Talk:Tuhin Sinha

Wikimedia Foundation court case

Mention of the court case has now been in and out of the article a few times.

When I originally added it, it was sourced to Lawbeat. Yesterday, User:X-Editor inserted it using Sinha's own article as the source. Overall, the following press articles have mentioned the dispute (listed in descending order of acceptance as a source in Wikipedia):

1. "Page Not Found: Why I Sued Wikipedia", news18.com, 20 October 2022 (by the article subject, in a publication cited in about 1,000 other Wikipedia articles)
2. "Delhi Court issue summons to Wikimedia Foundation against deletion of author & BJP spokesperson Tuhin Sinha's page", 22 September 2022, in newsbharati.com (a publication cited in 22 other Wikipedia articles)
3. "Delhi Court summons Wikimedia Foundation over deletion of Wikipedia Profile of BJP Spokesperson Tuhin A. Sinha", 26. September 2022, in lawbeat.com (a site cited in 2 other Wikipedia articles)
4. "BJP spokesperson Tuhin Sinha sues Wikipedia for wilful deletion of his wiki profile", 1 October 2022, in Republic World (a publication deprecated in WP:RSP)
5. "Why Do I Not Trust Wikipedia, And You Should Not Either", 1 November 2022, in Swarajya (magazine) (blacklisted per WP:RSP)
6. "Wikipedia editors delete profiles of those who praised ‘The Kashmir Files’, had earlier vandalised movie page: Here is what we know so far", 22 March 2022, in OpIndia (blacklisted per WP:RSP)
7. "Delhi court issues notice to Wikimedia Foundation over deletion of author and BJP spokesperson Tuhin A Sinha’s Wikipedia page", 22 September 2022, in OpIndia (blacklisted per WP:RSP)

What do you think? Personally, based on overall media coverage of this case, I am leaning towards inclusion, with Sinha's own piece cited as an ancillary source (along with Newsbharati and/or Lawbeat).

At any rate, I think we should keep this list up to date and/or perhaps run an WP:RfC if we can't find agreement here. Regards, --Andreas JN466 10:30, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

What are we to do with the publications in blacklisted or deprecated sources? newsbharati.com is not a reliable source. Besides, what part of Garberg's revert-summary did you fail to understand? You are inching closer to a TBan. TrangaBellam (talk) 10:44, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

There is nothing about newsbharati on RSN, but looking into it I do agree with you that it doesn't meet WP:RS (I wish I had looked a bit more deeply before). Struck above. --Andreas JN466 14:28, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

(Sources deprecated or blacklisted here are still read by people out there. My reason for mentioning them above was merely to illustrate the fact that quite a lot of people will by now have read about the controversy and might reasonably expect the matter to be mentioned here.

More generally, if there is criticism of Wikipedia coverage in reliable sources (and news18 at any rate qualifies as RS), I tend to think it's best to err on the side of inclusion; it looks more diplomatic in my view and prevents people getting the impression that we are censoring our critics. YMMV.) Andreas JN466 14:51, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

And I tend to go the other way on including WP-stuff in non-WP articles. WP-editors, I think, sometimes overestimates the DUE-ness of WP-stuff, because we tend to be a bit passionate about it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:39, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree with that too. I have two contradictory instincts here. Andreas JN466 01:23, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Like me when I find some interesting WP:RS news about WP but with WP:OUTING in it... And even if this "thing" isn't included in the article atm, I'm interested in hearing how it develops/turns out. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:01, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, me too (on both counts). Andreas JN466 14:24, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

@Jayen466 Update: "Sinha’s Wikipedia issue seemed to find resolution a month later when an editor recreated his article. The court case remains ongoing, though, as the matter of compensation is still outstanding." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:58, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Per the offered sources I'm at exclude. Recent newsflash/navel-gazing. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:42, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

• Newsbharati.com is not a reliable source [as everyone here agreed]. I'll remove/replace the citations in other pages. The News18 article, despite the general reliability of the news org, is a WP:PRIMARY source [from the subject WP:BLPSS), and can only be used, if at all, as described in that guideline[s]. It doesn't matter how much reach it has, it's a primary source. Also, @Jayen466: citing OpIndia, which publishes fake news, among other things, and regularly doxes and demonizes WP editors, as a valid source for inclusion of content is rather unfortunate and very much disrespectful to our fellow editors — DaxServer (t · m · c) 12:39, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

References

Daddy review

I can't really see any good reason why the review of Daddy in The New Indian Express was deleted: [1] Any objections to restoring some material based on this? --Andreas JN466 14:23, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

This is not a review - go to RSN. TrangaBellam (talk) 14:56, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

@DaxServer:, will appreciate your opinion. TrangaBellam (talk) 16:44, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

