted. Admins are not immune to ... issues, and sometimes seem to glaze over the very policies they preach. Note that that admin did not involve themselves afterward. Ubiquinoid (talk) 18:07, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Besides, admin Drmies left an edit warring message on your talk page. He also in this post on the talk:India page stated that you were editing against consensus. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:11, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Admins are editors with powers, and issues. They saw fit to comment at length about personality and not about substance, while ignoring the tenets of consensus (which had to be pointed out), and which you seem to not have a complete grasp of ... hence this drawn-out, tiresome discourse. Ubiquinoid (talk) 18:20, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I provided the wrong link. For what its worth, Admin Drmies left this 3RR warning on your talk page, which you quickly blanked in this edit with edit summary, "removing notice from challenged admin." That means at least two admins have challenged your edits. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:27, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Acknowledged. I defer to prior comments. Ubiquinoid (talk) 18:29, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Request for maps

Hi F&F, how are you? Can you please direct me to two political maps of the subcontinent, one prior to the independence, and one immediately after? Those will be incorporated in the history section of the article Independence Day (India). Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 22:02, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi Dwaipayan, Always nice to hear from one of the old guard (among which I count myself as well). I had actually uploaded two such maps some five years ago. They were taken from my copy of Raychaudhuri, Datta, and Majumdar's Advanced History of India, published 1960, but the maps were copyrighted some time from the early 50s (perhaps 1951 or 52). One was a map of British Indian Empire on the eve of independence and the other that of the partitioned successor states. Unfortunately, I just realized that both maps have been deleted. I've been away a lot from Wikipedia and it likely happened during one such absence. The book was published by Macmillan and Co in London and the maps were copyrighted to J. G. Bartholomew and Sons, the famous Edinburgh cartographers. I'm guessing the Indian copyright laws that I had cited didn't apply to the maps. For the pre-independence pictures, you could use File:British Indian Empire 1909 Imperial Gazetteer of India.jpg, a map made in 1909 during the partition of Bengal. It obviously also included Burma in the Indian Empire, a situation which changed after 1937. There is also a map from 1915: File:IndianEmpireCeylon1915.jpg, a map made after the reunification of Bengal. Sorry, I couldn't help out more. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:28, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi, nice to interact with you after a long gap! I also faintly remembered that you had uploaded such images, and that is why I pinged you to see if you remember. Hmmm... so the situation is not much encouraging. We can of course use the 1909 map, but it would have been great to have a map showing immediate pre-partition scenario, and one afterwards. Let's see if we can find out one.

As you have noted, Bose article is getting some attention. I saw you starting editing it as well. It would be immensely helpful for the article if you help improve it. Of course there will be some (perhaps significant) clash of point of views, but we know from our past experience that in the process ultimately the article gains. As you are very much aware of, Bose has a very highly regarded status among the populace of certain parts of India, so some emotionally charged edit actions are not unexpected! With your seasoned skills, you can easily thwart such actions!

I remember several years back our first interaction was actually thanks to Bose article. I wanted to include his (or, INA's name) in India article. There was very nice discussion in the talk page. I sincerely hope all the editors (including relatively recent batch of active editors) would also be nice and rational in their discussion. I really hope to improve the article, and you have already started doing so. I am excited!! Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 02:09, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Can you word your sentences in a civil tone?

Avoid calling freedom fighters as mentally unbalanced Indian, frauds and stop using words like whupped Bose's ass. Maintain some Civility . I had informed you here but you use those words again.Do not show your biases on Wikipedia --sarvajna (talk) 16:17, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Idle thoughts of a (talk page stalker): One man's "freedom fighter" is another man's "revolutionary", "anarchist" etc. In the Indian context of Wikipedia, there seem to have been a lot of them that did very little & I've sometimes wondered whether the self-upliftment of sankritisation might also apply to bigging up what my daddy did in the war etc. - Sitush (talk) 16:22, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

cut the crap Sitush, because George Washington fought against Britain does that mean that a Briton can call washington a mental case on wikipedia. You can have your own opinion but do not bring it on wikipedia. I am sure you have absolutely no idea about who Subhash Chandra Bose was and that is the reason why you say In the Indian context of Wikipedia, there seem to have been a lot of them that did very little. Even if he had done very little(which is not true) Fowler just cannot call him a mentally unbalanced Indian and a fraud. --sarvajna (talk) 17:56, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I did make some intemperate remarks. I was tired and looking to blow off steam, but, clearly, that wasn't the right venue to do it. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:07, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

... and I wasn't commenting on Bose, or indeed on what F&f said. Mine were "idle thoughts": general ruminations about nothing particularly specific. - Sitush (talk) 02:12, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Though Washington's incapacity in retreat and encantonment makes me think poorly of his mental hygiene and precious bodily fluids. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:39, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Pakistan murdabad

Fowler, what's going on here. The fact that there are events that are accompanied by a cry of Pakistan Murdabad doesn't make the slogan significant. Detailing each event in gory detail makes little sense. Presumably there were equally horrendous events during partition that were not accompanied by that slogan and the fact that Sikhs butchered or raped muslims has little, if anything at all, to do with the slogan. Where are you going with this? --regentspark (comment) 20:20, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, any slogan that throws up over three hundred books on Google, many scholarly, is a notable part of the history of the subcontinent. I myself had little idea about it this morning, and was going to vote delete, until I began to look at the sources. Its significance has little to do with its contemporary, perfunctory, use by various political demonstrators in India (or Balochistan) for that matter. It is inextricably linked with the partition and with anti-Muslim sentiment in the Punjab, just as Pakistan Zindabad, also from the same time, is linked with pro-partition, pro-Pakistan, sentiment, and whose shouting often accompanied anti-Sikh violence. It is true that for now as a place holder I've quoted two authors in detail, but that doesn't take away from the significance and the encyclopedic justification of having such a page. In contrast, "Hindustan Zindabad" and "Hindustan Murdabad" were later copy-cat slogans used, for example, in Kashmir. I find it hard to believe that a scholarly treatment of these slogans are being considered attack pages. Without the connection with the violence of the partition, both "Pakistan Murdabad," and "Pakistan Zindabad" are meaningless nonnotable slogans. With the partition connection they become an inextricable (if ugly) part of modern Indian history. This is not a page about the semantic or grammatical nuances of the phrase, but rather the historical context. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:46, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd personally prefer to see scholars explicitly tie the slogan in as an integral part of the violence during partition. But, will wait and see where you take this article. At present, with apologies, it seems like OR to me. --regentspark (comment) 22:12, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately this and the related slogans (Pakistan Zindabad, Hindustan Zindabad) were associated with atrocities related to partition riot. As an example, this page. --Dwaipayan (talk) 23:26, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

There's no reason why the article should stay just because the slogan was raised during the partition. What is there in this article that can't be merged into any other partition-related article or Anti-Pakistan sentiment? To be honest, WP:COATRACK applies in this scenario. Don't you believe a Violence during the partition of India article would serve that purpose better? Or you can take a look at my recent thread at RegentsPark's talk page where I suggested an article on Cultural relations between India and Pakistan, similiar to Cultural relationship between the Welsh and the English, which can discuss anti-national sentiments present in both countries. That would actually be more encyclopedic. Mar4d (talk) 05:40, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

• Hi F&f, it is nice to see your humorous edit summaries and comments (sometime) which energizes the editors, any way I am here to complain you about yourself,
• You had reverted this sourced edit there was no objection for this edit. Please self revert it or start a discussion on talk page ?
• In the name of correction/rescuing you are engaging fellow editors into edit warring by reverting their work without any discussion and by leaving uncivil edit summaries, please avoid that. Hope you will also maintain WP:civility. Regards :) --Omer123hussain (talk) 21:57, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Possibly unfree File:M.A. Jinnah, Master Tara Singh, and Khizar Hayat Tiwana.jpg

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:M.A. Jinnah, Master Tara Singh, and Khizar Hayat Tiwana.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files because its copyright status is unclear or disputed. If the file's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. You may find more information on the file description page. You are welcome to add comments to its entry at the discussion if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 22:07, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Editor's Barnstar
	For your work on a controversial topic Pakistan Murdabad. You have transformed that article. Well done Darkness Shines (talk) 20:45, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! A very pleasant surprise indeed. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:48, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

July 2012

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, we would like to remind you not to attack other editors, as you did on Rape during the Bangladesh Liberation War. Please comment on the content and not the contributors. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. You are welcome to rephrase your comment as a civil criticism of the article. Thank you. lTopGunl (talk) 16:41, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

You've already been blocked and warned twice for templating established users. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:36, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Preferred versions

I actually preferred the IP's version because it seemed to be less pov-y. Am I missing some subtlety in the language? - Sitush (talk) 17:21, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Yup. My mistake. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:48, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

No big deal. There was a point earlier today when it seemed as if all I had been doing was hitting the undo link. - Sitush (talk) 20:19, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, Sitush, I just noticed my reply. Obviously, I meant, "No. My mistake." On some days, even the extra coffee doesn't do anything for the health of my brain. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:07, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Stop taking off the image

The foreigners don't know where the Kashmir entity is located in the Jammu-Kashmir-Ladakh geography. Stop removing the image in Kashmir article. --Opus88888 (talk) 08:42, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Please see my reply to your edits on Talk:Kashmir. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:46, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

I have been making many corrections in the Spanish Wikipedia in regard to Kashmir region, division, valley, etc. --Opus88888 (talk) 10:53, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

That's great, Opus88888! I'm curious: are you allowed to cite English-language sources on the Spanish Wikipedia or do you have to provide Spanish-language sources? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:03, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

WP:INCOTMNOM

Hi there! Thanks for voting and helping in selecting Indian Independence Day as the GA of the month under WP:INCOTM. Please give your vote for the Collaboration section as well. Cheers!:) BPositive (talk) 13:19, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

FAC update

Hi! FYI, Independence Day (India) is in the FAC. Your suggestions would be invaluable. You might be surprised to find striking resemblance between the text of "History" section of the article and the text in India article which was chiseled by you. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 17:01, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Have I lost the plot?

