Talk:Madurai/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Vensatry (talk · contribs) 11:42, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I will review this article. Will begin the process shortly. —Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 11:42, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Initial comments

I've had a quick look at the article, but did not check the references part. For now, I'm going to highlight only the major points.

Infobox

• Area = 248 sq.kms unsourced. Except for the infobox, I don't see that figure anywhere in the article

 Done - corrected details.

• I don't know from where did you arrive at these figures: The 1,561,000, 11,000/km2 (27,000/sq mi) and 2,062,420 —Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 07:50, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

 Done. Infobox auto parm gets the density. Corrected the wrong numbers.Ssriram mt (talk) 03:50, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

• The projected population needs to be removed from the lead. Also the provisional results was calculated based on the old city limits. The corresponding population figures for the 147 sq.kms are yet to be released. 1,016,885/147 sq. kms is totally wrong. In this case the density isn't correct. —Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 15:35, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

 Done infobox and lead set to 2001. Ssriram mt (talk) 01:52, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

• I never asked you to change it to 2001 figures. In this case you have to use the area of the city in 2001. Prior to the expansion, the city had an area of 51.5 sq. kms

Census	Area (City)	Population	Area (UA)	Population
2001	51.5	9,28,869	NA	1,203,095
2011	51.5	10,16,885	NA	1,462,420

—Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 02:45, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

The city population of 2011 and area of 2001 will make a confusing read. There is a clear indication that the city limits have expanded. So it is best to retain the 2001 in the lead. I have added the population of 2011 alone in the lead.Ssriram mt (talk) 03:44, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Etymology

• "Madurai is called Thoonga Nagaram, meaning the city that never sleeps because the hotels, shops and markets in the city

appear to operate round the clock". This doesn't seem to be encyclopedic and is unsourced

 Done. removed.

History

• The second para contains just one source

 Done - added references.

• The city was constituted as a municipality in 1866 needs a source

 Done.

Architecture

• "Athens of the East" should be debolded per WP:MOSBOLD

 Done. puppet edit.

• Last three lines are unsourced

 Done. puppet edit.

Geography and climate

• The 147.99 sq. km is an updated area; Text following the fact are unsourced

 Done - expanded.

Demographics

• The section contains data from out-dated sources. I see no official sources being used there. All are just projections based on past data. There are a lot of contradictory figures used. This section needs to be totally re-written
• Last two lines, no sources

 Done - fully rewritten.

• The 1,016,885 figure was for the old city limits. The density is unsourced and you have wrongly calculated it based on the expanded city limits
• The 2011 results are provisional and not final
• The provisional results of the 2001 India census released by the Government of India give the population of Madurai metropolitan area as 928,869. This figure is not provisional, the final one
• The sex ration is for 2001 or 2011?
• I'm not convinced with the way in which ref #47 is used. See Trichy to get an idea of how it's used
• Also this give the statistics for the city or the entire district?
• "The most widely spoken language is Tamil, though there are also significantly large number of people speaking Saurashtrian, Urdu and English" is unsourced
  

—Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 07:50, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

 Done - the section is fully re-written. I am not convinced about district level details in a city page(still for religion, i had no choice). I have provided data that covers the city predominantly. The corporation website data cannot be comprehended(no year, no percentages).Ssriram mt (talk) 03:38, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

• No need to go for District data. Although I agree that the census authorities don't provide religion-wise data for Tier-II cities, Google Books and newspaper sources could help you in this regard. —Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 02:53, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

 Done.

• The above comments still remain untouched. —Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 03:12, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
•  Done -was waiting on other minors to be closed - planned this as the last. Whole section totally rewritten from last update.

• Madurai metropolitan area constitutes the fourth largest metropolitan area in Tamil Nadu and the 24th in India" -> Third in Tamil Nadu —Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 02:53, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Population of Madurai metropolitan area as 928,869 -> wrong. The figure represents the population with in the city (municipal) limits. The population of the urban agglomeration (or Metropolitan area whatever they call) was 1,203,095 in 2001. —Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 02:53, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
    • A bit of difference here - the corporation website gives the area as 51.5 and population is within corporation limits as 11 lakhs approx. What is the convention here - UA? Ssriram mt (talk) 14:28, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
      • They say 11 lakhs (approx). This must be a projection. I'm very much sure that the 11L figure isn't official. Likewise, I don't think it represents the UA population. —Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 16:40, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
        •  Done - removed and re-written. Added more contents. Ssriram mt (talk) 19:30, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Administration and Politics

• Looks okay for me

Transport

• Link places like Dindigul, Theni, Virudhunagar, Thirunelveli, Thoothukudi and Kanyakumari

 Done.

