User talk:Chariotrider555/Archives/2024/April

Removal at Rajput resistance to Muslim conquests

Hello. Your Edit here removed about a quater of the content from the page Rajput resistance to Muslim conquests. These removals included information about Rajput Resistance against Akbar, Jahangir, Bahadur Shah, Babur, Arab Invasions because the mentioned page was poorly cited.
I have reverted those edits and added appropriate citations. I would like to point out that your edit was not a net constructive contribution to Wikipedia as you removed content which could be verified very easily upon miniscule investigation. Instead of attempting to improve the verifiability and citations on this page per WP:NEEDCITEREMOVE, you blanked several sections.
Such removal could only be justified under conditions mentioned at #when to not use citation needed like when the content is obviously nonsense, violations under BLP, obviously non factual. >>> Extorc.talk 11:07, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

User:Extorc, it is the WP:BURDEN of whoever added the material to provide the citation. It is completely acceptable for any material that does not have such to be removed, and Wikipedia only encourages users to try to reference unreferenced material before removing (Wikipedia:Citation_needed#When_not_to_use_this_tag, WP:PROVEIT). Moreover much of the content I removed had been sitting there unreferenced for months and even years, and likely would have continued being in that state for months and years to come had I not made the executive decision to remove it. Given that about 1/4 of the page's contents was unreferenced content, the article was in a pretty poor state, and its removal was a net-positive. I applaud you however for finding proper references for some of the content. Chariotrider555 (talk) 14:02, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

@Extorc See my post below, Doug Weller talk 13:24, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Dwarkadhish Temple

[Here you removed one sentence from a two sentence paragraph as unsourced yet left the other unsourced sentence. I'd like to know why. As I can't restore unsourced material, or rather if I could I'd violate policy, I'll remove the other one. Doug Weller talk 13:23, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

User:Doug Weller, as per WP:CITELEAD, "Because the lead usually repeats information that is in the body, editors should balance the desire to avoid redundant citations in the lead with the desire to aid readers in locating sources for challengeable material. Although the presence of citations in the lead is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article, there is no exception to citation requirements specific to leads. The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus. Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations; others, few or none.". I generally lean toward the side that as few as possible citations should be in the lead while it still fulfils its function as a summary of the body. I removed the sentence about Vajranabha because it neither had a citation in the lead nor a mention in the body. However, the destruction of the temple by Mahmud Begada while not having a citation in the lead, is properly and reliably referenced in the body Dwarkadhish_Temple#History. On closer inspection the year in the lead is one off from the body (possible Hijri-Gregorian conversion error by whoever originally added the sentence?).Chariotrider555 (talk) 14:08, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

@Chariotrider555 Thanks. I don't know how I missed that, and as you say, the year should be 1473. If that is a reliable source of course. I'm not sure. Doug Weller talk 14:22, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

User:Doug Weller, I believe the work is a reliable source. Commissariat is a notable historian, and the series that the book was the first volume of continued to be published after independence as well (Volume II in 1956, III postumously in 1980). WP:RAJ generally applies to castes, rather than general history, but more recent sources can be found which will likely substantiate the paragraph as well. Chariotrider555 (talk) 15:28, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

See WP:HISTRS. Whilst RAJ may have the appearance of applying "generally to castes", it actually is a comment on all sources of Raj origin. They aren't good and there is a longstanding consensus that they should be avoided. - Sitush (talk) 06:37, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

NB: Commissariat is rarely cited by academics nowadays, from what I can see. That isn't a good sign. - Sitush (talk) 06:40, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

User:Sitush, I would have to disagree with the claim that Commissariat is rarely cited by modern academics. See [1], you can find at least 20-30 very modern (1990-present) academic sources who cite his work in this series . I feel WP:RAJ should be explicit in its condemnation of Raj era sources for all fields relating to Indian history outside of caste, because currently Wikipedia articles cite various (late) Raj-era scholars on history and religion. Additionally for historians particularly this has implications for those whose publishing careers started before independence but continued well into the 20th century, (eg. Kane, Gonda, Thieme, Majumdar). Commissariat's History of Gujarat series continued its publication similarly until 1980 (posthumous last volume, death in 1977 I believe), so would those two volumes also be considered unreliable? Chariotrider555 (talk) 17:23, 12 April 2024 (UTC)