Have I lost the plot here? It is a pretty awkward term to GSearch. - Sitush (talk) 18:18, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

See also Palakkappillilachayan (talk · contribs) in addition to PalakkappillyAchayan (talk · contribs), both have been used for disruptive moves. I blocked one before and had a huge mess to clean up. You might want to take this to WP:AC/DS as it's supposedly for everything India now. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 18:31, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

And I see he's back to these moves of churches. You might want to ask John Carter for assistance here as he's been involved with the Indian Christianity project. cheers —SpacemanSpiff 18:34, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Rahul Gandhi

This is becoming increasingly confusing. This TOI source says he attended St. Columba's and Convent of Jesus & Mary with his sister Priyanka Gandhi. Your source says he was at Modern school before joining Doon and ultimately being home-schooled due to security reasons. What's the story? --Merlaysamuel :  Speechify  07:41, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

The Times of India story is social fluff and unreliable. The Outlook is a respected magazine; its story is more solid—it describes two incidents at the school, and names the headmistress. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:30, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

• Hi Fowler. I have undone your change. May I request you to kindly not delete non-contentious information from BLPs unless one has not been able to get any reliable sources? While you may have assessed the Times of India source, a simple search could have given you sources like DNA, Zee, and many others that cite St. Columba's etc. As much as is clear about the 15 year old Outlook link you provide, Sunil Mehra the author seems to be a fluff writer who reviews books and has written quite a few Page 3 reports. And seeing the correct link of your Outlook article here, it's quite clear that your link is a primary opinion piece of Sunil Mehra on Rahul Gandhi. I would be loathe to consider Sunil Mehra's primary reportage as being superior to mainline news reportage. You can take up this discussion about your Outlook link on the talk page of the article and re-add it if others agree. Thanks and do please continue your good editing work. Wifione ^Message 11:46, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid it is not. Both the DNA and Zee news constitute trivial mention. He may have gone to St. Columba's as well, but the Junior Modern is well-documented. Please don't presume to teach me about primary sources. That is not a primary source by a long shot. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:59, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Muslims in India don't do it

Really? "Although this phenomenon originated among Hindu communities, it has spread to Muslim communities in India as well as Pakistan and Bangladesh." Women's Rights and Islamic Family Law: Perspectives on Reform p258 Darkness Shines (talk) 21:47, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

• Re your statement here[1] I am not Indian, I believe that such repugnant actions belong in the lede regardless of which country does it. If you are OK with it we can close the RFC and I will leave it to your judgement as to were in the lede it ought to be placed. Darkness Shines (talk) 07:03, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Please accept my apologies. I have now added a mention of Pakistan in the lead. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:15, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Well done you for trying, it is such a pity you got it so terribly wrong. Don't worry about it, I will rectify your mistake. Darkness Shines (talk) 19:32, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Reply on reply regarding Independence Day

Hi! Thanks a lot. Yes, we borrowed freely from the text from India article. However, that forms only a part of it. As a result, there may be some drop in prose quality in some parts of the article. Hope you will like it.--Dwaipayan (talk) 13:46, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for taking time to read the article. Right now I am in a hurry and can not reply in detail; will do so soon. However, we are not really targeting FA status by this 15 August, that is clearly impossible. Our goal is to achieve the best achievable state (whatever that might be) by 15 August ( on that day the article traffic jumps tremendously).

In short, I totally agree with you that the history/background of the article should be about the day itself, not the whole independence movement. I read somewhere that Mountbatten chose this day to coincide with the victory over Japan day. Pakistan got 14 August as Mountbatten had to be physically present on both ceremonies.

I disagree with you in one concern. Length is not a FA criteria. The FA criteria is comprehensive. If a short article on a topic is comprehensive enough, it can still be a FA. In any case, I think, you can leave your comments in FAC nomination page. So that others, besides me, can also participate, and respond to your suggestions.

I had real trouble finding out proper source for the ways of celebration of the day! The present state sort of succinctly says about the celebration rituals. We will work more on the article. Your guidance and suggestion ( and edits) will be invaluable in improving the article. Thanks a lot. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 12:23, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Indian Collaboration of the Month - Red Fort

Indian Collaboration of the Month

Hi there! Thanks for being associated with the nomination cum voting process of the WikiProject Indian Collaboration of the Month under WikiProject India. As per the voting, the article selected for collaboration for the month of August 2012 is Red Fort. Let's improve this article over the course of the month. I look forward to your contributions on the article. BPositive (talk) 14:04, 4 August 2012 (UTC) Note: If you are seeing this message on someone's talk page and wish to be a part of the collaboration, add yourself in the members list.

Talkback

Hello, Fowler&fowler. You have new messages at Talk:Pakistan Zindabad.
Message added 21:33, 15 August 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

DBigXray 21:33, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

About my reversal in India

Let's solve our disagreements in the India talk. I am starting a new page there solely for proposed changes by me. Okay? Mrt3366 ^{(Talk page?) (New section?)} 07:41, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Are you there, hello?? Mrt3366 ^{(Talk page?) (New section?)} 09:51, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Check out my new proposal. Hope it suffices the need of the moment. Mrt3366 ^{(Talk page?) (New section?)} 07:49, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

The Olive Branch: A Dispute Resolution Newsletter (Issue #1)

Welcome to the first edition of The Olive Branch. This will be a place to semi-regularly update editors active in dispute resolution (DR) about some of the most important issues, advances, and challenges in the area. You were delivered this update because you are active in DR, but if you would prefer not to receive any future mailing, just add your name to this page.

Steven Zhang's Fellowship Slideshow

In this issue:

• Background: A brief overview of the DR ecosystem.
• Research: The most recent DR data
• Survey results: Highlights from Steven Zhang's April 2012 survey
• Activity analysis: Where DR happened, broken down by the top DR forums
• DR Noticeboard comparison: How the newest DR forum has progressed between May and August
• Discussion update: Checking up on the Wikiquette Assistance close debate
• Proposal: It's time to close the Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts noticeboard. Agree or disagree?

Read the entire first edition of The Olive Branch -->

--The Olive Branch 19:03, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

ANI

Hello. There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding the template with which you have been involved. Comment there if you like. Mrt3366 ^{(Talk page?) (New section?)} 09:39, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Fowler&fowler. You have new messages at Stefan2's talk page.
Message added 14:11, 7 September 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Stefan2 (talk) 14:11, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Notice of Dispute resolution discussion

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding the process is getting spiral and exceedingly time-consuming. Content disputes can hold up article development, therefore we request your participation in the discussion to help find a resolution. The thread is "Talk:India".The discussion is about the topic Template:Largest cities of India. Thank you! --Mrt3366^{(Talk?) (New thread?)} 10:03, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Comment here and let's settle the dispute. This will help get us the wider input. Since you say there is not even "remotely" a consensus. Well this will give us a chance to get what we seek. Mrt3366^{(Talk?) (New thread?)} 12:03, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Fowler&fowler. You have new messages at Talk:India.
Message added 13:53, 8 September 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Which policy do you base your claims on? Like having "too low resolution", or being "photoshopped" means the image fails to meet some sort of criteria. Why do you talk as though they are in some terrible disadvantage? I mean is there a strict policy or guideline that I should know about? Mrt3366^{(Talk?) (New thread?)} 13:53, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

What's up with the images at India's talkpage? Is there some poll going on? Yours are much more illustrative by the way. JanetteDoe (talk) 03:09, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, they are setting up a rotation template for the economy section. 8 images each for the urban and rural sectors (I think). Thanks. I want the images and captions to be informative. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:16, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

DRN

I saw your comment on the DRN. As one of the other volunteers, I offer my sympathies. I hope this doesn't discourage you from editing. Ideally, a compromise can still be reached.--SGCM (talk) 12:45, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your concern. No, it won't discourage me from editing, although I'm tempted to work in calmer waters like Lepidoptera or perhaps Sea Urchin. I could agree to a collapsed template with two images to be chosen by consensus on the talk India page. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:47, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Fowler, glad to see the stuff at DRN hasn't put you off from offered yet another fine spread of images at Talk:India. Again, real lemons-to-lemonade stuff on your part. Best. Saravask 05:12, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Writer's Barnstar
	Did you notice? You just got 1000 edits on India! Thanks a lot for maintaining the FA status of the article for so long. That was really  Great! TheSpecialUser TSU 12:19, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I didn't. Thank you very much! I'm delighted by the barnstar! A very pleasant surprise indeed! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:31, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Sock?

