Talk:Parel Relief

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Yoninah (talk) 18:00, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

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Parel Relief

• ... that the 3-metre-high (10 ft) Parel Relief (pictured) with seven figures of Shiva, of perhaps 530 AD, was found in Mumbai during roadbuilding in 1931, and is now in worship at a local temple? Source: "ASI", Archaeological Survey of India information board at the site, 2012

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Milton Tower

Created by Johnbod (talk). Self-nominated at 17:23, 1 February 2020 (UTC).

• Note "in worship" is the correct Indian English term (and indeed in other forms) Johnbod (talk) 17:29, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

  • 

    alternative image

    Query: Article is new enough, long enough, neutral, free of copyvio, and has plenty of inline citations. (I feel that it would benefit from some reference cleanup to be a little neater, but it's sufficient for verifiability.) AGF for offline sources. QPQ verified. Image is tagged with CC license, is present in article, and displays adequately. (I feel that File:Monolithic_bass_shiva-2.jpg is better lit to show the relief and displays better at low resolution, but leave the choice to you and/or the promoter.) The hook is neutral but it needs to be reworked a bit. The height is disputed by the article's sources (variously 3, 3.5 and 4-metres) so that should probably be removed from the hook (it's the least interesting fact and the hook is a bit on the long side). Maybe also change "perhaps 530 AD" → "6th century" and move that around to the left side of "Parel Relief"? – Reidgreg (talk) 23:39, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Fine with "6th century". I don't think the discrepancies over the height can exactly be called a "dispute". Presumably some of the sources weren't allowed to take a tape measure & ladder to it, and guessed. I think it's important to indicate the very large height, & I've gone for the rough average (and also what I think are likely to be the most accurate sources). The name is indeed a name, not a title, and should therefore NOT be italicized - see WP:VAMOS! I think this is the best image at small postage stamp size, but don't really mind. So:

• ALT1: ... that the 3-metre-high (10 ft) 6th-century Parel Relief (pictured) with seven figures of Shiva was found in Mumbai during roadbuilding in 1931, and is now in worship at a local temple? (refs as above) Johnbod (talk) 04:58, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

  Thanks very much for the link! I was unaware of the exception for archeology. I've left some other cleanup notes on the article talk page, which can be discussed there. I'm pretty sure that if I passed it now, another editor would pull it from the queue before it reached the main page. If you feel that I'm overstepping, you can request a new reviewer. As for the hook, what would you think of removing the height figure and replacing that with "monolithic"? That's in the article, and it gives a sense of its large scale. – Reidgreg (talk) 16:57, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

It's all art, and things like named manuscripts & so on. I'm pretty sure that if you passed it now, another editor would not pull it from the queue before it reached the main page, having done over 350 of these. I'll look at the notes. I think "monolithic" is too vague & wouldn't convey that meaning to many people. Johnbod (talk) 19:04, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

• ALT2: ... that the monolithic 6th-century Parel Relief (pictured) was found in Mumbai during roadbuilding in 1931, and is now in worship at a local temple?

I feel that this is acceptable except for two minor policy points with the article, regarding the neutrality of Wikipedia's voice: the presentation of a quote and directly instructing the reader (notes on article talk page). I'm calling for a new review in case I'm interpreting this too strictly, and have provided a shorter alt hook for consideration. – Reidgreg (talk) 13:04, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

• New reviewer requested. – Reidgreg (talk) 13:04, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

• The hooks seem satisfactory to me, and any of the three could be used. I am otherwise relying on the rest of Reidgreg's review. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:47, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

• Cwmhiraeth, it seems to me that Reidgreg's review was questioning the article's neutrality in two specific areas, which is why it wasn't approved, not just issues with the hooks. If you believe that the article is fine in terms of neutrality there, please by all means say so and reiterate your tick, but I suspect this hasn't been promoted since because of that ambiguity. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:06, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

• @BlueMoonset: I do not think Reidgreg's view of neutrality is the same as mine. I see nothing objectionable about the article that might cause someone to pull the hook. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:30, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

• In that case, I'll remove my ? icon so your previous AGF tick stands. Thanks for letting me know. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:51, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Cleanup notes

Sorry for making a lot of changes in one edit. I felt that it needed some work before the DYK review and was trying to move that along. Let me try to explain the reasons for the changes I made:

• Thanks for the link to WP:VAMOS#Works of art. That and MOS:TITLE#Neither say to not use italics for names of archeological works. As for capitalization, generally we should treat something as a proper name if sources treat it as a proper name, so I'll leave that to you. I did look for similar articles and found that most used non-italic with lower-case "relief".
• ASI should be expanded as Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) on first mention in the lead and body, after which ASI can be used (MOS:ACRO).
• The lead should summarize the article. I'd moved some things down which I felt weren't lead-worthy and then summarized them in the lead. For example, I felt that dated to the late Gupta period, in the 5th or 6th century AD by the ASI,[1] or "around 600",[2] or around 525–530.[3] was way too fragmented and confusing for the lead sentence. I moved it down into the body with some inline attribution of who was giving which dates, then summarized it in more general terms in the lead.
• Similarly with The slab is about 3.06 metres high, or about 3.5 metres, I felt it was better to state it as a range, giving the extreme figures from sources. However, if you think the ASI source is definitive I wouldn't object to having only that. Whichever way, we should provide SI-Imperial conversions (MOS:CONVERSIONS).
• I felt that the ASI national-protection designation helped to establish the notability of the subject and included that in the lead.
• Per the sources, I noted that the work was "stylistically linked" to the dates. Otherwise, in an archeological context, a reader might think that it was carbon-dated or somesuch, which does not seem to be the case.
• Whenever something is given subjectively – like more successful or the surrounding Shivas "emerge effortlessly" – we can't state that in Wikipedia's voice. So inline attribution ("according to...") to the source should be provided in these cases.
• Uncommon loan words like gana and trimurti should be in italics (MOS:FOREIGNITALIC).
• Various other little MOS fixes, some edits for tone, phrasing and flow.

Let me know what you think. As mentioned at the DYK nom, I don't this will get to the main page unless at least some of this is addressed. – Reidgreg (talk) 16:56, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Well I've done all I think is necessary or desirable. Bear in mind the article is tagged as using Indian English, which has a bearing on some points. There are many, many Indian articles which could do with a good copy-edit - nearly all of them in fact. Johnbod (talk)

Thanks for the changes. I've done copyedit on probably a couple hundred articles about South Asia, so I'm familiar with some of the issues.

• I was unable to find the word gana in the Oxford English dictionary, Cambridge dictionary, Merriam-Webster, or Dictionary.com. Wiktionary notes gaṇa as a word in Pali, as does the article gana. I'm not sure how commonly it is used as a loanword in India, but this is an international encyclopedia. As this is an isolated foreign words that do not yet have everyday use in non-specialized English, MOS:FOREIGNITALIC recommends italic type.
• I still feel that "emerge effortlessly" is too subjective for Wikipedia's voice. An article should not state that "genocide is an evil action", but it may state that "genocide has been described by John So-and-so as the epitome of human evil." This can be resolved by giving the quote inline/in-text attribution. If you don't want to say "according to x", you could alternatively say something like "It has been described that surrounding Shivas "emerge effortlessly" from the standing central figure". I do think it's a good use of an illustrative quote, BTW, I just feel that it skews slightly from the neutrality of Wikipedia's voice.
• There's a tone issue in the group should be thought of, which sounds more like an essay, textbook, or a lecturer instructing a student. We should not tell the reader what to think, but present what reliable sources have said and let the reader decide on their own what they should think about it.

I feel that the second and third points ought to be addressed. I'm pretty sure that I've made the correct interpretation of foreign italics for the first point, but that's a cleanup issue and not as critical as the tone and neutrality. – Reidgreg (talk) 19:35, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

You won't get far writing about Indian Hindu/Buddhist art without encountering ganas, as this shows. "emerge effortlessly" is in quotes, which is enough. I might have attributed all that to Michell if he had the bio he richly deserves here, but I really hate the typical over-attributing of banal points to whatever unlinked book author the editor happens to have used, a very bad habit on WP. Johnbod (talk) 22:42, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree that that can look bad, but I feel that there's an overriding (though minor) policy issue. Wikipedia:Describing points of view might help. (For gana, I'll just note that this is a generalist encyclopedia, not an encyclopedia of Indian Hindu/Buddhist art.) I think we've come to an impasse here, and will leave it to a new reviewer to provide a third opinion. Feel free to ping me if you'd like to discuss further. – Reidgreg (talk) 13:04, 16 February 2020 (UTC)