Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 37

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Military operations

Category:Military operations is, quite frankly, a mess. Some of the things found within include:

I think we ought to clean this up. Hence, the following idea:

  1. Flip the relationship of Category:Military operations and Category:Military conflicts. In other words, Category:Military conflicts would be a sub-category of Category:Military operations rather than vice-versa. This will allow us to filter out all the combat operations into the regular "Battles of..." and "Wars of..." category tree.
  2. Introduce a Category:Non-combat military operations as a child of Category:Military operations and filter all the non-combat stuff down.
  3. Create a Category:Operations as a parent of Category:Military operations and filter all the non-military stuff up.

The resulting tree would be:

A few categories would need to be dealt with:

This is all subject to change, of course, and any comments or suggestions would be extremely welcome. Kirill Lokshin 02:19, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Your ideas about how to reorganize it look good to me. Cla68 02:38, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I've flipped the nesting of operations and conflicts and created Category:Operations (for non-military stuff) and Category:Non-combat military operations. Help with sorting out all the articles currently under Category:Military operations into the right place would be very appreciated! Kirill Lokshin 22:59, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Another question to consider: would it be worth creating a Category:Military operations by country to allow the following:
This would allow us some flexibility in terms of placing more unusual combat operations that might not fit precisely under "Battles" or "Wars" in a national category. Obviously, the full chain would only be created for a handful of militarily-active modern countries; but would putting the basic structure into place be worthwhile? Kirill Lokshin 23:20, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
I would encourage the Category:Military operations by country. I tend to think people typically look at military history by events or nationalities (at the very least the amateurs such as myself do this). This would facilitate the second of these groups. Major standing military alliances could probably also be included under this catagory, so you might have Category:Military operations of NATO --- MCG 04 Sept 06
Okay, I've written up what I think can serve as a good outline of this categorization scheme on the main project page. I'll try to flesh out some of the categories in question later today; but any assistance with them—as well as any other comments or suggestions—would be quite welcome! Kirill Lokshin 16:30, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

A-Class review process started

Just to make sure it doesn't get lost in the churn of discussions here:

The A-Class review process has been started, and currently has four articles that need evaluation. The success of such a process obviously requires a certain level of wider input; hence, stopping by the assessment department and commenting on the articles undergoing review would be very appreciated! Kirill Lokshin 06:04, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

And just to stress the point: we really need at least a few people to actually take part in this for it to go anywhere! :-) Kirill Lokshin 02:25, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
To play devil's advocate rather late in the game, I think this process may be unnecessarily cumbersome. Some editors may view it as additional bureaucratic red tape and be tempted to skip it and proceed directly to FAC instead.
I think it would be better to combine Peer Review and A-class review into a single step called "Peer Review and Article Assessment". In this process, any article can be submitted for peer review as normal. Reviewers, in turn, not only give their suggestions, they also rate the article on the quality scale. So, a reviewer might something like: "Nicely written article, but it needs more inline citations and is missing details about foo. B-class." That way, people will learn in a single step what they need to do to improve the article, and also where the article currently stands on the quality scale. After the PR&AA process is over, the article talk page is updated with the consensus rating. A-class articles will become apparent in this process.
Just an idea. • Kevin (complaints?) 05:16, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, I suggest no FAC without prior A class. This way things run smoother and we do not have so many requests of suboptimal quality articles. The A class review does by itself contain some elements of a peer review and we could integrate A class certification into the peer review process. Wandalstouring 06:20, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
The A class review helps ensure that editors resolve the issues raised during the peer review before nomination for FA. Cla68 06:27, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
I think the time element will break a simple combined process: an article may enter a three-week peer review as a Start-Class and leave as an A-Class, but, unless we force people to come back and check, the prior "ratings" won't make sense. The four-day period for the A-Class review, on the other hand, is short enough that only limited changes to the article should (usually) occur, so there is some assurance that the article the first reviewer is talking about somewhat resembles the one the last reviewer is talking about.
(Having said that, I have no idea whether this is the best setup possible. It would certainly be possible to combine the two processes to take an even closer form to FAC, with a longer time period involved and people supporting/objecting to A-Class status and providing suggestions for improvement implicit in their comments. This might simplify the procedure somewhat, but would also make the peer review a more confrontational process, which may discourage newer editors from submitting articles.) Kirill Lokshin 10:27, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Keep the peer review a friendly suggestion to improve certain elements. If an article receives a good peer review, the reviewers can agree to nominate it for classification review, etc. Wandalstouring 16:54, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
I suspect that some people will, if their article goes through peer review without having serious problems raised, go straight to FAC rather than bother with article assessment, which is essentially another peer review, this time with a grade. I know you (Wandalstouring) wrote "I suggest no FAC without prior A class", but WikiProjects don't have that sort of regulatory power. If people want to ignore this project (or parts thereof) when working on military history articles, they are free to do so. Members here could punish the mavericks for ignoring the process by opposing their articles on FAC, which would be a bad move. Better to make the process here so simple and helpful that they want to use it. Separate review and assessment procedures seem unnecessarily bureaucratic to me, and I wouldn't blame anyone who chooses to ignore the second step. Not that I oppose A-class review, but some sort of combined review & rating process seems a better way to ensure widespread participation. Your mileage may vary. • Kevin (complaints?) 02:21, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Given that it's only four extra days, I doubt people will be that reluctant to go through the process (particularly if it's brought up during the peer review). I'm open to ideas about how to integrate the reviews, though; I'm just not sure what the best approach is to simultaneously have a (semi-)rigorous review and also allow lower-quality articles to get ample (and kind) suggestions for improvement. Kirill Lokshin 02:44, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
It seems an excellent intermediate step toward FAC, one which I felt was previously missing. I missed the opening of A-class review by days for United States Marine Corps and would have put it through this first. --Mmx1 02:52, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

