Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 107

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Peer review for Werner Hartenstein now open

The peer review for Werner Hartenstein is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill [talk] [prof] 16:08, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Peer review for Mark Hanna now open

The peer review for Mark Hanna is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:51, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Article in need of help

Not sure where to put this, but somehow I wound up at Elmo Zumwalt, and the article is in really rough shape. Could someone fix it? Sven Manguard Wha? 06:30, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

It's far from perfect, definitely undersourced, and perhaps badly written, but "in rough shape"? Did you have something specific in mind? CharlieEchoTango (talk) 06:36, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
I trimmed a bit just now. I notice that "awards" seems to take up a lot of space. GraemeLeggett (talk) 07:12, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Female soldier forced to skinnydip, chief of staff apologizing via spokesman, soldier meeting minister of defence

Norwegian national newspapers have reported about a female soldier who was ordered to skinnydip with male conscripted soldiers of Norway's army.

The following link states that "the Chief of Staff (Harald Sunde (general)) has apologized via his spokesman, and several politicians reacted strongly", [1]

And the article tells about the soldiers subsequent meeting with Norway's Minister of Defense. (And how the minister in some way has given her second thoughts about her publicized thoughts about a premature exit from her military service. )

The chain of events (or the affair — whatever it is (or will be) called, might be more notable than the individual soldier.

She (Alice Asplund) is notable to some degree for the forced skinnydipping, and later reactions from various political and military notabilities.

Are there any notable references to her in English?--85.166.141.237 (talk) 17:30, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Potential overlap of military history and current events

Are there any arguments that can be made, about the above not being military history?--85.166.141.237 (talk) 17:30, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

not news?Slatersteven (talk) 17:39, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
WP:NOTNEWSPAPER, WP:BLP1E. She isn't notable enough for an article. If the incident blows up into something with WP:PERSISTENCE, then perhaps an article on it, but not her. (And why Norway requires its conscripts to skinnydip I dunno, but if it applies to one soldier it should apply to all...) - The Bushranger One ping only 18:06, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
If you want to add something, add it to Norwegian Army.. or Air Force, or whichever service. Buckshot06 (talk) 17:00, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias, the Greatest Brazilian military leader is now a FAC

It's with pleasure that I'm here to inform everyone that Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias is now a FAC. If you are interested, please read the article and share your thoughts on its nomination page. Regards, --Lecen (talk) 15:18, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II now open

The A-Class review for McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! --Sp33dyphil © • © 05:06, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for Bastille now open

The A-Class review for Bastille is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill [talk] [prof] 20:00, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Budding graphic artists needed

I need the sketch insignia of 8th Mechanised Corps at http://www.wio.ru/tank/oz/oz-en.htm drawn. CAn anyone help? Buckshot06 (talk) 20:37, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

8th Mech Corps

 Done — Please can you check the licence I used is right – I want no rights to it if possible, apply whatever licence is needed for it being a Soviet logo.

Cheers, Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 03:02, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Also, if you need any more insignia like that doing, please feel free to request via my talk page. If I have the time, I'll see what I can do. If I don't have time, you can always try here again. Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 03:08, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Nice work! 50 simoleons says somebody raises the "phallic symbolism" badge within the first 48 hours it's on the page though.) - The Bushranger One ping only 03:19, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Old merge tags

I just followed a two year old merge tag at Pacific Ocean theatre of World War II to a discussion at Talk:Pacific_Ocean_theater_of_World_War_II#Merger_proposal. Somebody who knows about that timeperiod should take a look and actually do something, two years is a bit long for a merge tag. This also suggest we may have a merge backlog... is there a place which list merge backlogs by wikiprojects, btw? Do we have even older, forgotten merges to deal with somewhere? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me 19:59, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, there is this listing (Warning: Don't try to open on a slow connection!). The section I linked to is all of the articles with merge tags. It looks like there are 424 MILHIST articles with merge tags at the moment, stretching back to at least late 2008. The overall list is all articles with cleanup banners/inline tags that have the MILHIST banner on the talk page - it looks to be around 32% of the project's articles, or a little under 39,000 articles. That's a bit depressing... Dana boomer (talk) 20:54, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
I rarely use merge tags but I did do one recently when I was doing some research and noticed the similarities between some articles. I didn't intend to do the merge, just to alert those editors involved in the page that the needed to look into this. Perhaps this is a part of the problem - passing editors noting article similarities but not intending to do the work. Another is that merges are technically difficult - I couldn't merge two articles and I count myself as fairly average in terms of editing skill, so perhaps a lot of us are waiting for a skilled co-ordinator to follow up after us? Finally, I'm not sure what the policy is on mergers that would create one large article out of small ones. I wouldn't want to be going against a counter trend that is breaking up articles. Hope these examples of an ordinary editor's confusions and competences help us to think of ways we can tackle this backlog. Monstrelet (talk) 09:42, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
There really needs to be a central merger clearinghouse. WP:PM is never monitored. We need something like WP:RM for mergers (and possibly splits). 70.24.248.23 (talk) 05:57, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

SS-volunteers from Norway — "frontkjemper"

Wiki-Danish (and Norwegian) do not have interwiki to English, regarding their articles about SS-volunteers from Norway - both articles are about the Norwegian term "Frontkjemper". (The term allegedly originally referred to a category of German soldiers during WW 1 — Frontkämpfer.)

If someone can take care of linking, the Norwegian and Danish article, to one of our articles, then I can start adding text. (And if that does not happen, then I hope to finish my suggestion for the text for a stub about the Norwegian term. On what page can I place my suggestion for a stub; I do not have plans yet of creating a user name, but I would still like for a new article to be created, or that an existing article receive a redirect from Frontkjemper.)--85.166.141.247 (talk) 20:55, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

I will now attempt to start adding references to the Danish article, until I know where to contibute in English, about the Frontkjemper-topic.

Are there any references about German military authorities using the term Frontkämpfer (during WW 2), about these Norwegian SS-volunteers?--85.166.141.247 (talk) 21:02, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

You could add details to Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts. Jim Sweeney (talk) 21:36, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Redirect

I have added a section in Waffen-SS_foreign_volunteers_and_conscripts. Would it be appropriate to redirect Frontkjemper, to this article/section, until an article is written? (This would also allow interwiki from the Danish and Norwegian articles about "Frontkjemper", which I expect will turn into improvements in our info about "Frontkjemper".--85.166.141.237 (talk) 19:57, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

A-class reviewers urgently needed for the articles on HMS Temeraire (1798) and HMS Vanguard (23)

The A class reviews for these two warships are currently due to be closed in the next few days as not successful due, in the main part, to a lack of reviewers. It would be great to avoid this outcome, so any and all reviews at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/HMS Temeraire (1798) and Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/HMS Vanguard (23) would be fantastic. If the reason for the lack of reviews is concerns that the articles aren't up to A-class standard I'm sure that User:Benea and User:Sturmvogel 66 would appreciate your comments and suggestions rather than not really knowing why their nominations didn't pass. Nick-D (talk) 23:52, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for George Mackinolty now open

The A-Class review for George Mackinolty is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Ian Rose (talk) 01:57, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

So I have an issue...

So during the 2005 round of BRAC, the commission voted to create Joint Bases. Over the past couple of years, the bases have been "created" (essentially a merge of a few bases near each other. I created a page for the joint bases, but other editors have merged the base pages into this super base page, essentially destroying the page histories and making the pages harder to follow. For example, the Joint Base Lewis-McChord page was created out of the merger of the Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base pages (interestingly, the Gray Army Airfield page was never merged into the article). I actually just chose the page as an example, and it is actually the largest of the Joint Base articles. Personally, I would love it if the articles were kept separate and the Joint Base was used to state that they were just that, whereas the the pages for the individual bases would be kept separate so that they would help encourage new users to add information to a page which currently exists as a massive conglomeration of facts. I'm just curious to see what others think, so I'm bringing this issue here for discussion. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 17:34, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

  • I agree. The seperate base articles have the potential to become high quality whereas a merge into one page does not. Imagine how convoluted Joint Base MgGuire-Dix-Lakehurst would be if someone tried to make it an FA. Three sections like the Fort Ticonderoga article on top of one another. each base is notable enough fore its own article, though as of now I'm not sure if it would be a better alternative to make each Joint Base an article separate from its component bases. —Ed!(talk) 19:12, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
The BRAC 2005 Joint Bases are now a fact of life. The historical bases they were created from is just that. history. Also, the military has deleted the websites for some of them, but not yet all. Hickam AFB is now "Hickam Field". Pearl Harbor also has it's own website run by the Navy... Andersen AFB has it's own with no mention of "Joint Base Marianas"; Joint Base San Antonio has separate websites for the component bases.. although each base now has "Joint Base San Antonio" as a secondary title. So this is a work in progress. However places like Elmendorf AFB, Fort Richardson, McChord AFB, Fort Lewis, and the rest. Andrews AFB.. are now part of history. If there is a desire to split the historical entities into their own separate articles for Old Times' Sake or some other reason.. that's their prerogative. What will happen is they will become orphans and confuse the readers as the future history and events will be written to the Joint Base article .. which will be the one which will grow over time.. Bwmoll3 (talk) 22:48, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
Re "just that, history": what's wrong with history? We're an encyclopedia, not an organizational chart. I'm not familiar with this so-called BRAC, but there is no reason why there couldn't be individual articles for bases that have a lot of history, and perhaps an article about these joint bases which would portray the current structure and summarize the history of its component bases, while linking to the main article on said components. E.g. the Joint Base article would be the main article, and the Fort X and X AFB articles would be forks. Cheers, CharlieEchoTango (talk) 23:01, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
Charlie, it essentially made a mess of many Wikipedia articles. Ed is right though in that statement and I never even considered that when I wrote that. Nevertheless, just because the websites are deleted doesn't mean that they cannot remain separate. As many people have said before, we are an encyclopedia, not the United States military. Just because they do something different doesn't mean that we have to follow their lead when writing articles. Furthermore, our goal is to increase readability and ease of use, not muddle it all into some mess just because some policy decision has created the precedent for a historical clusterfuck. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 16:59, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
Both iterations of the bases have well-established notability. We already do the same for military units (ie, 45th Infantry Division (United States) and 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (United States) are one lineage as far as the military is concerned, but the two different units are notable enough to have separate articles. In this instance, I would just say, in the case of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, we use Template:SeeAlso to link to Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base in the former's history section. —Ed!(talk) 00:37, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Future of Iraq War order of battle

We need to figure out what we are going to do with Iraq War order of battle as the war winds down. This is the current order of battle, for comparison, but I'm not sure what we should do as the number of foreign troops continues to dwindle. Any thoughts? --Cerebellum (talk) 19:13, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I'll do it if you like. What I will do is check the edits that comprise the majority of the article, and freeze it at a specific date, and rename the page adding that date. Buckshot06 (talk) 11:15, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
You'll note the main order of battle section already has my notation stating that it is as of 2009. Unless there any other comments or suggestions, I will rename the page Iraq War order of battle 2009 within about three or four days. Buckshot06 (talk) 15:15, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
That seems reasonable. Good thinking! --Cerebellum (talk) 13:18, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
We may eventually need some kind of "timeline" eventually where we just list all units in the conflict with a sortable table by when they served. So many units rotated in and out of the country and so many smaller units came and went independent of higher headquarters that it may be impractical to have a different OrBat article for each year. —Ed!(talk) 00:31, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Ed, you were aware how this article was built up, no? People changed data when they were aware the situation had changed. This is one snapshot, and even my 2009 dating is a bit of a guess. If you want a sortable table, that would require a massive amount more research, principally because, to make it have any kind of validity, exact dates for all the units would have to be pinned down and sourced. There's no preview at Google Books for Dinackus' Order of Battle: Allied Ground Forces of Operation Desert Storm, but suffice to say, Dinackus has a massive amount of official documents for the 1990-91 operations and even he found it a struggle. So says the foreword in my book! Buckshot06 (talk) 10:44, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
While I certainly can imagine it would take a huge amount of research, the article would certainly not be comprehensive enough to be a FL without a complete list of the units which participated in the war. At the same time, maybe it could be broken up by phase and maybe we should omit units below battalion or company level (that might make the separate lists more relevant.) The problem from my angle is that, unlike most previous wars, you can't just say "X Division participated at this time" and have people assume all that division's component units were there on the same dates. I don't know. I don't envy the person who tries to get this one to FL or FA. —Ed!(talk) 19:14, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

December Good Article Nominations elimination drive

Starting December 1st, there will be a month-long drive to reduce the backlog at Good Article nominations. With 33 current nominations in the War and military section, I'm hoping editors from this project will want to participate - perhaps even stay to assist with other topics. Please visit the drive's project page for details. Cheers, AstroCog (talk) 15:15, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Images requested

As this project page appears to be different from most wikiproject todo pages can I have some advice on how to add Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of military history to the Open Tasks list? --Traveler100 (talk) 17:18, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I've added it under "Articles that need specific improvements". Kirill [talk] [prof] 17:25, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject History

Is WikiProject History still active? DCItalk 03:22, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

You could try asking at Wikipedia:WikiProject History Jim Sweeney (talk) 19:18, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
I did, just over a month ago, and never received a reply. DCI2026 (talk) 00:28, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
I'd guess that means it's not active. ;-) Kirill [talk] [prof] 00:30, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Sounds like you got an answer, if not a reply. If you're looking for people interested in a particular period you might want to try looking at the edit history for the most prominent articles you're interested in, or search for a Featured Article in the rough subject area. Nev1 (talk) 00:33, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Thematic Australian Military History

For those interesting in thematic Australian military history, for example Sport and the Australian military and Discipline in the Australian military I highly commend to them Dr Nathan Wise's work. Wise is a young academic whose PhD thesis A working man’s hell: working class men's experiences with work in the Australian imperial force during the Great War is available online in open access. He has also recently published regarding mutiny in WWI in Labour History. Wise has a sensitivity to proletarian Australian experience which follows up Bruce Scates's work (another worthy historian). These sources could well provide an editor the capacity to stub or B-class articles on thematic war experience rapidly. (I know both these Authors and thus have an element of declared Conflict of Interest). Fifelfoo (talk) 08:15, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

That's great. Various issues of the Australian War Memorial's magazine Wartime have stories on these topics, and Peter Stanley's excellent book Bad Characters is a great investigation of discipline (and the lack thereof) in the First AIF. Nick-D (talk) 06:34, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Does anyone know ...

I was wondering if someone could point me in the direction of the Engineers that helped in the recovery after Hurrican Hazel. What unit(s) and what they did...any ideas? Do they list what Bailey bridges in perticular they built? There seems to be a "micro-project" (for lack of a better term) afoot to do writeups about the few remaining baileys still in use in Ontario. Old (16th Avenue) Bailey Bridge is the most recent of these articles to pop into sight. Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 05:56, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd suggest contacting the Canadian Military Engineers directly. The Canadian Forces School of Military Engineering would probably have some kind of historical collection and/or be able to point you towards any references. Nick-D (talk) 06:40, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

A question regarding categorisation

Looking over Category:Ships by navy, something occured to me: we have multiple categories for German Navy ships, which makes sense regarding the multiple incarnations of the German Navy. But I'm curious as to why (going back in time) we have German Navy (makes sense, so as not to divide the Bundesmarine and Deutsches Marine), but then we have Kreigsmarine, Reichsmarine...and German Imperial Navy. Why not Kaiserliche Marine? (Since Italy has Regia Marina and Marina Militare, too.) - The Bushranger One ping only 05:59, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

The following would be the correct: Reichsflotte for the navy of the Frankfurt Parliament, Norddeutsche Bundesmarine for the navy of the North German Confederation, Kaiserliche Marine for the navy of the German Empire, Reichsmarine for the navy of the Weimar Republic, Kriegsmarine for the navy of the Wehrmacht, Bundesmarine for the navy of the FRG and Volksmarine for the GDR. Beyond that, there were other german navys like the ones of Prussia, Hamburg or Austria before the formation of the Empire. --Bomzibar (talk) 18:17, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for Ray Farquharson now open

The A-Class review for Ray Farquharson is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill [talk] [prof] 13:02, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for United Nations Security Council Resolution 82 now open

The A-Class review for United Nations Security Council Resolution 82 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill [talk] [prof] 13:02, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Discussion about implementing list-specific assessment ratings

We've started a discussion (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators#Implementing an assessment scheme for lists (Part 2)) on the coordinators' talk page regarding the next steps to take in our planned implementation of list-specific assessment ratings. There are a few different ideas on the table, and comments from anyone with an interest in the assessment scheme, particularly as it's applied to lists, would be very welcome! Kirill [talk] [prof] 13:09, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

68th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment at FAC

68th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment has been nominated for FA and could use another review or two, if anyone is interested. --Coemgenus (talk) 13:41, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for HMS New Zealand (1911) now open

The featured article candidacy for HMS New Zealand (1911) is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:23, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia’s important articles

  • Although Wikipedia has created many articles, it has poor quality on its most viewed articles.
  • The Featured Article and Good Article programs are covering obscure topics and becoming more obscure.

Today I came across this paper Improving Wikipedia’s important articles A strategic opportunity for the En-Wikipedia community, Featured Article regulars, and WMF sponsors

Whatever is done Wikiepdia wide, it made me wonder if perhaps this project group could use some of the ideas to improve military history. Basically the paper is saying that the current method of selecting articles for improvement is by editor choice, and as such a lot of effort goes into many articles that are not viewed by very many people, while other articles that are viewed by many readers languish. What the paper is suggesting is that instead of this rather random approach to article improvement Wikipedia should select those articles which are view the most, and improve them first. This seems to me a very good idea as the quickest way to improve Wikiepdia with an efficient allocation of what is a finite editorial resource.

