Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 63

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Project coordinator elections concluded

The project coordinator election has now concluded; the new coordinators for the next six months are Carom, FayssalF, LordAmeth, Kyriakos, TomStar81, Cla68, Eurocopter tigre, Roger Davies, and myself. Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to everyone who participated! Kirill 00:18, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if this comes out wrong, but can't we have 10 coordinators? DenizTC 06:47, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
There's no particular reason why we couldn't have ten instead of nine; but that's presumably a decision that ought to be made before an election. I don't think that retroactively changing the rules based on the results would be a good idea. Kirill 12:30, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Clutching at straws (You could always have a vote between the coordinators). Personally i think the project needs ten coordinators considering the increasing scope of the project. ;) Woodym555 15:03, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Congratulations to all the coordinators, especially those new ones. Although I lost out by 1 vote to Roger, a vote i made, i am not disheartened. I wish all the coordinators well and i will continue to help the project whenever i can. Thankyou to all who voted for me. Woodym555 10:20, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Congratulations to all of the new coordinators! Also, it probably would be a good idea to develop a policy for handling "last-place ties". After all, that's what we had for most of the voting period. Askari Mark (Talk) 17:46, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Congratulations to those others who were elected, and thanks to all those who supported me. I agree with Askari Mark that we probably want to have some sort of semi-official last place tie-breaker, although I have no real ideas as to what might be the best option. Carom 18:04, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

In a previous election I noted that Kirill voted to break the tie, this seems to be the semi-official way and most fair to be honest. Woodym555 18:57, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not convinced this is the best plan. As it happens, most people in the project (myself included) trust Kirill's judgment, and probably wouldn't mind such a system at the moment. I think, though, we might want to consider something with better long-term implications - for example, what happens if/when Kirill leaves the project? Or we have a different lead coordinator who doesn't have the same widespread approval? Not that I have a better suggestion, though... Carom 19:28, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Something along the lines of: coordinators already voted would have double weighting. e.g. if Roger and me were tied, the votes of Carom, Cla68 et al would have double weights?. Although on reflection this discounts those who give so much to the project but do not want to be a coordinator. You would most likely have to extend the voting period/ask those who haven't voted to vote. If it is still a tie, increase the number of coordinators. Croos the bridge if and when you come across it i suppose. 6 months until we could potentially have that problem again, unless the system is changed. Woodym555 19:36, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Or, if all else failed, you could have another quick election between the people who are tied and instruct people to only vote for one rather than as many as they wanted to. --ScreaminEagle 22:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
We already introduced a rule long ago that in really thight cases both become coordinators, however, we have a clear decision in this election. Wandalstouring 10:50, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Co-option

I was away from 31 July-5 September and I have only now become aware of this thread. I have a number of comments. Firstly, because I was travelling and logging on under difficult circumstances, I only voted for people I'd "seen around", rather than voting strictly on merit. Had I researched the unknown-to-me candidates and voted on strict merit, which is what I would have done had I been at home, I would certainly have voted for Woodym555. My vote for him would have resulted in a tie for ninth position. Beyond doubt, Woodym555 has made great contributions to the project and will make even greater ones as an assistant coordinator. Therefore, on the basis of WP:IAR, I suggest that Woodym555 is co-opted immediately as tenth coordinator. Comments? --ROGER DAVIES TALK 09:20, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I say whats done is done, and that we refrain from picking at this particular issue as it applies to the here and now; however, we the project should decide how we are going to handle these issues so that if they return at some point in the future we know what we agreed to do about it ahead of time. From where I sit I say the number of coordinators should be determine roughly by the number of task forces, one coordinator for every "x" number of task forces. I would also suggest some sort of voting guideline with regards to how coordinators vote, should it be nessicary to break ties; alternatively, we could have run off elections between candidates if that interests anyone. Speaking for myself, I have no problem with the way the elections ended or with the number of coordinators voted in. Even if I had not recieved a position with the assistant coordinators I would still be able to contribute as a user of Wikipedia and member of the project, and that is first and formost what I am here to do. If others can not say the same thing then it may be time to reevaluate your reasons for being here. An admin rank and/or a spot with the coordinators is a great thing, but if you are not enough without such special designations then you will never be enough with them. Just something to keep in mind. TomStar81 (Talk) 09:49, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Marking major/minor engagements in campaignboxes

There's a (recently more noticeable, due to ever-more-thorough coverage) trend for campaignboxes to try and indicate, through some visual mnemonic, whether a listed battle is a major or minor one. Without getting too deeply into the question of how this is determined—in some cases it's obvious, in others contentious—I'd like to comment on the visual styling used.

The original idea, done in {{Campaignbox Second Sino-Japanese War}}, was to use bold type to indicate major battles and regular type for minor ones. Unfortunately, a link to a particular article is formatted as bold text by MediaWiki when that article is viewed; in other words, the battle whose article one is currently reading is always rendered as "major". The bold formatting also causes some confusion when sub-headings within the campaignbox are also bolded, even if they're not major engagements.

Having experimented a bit, I'd like to propose the use of Small Caps to indicate major battles instead; see, for example, {{Campaignbox Waterloo}}. This particular formatting generally isn't used for anything else, so there shouldn't be any conflicting styles.