(unindent) What do we do about current A-class articles? I noticed LordAmeth removing this from here but the way it's worded it makes it sound like the person who added the A did something wrong, when it was simply added prior to the new process. My thinking is, instead of removing, we renominate. (I did that with the one article I edit that had a prior A rating) --plange 02:39, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that was the plan (hence the existence of Category:Incomplete requests for military history A-Class status); I've been listing them (slowly, so as not to overwhelm the place) into the review. I'm not sure that simply removing these ratings was the best idea here. Kirill Lokshin 02:44, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm very sorry. Somehow it just didn't occur to me to nominate those articles myself. I apologize as well for my wording in the edit summaries - I thought it sounded a bit.. wrong. I was just trying to help out as an Asst Coordinator - I wasn't quite clear on how this new process was working, and I just really thought I was doing the right thing. 僕の背。申し訳ありません。LordAmeth 02:59, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Ah, it's ok; it's really my fault for not clearly explaining how the incomplete request system was supposed to work. I'll go list a few more of them now, since we actually seem to be getting some good participation in the review process. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 03:08, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, on the Coordinators Talk page, it said "Process any articles..." I should have asked what that meant before simply going ahead and doing it. I hope I can turn this around and become a productive and beneficial Asst Coordinator... LordAmeth 03:13, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Regimental/battalion history issues

I'm currently expanding The Royal Scots (where "currently" means "I've got to 1919 and then been sidetracked for two months, but I'll get back to it soon"), and I've run across an interesting problem.

British infantry regiments, unlike most others, never operated as single units in the modern period - they were "administrative families" for a large number of battalions. When writing histories, what this means is that you usually have a couple of battalions in different places to keep track of, which isn't much of a problem. Then you hit WWI (and to a lesser extent WWII). A vast number of battalions are raised, and go off to fight all over the place, in entirely unrelated formations; you need to find some way of discussing them all. There are two solutions:

  • 1) Administratively organised - deal with each battalion in turn. "The nth was raised in ---, and sent to the Western Front..."
  • 2) Chronologically organised - "In 1914, the three battalions of the regiment..."

The Royal Scots currently uses the first; The King's Regiment (Liverpool) (an excellent article) uses the second. The first is a lot simpler if you're wanting to find out what happened to a particular subunit ("what happened to the 16th?"); the second makes it a lot easier to discuss overall history ("In 1916, nine battalions of the regiment saw action at the Somme...")

Which do people think is more useful for our readers, or more in keeping with standard practice? Thoughts appreciated. Shimgray | talk | 16:49, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I suggest a chronical overview with administrative organisation subdivision. Wandalstouring 16:56, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
A chronological overview of some sort is necessary; I suppose the question of whether a breakdown by battalion is worthwhile depends on whether there's anything significant to say about the individual batallions. In many cases, I would expect that this would not be the case; if four battalions were all sent to the Somme, they can be more coherently described in a single section. I'm sure, however, that there may be other cases where the separate battalions had notable careers in their own right, in which case separate sections (or even daughter articles!) for them would be the better approach. Kirill Lokshin 17:09, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
I share Wandalstouring's sentiments on the subject. Kirill Lokshin's comments on Batallions are also favoured.--Dryzen 14:54, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, this makes sense. I'll rewrite it when I expand the rest of the article; I've already added footnotes dealing with the minutae of the territorial units, so adding a few more for individual battalions shouldn't be a problem.
As to seperate articles... the thing is, the "notable" battalions of a line regiment are almost always the couple of regular battalions, and the article's basically about them. I'm not sure seperating by battalion would help much at this stage. Shimgray | talk | 18:15, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

War elephant on FAR

The war elephant article has just been listed for featured article review with a number of complaints about accuracy and referencing. Anyone with knowledge of the topic—and I believe there are a number of people here with some experience in the area?—is encouraged to drop by! Kirill Lokshin 16:53, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

It badly needs some real work and sourcing. Will take some time to iron it out. Wandalstouring 17:56, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Terrorism and counter-terrorism

I recall there being an earlier debate about establishing a 'War on terrorism' task-force os something similar. If there are still editors looking for a way to collaborate on the topic, check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Terrorism and counter-terrorism. enjoy! Mike McGregor (Can) 19:35, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, it was created from the abortive task force, no? Kirill Lokshin 19:36, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Yup, there it is in the archives... oops! Anyhoo, it seems there is also a Wikipedia:WikiProject Terrorism as well. Mike McGregor (Can) 19:47, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
It all looks a little GWOT-centric. Terrorism didn't only start in 2001, also I'd suggest you're likely to have a systemic POV problem....... ALR 19:49, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Not all that surprising, given that it was originally proposed as a GWOT task force. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 19:56, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Ah, that'll be it then. I keep forgetting that we haven't really lived with (modern) terrorism in the UK, and mainland Europe, since the 60s.ALR 20:00, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
I must deny for mainland Europe. We had some foreign bombers and our Red Army Faction in Germany. Fortunately since 2001 terrorists didn't do much damage here. Wandalstouring 20:52, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
We might have hit a language barrier. I should have added an irony tag above :) I was in a CONUS mil facility a year or so ago and had someone tell me I didn't understand terrorism...... Managed to avoid tearing them a new orifice and pointed out one or two instances of having first hand experience. I had to point out that there hadn't been a single year since the end of WWII when UK forces hadn't been involved in either CRW or CT somewhere in the world.ALR 20:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Which infobox to use?

