User talk:Shreevatsa/Archive 2

(2009)

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• Archive 2
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Rollback granted

I have 2 granted rollback rights to your account; the reason for this is that after a review of some of your contributions, I believe I can trust you to use rollback correctly by using it for its intended usage of reverting vandalism, and that you will not abuse it by reverting good-faith edits or to revert-war. For information on rollback, see Wikipedia:New admin school/Rollback and Wikipedia:Rollback feature. If you do not want rollback, just let me know, and I'll remove it. Good luck and thanks. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 08:12, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, I do realise that it is to be used for blatant vandalism only. Shreevatsa (talk) 12:46, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The Editor's Barnstar

		The Editor's Barnstar
		For a critical eye on Olympic medal table. Keep it up! --Jh12 (talk) 18:32, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Shreevatsa (talk) 19:24, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

P, NP and NP-complete

Not sure why you had to go in such detail but what you are saying is NP is verifiable with a DTM and solvable with a NTM? Is this correct? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.73.154.119 (talk) 02:41, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Languages in NP are those which are verifiable in polynomial time with a DTM, yes. (And "solvable with a NTM" too.) Shreevatsa (talk) 02:47, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

NP = non-deterministic polynomial time

DTM = deterministic turing machine

So languages in NON-DETERMINISTIC polynomial time are those which are verifiable in polynomial time with a DETERMINISTIC turing machine?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.73.154.119 (talk) 03:05, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

There's probably some confusion about what "verifiable" means. Verifiable doesn't mean you (as a deterministic machine) can solve the problem, it only means (roughly) that if someone already (magically) gives you a solution, you can check that it is correct. E.g. it is NP-complete to check if a graph has a Hamiltonian cycle, but if someone directly gives you such a cycle you can verify that it is a Hamiltonian cycle. (Someone with infinite power can always give you such a proof if the answer is Yes, and can never give you such a proof if the answer is No.) The "non-deterministic" comes from the fact that you can't easily *find* the proof. Of course, another way to say everything is that a non-deterministic machine can find a proof in polynomial time if one exists. Shreevatsa (talk) 03:12, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

DYK for James O. Clephane

On January 17, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article James O. Clephane, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Dravecky (talk) 05:30, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Cool! Looks like I slept through the whole time it was on the Main Page… Shreevatsa (talk) 13:47, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

MoS

... we edited at the same time, that's why mine got in yours before. Have not seen such thing occuring before. Maybe I also made a mistake, but I am sure it took me more than the 4 min diff of our posts to write mine :-) TechControl (talk) 13:58, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I guessed that's what happened. :-) Mediawiki tries to do some smart merging... sometimes it's too smart. Shreevatsa (talk) 14:02, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

;-) TechControl (talk) 14:21, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Copyright Term Extension Act

I added back in the name of the website that you deleted, for completness and to conform with citation style. Many authors of peer-review articles are required to issue pro forma declarations that their opinions are not those of their sponsoring "think tank" or college, but it is often done with a wink. For example, "This statement does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bryant & Stratton College." Bearian (talk) 15:15, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

"Social Science Research Network" is like the arXiv (Arxiv.org); it is a repository of papers and has no affiliation with the authors of that paper. (That is, it is not the case that SSRN is their sponsoring think tank or college.) Shreevatsa (talk) 15:44, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh, O.K., my error. Bearian (talk) 18:09, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Tamil people vs Tamil Nadu

Noted your comments in edit summary of List of people from Tamil Nadu‎ and List of Tamil people‎. Tamil people includes those Tamils from Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia and of course younger generations of people settled in all other countries. People from Tamil Nadu will not include many of them, significantly the people from Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaysia who are not the 2nd or 3rd gen, but long term settlers. Hope this helps.

If you still feel they should be merged, please put in detail comments in both talk pages. VasuVR (talk, contribs) 16:26, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I understand the hypothetical reason for keeping the lists separate, but in fact the content of the two lists is largely the same. Will update the talk pages. Regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 16:31, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Panun Kashmir

The article is heavily anti-Hindu, needs reediting...Jon Ascton (talk) 10:42, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Er, I guess you must have sent a message to the wrong person: I have not edited that article, and I don't know anything about it... Shreevatsa (talk) 12:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Removing sources

Removed, duplicate of discussion at User talk: Joseph A. Spadaro

Help Me

Removed; duplicate of discussion at User talk: Joseph A. Spadaro.

Re: 81st Academy Awards nominees and winners

Moved back to User talk:Juliancolton

Muphry's law

Your edit summary says "Skitt's Law redirects here, so it should be bold". I wasn't able to find such a guideline in MoS. Could you point me to it? (watching here for reply) Thanks! --Unconventional (talk) 17:19, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I can't find it either. I've seen it done on several articles and just assumed it was in the policy somewhere. Wikipedia:Lead section#Format of the first sentence, which mentions that the article title should be bolded, does not mention what to do when the article has several titles, so to speak. Anyway, I do agree that it seems odd to have something bold so far into the article (not in the first couple of sentences) so I've undone my change. Regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 18:05, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

(FWIW: I've also raised the question at Wikipedia talk:Lead section#What should be bolded?, just to be sure.) Shreevatsa (talk) 18:21, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Maybe what you've noticed is MediaWiki's conversion of a self-link (link to itself on a page) to boldface. You see it a lot in template docs, not so much in article space. I'm not sure it does that to indirect self-reference via redirects, though, and those could be more common in articles. --Unconventional (talk) 18:28, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

That might be part of it. There's also the fact that "McKean's Law" is bolded in this Muphry's_law article too. :-) Shreevatsa (talk) 18:33, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Anti-copyright

That's no problem. I figured that's what happened. Thanks for the note though! Cool Hand Luke 05:48, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Bengaluru

Moved to User talk: Rsrikanth05

Yottabyte

I was browsing the history of the Yottabyte article and noticed that you reverted an edit about the number of addressable bytes using 128 bits. You said, "Despite WP:AGF, I'm inclined to think the original was right." 128 bits can address 2^128 bytes, and since there are 2^80 bytes in a yottabyte, there are 2^48 addressable yottabytes. 2^48 is equal to the value that the you undid. (Note: defining yottabytes as 10^24 bytes yields an even larger number.) You then excised the whole paragraph from the article, claiming it would avoid "future fiddling with the numbers." I believe that the paragraph should be re-added, with the correct numbers. I would also appreciate it if you would verify the numbers yourself, rather than reverting (then removing) simply because you were "inclined" to agree with the original numbers, or unwilling to verify the numbers yourself. I understand that the paragraph might be construed as OR, but I think that these numbers should be readily verifiable to anyone with a calculator. 137.148.142.199 (talk) 18:59, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

You mean this edit. You're right, I shouldn't have reverted based on simply assuming the original was right and an edit by an anonymous user with no other edits was somehow suspicious... one of the hazards of having too many pages on one's watchlist is that one is likely to develop biases against anonymous users with no history. :-( Maybe I should stop watching pages. As you can see, I felt uneasy about it immediately after, decided I should verify it, then realized it wasn't necessary because the fact was irrelevant to yottabyte anyway, so I removed it. I still don't think it is: how does saying that (hypothetical) 128-bit processors would allow 281,474,976,710,656 (or 274,877,906,944) yottabytes of memory help with understanding a yottabyte? But if you think it's relevant, feel free to re-add it, and I won't revert it. Shreevatsa (talk) 22:12, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Smile

