Talk:Darjeeling

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Darjeeling article.
Darjeeling is a selected article on the West Bengal Portal, which means that it was selected as a high quality West Bengal-related article.
To-do list for Darjeeling: edit · history · watch · refresh
  • Turn all red links to blue.
  • Slight expansion of "History" , especially 1900 to 1947 period, which is almost missing.
  • Expand and modify "Culture".
  • Images for "History", "Education". Better image for Culture.
  • More references.
  • More input on colonial architecture, if possible, with photos.
  • Create daughter articles as needed.
  • Continue copyedit.
  • Peer review.
Featured article star Darjeeling is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do.


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Apart from its exquisite tea, Darjeeling is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful places in the world. Between mid-March and mid-June, and again from late-September through December, the majestic Kanchenjunga range confers a grandeur to the landscape of Darjeeling that could have few peers on this earth. Above the main town sits St. Paul's School, one of the finest boarding schools in Asia, complete with a spectacularly beautiful Quadrangle, one of the greatest gardens in India and a tradition of exceptional achievement in producing well-rounded ethical alumni. Darjeeling and its surrounding areas (Tiger Hill, Sandakphu, Phalut) offer some of the most bracing trekking routes in the Himalayas -- linking the town with the base camp to Kanchenjunga (the third tallest peak in the world) and Mt. Everest. Apart from the Botanical Gardens, the zoo and the blue-domed palace of the Maharaja of Burdwan, other notable tourist destinations in Darjeeling are the home of the late Tenzing Norgay (the first man to climb Everest, accompanied by Edmund Hillary) and the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, where Tenzing, his nephew Nawang Gombu (the first man to climb Everest twice) and other mountaineering luminaries left their lasting imprint.

Contents

[edit] Separation of geographical from the tea

Would anyone object to the separation of the tea from the geography into two articles? --Iateasquirrel 08:13, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

This was a good idea. Major Danby 14 April 2006.

[edit] Use of suitable map

I was trying to mark the position of Darjeeling/Darjiling on the map. Where do I get the blank map from?? (ChrisR, UK, 26/8/05)

Here is a fine map of the west bengal district for anyone who can mark the position of darjeeling....i've started to use wikipedia only recently so i am not very skilled.
The map listed above (from mapsofindia.com) cannot be used. It is not published under a suitable license.

[edit] Aggressive entrepreneurship

An unregisted person first obliterated all of the links to the Darjeeling News, which is the first site that comes up on many Google searches for Darjeeling, and replace them with a link to a private company's travel guide. I restored those links and, as a courteous gesture, put the link that the anonymous person had added in the fourth position. Today he or she came back, obliterated the first Darjeeling News link, and replaced it with a duplicate of the fourth link. I hold no brief for the newspaper, with which I'm generally unfamiliar, but I don't like the commercialization of Wikipedia in violation of its rules so I'm going to go on doing eliminating those changes. If any participant here has any thoughts or advice, please offer them. Major Danby 14 April 2006.

[edit] Comment

A nice article, guyz. Only a few problems, I think.

  • the town is also a favourite tourist destination offering temperate climate, magnificent views of the snowcapped peaks of Himalaya and other attractions (from lead section) - is POV is travel guide-ish. Should be reworded.
  • The article says, The most significant contributor to the Darjeeling economy is tourism (first line, Economy section). But later, it says, Darjeeling has a modest tourism industry (first line, last para, Culture and tourism section) - Contradicts itself.
  • The Culture and people (or maybe the lead itself) should give an indication of which commune of people inhabit the city (Nepalese, Bengali etc). In the present incarnation of the article, it is not very clear.
  • One important thing - as it is mentioned that it is a popular tourist destination, it should include a mention of note-worthy places, which is largely absent from the article. A Tourism section may be created, and the last para from the Culture and people section be spun off here. This section should also list all the popular tourist spots - but care should be made not to make it a travel guide. And mention of the monasteries, in and around Darjeeling, are largely absent.

--soUmyaSch 13:02, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Did not have much time to look over. I think that the pronunciation link should be moved a bit inside the article for smoother reading. A well-referenced article, I should say. --Andy123(talk) 17:25, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re:Comments

  • the town is also a favourite tourist destination offering temperate climate, magnificent views of the snowcapped peaks of Himalaya and other attractions (from lead section) - is POV is travel guide-ish. Should be reworded.
"Comment removed for the time being."
  • The article says, The most significant contributor to the Darjeeling economy is tourism (first line, Economy section). But later, it says, Darjeeling has a modest tourism industry (first line, last para, Culture and tourism section) - Contradicts itself.
"Will be done shortly."
  • The Culture and people (or maybe the lead itself) should give an indication of which commune of people inhabit the city (Nepalese, Bengali etc). In the present incarnation of the article, it is not very clear.
"The communities have been detailed in "Demographics."
  • One important thing - as it is mentioned that it is a popular tourist destination, it should include a mention of note-worthy places, which is largely absent from the article. A Tourism section may be created, and the last para from the Culture and people section be spun off here. This section should also list all the popular tourist spots - but care should be made not to make it a travel guide. And mention of the monasteries, in and around Darjeeling, are largely absent.
"Creating sections like Tourism is against the Wikiproject Indian Cities. Tourist spots have to be incorporated into other sections, if needed. Monasteries, handicraft centers can be incorporated in "Culture", for example."--Dwaipayan (talk) 17:03, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
The culture and people section could be expanded then? the festivals can be described in greater detail. Where would the town's landmarks be placed? (those usually are tourist spots.) --hydkat 21:36, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Re: The culture and people is pretty large already. A daughter article is needed, I guess. Festivals will be discussed in greater detail in the daughter article while very short one-liners may be added within bracket to give a hint of those lesser known festivals. Some Landmarks (Mall, Lebong, zoo) have been added in geography, while some are in culture (tiger hill). More are in education (the schools). I will ask some local people and see if some more major landmarks are needed. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 05:35, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] comments

