Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 43

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Formatting issue

Certain ship pages, like Enterprise and Intrepid have been formatted in an all bullet style. Other pages, like Wisconsin and Missouri are written entirely in paragraph form. Since all these pages come under our umbrella I think it would be best if we came to some agreement on which of the two forms should be used. I personally like the parapgraph form, as I feel it does a much better job of conveying information. Thoughts on the matter? TomStar81 (Talk) 23:04, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Along these same lines, I've noticed the exact same thing with commander biography pages. Are we bulleting their military careers and training (as seen in the Michael Hagee article), or putting it in paragraph form or a mixture of both? --ScreaminEagle 23:48, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Turn bullets into prose? maybe? T Rex | talk 00:14, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

In the American Civil War biospace, about 99% of the articles are paragraph/descriptive oriented. (The other 1%, pretty randomly selected, also have a bulleted summary of key commands and dates.) Concentrating only on dates, ranks, and positions, without accomplishments, decisions, battle performance, etc., results in a very shallow, unencyclopedic article. Hal Jespersen 00:16, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Another comment: I looked at the discussion page for that Hagee article and saw that someone commented "I know it's a style choice, but for most military personnel who don't have a "story", turning lists into paragraphs is boring to write and painful to read. :)" If a person does not have a "story," he doesn't belong in an encyclopedia with his own article (beyond inclusion in some "List of commanders..." article). Wikipedia is not an almanac or an online database of military career assignments. Hal Jespersen 00:26, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I think prose is preferable. Carom 00:31, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Prose is definitely preferable. (Indeed, on a more practical level, any substantial bulleted lists in an article will generally prevent it from getting featured.) Kirill Lokshin 00:34, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Does that include the dates of rank achieved and awards and decorations they've received? I can definitely see the rest being prose, but I would think it more practical and asthetically pleasing to just list their ranks and the dates they were promoted rather than put it in a repetitive-sounding paragraph. Part of me says the same for their awards (unless we know what they got the awards for, how does a paragraph really help us?). An example of this is found in the Colin Powell article (he has a whole bunch and others' would be shorter, but it still fits the example). What do you think? --ScreaminEagle 00:42, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I would think that the dates of promotions would be worked into the overall text of the biography (e.g. "After being promoted to Major General on August 4, 1948, ..."). As far as awards go, there's a good example of what can be done in the Aleksandr Vasilevsky article; I don't think it's really useful to go into any more detail than that, in most cases. Kirill Lokshin 00:47, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I think that, in general, we should strive to transform as much of the article into prose as is humanly possible - as Kirill points out, it is not particularly difficult to work things like dates of promotion into the main body of the article, and I don't think that there is any need for promotions or commands to be listed separately. Carom 00:53, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Good enough. I guess I've got some work ahead of me. Thanks for the input (and that did answer TomStar's question, too, yes?)! --ScreaminEagle 00:55, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes it did. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:19, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Looks like I'm late on the posting but I'll post anyways. Prose is the way to go, its more professional in an encyclopædia and much nicer to read. It is though more work and taxes the use of synonyms to make fresh through out.--Dryzen 18:45, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Could we maybe put this out on the main project page as a guideline? That way everyone could see that prose is better than bullets. TomStar81 (Talk) 07:41, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I totally disagree with such a generalization. Write a shopping list in prose and give it to somebody going to the mall. Wandalstouring 13:51, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles don't generally contain shopping lists, though. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 17:56, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

It's not really a major point, and probably not something to worry about in early stages of article development. Maybe we can add it to the featured article advice section? That's where the issue usually comes up, after all. Kirill Lokshin 17:56, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Bullet points and lists unacceptable in finished articles? In all circumstances? I agree with Wandalstouring (it had to happen), about the global generalisation. It's a matter of context, taste and common sense, IMO. Professionally, I had to write specifications and convey detail - bullet-points were recommended as an appropriate way of itemising detail, for clarity. OK, an article written entirely in bullet points or as a numbered list is not advisable (as referred to in the first post) - agreed, but a list of points within an article can aid clarity. I wouldn't recommend describing a warship's specification in prose - a list, whether in a box (preferred) or as a bullet list within the main article is better. Indeed, it's common practice in respected reference works. Look at the Abdiel class minelayer article as an example: the spec is in a box, armament is presented as a list within the box (albeit without bullet-points), the main text is prose, but there are bulleted lists of ships within the class. Is this not ok? An extreme example: Town class destroyer. Another situation: HMS Birmingham (C19) is little more than a stub and the spec needs to be boxed, but who seriously advocates the spec as prose - try it! Please offer more marginal examples where bullet points are used inappropriately; I wouldn't dispute the Enterprise example. (Please excuse rant.) Folks at 137 18:17, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