Rsrikanth05 (talk) has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend, Go on smile! Cheers, and Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

What do you type after ALT for that smiley place? --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 13:58, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

☺ is Unicode Character 'WHITE SMILING FACE' (U+263A). So on Windows, Alt+263A should work... (On Mac OS X, I just copy it from Character Palette.) Cheers, Shreevatsa (talk) 15:12, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Little's law

Hi, can you explain why this is not valid? I'm not the one who added it, but the statement seemed plausible to me... is there an example where it's not true? Thanks, Shreevatsa (talk) 14:02, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

oops - I really read that wrong ! - Peripitus (Talk)

Cool, thanks. I was getting unsure whether my understanding was correct. :) Shreevatsa (talk) 21:11, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Not a problem. I've reverted myself. Looking again the assertion of 0.2hr per person is obvious and simply provable - I don't think it even needs a citation ! (2 person queue over 1 hr gives 120 mins total spent in a queue = 12 mins per person on average for 10 people = 0.2hr !) Next time I'll put my brain in a better gear - Peripitus (Talk) 03:59, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Right, that's essentially the proof of Little's law. :) (See e.g. here—it would be good if the article included a proof...) Shreevatsa (talk) 04:23, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Khajuraho

You wrote:

Hi there. Back in 2007 you made an addition to the Khajuraho article, listing the chronology of the temples. Do you still have the book / know more about it? What does "historical sequence" mean? How reliable is the source, etc.? Regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 14:05, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

The source should be among the most reliable. Yes, I still have it. The book includes complete texts of all major Khajuraho inscriptions. Other experts give a similar chronology.

The chronolgy is generally based on variations in style, and inscriptions in the temples. Some large inscriptions have been moved, the fact is known to historians.--Malaiya (talk) 01:07, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

DYK

Moved to User talk:ImperatorExercitus. Shreevatsa (talk) 00:19, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Arthur W. Ryder

On March 29, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Arthur W. Ryder, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Shubinator (talk) 03:35, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Great, this time I was awake for at least part of the time it was on. :-) Shreevatsa (talk) 15:06, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you

Anonymousacademic (talk) 01:11, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Have you got the wrong person, or is this sarcastic? Shreevatsa (talk) 01:32, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

DD National Shows

Moved back to User talk:Survir

Editting user's comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computer science‎

m Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computer science‎; 01:10:35 . . (0) . . Shreevatsa (talk | contribs) (
→Feige's inequality on the sum of independent random variables:
fix link (although it's another user's comment... hope this is ok))

Sure. Thanks. —C. lorenz (talk) 09:33, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

Abecedare (talk) 15:44, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

merger of Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

The point of the tag is to prompt discussion on the subject. You shouldn't just declare that a merge can't be done a few hours after the article is tagged and remove it without discussion. Please make your case at Talk:Had had had had had had had had had had had#mergers. See this afd for background. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:28, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

The Buffalo⁸ article wasn't nominated for deletion, so I saw no discussion prompting a proposal merging that article into Had¹¹. Having looked at the afd above, I still don't, so I have reversed the direction of the proposed merger. Regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 22:27, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Swami Ramdev

Posted a response to your last edit/comments on this article (wikipost) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikipost (talk • contribs) 20:28, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Named references

Re Wikipedia talk:Footnotes#Named references, see Bugzilla:18890. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 13:17, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Test wiki for Bugzilla:18890

Hi, in case you're no longer watching my talk page, I want to let you know that I've out up a test wiki with the modified Cite_body.php for Bugzilla:18890 installed. It is located at http://www.siteslot.com/testwiki/. Cheers. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 08:32, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Neil Gaiman

There has been numerous discussions regarding Neil Gaiman and Scientology. Current consensus is that we don't feel that his parents religion has any need to be mentioned in his wikipedia entry. Please see this for further info. Fol de rol troll (talk) 23:32, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Sure, I just didn't want to be overzealous in reverting new users' contributions (WP:BITE). Shreevatsa (talk) 23:34, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Reliable sources

Can you please explain why John Woodroffe (Arthur Avalon): Shakti and Shakta and Koenraad Elst: Who is a Hindu (2001) are reliable sources. The burden is on you to do this. Thanks, Mitsube (talk) 05:22, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Also was it Lindtner who has claimed that Buddhism is a sect of Hinduism? I don't think anyone would say that. The only claims I have heard are that the Buddha was misunderstood and that Buddhism (as we know it) isn't what he taught. Mitsube (talk) 06:07, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I think what Lindtner says is that Buddhism is "reformed Hinduism", but I agree that he does not claim that Buddhism is a sect of Hinduism (rewrote that part); nevertheless, this is a widespread view among Hindus, and I believe sources should be easy to find. As for the other sources, why do you think they are unreliable? Regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 14:56, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

CV that you noticed

Hi, Shreevatsa. About that copyright violation that you noticed. It appears that your suspicion is correct -- the book is a copy of Wikipedia. The book, published November 17 2008, is a copy-paste of dozens of Wikipedia articles. For example, I examined the history of the article Home Rule Movement which is also duplicated in the book. The opening sentence was started in the WP article All India Home Rule League on November 9 2005 by an IP and, through several edits by User:Rama's Arrow on November 24 2005 was developed into the entire article now appearing in the book. Editing history of the Wikipedia article Jallianwala Bagh massacre shows that it was developed over time through various edits by a variety editors and was not a wholesale copy-paste. It is possible that the book's publisher, ISHA, is similar to Icon Group International which publishes books compiled from free internet sources. I've been checking other titles by ISHA and find they are also copies of WP. WP:RS should be notified that these books can not be used as sources. Thanks for noticing the problem and raising the issue. It's appreciated. Cheers. — CactusWriter | ^needles 15:18, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the effort to verify this! Seems it is a copyright violation indeed, but done by the book's author. Shreevatsa (talk) 16:19, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. It is strange that people are able to make a profit from simply copying Wikipedia. Anyway, I've also left a message at Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics so that the ISHA book citations in other articles can be checked. Good luck. — CactusWriter | ^needles 09:45, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Grain of salt

Hello, Shreevatsa … I'd like to request that Some Other Editor take a look at the References section in Grain of salt (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) … I think that the first one (for bartleby.com) is Just Plain Wrong (it's a generic catalog order page), but I don't have time to look for the intended article on the site. Happy Editing! — 138.88.93.15 (talk · contribs) _{03:33, 2 July 2009 (UTC)}

 Done … Never mind, it's been rectified. :-) — 138.88.93.15 (talk) 12:07, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I have no idea what this was about. :) Shreevatsa (talk) 21:34, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Bhagavata Purana dating section

Thanks, by putting that paragraph first, you got right what I was aiming for. Hopefully this will help defuse the inevitable edit warring over dating. Priyanath ^talk 21:06, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Good to hear that... hope it helps indeed. I was unsure if reordering the paragraphs would upset the flow of the section, but it seems ok. You've done quite a lot of great work on the article! Shreevatsa (talk) 21:34, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Editing

Regarding this: most of your additions now look more or less ok so I won't revert, but in the future this isn't really the best way to go about things. Especially in an article where there is already consensus not to include certain things, if you are going to try to rewrite them better and include them then you should get new consensus before you add them; starting to restore controversial content against consensus and then essentially saying "I will respond to you at the talk page in a couple hours, don't bother me now" isn't congenial to collaboration. What would have been better would be leaving a message at the talk page before you start rewriting, explaining what you are going to add (or even writing up the addition in your personal sandbox before putting it in the article, and showing it to people at the talk page), and then adding it once people have had a chance to look.

