Talk:Herbert Hope Risley/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: MathewTownsend (talk · contribs) 21:30, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll start this review soon. MathewTownsend (talk) 21:30, 13 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

GA review-see WP:WIAGA for criteria (and here for what they are not)

Is it reasonably well written?
A. Prose: clear and concise, correct spelling and grammar:
I've made some edits, mostly to clarify prose; please check to see that I've not introduced error.[1]

B. Complies with MoS for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:
"His academic successes at Winchester were not repeated at Oxford," - I don't understand this sentence, nor how it impacted his life.
Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
A. Provides references to all sources:

B. Provides in-line citations from reliable sources where necessary:

C. No original research:
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. Main aspects are addressed:

B. Remains focused:
Does it follow the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
Is it stable?
No edit wars, etc:
Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:
Overall:
Pass or Fail:
Just a small quibble about prose, noted above. Once you respond it's a pass. An extremely interesting article and I can see more that needs to be written on the subject. MathewTownsend (talk) 18:16, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nominator responses:

Thanks for reviewing and, yes, if you look around then you will see that I have been working on and off at various related articles, eg: his British Raj ethnographer colleagues, predecessors and successors.

I have made a few minor tweaks - see this
I have adjusted the phrasing of the paragraph, a sentence of which you refer to in your review - see here. Somewhere I have seen a comment that the guy did not do as well as expected at New College because he passed the ICS exams & therefore already had a job to go to even before graduating. I lost the source but hope to find it again.
I am slightly disappointed with a part of your edit here. The quote of Lloyd Rudolph as I presented it showed that Risley was "on a mission", so to speak, with regard to caste classification. Adjusting the quote as you have rather loses the impact, IMO. Does this make sense to you?
I thought that links within quotations fell foul of WP:MOSQUOTE, which was why I avoided them.

That is pretty much it. I am grateful for your numerous tweaks to the dreaded dashes etc and for polishing the prose. - Sitush (talk) 19:20, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

reply

What part of that edit do you object to. Is it taking out the "meant to"? If so, feel free to return your wording. Likewise, "also remembered" is not a big deal. If it's "resuscitation", it just doesn't seem to fit. Was it near death? The word seems novelistic and not encyclopedic.
As far as introducing a link inside a quote, I agree and didn't intentionally do so. (In fact, I can't find where I did so.) There was an edit by another editor which may have put a link in a quote. The only other explanation I have is that the article uses quotes in a less that optimal way, and it places it is confusing what is a quote and what isn't without intense scrutiny that shouldn't be expected of a reader. Some longish quotes are not blockquotes, and in at least one place you combine quotes in a way that's not clear. An example is this paragraph (this needs to be fixed):

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography notes that during his time in India "... [Risley] cultivated an intimate knowledge of the peoples of India. In 1910 he asserted that a knowledge of facts concerning the religions and habits of the peoples of India equipped a civil servant with a passport to popular regard". Furthermore, that "On the processes by which non-Aryan tribes are admitted into Hinduism he was recognized to be the greatest living authority", and "His work completely revolutionized the native Indian view of ethnological inquiry" by legitimising an inquisitive methodology which had previously been resented by the colonial subjects

Am I making any sense here? MathewTownsend (talk) 20:20, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
p.s. I think when you mention people, you should briefly explain who they are. e.g. historian Thomas Trautmann etc. I spent some time trying to figure some of the names out - one was called a political scientist in an article about him, but seemed to be more of a historian or anthropologist or something as used in this article. Even if the name has a link, readers shouldn't have to follow it to know the framework in which we are to consider this person's opinion. I did link a few people in the article, just to find out who they were. Maybe one of those was in a quote? MathewTownsend (talk) 20:34, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think that I have addressed all of the points above, & I have reinstated "meant to". I agree about the political scientist guy but that is what is shown on his CV etc even though it is plain from his publications that he writes in related areas also. This seems to be quite a trait wrt India, eg: Christophe Jaffrelot is also a polsci who writes a lot about socio-religious history, caste etc. My suspicion is that the polsci term is capable of being used to cover just about any area within the humanities! - Sitush (talk) 21:20, 14 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

query

I can't find the quote in the lede "meant to identify and place several hundred million Indians within it." in the source given. See page 116 at [2]. Could you specify where it's from, or am I missing it? MathewTownsend (talk) 14:51, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My mistake. It is near to the top of p. 117 but the entire sentence in the article covers content on pp. 116-117. I have adjusted the cite to be a page range. - Sitush (talk) 16:57, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

reply

Risley believed that varna, however ancient, could be applied to all the modern castes found in India, and "meant to identify and place several hundred million Indians within it." - does this mean that Risley meant to identify and place ... etc.(i.e. Risley intended to use varna to identify and place)? or does it mean that varna was meant to identify and place ...etc (i.e. that was its purpose anyway)? Sorry if I'm been dense. MathewTownsend (talk) 17:27, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A bit of both: Risley intended to use it for his own aims, but his obsession caused it to re-appear as a significant social marker. Varna is an ancient Vedic ritual ranking system that comprises four strata - brahmin, kshatriya, vaishya and shudra - and anyone who outside those four ranks is an untouchable (dalit). Many people think that the system, which is essentially a Brahmanic construct because the brahmins were the priests etc, didn't really exist outside Northern India until the Brits came along.

Risley thought that he could use varna as the top-most level of classification, and in doing so he opened a can of worms that encompasses such later developments as sanskritisation which, put crudely, is where a caste defined by the British Raj administration as being of a particular varna attempts to assert an ancient lineage to a higher varna. Most usually, the claim was to have been a kshatriya (warrior and princely) community, from which they were degraded, often allegedly when the Muslim invasions took place centuries earlier. It is a complex topic, well beyond the scope of this article and, alas, not always covered particularly well elsewhere on WP. The point is, Risley thought that he could pigeon-hole people but he started from false premises because his interpretation of the demarcation points between the ritual ranks is only one of several possible such interpretations. You are probably even more confused now - feel free to query further! - Sitush (talk) 17:47, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've clarified the quote accordingly: Rudolph definitely intends that "Risley meant". - Sitush (talk) 17:49, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

... And it seems that I have made a moderately ok job of explaining the issue at Denzil Ibbetson, an article to which I intend to return at some point. - Sitush (talk) 18:57, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

reply

Yes indeed. I appreciate so much some light being shown on this subject that has caused me concern on wikipedia. MathewTownsend (talk) 19:46, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Reevaluation after fixes

1. Well written?:

Pass

2. Factually accurate?:

Pass

3. Broad in coverage?:

Pass

4. Neutral point of view?:

Pass

5. Article stability?:

Pass

6. Images?:

Pass

Article passes GA review. MathewTownsend (talk) 19:49, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]