I am tempted to open a SPI report re: Talk:Caste#Comment_by_OrangesRyellow, or perhaps just ask Elockid or Salvio to do an ad hoc checkuser. This is surely one of three people, but the problem is that it is a fishing expedition unless it can be narrowed down. Thoughts? - Sitush (talk) 15:54, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I think it is a good idea. I think you can name three people (or ask Elockid or Salvio about it and let them suggest the way forward). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:22, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Please also consider user:Harvardoxford. Compare user pages and dates of first/last edits. Please note Indian usage "presently." Also, if you scour edit history, note the spelling, "Hindoo." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:34, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you for the barnstar! It was very thoughtful of you. :)--SGCM (talk) 06:07, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Access difficulties

I can't access the article from Encyclopedia of the Developing World. When I click on it all I get is a front cover with no clickthroughs. Since it is not possible to copy large sections of content without violating copyright laws (WP:NFCCEG) and your proposal rests on this article, I guess I'll have to wait for other editors to comment on the proposal first. Regards. Correct Knowledge^«৳alk» 13:36, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. Well, I'll have to send you a scan of the article. But I'm now gone for the rest of the day. So, it'll have to be tomorrow. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:49, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll add my email address by tomorrow. Correct Knowledge^«৳alk» 13:53, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for sending me a scanned copy of the article by Veena Das. The article was enlightening, to say the least. Correct Knowledge^«৳alk» 17:58, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Dispute resolution on a more personal level

Aside from the exterior antagonism that might seem apparent between us, I really appreciate what you're doing for the article India (don't ever let my stridency cloud that sentiment) and I, as a matter of fact, cannot stand even the mildest form of animosity with anyone for long anyway. So, let me start by telling you that I like your newly added images (esp. FE1, FE2, FE4, FE8, FE11, FE12, FE13) and don't disagree with the protocol (I even share your views in some points) per se as much as I despise the gleam of arbitrariness coming from it.

Let me assure that there is no ego involved in what I have written on that RFC page. I initiated that RFC really for what it looks on the surface. Please allow me to clarify that there was no disingenuous agenda or intended allusion to India underneath that request. Of course it's true that I, for one, honestly believe, with or without images, a city population template will enhance the article.

---

But it's okay that you and others vehemently disagree. Would "violently" be a better word instead of Vehemently?^{(Sarcasm intended )} If it were, same would be applicable for me too, I guess. Anyway, enough levity for now.

---

I wanted to know and still want to know what people actually make of those templates in general. I mean, I wanted to know, am I being too pushy? I seriously feel, it would be better if there was more uniformity and consistency regarding the structure and presentation of information, among articles about Nations across wikipedia. Again, you're free to disagree. Nevertheless, that was my reason and I wanted to share it with you. Thanks for your time. Cheers!

P.S. I couldn't help expecting a tinge of amicability in return. Mrt3366^{(Talk?) (New thread?)} 16:18, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

No hard feelings on my part. I think one good thing about the RfC is that it gives us a community-wide view. In the future we could refer to it. We would have something tangible, and would be less vulnerable to accusations of "ownership by a cabal." Thanks for your post. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:48, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Exactly, I will gladly accept that and if I am on a fringe then that's the fact I have to deal with. Mrt3366^{(Talk?) (New thread?)} 06:19, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't have any trust in your motivations. I believe you are an obsessively tendentious editor who is having a hard time growing up and accepting that things don't always go his way. Posting sanctimonious affirmations of good intentions on this page go only so far, when they are belied by your actions again and again and again. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:30, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

That's okay. You know, the more you speak about me, the more it reveals your true character. And I don't like what I see. You've already expressed your spite and my answer will remain the same, "I couldn't care less about what you believe". Mrt3366^{(Talk?) (New thread?)} 07:40, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Request for analysis of reliability of a book

Hi, I, and a few other editors, have been using this book Madras, Chennai: A 400-year Record of the First City of Modern India, Volume 1 as a reference for the Chennai article. Today, I noticed a line in the book exactly same as in a newspaper article. As you are a professor, I request your opinion on how reliable this book is. --Anbu121 (talk me) 20:03, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi there, I don't know much about the book, and can't access it on Google books, but for Madras history, the best person to ask is: User:Ravichandar84. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:12, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

New section at Administrators noticeboard

Hello. There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you are involved. ApostleVonColorado (talk) 17:58, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Civility Barnstar
	For behaving like a normal human being I congratulate you. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:25, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Seconded. I can't believe the hostility you've had to put up with. Well done for focusing on reliable sources and logical argument. MartinPoulter (talk) 10:40, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Doctors both. That support was very timely and welcome! I try to stay focused on the sources, but every so often the background noise gets to me. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:25, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Yeah it can't be helped at times, certain people have a habit of making situations 100 times worse than they need be. I like Martin noticed you seemed to be having an unfeasibly difficult time. Heads up, you do good work here.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:18, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Just in case

I saw that the rollback discussion closed as not removed, but you'd suggested earlier in the discussion that it may be removed. If you find it to be more of a distraction than benefit, let me know if you'd like to have it removed -- then you'll have to use either twinkle or undo and won't see the automatic rollback option on your watchlist -- I'll remove the right as user requested. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 04:00, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Spiff. Let me mull it over. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:29, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

May not be a bad idea. Rollback is useful mainly for vandal fighters and is a recipe for trouble otherwise. Undo is just as useful when you want to point out that an editor is being tendentious or just painfully idiotic :) --regentspark (comment) 11:52, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Protocol

Hi f&f. Are you and Anbu121 done with the protocol? If yes, could one of you remove the underconstruction tag and collapse the discussion. Thx. --regentspark (comment) 18:01, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

OK, Didn't realize that it was still here. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:03, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Caste

You have added a map to the page, it is a 1909 map, how relevant is it? There has been a lot of changes to the demography in 100+ years --sarvajna (talk) 02:32, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Try telling that to the hundreds of caste warriors who rely on Edgar Thurston etc for demographics/claims of kshatriya status etc - they use him in the present tense and will consider no change ;) This query should be at Talk:Caste: it is of relevance to far more people than F&f. - Sitush (talk) 08:07, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

@Ratnakar.kulkarni Thanks for your post. Per Piotrus, the page is 45% about theory, 30% about India, etc. The map is an example of what was considered "theory" 100 years ago. Note the "ethnographic" in quotes and the "purports." I am being ironic there. The point of the caption is to present an outdated bit of "theory." But, perhaps, I should be a little more explicit in the caption to avoid any misinterpretation. I will also mention it on Talk:Caste. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 09:12, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Got your point, I have one more question, there was a discussion on the Noticeboard for India related topics regarding the photo montages in the caste based articles. Is it ok to have Caste paintings of Indian Society in the article ?.

P.S: I am not taking this on the talk page of caste article 1. Because the talk page already have enough content to read 2. This is just a simple question, honestly I neither oppose the inclusion nor support it as they are not the pictures of some noteable living or dead person --sarvajna (talk) 05:29, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, I still haven't got to the rest of the article! Yes, that selection of "caste paintings" is a kind of photomontage, although the discussion on WT:INDIA had to do with photomontages made from within one caste (caste puffery) and also with BLP issues. But I agree with you. Not a great illustration; also, it tends to further the previous POV of the article, that caste in India was really not the preserve of one religious group. After all, it starts with "Muslim man," and includes "Arab soldier," "Sikh chief," "Tribal chief," and "fencer" among the 8 chosen. What the caption forgets to tell you is that they were pictures of "castes" observed in the Madurai area during 25 years, that there are 72 in the collection, most of which are Hindus. What it also forgets to tell you (and this is my own reading) is that it was a collection presented to an American Methodist leader, Revd. Manning, by an American missionary in India, Daniel Poor. In 1813 Charter Act, the British government had allowed Christian missionaries to proselytize in India. Since 1813+25 = 1838, the approximate year of the presentation, it was the initiative of a "first generation" American missionary in India. In other words, this is a naive view of caste and ethnic differences in India. I mean naive for the level of general understanding about caste that existed in 1837. The British has already established the Calcutta and Benares Sanskrit colleges in the 1780s and 90s; Calcutta's Presidency College had been founded in 1817. William Jones had already founded the Asiatic Society and proposed the Indo-European languages hypothesis in the 1780s. So, these pictures were hardly state of the art knowledge in 1837. Anyway, before I get carried away, :) , let me say, I'll look for a replacement ASAP. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:02, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Just to inform you I have reverted a removal of yours.--sarvajna (talk) 18:12, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Jat vs Jatt