Which do we use if someone conceivably fits several infobox categories? Take Fitzhugh Lee? Does he get a {{Infobox Military Person}} or {{Infobox Governor}}? Or do we use the generic {{Infobox Biography}} for cases like this? --plange 03:29, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Keep in mind the biography infoboxes are controversial. ({{Infobox Biography}} has often been nominated for deletion.) Like many, I don't care for them except for special classes of people, like popes and kings and such, since the boxes often just repeat information contained in the opening paragraph of the article. So, it's probably better to handle on a case-by-case basis, asking interested editors on the article talk page what they think is appropriate. • Kevin (complaints?) 04:55, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
What Kevin said ;-)
(I think one point to consider might be whether the individual is better known as a governor or a military officer; but even that breaks down when you get to people like Eisenhower.) Kirill Lokshin 11:38, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Then mix both to contain all information. Wandalstouring 16:49, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
The only place I've seen that happen is on articles about saints (since {{Infobox Saint}} is sometimes placed in the section which talks about canonization). In other cases, the twin infoboxes would (a) contain a lot of redundant information, (b) be visually incompatible, and (c) still leave the problem of which is to be placed first. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 17:00, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Which to put first is simple, do it chronological and delete redundant info (reduced boxes). Wandalstouring 17:16, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree in general with what Kevin says, but I consider politicians and military people being in that special class that benefit from infoboxes (collating offices and dates, etc) --plange 16:59, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Operation Mars

From my talk page:

Please take a look into a huge text added by an anon into Second Rzhev-Sychevka Offensive. I wanted to wikify it then it occurred to me that such a well-rounded text may be a copyvio. Can you bring an attention of other WWII experts, whether you and they recognize the text? `'mikka (t) 18:29, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I think mikkalai has justification for his suspicion (see Revision as of 06:25, 8 August 2006 to Revision as of 05:50, 29 August 2006 by 70.123.197.91). I don't recognise the text (but then it is not an area of WWII I have read about in detail) and if it is original work them we should encourage 70.123.197.91 to acquire a user ID --Philip Baird Shearer 09:09, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Looks like copy-paste from Glantz's book (hardly surprising, it's one of the few sources on the subject). I'll try and check tonight. -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 09:58, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Sounds very professional. Wandalstouring 16:34, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Its a good read, but looks like a copyvio. Hossen27 04:13, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Picking up loose ends

It's been six months since the last time I brought this up, which I think is a long enough delay...

I think the time has come to finally lay the long-catatonic WikiProject Military to rest, and propose redirecting that page to this one. It has been a rump project from the very beginning, and has had absolutely no activity since last March; I see no reason to keep it around merely as a relic, nor to attempt to revive it as a separate group from this one.

The objection—brought up the previous time I suggested this—that modern military affairs do not fall under the label of "history" is one that I believe to be entirely irrelevant in practice. While there may be a point of semantics to be argued here, there is little sense in making such a distinction on the WikiProject level, as the same community of editors tends to work on both newer and older topics; indeed, editors working on modern warfare have been doing so here since the beginning. Trying to artificially fracture the project along such lines would, in my opinion, be entirely unproductive and quite harmful to actual progress in article work. Beyond this, our more recent wording of the scope as "historical or modern-day warfare or military affairs" has made "military history" more of a convenient label for the broad topic area than a rigorously exact definition of what is and isn't included.

I cannot, therefore, see any real potential for a "Military" project covering topics that we do not already include here. The only major area—fictional militaries—already tends to be subsumed by the relevant fiction WikiProjects. If it does not have any future as a different project, though, is there any practical reason to retain a "separate" project that has become entirely redundant to this one?

(Incidentally, before anyone suggests this: I do not believe that trying to rename this project to "Military" would be either feasible—the scale of our project is rather too large for that—or beneficial, as we would lose the considerable name recognition and goodwill in the wider community that we have built up under the label of "Military history.")

Thoughts? Kirill Lokshin 02:39, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