BTW, F-35 Lightning II is a FA-class article containing bullet points, so maybe they are accepted. Folks at 137 18:27, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

There are certainly cases where lists are acceptable; they tend to be those cases where adopting a different format would produce a worse result. :-)

(Which is really the only point that's being made here. In general—particularly at the FA level—prose is preferred to tables, which are preferred to bulleted lists. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't have tables or lists, of course, but only that, where it's possible to [reasonably!] convert them into prose, that should be done. In the cases you cite, prose probably wouldn't work too well, but tables may be a better layout than lists for repetetive or statistical content, for example. Everything is up, in the end, to the discretion of the article editors; but, when multiple options exist, we should try to go with the most professional-looking one.) Kirill Lokshin 18:32, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Obviously, there are places where a table would be more appropriate than prose (I think, in general, lists should be avoided, and if a list cannot be transformed into prose, it should at least become a table). I think we could probably do without a guideline on this issue, seeing that, as Kirill points out, it's ultimately up to the discretion of the article editors.

Also, not to pick nits, but F-35 Lightning II is also currently at FAR, at least partially due to the bullet-pointed lists. Carom 20:01, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

We could define it like this: bullets and tables are to be used to help with clarity and it should be avoided to base whole articles upon such a structure, unless in agreement with a majority of other editors this is considered the best possible approach. Wandalstouring 22:40, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Evidently I need to clarify my earlier remark; what I ment was putting something similar to Carom’s earlier remark up as a guideline:

"I think that, in general, we should strive to transform as much of the article into prose as is humanly possible - as Kirill points out, it is not particularly difficult to work things like dates of promotion into the main body of the article, and I don't think that there is any need for promotions or commands to be listed separately."

God knows that some of the stuff we edit is much better off staying in a bullet/list format, not in a prose format. Sorry if my comment above was completely clear on that, that was one of my early morning (like between 12:00AM and 6:00AM) edits, and I do not always think things completely through under such circumstances. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:02, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

While we discuss bulleted lists and prose here. In Military of ancient Rome we have started to try a new style of expanded disambiguation/link list page, providing lists of links and some information. Naturally we use several bulleted list and Dan put it in the peer review right now. I would appreciate some more opinions. My least concern is FA criteria and my biggest concern is how fast is the reader linked and whether this form helps him to a better access. Please note, some parts still need workout and we found some major information gaps on wikipedia. Wandalstouring

Museum categories

Is there a useful distinction to be drawn between Category:War and conflict museums and Category:Military museums? I suppose there might be some war museums that deal exclusively with civilians (although I can't think of any); but I don't think it would be valuable to break up the categories just because of that. Perhaps these could be merged into a single Category:Military and war museums, or something of the sort? Kirill Lokshin 02:53, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Semanticly they call to mind differences, yet to the layman nothing water tight to waren't haveing to categories. Such as Category:Military museums deals with museums dedicated ot the military or administered by the military, while Category:War and conflict museums brings to mind museums dedicated to a single event. i.e. a Civil war museum in the latter and Marine museum in the former. The Marine will talk about war but its not its main function. Now this was simply to be the devils advocate. I'm all for keeping it simple and bunching them together in Kirill Lokshin's suggested Category:Military and war museums.--Dryzen 18:28, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, as Category:Military Museums is already subcatted under Category:War and conflict museums, the division seems to be intended to specify those museums which deal with branches of the military, rather than wars or conflicts. In practice, though, the division between the parent cat and the subcat seems rather blurry, and I wouldn't think a merge would be troublesome. Carom 21:04, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Anyone else? :-) Kirill Lokshin 01:58, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

So, should we propose that these two be merged? Or are there other approaches that people would prefer? Kirill Lokshin 03:38, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the best course would be to propose the mergers and see what people at CfD have to say about it. Carom 01:06, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've nominated the categories for merging here; comments there would be appreciated! Kirill Lokshin 02:29, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

400 active members

Curiously enough, we hit 400 active members today. (Just a casual observation, no deep hidden meaning here. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 23:56, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't see a lot of them on the talk page. At 500 we will have a little party. Someone opens the celebration thread and every member writes in a joke (it can concern military and history and wikipedia).Wandalstouring 19:41, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Wohoo go us!UberCryxic 19:43, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

And to match that quantity there has been an improvement on quality eg:the sourcing required for FAs and the A-Class review. The A-Class review was an excellent idea but I would like to see more articles begin with a peer review first though, and then proceed onto A-Class. Some of the articles need some work before they are up to at least A-Class standard Raymond Palmer 20:24, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

