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User:Mukerjee

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Brown Rock Chat. Has been recorded in perfect mimicry of the calls of several species. Occasionally nests in rafters of inhabited houses.

I started on Wikipedia in May 2004, and had some 4,200 edits upto 2013, when I semi-retired. Most of my edits are large-scale text changes, often "merciless" makeovers of poorly-organized articles. I usually try to preserve earlier facts, but add new matter - usually with tons of online citations, esp for BOLP.

Today, I sometimes forget I had edited a page and it is startling to recognize my text while browsing.

Why Wikipedia "revert" policies don't help Wikipedia

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In my long history at Wikipedia, I rarely reverted anyone. I feel that if the other person has added content, some form of it deserves to be there. So I usually edit parts of their content into my text. I feel this type of editing is more in the interests of Wikipedia. However, there are very few editors who bother to edit text. There are too many reverters. Supposing I make a 2000 char edit, even if some part is not to your liking, it would not be appropriate to revert the whole thing. But this is an everyday occurrence here...

I feel that the revert rules should restrict reverts to malicious or hijack attempts. Serious edits, with "good faith" content should be re-edited into the text, and NEVER deleted. This Wikipedia:Assume good faith rule exists, but needs to be strengthened. In any event, I would rather add content than go into the elaborate conflict-resolution process of wikipedia decision-making to get reverts fixed or whatever.

Also I feel that tags should be restricted. There are too many tagging editors in Wikipedia, who specialize in tags such as "uncategorized" or "poorly written", "has no article linking it" etc. What I don't understand is why they don't just add the categories or some citations themselves. It takes nearly as much time, I would say!

Attachment to our own text on wikipedia

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Another thing that surprises me is the extent to which we editors remain attached to our "public-domain" text. Wikipedia policy (pillar three) clearly says that all text "will be mercilessly edited". But in practice, we all have our egos, which is part of why we work on wikipedia. In fact, wikipedia policy realizes this, which is why one informs the article creator and others about big changes.

After many wikipedia battles, these days I rarely track the articles I edited, though I keep getting notices that some article I had created is slated for "speedy deletion" or whatever. Fortunately, in most situations other editors find the sense not to delete these.

Also, I have often found other editors who have battled the revert wars on my edits. I can cite the article on Abhishek Mishra (thanks, User:Meters and User:Shriram) or on P. N. Oak, where User:Paul Barlow is still keeping the wolves at bay (hats off to your perseverance!).

But many other edits are quietly reverted. e.g. in Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, an entire section on "2G Spectrum Scam Arrests and Chargesheets" was anonymously deleted, along with 12 citations. The removed summary paragraph will tell you why:

ADAG group flagship company Reliance Communications was named in February 2011 for having provided favours to DMK minister A. Raja and others in exchange for a hugely discounted spectrum license in the 2G scam[5]. The company was chargesheeted in April 2011, and senior VP Surendra Pipara, VP Hari Nair, and group MD Gautam Doshi were arrested for bribery and denied bail[6]. Anil Ambani visited the executives in Tihar jail in June[7].

Similarly the article on Indian navy secrets leak accused Ravi Shankaran, someone has deleted the sentences

Shankaran is a retired naval officer and the nephew of the wife of Admiral Arun Prakash. At the time of the leak, Prakash was head of the Indian navy. ... Ravi's mother, Malati Shankaran, was the admiral's wife's sister[3]. As the admiral's nephew (and as a retired navy officer) Ravi Shankaran was a regular invitee to the Arun Prakash's house [4].

Semi-retirement from Wikipedia

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I find revert wars and firefights very draining. Quite often one comes across revert tsars, who feel they own an article, and keep reverting well-researched content along with lots of inline citations.

What I find particularly irritating is how revert tsars do not bother to edit the document but simply revert out large swathes of content. This has happened to me repeatedly.

Most recently, I introduced, in one go, a long table with 403 winning candidates in the Uttar Pradesh elections 2012. It was about half the article. The page for the Uttar Pradesh Elections 2007 had a similar table of winning candidates. In fact, the new table compared the new results with the old, constituency by constituency, which was very painstakingly done, since most of the election areas had changed after a population reassessment, all of which i had documented with citations.

A month after a talk page debate, and seemingly accepting the change and making some edits on the enlarged version, the earlier editor suddenly reverted to his months-old version, claiming that consensus had not been reached. I did not wish to continue the war, so wikipedia now has an impoverished version without any list of winning candidates. You can use [1] if you need to see the candidates.

Since this event in 2012, I have more or less withdrawn from Wikipedia. Whereas I used to create tens of articles every month, I edit now only when I am really impelled towards a topic.

A sad wiki war narrative: Johannes Gutenberg

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In October 2006, the Gutenberg article said in the lead sentence:

Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg was a German goldsmith and inventor who achieved fame for his invention of the technology of with (sic) movable types during 1447.

