Wikipedia:Featured article review

Review section

This 2016 FA promotion has not been adequately updated since then. Most of her post-2015 film roles mentioned in the lead and filmography section are not mentioned in the body of the article, and an update needed tag has been present since 2025 (whose existence I agree with). Hog Farm _Talk 21:29, 17 May 2026 (UTC)

• Move to FARC; issues unaddressed. Hog Farm _Talk 02:19, 5 June 2026 (UTC)
• Move to FARC. Agree with HF's assessment, no significant progress to address concerns. Z1720 (talk) 15:51, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

FARC section

Issues raised in the review section include currency and comprehensiveness. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:30, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

Review section

This 2007 FA has substantial sourcing issues. It relies fairly heavily on primary sources (in this context, ancient writers). Sizeable chunks of text, including full paragraphs, appear to be based mostly or entirely on primary sources. Renaissance writers are cited directly, including Natalis Comes. Of the included modern secondary sources, there is a fair bit of use of Robert Graves's The Greek Myths, a very heavily criticised work which isn't a reliable source. Important secondary sources about Greek mythology, such as Gantz, the LIMC, Hard, and Brill's New Pauly are missing or not used to any meaningful extent (specifically, Gantz and Hard are cited only once and the other two are absent). There are also parts that are uncited, the citation style is inconsistent, and I think the prose could be improved. In my view, the article fails criterion 1c in particular, as well as 2c and 1a. – Michael Aurel (talk) 13:37, 14 May 2026 (UTC)

• Move to FARC: no engagement so far, and I agree the article needs a fair amount of work. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 20:59, 25 May 2026 (UTC)
• Move to FARC. No edits to the article since it was posted at FAR. Z1720 (talk) 18:43, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

FARC section

Issues raised in the review section include sourcing and prose. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:04, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

• Delist - issues unaddressed. Hog Farm _Talk 00:28, 12 June 2026 (UTC)
• Delist copyediting has taken place, but the sourcing issues remain. Z1720 (talk) 17:18, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Review section

I am nominating this featured article for review because it was recently heavily trimmed to meet our size policy. It originally contained nearly 12,000 words and has since been reduced to fewer than 9,000. I believe the new version is more accessible and easier to read, which has improved the article's overall quality. Still, I would appreciate any suggestions on the prose or on whether anything important is missing. Borsoka (talk) 03:40, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

FARC section

Moving to get additional input on whether the article currently meets WIAFA. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:05, 30 May 2026 (UTC)

Review section

I am nominating this featured article for review because this article contains multiple unsourced statements, expansion is needed at reception, and too many primary sources are being used. This article is definitely out of shape. 🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 02:15, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

Comment Not super involved with this, but noting this should probably be converted into a list per past consensus that these "Characters of" articles should be reverted into Lists, which would change the venue this would need to go through if re-promoted (FA to FL). No other comments as of right now, and I don't have enough FF experience to be able to patch this up. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 02:18, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

Disregard; unaware of past consensus regarding these particular articles. I have no further comments to make beyond this, but best of luck to those working on addressing the nom's issues! Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 05:59, 29 March 2026 (UTC)

• Delist This should be a list, it doesn't even qualify as a featured article. If it gets repromoted, it would have to be as a featured list. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 08:22, 21 March 2026 (UTC)
  • Hold your horses; there's a proper order to these things. The primary goal of re-assessment processes (FAR, GAR) is improvement and retention, not punitive delisting: The ideal review would address the issues raised and close with no change in status. I would also push back on the latest in a series of perennial attempts to get perfectly reasonable articles that have passed assessment as articles to be reclassified as lists. Their status as articles was reaffirmed once again in this move discussion just a few months ago, as it has been repeatedly over the years. Axem Titanium (talk) 09:51, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

    I'd argue that was a BADNAC, should have been no consensus at most. The main argument against moving them to list format is... it would be a lot of work? Essentially outcomes-based reasoning. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 09:55, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

    I'm not interested in relitigating this here once again because it is not at all pertinent to the work of improving this article for FAR. I will just note to the FAR coordinators that this is not an accurate representation of the argument against moving in the linked discussion and leave it at that. Axem Titanium (talk) 10:19, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

    I concur with Axem on this, and will add that there's been stated consensus to not forcibly downgrade old list articles that went through FAC.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 13:23, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

    I also agree with Axem and Kung FU Man. Also, this discussion on the FF character articles has been hashed out before, multiple times, and there IS consensus beyond "lots of work" from my memory. So...yeah. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ProtoDrake (talk • contribs)

• Comment:
  • Could you please point out the statements you feel are unsourced? It's a long article and I see no obvious gaps in its sources.
  • With respect to primary sources, the article was written in an earlier era of Wikipedia where articles about fictional works were scrutinized heavily for original research and editors responded by citing the script itself to protect against this criticism. In the years since, many editors have adopted the standard that the plot doesn't need to be referenced at all, with a reference to the work itself as implicitly assumed. I'm happy to go through and pare back the number of primary sources to just the most contestable statements if you'd prefer, but the extra references aren't really hurting anyone and could even help readers identify exactly where in the (very long) game script that a claim can be verified.
  • I'll work to expand the Reception section. I've got some sources in mind that I've been looking to incorporate for a while. Axem Titanium (talk) 09:51, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

  I already tagged them. Modern FA (or FL since this is a list) can have primary source but using it a lot I think is against FA's criteria. Since FF is quite popular series, there has to be reliable sources out there for others. No rush. 🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 11:16, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

  I'll see what I can do to replace some of the citation neededs.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 13:23, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

• Comment

  I've gone through and filled in several of the citation neededs. However, I feel an argument can be made that, per MOS:PLOT, primary sources can be used to quote and cite sections here as this article correlates to the plot of one singular title. A secondary source would be preferable but holding it against the article to this extent feels iffy.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 14:41, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

  That would be fine for me since most of the content are plot. I'll leave that to other users.🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 14:56, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

• Support: This is a poor example of an FA unfortunately. My main issue is the sheer amount of WP:PLOTSUM, which I feel elevates the article into WP:FANCRUFT territory. If we compare this article to List of Doctor Who universe creatures and aliens, the difference becomes night and day. The Doctor Who article has a very respectable balance between in-universe information, BTS and reception. I am also concerned with the large number of unsourced statements. Many of the sources are just quotes from the game, and are as such, WP:PRIMARY. This is a pretty clear case for delisting for me. 11WB (talk) 04:44, 23 March 2026 (UTC)
  • Please stop voting on this FAR. It has literally only been open for two days and has not proceeded to the FARC stage. I invite you to strike your delist position until and unless there is consensus to list this as an FARC. Axem Titanium (talk) 02:34, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

    Sure. I support this nomination in that case. 11WB (talk) 22:04, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

• Comment: There are multiple issues here, from bloat to unsourced elements to some sources that need double-checking for reliability or archiving if the OG site has gone down. I've done some recent FF article rescue work, but this article I feel needs a top-down rewrite/reworking. I can do some source hunting if needed, or do some trimming of story sections. --ProtoDrake (talk) 23:26, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

• • Please stop voting on this FAR. It has literally only been open for two days and has not proceeded to the FARC stage. I invite you to strike your delist position until and unless there is consensus to list this as an FARC. Axem Titanium (talk) 02:34, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

Axem Titanium I've made a start. The creation and design section has had a top-down rewrite and rework. Now it's got acceptable references for its information and contents, and it's a lot more like an actual piece of cited information rather than a promo piece. --ProtoDrake (talk) 22:11, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for the help! Last week was super busy at work but this week should be a little more manageable and I'll find some time to work on it. Axem Titanium (talk) 22:46, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

@Axem Titanium, have there been any further developments to this article? 11WB (talk) 22:31, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

Work picked up and I've barely had a free evening but I haven't forgot about this. Other folks have made substantial improvements already and I'll do my pass through soon. Axem Titanium (talk) 04:15, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

• Could we get an update on status here? Nikkimaria (talk) 00:03, 2 May 2026 (UTC)

  Seems to have stalled. I believe this was headed for FARC? Courtesy pinging @Axem Titanium. 11WB (talk) 17:43, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

  I've managed to find some more time to work on the article this week. As I said before, ProtoDrake and KFM have made their own improvements as well, so I think the article is in a lot better shape compared to when this FAR started. I've got a few more sources that I'd like to incorporate over the weekend. Axem Titanium (talk) 03:23, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

FARC section

Issues raised in the review section include sourcing and coverage. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:14, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

• Delist. Edits have stopped since May 14. I understand that Axem already worked on this, but it still contain many issues, such as those pointed out by 11WB and ProtoDrake regarding the heavy use of primary sources and other concerns. I can struck it if the article has been massively improved already. 🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 19:53, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

  Hi BP, I believe there's been a misunderstanding regarding the use of primary sources. There's no policy that says that primary sources shouldn't be used, even in great number. The problem arises when an article is sourced exclusively through primary sources. Per the instructions at {{Primary sources}}, The presence of primary sources in an article doesn't mean the article must be tagged. Primary sources may be used on Wikipedia, but they need to be handled with care. There are dozens of non-primary sources on the page which are used to provide commentary and support interpretations of the primary source (the game). There's nothing I can find in WP:FAC that specifies an upper limit to the number of primary sources. And as I said above, this article was written in an era of skepticism about video game article quality, which led to thorough primary text sourcing to head off those criticisms. I could go through the article and remove them (since plot is assumed to be sourced to the work itself) but that would only serve to make it harder for the reader to identify where in the very long game script that a statement is verified.

