Talk:Economy of ancient Tamil country

Peer review

I have requested a peer-review at the India peer-review page and also at the General peer-review page. Please provide any feedback in one of those pages. Lotlil 02:47, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Sources

I don't know. I am confused here. Primary sources are not considered sources, I don't believe, per WP:V and WP:RS. Also, having such a long section on sources at the beginning detracts from the subject of your article. Since the sources article is so long, it almost suggests that there should be a sub article. There is a link in the article (I can't find it now!) that goes to something-something-poetry (or maybe it was literature). Anyway, is this an article on literature or on history? Don't get distressed at my comments, because if you do go for FAC, it is a grueling and humbling process! (They will be very critical.) I am not sure what you mean by "Tamil country". Is there not a more specific name? Do you mean country as in "city vs. country", or do you mean country as in "nation". I have not heard that term before. Is that a commonly used term? The link to Tamil people is not very helpful because it makes Tamil seem multinational, not necessarily related to a specific area of India. Maybe you can straighten me out here. Regards, --Mattisse 20:37, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Mattisse, let me clear up a few things about the sources, pl. bear with me if what I'm saying is obvious.

1) I quote from WP:PSTS:

• Primary sources are documents or people very close to the situation being written about. Examples of primary sources include archeological artifacts; photographs; ... and artistic and fictional works such as poems, scripts, screenplays, novels, motion pictures, videos, and television programs.
• Primary sources that have been published by a reliable source may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them.
• Secondary sources draw on primary sources to make generalizations or interpretive, analytical, or synthetic claims. An historian's interpretation of the decline of the Roman Empire, or analysis of the historical Jesus, is a secondary source. Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published primary and secondary sources.

So, in our case, we have the Tamil literature, archaeological findings, epigraphy etc. as the primary sources. It's important to note (and make the reader realise) that this article is not sourced from these primary sources. Instead, all the material for this article is taken from published secondary sources like books and papers written in the 20th century, which have interpreted the said primary sources in appropriate fora and have drawn certain conclusions. I believe these secondary sources (books, papers) meet WP:RS and WP:V.

2) Reg. the sub-article, there is a link from the Sources section to the sub-article, which is Sources of ancient Tamil history.

3) As for the 'country' in the title, I understand your confusion, I (a Tamilian) myself only recently learnt of that word being used to describe the ancient region in question. But (trust me on this), it is apparently common usage in research and academia. Many books and papers use the term 'ancient Tamil country' when talking about the region (mapped in article) around the Sangam period. There is an article titled Ancient Tamil country that should ideally explain the geography, among other things, but as you can see, that article is far from a decent shape now. Lotlil 22:50, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Archaeological evidence is not a primary source. Presumably you are learning about the evidence not by going to the site yourself but by reading about in a reputable journal or other source. That is not considered primary. Tamil literature as interpreted by a reputable historian could be used. The same applies to epigrams. Presumabley you are not looking at the epigrams and interpreting them yourself. You are, hopefully, relying on a reputable scholar, academician or historian to evaluate, analyze and interpret the sources. See Indian inscriptions, Indian copper plate inscriptions, hero stone, etc. In terms of "Tamil country", I have edited many India articles and have not seen the term. For a FAC, you are writing for the "average reader", a non-Indian reader who could be from any country. Therefore, you want to use words and terms that the general reader understands, or else be sure to explain clearly what you mean in the article. For some articles, like the Hoysala architecture article, I created many sub articles to explain all the terms in it. In FAC, the editors demanded either that or an explanation in the article. --Mattisse 23:10, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

That's an important point: if you let me know what terminology or usages would be unclear to an average non-Indian reader, I will try and do the needful. Let me see what I can do to clarify the 'Tamil country' a bit. As for the sources, I think we are on the same page. Let me restate this for closure: Archaeological items and epigraphs, just like archaic poetry, are considered primary sources only if the editor personally looks at them and interprets them in wikipedia. Which is why the policy says we need to be careful about allowing that kind of interpretation. But, if an editor reads about them (including, literature such as poems) in reliable publications and use these publications to write in wikipedia, we are using secondary sources, which is good (and recommended). I think you would agree that this article has been sourced only from secondary sources, let me know if you think otherwise. Do you still think the Sources section would have content-related issues at FAC? Lotlil 23:47, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Poetry is in a different category than archeology. Poetry is an art and is not meant to be a faithful rendering of reality but rather the artist's unique conception. Archeology aims to be a science. There are rules in archeology for establishing dates etc. Art and science are in different categories. Although history is not a hard science, it is a social science. A historian does not render his personal conception of reality, but must support his/her conclusions with references etc. An artist does not have to do that, and in fact if an artist did do that it would no longer be considered art. An artist has "artistic license" in the writing of poetry or prose. It is like the difference between history and the film version of history that does not have to stick to the facts. --Mattisse 00:04, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