By then it was well-known that movable type and printing in China pre-dated Gutenberg by several centuries, and these ideas may have osmos-ed west during the Mongol Empire. Movable type was documented in China four centuries before Gutenberg, and an iron printing press in Korea two centuries back. Thus, calling Gutenberg the "inventor of movable type" seemed like eurocentricism.

At the time when I started editing, the Johannes Gutenberg article becamme very active - about 100 edits per month. From Oct 1 to Oct 18, the article had grown by 0.7KB to 14.6KB. In my edit of Oct 19, I added 4K of text, 10 citations from three new references, re-did the entire lead and almost every part of the article.

My lead sentence went:

[JG] a German goldsmith and inventor who was believed to have invented the technology of printing with movable types in 1447, but it turns out this technology was known in Korea at least in 1234.

I completely re-did the section Printing: the Invention of Movable Type in Europe calling it "Printing in Asia and in Europe", and added many details documenting East Asian priority in inventing printing. The edit was promptly reverted:

05:23, October 19, 2006‎ Dicklyon‎ (14,622 bytes) (rv; too much of a change to do without discussion) (undo)

I protested on the talk page, arguing that wikipedia supports "bold" changes, and

11:18, October 19, 2006‎ Mukerjee‎ m (18,290 bytes) (reverted to Mukerjee Oct 18. Please address the issues on the talk page and MERGE the changes; don't blindly revert) (undo)

Then I went on to re-edit the entire article, added many parts to the sections on life, removed random speculations - etc. I was supported by some of the editors (e.g. DGG).

But I kept getting reverted with remarks like:

Mukerjee, you've done it again. A huge wide-ranging edit of all sections, each edit apparently designed to make sure that Gutenberg doesn't get much if any credit for his invention... I reverted the lot because it was impossible to see what all to consider based on the huge diff. Try again, piece by piece... (Oct26)

I kept up a lone battle, fighting half a dozen editors on the talk page, and in related articles such as the History of Typography. I even went to the village pump arguing that histories of technology could not be Euro-centric. Eventually I got the title of that article changed to "history of western typography".

Within a month (nov 18), Johannes Gutenberg had doubled to 28K, with 16 citations (up from 6). I dare say the language was far more crisp than the present version. 12 new citations had been added by me, to document a range of details about his life, and subsections on his printing press, the court case he lost, his later life. I also added a section Gutenberg's method of printing with movable type with a nuanced discussion on the lack of detail and questions raised about whether JG's types were made from reusable moulds. Five years on, most of my text in these sections still remain.

The lead sentence after my last nov 27 edit went:

Johannes [Gutenberg] ... was a German goldsmith and inventor credited with inventing movable type printing in Europe (ca. 1450).

Was Gutenberg influenced by East Asian printing?

Main article: History of typography in East Asia

Since the use of printing from movable type arose in East Asia well before it did in Europe, it is relevant to ask whether Gutenberg may have been influenced, directly or indirectly, by the Korean or Chinese discoveries of movable type printing, or their earlier discoveries of block printing.

This question is particularly relevant since it is becoming increasingly accepted that European woodblock printing was derived from processes perfected in China. In Joseph Needham's Science and Civilization in China a chapter on Paper and Printing suggests that "European block printers must not only have seen Chinese samples, but perhaps had been taught by missionaries or others who had learned these un-European methods from Chinese printers during their residence in China." [1]

Movable types made from clay were introduced in China by Bi Sheng, between 1041 to 1048. Cast metal movable type was introduced during the Goryeo dynasty of Korea and is associated with Chae Yun-eui (around 1230).[2] A set of ritual books, Sangjong Gogeum Yemun were printed with the movable metal type in 1234.[3] The oldest surviving book printed with movable type is from Korea, dated 1377[4].

By the 1300s the Mongol Empire stretched from Korea to Damascus and Kiev, and movable type printing radiated westward out of Korea. Among the people known to have used movable type are the Uighurs of Central Asia, whose written script was adopted for the Mongol script. There has been considerable conjecture whether some news of this technology, if not printed samples, had reached Europe, e.g. in this article[5] by Tom Christensen :

What is certain, however, is that printing with movable wooden type is documented from the eleventh century; that printing with movable metal type had been an active enterprise in Korea since 1234; that other printing technologies had Asian origins and were subsequently transmitted to the West; that a single empire (the Mongol khanates) stretched from Korea to Europe through much of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, facilitating cross-cultural exchange across a large region; that there was considerable East-West travel, contact, and exchange during this period; that the written record of such contacts records only a fraction of what actually occurred; and that there was awareness of Asian printing in Europe in the centuries before Gutenberg....[but] as Eva Hanebutt-Benz properly observes, “We do not know if Johannes Gutenberg had any kind of knowledge of the fact that long before his invention printing with moveable type was done in East-Asia.”