To do this we need information on what military history articles are viewed the most (I assume someone knows how to find that information). If for example we were to take the top 20 and improve the worst of those first (as the difference between a bad article/stub and a good art is much larger than between a good article and a featured article). The Military History project already has a number of sub project groups dedicated to improving articles and task forces that cover a specific time and/or place, so with the extra information it should not be difficult to co-ordinate and it would give the project an additional focus. At a slightly wider perspective if each of the task forces were to be given their top ten articles, it would allow members of those task forces to know where where their efforts would produce the biggest bang for their buck. -- PBS (talk) 08:04, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi, the list of the top 500 Milhist articles is here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Popular pages. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:11, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
Looking at the list, its not that bad. The news obviously has an effect with Muammar Gaddafi topping the list, but I must admit to never having heard of numbers 17 and 19 Sword of Goujian and the Lord's Resistance Army. Jim Sweeney (talk) 08:25, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
Milhist's most viewed article is World War II. People have tried to move that forward but minor disagreements dog the page; User:Nick-D has been doing some great work in that area. I think one of the coordinators should call for volunteers and we should try once more to push it up the quality levels, at least to A-class. I'd be in. Buckshot06 (talk) 11:18, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
Please notify my talk page if WWII hits ACR so I can investigate the sourcing and citing with detail? Fifelfoo (talk) 11:23, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
There's a lot of discussion of that paper (all unfavorable, the best I can tell) over at WT:FAC. I'd like to hear more from people who have pushed high-pageview articles through FAC. What problems did you face, before, during, and after? - Dank (push to talk) 13:18, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
The Tower of London (#233 on the list Rupert linked to) was surprisingly easy for a few reasons, including that the article was pretty much derelict. Also key was that while reams and reams have been written about the Tower, there were a couple of recent sources which could be relied upon (one by English Heritage, and the official guide published by the charity which looks after the Tower). The article was in such a poor state I wanted to start from scratch, but anticipated that removing chunks from the article would generate a reaction without something to offer in its stead, so instead worked in a sandbox for a bit and though it wasn't yet complete was able to replace the article almost entirely. I had expected people to kick up a fuss about including popular culture in the article, but it's turned out to be a minor aspect, of far less interest to readers than who was imprisoned there. As I recall there haven't been too many issues since, probably because the article was abandoned when I found it despite the high edit count. I think I was very lucky with the sources, but would recommend working in a sandbox if you're worried about conflict or want to work slowly and would prefer not to worry about vandalism. Nev1 (talk) 14:00, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
Nev, I see you and others have had to spend a fair amount of time maintaining that article since it was promoted to FA in July 2010 ... any thoughts? Roughly what percentage of the new edits have been useful? - Dank (push to talk) 14:40, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
The number of edits to the article in 2011 is less than half what it was in 2009 (before I launched the rewrite); I think this is because genuine good faith editors who wanted to improve the article felt less need to jump in. I can't give exact figures, but my impression is that since the FAC IP edits are generally restricted to vandalism, but that hasn't been much of an issue because it's been obvious and quickly reverted, often by people other than myself. It was TFA on 29 September 2010, so allowing for a cooling off period, between 1 November 2010 and today there have been 206 edits, of which 44 were by me. The vandalism has been easy to get rid of and hasn't been much of a time sink. There was a discussion about citation style, but nothing else that really coonsumed lots of energy such as POV disputes. Nev1 (talk) 16:21, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
I haven't taken any of the articles on that list to FAC, but have worked on some fairly high page view articles at the GA/A/FA levels. Horse (GA) and Horses in warfare (A/GA) are probably two of the most important, and they have been two of the largest PITAs of all of the articles I have worked on. From my experience (which also comes of watching articles like WWII), high-read articles, not unexpectedly, attract major amounts of vandalism, POV pushing, sockpuppetry, etc., with every Randy from Boise looking to push the fact that they just learned from the self-published website they stumbled across or the History TV program they just watched. While it is rewarding to see a large article move up the "ranks" of article quality, the same amount of time it takes to take one high-view article just to GA can be spent taking a dozen low page-view articles there. I would say that working in groups is really a good way to accomplish improvements on high-view articles, although editors like Nev1 have done a wonderful job on high-profile articles working mainly solo. It would be interesting to see some drives to take the high profile MILHIST articles to a better state, even just taking some of the start-class articles up to B, but potentially aiming even higher, but I think it would be best to make sure that you have enough interest to make splitting the work up easy. A lot of people (including me) can say that they want to see French and Indian War and Boxer Rebellion at something higher than start-class, but if you told me to get to work on them, I would have no idea where to start, despite being able to take an article in my chosen field from stub to GA-class in just a few days. Anyway, just a few thoughts... Dana boomer (talk) 14:26, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
Looking at the list of articles in the top 100, one of the most striking facts is that many off them are either news related or quiet peripherally connected to military history. Many individuals are there not due to their military achievements but their political status (Nelson Mandela is a great polititian but would he be notable for his military achievements?). So, what the punters want is great but we don't have, as far as I can see, a sufficiently good tool to sift those multipurpose articles for ones which are being viewed for their military content. To me nothing wrong with helping to improve the popular but not a direction I would take if looking to decide what are important military topics which wikipedia editors should prioritise. Take a second to think if you were on the editorial team of a military history encyclopedia. Where would you start? Key battles, individuals, technology,tactics. Not what's in the news or the subject of popular film (I think the highest mention of the Persian invasion of Greece, considered by some to be a key point in European history, is the film 300). I think we need a different approach. Suggestion : Maybe decide top ten battles, top ten generals, top ten technologies, ten key tactical advances etc. If you want to put in the popular element, choose the tens by hits. If you look for community consensus, debate it here Monstrelet (talk) 19:54, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
That presentation is defiantly interesting. As a general observation from what I've seen, improving high profile articles can either be absurdly easy or a total nightmare depending about how its gone about and the attitudes of the editors involved in the article. Doing anything significant with the World War II article (rightly) requires a lot of discussion, and the effort which lifted it up from start class a few years ago was a major project which ended with the editor who played the key role in its improvement being hounded off Wikipedia by trolls. On the flip side, I expected lots of edits and changes when I expanded Air raids on Japan from a stub(!) a few months ago, but this was totally drama-free. I don't completely buy the argument that Wikipedia automatically has a problem because lots of FA to GA quality articles are on obscure topics: in most cases these articles are among the best summaries of their topics available, and quite a few are probably the best thing which has ever been published on the topic. Nick-D (talk) 06:51, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
I would even contend that the relative obscurity of some topics can be beneficial for user understanding when promoted to GA or FA. While the crux of this argument seems to be the broader topics should get more attention, the obscure ones build an understanding you can't gain otherwise, and which help construct the more broad articles. For example, Battle of Pusan Perimeter is a battle you've probably heard of, but over the past year I've been building 18 articles of sub-battles and events you probably haven't ever heard of. Pusan Perimeter will go to ACR soon, and the extensive coverage of the little details and sub-battles combined on the main article are way more informative than if I would have finished the more well-known article first and then tried to expand the sub-articles after, and finding out details along the way that I left out of the main article. The broader articles can often become compilations of the smaller ones at great benefit. —Ed!(talk) 19:34, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
The Task Force has never given any priority to particular articles. Unlike other projects, MilHist has not tagged articles for importance (ie high, medium or low). I personally feel that it would involve a great deal of effort in tagging for very little gain, although if the criteria were sufficiently rigorous, then the decision could be left to a bot. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:35, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Civilian casualties in the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)

I've raised concerns over the neutrality of this article and proposed a possible solution at Talk:Civilian casualties in the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)#This article isn't neutral at present. Interested editors are encouraged to comment on this. Nick-D (talk) 23:06, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I have just removed the lengthy list of casualties caused by the US/ISAF/NATO forces per my reading of the discussion. Further comments are, of course, encouraged. Nick-D (talk) 06:30, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Links to wiki articles which have not been created yet

I notice that one editor is creating red links to places (although these places are shown on maps incorporated into the article) and military units which do not have wiki articles. They result, in the case of Battle of Magdhaba, in a great deal of red. I have undone these links a couple of times as I haven't seen any other wiki pages with so many red links. Is there anyone who can let me know about these red links. Thanks a lot. --Rskp (talk) 01:13, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Per WP:REDLINK, links to non-existent articles are not only fine, but they're encouraged because they prompt editors to write articles on those topics. Parsecboy (talk) 01:16, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
(ec) The summary of the guideline WP:REDLINK is that "Red links for subjects that should have articles but do not are not only acceptable, but needed in the articles. They serve as a clear indication of what articles are in need of creation, and encourage it." Nev1 (talk) 01:17, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
While red links aren't as popular as they used to be, they are encouraged for topics which can be assumed to justify a viable article. I think that most of the redlinks you removed were actually OK. Nick-D (talk) 06:37, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for that. The ones that worry me the most are the place names, many of which are shown on the accompanying maps but have since ceased to exist and are not even on Google earth. --Rskp (talk) 23:19, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Old place names are okay to link. A stub article can be written about such places. Binksternet (talk) 17:50, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
You are an optimist. Isn't there concern in the project there are not enough editors working on popular articles.--Rskp (talk) 21:41, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
There is no telling what angle the next reader-turned-editor will take when they see a redlink in an article. They might be a geography buff who can sort out the placenames, or they might sort out a unit redlink. But if the link isn't there to be worked on who's to know it needs attention. It is also possible to click on a redlink and then "what links here" and find out how many instances would be linked in if an article was created.GraemeLeggett (talk) 22:02, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Wilfred Wood

The article on this guy has multiple issues. It reads a lot like a story, lacks any citations, and really needs to be revised to meet Wikipedia's standards. I've been searching for sources that could be used to write a legit article about the late Mr. Wood, but so far the best source I've been able to find is this, and the content here isn't much to go on. While it's true he won the Victoria Cross, I'm unsure if he's notable enough to merit an article. I'm going to keep searching for any reliable information on this guy, but if I can't I'm going to nominate the article for deletion. I understand that this falls under the scope of this particular project, so I'd appreciate it if any of it's members would help me out. :) Thanks, waywardhorizons (talk) 19:56, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

You'll find that a lot of articles on VC winners are at pretty much the same standard, the text is often as it was when the articles were migrated from victoriacross.net as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Victoria Cross Reference migration. There are three references listed which can be referred to give more information about his award. As a holder of the VC his notability is almost certainly guarenteed - see WP:SOLDIER for more information on this. You're right that it can and probably does need improving but the style with a lot of these articles is to quote the medal citation, hence it reading like a story. NtheP (talk) 21:39, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Echo that his notability is nigh-on guaranteed, though that's because the coverage is bound to exist since he he was awarded the VC. If I meet a VC article and I can find other sources to tell the story of the incident I effectively remove the citation and put in what happened - the citations being a summary of the incident and rarely gives background. I have found on occasions, that the citation in the article is not the same as that given in the London Gazette. GraemeLeggett (talk) 21:54, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Saw all the fixes you guys made, thanks for the fast work. -waywardhorizons (talk) 17:25, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Question re milhist talk page project banner

Hi all this may have come up in the past, but on the project banner do we add British=Yes for military units that served as part of the British Empire forces in the First World War and I suppose earlier conflicts. I added it to the 2nd Light Horse Regiment (Australia) then started wondering if it was right. Jim Sweeney (talk) 08:56, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

  • I would say no. Consider all the US units that would be marked British=yes under this definition. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:44, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
While true in the majority, I'd be prepared to deal with things on a case by case basis. Eg an RAAF unit operating out of an airfield in eastern England as part of the strategic campaign against German industry is so tied into RAF operations that they appear indistinguishable from the RAF (and as a bonus is probably well covered by British historical sources.) On the other hand the Australian units fighting in large divisions on the Western Front are less linked though still subordinate to British Army formations. (though I notice that II ANZAC Corps contained a British division for part of its existance and could in theory be tagged with the British taskforce). GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:33, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

The three US related task forces

Per a previous discussion on the page the three US related task forces have also been included in the WikiProject US project so we can have overlapping efforts between the projects like many of the other projects do. I do have a question though that I wanted to ask before I start making a bunch of changes. Would anyone have a problem with me creating the importance and quality categories so that these task forces have the same functionality as the other projects under the US banner. Just for clarification these new categories would not affect your MILHIST banner unless you add them to it. --Kumioko (talk) 15:39, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Operation TRIKORA

I started an article on the conflict between Indonesia and the Netherlands over Western New Guinea and I was hoping that some of you could go take a look at it. Thanks! Mike McGregor (Can) (talk) 07:36, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Mike, interesting article. I've made a few minor tweaks that you might want to check that you agree with. I've assessed it as a Start class article on its talk page as it would need broader referencing and coverage for a B class article, IMO. Thanks for your work so far. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:50, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
The Bahasa article, with some sources, is at id:Operasi Trikora. I recommend we get out Google Translate and start translating.. Buckshot06 (talk) 11:30, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Kenneth R. Shadrick FAC

Hello all. The article Kenneth R. Shadrick, which has gone through GA and a successful A-class review, is up at FAC. After three weeks it's currently got two supports and no opposes and I'm looking for any more feedback anyone is willing to provide. The FAC is here. Thanks for your time! —Ed!(talk) 16:06, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Renaming Confederate regiments categories

Per this discussion and this discussion, I will start renaming the categories, as long as there are no objections. Wild Wolf (talk) 16:37, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Kirill [talk] [prof] 19:24, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Chattanooga Campaign categories

I noticed that there is a Battles of the Chattanooga Campaign category and a separate Battles of the Tennessee River Reopening category. Should these be merged into a single campaign category? Wild Wolf (talk) 16:42, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, the original category structure in this area was based on the way the National Park Service categorized campaigns in one of their publications. Perhaps someone like Hal Jespersen might have some more insight into the rationale for splitting them; I'll ask him to drop by this discussion. Kirill [talk] [prof] 19:20, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
You recall correctly, Kirill. The original category structure came from the CWSAC classification. I would say that over the years we have retained that classification only about 80% of the time. The big deviations were caused by tiny/focused categories in CWSAC to which some people objected--campaigns with only a single battle, for instance--requiring that they be lumped into larger categories, sometimes collecting battles with only marginal relationships. I have given up making a big stink about this because I suspect that very few people actually look at the campaign boxes or the categories at the end of the articles.Hal Jespersen (talk) 22:06, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Confederate Army of Manhattan

I found this article a while ago. I never heard this term in any Civil War literature that I've read and was wondering if this should be renamed. Wild Wolf (talk) 16:46, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I have never heard of it either. Calling eight men an "army" is pretty stupid. It would be more accurately called something like "Confederate special operations in New York City". Hal Jespersen (talk) 22:09, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of TFOA

The article TFOA has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

The acronym "TFOA" isn't notable - at least no more notable than 1000s of other acronyms used in the US military. The subject "Things falling off aircraft" might be notable, but this article doesn't contain anything about the subject that's not uncited or trivia.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. DexDor (talk) 18:49, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Friction at the Erich von Manstein biography

I would appreciate more eyes at Erich von Manstein. Myself and A.S. Brown are putting forward a mixed view of the German Field Marshall, including unflattering modern analysis, but Knispel is removing the negative bits. There's a lot of discussion on the talk page but the crux of the friction is that modern historians no longer think Manstein's version of events is accurate. Knispel prefers a positive portrayal of Manstein. Binksternet (talk) 17:48, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Let Knispel read this about how Hawkeye7 handled Albert Kesselring, maybe it will help. --Bomzibar (talk) 18:49, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
My second reading of that essay is just as enjoyable as the first! Good link.
However, I don't think Knispel will release his grip on the Wehrmacht "clean war" myth anytime soon, not even after reading Hawkeye7. Binksternet (talk) 15:54, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
The problem is not the omitting of Mansteins crimes, the problem with that article now is that there have been numerous minor or unimportant but "negative" details about Manstein cluttered throughout the article, which are simplified and probably not even right. If one wants to debunk the clean war myth, it dont needs all this "Manstein wrote a sentence in his memoirs which is possibly not true!!!" repeated numerous times. A factual representation of his relations with the Nazi regime, his relations with the Einsatzgruppen murdering in the area of which he had command over as well as his implemenation of policies like the command order would be certainly more valuable than this backslashing "Manstein was so arrogant in his memoirs, he always blamed the others, etc" style the article now applies. The tone is also a problem now, you must be joking with sentences like "where Manstein states that since his troops were so helpful with assisting Ohendorf's men in murdering Jews that Ohlendorf should allow Manstein's troops to have the wrist-watches of the murdered Jews, instead of keeping them all to themselves." This is just bad style as Manstein never formulated the letter this cynical way. There are worlds between the Manstein and the Kesselring article. StoneProphet (talk) 20:35, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
There has been a propagation of "clean Wehrmacht" myth throughout popular history for some time, which includes idealization of figures like Manstein. Such myth is now largely discarded by serious historians and scholars alongside with white washed portrayals of Wehrmacht leaders that are still to be found in some more popular writing and older publications. I welcome the fact that we have editors that are updating the information about these people and Wehrmacht.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 09:40, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Elizabeth A. Okoreeh-Baah

Sorry I dont see that Elizabeth A. Okoreeh-Baah being the first female V-22 Osprey pilot is particularly notable, do we have articles on the first female to pilot other aircraft types? Does not appear to be notable for anything but looking for opinions I might have missed something. MilborneOne (talk) 20:02, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Having looked at the references given, I don't see the usual "significant coverage" "independent of the subject" that we expect of a milhist article. GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:39, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
WP:BLP1E, among a variety of other notability failures. - The Bushranger One ping only 20:40, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
It underwent AfD in 2009, apart from housekeeping and formatting nothing seems to have happened to expand or improve the article since then. Time for AFD round 2 to see if the consensus has changed? GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:47, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm voting delete when this comes up... Buckshot06 (talk) 21:00, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
I stand my my comments when I voted to delete this article in 2009. Based on the above discussion, I've started an AfD at: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Elizabeth A. Okoreeh-Baah (2nd nomination). Comments from all interested editors would be great. Nick-D (talk) 22:14, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments and thanks to Nick-D for raising the AfD. MilborneOne (talk) 11:35, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Merge discussion - Law of Armed Conflict

Neither of the articles in question are currently tagged for MilHist but there may be some expertise here. Law of Armed Conflict is currently at International humanitarian law and there is a fork at Customary International Humanitarian Law. I'd like to merge them but there is no activity on the discussion at the moment.

I'd be inclined to also rename the resulting article as Law of Armed Conflict as that's what's more frequently used in the practitioner community, but that's a different debate. There is also a related article at Laws of war, although I'm ambivalent at the moment about merging that as well, it's more of a subset of LOAC.

Grateful for some opinions at the merge discussion.