The only concern I might have would be that in theory, we may not draw members who wish to participate in Military areas but not historical areas. Seeing as how those editors have been coming here anyway, I think it's a moot point. I support the motion. --Mmx1 02:49, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I would support this as well, as the arguments against such a move seem to more theoretical than practical. Carom 03:08, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I Support the move, had the same problem with WikiProject ADF and the Australian taskforce, overlap and coverage its still not sorted out. I dont support any name change there is no real benefit form a change that I can see. Hossen27 04:10, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, thanks for reminding me; we'll need to try and sort that out. Maybe WP:AUS will be able to help this time around. Kirill Lokshin 10:00, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
OK Wandalstouring 06:55, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I'd support. What ever happens in Bagdad today is still history tomorrow... But, if scaring off non-historians is a concern, why not just drop the "history" from the title? Mike McGregor (Can) 07:59, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Agree whatever happens today is still history tomorrow but the name should remain as it is. One possibility would be to have a modern day taskforce whose job it would be to correct new information as it comes to life (eg. Number of US casualties in Iraq/War on terror) and also to improve Wikipedia's coverage of new military happenings. Probably not my best idea but a possibility. Hossen27 08:13, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Interesting idea; that might be worth doing in the future. Personally, I very much doubt the "history" will scare anybody off, and (as I mentioned) don't think it's a good idea to change the title at this point anyways. Kirill Lokshin 10:00, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Drop the history and kick me. No, military taskforce is the wrong way as the mentioned example has clearly shown. Wandalstouring 10:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I think they should be merged, and the name kept the same. I don't think new people will be turned off by "history" being in the project name. If they happen upon an article they are interested in, and see the project banner, I think if they already have an interest in military affairs, then they probably will be interested in the work going on here. I've never met some one interested in the military who wasn't also intrigued by military history in some regard. As the other project is pretty inactive (I wasn't even aware of its existence until now), and this one is vibrant, and the immense amount of overlap between the two (virtually every article), I don't see why we shouldn't. There is a wide range of interests here, so I think most ground will be covered adquately. --Nobunaga24 09:42, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I (still) do not think that they should be merged, for the reasons I gave previously (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military#Merging with Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history). --Philip Baird Shearer 09:49, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
We need some people to collect all data and pics about these recent military equipments, so they are welcome :P Wandalstouring 10:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Merge the projects under history. I htink the reasons are self evident and have already been enumerated several times already. As for the name, my opinion mirrors Kirill Lokshin's. For a short return: Current event are going to be history, structures and organisations are records and important for the understanding of events and its concequences. --Dryzen 13:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Support merger. PBS, I honestly don't understand your reasoning, since today's operations are making history every minute that passes. --plange 18:31, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
To me, this is one of those cases where WP:IAR applies; there are plenty of good arguments to have two projects, but unless there is someone working to keep that project alive, we're just indulging in needless philosophizing & conformance to process not to put an end to that dead Wikiproject. Simplicity is a virtue; taking responsibility for subjects & things needing to be done is what makes Wikipedia work. As long as we admit that this WikiProject could be restarted should there be sufficient enthusiasm in the future for it, just make the changes. -- llywrch 20:27, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the merge. Military history is a much larger study than that of current militaries; the study of current militaries is just a small part of the overall history of militaries worldwide and I think that's what most people here see as well. The current state of militaries today is a mere footnote, albeit essential, to the grander picture of militaries throughout the last several millenia. So the argument that Military comes first and Military History is a subset of that is pretty silly. That they have nothing to do with one another to the point that they need to be separate disciplines is even sillier. The past directly affects the present (and the future), so how could you effectively divide the two? Every current military unit has its own history, let alone how it came to be based upon what happened in the past. They belong in one project.
However, I loved the idea of task forces. Admittedly, a Current Military Task Force, taking on every aspect of militaries around the world, seems a bit overwhelming. I thought perhaps dividing them up at least into eastern and western hemispheres might take some of the pressure off, but I think Current Military task forces by continent would be perfect. Considering just how much North America alone would constitute, that is more than enough to keep whomever is a part of those T.F.'s busy for a long, long time. I would love to join one of those T.F.'s. But as I think we're all agreeing, something like that would have to be incorporated first (well, officially anyway since we're already doing it semi-officially). --ScreaminEagle 22:57, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure it would be overwhelming, actually. Suppose we limit it to, say, topics active in the last five years; we'll then get:
  • A whole bunch of units; possibly a substantial portion, for those countries with continuous lineages.
  • A decent number of weapons & equipment.
  • Some general topics, political bodies, doctrines, etc.
  • Relatively few people; our coverage of personnel is disproportionately towards those already dead. (Indeed, our largest single group is probably posthumous recipients of various awards for valor.)
  • Extremely few events.
While this wouldn't be a small task force, it may not even be the largest; some of the broader ones (WWII, Maritime, Weaponry) likely have even more articles under their purview. Hence, we could probably get away with just a single "current affairs" task force; the question, of course, is whether anyone would be interested in participating (or even approaching topics from such a starting point). Kirill Lokshin 00:35, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I endorse this annexation move. But not without some hesistation. While the above arguements are sound and convincing, there is still a risk of "contaminating" the past with the present. Controversial and ongoing issues are sure to creep in which would have to be delt with and, even if they are effectively resolved, could draw our efforts away from areas in need of a lot more work and which have waited far longer than the latest "War of the week". Our interest is to generate light, not heat ;>. Also, as one of the inventors of the Task Force concept, I remind our members that TF's, especially the larger ones, may find it useful to break down into Task Groups, to better deal with sub-topics or large/important articles. This offers the benefit not only of greater efficiency but of avoiding the dred "Task Force bloat" as well.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 02:58, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Ah, Task Groups, that's what I'm thinking about! And I, for one, would definitely join such a task force. I'm in the middle of a large, time-consuming project for the German TF, but once that's pretty much done a lot of my time will be freed up for current affairs stuff. I find myself more drawn to current military topics anyway; sure, there's not a whole lot of information out there to write them--usually just what the military itself releases at times--but there's enough and it just makes the challenge that much more fun. So if anyone else would join me so I'm not a task force of one, that would be great. --ScreaminEagle 19:55, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Projects and forces and groups, oh my! ;-)
Personally, I don't see the need to complicate the terminology any further at this point; considering the overall levels of activity throughout the project, anything narrower than the task force level is probably best done informally (within the existing task force framework).
Having said that, I do think some sort of "current affairs" task force will be feasible; are there other editors who would be interested in working on it? Kirill Lokshin 20:23, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Based on the comments, I've gone ahead and redirected the page. Hopefully this will save us from some potential confusion in the future. :-) Kirill Lokshin 03:10, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Just some quick thoughts. I agree that a current affairs task force is a sound idea. I just wanted to throw a few thoughts into the ring before anything went ahead. I will go out on a limb and say that because this is the English wikipedia most of the current affairs will involve western nations. Thus I think it maybe safe to say that alot of these events may involve Iraq and Afghanistan. These are very contentious issues on Wikipedia and could serve to drag the project into alot more arguments with editors who really are not to keen on military affairs or who just have completely opposite views. I realize that this happens everyday on Wikipedia but this time many editors will be envoking the task force as there reason for making the changes that they did. Almost like we are trying to hijack articles. I know that everyone here is very good at maintaining neutral articles but perception is a very big word. May be a good idea to lay out some good groundrules, scope, etc.....before wallowing into the current events mire. --Looper5920 20:45, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, that's a potential concern. My hope is that, as the task force would cover all current affairs, there would be enough editors working on non-controversial topics to avoid giving the impression that this is necessarily a task force tied to any particular conflict. But obviously we'll need to make sure that it doesn't become a focal point for outside political debate. Kirill Lokshin 21:04, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

National Security Council

I wonder if anybody knows that this article DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A TALK PAGE!