We've been getting somewhat better at that, I think; hopefully more people will take advantage of the full review process available once things become more established. Kirill Lokshin 21:12, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone considered writing a tutorial on writing/editing articles for WikiProject Military history? We have a fairly complex and specific procedure for doing things: conventions for sources and citation, processes for review, levels of article grading, etc. A handy little tutorial/guidebook (although don't call it "Military History for Dummies" please), might be helpful. I know that this information all exists in various reference pages, but a "user friendly" article with links to those pages for more detailed information might be a good "introduction". - Vedexent (talk) - 00:04, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Not a bad idea; the project is definitely big enough now that new members might find this sort of thing useful. (We do have a welcome template that gives some of the more salient links, but it's necessarily somewhat terse—and probably still longer than it really ought to be. A tutorial could be linked as recommended reading from the welcome template, and draw off some of the links to various places in the project from it.) Kirill Lokshin 01:58, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

True, we seem to be the same little gang with new voices only on specific topics. Still its impressive to see so many members and I have been seeying some increased participation on the articles. I'll get ready for the party.--Dryzen 16:55, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

vandalism

First Punic War has been vandalized. every time I try to revert and save it nothing changes. Can someone else try? Thx. Wandalstouring 17:31, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I encountered the same problem when I tried to revert just now - certainly odd. Carom 17:43, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

The vandal reverted his own changes, so any further attempts to revert look like a null edit and don't show up. Kirill Lokshin 17:53, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Hm. I didn't even think of that...Carom 17:56, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Strange, it didn't show this last edit when I was editing.Wandalstouring 13:10, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm un too sure as to the exact events presented here, but this seems liks the case of en-mass vandalism, so that you end up having to revert several edits back instead of just once to actualy clean up the article. French and Indian War sees that kind of action day in day out, its amazing the traffic on that page. Been weeks since that last addition of actual information but the history page is gorged with modifications, all vandalism and reverts sadly.--Dryzen 16:52, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I know others have commented on this, but Wikipedia's weakest link, and I hope not it's ultimate undoing, is the babysitting that we have to do over these articles to repair the constant damage they take from malicious or misguided edits. Cla68 23:30, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Often this is used as an argument against the possibility of unregistered edits. I encountered a few times unregistered editors who also contributed to vandalfighting, although more often correcting typos (in some cases this meant switching from BE to AE and vice versa, but still, they wanted to act). This vandalizing and babysitting is more an indicator of our social value in the internet. We are a great platform to leave ones marks or broadcast opinions, but it also shows a lacking public interest for the maintainance of this thing (It's like a waste-pipe. Perhaps a good example, because as soon as wikipedia is down it appears in the news.). Highly frequented articles usually get vandalized, so many people are likely to read a clearly vandalized article. How many of them tend to correct it?

It is more like a Salvation Army for everyone to get his daily information for free while it recieves in return some poorly made graffiti. Clearly, for such a task it needs people who don't fall into the category of the average consumer, one of the reasons for our systemic bias.

After this cheerless outlook, let's just keep in mind that it was probably just the same with many other things like Galileo Galilei fighting for the scientific revolution, establishing Kepler's laws of planetary motion, developing the Z1 (computer) or spreading various monotheistic religious beliefs. As long as it is only vandalism we have to face, it is not as bad as during the destruction of the House of Wisdom. Often you get less positive feedback than the US troops in some recent wars, it doesn't mean that people are not astonished at your work in wikipedia and admire it. Probably like the Library of Alexandria, what you wrote here will be deleted one day, but not forgotten. Wandalstouring 14:47, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Here,here!--Dryzen 19:04, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone know why the Seven Years War has been incessantly vandalised over the past few days?

Is this happening elsewhere? Raymond Palmer 02:58, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Rampant vandalism seems to move from article to article - a little while ago Richard Arkwright was being reverted several times a day, but now that's trailed off and the vandal(s) have moved on. I don't think that the overall level of vandalism varies all that much, just the number of articles on which it is concentrated. Carom 16:04, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Carom. I wonder if a pre-requistite to edit on Wiki would be a least to have an account. Raymond Palmer 16:12, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I have encountered accounts which were used for vandalizing. Furthermore the password security is too low for such actions. Someone will hack, put it in a forum and all vandals login as editors if we impose such a rule. Let's better keep it as easy as possible to vandalize. Wandalstouring 17:31, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

I suppose, paradoxically, Wiki's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. Raymond Palmer 18:22, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

It often is.--Dryzen 18:45, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Converting large templates to portals

I vaguely recall that this has been brought up a few times in the past (to little practical effect)...

