User talk:Chess#top

The fourth round of the competition has finished, with anyone scoring less than 673 points being eliminated. It was a high scoring round with all but one of the contestants who progressed to the final having achieved an FA during the round. The highest scorers were

• {{flagicon|New York (state)}} Epicgenius, with 2173 points topping the scores, gained mainly from a featured article, 38 good articles and 9 DYKs. He was followed by
• {{flagicon image|Transgender Pride flag.svg|link=Transgender}} Sammi Brie, with 1575 points, gained mainly from a featured article, 28 good articles and 50 good article reviews. Close behind was
• {{flagicon image|Flag of Mars.svg|link=Mars}} Thebiguglyalien, with 1535 points mainly gained from a featured article, 15 good articles, 26 good article reviews and lots of bonus points.

Between them during round 4, contestants achieved 12 featured articles, 3 featured lists, 3 featured pictures, 126 good articles, 46 DYK entries, 14 ITN entries, 67 featured article candidate reviews and 147 good article reviews. Congratulations to our eight finalists and all who participated! It was a generally high-scoring and productive round and I think we can expect a highly competitive finish to the competition.

Remember that any content promoted after the end of round 4 but before the start of round 5 can be claimed in round 5. Remember too that you must claim your points within 10 days of "earning" them and within 24 hours of the end of the final. If you are concerned that your nomination will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews. It would be helpful if this list could be cleared of any items no longer relevant. If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove your name from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send.

I will be standing down as a judge after the end of the contest. I think the Cup encourages productive editors to improve their contributions to Wikipedia and I hope that someone else will step up to take over the running of the Cup. Sturmvogel 66 (talk), and Cwmhiraeth (talk)

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I'm not sure if the arguments in the discussion favoured a "support" close. A lot of people took the sources provided by Dympies at face value, but after doing a review of them, many had quotes taken out of context and some failed WP:V. You can see the review of sources here.

The proposed wording of the RFC question was: {{tq|"Though many communities claimed Kshatriya status, the Rajputs were most successful in attaining it."}} In your closing statement you write: {{tq|That being said, the proposed wording doesn't exactly reflect that "Rajputs attained Kshatriya".}} But the proposed wording says exactly that: "the Rajputs were most successful in attaining [Kshatriya status]." Neutral wording would say "most successful in claiming Kshatriya status". As it stands now, it is being said in WP:WikiVoice that Rajputs are Kshatriyas, which does seem a lot like caste WP:PROMOTION and I don't think Wikipedia should be taking sides when it comes to Indian castes. TurboSuperA+_(connect) 10:25, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

:{{re|TurboSuperA+}} Your source analysis is interesting but wasn't provided at the RfC, so it can't play a role in my close.

:The reason why I encouraged editors to provide an alternative wording is because the main bit of consensus is to include the claim in the article. The wording is more disputed. If you feel like a more neutral wording would be one that says Rajputs were "most successful in claiming Kshatriya status" you should propose that. That's why I emphasized that the wording can be changed. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 18:57, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

::It is a really confusing close, Chess. Unless I am misunderstanding, you are saying that the proposed statement should be included in the article even though it is poor and should be be changed. That sets a low bar for the quality of information which we provide: surely it is better to say nothing about something than to misrepresent?

::Anyways, it is done now, I guess, and I'm not a regular participant in RfCs so will bow to your experience. - Sitush (talk) 04:43, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

:::{{re|Sitush}} It's a confusing close because it was a confusing discussion, but your understanding is essentially correct.

:::*There's two aspects to the close. The first is summarizing what was agreed upon. The second is trying to move the discussion forwards.

:::* In terms of what was agreed upon, there's two subpoints.

:::** Is there consensus to examine Rajputs' claim to Kshatriya status in that article?

:::*** Yes, there is.

:::*** Most editors on both sides agreed that Rajputs' claim to be Kshatriya, and there's plenty of reliable sources covering that.

:::*** Most editors also agree that there is value to discussing this in the article, NitinMlk says: {{tq|It seems okay to summarise castes in the context of Kshatriya with proper details, along with listing Rajputs as the most successful claimants. But the proposed passing mention is misleading.}}

:::*** The main argument for excluding this dispute entirely is based on a misunderstanding of WP:NPOV: i.e. that there are many contrasting views on this, so we should exclude it entirely.