It's not even listed in your project at all!

Mind telling me why, and is it possible to get anyone on over there? (I would do it myself, but I am not an expert. I tend to refrain from editing information I'm not familiar with).

Colonel Marksman 16:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Tagged it; thanks for bringing it to our attention. For what it's worth, there are a lot of articles that haven't been tagged yet, mostly because we haven't done much systematic tagging outside of the military conflict categories; this is why bot-tagging is our friend! ;-) Kirill Lokshin 17:11, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Copyright issues

If a web site displays no copyright status, does this mean we are free to use certain images from that site eg: [1], specifically these images:[2]. If I am allowed to download an image from a site like this, what licensing tag should I use? Thanks for your help. Raymond Palmer 18:08, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Nope. Under U.S. law, all creative works are automatically protected by copyright even if they do not display an explicit copyright notice. Depending on the context, you might be able to make a fair-use claim for the images; but, as a general rule, images from the majority of websites can't be used. Kirill Lokshin 18:13, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Ok, thanks for clearing that up Raymond Palmer 18:24, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Battles of Belarus?

Someone just created Category:Battles of Belarus. What's in there now appears to be misfiled—Belarus didn't exist as an independent entity during the Middle Ages—but I'm curious: does anyone know of any actual battles in which an independent Belarus was a participant? Does this category have some potential, in other words, or is it going to be entirely empty? Comments at Category talk:Battles of Belarus would be highly appreciated! Kirill Lokshin 11:16, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Belarus was part of the Commonwealth, but I think they dislike being integrated into the Polish history taskforce, while they have exactly the same scope for the Middle Ages + Great-Lithuvia history. Wandalstouring 15:10, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Article showcase?

An idea that occurred to me: would it be worthwhile to have a list of high-quality articles (primarily FAs, and perhaps A-Class once we get them all reviewed) directly on the project page? While they can be found through the assessment categories, it's not, perhaps, immediately obvious that one can do so; and I think having such a list easily available might be helpful in terms of giving editors a place to look for ideas they may wish to emulate in their own articles. Here is a mockup of the list as it might appear.

Thoughts? Would this be a good idea? Kirill Lokshin 12:25, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

  • I have no problems with the idea it can be hard to find FA's (well anything) if you dont know where to look. Hossen27 12:39, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I would say a prominently featured link to a list of quality articles is a great idea. As someone who is currently wallowing through the assessment pages I realize they can be hard to find. It would be a good resource for newcomers.--Looper5920 12:43, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Support--Dryzen 13:14, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Good idea, although the list contains some older featured articles which are not up to current standards, such as Abraham Lincoln and Horatio Nelson -- Nelson might not even qualify as "A-class" by current standards. Putting those on a list of "high-quality articles" would work against the purpose of the list. • Kevin (complaints?) 14:09, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Meh. I'm not sure how we would determine which are "up to current standards" objectively except by putting the older ones through FAR and seeing which ones make it through. Do we want to do something like that (with the likely consequence of having many of those articles de-featured)? Kirill Lokshin 14:14, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Either put the old ones through FAR, or just de-list old ones that members here suggest aren't quite up to current standards. If the purpose of the list is to give folks a selection of high-quality articles for guidelines, the list does not need to show every featured article in order to serve its purpose. Listing those which don't meet current standards, like Mark Antony, will in fact defeat the purpose, since whoever emulates that featured article will meet with disappoinment come FAC time. Now, if the purpose of the list is to simply list featured articles regardless of quality, nevermind. ;-) • Kevin (complaints?) 14:47, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Sort of both, actually. ;-) The main point is to provide a selection for editors to consult, but there's obviously a side benefit to having an accessible list of all the high-quality stuff listed in an obvious place. (This aside from the point that we don't want to provoke fights about which articles are "better" by only listing some [current] FAs.)
One way to combine your two ideas, incidentally, would be to put up the list but comment out all the articles, and then let everyone go through the list and (a) uncomment the article if it's up to current standards or (b) make a (short) note as to its problems otherwise. Once we've gone through the whole list, we can feed the articles that are commented out to FAR. Kirill Lokshin 14:52, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I like this idea-- we're having to do that over at WP:WPBIO -- we use the comment feature in our project banner to note which ones are candidates for FAR and am feeding them through 1 by 1 I agree with Kevin, though, in that I wouldn't want FAs listed there that wouldn't meet today's standards --plange 15:33, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Okay, how about we try it? I've added a commented-out list to the project page here; please go forth and check up on our FAs! :-) Kirill Lokshin 16:22, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
To start us off, I've uncommented everything promoted in the last three months, as those should clearly be up to modern standards; that's 21 articles done. 94 still need someone to look at them! ;-) Kirill Lokshin 23:23, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

(unindent) - Abe Lincoln was already on my hit list for Bio and I just had my previous nom finally move to FARC so I'm able to nom another so just did Abe so we can kill 2 birds with one stone... --plange 16:37, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the lack of citations is probably going to be the major issue for most of these. In many cases, the original writer(s), who may have had some idea of where statements were taken from, are no longer editing; and uninvolved editors usually aren't going to be able to make up for that in any reasonable time. Kirill Lokshin 03:14, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps the Portal-page be a better place to collect these articles or to link from? Isin't the purpose of the portals to act as an intorduction to a given subjet on the 'pedia? Mike McGregor (Can) 00:50, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Many (most?) of them can be found through the portal; but the listing here is intended more for the benefit of editors—in terms of giving them examples to consider when working on articles—than for the casual readers towards whom portals are primarily directed. Kirill Lokshin 00:52, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Military History template

I have noticed that several Featured Articles have recently been sporting "in house" FA templates for there respective wikiprojects, such as the one below.