The review is by Meera Bhardwaj ([2]), who reviewed books for The New Indian Express for several years and was quite capable of nuanced criticism ("a story that could have lived up to its full potential with just a bit more care", "some stories are interesting, some are pretty boring") or of panning books she didn't like ("contrived and predictable", "not an interesting read", "lacking thrill", "disappointing", "hardly lucid"). See also Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#news18.com. I see no reason to assume that positive reviews she wrote, like the one under discussion here or this one, are automatically untrustworthy just by dint of being positive. Maybe she just liked the book? --Andreas JN466 16:59, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Please do not discuss the same issue in multiple venues. I will let the RSN discussion run its course. Thanks, TrangaBellam (talk) 17:18, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your request TrangaBellam, but I'm unfortunately out of depth here :/ — DaxServer (t · m · c) 11:30, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I intend to restore this material. As a review by a longstanding reviewer in a major Indian daily, it is WP:DUE. --Andreas JN466 11:14, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Where do you see the consensus in favor? TrangaBellam (talk) 12:26, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

All I see at the moment frankly is me being in favour and you being against.

I will just mention here that Meera Bhardwaj, the author of this review, is an award-winning journalist who was chief copy editor at The New Indian Express at the time [3] and was one of the interviewees in a peer-reviewed academic study on Indian women in journalism.[4] I have no idea why you would argue her voice, published in a top newspaper, is "undue". --Andreas JN466 10:11, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

@Jayen466 In such case, you can go for WP:3O — DaxServer (t · m · c) 10:43, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

I might go for an RfC instead; 3O is always a hit-and-miss affair. I am just still hoping TrangaBellam might see sense. Andreas JN466 10:59, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Do a RfC. TrangaBellam (talk) 12:17, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

That is not a "peer-reviewed academic study" but a publication from one of the many journal-mills from India. I do not know what inherent qualities are possessed by any "Chief Copy Editor" to review books, either. I agree with Abecedare's succinct observation (reproduced from RSN):

This is such a poorly written "review"! Just count the number of redflag and/or superlative claims in it that cry out for a tag: "credited with inventing the genre of political thrillers in contemporary Indian writing", "moved away from his usual genre" (IIRC, in one of the earlier interviews you had linked to, Sinha had said that he intentionally tried to pen his first three books to be in different genres), "One of its kind", "first-of-its-kind book released in recent times" (what does that even mean?!), etc. Also the whole third paragraph is such a cliche-ridden over-generalization. Reads to me as a breathless fluff piece.

I have nothing against positive reviews like Reshmi Kulkarni's take on Of Love and Politics but to use Bharadwaj is scraping the barrel. TrangaBellam (talk) 12:31, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

I'll just add my reply to Abecedare here as well for the record:

Well, his usual genre was fiction; this was his first non-fiction book. As for "One of its kind" etc. I took that to be referring to its being a book about parenting from an Indian dad's perspective. I agree with you that the diction sure is flowery and not what we'd expect to find in a UK or US paper, but that applies to much of what I read in Indian newspapers (not just the book reviews). So I am not sure what it means – beyond the fact that a woman who wrote hundreds of reviews for an RS newspaper appears to have liked the book and said so. I agree it should be used as a source for a reviewer's opinion on this book rather than as a source for more general factual claims of the type you mention ("inventing the genre").

--Andreas JN466 18:43, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Request for Comment on Daddy book review

Is Meera Bhardwaj’s review, published in The New Indian Express, of the non-fiction book Daddy: The Birth of a Father suitable for the "Reception" section of the author's biography?

Previous discussions: on this talk page, at RS/N (permalink) --Andreas JN466 23:00, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Survey

• Yes. The New Indian Express is a major Indian daily, and a review in a paper like that is significant enough to include. --Andreas JN466 23:00, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
• No: Bhardwaj was the Chief Copy Editor of NIE and not the book reviewer. I agree with Abecedare's succinct observation (reproduced from RSN):

  This is such a poorly written "review"! Just count the number of redflag and/or superlative claims in it that cry out for a tag: "credited with inventing the genre of political thrillers in contemporary Indian writing", "moved away from his usual genre" (IIRC, in one of the earlier interviews you had linked to, Sinha had said that he intentionally tried to pen his first three books to be in different genres), "One of its kind", "first-of-its-kind book released in recent times" (what does that even mean?!), etc. Also the whole third paragraph is such a cliche-ridden over-generalization. Reads to me as a breathless fluff piece.

  I have nothing against positive reviews like Reshmi Kulkarni's take on Of Love and Politics but to use Bharadwaj is scraping the barrel esp. when we know the propensity of paid news in India. An essay found from WT:INB might be of further aid. TrangaBellam (talk) 12:31, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
• Yes, to an extent. I gather the source of this dispute is the following content that was removed:

Reviewing Sinha's non-fiction book on childcare, Daddy (2015), The New Indian Express described it as "a very well-written book" for "new-generation fathers who share responsibilities and enable and empower their working wives", noting that the topic marked a departure for Sinha as an author "credited with inventing the genre of political thrillers in contemporary Indian writing."