Hi, I recall seeing a discussion somewhere regarding "Jatt" being a pov version of "Jat", rather than merely a difference in transliteration. I didn't understand it then and I cannot even remember the detail now. Any ideas? At least in English sources, the later seems to be the more common spelling in my experience and thus, for example, Jatt Sikh probably should be renamed (and copyedited) per WP:COMMONNAME. - Sitush (talk) 00:03, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, WP:Commonname certainly supports "Jat." Not sure about the POV part. You could ask user:Sikh history. He seems to be main contributor. I noticed too that the two pictures in their own Commons captions merely say Punjabi woman or Punjabi farmer; how then did the WP page authors divine the subjects to be Jats? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:34, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll have a word with SH, although the issue extends further than just that one article. Good spot regarding the pics - I'll remove those if I cannot spot some clue. Without some sort of evidence, that is the ultimate in racial stereotyping! - Sitush (talk) 18:45, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Can you assist

I am getting very fed up dealing with various issues (and one person) at an article. You seem to have better access to resources than me - any chance that you could check the suspicions regarding RS that I raise here? Maybe I am going mad, although I doubt it. - Sitush (talk) 09:19, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Gaṇa sangha

Can you take a look at this one? For you, it'd be an easy stub to fix. —SpacemanSpiff 14:12, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

FAR

Can you take a look at User:SpacemanSpiff/FAR and add? I promised Dana that I'd work on a FAR plan for some of these and enlist your help. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 15:03, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Is "Western Ganga Dynasty" a real thing? Everything I can see on google search results appears to link back to Wikipedia. Made up by DK and pushed all the way to Featured Status? regentspark (comment) 15:47, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

That is part of the problem here. There is a Western Ganga dynasty, but it's nothing like what our article claims it to be. And the bigger problem is that there's varying versions (if you see Pondheepankar's edits to Kongu/Gounder topics, you'll see the other version). It's a huge mess that needs cleaning up sooner than later. There;s also articles like Kannada literature under Western Ganga and stuff. Chola is still less of a mess, Vadakkan/Arvind, Abecedare and I spent a little time on it a couple of years back when this started. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 17:20, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Economy images

Are we good to go for voting? Anbu, Mrt, CorrectKnowledge, this is for all of you. --regentspark (comment) 15:30, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we are (at least I am). Sorry, I came down with something. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:30, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Hope whatever it was has gone away. Images are now in the competent hands of Anbu121 so no worries. --regentspark (comment) 15:08, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Talkbalk

Hello, Fowler&fowler. You have new messages at SpacemanSpiff's talk page.
Message added 15:31, 16 October 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Please chime in! —SpacemanSpiff 15:31, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Maps of India

Hi!
You have signed yourself under Maps group of Commons:WikiProject India. At WT:INB we are discussing a drive for cleaning various articles related to Indian cities/towns/villages. Your views in general and specifically on maps are welcome. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 07:57, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Hello, Fowler&fowler. You have new messages at Talk:North-Western Provinces.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Hello

Hi, I was just checking to see whether you were still active here. Glad to see you're still in the community. I've been on a wikibreak for about a year-and-a-half and have done next to no editing during that time, but hope to be contributing more now. Hope your break is going well yourself. Happy holidays to you and yours. Best, MarmadukePercy (talk) 19:28, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Hello, Fowler&fowler. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

_Ravi_{My Tea Kadai} 00:46, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Hello

Could you please take a look at Kashmiri literature? I think it needs an editor who is au fait with that kind of stuff. I know you have experience, hence could you improve this article as you deem fit. I really am out of my depth here. Mr T^{(Talk?) (New thread?)} 07:26, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Hope things are well

Hey Fowler. You're missed out here. The place is slowly falling apart. Spiff has gone. In your absence Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi has been hagiographized (!) as Mahatma Gandhi. And nobody cares! You're needed out here! Hope things are going well in real life and that you can spare some time for Wikipedia soon. --regentspark (comment) 22:02, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

The change of name there was long overdue. You managed to keep it Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi by sophisticated bullying. What do you propose next? That Burmese bandits police Wikipedia? Both of you are Mahatma Gandhi haters. Susesisa (talk) 10:41, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

And who are you? That's quite some knowledge of the personalities involved for a newcomer. - Sitush (talk) 16:11, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Guys, I've just logged in after a long long time. I'm still on the road. It'll be mid July before I'm back home. Yeah, I noticed Gandhi is now Mahatma. Many people in any case think that's his name, and have for some time. The web page of a hospital in Pakistan says: "A marble plaque bears witness to the opening of the Hospital on 17th July 1934 by Mr. Mahatma Gandhi." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:35, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Good to see you're not planning to disappear for ever. Enjoy your travels! --regentspark (comment) 16:25, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Gee's golden langur

Hi Fowler&fowler, since you're on a wikibreak, I've incorporated the great work you did on the history of the golden langur and merged it into the article. Hope you don't mind! When you back it would be great if you could add some more information to the other sections as well. Cheers, Jack (talk) 16:25, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

File:Penny illustrated 1874 famine.png missing description details

Dear uploader: The media file you uploaded as:

• File:Penny illustrated 1874 famine.png

is missing a description and/or other details on its image description page. If possible, please add this information. This will help other editors make better use of the image, and it will be more informative to readers.

If the information is not provided, the image may eventually be proposed for deletion, a situation which is not desirable, and which can easily be avoided.

If you have any questions, please see Help:Image page. Thank you. Theo's Little Bot (error?) 10:02, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Indian Principalities

I notice you are on a mission to, and as you call it, 'remove puffery' with regards to Indian principalities across Wikipedia. It kind of borders on loathing and abolitionism. What is your deal? Just an example is how eager you were to remove all mention of Karan Singh of Kashmir's royal heritage. The fact that he was made Regent of Kashmir makes him royalty (even though in pretense after 1971) - and no, you cannot take a historical title away from him. In the same way you cannot take away the fact that King Constantine II of Greece is still considered the titular (in-pretense) king of Greece. Heritage, titles, coat of arms, etc are all historically relevant to a person's entry and therefore has a place in Wikipedia. A simple disclaimer that the principality has acceded or titles were abolished is enough to circumvent any confusion a layman may have. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vbsin (talk • contribs) 11:07, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry he is not a royal today, just an ordinary Indian octogenarian who miraculously still has black hair. Other ordinary Indian octogenarians usually have white hair or no hair, except of course for the occasional Indian-Scottish octogenarians who have orange hair. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:22, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Better source request for File:Hunting party mandalay1885.jpg

Thanks for your upload to Wikipedia:

• File:Hunting party mandalay1885.jpg

You provided a source, but it is difficult for other users to examine the copyright status of the image because the source is incomplete. Please consider clarifying the exact source so that the copyright status may be checked more easily. It is best to specify the exact Web page where you found the image, rather than only giving the source domain or the URL of the image file itself. Please update the image description with a URL that will be more helpful to other users in determining the copyright status.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their source in a complete manner. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page or me at my talk page. Thank you. Message delivered by Theo's Little Bot (opt-out) 21:10, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Possibly unfree File:Chikkadevaraja.jpg

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Chikkadevaraja.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree files because its copyright status is unclear or disputed. If the file's copyright status cannot be verified, it may be deleted. You may find more information on the file description page. You are welcome to add comments to its entry at the discussion if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 18:51, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

INCOTM

Hi, you are receiving this message because your name is listed at Wikipedia:INCOTM/Members, where people indicate their interest in the India Project Collaboration of the Month (INCOTM).

INCOTM is restarting and you are welcome to nominate articles for collaborative improvement during July 2013. - Sitush (talk) 12:12, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Rice Gazeteer map for Mysore city

Dear Fowler&Fowler: I just saw your reply to my earlier request for a scanned copy of the map of Mysore city in the 1800s from Rice's Gazeteer. My apologies for having missed your message (I just hadn't signed in for a while). What is the most convenient way for you to send me the map? Should I send you an email address? Ardhajya (talk) 19:42, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I'm still on the road. Back in mid July. Please leave a note here then. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:08, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Request for contribution

Please see this article. It contains a lot of propaganda needing correction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.226.242.202 (talk) 03:08, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Scanned map of Mysore city from Rice

Dear F&F... just a reminder regarding my earlier request for a copy of the map of Mysore city from Rice. Thanks. Ardhajya (talk) 00:29, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for August 11

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Shalwar kameez, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Kalash (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 12:36, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

DYK hook is too obscure

It was not the original hook, I changed it as I was told I was being sensationalist with the first one. I was looking for something interesting but not over sensationalist hence the new one. It is a bit crap I know. Darkness Shines (talk) 22:34, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

No probs. Now I understand. Why don't you make it: DYK ... Anti-Muslim violence in India has rarely occurred in South India? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:10, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Priyadarshini Raje Scindia

Priyadarshini Raje Scindia has already been to AfD and failed there, despite my best efforts. It may work again because some of those involved in the last discussion are now persona non grata but, in any event, the CSD tag needs to be removed and I've done that thing. Good to see you back, btw. - Sitush (talk) 11:54, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Sitush for fixing it. Glad to be back. Hope all is well with you. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:12, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Your definition of notability

