Talk:Farrukhsiyar/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Cpt.a.haddock (talk · contribs) 11:26, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi. I do have some experience with Indian history as I edit in this space. However, I am not familiar with Farrukhsiyar and have not edited this article in the past except for one revert of an edit by a now-blocked user. This is my first GA review.

The issues I see with the article right now are:

1. The sources used in the article are not cited in full. Dates, page numbers, etc. are often missing. Links are usually available for all of these books which appear to have been sourced online. It will be good if they are added.
   1. Missing date for William Irvine
   2. 2009 date for JASB is very likely for a reprint; the original year is required.
   3. Richards p.258 does not have an accompanying source
   4. The Cambridge Shorter History of India comes with no date, author or edition information.
2. Dated sources: Colonial-era sources are not really recommended for Indian history articles unless there is no choice. In other words, recent reliable scholarship is preferred (see WP:HISTRS). There should be plenty of newer, post-independence sources available.
   1. William Irvine died in 1911; this makes his book very dated.
   2. JASB is probably the late 1800s and similarly out of date.
   3. Ram Sivasankaran is an author of historical fiction and not a reliable source.
   4. History and Civics by Singh, Dhillon & Shanmugavel is a school textbook and therefore, not a reliable source.
   5. Tazkirat ul-Mulk by Yahya Khan looks very much like a primary source which should be avoided. It also appears to be misattributed.
   6. "Marathas and the English Company 1707–1800" from san-beck.org is not a reliable source.
3. Content issues:
   1. The lead only provides a perfunctory summary of the article.
   2. The lead states that Jahandar Shah was murdered while the body states that he was executed after a battle.
   3. The table of governors appears to be unnecessary.
   4. There appears to be some overlinking going on. Sayyid brothers, for example, is repeatedly linked.
   5. There are a few grammatical issues such as Kashmiri was a notorious who …
   6. The statement about Kashmiri being a pederast should probably have a citation immediately after the sentence.
   7. The one-line sections should be merged with other sections.
   8. It's good that non-English terms are translated or linked appropriately. This should also be done with farman (which should be firman) and possibly others.
   9. The image of Maharaja Ajit Singh with his sons might be unnecessary here.

I believe that there's a lot of work to be done here in terms of the sources which will take some time to rectify. I'm going to mark this review as a fail for now. But please fix these issues and renominate the article. I recommend relying on Chandra, Richards, Sen, and other modern reliable sources dealing with the Mughals. Good luck.--Cpt.a.haddock (talk) (please ping when replying) 11:26, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Since this was a quick fail, I did not get any notification. I came upon this now, so I am replying for clarification in case when I renominate it, the new reviewer can have a look at my points.

• It seems that the nominator is worried with the use of William Irvine as a source. The Wikipedia:HISTRS is an essay not a policy or guideline. The Wikipedia:RS AGE justifies the use of Irvine.
• The Wikipedia:RSCONTEXT clearly states that the reliability of a source depends on the context it is used.

Based on the issues raised, it is strange that the article is a quick fail and could have been solved in the review. RRD (talk) 17:02, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

@Royroydeb: Hi. When there are dozens of better and more recent reliable sources available, relying on a dated colonial-era source makes it unreliable. That's the gist of the WP pages you're citing and you are welcome to get the opinion of other editors in this field on the use of Raj sources. That wasn't the only questionable source here either. Ram Sivasankaran, a school textbook, a primary source, a possibly self-published source (iUniverse), and other incomplete/vaguely declared citations make the sourcing of this article too problematic. Even Richards, who is usually relied on in many Mughal articles, is cited just once without a proper reference. There are basically far too many problems with the sources, hence the quick fail as per the Good Articles Criteria. I'd suggest looking at John F. Richards, Harbans Mukhia, Muzaffar Alam, M. Athar Ali, et al. to accompany Satish Chandra as references if you're going to revise this article. Good luck.—Cpt.a.haddock (talk) (please ping when replying) 18:17, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

I beg to differ on the impretation of guidelines for sources. And after going through some the books of the authors suggested, the information available is little compared to Irvine's sources. Anyways thanks for the review. RRD (talk) 12:30, 4 August 2017 (UTC)