Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/India-related articles

message: Can we use slokas in articles. A on going debate is at Talk:Sritattvanidhi#Why do we need the slokas???. I think this may be incorpoareted into this MOS. Amartyabag  TALK2ME 06:58, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of Slokas 

message: So far the main development here is the incorporation of most of the content of Wikipedia: Naming conventions (Indic).  I suggest that that Naming convention article should remain separate and active, and that this Manual of Style should only make reference to the it for appropriate cases. Reasons;
*that naming convention would also apply to articles that were not specific to India (the modern country); including articles about some of the neighbouring countries, and to the Pali language. 
*that article was always intended to deal with old Indian languages (for history, religion and so on). India has names that do not derive from Indic languages. These include Arabic, Persian, and English names. 
*the naming convention was not intended or written with modern names in mind. For a current example, the naming convention (or this manual of style) would be of little help in the recent dispute over Bengaluru / Bangalore, which is the sort of thing that should be addressed here. (According to the naming convention, Bangalore should be renamed Bengalūru, not Bengaluru, and I don't suppose anyone will support that). The existing, very  sketchy 'Modern names' section should be expanded to deal with these. 
Imc 15:44, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Scope of this project

message: Editors behind this proposal may wish to step in at Talk:Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi#Full_name (see also the immediately preceding discussions) where there is a discussion about whether to change the article name of Mahatma Gandhi. Currently it is named 'Mohandas Gandhi' while others are in favour of 'Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi', while other prefer the original 'Mahatma Gandhi'.
This MOS for India-related articles has been invoked at the current discussion but, despite saying so on the MOS articlespace that 'Mahatma Gandhi' is preferred, there is doubt as to whether this should be implemented on account of this MOS being a proposed guideline. So, in any case, editors may wish to step in over there and contribute their thoughts. Thanks, Ekantik talk 19:56, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Biographical naming conventions

message: A recent decision on the use of indic scripts in the leads of India-related articles was made (see main discussion here and clarification here). This decision has not been properly communicated and User:DeltaQuad and I agree that it should be placed in the Manual of Style somewhere. The most appropriate place would be in this India-related articles subpage, but it is currently inactive. Surely there are now enough India-related article to warrant the resurrection of these guidelines. What are your thoughts? Bazonka (talk) 08:56, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I did not realise that this section of MOS had ever existed. By all means, resurrect it after a period of review. I'll wander through the thing over the next few hours. - Sitush (talk) 09:04, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: One for a section on lead sections: WT:INB reached a consensus sometime mid/late 2011 that specific varna status should not be referred to in the lead section of caste/community articles. I'll try to find the link to the discussion. - Sitush (talk) 09:09, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: This may be that varna discussion, although it seemed to deteriorate into a "bash Sitush" type of thread. Nothing new, then! - Sitush (talk) 09:26, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't be bothered to read all of that discussion now, but assumuing a decision was reached (which isn't clear from the little I've read), then that's exactly the sort of thing that should be in this MoS article. Bazonka (talk) 09:41, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

text: I think that it needs some discussion before the template is removed. For example, I can see that some people might have problems with the guideline preferring British English and Indian units (lakhs etc). If this is made active now then some pretty fundamental concepts are raised to the status of something that has current consensus when in fact the consensus may have changed. We need a structured discussion here of the various aspects. I emphasis structured because my experience is that discussion of such things tend to deteriorate pretty fast.- Sitush (talk) 09:59, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. One option would be to remove anything remotely controversial from the page, and make the uncontroversial stuff active (even if there isn't very much). Then separate discussions can be held about each controversial part, rather than one big amorphous bunfight of a discussion. The MoS page can then grow over time as (and if) consensus is reached for each discussion. Bazonka (talk) 10:05, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I cannot really comment on the transliteration bit (I am monoglottal) but the section regarding district naming is also currently being discussed. Tbh, I do not think that there is much in the inactive version that does not require review. The only dead cert is probably the recent RfC regarding scripts in lead sections. - Sitush (talk) 11:28, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Resurrection of this MoS page 

message: Since no-one objected to the resurrection of this page, I have made a few amendments and reinstated it under :Category:Wikipedia Manual of Style (regional). The changes that I have made to it are:
# A few non-controversial spelling and punctuation fixes.
# Removal of the "Geographic articles" section because each of its subsections was disputed. I would recommend discussing and reinstating this as soon as possible.
# Change the spelling guideline from use of only British English to use of only Indian English. This seemed like an obvious change.
# Removal of text about religion and mythology as per User:Redtigerxyz's concern above.
# Removal of the "Naming and transliteration" section as per User:Redtigerxyz's concern above.
# Removal of text about people who are widely known by honorific titles, as per User:Redtigerxyz's concern above.
I have not included anything about the decision mentioned above not to use Indic scripts in the leads of articles. This seems like a controversial decision requiring further discussion and consensus. The points raised above by User:Redtigerxyz also require further discussion. Bazonka (talk) 09:04, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: MOS is now live