• Inconsistent spacing between road names (NH and 45B for instance)

 Done - linked as well.

• "The major carriers operating from the airport are Air India, Jet Airways and SpiceJet" - unsourced

 Done

• Link Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation

 Done

• "Madurai has four major bus stands, one each at four cardinal points, namely, Mattuthavani Integrated Bus Terminus (MIBT), Arappalayam, Palanganatham and Periyar Bus stand" needs a source. Also the lines following this doesn't seem to be verifiable

 Done

• "The railway stations in Madurai area are Madurai Junction, Koodal Nagar, Samayanallur, Sholavandan, Vadipatti, East Madurai, Silaiman, Tirupuvanam, Thiruparankundram, Tirumangalam, Chekanoorani, and Usilampatti" is unsourced. What do you mean by "Madurai area"?

 Done

• Move Ref #96 to the end of the sentence. Ref should come after punctuation

 Done

Religious Places

• One liners like "The famous Madapuram Badrakali amman temple is situated 18 km from madurai" must be avoided

 Done. puppet removed. Ssriram mt (talk) 22:46, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

• The deity, Azhagar, is believed to be the brother of Meenakshi, the presiding deity at the Meenakshi temple" unsourced

 Done

• What makes "murugan.org" a RS
  

 Done

—Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 07:50, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Media

• Italicize "Deccan Chronicle"

 Done. Ssriram mt (talk) 22:49, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Utility services

Some unsourced statements

• "Softnet (STPI), Tata VSNL, Bharti and Reliance are other major broadband internet service providers in the city"

 Done - removed.

• "There are numerous private hospitals - such as Aravind Eye Hospital, Apollo Specialty Hospital, Bose Hospital and Meenakshi Mission Hospital - which cater to the needs of City people"

 Done. promotional, removed. Ssriram mt (talk) 22:51, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

General

Over-linking

• Indian National Congress, Tamil Sangam, and Madurai Junction are linked twice with in sections

 Done. removed overlinks within section.

• Remove the link to district website in EL

 Done

Though the article is significant in terms of coverage, the prose needs to be vastly improved. I don't think the article will pass the nomination until you get a good copy-editor. Anyways, I'm putting the article on hold for a period of seven days to see if something can be done.

—Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 09:03, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Comments by TSU

I haven't gone through the article but just the lead. It is not good as far as GA is considered. There are 3 para and 2nd is too big while 3rd is too small. Have a look at Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmedabad (my hometown+GA) and do the changes as WP:LEAD should summarize the article. I'll have a look and see if there are any other issues. Thanks! TheSpecialUser ^TSU 15:37, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, the size of the 3rd paragraph is a bit of a concern. The 2nd isn't; because good-article criteria doesn't condemn articles with large paragraphs. There are many FAs with large paragraphs - like Mysore, etc. That the size of paragraphs should be even is a suggestion - not a must. Such stringent criteria might be adopted for FAs not GAs. Anyway, regardless of the size of the lead, I completely agree with your suggestion that the lead should summarize all the sections in the article-Ravi_{My Tea Kadai} 02:53, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't have problem with having big paras but having too much of info relatively. See history section; the lead (only history related info) is almost half of it which is really just above the boderline or the history section has less info. Either trim down the second para or expand the history a bit. History section has very little info in fact so it is best to increase it's size and add more details. TheSpecialUser ^TSU 05:33, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Rearranged the contents. Ssriram mt (talk) 03:04, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Further comments

Referencing

• Why is IBNLive italicized. Same with "Madurai Corporation", "Tamil Nadu Tourism Development Corporation", "7wonders.org", etc.,

 Done

• PDF references should have this field ("format=PDF") in their refs

 Done

• "demographia.com" doesn't look like a RS for me

will be removed with the rework part of demographics section.

