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Fowler&fowler's concerns and sources

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I came across this article (again) while working on some Colonial India-related articles on Monday. (I realized the next day that I had made a few edits to it in March 2008.)

Mysore is variously a city, a district, and a larger historical region in southern India. In its last manifestation, it is also a major topic of historical study.

Background

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My concerns

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List of authors of Fowler&fowler's sources

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Sources for nature of Wodeyar "rule" up to 1761

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Sources for Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan as rulers from 1761 to 1799 (without "de facto")

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Wodeyar "rule" in princely state 1799 to 1947

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Neologism and Other Princely States

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My assessment of the sources in the current version of the article

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Child or teenage royals?

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Here the details about the Wodeyar "rule" between 1714 and 1904, a period of 190 years:

  • Krishnaraja Wodeyar I: born 1702, rules from ages 12 to 30.
  • Chamaraja Wodeyar VI: born 1704, rules from ages 28 to 30.
  • Krishnaraja Wodeyar II: born 1728, rules from ages 6 to 38.
  • Nanjaraja Wodeyar: born 1748, rules from ages 18 to 22.
  • Chamaraja Wodeyar VII: born 1759, rules from ages 13 to 17.
  • Chamaraja Wodeyar VIII: born 1774, rules from ages 2 to 12 (deposed)
  • Interregnum under Tipu Sultan 1786 to 1799.
  • Krishnaraja Wodeyar III: born 1794, rules from ages 4 to 37 (when the British take over governance)
  • British Commission: 1831 to 1881.
  • Chamaraja Wodeyar: born 1863, crowned at age 4, governs from ages 17 to 37 (dies).
  • Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV: born 1884 rules from age 10 to 56 (dies).

Years of child or teenage rule: 1714 to 1722 (8 years); 1734 to 1748 (14 years); 1766 to 1768 (2 years); 1772 to 1776 (4 years); 1776 to 1786 (10 years); 1799 to 1815 (16 years); 1881 to 1884 (3 years); 1894 to 1904 (6 years);

In addition, there are the years of the Tipu Sultan's interregnum 1786 to 1799 (13 years), which, in any case, from 1786 to 1796 would have corresponded to Chamaraja Wodeyar VIII's ages 12 to 22 (when the latter died). And the years of British Administration 1830 to 1881

Total period of Wodeyar child, teenage, or non- rule = 4 + 14 + 2 + 4 + 10 + 13 + 16 + 50 + 3 + 6 = 126 years. Thus during the 190 years from 1714 to 1904, a full two thirds were ruled either by Wodeyar children or teenagers, by Tipu Sultan or by the British. In short by people other than the Wodeyars. Please don't bring up the technical difference between adulthood (18) and end of teenage years (20); it doesn't substantially change the computation. Please also don't bring up WP:OR, I have plenty of sources that attest to the years of Wodeyar non-rule between 1714 and 1904.

If you add to that the years of Haidar Ali's "de facto" rule 1761 to 1766 (5 years) and 1768 to 1772 (4 years), it becomes 135 out of 190 years, we can say that 70 per cent of the time from 1714 to 1904 a Wodeyar was not in control of the "Kingdom of Mysore."

  1. So when did the Wodeyars really govern? In the 17th century? If so, why is it not acknowledged more explicitly in the article?
  2. But, more importantly, don't you think the governing that was done 70 percent of the time between 1714 and 1904, by Prime Ministers, and British Commissioners, not to speak of the nannies and pediatricians, is all too anonymous? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:46, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Anatomy of a Revision

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Until late August 2007, the Kingdom of Mysore page was a short article and it had no references; however, it was ideologically more balanced and more in consonance with the work of scholars who have worked on Mysore. The page had several history sections consisting of:

  1. Early History, which said, for example, "In common with every other feudatory of that empire, Mysore, under the Wodeyar dynasty, then assumed the trappings of independence. ... It was in the reign of Raja Wodeyar and his successor, the celebrated Kantheerava, in the mid-1600s, that the kingdom really asserted its independence, and expanded to include most of the southern part of modern-day Karnataka, as also parts of neighbouring states." (italics mine)
  2. Arasus of Kalale: "After Chamaraja Wodeyar VI, the failure of the direct male line not only necessitated the adoption of an heir, but also precipitated a minority. The Arasus (feudal barons) of Kalale came to hold sway over the affairs of the Kingdom of Mysore, and the position of "Dalavoy" or supreme commander of the royal army became effectively hereditary in that family."
  3. Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan: "During the minority of Maharaja Nanjaraja Wodeyar, Hyder Ali rose to become the de facto ruler of the state, retaining the Wodeyars as nominal rulers. His son Tipu Sultan dispensed with this charade and assumed full royal powers. Tipu Sultan prosecuted a brilliant military career; his rule contributed a golden chapter to the history of India. Both Hyder and Tipu brought in many technological innovations, modernizing the Mysorean army and expanding Mysore's foreign trade. ... The British, who purported to wage that war in support of the legitimate dynasty, reinstated the Wodeyars on the throne in the person of the 5-year-old Krishnaraja Wodeyar III. (Italics mine.)
  4. British period (1799): "The 5 year old Krishnaraja Wodeyar III ascended the throne under the regency of his adoptive grandmother, .... The capital was moved to Bangalore in 1830. Charging the Wodeyars with financial mismanagement, the British took direct control of Mysore in 1831 and retained it for half a century."
user:Dineshkannambadi's revisions
  1. 04:15 26 August 2007 edit (edit summary, "added origin theory with citations"): in his first edit to the page, user:Dineshkannambadi added 3 paragraphs to the Early History section, citing Kamath (2001) (college text-book) and Pranesh (2004) (music dissertation), and moved the original paragraph to the last.
  2. 14:25 16 September 2007 edit (edit summary, "editing the History section in preparation for FA"), user:Dineshkannambadi replaced original paragraph in Early history by material from Kamath and Pranesh.
  3. 15:01 16 September 2007 edit (edit summary, "cpedits"): 2 more paragraphs are added, by user:DK, to Early History from Pranesh (2003) and Kamath (2001), including the anecdote about wrestling skills.
  4. 16:22 16 September 2007 edit (edit summary, "adding History"): 2 paragraphs (from Pranesh and Kamath) about Haidar Ali were added, by user:DK, to Early History.
  5. 17:12 16 September 2007 edit (edit summary, "removed repeat section that is already cited in "History" section.") user:Dineshkannambadi removed the Arasus of Kalale subsection. Although the Delvoys are mentioned, in the newly added version, the references to the minor rulers, to the arasus (feudal chiefs), which the Wodeyars themselves were, have all disappeared.
  6. 18:42 16 September 2007 edit (edit summary, "title") user:Dineshkannambadi changed section name Early history to History.
  7. 18:43 16 September 2007 edit (edit summary, "removed repeat section on Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan for Cpedit") the original section on Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan was also removed. There is no mention now about Tipu dispensing off with the "charade" of keeping the Wodeyars as nominal heads and assuming full sovereign powers.
  8. 18:53 16 September 2007 edit (edit summary, "finished History section") user:Dineshkannambadi added another long paragraph of Wodeyar hagiography citing Pranesh and Kamath.
  9. 18:55 16 September 2007 edit (edit summary, "removed redundant section on " British period" already detailed and cited.") the original British period section was also removed. The only sections that remained was Early History which had been changed to History.
  10. By 18:55 16 September 2007, the Notes section had 37 footnotes, of these:
    1. 22 were to Kamath (2001)
      1. a Karnataka college text book with no ISBN information,
      2. written by a former Reader in History, Bangalore University, who has one publication in Google Scholar on the subject of Mysore
      3. and who has publicly-stated Hindu nationalist sympathies;
    2. and the remaining 15 were to Pranesh (2003),
      1. a Banglore University Department of Music dissertation,
      2. published locally in Bangalore,
      3. which also has no ISBN information.
    3. This, in an an area of Indian history, modern and early-modern Mysore, that has attracted some of the world's best-known historians.
  11. 19:55 16 September 2007 edit (edit summary, "new sections that meet FA criteria that I will add data to shortly.") New sections were created on Culture (with its own subsections) and Architecture.
  12. 21:45 16 September 2007 edit (edit summary, "Culture:Music") 4 long paragraphs were added to the music subsection.
  13. 23:53 16 September 2007 edit (edit summary, "literature") a literature section was added from a mother article Mysore Kingdom literature
  14. On 26 October 2007, when it was nominated for a Featured Article Candidate on 26 October 2007, the article had had this History content, which although different in minor details, was substantially unchanged this History content on 21:45 16 September 2007
  15. On 4 November 2007, when it became an FA, the History section content was substantially unchanged
  16. In this edit of 04:59 28 March 2008 (edit summary, "not a kingdom after 1799, but a princely state; no kings after 1799, only rulers or princes"), user:Fowler&fowler introduces "Princely State" more explicitly. For example, user:Dineshkannambadi's version: "The British, however, restored the kingdom to the Wodeyars whom they saw as the rightful heirs to the throne. Mysore thus became a 'princely state' under the British Raj and the Wodeyars continued to rule it ... when the kingdom was merged with the Union of India." was changed to "The British, however, restored the Wodeyars in the smaller princely state of Mysore under the paramountcy of the British Raj. The Wodeyars continued to rule ... when the state was merged with the Union of India." More of the same was done in the next few edits.
Conclusion
Most of the current ideological slant of the article (or POV in Wikispeak) was introduced in a series of edits made by user:Dineshkannambadi between 14:25 16 September 2007 and 23:53 16 September 2007. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:15, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Accurate Lead Paragraph