Comments would be very appreciated! Kirill 01:36, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if it's just a browser issue, but it doesn't render very clearly for me. Very difficult to read - is there anything we can use that isn't quite so odd-looking? Carom 02:44, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
What browser are you using? I've tried it with Firefox & IE and it doesn't seem any worse than normal text, but maybe I'm just not looking in the right place.
We could, concievably, do something like changing the font, but I'm not sure if that would be any more legible. Kirill 08:52, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm using Firefox, and the Small Caps letters in the campaignbox seem very squashed - the "L" in Waterloo seems to disappear almost completely. It is also conceivable that this is a by-product of having a tiny monitor. Or it could just be my eyes ;). Carom 11:50, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I've always like the Small Caps font. Perhaps it's a carryover from the first typewriter I ever used that only had that style available. wbfergus 12:08, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I confess that I failed to take that into consideration when making that campaignbox. Now that you mention it, it does seem to be a problem. Small caps render fine for me (Firefox 2, Windoze Vista), but visually, they aren't that striking. It took me a few seconds to look at the Waterloo campaignbox and notice that, oh, the first 4 battles were the major ones and the last 3 weren't. I had to read every word and then determine that word was in small caps so it must be a major battle - It doesn't show at first glance like bolding does. I think we can use italics to get around these, as our eyes are trained to look for bolds and italics but not small caps. Another problem, with the concept of "major battles": They are subjective. In the case of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Nationalist Army officially designated 22 battles as "major battles". But that might not apply to all conflicts and deciding which battles are major and which ones are minor is subjective and might even prove controversial. -- Миборовский 23:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Yep, actually determining what battles, if any, to mark this way is definitely a non-trivial task, and one that's probably best left to editors working on the topic and willing to carefully examine the relevant historiography.
As for italics: they've been in (unofficial) use for a while now as a way to indicate operational codenames; e.g. Ia Drang versus Linebacker. Trying to adopt them as a standard for something entirely different might be a lost cause at this point. Is there anything else we could try, aside from italics and small caps? (I'd almost suggest using pure caps, but that probably wouldn't look very neat.) Kirill 00:10, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Underline? An asterisk?? -- Миборовский 00:25, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Underlines are one of the formats used for hyperlinks, so that won't work. Using asterisks (or another symbol), on the other hand, might be feasible. (It's be nice if we had an article discussing how historians approach the question of determining what battles are "major" that we could link the asterisk to, similarly to how {{KIA}} works.) Kirill 12:46, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Seeing as it's in most cases an arbitrary decision, writing an article on that might be tough. -- Миборовский 23:29, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Project stress hotline

Working from a suggestion by Wandalstouring about a month back, we've created a rudimentary "stress hotline" for the project at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Outreach/Hotline. The hope is that having a calm discussion area available will help editors deal with Wikistress a bit more easily and reduce the burnout of project members.

Comments, both on the general idea and the specific format, are of course welcome, as is participation in the hotline itself! :-) Kirill 01:44, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I think this is a good start, let's see if/how it gets used. Carom 03:30, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Should we assign/appoint/promote people to keep an eye on the page while it gets going? Expereince tells me that we should (otherwise everyone assumes everyone else is handling it), but I wouldn;t mind here what other people think about it. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:09, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
The coordinators can probably keep an eye on things initially; whether we need anything more than that will probably depend on the sort of turnout we see. :-) Kirill 08:41, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Alright then ;) TomStar81 (Talk) 09:32, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Request for comment on WWII image made

Hello. As a heads up, a request for comment has been made at the history and geography area in regards to World War II image. Oberiko 14:13, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Soviet armies

I thought I'd put this on the main talk page because I doubt anyone would see it at the TF talk page- it´s a bit inactive. Having created a number of Soviet army articles, above 10, like the Thirty-Fifth Army, I am about to change them to a style like 22nd Army (Soviet Union) because all the Soviet sources seem to list them as such. The proposed cutoff would be 10, so the Ninth Army (Soviet Union) would stay that way, but Eleventh Army (Soviet Union) would go back to the original style of 11th Army. Thoughts? Violent disagreement? Cheers Buckshot06 15:45, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Umm! I'd say use numbers for all of them. WP:MILHIST#UNITNAME, though dealing w/ disambig, states that the common name of the country whose armed forces the unit belongs are the ones to be used (Soviet sources seem to list them as such). Don't forget that you can still use teh "redirect". -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 16:20, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree with FayssalF that "9th" is preferable to "Ninth", simply for consistency's sake – especially since it takes fewer keystrokes to type into Search. Add a redirect for complementary styling(s) and you're covered. Askari Mark (Talk) 01:47, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Scapa Flow

I don't like the organization of information about the internment and subsequent scuttling of the German fleet at Scapa Flow.

  • The internment is covered within High Seas Fleet.
  • The scuttling is covered in the article Gutter Sound. This is erroneous in my opinion because Gutter Sound is but a small part of Scapa Flow; numerous sources indicate scuttling happened both within Gutter Sound and in the greater area of Scapa Flow.
  • The article Scapa Flow perpetuates the above error.