There seems to be something wrong with you definition of notability, of content that should be part of an article. I havn't been active recently much. So maybe there is some overall change in Wiki itself which i am not aware of. Since when have we started removing information of spouses and children from biographies? Since when have we started removing mentions of Presidentship of an association, which actually has a blue link? §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 12:03, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

How many presidents have there been of that association? What about secretaries? What about junior-under-secretaries? When does one stop mentioning the nonsense? One or even two references in today's non-stop kumbh mela of Indian newspaper stories do not constitute encyclopedicity. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:11, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Would inclusion depend on the quantity of the former or later presidents? And why is it nonsense? Politics and cricket aren't unrelated in India. I will assume in good faith here that you aren't much aware of the link. For starters try this: Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association poll brings different fractions of Congress together. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 12:30, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Not to worry, I'm not taking content out, but rearranging it in descending order of importance. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:11, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Fine! Strangely your first reply kinda confirmed my belief that you were deleting the content. Will wait till you finish your rearrangements. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 14:58, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Done. Nothing has been taken out. It it more balanced with both the good and the bad. Many more references have been added. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:57, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Expect maybe the spouse and children. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 09:22, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Spouse and children not notable. Not a facebook page. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 09:48, 17 August 2013 (UTC) PS I was wrong. Nonnotable wife and kids mentioned in Infobox. More than enough. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 09:52, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

August 2013

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia may have broken the syntax by modifying 2 "[]"s and 2 "{}"s likely mistaking one for another. If you have, don't worry, just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

• nytimes.com/2012/11/05/the-princelings-of-indias-congress-party}}</ref> Scindia was tasked by the [[Planning Commision (India)|Indian Planning Commission}} with preventing a repetition of the power grid collapse of July 2012, which according to Commision

Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 16:18, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Nijjar

Regarding this removal, I queried the credentials of Nijjar during your absence. There is a thread about it somewhere on WT:INB - I'll try to find a link later. I had always been suspicious of him and have no idea if I added that info to the article following the INB query, but he did seem to be a genuine academic. Which, of course, does not stop him from writing a poor book. - Sitush (talk) 16:43, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Yeah. Atlantic Publishers, in Delhi, seem to either publish books whose copyright they think has expired (they simply make facsimile reprints of all pages except the copyright page, on which they write their own updated bogus stuff) or books by relatively obscure authors who are not subjected to any rigorous peer review. The Nijjar book uses expressions such as "Indo-Pak stock." That made me suspicious right away. The Scythian migration myth gets a lot of mileage in Rajasthan and Punjab, where many are still attracted to the idea of a Central Asian origin. Will look for more reliable stuff, but as far as I can tell from the modern historians (Andre Wink at UW-Madison is an expert), Jats are native to the lowlands of Sind and there is no mention of them in the sparse Indian historical record before the early medieval era (i.e. seventh century CE). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:18, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

I'll do some more digging. I was having to take a lot of what was said first time round in good faith but I've managed to expand my technical horizons slightly since then via proxies to the US Gbooks etc. I did wonder a couple of days ago whether our recently blocked friend might in fact be the same person but it is much more probably a coincidence. - Sitush (talk) 08:48, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

BSN was apparently P.E.S.(I), M.A., Ph.D. (History), M.A., M.O.L. (Persian) M.A. (Punjabi), Addl. Director, Punjab State Archives, Patiala, Member of the Indian Historical Records Commission - Sitush (talk) 09:02, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Unreadable

Hi. I notice you recent edits at Mahatma Gandhi article with umpteen tags has made the article completely unreadable.Please update the article or remove those tags. RouLong (talk) 15:00, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I've replied to your irrelevant post at talk:Gandhi. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:33, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Gandhi

Sorry I did not notice the in use template. I tried to address a few of your tags by changing prose, and in some instances, by deletion of tagged sentences. Please follow up. --Dwaipayan (talk) 22:44, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

That's all right. Something has come up, so I'm flat out of time for a couple of days. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:05, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for August 25

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited India, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Chambal (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 11:07, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Reply back

At Talk:India. Bladesmulti (talk) 12:59, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Edit warring in Partition of India

Hi. I really appreciate your edits on articles related to the Indian subcontinent but I must say that you're undermining others' efforts by removing large portions of referenced text. You can add whatever you like, with proper citations and make changes related to images but please gain on consensus on the removal of large portions of well-referenced text, and not edit like a professor striking out undergraduate work. Thanks.--Crème3.14159 (talk) 23:21, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not only beholden to referenced text, also to relevant and accurate text. The text you have added is outside the scope of this article. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:46, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi. I only added a few sentences to the article. Most of the material on Delhi and minorities was already there. If you dislike Delhi or minorities, please turn a blind eye when you see those sections. I have absolutely no problem with your other edits (like image changes, rephrasing, corrections etc), but only with your removal of entire sections with substantial referenced material. I really wish to keep all your edits except for the removal of sections you performed but find it very difficult to do so. If you could do all other edits except the removal of significant volume of text, it will be perfectly fine and we can discuss why we need to remove the sections you dislike.--Crème3.14159 (talk) 05:28, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

And no, I do not buy the argument that the partition of India has nothing to do with minorities because majority-minority concept is the whole idea behind it. Also, Delhi was the city that received the largest number of refugees and had its population double within a few years as a result, making it pertinent to the article.--Crème3.14159 (talk) 05:43, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for September 1

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that you've added some links pointing to disambiguation pages. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

Mahatma Gandhi (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added links pointing to Natal and Verulam

Company rule in India (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added a link pointing to Treaty of Bassein

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 14:23, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Buddhism in Pakistan

Hi. I was wondering if you could contribute something to the article on Buddhism in Pakistan. --Crème3.14159 (talk) 03:09, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

I have no interest. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:44, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Re: Upinder Singh

You know the funniest/worst bit about mistaking Singh's gender? This edit, I made in April, 2009. I blame age-related cognitive decline!

That aside: would you know of a good source for the 60-70KYA arrival estimate; I could pull one up by googling, but if you know of a good source (ie, not merely RS), that would be preferable (no hurry though). Anyway, glad to see you still active on the project and the India page. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 19:56, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

I was about to post on your talk page. Welcome back! You've been away too long. Hope you'll stick around (even if with an occasional edit; yes, I find I have less and less time as well). You anticipated also what I've been up to in the last few minutes. I've been reading a good up to date source. Will post on Talk India soon. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:42, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for September 8

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Mahatma Gandhi, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Muslim League (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 10:47, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Twenty-sixth Amendment to the Constitution of India

Go crazy. Abecedare (talk) 06:43, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I had compiled a similar list of references which, cited to a pro forma sentence, I slapped on a number of princely articles: Saif Ali Khan, Karan Singh, Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia, but yours is much better. I don't know if mine are even there any more in those articles. Let me know when the page is ready. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:54, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

1. See edit summary. :)
2. You (and your page-watchers) are invited to edit the page. Once it is in half-decent state, we can move it to mainspace. Abecedare (talk) 17:52, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Haha. And you are worrying about age-related cognitive decline. The art of memory some wise man said is no less the art of forgetting that that of remembering. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:04, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

STOP BULLYING and disruption

F&F, Not sure what your agenda is on the WP pages. You have been acting nothing short of bullying people into following your line of thought . You have been following me into topics you never had remote interest only with an intention of causing disruption. However you get off, Please stop this nonsense. STOP treating WP as your personal blog. You have been the most UNCIVIL editor people have encountered on WP.Neil2000 (talk) 14:09, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

• Your edit on April Fools' Day is a clear WP:COPYVIO. You have copied and pasted the text in its entirety from an eHow article on April Fools' Day. Wikipedia takes all cases of copyright violation and plagiarism seriously. Please file an WP:ANI notice against me if you think my reversal your edit was uncivil or if I have acted uncivilly to you elsewhere on Wikipedia. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:38, 14 September 2013 (UTC)
• NOTE to Neil2000 — His reverts were very much in keeping with Wikipedia's copyright policies, and were neither disruptive nor bullying. DKqwerty (talk) 21:38, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

How about now creative qwerty? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Neil2000 (talk • contribs) 17:56, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Quick Question

In your comment on the April Fools' Day talk page, you stated, "...cut and pasted in its entirety from a blocked eHow link to an article...". You're obviously 100% regarding the content issue, but I'm curious: what exactly did you mean by "blocked...link"? Did you simply mean eHow is considered "unreliable"? Thanks for any clarification! DKqwerty (talk) 21:38, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

When I tried to save my original post, which had the details of the eHow article, author, and url," in cite web format, I was surprised to read a message at the top of the page which said that the link to the article was a "blocked link" and could not be included, or words to that effect. You could try saving, {{cite web|url=http://www.ehow.com/info_8348471_origin-april-fool-jokes.html| author= Laura Jean Holton|title=What is the origin of April Fools' Jokes?|publisher=eHow|accessdate=14 September 2013}} and see if you get the same message. It is possible I made some other mistake. I must say I'm a little puzzled. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:00, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Butting in: I think the edit-notice appears because ehow.com is on this Spam Blacklist as a site that doesn't meet wikipedia's content policies and is often used to spam wikipedia. you can see the original 2008 discussion that led to being added to the list here. Abecedare (talk) 22:21, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Okay, so I tried adding the article as you cited to my Sandbox and the edit went through. However, in attempting to re-add it to the April Fools' Day article, it was indeed blocked, stating:

Your edit was not saved because it contains a new external link to a site registered on Wikipedia's blacklist.