• Refs. shouldn't use hard-coded URLs like "madurai.tn.nic.in"

 Done

General

• "Ma'bar Sultanate" and "Madurai Sultanate" both link to the same pages. Unlink the latter in the lead

 Done

• The "tourism and entertainment" part sounds like a promotional stuff
  

—Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 11:27, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

An optical fibre lighting in a local park is not present even in large public parks and i thought it relevant to be placed in there. When tourist spots are specified, any item like visitor average or history would obviously look promotional. Madurai to commoner is always jallikattu , Chittrai festival & float festival. Specify which parts need to be reworded. Ssriram mt (talk) 03:04, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

 Done. Things that sounded in tourist tone are removed. Ssriram mt (talk) 03:54, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

• Link Chennai, Coimbatore, Kanyakumari, Trichy, Tirunelveli, Karaikudi, Mayiladuthurai, Rameswaram, Thanjavur and Vriddhachalam in the "Transport" section. —Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 04:49, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

 Done

A bit of copy editing is needed overall - Please leave it for 2-3 days when i will reach out to foks and will get it changed. Ssriram mt (talk) 13:31, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Set of copy edits carried out across sections and new references are added. Please suggest if you still find certain things missing. Ssriram mt (talk) 03:54, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Additional comments

• Convert all hyphens into dashes wherever appropriate. This script should come in handy

 Done

• Nayaka, Thirupuvanam – dab

 Done

• The Lady Doak college website appears to be dead

It is working.

• Move Ref #5 to the end of the sentence as they should come after a punctuation

 Done

• "It is the third largest city and the second largest municipal corporation in Tamil Nadu" This is totally wrong. None of the sources also verify this. In the past there was a debate about Madurai Vs Coimbatore. Coimbatore is the second largest city/UA in TN even during 2001

 Done

• The fact that "It has been a major settlement for two millennia and is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities" is mentioned only in the lead and not anywhere else. This is a significant fact and needs a mention in the "History" section

 Done

• Date formats in refs need to be consistent per MOS:DATEUNIFY

 Done

•  Not done I still see a mix of YYYY-MM-DD and dmy in a few newspaper sources. —Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 15:35, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

 Done - originally the access date was kept in one format and regular date in other. All streamlined now. Ssriram mt (talk) 01:33, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

• "Major TV channels such as Sun TV Network, Vijay TV, Jaya TV and SS Music have their branch offices in Madurai" is unsourced

 Done - removed, refs not reliable

• Any reason for italicising "Meenakshi Amman Temple" in the lead

 Done

• Link Municipal corporation in the lead

 Done

• You have mentioned about the Municipal corpn in the beginning of the section, while the sentence "The corporation received several awards in 2008 for implementing development works" appears at the tail end of the section and doesn't have any continuity with the preceding sentence.

 Done

• The link to corporation website in the External links doesn't work

 Done

• Is Madurai a planned city?
  

: Done debatable - historically yes, now - no. removed the cat.

—Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 08:54, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Some of these got mangled during the rework - will fix it by my evening. Ssriram mt (talk) 12:38, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Economy

• "The prominent ones being Thiagarajar Mills, Kasim Textile Mills, Sundaram Textiles, Weaves India, Vaigai Group, PRP Exports, Madurai Arkay Rock, P.R.Granites, Madurai Granite Exports, Duniterocks, and Arkay Glenrock" unsourced

 Done. source not reliable, removed.

• Fourth para is inadequately sourced
  

—Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 07:50, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

 Done. Added refs.

Since I'm not an expert on "History" and "Administration and politics" sections, I've asked for a second opinion. —Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 18:56, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Comments following the second opinion

• Administration and Politics - no problem but please change Politics to politics

 Done

• History - It is merely useless to keep Main article: History of Madurai as the History_of_Madurai is just a stub and everything is covered in Madurai, perhaps, please remove it. Another thing, that if possible, add little bit of more data or expand it as the last two paras being small and independent don't look nice. Other issue is that details in the section jump from 1866 to 1921 which concludes lack of "broad coverage" (a point in GA criteria)

 Done

Although the sub-article is too small, it can be expanded easily. For a city like Madurai with over 2500 years of known history, it has a lot of potential. —Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 03:08, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

• References - you don't use commans' images as reference, do you? I'd prefer to make a new section External links with a link to official municipal website and add the commans' template in it rather then keeping it in references.

 Done

• Images - captions don't impress me. Like you have it in history section, it should be throughout per WP:CAPTION and should describe the image briefly or state relatively and not just name that what is inside it. For e.g., Madurai Corporation is too short. There are 11 images with the same issue. It'd be great if you can add WP:ALT to images.