Looking for opinions on where the scuttling info belongs. At the very least, I feel it should be moved to High Seas Fleet where the info about internment is; ideally, I think internment & scuttling belongs in a new pseudo-battle article, as it was a significant event of WWI. Maralia 02:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd agree with that - the scuttling is notable by itself and is relevant to a number of articles, so a dedicated article seems fully justified. --Nick Dowling 03:53, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Agree. It's part of the history of the fleet, not the harbor. Suggestion: an article on scuttling as an act of denial to the enemy? Trekphiler 09:26, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Scuttling currently covers this in a fairly general way. Scuttling (military tactic) could be an interesting and worthwhile topic though. I just noticed that Scuttling of the French fleet in Toulon is an article. --Nick Dowling 06:54, 7

Am I Groo?

It shouldn't be Operation Blue. Fall Blau is "Case Blue", not "Operation Blue"; it's not an operational codename, it's a war plan. (Think War Plan Orange or Rainbow 5.) If it was OpBlue it'd be Unternehmen Blau. Trekphiler 10:20, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

You're right. It can be compared to Fall Weiss/Case White. Wandalstouring 10:52, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for George Jones (RAAF officer) now open

The A-Class review for George Jones (RAAF officer) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 14:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Paintings depicting battle, death and war

I've been making a list of Wikipedia articles on paintings depicting battle, death and war. See User:Carcharoth/Paintings depicting battle, death and war. I'm after more articles on paintings like those ones. Not just any old painting, but ones we have articles on, or ones you think we should have articles on. I found those ones in Category:Paintings and its subcategories. Can anyone think of, or find, any other painting articles on these themes? (NB. This question has also been asked at the reference desk here). Carcharoth 20:18, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Barton S. Alexander now open

The A-Class review for Barton S. Alexander is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 01:54, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Request for comment

I would appreciate opinions at Talk:Franco-Mongol alliance#Painting, to discuss whether or not Jacques de Molay was part of a force which re-took Jerusalem in 1299. Most books agree he didn't, but there is evidently a painting hanging in Versailles, which says that he did.[1] Opinions are requested. Thanks, Elonka 07:55, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

(followup) This dispute has continued and expanded, and a formal RfC has been filed. Disputed issues include (1) Was there a major alliance between the Crusaders and the Mongols? (2) How should the Wikipedia article be titled? "Franco-Mongol alliance"? Or "Crusader-Mongol relations" or something else? (3) Did the Mongols conquer Jerusalem in 1300? (4) How many and what types of primary source quotes are appropriate to use for this subject? (5) Were the Knights Templar major proponents of an alliance with the Mongols? (6) Was Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, present at a combined Christian-Mongol capture of Jerusalem in 1299/1300? Opinions would be appreciated at Talk:Franco-Mongol alliance#Request for comment. --Elonka 10:00, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Attention needed at Talk:Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922)

This article has been the subject of dispute for months now, usually over the occurrence of atrocities during the war and the amount of space that should be given to each. Unfortunately, this dispute has deteriorated what was once a fairly good article on the war. I'd appreciate some third party involvement in getting this article back up to standards. --A.Garnet 10:24, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I had a look, but being fairly new here, I'm unsure of what use I can be, other than someone who could try to add some reminder(s) of the assumed goals and methods for the creation and editing of material. Certainly, I'll be happy to try to do so, but based on other bun-fights I've seen here, this looks like a RfC about to happen. {shrug} We'll see. I do agree that there is/was a potentially useful article there. Hopefully, it can be recovered in some fashion. Cordially, Drieux 06:26, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect use of national/political affiliations

I have found myself frequently fixing the incorrect identification of the political affiliations/nationalities of forces in military history articles and undue emphasis/systemic bias on/towards certain nationalities. Common examples are use of "US/American" or "British" when multinational forces ("Allies/Allied", "British Empire/British Commonwealth/Commonwealth", "United Nations" etc) were involved.

The poor practices and terminology of past generations of military officers, politicians and historians (however prominent they may be) is no longer a good excuse.

In particular, you need to know, if you don't already, that many people from Commonwealth countries object to the use of "Britain" and/or "British" for the entire entity or several countries thereof, in wars fought by multi-national Empire/Commonwealth forces. Even if you think that "British" or "Britain" are justified because the whole Empire and its military forces were under British political control, that is only true to varying degrees from the 1850s onwards. Furthermore, the Dominions were capable of completely independent foreign policies from 1931. For the record, the correct collective term before 1926 is "British Empire". Between 1926 and 1949 it is "British Commonwealth". Thereafter it is "Commonwealth".