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F&f FAR Post 1

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Fowler&fowler Post1
An apology, a plea for inclusion, and an actionable idea

Dear FAR reader:

Since the first FAR had quickly spiraled into a lengthy content dispute, I will make only this one post in this second FAR. (I assuming that you have either already read My concerns, referred to above, or will soon do. That's where the meat of my criticism is.)

In the History, Economy, and Administration sections of this featured article, the college text-book, A Concise History of Karnataka from Pre-historic Times to the Present, by historian Suryanath U. Kamath, has been footnoted 45 times (counting repeats) among a total of 57 footnotes (also counting repeats). Earlier, I had been dismissive of Dr. Kamath's book. However, I now realize my assessment had been premature. I would like to apologize to the FA's primary author user:Dineshkannambadi and also take this opportunity to both give the general FAR reader a flavor of Dr. Kamath's work and propose an actionable idea.

  • In a Google Scholar search in the topic "Mysore," out of a total of 7,490 scholarly publications in the Social Sciences and Humanities published between 1970 and 2008, Dr. S. U. Kamath has one publication. (The other Kamaths or Kamats are not him.)
  • Dr. Kamath is also known as the Chairman of the Editorial Committee of middle- and high-school text-books introduced in his home state of Karnataka in the late-1990s. The text-books garnered a review titled, Mis-oriented textbooks Archived 2007-09-16 at the Wayback Machine, in the magazine Frontline. Later, India's BJP-led government implemented some of the ideas in Karnataka's pioneering textbooks at an all-India level. Those textbooks in turn received wide international recognition, for example, in the review, titled, Hijacking India's History, in the New York Times.

So, there is strong evidence that Dr. Kamath is a widely known historian, and I welcome user:Dineshkannambadi's use of Dr. Kamath's widely used Karnataka college textbook in this History FA, and again extend my apologies for my earlier rush to judgment.

However, I feel that this Featured Article might also benefit from the views of other historians who too have publications in international journals. These scholars, some of whom appear in my list of scholars include James Manor. Dr. Manor has 17 publications listed in Google Scholar and he too is internationally known. In his paper, "Princely Mysore before the storm," Dr. Manor states that until 1761, the Wodeyars were "chieftains" who had only "claimed control over the southern and eastern parts" of Mysore. (To preempt any misinterpretations, I should like to clarify that "only claimed control over" is not the same thing as "claimed control over only.")

Since user:Sarvagnya had in an earlier post so wisely stressed the word "actionable," I was wondering if we might not turn Dr. Manor's ideas into action and thereby make them actionable. In particular, I was wondering if in the infobox for the period 1565–1761, we—as the FAR community—might consider the changing the current title, "Independent Wodeyar Kings" (see here) to:

Independent Wodeyar Kings/Wodeyar Chieftains Claiming Control Over Territory.

I feel the new title will be more inclusive of scholarly opinion. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:57, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 2

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(Fowler&fowler Post2) Although I am staying away from entering into protracted content disputes here, I have to voice agreement with user:Dineshkannambadi when he says that the controversies that trail these scholars should not be followed here, only their footprints on the sands of scholarly time. So, just as Dr. Kamath has international recognition with his one publication on the topic of Mysore listed in Google Scholar, Dr. Romila Thapar too has a few publications here and there listed in Google Scholar, and these publications have been cited a few times by others. Similarly, just as Dr. Kamath's legacy in Ancient India has been covered in the international press, such as in the review, Mis-oriented textbooks Archived 2007-09-16 at the Wayback Machine, in the magazine Frontline, Dr. Thapar's contributions have been recognized as well, such as in the report, Historians Brown and Thapar Will Share $1 Million Kluge Prize in the Washington Post just a few days ago. Let us keep our focus on the scholarly record. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:30, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 3

