Wikipedia:Featured article review/Indian Institutes of Technology

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[edit] Indian Institutes of Technology

Article is still a featured article

[edit] Major review commentary

Although promoted recently, the article fails by a long shot to meet:

  • Criterion 2a ("compelling, even brilliant" prose); and
  • Criterion 2d (proper use of external citations);

with a possible question mark hanging over POV (2e). Please see my comments here.

A serious copy-edit is required, at the very least. Given the hard work that has gone into this article, perhaps you might consider asking one or more members of the Version 1.0 Editorial Team for assistance. Tony 10:29, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the objections raised by Tony. Please give me some time to improve the article based on your suggestions. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 07:15, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Update. I have addressed almost all concerns raised by Tony. I have even made the changes where I felt they were required but not specifically asked. I have copyedited the article to use the references to illustrate only what is being told and not use non-neutral source for passing a judgement. Again, addressing the objections by other editors, Nichalp raised concerns over referening and copy-editing and gave his support after {{inotes}} were added and Taxman copyedited it. Regarding Anwar's objection, I am not sure why selective quoting was done. Reading the full sentence, "But I am more concerned about absolute lack of information as to how/why IITs are considered superior to other educational institutions and varsitites with reference to syllabuses, pedagogical techniques, placements, associated stats, etc." is what Anwar wrote. The reply I wrote in the FAC still stands. The IITs are NOT considered superior in syllabuses and pedagogical technique. They used to be superior in placement, but nowadays the NITs also have similar placement scenarios. Of course it was a surprise to see Anwar put in a lot of hard work in finding faults with the article and though most of them weren't actioned upon, they could be taken as genuine criticisms. I have worked upon all his actionable concerns, wherever appropriate. Spangineer initially opposed, but later supporting after copyediting himself. Of course he mentioned that Tony would come up with more problems (and he did), which is the reason why this article has been brought up for FAR. Finally I would like to know why 2(e) is considered relevant in this context as I couldn't find any relevance of it myself. Will you please elucidate. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 20:01, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
More updates. I have done another round of copyediting per WP:WTA. Please give your views on the current state of the article. Without any more suggestions/observations, I don't know if any more issues are present. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 20:22, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

FA criteria concerns are quality of writing (2a) and use of citations (2b) Marskell 10:10, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - I think the article does not have the above problems anymore -- Lost 13:49, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep- I am confused. What are the issues? Tony started a review earlier but from what I understand the editors have been working with Tony and some others to rectify the matter and have been making good progress. No reason to bring this for FARC at this stage. --Blacksun 16:28, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment. I had asked Tony to review the progress, but he had some deadlines to attend to. Meanwhile, the "deadline" for FAR expired and since Tony hadn't commented again on the progress and outstanding issues, the FARC was started by Marskell. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 16:40, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I've done some cleaning up of part of it; see my inline queries, please. Tony 16:02, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Reply to inline querries. Wherever applicable, I have copyedited to make the sentences clearer. Regarding the issues I left unfixed, I am replying point-wise.
    • You left comment on the vagueness of proposals of Nalini Ranjan Sarkar Committee. It is possible for me to make things clearer, but since the committee itself was not clear in its recommendations, I haven't copyedited it (as it would include adding Original Research).
The word "possible" is the problem. Do you see it now?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony1 (talk • contribs)
I saw it earlier also, but do you want me to remove the word? The source mentions the word "possibly", will it be wise to remove it. Anyway, since it was causing too much confusion and bad prose, I removed the sub-phrase without altering the meaning of the sentence. No OR added; nothing important left out. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 18:06, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Central government comprises of the ruling parties (in multi-party democracy) while the parliament consists of all elected members (both of ruling parties and opposition). Am I allowed to remove the comment now. Frankly speaking I don't know what needs to be clarified.
These terms are not universally understood as your explain them. "Central" was the word that concerned me; is it a federal system in India? Many people would refer to "federal government".—Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony1 (talk • contribs)
India is a federation and hence has a federal government. However in India, it is either referred to as "Central government" or "Union government", but rarely as a "Federal government". I have changed the former (central govt) to latter (union govt), which I feel is another widely understood word. If it is not, I am ready to change to "Federal government". The only problem that might arise is that the Indians viewing the page might not understand what "Federal government" means: Whether it is Union government of State government? — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 18:06, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
I must add that Central government is the word used even by the government sites [1]. -- Lost 18:33, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Academic senate members are nominated, not elected by elections. The article never says that IITs are unique in this regard. Anyway, I have removed it.
  • — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 16:38, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

To put this out of its misery, I've copy-edited more of it, but am tiring. The quality was way below FA requirements, still. Why am I finding things like: "Since the IITs get only a few overseas faculty and students" (I think I see what it means from the context), "The cultural festivals too last 3 to 4 days", " large panels of an event, or a concept", and "All the IITs have playgrounds of popular sports". Spell out numbers less than 10. Get rid of "variety". Avoid "get". "20 feet": use metric and provide imperial equivalent if necessary—doesn't India have the metric system? Tony 03:20, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I have copyedited the article to fix the issues raised. However, to copyedit and eradicate "get" from "Former IIT students get greater respect from their peers..." is beyond me. I can use "command" instead, but I think it is even more un-encyclopedic. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 06:44, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep the big picture still looks good. This Fire Burns....Always 04:42, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. Let's keep refining it from time to time, don't you think? Tony 08:00, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Definitely, that's the spirit of wikipedia :) -- Lost 08:08, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. Yes, we should refine the article as needed, and probably the article meets the FA criteria right now. I use "probably" because Tony, as a professional copyeditor, is a much better judge of the quality of the prose that we genaerally are. Thanks to Tony for pointing out the faults the article had! And thanks to Ambuj and others for trying their best to rectify the faults.--Dwaipayan (talk) 23:38, 5 July 2006 (UTC)