There are a number of extremely large navigation templates for some major conflicts that I think might be better off being restructured into portals and replaced in articles with {{portal}} links. The chief ones that come to mind:

(I'm sure I've missed some here.) Thoughts? Would this be a worthwhile thing to do in general? (And, more specifically, are there any people that would be willing to help out with maintaining any of these portals if they were to be created?) Kirill Lokshin 14:01, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea - I brought this up on the talk page of the WWI article but have not yet had any response. I'd be more than happy to help out by maintaining such a portal, but someone else is going to have to lay the groundwork, as I wouldn't have the faintest idea where to start. Carom 14:22, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

The groundwork isn't too difficult; I could probably put it together in a few hours. The main thing will be having people to keep the article/picture/whatever queues updated after that. :-) Kirill Lokshin 16:11, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

As long as someone will explain what to do (slowly and in simple terms), I'm sure I can manage to keep the WWI portal updated...Carom 16:46, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I am willing to help out the possible WWI and WWII portals, I have a ok base with portals from Mil of Australia portal. Hossen27 00:44, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I decided to go ahead and begin the World War II portal hope nobody minded. Hossen27 00:52, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Looks like it's off to a good start. You can probably drop in the contents of {{World War II}} as a decent start for the list of topics; that should save quite a bit of time. Kirill Lokshin 01:55, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah but it can take days to get ahead theres a lot to do. The intro needs to be done properly, i just stole it from the WWII article to save time. The colours of the portal will also need more attention eventually. Also i was thinking about having a set daily selected battle, one for each day of the year, should this be done or just randomised like the article and equipment. Hossen27 02:14, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I've also created the basic framework for Portal:World War I; if someone wants to take a stab at creating some of the selected article/picture blurbs, you can just copy the formatting used on existing portals (e.g. Portal:War, Portal:World War II, Portal:Italian Wars) to fill out the subpages. Kirill Lokshin 03:54, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Roman Military Portal?

For those of you who havn't noticed, there has been an explosion of activity around Roman Military topics - mostly due to the energy of PocklingtonDan. See Military of ancient Rome. Given the large central template and heirarchical structure of the articles, does this not also look like a Wikipedia:Portal? Comments, suggestions? Should this be moved to a portal? - Vedexent (talk) - 23:29, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

This would be a good topic for a portal, I think, if someone can be found to maintain it. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 01:54, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Given the burst of activity that PocklingtonDan has put into the current linked set of revision pages, maybe we can con him into the job - although I'd be willing to help :) Would that be a sub-portal of the war portal then? The history portal? Both? - Vedexent (talk) - 03:34, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Just a portal, really; the whole idea of "sub-portals" is only conceptual, and doesn't have any effect on actual page construction. (I'd place it at Portal:Military of ancient Rome, incidentally, to match the article titles.) Kirill Lokshin 03:36, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Makes sense. I'd create it now, except that given the amount of work and enthusiasm that PocklingtonDan has put into updating the Roman military articles, I'd at least like to give him an chance to log some input :) I know Wikipedia is about being bold, but it just seems rude to redo all someone's work while they're asleep ;) - Vedexent (talk) - 03:40, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

New Portal

As per the discussion above, Portal:Military of ancient Rome has been created. - Vedexent (talk) - 13:23, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Check Please...

I added the military conflict infoboxs to Operation Earnest Will and Operation Prime Chance, but I would apreciate an extra set of eyes to look things over and ensure I got everything right. Also, both of the articles need to be assessed. Thanks! TomStar81 (Talk) 03:23, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me, but I'm not an expert on these topics by any means. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 03:34, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Blackout (wartime)

Would any members of this project be able to help me get this up to WP:GA or WP:FA standards?? I'd appreciate the help if at all possible. --SunStar Net 22:41, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Is this topic so important it needs an article of its own or can it be integrated into other articles about civilian measures during wartime. I doubt the city lights had that great effect on submarine warfare, while it was very important against aerial attacks. Do you have any sources? Wandalstouring 19:08, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

It could probobly be integrated into a large complete article on civillian messure of defence in war. The mention of U-boats in WWII using Coastal Light as guides and ship spotting I'dd heard and read before. Particularly in a documentary called U-Boats, it was remarqued in Operation Drumbeat--Dryzen 18:32, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

British 36th (Ulster) Division and Red Hand of Ulster

Symbol shows left hand. Surely should be right hand? - Kittybrewster 23:04, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. The symbol per se appears in both varieties, no? I have no idea which one is correct for the divisional insignia, though. Kirill Lokshin 23:09, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Ulster seems to be right hand per off-wiki sources. I have changed it but the background is no longer transparent. Is there a graphics expert out there? - Kittybrewster 00:06, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

left hand - right hand -switches are quite common for reproduced material. (On reproductions of Medieval images it can often happen that one sees a fight between all lefthanded armies, etc.) Wandalstouring 19:03, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Removal of fictional appearances of firearms