• To save your changes now, you must go back and remove the blocked link (shown below), and then save.

• Note that if you used a redirection link or URL shortener, you may still be able to save your changes by using the direct, non-shortened link - you generally obtain the non-shortened link by following the link, and copying the contents of the address bar of your web-browser after the page has loaded.

• If you feel the link is needed, you can:

• Request that the entire website be allowed, that is, removed from the local or global spam blacklists (check both lists to see which one is affecting you).
• Request that just the specific page be allowed, without unblocking the whole website, by asking on the spam whitelist talk page.

Blacklisting indicates past problems with the link, so any requests should clearly demonstrate how inclusion would benefit Wikipedia.

• The following link has triggered a protection filter: ehow.com

Either that exact link, or a portion of it (typically the root domain name) is currently blocked.

Apparently the link has to be added to article space in order to trigger the filter. Neil2000 is adding the eHow content from mirror infoplease.com, which is how (s)he managed to get the ref into the article. Anyways, hopefully we're both clear on the "blocked link" issue now! DKqwerty (talk) 22:34, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Abecedare and DKqwerty, for clearing up my confusion! There's a lot going on behind the scenes on Wikipedia. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:50, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

September 2013

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to V. S. Naipaul may have broken the syntax by modifying 2 "()"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

• 2013|year=1993|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-864339-5}} Quote: ''vidiādhar'' ([[Hindi]] "possessed of learning," (p. 921) from ''vidyā'' ([[Sanskrit]] "knowledge, learning," p.
• learning," p. 921) + ''dhar'' ([[Sanskrit]] "holding, supporting," p. 524); ''sūrajprasād'' (form ''sūraj'' ([[Hindi]] "sun," p. 1036) + ''prasād'' ([[Sanskrit]] "gift, boon, blessing," p. 666)

Thanks, BracketBot (talk) 00:11, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Re: Unencylopedic picture

Namaste, Fowler&fowler. You have got at least one new message at the Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics. Please continue the discussion there!
Message added by Tito☸Dutta 19:46, 16 September 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time.

UNESCO sites

Any particular reason you consider Nizamuddin and Qutb complex to be under ND? They were both outside Lutyens' plan and are currently also outside the NDMC territory. cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 19:07, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Have already removed.  :) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:11, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I see that I jumped the gun, the article was in a real mess and I'd not have noticed it if not for the questions posed on the talk page by an editor who came by to copy edit the eyesore. BTW, there's also Lutyens' Delhi which in its current form I think just needs to be merged to the history section, but I'm not aware of the literature surrounding it so perhaps it could be significantly expanded? cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 19:16, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Gandhi

Hi, I see you've been working on the Gandhi article and "rereading his biography". Would you be interested in helping get it up to GA status?♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:21, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi there. I thought it already was a GA. Hmm. I think I might not be able to get around to working on Gandhi for a while yet. I'm also working on V. S. Naipaul and, as usual, I keep getting distracted by this and that! I should probably post on the Gandhi talk page. Let me mull it over, and I'll soon post there. Thanks! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:28, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Mmm, I see it is, I was using Cologne Blue that's why.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:34, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

An FA push for Gandhi is a good idea. If I recall correctly, fowler was on one of his many vacations :) when it came up for FA review a few years ago and though I did try to save it, I'm no fowler! --regentspark (comment) 13:10, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Haha. First, thanks for the compliment. As for vacations, I do go away for a few months every year, but often my vacations are ordered or self-enforced, taken either because the boss (and I have only one boss, the one in the house) has told me to lay off Wikipedia or because I find myself dropping the ball in RL. I came close yesterday to taking another vacation: I was working on some WP-related thing and forgot that our feistiest cat had a vet's appointment. I ran to the garage to get the cat carrier, but she in the meantime, having divined that something unpleasant was amiss, ran way upstairs and parked herself in the loft. After I couldn't dislodge her, I had to call in the boss, who in one sweep of her hand not only grabbed the snarling kitty by the scruff, but also dumped her into the carrier. I then got a hollering for being both tardy and wussy. (The boss, btw, has higher standards of un-wussiness: she once smacked with her open palm a hawk who had swooped down to grab a rabbit in our front yard; it was a big hawk too and all this happened before the rest of us could figure out what the noise was all about.) Anyway, back to the topic, both Gandhi, the Mahatma, and Netaji Bose are problematic articles, with legions of POV-pushers coming through. On Bose, I think we have finally managed to establish that he is dead (and not aged 116, living in Manchuria preparing for his final march on Delhi). Maybe the best thing is to edit in bits and pieces, fits and starts, here and there, unobtrusively. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:14, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Colonial India

The list of schools is really good and you should formalize it. Perhaps organizing it along the lines of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh. But, that leaves us with the same question. What do we call it? it. The entity that now consists of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh was "India" before 1947. But, I suppose, a List of schools in India pre-1947 would be misunderstood by the average reader who likely doesn't know that these three countries were all a part of something that was called "India" though that India was not a nation state. One option is to break the list into three separate lists, one each for India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (my preferred option). Another option is to just go with the list of schools in India pre-1947 and let the reader figure out that that 'past' India is not the same as the 'now' India. A third option is the 'British India' tag but that carries too much baggage (Burma? Princely states)? Or we could stick to the "colonial" tag but that drags French and Portuguese territories into the picture and I'm not sure I like that identification anyway. What do you think? --regentspark (comment) 13:08, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the part I'm not trying to worry about too much, for now that is. Not only are there the issues you point out, but people will justifiably ask, why stop at 1900? I first thought I'd go until 1919 or 1920, those, respectively, being the years of the Montague-Chelmsford reforms (after which I get the sense the British in their heart of hearts gave up on India) and Gandhi's non-cooperation movement (which saw an sudden increase in "nationalist schools"). But I soon realized there were just too many schools! I'm hoping that the Company years 1765–1857 alone might turn up enough schools that they'd make a separate list: ie. there will need to be multiple lists (if they are to be intelligible to a person with the high IQ of an average Wikipedia reader). Certainly "List of schools in India under Company rule" should work. Anyway, my bigger problem in the immediate future will be verifying the accuracy of the claims etc. But here I discovered a neat little trick of primary source research. Q: How do you find more schools from the period, say, 1800 to 1857 (unlisted as yet on WP) and how do you check the claims of those already listed? A: Examine the results of the Calcutta university "Entrance exams" from 1869! I also have those of Madras and Bombay universities which will yield another crop of school names. (Check out, btw, the Entrance exam questions: they make a strong case that the standards are falling ...) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:34, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

How about using using "Indian subcontinent" in the title ? As with all related terms, the exact boundaries are a bit nebulous, but at least it is more easily seen as a geographic entity rather than a political or cultural one. Abecedare (talk) 17:56, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

That's a good idea. Indian subcontinent, with dates, would take care of most issues. --regentspark (comment) 18:23, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Completely unrelated to Wiki but if you are digging through ancient results lists etc then keep an eye for people called Bainbridge. Don't go out of your way but please do let me know if you happen upon any. Archive.org cannot easily be searched - the ocr mechanism is not great - but I'm struggling to find my ancestors, some of whom were born in Bangalore but were Brits. I've tried some of the India Lists but I'm not even sure that I caught all of those when I looked. And, hey, my lot are pretty exotic: the other limb travels back to German Moravian missionaries who were slave-owners in the West Indies. It is a shocking past that I have and my life will not be long enough to atone for all that my colonial forebears did. - Sitush (talk) 13:48, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

What years for Bainbridge? I see various Bainbridges including one who married in Bangalore: "May 20, 1865: At Bangalore, Capt. Bainbridge, 21st Fusliers, eldest son of Edward Thomas Bainbridge, esq., Sussex-place, Regent's-park, to Elizabeth Amy, only child of the late Chas. Searle, esq., Madras Army, and stepdau. of Lieut.-Colonel Falls, R.H.A. Bellary." And what years and islands in the WIs? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:55, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Last bit first. John Nicholas Ganson is recorded in the 1817 Barbados slave register. He was b. 29 Jul 1744 in Gross Ottersleben, near Magdeburg but although there is a headstone for him just up the road from me in England, it seems possible that he died 5 March 1820 in Qom (that is some trip to make at ca. 73, from Barbados to Persia, but the Moravians did attempt missionary work there also, along with Greenland, the US etc). His son, John Emmanuel, was born in 1801 in Antigua. JNG is also recorded as Johann Niklas/Niklaus/Nikolaus Ganson and there are a few snippets of his letters in print (eg: [2] and [3]). I'm reading up a lot about the Moravians at present and will be taking a stab at improving our various articles concerning them.