  It's the busiest time of year for me at work so there has been a bit of gap in my editing, but I still have a bit of elbow grease I can put into it before I'm personally satisfied. Have you had a chance to read the article again? I believe it has "massively improved already". Axem Titanium (talk) 15:19, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

  Im sorry to hear that. For now, Ive strucked it since you're still working on it. Take your time as there is no deadline for FAR if I recall. Let us know once you're satisfied already then we recheck. Thank you! 🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 18:48, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Review section

I believe this currently fails 1a, 1c, and potentially 1d. This is an older FA that has significantly expanded (about 3100 words to 5100 since it was promoted in 2011), without accompanying copyediting/oversight. Here's what it looked like in 2016, when it was TFA. The Redevelopment section is new and reads as overly promotional. Other sections also need help--there are issues in Structures and facilities, where we have a guide to accessibility features sourced only to the club's site. I see a number of cites that I believe don't meet today's FA standards, including a couple dozen to the club itself. Finally, there have been some controversies during the stadium expansion that may not be adequately covered (referenced in the Phase one subsection). I will help to the best of my ability, but I'm not an FA-level writer and will need help. Alyo (chat·edits) 15:26, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

• Move to FARC. I think the "Redevelopment" section needs lots of work to summarise the text more effectively and ensure WP:WTW and other undesirable phrasing is fixed. @Alyo: If you are looking for feedback I am happy to re-review when this is ready, but I do not have the time to rework prose and fix other concerns. Z1720 (talk) 03:58, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

FARC section

Issues raised in the review section include prose, neutrality, coverage, and sourcing. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:06, 2 May 2026 (UTC)

• Comment. I'm a little torn on this: I probably would not have brought this to FAR myself in its current condition, but I'm not a subject-matter expert so I don't know what might be missing in the article. The WTW concerns I expressed in the section above don't seem to be there anymore. The article needs a good copyedit, with additional level 3 headings added to help with readability. Editors have not expressed interest in doing the required cleanup, and I don't know how long this should stay at FARC before this is demoted due to lack of interest. Hopefully, an interested editor will step forward and start cleaning up the article's prose. Z1720 (talk) 23:49, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

  I'm gonna try and get to this at some point this week. As the editor that got it to featured status in the first place, I'm keen to help keep it there. Just I have a lot more real-life commitments than I did when the article got promoted. But, I'll try and give it a copyedit and implement your suggestions on level 3 headings, etc. in the coming week. NapHit (talk) 09:46, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

  Update on this @Z1720:: I've edited every section now, bar structure and facilities and the redevelopment sections. I also need to copyedit the lede a little bit. I'm going to try and do that sometime this week, and then do a final sweep through the references, which I've been going as I go so far. Let me know if you have any feedback or spot any issues, and I'll try to get them fixed as quick as I can. NapHit (talk) 17:49, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

• @NapHit: If you ping me when you are finished making fixes, I'll take a look. Z1720 (talk) 17:51, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

Review section

I am nominating this featured article for review because there are lots of uncited statements, including entire paragraphs. It also has an extensive "Further reading" section with sources that should be included in the article or removed. Z1720 (talk) 04:20, 1 March 2026 (UTC)

• Move to FARC. Concerns remain, and only a few minor edits have been published since this FAR has been opened. Z1720 (talk) 16:04, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
• Move to FARC and this one will require a major rewrite. I don't agree that a large Further Reading section is necessarily a problem (style choice) and even the occasional uncited sentence is something that could be trivial enough to just fix. The real problem is just the sources that are used are far too thin. A large FR section is harmless if the main sources are beefed up, but they're not here. Young, David C. (1996). The Modern Olympics: A Struggle for Revival. seems the best source used, but there are 18 references to it with no page range, and Young cannot possibly be the only good contemporary source on this Olympics. Saving this article would require likely adding page ranges for Young cites at minimum, and also consulting more good sources. SnowFire (talk) 00:55, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

FARC section

Sourcing. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:42, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

• Delist. Tagged for unsourced statements since May 2025. It had been tagged since July 2024, and when I tried to address that issue, I was reverted with a false edit summary and had to edit-war to add a source to the unsourced material. Regular editors of the article are not interested in meeting the featured article criteria or in maintaining its rating. DrKay (talk) 09:05, 22 March 2026 (UTC)
• Delist. No major edits to address concerns. Z1720 (talk) 18:27, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
• Delist - issues unaddressed, including 18 CN tags. Hog Farm _Talk 18:43, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

• Striking delist for now with work ongoing; please ping me when this is ready for re-review. Hog Farm _Talk 15:39, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

• Comment: I've just seen this today. I can't promise anything yet but if you give me a couple weeks I'll see what I can do. Ladtrack (talk) 06:52, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

• Striking delist per comments above. Z1720 (talk) 16:48, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

@Z1720 and @Hog Farm: I think I've pretty much finished up for now. Ladtrack (talk) 00:25, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

A quick word on what I've done: all the statements that had citation needed tags have now been cited. Because of SnowFire's concerns above about references, I went through that too. The article used a rather odd (maybe old?) citation style, which left page numbers inside the article prose, so I've converted that to a different style that should be more intuitive. The sourcing issues also looked substantially worse than they actually were because the books that were cited in the article were shoved into the further reading section along with actual further reading sources; I've split out the ones that were cited in the article into a new bibliography section. Ladtrack (talk) 00:32, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

• Comment - I've been watching the progress here and I'd like to undertake some copyediting before any decisions are made. --Laser brain (talk) 12:01, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

@Laser brain: Are you still intending to work on this? Nikkimaria (talk) 00:22, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Yes, thank you for the ping! Laser brain (talk) 01:18, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: I've had a few passes through it and I'm satisfied with the writing. --Laser brain (talk) 20:56, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

In that case, a re-review is needed. I believe all of the issues mentioned previously have been addressed. Ladtrack (talk) 16:48, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

@Ladtrack: I added a "citation needed" template for the chart for events: I couldn't find information later in the article that described how many athletes were in each event, so that section might need citations. However, I might have missed that information further down in each of the sections. I'll take a better look at the article's content when I have more time. Z1720 (talk) 17:17, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

That's taken care of. Ladtrack (talk) 20:49, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, pinging @Z1720 Ladtrack (talk) 20:49, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

I'm doing a copy-edit of the article, and have some questions below:

• The second paragraph of the "Venues" section concerns venues that were reused for the 2004 Olympics. I think this might be off-topic for this article and would be better in 2004 Summer Olympics. Thoughts?
• There are a bunch of websites used as sources throughout the article. Are these high-quality sources? Shouldn't academic sources be used instead?
• There are sources listed in the "Further reading" section: should these be cited in the article and used as sources?

Those are my questions. Feel free to ping me in a response. @Ladtrack: who has been working on this. Z1720 (talk) 18:41, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

@Z1720 Point by point:

• I think the venues could go either way. The 2004 Olympics was very much harkening back to this one on purpose, as it was seen as a return to the birthplace of the modern Olympics. So there's an argument that the 2004 Olympics reflect the legacy of this one, but it's also not super necessary. Whatever you feel is best is fine with me.
• Depends. Olympedia is compiled by Olympics historians and run by Bill Mallon who is probably the world's leading scholar on the Olympic Games, so I'd say it essentially is an academic source, just an online one. Olympics.com might have been a problem if this were a more recent Olympic Games but since this was 130 years ago the data is also from Olympics historians. That makes up the vast majority of the website cites, and the rest are largely for uncontroversial information from reliable sources. I don't think the article relies on these too much, and there's just going to be some things books don't include, that's just the nature of the thing. Let me know if there's anything specific you have concerns with.
• I don't think that's necessary. The books that we already have allows the article to provide sufficiently thorough coverage of the subject, I'd say, and none of the ones in the further reading look to display significantly different perspectives that we might be concerned with representativeness. This isn't really a controversial topic where new information might come out or a creative subject where scholars might create new interpretations, it's just an event that happened a long time ago. There are a few things that gain more attention over time like Stamata Revithi's participation, but we already cover that in the article. Sure, it would be nice to have more sources, but I think the article already meets FA criteria as is.

Ladtrack (talk) 20:43, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

• @Ladtrack: Maybe information about the venues should be moved to a "Legacy" section at the end of the article? If this was at FAC, the sources I would question that are currently used in the article are: "topendsports.com" (ref 30), oaa.gr (ref 31), stadia.gr (ref 33), heartheboatsing.com (ref 80) Olympic Games Museum (ref 118) and users.skynet.be (ref 126). WP:LIBRARY might be a great place to find additional sources, as 1c of the FA criteria requires high-quality sources: since this is a historical article on a pretty significant event, the news sources and Olympics website should only be used when other sources cannot be found. For the Further reading section: if this article was at FAC and there were sources listed there, I would question why they were not used in the article: per the use of high-quality sources, these might be considered to replace some of the lower-quality sources or removed if not used as inline citations. Z1720 (talk) 23:43, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

  @Z1720 Honestly, if we're keeping the venues stuff, I kind of like it where it is, since it's only a paragraph and without it the venues would be a single paragraph plus the chart. I don't disagree with any of the specific references you've questioned here, so I'll work on replacing them. Just a quick question: when it says "it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature", what do you interpret the phrase representative survey as meaning? Ladtrack (talk) 00:26, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

• @Ladtrack: WP:FARS is an essay linked in WT:FA on how a reviewer can conduct a source review. In reviews of my FAC article (and other FACs I've seen) a source review is often checked by the reviewer searching for sources in Google Scholar, Archive.org and WP:LIBRARY (among others). If they find a high-quality source, they will list it and ask why it wasn't used as an inline citation in the article. The reviewer would also check the sources used in the article (as I have briefly done above) and question sources they might not see as high quality. Since this article is a historical event with lots of non-academic sources, I think a reviewer would want to feel confident that those lower quality sources were only used when necessary and that there wasn't information in the higher quality sources that was left out of the article. Z1720 (talk) 00:43, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

  @Z1720 I've finished going through the sources here. I've removed all the sources you've highlighted as problematic and replaced them with better ones. I also replaced nearly all the Olympics.com sources, only leaving them if the sentence cited is specifically about the IOC's position on something or if there's something I just couldn't find a good source for. Almost all of the news sources have been replaced as well, except again if there's something I couldn't quite nail down otherwise. Ladtrack (talk) 04:41, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

  @Ladtrack: Thanks for doing this. A featured article doesn't have to use every source, and its OK if an English Wikipedia doesn't use sources from other languages (English Wikipedian editors should not be expected to read other languages). However, if I was doing a source review I would probably ask why "This Great Symbol: Pierre de Coubertin and the Origins of the Modern Olympic Games" was not used as a source: it published by a university press so it would be a very high-quality source. Unfortunately, it is not available in the Internet Archive, but maybe it can be accessed in your local library system or database? I've also added some other sources to the "Further reading" section that might be used in the article, and WP:LIBRARY also found some additional sources from academic journals that might be used. This review can stay open while these sources are consulted, as this might take some time to read through. Z1720 (talk) 15:49, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

  @Z1720 I think we're just gonna have to disagree on this one. WP:FACR specifically says that the article has to be "a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature". A representative survey is, of course, the use of a subset of something to reflect a larger population. It doesn't mean the sample has to literally encompass the entire field. Some topics have hundreds or thousands of books written about them, and in my view the criteria means that you don't miss any major perspectives provided by books that aren't cited and ensure that you cover the field of scholarship thoroughly. I don't see the point in using more sources just to use them when they overlap almost entirely in scope and largely will vary only in specific details, especially when this article already does summary-style coverage of events, results, and countries involved which means that much of that additional detail wouldn't even be usable here. Is there anything about these Olympics that you feel the sources we currently cite don't sufficiently cover? If you feel the article is weak in specific areas that additional sources cover more thoroughly, that is something I can work on. Ladtrack (talk) 21:09, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

• For other reviewers, my tldr interpretation of the above discussion is: does the article fulfil the FA criteria 1c, which is "well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature; claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate"? Additional comments on that question would be helpful. Pinging @Ladtrack: to see if they want to add, clarify or makes corrections to this description. Z1720 (talk) 15:47, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

  Yeah, this is pretty much right. See the paragraph directly above this for my opinion on the matter. Ladtrack (talk) 16:30, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

Review section

Long overdue for this 2004 FAR which has not seen formal review in years. There are major concerns chiefly regarding the prose quality of this article. It's not up to 2025 FAR standards. The lead is bloated and large, with tons of excessive citations and awkward sentences. Lots of "trivia"-esque information in the lead which could be trimmed down. The pre-FAR discussions yielded some improvements but not anywhere near FAR quality. Simply put, even a cursory glance at the article should be ample to conclude that the prose is not at the level of other country FARs like Germany and Japan.

