Template talk:History of Sri Lankan Tamils

Specify usage of this template

This infobox is setup with some diffuse and controversial claims and it is evident it has been made to evade Wikipedia's policies on WP:NPOV, WP:OR, WP:SYN and neutrality. The infobox is attempted inserted into various articles, which do not even mention SLTamils and have nothing to do with ethnicity specific history of SLTamils. Moreover Sri Lankan Tamils already have an infobox, but since some information contradict with the different Tamil claims, like the Tamil invasions (Elara invasion, Chola and other Tamil invasions) contra controversial Tamil claims to being native to Sri Lanka and having an independant country in the island, the infoboxes are being used alternatively. This kind of construction is unacceptable and contributes only to confuse the readers. I suggest the authour of this infobox defines the purpose and usage of this infobox and delete controversial claims like the Naga people, Kandyan convention, Kandy Nayaks, Elara, the Five Dravidians, Dondra Head to name a few from the infobox, and do not attempt to insert the infobox to articles specifically not about Sri Lankan Tamils until a clarification is made. 7 days to improve the infobox and specify its usage or merge with the existing one. Failing that I will be requesting deletion of this template. WP:DISINFOBOX and WP:NPOV, WP:OR, WP:SYN. Please also read guidelines for Infoboxes WP:IBT--SriSuren (talk) 13:00, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Before laying down the law please get your facts correct. This isn't an Infobox. It's a navigation template. "A navigation template is a grouping of links used in multiple related articles to facilitate navigation between those articles".--obi2canibe^{talk contr} 14:12, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Please follow your own advice and get your facts correct FIRST, Navboxes/sidebars are also Infoboxes. Anyway, the point is not what they are called, the point is that the grouping you are talking about cannot be done for many of the articles listed in this template. See my anwser below. --SriSuren (talk) 20:01, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your contribution. Regrettably, you are convoluting wikipedia policies. The article in concern is not an infobox as Obi2canibe rightly points out. If you have concerns with the content of individual pages, as evidenced by you saying: "contradict with the different Tamil claims, like the Tamil invasions (Elara invasion, Chola and other Tamil invasions) contra controversial Tamil claims to being native to Sri Lanka and having an independant country in the island," May I suggest you go to the talk pages of individual articles. The articles I have only linked the articles in the navigation bar, I have no influence on the content. --Avedeus (talk) 16:56, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

May I suggest that u first learn about what you are talking about? Navigation templates are also Infoboxes. May I also ask if this is a navigation bar why your template starts with class=infobox? Moreover, if this an Navigation template, then it has more problems. I suggest you read what infoboxes are, and learn what the different types of Navigation templates are, and how to code them BEFORE you make them. You should also read about what an article and a template is, because what u have made is not an article but a template. Judging by your post, it is evident that you have not made the simplest effort to find out about what an infobox/navigation bar/sidebar is, but want to just insert your dubious "article" into articles which are not even remotely connected with the SLTamils. You have just copied a template from somewhere and mixed up elements in a sidebar (judging by the "a series on..") and made this template.

You say : "I have only linked the articles in the navigation bar" !! That's exactly what you can't do. You can't just arbitrarily list loosely connected articles in a sidebar, what you have called a navigation bar!!! Moreover an article on the subject doesn't even exist. Also as mentioned earlier, there's already one sidebar for the SL-Tamil articles. Before you make any template you must see whether there is a need for it. Please state on what basis did you list the Kandyan Convention, the Kandy Nayaks, the Chola invasion in this dubious template, a template which you have trouble defining, and then insert into these articles? There's not even a single mention of Sri Lankan Tamils in those articles. Most of the articles you have listed in your "sidebar" are not exclusively a part of SLTamil history. While you have taken extra care to list articles where controversies exist or controversies can arise because of your attempts to insert this template, you have ignored articles which are almost exclusively about SLTamils. Some are not even mentioned. While Jaffna kingdom is listed in the template you have not made any attempt to placed it in that article. If navigation is the purpose of your template, why didn't you insert it to that article too? See my answer below too. --SriSuren (talk) 20:12, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Answer to Obi2Canbe and Avedeus:

I suggest the two of you read what you are talking about, before you start teaching others. Navboxes and sidebars are also infoboxes. Since Avedeus has admitted that this template is intented as a Sidebar it has even more serious problems, since it does not fulfill any of the criteria for a navigation box/template, either in the requirements nor in the coding. The coding of the template begins with class=infobox and not the {{Navbox or {{sidebar of the Navigation templates. Also a Navigation template is categorized under Category:Navigational boxes, which this template isn't. Besides those inadequacies, this template fails totally to fulfill any of the criteria for a navigation template, starting with the requirement for having an article on the subject. Also, according to the requirements all the articles must be on a single coherent subject and the subject should be mentioned in each of the articles and the articles themselves should reasonably refer to each other. As this template is obviously supposed to be a sidebar, the topics should be even more tightly related than in a navbar. None of the above mentioned requirements for a sidebar is met by this template and yet it is been continuously and aggressively attempted inserted into artilces such as the Kandy Nayakas an article which has next to nothing to do with the Sri Lankan Tamils. Many of the other links which are included in this template are not exclusively specific to the SL-Tamil ethnic group's history, but common to other ethnic groups' and Sri Lanka's history, and some like the Kandyan Convention is not even remotely connected to the Sri lankan Tamil ethnic group. Inclusion of these articles in a template such as this, which is supposed to be a series of articles on Sri Lankan Tamils, gives the wrong impression that these articles are more important to or solely about the SLTamils and not Sri Lanka or other ethnic groups of the country. Interestingly this infobox/navbox has not been attempted inserted into articles specifically and/or almost exclusively related to Sri Lankan Tamils, like the Jaffna kingdom or Jaffna kings, but to articles where controversies exist, like the Nagas, Ravana, Devinuwara temple, Dondra head etc. The Jaffna kingdom's only dynasty is not even listed in the template, but the template has been attempted inserted several times into the Nayaka dynasty of Kandy!!!.

Therefore, I think it is reasonable on my part if I do not assume good faith, as it is evident that the purpose of this template is to evade wiki policies on WP:NPOV, WP:OR and WP:SYN to give an impression that all these topics are solely about SL-Tamils. The template is therefore a deliberate attempt to push POV, by means of placing this template on articles as a marker, and not to facilitate navigation, as claimed. If navigation is the intented purpose of this template it would have included important articles on the topic, like the Jaffna dynasty. At any cost, the synthesis and POV which is being constructed within this template and its insertion into articles, is not acceptable. Also infoboxes/templates to be used in articles must be decided upon by consensus amoung the editors and no attempt has been made in the relevant articles to justify the use of this dubious template instead it has been aggressively attempted inserted by several editors sharing the same views, resulting in near edit wars. The authour of the template Avedeus, by his own admission is under the impression that any loosely connected article could be included in the sidebar he has made! As it is evident that the intended use of this template is beyond the legitimate scope of a navigational template, if there are no other comments from Avedeus, I'll be requesting the deletion of this template, on the basis that it does not fulfill the criteria for navbox/sidebar as described in the guidelines--SriSuren (talk) 20:34, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh dear, oh dear. You really haven't understood the difference between a navigation template and an infobox.

• The contents of a navigation template are fixed. It appears the same in all articles. Navigation templates can appear on the right side of page (a sidebar) or at the bottom of a page (a footer box). Users can use the meta-templates {{sidebar}} or {{Navbox}} to create the navigation template but they don't need to (see {{History of China}}).
• The contents of an infobox are variable because editors have to complete the fields as appropriate for each article. As such the contents of an infobox will be unique to each article.

