Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 55

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Project scope

An issue that's likely to be of some relevance in the near future: to what extent—if any—do we want to consider depictions of military history in various media to be within the scope of the project? Documentary material has always been included, as historiography moreso than depiction; but does this extend to pseudo-documentary material? And what about material that's entirely ahistorical?

To start off discussion, we can consider some examples:

Are any of these in scope? If so, which ones? And why? Kirill Lokshin 22:42, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

None of the above as they're all fictional (to various extents). While it's appropriate to make note of notable fictionalised recreations in articles I don't think that it's appropriate to consider the representations themselves as falling within this project's scope - to do so borders on legitimising 'in popular culture' and 'trivia' sections and the like. --Nick Dowling 07:27, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
I disagree; I feel these should come under our umbrella to some extent. In the case of films we would probably be better off taking the backseat to WikiProject Films since that project is devoted to the film articles here, but I would suggest pooling a group of volenteers togather to ensure that the military links go to the right places, and in the case of fictional films based on real events (like Saving Private Ryan), check to ensure that the any information on the real event(s) included in the article is/are correct (in the case of saving private ryan, there is a "Historical background" section and a "Historical inaccuracies" section that in all honest proabaly fall within our perview more so than it would for the Film Project). I do not think we need to add our project banner to the talk pages, but we should check up on the pages from time to time. TomStar81 (Talk) 09:47, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
On the contrary, I think that the elements of these articles which deal with historical accuracy would benefit from our guidance or overseeing, rather than being left solely to the members of WikiProject Film or whatever. Ultimately, WikiProjects, like task forces, are just people with common interests and expertises coming together - whether we formally include these things in our scope or not, editors with an interest in the subject (WWII, Vietnam, whatever) will be interested in working on the film articles, I would imagine. So why not include it? - Admittedly, it could get a bit out of hand - we don't need the Battle of Yavin or Battle of Helm's Deep to be included here - but I think a task force devoted to historical accuracy in fiction, and/or to military fiction (Tom Clancy, etc) might not be a terrible idea. LordAmeth 09:44, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Had there not been a discusion some good while back when we where working out the birth of Military Science and Military Technology and Engineering task force that someone had proposed a military lietarute and arts, or something along those lines? Essential protraying military history in the cultural psyche? Wich of itself could be considered a form of Military Historiography. Folowing this line of thought as a project, we should take interest in the popular view of military history and what could be a more popular and cultural representation than art mediums?--Dryzen 16:48, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
I think the historical reenactment groups should be covered under our remit, as they are part of the teaching and study of these areas of history. I know of the british civil war group The Sealed Knot (reenactment),Viking and Roman reenactors in the UK there must also be more.Hypnosadist 19:18, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
The world famous Hastings reenactment. Wandalstouring 11:11, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
To the extent that they attempt to seriously capture the experience of war or the impact of a particular historical event to the broader population — or else shape the popular culture, then they should be included as a part of the historiography we attempt to tend to. Books can convey only so much; the visual arts can communicate the experiential and the biographical aspects of war in ways that are sometimes impossible through just the written word. Since we're all about military history here, I'd say that's an important aspect of what we need to preserve. I do believe though, that since they take liberties (often necessary ones, given the media), they should be a separate "Military in the arts" category of historiography and such articles need to be handled somewhat differently than most of the material we cover. TomStar81 perfectly captures the heart of it: we are in the perfect position to provide the "Historical background" that film (or other artistic media) has so little room for and insight into the "Historical inaccuracies" so that readers whose interests are raised by the film can develop a better understanding and appreciation of the "myth" vs. the "reality". Askari Mark (Talk) 18:46, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Perhaps another taskforce is in order, something along the lines of Fictional portrayals of military history task force? Staxringold talkcontribs 18:56, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
    • A shorter possibility might be simply "Depictions of military history task force", particularly as some of the things it would presumably cover aren't really "fiction", per se, but merely not historically accurate (e.g. paintings). Kirill Lokshin 19:43, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Although Depictions isn't has catchy a name as Arts, the term has the necessary broadness to net all possible works on military history. To keep it in line with our othr TFs we may want to name it Military History Depictions Task Force or Military Depictions Task Force. --Dryzen 14:47, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Interesting debate this - I was just about to propose a joint "task force" between yourselves and our wikiproject. That is the "NovelsWikiProject" (i.e. a Miliary novels task force). We focus on prose narrative fiction, writing often refered to as "Novels, Novellas, Novelettes and Short stories". I was thinking that there is room for co-operation particularly with a focus on the historical and militaristic accuracy of both the subject of the article and the article itself. Personally I think Military History Film Task Force and Military History Novels Task Force are large enough areas to have independant "task forces" each having a natural joint WikiProject partner. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 12:03, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Mmm, the joint task force setup is nice; but, on the other hand, picking out two areas like this would leave us with a bunch of other stuff (e.g. paintings, wargames, statues, etc.) that isn't covered. I suppose we could create a "Military art" task force, which would cover the remainder and serve as a sort of parent to the film and novel ones; but I'm not sure if people would go for having three new task forces instead of one. Kirill Lokshin 17:47, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Make it a very big joint cooperation(an own project in effect) of several projects and subdivide the whole into appropriate task forces. Wandalstouring 19:11, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Bleh, that's just going to add more bureaucracy, with no effect but pushing the problem off to the side somewhere.
The cleaner way to handle things might be this:
  1. Include the appropriate (i.e. the type we want to include) cultural material within the scope of MILHIST as a whole.
  2. Create "military films"/"military novels"/"military art" task forces according to demand, to cover the most prominent sub-types of said cultural material.
That leaves us in a position similar to all the other articles we cover; some parts will have their own dedicated task forces, while others will be handled by the central project directly. That would let us continue with the natural per-topic-area task force scheme (which is conductive to joint task forces with other projects) while at the same time not needing to worry about overlooking the side topics for which no clean task force is available. Kirill Lokshin 19:31, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
That seems a good way of working - treating the scope question and appropriate "task force" ideas as related but different concepts. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 09:28, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree. TomStar81 (Talk) 10:03, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
So, does anyone else have any thoughts about this? Should we consider the project as including this material and worry about the exact task force setup later? (And, if so, does anyone have a decently concise way of defining what, exactly, we'd be covering?) Kirill Lokshin 13:54, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
How about military history, as covered in cultural and ficitonal art forms such as, painting, music, film, poetry and prose (e.g. War novels) - just to start things off you understand! :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 14:03, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I would slightly reword that as "Depictions of military history in cultural art forms..."; the idea is to make a distinction between depictions of actual military history (in other words, of fundamentally historical things) versus merely depictions of military affairs (which would include purely fictional things that were not intended to represent historical events, e.g. Star Wars battles). It's my understanding, at least, that the thrust of this particular expansion of scope would be to cover topics where the question of historical accuracy could be addressed with reference to actual military history.
(Might it be better to note that explicitly, e.g. "Issues of historical accuracy in depicitions...", to make it clear that we're concerned with the military history aspects moreso than the purely artistic ones?)
Beyond that, the obvious question: do we want to go ahead and bring this stuff into the fold? Does anyone have objections—in principle or otherwise—to such an addition to our scope? Kirill Lokshin 06:56, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