message: At , it says that Indic script is not to be used in the lede sentence of an article:
: There is community consensus that the lead sentence of an article should not contain any regional or Indic language script. It is suggested that IPA be used for help with pronunciation. For details, refer to this RfC: Native languages in lead.
However, at , it says that Indic script is to be used in the lede and gives the example:
:Sikhism () is a ...
:Sikhism () is a ...
This is more consistent with article practice, too.
So, which is it? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 06:37, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conflicting policies 

message: In Infoboxes for places, there are the parameters , , , , and  (ignoring the tranlit* params for now). The first three are specified to be in English with Latin script.
The question is what to do with the others. The fact that  exists says to me that the design is to support the predominant non-English language/non-Latin script name of the place, like:
or this, using the  template wrapper around the script to prepend the Hindi link:
The notes say that if multiple names/languages are to be specified, to wrap the names in , but this doesn't specify which language the names are in like  does. Example:
What about pronunciation guides, like ? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 09:12, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you familiar with WP:INDICSCRIPT and the various discussions that gave rise to it and that have subsequently taken place at WT:INB? - Sitush (talk) 10:32, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, you've posted two queries in two sections, and I missed the one above. Clearly, you are aware to some extent. The quick solution that avoids all this mess and more is not to have the scripts anywhere. They cause a phenomenal number of problems, including outright vandalism that doesn't get picked up because insufficient contributors can understand the scripts. - Sitush (talk) 10:37, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Translations in Infoboxes 

message: Is there a convention for handling new/old city names, (Mumbai/Bombay), specifically in historical articles? Thanks for the help! Lfstevens (talk) 04:26, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Use the name that was used at the time the event occurred. This can be especially important for some geographical entities; for example, British India was geographically very different to India as it is known today. - Sitush (talk) 17:14, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  City names 

message: I have just amended the wording here. - Sitush (talk) 10:50, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Handling numbers 

message: When a list of personal names in an India-related article is sorted alphabetically, which name order should be used for sorting? If the family name is usually placed last (western order) then a list of names should probably be sorted by the last name. I am looking at Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy School of Art#Famous alumni, which is currently sorted by the full name, so that Francis Newton Souza is listed before John Fernandes. In a European or a North-American article I would change this. What should be the convention for India-related articles? Verbcatcher (talk) 12:54, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alphabetical order for names 

message: This article says "After the initial mention of any name, the person may be referred to by surname only." This is not always true. Many people use the personal name. For example, see R. K. Narayan, where he is known by his personal name (Narayanan) and not his surname (Rasipuram, actually village name). Anbumani Ramadoss is Anbumani, son of Dr. Ramadoss. Another example is V. Anand, sometimes wrongly expanded as Vishwanathan Anand. (Anand is his given name and the correct expansion is Anand Vishwanathan.) Also, "The last name or the family name is placed before the first name for Telugu people." This is also found in Kerala, as in V. S. Achuthanandan, where Velikkakathu is his surname, and Achuthanandan his given name. As far as I know, this style is restricted to South India. Jose Mathew (talk) 11:23, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Naming conventions 

message: The rationale and consensus history (the links/diffs for which should be put into a footnote) at WP:WikiProject India#Indic scripts in lead belong in the MOS:INDIA page; they serve no purpose buried on the wikiproject page where no one will see them but active participants in the wikiproject.  Without that material, the one-liner in the present guideline looks like arbitrary nonsense, and is easily dismissed as some consensus-free WP:CREEP someone added without discussion.
I did some cleanup work on the material to make it "MoS-styled" language,  and actually guideline-worthy. It had a bunch of WP:OWNish wording (I don't mean that too critically, it's just a common problem in stuff written at wikiprojects), was very unclear in certain ways, and had some grammar problems).  
After merging, the WP:INDICSCRIPT shortcut (and a MOS:INDICSCRIPT one) should redirect to what is presently the "Lead and infobox" section in MOS:INDIA, though this would be better named "Indic script in leads and infoboxes" since it does not cover anything else, and it doesn't stand out in the table of contents without "Indic" in it.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  02:04, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge [[WP:INDICSCRIPT]] to [[MOS:INDIA]]'s "Lead and infobox" section 