Like I said, the edits look ok so this is pretty much a non-issue and I'm not going to harp on it after this message. Just please keep this in mind in the future. Thank you, rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 06:14, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, I do appreciate the value of discussion and consensus, and I completely agree with you. From my cursory examination of the article's recent edit history, the content seemed to have been removed without any discussion after having stayed on for several months, so I was just restoring it (;-)): then I felt it seemed odd to mention this one blog without context, so I added the rest. I did take a look at the talk page but didn't interpret it as a consensus to remove it. (After all, the discussion ended in December and the content had remained online until May.) I will try in future to always elicit feedback before re-adding previously controversial content, Regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 06:31, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Marie Tussaud

Moved to User_talk:Þjóðólfr#Tussauds 22:07, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Aryabhata

Thanks for keeping your eye on this page and its tiresome edit wars. A couple of points:

• The mention of Lanka in Aryabhata's works is now well-sourced, but it will not be clear to any reader why this factoid is being included in the Biography section. Is there anyone (besides anon. wikipedia editors) who interprets the mention of Lanka to conclude that that was his birth or native place ? If so, we should mention that claimed link to provide the context for the fourth paragraph.
• The second paragraph of the section gives undue weight to one recent theory of Aryabhata's origins and perhaps contains OR (for example, I didn't find any mention of Chamravattam in the linked papers). The first page of Chandra Hari's own paper gives a good review of the prevailing scholarly views, and the paragraph needs to be rewritten to reflect that. You and/or I will need to bite the bullet at some point, I guess. :-)

Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 17:04, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. I too had noticed when adding the link to Chandra Hari's paper that it mentions existing scholarly views (and that "recently" evidently means 1970s)... it would be good to rewrite the paragraph to explain what the evidence indicates. I plan to get to it; let's see who bites the bullet first this time ;-) Cheers, Shreevatsa (talk) 23:10, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I found a good 2001 paper by K V Sarma that explained most of what's been going on, and incorporated it into the article. I took a look at the Chandra Hari papers, and I'm not too keen on reading further. (While I am getting sceptical of the way history gets done in general, it seems to be especially bad when done in a science journal.) I have no reason against the Kerala theory, but the paper is just badly written. He repeats the same arguments shown to be wrong by Sarma in 2001, cites random websites and Encyclopedia Britannica, and refers to Georges Ifrah as "Georges" with the citation "Georges, I." The content of the argument seems to be that Aryabhata made a mistake, and you can fit places in Kerala at the same meridian as Ujjaini from which the mistake makes sense, somewhat. (The second and third paper elaborate on this, and Chamravattam turns up in the third using polynomial regression.) Alas, I just noticed that the last of the 3 papers is dedicated to the "late Dr K V Sarma", so there might not even be anyone to dispute it. That's just my cursory reading; maybe there is substance to the argument — perhaps you could take a look at them sometime? :-) Shreevatsa (talk) 03:25, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Nice improvement!

I share your impression of articles by amateur historians in scientific journals in general, and Chandra Hari's papers in particular. But since the articles are nominally "reliable sources" on wikipedia, we should mention their conclusions without giving them undue weight or an air of certainty. Your edits are a step in the right direction and I will try to do my bit in the next few days and weeks. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 19:06, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

ANI

Stopthenonsense has brought you up at ANI, FYI. Priyanath ^talk 22:37, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh cool, my first time at ANI :-) I was wondering about bringing up the issue somewhere myself... finally there's some discussion. Thanks for notifying, Shreevatsa (talk) 00:27, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

WP:EUPHEMISM

Thanks for keeping an eye out. I try to make sure I don't edit quoted text, but I wasn't as careful on Revati. In my fervor to rid WP of that blasted euphemism, sometimes I guess I get a little bit zealous.  :) Mitchell k dwyer (talk) 10:24, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I have my own set of phrases I fervently despise, so I understand the zeal. :-) Mark Jason Dominus has written about "known to man". Shreevatsa (talk) 15:25, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

RK Narayan

Saw that you've been cleaning up, good work. Also, the last three sentences of the childhood section should be moved to adult life, right? Don't know if you inserted them there for a reason. In addition, I just used these two section headers as place holders, I'm not awfully keen on these, can you suggest something more appropriate? Likewise, I'd like to kill the title Advent of an author and merge that section to writing career, what do you think? cheers -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 03:29, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, you're right on all of those. I just edit Wikipedia to procrastinate; my edits are not always the most thoughtful. ;-) Do feel free to change the text I added into whatever you think is appropriate. I guess it should be possible to merge everything into one coherent narrative, and have sections on different periods of his life, possibly? It would be great to turn this article into something good. Shreevatsa (talk) 03:54, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Yup, a time-based biography as opposed to a topic-based one makes a lot more sense. Let me think about it a bit, I've got a load of refs bookmarked, but I haven't gotten around to editing the article with them yet. I'll think of structure around the same time. I'd really like to get this up as FA. A couple of months ago, I'd met Alexander McCall Smith at a book signing, and when I asked him if RKN had influenced him, he spent 10 minutes talking to me about his communication with him and how sad he was that he never met him (I of course had to tell him that I met him!), interesting conversation, pity I can't use that in the article. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 04:25, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

You were fortunate! As for organising the article, maybe it's worth glancing at some featured biographies of authors: Douglas Adams, Anton Chekhov, Noël Coward, Henry James, Edgar Allan Poe, etc. (whatever is applicable) Cheers, Shreevatsa (talk) 04:47, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll cook up a structure similar to Anton Chekhov and Noël Coward, an amalgamation of the two might be good for RKN. cheers -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 17:38, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Look at this two year old rev of the page, it had a decent structure, until someone decided to do a copyright vio and paste the section Advent of an author and remove a lot of worthwhile text! -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 02:56, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh! It is terrible when articles get worse when no one's watching. In fact, this mess seems to have been introduced as recently as three months ago — see this edit from 7 April 2009, which also did some stupid vandalism. It seems to have been copy-pasted from here. Simply restoring to the earlier version would be an improvement over the article of yesterday! Shreevatsa (talk) 04:11, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