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(Fowler&fowler Post 3) My dear user:Sarvagnya, In response to the Frontline coverage, Dr. Kamath wrote a letter to the magazine's editors titled, The Saraswati river Archived 2005-03-29 at the Wayback Machine, which provided scientific evidence for the Saraswati River and justification for the appellation, Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization. After the BJP's defeat in the 2004 Indian elections, the new government led by Oxford scholar Manmohan Singh changed all the text books, consequently, Indian high-school students are no longer learning about Dr. Kamath's "Saraswati river" in their maps (see page 2 of this online chapter). However, our own Wikipedia, has acknowledged these ideas in the lead of its page Indus Valley Civilization. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:10, 10 December 2008 (UTC) (Scratched out some text that doesn't directly answer user:Sarvagnya's question. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC))

PS As you will readily see at the end of the letter, Dr. Kamath is the Chairman of the Editorial Committee and Dr. Nagaraju, Scrutiniser of the Standard VIII and IX Social Studies textbooks. Warm regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:13, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 4

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(Fowler&fowler Post 4) Perhaps there has been some misunderstanding user:Sarvagnya. Nowhere in this second FAR have I said that Dr. Kamath, former Reader in History, Banglore University, is not a significant historian. My point is that just as Dr. Kamath as been honoured by interviews on private websites, such as Kamat.com, where, for example, in his closing remarks, he said, "The volunteers of organizations such as RSS need to rise to occasion to influence young minds into greater values of life," other scholars, like Dr. James Manor have also been recognized internationally. As I have already stated in my first post above, Dr. Manor regards the Wodeyars to have been Chieftains rather than Kings. I have suggested a very actionable plan there as a first step. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:32, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 5

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Fowler&fowler Post 5
user:Mattisse, user:Docku, user:Dineshkannambadi's remarks about LCCN/ISBN information for text-book.

The Library of Congress call number provided by user:Dineshkannambadi for the book, A Concise History of Karnataka from Pre-historic Times to the Present is for the 1980 edition. For the last ten years, the book has been published in yearly revised editions by Jupiter Books, Bangalore, India. It is one of these revised editions (2001) that has been used by user:Dineshkannambadi for his citations. I had an acquaintance in India call Jupiter Books, and it turns out that the yearly revised editions do not have any ISBN information.

I tried to look for other book information numbers such as LCCN, however, searches for the publisher in both the Library of Congress On-line Catalog and the Copac Catalogue turned up empty. In fact, when I searched in IndCat: The Online Catalogue of Books in Indian Universities, I couldn't find anything published by "Jupiter Books, Bangalore" in the libraries of Dr. Kamath's own Bangalore University (Select tab "Books" in IndCat, select Bangalore University in the menu on the left; select "publisher" in pop-up window, and search for "Jupiter Books, Bangalore.")

So, I am not sure how best to deal with this conundrum pointed out by user:Mattisse. It is possible that I searched too narrowly, for, when I expanded the search to an unfettered Web Search for "Jupiter Books" AND "Bangalore" AND "Wikipedia," I found 769 links for this publisher. An even wider search for "Jupiter Books" AND "Bangalore," however, produced only 89 links, of which 75 were Wikipedia-related links (perhaps they removed the mirror sites). In either web search, user:Dineshkannambadi's other Wikipedia articles appeared in good measure, and I offer him my compliments. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 6

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Fowler&fowler Post 6
Appropriate citations in Architecture section?

The Architecture section of Kingdom of Mysore is longer than either its Economy section or its Administration section. The section has five paragraphs and 21 citations (numbers 134 to 142) (counting repeats). These 21 citations are to the following works:

  1. Two travel guides:
    1. Raman, Afried (1994), Bangalore - Mysore: A Disha Guide, Bangalore: Orient Blackswan, ISBN 0863114318 (12 footnotes) and
    2. Bradnock, Robert (2000) [2000], South India Handbook - The Travel Guide, Footprint Travel Guide, ISBN 1900949814 (3 footnotes)
  2. Two commercial websites:
    1. OurKarnataka.com (3 footnotes)
    2. Mysore.org.uk (1 footnote)
  3. One newspaper website: Deccan Herald (1 footnote)

Are these citations appropriate in a History FA? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:00, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 8

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Fowler&fowler Post 8
Tourist Guides for an Architecture section covering 600 years?