message: Ideally, when introducing an article that is covered by this guideline, IPA transcriptions (with audio files if possible) and transliterations of the Indic script should be included.  The format is:
:Simplified Transliteration () ...
A special  template has been made to take care of formatting issues. 
Use this format when you have the original script text, transliteration, IPA and audio pronunciation file.
:Simplified Transliteration () ...
;Example:
:Sikhism () is a...
:Sikhism () is a...
====Without audio====
Use this when you have the original script text, transliteration and IPA but do not have the audio pronunciation.  This is likely to be the most used format.
:Simplified Transliteration () ...
;Example:
:Mumbai () is a...
:Mumbai () is a...
Pinging User:SMcCandlish and User:Let There Be Sunshine --Muhandes (talk) 12:17, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: On a quick once-over, the problem appears to be that this is being written about leads when we don't want to use Indic in leads. If the material were rewritten to be about use of Indic in our text in general (with a reminder that we don't use it in the lead, "see above", then some of the material could be restored into "Non-English strings" somewhere, though Sikh stuff should just be an example.  We would never do "Simplified Transliteration" which is against both MOS:BOLD and MOS:CAPS ("simplified transliteration" is just fine), and we would not normally include audio without a really good reason. The audio stuff is already covered, in a non-topic-specific manner, at MOS:AUDIO MOS:PRON, so it need not be covered here at all except with short cross-references, like "For when to include a link to an audio pronunciation file, see WP:Manual of Style/Pronunciation."  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  22:03, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm thinking what I did as first-aid (commenting out the entire section)  might be the best solution. The entire thing is just an explanation of how to use  which does not seem to apply as a WP:MOS anyway and is covered elsewhere. --Muhandes (talk) 19:11, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

text: , I think you meant this to go elsewhere (probably three sections below). --Muhandes (talk) 14:10, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Preferred format for introducing the article subject

message: Use this when you have the original script text, transliteration and IPA but do not have the audio pronunciation.  This is likely to be the most used format.
:Simplified Transliteration () ...
;Example:
:Mumbai () is a...
:Mumbai () is a...
Pinging User:SMcCandlish and User:Let There Be Sunshine --Muhandes (talk) 12:17, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: On a quick once-over, the problem appears to be that this is being written about leads when we don't want to use Indic in leads. If the material were rewritten to be about use of Indic in our text in general (with a reminder that we don't use it in the lead, "see above", then some of the material could be restored into "Non-English strings" somewhere, though Sikh stuff should just be an example.  We would never do "Simplified Transliteration" which is against both MOS:BOLD and MOS:CAPS ("simplified transliteration" is just fine), and we would not normally include audio without a really good reason. The audio stuff is already covered, in a non-topic-specific manner, at MOS:AUDIO MOS:PRON, so it need not be covered here at all except with short cross-references, like "For when to include a link to an audio pronunciation file, see WP:Manual of Style/Pronunciation."  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  22:03, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm thinking what I did as first-aid (commenting out the entire section)  might be the best solution. The entire thing is just an explanation of how to use  which does not seem to apply as a WP:MOS anyway and is covered elsewhere. --Muhandes (talk) 19:11, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

text: , I think you meant this to go elsewhere (probably three sections below). --Muhandes (talk) 14:10, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Without audio

message: I understand the reasoning for WP:INDICSCRIPT, but the ban seems excessive. For example, gujarati film Dhh has a clear case of indic script in lead and/or infobox. There are no claims of multiple language to be added here, so why can't we refine policy to allow such cases? Coderzombie (talk) 13:10, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: There has been quite a number of discussions on the matter over the years, and I think the simplest way is to explain it is that there is no way to leave the door half-open. Since the alternative was worse, the community has chosen to leave the door tightly closed. Maybe one day consensus will change. --Muhandes (talk) 22:30, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  blanket ban per [[WP:INDICSCRIPT]] 

message: This guideline is unclear on whether or not to use diacritics, and in what circumstances. Devanagari or Devanāgarī? Aryabhata or Āryabhaṭa? 
Should diacritics be "extended?" (Brihadisvara, Brihadiśvara, or Brihadishvara?)
Should they be used for all terms that can be transcribed with IAST (this would be excessive, imo), or just technical Sanskrit terms/names for historical/religious topics? The latter is my preference, for words like parinirvāṇa.
Should they be used for article names? In leads? General text? 
Overall diacritic usage is very inconsistent across the wiki, I hope a standard can be set. - AMorozov 〈talk〉 12:18, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The question is not one of whether to use diacritics or not, but which transliteration standard to use. As the section on Non-English strings outlines, ISO 15919 should be used for all Indic languages except for Sanskrit, where IAST is used conventionally. I have proposed to switch to ISO for Sanskrit as well (see the section below), but that's the policy for the moment. By "without diacritics", I assume you mean using the Hunterian transliteration scheme, the official scheme used by the Indian government. In that scheme, it can be written as Brihadishvara. Brihadisvara is incorrect; it's not a matter of simply dropping the diacritics from the ISO/IAST transliteration to reach Hunterian transliteration. All in all, I'd say use ISO (preferably) or Hunterian for all Indic languages except for Sanskrit, for which you should be using IAST. Getsnoopy (talk) 01:52, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Diacritics, use or not? 

