Talk:Jainism/GA8

GA Review

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Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 13:50, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Comments

This is a detailed, comprehensive, and well-cited article on a major topic, in many ways a great piece of work.

However, it is much too long for comfortable reading: 189 kBytes, some 20,000 words, over an hour for an average reader, so this currently fails the "unnecessary detail" criterion, 3b.

At least 4 of the chapters are conspicuously too long:

• History (20 kBytes)
• Principles (16 kBytes)
• Practices (24 kBytes)
• Beliefs (24 kBytes)

What is striking is that all of these have "main" links to subsidiary articles, i.e. the topics are already covered elsewhere on Wikipedia. Therefore, each of these chapters should be in "summary style", covering "the main points" of their topic somewhat like the lead sections of their respective main articles. As a very rough guide, each topic should be a couple of paragraphs, perhaps 4 or 5 kBytes - that's quite a detailed summary at 800-1000 words, supported probably by one image, leaving the rest of the detail in the subsidiary article. Doing that would cut the article from almost 190 kBytes to about 130 kBytes, still overlong, so I'd suggest applying the same treatment to the other chapters such as Traditions, Scriptures, Art & architecture to get the article down to a readable length, say 90-100 kBytes (readable in perhaps 35-40 minutes) and to have about the same amount of detail in each chapter, obviously a good idea for balance.

Some reviewers would consider an immediate fail at this point, but since I personally am accustomed to working through even complex revisions with reviewers on my own nominations, I'm happy to work with you to revise and review this article through the GA process, if you'd like to do that. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:50, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks a lot Chiswick Chap. I will be more than delighted to do anything and everything I can to improve the article and make it pass GA. Will be really helpful to guide me on the same. Capankajsmilyo^{(Talk | Infobox assistance)} 14:09, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Well, one approach is to see if the lead sections of the subsidiary "main" articles are clear, concise, and do a good job as summaries. Unfortunately, Wiki-standards generally mean they don't have citations, which your chapters currently do. So it'll probably be easier to look at each chapter, leave the citations and wikilinks in place if possible, and cut down the text to leave just a sentence or two summarizing each paragraph. The "summary style" result contains lots of blue wikilinked text (a "link farm") because there are many subsidiary and concept articles below this top-level article, and lots of citations, but not much else. Often you will find you have a repeated citation, so of course you will then cut down on the repeats. See how you go! Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:36, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

• @Chiswick Chap: I'm glad you've expressed willingess to work through this article with the nominator, because in my view there's another large area where this article needs work; it struggles to differentiate Jain doctrine from fact in several places (take the third sentence, for instance). This has been a problem with a considerable number of this editor's nominations, largely because he refuses to do substantial work with the sources (see the previous GA reviews for this page, and the considerable number of GA/FA reviews listed at Talk:Mahavira). After a cursory look, this article does seem to be in better shape than when it was reviewed previously, so if you're willing to work with Capankajsmilyo I think it would be a good opportunity for him to see how to do substantive content work, rather than the gnoming that is his speciality. Having raised this issue at several of his nominations I don't think he welcomes my presence here, but I would in fact be very pleased to see this become a GA; I just wanted to flag a large concern before too much work was sunk into this. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:17, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks. Clearly WP:NPOV is being breached there. Capankajsmilyo, neutrality is one of the six GA criteria, so we have to ensure that all statements are of fact, not of faith. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:35, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Capankajsmilyo: some progress is being made, but there needs to be significantly more movement on replacing the sections mentioned above with crisp summaries. I've done some editing to indicate the required approach. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:35, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

On it. Thanks for showing. A quick update on current status of sections for reference. History (12kb), Principles (16kb), Practices (19kb), Beliefs (15kb), Tradition (4kb), Scripture (8kb) and Art (23kb). Capankajsmilyo^{(Talk | Infobox assistance)} 08:57, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

• There are citations needed and a page number needed in 'Temples'.

Deleted. Capankajsmilyo^{(Talk | Infobox assistance)} 10:14, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Restored: I'm sorry but we can't ditch essential discussion because you can't be bothered to look for decent sources. Jain temples do have architectural features, and we can't begin with a detailed discussion of the umpteen atypical stone beds at one site. The article will not come to GA status without a decent, reliably-cited overview in this section. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:49, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Fixed. Capankajsmilyo^{(Talk | Infobox assistance)} 10:16, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

• I see you have made the article appear shorter by moving 3k of data to a transcluded template. If that's useful elsewhere it may be a valid move, but still, it's potentially misleading for reviewers. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:56, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
• @Chiswick Chap: responding here, to keep the comments in a useful place; I think the length issue has largely been addressed, but I'm not sure the NPOV issue has; doctrine being presented in Wikipedia's voice. Take the very first sentence; "referring to the path of victory in crossing over life's stream of rebirths by destroying karma through an ethical and spiritual life" is obviously a matter of faith, not fact, but a reader might be confused as to whether this is a Jain belief, a regional belief, or something else altogether. Or the third paragraph, which states in Wikipedia's voice that the Jain lifestyle "avoids harm to animals, any micro-organisms and their life cycles". That's a pretty grand claim; I know of no lifestyle which avoids killing microorganisms. That said, I don't have the time to do a full review here. There's certainly some evidence of improvement. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:37, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Vanamonde.

Capankajsmilyo, could you adjust the lead section carefully for neutrality. Wikipedia must not say anything non-neutral in its own voice. Either we say "Jains believe", "Jains attempt to avoid harm..." (or "Some Digambaras believe", etc.), or we say "The scholar J. Doe states that". Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:57, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Fixed lede, Chiswick Chap based on the source. Capankajsmilyo^{(Talk | Infobox assistance)} 18:47, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm afraid it will be necessary to do the same for the entire article: I just checked the next section and it had the same issue, though less strongly. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:49, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Chiswick Chap, fixed. Capankajsmilyo^{(Talk | Infobox assistance)} 09:20, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I've tidied up the text, duplicate links, and redlinked authors.

Refs 7, 14, 103, 250, and 254 need to be listed alphabetically in Sources, and linked with sfn from the text. I guess the other in-text refs to newspapers and websites are just about all right for now (they'd not pass muster at FAC). Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:12, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Fixed refs. Are you suggesting that this article is now eligible for FAC too? Capankajsmilyo^{(Talk | Infobox assistance)} 15:31, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

No, I wasn't even thinking of it. Way above my pay grade, but you'd need to do a ton more tidying-up of text and citations for that, at the very least, and even then I think you'd run into a cloud of flak that'd make The Dam Busters look like a picnic in the park. However, as I said, we're about ready here now, so passing. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:42, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Finally..... Thanks a ton, I'm relieved...took me more than 2 5 years. Special thanks for the persistence, guidance and help for GA. Thanks again. Capankajsmilyo^{(Talk | Infobox assistance)} 15:50, 5 May 2020 (UTC)