Just to give some examples of the poor prose.

• "Kerala is the most literate state with 93.91% literacy; while Bihar the least with 63.82%" (semi-colon connecting a non-independent clause)
• "Yet, India is also shaped by seemingly unyielding poverty, both rural and urban" (editorializing tone, "unyielding")
• The official Indian defence budget for 2011 was US$36.03 billion, or 1.83% of GDP (the word "its" should be before "GDP").
• This is accomplished by mixing—for example of rice and lentils—or folding, wrapping, scooping or dipping—such as chapati and cooked vegetables (em-dash hell)
• It is the seventh-largest country by area; the most populous country since 2023;[21] and, since its independence in 1947, the world's most populous democracy (semi-colon hell in the second sentence of the lead, with superfluous information about different population rankings --- just say "most populous country" and get it over with!)

The article frequently aggressively uses semi-colons in a way that, while not ungrammatical, is not good style in my view.

On the factual accuracy, I have identified issues as well. For instance, just as I am writing this, I noticed the claim "in the Punjab, Sikhism emerged, rejecting institutionalised religion".This is misleading. Sikhism is a religion and is institutionalized in the sense that there is a central institution (the Akal Takht) which can make binding edicts on its followers. It turns out that what happened here is that the source was misrepresented. The author does not state that Sikhism was not institutionalized, but only that the first guru was influenced by a tradition that apparently rejected institutionalized religion. But, even if true, this would not establish the claim as Sikhism was borne of ten gurus and they all contributed to the formation of the religious doctrines; as it turns out, the religion did institutionalize chiefly under the latter gurus (the Khalsa).

The pre-FAR discussion is here and sparked a lively discussion. Further to my initial pre-FAR notice, other users, notably ALittleClass, have identified additional examples of poor prose and citations in the article body. ALittleClass has also noted the omission of crucial cultural aspects of India in the article; despite being a lengthy article it is rather unbalanced. I have identified further examples of this. For instance, untouchability is mentioned in the lead, but not elaborated upon in the article body except for a brief mention that it has been banned.

Concerns have been brought up regarding the article for a number of years (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) but due to inertia there hasn't been a great change to get this article up to standard. JDiala (talk) 08:15, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

Other users that have given suggestions for potential changes or mediated the talk include Rackaballa, Z1720, Fowler&fowler, Joshua_Jonathan, पाटलिपुत्र (who gave a detailed and clearly very effortful list of potential image substitutions) and Kharbaan Ghaltaan. There are definitely improvements being made on the article, but the article currently does not meet our featured article standards, and a more intense period of improvement will probably be needed to get it to meet the standard (concerns have been brought up multiple times over the past 5 years, as JDiala notes). Also, if this article was nominated for GAN, there would also be multiple things flagged for fixing, but the changes needed to achieve that level may be more superficial, I'm not very experienced in differentiating between the two standards.

I would request someone who understands Indian English to review my original section of potential issues to see if I correctly identified errors, or just misunderstood the rules of the dialect. ALittleClass (talk) 08:53, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

I would also suggest of removing unnecessary images from certain section, which is not irrelevant to trends of countries articles. There is also too much bias and stereotypes showing in the article Kharbaan Ghaltaan (talk) 09:18, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

Some other sentences I noticed that should be revised:

• (mentioned in original post) "Economic liberalisation, which began in the 1980s and the collaboration with Soviet Union for technical know-how, has created a large urban middle class, transformed India into one of the world's fastest-growing economies, and increased its geopolitical clout." I changed "clout" to "status", but "know-how" still seems imprecise.
• "Buddhism, based on the teachings of Gautama Buddha, attracted followers from all social classes excepting the middle class;" The end of this sentence basically makes me think that both the Buddhism attracted followers from both the lower and upper classes, but specifically not the middle class. Thus, the implied claim from this sentence is kind of hard to believe (although I will accept it if given evidence).
• "In the 1989 elections a National Front coalition, led by the Janata Dal in alliance with the Left Front, won, lasting just under two years, and V.P. Singh and Chandra Shekhar serving as prime ministers." Unnecessarily wordy and hard to parse.
• "Painted manuscripts of religious texts survive from Eastern India about the 10th century onwards, most of the earliest being Buddhist and later Jain. No doubt the style of these was used in larger paintings. The Persian-derived Deccan painting, starting just before the Mughal miniature, between them give the first large body of secular painting, with an emphasis on portraits, and the recording of princely pleasures and wars." Is this sentence set of sentences referencing two specific works or two entire forms of art? A confusing mixture of singular and plural tenses is present here, and other confusing phrasings. This "visual art" section may need a more extensive rewrite.
• (Already mentioned in original post) "The dhoti, once the universal garment of Hindu males, the wearing of which in the homespun and handwoven khadi allowed Gandhi to bring Indian nationalism to the millions, is seldom seen in the cities." ...sure...
• "The popularity of tandoori chicken—cooked in the tandoor oven, which had traditionally been used for baking bread in the rural Punjab and the Delhi region, especially among Muslims, but which is originally from Central Asia—dates to the 1950s, and was caused in large part by an entrepreneurial response among people from the Punjab who had been displaced by the 1947 partition." again hard to read, the em-dash is too much and needs to be it's own sentence
• "India has played a key role in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and the World Trade Organization. The nation has supplied 100,000 military and police personnel in 35 UN peacekeeping operations." Nothing seemed wrong with this sentence, it just appeared to be potentially uncited. (unless the [271] source of the first next paragraph also covered it, I did not check deeply)

And, reiterating what multiple people have echoed, there are some gaps in the culture section of the article, most notably no writing on music.

ALittleClass (talk) 09:24, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

I have to say the sentiment here feels a little overblown. I don't see anything that warrants suggesting this article no longer deserves its FA star. A few queries here and there (perhaps), but the use of semicolons is reasonable in context, and while there is always room for improvement, nothing here is a major red flag. The lead is a reasonable length for an article about a country as large and complex as India. The citations there are likely included to ensure every claim is properly sourced, which is a good thing. As for "Sikhism emerged, rejecting institutionalised religion", it's not saying Sikhism is uninstitutionalised, but that it emerged under the first guru in this form. That said, I agree this phrasing could improved.

Perhaps our assessments of what constitutes good prose vary significantly, as I personally found some of the sentences cited as examples of poor prose to be even impressive in how much detail they pack (while still remaining presentable). India's history and culture are vast and naturally some are going to feel certain aspects are under/overrepresented. This will be a source of disagreement among editors so we must try to echo how reliable secondary and tertiary sources present those topics when talking about India. Untouchability should only have two or three sentences giving context on its emergence in history. I do agree there can be a few additions on music and film, but nothing too densely detailed. In its current form, the article is still very close to meeting FA criteria. In fact, the standing version today could probably be closed as a reasonable keep at FARC. Let the improvements continue, but the article is not in nearly as bad a shape as it's being made out to be. DeluxeVegan (talk) 10:38, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

Citations in the lead for uncontroversial claims are MOS:LEADCITE violations. Introducing a significant subject (untouchability) in the lead without elaborating on it meaningfully in the body is a MOS:LEAD violation as this is not consistent with the purpose of the lead which is to summarize the body. It is also a MOS:JARGON violation as a technical term is introduced without defining it. At least two of the highlighted quotes (in green) I provided involve blatantly grammatically incorrect sentences. These aren't differences of opinion. They're just not grammatical. Semicolons cannot link an independent clause with a subordinate clause, for instance.

Having unusually large "info packed" sentences is not considered good prose. Splitting off sentences when they get unwieldy is considered good practice. This is the professional standard in English. This is a difference of opinion and somewhat subjective, but I believe mine is closer to the standard in professional English prose and the standard in other FA articles. The examples cited by ALittleClass are clear examples of bad prose. This is where I stand and I believe most native English speakers would concur.

As for your claim "it's not saying Sikhism is uninstitutionalised, but that it emerged under the first guru in this form", that's not clear as the sentence makes no mention of the first guru. The first guru is only mentioned in the linked source, not in the wikitext. A typical reader would take away from the wikitext that Sikhism rejects institutionalized religion. This is gravely misleading. Having your only sentence on a major religion (one that originated in India) be misleading in this way is not acceptable in an FA.

You suggest that the article can be fixed after some minor polishing but this is what has been said for years now (see linked talk page discussions). At some point we must realize that the problem is not so trivial. JDiala (talk) 11:48, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

MOSLEADCITE violation? Have you read the guideline? Although the presence of citations in the lead is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article, there is no exception to citation requirements specific to leads. The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus. You can't violate rules that aren't real no matter how much they are lawyered into existence. This tendency to inflate relatively minor issues into sweeping faults runs through much of your critique.

Long-standing doesn't automatically equal intractable. I've said my part on the prose and will leave it to others to weigh in, but I see this as a strong article that just needs polishing to let the good shine brighter. DeluxeVegan (talk) 12:25, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

Of course, any guideline may be violated if there is a truly compelling reason to do so (see WP:IAR). This isn't an excuse to ignore guidelines. I haven't seen a compelling reason presented why this article's lead requires more citations than other FAs. FA criteria is clear that FAs are intended to be the very best articles the project has to offer and is also clear that the prose plays a major role in this. A sufficient accumulation of "minor issues" should therefore be adequate to revoke FA status. That said, I'm hoping the issues are resolved before we reach that stage. JDiala (talk) 18:22, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

Having citations in the lead is not a violation of the guideline, it is expressly permitted by the guideline. CMD (talk) 01:25, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

Citations are permitted provided the material being cited is controversial or likely to be challenged. This issue routinely comes up in FA candidacies and this is the standard. Look at literally any other FA, especially recent FAs; they have hardly any citations in the lead. JDiala (talk) 16:29, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

The material which is challenged or likely to be challenged is where citations "must" be included, not where they could be included. They are permitted for use anywhere, and some FAs make liberal use of them, such as Pancreatic cancer. I do prefer a lead with fewer citations and would like them reduced, but that's a matter for local consensus, not because the guidelines say it has to be done. CMD (talk) 16:53, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

The standard in FAs has always been to minimize the number of non-critical lead citations. This is a longstanding convention and routinely shows up in FA reviews. Finding another select FA where this is not met is a textbook case of cherry-picking. JDiala (talk) 18:29, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

That's not what cherry-picking is. The longstanding convention is the existing guideline, which is being misread in this FAR. CMD (talk) 08:26, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

That's precisely what cherry-picking is. You're providing a singular exception (pancreatic cancer) to a longstanding convention. You can have your views but I'll just reiterate what I said: this is not the standard the community uses in the overwhelming majority of discussions on the LEADCITE issue, and you've yet to provide a compelling reason why this particular article requires a different standard. JDiala (talk) 03:08, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

First you say there's a policy violation, and when that was shown to be false, you move on to claiming some imaginary standard is being flouted. How hard do you think it is to remove something? It would take barely five minutes to write a script for it. The fact that it hasn't been done means editors disagree with you and you should let it rest. DeluxeVegan (talk) 04:56, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

The point of FAs is precisely to recognize articles that meet standards which exceed bare policy requirements. Just because the letter (not the spirit) of the law allows infinity lead citations doesn't automatically make doing so FA-acceptable. You need compelling reasons to violate long-standing FA conventions. These have not been provided. JDiala (talk) 09:40, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

The long-standing convention is that it is FA-acceptable. You are asking for evidence for an issue that does not exist. (And again, if someone says "Look at literally any other FA", providing an example of one of the literally any other FA is not cherry-picking, it is directly responding to what was asked.) CMD (talk) 01:41, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

Oppose going any further. The overwhelming consensus in the talk page discussion was against proceeding to the FAR. I consider this FAR to be flagrant disregard of Wikipedia values and traditions. user:JDiala could not have their way in a different discussion (see Talk:Subhas_Chandra_Bose#Problematic_and_biased_lead_sentence) and they chose to seek vengeance by coming here. Besides, my understanding was that user:Z1720, admin and FAR regular, was attending to the final smoothing of prose, and had stated in a Talk:India discussion that an FAR was not needed. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:59, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

By definition, a FAR process is initiated by an editor if it is deemed that internal talk page discussions have failed to keep the article up to FA standards. The point of the process is external community input when local consensus on the talk page isn't adequate. Also the consensus on the talk page was split with multiple editors in favour of a FAR (myself, ALittleClass, Kharbaan Ghaltaan) and several other editors not taking a clear stance but identifying significant problems in the article which have not been resolved yet.

