India: Cities Unassessed

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Archives of older discussions: 0

I have archived the old Talk page for two reasons:

1. It was huge (125 kb+)
2. It really had nothing in it that contributed towards the improvement of the article.

Let's use this space from now on to discuss factual improvement of the article, and not indulge in politics or speculation.

For starters, I think this article needs some updates to information related to Belgaum

• Connections (air, rail, broad, bus)
• Rise of importance as an "education city"

and let's try and clean out political commentary and editorialization.

Let's make this a great article!

Achitnis 04:51, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Make sure to keep its NPOV intact.Glorification of either side's stand will lead to conflict.Thanks. Mahawiki 04:59, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to recommend that the section "Recent developments" be removed or extensively edited to be more concise. It is the largest section in the article and reduces the readability and interest-worthiness of the article, by introducing needless detail and analysis, none of which add value to the article. This is really not a cricket match where we have to report ball by ball. :)

I would suggest removal of this section, and updating the previous section ("Border problems") with only a few lines about the current developments, with links for further off-site reading.

I volunteer to do this if the suggestion is acceptable.

This suggestion is neither an endorsement nor a condemnation of any viewpoint - I am concerned about the readability of the article and the value it offers to readers.

Achitnis 05:59, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have created a draft to replace the current text. I have tried to keep it as neutral as possible. Non-political comments are invited. Please note that Wikipedia is neither a newspaper nor a repository for future information, and does not chronicle every fact in existence. We should use links to off-site information to avoid distracting readers from the main article.

Achitnis 06:34, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since there haven't been any objections, I am replacing the above sections with the contents of my draft.

I would again remind everyone that this is an encyclopedia, not a newspaper or a political propaganda vehicle. The idea behind this rewrite was to depoliticise the overall article, and I am going to be pretty ruthless about enforcing this. Belgaum's page on Wikipedia deserves better than being an unreadable collection of political statements by rivalling factions. Worst case situation, I will propose a "Belgaum Border Dispute" article, move the border dispute issues to that article, and link to it from the main Belgaum article.

Achitnis 07:19, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have reverted to the admin's version.I had urged u to keep the NPOV intact and include all details about Maharashtra's stand which was in the old version.It seems u have not read the old version properly.Centre has cancelled his anti-Maha stand long before.There was too much emphasis on Karnataka assembly in ur version.I request u to brief the existing matter rather than reword it.Maharashtra's stand also be given importance as karnataka's.Mahawiki 09:26, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can see that we are going to have a battle on our hands unless you accept the fact that this is an encyclopedia, and that this is an article about the city of Belgaum, not about interstate politics.

You are doing exactly the thing that you are accusing others of doing - you are flooding this article with completely irrelevant political details and propaganada, all of it Maharashtrian. Can you count how many times you refer to to Maharashtra in that section, mahawiki? I am a Maharashtrian, but I care more for the effectiveness of an article about my hometown than politics. That section you are protecting there is ugly, meaningless, distracting and completely irrelevant to the city of Belgaum. If you want that text to remain on Wikipedia, please move it to an article named Belgaum Border Disputes, and we can link to that from the Belgaum article.

Would you like to take this to arbitration?

Achitnis 11:22, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just for the record, 31% of the article is dominated by the border dispute text, which is also extremely badly written and has no precedent on Wikipedia. And I am not saying that the border dispute does not exist - I am saying that it doesnt belong into an article about a city that has a lot more to offer than politics. According to me (as a person actually from Belgaum), this entire border dispute text should be made a separate article.

In addition, you have wiped out all other edits from the article, including my work in other sections such as on educational institutions.

Achitnis 12:01, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dear achitnis, I appreciate ur views.For god's sake dont threaten me about arbitration etc as I have gone beyond it.U say there's many mentions of Maharashtra here,dont u see the Kannada POV pushing in other articles.I mean see the archived talk.I am sick of POVs.I request u to keep the border dispute section BRIEF,BALANCED AND NEUTRAL. I dont want to push Maharashtra's POV here.So i request to go through the old Border dispute article,summarise it and make sure u keep it neutral and balanced.I have no intentions of pushing Maharashtra's POV.Of course u can make a new article outta it. Mahawiki 12:28, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You have gone "beyond arbitration"? :) Could you show me where? If you can show me that you have had this article in arbitration and were successful, I will back off. If not, I am afraid I will not change my stand about this matter.

Just out of curiosity - where in Belgaum do you actually live? I am from Anagol/Bhagyanagar.

Achitnis 13:08, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest that this section be redone. It is really of interest only to very few people in a global readership context.

Instead of just listing out a number of institutions, I suggest we replace this section with some text about the growth of the professional colleges, with a few examples in terms of genre (engineering, medicine, etc.) rather than trying to make this a place to list every institution of note in Belgaum. Please understand that every institution is of note to people associated with it, so this could become a never-ending story. :)

Achitnis 06:44, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have rewritten this section, and provided links to the VTU and KU, which is a more logical place to list affiliated institutions.

Achitnis 08:18, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Belgaum is a very important centre for industry. Yet this article hardly touches upon this. We need to fix this. Any volunteers from Belgaum knowledgable about this who could provide information in the Industry section?

Achitnis 08:18, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I have asked admin to make it shorter.I hope it will saisfy ur wish.Thanks.Mahawiki 13:12, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Mahawiki has violated rules far too many times with this article to be allowed to continue the politicization of this article. In accordance with Wikipedia rules, I am requesting arbitration by admins. Achitnis 14:21, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have tagged this article as disputed, for attention of admins. The dispute is about the large amount of politically motivated material introduced by User:Mahawiki. I had forked out that material to Belgaum border dispute to avoid further issues and linked to it from the main article, but he has repeatedly reverted out all my edits.

Achitnis 14:34, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The matter appears to be resolved at this time. Achitnis 15:10, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This section is a thorough mess! We need to do better than this if we ever want this article to get nominated for article of the day. :)

The first para is so 19th century (except for the last sentence referring to Sambra).

The list is a mess as well - some of the links are plain wrong (like Jamia Mosque!), others are 404, etc.

Should we clean up the list and then start adding things in a slightly structured and verified manner?

Achitnis 16:11, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am deleting all the content for now. Editors please add only attractions in city of Belgaum (+may be places in 20km radius), not places around it. Also whenever you add some place please include some details, dont just list them. Leotolstoy 21:49, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Suggest we put the old list of places here in the talk section (cleaned up of course), so that people can pick from that and add to the article along with descriptions. Makes it easier for people to get started.

Achitnis 15:47, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]