ALR (talk) 15:37, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

MILHIST time MOS

So I'm reviewing a Good Article nominee and I want some clarification on what the MOS is on time for MILHIST articles. MOS:TIME states time should be 00:00 with a time zone if possible, but military time does not have a colon in it. WP:MILMOS has no direct references to time, but I know it also favors military style over standard style in articles that concern primarily a military audience (ie, DMY vs MDY.) Thoughts? —Ed!(talk) 20:46, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Note that the article says "does not usually include a time separator", rather than never does. I would tend to always include the colon - we're writing military history for a general audience, rather than for a specialist audience that expects technical style. Compare the way we italicise ships rather than capitalise names, and so on. Shimgray | talk | 22:01, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for May Revolution

There is an A-Class review open for the article May Revolution (an event that took place in Buenos Aires in 1810, one of the starting points of the Spanish American wars of independence, and closely related with the ongoing Napoleonic wars), at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/May Revolution. Any comments are welcomed. Cambalachero (talk) 21:55, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Battles of Saratoga

I hope I'm doing this in the right place. The Battles of Saratoga page suffers a lot of vandalism. Most of it seems to be very juvenile. All of it that I can remember was by unregistered/anonymous users. I think this page would benefit by being permanently protected at the registered user level.--Gaarmyvet (talk) 22:02, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The right place is Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. I have already made a request to semiprotect the article. Cambalachero (talk) 22:07, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
Thank you, twice.--Gaarmyvet (talk) 22:19, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for Polish Underground State needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Polish Underground State; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! --Sp33dyphil © • © 02:01, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Military Balance 2011

Does anyone have access to the IISS Military Balance 2011? I would very much like to get some section extracts. Buckshot06 (talk) 14:40, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Weingut I

Hi, I just wondered if anyone would like to look over this article for me. I'm about to take it to DYK and it's the first time I've written anything about something like this. Specifically- the German WP article on which it's partly based has geographic coordinates, but they evidently use a different template as copying and pasting it did not work. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Lithoderm 18:27, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for Helmut Wick now open

The A-Class review for Helmut Wick is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill [talk] [prof] 21:33, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

New editor would like help with French Resistance article

I'd appreciate it if someone would have a look at User:Mlane78212/Résistance Joué-du-Plain and the Assassination of Emile Buffon before it goes to Peer Review. See also User_talk:Dank/Archive_23#History Writing Help. - Dank (push to talk) 00:44, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Jodhpur Flying Club

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Jodhpur Flying Club is currently stuck at Articles for Creation (probably indefinitely) due to being based solely on a 2010 book by Peter Vacher. The article author contends that the Jodhpur Flying Club (and subsequently its facilities) played a significant role in World War 2. Does anyone know of any other sources that might be used to expand or reference this article; also, is this topic viable as an article? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 02:25, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Image request for attacking infantry shooting from the hip

I would like to put an image at the top of the new article about marching fire, but I have not found one yet. Ideally, the image would be of attacking troops walking as they fire their weapons, the weapons held at a level between the hip and the shoulder. This tactic is typical of the 1920 instructions given to the operator of an M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), and typical of Patton's Third Army fighting toward the Rhineland. The image could be WWII-era or any other battle, with any sort of handheld carbines or automatic guns.

Another type of acceptable image could be a training photo in which the tactic is shown: a soldier walking and firing his weapon. Thanks in advance for any help.

By the way, the article could use the attention of somebody with knowledge of recent military practice, somebody who can add a section about the modern opinion of marching fire, whether it is still taught anywhere. Feel free to jump on it! Binksternet (talk) 03:07, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

How about this PD image which shows two Australian Bren gunners in action, one of whom is firing from the hip? Alternately, searching the AWM images database for 'shooting from the hip' produces lots of useful looking images, such as: [2], [3], [4], [5] (the last of which is mainly useful for its comic value!). Nick-D (talk) 05:02, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
Good stuff! Thanks for the links. At least one of them is going in the article. Binksternet (talk) 07:17, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
May I suggest this is the best option? TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 12:47, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
How about this from the IWM?Nigel Ish (talk) 13:06, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
I don't really like the blurry bits, & I find the other one more indicitave of the intent. (Bit WW1-ish in application, maybe, tho.) TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 13:25, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
That photo is exciting but it depicts the final charge where the weapons are aimed at specific enemy soldiers rather than at the general area (suppression fire). Binksternet (talk) 15:07, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

There's always File:Corporal,_East_Surrey_Regiment_1940.jpg, although it is admittedly hard to see that he's advancing. Ranger Steve Talk 14:28, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

True, and it's a fairly clear image. Binksternet (talk) 15:07, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for Air raids on Japan now open

The A-Class review for Air raids on Japan is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Nick-D (talk) 11:04, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

World War III

A couple of recent edits to this article, adding in material on so called historical close calls that happened in late Nov and early Dec of this year have been added. I have reverted them, but I could use a few more eyes on the page. (I just want to be sure I am doing the right thing...) Dbrodbeck (talk) 18:12, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this looks entirely correct. Shimgray | talk | 18:21, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

The difference a news item can make!

The Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel article is currently providing an interesting example of just how many people use Wikipedia as a source of information. News that the Iranian Government claims to have shot down one of these UAVs has caused its page view to spike sharply from about 300 a day to 118,700! Nick-D (talk) 09:54, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Alexander the Great

I'm currently reviewing this article at GAN (here). Further input is always welcome, particularly on such an important article. I believe the issues can easily be addressed (pending the remaining technical sourcing/copyright checks). Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:54, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I've thrown in some comments on the review page. Hchc2009 (talk) 17:31, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Urgent request

For more reviewers for the A class review of HMS Temeraire (1798). Despite no opposes or outstanding issues, the article may not be promoted due to insufficient support. If you have a spare moment, please stop by and give your assessment. Thank you, Benea (talk) 14:10, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Looks like it's got 3 supports now. It's a beautiful article and I'll be happy to copyedit it if and when it gets to FAC. I'm sorry I haven't been able to cover A-class articles; more on that at WT:MHC#FAC update, December 4. - Dank (push to talk) 17:20, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes it looks pretty good to me on a quick glance -- I had no time to review properly so pleased to see it has the requisite support now. It's already listed for closure on the Coord talk page so will aim to promote soon if no-one beats me to it... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:49, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

FAR Sargon of Akkad

I have nominated Sargon of Akkad for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.--Zoeperkoe (talk) 04:04, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Agree it needs some work; outside my specialist area, but I've left some comments. Hchc2009 (talk) 17:38, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

World War II sites

Re the category Category:World War II sites “in” countries, I suggest that they can continue to be sorted by first letter of the country name and will change the heading. Re World War sites “of” the major belligerents beyond their boundaries, I agree that it should be used only for fixtures like bases in other countries, otherwise every one of the hundreds (thousands?) of battles in WWII could be listed by each of the two or more participants. Perhaps I can emphasise this in the category heading. And I propose to remove some countries included here (Malaysia, Phillipines). Leave in Wake Island, but am doubtful about the Marshall and Northern Marianas Islands; just list articles about (say) particular American or Japanese bases on these islands. Hugo999 (talk) 11:40, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

New talk page template that includes GAN reviews

{{WPMILHIST Review Plus}} is now available ... assuming I didn't screw it up, it adds a list of Milhist's current Good Article Nominations to {{WPMILHIST Review alerts}}. Just add {{WPMILHIST Review Plus}} to your user talk page. - Dank (push to talk) 19:24, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

That looks really good - but a bit large with all those GANs! Is it possible to tweak it so it's collapsible? Nick-D (talk) 08:01, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
Hey, don't look at me. I'm amazed I didn't break it, and all I did was cut and paste some stuff. - Dank (push to talk) 13:50, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
Thank you, Review alerts is more appropriate to my intervention into the review cycle; but, I didn't know about it until you told me about it. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:29, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, both of them (with and without GANs) are handy. - Dank (push to talk) 13:50, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
For a collapsible version of the box, pass |collapse=yes to the template when you transclude it. Kirill [talk] [prof] 16:13, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Duplication of articles

I'm trying to update and improve the article Black Watch and as part of doing so I find there is also an article named Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) plus one called 42nd Regiment of Foot. So effectively there are three articles about the same British Army regiment. Can someone who's a better thinker than me please examine the situation and guide me as to the best way forward please? Many thanks in advance. SonofSetanta (talk) 15:43, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

WP:MILMOS#UNITNAME says that military units should be placed at their most recent name. Thus I would merge the three articles at the most recent name while leaving redirects. Buckshot06 (talk) 18:04, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
I'd have to disagree - they're not quite three different names for the same unit. The 42nd Foot was a unit that existed from ~1725 to 1881; at which point, it merged with another unit (the 73rd Foot) to form the Royal Highland Regiment, which took its common name (the Black Watch) from the 42nd but wasn't simply a renaming of it. A few years ago, all the Scottish units amalgamated (including the BW); the current article describes one battalion of the new regiment.
In general, this is the way we've handled almost every British regiment; a separate article for each regiment until amalgamation, at which point both old articles point towards the "amalgamated" one (and repeat if it's later amalgamated again). In most cases there's three "generations" (1881 reforms, 1960s restructuring, post-Cold-War restructuring), and the table at the bottom of Mercian Regiment gives a good example; it would probably be counterproductive to merge them.
The unusual case here is the existence of the current Black Watch article, which reflects a single battalion of the newly amalgamated Royal Regiment of Scotland, which retained the "old names" for essentially political/traditional reasons. Do we want individual articles for specific battalions? If so, we should figure out a clear naming scheme; if not, we should think about merging that upwards into the main regimental article Shimgray | talk | 19:08, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
Its no longer a regiment in its own right so Black Watch should be a disambiguation page for
  • 42nd Foot
  • Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment)
  • The Black Watch, 3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland

Jim Sweeney (talk) 19:25, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Jim on this one - each of the 3 distinct organisations should have a page Kernel Saunters (talk) 11:30, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm having trouble computing this. There is a continuous use of the name Black Watch from formation to current day. The regimental tartan didn't change either which in historical military terms means that the 73rd were subsumed into the 42nd. I think this regiment warrants treatment which is outside the norm because its history defies the convention we are trying to impose upon it. My proposal would be that the 42nd of Foot and Royal Highland regiment be incorporated into the history of the Black Watch up until the RRS amalgamation which is different entirely because now the Black Watch has effectively ceased to exist as an independent unit. Having read a fair bit about this over the last few days I also think there is room for a "Highland Watch" article for the taskforce but unfortunately I don't have the reference sources at the moment. SonofSetanta (talk) 12:37, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
For what its worth I also think Jim's disambiguation idea has merit, although I admit that I'm not aware of how other British regiments have been treated in this regard (not my area of knowledge). Anotherclown (talk) 13:33, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
I would caution against reading too much into the name & the tartan. There were several cases in 1881 where one regiment almost completely "disappeared" into the more famous counterpart, but as far as I'm aware, they were officially equal and the new unit was an amalgamation of both. It was quite common for an amalgamation to have a "senior" and "junior" partner, with the bulk of the traditions coming from the "senior" one; and, of course, there can only be one of things like tartans. I've never encountered anything that says the Black Watch was a particularly special case in this regard, and I think for us to treat it as one we'd really need to show that external sources generally treat it as such.
One unusual aspect is the Canadian and Australian units using the same name, and I'm not sure where it's best to deal with these.
You're right that these articles do need a thorough going over, though - as it is, they link to each other on an apparently random basis! After some more thought, my recommendations would be either:
Note we'll have to sort something out for various other RRS battalions as well; it's not just the Black Watch, as the same thing's happened for the RHF, Highlanders, and Argyll pages, merging the current battalion and the previous regiment. Shimgray | talk | 13:31, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I would be bolder than that. I would have one article for the Black Watch from formation to 2006 but link the 73rd Rgt of Foot to that. I mean we could be anal and include an article for the time when they were called the 43rd Regt of Foot etc etc etc but in my considered opinion a reader gets more benefit from having the historic facts presented on one page. For post 2006 my opinion would be that a single RRS of Scotland is enough for the moment rather than trying to expand 5 years history into 7 different articles (I think it's 7 with the 52nd Lowland incorporated). The important thing for the Black Watch article is that the history isn't spread around all over the place as none of the changes to the unit changed the name they were known by - until 2006. SonofSetanta (talk) 13:48, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I have had another think about this (a bike ride to the bank and back in freezing weather is great for clearing the head!) and on reflection, a single main article may be the way to go. How does this sound:
  • Rework Black Watch as a main article, with sections summarising all history from 1725 to the present day, each one linking out to specific subsidiary articles at 42nd Regiment of Foot, Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment), and Royal Regiment of Scotland, plus sections on the Canadian and Australian etc. units, plus a centralised discussion of things like the tartan, traditions, popular culture, etc. I can easily mock up a demonstration of this, if you'd like (though possibly not until tomorrow).
This has the advantage that a single article covering 1725-date would have the potential to be enormous, and we'd need to think about splitting it up into daughter articles at some point in the future - so we may as well do it now, in a logical fashion! Shimgray | talk | 14:09, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
That would be my mode of thinking up to the point where we need daughter articles for the 42nd Foot and Royal Highland Regiment. My major point here is that they are all one and the same. A separate article for the 73rd Foot is needed in my opinion because it had a history before amalgamation. The article needs to stop at the 2006 amalgamation however because the history transfers to the RRS. SonofSetanta (talk) 14:30, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
Can we get a concensus of opinion on this? SonofSetanta (talk) 12:34, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
42nd Regiment of Foot, the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) and Royal Regiment of Scotland are not the same regiment and trying to put them all into one article with split offs is contrary to the way other unit histories are laid out e.g. the Mercian Regiment and its predecessors as mentioned by Jim Sweeney above. I'd support with the suggestion made by Jim and seconded by Kernel Saunters. To use a bad analogy saying they are the same is like saying Bill Clinton and Hilary Clinton only deserve separate articles until their marriage at which point everything should be covered in the article on Bill Clinton. The 42nd Foot may have become the senior battalion of the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) in 1881 and the new regiment may have taken it's name from the 42nds nickname but the two were separate entities. There's a debate to be had on whether 3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland merits an article of it's own, which at the moment I would say is not merited as I suspect it would be based on former glories prior to the formation of RRS. The existance of Canadian and Australian units with the same name to my mind reinforces the suggestion that Black Watch is used as a disambiguation page. NtheP (talk) 17:06, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Why not just move the disambiguation page to the primary location. Then every regimental and battalion article would indicate which it is. 70.24.248.23 (talk) 07:06, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Possible Idea?

Last few days I've come across articles that are in the middle of an expansion. They normally end up in the "Assessment backlogs" which contains three sub-sections. I was thinking there could be a fourth, named something like "Articles in the process of being expanded" (Articles that people have started to create from nothing) which are not already assessed. Could this be a possible idea to throw around the Coordinators and other users who are members of WikiProject Military history? Adamdaley (talk) 05:23, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

To clarify, this would be a listing of articles with the under construction hat tag? What would be the advantage of the new sub-section? Can you give us more of an idea of your rationale? Thanks Monstrelet (talk) 18:51, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
These articles with the following banners (on the articles) "under construction" or "major expansion" would be moved to the fourth sub-section of Assessment until these articles were completd by the contributors. For me, I do those backlogs, personally, if I see if it is unfinished or in the middle of being expanded, etc, with the banners at the top, I leave them which of course, leaving them unassessed causes one or two extra backlog of articles for not being assessed since it's being expanded. If the banner wasn't there, I would assess it as it was. Adamdaley (talk) 23:14, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Broken infobox at Mongol invasion of Europe

Hello. There's been a system error displayed in the footnotes of that article for about two months. The answer at the Help desk is that the parameter strength1 is defined twice in {{Infobox military conflict}}. So I'm looking for people experienced in writing articles where there's several conflicting reports of forces in presence, and so several groups of combatantX / unitsX / strengthX / etc might be needed in that template. Thank you, Comte0 (talk) 11:42, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

It is a clear and simple error that strength1 is assigned twice in Mongol invasion of Europe. The two assignments are nearly identical. Remove one of them. That's it. I see no reason to change {{Infobox military conflict}} based on this case. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:17, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Commons Aviation Wikiproject

Several editors have decided to start a Commons Aviation WikiProject which is going to be devoted to aviation-related content on Commons; Commons:Commons:WikiProject_Aviation. Some of the main tasks for the project include maintaining and sorting aviation content, as well as working on obtaining permission from photographers to upload their photos to Commons, in addition to working on introducing photographers to Commons to get them to upload photos directly to Commons. There is a discussion at Commons:Commons_talk:WikiProject_Aviation at which we are trying to ascertain what the needs of the community-at-large are, so please feel free to join in the discussion. Also, if there are any project members who are willing to do some translation work for us that would be great. See Commons:Commons_talk:WikiProject_Aviation#Translations for more info. Also, anyone with scripting knowledge would be welcome, as there are some ideas which would require such expertise. Look forward to hearing from project members over on Commons with any ideas, etc. Please feel free to translate this message as needed. Cheers, Y u no be Russavia ლ(ಠ益ಠლ) 14:22, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for Hall XPTBH now open

The A-Class review for Hall XPTBH is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill [talk] [prof] 18:46, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Milhist talkpage template

When trying to apply "list" as the assessment on the talkpage, the template seems to default to show "Start". Is this intentional or an error? Regards Newm30 (talk) 23:58, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Also needs | list = yes to work on MilHist assessments. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 00:02, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I just found this out by searching some other lists. Why have we decided we need another code when other WP's just require the List assessment only. Seems an additional step that is not required? Regards Newm30 (talk) 00:08, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
List-class wasn't ever activated on MilHist, it seems, but has been added to the {{MILHIST}} banner recently. There are plans to create some form of new scale so that Lists can be assessed within their own right, to bridge the gap between List and FL level. e.g. List->CL->BL->AL->FL due to the standard criteria not being well suited to pure list assessment, due to the major gap between List and FL which is like trying to get a prosey article from Start to FA without any intermediate steps, due to Lists being inadmissible for GA reviews, and to give Lists a rating and a better sense of their quality perhaps leading to more FLAs in the future. It may be some time before you see the new criteria/scale implemented, as it is still under development. Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 00:17, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the update and information. Regards Newm30 (talk) 00:41, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Improving raid article

I've recently had cause to stop by at Raid (military). Though better than once it was, it is still a poor specimen. In particular, I notice that the air landing section is empty. Given the interest here in airborne operations and special forces, I can only think this is due to lack of awareness. Sadly, I've already committed my immediate editing time as even I have some basic material but there are people here who are genuinely expert on this stuff. There really is an excellent opportunity here to improve on this important tactics article. I hope someone will take up the challenge.

Time stamp for archiving. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 11:07, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

ArbCom election reminder: voting closes soon

All editors are reminded that voting closes for ACE2011 in just over a day's time (Saturday 10 December at 23:59 UTC). To avoid last-minute technical logjams, editors are asked to vote at least an hour before the close, that is, by:

  • Saturday 15:00 (3 pm) on the west coast of North America;
  • Saturday 18:00 (6 pm) on the east coast of North America;
  • Saturday 23:00 (11 pm) in the UK and Ireland;
  • Sunday 01:00 (1 am) in South Africa;
  • Sunday 06:00 (7 am) on the west coast of Australia; and
  • Sunday 10:00 (10 am) on the east coast of Australia; and
  • Sunday 12:00 (12 noon) in New Zealand.

For the election coordinators. Tony (talk) 13:07, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Nomination as a United States Wikipedians' Collaboration of the Month candidate

One or more articles relating to this project have been nominated to be a future United States Wikipedians' Collaboration of the Month. All editors interested in improving these articles or voting for next months collaboration are encouraged to participate here. --Kumioko (talk) 19:42, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Anybody interested in armoured vehicles?