Wikiproject Computer and video games WikiProject Military history/Archive 37 is a selected article of the WikiProject Computer and video games.

Perhaps we should consider a similar template for articles within the scope of our project. Thoughts? TomStar81 (Talk) 05:05, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Our portal has enough real FAs that there's no separate selection process, so an entirely new template would be pretty useless; but see Category:Wikipedia featured articles used on the War Portal. Kirill Lokshin 05:11, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Adding Images

I have tried to put some photos that I have taken on some articles but it doesn't seem to work. How can I place those photos onto Wikipedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kyriakos (talk • contribs)

See Wikipedia:Uploading images. Kirill Lokshin 00:24, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Kyriakos 00:49, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

{{mil-bio-stub}} tree category names

As both the permanent parents have been renamed at CFD, and the root of the hierarchy renamed from Category:military biographical stubs to Category:military personnel stubs at SFD, I'm going to do likewise for the rest without bothering to tag them for a separate discussion, unless there any objections here. (BTW, the {{mil-stub}} is also oversized, should anyone feel a fit of organisation coming on.) Alai 17:20, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Seems fine to me. While that category tree still has some naming issues to be considered, I think the use of "personnel" is going to stick, so converting all the stubs to it shouldn't run into any problems. Kirill Lokshin 17:59, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
You mean the likes of "Canadian" vs. "Canada"? Or what? There's not a lot of point in moving them in two goes if they can be got right in one (though admittedly it's not a vast number of edits either way). Alai 02:50, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
No, I meant the actual full Category:Military personnel tree, not the (more limited) by-nationality stub tree; the naming of the stub categories isn't an issue either way, so please feel free to take whatever the standard approach is for those. Kirill Lokshin 03:07, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
If there's a standard approach (and at times that's a big "if") it's to follow the naming of the permcats. Given that Category:miilitary personnel has been very recently renamed to that title, just how many issues remaining can there be? Or more to the point, what are they? (Or are we speaking about non "personnel" subcats, like Category:military writers, which on the face of it shouldn't be included there at all?) Alai 03:21, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
There's a lot more to categorizing military personnel than just the countries involved. (If you're truly curious, there's some older discussion of how the overall structure should look here.) Just follow the current names for by-country categories for the time being; I doubt there will be any changes to that branch considered in the forseeable future. Kirill Lokshin 03:27, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
I'd have thought not, since as far as (to be more precise) Category:military personnel by nation is concerned, the issues raised in the earlier discussion appear to be precisely the "people" vs "personnel" and "<X>ish" vs "of <X>land" considered at the CFR, so I'd have thought that "time being" would mean at least "a decent interval". (The latter consideration might or might not affect the name of the stub categories, depending on whom you ask.) Since I doubt there's any real need for "by war" stub types (though you lot would know better than I), or at any rate, none that exist as present, if there's outstanding business for those that's indeed not a live issue, as you say. Alai 04:08, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Yep. Unless there are some plans to create absurdly complicated stubs (e.g. {{France-WWII-admiral-stub}} or things of that sort), there shouldn't be any issues with standardizing everything on the current (new) setup for Category:military personnel by nation. Kirill Lokshin 04:20, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
There's not so much as a {{WWII-bio-stub}} at the momeny, and if there are plans on creating same, I don't recall having seen them mentioned anywhere. (Though spookily enough, someone seems to have created a redlink to that about an hour ago at Category:World War II stubs.) Alai 04:31, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

BTW, I tripped across Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Military people, which references these en bloc. Should the Wikiproject field refer back to (some task force subpage of) here? Alai 05:08, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

That page was never actually active, as far as I know; but Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Military (which is transcluded onto WP:MHREQ) has some relevant stuff. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 09:47, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
They're both transcluded onto WP:PNA, which may not be getting regularly bot-updated at the moment, but is certainly fairly heavily linked to as a cleanup resource. OTOH, since they're transcluded together (which I've only just noticed, despite editting both pages a while ago...), the "missing" wikiproject is probably be clear enough from context. I might add a link to Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography's military sub-page for cross-referencing purposes. Alai 10:39, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Nomenclature for British naval guns

I was interested in starting some articles on British naval guns, so took a quick inventory of what is already out there. So far we have;

Obviously, there seems to be no systematic method for naming articles. The official designation of these guns is;

  • BL 15 inch Mark I
  • BL 13.5 inch (various marks)
  • QF 4.5 inch (various marks), until 1950s, when surviving guns became simply 4.5 inch Mark 5, Mark 6, Mark 8.
  • QF 2 pounder (various marks)

I would like to propose some agreed method to name the articles. There is already a fairly systematic naming system for (British) Army guns, e.g Ordnance QF 2 pounder and Ordnance QF 6 pounder, this simply follows the official designation (but drops the gun weight in hundredweights). The Royal Navy designation system is unique as far as I know, I therefore do not think that titles need disambiguated with the word "British". I also think including the mark is over-specific, as apart from the 15 inch and 16 inch guns, most guns went through a large number of marks. For this reason, and the fact that the Royal Navy does not include it in the official designation, I also do not think the calibre should be included; there are, for instance, L/55 and L/45 guns on the page 4.5 inch (114 mm) gun, which should we use? I personally amn't keen either on including millimetres in the title. These guns were never reported with a metric equivalent, or known by such (the sole exception being the foreign Oerlikon 20 mm (QF 20 mm) and Bofors 40 mm (QF 40 mm)). We do not have a page [[Oerlikon 20 mm (0.79 inch) cannon]], likewise we do not include millimetre and inches in the title of the 2 pounder gun article. It also just makes the title that bit more complicated than it really needs to be.