For a moment there, I was worried! When I saw the mention of war novels, I thought that might end up including The Lord of the Rings (as Tolkien's work is now recognised as being influenced by his war experiences in World War I), but I see that you are focusing specifically on fictional depictions of real wars (ie. historical fiction). Where would the war poetry come in all this? Articles like Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est, Anthem for Doomed Youth, Robert Graves and The Last Post, Ode of Remembrance, For the Fallen and Laurence Binyon? See also Category:World War I poems. Later, you have things like War Requiem Also, I believe we have a fair number of articles on war memorials. That last article is not tagged as being within this wikiproject, but is replete with links to articles that are. Talking of war memorials, there is one that I want to write an article on (one of the World War One ones for the 'missing' - over 3000 names on it). Where is the line drawn when deciding whether a war memorial gets its own article? Carcharoth 10:28, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Memorials, I think already considered a part of the project, and should be tagged. I think most of the major memorials for World War I deserve their own article, but if you want to talk about specific monuments, we might move that discussion to the talk page for the task force.
On your other point, Sassoon, Graves, etc., should belong already, based on their military service (which was hardly a footnote to their lives). Personally, I don't have any problem tagging the poems as well , as I believe they fall within the natural scope of the project. Poetry and other kinds of fiction about war that was (or is) produced by soldiers is, I think, a distinct subset of historical fiction that belongs regardless of the above discussions. However, there is probably no need to set up a task force unless there is a lot of editor interest in a "war poetry task force" or something similar.
I don;t have any problems with your proposal from above, Kirill. If it proves problematic, we can always revist the issue and narrow our scope. Carom 17:18, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the link to the memorials taskforce. I'll take my memorial questions there. I've tagged the war memorial article, but haven't filled in any of the parameters, so someone probably should tidy that up. I haven't looked to see if the poems and poets need tagging, but I agree they should be. Carcharoth 14:52, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
May I suggest as a name for the task force/category "Military art and literature" (or "Military-related art and literature")? Askari Mark (Talk) 17:43, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Thinking about this a bit more, it might be simpler to have a basic statement and an explanatory note; thus:

• Depictions of military history in cultural art forms, such as painting, sculpture, music, film, poetry, and prose.*

* The project generally covers only those cultural depictions for which a discussion of historical accuracy or real military influence is applicable. A distinction is made between fictionalized depictions of historical warfare and purely invented fictional warfare; topics sufficiently divorced from actual history that a discussion of historical military events would no longer be relevant to them—such as pseudo-medieval warfare in The Lord of the Rings or futuristic warfare in Star Wars—are not considered to be within the project's scope.

(The explanation could be reworded as desired, of course.) Would this be better than trying to fiddle with the exact wording of the main statement? Kirill Lokshin 19:39, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

You might want to find a source for the "pseudo-medieval" comment... :-) I'm sure some people call it that, but I'm also sure some people don't! Anyway, my The Lord of the Rings comment was more pointing out Tolkien's WWI service and it's influence on his work in thematic terms - it's more a literary topic than a military history topic. The historical bits are already in his biographical article: "Tolkien joined the British Army effort in World War I and served as a second lieutenant in the eleventh battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers. His battalion was moved to France in 1916, where Tolkien served as a communications officer during the Battle of the Somme". Going back to the war poetry issue, some of the war poetry is not really historical either, but more a matter of literary aesthetics. But if people use their common sense, it should be fairly obvious where the dividing lines fall. Carcharoth 14:52, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Heh. Well, as you said, it shouldn't be a particularly big deal in practice; I just want to put something in a visible place to let people know that we're not the best people to come to for issues with the Battle of Yavin and such things. Kirill Lokshin 18:33, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
And I hoped to analyze the possibilities to crack the Death Star with ninja forces. Wandalstouring 19:24, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
So, are there any outstanding objections to this? If not, can we go ahead and update our scope statement? Kirill Lokshin 09:21, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I think we're safe to move ahead here (although I was just about to propose a "Middle-earth task force"... Carom 18:40, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Can we keep the task force consideration till later. Scope is one thing and I think that should focus on fictional representations of actual events, actual forces, actual military people, etc. In otherwords, fiction with strong links to reality. Which is what most historical and war novels do. The definition of task force should be a seperate matter but on that one I think that careful though should be given to the potential cross project collaboration possibilities. A general "Military art and literature" task force would mean difficulties sharing with "WP:NOVELS" or "WP:FILMS". But there I go confusing the issues in one paragraph, see the problem! :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 15:13, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, given the lack of objections, I've gone ahead and updated the scope outline on the project page. Further comments are, of course, welcome. Kirill Lokshin 18:14, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Does this mean we should start adding templates to these articles? Cheif Captain 15:00, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Broadly speaking, yes; but I would suggest doing so quite slowly, at least in the beginning, rather than just dropping tags on hundreds of articles at once. Kirill Lokshin 15:05, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
This highlights the need to get any shared "Task Forces" on the matter proposed and off the ground. How is the best way to do this. Something along the lines of "War novels" or "Military History related novels" task force was what we/I had in mind. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 15:09, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
The main stumbling block, as always, is simply finding enough editors with an interest in the topic. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 15:14, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I certainly agree with the idea that it would be completely beyond the scope of the project to start including discussions of battles in entirely fictional setting like Middle Earth or Yavin or even in fictional depictions of real-world events as in Kingdom of Heaven. What might be useful, however, given the power fictional media like movies and novels have to shape people's perceptions of real-world subjects like warfare, would be to perhaps mention such things where it could be an appropriate contrast. Take siege warfare, for example. One could perhaps include in an article something along the lines of:

Although medieval siege engines are commonly depicted as easily smashing the walls of fortifications with large boulders as in the film XYZ, in reality siege engines during this period were quite limited in effect. Not until the introduction of gunpowder and the development of reasonably effective siege cannons was siege warfare to become a less chancy game for the offense.