I'll get back to you about Bainbridge - the info is on my fileserver and I'm doing some maintenance on that at the mo. - Sitush (talk) 17:21, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, I'm reminded of "From Greenland's icy mountains, From India's coral strand, ... (not so popular now). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:41, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Speaking of unrelated things, here is something else I noticed in 1867 Calcutta University Entrance Exam Results. It is often said (and I believe I have been even told this by friends from West Bengal) that the modern-day Bengali names: Bannerjee, Bose, Chatterjee, Chowdhry, Chuckerbutty (rarely used now), Mukherjee, Mullick, Roy/Ray were adopted by Indians as a response to some kind of pressure, direct or indirect from the British, even that it was akin to a sort of Ellis Island conversion (eg Johann Fraulich Fröhlich --> John Gay). But notice the names in the list: they are all rendered in their Bengali/Sanskritic form: Bandyopádhyáy, Basu, Chattopádhyáy, Chaudhuri, Chakravarti, Mukopádhyáy, Mallik (even distinguishing it from the Muslim "Málik") and Ráy (where, á is the a in "father") The anglicized renderings are nowhere to be found. Also, the first names are spelled in the fashion they are in Sanskrit,, as one name (e.g. Kártikchandra) not two (Kartik Chandra, or even Kartik Chunder). I guess, I'm puzzed: if in 1867, after 110 years of English presence in Bengal, the British, on paper at least, were not using them, rather taking pains to add accent marks for pronunciation, how and when did it start and who was responsible for it? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:46, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Not sure if it is still the case but, until recently, Calcutta University would use the literary name regardless of what a person's actual name was. Anil Chatterjee's diploma would be in the name of Anil Chattopadhyay even if his passport said "Chatterjee". Causes on end of trouble! Dwai or Tito can probably tell us what the current state of things is (I'm sure they lurk here - if they don't, they should!) --regentspark (comment) 21:05, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

OK, will await their input. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:41, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

You are right RP. See here, where in the same publication, the names are all anglicized. Perhaps, the literary names of the scholars was remnant of some British custom (say, of having Latin names in formal lists) akin to American degrees in which the full name: first middle and last are included. I learned something. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:00, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

This isn't restricted to Calcutta University, I think other universities in the area follow it too (Presidency, Jadhavpur et al) and the practice has followed at least as recent as the 1990s. I know of a Mukherjee brother-sister pair who went to U of C and JU and ended up becoming Mukhopadhaya and Mukhopadhyay despite their birth certificates carrying the anglicized version. Their passports (issued after undergrad) carry the two different literary spellings as they just found it easier to have their passport and degree certificate in one name for visa purposes. —SpacemanSpiff 13:53, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

That's interesting. It's true that the British had the most well-established presence in Bengal. They were in Madras earlier, though not really in any extensive way until the 1780s. Still, why did so many more Bangali names get anglicized than, say, Tamil? Many of British India's famous Indian civil servants were from the South. Why did they not change their names? (Well, a few did to Sami or Sammy, and there was Chandrasekhara Venkataraman ---> CV Raman, but still ... it didn't seem as drastic as Thakur ---> Tagore, or Thakur ---> Thacker) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:51, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

The next time I want to start a flame war between pragmatic/compliant Bengalis and rigid/principled Tamils, I know what question to ask. :) Abecedare (talk) 14:57, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

:) I'm glad this is not 2007. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:33, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I'd probably wager that the reason for this is the names of the groups joining the services of the Company / British -- e.g. in Madras it was primarily people with names Aiyyar (which probably got anglicized to Iyer), Ayyangar (Iyengar), Pillai -- all of them short enough and easy enough unlike the Bengali names which were far more difficult. —SpacemanSpiff 19:57, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, I checked the list of successful candidates for its entrance exams (1858). Not too many Aiyer etc. But here are some names: S. Annasawmy, Authemoolum, C Balajee Row, C. Cundaswmy, C. Etherajooloo, T. Gopaul Row, V. Rajahgopaul, W.T. Satthianathan Pillay, G. P. Savundranayagum, T. Shreenevassa Charry, C. Sivasunkeran, N. Soobramanyan, S. Soomasoondrum, etc. Strangely, not a single Aiyer, Aiyengar. Although some names sound anglicized, they are not really; the spelling is just an artifact of the pre-Hunterian transliteration of Indian languages. It is phonetically no more problematic than the current official (Hunterian transliteration). As for C and K, I've never understood what the difference is (other than the occasional confusion of C as in "Cecil," but then K has its "know") and why it is preferred these days. Why did they choose "Kolkota" and not "Colcota." Phonetically, "Cohlcohtah" might be most accurate. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:02, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Of all the names you have up there very few have their last names -- Row (Rao) and Pillay (Pillai) are the only ones I see -- Tamil/Telugu/Kannada/Malayalam names typically follow the pattern of [Place of origin]_[Patronymic]_[Given name]_[Caste name / Caste title]. In many cases people dropped the caste name/title in the 19th century -- I know that two of my four great grandfathers didn't carry it, so their given name ended up being the last name, but then it didn't continue as the family last name as it became the patronymic for one of my grandfathers and the patronymic for one of my grandmothers; as far as I've been able to figure out, those lines of the family dropped the caste title at least two generations earlier; the evolution of names in the south did not stop there -- the next generation started dropping the place name from the head of their name and the next generation decided to use their given name as their given name rather than as their last name e.g. if you see the ancestry of Anirudha Srikkanth you'll notice this evolution. Based on your list and the fact that there wasn't a propensity to use their last names in the south (in the list you provided above I can count at least two Iyers and two Iyengars and probably a couple of Mudaliars and Naidus) they seldom got modified to an extent as great as in the Bengal Presidency. (Of course all this is hobbyist OR and does not belong in an encyclopaedia, but hey, this is a user talk page). BTW, were there really that many variations for the spelling of even something as short as "swamy" in those records? cheers. —SpacemanSpiff 18:14, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

As you will see here, producing a credible, and reliably sourced, school list for India will not be easy! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:54, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

• The issue was partially touched here (first issue). I asked a question, I want to learn its answer. What I feel, and until the question is answered, India was always India, from the time when Greeks named the country India (I provided few refs there), "British India" or "Indian subcontinent" are not required. BTW, can you provide few example articles you are talking about? --Tito☸Dutta 16:32, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

No, I didn't mean the British India part; that term is fairly clearly defined in the page British India-->Presidencies and provinces of British India. I agree with you that the British Indian Empire (British India + Princely States) was commonly just called "India." (See lead of British Raj.) In fact, the "India" that was a founding member of the UN in 1945 was not the "Republic of India," (which didn't exist), but the India that was (ROI+Pakistan+Bangladesh). Yes, the editors who work on Pakistan- or Bangladesh-related pages are understandably sensitive to the use of "India" (since it is usually mistaken for present-day India). Conversely, not so much now, but certainly a few years ago, editors working on India-related pages tended to remove "Pakistan" if the page was related to anything before 1947. For example Mehrgarh a neolithic site in Pakistan, which was discovered in 1974 by a team of French archaeologists, and dated to 7000 BC is "a neolithic site in Pakistan," not a neolithic site in "what today is Pakistan" or "present-day Pakistan." In 7000 BC there was no India either. So you certainly can say it "was a neolithic village in India," which some India editors wanted to put in. Actually, here your input was wanted about the Bengali names and why in Calcutta University they were appearing in their Sanskritized form. (See middle of discussion upstairs, "Speaking of unrelated things ...." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:50, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

• Oh, who told Chattopadhyay, Bandyopadhyaya, Mukopadhyay etc are Bengali/Sanskritic form and not Chatterjee, Banerjee, Mukherjee? All these surnames origin from Upadhyay i.e. Mukh+Upadhyay=Mukhopadhyay etc (note Upadhyay at the end of every surname)? These surnames have alternative/shorter forms Chatterjee, Banerjee, Mukherjee. Compare it with English name William and Bill or Jennifer and Jenny. I do not know about any British pressure, but Kotha hote ashiachho, Bengali book, does not mention anything about these. "Pressure" is a wrong word, if you say "influence of European culture", that might be. --Tito☸Dutta 17:17, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

• And, the surnames Bandopadhyay, Mukhopadhyay etc are considered more formal an traditional and used in official works. Note, Paran Banerjee and Paran Bandopadhyay both are acceptable names and widely used, but, I created article with the tile Paran Bandopadhyay. Tito☸Dutta 17:22, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. That was very helpful. So, I'm guessing you are saying that the shorter form in Bengali was first "Chatto-jee" or "Mukho-jee or "Bandho-jee," and the spellings got anglicized at some point. By the way, the British were notorious for changing many "ah" or "oh" sounds to "er" (as in the old joke Siraj-ud-daula --> Sir Roger Dowler). Yes, "pressure" is not the best word. What I was trying to get at was that sometimes there is subtle influence in the form of other people mispronouncing or changing a name. Here in the US, I can think of a Russian immigrant, whose name was "Vladimir," pronounced beautifully with stress on the second syllable. But his colleagues at work, who had difficulty pronouncing it in the way he did, began to call him Vlad. After a few years his name became Vlad. I'm one of the few people who still call him by his old name. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:58, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