However, there were key differences between the European technologies and that in Korea. Gutenberg used a press, unlike in East Asia, oil-based inks, and other devices that were significantly different. Whatever the facts regarding Asian influences in this invention, there can be no doubt about Gutenberg's genius in putting together the technologies that eventually went on to fuel the European renaissance.[6]

  1. ^ Tsien, Tsuen-Hsuin (1985). "part one, vol.5". In Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, (ed.). Paper and Printing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
  2. ^ Baek Sauk Gi (1987). Woong-Jin-Wee-In-Jun-Gi #11 Jang Young Sil, page 61. Woongjin Publishing.
  3. ^ Kim, Kumja Paik (2003). Goryeo Dynasty: Korea's Age of Enlightenment, 918–1392. San Francisco: Asian Art Museum.
  4. ^ Michael Twyman, The British Library Guide to Printing: History and Techniques, London: The British Library, 1998 [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0802081797&id=KXoaalwyOjAC&pg=PA21&lpg=PA21&dq=korea+gutenberg+surviving&sig=4QBhy9ty1jbXJASJcUzFBDfKbGo online]
  5. ^ Thomas Christensen (2007). "Did East Asian Printing Traditions Influence the European Renaissance?". Arts of Asia Magazine (to appear). Retrieved 2006-10-18.
  6. ^ Man, John, Gutenberg: How One Man Remade the World with Word (2002) pp.166-7, Wiley, ISBN 0-471-21823-5.

I did not agree with the view of "inventing X in Europe". I mean, how should there be as many inventors as there are regions in the world? But this was the consensus then.

But when a large chunk of an associated edit in the History of Typography article was removed to create a new article on History of printing in East Asia, and even the editors who had sided with me earlier agreed on this, I thought I would simply stop editing on wikipedia. Though I came back later, i haven't edited any article related to printing since then.

Eurocentric Bias

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In particular, a section I had added, _Was Gutenberg influenced by East Asian printing_, was vehemently opposed for demeaning Gutenberg's "invention". It was removed many times, and others kept bringing it back, saying it was relevant and had been agreed on on the talk page.

On Feb 8, 2007, the entire section on _influence of East Asian printing_ was deleted by the most rabid of the three editor i was debating. Along with this section, more than a quarter of the article's citations were deleted.

I am not going back to edit the article, but i feel that some of what i had said then would still enrich the article, so i am quoting here what I had on my last-ever JG edit, from Nov 27, 2006

Revisiting Gutenberg October 2011

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After many years, I chanced upon the Johannes Gutenberg page today. I found that the lead does not refer to him as "inventor of printing". After some poorly constructed language, it reads:

His usage of movable type printing started the Printing Revolution.

Thus it posits Gutenberg as an "user" of movable type, not as its "inventor". This is the very point is one on which I had fought my bitterest battle on wikipedia, in 2007.

I am not sure if my rants about it on this talk page may have contributed to this reassessment - though most likely its just l'air du temps.

Wikipedia Fatigue

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Today, looking around at editors from my early days, I realize I am somewhat of a survivor on wikipedia; while dozens of old-timers are still around, hundreds of other editors seem to have given up and disappeared.

And people wonder what causes "wikipedia fatigue"(volunteers log off as wikipedia ages, WSJ).

Articles

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  • = new article created


Birds

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Bank Myna* (+Photo) Barred Buttonquail Black-throated Weaver* Black-winged Cuckoo-shrike Blue-headed rock thrush Brahminy Myna (+Photo) Brown Rock Chat* (+ Photo; Wikipedia DYK) Common Hawk-cuckoo Common Kingfisher Coppersmith Barbet Hill Myna Long-tailed Shrike Munia Passenger Pigeon Purple Swamphen Red-wattled Lapwing (+Photo) Sand Lark* (Photo needed) Sirkeer Malkoha Ultramarine Flycatcher White-eyed Buzzard

Culture

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Bansuri Baul Darbari Kanada* Dennis the Menace Durga Puja Durga Fatwa Freedom of the press Lady Tennant Stradivarius Mahishasura Monsoon Wedding Music of Bengal Radio France Internationale Sahitya Akademi Sanskrit College Shrinking penis Stradivarius Taranga (Jain Temple) Thaat The Shadow Lines Thumri Villanelle Whistleblower

History

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Kipchaks Blood In The Water match List of largest empires Merkit Moken Mongol Empire Movable type Printing press Salesians of Don Bosco Typography White Phosphorus