This seems to me to take advantage of whatever nuggets of military knowledge readers might have gleaned from cultural sources, while clearing up any misconceptions they might have formed in the process - and they are likely to be many, given what I see of warfare in movies, television and many novels - while at the same time remaining faithful to the idea that the goal is to write real military history, not waste time producing AAR's of fictional battles.

Of course, it might also be interesting for militarily knowledgable people to edit articles that do discuss fictional battles like the Battle of Yavin in order to make comments from a historical perspective; for example to point out that before filming the Battle of Yavin, George Lucas spent a lot of time watching old WWII gun camera footage to get a certain feel to the scene.

Just a thought. --Molon Labe 22:43, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Project Award

In August/September of 2006, there was a long (but ultimately inconclusive) discussion about additional project awards, which I think might be revisited. For anyone interested in what was brought up at the time, everything from the earlier discussion can be found here.

To start things off, I'd like to propose a two-tiered award system, consisting of the current project award, and a new award to be given out by project consensus to editors who have made particularly high-level contributions to either military history articles (or other content), or to the working/development of this project. I'm not much with graphics, so I'm going to steal what Kirill proposed in the earlier discussion.

  • WikiChevrons
    WikiChevrons
  • WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves
    WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves
  1. WikiChevrons: as present, can be awarded by anyone for anything.
  2. WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves: to be awarded by the consensus of the project.

Obviously, if there's no interest in this, or people are generally opposed, we can stick with what we have, but I think that there may be some value to a higher-level award, namely that it allows the project to recognise editors who have produced work that is truly stellar.

Thoughts, anyone? Carom 06:33, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Could you define "Project Consensus"? I am little unsure of exactly what you mean by that. TomStar81 (Talk) 09:10, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
On a theoretical level, I think we've been using it to mean that the awards would be given by the project "as a whole" rather than as a gesture by a particular single editor. On a practical level, we admittedly haven't really discussed what procedure, if any, we'd actually use for this. Kirill Lokshin 10:28, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps the project award could be given along the same manner as an "A" class review...i.e. someone nominates the editor for the award and with a certain number of "support" votes the award is approved. Cla68 10:39, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I would like the decision to be based more on discussion than on a vote, but I think that, ultimately, some kind of poll will have to be taken. We might adopt a processs similar to the coordinator elections, but on a (much) smaller scale. An editor is nominated, a period of time (four days?) is given for discussion - that is, members of the project are given the opportunity to raise objections or add endorsements - and then a similar period is given for simple approval voting. If the nominee recieves a certain number of votes, then the nomination succeeds. If they don't, it fails.
Alternatively, we might try something closer to the "A" class review, as Cla68 suggets. I'm not wild about having "oppose" votes in the mix, but it might be better than trying to determine the number of votes neccessary for success in simple approval voting. In this case, I imagine the nomination would be open for a week, and editors would have the opportunity to either support or oppose, being required to give reasons in either case. Carom 14:26, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't think that the detailed procedure given by Carom would be a good idea. It may be time consuming and i think awarding an award is no big deal and can be done in a regular fashion. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up ® 14:54, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
One problem with my suggestion about the community voting to give an award is that I would never oppose giving someone an award for their value-added work on Wikipedia because it would make me feel like a jerk to do so. So, for my part I'm not sure how we could decide on criteria for giving a community award except that perhaps it should be by some measurable, quantifiable standard instead of by voting or consensus. For example, if an editor is the primary editor on three or more articles approved for "A" class status, or something like that. Cla68 15:15, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Maybe an "A" class status would be the best criterion and that way the award would be awarded to a group of contributors instead of one person. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up ® 15:31, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, it wouldn't be too difficult to determine some criteria for a "higher-level" award, but I think they should be individual, rather than group, as this is the established procedure for giving out awards throughout wikipedia. Ultimately, though, I think the criteria should be left open-ended, thus giving the possibility of recognising editors who don't precisely meet any particualr criterion, but have nonetheless produced the level of work for which the award would normally be given. Here's a couple of thoughts to start:
  1. Has contributed substantially to three or more Featured articles, lists, or portals on a military history topic; or
  2. Has contributed substantially to five or more A-class articles on a military history topic (as determined by the project review); or
  3. Other contributions which have either substantially improved Wikipedia's coverage of military history; or
  4. Other contributions whch have substantially improved the efficiency or usefulness of the Military history WikiProject.
None of these are musts, the concept of criteria is not even a must - just something to be going on with. Carom 16:05, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
We rule an anarchy, any regulations have to be trimmed to a minimum. 'Consensus' is a good idea if the oak leaf version is for achieving consensus in difficult disputes and can be awarded by anyone to anyone whom she/he deems a suitable candidate. Wandalstouring 19:18, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Meh. If it's going to be another from anyone/to anyone award, it becomes essentially just another image for the existing one; there's not going to be any practical distinction between the two. (Which isn't necessarily unacceptable; but it's not quite what the older discussion was considering.) Kirill Lokshin 19:31, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
OK, if you feel we need all to vote an giving someone an award, than make it a minimum support vote (without oppose). Wandalstouring 19:41, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, my original thought was that the addition of a second "tier" would allow the project as a whole to bestow some kind of recognition on editors who make some kind of outstanding contribution to either the coverage of military history, or to the project itself. Obviously, this would neccessitate consensus of some kind as to who should recieve these awards. We might impose some basic restrictions on who can be nominated (no self-noms, must be a member of the project, must have already recieved the basic WikiChevrons), require the nominator to give a brief description of why they think the nominee deserves the award, and then conduct simple approval voting for a period of time, or until a certain number of votes has been reached. The only real hang-up that I can see is that it might be somewhat difficult to decide how many votes is a reasonable total. However, if other editors feel that the whole thing is unnecessarily complex (or just unnecessary), I'll withdraw the proposal, as this is far from critical to either Wikipedia or this project. Carom 20:07, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