 Done

• Education - change {{main article}} to {{see also}}

 Done

• Culture, tourism and entertainment + Religious Places - I see that there are paras with merely one line which is not a good way to write as far as MoS is concerned. Please merge most of them and make paras with at least 4-5 lines. Also, change Places to places

 Done

• Lead - it'd be better if you merge 2nd and 3rd para into one and 4th and 5th into another

 Done

• General - you are using both forms, AD-BC as well as BCE-CE. Please stick to one and be consistent

 Done

• Overall - pretty good! It just fails the criteria of caption of images completely and broad coverage very remotely.

TheSpecialUser ^TSU 21:32, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

•  Great! Its a yes from my side for GA! TheSpecialUser ^TSU 07:12, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the comprehensive second opinion. Ssriram mt (talk) 12:35, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Comments by Ravichandar84

I am posting here as I was requested to give comments on the "History" section of the article. I am giving my concerns below

• "well recorded history" is a relative term

 Done -reworded.

• The identification of "Madura" with Megasthenes' "Methora" has been contested by some

 Done - added detail and reference.

• Being the "seat of the Pandyan dynasty" is not an attribute of Madurai and the city cannot be "described" as such

Capital city is the major identity in dynastic rule. Maturaikanchi is a book predominantly highlighting this point. Kanchi, Tanjore are more associated with Pallavas and Cholas respectively. When a city remains the capital for most of a dynasty's tenure, it is worthwhile to mention it. Prefer to retain it.

I don't have problems with the details. What bothers me is the sentence formation. A city cannot be "described" as a seat of a dynasty it can only be "listed" as such. "Madurai is the seat of the Pandyan dynasty" would be better I feel than "Madurai has been described ..." -Ravi_{My Tea Kadai} 02:23, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

 Done - reworded.

On the whole, I feel that the first paragraph goes into extreme, often unnecessary detail on Sangam Age references of Madurai and could very well be shortened.

No other city in TN has as much documented evidence as Madurai has. Tamil language sangam is often left in shades. Sangam lit is the primary documentary evidence for Madurai. Given that maximum happened for a language in a city, it is mandatory to mention it. Prefer to retain it.

As per Wikipedia:Summary style, the article should stay focussed on the topic without going too deep into the details. A sentence or two on the "Sangam period" might be necessary but I don't feel a list of all historians and historical works which mention Madurai are. You might list the important ones alone; the rest could be moved into History of Madurai article.-Ravi_{My Tea Kadai} 02:28, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

 Done - trimmed contents and reworded. The original review comments were to remove the stub History of Madurai as the main article. The idea of having the varied set of literature across different periods is to show the recorded history part - merged those parts.Ssriram mt (talk) 02:48, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

• "The Pandyas were removed from power by the Chola dynasty during the early 9th century"

This statement is partly false - the Pandyas were never removed from power. They held a long, continous and atleast ceremonial overlordship over Madurai from the 3rd century BC to the time of the Madurai Nayaks. There were times when they acted as feudatories of more powerful monarchs such as the Pallavas (7th to 9th century AD) and the Medieval Cholas (10th to 11th century AD) but they were never really ousted from power. They even held strong enough to defeat the Imperial Chola army in the heyday of Chola power

 Done - reworded.

• Kulasekhara Pandyan was never the "last Pandyan ruler". According to Robert Caldwell, the Pandyas ruled as independent monarchs from Tirunelveli even after Malik Kafur sacked Madurai

 Done - reworded.

• "changed hands" appears too informal and would not be an appropriate term for Wikipedia.

 Done - reworded.

• The "Madurai Sultanate" was never "destroyed" but gradually absorbed part by part into the Vijayanagar Empire until it was completely extinguished in 1378

 Done - reworded.

• "Gandhiji" - honorifics need to be avoided.-Ravi_{My Tea Kadai} 14:33, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

 Done.

Thanks a lot for the comprehensive second opinion. Ssriram mt (talk) 03:45, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Check against the criteria

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

I'm awarding this article GA-status. Congratulations! —Vensatry _{(Ping me)} 15:05, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

It is quite obvious that a lot of hard work has gone into the writing of the article. I commend User:Srirammt and User:Vensatry for their job.-Ravi_{My Tea Kadai} 02:46, 16 September 2012 (UTC)