After my post of 11 December 2008 (Fowler&fowler Post 6), user:Dineshkannambadi asked for a day or two to change some of the sources used in the Architecture section of this History FA that covers the period 1399–1947. It bears pointing out that the new sources consist entirely of three tourist travel guides (one with advertisements). These are:

  1. Abram, Edwards, Ford, Sen, Wooldridge, David, Nick, Mike, Devdan, Beth (2003) [2003], South India, Rough Guides, ISBN 1843531038{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. Bradnock, Robert (2000) [2000], South India Handbook - The Travel Guide, Footprint Travel Guide, ISBN 1900949814)
  3. Raman, Afried (1994), Bangalore - Mysore: A Disha Guide, Bangalore: Orient Blackswan, ISBN 0863114318
  • Do tourist guides constitute adequate references for a History FA's section on Architecture that covers 600 years?
  • Also, since when did:
Hemingway, Ford, Fitzgerald, Ernest, Ford Madox, Francis Scott (1920), Three (Not Six) Guys in Paris, Doubleday{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
become an acceptable style of citation? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:22, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 9

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(Fowler&fowler Post 9) Reply to user:Dineshkannambadi's reply
  1. Why did you not similarly provide "just the bare minimum information" and similarly cite tourist guides for
    1. the Architecture section of the FA Chalukya Dynasty, which has 27 footnotes (number 97 to 125), none of which seem to be tourist guides, but rather even includes some specialty books on architecture, or
    2. the Architecture section Hoysala Empire, whose footnotes 90 to 113 are not only not to tourist guides, but also to specialty books on architecture?
  2. If this architecture section provides the bare minimum material needed for an article written in WP:SS, then where is the mother article for this compressed section and what references is it using?
  3. If there are no scholarly books that you can cite in the way that the FAs mentioned in 1) above do, or if the mother article does not exist for the Architecture section, then why do we need such a section in this History FA.?
  4. Can you point to another History FA, which has a fairly long section that relies entirely on Tourist Guides? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:25, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 10

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(Fowler&fowler Post 10) PS I just noticed that user:Dineshkannambadi changed the name of the mother article of the literature subsection from Kannada literature in the Kingdom of Mysore to Kannada literature, 1600–1900 CE without any notice anywhere on the talk page and with the "minor edit" box checked in the edit summary. This mother article is apparently also simultaneously undergoing a peer review in preparation for an FA drive. Since this change is not uncontroversial, and very much concerns not only the name "Kingdom of Mysore" on the anvil here, but also a subsection of an article in an FAR. I would like to request user:Dineshkannambadi to make no such moves that directly concern this FAR, unless he has gained consensus for them both here and on the talk page of the mother article. I have reverted the move. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:46, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 11

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Fowler&fowler Post 11

(unindent) Yes, I do understand that it is about this article; however, I am suggesting that when such a name change involves issues related to the FAR (and explicitly discussed in My concerns (#5)), it should be discussed on Talk:Kannada literature in the Kingdom of Mysore first and should be mentioned in the FAR.

user:Dineshkannambadi, you have done similar things before that are not transparent and that subtly distort the FAR process. In the FAR Talk Page, I have already complained about your adding content to posts that have already been replied to. I believe such a page move similarly clouds the picture. What, after all, will an independent reader of My concerns (#5) think if they find both the content of the literature section as well as name and content of the mother article changed. Such a change should be communicated to the FAR participants, as user:Docku also stresses above.

Since I subscribe to 1RR, I will, however, not revert user:Sarvagyna's revert move. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:39, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

F&f FAR Post 12

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Fowler&fowler Post 12

If the FAR has nothing to do with the sub-articles, perhaps user:Dineshkannambadi would like to explain

  1. this edit of 12:54 13 October 2007, by copy-editor user:Damanmundine1, with edit summary, "moved Mysore Kingdom literature to Literature of the Kingdom of Mysore: consistency with other Kingdom of Mysore sub-articles," and
  2. why the page name stayed that way for a year.

Please see A record of the creation of this page and its name changes for more details. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:07, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

PS Since the record above was removed by user:Sarvagnya, I have now provided a perma-link. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:34, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Modern Kannada literature periodization