User:Asams10 removed the list of fictional appearances of the Walther P38, and when I asked him about it, he removed my question without comment. I think this WikiProject's consensus is that fictional appearances of firearms should not be mentioned. I then removed the fictional appearances of the Walther PPK, and Asams10, somewhat ironically, put them back in. I asked Asams10 about it again, and he again removed my question without comment. I am unclear what fictional appearances must be removed on sight, and which must be put back if removed. Based on my experience, these look like totally opposite actions. This wouldn't be such a huge problem if Asams10 would explain his actions. But his summarily removal of my questions is annoying. JIP | Talk 06:46, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Not explaining actions is a bad habit. The cultural reference agreement is about removal of trivia, while significant appearances can stay. In these cases the use of only this specific design of a weapon has to make a difference. For example Heckler & Koch G11, both trivia cases want to show a futuristic gun and take one of the most advanced (not yet very functional) designs. Wandalstouring 10:31, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, not responding to questions is a bad thing. As far as which appearances warrant inclusion, Wandalstouring is correct; trivial ones should get taken out, while signifcant ones (and we've purposely avoided giving an exact definition of "significant", to let editors of particular articles make that decision) can stay. Kirill Lokshin 16:58, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Agree with above. This "fictional appearances" thing is no small problem. As you can see from the prelim cat structure at Military Science (now much improved but intentionally not yet corrected on tf page display), there's lots of this "fictional spies" and "fictional espionage" there too. I wonder if there's a guideline or if we might consider adding one, after all, fiction has a big following here on the eng.pedia, and we may want a strategy in place when things creep in. BusterD 17:48, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I cannot explain everything immediately. You put the question under my talk page rather than the P38 talk page or here. That prevents people like the above from editing or being privy to the conversation. I was neither sniping nor was I trying to be rude. I was making the edits and then coming back later when I had time to explain my actions. If you took it a different way and were upset, I apologize for my tardiness.--Asams10 18:24, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

As a general point, if you feel that a question should be discussed on the talk page of an article rather than yours, you're expected to copy it there rather than simply deleting it outright. Doing otherwise is generally considered quite rude, as it suggests that you don't intend to respond. Kirill Lokshin 18:29, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Asams10, whilst I appreciate your dedication and enthusiasm, it's not really the done thing to go around arbitrarily deleting chunks of articles without reference to the editors of the article. Put something on the article's talk page and get some discussion going, before wading in with the delete key and a mis-interpreted "consensus". --Commander Zulu 03:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

General media trivia creep in weapons articles, especially, is a major issue; if it is not controlled, then WP (in the case of the weapons articles and Military History articles) will become just a giant trivia list, listing spottings in movies of particular items, contrary to accepted WP policy. Consensus needs to be widely available to prevent trivia creep in weapons and Military History articles from overwhelming the factual encyclopedia content of WP with lists of trivia. Yaf 04:46, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not disagreeing with that for a moment, I'm just saying that the first course of action shouldn't be to simply highlight the entire section and delete it- especially if there's content in there that could be trimmed down or re-written, for example. --Commander Zulu 04:48, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Actors, singers, notable people, etc.

Do we need to tag actors, singers, notable people who have a military background? (e.g., George Lazenby, Australian actor and James Bond, served in the Australian SOF).--James Bond 00:07, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

"George Lazenby was born in Queanbeyan, New South Wales, Australia, and served in the Australian Army Special forces and as a military unarmed combat instructor."

As long as they did nothing important in the military we don't have to tag them. Some countries have a long tradition of compulsory military service, so we would have to tag everybody from this country (example France, Russia, Germany, Israel). Wandalstouring 00:20, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I concur - if an individuals notability stems, either in its entirety or in some part, from their association with the military, we should tag them. Otherwise, leave them alone. Carom 01:03, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

As a general rule, anyone that was merely "in the military" but did nothing of note there—in other words, where there's no real military-related content that needs to be in the article—doesn't need tagging.

(If they saw a substantial amount of combat, I'd probably tag them, even if they didn't do anything particularly noteworthy; for example, WWII vets generally get tagged even if they're more notable for their later work. The same usually applies to anyone commissioned as an officer.) Kirill Lokshin 01:06, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I totally disagree. For example the Polish conscription system prior to WWII required everybody who had a university degree to be promoted to the rank of an reserve officer (some former Warsaw Pact militaries had a similar system until very recent times). So are we going to list everyone of them as military personnel? I strongly argue against it. The person must have done something significant or his later work must be significantly influenced by his time in the military. So it is not necessary to categorize every veteran as military personnel. Wandalstouring 17:18, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Ah, good point. I was thinking more of graduates of military academies getting commissions; I'd forgotten about the whole reserve officer system (which was present in the Soviet Union too, for that matter). Kirill Lokshin 17:42, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, a more concrete example to look at: should we tag J. R. R. Tolkien on the basis of his WWI service? Kirill Lokshin 01:19, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Tolkien seems influenced in his works by the effects of war on his health. Whether or not this makes him a military person can be discussed. I tend towards no. Wandalstouring 17:23, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I guess the question is twofold:

Does being an officer in combat automatically make someone a "military person"?
If not, how significant must their military service have been (either globably or in terms of impact on their later work) for them to be considered a "military person"?