What about reserving the oak version of the award to our coordinators, so that users can tell the differnce between the military award given by any project members and the award given by coordinators for outstanding work within the project? In this manner, the number of people who "vote" on the award are the people who currently hold coordinater status, which simplifies the process, while at the same time denoting the difference between the two seperate version. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:18, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
This might be a workable solution, although two possible problems present themselves immediately:
  1. There are only seven coordinators. If two or three (or more) of them go on extended wikibreaks, or are forced (for whatever reason) to reduce their contributions, the award is being given out by an extremely small group, which may not be especially desireable.
  2. I don't know whether or not the project will want to vest any specific power(s) of any kind in the coordinators. Currently, the coordinators are only given responsibilities - that is, there is virtually nothing that the coordinators do that could not be done by any member (or any editor, for that matter) - giving this vote to the coordinators alone would alter this, and I'm not sure if that's desireable either.
That said, if the project is comfortable with your solution, TomStar, it does solve most of the problems of logistics, etc., and is certainly simpler than anything I've proposed. ; ) Carom 22:48, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
There are presently seven coordinators; however, when you throw in the number of people who were coordinators that number bumps up to about ten, and will likely continue to grow as the project grows. If we move to include the former coordinators, then the election base for the award increases, allowing for more diversity and a braoder level of input for the award. As for the other point: If only coordinators can hand out the chevron and oak award it may inspire more participation in areas like A-class review, where participation is generally weak. It may also help inspire more users to run for coordinators if they feel they will have some special privalage to balance the otherwise large workload that comes with position. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:23, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
While I'm not entirely sold on the wisdom of vesting this particular "power" in the coordinators, I think that, if that's the path we take, the only people "voting" should be the current coordinators. Obviously, the small number could be problematic, as I outlined above, but I think it makes sense to have the people who the members have chosen to be coordinators for the current term be the ones to vote. Does anyone else have thought on this? Carom 00:03, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Here is what I think: enough talk. More editing of articles. We have much work to do. Shibumi2 01:33, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Heh. It's not like one really detracts from the other; and, in any case, morale-boosting work is quite legitimately important to the long-term success of the project. Kirill Lokshin 01:52, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, I have no particular objection to doing some sort of arrangement through the coordinators; but would the project membership as a whole go along with having an award that's given out by a small subset (even if that subset is elected)? Kirill Lokshin 01:50, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
I support having the project coordinators decide who gets the higher level awards. I trust their judgement. Cla68 20:15, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm also in favor of having a specific award presented by coordinators. If we voted them in, it was likely because we're already satisfied with their judgment and history of performance within the project. It would certainly make the process of bequeathing more manageable and increase the "value" of the award itself since fewer would be given out and rational justification would presumably be attached each time. Asides, IMO, giving an award to keep motivation up and reward good contributions falls (loosely) within "...the maintenance and housekeeping work involved in keeping the project and its internal processes running smoothly". The only addition I would make is that we should have an awards page to list the recipients, along with why they got it (sort of like a Hall of Fame). Oberiko 17:03, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

It's perhaps a silly thought late at night, but these chevrons might be nice modified into "W" shapes :) I might have a bash at it tomorrow Emoscopes Talk 03:57, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

My idea - Ta-Da!
Emoscopes Talk 04:09, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
This discussion is ending like it did last time - ie:without consensus. If I've understood the topic we're discussing meritorious awards for major contributions to the project. In that case I agree with Cla68 - give the admins more executive power. If people don't like the decisions they can stand for election in 6 months time. Wht's wrong with a bit of encouragement? ;) Raymond Palmer 18:12, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
PS: I'm not sure it will catch on Emoscopes. ; ) Raymond Palmer 18:22, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Moving forward (award)

Given that no-one has voiced any strenuous objections to placing this award in the hands of the coordinators, here is a modified proposal based on the discussion above.

In addition to the Military history WikiProject Disinguished Service Award, this project also maintains a second award for excellence in editing, the Military history WikiProject Distinguished Service Award with Oak Leaves. Unlike the basic award, this is intended to recognize editors who have made contributions of truly incredible quality or importance in the area of military history, and is awarded by nomination and a vote of the project coordinators. The only restrictions placed on nominations are as follows:
  1. Editors are requested not to nominate themselves,
  2. Nominees should generally be members of the Military history WikiProject,
  3. Nominees should generally have already recieved the "Distinguished Service Award"
Any editor who meets these basic qualifications is eligible to be nominated; any editor may nominate an eligible editor for consideration. The nominator is also requested to provide a brief statement indicating the resaons for the nomination. The coordinators will conduct simple approval voting for a period of one week; if a nominee recieves four votes, they will recieve the Distinguished Service Award with Oak Leaves for display on their userpage. No restriction is placed on the renomination of editors.