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  1. Malagi, S. R. (2006-01-01), "Inglisha Gitagalu", in Datta, Amaresh (ed.), Enyclopaedia of Indian Literature, Volume 2, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, pp. 1716–1717, ISBN 8126011947
    1. Quote:"(p. 1716) The modern Kannada literature had dawned, broadly speaking, in the third decade of the 19th century with the publication of Kempunarayana's Mudramanjusha (A chest of seal, 1823), a prose romance which deals with the story presented in the celebrated Sanskrit play Mudrarakshasa in an original manner."
  2. Narasimha Murthy, K., "Modern Kannada Literature", in George, K. M. (ed.), Modern Indian Literature, An Anthology: Volume1, Surveys and Poems, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, pp. 167–190, ISBN 8172013248
    1. Quote:"(p. 167) The Nineteenth Century: The development of a modern consciousness and a modern sensibility as well as of appropriate literary forms for their effective articulation was a long and complex process which started in the early years of the nineteenth century, a process involving challenge and response and continuity and change. ... The most impressive literary work of the first half of the nineteenth century is undoubtedly Mudramanjusha (The Seal Casket) by Kempu Narayana, also a writer at Krishnaraja's court."
  3. Shiva Prakash, H. S. (1997), "Medieval Kannada Literature", in Ayyappapanicker, K. (ed.), Medieval Indian Literature, New Delhi:Sahitya Akademi, pp. 163–214, ISBN 8126003650
    1. Quote: (p. 163) "In this survey, the works produced from the 12th century up to the beginning of the 19th will be considered as belonging to medieval literature."
  4. Viswanatha, Vanamala; Simon, Sherry (1999), "Shifting grounds of exchange: B. M. Srikantaiah and Kannada translation", in Bassnett, Susan; Trivedi, Harish (eds.), Post-colonial Translation: Theory and Practice, Routledge. Pp. 201, pp. 162–181, ISBN 041514745X
    1. Quote: (p. 166–167) "Translations served to help Kannada literature break away from these traditional forms. They were first undertaken by missionaries and by administrators in the service of colonial rule. Both Ferdinand Kittel (1832–1903) and B. L. Rice (1837–1927) translated Christian hymns according to the earlier metrics and the songs of Dasas, but others attempted to translate Christian texts into Kannada so that they could be sung to Western melodies. In the latter case, they were forced to modify the ancient rhyme schemes and metrical patterns in order to make their poems musically viable. For the first time in Kannada literature, the ancient rhyme schemes and metrical patterns were given up. According to Havanur, the modern Kannada short poem came into being around 1838 through the invocation poems translated by Christian missionaries. Another stimulus to modern Kannada literature came with the need to provide textbooks in Kannada for younger children. Many translated poems, specifically designed to provide an idiom familiar to the spoken language, were included in these textbooks. In 1873, the First Book of Kannada Poetry containing poems like "Advice to Young Girls," "Glory to Victoria," and "Monkey's Game," was published. This poetry was free from the bombast of traditional Sanskrit poetry, while aiming at simplicity and clearness compatible with the spoken dialect."

Careless or disingenuous?

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Dear Michael Devore, I'm disappointed both to see your post here and to see it copied on the FARC page.

I've taken you thus far to be a neutral and fair person, but I am surprised to see you inserting yourself in a situation, where, as a copy-editor, you should know better. You say, for example, "... the delist arguments made in the FAR because a copyedit is needed are not compelling." Who has argued for "delisting" on grounds of poor prose? I can't seem to find anyone. All that people have said is that in addition to issues of poor sourcing and factual accuracy, of lack of comprehensiveness and the presence of bias, it doesn't help the article any that the prose is so shabby. That's quite different from arguing for delisting because the article hasn't been copy-edited.

Many problems in the text that don't fall under bias, citations, or comprehensiveness, are in any case errors that a copy editor will likely not catch. The classic howler (which has since been removed) was, "The economy of the Kingdom of Mysore was based on agriculture, due to the majority of the population being villagers." Fixing the grammatical errors alone there won't do much, since the author has confused cause for effect!

Also, it is disingenuous, in my view, to characterize the FARC—in which the primary author of the article has been accused of bias—as a dispute between two equally biased parties which requires intervention by a neutral party (whatever that means). Perhaps you would like to do a Google Scholar search on each of user:Dineshkannambadi's sources and decide for yourself how obscure they are; contrast them then with the results for the major authors who have worked on the topic of Mysore.

I understand that you may have some empathy for user:Dineshkannambadi since you have worked with him for some time now, but as a copy-editor you need to stay above these frays. user:Dineshkannambadi might be a very hard working editor, but the topic of history requires certain skills, not only of accurately paraphrasing a source and of clearly expressing oneself, but also of understanding historical methodology and perspective, skills that, in my view, user:Dineshkannambadi doesn't display on his pages, however much we may admire his hard work and drive in putting them together.