So that we have a reference point in future, how do I go about getting the above incorporated into official policy? Grant | Talk 10:33, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

What's going to be our cut-off point? Take the Soviet-German War for example, will we have to rename it to include the Romanian, Italian, Hungarian etc. forces that fought with the Germans? Do we have to call it only as the Soviet-Axis War, (though the former is seemingly more common) even though the Soviet's weren't fully at war with the entirety of the Axis since they had a neutrality agreement with the Empire of Japan? Can we still call formations like the British Eighth Army "British" even though there were forces from other nations involved?
My main concern is that it would appear you are asking us to potentially disregard the terminology of "past generations of military officers, politicians and historians", superseding with what we judge to be more inclusive, even if less common. Oberiko —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oberiko (talk • contribs) 13:01, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Would it be acceptable to either use the entity that entered the war; or an entity that provided over 50% of the engaged troops. It was Germany that declared war on the SU followed by a relatively minor support from its allies, hence it is a German-Soviet war (not a Axis-Soviet war). Taking this to the British issue; in many conflicts it were the British that first engaged, it were the British that provided the majority of troops, so British wars do not seem that weird to me. Individual battles such as Galipoli should not be called British alone as the in this case the whole of the British Empire (which the article indeed uses).
Thus in my opinion it would be justified to talk about British wars, if the war takes place in the European theatre and does not involve majority involvement of non British Isles troops. We should talk about wars of the British Empire; or commonwealth wars depending on time and when the war it involved significant input from troops from the commonwealth. But this is all just my opinion Arnoutf 13:17, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Mmm, how do nouns translate into adjectives here? For example, if we have an army operated by the "British Empire", is it a "British" army? A "British Imperial" army? Or something else?
Beyond that, the general rule here—as in pretty much all other cases—would presumably be to follow the usage preferred by reputable (modern) historians. We should avoid making up our own terminology whenever possible, I think.
(Note, however, that if the intent here is only to document preferred usage rather than to come up with one, then I think this is a good idea. As a practical matter, the relevant task force pages would probably be the best place to list out these sorts of details.) Kirill 15:20, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
"'British Imperial' army?" Yep. "Empire"="Imperial", unless you're talking about Commonweatlth forces (when the practise has tended to still be "Imperial" by British writers & "British" by Americans...). TrekphilerCanada 11:06, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
If by "armies" we are talking about a generic grouping, rather than specific units, then I suggest simply "British Empire forces" (pre-1926), "British Commonwealth forces" (1926-49) and "Commonwealth forces" post-1949. If we are talking about specific field armies then they were generally just referred to as the "Eighth Army" or whatever (although non-Commonwealth writers have generally — and incorrectly — prefixed them with "British". While we need some kind of qualifier, because of the other Eighth Armies etc, and I'm not that happy about "Eighth Army (United Kingdom)", for obvious reasons, it doesn't matter much as we can just pipe it as Eighth Army in articles anyway. Grant | Talk 13:10, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Terminology should match that used at the time, not invented now according to sensitivites or political correctness. There is and has for a long time been a British army with a proud history, and it doesn't deserve to be painted out of history because it has always incorporated troops of other nations. What would we do about the armies that landed on D-Day - British 9 Brigade and Canadian 9 Brigade were both part of British I Corps, part of British 2nd Army, which later fought alongside Canadian 1st Army, both within British 21st Army Group, which initially comprised also US forces, later becoming US 12th Army Group, which included both US 2nd Armored and Free French 2nd Armoured divisions, while of course 1st Canadian Army included 1st Polish Armoured Division. Do we have to call them all "Allied"? If the British have to be Empire or Commonwealth, why not the Canadians? And what do we do about the Poles, or the French under US command? Would Gen Patton have called himself a US-French General, or his Army a US-French Army? I doubt it.
And Britain never regarded herself as parto fhe Empire: it was "Britain and her Empire". "Empire troops" referred to forces from the Empire outside Britain. "Imperial" troops is a term I have never heard in relation to Britian - it would suggest the troops of an Emperor, and the King held that title only in relation to India. Cyclopaedic 22:22, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

First American killed in combat in Viet Nam

Wondering if we can find some resolution on this. Who was it, James "Earthquake McGoon" McGovern Jr., a CIA pilot who died defore the Viet Nam war started on 1 Nov 1955 (according to DOD)? Or was it A. Peter Dewey, an OSS officer killed by the Viet Minh in 1945? Or was it photographer Robert Capa? Or was it James T. Davis? Or was it Harry Cramer? I personally know men who knew two of these guys, and all are adamant that their friend was the first.--Vidkun 19:19, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

This would depend entirely on what sources are being used. Great care would have to be taken so as not to engage in original research, only using reliable sources, and that those sources are verifiable. I haven't looked at the links you provided, but a cursory look at your question would lead me to beleive that each link would a strong (though possibly biased) case to substantiate it's claim. It could also be possible that each source does a play on words, as in "first journalist killed", "first operative killed", "first serviceman killed", etc., even if the 'speficic' wording is buried elsewhere in the article. wbfergus 13:51, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
I'd think it's not entirely clear, and really depends on the question being asked.
In terms of the first US national killed, is it likely that there would be US nationals in the Legion? In which case it's not out of the question that none of the above is the correct response.
Personally I'd discount dates prior to the US gov start-line for the 2nd IC war. I appreciate that's fairly arbitrary, but if it's the gov position then it has more credence than anything else.
I think that I'd discount Cramer, mainly due to the conflicting data, it starts to sounds like a retrospective justification and a little tenuous. From the decription it's not clear whether he was killed by the dem charge going off, or as a result of a mortar.
I'd also discount Dewey, since he certainly wasn't involved in the 2nd IC war.
Sorry I can't offer anything more decisive.
ALR 14:29, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

How does one get stub definition articles moved to Wikitionary?