Any thoughts? It's a little messy, I know, so if anyone wants to take a stab at cleaning it up, please do! And of course, please feel free to voice objections as well. Carom 04:37, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I presume that four votes is based on our current seven cooridinators; however it may be better to phase that part as a "simple majority" to allow for additional coordinator positions, when and if the need for them arises. Also, since multiple task forces are under our umbrella, I would reword #2 to read: "Nominees should generally be members of the Military history WikiProject or one of its associated task forces". Thats my two cents. TomStar81 (Talk) 09:42, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I think the assumption has been that anyone in a task force is de facto a member of the project, regardless of whether they've completed all the proper paperwork. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 09:45, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
"Simple majority" works for me, and I agree with Kirill on the second point (although I don't suppose there's anything wrong with clarifying things). Carom 18:42, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Being a proponent of the two tiered systems I'm glade to see some movement, even if I wasn't a voice in this second discussion. The only point I found wanting of note was the Coordinator vote. I hold nothing towards giving these devote members a strong word in the descision making, since they've earned it and should generally be abreast as a whole of the movements of our members. Yet I feal that as this repressents the project, the members should have a word as well, beyond nominating. Of course this leaves a complex set of situations.
Having the coordinators presenting the award leaves the descision making in stable and known hands. As well, having a select body makes for short and to the point discussions that should get rid of any possible over long presentations including the possible mysterious editor with many mysterious friends senario.
Thus thinking shortly on the matter: perhaps having an opinion placement by participants and then a final vote by the Coordinators? EX: Participant X nominates Y; L, M, N metion their thoughts; Coordinators A,B,C,D,E,F,G read up and make a descision. In all 2-4 days? --Dryzen 13:28, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Mmm, if we're going to have public comments (or any public comments other than simply additional recommendations for the award, in any case), we might as well go back to the idea of having a project-wide consensus rather than a coordinator one; if people comment, we can presumably determine the consensus as we do with any other discussion.
If we want to get fancy, we could have something like the model used for real awards, where any member could recommend any other member for the award by sending a nomination to the coordinators, who would then come to a decision on whether to bestow the award. But I'm not sure if that's really gaining anything or not. Kirill Lokshin 15:41, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't see anything wrong with permitting other editors to comment on a nomination in progress - for example, to endorse the nomination - but the coordinators will presumably do some basic checking of the users edit history, block logs, etc., before determining their position on the nomination, and I don't see any real benefit to having editors leave comments like "DO NOT GIVE THIS AWARD!!!!! He edit warred with me on an article but the cabal wouldn't ban him!!!!!!! He is not a good editor!!!!!!!!!" (Obviously, this is an extreme example, but any kind of negative commentary would probably be detrimental). Carom 15:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
hmm, what is taken into account for the additional recommendations you mentionned Kirill Lokshin?
As to the style of comments by editors I was leaning toward a chance for some poeple to voice there backing more than negative comments. Such as: L saying that Y helped him out on how to write L's A-class article or how Y taugh everything to M and that N and Y worked diligently on the Foo article. Basicly putting in the forefront why Y's nominated to the coordinators, as well as giving leads on where to look to find more about this to be honoured editor. Since somethings aren't always readily seen in the Contributions. Y could have been doing much good to the community while doing little actual single handed article writing.
As well its got the moral rightiousness to it of democracy (;oP ). As well as letting the nominee know who he's affected in his tenure. The whole point of the award is recognition, no?
Of course we can get some negative imput, this cannot be avoided for every recommended wikipedian. Brought up in a civil manner though, it can give a new point of view to the matter.--Dryzen 15:11, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Come on, he, who is without a sin should throw the first stone. We can consider negative things, but an awartd is about clearly encouraging the positive traits of a person. Wandalstouring 19:16, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Of course, thats the whole reason for the comments, possitive backing such has my above exemple of Y with L, M, and N. The last line was to indicate that its unrealistic to think that there will never be a single negative comment. At this, why are the majority of replying coments all revolving at this single projection...? Its a possibility and I'm acknowledging it, but its not the driving force nor should it be behind open commenting I'm suggesting.--Dryzen 14:06, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Obviously, Dryzen, there's a great deal of value in allowing editors to comment on the nomination in progress, particularly in the form of endorsements, and I see no problem with allowing space for this kind of commentary. I was simply pointing out that this space might also attract the kind of negative additions that appears virtually anywhere editors are permitted to comment on the relative merits of others. It might be wise to include a statement discouraging (but certainly not prohibiting) negative comments. Carom 14:18, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I think it goes without saying that destructive critism wont get a commentator much influence. I can't see a statement discouraging negative coment hurting anything.--Dryzen 15:10, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Fiar enough. What about a statment like "Editors are welcome to comment on nominations in progress, but are requested not to make personal attacks or unneccessarily negative remarks."? Carom 16:05, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Excellent.--Dryzen 17:39, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Unindenting. There are also a couple of practical points: Firstly, where, within the project space, do we want to locate this process? As a sub-page of the main page, linked from the "awards" section? As a sub-page of the coordinators page? Do we want a new "awards department"? And secondly, do we need to propose this at WikiProject Awards (or whatever they call themselves)? Or can we just implement it "in-project"?Carom 14:18, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I would think that a sub-page linked off the awards section would probably be the best approach; to make things even neater, we could use the subpage itself for the list of awardees (unless people want that directly on the main project page?) and use its talk page for the underlying process.
As far as WikiProject Awards goes: no, we don't need any sort of go-ahead from them (and, frankly, given all the issues with that project right now, I don't think that we'd want to go through them, in any case). Kirill Lokshin 14:55, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
From the above talks a coordinator sub-page would reflect the descission body as well as being hidden from roaving trolls. Hmm on thinking off of Kirill Lokshin's comment, keepign everythign in awards would be a clean tree. As to the second, from looking about it should be an "in-project" implementation.--Dryzen 15:10, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Your suggestion works for me as well, Kirill, as it seems neatest. And, on further inspection, it seems that we would be well advised to stay away from WP:Awards at the moment - let's keep this in-project. Carom 16:05, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

It looks we are set to implement this. Any final thoughts from anyone? Carom 16:27, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I think we can probably proceed with this. Before we can go anywhere, someone needs to touch up the proposed images to remove the text at the bottom, though. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 18:18, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Heh, yeah. I was hoping someone else could do that... ; ) Carom 19:01, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
I should be able to do it, but I doubt I'll have time until the end of the week. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 02:16, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
I do like it with the oak leaves. If we go for that though, we need a page where we discuss nominees and set criteria for voting for it to be awarded... --Pupster21 19:44, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves

Okay, I've cleaned up the image a bit; see the (final?) form at right. Assuming that (a) people are happy with it and (b) there aren't any objections to the general idea of having this awarded via consensus among the coordinators, we could proceed with this.

(Hence, the obvious question: are there any objections?) Kirill Lokshin 01:46, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Do you still intend to award the variants with Wings and Anchors for those of us contributing in naval and aviation circles, but not military (I use the word military in the strict "army" sense of the word) ones? Emoscopes Talk 01:58, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I think at this point the general idea has moved towards a simpler two-level scheme, without the addition of more complex sword/anchor/wing/etc. versions (in large part because it's not very clear what the difference among those would be). Unless I'm missing something, both the regular WikiChevrons and the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves are fairly service-independent, so I don't really see an immediate problem with that. Kirill Lokshin 02:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
For what it's worth I support the way you all are proceeding with this initiative. Cla68 03:13, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
That looks good to me, Kirill. Carom 19:49, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Will work Kirill.--Pupster21 12:08, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, it looks like we can proceed with this. Carom 19:24, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I've created a draft awards page here; comments on the layout and content would be appreciated. Kirill Lokshin 01:14, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Good stuff. I apologize for not taking part in the lengthy conversation up till now, but I simply didn't have anything to contribute. Anyway, I am just curious about the Oak Leaves. Oak Leaves is a redirect to Iron Cross, which gives no information on the significance or symbolism of the oak leaves, nor the history of their inclusion on other awards of other countries. Was the Iron Cross the first to use Oak Leaves? Why, and what do they symbolize? Just curious. Thanks. LordAmeth 10:47, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Looks like its official, as usual Kirill Lokshin. I see the Ribbons are there what's the plan on how to use them? Excellent point LordAmeth its deefinitly something expand on. Should it bee seen that the Oak Leaves have an independant history, writing up an article or a small paragrpah on the Awards page would be worth it.--Dryzen 18:51, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I think people have been using the ribbons as simply a small-form version of the main award; presumably that'll continue to be the case? We may want to create a set of ribbons for the new award at some point; but that's unfortunately beyond my artistic abilities.
(We do have an article on the oak leaf cluster that mentions the other uses; but it should probably be renamed to something like oak leaf (military) and made more general, as it's almost completely dominated by the U.S. award at the moment.) Kirill Lokshin 18:57, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
That draft looks good, Kirill. Carom 04:52, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Okay; given the lack of objections, I've gone ahead and put the new awards up on the project page (through a fairly complex transclusion trick, too ;-). Kirill Lokshin 00:32, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