(start new row) Yeah, I use the calitreview article as a master reference, that's why I found the copy paste thing, and I decided to check the version before the article was published. If it's that 59.160.xx range, it's likely a dial-up dude, I've reverted some edits from this IP on some other cricket and India related articles. Thanks for tracing it, I'll either revert completely, or refer and add back. cheers -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 04:30, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Do you think you can help with some attribution on the critcal reception section? The article is going through GA review now, and one of the recommendations is to do some attribution beyond the 'per critics' level. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff 01:39, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't think I can do this properly any time soon. I'm going through a work-related crisis and though I keep slipping and looking at my Wikipedia watchlist occasionally through sheer force of habit, I really ought not to. :-) I'll try to find attribution for those as soon as I can find some decent time, but it may be pretty late by then. Shreevatsa (talk) 14:03, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

No worries, I think I've got enough for GA now. Will probably need some help later when you can find something, prior to taking to FA. Also, if you're good at wikitables, can you take a look at List of India women Test cricketers -- some specific comments regarding the sorting of averages, the dashes come up on top or bottom with the first/second sorting, and only with the third do the nos actually come on top - see FLC discussion. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff 02:54, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Pursuing cliches

My point is not that the phrase is unusual. It's that it's overused, and more stylistic than descriptive. I particularly dislike it when used as a knee-jerk phrase to cover a more particular and more interesting description of someone's work or study. The phrase originally had connotations of going after something with unusual determination, and both careers and educations are natural objects for such "pursuit." But now it's used the same way that "battling" is used. No one gets sick, they "battle" diseases. They "battle" cancer, they even "battle" the flu. When we take colorful phrases applied to special cases and turn them into stock descriptions for every instance of someone who works, goes to school, gets cancer or a cold ... well, then we have either the headlines on supermarket magazines, or a Wikipedia article.

My hope is to change this. Perhaps I would succeed more if I didn't point out that I am trying to. --Preston McConkie ^{(talk • contribs)} 00:08, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Template:R. K. Narayan

Take a look? This probably needs to be tweaked a bit; Ramayana/Mahabharata link to the epics and not his books, I changed that on the article, but the template needs to be changed too, am trying to see if I can get enough sources to create a stub for either. Also, what's your opinion of replacing the bibliography listing on the article with the template? I think the books can be integrated well into the other sections with dates, so the bibliography listing will end up being a summary, nothing more, and that should be achieved with this template? cheers -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 18:21, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Template is nice. I don't see the difference between "collections" and "short stories", though — isn't Malgudi Days a collection, for example? In any case, I think the article should continue to have a bibliography section. Most readers don't really read entire articles, and will expect to find a list/the bibliography section; it's hard to locate books and dates in the narrative. (Most authors' articles have bibliographies. Similarly, an awards table, unless there is a short section on awards.) Cheers, Shreevatsa (talk) 01:04, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I kinda thought the same about the biblio after posting here, just finished updating one section R._K._Narayan#Novels, looked around and copied a separate structure, check if that looks ok, I can reformat the rest in. As for the template, yes, there's some confusing pieces and I'd like to clean that up. Also there are some notable omissions I think. Collections and Short story collections currently overlap, though it may not have to, if my understanding of collections - multiple books in one - is correct. I like the new bio titles that I've added in now, let me know if they seem ok. I think the rrdeal section can go on till Guide, then something else (to be named) and then the final years. cheers -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 01:16, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Page histmerge request

• See Wikipedia:Cut and paste move repair holding pen#Queried requests. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 04:47, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, replied there. Shreevatsa (talk) 04:59, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Shaw's Nobel prize

I removed this and then got interrupted: not sure where in article but /Trivia/ sections need sorting out as a serious encyclopedia needs to be the opposite of trivial. --Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 12:17, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Trivia sections often only mean that the content has been added haphazardly; it doesn't mean all the information is worthless; they can usually be integrated properly. And Wikipedia is simply an encyclopedia, not a "serious encyclopedia". :-) [As for being the opposite of trivial... let's say you lost that battle years ago.) Shreevatsa (talk) 14:30, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

In reply to vandalism warning

hey there man. I have been warned by you not to edit or include anything harmful. I admit, that recently i did add certain false statements into the wikipedia entries of ajith kumar, joseph vijay, m ramadoss, kamal hasaa and silambarasan. But I did all if this for a reason. I added legitimate information that I got from tamil magazines into the wikipedia entries of vijay. But this was deleted several times without even mentioning the reason. I was heavily frustrated because of this. I found no other way than to add harmful info about the above mentioned people to gather attention. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pirus123 (talk • contribs) 16:29, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

See WP:Biographies of living persons and WP:Verifiability. If your magazines are reliable sources, you can add your "information" with citation. Also read Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. Shreevatsa (talk) 16:58, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Google hits

Just an aside about those google hit numbers. I used to get wildly inflated numbers on my old virus infected PC. I never did resolve the problem, but you might like to check for viruses, or make sure your google task bar has installed correctly. --Michael C. Price ^talk 19:48, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I doubt it's a virus influencing how many results Google shows; for one thing I'm using Mac OS X, and for another I happened to get the same results at other computers. It's probably just a Google local bug; those are pretty common. But thanks for pointing it out, Shreevatsa (talk) 21:43, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Help_talk:Sorting#The_.22Sorting_the_wikitext_of_a_table.22_section

Did you ever figure out the answer to this post? Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 20:50, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I figured it out. I've answered there and also attempted to clarify it in the help page. Good luck, Shreevatsa (talk) 21:43, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

RKN

Do you have the Walsh book at your library? I've reached the last page available on Gbooks...Btw, if you're bored, take a look at List of Nadars and List of Mudaliars, continuous addition of names of unnotables, latter, complete lack of sourcing on Nayanars etc included. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 04:02, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Not in my own library, but I can get it from a nearby library I'm going to in a couple of days. And these "List of X people" always seem to turn into a mess... for the moment, I'm not so bored right now, or at least I have enough work that I ought not to be. ;-) Shreevatsa (talk) 04:10, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I haven't been able to find it in the Santa Clara county public library system, so if you could pick out a few important sentences for the latter part of his life (post ordeal, and I guess upto '82 as that's when it was published) that'd be great. More personal stuff than writing stuff because there's a lot of refs for the writing. I accidentally came across one of these caste based lists once, and then it became a string of such things. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 04:36, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi. I got the book. [And while I was in that section, took the opportunity to borrow some R. K. Narayan books to reread as well, so thanks. :-)] I'll add some sentences next week or so, if that delay is fine—life suddenly got a bit busier, apparently. Shreevatsa (talk) 22:29, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Perfect. I just started rereading Grandmother's tale. It can be used for some primary sourced info, especially on his launch of Indian Thought Publications, I had a very brief ref for that, can expand the section using this. By the way, I've got a "to create" list running at User:SpacemanSpiff/S3, feel free to add RKN (or any of the other subjects that I've got on there) pages and/or work on any already there. I'm kinda taking a break of a few days from working on the article as I was basically losing sight of article writing basics, faced with the inordinate amount of trivia I've gathered from all the sundry refs. cheers.