Hi guys, I've just had to delete Paramount Group, Matador (mine protected vehicle), and Marauder (vehicle) as blatant spam written by a PR firm (see Wikipedia:Bell Pottinger COI Investigations). However, it looks like Paramount Group (the manufacturer of the two vehicles) might be sufficiently notable for an article, and the Marauder also looks notable. It would be great if somebody interested in armoured vehicles could have a look and re-create the articles if the subjects are notable. I'll be happy to email the contents of the deleted articles to anybody interested. Cheers, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:49, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for German battleship Tirpitz now open

The featured article candidacy for German battleship Tirpitz is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Parsecboy (talk) 02:58, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Two merge proposals

Two merge proposals needing comment at Talk:Kasuga Maru and Talk:Japanese aircraft carrier Chūyō. Thanks, D O N D E groovily Talk to me 02:34, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

The three ships have their escort carrier class listed. Was there a class name for their time as liners/troopships ? (Were there other ships of their liner class?) 76.65.128.198 (talk) 08:08, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for Polish Underground State needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Polish Underground State; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! AustralianRupert (talk) 09:45, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Bautzen (1945) needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Battle of Bautzen (1945); please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! AustralianRupert (talk) 09:45, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

A Proposal

I have created a draft of a proposal, on which are some ideas on restructuring and revitalizing WikiProject History. You may already have been notified of this, as I left messages on the talk pages of related WikiProjects and editors who may be interested in this. It may be easier to keep discussion in one place, perhaps here. DCItalk 01:07, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Frank Fujita

Notable? S.G.(GH) ping! 13:16, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

No. Buckshot06 (talk) 14:22, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
Unfortunatly, no, he's not. - The Bushranger One ping only 07:35, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
He doesn't appear to be. Hchc2009 (talk) 19:12, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

USS Iwo Jima (CV-46) et al

Hello. I came across USS Iwo Jima (CV-46) and USS Reprisal (CV-35), two Essex class aircraft carriers which were not completed. I know ships canceled before their keels were laid don't have articles, and most that aren't finished don't have them either, but are these an intentional exception? I'll improve them both if people want to keep them. —Ed!(talk) 21:15, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

It's unlikely that either ship merits an article. Parsecboy (talk) 21:52, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
Seven years with little to show for it rather backs you up there. redirect to class article? GraemeLeggett (talk) 22:05, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
A page on an incomplete ship? (OK, I know, there's one for Chicolar, which is arguably no better...) Redirect them. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 22:15, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
I'd get rid of Chicolar too. Parsecboy (talk) 22:33, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
USS Pompano (SS-491), USS Grayling (SS-492), USS Needlefish (SS-493), USS Sculpin (SS-494), USS Wahoo (SS-516), USS Wahoo (SS-518), USS Dorado (SS-526), USS Comber (SS-527), USS Sea Panther (SS-528) and USS Tiburon (SS-529) range from never started and to never launched: they could use a onceover too. GraemeLeggett (talk) 22:52, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
I have redirected Reprisal to the class article based on this discussion. Cheers Buckshot06 (talk) 11:34, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Pusan Perimeter now open

The A-Class review for Battle of Pusan Perimeter is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill [talk] [prof] 12:33, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Two pages for the same battle order

The following two pages Order of battle of the Battle of Beiping-Tianjin and Order of battle at Beiping–Tianjin cover the same subject. Can someone who's more familiar with military history on Wikipedia suggest what to do (or better still actually do something)? The latter article, Order of battle at Beiping–Tianjin, appears better. --Colapeninsula (talk) 16:21, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I redirected the poorly formated and orphaned one to the better one. I did not see anything worth merging. If someone else wants to perform a more detailed comparison, the old article is still in the page history. Binksternet (talk) 17:57, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Rocketry

Hi there MILHIST folks, just to let you know that there's a discussion ongoing at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rocketry#Project abolishment? regarding the abolishment of WikiProject Rocketry, with the suggestion being that its duties be divided up between WP:SPACEFLIGHT, WP:MILHIST and WP:AVIATION. As such, input from editors in this project would be appreciated to determine whether consensus is for the project to be abolished and if so how its duties should be divvied up between the projects. All views welcome! :-) Colds7ream (talk) 17:16, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for 1907 Tiflis bank robbery now open

The featured article candidacy for 1907 Tiflis bank robbery is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Remember (talk) 17:19, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

IP changes to Second Boer War

An IP is making a lot of changes to the above article with no edit summaries, and the changes are apparent random ones to figures etc. Would someone who knows more about this than I do check these changes and either verify them or rein the editor in, as is appropriate? Britmax (talk) 20:35, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Unreferenced changes were reverted. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 08:21, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

The National Archives

Hi guys, I was approached at GLAMcamp Amsterdam over the weekend by somebody from The National Archives—"the UK government's official archive"—who was interested in some sort of collaboration with Wikipedians, particularly those interested in military history. In particular, we discussed some sort of project revolving around World War I in the run-up (broadly defined) to the centenary. However, their collections are huge (if a little random in places), so it would be great if anybody interested could have a look through the catalogue and let me know if there are any types of documents that would be of particular interest. I've already suggested that things like service records of notable personnel (particularly generals and VC recipients) would be valuable, but all suggestions are welcome. I ask because it was suggested that an event involving a group of Wikipedians travelling to their HQ might be worthwhile, but they can't necessarily put all the material we might want together at the drop of a hat. Anybody (mainly relevant to Brits, but the offer is open to anybody) who would be interested in attending such an event, please drop me an email and I'll keep you in the loop. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:21, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm excited to hear about all the great opportunities opening up in the UK, but I'm hearing enough now about "opportunities" that I really have to mention some concerns I have. It's my personal belief that we (as individuals and as a project) have more to offer than GLAMs can reasonably expect to get for free from volunteer labor. Milhist is experiencing the same loss of productive editors that the rest of Wikipedia is experiencing ... which is totally fine, of course, if people are devoting themselves to career, friends and family. What worries me is that people may be getting taken advantage of in all the ways that hard-working, sincere, dedicated volunteers have always been taken advantage of ... "Everyone at our museum started off as an intern, just put in your volunteer time and we'll teach you everything you need to know, and you'll be a museum professional in no time!" Thoughts? - Dank (push to talk) 17:15, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
I've been using the digitalised records the National Archives of Australia have placed online a fair bit over the last year, and the most useful items have been the diaries Australian military units maintain and the service records of personnel. I've been able to extract some useful (and PD thanks to their age) maps and photos from some of these. As such, an effort to digitalise the equivalent British records would be very useful - especially if they were released under a CC license. Nick-D (talk) 07:14, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
The National Archives has some useful early-modern sketches of castles, and I'd be interested in what they might have on 1st World War war memorials. Hchc2009 (talk) 19:15, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Both noted, thanks gents. I'll keep you up to date on any progress, and if anybody else has any ideas or just wants to be kept in the loop, do feel free to post them here or email me. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:04, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
TNA does a fairly good business out of selling digitised war diaries for UK units - they've just announced plans to complete the entire WWI collection, I believe - and I doubt they'd be willing to release them. However, some less "core business" stuff has been released, including a large swathe of South African unit diaries, so this could be a good angle to pursue.
HJ - could you ask about parliamentary papers and official reports? I know that some of them are available through academic databases (I forget who exactly it is) but they have the advantage of being independently digitisable, and I'm particularly interested in finding a copy of the Battles Nomenclature Committee report (Cmd 1138/1922) for working on the WWI project over the next couple of years. Shimgray | talk | 22:45, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
A CC-By-SA release might be tricky but having them made available for Wikipedians to consult in person as part of a backstage pass event or something might be a possibility. I've added your suggestions to the list, Andrew, thanks. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:11, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

A book written by a soldier of Norway's and ISAF's Telemark Battalion

Is the following book notable enough to be the topic of a seperate article?

A book review in Klassekampen, titled ["Between soldiers and civillians"]"Mellom soldater og sivile", says [about the history of Telemark Battalion]:

"Also the "To Valhalla" battle cry is commented. One chapter of the book claims that it is the author, and not the Major, Rune Wenneberg (who took the brunt in the newspapers), who suggested that "To Valhalla" should be the battle cry of the unit [a sub-unit of Telemark Battalion]. [The author] invented the battle cry after having seen the Norse names on the military [battle] vehicles (incidentally identical with the names of Norwegian oil platforms). While reading, I almost have the impression that one of the motivation for writing ["Brothers" + "in" + "the blood"] Brødre i blodet, was to "acquitt" Wenneberg. ... Two viewpoint on the Valhalla battle cry, are relevant: The cry has a function then and there — it incites and creates the bloodbrother feeling. At the same time it is postmodern kitsch. ... If I had more room to write, I would have said something about the book's use of "adrenalin" as its most used metafor. At its best, the book is a contribution to the discussion about the foreign policy of Norway.)

[Earlier in the book review:] This book comes as a delayed, but welcome point of view in the debate about the warrior culture [of Norwegian soldiers] after the scandal-publishings regarding "To Valhalla" ... video on YouTube. And there probably are not many, who consider it good propaganda."

(The original Norwegian text: Også "Til Valhall-ropet kommenteres. I et kapittel i boka framgår det at det er forfatteren selv, ikke majoren Rune Wenneberg (som tok støyten i avisene), som foreslo at "Til Valhall" skulle bli avdelingens kamprop. Johansen klekket ut ropet etter å ha sett de norrøne navnene på kampvognene (for øvrig identiske med navn på norske oljerigger.) Under lesningen får jeg nesten inntrykk av at en motivasjon for skrivingen av Brødre i blodet var å "frikjenne" Wenneberg. ... To synspunkter på Valhall-ropet er relevante: Ropet har en funksjon der og da, det oppildner og skaper blodsbrødre-følelsen. Samtidig er det postmoderne kitsch. ... Hadde jeg hatt plass, skulle jeg ha sagt noe om adrenalinsom bokas mest sentrale metafor. På sitt beste er boka et bidrag i diskusjonen om norsk utenrikspolitikk. [Earlier in the book review:] Denne boka kommer som et forsinket , men velkomment innlegg i debatten om krigerkultur som ble reist etter skandale-oppslaget om "Til Valhall" ... video på YouTube. Og det er vel få som ser på den som god propaganda. The book review (in Klassekampen) was written by Espen Stueland, 2011-12-03 page 3.--EUR-pallet (talk) 09:40, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

The notability criteria for books (Wikipedia:Notability (books)) currently sets a pretty low threshold for the amount of coverage needed to establish books' notability. If this book has been the subject of multiple professional reviews newspapers and the like then it's notable. However, I'd personally suggest that you also apply a common-sense test to this notability criteria here and consider whether the book is notable for English language readers before starting the article (eg, if the book has been the subject of multiple Norwegian-language reviews then it probably meets the notability criteria here and can have an article on it. However, it's unlikely that many English-language readers will ever look for an article on the book, so it might not be a good use of your time creating it.). Nick-D (talk) 10:06, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
Frankly, the book notability criteion is badly broken, IMHO - a few newspapers and magazines printing three-by-six-inch "reviews" and, hay presto, "notability". Ugh. - The Bushranger One ping only 07:34, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
The article is now available - Brødre i blodet.--85.196.118.210 (talk) 11:35, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Could we merge the book article into Telemark Battalion -- popular culture or something? Buckshot06 (talk) 09:05, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Mentioning the author at the end of an article about the book

The author is in my opinion less notable than the book — I have not seen any references about the author that would make him notable enough for a seperate article about him. (If there is any notable info about him, one could simply put it at the end of an article about the book.)--EUR-pallet (talk) 09:40, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

General History

Just a question, but should WikiProject History, which seems far, far less active than this project, be renamed to "WikiProject general history," or a similar, less inclusive name? This would not be a major restructuring event, but would perhaps revitalize the dormant project. Thoughts? DCItalk 00:57, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to be honest here, but I don't think that will help. I think the problem lies in presentation. When you arrive at WP:HISTORY all you get is a great long page of sections and boxes. Unlike here, WP:MILHIST, which is nicely arranged with separate pages in smaller chunks, no mile-long scroll bar and such. Perhaps, to a Wiki newcomer, that appearance is either intimidating or disinteresting, compared to what other projects have. And that lack of presentation suggests a lack of professional scope, whether true or not. MilHist is very well done thanks to people like Kirill, who make efforts to make our project look welcoming. I think if you want to revitalise that project you need to look at redesigning its main page, organising its content, give it a professional outward look. Just my initial thoughts though. Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 01:08, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
WT:HISTORY gets very little traffic (and hasn't for years), and what traffic it does get isn't conducive to building a wikiproject. The only kind of history project I would support (without a significant infusion of new blood) would be an informal agreement among history-related wikiprojects to support each other in some way, say by reviewing each other's articles or helping each other with copyediting. - Dank (push to talk) 01:59, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
I see what both of you mean. As I mentioned above, much of that project seems dormant. The last time I checked, an A-class nomination there dated back to 2009, and talk page queries had been unanswered for nearly a month. DCItalk 14:50, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
The first thing I did when I joined Wikipedia Officially a year ago was go to the Wikiproject History Page and honestly thought the group was going to be impossible to get help from because I didn't know where to go or what to do when I got there so I ended up just working on the Orphan backlog. I think the group is in need of some group like the coordinators on MILHIST here that are concerned about how the project handles itself and how to make it the most user friendly to encourage growth. --MOLEY (talk) 18:03, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
I added a proposal to the History Project talk page, and will add it to the bottom of this page. DCItalk 23:22, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
For additional help, I'd look at WP:USA and what User:Kumioko did to revive it. There are some days, though, that I don't wonder if we (Milhist) should just take over the main history page, retool our mission to focus on all history, and invite every editor interested in history to join. It'd have the potential to be a beastly project (even more so than we already are), and would solve some of our problems of editor loss by opening us up to a wider audience. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 08:13, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
Well just looking at WT:HISTORY and reiterating what Dank said, the 18 discussions on there date back to March 2009, with only one ever getting a response, which was from Dank himself. If you stick round long enough, a tumbleweed rolls across the screen.. it's seriously a ghost town.. sad, really. I was going to object to Ed's suggestion saying that we're overloaded as it is and have trouble getting people to review and get involved, but the way WP:HISTORY is, it couldn't burden anyone. Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 08:37, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
Actually those objections still hold water. My thought is that as an active project, we will draw in non-Milhist people (I'm thinking of people like Wehwalt) who would otherwise be turned off by the tumbleweeds. Granted, that's an assumption, not a guarantee. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 08:42, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
Blimey, he's written a few general history FAs, eh! Damn shame the project isn't active to give him more community interaction. Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 08:46, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
He actually gets quite a bit of community attention with the number of high-profile articles he writes... the bigger issue is the people who write one or two general history articles and don't know where or who to turn to. FAC is a scary place when you're there for the first time... and triply so when you're alone. Trust me, I know, and that was back in the good days. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:25, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
I really think MOLEY has a point ... there should be comments on the talk page and templates on the project page directing people to the more active history-related wikiprojects, such as Milhist and Middle Ages. - Dank (push to talk) 12:59, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
That's an intriguing idea, certainly, but I don't think it would work out in practice. The problem with WP:HISTORY, in my view, is not a lack of structure or organization per se; rather, it's that the scope is fundamentally too broad to sustain a critical mass of editors whose interests encompass it. "History" is so broad a field as to include almost anything, and most editors will know and/or care only about some particular topic area within it. Even with MILHIST, there's a great deal of specialization; but, at least in our case, there's enough shared elements among the various military-related topics that the project as a whole can engage in productive discussion about them. For HISTORY, the only common thread might be historiography (and even that is not necessarily common across the entire field); someone writing about, say, 12th-century battles would have so little in common with someone writing about 20th-century dance that any shared interest between them would be superficial at best.
If anything, I'd actually favor the opposite approach: divide history up among the second-tier WikiProjects—both geographical (e.g. European history) and topical (e.g. military history)—and have those act as the real focus points for editorial collaboration. The main history project should, in my opinion, simply be a directory of the history-related WikiProjects, not a true WikiProject in its own right. Kirill [talk] [prof] 13:12, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
That's a good point. Scaling up would not always mean more editors. Maybe we should lead a reorganization of the inactive and semi-active WikiProjects in order to focus them on a limited number of centralized but "second-tier" projects? I'm not exactly sure how to do this, but I'd like to reduce the number of history projects on WP in order to centralize them as much as possible, sort of like we've done here by folding most facets of Milhist under our banner. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:27, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I agree with some of the issues raised with scaling up; however, I feel that WikiProject History should carry out some functions. Perhaps it could be renamed to "WP:History Center," as a place where Wikipedians could go to carry out History-related A-class reviews, take part in History-related discussions, and do general work cleaning up general history articles. I think that some of the elements of my proposal (coordination, A-class functions, additional functions) could be adapted to this type of setup. DCItalk 00:34, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
    • I see the point that was raised above: a 20th-century dance enthusiast and an editor interested in collaborating on Crusades-related articles might not find much in common. However, WikiProject History could carry out A-class reviews for both of their articles, and could introduce fairly neutral, uninvolved editors to such a process. They would be able to find resources and support when continuing their editing. The new WikiProject, or History Center, could also divide itself into various sub-projects. Of course, Military History, Middle Ages, Classical Greece and Rome, and the other active ones could remain intact, but what about the dormant ones? They could be grouped together into more "workable" projects that would encompass the history of entire regions.
    • I am not opposed to any suggestions involving Military History project members taking over some of the functions of WikiProject History. As I mentioned in my proposal, I feel that all members of history-related WikiProjects should automatically become part of the central History one. DCItalk 00:40, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
The idea of a central Project makes sense, but it would still need coords and members to keep it active. That would be a slow up-hill climb at first.. possibly so slow it doesn't get into momentum and I'd be worried that people simply use it as a portal to other history projects without sticking around long enough to help sustain the project itself. Perhaps it might be worth determing how many General History articles are actually being written and reviewed at the moment, and on average; I expect many are not reviewed, and those that are probably go via GA and FA, being the only options open with WP:History proving unresponsive. Before jumping in the deep end here it might be worth checking the potential interest first. Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 02:05, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
Let's put a link to this discussion and some background info in an upcoming edition of the Milhist Bugle (with the editors' consent of course!), and see what responses we can get from the history community on Wikipedia. DCItalk 02:23, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Troublesome edits on New Zealand's involvement in the Vietnam War

User:Collingwood26 seems to be systematically removing evidence of New Zealand's involvement in the war against the PLAF/PAVN in South Vietnam. This results in the misrepresentation of the history, and seems to be political as the user concealed this edit diff behind the edit summary "Spelling error." I've notified them of this discussion. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:37, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

He also seems to be generally blanking things like category tags and interwiki links ([6]), so I'm not sure if the problem is limited to the Vietnam War articles. Kirill [talk] [prof] 03:47, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
Their 2006_Dutch/Australian_Offensive article doesn't seem to be too bad writing. Its sourcing needs improvement. This editor looks like someone who could do good, if we managed to bring them into the MILHIST culture. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:51, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
  • This has continued today with changes to the fol (pls see edit summaries below):
04:28, 15 December 2011 (diff | hist) Battle of Gang Toi ‎ (NZ was not involved in this battle so I removed them from categories.)
04:26, 15 December 2011 (diff | hist) Operation Hump ‎ (NZ was not involved in this battle so I removed them from categories.) (top)
04:22, 15 December 2011 (diff | hist) Battle of Long Khanh ‎ (NZ was not involved in this battle so I removed them from categories.)
04:20, 15 December 2011 (diff | hist) Battle of Xa Cam My ‎ (NZ was not involved in this battle so I removed them from categories.) (top)
04:19, 15 December 2011 (diff | hist) Battle of Suoi Chau Pha ‎ (NZ was not involved in this battle so I removed them from categories.)
04:17, 15 December 2011 (diff | hist) Operation Coburg ‎ (NZ was not involved in this battle so I removed them from categories.)
04:13, 15 December 2011 (diff | hist) Operation Bribie ‎ (NZ was not involved in this battle so I removed them from categories.)
In most cases Kiwi artillery or infantry or both were involved, as is reflected in the articles themselves. As such I have reverted. Anotherclown (talk) 09:15, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Titchwell Marsh

This article recently appeared at FAC, and I tagged it for Milhist. (Discussion is now at the FAC's talk page.) The first subsection of the article, called To 1972, is almost entirely military history. Every discussion I've seen about what to tag for Milhist resolved into a single criterion: a "substantial" (sub)section on military history. My question: if a section is obviously "on military history", but has a few sentences devoted to other topics, should we talk with the writers about whether it would work to rename the section to something like "Military history" and to try to find another section for the few sentences that don't fit that heading? Personally, I don't think the answer is yes/no ... if almost all the history is military history, I don't think that it makes sense in general to separate out a section for "non-military history" (or some other equally silly name). - Dank (push to talk) 16:11, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Nature reserves and military history

On an even more general point, also related to the above, would it be good to have a consistent approach to how the military history associated with nature reserves is handled? There are many more examples than just the one above. It would be nice to have a way to 'tag' such articles without a full WP tagging, as much of the military history of coastal nature reserves is tied up with the coastal defences constructed in World War II. It would be better, IMO, to have an article on the UK WWII coastal defences and a listing of nature reserves that contain military ranges (and also military ranges that contain nature reserves), rather than tag all of the nature reserve articles and shoehorn in military history subsections. The question of how much to include at individual articles is purely a matter of what the sources say, and should not ever (ever) be driven by concerns such as wikiproject scope. Carcharoth (talk) 17:06, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

What is this new concept of which you speak, "without a full WP tagging"? Which wikiprojects tag in a way that is less than full? Do you have any examples of where a tagging by Milhist on an article with a substantial (sub)section on military history hurt the quality of the article? I can't think of any. - Dank (push to talk) 17:41, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
It's a new concept. I'm not referring to any existing practice, just a wish on my part that it could be possible to tag articles as 'partially' within scope rather than fully within scope. Otherwise some articles would have thousands of wikiproject tags. I did find the article I was thinking of: British hardened field defences of World War II. That is actually linked from the Titchwell Marsh article, as I didn't look closely enough at the piped link behind "pillbox".