Kirill Lokshin 17:42, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I would say "no" to the first question, and "there should be some kind of consensus (generally scholarly) that their military service contributes in some significant part to an understanding of the whole." Carom 19:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Compulsory service in peace time does not mkae someone elligable for our lists. Participation in a conflicts makes it a harder dividing line, as those people did do something in history, akin to Kirill Lokshin's earlier point. This brings up the grey zones of Histography, where authors may have had service, but not comabt experience or with combat experience but without signifigant (as distinctive from the other men of his service), yet he later drew much of his work or personality from those experiences. Tolkine falls as an exemple, his experiences in WWI deeply affected him while his comabat record is hardly what made him famous. As ot the questions, 1, Command rank of signifigant responsability should by default be a military Person (i.e. Generals). As to 2, the reverse may find itself to be more useful, has service been a signifigant impact on the person and his renoun? A soldier know for being a soldier ough ot be a military person, but a sodlier known as a president might not need to be known as a soldier unless he gained a citation or something of the such. This though, is not a black and white call for me. Could I ask as to what is the purpose of the Military Perons category? Mayhaps from there we will gain insight on how best ot proceed.--Dryzen 20:34, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

The time in the military may also strongly affect social life and habits. Wandalstouring 02:37, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

MRE-related Userboxes

The editors here might be interested in several new userboxes devoted to the glories of the U.S. military's finest culinary achievement, the MRE:

This user has eaten MREs and lived to tell the tale.
(Caption reads: This user has eaten MREs and lived to tell the tale.) Code: {{User:EReference/Userbox MRE Survivor}}
This user has eaten MREs and earned a Purple Heart as a consequence.
(Caption reads: This user has eaten MREs and earned a Purple Heart as a consequence.) Code: {{User:EReference/Userbox MRE Survivor2}}
This user will dine on MREs as soon as they offer varieties such as "Foie gras de canard aux truffes".
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This user knows that MREs owe their famed longevity to the fact that even bacteria will not touch the stuff.
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Wavy gravy. BusterD 00:58, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

:o)--Dryzen 19:15, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

You can eat worse.Wandalstouring 22:23, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Task force icon redux

I would like to change the icon for the Chinese task force from the current back to the original . Once upon a time, when the earth was young and the first-term coordinators were freshly elected :) and the Chinese task force was one of the first few national task forces created, there was talk of switching all national task force icons to coat-of-arms, and the current icon for the Chinese task force is the result. However, that has not happened yet (eg. Japan, India, German task forces), so can I pleeeeeease change the icon back? The current one (no offense to whoever made it) is just too out of place and offends my sensibility too much... I've kept quiet about it for too long, but I can't take it anymore!!! :p -- Миборо в ский 05:30, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Done! ;-)

(The whole icon standardization thing never kept up with the creation of new task forces, and became something of a non-issue once the task force lines were put into the show/hide block in the template anyways. I see no real reason to insist on a standard shape, at this point.) Kirill Lokshin 05:34, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Yay! Fast and efficient response, thanks! :) -- Миборо в ский 05:57, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Plus, there's the added benefit of that now the Chinese & Japanese task forces have much more similar styles of icons. I'm really happy with both icons, I must say, and I'm glad that we agreed so quickly and easily on 侍 rather than being copycats by using 武, 武者, or 武士. LordAmeth 15:57, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Signpost

We made it into an article in this week's Signpost, if anyone is curious. :-) Kirill Lokshin 13:33, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Congrats on the $35, Kirill! --ScreaminEagle 18:01, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!

Of course, Robth and Kevin should be congratulated as well. And, similarly, congratulations to everyone who has been involved in any way in making the project function "amazing smoothly"! :-) Kirill Lokshin 18:05, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Huzzar for the mention, takign fledgeling article and taking htem to full maturity is no easy feat, Contratulations!--Dryzen 18:54, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone here -- this project is obviously a great resource for writing articles, as the results clearly indicate. Talk about an unfair advantage! ;-)

By the way, I think that this project might benefit from hosting a periodic, in-house contest. A contest might be more productive than the standard collaborations, because collaborations do not really play to the strength of Wikipedia. People cannot be easily motivated to contribute to articles they don't know or care much about, because they're usually here (especially in this project) to write about rather specific topics. Therefore, giving people an incentive to work on an article they wanted to write anyway makes more sense. The incentive? Winning the contest, of course. The prize? Perhaps just the honor of winning (unless one of you has a rich uncle who wants to sponor us -- we'll name the prize after him if he does), and a little barnstar-type award to put on your user page that says, "Look, everybody, I won the December 2006 Best MILHIST Article Award!" There are lots of details to hammer out in order for something like this to be workable, of course. But a contest might encourage the creation of quality articles in a way that collaborations do not. —Kevin 19:34, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