Sorry for the delay. I'm back now, and will pick out the relevant parts sometime this week, hopefully. I have a weakness for reading books only from cover to cover, but it's a thin book so it shouldn't take much time :-) Cheers, Shreevatsa (talk) 17:11, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Update: The book describes his life only in the first chapter, "Personal matters", pages 1-27. I've added the little stuff there was from pages 24 to 27. (Are you sure you can't access them on Google Books? I still can..) The book doesn't say much. I'm also beginning to doubt its accuracy, as it says the following on page 25:

His novel The Guide was actually written in the United States on his travels. It attained such popularity that the Indian film producer Dev Anand wanted to acquire the rights of it for a film. Instead of making Narayan's fortune the film, it appears, made no profits and drove him to distraction. [...] Mr Sampath, or The Printer of Malgudi as it was called in the United States, was also made into a film with considerably more success and a much greater financial reward.

Now of course, we know that Guide was a box-office hit, and I hadn't even heard of the Mr. Sampath film (which was made in 1952 before Guide was made in 1965), so make of that what you will. (It also says he bought an acre of agricultural land in "Bangalore, some hundred miles from Mysore", which somehow I doubt.) Shreevatsa (talk) 04:22, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I do have access to those pages on Gbooks, but was under the impression there's more detail in the later pages! I'll just have to find the Rams' bio of him then, that's possibly the best source, but the closest copy to me is about 50 miles away (it is just two stops on the Red line from you :D) and gbooks doesn't have previews for it. I'll get to the next part of restructuring the article tomorrow. Planning to completely redo the writing career bit including the title. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 04:58, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh yes, the Guide aspect is most likely incorrect, I remember an article in the Hindu with his picture from a US visit in 1960s as his first visit to the US. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 05:00, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Just describing the rest of the book: Chapter 2 is "Beginnings" and describes his early novels. Chapter 3 is "Development" and describes Mr. Sampath, Financial Expert, and Waiting for the Mahatma. Chapter 4, "Other Work", describes some short stories, some essays, The Ramayana and The Mahabharata. Chapter 5, "Arrival", is The Guide. Chapter6 is titled "Maturity" and describes The Man-Eater of Malgudi, The Sweet-Vendor (is that what The Vendor of Sweets was called earlier, or is it Walsh's mistake?), and The Painter of Signs. Finally there's Chapter 7, "Conclusion", which consists of some general reflections by Walsh. Mostly all the chapters are about the writing, but there are occasional (though not very useful) facts about Narayan's life when he wants to suggest that something in the novels was taken from personal experience. I'm not even sure I should read this book, as I haven't read all of Narayan's novels yet. :-) Shreevatsa (talk) 18:54, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I think I should leave Walsh out of the article for the remaining stuff! It doesn't appear to be too helpful. I'll get back to work on the article today, and let you know if I need some specific help. On a different note, since you were active on the Indian Astronomers assocn afd, there are tons of astronomy related AfDs on today's PROD log, I just contested a decidedly absurd one - Royal Astronomical Society of Canada; a couple of them should possibly go, but it looks like a majority of them should stay. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 19:07, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed. :-) I don't know whether some people think they're doing something useful by getting pages deleted. Shreevatsa (talk) 19:14, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

'Random comments'

Hi, I noticed you removed the HTML comment I added to the Bharat redirect with the reason that it was a "random comment". I added that comment because some user redirected the page to Bharata, which was incorrect as Bharat is legally a name for India, in the hope that if he/she or another user wanted to redirect the page elsewhere, they would know not do so. I have added the comment again.

Thanks, GSMR (talk) 20:21, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

You mean this. I don't find the argument sound, but anyway, it is not usually necessary to SHOUT at editors. I've changed it to a polite note saying "please discuss first". Shreevatsa (talk) 17:11, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Misc.

Thanks for linking to WP:REFPUNCT in your edit-summary here. I was actually searching for the MOS page where that convention is described, an hour back, but hadn't found it! On an unrelated note: you had once remarked on the Hinduism talkpage:

"... first someone adds things that are "obviously true and well-known", then someone tags every sentence with , and random sources are hastily found for the statements. :-) "

QED. Abecedare (talk) 23:36, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Heh. Guess this process is inevitable in articles that are older than the Verifiability policy... and it's unfortunate that poor unreliable sources (and Wikipedia mirrors) are always easier to find than reliable ones. (BTW, WP:REFPUNCT says it's ok to have the reference tags before punctuation, and that style even seems logical sometimes and makes it easier to rewrite sentences, but I just find it ugly!) Shreevatsa (talk) 23:58, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Had I known that Refpunct allowed the alternate placement I wouldn't have unnecessarily changed the style at Hamsa-Sandesha. But I agree it looks ugly - I think because the comma or period with preceding gap looks misplaced. Off-wiki the reference style I use most often is of the form "... blah, blah blah blah [1], blah [2-4]." and that looks fine to me, so it may just be a matter of familiarity. Abecedare (talk) 00:26, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Good observation; I find it convincing that having a gap before the comma on the baseline is what makes it look so odd. (Also agree that it's probably just a matter of familiarity...) Shreevatsa (talk) 03:52, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

School systems in Tamil Nadu

Can you help with this article? In my sandbox now, but I've got a grand plan of completing this and creating a template with this and all lists of accreditation systems and lists of schools by city/district for Tamil Nadu. I completed the Matriculation article and it's on mainspace now, need to do the Anglo-Indian, and then these will be a set of articles completing the school system of TN. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 03:28, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Wow, sounds like a grand and noble plan! Unfortunately, I'm actually not from Tamil Nadu and know very little about its school system, so I'm not sure how I could help. Where do you expect to find sources? Shreevatsa (talk) 03:50, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Figured that since you spent a few years in Madras, you might know something! As far as sources, mostly Gbooks (and there's a good bit) and there's a fair bit of info in The Hindu archives too. More than the sourcing, my problem currently is structuring, since I couldn't find any articles like this. Education in the United States is a good example, but I'm not sure that I can say Education in Tamil Nadu since this should cover only up to 12th std, but open to the idea with possibly some tweaking to show it covers only school edu; and I'm struggling to adapt that to the Indian context too. Right now, the sandbox page consists of text I inserted into Schools in Chennai which was in a terrible state. May serve as a starting point, but it's basically junk! As for the template: line 1 - this article; line 2 - five accreditation systems; line 3 - school lists by city; line 4 - school lists by district. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 04:04, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

For the name, you could try "School education in Tamil Nadu" or "Primary and secondary education in Tamil Nadu", or even just "Education in Tamil Nadu" and leave the "university" section for someone else to write. :-) Shreevatsa (talk) 04:27, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll probably choose school edu, I'm still a bit confused on structure though. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 04:58, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Sanskritization Backup

Hi there. Thanks for the backup for edit on Sanskritization article. Thanks for the bold suggestion. --Sumir 17:31, 19 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sumir Sharma (talk • contribs)

Talkback

• User talk:RadioFan/Archives/2009/August#Excessive prods

I was interested in your note on this user's talk page, after he prodded a newly created page of mine for deletion. As an Inclusionist I find it impossible to understand the mentality which seeks to destroy the work of others in such vast quantities as this user's contribution page reveals. As with the examples you mentioned, my page also referred to an organization whose notability will be establishable, but I had only just commenced the article and within literally two minutes found it tagged for deletion. -- Ishel99 (talk) 22:33, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