A Rainbow of Berets

People of created a plethora of pages on every conceivable color of beret worn by armed forces around the world, ex beige beret and, black beret. Not to be rude, but isn't that a little excessive? Wouldn't it be a little cleaner to have one article on the use of berets in the military (or maybe just a section of Berets) and then address the specific berets in the articles addressing each of the actual armed forces? I know they aren't flagged under WP:WARS, but it does make sense. Burzmali 02:18, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Yah, some merging does seem like a good idea here. Offhand, there are several colors that are iconic enough in their own right that a full-blown article could be written about them; but it's really stretching it for the others. Kirill Lokshin 02:30, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Merging strikes me as a good option, at least for the time being. Carom 02:33, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't know if there needs to be a merging of the documents, since Beret already exists, and then specifically calls out the other pages. There are indeed green, red, black and tan berets, as well as others, and each is iconic and notable in its own right. --Petercorless 12:05, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
How many times do we need to mention a specific combination? The main article beret reads more like a list than an article because people have added every single occurence of a berets in the military to it. Burzmali 13:37, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Move the list of berets elsewhere, notable is for example that the French Foreign Legion wears them to the left, while other soldiers wear them to the right, but as long as we can list almost every army and unit of this militarized globe it is as stupid as a list of all shoes used by the various armed forces. It would be far more interesting to point out how this fashion of wearing berets started. Compare it to articles on other fashion items like jeans, wonderbra and the like. Wandalstouring 19:49, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

The green beret is special in its own right however..... --Pupster21 19:45, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

The green lid is special to those with green lids, red lids are special to them and sand berets are special to them. Mind you, I've noticed a few issues with that article which I can deal with.ALR 21:19, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
In fact on reflection it's not all that distinctive in it's own right. The shades differ but green lids are worn by; Royal and other commando trained personnel from all three services whilst serving in a commando posting, infantry, green slime, the Military Provost Guard Service and the Adjutant Generals Corps.ALR 21:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Hello? They're worn by all US special forces!!!--Pupster21 12:07, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
They're worn by US Army Special Forces. As I highlighted above all british infantry units wear a green lid. All Commando qualified personnel; Royal Marines, Army or Royal Navy wear them when serving in Commando roles, british army intelligence wear them, the Adjutant Generals Corps wear them. They're not particularly distinctive, or special.
ALR 14:15, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Collaborations or contests

Looking at the history of our Collaboration of the Fortnight for the past year, it seems that the setup is not very successful; while a few of the articles have been significantly improved, the majority have experienced only superficial editing (and even in the cases where substantial improvements were made, those improvements seem to be primarily the work of one or two editors).

The coordinators have been bouncing around a few ideas for replacing the current collaboration setup with something more suited towards the general editing styles within the project: most members tend to edit within their own area of interest, and typically won't be interested in working on some arbitrarily chosen article outside it.

One obvious candidate here, first proposed by Kevin Myers last November-ish, is some form of contest where editors can pick which articles they want to work on rather than being herded towards a single project-wide choice.

There are a couple of different ways this could be done:

  1. A traditional contest: a contest would be announced, editors would each pick an article and work on it, and some sort of judging panel would pick a winner at the end of a set period.
  2. A rolling contest: some variation on the Jumpaclass competition run by WP:LGBT; editors would receive points for improving articles based on the change in assessment levels, and a running total would be kept; this could also include declaring periodic champions.
  3. A directed contest: a set of articles would be pre-selected, and editors could choose to work on any of them, with the winner being the team responsible for the most-improved article.

Obviously, the details can be worked out further; but, in general, are any of these something that people would be interested in and/or willing to take part in? Or are there any other obvious variations that we've missed? Kirill Lokshin 03:05, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

What about having each task force select an article, and having the parent project judge which one has been best improved on? In this manner all areas of interest within the project are presented, and it may create a sort of "friendly rivalry" among the multiple task forces that might improve article quality overall. Each task force has, oh say, two to four week to improve an article, and the one showing the greatest overall improvement wins. On a side note, this could be the perfect opertunity to combine two seperate ideas: If we create a contest culture for our current collabourations those whose edited the article that has seen the best improvement, and award the editers of the article in question the wikichevron and oak award mentioned a few posts up. Just something I thought I would point out. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:40, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Meh. I suppose something like this could be done, but the obvious drawback would be that small and less active task forces may not be able to realistically compete at all, while larger ones with many active members would be artificially constrained by having to choose a single article (leading to a miniature version of the problem with the project-wide collaboration). In general, I would think that we should try to move away from a "work on this article or don't participate" approach, since that doesn't seem to be working in practice. Kirill Lokshin 03:59, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I like the idea of a rolling contest based on the jumpaclass competition; I also like the idea of periodically giving awards to the leaders. Carom 04:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Looking at the jumpaclass-type idea, we could presumably have a setup something like this:
  1. Editors list an article they're intending to improve.
  2. At the end of, say, one week (although this could be made longer), they get points based on the initial and final assessment levels of the article.
  3. Running totals are kept, and "winners" can be recognized on a monthly/quarterly/yearly basis.
This would not necessarily preclude having more formal competitions in addition to the rolling one, of course. Kirill Lokshin 19:28, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
A couple of questions:
  1. Would editors be free to "sign up" for more than one article at a time?
  2. Would editors be permitted to select the same article more than once?
  3. If we give awards to, say, the top three editors after three months, would we then "reset" the leaderboard?
I think this has the potential to be a big improvement over the current collaboration approach. Carom 05:29, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
  1. I can't see any reason why not; if someone feels up to improving several articles in a short time, that's their perogative.
  2. Same thing. (Obviously, articles already at FA-Class wouldn't be eligible here, though, as there would be no further advancement possible.)
  3. This can be done either way. I'd like to keep a longer-term running total, but there's no reason we can't track both a continuous one and one that's reset every few months; that's just a paperwork issue. Kirill Lokshin 09:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
OK, that works for me - the only reason I was curious about the "leaderboard" is that resetting the totals allows an editor to enter the contest at any time and not be at a disadvantage. There's obviously nothing wrong with maintaining an "all-time leaderboard" as well, but I think that all editors should begin each contest period at zero. Carom 18:37, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
That seems reasonable. Essentially, each participant would have several running point totals: the main one for the current contest period (e.g. month/three months/etc.), and secondary long-term ones (e.g. six months/year/etc.) that would allow us to recognize people's efforts over a longer period as well. Kirill Lokshin 02:16, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
So, should we go ahead and start work on implementing this? Kirill Lokshin 18:20, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
Sure! Carom 19:00, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
As a starting point, a possible point calculator for articles going up the assessment scale. The basic idea is as follows: articles get +1 points for getting to Start-Class, +5 for B-Class, and +15 for A-Class, all cumulative. Thus:
End class
Start class Start B/GA A/FA
None/Stub +1 +6 +21
Start +5 +20
B/GA +15
Obviously, this means that it'll typically be more worthwhile to bring a single article to a very high level—even when starting at a higher level to begin with—than to create a larger number of less-developed articles; personally, I don't think this is a bad thing.
Comments and suggestions would be very welcome! Kirill Lokshin 03:36, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, I agree that it should be more worthwhile to take one article to a very high level than a large number of "start-class," but I think this skews it a little too much. Also, it might not be a bad idea to make the none/stub - A/FA jump really worthwhile. What about this:
End class
Start class Start B/GA A/FA
None/Stub +1 +6 +20
Start +5 +15
B/GA +10
Or are those numbers out of wack? Carom 03:48, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
The main reason I didn't put in extra points for the stub→FA jump is that it puts extra emphasis on the evaluation period. For example, suppose that we evaluate articles on a monthly basis; someone who takes a stub and passes FAC by the end of the month would get 20 points, but someone whose FAC finishes a week later would only get 16 (+6 and +10). If the point totals are purely cumulative, on the other hand, this doesn't happen; so long as you keep working, you'll eventually get the full points for the article, even if it takes you several months. Kirill Lokshin 11:24, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough. It was only a suggestion ; ). In my example above, the start-FA jump could be worth 16 points, which would eliminate the problem you pointed out. Carom 17:15, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
That seems workable, then. Kirill Lokshin 02:16, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Draft contest department