My preferred choice for a titling system would therefore be [[designation, calibre in inches / shell weight in pounds, naval gun]], e.g. <nowikiBL 15 inch naval gun</nowiki>. The only shortcoming I can see with this system is where we have a case where a modern, unrelated weapon, is added into a page for historic guns due to a shared calibre - this is the case with the 4.5 inch (114 mm) gun page. However it would be my intention to move this to a page of it's own anyway.

Your thoughts would be appreciated, please do pick holes in my case as there is probably a lot I have missed. I know this is probably an obscure subject for many project members, but I think it is best just to have as many fine wikipedians that are part of this project as possible add their 2 cents. Emoscopes Talk 12:49, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

The Weaponry task force might be a better place to work out the details of this; I recall there was another naming discussion there not too long ago. Kirill Lokshin 12:52, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
righto, thanks, I'll pose that over there too. Emoscopes Talk 13:00, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Okay, great. If anyone else has comments, please make them here so that we can keep the discussion in one place. Kirill Lokshin 13:06, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Sources

Can anyone recommend any good online resources for researching articles? I am interested in contributing, but I find that most of my knowledge is just floating around in my head but I don't have any actual citations. I have access to some online library resources like LexisNexis but those are mostly just news and journal articles. --Undead1 17:32, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Depending on your interests, you can check the various task force pages. Several of them have online resources and recommended reading listed on their pages - Vedexent 06:00, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
You probably know this, but also keep in mind that for many military history topics (particularly old topics rather than recent history), most online sources don't really qualify as reliable sources for our purposes. Alas, we have to drag ourselves away from the computer and go to the library to do the bulk of serious research. Although Dr. Egon Spengler would disagree, print is not quite dead yet. —Kevin 07:00, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Good point. That's where the "reading list" part comes in though :) I tend to concentrate on "classical era" military history, so I do have a lot of good online sources as most classical authors are online. No, they're not the only sources I need/use - but it is an advantage that ancient/classical articles have over more modern military history articles. - Vedexent 09:04, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

The last ever cavalry charge?

Not quite sure where to put the following anecdote, but I believe it's worth use somewhere in the creation of an encyclopedia.

In reading Anthony Mockler's Haile Selassie's War, which details the military maneuvers in East Africa between the Allies & the Italians between 1935-1942, I encountered a description of what Mockler described as what "must have been the last great European-led cavalry charge in Africa." During an engagement Mockler entitles "The Battle of the Lowlands", which happened as British forces invaded what is modern Eritrea from the west on or shortly after 19 January 1941, the advancing British were attacked by a detachment of men on horses, part of a larger group of African cavalry, firing from their saddles & throwing grenades, who nearly overran the British units as they set up their artillery pieces. As might be expected, the entire group of cavalry suffered horrendous losses: out of a unit of 500 men, Mockler states 179 horsemen were killed & 260 wounded, & 89 horses killed & 68 wounded. (Mockler, p.321)

Frankly, I think Mockler is understating the significance of this event. Although I have heard of Turkish cavalry being used successfully to repulse a Chinese infantry attack in the Korean War (sorry, although I trust my source, this is clearly a case of information coming from "a friend of a friend", so I can't add it to any article), I think this is the last time cavalry -- in the strict definition of men fighting on horseback -- were used in a major combat engagement. Can anyone confirm or deny my supposition? (Or even better, can someone use this in an article?) -- llywrch 04:21, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

This definitely isn't the case, as cavalry units were widely used on the Eastern Front. The last "cavalry charge" I could find in a half-hour's searching was on August 24, 1942, when elements of the 3a Reggimento "Savoia Cavalleria" attached to the Italian 8th Army successfuly attacked entrenched Soviet infantry with sabres and grenades (Fowler, Axis Cavalry in World War II, 45), but I wouldn't be surprised if units like the 37th SS Volunteer Cavalry Division Lützow continued to fight on horseback all the way to the end of the war. Kirill Lokshin 04:50, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Apparently five years ago! - [www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/571498/posts][3], but it's not entirely conventional so it probably doesn't count. --Loopy e 22:13, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Awesome. I'm a traditionalist, and it warms my heart to know that such things are never fully eliminated... even in today's world of modern warfare, tactics and weapons that have served man well for thousands of years continue to serve a purpose. LordAmeth 00:53, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
We will always have someone riding on a horse into battle. Reasons can be for example no money for a car or the terrain/supplies feature only animal transport. If you have a fast moving vehicle/animal there are always cases when it is logical to reach an enemy with ranged weapons a.s.a.p. -> charge. A better approach would be to distinguish between the weapons used in a charge. lances and sabres are likely to fall out of use as main weapons. Let's find the last charges with them. Wandalstouring 13:54, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm almost sure I read somewhere about cavelry being used during the Bush War by the Rodesians. I think it was used in more of a mounted infantry role though. Mike McGregor (Can) 05:43, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

A-Class reviews

Given that we seem to have a lot of 2-to-1 and 3-to-1 splits in the A-Class reviews, I'm wondering if it would be acceptable to tighten the passing criteria a bit, from the current:

Articles will generally be promoted to A-Class if (a) they have garnered at least three endorsements from uninvolved editors, and (b) there is at most one substantive objection. Please note that, in particularly egregious cases, even a single objection may cause a nomination to fail if it points out a critical flaw in the article.

to

An article will generally be promoted to A-Class if (a) it has garnered at least three endorsements from uninvolved editors, and (b) there are no substantive objections. Please note, however, that a nomination with a single isolated objection may pass if the objection does not point out a major flaw in the article.