What they're called is important because you're bullying/threatening other editors by quoting a policy (WP:IBT) which doesn't apply to this template. The relevant policy is WP:NAV. If any of the articles listed on this template violate WP:NAV they ought to be removed but there is no justification for deleting this template (SriSuren's original threat).--obi2canibe^{talk contr} 20:55, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Please do not create confusions about what these different types of infoboxes are and try to deviate the discussion. FYI the content of all templates are fixed, that is why they are called templates. You have asked me to look at this template ({{History of China}}) and I have. I suggest you take a look at it yourself. An infobox template can be used in the way of a navigation box, but when the documentation lacks, as in our case it is hard to see what it is and I do not know, whether the template breaks any namespace rules by doing so. As said previously, a navbox or sidebar is also essentially an infobox, now that the authour of this template has clarified that it is not an infobox but a sidebar, I can't see where you are heading with this discussion. The fact that there is a discussion about what this template exactly is, is an indication in itself that there are problems with it, and as the heading of the discussion says I have asked the author to specify its usage. The authours of templates must document their templates properly, since it is not always easy to see what the template is. If he had properly documented the template and categorized it, specially since he has used the infobox coding instead of the sidebar coding/template then inexperienced editors like me won't have problems using or recognising the template and I would not have called it an infobox, but a sidebar from the begining (compare this template with the Chinese history template you have refered to). The justification for deleting the template comes out of many reason, some of which are: a)there already exists one properly designed and documented sidebar which serves the purpose better, which makes this one redundant b) overlapping c) consistency across articles d) an article on the subject does not exist e) the template violates WP:NPOV, WP:OR and WP:SYN and already caused disruptions in several the articles. These are my views on this intrusive template. Let the deletion discussion decide whether the template should be merged, deleted or kept. By the way, if you feel bullied or threatened by Wikipedia policies, you should not be at Wikipedia. --SriSuren (talk) 08:18, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

• I am afraid you keep referring to WP:NPOV, WP:OR and WP:SYN which are all to do with "articles" not to navigation templates. The template has no actual content, but links. Your concern, as evidenced by your suggestion "articles where controversies exist", as far as the editors of those individual articles you are referring to are concerned, there is no controversy in them; should you still insist on asserting they are controversial, without adequate evidence I may add, kindly follow up in the individual talk pages.

• If you believe that certain links are too loose with the subject, then I more than welcome specific instances and your reasons. And I welcome still your suggestion for adding links (like you said about the Aryachakaravarti Dynasty. But quite frankly as evidenced by "...not even listed in the template" implies that you find this template useful, albeit to a small extent, and wish to reform it. I see no reason to delete it. For example, is there any doubt that the Yalpana Vaipava Malai is not exclusively to do with history of the Sri Lankan Tamil people? Your arguments are clearly ill founded and biased. Other links like Burning of Jaffna library obviously has to do Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism and State sponsored terrorism in Sri Lanka, but a significant chunk of its content is to do with Eezham Tamil history.

• The sidebar you are referring to I presume it is on Sri Lankan Tamil people is like it says about Sri Lankan Tamil people not history of the diaspora in concern.

• "I'll be requesting the deletion of this template, on the basis that it does not fulfill the criteria for navbox/sidebar as described in the guidelines". Unfortunately, guidelines do not give out "criteria", they give out guidelines.

• "At any cost, the synthesis and POV which is being constructed within this template"; sadly it is your sole inference that this template is a POV, there is nothing within this template to even remotely suggest POV.

• "and its insertion into articles, is not acceptable."; if you find specific articles where you want this template to be removed, please use the talk pages of those individual articles. This by no means justifies deleting this template, as you yourself seem quite keen to add links to it like "included important articles on the topic, like the Jaffna dynasty".

