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RfC: Indian English or American?[edit]

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Clear consensus that the subject has "strong national ties" to India under MOS:TIES, and thus a clear consensus that the article should be written in Indian English. (non-admin closure) BilledMammal (talk) 23:18, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This article is currently written using American English. Should it switch to using Indian English? 06:03, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes. The subject of this article is an Indian national living in India. As written, the manual of style states that "An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the (formal, not colloquial) English of that nation" (see MOS:TIES). The argument to keep American English rests on MOS:RETAIN, which explicitly does not apply when a topic "has strong national ties". As such I do not see a cogent argument to keep using American English. Vanamonde (Talk) 06:03, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but I don't think it makes sense for this to be an RfC, since the application of WP:TIES is obvious and even a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS here couldn't overrule it. -sche (talk) 08:26, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@-sche: I'd agree, but KoA does not, and so I opened an RfC rather than engage in lengthy and fruitless discussion. I don't think local consensus even exists, just a history of using AmE. Vanamonde (Talk) 09:18, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes The subject of the article was born in India and still has Indian nationality so MOS:TIES is clear — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 11:10, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes It should switch to Indian English since the subject article is for an Indian national. Sea Ane (talk) 11:58, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes For an Indian national notable for her activities in India, nexus is sufficient to make the switch. -- Ab207 (talk) 14:32, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No per WP:TIES and WP:RETAIN. I already gave an overview of this in the above section, but in terms of WP:!VOTE, simply being Indian or living there does not automatically give a subject that brand of English. That doesn't meet the strong national ties part of TIES. Generally, that would be reserved for subjects that are more intimately associated with the area. Mumbai is given as a prime example of that in guidance. If she had only remained in India in terms of impact or notoriety, then a stronger TIES argument could be made, but so much of her time/effort is spent outside India that such a case is weakened when you actually follow along with what she does. This is a more complicated subject that can't just be superficially labeled as only an Indian activist.

Instead, Shiva is known internationally for pushing WP:FRINGE psuedoscience, quackery, etc. on GMOs, not just for her actions in India. That basically makes it so no particular brand of English really has a claim, and that's where RETAIN kicks in. When it comes to her international circuit of $40,000 a piece lectures, there is plenty of discussion of that in the North America [1][2][3][4]. For a little crossover in an Australian "documentary", the summary there said activist Vandana Shiva will be the most recognizable to North American audiences. . .[5] Then there's what she did in the Zambian government in the article.

The list can go on, but in short, much of her claim to fame is not particularly focused on India when you look at the critiques of her behavior. I even saw a thesis awhile back discussing how disconnected she is from India even.[6] Instead, it's often for much more to do with spreading common anti-GMO talking points internationally like terminator gene conspiracy theories that apply worldwide. That's including things like now claiming COVID was caused by GMO animal feed.[7] In the end, this article has used North American English since 2002, and that's all we're really left with to retain when there are multiple TIES claims from a figure whose prominence is more on the international stage than any one country. KoA (talk) 15:45, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

KoA's sources document Shiva's history of making unscientific claims, but have nothing to do with whether Shiva has strong national ties to India. Very many Indian activists and academics travel abroad for lecture tours; what they earn has nothing to do with anything, and that fact serves only to muddy the waters. Shiva's career has been substantively spent working in India, and every substantive article on her career as a whole (as opposed to responses to specific incidents) highlights that work. An individual having an international impact on their field has absolutely nothing to do with their prominence or connection to their country of origin. Vanamonde (Talk) 14:01, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The whole point in those sources is that much of her work is not just in India. Being an international pseudoscience proponent often removed from just India-specific things is what she is perhaps best known for. That a large part of her notoriety is profiting off lectures about common pseudoscience talking points in the subject internationally is not muddying the waters at all. Even when I come across her material in the subject, most of the time it's pretty disconnected from India aside from things like the GMO suicides in India myth. If her impacts in the fringe world were mostly focused on India, then I wouldn't be opposed to declaring Indian English the obvious choice. That water is much more muddy in that case.