This seems like a great idea. The collaboration, as you say, isn't working too well in practice; having fairly regular contests in addition to (and, perhaps at some point in the future, instead of) it seems like a great way of encouraging good article work. Kirill Lokshin 20:50, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

That does sound like a good idea. However, how would you determine whether someone deserves to claim credit for improving the quality of an existing article? --Nick Dowling 22:46, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Presumably we could limit entries to articles that have been substantially edited by the entrant during some reasonably short period before the contest, to get people to actually write something, rather than just nominating an old article; and the judges (whoever they wind up being) could regard the degree of improvement as a criterion in determining the winners.

I doubt this will be a significant issue in practice, though; while it might be theoretically possible to submit an article that one hasn't actually worked on, I suspect nobody would actually do this, as it would hardly be something that would win them the respect of their peers. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 22:58, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Edit logs are a good indicator. The judges would have to scan the articles edit log to see if the individual actually did "significant work", although determining the "level of significace" could be tricky. In practice, I don't think it would be that big an issue. It is usually pretty obvious if someone has put a lot of work into an article or not.

A potential second issue is do you have to have improved the article within the timeframe of the contest, or can you submit past work? If the latter, we may have to pack up and go home; Kirill will just submit his string of FA articles one by one and win every time :D - Vedexent (talk) - 23:51, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, there's plenty of editors here with more FAs than me. ;-)

(But more seriously, I think some limitation will be appropriate. We don't necessarily need strict boundaries on when an article can and can't be edited, but some rough guideline—e.g. only allowing work in the last month before the contest to be submitted, or something of the sort—would be useful for making sure that we're not just getting strings of old FAs, and are actually prompting continued improvement to articles.) Kirill Lokshin 23:56, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Cannon needs work

I added some 18th century material to Cannon and help is needed. Some of the implements were not labeled well and I'm not sure I properly identified some. Text needs polishing, particularly some obscure phrasing. (SEWilco 06:27, 22 November 2006 (UTC))

Nazi stubs

Hi, the Category:German military personnel stubs seem to be only related to the Bundeswehr, not the WWII organizations. Is this so? Should nazi officier stubs be in Category:Nazi Germany stubs only? If this is true, the former category page (if not the template itself) should clearly state this. Wipe 18:00, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the intent of WP:WSS with that stub type was; but Category:German military personnel includes WWII figures. Kirill Lokshin 18:42, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

There is also Category:German World War II stubs, which, while not solely devoted to the military, is probably the lowest level stub category for Germany military stubs from that era. Carom 18:44, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I took this question to the WP:WSS: Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals#Nazi stubs. Wipe 23:48, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

stub

Hello. I just created the stub Ivan Mihailovich Sidorenko, but I don't know what kind of stub it is. Since I think it falls under this category, I'm asking this here. | AndonicO ^{Talk | Sign Here} 23:05, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

That would indeed fall under Military History, with particulars to Russian and Soviet military history task force. Looksl iek Buckshot06 already took care of things--Dryzen 16:47, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. | AndonicO ^{Talk | Sign Here} 01:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Stablepedia

Beginning cross-post.

See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Stablepedia. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★MESSED ROCKER★ 03:04, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

End cross-post. Please do not comment more in this section.

Any support for an ANZAC Task Force?

Who else here would support bringing NZ into a Task Force through renaming and expanding the scope of the Australian Task Force? Buckshot06 05:30, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

If anyone has comments, please make them here, to avoid splitting up the discussion. Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 05:34, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Articles for deletion

Hiya, an article that has been declared to be within the scope of this WikiProject, Antoni Dunin, has been nominated for deletion. Is there a location here that this should be listed, to draw the attention of WikiProject members to the discussion? --Elonka 20:23, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I think you just found the best place. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 20:26, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Delet it or expand it. I doubt this article is within our scope of military personal as long as Mr. Dunin has not done something noteworthy in the military (what for is the medal?). In the pre-WWII Polish army anybody with a university degree was required to serve as a reserve officer. Wandalstouring 20:32, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Umm, receiving the Virtuti Militari is definitely something "noteworthy in the military"; it's basically equivalent to the Medal of Honor in the U.S. (or the Ritterkreuz in Germany). Kirill Lokshin 20:35, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

There were quite a lot of people who got such honors for simply dying and having some politically influential background. As I said delet or expand.Wandalstouring 20:48, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Meh. There's an argument for completeness to be made here: we have (or are going to, soon enough) articles on every MoH and VC recipient, so why shouldn't we follow the same policy when dealing with the equivalent Polish decoration? (I am quite wary of attempts to second-guess how these awards are bestowed, in any case; I would argue that receiving it makes one notable regardless of whether it was "deserved", in the same way that other major awards make one notable regardless of whether they were "deserved".) Kirill Lokshin 20:54, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Good remark, but there is also listed what for these gentlemen received MoH/VC. Here it is a poor and unsourced excuse for an article of little concern with the person's biography. Wandalstouring 23:00, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