:::** Is there consensus to describe that claim as {{tq|Though many communities claimed Kshatriya status, the Rajputs were most successful in attaining it}}?

:::*** This was significantly weaker.

:::*** Oppose !voters brought up a lot of potential issues.

:::*** For instance, LukeEmily made a lot of references to possible scholarly consensus about Rajputs being a "shudra varna", or how their acceptance as Kshatriya is political.

:::*** Another editor argued that the caste comparison was promotional.

:::*** There wasn't much engagement between the sides. Oppose argued that there should be context, support argued that this didn't invalidate the sourcing of the statement.

:::*** I would really have liked more discussion on the specific wording since it would make the consensus easier to evaluate. I evaluated it as "support" because support gave stronger arguments with better sourcing and more people. Additionally, many oppose !voters didn't argue that the wording was invalid, just that additional context needed to be added. This is kind of borderline, though.

:::*** You could also argue that the first subpoint had consensus, but the second subpoint did not have consensus or even had consensus against. However, I think it's not that important because in almost all cases the next steps should still be the same (propose a new wording and gain consensus).

:::* The second goal I'm trying to achieve with the close is to try to push editors towards something other than going to WP:AN to overturn the close, succeeding, then waiting for another close, getting the same result, and going in circles. I see this all the time and it's honestly faster to just re-argue the parts of the discussion that were borderline rather than go WP:AN to see which side of the border is correct.

:::** Ideally, {{u|TurboSuperA+}}, {{u|NitinMlk}}, and you would go to Talk:Kshatriya to start a new discussion on an alternative wording that addresses your concerns, instead of rehashing this one.

:::** At that discussion, since it's now agreed that the article should include information regarding Rajputs' claim to Kshatriya, you can focus the discussion on the best way to express that.

:::** You will get a much stronger consensus on one side or the other, now that your concerns are addressed in a proposal that editors from both sides can agree upon.

:::If this is clearer than my original explanation, I could add something to the close. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 06:56, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

::::Thanks. I will have a ponder! I appreciate you going to the trouble of explaining. - Sitush (talk) 07:03, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::Chess, Thank you for the detailed explanation. {{ping|Sitush}}, with respect, I have to say that this close was incorrect. I was very surprised. In fact, the same RFC had been previously closed with "do not support" by another editor - and nothing new had been added since then. The opposing sources were very clear that they did not support the statement. Chess mentioned that I was mentioning their shudra status (in hindu texts, persian texts as well as opinions of modern scholars). Does that not directly contradict the statement? Also, I pointed out the opinion M.N.Srinivas as well as Gupta which clearly states that there is no consensus on who is a real kshatriya. They put Marathas, Rajputs, Jats, etc in the same bucket. Recent survey was also mentioned that Rajput upper caste claim is not accepted. I am not sure if you missed that - maybe I should have given all in one place. Dalits(Pasi community) have also merged with the Rajput community as shown by Kolff. {{ping|TurboSuperA+}}, I agree with you. And almost no one addressed the opposing sources which directly contradict the RFC. Sources saying that "They were not accepted as kshatriya by Brahmins as well as other Kshatriya claimants" is the same as saying they were not most successful in attaining kshatriya status. If I claim to have a PhD from Cambridge and multiple scholars point out that my credentials are fabricated and that I graduated from University of Maryland, then I cannot say that I am most successful in claiming to be a graduate of Cambridge. Just my 2 cents.LukeEmily (talk) 05:50, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::@LukeEmily Ahem, I did actually graduate from Cambridge :) Although I do enjoy Maryland Cookies.

:::::::{{ping|Sitush}}, wow!!!! That is very impressive. You are a celebrity editor :-) But that explains the high quality of your edits and knowledge as well as your communication skills on the talk pages.LukeEmily (talk) 11:36, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::I think that the closure was contrived but no-one was going to do otherwise. It really just leaves us in the same SNAFU situation because all Chess has confirmed with the closure is that everyone still agrees that there isn't an issue with referring to Rajputs per se, just as they did before the RfC was opened. We are no nearer to resolving the actual issue which led to the RfC, which is how to refer to them. Basically, the biggest achievement here has been to reduce the list of open RfCs by one ... but that is scarcely the "fault" (for want of a better word) of Chess. It was and remains a nightmare, as most things related to Rajputs on Wikipedia tend to be.