Thank you for your concern, SriSuren. I wish you a good day.--Avedeus (talk) 00:23, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

You have totally misunderstood what a sidebar is and wiki policies. If you think sidebars are exempted from the WP:SYN, WP:NPOV and WP:OR policies, then you have not comprehended the first thing about templates or sidebars. There is absolutely no doubt that the content within this template seriously violate WP:SYN, WP:NPOV and WP:OR and the aggressive attempts to insert this template into the articles listed in your template, has caused enough disruption already. I suggest you read the CRITERIA in the guidelines again too. Your template violates several if not all the guidelines for navboxes/sidebars. As said it is the synthesis within this template that is the main problem, and you can't relegate the discussion to individual articles you have arbitarily listed in this sidebar. Moreover it is not practically possible to have endless discussions each time somebody decides to make a template by listing articles as u have done, and useful time cannot be wasted in that way. The guidelines are there so that the person who designs the template takes care to follow them and the policies involved, so that this kind of sidebars with loosely connected/unconnected articles do not get made and the subsequent disruption caused by such templates do not happen. In other words - You can't make a template with a diffuse collection of links, and insert the template into articles and cause disruption and editwars and then say that the discussion has to be done in the individual articles. As also pointed out some of the articles do not even mention SL-Tamils and there already exists a properly designed sidebar for the SLTamils, which makes this one redundant. Please also see my answer to Obi2canbe above.--SriSuren (talk) 08:39, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Dear Sri Suren,

• 1. I had replied to each of your previous points, and you only have managed to reply to my first point. how sad.

I have been accused of writing too long answers, and for once I managed to write a short answer and I am "accused" of not aswering all the points.... :). --SriSuren (talk) 03:43, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

• 2. The policies you have stated explicitly say "facts, allegations, and ideas", show me some "facts, allegations, and ideas" in this template please?

Please understand that when you have a heading and list something under that heading you are presenting an idea, that is that they belong in that category. In the context of Wikipedia, when you do this listing in a template or sidebar and insert it to articles, you do several things at once, including marking the article as exclusively an article on a series of articles on SLTamil History. A proper description for that is Synthesis by Organization and Marking. And when you list unrelated articles, no reliable sources associate with the SLTamils (eg. the Kandyan convention, Kandy Nayaks) and list them in a template as you have done, that is addition to the above Original Research. --SriSuren (talk) 03:43, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

• 3. Guidelines are guidelines, only policies have criteria. Please understand the distinction here WP:POLICIES.

If only policies have criteria, what do guidelines have? If you do not like the word criteria then call them norms or standards or procedures or whatever you like. Guidelines are meant to supplement Policies. They describe and ensure how best policies are upheld and if something violates guidelines to the degree your template does, it automatically violates at least one policy seriously. Also, your understanding that you can separate articles and templates and say that these policies are only meant for articles and not for templates is completely wrong. --SriSuren (talk) 03:43, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

• 4. Furthermore,ambivalent statements like first saying you want to include, I quote, "included important articles on the topic, like the Jaffna dynasty", then you are saying you want to delete it.

Aryachakravarti's are important to the Tamil history and they are part of the SLTamil history, but that does not mean that you can categorize the Kandy Nayaks with them in the same template and add that template to the Kandy Nayaks. If you do that then you violate the much mentioned policies and guidelines. --SriSuren (talk) 03:43, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

• 5. Stop being tentative, what is the point of saying "Your template violates several if not all the guidelines for navboxes/sidebars."; I don't know what you are referring (and I don't think you do too) to if you cannot be specific. I can only presume that you are trying to force your views and bias upon this template.

Please read these few lines here: WP:NAVBOX.

• 6. "As also pointed out some of the articles do not even mention SL-Tamils and there already exists a properly designed sidebar for the SLTamils, which makes this one redundant. "; And like I have pointed out, "The sidebar you are referring to I presume it is on Sri Lankan Tamil people is like it says about Sri Lankan Tamil people not history of the diaspora in concern.".