The rest of your comment consists of aspersions and personal attacks better suited for ANI; I won't respond to those. JDiala (talk) 03:08, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

Close without FARC Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:38, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

Support The article no longer meets FA standards due to major omissions in coverage, weak prose structure, and shallow treatment of complex topics.

	This LLM-generated text has been collapsed and should be excluded from assessments of consensus. — Newslinger talk 08:12, 8 August 2025 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Coverage gaps: Entire domains central to India’s present are either missing or barely mentioned: No discussion of recent political trends, including majoritarianism, Hindu nationalism, or India’s declining press freedom rankings. Major legislation (e.g. CAA, UAPA amendments, electoral bonds) appears without analysis or political context. Climate change is reduced to one-line mentions in Geography. Missing are India’s COP positions, vulnerability to extreme heat, coal policy, and major air pollution metrics. No references to IPCC or UNEP data. The article entirely omits India’s malnutrition crisis, including key public health metrics and disparities. This is a serious gap in education and health coverage. Indian cinema and literature are nearly absent. There is no mention of Bollywood, regional industries, Pather Panchali, Bhagwad Gita, Tagore, Premchand. This is a serious omission for a cultural power. Neutrality: Caste and religious violence are structurally minimized. There is no mention of Gujarat 2002, Delhi riots, or post-1950 caste politics. Statements like “India is a pluralistic society” are unbalanced and lack critical framing. Prose and tone: The “Modern India” and “Contemporary Issues” sections read like a bulleted list, lacking synthesis, cohesion, or encyclopedic depth. Promotional phrases like “fast-growing economy” remain.

Unless this article is rewritten with depth and analytical structure, I support taking it to FARC. (Edited comment to remove "deslisting" - as rightly pointed by DeluxeVegan)

Rackaballa (talk) 02:52, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

Delisting is not in contention at FAR, only at FARC. Using LLMs to dissect minor points and then jumping the gun to endorse delisting can't genuinely be seen as a good-faith attempt to improve the article. DeluxeVegan (talk) 08:53, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

"Using LLMs to dissect minor points" - WP:BAIT Rackaballa (talk) 09:02, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

I agree. The article has a lot of structural biases that need addressing, especially when it comes to caste, or the country's recent, and highly notable, rise in hindu majoritarianism and religious nationalism through Hindutva. The economy section makes no mention of the country's inequality, which is now worse than under british colonial times (It only mentions economic disparities between states). There is very little information on air pollution or climate change. Much of this is a gross violation of WP:NPOV by omission. Worst of all, this is heavily documented by WP:RS, so there isn't even a reason to not include this. The article does not view India factually but rather does so through rose-tinted glasses, which is dangerous for an encyclopedia as big as wikipedia. I support taking the article to FARC. EarthDude (wanna talk?) 03:41, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Issues with images

There are several images that could be improved in this article: Image gallery moved to talk page. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:20, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra) (talk) 13:19, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

Also almost all images in this article give a dull impression and bad representation of India and its people. It only shows poor villagers, backward rural areas, and villages. There must be correct way to show India's traditions and culture, with balanced modern aspect too. Kharbaan Ghaltaan (talk) 22:19, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

• Most of the concerns above are overblown, and I do not believe an FAR is needed at present. Many of the issues are stylistic rather than objective problems: others are aesthetic choices that could be done differently but in no way constitute FA criteria failures. With respect to images, for instance, even setting aside the euphemistic use of "mainstream" to imply "Hindu", I count ten images with religious symbolism in the article. Of these, I count five "Hindu", two "Buddhist", one "Muslim", one "Christian", and one Sikh. One could reasonably argue for more modern images, but again this is not an FA criteria failure by any stretch of the imagination. Finally, the presence of citations in the lead is not prohibited nor discourages, and any editors with experience writing about south Asia would know that the material therein is in fact frequently contentious, and the use of citations is beneficial. I recommend we close without FARC. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:57, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

One of the criterion for FAs is professional and well-written prose. Failures in that are grounds for a FAR. You write that "any editors with experience writing about south Asia would know that the material therein is in fact frequently contentious", but this is both a generalization and an appeal to authority. You would have to go through the citations one-by-one and analyze the extent of talk-page contention for each of the corresponding claims for your statement to be substantiated. In truth, the overwhelming majority of lead citations are for claims that have never been contested in the talk page. JDiala (talk) 18:29, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

That assumes that we discourage citations when material isn't contentious, which is plain wrong. We neither discourage nor encourage citations, and the inclusion of citations in the lead is perfectly acceptable even for uncontentious material. South Asian content is contentious, however, and the presence of lead citations discourages drive-by removals. As such it is doubly not an FA criteria failure. Vanamonde93 (talk) 18:17, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

"South Asian content is contentious" is misleading as not all SA content is contentious. "India is located in Asia" for instance is not a contentious statement. You need a granular analysis of individual contentious claims in the lead; this is what other FAs do, even those in controversial subjects e.g., Evolution, Armenian genocide denial and Climate Change. No one's contesting that "[a] large-scale loss of life and an unprecedented migration accompanied the partition", for instance, or that India "has disputes over Kashmir with its neighbours", yet those claims are accompanied by citations. Similarly, we have three lumped-together citations for uncontroversial statements about India's population ranking in the first paragraph. This is not the standard for FAs in 2025. JDiala (talk) 09:40, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

Your basic contention of citations in the lead being a bad thing is unsupported by policy and has no bearing on FA status. Vanamonde93 (talk) 18:34, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

Unnecessary citations in the lead are a bad thing, not in the spirit of the LEADCITE, and routinely show up in the FAC/FAR discussions. The discussion is going in circles so this will be my last comment in this sub-thread. JDiala (talk) 19:36, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

I agree with your opinion on images, but not regarding FA-criteria. FA-criteria and trends both works together. Look at articles - Bulgaria, Japan, East Timor, and Australia. This article is overtly "unique" and "different" from other. Pls visit here to get more better understanding Kharbaan Ghaltaan (talk) 09:50, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

The post of Patliputra is a word-for-word copy of their Talk:India post of four or five years ago. Please post the link to the previous discussion here, including its xenophobic slant, as you will be able to view the opinions of the major contributors, including admins, to this post. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:01, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

The article has a lot of concerning structural biases, such as when it comes to caste, Hindu majoritarianism and religious nationalism, income inequality, pollution and climate change, etc. Without being addressed, they violate WP:NPOV quite significantly. I believe an FARC is necessary. EarthDude (wanna talk?) 04:03, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

• Close without FARC per Fowler&fowler and Vanamonde93. The article had a very rigorous review recently, and the regulars and admins (which include FAR regulars) have come into a consensus that the article doesn't need to proceed into FAR now. Point to JDiala: consensus is not majority or number of users supporting a view. Three editors repeating same point is not consensus, it's WP:IDONTLIKEIT. The general consensus in the discussion at the talk page was the article is upto FA standards, as seen by senior editors and, FA and FAR regulars with experience in the region. This discussion is superfluous IMO. The small prose and style issues can be discussed in the talk page and can be modified if consensus supports it. — Benison (Beni · talk) 06:06, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

I strongly oppose these image proposals. They violate WP:NPOV, such as replacing images on Islam or Christianity with Hinduism (even though the latter is given a lot of images in the article already), is highly exclusivist. Replacing images of agriculture, which continues to be where much of the population works in, with images as random as cars, seems nothing more than neoliberal fantasising. The only acceptable proposal here is for the geography section, and even then adding three images for replacing one seems excessive. EarthDude (wanna talk?) 03:56, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

• I have already given some of my thoughts at the top of the review, but more time has passed and the article has not substantially changed.

I believe this article does not meet requirement 1b of the featured article criteria, AKA comprehensiveness. Specifically, in the "Culture" section, the article does not have any body writing on many art forms one could expect in the article, such as the music of India (referenced in the lead but found nowhere within the article), theater in India, literature of India, and the media of India (such as their prominent film industry which is also referenced in the lead).

It is very much possible to make room for these additions, such as by swapping the "Visual arts" section for a general "arts" section or trimming other cultural sections, such as a paragraph in the section on clothing, which cites one source, that source being 2 pages of an argumentative book which is centered not on clothing but the cultural impact on Bollywood. I pointed out that a sentence from this paragraph was argumentative and unencyclopedic in tone, and despite getting consensus from other users to revamp this section, nothing has been done to alter or revamp it. I also posted about this general issue with cultural coverage on the talk page, gave a proposal on how to rework it, and got no response whatsoever for either support or opposition.