Along with the devnagari spelling, also include Bengali. Some info about the timber industry would be useful.BengalRenaissanceEccentrica 22:15, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Re:The Bengali script was not used as Bengali is not the major language among the inhabitants of Darjeeling. However, the large chunk of tourists there are Bengalis, so that you can hear Bengali in the streets quite often. Ok, I am addding the Bengali script soon.
Do not have any info on the timber industry of the town, though some info may be available on the timber industry of the district. I'll try to find out.--Dwaipayan (talk) 05:29, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
The label on the lead map is too small; it needs to look more like that used at Kolkata. Saravask 05:22, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Re:Well, I'll contact and request relevanr editors for that. I dont know how to do map-works.--Dwaipayan (talk) 05:29, 6 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] history

"In the 1900s, the non-British elites of Kolkata also began visiting Darjeeling." -- when did the british start visiting? The article only talks about british settlements, not darjeeling as a tourist destination.

no significant contribution to freedom struggle -- this is a somewhat confusing statement. Darjeeling is a small place. It is hard to attribute "portions" of freedom struggle to it. Same can be said any other district in Bengal (apart from obvious exceptions)--ppm 21:14, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Agreed that the comment on freedom struggle sounds somewhat biased. Thanks for bringing it to notice. We'll rephrase/remove the comment.
Regarding your first point, we do not have much historical data on the evolution of Darjeeling as a tourist spot. I mean, when exactly it started to attract tourist, when exactly first hotel was started etc. Just a story-like description is available in some sources. We'll try to fill up that lacunae, if we get data. On the other hand, history as a British settlement is avaialable, and we've incorporated that.
In other sections (economy, culture) the tourism aspect have been discussed. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 12:35, 7 May 2006 (UTC)


Regarding culture, I have one suggestion: namely to not have food as the first thing there. Maybe something that is missing -- music/literature can go there--ppm 18:56, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes you are correct. We'll do the change. One more that is missing in culture is the attire. I'll add thoses soon. In fact, attire can be placed at the beginning, what do you think? Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 05:22, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
sure, great Idea--ppm 04:09, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Btw, unless this article is following some template for India cities, I would suggest that "media" be merged into cultue. One might also think about merging "Utility and transport" (and make it shorter).--ppm 04:30, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, in fact, the article is following the guidelines of Wikiproject Indian cities. Unless some section is pitifully short, there is no need to merge.--Dwaipayan (talk) 09:30, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Ok, then--ppm 17:50, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

I skimmed through the article. I don't have any specific knowledge on the subject so these are all general comments:

  1. There is a disparity between section sizes. For example, it has a very long Utility services section but a short Economy section. The economy is a lot more important than the Utility services and should be given more space.
  2. The lead is currently a bit short for an article this size. It could do with one more paragraph. The lead is mainly lacking on contemporary information, with History given more focus.
  3. The images are sometimes too small to give effective illustration. Increasing their size a bit may make for a better viewing page.
  4. The picture in the first paragraph is very inadequate. It's a map of India with only a small dot representing the subject of the article. It should be replaced with something more specific to Darjeeling, a map showing Darjeeling's position within India can go into the Geography section or a Geography daughter article.

Overall it's a good article that with a little work may become another feathe rin India's ever-growing FA collection. Best of luck! Loom91 05:47, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Yo! Thanks for yout excellent comments. Yeah there is a disparity in size. In fact, if we can get more info, data etc on economy, we'll of course increase the size. But the present data just fits in succinctly in that size. Let's see if we can get hold of more data.
Ok, the lead will be increased. However, we are waiting for more input on the rest of the article. Once that is done, we'll create a new lead on the basis of, and summarising, the reast of the article.
We'll have images of same PX soon. In fact, we'll have some new images soon. Once we get those, image sizes will be uniform, hopefully!
Please give more feedback later on. Thank you. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 05:53, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] tea estates owners in darjeeling

You could name a few tea plantation estate companies based in darjeeling. For example Tata tea own most of the plantations in Munnar. How is it like in that town. --hydkat 09:52, 8 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Comment

"The range is shaped like the English letter 'Y', the base resting at Katapahar and Jalapahar while two arms diverge from the Mall, one dipping suddenly to the North East and ending in the Lebong spur, the other arm running North West passes through the St. Joseph's College and finally ends in the valley near Tukver Tea Estate.[10]" - this sentence is soooo long. I cannot think of how to break it up yet but if someone else can make it more concise feel free. --Blacksun 16:16, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Images

There are some free use images available here-- thunderboltza.k.a.Deepu Joseph |TALK15:53, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox

What sort of infobox does the article use and why? =Nichalp «Talk»= 07:19, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Indian Jurisdiction is the infobox that User:Saravask created. It's okay to use that directly. The city infobox, district infobox, urban area infobox all redirect to that. Anyhow I changed the infobox on this article to avoid confusion. - Ganeshk (talk) 14:40, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "*" is missing on the main page

'*', which is on the right hand top corner of the main page, that signifies an article to be a featured one, is missing on the main page. can anybody add that.nids 20:30, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Added. Thanks. Saravask 22:00, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
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