::::::People are going to have to find a way to agree on a phrasing that isn't so obviously inadequate. My money is on that being yet another RfC.Groundhog Day. - Sitush (talk) 06:37, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::{{re|Sitush}} A second RfC is what I was recommending. That RfC was flawed because it only had two options and you didn't discuss the precise wording beforehand (see WP:RFCBEFORE). This is a somewhat common result.

:::::::I think a better wording could actually achieve a consensus but you will have to write a draft before starting the RfC. Ideally, draft a whole section of the article.

:::::::The most surprising thing to me is that Kshatriya has two sentences about the term post-700 CE. Despite what appears to be 1300 years of controversy about who is allowed to call themselves a "Kshatriya", the article ignores the issue. This isn't part of the close or anything, but that's a huge omission. You seem to have the sources that describe the dispute (51 references!!), you agree on what the dispute is about (can groups become or claim to be Kshatriya?), can even agree on the opposing sides (yes, no, only in certain contexts, etc), and even manage to see this as a subjective issue.

:::::::I think you should start big instead of making incremental changes, and ideally try to resolve WP:NPOV disputes by explaining multiple sides of the issue instead of removing disputed content. You might have better success that way. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 05:53, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::There will never be agreement beyond a WP:DICDEF type of meta level article. Caste is a social, political, religious and economic battleground in the real world and varna is at the heart of caste. I've been dealing with it on Wikipedia for over 15 years, have seen cohorts of contributors come and go, and have no doubt that some who participated in the RfC will be forced to go soon.

::::::::Glorification is central to the battle, sock- and meatpuppetry is rife, as is tag-teaming etc, and ArbCom-imposed structures have only a limited effect. For most contributors over the years, this article isn't a pseudo-academic encyclopedia exercise but rather a tool for personal ends. There are times when the mission of Wikipedia has to accept defeat: we either completely ban from such articles all people with less than a truly massive amount of WP experience and all of Indian descent (impossible, and throwing the baby out with the bathwater) or we live with continuous skirmishes and a poor article. - Sitush (talk) 06:21, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

::{{tq|Your source analysis is interesting but wasn't provided at the RfC, so it can't play a role in my close.-Chess}}. Chess, the source analysis by TurboSuperA+ indicates a major issue with the sources provided. I agree that it was not supplied earlier and hence did not play a part in your close but now that it is supplied, should we not revisit if the close was correct?LukeEmily (talk) 06:05, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:::{{re|LukeEmily}} Sure. I would say the best place to do that is the talk page. There are still outstanding issues with the wording. That's why I'm trying to move towards a new RfC on the wording choice instead of the close review cycle that doesn't actually go anywhere. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 05:24, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

• {{u|LukeEmily}} and {{U|TurboSuperA+}} Although the RfC is now closed with a rather contentious result, I am not going to implement the wording as it has too many problems with it. Although {{u|Ekdalian}}'s comment was discarded by the closer, they did raise valid points about Dympies's conduct especially with regards to caste glorification.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kshatriya#c-Ekdalian-20250103083400-Dympies-20250103071500] Those that have problems about Dympies's conduct throughout the RfC can discuss it on WP:AE where there is currently a complaint against him right now at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Dympies. Discussing the wording, if necessary, should be the next step if anyone wants to really add the content on Kshatriya. Koshuri ^(グ) 07:49, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

::{{u|Koshuri Sultan}}, here you appear to be canvassing users for ARE report against me. Such behavior doesn't go unnoticed. Ekdalian's remarks should better be ignored as they got logged warning recently for poisoning the well against other users including me.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive348#Ekdalian ] And whats so wrong about this RfC? It was just another RfC meant to resolve a content dispute which saw participation from a lot of users. Dramatically enough, you had yourself [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Kshatriya&diff=prev&oldid=1266550564 supported] the proposal and are now finding faults in it. Dympies (talk) 15:34, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

:::@Dympies People are allowed to change their mind, often based on arguments advanced by other people. This is the second time inside a week that you have seemed to suggest otherwise (see [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ARajput&diff=1287578448&oldid=1287572789&variant=en here]) and it doesn't bode well for the entire concept of consensus-building. Wikipedia isn't supposed to be a battleground of "them" versus "us". Anyways, this discussion really should be at the article talk page, not here. - Sitush (talk) 05:16, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

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