There appears to be no consensus on reliablity for The New Indian Express, and as such, WP:EXCEPTIONAL comes into play. The first half of the sentence is fine, but the last half (starting at "noting that") is an exceptional claim and would require a better source in order to be used. ––FormalDude (talk) 05:23, 30 November 2022 (UTC) (Summoned by bot)

Discussion

Andreas, I will prefer that all rebuts etc. be confined to this section to prevent the Survey section from spiraling into mile-long mutual bickering. TrangaBellam (talk) 05:28, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Agreed on keeping discussion in this section.

What troubles me is that you're essentially proposing that we should ignore all unequivocally positive book reviews in Indian newspapers, even top newspapers like this one. I don't believe there is a consensus to that effect – nor am I convinced that practising such a rule will on balance reduce bias. Throwing out all reviews where a reviewer genuinely loved a book is apt to introduce a bias of its own. (This applies even more if such a rule is applied in an arbitrary and selective manner.)

Wikipedia is meant to reflect coverage in reliable sources. From previewing a few pages of the book at issue here and reading other online reviews, I find no special reason to assume that it was unworthy of a positive review. It seems quite charming. Regards, Andreas JN466 13:32, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

As for Abecedare's comments that you quote, what they apparently failed to understand was that this was Sinha's first non-fiction book, as well as a rare book about parenting from an Indian dad's perspective. The relevant comments in the review didn't strike me as strange, given the context.

Lastly, Bhardwaj wrote dozens if not hundreds of book reviews for the New Indian Express, many of which were critical of the books reviewed. (I gave examples of critical reviews earlier.) This was not someone who merely churned out puff pieces. Regards, --Andreas JN466 13:44, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

What you fail to understand is that Bhardwaj's claim of Sinha being the inventor of genre of political thrillers in Indian literature is ludicrous. I can list about a dozen works in the genre but on the top of my mind are Manohar Malgonkar’s The Garland Keepers (1980) and Uma Vasudeva's Shreya of Sonagarh (1993). I do not expect reviewers to have read every single literature published from India and unacquiantance with such works is not to Bhardwaj's discredit; however, it is riduculuos to expect that events like The Emergency (India) —a prolonged span of semi-autocracy in an otherwise vibrant democracy with no histories of coup etc.— won't have given rise to the genre, if it did not already exist by then!

That Sinha's Daddy was a rare book from an Indian dad's perspective is equally misplaced in its disregard for the vernacular literary scene. TrangaBellam (talk) 15:10, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

I already said, above,

I agree it should be used as a source for a reviewer's opinion on this book rather than as a source for more general factual claims of the type you mention ("inventing the genre").

(Emphasis added.) Andreas JN466 16:14, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

No; the sheerr volume of false (but always superlative) claims made in the review is clear evidence of poor standards. TrangaBellam (talk) 19:14, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Tag on article recreation

I just came across this article and noticed the bit that @Pigsonthewing tagged about this article being recreated.[5]. I'm seen claims elsewhere on-wiki that it was a WMF restoration, but wasn't able to verify that anywhere either content-wise.

On the more meta-side, I was looking at the previous AfD getting up to speed on this article, and it looks like there was pretty clear consensus for deletion in terms of notability in terms of lack of author/politician notability. That's where I'm also curious if there was any other discussion on recreation that I'm missing. It seems like the legal stuff is the only major change lately in terms of notability, but that would be seem to be more of a WP:1E issue based on the previous AfD where other items didn't meet the threshold. KoA (talk) 06:37, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

The article was recreated by @Jayen466, how that makes it WMF-anything I can't see. Of course, I have seen some reporting on the ANI/Delhi High Court-thing that indicates that that court considered any WP-editing a WMF approved action. You can see a little other discussion at User_talk:Bishonen/Archive_25#Aren't_you_lucky. You can always start another Afd if you like. Per [6], there's still an ongoing courtcase regarding Sinha wanting compensation for the last deletion. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:27, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

If the WMF had taken office action related to this page, it would be clearly marked such that no editor could accidentally reverse it. The recreated version is distinct enough from the deleted version that it is not G4 eligible. There's no reason someone could not pursue another AfD, but ironically the coverage related to Sinha's suit against Wikipedia following the first AfD may preclude a consensus for deletion (that isn't my opinion of notability, only my assessment of what the trajectory of an AfD is likely to be). Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:10, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

It's always a little weird when it can be argued that some of peoples notability comes from WP not finding them notable. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:50, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

At least when I was initially looking at this, that seemed like a case of WP:1E where nothing else outside of the lawsuit stuff had significantly changed since the last AfD for notability. That's at least my first blush anyways, so if I were going to nominate this for AfD, I'd still want to spend more time really digging through the other political/author sources myself instead of just going off the last AfD. KoA (talk) 16:29, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Looking at the reception section, it really is a bit unkind to him. The available reviews were better than the current section makes it appear. Andreas JN466 19:55, 7 December 2024 (UTC)