There are a number of small definition articles on military subjects which will never go anywhere and are more definitions than articles. How does one get them moved? Buckshot06 09:13, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Transwiki them. Transwiki is a process of moving info on one of the wikis to a more apropriety wiki (in this case, Wikipedia to Wikitionary). More info on how to do this can be found here. TomStar81 (Talk) 09:17, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
However, not all stubs, even if they are unlikely to expand, might fit in Wiktionary; so some care maybe needed. Arnoutf 10:24, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Post peer review course of action

The article for Omaha Beach was peer reviewed a few months back (see [2]). I have accommodated the resulting comments as best I can and now wonder where next? Should I resubmit it for another peer review, or is it worth trying for GA, or even A/FA? Thanks. --FactotEm 14:43, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I see no reason why you couldn't nominate it for GA or A-Class, at this point. Kirill 16:29, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. I'll see how it gets on with an A-Class review. Cheers. --FactotEm 17:06, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Electronic Order of Battle

People might want to take a look at this article and the speedy delete tag that's been placed on it. I think EOB is a notable concept and should be included. Buckshot06 16:11, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

It's gone, history and all. I can't find anything there and it's tagged as being unable to create as well. wbfergus Talk 17:22, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Looking at times this looks like it was a second, at least, republish of something which had been speedied a couple of times in the last couple of days.
I was reading it whilst it was deleted, and I'd agree that the EOB concept is of interest my intent had been to cull most of the content, which read like a cut & paste straight from the vendors training manual. As it stood it wasn't talking about the ORBAT in the information space but about how to exploit intercept to support the Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace process.
The author, Comint, was a prolific generator of sales adverts for Gencom products.
ALR 18:04, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Dak To now open

The A-Class review for Battle of Dak To is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 16:28, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Omaha Beach now open

The A-Class review for Omaha Beach is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 17:21, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Barton S. Alexander needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Barton S. Alexander; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! Kirill 00:53, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Peyton M. Magruder

Just created a basic stub on Naval Academy dropout and B-26 Marauder / B-10 designer Peyton M. Magruder to remove a redlink from a few articles. Could someone template/categorize this appropriately and help bring it up to standards? I've had a hell of a time finding web references other than stuff dating back to 1945. Any and all help would be appreciated.  ALKIVAR™ ☢ 07:38, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Anything you can do for his father Brig. Gen. Marshall Magruder would also be appreciated.  ALKIVAR™ ☢ 07:59, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Both are done. TomStar81 (Talk) 09:10, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Operation Passage to Freedom now open

The A-Class review for Operation Passage to Freedom is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 09:41, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Help with Request for Comments

Hi, we are having a little edit-war over at the Battle of Kadesh article. I've decided to keep out of it for a while, but I would appreciate if someone who is not involved could review the WP:RFC(s) that have been raised. Any feedback or help editting the disputed content would be great. Thanks Markh 12:27, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Category merges

How does one mark categories to be merged? Category:Royal Navy fleets and Category:British fleets are almost totally identical. Cheers Buckshot06 15:51, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:CFR is the typical option, although small categories can be merged by hand.
(This should become either Category:Fleets of the Royal Navy or Category:Fleets of the United Kingdom to comply with our naming conventions, incidentally.) Kirill 17:05, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Will this not be inaccurate though given that the Royal Navy has not always been for the United Kingdom. It is only after the Acts of Union that the Royal Navy came into being. The United Kingdom has only been around for 300 years. The Channel Fleet has been around since 1600 and as such, was not a fleet of the United Kingdom at that time. I think the Royal Navy heading would be more accurate although it would need a disclaimer: E.g. This is a category containing the Fleets of the Royal Navy from its formation through its various forms before the Acts of Union 1707 created the United Kingdom and the formation of the Royal Navy as it is known today. (?) Woodym555 17:17, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
OK, if there are no further inputs, I will set going at some point thru WP:CFR at Fleets of the Royal Navy with Woody's proposed disclaimer attached. Cheers Buckshot06 21:17, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Please help me somebody

Hi! I am looking for a German pilot who servered in the First World War and was killed either near the end of the war or between the World Wars. He was killed when piloting either a bomber or cargo plane carrying the body of a German General and friend of his who had died of a heart attack. He was also flying to Berlin through storm--SGCommand (talk • contribs) 18:29, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure if it would be easy to get his name as, according to your description, it appears that he is non-notable. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 17:51, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Although if he was carrying the body of a German General you may be able to locate your name by checking out articles on German Generals, high ranking officers of this nature are typically important enough to warrent an article here on Wikipedia. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

The Old Guard

It was pointed out to me the following by the user User:ScreaminEagle in reference to: The Old Guard's article

