Talk:Mahmud Gawan

GA Review[edit]

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Mahmud Gawan/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Flemmish Nietzsche (talk · contribs) 08:29, 21 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Mike Christie (talk · contribs) 13:25, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]


I'll review this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:25, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The only image is appropriately tagged. Sources are reliable. Spotchecks (footnote numbers refer to this version:

  • FN 8 cites "After Humayun's death, he became one of the guardians of the underage Sultan Nizam Shah during his regency. This triumvirate regency council would consist of Mahmud, Jahan Turk, and the queen mother of Nizam Shah." Verified.
  • FN 13 cites "These reforms would not be taken well by many of the nobles, whose power had been significantly curtailed." Verified.
  • FN 37 cites "in which he was called the "envy of Rum itself", and conversed with and invited to the Deccan many other poets, including Sharaf al-Din Ali Yazdi and Jalal al-Din Davani". This is slightly inaccurate: Jami refers to India as the envy of Rum, not Gawan; and "conversed" with is also not quite right -- he carried on correspondence with them.
    You now have "his dominions were called", but the source says "India". And the sources says Rum refers to Europe in this context; I think that should be clear to the reader here too.* FN 42 cites "and thunder storm in 1696, which collectively rid it of half of the southern wing and half its front, and it was consistently neglected and left to decay through the elements. This neglect and its ruinous state caused the madrasa to become a public dumping ground for the people's filth and rubbish. The building later underwent a significant cleanup and renovation and is now in a more presentable state." This is cited to p. 93, but the relevant material is also on p. 92. Verified, but "now in a more presentable state" needs to be changed to use "as of" wording. That source is from 1947 so I think you'll want to find something more recent as well. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:57, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • FN 51 cites "The Sultan later regretted his ill-thought-out decision and buried Mahmud Gawan, though still in a small tomb disproportionate to the authority his rank had held." I don't see anything in the source that supports the Sultan regretting his decision.

I'll pause the review until these are addressed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:03, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

All fixed. Flemmish Nietzsche (talk) 21:01, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One point still outstanding above. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:57, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Since the spotcheck has to pass for the article to be promoted to GA, I'm going to do another round. Footnote numbers refer to this version.

  • FN 11 cites "He was given the formal title of “Lord of the habitors of the Globe, Secretary of the Royal Mansion, Deputy of the Realm", which he was addressed as in court documents." The citation needs to be extended to p. 296.
  • FN 18 cites "The capture of the Konkan would virtually cease the attacks on Muslim pilgrims and would grant the Bahmanis dominance over trade in the eastern Arabian Sea." P. 415 is in the index and doesn't support the text.
  • FN 44 cites "The divisions included sectarian religious divisions where the Afaqis were looked upon as heretics by the Sunnis as the former were Shi'as." Verified, but incompletely paraphrased per WP:CLOP. I think this needs to be reworded a bit more.

I am going to stop here and fail the article. The spotcheck inaccuracies are a concern, but I would not have failed the article on that basis alone: it's also because I've been looking through the body of the article, and the prose needs copyediting. Some examples:

  • "The divisions included sectarian religious divisions where the Afaqis were looked upon as heretics by the Sunnis as the former were Shi'as." Unnecessarily wordy; this says the same thing three different ways.
  • "its collapse caused relations between the two parties to grow increasingly stigmatized during Mahmud's fifteen-year supreme rule": I don't know what's intended -- perhaps "strained"? -- but "stigmatized" is not the right word here.
  • "consequent of the drastic reforms" -- ungrammatical
  • "usurp his regime": an odd usage; usually one usurps a position in a regime, not the regime
  • "his statement was not given value": odd phrasing

That's just from one section, but the whole article is like this. It feels as though this was written by someone with an excellent command of English but not a native speaker. I don't know if that's right, but I would recommend getting a GOCE copyedit if possible. I am also a bit concerned by the fact that the sources are quite old. Surely there is more recent scholarship? Sherwani's work, which is heavily cited, is 80 years old. The writing style in the old sources tends to be quite florid which doesn't help either. That would be more of an issue at FAC than at GA, but it would be good if you could find something a bit more recent to work from. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:57, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've addressed all these concerns. Could you explain which point is still outstanding above that was not fixed in the initial spot check? If it's about there being no ref for the Sultan regretting his decision, there's an sfn I added at the end of that sentence after the one already there, though I could place it right after "regretted". I'm pretty sure I also fixed all major grammar issues or copyedit-needing sentences; this article is fairly short so I think I deserve a full review and a chance to fix these issues.
The problem of the footnotes not covering all pages content was summarized from is due to a bad habit I have of writing a bunch of content and then adding all the footnotes after I'm done rather quickly, which results in the issues you've encountered, but I believe I've adequately addressed.
I also cite Sherwani heavily because his two books (on Mahmud Gawan and the Bahmanis in general) are two of the most comprehensive and detailed texts there are on the topic; Chandra's and Eaton's books, both from the past 20 years, are better in that they're newer but the former only spends 3 pages on Mahmud and the latter spends ~20, but only a few on Mahmud's actual life and rule. I don't think "old" scholarship on India-related topics is necessarily bad as long as it doesn't fall under WP:RAJ, which these do not as they are not at all about the caste system. Flemmish Nietzsche (talk) 23:03, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's a fair point that an old source isn't necessarily a weak source; I've worked in areas where that's the case. Re the fail: would you be OK if I tried to do a copyedit myself? I would try to get to it by the end of the coming weekend. You could then renominate it. At the moment I believe the fail was justified on the grounds of prose, but if I go through and find I don't have much to fix I'll acknowledge I was wrong about that. It would mean I wouldn't be able to do the subsequent review, though. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:44, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's fine, and yes a copyedit would be welcome. Flemmish Nietzsche (talk) 01:47, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I'll give it a shot. It's not an area of history I've done more than read casually about so I may have some questions for you as I go through; if so I'll post on the talk page. Thanks. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:51, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]