This would avoid basing the pass-or-fail decision on the third reviewer, and perhaps make the process a bit more rigorous (which might prove of value, as there are some discussions about giving A-Class status greater prominence within Wikipedia as a whole). Thoughs? Does anyone have problems with making such a change? Kirill Lokshin 14:30, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

No problems here. Hossen27 14:50, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
As we are not currently limiting good-faith renominations, I see no reason not to tighten the criteria. Carom 16:26, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Support, could be good to have more people in the assesment, for exemple some have gotten no opposition and two supports and fail.--Dryzen 18:40, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I've updated the instructions on the assessment page. Kirill Lokshin 09:52, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Showcase wrap-up

I've nearly finished going through the existing stock of featured articles for the showcase section. The result I've arrived at is that, out of 115 FAs, only 45 generally meet current criteria, while ~70 do not (primarily because of inadequate or non-existent citations).

There are three articles that still need to be tossed in one pile or the other; I'd really appreciate it if someone could take a look at them and uncomment them in the list or note what the major issue is if they no longer meet the criteria:

We may also be able to add in a section for A-Class articles now that we have some that have gone through the new review process. Kirill Lokshin 17:00, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Not sure about the rest, but since Sino-German cooperation was FA'ed relatively recently (ok, half a year or so), I would say it still meets FA standards, unless someone can spot a particular issue needing some work? As for War of the League of Cambrai, I think you should know it best since you wrote it. :p -- Миборовский 03:33, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Exactly; I'd prefer not to be in the position of approving my own articles! ;-) Kirill Lokshin 03:36, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Meh. To avoid delaying this too much, I've cleared the last three FAs; I've also added a list (unfortunately quite short, at this point) of A-Class articles that have gone through the review process. The showcase should now be more-or-less usable; comments are welcome!
On a related note, we should probably start thinking about how to deal with the huge backlog of old FAs with major citation problems. It might be worthwhile to gradually flow them onto WP:FAR, to avoid having lump nominations of them when someone else notices their condition. Ideas on how best to approach this would be appreciated! Kirill Lokshin 03:32, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
Flow them into WP:FAR as you say, starting from the most ancient ones. FAs and FA standards are dynamic, they definitely do change over time, so we should be prepared to lose a few (or a lot) if we do it.
We might also start a FA-resuscitation taskforce/department, to ensure that old FAs remain up to current standards... -- Миборовский 06:26, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Project page length?

I had to do a bit of scrolling today, so I thought I might as well ask (particularly for the benefit of anyone with a slower connection): is the overall length of the main project page (which has been steadily growing) a problem for anyone? If it's getting too long, there are several (very large) transcluded subpages that could be turned into links, substantially reducing the overall size; but I'd like to know if anyone is actually bothered by it before I go off and start proposing useless changes. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 01:11, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I am not bothered by the length of the page(s), although if you decide to break them up so much the better. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:37, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
I dont have any problems, but then again I only use the project page when I consult it for infoboxes and guide lines.--Dryzen 14:55, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Hehe. Well, good to know that this doesn't seem to be a major problem for people, anyways; I suppose we can leave things as they are until somebody starts complaining. ;-)
(Incidentally, would anyone object if we moved the full list of archives at the top of this page to its own subpage and linked to it? The double sets of collapsing boxes are wreaking havoc with links to sections at times.) Kirill Lokshin 15:08, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
No objection, we could link it in the Shorcut box.--Dryzen 17:13, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
I've added a link in the navigation bar, and a more prominent one below the shortcut next to it. Does that work? Kirill Lokshin 17:50, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Category naming

What exactly is the convention for naming a category of wars of a nonstate? I would appreciate if someone could let me know. Cheers, TewfikTalk 07:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Same as that for a state: "Wars of [the] X", where X is a common (ideally the most common) name of the group in question. Is there some particular case you have in mind? Kirill Lokshin 09:46, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Well Category:Wars of Hezbollah seemed a bit odd next to "Wars of Lebanon" and "Wars of Israel," and so I considered renaming, but if this is the convention in use with other militant groups, then so be it. Cheers, TewfikTalk 15:03, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
That seems the most practical solution (as I don't think creating a "Wars by not-quite-country" category is a good idea). There's plenty of groups that aren't countries under Category:Battles by country that follow this scheme (e.g. "Battles of the Normans", "Battles of the Vikings", etc.); I'm not sure if we have any other categories for "militant groups" per se, but following the existing convention across the board seems best here. Kirill Lokshin 15:07, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Need a little help (please)

I thought about asking this at the reference desk, but figured this would be a better place to pose this question: I have been working on a rewrite of Fort Bliss that I recently transfered into my sandbox from its previously offline page. I am still working on some of the history details, but I have hit a road block with regards to Fort Bliss and the 1988 BRAC round. According to this website (scroll about 3/4ths of the way down the page; Fort Bliss is listed under the section "United States - South Central Region") Fort Bliss was realigned, or slated to be relaingned in 1988. Subsequent checks of the Government Accountability Office website turn up references to Fort Bliss in the 1988 BRAC round, but I can not find any information on what left or what came in (I am assuming that the base was unable to get around the realignment). Any ideas on where I should go from here? TomStar81 (Talk) 05:18, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

There's numbers given here of around a few hundred people moving in or out of Fort Bliss for the 1988 realignment; but I'm not sure if these are actual numbers or just plans. Kirill Lokshin 06:14, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
Probably actual numbers; it does say final at the top and is dated December ’88. The numbers seem low, but then BRAC in the begining was influenced alot at the top by guys whose political lives were intertwined with the health and status of the bases in their region, or so my research says. Although its low it may be enough to have warrented an article either in the El Paso Herald Post or the El Paso Times. Thanks for the help, with this I can go back to the lab again with some idea of where to go from here. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:25, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
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