Okay, I've prepared a draft of the contest department, going from the ideas proposed above. Comments? Kirill Lokshin 23:17, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. Should be fun to particapte and even just to watch. Maybe bookies in Vegas will start laying odds and taking bets. ;-)
A minor point: on the scoring chart, you might change the entry "starting class" to something like "beginning class" or "initial class", to avoid potential confusion with the "start-class" category. —Kevin 13:22, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Good point. Kirill Lokshin 00:26, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
The draft looks good to me as well. Carom 19:23, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Okay, should we take this live (and deactivate the collaboration, once the current one runs through)? Kirill Lokshin 00:54, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Seems fair to me. Carom 00:55, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Sounds good to me also. jwillburtalk 21:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Agree. This has my support. Blast 31.03.07 0433 (UTC)
Okay, the contest department is now active. If nobody objects, I'll be mothballing the collaboration in a week (once the current one wraps up). Kirill Lokshin 20:42, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Library of online book links

Has there been any consideration of creating a library of sorts of links to books which have been (legally) scanned and put online which relate to military history? I was going through Google Books and was quite surprised by the number of full-text material available. I'm thinking that there is probably a lot more then GB, the US Center of Military History and HyperWar that I'm not aware off. Plus it'd be convenient to have it all (essentially) at our fingertips instead of scanning through several different repositories. Oberiko 21:09, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

We've been working on putting together bibliographies on a per-task force basis; presumably such links can just be added to those? Kirill Lokshin 22:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
That could work. My only initial concern would be the redundancy (likely each resource would be listed for three or more task forces) but, Wikipedia's not paper so I guess that's not a problem. Thanks Kirill. Oberiko 05:45, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
There's great naval manuals online at http://www.HNSA.org . Emoscopes Talk 12:11, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

War Article Low Quality?

Maybe it's just me, but the War article on wikipedia seems to be of remarkably low quality, in both style and content. Considering that so many other military history pages are of such high quality (IMHO), why is this the case? Does anybody concur with me on this, or is the War article generally considered good? -DWRZ 22:31, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

That's actually true in pretty much every area; the more specific an article, the easier it is to get it to a good state. The problem with War is that the topic is so broad that nobody really has a clear picture of how the article should be organized and what it should cover; add to that the high level of vandalism and the frequent POV battles, and the chances of that article improving begin to look rather slim. Kirill Lokshin 22:37, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree with everything you said completely. Still, isn't all that an extra reason to at least try to make the article better? Gather up frequent and respected editors of military history pages, protect the article, and work together on a re-write? Just an idea. -DWRZ 03:31, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
I do try to work on the subject, but it is quite difficult, battles are much much easier. There might be some structural problems why it is difficult to get wars to FA, but I'm still not sure how to adress them. Wandalstouring 12:53, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

The best way to tackle this is probably to pick the best Wikipedia articles related to the topic of war, and summarise them in a summary style article. Once a reasonably organised structure emerges, the actual editing will become a lot easier. Carcharoth 16:41, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Armament of the Iowa class battleship now open

The A-Class review for Armament of the Iowa class battleship is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 15:15, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Khe Sanh now open

The A-Class review for Battle of Khe Sanh is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 17:22, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Crécy at WP:ACID

The Battle of Crécy article has been nominated at the Wikipedia:Article Creation and Improvement Drive. It is a key article for the Hundred Years War, and should be important for any encyclopedia, yet it is only start class and fails on referencing sources. --Grimhelm 16:16, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

We have quite a lot of important material which isonly start, but has at least an article. Feel free to do the improvement, Grimhelm. Wandalstouring 17:14, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


A-Class review

I nominated American Civil War for A-Class. --Pupster21 19:26, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, not quite; you didn't actually add the nomination to the review page. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 19:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I can't, its blocked here at school. Oh yeah, can you add World War 2 to that? (I nominated it too :) ) --Pupster21 19:39, 19 March 2007 (UTC) I just can't get the headers right can I ? --Pupster21 19:46, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for American Civil War now open

The A-Class review for American Civil War is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 19:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for World War II now open

The A-Class review for World War II is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 19:44, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Actions along the Matanikau (September – October 1942) now open

The A-Class review for Actions along the Matanikau (September – October 1942) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 00:52, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Khe Sanh needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Battle of Khe Sanh; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 19:33, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for American Civil War needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for American Civil War; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 01:00, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Pursuing offline publication

There has recently been some discussion about the future of WikiReaders—essentially, small collections of articles put together for offline publication on CD/DVD or paper—after the upcoming "Version 0.5" Wikipedia release. One of the major ideas being put forward is that individual WikiProjects could produce such collections from among the articles they cover.

