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Captivity of Mangalorean Catholics at Seringapatam

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because this happens to an important article on religious persecutions. I hope to elevate this to GA status.

Thanks, KensplanetTC 11:12, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you are willing to review this article and would like to get a peer review of any article which you have submitted here, then please contact me. :)

Ruhrfisch comments: Interesting article, but I think it needs some more work before it is ready for GAN. Here are some suggestions for improvement.

  • The main issue I see with the article is the language. The article needs a copy edit, and the organization could be improved in spots. In some places it uses what seem to be fairly POV terms. If these are part of direct quotations from reliable sources, then using them is OK in moderation, but as it is the article at least gives the appearance of violation WP:NPOV. I think that what was done to the Mangalorean Catholics was horrible, but the language used to describe should be neutral - letting the reader decide is much more effective than telling the reader what to think. Some examples of problems with the language follow (not a complete list):
    • I think the first sentence in the lead could be clearer - I would start the sentence with the captivity and not with Tippu Sultan. I think giving the exact dates (day and month) in the lead is a bit too much detail for the first sentence too. I would also provide context to the reader and make clear in the first or second sentence that this is in India (not everyone know where Mangalore or Canara are). Perhaps something like
    "The Captivity of Mangalorean Catholics at Seringapatam was a 15-year imprisonment of the Mangalorean Catholics and the other Christians in the Indian region of Canara by Tippu Sultan, the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore, from 1784 to 1799.[1]" (the specific dates could be elsewhere in the lead)
     Done
    • WHen ranges of numbers are used, I would be consistent so just in the lead we have account of the number of captives differ ranging from 30[,]000 to 80,000. (I added a missing comma) but later in the lead it is a hyphen (when I think the MOS says it should be an en-dash) Of the 60,000-80,000 Christians taken captive, only 15,000-20,000 made it out alive as Christians.
       Done
    • POV with "stupendous" in the lead - It was a stupendous task for the British officers and the Roman Catholic priests to re-establish the community in South Canara.
      Done: Removed POV term and changed to "The British officers and the Roman Catholic priests helped the community re-establish themselves in South Canara."
    • Unclear - Hyder's army also consisted of several Catholic soldiers. This makes it sound like the whole army was a few Catholics - my guess is that the army had several catholic soldies in it, as well as many others
  • Per WP:HEAD the headers should not start with "The" and should not repeat the article title or parts of it if possible. So for example, "The Mangalorean Catholic community" could be just "Background" or perhaps "Catholicism in Mangalore", and "Mangalorean Catholics under Hyder Ali" could just be "Hyder Ali" (we already know from the title this about the Mangalorean Catholics)
    Done
  • I would add the dates to the table "Account of the number of captives"
  • There are two relatively long lists (number of captives and churches destroyed) - could the churches list be converted to text? Two lists impede the flow of the article.
  • The caption "St. Lawrence Church in Karkala was destroyed by Tippu" should make it clear that the building pictured is a more modern (re)construction
  • Could the two Citicisms sections be combined as one? I also am not sure I get the Criticism of the Christians - we are told the horrible persecutions and death many suffered, then we get one priest in 1815 criticizing them and apparently in a way ignorant of their sufferings. Is there no other, more recent criticism? WHy is this notable (worth including here)?
  • The two very long quotes in the Accounts of the Captivity section may cause trouble - this is an encylcopedia article and things aregenerally paraphrased with a few quotes

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 14:18, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A bit more from Ruhrfisch

  • Link words like lakhs and crore as most non-Indian readers will not know these. See for example The priests were issued orders of expulsion to Goa, fined Rs. 2 lakhs, and ... of capital punishment and a fine of 3 crore rupees.
  • Problem sentence Those captives who refused to proselytize to Islam, Tippu ordered them to be tied to the feet of the elephants to be dragged and trampled upon them and to be mutilated in the most barbarous manner.[69] first off, proselytize is used incorrectly (someone who is already a Muslim could proselytize or try to convert others to Islam, the Christians refused to convert to Islam. Second, the word barbarous is probably another POV word to avoid or use as a direct quote.
  • Avoid WP:OVERLINKing - Arthur Wellesley is linked twice in a section (and should probably be identified as the future Lord Wellington)

Hope this helps, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 03:34, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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