message: In section "Indic scripts in leads and infoboxes", we are admonished not to use Indic scripts in the lede section. In the very next section, "Linking to other Indian Language Wikipedias", an example lede fragment is given which violates this rule. The article it refers to, Mahatma Gandhi, does not display the same lede. Elizium23 (talk) 11:03, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gandhi 

message: The decision was made because there are too many Indian languages? This makes no sense, because there are only 2 official languages in India, English and Hindi. Adding Hindi can help millions of people who only know, speak and write in Hindi to find articles on wikipedia. Not all English wikipedia articles have a hindi translation. Such a decision only prevents wikipedia's accessibility. For people, companies, and organizations that operate mostly on the state level. State languages can be included as an when deemed necessary. It seems regressive to avoid the usage of Indic scripts when for every other country, a local language translation is offered  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Debitpixie (talk • contribs) 11:50, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Avoidance of Indic scripts makes no sense 

message: I propose a policy of preferring the secular BCE/CE as opposed to BC/AD for Indian articles being added under the "Basic India conventions". Many articles on Indian topics seem to follow this convention already (e.g., India, Karma, Hinduism), but my proposal is to codify it as a preference. Getsnoopy (talk) 04:37, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prefer BCE/CE 

message: I propose preferring ISO 15919 over IAST for all Indic-language transliterations, and adding this to the conventions page. IAST is essentially a subset of ISO 15919, barring a couple cases where it's different, and the latter allows for all Indic languages to be unambiguously represented. Along the same lines, the recommended template for transliterations should be changed to  instead of , as the former allow specifying the transliteration scheme used as well, which is important in many cases. Getsnoopy (talk) 17:17, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prefer ISO 15919 over IAST 

message: Category:Government of Bangalore  should be deleted since it is named after a an entity which never existed.
Usage of terms Government of Karnataka and Government of India should be entertained but there is (or was) nothing by the name Government of Bangalore.
If you want to categorize agencies associated with Bangalore, then we can use Category:Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike for Pages dedicated to Agencies associated with Municipal Corporation.
Similarly other Pages which are using Category:Government of Bangalore can use Category:Bangalore.
Talk Page Talk. -Vijethnbharadwaj (talk) 17:14, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: This is the wrong forum for deleting or merging a category. Take it to WP:CFD where it will have wider attention. Timrollpickering (talk) 19:29, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with Timrollpickering. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 21:31, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  '''Category:Government of Bangalore'''  should be deleted since it is named after a an entity which never existed 

message: This policy is already implied in the current policy and followed on most articles, but my proposal is to make it explicit. If no one objects to this in about a week's time, I will be amending the text accordingly in . Getsnoopy (talk) 19:42, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  All non-Sanskrit transliterations should use ISO 15919 

message: You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indian politics § Proposal : Wikipedia:Naming conventions Indian constituencies.  Venkat TL (talk) 12:54, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion at [[:Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indian politics/Archive 4#Proposal : Wikipedia:Naming conventions Indian constituencies|Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indian politics §&nbsp;Proposal : Wikipedia:Naming conventions Indian constituencies]]

message: FYI  has been nominated for deletion -- 65.92.246.142 (talk) 06:54, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: {{tl|Cleanup Indic script}}

message: Obviously I think banning all Indic scripts in the lead section of India-related articles is not a very good solution, so I came up with another: using a template like Template:Infobox Chinese to list the names of places in Indian languages. I have therefore created Template:Infobox Indian. It's currently a work-in-progress and please feel free to (and please do) help me fix it. I have used it on the page Indian Australians as an example. Thanks! Thiscouldbeauser (talk) 07:55, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Solution to the Indic script debate 

message: Where is the indonesia related articles for applying the manual of style in editing pages? 2404:8000:1027:85F6:4D2C:4F6E:D2A6:F16F (talk) 15:36, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why just not use indonesia alone? 

message: I've noticed that most articles mentioning the Indian rupee appear to use the old Rs[.] symbol or the lakh crore system, rather than the new (as of 2010) ₹ symbol. Is there a standard around which symbol to use, and should instances of "Rs" when referring to the Indian rupee be changed to the new symbol? Exobiotic 💬 ✒️ 13:29, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: @Exobiotic You can use Template:INR and Template:INRConvert — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 15:18, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rupee formatting