If this article were to be nominated for FA today with the current standards, this would definitely be flagged for something needing to be fixed before it could qualify. This entire section has not even been touched since the start of the FAR. Because of this, and also instances of prose below the FAR standard that have not been fixed, I support taking this article to FARC. ALittleClass (talk) 07:48, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

India is Wikipedia's oldest country FA, now 20 years old. The country, India, a part of South Asia, has a longer and more diverse history than any region in the world outside of Africa. It was the first region to settled by Homo sapiens when they migrated out of Africa. Before neolithic cultures took root in western South Asia ca. 7500 BCE, India had a 50-thousand-year interregnum of thousands of isolated hunter-gatherer enclaves, leading to exceptional cultural diversity. India has some 25 official languages, with rich literatures of their own. It has half a dozen classical languages, among them Sanskrit and Tamil, one a standard-bearer of the reconstruction of the ancestor language of all Indo-European languages and the other of Dravidian languages, not to mention hundreds of dialects with literatures of their own. Were it not for the British East India Company gradually expanding its rule over India from 1757 to 1814, the region would have remained a diverse continent, like Europe, with dozens of countries. I believe it is unrepresentative of what FAs aspire to, to apply cookie-cutter rules to a region such as this. Canada, much compared above, is a European settler society, whose pre-settler diversity is a recent reconstruction and acknowledgment. The same, more or less, applies to Australia. Germany, with somewhat older history, nevertheless, is more culturally uniform than many sub-regions of India. Were we to be comprehensive here, the India article would become a long list; too long; or a high-level summary too abstract for most readers. The article India has more talk page archives than any FA, I wager. So much has been discussed over the years. I suggest that we be more humble in quick assessments of this page. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:08, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

What you leave out is that the "[discussions] over the years" often amount to you bullying away editors who point out concerns. JDiala (talk) 14:46, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

• I support taking this article to FARC as well for the reasons already given. I also believe if this article would be nominated today, it probably wouldn't even pass current GA standards. There are many country articles which I'd consider to be better than or of similar quality as this one but are only rated GA- or B-class. This article in its current state clearly doesn't represent Wikipedia's highest-quality of work as a FA-class article should. Maxeto0910 (talk) 14:08, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

  You should look at the response to India's last TFA on October 2, 2019, before waxing off-handed judgments here. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:33, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

FARC section

• Delist per above. Given the number of issues that have been pointed out, I do not anticipate they can be quickly resolved. Editing activity on the article also hasn't been high enough to indicate a serious effort to resolve issues. JDiala (talk) 19:12, 24 August 2025 (UTC)
• Delist per the reasons given above. Like I already wrote, I think the article in its current form doesn't represent Wikipedia's highest-quality of work as should be expected from a FA-class article. Far from it. Maxeto0910 (talk) 07:48, 25 August 2025 (UTC)
• Close without FARC, keep as FA also supported by user:Vanamonde93 and user:Benison. Also I expect, user:Johnbod and user:RegentsPark. Most editors of FA India, I wager, are unaware of this behind-the-scenes activity. How did this get to FARC? (Redacted) Will the coordinators, user:Ealdgyth, user:DrKay, please note that Sandy G is not editing these days. Also, user:Z1720, who had planned to go through the article, please note. I last edited this article on May 30. Unexpected death and acute personal grief have kept me away from Wikipedia. At the very least, I should be allowed to review the article and update the citations over the next month and a half, until Halloween. It would be a real tragedy if Wikipedia's oldest country FA, now 20 years old, were to lose its status in such a way. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:33, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

  You can of course update the citations if you are able, but please avoid commenting on the motivations of other editors here. (This goes for other editors as well). Nikkimaria (talk) 00:55, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

• "Keep as FA": The concerns expressed above can be boiled down to WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Essentially, "I don't like the prose"; "I don't like the images"; "I don't like that some content is not included"; "I don't like multiple semi-colons" (sorry guys for forcing you to see more semi-colons but, hey, they do exist!). Not everyone is going to like everything and I don't see any substantial reasons given for delisting the article. In this particular article, the images, the content, the prose (especially in the lead) was all done through a consensus forming process and I see no reason why a few IDONTLIKEIT's should overturn that consensus.RegentsPark (comment) 13:36, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
• Keep per RegentsPark and agree with what Fowler&Fowler said. This is such a blown out of proportion IDONTLIKEIT clearly. These 'concerns' raised here are majorly are nothing minor copyedits can't fix. Rest anything and everything can be added onto the article after getting a consensus from the editors who have been taking care of the FA for decades.— Benison (Beni · talk) 13:46, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
• Comment (Redacted) In the interest of fairness, I will ping others involved in the article and this discussion for their perspective, especially since many of them might be unaware this has reached the FARC stage: Rackaballa, ALittleClass, EarthDude, Kharbaan_Ghaltaan, Moxy. The points raised by others also lack merit. Consensus is fine as a process, but there is no guarantee that the outcome of that process results in an FA-tier article. FAs are delisted when the regular editors of an article fail to uphold the standard. That is what has happened here, in the view of several editors whose arguments have not been rebutted as of yet. JDiala (talk) 14:13, 16 September 2025 (UTC)

  Please keep comments focused on how this article does or does not meet the FA criteria. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:55, 17 September 2025 (UTC)

• Comment I have my own thoughts about potentially condensing some areas, although I'm not sure where they lie from personal preference to potential FACR issue, however in any case this FAR has been muddled with minor things like misunderstandings of LEADCITE to major things like the assertion that Muslims are not part of mainstream Indian society. Given this is now at delist/list without progressing beyond that muddle, it is likely best that this is closed to allow for individual issues to be raised in more focused discussions. CMD (talk) 14:28, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
• Keep. The vast majority of concerns above are not policy-based reasons for revision, let alone removing FA status. Lead citations are not prohibited or discouraged in any way. The prose nitpicks are just that: no evidence of precision or clarity issues has been presented. Many of the image proposals are based on the implication that images of religions besides Hinduism ought not to be included, and carries no weight. The only serious proposal was related to the geographic images, which was dealt with on the talk page. Some reasonable suggestions have been put forward by ALittleClass and EarthDude among others as to expansions and updates in some sections, but that hasn't been the focus of this FAR, and I see no reason we cannot handle such updates through normal processes. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:51, 16 September 2025 (UTC)
• Delist. The article is factually misleading and lacks the standards of even B-class.

I will start with the very first paragraph which claims "the most populous country since 2023;[21]". Where is the evidence for this? Indian government hasnt done any population census since 2011.

Now we can enter the 2nd paragraph, which claims "By 1200 BCE, an archaic form of Sanskrit, an Indo-European language, had diffused into India from the northwest.[31][32]" The scholarly accepted date for this period is 1700 BCE - 1500 BCE. What has convinced the author to reduce a number of centuries is not imaginable for me. Then we see another misleading claim, "India's pre-existing Dravidian languages were supplanted in the northern regions.[34]" This is contrary to scholarly conensus which is firm that Dravidian languages (see Brahui language existed in Balochistan (northern Indian subcontinent) since the ancient times and were never replaced as there are still enough speakers there. I would also cite prominent archeologists such as Ahmad Hasan Dani, B. B. Lal who have found no evidence of a "Dravidian" to be having any significance in Northern Indian subcontinent. Things only get worse on the lead as you read more. The next we read is "By 400 BCE, caste had emerged within Hinduism,[35] and Buddhism and Jainism had arisen, proclaiming social orders unlinked to heredity.[36]" It is a universal fact that caste is a prevalent factor since the ancient times in South Asia. To say it emerged within Hinduism only in 400 BCE and was swiftly denounced by Jains and Buddhists is outright pseudohistory. Next we read is "Widespread creativity suffused this era,[38] but the status of women declined,[39] and untouchability became an organised belief." I am not sure if the puffery about "creativity" is needed but the degradation of women and untouchability are ancient issues. They did not emerge this much recently as the article falsely claims. The last sentence we read in this paragraph claims "In South India, the Middle kingdoms exported Dravidian language scripts and religious cultures to the kingdoms of Southeast Asia.[41]" Can anyone point me out the period before the British raj where South India and North India were connected with each other as single entity? This appears to push the Hindutva narrative which seeks to treat entire South Asia (or larger area) as a single entity for "thousands of years".

Entering the third paragraph, we see: "The resulting Delhi Sultanate drew northern India into the cosmopolitan networks of medieval Islam.[44] In south India, the Vijayanagara Empire created a long-lasting composite Hindu culture.[45]" These misleading claims are pushing Hindutva narratives that Northern India was now oppressed by the Muslims and Hindus were safe in Vijayanagar Empire. Then we read something laughable, "In the Punjab, Sikhism emerged, rejecting institutionalised religion.[46]" Sikhism is itself an institutional religion. The next sentence is, "The Mughal Empire ushered in two centuries of economic expansion and relative peace,[47] leaving a rich architectural legacy.[48][49]" It appears to claim that it is only architecture where Mughal legacy survives when Mughal legacy survives in many other things such as Indian food, music, military and more. The next sentence is, "British Crown rule began in 1858. The rights promised to Indians were granted slowly,[51][52] but technological changes were introduced, and modern ideas of education and the public life took root.[53]" This tells that the British Empire was all great for South Asia, and they were only benefitting them. How can we ignore all those man-made famines by the British Empire in South Asia? The list of their atrocities is huge. The paragraph then tells "A nationalist movement emerged in India, the first in the non-European British Empire" but fails to tell why. It is necessary when you are praising the colonial empire but the article failed to do the necessary. After that we read "In 1947, the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two independent dominions", when in fact, the British left hundreds of princely states with a choice to remain independent like a separate country. The last sentence of this paragraph tells "A large-scale loss of life and an unprecedented migration accompanied the partition." This is contrary to the fact that all of the violence was highly expected and that's why the British regime hurried it up, leaving Indians to handle the aftermath of the partition.

Finally, we are on the last paragraph which is not as ridiculous as the above however, it does include among the most outrageous claims out of the whole article, "Indian movies and music increasingly influence global culture.[66]" The cited source has been grossly stupid misrepresented.

This is my analysis of only the lead. The rest of the article has larger issues which should be resolved, however, I dont have enough hopes as per my experience with this article so far. Ratnahastin (talk) 11:25, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

• Delist - The issues raised are significant enough to warrant a delist. The long term stone walling of the article has also prevented any improvement of these issues. Chronos.Zx (talk) 05:45, 27 September 2025 (UTC)
• Delist per accurate analysis above. Highly unlikely if these problems will be fixed anytime soon. Lorstaking (talk) 09:47, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

  If the problems include not stating that India has the largest population, that would mean going against what secondary sources have been saying on the matter for a couple of years at this point. CMD (talk) 13:05, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

• Delist: I have already given my reasons. The article either lacks or omits extremely important and significant information about the country and its current state. Worst of all, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the article gives weight to Hindutva narratives. — EarthDude (wanna talk?) 16:31, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

  We have people arguing to delist because the page includes too much imagery of non-Hindu religions...and you're arguing to delist because it gives too much weight to "Hindutva narratives". This is a good illustration that the page as written at least tries to be balanced - but also a good indication that delisting isn't going to achieve the changes you wish to see, and working with people who have maintained it for a long time is far more likely to do so. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:41, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

  Hindutva is a political ideology, not a religion. Not sure the concerns are contradictory here as you're suggesting. JDiala (talk) 17:30, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

  The point regarding imagery has already been addressed after much discussion. As several others in this discussion, including me, have already noted, the greater issue with this article lies in its countless factual misrepresentations and omissions of important information, including giving weight to Hindutva narratives. However, given the persistent stonewalling this article has faced over the years, I have little hope that it can be substantially improved in its current state. — EarthDude (wanna talk?) 07:15, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

  There was no mention of the article giving weight to Hindutva narratives in the discussion preceding the FAR, and searching for the word in recent archives it does not seem to have been raised on the talk page in 2025. The article has changed over time due to discussions, however as Vanamonde93 notes contradictory issues have been raised. If you are considering potential stonewalling, it is worth considering that there are far more posts seeking to add more Hindu images, or change the economy section to mention poverty less, rather than the opposite concerns you raised above. CMD (talk) 10:25, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

• Keep FA Per Vanamonde and others. Upd Edit (talk) 11:06, 24 October 2025 (UTC)
• DelistNeutral per above and suggestions.