But what about a reputable modern-day historian, deducing information from poetry (obviously you can assume he has separated the wheat from the chaff)? We should be able to use his account reliably? Lotlil 00:08, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Reputable modern day historians do not deduce information from poetry alone, never. They may do a history of art or literature but they do not deduce information from poetry. If they did they would not be reputable. That would be like a Greek historian "deducing" the history of Greece from Greek mythology. Do you think Greek mythology is an accurate representation of Greece history? That does not mean that Greek mythology is not important or does not provide information. But it cannot be used to write a history of civilization in Greece. --Mattisse 00:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, that's the "separating the wheat from the chaff" I was referring to: one would hope the scholarly accounts have been arrived at by synthesising material from multiple sources. But, to get back on track, is there any action that needs to be taken with the article's content or tone, for exameple? I think I've made it clear what the various primary sources are and made sure that ALL claims in the article are sufficiently cited from scholarly secondary sources. Any part that you think needs more references, pl. let me know. Lotlil 02:42, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) I think the sources section is way too long and contains general information like this:

Among literary sources in other languages, the most informative ones are Greek and Roman accounts of the maritime trade between the Roman empire and the kingdoms of Tamilakam. Strabo and Pliny give the details of the trade route between the Red Sea coast and the western coast of South India. Strabo (ca. 1st century BCE) mentions the embassies sent by the Pandyas to the court of Augustus, along with a description of the ambassadors. Pliny (ca. 77 CE) talks about the different items imported by the Romans from India and complains about the financial drain caused by them. He also refers to many Tamil ports in his work The Natural History. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (c. 60 - 100 CE) an anonymous work, gives an elaborate description of the Tamil country and the riches of a 'Pandian Kingdom'.

Also, this paragraph is not sourced. We have to take your word for it. A way of including this is describe some specific details that Pliny or Strabo give and then source the material, e.g. what book etc. Just saying Pliny said this or that won't fly. Look at Orion (mythology) which uses old sources. The editor fought with FAC but finally changed the way he referenced material.

I have removed some POV. There is a very strange reference regarding agriculture: "They live who live to plough and eat; The rest behind them bow and eat.” It is a reference to the following sentence: "Agriculture was the main occupation of the ancient Tamils and the most respected." How does this explain that agriculture was the main occupation and the most respected?

The tone is good except for a few statements and some words sound incorrect for what I think you mean. Calling agriculture a vocation -- a calling like to priesthood -- was that the way agriculture was? A person either was inspired to farm or became something else instead? Also, saying the government had a tax scheme makes them sound like shady crooks scheming rather than administrators implementing a tax structure, unless you mean the goverment was on the crooked side. The lead is too short right now and does not summarize the article. Read WP:LEAD. The lead is supposed to summarize the whole article, so you have to include summary statements about sources and every other major topic you cover.

The article needs to be organized more tightly so that everything to do with one topic is together in one place, rather than scattered through the article.

Those are the things I can think of right now. I do want to mention that if you want to take it to FAC, there needs to be a lead person, you perhaps. The FAC will only deal with one person in their review and they expect replies from only on person. Regards, --Mattisse 14:31, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Sure, I can be the point of contact when we take it to FAC (but looks like that's going to be after a while, I see much more work to be done still). I will continue to work on issues you find and note here (preferably, in one section may be call it Suggestions or something like that). Lotlil 14:47, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Footnotes

At one point you have seven (7) footnotes. The FAC editors will go through the roof! --Mattisse 00:13, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I counted eight, actually :) I thought the statement being cited was a pretty big assertion and needs to be backed up appropriately (I do remember seeing such overly cited statements in FAs elsewhere). I will try and spread them out. Lotlil 02:47, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Agriculture

So you are saying that working in agriculture was more respected than being a military leader, a brahmin teacher, writer, poet, king, warrior, temple priest, diamond merchant etc.? --Mattisse 00:31, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Not me, the sources say so.Lotlil 02:49, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Copy edit