In light of this, I'd like to propose creating a publication department within the project to explore this idea and to work on developing WikiReaders (and, eventually, perhaps other forms of offline article publication). We seem to be well-suited to the task, as we have a good selection of usable-quality articles to work with. An initial demonstration might simply be a publication containing a selection of FA/A-Class articles, but I imagine we would soon move towards more traditional thematic WikiReaders covering particular topics.

Thoughts? Would this be something people would be interested in? Does anyone have strong objections against the idea? Kirill Lokshin 01:46, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I am very interested. What about Wikipedia:WikiReader/Military history ? -- FayssalF - Wiki me up ® 14:46, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Given that we'll presumably be working on multiple different WikiReaders, an overall in-house location (e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Publication) with branched per-reader organizational pages (e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Publication/World War II) seems like it'd be more usable in the long term. Kirill Lokshin 14:53, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Fantastic. I am for it. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up ® 14:58, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Wouldn't it something like Wikipedia:WikiReader/Military history (i.e. Wikipedia:WikiReader/Cryptography, Wikipedia:WikiReader/A History of the 20th Century...) considered as the main entrance while having subs like Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Publication and Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Publication/World War II? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by FayssalF (talk • contribs) 15:29, 22 March 2007 (UTC).
The original subpages of Wikipedia:WikiReader were obviously meant to each hold a single WikiReader, so branching an entire structure off them seems counterintuitive; and there's no reason, I think, to create more subpages than needed, or to branch of the (now largely abandoned) WikiReader page structure when we can do something simpler. Kirill Lokshin 15:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Kirill. I've just started a stub of Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Publication. Please comment. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up ® 15:46, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I've tried my hand at making it more generalized; we don't necessarily want to have the thing revolve around a single WikiReader.
(We should probably set it up so that potential ideas have at least some minimal level of discussion before people start working on them; otherwise, we're likely to get all sorts of confusion.) Kirill Lokshin 15:55, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
As I mentioned elsewhere, I support this idea wholeheartedly. Carom 15:21, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Incredible potential here, we definitly have enough material for a number of branches. Sadly its also open to some potential head ackes. Such a choosing what goes in and the such. But for now that isn't the problem. I'm in.--Dryzen 20:00, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm in. It sounds intersting. It may even help reduce my collage expenses somewhat if I can say that I have been published (albeit in a group effort sense :) TomStar81 (Talk) 07:08, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
The German system is bundling articles on a topic and thus creating a small magazine. It should be added that for decades German children have been raised with the highly popular 'Was ist Was' book series (the English version is 'How and why') and the 'P.M.' magazine which do present an informative overview on a subject. Since these two series are in fact quite popular in the German speaking countries and most kids/teens/young adults have read at least one of them, we may give it a try, but I don't know whether there is a similar cultural background in English speaking countries. The problem in creating such a magazine is to reasonably cover a topic with it. FA and A-class may serve as a nucleus, but definetly need more supportive material. Furthermore we need a review process for these readers and most important seems sufficient images (all the listed successful series do use lots of large colorful illustrations). A really big problem is that the image service in the German and French wiki is well developed, but not here. As long as we face this challenge the success of the readers is questionable. The issue could be really solved if some college girls/boys make some usable drawings and release them here. Wandalstouring 11:15, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I suggest that we encourage an approach of connecting portals and readers, because both have the scope of creating a comprehensive overview. The readers are printable publications with lots of text and illustrations while the portals are their dynamic counterpart, presenting links and images with a short text. Wandalstouring 11:43, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, assuming nobody else has any pressing objections, can we consider the new department open for business and start on developing a few WikiReaders? Kirill Lokshin 18:27, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Awesome. :) Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 18:28, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. I've started a thread on the talk page of the publication department to develop some ideas as to how we might proceed. Carom 19:23, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

ECHELON

Could you please guys see if ECHELON fits for the Military technology and engineering & the Military science task forces? -- FayssalF - Wiki me up ® 15:01, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Nominally Echelon should be in MilHist as it's an Intel collection capability. That article concerns me as it's based mainly on speculation and marginally reliable sources (C3 to D5 classification).ALR 15:15, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I've been watching it for a while and i totally agree w/ you in that it is full of speculations which i never could verify. Any idea about how to sort that out? -- FayssalF - Wiki me up ® 15:17, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Before we go any further, what is 'C3 to D5` classification? Suggestion; I tend to think importing a good chunk frm Nicky Hager's 'Secret Power' & James Bamford's 'The Puzzle Palace' would help. Buckshot06 17:29, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, entirely appropriate to a discussion of Intelligence :) Sources are graded for quality and consistency, hence the available sources are of mediocre quality and low consistency. Bamford is ok, C3, I don't know Hager so couldn't comment.ALR 18:24, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Reads rather conspiricy-ish, for hte moment where not pressed to tag it, so I recommend we dont start with hard ot verify articles. Unless we want Tesla deveices and USS Eldridge (DE-173) poping up in the task force.--Dryzen 20:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
In terms of progressing it, needs a lot of the low gradee references ripped out and dropped down to basic information; Echelon is an Int system, supported by the AusCanNZUKUS community, thought to allow etc. Allegations of economic espionage.ALR 08:19, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Actions along the Matanikau (September – October 1942) needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Actions along the Matanikau (September – October 1942); please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 01:00, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Invasion up for review:

Sorry guys, but I've put the article Invasion up for FAR here. Don't try & cabal it's way through, but rather try & fix the concerns given. Thanks guys & sorry for being a spoil sport... Spawn Man 11:40, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

A-Class Reviews

Given that saying something is 'A-Class' should mean it is the 'cream of the crop' so to speak, shouldn't the process for reviewing it involve more than two people over the space of two days? I'd suggest keeping reviews open for a week. Adding a note here when it is closed would also help, I think. JCSeer 23:42, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The reviews are open for four days, not two; while I'm not really set against making the duration longer, I'm not convinced that it's necessary. Kirill Lokshin 23:54, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Another gem

Do we even need to debate this? Albrecht 01:25, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

ooh, it's quite well populated. heehee :) on a more serious note, that is definitely a candidate for CfD. Emoscopes Talk 01:38, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, looks like CFD fodder. Kirill Lokshin 03:54, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
Surprisingly enough, there seem to be some people defending it on the grounds that it's "accurate". :-\ Kirill Lokshin 19:48, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
And some people call the French 'frogs'. Welcome to a biased world where we make lists of defeats from country we don't like, so everyone can how much they suck. Wandalstouring 20:07, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

wow... --Dryzen 18:59, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

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