Anyway, I've been thinking about this some more, and the bit about this that really annoys me is this concept of tagging for a WikiProject in order to (in your words at the FAC - now on the FAC talk page) make the wikiproject "look good". If you had wanted MilHist to "look good" by attracting reviewers to the FAC, all you would have had to do is mention here that there was an article at FAC that had a subsection that included MILHIST material. I notice sections like that all the time when looking over FAC, but don't feel any urge to tag the articles to make MILHIST "look good". This whole thing raises doubts in my mind as to how many of the FA-level articles in MILHIST are really fully within scope, and how many have been tagged to make MILHIST "look good"?

That is a serious question. How many of the articles at FA-level are tagged by MILHIST merely because there is a section in there somewhere on military history? If you can't answer that question, then the stats are meaningless with 'full scope' articles mixed up with 'partial scope' articles (and really, how many people would consider an article on a bird reserve to be really, genuinely, a MILHIST article?). If there was a way of finding out that x number of articles had sections related to MILHIST (and were tagged accordingly), that would actually be useful. On the other general question, I would still like to know if a listing of the overlaps between nature reserves and military ranges is possible. Carcharoth (talk) 18:28, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

The short answer: I'm quite willing to reopen this, and we might arrive at a different answer this time, but be aware that this is well-trodden territory; people have been tagging articles as military history for a long time that have had a substantial (sub)section on military history, and if that were going to create dire problems, we'd know it by now. Longer answer: you've misunderstood my "look good" comment. What makes a wikiproject "look good" IMO is openness to new ideas and new people, and collaboration among people with different interests ... that's the way to defeat the "policy cruft" and inertia that all organizations (certainly including Wikipedia) struggle with. We also have to deal with the expectations of the readers generally and of academic historians in particular, and neither of these groups defines "military history" in the narrow way you seem to be arguing for. (In fact, an unwillingness to make connections between "military history" and "history" is the fastest way to get dismissed as a "hobbyist". Historians, including military historians, don't think this way.) As to why I'm (usually) tagging articles only after they show up at FAC, it's not to "rack up our count" of FAs or anything else; I'd be tagging more articles if that were my goal, wouldn't I? For one thing, everyone (so far) whose article I've tagged at FAC has been quite happy to have the help and input of Milhist people at FAC, the best I can tell, and many have started new collaborations with us. For another thing, I tag at FAC because I can only volunteer myself, not anyone else, for extra work. If the presence of a military history tag results in some conflict between Wikipedians or a decrease in article quality, either during the FAC or later (leading to a trip to WP:FAR), then I'll notice it, and deal with it (and it hasn't spawned any conflict til now, btw.) I can't ask everyone in the project to keep an eye on articles whose subject matter they might not be interested in maintaining; I can only say that this is something I'm willing to do, in order to meet the goals I mentioned above. I'll go put together a list of articles I've tagged at FAC; feel free to make arguments about which of them you don't consider to be "military history". Concerning the article we're talking about at the moment ... read Titchwell_Marsh#To 1972 again; I think that explains why I tagged this article as relevant to our project (that, and the fact that I asked first, and the nominator agreed.) - Dank (push to talk) 19:31, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
To take your last point first, I'm not saying that the section isn't about military history - when did I ever say that? My contention is that this is not something recognisable as an obvious military history topic (it's a bird reserve and marsh that at some point in its history had some military associations - innumerable things have had military associations in their history). I take your point about not hewing to a narrow definition of military history, and I've never done that myself, so why you think I'm arguing for a narrow definition of military history, I don't know. What I am arguing for is a way to distinguish articles that have only sections on military history (plus sections that are not military history by any definition) from articles that are 'completely' military history. Does that make things clearer? Carcharoth (talk) 23:14, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
Oh, and to answer your question: yes, there's a way to tell which FAs the delegates considered to be primarily about military history: pull up WP:FA and see which section the article is listed in. (That doesn't help you for non-FAs, but then, I'm only tagging at FAC.) - Dank (push to talk) 19:51, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
I thought of that, but there are some 'History' articles that are arguably military history. A rough calculation, using just the recent figure of 366 for 'warfare' FAs and the current figure of 566 for MILHIST FAs, shows there are around 200 articles that might (like this article) only contain 'sections' on military history. It would nice to have a list of those 200 articles that might be 'partially military history but mostly something else', and I might try and generate that at some point. Would that be useful? I've also been looking through Category:FA-Class military history articles and I can't see any that are as borderline as Titchwell Marsh other than the ones of kings and queens of England and Farthest South. I understand that WikiProject tagging isn't, and never will be, an exact science, but surely you can accept that the boundaries are to some extent being pushed here? Are all exploration voyages in military ships and all kings, queens and presidents that waged wars at some point in their lives, part of military history? Sometimes it would be nice if more attention was paid to the central aspects of military history, without a seemingly endless expansion of scope. Carcharoth (talk) 23:14, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
The thing is, military history as an academic field is expanding, and has been for some time. We are no longer a simply "drums and trumpets" discipline, and haven't been for over 40 years.
As to the meat of the issue, I see no problem with tagging an article that is at least partially relevant to military history, broadly constructed. A comment you made on the FAC talk struck me as odd: you argued we should tag articles "at the expense of other projects." We (WP:SHIPS) had a similar discussion probably two years ago with an editor from WP:SHIPWRECKS who felt we were encroaching on their "territory" by tagging articles for both projects. What I failed to understand then and still don't now is how tagging an article for two or more projects that are relevant to the topic is harmful. Parsecboy (talk) 00:40, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
It's potentially harmful in the sense that a small wikiproject approaching critical mass of editor participation and proud of the work its editors have done to help an article improve, might get demoralised when a large wikiproject hoves into view and tags the article. The key is to work together. Editors of a hypothetical "nature reserves" wikiproject might have reached out to MILHIST for help, but that is different from a "look good" tagging taking place during FAC (I know Dank didn't mean it the way it sounds, but "look good" in colloquial English is intensely promotional). One thing I would ask some MILHIST editors is how much experience they have at building up small wikiprojects. Having that experience helps. If an article has been previously tagged, before tagging for your own wikiproject, why not reach out to the other wikiprojects (look into the article talk page history and see who did the tagging). Suggest collaboration and try and build bridges and help support other wikiprojects by talking with them. Sometimes that is all it takes. This article is a great chance for archaeology, MILHIST and bird editors to work together and jointly achieve something, though at this point I suspect the original nominator (who probably did most of the work) will be looking daggers at me, so I'll stop there. On that topic, does anyone know of any article where two or more wikiprojects have actually worked together? Carcharoth (talk) 01:12, 16 December 2011 (UTC) PS. After that discussion two years ago, what happened to WP:SHIPWRECKS? Did it carry on as before, or was it adversely affected? I also see some of the earlier discussion you mention at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Shipwrecks.
I have an answer ready to go, but if you're not objecting to the articles I've tagged so far, with a few exceptions I think we can handle, and if you're serious about "I'll stop there", then so am I. - Dank (push to talk) 01:37, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
I don't know what the articles are that you've tagged so far - was there a list somewhere I've missed? Anyway, my main point is that any tagging should be done tactfully (you are doing that - though most nominators aren't really going to rock the boat and say "no" when you ask them - maybe ask them after the FAC has closed?) and to promote editor collaboration and article improvements (again, you are doing that). The point you make here about academic military historians is quite true. I've made that point myself before, and have gone further and pointed out that academics who are not strictly military historians (but more cultural/social historians) make contributions to the field as well (mostly those looking at the social and cultural aftermath of the world wars and other major conflicts). The real point, is that tagging is not needed to promote more eyes on an article and more attention to MILHIST aspects of an article. That can be done just as well by listing articles here. It would, in fact, be more useful to know that an article has only a section on MILHST matters, as you might get more people willing to take a look as opposed to looking at a whole article. And I'm repeating myself now, so really will stop there. Many thanks, though, for being willing to discuss this at such length. Hopefully someone will say something about 'Nature reserves and military history' (I really was hoping something would get said about that). Carcharoth (talk) 02:51, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Okay, now I'm on board. I didn't tag Farthest South and I agree that there's no harm in asking the question there, and I did at Talk:Farthest South#Milhist?. At FAC, on Titchwell_Marsh and other (p)reserves whose history happens to be almost all military history, I think it depends on what the nominator wants and on whether a separate article does a good job of covering the military history. We have always tagged heads of state during times of conflict, on the theory that it wouldn't make any sense to tag the generals but not their commander; the commander is probably covered by military historians and by others writing about military history, and those sources should be in the article. Otherwise, the only FAs I've tagged this year where the article isn't "about" military history are Pigeon photography, Peace dollar, and Charles Holden ... I asked, and there was no drama. The ones I've tagged currently at FAC are: Jud Süß (1940 film) (you linked to the discussion above), 1907 Tiflis bank robbery (Lenin and Stalin and friends raising money for the cause) and Titchwell Marsh. - Dank (push to talk) 04:19, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Feedback sought at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Benjamin Piatt Runkle

Would being a brevet major general (Union Army) make someone notable? Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Benjamin Piatt Runkle--GrapedApe (talk) 02:26, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

New Infobox type

I propose we get a new infobox type for incidents such as United States' RQ-170 Iranian airspace violation where it isn't a true military conflict with sides. The entire "battle" was electronic warfare. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 20:16, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps an "incident infobox" could be created for such articles as these where no official combat took place but military related equipment or personnel were involved in the matter. This does seem reasonable, given the number of times where there was military action but no combat per say. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:42, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
Right. Sometimes you even have three sided confrontations that has no actual fighting. Military conflict infobox exists to list the participation level and explain causalities (if any), ie provide statistics. In the case of above example we have a drone in flight and two sides with very advanced remote controllers. In the infobox it implies it was a military conflict with Iranian armed forces, US Air Force and even the CIA. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 09:26, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
As a general point, I don't think a lack of casualties disqualifies an event from being considered a military conflict; an engagement in which a military aircraft is brought down by hostile action is quite legitimately represented by the existing infobox—regardless of whether that action happens to be shooting it down with a missile or compromising its control systems through electronic warfare tactics. Kirill [talk] [prof] 12:21, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
The obvious alternative for this article, incidentally, would be {{infobox aircraft occurrence}}—if we're not treating it as a military engagement, then there's no real need to have military-specific fields in the template, and one of the regular aircraft incident ones should be sufficient. Kirill [talk] [prof] 12:31, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
There are a lot of conflicts where "two sides" is just not the "interesting" or relevant aspect. Incidents such as the example here should be treated differently than conventional warfare infobox which is intended to cover millitary confrontations. -- A Certain White Cat chi? 20:52, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that there is any military "conflict"—or, indeed, any military event with multiple "sides"—where the identities of the sides are anything less than a key element in summarizing the conflict. The fact that one nation has taken a hostile action against another is, in my view, a fundamental aspect of any such event, regardless of what form that hostile action happens to take. Kirill [talk] [prof] 00:53, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Amphibious warfare ships of Australia

Hello. I have some concerns about a recent addition to this article by an IP (see dif [7]). I'm not an ships buff but I'm not sure its accurate so I'm hoping someone with more knowledge could check it. Essentially the fol paragraph has been added:

"On 13th December DEfence Minister Smith at the commissioning of HMAS Choules (the former RFA Largs Bay) in Fremantle Western Australia, announced that Australia would be seeking to purchase a second Bay Class vessel later in 2012 to provide extra amphibious capability for Australia."

However, according to this news article [8] about the commissioning:

"Yesterday the Australian department of defence announced that the Royal Australian Navy is purchasing an additional humanitarian and disaster relief ship. The purchase of a third ship, in addition to the HMAS Choules and HMAS Tobruk, will ensure that Australia has the humanitarian and disaster relief capability required between now and the arrival of the Landing Helicopter Dock Ships in the middle of the decade.
The third ship will primarily be used to transport troops and supplies in support of humanitarian and disaster relief operations domestically and in the region.
A commercial off-the-shelf vessel will be sought so that minimal modifications will be needed allowing the ship to enter into service in the course of 2012.
The vessel will be manned under a civilian crewing arrangement."

To me this seems a little inconsistent with the addition. Thoughts? Anotherclown (talk) 07:58, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I suppose we adhere to the information from the website and not the IP's unsourced and potentially incorrect view. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 08:11, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
The IP editor seems to have gotten confused about what Stephen Smith announced. I've just reverted the edit and added material on the ship the government is planning to buy (I hope that they read up on the HMNZS Charles Upham fiasco in New Zealand before they sign the contract though!). Nick-D (talk) 11:26, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks Nick, I thought as much but wanted to make sure (as sometimes IPs come up with some nuggets of info based on personal knowledge). Any way re your last comment: they probably wont... sigh. Anotherclown (talk) 22:11, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Passchendaele/3rd battle of Ypres 1917

I've put a lot more detail on this page (with emphasis on making it less Anglocentric) and some of the linked pages for individual operations. There's still much to do, particularly with the structure of the page and decisions abut what detail to retain on it and what to move to the linked pages. I've been liaising with Eyeserene but he seems bogged down with other things so is there anyone around who wouldn't mind having a look at the page and offering suggestions? ThanksKeith-264 (talk) 10:02, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for May Revolution needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for May Revolution; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! AustralianRupert (talk) 10:45, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Tense of some Iraq-war related articles

Members of this wikiProject may be interested in Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Tense of some Iraq-war related articles. Yaris678 (talk) 19:11, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Single country-military pages ?

Dear all, following a discussion at User talk:Buckshot06/Archive 17#People's Armies and User talk:W. B. Wilson#Eastern European Armies, the two of us decided that it was inappropriate to have separate articles on the Communist military of states such as Poland or Yugoslavia when all the other countries of the world had consolidated entries : British Armed Forces, Belgian Army etc. Now User:Piotrus has rather strongly expressed his dissatisfaction with the merge of People's Army of Poland into Polish Armed Forces, made in accordance with this conversation of ours. What do people think? 19:33, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Polish People's Army and others like it seem notable to me in their own right. It has been subject of numerous works ([9]); more so, arguably the very concept of a people's army (communist state army) could be notable and in need of writing about (although I don't have time right now to research it further, I just stumble upon a Polish book whose title translates as: "People's Armies: Short Historical Overview"). Moving on, would you suggest merging Red Army (and Soviet Army, which are two separate articles, btw) to Russian Ground Forces? The change into and from communist military was more than just a name change, there were many others - from equipment, tactics and purpose to psychological and social issues (veering into military sociology here). Why the focus on communist era in your merge idea? What about Imperial Russian Army? Why not merge Wehrmacht with Bundeswehr? Or Continental Army with United States Army? Roughly, a simple rule of thumb is: each state has a notable army, and if the name of the state changed justifying a separate article on Wikipedia (ex. People's Republic of Poland -> Third Polish Republic), each of them most likely deserves its own army (military of) article. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me 20:39, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
I see no need to consolidate articles and agree with Piotr.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:54, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
I disagree strongly with most of your points above Piotrus. The Red Army/Soviet Army merge into the Russian Ground Forces is entirely inappropriate because of the fourteen other independent republics involved in the Soviet Union. Also you may have missed the point of the issue, possibly because of methods of translation: we're not talking land forces/armies here, we're talking 'Military of X'/'Armed forces of X' country articles. We need to have one overall article about the armed forces of a state, and while it may have daughter articles in time, if the material on the page is not sufficient for an independent article, they need to be merged. The simple point was there was about three paragraphs of text on the People's Army of Poland page, with about two references between them, an unreferenced list of units, and about three pictures. In that state, it's simply not worth keeping as an independent article. Much more context is present if it is merged within a large one. In addition, it raises the presentation of the encyclopedia if small sets of incoherent information, unreferenced, are not left ragged around the place. Buckshot06 (talk) 21:01, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for Harry Lee (cricketer) now open

The A-Class review for Harry Lee (cricketer) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:49, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for World War II and American animation now open

The A-Class review for World War II and American animation is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:49, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

ANZAC

Hi there has been a dispute in several articles over the term ANZAC. Mostly associated with the Australian and New Zealand Mounted Division. One user insists it should be Anzac Mounted Division, two have agreed it should be ANZAC. The compromise of using the full Australian and New Zealand Mounted Division to prevent an edit war has been rejected by one user.

ANZAC is the correct name used by the Australian War Memorial, see here [10] and here [11] it details the use of the acronym which I have copied below.

ANZAC is the acronym formed from the initial letters of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, the formation into which Australian and New Zealand soldiers were grouped in Egypt prior to the landing at Gallipoli in April 1915.