I do understand that there might be a lot of errors that are still currently unadressed, I do see evidence of WP:IDLI and the misunderstanding of Indian English. IDLI applies because India is part of the India-Pakistan Conflict CTOPS and South CTOPS, therefore both NPOV and IDLI apply, also in addressing LEADCITE. I did find some problems (some kindly addressed), For example:

• MOS:LEADCITE is pretty much required for FAs to this point. The moment I see so many sources in the lead section, it gives me a headache why this even is an FA, let alone a GA. Also per above.

• Climate section under "Geography" section: missing {{main|Climate of India}}, which should be considerably obvious.

• "Politics" section: "Congress"? This can be misleading as Congress, specifically in the US, is the legislative branch and a branch of the government and not a political party. Using "Congress" in the article can be incredibly misleading as, when I first looked at it, I thought it meant the India Parliament as a whole.

• MOS:SANDWICH in "Modern India" under "History" section.

HwyNerd Mike (tokk) 20:40, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Much of this complaint has no basis in policy whatsoever. LEADCITE does not mandate the removal of citations. "Congress" is the common abbreviation for the party: we would not change this just for US readers, and a parenthetical definition is easily provided. Image sandwiching is not visible to all editors, but when found, is trivially fixed. Vanamonde93 (talk) 18:43, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

I still retain my thoughts.

• MOS:LEADCITE states that an article should "avoid redundant citations" as it would be a visual hindrance to readers. Therefore, it is expected for an FA to maintain such standards.
• {{Main}} issue: Done. Thank you!
• The INC should be addressed as "the Congress", which is what the INC article uses. "Congress" is not only for US readers, actually, the more I think about it; it is most commonly applied to the U.S. Congress in a broad, worldwide scale, and it makes things confusing when it is only addressed as "Congress" in the article.
• MOS:SANDWICH: still unaddressed.

If you may, address these issues. Thank you. HwyNerd Mike (tokk) 18:59, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

No, LEADCITE says " editors should balance the desire to avoid redundant citations in the lead with the desire to aid readers in locating sources for challengeable material". Most aspects of the summary are contentious, as regular editors of this article are well aware. I did fix the sandwiching issue you pointed out, to the best of my ability, given my wide screen. If there are other instances of sandwiching, please let us know. As for "the Congress": I have made some modifications, but please note that the article is written in Indian English, which not infrequently omits the definite article in places it would be used elsewhere. I am not going to insist on preserving that, but suggestions of change ought recognize that the text derives from an attempt to follow linguistic conventions, not carelessness. Vanamonde93 (talk) 19:36, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

"Most aspects of the summary are contentious" This has already been discussed and you have provided no evidence to support this claim. It's an attempt to handwave away the issue. There are dozens of instances of excess citations in the lead, can you match each instance with corresponding talk page discussions indicating each of them are contentious? JDiala (talk) 04:44, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

• Delist - As per numerous concerns raised above. A delist would certainly allow the editors to finally address the issues with the article without much obstruction. Azuredivay (talk) 07:18, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  @Azuredivay: Please don't punt to others. Such opinions are of no value. What specifically would you add to this article that you are being obstructed from adding? Give two or three examples, please. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:33, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

• Delist - Based on concerns raised above and below, especially by Moxy, this is precisely the issue that has kept this article in its current state. It fails to meet FA standards. Srijanx22 (talk) 15:42, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

  It's easy to punt to others, but Moxy's own Canada is nothing but a sea of blue links. Please examine the ultimate doozy, the section of literature, and I come to it as someone who had ready Lucy Maude Montgomery in childhood, Robertson Davies in young adulthood, and I'm reading, or rather listening, to Miriam Toews's (pronounced Taves) memoir a big part of which is the suicides of her father and then sister, both by jumping in front of a speeding train. In fact, before I ordered it using a credit on Audible, I read Lorrie Moore's review "How goes the battle" in the New York Review of Books. I used WP's own resource for finding I have also read a large number of authors from the time period in between such as Michael Ondaatje's English Patient in graduate school, which I thought was not at the level of the finest works of other authors writing then) and Yan Martel's Tiger somethingor other that I didn't care for that much,

  Numerous Canadian authors have received international literary awards including the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Booker Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.^[1] Canadian literary awards and prizes include the Governor General's Literary Awards, the Giller Prize, the Latner Griffin Writers' Trust Poetry Prize, the Burt Award for First Nations, Inuit and Métis Literature and several accolades for literature aimed at children.^[2]

  So, please tell me, dear @Srijanx22:, if that tells you anything about Canadian literature, or merely about the prizes being awarded in literature? Even if you click on every blue link, what knowledge have you come away with. In other word's it is easy to punt something to other editors but their grass, speaking metaphorically, is not greener. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:57, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

  PS All I know is that in my 19 years on Wikipedia, I have never written something as opaque as that section on Canadian literature. Similarly, editors on India like to add their favorite blue links, often of the rah-rah variety in acronyms. eg. India is a member of the UN, UNESCO, ESCAP, FAO, UNICEF, WHO, ASEAN, ADB, .... ABCEDFG, GFDECBA. It is far far harder to write qualitative articles. Because in order to do that you have to read, and read not just one book, but half a dozen. Only then can you say something meaningful. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:18, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

  Odd choice to talk about .... You're discussing the second paragraph in a summary section at Canada#Literature that discusses the primary themes in its historic and modern literature that is followed in the second paragraph with lists of the countries most renowned writers in multiple fields VS zero information at all here about the topic. Caution should be taken to ensure that the sections are not simply a listing of names or mini biographies of individuals accomplishments vs overall themes in society with links to articles to acquire more information. There's a big difference between articles written by a collaborative group that do our best to follow community protocols. So let's give a comparison of a section that actually exists here and at Canada - again let's talk about India#Religion - India has two sentences about demographics and seven images mostly about architecture vs Canada#Religion that discusses government positions, society's views, religious adherence alongside information about demographic and it's changes with one image representing the society's views about diversity in religion. Moxy🍁 18:07, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

  Guys, this isn't helpful. If you think improvements should be made to the Canada article, raise it at that article's talk page, or if necessary start an FAR for that article. The quality of this article should be assessed directly against WIAFA only. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:42, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

  I suggest you back off. I am going through a difficult time. I've made an announcement. Others have given me space. You do nothing but breathe down my neck with the same old issues. Please do something else until the end of the month and let me edit in peace. The same goes for other editors who come cantering in along well-worn paths and pronounce their perfunctory judgments. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:58, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

  That was a reply to Moxy. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:58, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

  I do not edit the page......agree with Nikkimaria... pointless talk.... nothing will change for accessibility for our readers. Good luck! Moxy🍁 01:27, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

A request to put this discussion on hold until December 1, 2025

I won't comment on the quality of the discussion above, but it is clear that it is nowhere near a consensus. Allow me then to make a request. (I did make them earlier, but they were lost among other posts in the discussion.) As some of you know, I suffered a catastrophic personal loss six months ago. Despite continuing treatment at the department of psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital and by psychoanalysts associated with the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and by phone at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, I am only now beginning to take my first faltering steps out of my complicated trauma and grief. As some of you also know, I am not only the the editor with the largest number of edits in this article but have also edited it for the last 19 years, which is only two less than its 21-year history as a featured article, Wikipedia’s longest for a country. In light of what I have just stated, I request that the FAR be put on hold until December 1, 2025, and I be granted the month of November 2025, to improve the article in the best possible manner. Whatever Wikipedia’s dogma is in this regard, I trust that editors here will be forgiving, and allow me space to bring it up to standard. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:18, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

Consensus is determined by the quality of arguments, not a vote count. An experienced editor like yourself should know this. I am sincerely sorry for your personal loss. I think it is a fair ask to request the FAR coordinators do not close discussion prior to December 2025 so that we can work on the article for the next month. However, what I do not believe is a fair ask is putting the discussion on hold altogether so that other editors cannot express their views here. But anyways I'll let the coordinators decide as they have the authority. JDiala (talk) 14:57, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

Happy to give you November to work on the article. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:46, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, Nikkimaria. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:12, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

• I am starting with the Demographics section, Health subsection; I will then move to Religion, Languages, Urbanization and Population subsections, leaving Education out for now, as it was rewritten by Professor Rjensen, not too long ago. After that I will revise Section 6, society and sports subsections. Simultaneously, I will check, and update if need be, the sources in Section 1 though 5. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:32, 14 November 2025 (UTC)
• I have updated the Geography section, revising the account of the orogeny of the Himalayas. I've restored the original caption (from this page's TFA, 2 October 2019) of one of the pictures, which is really about the monsoon. I will move that picture into the Climate subsection. This will create room for a picture in the Geography section (proper). I propose that we add the Featured Picture File:Panorama of Himalayas from Ranikhet, Uttarakhand, India.jpg. In fact, I will go ahead and add it, so other editors can view it in context. This picture has an advantage in that it shows a portion of the range, rather than a single mountain or scene, and therefore illustrates the adjoining text better. The peaks seen in the panorama, include Nanda Devi, the highest mountain entirely within India's borders (Kangchenjunga, which is higher, however, lies on the border of Nepal and India, two-thirds in Nepal and one-third in India.) Nanda Devi, moreover has had a long cultural history in the Kumaon and Garhwal regions of the western Himalayas. It also lies in the center of the Nanda Devi National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Natural Site. Seen in the panorama are other mountains such as Trishul and Nanda Kot. I am pinging UnpetitproleX, our resident expert on Wikipedia's Featured Pictures. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:23, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

  Thanks for the ping. I do like the panorama image very much (it was taken and uploaded by a young local youtuber from Nainital, I edited it and then nominated it to FPC at commons as well as WP). It was recently our picture of the day to commemorate the anniversary of Uttarakhand’s creation as a separate state. While I do think the picture may not be our most striking image from Featured pictures of the Himalayas of India, I believe it carries the most visual information of the lot there, and that in my opinion takes precedence here. It shows some of the tallest mountains not just in India, but also the world. So I believe it is a reasonably good pick for the geography section. (Incidentally, I’m currently reading Luke Whitmore’s brilliant and heartfelt book on Kedarnath and Nachiket Chanchani’s illuminating Mountain Temples and Temple Mountains, both works focused on the cultural and religious significance, historical and present, of these very mountains to the local community as well as the larger South Asian Hindu world.)