No, most probably the suffix "arji/arjee" was the key here. There are some fine books on this subject, unfortunately there is not anything online or in my collection. The book Kotha hote aashiyachho, the book I just referred means "From where you have come?", a classic book, though not very popular (who reads books on these subjects?). The European influence (specially the British influence) was undeniably present in Bengal. For example the surname of Rabindranath Tagore, the original surname is Thakur, and we call him Rabindranath Thakur. Bangladeshi writer Muhammed Zafar Iqbal told a wonderful point, generally proper nouns are not translated or changed, Shakespeare is Shakespeare every where, so how does Thakur becomes Tagore? Tito☸Dutta 18:31, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, that's unfortunately what a dominant culture does. It has been happening for a long time. The English themselves changed names. The Old English, "Grontabricc," the "bridge of the Gronta," became Cambridge after the Norman invasion ca. 11th century. Old English, itself was imposed on the Celtic people after the Anglo-Saxon or Germanic invasion ca. 6th century. "Gronta" was the Celtic river name. It is happening in India today. Hindi has imposed the new dominant linguistic culture. Anyway, thanks for your replies. I'll ask some linguist friends of mine. Will keep you posted. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:48, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I have not read all the comments really. I don't have any idea how the short forms (Chatterjee, Mukherjee etc) came into being. I really doubt they were present before Colonial rule. Most likely they were changed due to the need of the day during British rule. But I have no reading in this aspect. Calcutta University used to stick to the longer forms even 7 years ago, don't know if they have changed the policy now. --Dwaipayan (talk) 01:17, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Listing of schools by age

Actually, a lot of lists make it so you can sort by multiple traits of the institution. So there is no rule that the order of the list needs to be sourced to anything, only that its contents need to be sourced.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:28, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for replying (and very clearly too!) Good to have that information. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:57, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for September 28

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that you've added some links pointing to disambiguation pages. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

F.P. Wilson (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added links pointing to Trinity College, Home Guard, Thomas Dekker and Bedford College

V. S. Naipaul (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

added a link pointing to Viva voce

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 12:02, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Partition of India

Hi, Fowler&fowler. Here you said "take to talk page if you like", so here are two questions. First, the file Divisions of India and Pakistan, 1950.jpg (which seems to me badly named) shows "The Part A, Part B, and Part C States of India, as confirmed in the Constitution of India (1950)". So far as I am aware it does not show "India and Pakistan as envisaged in the Partition Plan 1947" – we need only look at what it shows for Kashmir. The map was not created to show anything to do with a partition plan, so should we not agree on removing it, rather than disagreeing about the caption? On the boundary between India and Pakistan what it shows is simply what would be shown by any map of India from the 1950s or later. On another point, we have an article called Violence against women during the partition of India, while Rape during the partition of India is a redirect to it. You have reverted my change to display the word "Rape" rather than "Violence", and I do not have a terribly strong view on it, but I should have thought linking to the actual page title is the most neutral approach? Regards, Moonraker (talk) 00:17, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the 1950 map is not the best, but it is better than any other public domain maps I have been able to find. It at least shows East and West Pakistan. Modern maps show, Bangladesh, which are likely to confuse a new reader. I did consider the UN South Asia map, File:South Asia UN.png, may have even stuck it in there for a few days, but it has too much information. I'm not sure I understand your remarks about Kashmir, because the map explicitly leaves it out of both India and Pakistan, but I agree that this map is India-centered. To be honest, although I had originally uploaded it from my book, it was deleted because it wasn't in the public domain, having been made by the well-known map makers in Edinburgh, whose name I'm forgetting. But someone, it seems photoshopped it and put it back. I doubt it will survive renewed scrutiny, but I have put it there until I can find the time to trace it, using software I have, into a more neutral map. Meanwhile, give me a day or two, I'm going to look at some old papers, with maps, which might have now entered the public domain in South Asia, which they hadn't when I first worked on the articles. As the violence or rape stuff, if I changed it, it was likely inadvertently. I don't believe the article should contain too much of that, because each side has its own story of woes, and if you allow one story you have before long a million. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:14, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Haha, didn't take long. I found a map from 1947, which is much better. I'll have to figure out to finagle the public domain part. Even if I can't manage the PD issue, I'll be able to trace it; it provides more and more accurate information. Thanks for posting. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:34, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

If there is no alternative to it, you may prefer to put together a Fair Use justification and upload it to en.wikipedia instead of Commons? I confess that I have never seen a contemporary map showing a "partition plan". The whole topic was an explosive one, of course, and so far as the states were concerned the British could push but they could not compel. And things moved so fast that showing the actual outcome was more useful for most purposes. Ishtiaq Ahmed notes (State, Nation and Ethnicity in Contemporary South Asia (1998), p. 99) that "On 15 August 1947 India achieved independence... The several hundred princely states which came within Indian territory could in principle remain independent but were advised by both the British government and the Congress Party to join India." In my humble opinion, the point is worth including in the intro of the Partition page, but I am not inclined to say any more about it for now. Moonraker (talk) 02:07, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Side comment: Fowler, I just read the lede of the Partition of India article, and while it is factual and arguably necessary content for the article, it does not summarize the article as one would hope. At present it is closer to a "Scope" or "Definitions" section of a paper, rather than the "Abstract" or "Introduction". Next time you work on the article, can you look into remedying that ? Abecedare (talk) 02:22, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

@Moonraker, Yup, I did just that. Here, for your viewing pleasure is File:Partition-of-India-Spate-Jan-1948.jpg. I've added it to the Partition of India page. Spate the author, was an adviser to some Muslim princely states, which joined Pakistan (I believe Bahawalpur was one). So he is pretty fair with the maps etc. As for the business about who advised whom to join what, I'd rather stay away from it. It is a can of worms. There are 500 pretenders waiting in India, whom the wide-eyed wonder-struck Indians reporters assigned on the ex-royalty beat, insist on calling His Highness Hurree Jamset Ram Singh the Nabob of Bhanipur, all 4 square miles of it. Go look at Priyadarshini Raje Scindia etc etc Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:27, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

@Abecedare I can do that, but I'm flat out of time right now. Would you like to do it? I know you to be a fair editor with long experience of working on fine articles. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:27, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I can give it a try but it may be some time before I get to it (You well know how we all tend to over-commit and wear ourselves thin across multiple articles... and then there are all those off-wiki distractions). Thankfully this is a presentation, rather than a content concern, so the reader is not being short-changed too much in the meantime. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 02:43, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Fowler&fowler. I'm just about to begin some real work but will go back to it another time. By the way, I see that that File:Partition-of-India-Spate-Jan-1948.jpg is indeed dated January 1948, but some of the princely states shown within Pakistan had not gone so far as to accede to it by that date! Perhaps the words "adhering to" were carefully chosen by the map-maker to finesse the point. The dates are given in my new page on the princely states of Pakistan. Best wishes, Moonraker (talk) 02:51, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

The Sultanate of Bengal

Hi!

Given your interest in South Asian history, I wondered if you would be interested in improving the Bengal Sultanate article. It's an important page I believe, since the eastern India during the middle ages was very much dominated, or at least overshadowed, by this state.--Bazaan (talk) 11:55, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

ANI

Hello. There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.--Fareed30 (talk) 15:31, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Wales Professor

Greetings Fowler, Since in this edit to Karma in Jainism you cited a quote of Michael Witzel, (Wales Professor of Sanskrit), I was just wondering if you can help me get some more info about the "Wales Professorship". I am interested to get the article upto GA/FL status. Kindest Regards. Solomon7968 16:02, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Sure, it is the oldest endowed chair in Sanskrit in the US, established in 1880. It was held before Witzel by Daniel H. H. Ingalls, Sr., among whose students are Wendy Doniger, Diana Eck, Sheldon Pollock and Robert Thurman (Uma's dad). Just do a Google search and plenty sources will turn up. As for Karma in Jainism, it already is a GA, but its main problem (which it shares with other Jainism related articles) is that its sources are very shabby and it is attempting to push Jain antiquity. Please see User:Fowler&fowler/Sources for Jainism for high-quality sources. In the opinion of the best-known scholars of ancient India, Jainism, like Buddhism, goes back not much further than 500 BCE. In contrast, the sources that the Jainism-articles are using are written by dubious scholars, many of whom are Jains, some even retired dentists, published by little-know back alley publishers. I doubt that any of those biased interpretations will make it through an FAC run. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:12, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

POV in Partition of India

Hi, Fowler&fowler. Your edits present a point-of-view characteristic of Pakistani Muslim nationalists. For instance, you are repeatedly removing all references to Two-nation theory and calling Direct Action Day a day hoped by Muslim League to be peaceful when it is a well-established fact that it was designed to be a violent and in Jinnah's words "unconstitutional" "war". Margaret Bourke-White was a witness to Jinnah's speeches and she, along with hundreds of other writers, does not take that "peaceful" demonstration. --Bookishness (talk) 02:17, 2 October 2013 (UTC)