Wikipedia:Featured article review/Indian Standard Time/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 00:42, 19 March 2010 [1].

Indian Standard Time

Review commentary

Featured article review/Indian Standard Time/archive1

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Time, Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics, User talk:Nichalp, User talk:Ambuj.Saxena, User talk:Fowler&fowler.

FA from 2006, with a few 1c issues. Concerns about comprehensiveness of the article. Both the History and Time Zones subsections could be expanded upon significantly. Cirt (talk) 17:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The quality of the referencing is a bit worrisome. A few examples:

"Taking a day to be 24 hours, the smallest time unit, prāṇa, or one respiratory cycle, equals 4 seconds, a value consistent with the normal breathing frequency of 15 breaths/min used in modern medical research." The only cited source for this statement is a journal article about sinus arrhythmia which mentions in passing a human breathing rate of 15 breaths per minute. The source states nothing about the unit prāṇa or any correspondence with Indian units of time measurement. Wouldn't it be more central to this Wikipedia article to cite a source for the duration of the prāṇa? And for the supplementary matter of the duration of a normal breathing cycle, wouldn't a medical textbook or a study of normal breathing cycles be preferable to a study of arrhythmias?
"The Surya Siddhanta also described a method of converting local time to the standard time of Ujjain." Possibly okay, but Jstor returns a 404 error and the source is 150 years old.
"Despite these early advances, standard time was not widely used outside astronomy." Uncited? See next item.
"For most of India's history, ruling kingdoms kept their own local time, typically using the Hindu calendar in both lunar and solar units." Possibly okay, but multiple attempts at verification all gave timeout errors at the source side.
"For example, the Jantar Mantar observatory built by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh in Jaipur in 1733 contains large sundials, up to 90 ft (27 m) high, which were used to accurately determine the local time." Uncited; at end of paragraph where no later citation might apply.
"British India did not officially adopt the standard time zones until 1905, when the meridian passing east of Allahabad at 82.5° E longitude was picked as the central meridian for India, corresponding to a single time zone for the country. This came into force on 1 January 1906, and also applied to Sri Lanka (then Ceylon). However, Calcutta time was officially maintained as a separate time zone until 1948." Two problems: the cited source is a fan club (reliability = ??) and a substantial part of the unquoted paragraph is nearly an exact cut and paste from the source: British India did not adopt the standard time zones, however, until 1905 when the meridian passing through Allahabad at 82.5 degrees east longitude was picked as the central meridian for India, corresponding to a single time zone for the country at 5 hours and 30 minutes in advance of GMT. This went into force on January 1, 1906. (Also for Sri Lanka, then Ceylon.) However, Calcutta time was officially maintained as a separate time zone until 1948.[2] Shouldn't this either be disallowed per WP:RS or handled with quotation marks and ellipses?
"In 1925, time synchronisation began to be relayed through omnibus telephone systems and control circuits to organisations that needed to know the precise time. This continued until the 1940s, when time signals began to be broadcast using the radio by the government". Same fansite source and an inaccurate paraphrase. The source does not assert definitely that time synchronization began "in 1925"; it states "around 1925".
"After independence in 1947, the Indian government established IST as the official time for the whole country, although Kolkata and Mumbai retained their own local time for a few more years." Same fansite reference, contradicted by source. British India did not adopt the standard time zones, however, until 1905 when the meridian passing through Allahabad at 82.5 degrees east longitude was picked as the central meridian for India, corresponding to a single time zone for the country at 5 hours and 30 minutes in advance of GMT. This went into force on January 1, 1906. (Also for Sri Lanka, then Ceylon.) However, Calcutta time was officially maintained as a separate time zone until 1948. Bombay time was maintained, but only informally (although used for some local railway purposes too), until about 1955.[3]
"The Central observatory was moved from Chennai to a location near Mirzapur, so that it would be as close to UTC +5:30 as possible." Uncited; at end of paragraph where no later citation might apply.

It isn't often that a random sampling of four successive paragraphs from a featured article turns up so little that is actually verifiable to reliable sources. Durova⁴¹² 20:47, 20 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, it is! Several of Durova's points are easily verified as the article being in fault. There is no evidence, for example, that the prana (literally, a human breath or the breath of life) was ever used as a unit of time in India: there is however, much bovine excrement written about early Indian metrology. The article fails quickly on one very important point: what time did the railways keep under the British Raj? That is a fact which can be shown by contemporary sources that are still in existence, and yet the article hardly even addresses the question. Physchim62 (talk) 22:53, 20 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. The map needs alt text; please see WP:ALT#Maps. I checked just one fact, and found it wanting: "DST was used briefly during the Sino–Indian War of 1962 and the Indo–Pakistani Wars of 1965 and 1971". This cites "India Time Zones"., a website that (as far as I can make out) stole it from another website that borrowed this information from Wikipedia. Eubulides (talk) 23:48, 22 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment in my view after a brief look this article is probably B class. There is no information on railway time in India for example. And I don't think the lead satisfies WP:LEAD -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:42, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

PS Certainly the WP:GACR will need to be checked to make sure this article meets those criteria. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:51, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why would the article need to meet the good article criteria? What it needs to meet to be kept at FA are the featured article criteria. Dana boomer (talk) 23:25, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Because to be a featured article the article also has to meet every previous set of criteria including the Good Article criteria. Obviously if it fails the good article criteria its not going to meet the featured article criteria, and I think its pretty likely this article fails the Good Article criteria. I think it probably fails 2 and 3a (as there is no coverage of railway time) and possibly some of the Manual of Style criteria. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 23:29, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

Featured article criterion of concern are lead, citations, depth of research, comprehensiveness. YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 00:43, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delist, agree with highlighted Featured article criterion of concern, as well as above-raised issues. Cirt (talk) 00:45, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delist and bump down to B class as I raised above. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 00:57, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delist and reevaluate at B class per above. Durova⁴¹² 03:14, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delist. Nothing has happened since the beginning of the FAR, and all of the valid issues raised above still stand. Dana boomer (talk) 22:58, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.