Talk:Muhammad Sani

Reliability

I do not think that the used sources comply with WP:HISTRS. Commenting on each source:

International Journal of Research is a journal which is not indexed in any database of repute. Not in UGC Care either, which seems to be India's Beall's List.

Naorem Sanajaoba is notoriously unreliable. He had his academic training in law, a questionable doctorate, and wrote works favoring the Meitei nationalists.

Ahamad Nazir's thesis is from Manipur University, which seems to be a bottom-tier university in India.

A.C. Chowdhury's book is from 1910, about 120 years ago. The contours of historiography have undergone a drastic transformation in the last century.

Neither is Tingneichong G. Kipgen a reputed scholar nor is Kalpaz, a reputed publication house for the social sciences. I fail to spot any review that might help us in gauging the quality of her work.

The same applies for Salam Irene. But at-least, she is an ex-faculty of Manipur University.

I cannot read Bengali but Syed Murtaza Ali had his academic training in physics and was a man of literature (per our article). How can we evaluate his expertise and reliability as a historian?

Will be happy to be proved wrong. TrangaBellam (talk) 16:53, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm honestly not seeing much of an issue in terms of the reliability of the cited sources and their authors:

• "Bottom tier" seems like quite a harsh designation for Manipur University; as per that news article you cited, it is still in the country's top 150 institutions. I would also be very hesitant about dismissing the value of Manipur State's only fully-fledged university when we're talking about a figure from Manipuri history.
• Salam Irene, as you had said, was ex-faculty at Manipur University, having been a Professor at the Department of History.
• Md. Chingiz Khan, who wrote that International Journal of Research article, is a Research Scholar at the Centre for Historical Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
• Tingneichong G. Kipgen, along with having a Masters and Ph.D, is a Lecturer at the Department of History, G.P. Women's College, Manipur.
• Syed Murtaza Ali may have had his degree in Physics, but we must bear in mind that he subsequently became one of Bangladesh's most prominent historians. This has been noted both by other academics (such as by Professor Subir Kar, Head of the Bengali Department at Assam University[1]) and Ali's former colleagues at the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh[2], where he had previously served as President.
• I don't think there's anything in WP:HISTRS which advises against using older sources such as Achyut Charan Choudhury's work? I also note that similarly aged sources are used in Featured articles, such as Demosthenes and Thomas the Slav, suggesting that there isn't community consensus against them purely based on age.
  Alivardi (talk) 00:01, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

• There's a prohibition on using Raj-era sources in articles on South Asian History.
• Non-indexed journals are not used because they are usually predatory.
• How aware are you about the production of history in Manipur? Read Ray, Sohini (2015). "Boundaries Blurred? Folklore, Mythology, History and the Quest for an Alternative Genealogy in North-east India". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 25 (2): 262–265. ISSN 1356-1863. and Brandt, Carmen (2018-01-02). "Writing off domination: the Chakma and Meitei script movements". South Asian History and Culture. 9 (1): 116–140. doi:10.1080/19472498.2017.1411050. ISSN 1947-2498. to understand the perils of using native scholars (including stuff associated with Manipur University) in an uncritical fashion. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:43, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

@TrangaBellam: As far as I'm aware, there isn't any blanket prohibition against using a native historian who happened to have been alive during that century of British rule. Regarding the potential dismissal of what appear to be appropriately-qualified academics based on their choice of publisher or potential inherent biases, such a discussion would be beyond my expertise. However, my own understanding is that the cited authors are enough for Wikipedia's traditional reliability requirements. Is there good reason to believe otherwise?
Alivardi (talk) 19:20, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

There is indeed a blanket prohibition. Some administrator had linked to it. I need some time to dig it out.

The two articles (follow bibliography for more leads) make the problems clear. Please read them. [I am obviously not suggesting that we discount them entirely.] TrangaBellam (talk) 19:40, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

@TrangaBellam: Some administrator had linked to it. I need some time to dig it out. Please do. And unless there is reason to believe there are ethno-bias issues with these specific sources, I'm not sure there's much to discuss about this.
Alivardi (talk) 20:01, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

See this thread by two administrators. It is generally accepted that all publications from Raj-era (by British historians or Indian ones) suffer from ample biases and might not be used. If the topic is indeed significant, some scholar-of-repute would have worked on it in the last 100 years or so.

Sohini Ray and Caroline Brandt are not talking about specific scholars but about the general scape of history production in Manipur. Sohini Ray, in particular describes Manipur University holding seminars to historicize legends etc.

Hence, can you care to explain your insistence on source-specific criticisms? Especially when there exists no source-specific praise (reviews).

GScholar shows that Kipgen's work has been cited eight times, of which only one is reliable in itself. Chingiz Khan's paper or Nazir Ahmad's thesis have not been cited at all. TrangaBellam (talk) 20:14, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

I cannot check your citations about Syed Murtaza Ali but it's not for a professor of language to evaluate a historian. For one of Bangladesh's most prominent historians, the usual databases of social-sciences contains a single review of his work (1) and it does not paint a convincing picture. The article over Banglapedia identifies him as a writer and not as a historian. It does not sing any paeans about him being a historian, anywhere across the body. TrangaBellam (talk) 21:03, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

@TrangaBellam: It is generally accepted that all publications from Raj-era (by British historians or Indian ones) suffer from ample biases and might not be used. I haven't spotted anything about native historians who had happened to have lived during the British period being barred. Perhaps ping the admins involved to see if that was their intended meaning?