I would like to request that you ask him to remove your post from the FARC. If you would like to add something to the FARC, you should do it yourself. At the very least, you risk your message being misused unwittingly. If you choose not do this, I will be copying this post to the FARC as well. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:21, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

My comments were carefully structured not to take sides in the crux of the debate, and I believe them to be accurate within the scope of a disinterested party with no special knowledge of the subject, to be on point, and to be potentially helpful to those who are concerned, as some were, about the copyedit of the article. Since I do not recommend pass or fail at FACs, and I have no strong feelings on what is kept or delisted at FA (the article quality is the same regardless), I left the decision on whether to repost my comments to the primary party in the FARC interaction: Dineshkannambadi. My remarks clearly cannot not be found to support his basic content position, but do demonstrate a willingness to help out at the article in another possibly problematic area if the factual nature of the content was consensus approved. Various comments related to Delist at the FARC assuredly do significantly remark on the writing style and copy.
I prefer that you not imply that I have cast a special regard for Dineshkannambadi's side of the content debate because I "have worked with him for some time now". I do not know Dineshkannambadi any better than I do you. Moreover, I have worked with a number of other editors, several preceding him, although it is true that three of his articles have my highest edit counts. In fact, I would have no problems working on articles on which you are the primary author, as I note that the article you authored and mentioned twice at the FARC currently has its own copy issues. Dineshkannambadi's articles, your own, and all articles, should stand or fall on their own merits.
Since you have chosen to suggest in your section title that I have acted disingenuously, I will in turn choose to be blunt in commenting on one aspect of this dispute—in fact the range of disputes—you have had with Dineshkannambadi. Wikipedia is a collaborative project. All work done here should be performed with an eye towards building articles and making them better. The issuance or revocation of FA badges should always remain a weak second to these goals. Despite this, you have begun and continued spending incredible amounts of time fighting with Dineshkannambadi in FAC and FARC, with many accompanying side comments and personal remarks wholly unrelated to fundamental content issues. If you had instead invested most that time in writing quality articles, I have little doubt that you could have been the primary author of as many, or more, Featured Articles than Dineshkannambadi. You spend your time and talents far too cheaply.
In closing, you have spread your debate with Dineshkannambadi across multiple pages of Wikipedia. Those would seem sufficient to your task. You are not welcome to further this fight with him, directly or indirectly, at my talk page. Please do not post to my talk page again in this vein. -- Michael Devore (talk) 01:56, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
My goals at Wikipedia are not related to writing Featured Articles which are too close to what I do for a living as an academic and which I am well aware I could write very easily if I wanted to. That article, by the way, which you think has its own copy issues, was written in one morning and has not be revised. I prefer instead to work on small obscure topics and also to keep various forms of nationalism out of the discourse here. Contrary to what you might think, I don't spend an enormous amount of time on Wikipedia. My family doesn't allow it. I don't have anything personal against user:Dineshkannambadi. To me he is work is simply another example of the regional nationalism that you see on Wikipedia and the distorted histories he produces are no different from other distorted histories I have fought against on Wikipedia. You are of course entitled to your opinions about my motivations, but you are off the mark. Meanwhile, I will continue to hold mine that you have been disingenuous. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:19, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Statistics for usage "Kingdom" vs. "State" for Mysore

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  1. First, let us consider the time period 1799 to 1947. Among scholarly sources published between 1799 and 1947 which do not mention "haidar ali" or "tipu sultan" (in order to rule out references to earlier events (involving Tipu Sultan or Haidar Ali), i.e. to events of the years 1760 to 1799) there are:
    1. 3 that use "Mysore kingdom" OR "Kingdom of Mysore", whereas there are
    2. 165 that use "Mysore state" OR "State of Mysore"
  2. Among scholarly sources published between 1948 and 2008 which mention "nineteenth century" but not "haidar ali" or "tipu sultan" (again in order to rule out references to events of the years 1760 to 1799), there are:
    1. 8 that use "Mysore kingdom" OR "Kingdom of Mysore"; whereas there are
    2. 167 that use "Mysore state" OR "State of Mysore"
  3. If you allow other identifiers of the years 1800 to 1947 (such as "princely" OR "colonial") and disallow other identifiers of earlier years (such as "eighteenth") the results become even more lopsided. There are:
    1. 9 that use "Mysore kingdom" OR "Kingdom of Mysore", whereas there are
    2. 336 that use "State of Mysore" OR "Mysore state". You can restrict the last search to the last 25 years (to examine recent publications), the numbers in 1 and 2 above become 8 and 235 respectively.
  4. Finally, if you look at the entire time period 1500 to 1947 (using identifiers "sixteenth century" OR "seventeenth century" OR "eighteenth century" or "nineteenth century" or "early twentieth century" or "princely" OR "colonial"), there are
    1. 77 sources that use "Mysore kingdom" OR "Kingdom of Mysore", whereas there are
    2. 677 sources that use "Mysore state" OR "State of Mysore"

The only reason why you need identifiers is to avoid inadvertently including references to "Mysore state in independent India," the state which later became "Karnataka." If you didn't include identifiers, the numbers in 1 and 2 would become 94 and 2,550 respectively (but that would be incorrect). In other words, the evidence is overwhelming that among scholars the term for Mysore during the entire period 1500 to 1947, but especially the period 1800 to 1947, is "State of Mysore" OR "Mysore state" OR "Princely state of Mysore." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:31, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

FAR/FARC History as of January 22 2009

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History

Here is a history of how the FAR/FARC saga has unfolded (in my recollection).