True enough; the article definitely ought to discuss that point, as it seems to be the most notable thing about him. Hopefully we'll be able to get this information put in shortly; the deletion nomination should, at the very least, point out the need to do so. Kirill Lokshin 23:07, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I checked the Polish wiki and they do list no Dunin as a receiver of the Virtuti Militari. The complete series of articles on the Dunin, a noble Polish family, is strongly influenced by a direct offspring editing here: Elonka Dunin

So far Wandalstouring 17:54, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

(update) The AfD was closed as "No consensus, default to keep". Thank you to everyone that participated in the discussion. --Elonka 19:47, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

The article still needs an explanation of his award, though; a lot of the support for keeping it around was founded on the premise that one would be added. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 19:57, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Khe Sanh needs attention

If anyone has some free time, the A-Class review for Battle of Khe Sanh could use some more editors commenting! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 14:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Can you simplify things and create a bot who writes this message every time a new A-class review appears? Besides if we constantly have these reminders despite the existence of the alarming red header, it would be an argument for complete removal of this whole section from the talk page and move on the project page for example. Wandalstouring 17:51, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

The talk page actually gets more attention than the main project page, in my experience; and these messages aren't so frequent that a bot would be worthwhile—I can certainly handle putting them up once or twice a week. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 18:04, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Korean military history

Hi folks,

A working group for military history has recently been formed in WikiProject Korea. Just thought I'd mention it in case there are any participants here who might care to join, or have some useful advice. Cheers, -- Visviva 03:58, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Commented on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Korea/Milhist. :-) Kirill Lokshin 04:50, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Italian military photographs

Anyone know if Italian military photos, such as official Air Force photos or Army, are public or fair use?--James Bond 11:21, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Search the website of the Italian ministry of defence and ask them. Wandalstouring 01:26, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Albert Speer

Someone refresh my memory - what's the convention for tagging political appointees who, although not members of the military, and not involved in commanding troops, contributed significantly to a conflict? I'm thinking specifically about Speer and whether or not he should be tagged by us. Carom 15:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The basic principle in such cases is to tag an article if there's significant military history content that needs to be in it, and to not tag it otherwise. In Speer's case, I think his work as the head of armaments production qualifies him to be tagged. Kirill Lokshin 16:19, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. Carom 21:38, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Your help is needed

User:Cerejota has made a speedy move of Royal Navy to Royal Navy (UK) with no consultation whatsoever! How do we go about reversing this situation, which, despite being in order to adhere to WP policy, breaks any number of other policies in doing so. I have asked the user concerned to join the debate here. Please voice your opinions and support! Emoscopes

Pfft forget debate. Something like that requires a cyber slap-upside-the-head for that dude and an immediate revert. It's already been taken care of I see.UberCryxic 21:28, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, the move might have been silly (and needed to be reverted), but there is an underlying concern about ethnocentricity that needs to addressed. Personally, I think the article is fine where it is, but there should be some kind of disambiguation, as Royal Navy is a fairly common usage. Carom 21:41, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The Parachute Regiment

A user has mover The Parachute Regiment to The Parachute Regiment (British Army). I think, if my understanding of the naming conventions is correct, it should instead be at The Parachute Regiment (United Kingdom), and the unit from the Indian Army (which necessitates the disambiguation) should be at The Parachute Regiment (India). Am I correct? (Normally I would just be bold and move it, but I want to make sure that I'm on the right page as regard the recently updated guideline). Carom 00:35, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I thought the only reason to include "Army" in the disambiguation, too, would be if it was unclear what serice component the unit belonged to. But in this case, parachute regiments are army by nature, yes? The editor is very new, like from today actually, so he may not be privy to this whole discussion. I would inform him and see if he'll be amiable to changing it per the consensus here. --ScreaminEagle 00:49, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Yep, that looks right; the only reason to use the service name would be if the UK had another "Parachute Regiment". Kirill Lokshin 02:01, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, its fine if you want to move it to The Parachute Regiment (United Kingdom) rather than The Parachute Regiment (British Army). The only reason I had the British Army listed was that there is another Parachute Regiment in the Indian Army and when I searched for the The Parachute Regiment I got directed to the British Army unit directly. Whatever you want to do with the page after that I am fine with it.--Rakeshsharma 05:05, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. Shimgray | talk | 15:16, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

s:::The new arrangement looks good. It's always best to dab off the existing article imho. :) Emoscopes ^Talk 02:36, 3 December 2006 (UTC)