First written as A. & N. Z. Army Corps, it soon became A. N. Z. A. C. and the new word was so obvious that the full stops were omitted. The word was initially used to refer to the cove where the Australians and New Zealanders landed and soon after, to the men themselves. An ANZAC was a man who was at the Landing and who fought at Gallipoli, but later it came to mean any Australian or New Zealand soldier of the First World War. An ANZAC who served at Gallipoli was given an A badge which was attached to his colour patch.

Following the allied withdrawal from Gallipoli and the expansion of Australian and New Zealand forces in Egypt early in 1916, the ANZAC was split into two new formations called I ANZAC Corps and II ANZAC Corps – despite the repetition of the word Corps in their name. These formations, I ANZAC Corps comprising three Australian divisions and II ANZAC Corps made up of the 4th and 5th Australian divisions and the New Zealand Division, were transferred to France and fought on the Western Front until 1917, when the five Australian formations were grouped into a single Australian Corps. Also in March 1916, the ANZAC Mounted Division was formed from three Australian Light Horse Brigades and the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade for service in Sinai and Palestine. In 1916 – 1917 a joint signals unit, the 1st (ANZAC) Wireless Signal Squadron, operated with the British expeditionary force in Mesopotamia (now Iraq).

Obviously 2-1 is a small consensus so I have brought this here for more comments, thoughts or to build a greater consensus one way or the other. Jim Sweeney (talk) 17:35, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Jim. Can you point to the existing discussion on this? Ta, Ranger Steve Talk 17:40, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
Main discussion was Talk:Battle of Romani Jim Sweeney (talk) 18:11, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
Without having followed the sources, what tends to happen in A/NZ is that initially ANZAC become Anzac through repetition - for example Anzac biscuit. This may or may not have ocurred in this case. Buckshot06 (talk) 18:19, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
G'day, to me this is a complex issue and one that I don't think it is really possible to answer definitively. When I wrote I Anzac Corps, I used "Anzac", however, it has since been moved to I ANZAC Corps. I'm not wedded to either and in my experience there is much variance across the many sources out there. As such, I don't believe that there is any basis for categorically rejecting either approach. Of course, consistency is important and as such, in the interests of solving the issue, my suggestion is to follow the presentation style of the Australian official histories of World War I. [12] PS, I haven't checked what style is employed there. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:31, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
This comes up a few times a year on various pages (often WT:AUSTRALIA). It's important to note that there is no single correct capitalisation, and both 'ANZAC' and 'Anzac' are entirely appropriate in different circumstances. For instance, while the Australian Army has had several units with ANZAC in their names, the Royal Australian Navy has had no less than three ships named HMAS Anzac! The Australian Government has protected the word so it can only be used in certain circumstances, and the regulation for this used Anzac. Previous discussions which might be helpful include Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 33#ANZAC or Anzac? and Talk:ANZAC#Requested move. I'd go with the Australian War Memorial's usage, which is clearly 'ANZAC Mounted Division' as it's likely to reflect the balance of the sources. Nick-D (talk) 10:55, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
The Official history uses ANZAC for the corps and Anzac for the men, the cove, and the biscuits. Its British counterpart uses Australian and New Zealand Mounted Division throughout. I think the use of ANZAC in capitals is a misunderstanding. Hawkeye7 (talk) 10:43, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Campaignboxes with multi-line titles messed up

I just noticed that Campaignboxes with multi-line titles don't center the subsequent lines the same as the first line in the title. For example see Battle of Cloyd's Mountain. THe strange thing is it looks fine when viewing just the campaignbox: Template:Campaignbox Crook-Averell Raid on the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad. I think these were all working properly after Alarbus went through last month and updated them all to be accessable. Did something change recently? I don't know enough about templates to figure out where in the call hierarchy the problem template exists. Mojoworker (talk) 22:51, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Stranger still, it's not all subsequent lines of the title, only the second line. Mojoworker (talk) 23:47, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Having dug into the markup a bit, it seems like the problem is being caused by some interaction between the way the {{navbar}} is aligned on the left side of the title bar and the text of the title itself; if the {{navbar}} is removed (by removing the |name= parameter from the template call), both lines are correctly centered. I suspect that the change is due to one of the recent edits to MediaWiki:Common.css rather than anything new in the template code itself. In any case, I'll ask one of the CSS experts to take a look at this; perhaps they'll have more insight into the cause of the alignment problem. Kirill [talk] [prof] 02:38, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
Huh. This is some sort of spill over from talk on Template talk:Navbox, MediaWiki talk:Common.css, and elsewhere that User:Edokter, User:Pigsonthewing, User:WOSlinker, and myself have been having. Looking... Alarbus (talk) 02:44, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I've removed some of the non-standard font size and line height styling we had on the campaignbox title text, and the alignment issue appears to have been fixed (albeit at the cost of slightly increased font size). Please let me know if anything else appears to be broken. Kirill [talk] [prof] 03:24, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

It' looking better for me in various browsers with various font settings. The increased (to normal?) font-size in the template is probably for the best. However, for any narrow width structure such as a campaign box, we really need to rethink the ambient nowrap. I've seen a lot of boxes that had a really long link in the title and that misrenders in multiple ways. Sometime the box widens, sometimes the title covers [show]. Break-tags and {{allow wrap}} should not be often needed — but they are. Alarbus (talk) 03:41, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm not having a problem (in Safari). Or is it fixed already...? TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 17:06, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes, Kirill changed the font size last night and that seemed to fix it. Mojoworker (talk) 18:49, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for Poznań 1956 protests now open

The A-Class review for Poznań 1956 protests is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill [talk] [prof] 21:42, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for Stanisław Koniecpolski now open

The A-Class review for Stanisław Koniecpolski is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill [talk] [prof] 21:42, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Caldera Bay now open

The A-Class review for Battle of Caldera Bay is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill [talk] [prof] 03:24, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

WWI Royal Navy ships' logs

Hello -

I am working on a crowd sourcing project, Old Weather, involving WWI Royal Navy ships' logs (with US Navy logs to come, I think). The project's primary focus is to record the weather data from these logs, however, we also transcribe the narrative logs as well. In the course of this effort, my fellow transcribers and I have discovered information in the logs that can be used to correct or update Wiki articles, for example, please see the article on Cadmus class sloops or HMS Aphis (1915). After much discussion about the use of the logs, the Wiki powers that be have decided that the logs, are verifiable and are also not original research as such. I propose that this forum be used to provide any pertinent information found in the logs, for use in Wiki articles. For starters, I am posting a link to a log page that contains information on the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight from a ship, the HMS Galatea, that participated in the action, but is not mentioned in the article: https://s3.amazonaws.com/oldweather/ADM53-42346/0067_1.jpg - I hope we can develop this partnership. yours - Kathy Wendolkowski (wendolk is my user name at Old Weather) 216.15.44.249 (talk) 14:52, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Nicky Barr now open

The featured article candidacy for Nicky Barr is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Ian Rose (talk) 15:00, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Category:Royal Air Force stations of World War II

The category Category:Royal Air Force stations of World War II has just been created but it appears to be a very disjointed categorisation. The potential could be that 99% of RAF stations were active during the second world war so doesnt appear to be a defining category. Do we some guideline about Station by war as I dont see the point really. Should these type of categories be created for every war or conflict that a station or airbase was involved in? MilborneOne (talk) 16:57, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

It appears to be a central collecting point for RAF stations around the world during the war. As such I can see a use for it, but I can also see where your coming from. It would seem better to make all the sub-cats in Category:Royal Air Force stations of World War II, sub-cats of Category:Royal Air Force stations. Jim Sweeney (talk) 20:20, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

RAF Bomber Command 60th Anniversary website

Bound to happen eventually but it appears that the abovementioned is now unavailable - returning error 500. Pages in the site are referenced a lot in articles on the strategic bombing of Germany. The wayback machine holds snapshots of the pages and I see I can use |deadurl, |archiveurl etc in cases where the cite template has been used, but I wondered if there was a mechanism for automating the process of adding these. GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:49, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Articles for creation/Army National Guard units derived from state militias with campign credit for the War of 1812

Would someone here please review Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Army National Guard units derived from state militias with campign credit for the War of 1812 and, perhaps using the AFC template links, either promote this to an article, or reject and advise the author, please. FWIW, I tend to doubt the notability of the article, interesting as some of the facts therein might be. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:28, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

With thanks to Ktr101 the article has been promoted and is now at United States Army National Guard units with lineage dating to the War of 1812, which gets it off the AFC queue; that was my primary objective, and I'm grateful. It still begs the question, for me, "is the fact that 19 units of a military force have lineage to a certain war actually notable enough to warrant and article?" --Tagishsimon (talk) 02:37, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
I'd suggest renaming it to List of United States Army National Guard units with lineage dating to the War of 1812 or something along those lines; while the topic may not be per se a notable one from an article subject standpoint, it would certainly be reasonable as a list pointing to other unit articles, and would invite similar lists tracing the lineage of other ANG units. Kirill [talk] [prof] 02:45, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for Polish Underground State now open

The A-Class review for Polish Underground State is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:53, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Important News item Heads Up: Death of Kim Jong Il

North Korean news agencies are reporting the official death of Kim Jong Il; as the titular dictator of the country, he would be the ranking general. I expect that over the next few weeks we are going to see some promotions militarily. Everyone, keep your eyes open for vandalism and we can make sure that the articles in question stay up to date and correct from an information perspective. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:43, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

This notice should go to WPKorea and WPPolitics too. 76.65.128.198 (talk) 07:44, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

ACW regimental articles

I'm disgusted with this "A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion". It's about making an article a worth while read. A 5 year old could write a better article on the American Civil War and it's just not limited to this article 24th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the American Civil War.

Yes, it may sound harsh to say. If this is what Wikipedia and WikiProject Military History is coming too, then I don't know what else to say. Articles should be detailed, sourced, referenced, etc. With this "A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion" better off going camping and throwing it on the wood fire. It has no detail and the sentences run-into each other, seems like these groups of men magically appear from one place to another then get disbanded. Sorry if I've offended anyone by saying this, I've come across so many American Civil War articles that are quite similar to each other and deserve to be written properly (a high standard) and by Wikipedia standards. Adamdaley (talk) 13:10, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Sounds to me like it's more of a data book, than a history text, and shouldn't be used to cite from as a stand-alone source, but to use as a springboard to identify units and confirm a little about their formation, to aid in researching them in other more specific texts. Digby Smith wrote a similar book on every French regiment formed between 1792–1815. To the average reader of Napoleonic Wars it's of no use, just number-crunching. To an enthusiast on any modern large scale war, especially where records may have been poorly maintained (i.e Confederacy) these are the best thing to having to research thousands of muster lists from 150.. 200+ years ago. Bear in mind that book you mention is from 1908. No simple methods then.. no computers, internet, library services. You can bet he worked his fingers to the bone day and night in many dusty archives, across several Eastern US states, getting that. Now all people need do is Google or visit Library of Congress and such data is at hand.. and thank their luck stars. But yeah, those type books don't aim to represent academic standards, more provision for scholarly research. On the other hand, someone like Shelby Foote provides amazing academic work, in his masterpiece Civil War trilogy, and other books on the period. He virtually lived in libraries for two decades to research and write those, bless him. Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 13:44, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Strikes me as similar to DANFS - accurate but not written with readability in mind. There seem to be several articles (using the same source) that have been written by the same single user. Perhaps having a word with that editor would be more profitable then decrying the source material. GraemeLeggett (talk) 14:14, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
I feel that in small, Stub/Start, articles which offer a basic introduction to a regiment, or order of battle, that this source will not be that bad. As it's now on the public domain the editor seems to be taking advantage of its availability, which is good, no copyvio. If the articles were any bigger, like detailed "Battle of.." or full campaign articles describing a larger Theatres of War in depth I think further sourcing would definitely be expected. But I did look at a couple of reviews on this Compendium, and it does seem to be held in quite high regard. One website gives this rather interesting introduction to their copy of the works which I feel is relevant:
Compiled by a Civil War Veteran from The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies and a variety of other sources, Dyer's Compendium offers the most complete list of organizations mustered by the State and Federal Governments for service in the Union Army. However, discrepancies may exist due to a variety of factors, including the sheer volume of records researched and the accuracy of the records used. Although few in number, discrepancies have been found by modern historians.
I personally would rarely cite such texts in anything larger than a Start-class article, or List (not FL), without extra material, unless I was really scrapping the barrel to find a more detailed reference, in which case I'd happily cite a data book just to cover the ground in terms of providing some form of verification. I expect few readers would challenge such works though, given the sheer amount of data they often contain they can't be considered inadequate, and by only presenting official numbers and no prose, analysis, POV or editorialising, any author bias is likely to be negligible. Not bedtime reading, true, but definitely not designed to make you think one way or another, which is good, neutral references are harder to deny. Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 15:01, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Am I wrong for bringing this up? For me to come across an article that is not very well written, seems this user wanted to do more of a number of articles with one free reference. The user could have easily made the sentences and paragraphs more well written while thinking what's the best way to make it so users who are not familiar, can easily understand the article. Adamdaley (talk) 15:11, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
No, you did right. The data itself is sound, but if you have concerns that the editor has not presented enough prose to given readers context for the data being used that is valid. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information per WP:IINFO, so the editor really needs to summarise the articles to some degree also to make it readable. Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 15:16, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Inaccuracies in sources aren't new, either. I default to citing any stat from a particular source; if it's wrong, or superceded by later research, it's correctable, & meanwhile, at least the reader knows it's not pulled out of the air. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 16:02, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
You're right for raising the discussion on the quality of the source, but I'm not sure about the way you've done it. I can't see that you've communicated with the editor anywhere about this (apologies if I've missed it), which might have been a better first step. Publicly describing articles that they've created (regardless of the level of information they've included and where it came from) as below the quality of a five year old isn't likely to create a positive attitude towards improving them. Perhaps inviting the editor to this discussion and getting some suggestions for improving the articles' prose (as other editors have done on his talk page), might be an idea? Just a thought. Ranger Steve Talk 18:31, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I think that might be a good idea, perhaps if Adam were to refactor his initial post (and the heading) a little and make the invite himself, when ready, it would appear less bitey. I see why he was perhaps frustrated, but let's assume good faith in Adam's concerns, and extend welcome to the editor for their efforts also. Looking over Spacini's userpage, it seems clear that they started a hell of a lot of regimental stubs. The text appears to come direct from Dyer's Compendium (as I think it's oft known as) then slightly edited to make sense to a modern Wiki reader and to clarify a few things, e.g. the word "State" changed to which state the author mean, etc. Seems Spacini is a member of WikiProject:United States and our American Civil War Task Force, rather than MilHist in general, so it's possible there are differences in standards between US and MilHist. I tend to go with "better than nothing" where Stubs go, and hope they can be developed within 6, 12 months, references permitting. Given the number of articles started by Spacini I don't know how many have been seen and developed already by other ACW editors. There is certainly room for Spacini to organise a drive from the ACW Task Force and/or Operation Brothers at War, to see if anyone is interested in expanding each article, at least two-fold for less notable, written about units, and as much as possible for those who fought in many major battles. If he simply created a table in his userspace, listing every article, with headings "Stub | Start | C | B | A | FA | GA", for example, identify the current level of each with a simple Green tickY and invite editors to advance each, it would make for a trackable sub-project that he might enjoy organising. I have a similar one of my own, including use of talkpage, and by offering the Workman's Barnstar as an incentive, monitoring each article for input, etc every few weeks, have been able to see several items develop and have that page transcluded to the relevant WikiProject as an invitation to their members. MilHist has many resources, but don't think allowing someone to coordinate something like this could prove harmful, and I would gladly give him a hand setting up the checklist table, if he was interested. I also think, as a aside, an article on Frederick H. Dyer, author of the Compendium and a Civil War veteran, must certainly be due. I can't imagine that he's not notable, although his name/book comes up a lot on Google I can't seen to find much about Dyer himself, not even birth-death dates: 1849–1917 source. Anyone know of any keen ACW biographers who might be up to this? Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 22:27, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

  • I've contacted the User. Just a few minutes ago on their talkpage. We'll see the outcome of it. Adamdaley (talk) 23:05, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Okay. Might be good if you link him up here too, to expand the discussion further than 1:1 talkpage chat. Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 23:20, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Hello all, and thank you for the invitation to this discussion. I would like to start with a little background on the ACW regimental history articles and their extensive use of Dyer's Compendium (hereafter DC or Dyer's). I truly cannot remember when, but it was several years ago, that a group of ACW enthusiasts started doing articles for each state's units. I volunteered to do Kentucky and Kansas. We followed an established format that used a basic template that was created by someone long before I joined. Within a few months I had completed my two states and because several folks dropped out of the project, I took on other states.

It was decided to use DC for the detailed service record portion of each article. To ACW historians or military historians, DC is a very familiar source and reading the block quote isn't typically problematic. At that time, also, Dyer's was not available via the Internet in a searchable database format. Early last year, user Hal Jesperson (a master ACW map maker) suggested we start linking the articles to a searchable DC found here: Dyer's Compendium. By last year, most of the original project folks had abandoned ship and I was the only one continuing. Honestly, I cannot remember what was the last ACW regimental history article I created, but I know it is probably approaching a one-year mark.

We also had discussions (see my talk page) about the unreadability/readability of the detailed service sections and the matter was taken up--as I understand it--by the Copy Editors Guild. The outcome of their discussion remains unknown to me.

Falling firmly in the camp that the original spirit of Wikipedia was to BE BOLD, I didn't see any need to change my work and would let others with the interest take up the cause. Some did. Most of their work was simply to wikify the locations within the detailed service records, but some others made the units' movements/actions into readable sentences. As someone else also noted above, I am also in the camp that a stub is better than nothing.

What I endeavored to do with the ACW regimental history articles I created was to ensure that the muster in/out dates were accurate, that commanding officers were noted, that engagements/campaigns were noted, that notable members of the units were recognized, and that each article have a list of references (if available) that someone with more interest in the unit could easily obtain. The latter meaning that the source wasn't unique, such as a manuscript diary, letters, or other archival/rare items that existed at only one library or archive.

For the record: I am not wedded to the detailed service records and I think that Hal Jesperson's suggestion to delete them and link to the individual unit's record in Dyer's is appropriate. Deleted detailed service records and not linked to Dyer's is also acceptable to me. As I appear to be the only original member of the original project group still active on Wikipedia, I'm glad to put this little story into the record so that others might take up the cause and continue the work we started. I have moved on to other projects in my personal life (mostly raising my two boys under the age of 4) and simply dabble in copy editing when I see something that needs attention.

Please do not hesitate to contact me with further questions or concerns about these articles. Frankly, I'm just glad that someone noticed them and that interest in making them better seems genuine. Go on folks, BE BOLD.