"That they exist is notable enough"

I don't think you get how Wikipedia works if you use the quote above in an edit comment restoring mentions of some student films. Wikipedia works by notability and does not list every bit of trivia for everything that exists. DreamGuy (talk) 00:24, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:N says, emphatically, "These notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article. They do not directly limit the content of articles." The content of articles is based on discussion, common sense, and good judgement — or, as the page goes on to say, "For Wikipedia's policies regarding content, see WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NOT, and WP:BLP". Of course, it is possible to differ on whether some information on an article is an indiscriminate collection of information or not (and in this case your judgement might even be the better one), but there is certainly no reason to remove things just because they aren't notable by themselves, even if they happen to be notable to the subject of the article. Shreevatsa (talk) 00:47, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

The notability page refers to articles, but other policies (and some basic common sense) also show what notability is for inclusion within articles. WP:NOT, particularly, forbids random lists of information, promotion/advertsing, etc. Notability has ALWAYS applied for content in articles, and you'd have to be pretty inexperienced here to not know that. You might also read WP:ENC for some very basic info you missed.

As for as the existing is enough argument goes, you exist, and you edited that article, do you think we should add a line in the article saying you edited it? John Schmakinov in Prancetuppet, Massachussetts read the story once, should that be in the article? Look, there's a fly in your soup, should we include that in the article? I mean, why not, it exists, and therefore by your skewed ideas it must be mentioned. That's not how anything works, and the fact that IMDB lets any nobody off the street create entries for every trivial amateur production out there and still most of those short films you want mentioned in the article don't have listings should tell you that they are so trivial that nobody could even be bothered to go to IMDB to add them. DreamGuy (talk) 19:13, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Right, as I said, we need to use common sense and decide what's notable for the topic of the article. In a biographical article, for example, we mention the name of the subject's parents, or place of birth, without insisting that these names be notable by themselves — because they are important to the subject of the article. And for a short story, the fact that it has been made into several films is certainly something quite notable, isn't it? (No matter how obscure the films themselves are.) It seems about as notable as mentioning anthologies it has been published in, and so on. Aren't adaptations a notable part of any story's story? Whether the films themselves are worth mentioning is less clear... and it's possible the answer is no. :-) Shreevatsa (talk) 19:52, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Format problem

In this edit, you appear to have intended simply to delete a paragraph. But you also added extra space between sections, which is visible to the reader. You can see that if you look at article's appearance immediately after your edit.

(I've fixed the problem. I also put that paragraph back in, in a later part of the article.) Michael Hardy (talk) 17:15, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the effect of extra spaces. Actually, in that edit, I was moving, not deleting, the paragraph to another part of the article, and your addition resulted in two copies of the paragraph. :-) I can't decide where that paragraph should be, so please delete whichever of the two occurrences you think is less appropriate. Thanks, Shreevatsa (talk) 17:41, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Rehoboth Christian College

Some days ago you assisted the commencement of this article by reviewing the templates which had been placed there. At this time I have added considerable references and would be grateful for your further review and, if you feel appropriate, removal or replacement of the remaining template. The article will continue to be worked on with further sections, but I believe it no longer warrants the template it currently bears. Many thanks. -- Ishel99 (talk) 13:30, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi. I had only removed the {{notability}} tag because high schools are inherently notable. I just looked at the article again and removed the {{primarysources}} tag as well because it seemed ok. Cheers, Shreevatsa (talk) 13:50, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks heaps! I did understand your reasoning, and it was quite appropriate to leave the second tag there at that stage. Thanks for reviewing it again now - do let me know if I can ever return the favour any time. Best! -- Ishel99 (talk) 14:43, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Sanskrit transliteration tool

Thank you for the link to your Sanskrit transliteration tool that you posted here. It's nicely done and deserves wider distribution, since it seems to be the only one of its kind. FYI I bookmarked it on delicious. --Kai Carver (talk) 09:11, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

oh by the way, I know I'm terribly ungrateful, but here's a request for improvement of your already great tool: could it work with a URL parameter, so I could pass around a link like http://web.mit.edu/vatsa/www/sanskrit/transliterate.html?devanagari=महा? --Kai Carver (talk) 09:48, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks , glad you found it usable. The reason it's not widely known (whatever that means among the tiny number of people who would have any use for it) is that it's not "done" yet. There are known bugs and I'm still experimenting and trying to figure out the right way of doing things, so sometimes things may break and if anyone's using it they might curse me... dealing with users properly is an aspect of programming I have zero experience in. :-) I just posted the link there because it seemed to be working at the moment. In any case, it ought to be possible to make it work with a URL parameter and it seems like a good idea; I'll try to get to that in a few days. Regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 10:46, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I totally understand your reticence regarding users :-) And I imagine it's tricky deciding what to do on the client or on the server or both. Btw I saw an interesting ranking of Sanskrit transliteration schemes at the bottom of this page. Looks like there is no good solution... There rarely seems to be with transliteration. Arabic and Korean seem to have problems. Mandarin Chinese seems to have solved it more or less with Pinyin. Oh and I propose "widely known" to mean "findable by Google": in this flat world, online Sanskrit transliteration can be equal to Britney Spears, just a search away ;-) --Kai Carver (talk) 11:52, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

hinduism

It seems that for all our nice long chit chat on the page, we don't actually disagree on the content, so I will probably end my involvement in the discussions. Its good to see you are at least invested in improving the page whether your claims are displayed or not. Happy editing.Pectore^talk 00:02, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

That's because the discussion, although it grew out of something on the page and was about an important point, seems not to have a direct bearing on the article at the very moment... but I am, however, as much interested in using the opportunity to gain a better understanding, as in the contents of the page. Guess I can say the same thing about you too — it's great that you're improving the page without necessarily having your version of the claims displayed. :-) Shreevatsa (talk) 06:04, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

The Buddha in Hinduism

The Encyclopedia of Hinduism source that you are using does not appear to be reliable. I am unaware of the author's qualifications and the publisher is not an academic press. Mitsube (talk) 23:36, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Good heavens, if you adopt a strange definition of "reliable" to include only academic presses, you'll be left with only controversial ("original") works from people like Wendy Doniger. There's very little study of Hinduism in Indian academic institutions, but that doesn't mean that no one in India is an expert on Hinduism. :-) The book is published by a reputed publisher and the author has written several books on Hinduism and Buddhism. It's reliable. [Did you look at the source? It cites all the specific verses from the Puranas. It's a scholarly work, unlike armchair speculation, and I don't know of any more authoritative source on the specific topic of the mentions of Buddha in the Puranas.] Shreevatsa (talk) 01:22, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

The issue here is WP:V, not your opinions regarding Wendy Doniger. I did look at the source, but you have not established reliability. Mitsube (talk) 03:21, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I already said it: it's a published book (and a thorough one at that), not self-published, and not by a fringe source. That's WP:V. There is no requirement for it to be by an academic press. Shreevatsa (talk) 03:47, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

In addition, nothing that I added to the article is mentioned by the book without citing the actual verse — all claims are verifiable (in addition to being in the book) by simply looking up the corresponding verses in the Puranas. So I don't know what problem you see... nothing I added to the article was controversial either, and I genuinely believe I was making an improvement, so why are we arguing about technicalities, anyway? :-) Shreevatsa (talk) 04:12, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Take a look?