  One small issue with it I can think of, though, is that since it is a wide panoramic shot, at thumbnail size it appears rather small. Perhaps, we could use either {{wide image}} or [[File:filename|caption|thumb|upright=1.5 (/a suitable size)]] format? Or perhaps we could convert the lot of three geography images (along with the Tungabhadra and Andaman mangrove pictures, that is) into a gallery like the other sections/subsections? I am also fine with leaving it as is if that is more appropriate for a FA. UnpetitproleX (talk) 00:36, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

  OK, I see below that the gallery format is not without its criticisms. Whichever format may be most appropriate is fine by me. I must say I do like the current selection of pictures very much. We do have a big (and continuously growing) collection of Indian FPs, which gives us an abundance of options to select from but also makes the process of selection all the more complicated. UnpetitproleX (talk) 00:58, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

  Thanks for that, I'll try to put the three pics in geography in gallery mode at the bottom and leave them there until tomorrow, and I'll also experiment with the upright 1.5 suggestion. Thanks very much. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:53, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

  I forgot to ping you, @UnpetitproleX: Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:54, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

• As many of you know, the India page has had a 20-year-old tradition of using Wikipedia Featured Pictures in its illustrations, as far as is possible. One section in which such pictures are not lacking is Biodiversity. Using the gallery mode begun in the visual arts section by Johnbod, I have added six Featured Pictures. Most are recent. I have tried to keep a balance between mammals, reptiles, insects, birds, flora, and different geographical regions of India. I'm doing away with the charismatic megafauna, such as tigers, as they've been on the page for most of its life as an FA. I'd like to hear from some editors who have long been with this page: RegentsPark, Vanamonde, Abecedare, also some newer ones such as, Benison, and of course, UnpetitproleX Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:18, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

  PS I might do this some other sections as well, as quite a few FPs have appeared in the last five years (since the page's 2nd TFA). I hope you will indulge. We can discuss their worth and relevance later. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:49, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

  

  Galleries cause accessibility problems for many readers.....not only does it cause horizontal scrolling to apprear for the whole article resulting in mass white space for many there is also a huge difference in image sizes....they are generally discouraged as per....

  • WP:GALLERY "Generally, a gallery or cluster of images should not be added so long as there is space for images to be effectively presented adjacent to text. " "Gallery images must collectively add to the reader's understanding of the subject without causing unbalance to an article or section within an article"
  • MOS:ACCIM "Avoid indiscriminate galleries because screen size and browser formatting may affect accessibility for some readers due to fragmented image display."
  • WP:UNDUE "Undue weight can be given in several ways, including but not limited to the depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, juxtaposition of statements, and use of imagery."
  • WP:COUNTRYGALLERIE (project essay bassed on our MOS) "Galleries or clusters of images are generally discouraged - (unless a point of contrast or comparison is being made) - as they may cause undue weight to one particular section of a summary article and might cause accessibility problems, such as sand­wich­ing of text, images that are too small or fragmented image display for some readers as outlined at WP:GALLERY. Clusters of images may cause images to appear too late or too early for associated prose text, see MOS:SECTIONLOC for general recommendations. Articles that have gone through modern FA and GA reviews generally consists of one image for every three or four paragraph summary section, see MOS:ACCESS#FLOAT"

• • Disabilities in India - visual (24.3%), locomotor (17.4%)

  Moxy🍁 17:08, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

  Thanks, Moxy. I did read the built-in caution in the gallery, and I've noted your points, but as Johbod's visual art section has a gallery, and as there were criticisms citing MOS:SANDWICH etc in the other sections, I thought at least I won't have those in the gallery. Why don't I complete the revision, and we can then together figure out how best to display the images. Thanks again for your input. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:48, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

  if your wondering what updated modern non-picture books FA and GA country articles look like see WP:COUNTRYSIZE Moxy🍁 23:09, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

  No I'm not wondering. I don't read things made up by one person, in this instance you. The FA India has been around long before you have, long before Canada, a relatively homogenous European settler colony became a WP FA. Please don't be presumptuous. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:12, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  It's a project of editors that have harmonized hundreds of articles bringing them up to modern standards with basic accessibility in mind for our readers. You are 100% this is one of the oldest FA articles and it shows. Dont you find it perplexing this keeps coming up? Moxy🍁 10:25, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

• I am finished with the pictures. One of delightful things of the last few years is the sudden abundance of Featured Pictures in India-related topics. As some of you know, from the get-go—i.e. from the time user:Nichalp, admin, arb, and pacesetter for the drive for more South Asia related articles on WP brought India to FA status—this page has preferred FPs for its illustrations. Of the 54 pictures (not including maps or graphs), 30 are now FPs. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:45, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  India#Religion Are you sure 7 images for two sentences follows the spirit of WP:GALLERY "Wikipedia is not an image repository. A gallery is not a tool to shoehorn images into an article......" Just FYI the article now has double the images of any other FA country article that normally consists of one image for every three or four paragraph summary section. Moxy🍁 17:29, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

  I haven't begun to write the religion section. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:42, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

• I'm noting that today the page size is 9,412 words. I might go up or down in the coming days, but I will keep it below the 10K limit suggested, I think, by Z1720. The lead size is 722 words. I could try to reduce it a little, but probably not below 700. I've taken a look at the page's galleries on my iPhone and desktops. There were no issues viewing them, and Johnbod's gallery has been in place for some three or four years with not too many complaints. I will be now working on revising the page, and will not respond to comments. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:02, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

• @Fowler&fowler: Thanks for the work you and others are doing on this article. Upon a quick skim, some areas that might be places for trimming text are "Modern India" (under history), the first part of "Geography", "Foreign relations", the first part of "Economy" (and that section might need to be updated, as I see 2007 statistics), and "Cuisine". For each of these sentences, I would recommend trimming between a sentence and a paragraph: removing a little bit in each bigger area will help readers focus on the most important aspects. Z1720 (talk) 16:46, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  Thank you for this @Z1720: Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:49, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

• Noting: finished Languages and Mathematics sections for now. Will work on Dance. Prose size = 9851 words. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:33, 26 November 2025 (UTC)
• I am almost there. I'd like to request two weeks more, until December 15, that is, a firm deadline.

• Article size today: 9,588 words. There are 89 pictures of which 42 are Wikipedia Featured pictures
• Some subsections in Culture have been reworked or added, including Society and Mathematics. Two other subsections Music and Dance are almost ready. In the Demographics section Languages has been rewritten. I would like to work more on Health (i.e. public health) and Demographics proper (i.e. life expectency, mortality, migration). After than I'd like to proof read the whole article, esp prose and citations. I believe by December 15, this article will be as ready as it will ever be. I thank you all in anticipation. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:19, 1 December 2025 (UTC)
• I'm done with India#Dance. Total page size = 9707 words. I aim to keep it below 10K. I've removed Military as the few sentences there was poorly sourced not to mention dated. I will work on Music next. The major legwork and groundwork there has already been done by User:ALittleClass. After Music, I plan to work on Demographics, which is randomly and therefore unevenly sourced. Finally, I will work on Health and update the sources in History. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:53, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

• Keep or at least wait, none of these concerns are big enough to not be resolved in a a few copy edits. Above a user pointed out historical inaccuracies which can also easily be fixed. we have pages about most of the things that the editor in question mentions, which have correct citations.material, or at least citations, from those pages can simply be inserted here to replace the incorrect information User:Easternsahara_{review this} 23:58, 8 December 2025 (UTC)
• Article has been completely written by one individual since this review has started with very little emphasis on the concerns raised, thus in my view would need a formal FA review for this new article. Everything from accessibility, verifiability of sources, neutrality and image selection would have to be reviewed.Moxy🍁 20:14, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

  But I had written most of the previous versions too, whether the TFA of October 2, 2019, or the FAR of 2011 ... that's an 18-year span, which began in 2007. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:07, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

Examples in both landscape and portrait mode of fragmented galleries in mobile view on Samsung s21

• I do believe you are the greatest asset this article has... my main concern - for a few decade now- is accessibility. As of now images simply don't work for me on my phone.... they do function fine on my PC though. The best thing we can do is have is someone like User:Nikkimaria going through the article....she is not only an expert reviewer but is also very familiar with country articles overall. Moxy🍁 20:21, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

• Today's note: I'm updating the history sources used in the history or other sections:

Burton Stein, OUP, 1998 to Stein (edited by David Arnold) Wiley-Blackwell, 2010,

Barbara Metcalf and Thomas R. Metcalf, Cambridge, 2006 to Metcalf and Metcalf, 2012;

David Ludden, India and South Asia, One World, 2002 to Ludden, 2011,

Peter Robb, A History of India, Palgrave, 2001 to Robb 2011,

Upinder Singh A History of India from the Stone Age to the 12th century, Pearson 2009 to Singh 2023,

Catherine Asher and Cynthia Talbot, India Before Europe, Cambridge, 2006 to A&T 2022.

Tirthankar Roy, The Economic History of India 1857–1947, 2nd ed, Oxford, 2006 to Roy, Economic History of India 1857–2010.

The other books I have used, Ian Copeland's India 1885–1947 and Douglas Peers's India under Colonial Rule 1700–1885, both published in Longman's Seminar Series; Rita P. Wright's The Ancient Indus, CUP, 2006; Sumit Sarkar's Modern India, MacMillan 1983; Judith M. Brown's Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy, OUP, 1996 do not have later editions.

There are still other books, Maria Misra's Vishnu's Crowded Temple: India Since the Great Rebellion, Yale 2007; Joya Chatterji's Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century, Yale 2023. Both are notable historians, and I will use them here and there to supplement preexisting statements. (There is also Audrey Truschke's India: 5000 Years of History on the Subcontinent, Princeton, 2025. But as her published record does not bespeak the span treated, it does give pause. I shall not be using it, at least not for now.)

Prose size this morning: 9,728 words. I plan to keep it below 10K words.Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:55, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

Hi there, @Moxy:. Thanks for the appreciation.

As for the images, what phone do you have? I tried viewing them on my two iphones, mine and my late wife's, and on both the images simply stack beneath the text—in portrait mode, they stack up in a tower of single images, and in landscape, most rows have multiple images. I will check later on another phone (a Samsung Galaxy) I have, and if possible on a much older iPhone, from ten years ago. I respect Nikkimaria very much and will listen to what she has to say, but please first let me complete the prose.

As of now, here is that state of the text:

• The sources in the history section need to be updated to the latest editions.
• The geography and biodiversity sections are OK.

This much I can do by 15 December. See my post above.

However, I would like, if I'm given the chance, to bring India up to the same level as Darjeeling, which I enjoyed rewriting. To do this, the following will need to be done.

• The Demography section's lead is adequate, but I would like to update it using Tim Dyson's Population History of India, OUP, 2018, using the last section (which focuses on the 21st century)
• The religion subsection will need to be rewritten; as of now, it is more or less a listing of what there is, without higher level description.
• Languages is OK
• Education is OK. It was written by Professor R Jensen. I will update the sources if required.
• Health will need to be rewritten.
• Society (lead) is OK, but a paragraph needs to be written about religious minorities (Muslims, Christians and their ways of life)
• Dance is OK
• Cuisine is OK
• Mathematics is OK
• Clothing is OK
• Music has been written by ALittleClass. I will add another paragraph to it, using the same review source as the Dance section.
• Visual Art is OK. It has been written by Johnbod.
• Sports, Government, Politics, Economy, Industries, are adequate. I have not written them, but I will check the sources use.
• This I could do by 15 January 2026, given that I have to bring out the Christmas ornaments etc also in the interim.

I know this will take time, but as this revision seems to be undertaken every five or six years, if not ten, it is worth putting a little extra into it.

• We could then talk about the images. Thanks for writing.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:48, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

• Delist - Considering points raised. NimbleNumbat (talk) 22:01, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

  Like? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:50, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

• Note on 31 December.

