Wikipedia:Featured article review/India/archive3

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 nomination was procedurally closed. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:52, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

India

Notified: WP:India

I am nominating this featured article for review because multiple edits on the talk page raised various concerns regarding the FA of this article. This article was made FA almost 8 years ago, back in 2011. There are multiple issues with the article:

The data on the economics section is out of date.
Edit warring.
Poor images, with captions that are not related to the section.
History data has not been updated with the latest information.
Use of FA status as a basis to resist and undermine efforts to improve and update the content.
FA became a personal project of one/few Wikipedians on the article.
Majority of the editors on the current India talk page agree, FA should be removed.
Dispute regarding realism versus airbrushing in images.
Economics data is completely wrong.
The FA is old, needs review. (Highpeaks35 (talk) 01:21, 5 January 2019 (UTC))[reply]

user:Highpeaks35 is a new, and somewhat tendentious, editor. He doesn't know what an FAR involves. Moreover, the information he has given above is false. India became an FA in 2004, has remained one since, having gone through a drastic revision during a successful FAR in 2011. There wasn't much wrong with the article (in terms of meeting the featured article criteria) until he himself began to randomly, and and prolifically, add text and images a few weeks ago. When his effort was stopped, and the article restored to its original form, in which it sits locked now, he struck upon this FAR idea, although it was being discussed on the talk page as an option if editors such as he could not be stopped. He thinks an FAR will allow him to restore his edits. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 03:24, 5 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I have no dog in this race, and just wanted to mention that the article ~~is currently~~ was under full edit protection due to edit warring. Also, just wanted to highlight the FAR requirement about criteria and remedies, to wit: Nominators must specify the featured article criteria that are at issue and should propose remedies. A statement such as "the economic data is completely wrong" is too vague to be useful, nor is a remedy proposed; other bullets suffer from the same symptoms. As this FAR was created within the hour, I assume the nominator is still gathering information to fulfill this requirement, and will be updating the request accordingly in due course. Mathglot (talk) 04:05, 5 January 2019 (UTC) updated by Mathglot (talk) 09:27, 5 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment @ OP:- Can you list out all the changes that you &/ KingZebu wish to see in the article (including but not limited to replacement of pictures); preferably at some subpage; with the reason(s) behind each change? Thanks, ∯WBG^converse 09:08, 5 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I am very sceptical of using low-scale edit-warring as a weapon to de-GA/FA a subject; given the potential for gaming the system and esp. given that you are not much innocent.
Furthermore, I don't see the claimed majority of editors; who supposedly agree about de-FAing.
Also, it's quite common to rigorously vet one's edits prior to incorporation in a FA, esp. in sensitive articles. ∯WBG^converse 09:30, 5 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I guess I am not an editor who falls in this invisible majority . This seems to be two editors crusade against consensus. Regards. — $f r +$ 10:42, 5 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
A number of the OP's comments are difficult to understand (What does "FA became a personal project of one/few Wikipedians on the article" mean?) and others are unsupported by evidence (I do not see where a majority on the talk page has supported the removal of FA status). Furthermore, opposition to FA status needs to be based on evidence-based evaluations of the article relative to the FA criteria. At the moment, I don't see an argument to remove FA status. There are a couple of areas which could use work, sure; any article gets out of date. The "Ancient India" section should acknowledge, for instance, that the Madrassian culture was not that of anatomically modern human beings; the biodiversity sections should rely on scholarly sources rather than government ones; there's a minor tendency towards recentism in the politics section, where Kovind is the only president mentioned, and in the military section, where recent budgets get undue mention; state reorganizations since 1956 probably deserve mention; the socio-economic challenges section could use some expansion, as could the culture section (although I am not an expert on literature on Indian culture, and I am not listing that point as one that needs to be addressed to retain FA status). But these are issues that could be addressed in a few days by a determined editor who knew what they were about. A persistent failure to fix these would be the only reason to revoke FA status here. Vanamonde (talk) 14:06, 5 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Vanamone93: The Madrasian bit was added recently without any discussion. I have removed it. I rewrote the history, geography, and biodiversity (all except the last paragraph with has the government sources) sections in 2011. I will certainly take another look at those sections. Thanks. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 14:40, 5 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers, F&F. I was hoping you would volunteer to do that, but I didn't feel like dumping it on you. Vanamonde (talk) 15:00, 5 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a bit unsure why these comments are happening in an archive page but, hey, here goes: aside from being a grossly malformed opening statement by Highpeaks35, this looks like little more than an attempt to game the system because of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Some of the claims of Highpeaks35 above seem disingenuous, to say the least; for example, the edit warring was effectively initiated by Highpeaks35 and King Zebu, who seem not to understand how to deal with FAs, and I can't see much to substantiate the claim of a majority.

It seems plain wrong to respond to being reverted by instigating a review of the entire article. Vanamonde has it about right: people should be reviewing in the light of possible updating of certain elements but the core of the thing, and the majority of it, remains valid, well written, well sourced, neutral and comprehensive. - Sitush (talk) 14:55, 5 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Procedural close requested – In my opinion, and echoing Sitush and others above, this FAR is both fatally flawed in form, as well as of suspect motivation. I would like to request that the featured article removal coordinators, Nikkimaria and others, close this discussion without prejudice, so that a properly formatted FAR may be reopened if desired by anyone, without a waiting period following the closure of this one. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 11:29, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator note As other editors have noted, FAR is not intended for dispute resolution, but to address deficiencies with regards to the FA criteria; most of the comments made thus far fall into the former rather than the latter camp. Thus I'm going to proceed with the request for a procedural close. I'd invite interested editors to pursue dispute resolution as necessary to address points of disagreement. Once that is done, if issues are felt to persist, a more collaborative and WIAFA-focused FAR may be created. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:49, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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