Sincerely and respectfully, Spacini (talk) 20:15, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

DC is indeed a reputable source, and regimental listings do appear in the format they're quoted in the cited article (I've worked with the real print version). It's foolish to ignore it as a basic source for information like when a regiment was formed and to get an idea of its movements during the War. That said, it's not something you should use as a stand-alone article (as the linked article seems to), but that doesn't discredit it as a valuable starting point. Tossing out DC just because someone doesn't like the format is not a wise decision, IMO.Intothatdarkness (talk) 20:28, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
I agree, it is not something that should be dismissed for its layout alone. It is, in essence, a data book which normally expects readers to use as they see fit, rather than cite "as is". The format is designed to relay figures and events in a certain way, that may not work as well in an encyclopedia where prose is expected. In the case of creating dozens of articles, as Spacini had done, it would take a substantial amount of time single-handed to write them all up into prosey histories. I think the articles he created, being properly titled, sub-headed, referenced, and with info boxes and portal links, make for a good effort, as it would have been just as easy to copy/paste from Dyer's without the additional effort. So we are thankful for the dedication shown there, as it must have been a lot of tedious work. But what we have as a result are a lot of decent stubs, rather than scrappy stubs. Wish I could get a decent hard copy of Dyer's book myself, at a reasonable price.
If Spacini is too busy, with family and such, to get bogged down in an audit of the articles, I would be glad to do so, and get a table up somewhere so that we can utilise as a list of what articles Spacini created from Dyer's Compendium, and what the current quality/class is of each. From there, it would be down to the ACW enthusiasts to develop them into high-class articles.
Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 20:48, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I feel Spacini has done a good job for the amount of articles he's done on the American Civil War. My only problem with these article's Spacini has done was the body of text was not flowing. I do not mean to dismiss them as being merely useless article's. They just need to be cleaned up and properly formatted. I know personally that if Spacini, knew all his work on those articles were deleted would be heart breaking to him. It would be to me if I did it (as you can see on my Userpage I have 4 articles in an attempt to re-write). I also feel in the best interest of WikiProject Military History we should try and get these articles to an acceptable standard that an average reader can understand and that the articles do make sense. Agree or disagree? ... Reason Why? Adamdaley (talk) 02:33, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
It's no quick and easy job. Different regiments are going to have different levels of involvement. You're going to be able to add pictures of regimental flags, uniforms, paintings of in battle for some, and next to nothing for those who had a quiet time of it. I've offered my services to list them all, for a way of tracking the progress. A lot of references and enthusiasts are needed to work on all those, though. But I think a sustained project is a good thing. Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 04:56, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm going to be bold and a lil cheeky and rename this thread. We've moved away from any initial "disgust" to planning for development. Let's represent this with a more professional and optimistic approach and less pointy heading, as MilHist deserves. Spacini has given a nice long background regarding the creation of those articles, and I'm still surprised anyone can be bothered to type more than me. Lol.. moving on, let's see now what level of interest the following proposal takes. Comments welcome. Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 05:59, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

ACW regiments audit

Proposal
  1. List all the regiments in a wikitable drawn from the list on Spacini's user page.  Done currently at User:MarcusBritish/ACWR.
  2. Determine current state and class of each article (Stub/Start, etc).
  3. Make sure table has columns to allow indication of improvements in class between Stub and FA/GA.
  4. Create a new Category:American Civil War regiment in Dyer's Compendium or similar.
  5. Create article(s) about Frederick H. Dyer (biographer needed) and possibly his Compendium of the War of the Rebellion.
  6. Make table available to members of MilHist/ACW Task force/Operation BaW interested in copy-editing, expanding, developing each article.
  7. Offer Barnstar incentives to those who develop X number of articles from the list each month.

Support – as proposer this seems the best way forward, but I'm happy to hear other suggestions or alternative ideas. Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 05:59, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Comment - all sounds sensible except ... isn't Category:American Civil War regiment in Dyer's Compendium superfluous as pretty well all ACW regiments (and companies) are listed in the compendium. Even if not, it's a source. We don't usually categorise by source? Otherwise we would need to add e.g. Category:American Civil War regiment in Sifakis' Compendium etc. --Bermicourt (talk) 07:05, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Support - I support this idea. Adamdaley (talk) 07:32, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Comment - I could easily do Number 2, while at the same time properly fix the infobox and section headings etc to maintain the consistency of the articles. Adamdaley (talk) 07:32, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

  • Sounds good, I can make a table where you won't have to do much more than stick a Green tickY in the class you think each one is at. Cheers Adam, Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 07:40, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Sitting down? Good! Deep breath... there are ~530 of these articles. LOL! Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 07:58, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Yes, those are all pulled directly from his userpage; the list in the orangey box. Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 09:49, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
  • What flag should I use for the Union? To overall represent the the Union? Same with the Confederate? What years? These are to be put as an attribute not a stand-alone image for the Infobox. Adamdaley (talk) 09:52, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I've started on the first one. The 2nd Colorado Cavalry. You will see improvements in the infobox and that's basically all I did for now. It's getting late here. This is how I'm going to be doing the Infobox's. Would like feedback. Adamdaley (talk) 12:07, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Looks good, so far. I think it's important to make the details that were taken direct from Dyer's Compendium more readable. Simply wikifying them should help, perhaps bullet pointing the different dates/events to split up the chunky look? Definitely aim to wikilink any battles and commanders mentioned though, that's the main thing military minded readers will look for, where they fought and who with. Bearing in mind that there are ~530 it's a huge job, even for a few editors. You can use the ACWR table on my userspace any time, by the way, to check off classes, etc. It can be moved once we establish editor interest, etc, and a convenient place to put it. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 13:52, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Any assessed articles apart from the first one on the wikitable - I've started to do. So really I'm trying to make it more readable and fill in the gaps. So they shouldn't be assessed yet. Adamdaley (talk) 01:12, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I've checked the "initial rating" of many so far, from the talk page MILHIST banner, so we have a starting point for each, and to allow editors to pick what they want to develop with more flexibility. Some people might prefer Stubs and working on them, some might just want to advance a C-class to B- or A-Class. Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 01:18, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
  • How many volumes is the "A COMPENDIUM OF THE WAR OF THE REBELLION" by Federick H. Dyer? Adamdaley (talk) 09:16, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I seem to be able to get a copy of the three volumes. From the 1959 version on Amazon, been in contact with a seller they are going to see how much it is to send from America to Australia so I can do the articles much better detail. Adamdaley (talk) 11:53, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Jammy bugger! lol.. Amazon UK doesn't have a great choice of copies, atm, but I'm more into buying Napoleonic titles recently, than ACW. If you're in Aus, getting the full set from the US would be a good move. Can't imagine postage will be too bad, hopefully. Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 12:17, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I forgot to mention I've started with the first one on your userpage the 2nd Colorado Cavalry. So you can see it's started to be expanded a little by me. May change assessment after a consensus (after I finished the article). Adamdaley (talk) 11:55, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Out of 3 sellers on Amazon.com, none of them shipped to Australia. So I emailed one and asked if he was willing to post them to Australia. They weigh 10 lbs and I don't mind the postage cause I want to get a more detailed aspect of what went on through these unknown periods of each article. So he's willing to send it to me the three volumes from 1959. There are books that alot of sellers don't ship to Australia. This one seller is possibly keen to sell the books and get some money so I'd say both of us are not complaining, I get the books, he gets my money! Adamdaley (talk) 05:51, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Those "gaps" in each regiment's history will mirror the book. They could be anywhere.. marching, garrisoned, training camp, digging trenches. Consider the scale of the war, and how much area was fought over. A lot of time soldiers just sat around in camps, awaiting action. It is doubtful that records were kept of every dry period, which might last weeks or months in the case of some regiments. I don't think the book will have any more in that respect to the online version which has been copied to Wiki. Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 05:59, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I feel it's worth a try to get the articles more accurate. At least I can reference the book for sure. You've probably noticed I'm a "perfectionist" in a way. My mother always told me I was like this when I was young and in Primary School. Adamdaley (talk) 06:02, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I just found this, but for reasons I can't explain it's a Hidden Category: Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion. Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 04:50, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Have completed the table at User:MarcusBritish/ACWR which contains about 545 regiments, and have entered the class from the discussion page for each. What is immediately noticeable is that not one of these articles exceeds C-class. So we've got a major subject, the American Civil War, but a fairly large number of low-class articles within its scope. Hopefully through 2012 we can look to shaping some of these up big time. There must be some fairly notable regiments in here worthy of A-class, GA or even FA articles, and no reason why most of them can't get to B-class minimum with a little more referencing, which would reflect nicely on MILHIST. Have ordered myself a full set of Dyer's Compendium of the War, just a few hours ago. 1959 set, from Amazon. Probably won't get it until week between Xmas and New Year, or early 2012, which is fine, I can wait. Will allow me to chip in helping to tweak some of these stubs when I'm looking for something to do to pass a bit of time. Might be worth getting WikiProject United States involved, as a lot of US members tend to join that project rather than this one, but still contribute to American Civil War articles, but end up missing out on discussions here, and they are very active. Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 07:34, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

coverage?

Does this wikiproject cover former military sites/bases or buildings used by the army in WWII? or is it just current ones? cheers JMRH6 (talk) 01:21, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Former military bases are covered as well; we don't make a distinction between current and non-current military affairs as far as our scope is concerned. Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:51, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
ok thanks cause this place Bank Hall has been delisted yesterday, it was important during WWII in the UK butdue to top secret work that went on there not a ot is known about what wemt on... i am currently trying to research into this so it can be expanded. JMRH6 (talk) 02:54, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
I was the one who removed the tag because the amount of military history in the article is minimal, ie: barely 100 words in an article about 2,800 words long. Blink and you'll miss it. The building in question was not primarily a military base as the initial posting here might indicate but is a mansion founded in the early 17th century and extensively remodelled in the 19th century. IMO a single paragraph (much of which seemed to talk about non-military activity in any case) isn't enough to warrant tagging. Nev1 (talk) 18:40, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Layout of missile articles

I'm working on AGM-65 Maverick at the moment, but I have trouble ordering the different aspects of the article such as "Operational use" and the like, and what kind of information about the missile should be included or omitted. In particular, I'm not sure where to put information about the launch sequence performed by the pilot, whether it should be a subheading under "Design and development" or "Operational use". It would be most preferable if someone points out to me the guideline to this issue. Thanks --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 10:21, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd take your cue from the aircraft articles with design and development and then operational service. Unless the launch sequence is particularly important to the article ie related to some crucial aspect of the development or its operational use, I'd classify it as "undue" and possibly "how to" as well. GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:36, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
Launch sequence usually is crucial, for the history of guidance systems development. The Corporal / Blue Water / Sergeant development was to reduce the fuel loading and self-test sequences. Maverick replaced Bullpup because the launch cycle was too hazardous. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:01, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
With due respect, my question is still unanswered, where should the launch sequence go? --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 22:29, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
I'd personally put it in with any technical/capability prose (the article's current "Specifications" section). A "Design and development" section (to me) tells the story of how we went from "Hey, we need a missile" to "Cool, missile!", while "Operational use" implies more the "where and when" of uses/firings than the "how". -- saberwyn 23:05, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for your assistance. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 23:54, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
  • More like a Design section instead of a Specifications section, which is for data like dimensions, weights, and the like. -Fnlayson (talk) 18:01, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
I agree with Fnlayson; instead of looking at it as a 50/50 choice between "Design and development" or "Operational use", spin "Design" out into its own section. It's what we do with the majority of Aircraft articles, when there's only a few drabs of deisng info in an article "Design" and "Development" are covered as one section, "Design and Development". When there's a lot of design details, or it starts getting pretty thorough into technical characterists, I tend to push those across to its own dedicated "Design" section. I've made this change to the Gloster Meteor article in the last twelve hours, I believe there is enough valid design information readily addable to justify this growth. Kyteto (talk) 22:39, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Infobox military person

There are currently four sections on the talk page of {{Infobox military person}}, requesting addition of parameters modelled on {{infobox person}}. Could somebody who understands the former template attend to them, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:26, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Radzymin (1920) needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Battle of Radzymin (1920); please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 12:11, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Reviewers needed; civil aircraft with military applications

The featured article candidacy for Boeing 767 is open; all comments are welcome, including from MILHIST members with experience in aviation articles. Military applications of this aircraft are varied (E-767, KC-767, 767 MMTT, and others). In its recent A-Class review, members of this project helped a great deal; hopefully some further input can provided. Thanks in advance! Best regards, SynergyStar (talk) 02:50, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

A-class review and WikiProject History

I have mentioned above (and over here my interest in a revitalized, drastically revised WikiProject History. One idea was that the History Project's A-class review program could be improved. I am encouraging A-class reviewers and nominators to bring some of the more general-history oriented articles over there. This could start the revitalization of at least one part of that project.

I am wondering if anyone is interested in adapting any of the points in my proposal to WikiProject History. A revised front page and a new structure would be a major step forward. Please help WikiProject History get back on its feet, and help turn it into a useful, active part of the encyclopedia. DCItalk 00:08, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Per the above discussion, I don't think it's a good idea to start with WT:History ... I have no objection if that's your eventual goal, but it's not mine. Do you have in mind any particular history-related wikiproject that has good people in it that could use more support at peer review, GAN and FAC? - Dank (push to talk) 00:20, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome is fairly active, and has dedicated editors. WikiProject Middle Ages may not be extremely active now, but it used to be a very useful resource, and definitely has interested editors. Both of these projects could benefit from closer ties to a project as active as this one.
MILHIST could certainly do with an influx of active editors interested in pre-modern subjects. Monstrelet (talk) 15:40, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
If we are not currently at a point at which a revitalization of the History Project would be helpful, could we perhaps create an inter-project review department that would include active, history-related WikiProjects? Like this very short start? DCItalk 01:51, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
It looks like there's no support for this at this time. Another possibility is that we extend an invitation to a few relevant wikiprojects to create a category or a task force on "conflict", and then ask Milhist reviewers for opinions on whether articles so tagged by that project are welcome at our A-class review. (I think this is a separate issue from the discussion about Titchwell Marsh above ... there, the argument is about how much military history is needed before the article is tagged by Milhist. Here, I'm talking about subjects often discusssed by academic military historians that Milhist doesn't generally tag, such as political and social unrest.) - Dank (push to talk) 22:19, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Swedish capital ships

Some issues have cropped up with List of battleships of the Royal Swedish Navy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and List of ships of the line of the Royal Swedish Navy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), see Talk:List of ships of the line of the Royal Swedish Navy and Talk:List of battleships of the Royal Swedish Navy .

70.24.244.248 (talk) 09:45, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for Griffith Rutherford now open

The A-Class review for Griffith Rutherford is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill [talk] [prof] 15:22, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

A-Class review for Werner Hartenstein now open

The A-Class review for Werner Hartenstein is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill [talk] [prof] 15:22, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

WT:ROCKETRY

[Copied from my talk page] Hi there, just thought MILHIST ought to know that there's a discussion ongoing at WT:ROCKETRY concerning the abolition of the project, part of which is a suggestion that MILHIST take over part of the project's remit - we'd appreciate any thoughts you had on the matter! Cheers, SalopianJames - previously Colds7ream (talk) 15:05, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll copy this over to our main talk page. - Dank (push to talk) 15:31, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Portugese Empire

Minor edit war on talk page: reviewer failed GAN and rated it start-class, nominator thinks the article ought to be promoted to GA. This could use the moderating influence of one or more uninvolved editors. Durova412 18:14, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

I've had a quick look. At the moment the talk page is correct: an individual GAR has occurred, and the talk page reflects this. If Ankit has concerns with Jim's GAR, I'd advise him to raise on the talk page and perhaps propose a Community reassessment. Hchc2009 (talk) 20:33, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Help with DYK nomination

Could someone submit this article to DYK? I'd submit it myself but I can't figure out how to post an entry. Apparently the system has been changed since the last time I suggested an article and I've found it very complicated to use. I can get as far as entering the name of the article but I can't fill out the form. Here's a few ideas for hooks:

  1. Beauford, a former Medal of Honor winner, was once a soldier in the Confederate Army.
  2. Beauford was among the Confederate soldiers who were part of Pickett's Charge.
  3. Beauford went on to become first captain of the San Carlos Apache Police.
  4. Beauford, who was awarded the Medal of Honor during the Apache Wars, went on to become captain of the San Carlos Apache Department.
  5. Beauford was the subject to a failed assassination attempt while captain of the San Carlos Apache Department.
  6. Beauford, a Medal of Honor winner, was challenged to a duel while a delegate for the Arizona Territorial Legislature?
  7. Beauford was challenged to a duel after legally changing from his longtime alias (Clay Beauford) to his birth name (Welford Chapman Bridwell). The challenger, a French-born lobbyist, erroneously believed Beauford was his original name and that he was "repudiating his heritage". The duel was called off when the Frenchman insisted on French sabres which were not readily available in the Arizona territory.

The photograph being used by the article is in the public domain and, I'm assuming, would be ok to use in a DYK nomination. 71.184.34.24 (talk) 22:49, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

FA Nomination

1740 Batavia massacre, within this project's scope, has been nominated for featured article status at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/1740 Batavia massacre/archive1. Any feedback would be welcome. Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:50, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Falklands_War dispute

Can folks please comment at Talk:Falklands_War#Margaret_Thatcher? I have fully protected the page due to a content dispute and would be grateful for a fuller set of opinions on consensus before moving forward and unprotecting or leaving semi'ed. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:46, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Can we have some more opinions here please, the dispute centres around Thatcher and should she be added to the info box as a leader during the war. Jim Sweeney (talk) 15:57, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
Seconded, although I'm thinking we might want to establish a consensus as a community on the use of politicial leaders in infoboxes across the board. Doing it on an article by article basis seems rather pointless. Ranger Steve Talk 16:02, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Joachim/Jochen Peiper

Hi all

I am currently starting a copyedit and tidyup of Peiper's article. There have been issues in the past with POV pushing and arguing/editwars and wondered if there was anyone with specialist/in-depth knowledge? Chaosdruid (talk) 19:31, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

I have read and own the following books on Peiper:

  • Westemeier, Jens (2004). Joachim Peiper - Zwischen Totenkopf und Ritterkreuz - Lebensweg eines SS-Führers (in German). Bissendorf, Germany: Biblio Verlag. ISBN 3-7648-2318-6.
  • Krätschmer, Ernst-Günther (1999). Die Ritterkreuzträger der Waffen-SS (in German). Coburg, Germany: Nation Europa Verlag GmbH. ISBN 3-920677-43-9.

As you can see both books are in German. I would not consider myself an expert on Peiper but I believe to have a rather rough idea of his controversial character. If my memory doesn't fail me I would say that Westemeier is more critical of his performance and more objective about Peiper's knowledge about the Holocaust as Himmler's assistant. Krätschmer, a former member of the Waffen-SS, lacks this perspective all together. Please feel free to contact me if you need my help. MisterBee1966 (talk) 14:57, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Abbas Babaei?

Our article on Abbas Babaei is a scraggly little mess, but later in the article it's revealed that he was commander of the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force air base in Esfahan (until being accidentally killed by his own troops in 1987).