At the Ramayana dab, it was "cleaned up", but the new version doesn't read correctly. I'm struggling to find a way to keep the dab structure and make it meaningful rather than the way it is right now. Also, if you can read RKN and add to the To-do list on the TP, that'd be good. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 01:25, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I changed the format a bit, but not sure if it's what you had intended. I'll look at the R. K. Narayan article sometime soon... you've done an amazing amount of editing on it; I wonder if you now know more about him than any of his biographers. :-) Shreevatsa (talk) 01:38, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I didn't have anything particular in mind, but it looks better now than anytime in its history. On RKN, well, since both Rao and William Walsh (academic) used My Days as their almost only source for the personal life bits (reading through these I can see spots where Rao has lifted text verbatim, although Walsh at least had some extras since he's met Narayan quite a few times including when he got an honorary doctarate) - which is why you see that neither book goes beyond the 70's in that aspect despite much later publication - I'd say anyone who has read My Days will know as much as these guys. Too bad that the Ram version isn't available online or in any library close to me. The New Yorker piece is good though, it has some good info from everywhere. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff^{Calvin‡Hobbes} 02:03, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Kirātārjunīya

On September 5, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Kirātārjunīya, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Wikiproject: Did you know? 11:22, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Bharavi

On September 5, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Bharavi, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Wikiproject: Did you know? 11:23, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Templates for deletion nomination of Template:Computer Storage Volumes

Template:Computer Storage Volumes has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. --Cybercobra (talk) 01:05, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Templates for deletion nomination of Template:Quantities of bits

Template:Quantities of bits has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. --Cybercobra (talk) 01:11, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Shrivastava

Hi, if you can help to expand Shrivastava with sources, that would be welcome. - Fayenatic (talk) 17:33, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Heh. I presume you picked me because of the name. Despite the superficial similarity, they aren't actually related, but I wouldn't mind learning a bit sometime about the name that used to be the most common mispronunciation of mine. :-) For now, I've added a random "source", though I'm not sure why disambiguation pages need sources. Regards, and thanks for maintaining that page, Shreevatsa (talk) 17:53, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Yes, that was it, and I did think about apologising in advance in case your name is unrelated! Anthroponymy pages are articles, whereas disambiguation pages are just a kind of index, see MOS:DABNAME. We'd be glad of your help on the project if it interests you. - Fayenatic (talk) 19:31, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I found an article closer to home now - Sreevasthav, although you'll need to translate it first! cheers. -SpacemanSpiff 00:24, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Heh... for me to translate it would take quite some time. :-) I think it's the same name as Shrivastava, but the fact that it was created by User:Sreevasthav leaves me with not much optimism that there's anything worthwhile there. Shreevatsa (talk) 00:33, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Jallianwala Bagh massacre‎

Just acknowledging your rv - no prob, I didn't check the lead - unexplained removal of cited stuff by anon editors tends to lead me to instant action stations...! cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:49, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Indeed... I also almost removed it, then I happened to looked more carefully and noticed the repetition. It is quite a struggle to always assume good faith, isn't it? :) Shreevatsa (talk) 05:00, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Charles Dickens

See talk:Charles Dickens, you were arguing against inclusion of Dickens' views on Jews, Inuits? Why? Now I wish to show how he brutalised Indians and Indian civilisation, privately and in his works and his public communication. I wonder why you wish that they are not mentioned in the article on him? Please reply on talk page of the article. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 04:39, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

As I explained there (in July 2008!), it is inappropriate to judge isolated facts about old people by modern sensibilities. To a great extent, even the most "liberal" writers simply reflect the modes of their time, on other races, religions, or cultures. We should only mention things that are notable for their time, e.g. if something was the predominant theme of their life's work, if contemporary critics commented on it, etc. I'll also reply on the talk page there when I've had time to see what this is about. Shreevatsa (talk) 18:15, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

P versus NP article

Hi, I noticed that you commented on the talk page of P = NP suggesting a name change. I agree with a name change, but the talk page seems dead right now (and the page can only be moved by admins). How do I generate some discussion on this and try to get the article renamed? I don't think posting it on WikiProject CS would help, since that seems pretty dead too. --Robin (talk) 18:19, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Ah, Talk:P_=_NP_problem#Name. :-) Interestingly, P versus NP problem now redirects to Computational complexity theory for some reason. If you care about it enough, posting again on the talk page or on WikiProject CS will probably attract attention; pages watched by many people usually easily rise from the dead. Shreevatsa (talk) 18:46, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

(butting in) I would suggest posting a WP:RM request. You can simply point to the earlier discussion and if there are no significant objections within a week, the page will be moved to the proposed title (which makes sense to me too). Abecedare (talk) 18:59, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I've posted a move request on the talk page: Talk:P_=_NP_problem#Requested_move. --Robin (talk) 19:24, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

A Chandas disambiguation page

Can you help with the Sanskrit metre article talk page situation? I have created a Chandas disambiguation page, but I don't think it is correctly done. --DThomsen8 (talk) 21:08, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Rajaji

A pedantic issue, I wrote that Rajaji "translated and abridged" the Ramayana/Mahabharata, another user has corrected it saying that he didn't translate, but "wrote" an abridged version (on Rajaji and the book pages). What's correct? I mean, he did translate it, that was the basis for the book. Just curious, not concerned about the change as it doesn't affect the meaning much. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff 15:33, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I think "translation" usually implies a direct correspondence: so "translated and abridged" is not, strictly speaking, correct, because he did not take the Sanskrit original verse-by-verse and produce English equivalents, and later condense them. Perhaps "wrote an abridged version" makes the attribution to the original less clear, but I don't know what would be the best way of saying it. :-) (Adaptation? Retelling?) Shreevatsa (talk) 17:52, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

(butting in) I too think the claim of translation would be unjustified in this case. While translations do not have to be word-by-word or verse-by verse, in this case it is not even certain that Rajaji based his version on any Sanskrit or Tamil "originals". I think retelling is the best description for his versions; I had read them years back and they made for lively reading during train journeys. :-) Abecedare (talk) 18:43, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, when I created the stubs, I found references to "translation" ([1], [2], [3]). However, in one interview, he mentioned that it's a condensation and not a translation. I was just curious on what should be the better way of phrasing this, as I wasn't sure myself. BTW, Abecedare, are you avoiding the category discussion I posted on Talk:India? cheers -SpacemanSpiff 19:00, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) I don't think it is wrong to call Rajaji's version a translation, given that translation has such a wide range of meanings. The question here is a matter of precision: To me translation suggests that the primary transformation of the text is in terms of change of language, and all other changes are (ideally) incidental; retelling suggests that the primary change is in terms of point-of-view and the author is being selective about the content and possibly providing a personal interpretation; while adaptation suggests that the primary difference is the change of media through which the stories/ideas are being expressed.