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia, TabooTikiGod! I have noted that you made a good-faith edit with regard to the 3rd United States Infantry Regiment article. You moved this article to the title of 3rd Infantry Regiment (United States) per the renaming guidelines of the MILHISTWP. In most cases, this would have been just fine. However, the 3rd US Infantry is uniquely named: it's official name is the 3rd United States Infantry Regiment. "United States" is not a country designator in this case, it is actually part of the unit's official name. This dates back to the Civil War when units in America had to be distinguished between United States units or Confederate units. This particular unit has maintained the "United States" designator as part of its official title and removing that or switching it around results in an innaccuraely named U.S. unit. An administrator will change it back, so no further action is required on your part. I just wanted you to be aware that there are a few exceptions to the naming conventions that have been hashed out and rehashed out; this is just one of them. I appreciate your willingness to help the project, regardless. Keep up the good work and be sure and sign up for the MILHISTWP and a few of its task forces, if you're interested. --ScreaminEagle 17:42, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

My response to this argument (TabooTikiGod)
Thank you for your observations ScreaminEagle, however I would point out to you and other Wikipedians who have particular concern in reference to the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment's name. The name of a Wikipedia article versus an official title of a person, place, thing, idea, etc. may vary and do not necessarily coincide with one another. If that were the case, then none of the U.S. military units listed would have (United States) following the name of the article. For example, 1st Infantry Division (United States), 7th Cavalry Regiment (United States), 173rd Airborne Brigade (United States), III Corps (United States) and so forth. This is merely done for organizational purposes and therefore does not reflect the official title of the unit. This particular Regiment should not be any different nor treated as a special case than the rest of the U.S. Army units and organizations on Wikipedia. -TabooTikiGod 18:23, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
To further support my reasoning of this issue, although The Old Guard's official website [3] has the title header as 3d United States Infantry Regiment, however, many of the articles within the official website describe the unit as 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) [4]. Furthermore, the official unit's association The Old Guard Association [5] refers the unit as 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment. Additionally, the United States Center of Military History (USACMH) Lineage and Honors Information of the unit describes it simply as 3d Infantry [6] which is dated 22 May 1997 which is, I might add, is the U.S. Army's official military history resource which supercedes the unit's history which reflects the organization's official lineage. In conclusion, there are many different reliable and official resources which one can draw from and list as a resource and argue what the "official name" of the unit is. Even in trying to accomplish this task, there are many contradictions and misnomers for the unit known as The Old Guard. Again, I would reinforce the effort to rename the article as 3rd Infantry Regiment (United States) to rectify this situation. -TabooTikiGod 18:49, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I changed the name of the article in good will and was not meant as a malicious act or meant to upset the Wikipedia community, particularly the members of the MILHISTWP. The act of changing the article was done with logic and reason which I have provided my thought process and showed concrete evidence to further explain and support my claim. -TabooTikiGod 19:12, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
This discussion is currently being discussed on the talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:3rd_Infantry_Regiment_%28United_States%29#Title_of_article
It's worth noting that the naming convention for military units does, in fact, call for the official name to be used where possible:

An article about a military unit or formation should be placed at "Name of unit (optional disambiguator)". The name should generally be the official name used by the armed forces to which the unit belongs, or, for units that do not have an official name, the most common name used in historical literature.

Rearranging the order of words in the name to fit an arbitrary pattern is not necessarily appropriate; we would not, for example, have The Royal Canadian Regiment at The Royal Regiment (Canada) merely because the term is a country name.
Note, also, that the more natural in-text version of "X Regiment (United States)" is "United States X Regiment", which is not the same as "X United States Regiment". While there are several variations of the regiments name used in literature, they are all derivatives of the latter form rather than the former; so it is quite legitimate to argue that it is the "proper" name of the unit. Kirill 20:13, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Quoting from the guidelines of the MILHISTWP, there lies the problem. I understand your argument in reference to The Royal Canadian Regiment but this is not the same case nor the same argument. I have already outlined various official sources for the "official name" of the unit that is commonly refered to as The Old Guard. I have already listed official and credible sources that have legitimate claim via internet websites. Ultimately (and legally), the source of the official name of the organization would come from directly from the original orders which were published by the United States Army that perscribed the formation of the unit. Which can be directly sourced from the United States Army's Center of Military History website which is dated 22 May 1997. http://www.army.mil/cmh/html/forcestruc/lineages/branches/inf/0003in.htm This is the official name of the unit 3d Infantry.

Consolidated May-October 1815 with the 5th Infantry (constituted 12 April 1808), the 17th Infantry (constituted 11 January 1812), the 19th Infantry (constituted 26 June 1812), and the 28th Infantry (constituted 29 January 1813) to form the 3d Infantry