If the topic is indeed significant, some scholar-of-repute would have worked on it in the last 100 years or so. Who says it hasn't been? The Choudhury source is only used by half a sentence out of the entire article. The majority of the other sources are from the last decade or so.

the general scape of history production in Manipur. Sohini Ray, in particular describes Manipur University holding seminars to historicize legends Perhaps open a discussion on a relevant Wikiproject about this concern regarding alleged inherent ethno-bias issues? Because I am really not understanding the view that every Manipuri scholar should be viewed as potentially biased and it sounds like something that would need community evaluation. Especially since, if you are in fact correct, this is something which could apply to most articles involving Manipuri history.

can you care to explain your insistence on source-specific criticisms? Especially when there exists no source-specific praise Praise isn't a requirement for a source to be viewed as reliable here. And frankly, the presence of bias in an academic work seems more likely to be commented on than a dearth of it.

GScholar shows that Kipgen's work has been cited eight times, of which only one is reliable in itself. Chingiz Khan's paper or Nazir Ahmad's thesis have not been cited at all. Again, not a requirement.

it's not for a professor of language to evaluate a historian As per WP:HISTRS: "other scholars and reliable sources will typically use the descriptive label historian to refer to an historian."
Alivardi (talk) 21:27, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Far experienced editors than me (with many featured articles) have used citation-count as a tool to (rightfully) judge the relative quality (or lack of it) of scholarship. We can't use anything and everything written by some random Joe (and published via vanity presses), just because they have academic qualifications. See WP:SPS. WP:NOTRS applies to all sources whose publishers lack meaningful editorial oversight.

I am thinking about opening a community discussion, indeed.

Your quote from HISTRS does not make any sense. Non-expert sources asserting someone to be a reputed historian, does not make them one. TrangaBellam (talk) 21:42, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Alivardi, please read User:Sitush/Common#Gyan. Irene Salam's book is published by Kalpaz. Do you need even more evidence? TrangaBellam (talk) 17:42, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

@TrangaBellam: Sitush's message stated that the issue was with copied content. I don't really see how that applies here when the author of the text we're talking about is an accredited professor of history. Honestly, I kinda lost the plot with this discussion after you dismissed the validity of WP:HISTRS, the very first thing you cited in your initial message. I therefore no longer believe that continuing the discussion as we currently are will be useful to resolving our disagreement. I've placed a request for an impartial third opinion. I hope this can help us reach an amicable solution.
Alivardi (talk) 20:43, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Sitush notes Books published by [...] Kalpaz Publications [...], are never, under any circumstances, allowed as sources in Wikipedia articles. The author of the first book mentioned by Sritush (Aditya Pandey) is an university lecturer and holds a Masters. Such "copying of content" (without proper practices) can only mean that the publisher has no meaningful editorial oversight, which makes it a questionable or unreliable source.

Where did I dismiss HISTRS? I dismissed your frivolous application of HISTRS to claim that professors of Bengali literature can indeed evaluate the merits (and demerits) of historians. I will wait for the third opinion. TrangaBellam (talk) 20:49, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Prospective Third Opinion

I saw this listed at Third Opinion where I'm a frequent volunteer. This is not a 3O given under that project, however, and I've not read the foregoing discussion thoroughly as I would if I were going to give a 3O. But I just want to note this: HISTRS is an essay, not a policy or guideline, and has no binding or guiding effect whatsoever. Indeed, every effort to promote it to being a policy or guideline has been rejected by the community (by not obtaining consensus for such a promotion). To the extent that the opposition to the listed sources is dependent on HISTRS, that dependency is *at the very best* an adoption of the arguments made in HISTRS that certain sources should or should not be deemed reliable. But to the extent that those arguments are for standards that don't already exist in the "regular" reliability rules, then they've not been accepted by the community. I'm not giving an opinion on this because I was one of the main opponents to that essay becoming a policy or guideline. If there are issues involving whether the listed sources are reliable under our regular existing standards, the best place to do that is at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 16:46, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

@TransporterMan: Thank you for your reply. It's starting to look unlikely that we're gonna recieve a response on our 3O request. If no one does so in the next couple days (after which the request is supposed to be removed), I'll create a discussion on WP:RSN.
Alivardi (talk) 19:40, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

Another Non-Response to Third Opinion

This is a probably non-useful response to the request for a Third Opinion on the quality of the sources. Is there a better source available that an editor wants to use? Is any specific part of the article in dispute? The purpose of content dispute resolution should be to improve the article. Is there a specific portion of the article that the filing editor wants to change or delete? Or does the filing editor want to delete the article? What exactly is the article content issue? Robert McClenon (talk) 14:17, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

User:TrangaBellam, User:Alivardi - I see a comment that an inquiry may be posted at the reliable source noticeboard. Would the inquiry be about one of the sources, or about all of the sources? It appears to me that RSN addresses the reliability of a particular source, rather than asking whether all of the sources for an article are unreliable. Do you plan to question each of the sources separately? Robert McClenon (talk) 14:30, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Is there any specific portion of the article whose accuracy is being questioned? Robert McClenon (talk) 14:30, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Specific sources. Which includes all of the sources, currently used. TrangaBellam (talk) 15:09, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Fluency in Urdu

This sentence from the article is problematic:

“He was also one of the Pongba Tara, the ten ministers who assisted the king in administration, and was further entrusted with translating correspondence from Taraf due to his fluency in Bengali and Urdu.”

It is well-attested that Taraf is and was a Bengali-speaking area, but there is no evidence for the presence of Urdu in Taraf during the time of Sani (early 17th century). What we do know about Taraf is that it was a literary centre for Persian instead, especially during this period. It was only in 1837 that Urdu was chosen by the British East India Company as the language to replace Persian; Persian had until this point served as the court language of most kingdoms and fiefdoms in this region. It is safe to say that Urdu was not developed to what it would later be, during the time of Sani. The author must have confused Urdu with Persian. UserNumber (talk) 14:01, 4 April 2022 (UTC)