Does "commander of an air base" automatically equal notability? DS (talk) 14:27, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

No, not unless he's of flag rank.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:44, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
Judging by the Farsi Wikipedia article on him, or at least the Google translation of it, he was a Major General and was Commander of Air Force Operations in the Iraq-Iran war, not just a simple base commander. [13] I'd say he's quite notable. - The Bushranger One ping only 03:52, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Italy during World War II

Recently, I've re-done an Infobox for Italy during World War II. I've noticed that it has for the country and it's flag: {{flagicon|Italy|1861|30px}} ''Regno d'Italia'' </br> [[Kingdom of Italy (1861-1946)|Kingdom of Italy]]

Now if I do a similar one like the following: {{flag|Kingdom of Italy|1861|23px}}. This comes up as a different flag even though the year is stated as in the first one. Of course the second one will end up saying Kingdom of Italy instead of the first example. My question is what is the difference? Why the difference in flags with the year 1861? Which is correct? Adamdaley (talk) 02:40, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Buggie111's administrator candidacy

A member of the project, Buggie111, is currently a candidate to receive access to administrative tools. Project members who have worked with the candidate and have an opinion of Buggie111's fitness to receive these tools are cordially invited to comment. Nick-D (talk) 03:38, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

  • I admit I don't know Buggie111 well or interacted with him on Wikipedia very little while whatever the outcome of this candidacy don't let it get you down if you don't get it. When this candidacy is over and you don't get it, you'll have the Coordinator position here at WikiProject Military History! All of us will see how things turn out for the candidacy. Adamdaley (talk) 04:15, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

AN/I notice

A discussion at AN/I that may interest the project is located here. - The Bushranger One ping only 05:01, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Colours

The contrast between link text and background in {{Infobox Military Memorial}} is insufficient to meet MOS:COLOR and WCAG accessibility guidelines. It seems to be centrally controlled. Where's the best place to propose changes? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:11, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Here probably, the underlying mechanism for the style is Template:WPMILHIST Infobox style. Have you got a specific report of the issue? - ie how exactly it fails. GraemeLeggett (talk) 23:07, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
I assume you're referring to the |country= and |commemorates= fields (i.e. the "Commonwealth of Nations" and "For missing soldiers of World War I" lines in the example template)? It shouldn't be a big deal to switch the background on those to a more contrast-friendly color such as gainsboro without breaking consistency with the overall template style. Kirill [talk] [prof] 03:28, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
[reply to both] I was looking at Island of Ireland Peace Park, specifically, links like Belgium, on a pale-blue background. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:37, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
Would something like this be more acceptable in terms of accessibility? Kirill [talk] [prof] 02:01, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
Better, thank you, but still room for improvement. I recommend using the 'luminosity' setting of this free tool to check colour pairs. You're looking for a pass in all four fields. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:43, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Weird AFD

I just stumbled across Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mohammad Shafiq, which looks like it is an untranscluded AfD nomination by a rather uninformed newbie. I don't participate much in the AfD process, so could someone a bit more knowledgeable than me decide what needs to be done with this? Thanks, Dana boomer (talk) 19:37, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

The nomination there does not seem to include a valid reason. -Fnlayson (talk) 20:58, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
I think I can understand what is meant viz that the subject of the article is trying to assert privacy and/or personality rights over the article to force its deletion. Whether he can legally enforce this is a complex question and I will forward the question to the WMF legal team. In the meantime, could someone knowledgeable format the AFD page properly? The community can and should decide whether it would like to delete or (more likely) amend the article in light of the request. Thanks - Jarry1250 [Weasel? Discuss.] 22:06, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
The gist of the request was clear enough, but that was not my point. There's no way to tell if the AfD requester is the subject of the article or an authorized representative. WP:BLP is the relevant policy. I don't see anything about requesting deletion of an article there. -Fnlayson (talk) 22:22, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
Well, it seems like an odd thing to request if they weren't an authorised representative (though I do agree we don't know). I was just saying that here do exist possible points of law in play here that we'd probably want checked out, even if it doesn't look particularly likely that we'd want to uphold the request at this point in time. - Jarry1250 [Weasel? Discuss.] 22:24, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
Admittedly, the lawyers will probably decide this one, but it seems to me, once he became Governor, let alone Ambassador, he forfeited his strictly private life. There's nothing here that wouldn't be on the page of any other ambassador, certainly nothing to violate BLP. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 22:29, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
I'd agree - and honestly, my troll-sense is tingling wrt: the request. - The Bushranger One ping only 22:33, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
If they were connected to the subject why add info to the article then suddenly make a deletion request! If the subject has a problem with the article then it should be emailed to the OTRS system. MilborneOne (talk) 00:23, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

According to the article and this reference, Mohammad Shafiq has severed as a senior officer, provincial governor, ambassador and federal minister. There's no way that the article is going to be deleted as he's clearly notable. Nick-D (talk) 02:04, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Article Layout

I've been having some issues regarding various articles I've come across mainly in WikiProject Military History, but to me it is much, much broader than that, possibly a big percentage of Wikipedia.

My main goal recently, is to get the "B-class" assessment right. The second is potentially confusing and basically I'm at a loss to figure it out or comprehend:

  • Notes
  • References
  • Bibliography
  • Further reading
  • See alo
  • External links

I have been trying to get them in the correct order for articles. Mainly the first two (Notes and Referencing) which I have referred to the page (see below) many times but I've come across one article that has got me so confused that my brain has somehow is messed up.

Adamdaley (talk) 03:41, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

The way I usually try to fomat the reference section of articles is as follows:

==References==
;Notes
{{Reflist|group=N}} (inline footnotes)
;Citations
{{Reflist|2}} (inline citations)
;Bibliography
{{refbegin}}
{{citeweb}}, {{citebook}}, etc. (books and articles cited go here)
{{refend}}

Does this help any? - The Bushranger One ping only 03:51, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
The Bushranger ..... I'll give you an example of what I'm doing to one article on my subpage of Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher. Adamdaley (talk) 04:00, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
Ah, I see. That's an acceptable style as well - it's not what I, personally, prefer (based on appearance), but it's perfectly within the MOS, I believe. :) - The Bushranger One ping only 04:04, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
Not quite the style I generally employ (and which seems accepted at FAC/MOS), i.e. I use a "Footnotes" heading where you use "Notes" (on the very rare occasions I make footnotes, that is), "Notes" where you use "References", and "References" where you use "Bibliography", but yours is quite clear and, as Bushranger says, should be perfectly acceptable. The only thing you've done in that article that doesn't follow MOS is in the placement of "See also", which is supposed to precede all the other ref sections. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:01, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Galleys, row galleys, non-galleys

During my work on galley, I came across the concept of early US Navy "row galleys" and found it to be a problematic and rather vague term. On Wikipedia, they're often confused with actual galleys, which doesn't seem to have any support in maritime history. I've brought the issue up on peripheral pages before, and have engaged in correcting confusing linkage to galley from articles like USS Viper (1814). But it seems like a broader discussion is needed, especially since there are two separate categories for "galleys" and "row galleys" in the US Navy, despite there being no apparent difference between the two.

I've started a discussion about this issue over at Talk:Row_galley#Still not galleys. Please join in if you're interested.

Peter Isotalo 17:23, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

3 Mountain Infantry Division Ravenna

Article: 3 Mountain Infantry Division Ravenna.

I've come across some name's of Military Units/Divisions etc. just like the one above. I have a sense that the name of it doesn't sound right. It should be named "3rd Mountain Infantry Division" possibly with the exception of (Italy) at the end of the name. My point being is the number 3 Mountain Infantry Division. Of course Ravenna is it's nickname so that would go into the Infobox under Nickname. It's simplifying the names isn't it? Feedback would be appreciated. Adamdaley (talk) 09:46, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

G'day, Adam, I guess it comes down to the sources. I haven't looked at much, but I found this on Google books, where the designation used is 3rd "Ravenna" (Mountain) Infantry Division: [14]. Jim Sweeney might know more about this. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:26, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
I see what you mean AustralianRupert. Still simplifying the names like I said above would be correct since "Ravenna" is only their nickname. Unless there was another 3rd Mountain Infantry Division in Italy. Adamdaley (talk) 12:04, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
The source used 1,2,3 not 1st, 2nd, 3rd so I copied the source. Ravenna is not as much a nickname but the name of the division, much the same as the British 50th (Northumbrian) Division. These names were associated with where the division was based or recruited Ravenna in this case. So it does not need a disambiguation, but AustralianRupert has provided a source that we can use to change to 3rd etc.. Jim Sweeney (talk) 12:18, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
Can we change the name to 3rd Mountain Infantry Division (Ravenna)? Adamdaley (talk) 15:04, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I think that would work. What do you think Jim? AustralianRupert (talk) 22:24, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
If Jim Sweeney agrees, can I move it or do I need more access? Adamdaley (talk) 23:47, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
Please do not move this article without consultation with User:Noclador, our resident former Italian mountain soldier. Italian divisions incorporate names as part of the WP:COMMONNAME titles and if you check the categories, all are incorporated into the name of the division without any brackets or anything else. There are about 100+ Italian Second World War divisions in the categories, so this needs further discussion and expert input before anything is done without the relevant context. Might it be possible to pause any action until User:Noclador and anyone else he nominates has had a chance to take part ? Buckshot06 (talk) 16:29, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes, good idea. It would be great to get their input. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 00:37, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
I honestly want to say there is to much red tape going on here. I found another Italian Division which has got their name wrong, and no one seems to understand. Wikipedia is becoming a conspiracy! Adamdaley (talk) 01:05, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Now a total different example I would like to show you:
Article name: 2nd Division "Littorio"
The first paragraph:
The 2nd 'Littorio' ("Lictor") Division was one of four divisions raised by Mussolini's Italian Social Republic. Although an infantry formation, it was often referred to as a "Grenadier" formation for morale purposes.
Basically where is the consistancy? I'm getting fed up with all this red tape and users who don't give a damn about getting things right and that goes upto some Administrators that I've encountered that I thought could help me by asking nicely. Adamdaley (talk) 01:30, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
What's the red tape? Italian divisions had unusual designations which included both numbers and names (and sometimes only a name). I'm not sure what the 'correct' English-language names are, but searching in Google Books would be a good way to start the process of figuring this out. I agree that asking Noclador to weigh in would be a good idea - he or she is an expert on the Italian Army. Nick-D (talk) 01:54, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Then at least let me rename this this article: 44 Infantry Division Cremona to 44th Cremona Infantry Division as state on page 66 of Charles D. Pettibone Google book. See Jim Sweeney talkpage. Cause I would like to at least move one to say that as a Coordinator that I was able to do something more constructive than a normal user. But I wanted to change the style of notations/sources cause it was too complicated for me. I'm used to the following: Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher. Of course I was going to to re-do the Infobox as well. Adamdaley (talk) 05:09, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Naming of Italian Divisions

User:Buckshot06 pointed this discussion out to me and seeing that actually some clarification is needed I will weigh in here with the naming convention of Italian military units: The given name is actually the most important part of an Italian Army unit - the numbers and attributes are of less importance! so it is inconceivable to remove the name from any unit; be it battalions, regiments, brigades or divisions. If a unit has been given a name it is not a nickname, but unmovable part of that units name. Furthermore battalions do not carry any numbers only names and to give a sense how little the numbers originally counted: when the divisions were raised the names were written like this: Divisione di fanteria "Mantova" (104^) and in everyday use the units were referred to only by their names: i.e. Julia, Tridentina, Cunensee and practice which was formalized after WWII when all Italian divisions lost their numbers and were referred to only by name: i.e. Centauro, Ariete, Friuli etc. Based on that naming an Italian divisions article i.e. 3 Mountain Infantry Division would be wrong; while using anything with Ravenna in the title will be right: i.e. Ravenna Division, 3 Ravenna Division, 3 Mountain Infantry Division Ravenna or Mountain Infantry Division Ravenna would all be more correct. Therefore I strongly urge to keep the current naming as it is the most correct naming (and this naming convention also applies to the brigades; to the infantry, artillery, cavalry and army aviation regiments and all battalions! the exception to giving names to units are the Alpini and Bersaglieri regiments as well as the Engineer Corps (Engineers, Signals) and Logistic Corps regiments - however the battalions of these still only carry a name and no number! i.e. 3rd Alpini Rgt. has the Susa Btn.; 6th Bersaglieri has the Palestro battalion; and so on...) I hope that info helps clear up this discussion. with best regards, noclador (talk) 09:52, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Falklands War Anniversary

As my eye has been drawn to the Falklands War article recently, it dawned on me that the 20th anniversary will be quite soon. The article could use a bit of an overhaul really - there's whole unreferenced sections that could use a clean up, and a lot of basic gaps in the content. If anyone fancies giving it a good going over, it would be nice if we, as a project, could at least get it to GA before April. Anyone interested? Ranger Steve Talk 20:58, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

30th Anniversay actually. This is an excellent idea, that I would wholeheartedly support. However, to stand any chance of success it would need strong support from someone with the broom, otherwise it will inevitably be hijacked to grand stand the Argentine sovereignty campaign. Before I am accused of presuming bad faith, this is the result of repeated experience in trying to improve any Falklands Article. Wee Curry Monster talk 21:35, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
That's a good idea. Improving the quality of articles can be a surprisingly effective way of stopping bad faith/POV editing as well. Nick-D (talk) 22:43, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
I think this would a truely great project to do, sort of something we could run throughout the year. Focus articles of the month and some such mechanisms could be very effective at pushing the articles of this sector up to a far higher level of quality. Articles such as Avro Vulcan have been signficantly overhauled in the last two years, it would be great to work jointly with other editors to perform similar corrective and expansion work on similiar articles. Kyteto (talk) 18:00, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
There are several articles associated with the war at Category:Falklands War. Do you want to make something formal or just an ad-hoc arrangement? Jim Sweeney (talk) 18:05, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
We can create a task force, if it is seen as necessary, however the largest issue I think (as others have said before) is watching out for POV editing. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:14, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

39th Infantry Regiment (War of 1812)

39th Infantry Regiment (War of 1812) appears to include a reference to original research, possibly some questions about NPOV and reference notations that are non-standard. I'm not questioning the motives of the last editor, but I think the article deserves a look by someone much more familiar with the process than I am.--Gaarmyvet (talk) 21:45, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Casualty figures in the Australian frontier wars article

I'm having a disagreement with a new editor about the casualty totals which should be included in the Australian frontier wars article and the use of references in this article at Talk:Australian frontier wars in which input from other editors would be useful. Thanks in advance Nick-D (talk) 02:10, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

New idea...

Would anyone care to check out this, which I changed?? I will be unavailable until January 1st due to the Holiday Season, but this may interest someone. DCItalk 01:02, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Looks good but, unless my eyes deceive me, doesn't all the info on Peer Reviews appear twice in slightly different formats? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:11, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
I think I know what's going on there ... DCI had blanked WP:PRH, the main page for history-related peer reviews. I couldn't figure out why, but now it appears that it was to try to keep the page he's fiddling with from displaying the same info twice. Don't blank WP:PRH, please. - Dank (push to talk) 04:31, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Sorry for that; this is the first time I've tried something like this and made a couple of mistakes (including blanking the peer review thing). I'm out of town and w/o internet, but I'll be back next week and will work more on that page. DCItalk 18:46, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

War of independence

At Talk:War of independence, the content of War of independence is under discussion, including which wars qualify as being a "War of independence". 76.65.128.132 (talk) 09:59, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

I've just done the MILHIST assessment on this. Don't think I had any choice but DAB, as it proclaims itself to be a disambiguation page. However, it is now reaching a point of total vagueness from a dab point of view - it no longer confines itself to Wars called "War of Independence". It may be helped by a reassessment of its purpose. Monstrelet (talk) 15:16, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
It's more like a WP:SETINDEX... 76.65.128.132 (talk) 05:24, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Taking time off...

I am going to be taking time off from Wikipedia due to the template on my Userpage which would summerise the state I'm in for almost 2 years. The last 2 weeks have been harder than the rest of that time. I hope everyone understands, while I have strived to do my best as a normal contributor and then as a Coordinator of the WikiProject Military History. I've tried my very best to communicate with other users and fellow Coorindators and other WikiProjects to get the best result out of articles. I maybe wrong with these figures but it's something like 1 in 5 or 20% has a Mental Illness of some kind. I'll be back when I feel I can be of some usefulness. Adamdaley (talk) 06:48, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for letting us know Adam, and I hope that we see you back soon. Your contributions are greatly valued. Nick-D (talk) 06:58, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Hope things improve soon, and look forward to your return. Hchc2009 (talk) 07:51, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Ditto Nick and Hchc, Adam -- and if you ever want to talk offline, feel free to email. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:46, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Take it easy, Adam, have a restful New Year and relaxing wiki-break. Hope to see you back in due course, your input here is much valued and always appreciated! Also open to chat, via email, if needed. Ciao for now, Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 14:46, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Get well soon, man. - The Bushranger One ping only 20:55, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Sorry to hear about that. Hope you feel better. You're a great editor, adam. Buggie111 (talk) 21:00, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for all you've done, Adam. - Dank (push to talk) 03:17, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for all the hard work you've done Adam. You've certainly even in our limited direct interactions caused some great article improvements to be made, for example with 47th Army. Feel free to reach out on talkpage or e-mail to me whenever you wish. Buckshot06 (talk) 09:04, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Notability query

Two articles on companies of US Rangers have been created, Company A 1-181 Infantry and Company D 1-181 Infantry, and are up for MILHIST assessment. Our notability guidelines state that it is exceptional for a company to be notable. I'm also not sure that the websites offered as references are independent of the unit concerned. Could someone with specialist US Army knowledge check the notability of these companies? ThanksMonstrelet (talk) 19:09, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I've been aware of the four company articles created for this battalion, which by our standards are not notable, for some time. We should probably take this opportunity to upmerge the company articles. Buckshot06 (talk) 22:22, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
There's nothing special about the companies' history from the Mexican Revolution / First World War onwards - each is a lettered company of an 'ordinary' infantry regiment. Much of the articles are repetitious. However the previous early 'named' history of each company dates back in some cases centuries and is unique. My proposed solution is a merge and split, creating four company articles (Wellington Rifles, Springfield Rifles, Hudson Light Guards, Cambridge City Guard - these have individual notability) and reconsolidating the 181st Infantry Regiment (United States) article. Buckshot06 (talk) 22:30, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
From the see also of the Company A article: Headquarters Company 1-181 Infantry (Wellington Rifles), Company B 1-181 Infantry, Company C 1-181 Infantry (Cambridge City Guard), Company D 1-181 Infantry (Hudson Light Guards). And there's also a 1181 Forward Support Company. Company B seems to have little claim to fame. GraemeLeggett (talk) 22:51, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes, both Company B and 1181 Forward Support Company refer to 5th Coy, 8th Regt Mass Militia - which can be incorporated in an article on 8th Mass Militia if necessary. I've tried to alert User:Rifleman181, who seems to be the main editor. Buckshot06 (talk) 09:00, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
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