  • I took my first good look at the Kingdom of Mysore article sometime in late November 2008, in the course of doing some work on the article Princely state, where I had then just added a beautiful picture of the young Mysore rulers and was looking to add the Mysore wikilink to the caption. I noticed that Mysore—alone among the Indian princely states—was being called a "Kingdom" with a capital "K."
  • Upon reading the article, I realized that the title was only the first of the problems with the article. I then made a post on the talk page of the article asking the primary authors some questions. However, all I received in response were arrogant replies or no replies. (See my first post here and second post here.)
  • Starting on December 2, 2008 I began to make a list of sources on Mysore (which is one of the most worked on areas of early-modern and modern Indian history) and of quotes from them, still hoping for resolution on the talk page; I even warned them that I would be forced to request an FAR (which at that point I didn't know how to proceed with and thought it was done on the talk page) (See page history here).
  • Still, there was no response from my interlocutors; however, user:Dineshkannambadi made his own post, Dinesh's sources, which essentially said that he was having a hard time copying 700 sources. To this user:Sarvagnya added postscript that had an injunction to deny recognition to trolls.
  • I kept collecting my sources for the next two days. Then user:KnowledgeHegemony made a post on my talk page and suggested that instead of having this non-conversation on the article talk page I should pursue an FAR (and provided the link). I read the FAR criteria, satisfied myself that there were enough issues of bias, factual inaccuracy, and poor sourcing, and on December 5, 2008 filed the FAR.
  • After the FAR began, user:Dineshkannambadi spent two weeks denying that there was anything the matter with the article. All this while, user:Docku and I were trying to engage the primary authors on the article talk page.
  • I tried to edit the article myself after adding an in-use tag and after leaving a message on the talk page suggesting that I be allowed to add some content, which could then be discussed. user:Dineshkannambadi immediately reverted all my edits and suggested that if I continued to edit the article, the FAR will be seen as a content dispute. (See the various posts here).
  • At this point I became aware that the history section, which the authors claimed was written in summary style, didn't have any parent articles. See the version of the article in early December 2008. I began to compose a parent article on my subpage and then subsequently did so on the page History of Mysore and Coorg, 1565–1760 and created two more stubs for the remaining periods.
  • Then, user:Sarvagnya and user:Dineshkannambadi—both suddenly deciding that they would use one of my sources for the article—hurriedly began to paraphrase an article of Sanjay Subhrahmanyam. This, however, they did very poorly; moreover, they stopped one-third way through, with the result, what has been included does not reflect the intent of the author.
  • Since early December 2008, when the FAR began, the primary authors have not let any one else make edits to the article (on the pretext that FA edits need to be discussed first on the talk page); however, they themselves (primarily user:Dineshkannambadi, but also user:Sarvagnya) have made approximately 440 edits to the article.
  • In many cases, they have paraphrased a sentence or two from my article on Mysore and Coorg, but have changed the meaning slightly and then found some other sources (Kamath or Chopra or ...) to cite. It becomes very difficult then to keep track of what is going on. All this while there has been no intimation from them on how the article has changed (either in edit summaries or more explicitly in the FAR/FARC), let alone any acknowledgment that they have benefited from the input that I or user:Docku or user:Mattisse have provided.
  • Consider, for example, this edit of user:Dineshkannambadi, in which one of the maps from my article History of Mysore and Coorg, 1565–1760 has been added to the Kingdom of Mysore article; the edit summary, however, says, "moved image to correct location."
  • Meanwhile the article has changed in an ad hoc, inscrutable and haphazard fashion from this version of early December 2008 to this version of January 20, 2009 (involving, as I already mentioned, 440 edits).
  • I have suggested to them (in my summary at the end of FAR 2) that if they agree to delist the article, I will help them access academic databases, email pdfs of articles, and as best I can make an effort to get it featured again, however, they haven't exactly jumped at that idea either. (See user:Sarvagnya's first comment in the FARC.)
  • Looking at the history of this page and of other pages authored by user:Dineshkannambadi, I don't believe that any compromise text can be agreed upon unless the page is delisted; for, the primary authors will keep using the privileged status of an FA to resist making changes in a cooperative fashion, especially when the glare of the FARC has gone.