I am talking of the Sri Lankan Tamil people and this template, which I have linked to earlier too. There is a section on history in that template. --SriSuren (talk) 03:43, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

• 7. "Moreover it is not practically possible to have endless discussions each time somebody decides to make a template by listing articles as u have done, and useful time cannot be wasted in that way."; Unfortunately, that is what you have to do to establish facts. If you are right, there should be no reason for you not to do it. The only reason I can think that you would want to use such an excuse is if you already know you are on the wrong which would as you say prolong, I quote, "endless discussions". Thank you for your time and consideration. I hope you have a good day. --Avedeus (talk) 10:59, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

You really do not get the point about templates and sidebars, Avedeus. I would love to discuss the topics of the articles in question with you or anyone else, but that is out of the question here since sidebars should be made for already existing tightly connected set of articles, not the other way around. You can't FIRST list articles like the Kandy Nayaks, Kandyan Convention and then start looking for connections and try to establish them. In those cases I doubt you would ever be able to establish any connection. I think if you follow the guidelines for nav templates, then this problem will not arise. Since the guidelines clearly say:

Navigation templates are particularly useful for a small, well-defined group of articles; templates with a large numbers of links are not forbidden, but can appear overly busy and be hard to read and use. Good templates generally follow some of these guidelines:

1. All articles within a template relate to a single, coherent subject.

2. The subject of the template should be mentioned in every article.

3. The articles should refer to each other, to a reasonable extent.

4. There should be a Wikipedia article on the subject of the template.

If the collection of articles does not meet these tests, that indicates that the articles are loosely-related, and a list or category may be more appropriate.

==>>>> As you see your article does not fulfill any of the requirements in the guidelines. The guidelines further say:

Navigation templates located in the top-right corner of articles (sometimes called a "sidebar" or "part of a series" template) should be treated with special attention, because they are so prominently displayed to readers. The collection of articles in a sidebar template should be fairly tightly related, and the template should meet most or all of the preceding guidelines. If the articles are not tightly related, a footer template (located at the bottom of the article) may be more appropriate.

As you see from the guidelines, most of the articles in your sidebar do not fullfil the requirements to be included in it, while some are connected to SLTamils, they are not solely connected to the SLTamils. Eg: the Donoughmore Commission. When u place your template there, you create the impression that this article is solely or more connected with SLTamils. If you take the article on Chola occupation, placing this template there raises several questions and confusions if the reader is not familiar with Indian and SL history, because the first impression one gets is that SL Tamils are the Cholas. The Kandy Nayak article looked like this with this template on it.

As per above explanations: - the loosely connected articles have to be taken out of this template and then the template must be merged with the existing one or this template must be deleted altogether. In the first instance I will take out all the articles from the template, where SLTamils are not mentioned in the articles (except Tamilakam although the article does not mention SLTamils, Tamilakam is connected with the Tamils and does not create POV or controversies), and the articles which are not solely connected with the SLTamils, as per guidelines. If you want to add them into your template, you have to FIRST make the edits in the articles and if necessary take the discussion in the talk pages of the articles. If you are under the impression that your template must be exempted from Wikipedia guidelines for navbars, you have to take it up with the administrators and/or seek consensus amoung editors first. You'll have to figure out how to do it. I am not sure whether it is even allowed. In my view any template that deviates so much from the accepted guidelines is a candidate for deletion. --SriSuren (talk) 03:43, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Removal of unrelated and loosely related articles from the sidebar template

I have taken out articles as per discussion above, ie I have taken out articles which do not mention Sri Lankan Tamils, and articles which are not solely connected with the Sri Lankan Tamils from the template, as per guidelines for sidebars and WP:NPOV. If the authour/editor wants to add them, then he must FIRST make sure that the guidelines for sidebars are adhered to. If these articles are added to this template without fulfilling the requirements, I will list this template for deletion on the basis that it violates guidelines on navboxes ( WP:NAVBOX) and policies on neutrality, verifiability and original research and we will take the discussion there. --SriSuren (talk) 04:05, 12 April 2012 (UTC)