• I've completed copy-editing the Politics section. I will check the sources tomorrow. They are adequate, but I prefer to cite a few well-known academic textbooks. I will smooth out the Government and Foreign Relations sections and cite similar scholarly sources.
• I will then return to the history sections tomorrow, updating the sources to the latest editions. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:16, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

The prose size will remain < 10k words Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:18, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

Could we get an update on status here? What work remains? Nikkimaria (talk) 15:50, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: I think it would be helpful for the coords to weigh in on what concerns you would consider valid. A lot of electrons have been spilled over the matter of citations in the lead, for instance. I have gotten several articles through FAC that incorporate lead citations, and I would consider their inclusion not a valid reason for arguing to delist - but if the coords feel differently, someone may work on reducing them. Similarly, if the coords consider the concern over galleries valid, I would work on reducing them, but editors appear to have deadlocked on their use. Noting also that one "delist" editor has since been topic-banned from south asia for non-neutral editing, precluding their further participation here. Vanamonde93 (talk) 18:49, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

The guidance for what concerns are valid is always WP:WIAFA and the policies and guidelines it references. Lead citations, for example, are permissible under MOS:LEAD, and therefore their presence is not a rationale for delisting. Galleries, conversely, are potentially problematic per WP:IUP as well as various MOS pages, and are therefore potentially the basis of a valid delist rationale, depending on specifics. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:45, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

Respectfully, this is a misrepresentation of the concern. The complaint is not that the lead citations are disallowed. It is that they are excessive. Excessive lead citations are in fact strongly discouraged in MOS:LEAD. JDiala (talk) 23:29, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

I have refuted the claims of excessive citations above. I just removed five citations from the lead. I have checked the rest, and based on 12 years' experience editing related subjects, I maintain that those citations are for material that has been disputed here or on the subsidiary articles. Their removal will lead to instability and time wastage. Vanamonde93 (talk) 00:05, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. @Fowler&fowler: I am willing to attempt to remove some gallery images and move the rest to regular formatting, but as you have indicated opinions about this I wanted to give you the chance to do so first. Vanamonde93 (talk) 22:40, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

What I had said to Nikkimaria below, applies to you as well, Vanamonde, i.e. you both have carte blanche in the matter of number and placement of images. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:02, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

Hi Nikkimaria and Vanamonde: Here's what I'd like to finish before any final decisions are made, and I know that everyone has been very generous to me in the first place.

I'd like to update some of the citations in the four history sections. I have ready access to both the older editions of the books (in question) which were cited in the last FAR, and the newer editions which need to be cited instead, with their updated page numbers. The books in question are listed below, the latest editions are indented:

• Asher, C. B.; Talbot, C. (2006). India Before Europe. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-80904-7.
• Asher, C. B.; Talbot, C. (2008). India Before Europe t. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-51750-8.

• Asher, C. B.; Talbot, C. (2022). India Before Europe. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-42816-3.

• Kulke, H.; Rothermund, D. (2004). A History of India. 4th. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-32920-0.

• Kulke, H.; Rothermund, D. (2016). A History of India. 6th. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-96114-2.

• Ludden, D. (2002). India and South Asia: A Short History. Oneworld Publications. ISBN 978-1-85168-237-9.

• Ludden, D. (2014). India and South Asia: A Short History (2nd, revised ed.). Oneworld Publications. ISBN 978-1-85168-936-1.

• Metcalf, Barbara D.; Metcalf, Thomas R. (2006). A Concise History of Modern India (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-68225-1.

• Metcalf, Barbara D.; Metcalf, Thomas R. (2012). A Concise History of Modern India. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-02649-0.

• Robb, P. (2001). A History of India. Palgrave. ISBN 978-0-333-69129-8.

• Robb, P. (2011). A History of India. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-34549-2.

• Stein, B. (1998). A History of India. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-20546-3.-

• Stein, B. (2010). Arnold, D. (ed.). A History of India (2nd ed.). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-9509-6.

The lead was rewritten for India's second TFA on Gandhi's 150th, October 2, 2019. Two books, newly published then, were used in the two history paragraphs of the lead, and were cited. I had included generous quotes from them for each citation. Although the quotes have been removed since, I know where to find them and how to expand the sentences into the relevant history subsections. The two books are:

• Dyson, Tim (2018), A Population History of India: From the First Modern People to the Present Day, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-882905-8
• Fisher, Michael H. (2018), An Environmental History of India: From Earliest Times to the Twenty-First Century, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, doi:10.1017/9781316276044, ISBN 978-1-107-11162-2, LCCN 2018021693

If I can be given until the end of next week, which is also the end of the month, i.e. January 31, I should be most grateful. I can probably do it sooner, but we have a big snowstorm coming our way tomorrow and Monday, and there's no guarantee power and internet will be around in its immediate wake.

As for the images (and galleries), I added them in their current state of extravagance in part because the last year had reaped a rich harvest of India-related Featured pictures. A large proportions of the gallery pictures are FPs. Where they are not, they attempt to give the reader a feel for the diversity of type, genre, attainment, or history in that section. India, as many people know, is much closer to being a continent than it is a country. Indeed there are continents whose constituent countries do not have official languages that total 22. Therefore, I feel that rules that typically apply to single countries might require to be relaxed somewhat for India. In other words, unless galleries very definitely make it difficult for WP readers to read the text of an article, the mere citing of MOS-rules shouldn't automatically apply to countries that are continent-sized in complexity.

Still, as I have stated before somewhere up above to Moxy, I will defer in the matter of images, where to place them, how many to include, etc., to Nikkimaria.

So, please let me fix the citations referred to above first.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:54, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

Looks like the storm is coming our way both today and tomorrow. So, I won't get to work in earnest on updating the citations until Tuesday evening. I should still have them done by the week's end, though. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:16, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

Any update? Nikkimaria (talk) 20:35, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: I will leave it to F&F to provide his own update, but I examined all the images used today, and reduced the usage of galleries where they felt unnecessary. The ones that remain, I believe, satisfy the high bar laid out at the MOS, in that they involve groups of images that are instructive to the reader when presented as a group. The geographic, architectural, and artistic images in particular are presented to showcase contrast and diversity, and value is lost by separating them. That said, if there is consensus that they violate the MOS I will reduce them further. Courtesy ping to Moxy. I have also gone over almost all the prose, and will finish by the weekend. I don't see any reason the prose is a barrier to FA status.

I want to note again that in an article with scope this broad (we are covering all of history for approximately 1/6th of human society) there is infinite scope for difference of opinion, but I don't see how any remaining suggestions for change rise to the level of FA failure: they can be addressed through the normal editing process. Vanamonde93 (talk) 03:59, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

Never thought images were an FA concern .....just a massive accessibility problem that our MOS in several place explains - accessibility is normaly ignored. For me still accessibility problems...giant and minni images with the whole article having horizontal scroll on my PC because off images and image stacking on my phone. Some maps are completely non legible because of size.FA concern would be we have whole paragraphs in images that need sources because many are not illustrative aids but stand alone information. As for reading accessibility for citation overkill in FAs I use Help:Citation merging (Canada). From above it seems many simply have a problem that the article looks very difference then other country or territory article so i seems off ....example MOS:IMAGELOC, Wikipedia:Citation overkill Moxy🍁 04:24, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

One could bundle citations without loss, but it's an aesthetic choice - nowhere are we in CITEKILL territory. As for images: I've moved the remaining left-aligned images to the right, but what realistic solution would you be satisfied with? Omitting all the galleries? We cannot accommodate the images we have along the right edge of the article. Removing the examples of climatic variation, or biodiversity, or religious architecture, or dance, or visual art, would be a crying shame. A panorama will always cause image-scrolling issues - but there's no equivalent for a Himalayan panorama. I confess I don't understand what you want that you think will genuinely improve this. Vanamonde93 (talk) 06:54, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

As mentioned above dont have any hope that the odd layout accessibility problems will ever be solved here (as seen in talk archives many many times like Talk:India/Archive 65#Too many pics and violation of Image styling.) Is too bad for some they see this (thus images are useless) simply because India unlike all the other countries cant follow basics MOS advice WP:COUNTRYGALLERIE. This article should not be the example of what not to....should be the example of what to do for readability.On side note does population need to be in the lead 4 times? Moxy🍁 09:31, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

The page you link is from a Wikiproject, not from the MOS. Even so, I read it, and attempted to follow the advice: "Galleries or clusters of images are generally discouraged (unless a point of contrast or comparison is being made)" (emphasis mine). The remaining galleries are intended for points of contrast. I can't fix unactionable problems, and I can't fix problems that are merely matters of preference. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:09, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

The project page is a summary of all our MOS's regarding galleries and accessibility of imagery. We will simply have to disagree with what is considered a point of contrast. In my point of view it's all very actionable and easy to fix just have to care about accessibility. Moxy🍁 17:53, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

That is not an actionable comment, and is verging into bad faith territory. Specifics, please. If one were to remove the galleries, we would necessarily have to remove images. What images are you advocating to remove here? Are you really arguing that none of the galleries are acceptable? If not, which ones constitute a reasonable use? Note that if a gallery is never acceptable on accessibility grounds we should be amending the MOS, not overreaching what the MOS says on a specific article. Vanamonde93 (talk) 19:25, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

@Vanamonde93 and Moxy: I've attempted a floating image collage as an alternative to a packed gallery in the geography section (see here) with shorter captions. If this improves accessibility, we could implement the alternative and use a combination, retaining some galleries and converting the rest to floating collages wherever appropriate. If you guys think this could be better, I can take a stab at it. UnpetitproleX (talk) 18:43, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

On aesthetics alone I prefer the galleries. The purpose of a gallery is to allow comparison across images; the smaller size of the floating collage makes that trickier in some cases (e.g., architecture) though for others (e.g., wildlife) it may be fine. I don't have an opinion on the accessibility issue. So far as I can see the MOS is silent on the matter, and we have already met the requirements of the MOS, just not the more stringent ones of the Wikiproject that are not a part of the FA criteria. Nonetheless, if the floating collages were to obviate objections from Moxy, I would be open to exploring them further. Vanamonde93 (talk) 18:54, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

• Could we get an update on status here? What issues remain outstanding? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:09, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

  I don't know what else to do here. I've worked through galleries, as I promised, and kept only those for which a comparison is helpful to the reader. I don't believe I am obligated to go beyond that, but if the FAR coords feel that a "no galleries permitted" is sufficiently grounded in the criteria, then I will remove the remaining ones under protest. I have also gone through the prose, and I believe it is up to standard. Absent further actionable complaints I cannot make fixes. Vanamonde93 (talk) 05:16, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

  Hi Nikkimaria, It is late at night my time, so I'll be brief. I have been moving to a new home. The bulk of the moving was accomplished yesterday when the movers came. Though many things including some books are still in boxes, I do have the books I need for this FAR. This means that for the remainder of this week and next, I will update all the citations to the latest editions of their cited works. I will also look at various editors' comments to see if they are actionable. Thanks for posting. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:52, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

References