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BMW case Battle of Plassey Bofors scandal Category:Indian criminal-politicians Category:Indian mobsters Central Bureau of Investigation Ganga Canal Golden Quadrangle Road Network Guest Keen Williams Hindu calendar Indian Railways Indian calendar Indian law Jainism Mass media in India Sino-Indian War Tandoor University of calcutta

Mysore Palace. Image taken at dusk during Dasara festival 2006

Linguistics

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Abugida Abahatta Agglutinative language Apabhrangsha Assimilation Bangla Categorization Chagatai language Indian Sign Language History of the Hindi language Indo-Pakistani Sign Language Language Movement Linguistic Relativism List of alphabets List of languages by number of native speakers List of sign languages List of writing systems Maithili language Metonymy Middle Indo-Aryan Morphemic Prabhakara* Prototype Theory Sakatayana* Sanskrit Sanskrit Grammarian Sapir–Whorf hypothesis Shiva Sutra Valency (linguistics) Vyakarana


Mathematics, Science, Logic

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Degrees of freedom (engineering) Fibonacci number Food fortification Gopala-Hemachandra number Hemachandra number Indian Logic Magnetic capacitivity Micromineral Micronutrient Mirror neuron Navya Nyaya Spherical trigonometry Yawn

People

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Recent edits

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Before 2007

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Acharya Hemachandra Adil Shah Suri Adityanath Yogi Amarmani Tripathi Amitav Ghosh Annasaheb M.K. Patil Arun Gawli Arvind Kejriwal Aryabhata Ata al-Mulk Juvayni Atique Ahamad Bahadur Shah II Banarasidas Bao Ninh Baudhayana Bikram Grewal* Bimal Krishna Matilal Chae Yun-ui* Chhatrapal Singh Lodha* Christian Baldensberger Dara Singh (murderer) Dharam Pal Yadav* Dinesh Das* Edward L. Thorndike Genghis Khan Gopala* Harcharan Singh Balli* Hazrat muhammad Hemanta Kumar Mukhopadhyay J. C. Daniel* Jatindramohan Bagchi* Jean Hélène* Jessica Lall Jibananda Das Johannes Gutenberg John Clark Marshman John Maxwell Coetzee Juvayni Kabir Suman Katyayana Kazi Nazrul Islam Kumarapala L. Subramaniam Manu Sharma Maqbool Bhat Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Mikhail Bakhtin Mir Qasim Mir Taqi Mir Narendra Kumar Kushwaha Nawab Akbar Bugti Nitish Katara Ottavio Quattrocchi Otto Pfister (naturalist)* Phoolan Devi Pranab Mukherjee Priyadarshini Mattoo Rabindranath Tagore Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Rashid al-Din Ronu Majumdar Salman Rushdie Sanjeev Nanda Satyendra Dubey Shanmughan Manjunath Suman Chatterjee* Sunil Gangopadhyay Surjit Singh Barnala Uljetu Vachaspati Mishra Vachaspati Veerapandiyan Kattabomman Veerappan Venod Sharma Vidyapati Vijay Singh Virahanka*

Places

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Ballygunge Bara Imambara Beit Lahia Bengal Bhagirathi River Bithoor Buddhas of Bamiyan Dagdi Chawl Delhi Ganges River Ghaghara River Greenland Hooghly River Ib Kalpi Kanpur Lake McDonald Lod Munger Musa Qala Mysore Palace Mâcon Nathu La Nawabgunj Bird Sanctuary New Delhi Onderbanken Onondaga, Michigan Palashi Panama Canal Sarayu Son River Varanasi Vinh Long

Writing Philosophy

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Kenneth Clark, writing of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica,

It must be the last encyclopædia in the tradition of Diderot which assumes that information can be made memorable only when it is slightly coloured by prejudice.

I couldn't agree more. However, this prejudice that Clark is talking about is more idiosyncratic rather than sectarian, it is more of an intellectual bias which is of a personal nature, which makes the writing that bit more interesting. After all, among the authors of the eleventh edition was Bertrand Russell, whose History of Western Philosophy reflects extremely personal views bordering on cantankerousness (e.g. against Aristotle), which one reads with abandonment and delight. It is Russell who produced this wry comment contrasting Animal Behaviour studies by Edward Thorndike and Wolfgang Koehler:

"All of the animals that have been carefully observed...have all displayed the national characteristics of the observer. Animals studied by Americans rush about frantically, with an incredible display of hustle and pep, and at last achieve the desired result by chance. Animals observed by Germans sit stiff and think, and at last evolve the solution out of their inner consciousness." [If a Lion Could Talk: Animal Intelligence and the Evolution of Consciousness, by Stephen Budiansky]]

Let's raise a glass to fun-to-read idiosyncratic writing, within the NPOV framework.

Translations

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Must reflect what the author might have said had he been with us today. Translation is a shift, not only in language (space), but also in time.

I also contribute to the বাংলা wikipedia [2]

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