I was also curious about what Shiva "considers" normal eng-var usage for her audience. Looking through books she wrote like [this one], it's all American English in the variants I searched for there and across some others. If Indian English were her main target language, then you would expect that to show in books she had editorial oversight of. KoA (talk) 17:02, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I added an WP:APPNOTE of this discussion to list of current style discussions at WT:MOS, the talk page of WP:ENGVAR and WP:TIES. -sche (talk) 18:41, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Given the life and accomplishments of Vandana Shiva, it would seem to be appropriate to use Indian English in this article as per MOS:TIES. Her activities have taken her outside of India at times, but the totality of circumstances weighs in favor of using Indian English. I don't find the argument that her activities adopted or reognized by the international community as a reason in itself to retain American English for the article. Jurisdicta (talk) 22:45, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, write her biography in Indian English. She has always been Indian and her career has always been associated with India. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:47, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. The subject has clear strong national ties despite her work taking her international — DaxServer (talk to me) 18:18, 21 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes - Per DaxServer. Clear Looking Glass (talk) 06:23, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Unfair criticism[edit]

It seems to me that the criticism from proponents of corporate interests, GM etc is unfair and prejudiced, and lacking in scientific basis. 51.148.176.21 (talk) 20:48, 26 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nice Shill Gambit... 37.35.148.242 (talk) 18:14, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How exactly does this section's concern apply to the criticisms of Michael Specter, Keith Kloor, Stewart Brand, Birendra Nayak? These are investigative journalists and writers, who themselves are no friend of corporate America. They lodge complaints against Shiva based on her pseudoscientific evidence-base, her plagiarism, and her unethical claims. Hardly "corporate interests."

Brand, for example, was a fixture in the hippie circles of the 60s and 70s, engaging in Acid Tests, and hung out with Ken Kesey. How exactly is this guy a picture of "corporate interests?" He's just not an extremist. if that makes him a corporatist, then basically everyone but Shiva is, too. — Shibbolethink ^(♔ ^♕) 21:58, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Vandana Shiva ties to the Sri Lanka Agriculture Disaster[edit]

https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2022/06/20/viewpoint-green-technology-rejectionist-vandana-shiva-at-center-of-sri-lankas-disastrous-organic-farming-embrace-and-crop-protection-chemical-rejection/

https://indianexpress.com/article/world/sri-lankan-prime-minister-mahinda-rajapaksa-resigns-7908244/

https://m.economictimes.com/news/international/world-news/sri-lanka-takes-emergency-measures-to-avoid-food-crisis/articleshow/89492088.cms?from=mdr

So far these are allegations against Shiva that is being examined here.2601:640:C682:79C0:B181:9A97:AEAD:D9CA (talk) 13:34, 9 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

European Scientist and Folta in agdaily[edit]

@Drmies: I'm a bit puzzled by your justification for removing this - why do you consider European Scientist to be a "partisan primary source"? Looking at https://www.europeanscientist.com/en/about-us/ and https://www.europeanscientist.com/en/masthead/ I don't see any reason to indicate that it wouldn't be a reliable source. Folta's piece also looks reliable to me, unless I am missing something. Cheers SmartSE (talk) 17:47, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Smartse, did you see the opening sentence of that piece by Folta? It's blatantly partisan, and what is it supposed to verify--"she was criticized for use of hate speech", a claim that says in Wikipedia's voice that she did in fact use hate speech, which strikes me as a matter of opinion. But worse, someone made our article say that she asked for journalists and scientists to be executed. OK--let's follow that thread, which from the AG Daily website you linked goes to this article, which talks about a website that is now sanitized and supposedly investigated by the FBI, but the link for such an investigation goes to this partisan site, which also doesn't prove the FBI is involved. Anyway, the Patheos article mentions neither the website allegedly run by Shiva, or Shiva herself. In other words, it's crap, and it's even worse of a BLP violation than I thought. Because what you consider a reliable source, AG Daily, is in fact nothing but a pretty shady website run by God knows who--go look at their "About Us" page, which leads to the media company running it, this one. I'm not going to defend Shiva's claims about...well about anything, but I am seriously wondering about who placed all these attacks on this page, because that is what they are.
And while European Scientist looks far less sketchy, and has an editorial board, it's still weird that it is not clear at all whether they are reporting on this letter, or actually promoting this letter, considering that the author of the letter is also the author of the article. In other words, it's primary, but either way it's fishy. Either the journal (if that is what it is?) reports objectively in an article NOT written by the writer of the letter, or the editorial board, for instance, takes a stance. But this, no, this is odd. Drmies (talk) 22:55, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Cloud200, it seems I'm talking about your edit. Please don't misunderstand me: I am very serious here when I say these were, in my opinion, BLP violations for a couple of reasons: fishy (partisan) sourcing, and incendiary language (ha, your words first) improperly attributed. Drmies (talk) 23:00, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]