Why don't you look at what I have done so far and decide whether you want me to continue. Regards, Mattisse 14:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions

Have you read Wikipedia:Featured article criteria? Also, the article must comply with the Wikipedia:Manual of Style and Wikipedia:Summary style. Regards, --Mattisse 14:54, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I did. But, if you find anything not in accordance with policy, let me know. Lotlil 15:14, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the sources section, I think you should remove most of it. Can you find other articles that deal with the economy of an ancient civilization to model after? Or find India articles on ancient civilizations and see how they deal with the sources issue? I'll look around and see what I can find. The way it is now it dominates the article as it is by far the largest section in the article. --Mattisse 16:43, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Give me a couple of days to straighten out the sources section, I think I can remove a lot of fat from it and bring it inline with the other sections. During the peer-review, I was specifically asked to include this section. One thing we could do is move it to be the last section of the article. What do you think? Lotlil 16:49, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think putting it at the end would be better. --Mattisse 16:58, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

• History of Tamil Nadu - this article deals partly with ancient history and is a Feature Article. It has good sources for the ancient history and is candid about what is really known and what can be speculated. --Mattisse 17:06, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

• Brāhmī script
• Tamil-Brahmi
• Indian inscriptions
• Edicts of Ashoka
• Halmidi inscription
• Radiocarbon dating
• Thermoluminescence dating
• Hathigumpha inscription

There is some article (which at this moment I cannot find) that explains about radio-carbon dating and so forth. Sources of ancient Tamil history while not an excellent article, does point out the perils of taking literature literally -- that literature is fanciful and presents an ideal world. It is the use of radio-carbon dating that has opened the world to archaeology which is more scientific and reliable. The problem is that for generations, literature was relied on for information about ancient cultures, but in the last twenty years there has been very important scientific breakthroughs. --Mattisse 17:32, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I think I'm losing you again. It's beyond question that archaeology and inscriptions are way more reliable than literature, if that's what you want to explain with the links. Yes, literature is art and subject to misleading, even wrong, portrayals. But isn't all of this common knowledge that the historians would be aware of? We are only relying on their scholary interpretations, without deciphering any archaic poems ourselves, right? Now, like you rightly pointed out above, if we use poetry to say agriculture is the most respected occupation, we are doing origingal research. And, I agree such statements should be removed, or at least qualified appropriately. Also, like I have mentioned in the sub-article, no historian would give an all-encompassing legitamacy to the entire body of Tamil literature. They point out there are portrayals of idealism. But, they don't stop at that: they do say there are sections of literature that seem to be in line with what we understand from other sources and hence some of the descriptions seem to be real.

As an example, let's say archaeological surveys have unearthed different kinds of seeds from a certain site - say of x,y,z crops. The archeologist proposes in a published paper that this proves people of that region grew x,y and z crops in that time period. And, let's say, contemporary literature mentions that those people grew x,y,z,a,b,c and d crops in this region, with possible hyperbole of how there were mountains of produce yielded by the fertile lands. It may be unfortunate that archaeology doesn't support the growing of a,b,c and d crops. But the literary claim about people having grown them isn't so out of place. So, if a reputable historian choses to give legitimacy to this tidbit from literature and makes a sober assertion ignoring the hyperbole, that all these crops were grown, I don't think he's way out of line. Even more so, when there are multiple historians agreeing with this interpretation.

Which is why I think, to address POV concerns, we should present the sources that the historians themselves have used (mentioning unequivocally that the major source is literature) and let the reader make up their minds about the legitamacy of the account. But, then, I need to make sure the section itself doesn't distract them too much from the subject matter. Lotlil 18:35, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) It depends when it was written—before or after the newer methods were discovered. But you do what you want. It is your article. --Mattisse 19:23, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Copy-edit and MOS

En dashes, not hyphens, for page and year ranges. No dots at the end of captions that are not complete sentences. Please audit for overlinking, especially common words and repetitions (looks messy and dilutes the important links). The huge runs of references (eight in a row) are just over the top: can you ration them? Tony 08:51, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, I'll fix these issues. Lotlil 13:51, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Who's your paddy?

"The Tamils cultivated paddy, sugarcane..." Maybe I'm being finicky, but, since when is "paddy" a crop? TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 08:55, 29 July 2009 (UTC)