Note: According to Rajaji's preface (page ix) his Ramayana is a retelling followed by a translation. He originally wrote a Tamil version of the Ramayana and published it as weekly columns in Kalki magazine; only later did he translate his version into English and published it in book form. May be worth checking out and adding to the wikipedia article.

About the Hindustani category: The selection of categories including in India page is so random, that including the Category:Hindustani makes it no better or worse. One could suggest a overhaul of the selection, but I think it's a waste of time, since IMO hardly any readers are even aware of categories, and even fewer care. So it's a matter of maintaining one's serenity and picking battles. :-) Abecedare (talk) 19:53, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

That helps. The publication of his version of Kamba Ramayanam is included in the article, however, it doesn't go to the level of documenting the Kalki series (when I created it, I found refs only for the generic bit, the Kalki piece, I found only in some blogs). Ramayana (C. Rajagopalachari) can definitely be expanded, as can Mahabharata (C. Rajagopalachari). cheers. -SpacemanSpiff 20:04, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Aside: Sometimes we "academicians" overvalue philologicaly accurate translations in comparison with the more free-wheeling translations, interpretation, retellings etc. While the former are very useful in linguistic and historical studies, and in writing an encyclopedia; the latter are vital in actually preserving the living tradition that makes the epics culturally relevant. A.K. Ramanujan write a lovely article about this tradition w.r.t. the Ramayana: Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation. (Of course some ignoramuses found this essay to be sacrilegious! ) Abecedare (talk) 20:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Abecedare, that distinction between translation, retelling and adaptation excellently makes precise the vague idea I was trying to express. :) Thanks for the link to the nice essay too! (I had heard of it and wanted to read it, but hadn't found it.) It is absolutely true that the "philological" over-textual approach is often quite artificial in light of tradition. (Similar is the scholarly attempt to compile a "critical edition" that painstakingly seeks to approximate something that may not even exist.)

The essay, while saying many interesting and informative things, does seem to minimize the fact that ultimately any version of the Ramayana can be traced back, at least partly, to Valmiki's original. ("In this sense, no text is original…" — that sense is a very weak one! Sure, there is a distinction between katha and kavya, but was there a katha before the ("adi"-)kavya? In the case of the Ramayana, there doesn't seem to be any reason to believe so.) Of course "tellings" is better than "variants", and all the tellings of the Ramayana, as different as they are, are extremely valuable in their respective cultural contexts… but they each have their place, and are not interchangeable or "equally valid" in any sense (that would once again fall into the trap of thinking there is even a global sense of "valid" in the first place). Shreevatsa (talk) 04:43, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

• Off-topic: Given the difficulty in mining biographical sources for M. S. Subbulakshmi, I've decided to focus on Srinivasa Ramanujan as my next FA candidate. Given both your backgrounds, wondering if you'd be interested in collaborating on that. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff 05:13, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Query

Regarding this reordering: doesn't it now read like Price and Thurswell were the ones doing the marketing? Эlcobbola _talk 14:11, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh hmm, you're right; I hadn't thought of that! :-) It's an awkward sentence either way — in the earlier version, or reading "the association [...] has been linked by [...]", I thought it was meant to say that these people made ("linked") the association in the first place, and the "to the marketing" later in the sentence was confusing. Possible solutions might be to remove "by observers such as Leah Price and Pamela Thurschwell" entirely (what are observers, anyway?), or to turn it into active voice ("[P&T] have linked the association of women with the typewriter to the marketing of the Sholes and Glidden typewriter"). Perhaps the actual problem is that the sentence is trying to say too many things at once: (1) There exists, or has existed, an association between women and the typewriter, and (2) Some authors have linked this association to the marketing. If (1) is not first established, a reader arriving at that paragraph is prone to wonder "What association?". IIRC an early version said something like "Women have been associated with the typewriter since the early days…"; it might be worth restoring it and following it up with the assigning of the credit to Remington's marketing. BTW, it seems there have been reams written about the general typewriters-and-women idea, perhaps enough for an entire article? :) Shreevatsa (talk) 14:52, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Good observations. The sentence was added by the GA reviewer, so I'm not entirely sure how many points were intended to be articulated. I think it was wise to have added the introductory sentence, but some tweaking seems in order. I'd rather not lead with P&T, as that would give them more weight in the sentence when they are, frankly, inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. The advertising also shouldn't be tied to Remington, as Sholes' daughter was being used before the transfer (I tried to rephrase to make that more clear). I've removed P&T altogether for the time being. I've found that the typewriter-and-women literature is very unfocused. It tends to start well enough, but quickly moves into discussion of male/female relationships, interoffice politics and more general economical/financial discussion. Getting enough information germane to the typewriter itself would be tricky, but an article on the transition of women into the clerical workplace would have a lot of material. Эlcobbola _talk 16:41, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Requesting undoing the reversal of Romenagari on Devanagari transliteration page

Hi, are you sure the rollback of Romenagri additions to Devanagari transliteration page should not have been discussed before rollback? What is your criteria of notability? Romenagri transliteration allows certain improvements above the other transliterations in being compiler compatible. Also it was originally published in 2004. Please refer [4]. The edit had also cited external references, including coverage in national and international media.

What would be your justified criteria for the inclusion of Romenagri? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 15.219.201.80 (talk • contribs)

Please respond to the above comment. However, if you are satisfied about the notability of Romenagri please undo your rollback (yes the original edit of new section for Romenagri had the spelling wrong - Project Hindawi documents use the form Romenagri). Please also give a tentative timeline about by when you will be able to respond to this post. You will certainly need some time to do the background research. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 15.219.201.79 (talk) 19:29, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Please also update the Devanagari transliteration talk page about your views on the lack of notability for Romenagri vis-a-vis transliteration methods such Velthius. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 15.219.201.79 (talk) 19:32, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Panchatantra

Hi Shreevasta, Thanks for your comment. I've been traveling & offline for many months — hence my long silence. Will try to get back to you soonish (after re-wrapping my head around your question), but am no expert at this User-talk aspect of Wpedia. I guess I copy this to your talk page? Well, we'll see. Guide me please when I get my User-talk-etiquette tangled up. Also please notify me on my talk page while I learn these new ropes.

Yours, (Geebean (talk) 12:53, 23 November 2009 (UTC))

---

Hello Geebean, thanks for your many contributions to the Panchatantra article and others.

You undid this change on the Panchatantra article, saying

Please see definition of 'Reference' from Wikipedia itself, esp 'Academic writing')

Perhaps you were referring to the Reference article's academic writing section? It says:

In academic literature, a reference is a previously published written work within academic publishing which has been used as a source for theory or claims referred to which are used in the text.

I think I understand this, but could you explain how that footnote is a "source for theory or claims used in the text"? We could discuss this either here or at the talk page of the article.

Best regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 15:03, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi, some sort of reply would be nice. Is it ok if I remove the quote from the article for now? Shreevatsa (talk) 03:18, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

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