This I might add, has not been modified nor changed since 1997 and unless further official publishing orders by the United States Army can be produced after 1997 then it remains as the official name of the organization. I would also note that it is not unique that the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment has "U.S." associated with it's name since all Union organizations during the American Civil War had the "U.S." following the numerical number of the unit followed by the type of unit: 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment, 1st U.S. Dragoons, etc. in order to distinguish between federal and state militias (14th Pennsylvania Infantry, 54th Massachusetts Infantry, etc.). Therefore the argument of 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment or 3rd United States Infantry Regiment is not unique to just The Old Guard but to all United States Army units that can trace it's lineage to the American Civil War which fought on the Union side. -TabooTikiGod 20:27, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Interesting point. I'll admit that I don't know enough about the arcana of US military lineage to make an intelligent decision as to how authoritative the CMH site is relative to the regiment's own site. There are several possibilities here as to which name the US Army currently uses for the regiment (which may not necessarily be the same as the name the regiment uses internally, to boot); the question of which name is more official is probably best left to experts in this particular topic area. Kirill 20:45, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
If I interpet correctly, the guidelines perscribed by MILHISTWP on Wikipedia, then it would appear that the official name of the organization supercedes the common name used in historical literature. Which would be 3d Infantry, not 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment or 3rd United States Infantry Regiment. I assure you that the United States Army Center of Military History is the authority when it comes to unit lineage and honors as it is outlined on the the CMH website:
Force Structure and Unit History Branch http://www.army.mil/cmh/unitinfo.html
Organizational History http://www.army.mil/cmh/html/forcestruc/orghist.html
Combat Arms Regimental System (CARS) http://www.army.mil/cmh/html/forcestruc/cars.html
United States Army online regulatory authorities as perscribed in an Army Regulation - The U.S. Army Regimental System (AR 600-82) 5 June 1990 http://www.usapa.army.mil/pdffiles/r600_82.pdf
I have provided numerous sources on the authority and authentization from credible official U.S. Army websites that argument my point clearly which is outlined on the U.S. Army Center of Military History website and in AR 600-82 which is the United States Army's Regimental System which is an Army Regulation. On page 23, it clearly shows the organization, under the CARS as 3rd Infantry (0003IN)1. -TabooTikiGod 21:00, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Duly noted; based on those documents, the argument that the "3rd Infantry Regiment" is the current official name seems a reasonable one. The remaining questions, I suppose, would be twofold: is this a new official name, or one that has been around for some time, and why, in either case, does it appear to differ from the regiment's internal usage? (Obviously, we seem to have former members of the unit that recall "3rd United States Infantry Regiment" in official use on their own orders; so I would assume there's something to this beyond a discrepancy on the sites themselves.) Kirill 21:55, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Actually, since 29 January 1813, it's always been 3d Infantry when the unit was constituted. I've provided Army regulatory field manual that perscribes the Army's stance under the Regimental System in 1990 and 1997 (which to my knowledge there is no newer updates to AR 600-82 or the lineage and honors for the 3d Infantry unless proven otherwise). As far as the "internal usage," I've already provided articles which the unit's Public Affairs Office (PAO) has published articles within the website that describes the organization as 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) http://www.army.mil/oldguard/stories/aug142007.html So even within the unit's official website the organization's "common name" varies. One Wikipedia user who claims to have been a former member of the unit does not constitute leverage over this argument. The user Ryecatcher773 did not provide any substansial reason or support other than claiming that he was a former member of the unit (which again is irrelavent to the arguement and does not give him and "authority" over the matter). -TabooTikiGod 22:10, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that I've provided enough intelligent reason and logic and credible resources via the internet to close out this arguement. Is there a final resolution to this matter? -TabooTikiGod 22:16, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
NO. Look, I've tried to be polite and nice, keeping this private and such, but you've hauled out every conversation right into the open. Fine. So be it. You have relied on only one source, the Center for Military History, which I hate to point out can sometimes be incomplete, especially given the amount of information they must deal with and the very, very few volunteers they have to sort it all out. On the other hand, we have the official webpage of the unit itself, along with its mother unit, the MDW, which claims the EXACT same thing as the regiment. And giving the argument that sometimes it's 3rd United States and sometimes it's 3rd U.S. is ludicrous. U.S. is an abbreviation for United States, so both are correct but one is more complete. And simply because you think you've argued this case well enough in your own mind does not mean you're correct. I would rather rely on the Army unit itself, which has told me personally, that its official name is the 3rd United States Infantry Regiment, rather than an editor like yourself who may not know a thing other than how to navigate the CMH website. Feel free to give the unit a call and see if they tell you the same thing they told me. Until then, there is no resolution on this other than what had been agreed upon previously. --ScreaminEagle 22:30, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
ScreaminEagle, I personally do not like behind the scene conversations in reference to a discussion. Secondly, if you had actually read through the USACMH website and how the organization operates in reference to the CARS, lineage and honors and the AR 600-82, you would have noticed which is an official Army Regulation (not CMH) does have authority over the actual unit and the webmasters of the organizations and even the parent organization (Military District of Washington) website. Unlike yourself, I've actually provided real sources that can be accessed via web and is open source. Like I said, the legal authority of the "official name" is written in the publishing orders in which the organization was constituted. 29 January 1813. Even if you did contact the unit and had a memorandum from the Regimental Commander himself with signature, does that have any authority over the way in which the United States Army interprets the official history of a unit which is viewed by the entire United States Army? For your information, I happen to know a soldier who is in the Headquarters and Headquarters Company for the 1st Battalion in the Regimental Headquarters Public Affairs Office (PAO). If you would like, I can get an official memorandum dated, signed with proper heading and title of a statement by their office claiming the official name of the organization, have it scanned, upload it to Wikipedia and then publish it on this page. -TabooTikiGod 22:43, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
There's no such thing as "behind the scenes" on Wikipedia talk pages. ;-)
More seriously, though: if we could get some sort of written statement from somebody official about what the unit's name is, that would put us in a much better position, I think. Kirill 22:50, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
By all means, get the document from your friend, although I fail to see how the 1st BTN would have more information than the Military District of Washington would. I'll even drive to Ft. Myer myself if it will help, but first we'll see what your official friend has to offer. And as for not providing sources, I could have sworn that stating the 3rd US Infantry's website, as well as the MDW's, counted as sources. I only assumed most interested parties could google just as well as I could. --ScreaminEagle 23:31, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I've provided more than ample enough evidence citing a multitude of sources and reasoning and logic where as the latter has failed to do so. I am currently in the process of contacting my fellow soldier who is currently serving in the HHC, 1st Battalion, 3d Infantry's PAO office which represents the organization and the unit in order to drive a nail into this arguement for once and for all but even if I did procure this document I'm sure there would be Wikipedians who would not be satisfied even with such a document. The truth of the matter is that there is overwhelming evidence and support already presented on the table where those individuals who oppose this change have failed to present any intelligent logic, reasoning or evidence. -TabooTikiGod 11:21, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Any such discussion typically takes at least a few days to coagulate around a rough consensus; proclaiming a "final resolution" after a few hours would be pretty unprecedented (doubly so when there have only been two people participating ;-). I'd like to see, at the very least, some editors with more experience in this topic area comment.
We're in no real rush, in any case; the project will be no worse off if we move the article next week than if we move it today. Kirill 22:19, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Isn't it true that Wikipedia is not a democracy? And how the guidelines are interpreted by the administrators? I see the logic in having a general consenses to avoid edit wars or socket puppet vandals. Whether or not there's enough interest from other users to weigh in on this discussion should be interesting since probably most people throughout the world (and even within the United States or for that matter, the United States Army) have enough background knowledge or "expertise" to make a call. In any case, it should be interesting. -TabooTikiGod 22:32, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I will also note that if all units were to be and I quote:

An article about a military unit or formation should be placed at "Name of unit (optional disambiguator)". The name should generally be the official name used by the armed forces to which the unit belongs, or, for units that do not have an official name, the most common name used in historical literature.

Then all U.S. Army units on Wikipedia would have to be changed, since they are not known as 1st Infantry Division (United States) but simply as 1st Infantry Division. -TabooTikiGod 20:37, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Obviously the "(United States)" isn't part of the name; it's the optional disambiguator. Kirill 20:45, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Unwise Move

Hey Kirill. I don't know any other admins who would know about this, hence why you've been pegged. A concerned editor has moved 3rd United States Infantry Regiment to 3rd Infantry Regiment (United States). From past experience, I know I can't move it back without causing some sort of meltdown in Wikipedia's main reactor, so could you please do it for me? In the mean time I will leave a note for the editor explaining the issue (even though the unique unit's name has been discussed to death even inside the article itself). Many, many thanks. --ScreaminEagle 17:32, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AScreaminEagle&diff=156998134&oldid=156983462

Re: Unwise Move

Oh no, not again! ;-)

But I think I'll let the discussion on WT:MILHIST play out for a bit before moving it back, so as not to risk devolving into a revert war on the thing. Kirill 20:16, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Although it seems that someone else has moved it back anyways, making the point rather moot. Kirill 20:25, 10 September 2007 (UTC)


http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AKirill_Lokshin&diff=156963558&oldid=156915698

Future Comments

In order to create less confusion, I recommend that all future comments please be refered to the article's talk page:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:3rd_US_Infantry

Focus your contributions on another article where you can make constructive progress. Avoid going back to the page of dispute. Respond to questions about it on your user talk page and direct the questioner to take their issues to the article talk page to keep all relevant discussion in one place

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Resolving_disputes#Second_step:_Disengage_for_a_while

I would also remind Wikipedians of the WP:NPOV policy.

-TabooTikiGod 12:31, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Yep. Given that there doesn't seem to be any real disagreement over the guidelines, but only over a factual point specific to the article in question, the article talk page is probably the better forum for any further discussion on the topic. Kirill 12:40, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Agreed, however, this isn't a NPOV issue. It's reality, and the only bias I have is towards accuracy. Switching the article name would be inaccurate. May as well change the name of the article on the USA to The America (United States of). That would be inaccurate and look silly right? Ryecatcher773 16:56, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Award clasps and reference desks

Two ideas that the coordinators have been discussing and would like to propose to the project:

Award clasps
There's been some concern expressed that our present WikiChevrons are underused, possibly because they're too generic, and thus don't offer a "suggested usage" as an award for particular areas of work. A separate issue, but related, is the lack of any distinct award for said areas of work. One idea that would help in both areas would be creating more specific versions of the general WikiChevrons by some means similar to campaign clasps; in other words, some (presumably bar-like) addition to the image that could indicate a specific area of work for which the award was being made. Is this something people would like to see, and, if so, is there anyone that would like to try their hand at creating some prototype images?
Reference desk
On a completely unrelated note, the idea has come up of setting up some sort of in-house reference desk that would provide a forum where questions on military history (content questions, not editorial ones) could be asked and answered. Without delving too deeply into the mechanics of how this could be set up to interoperate with the main reference desks, do people think this would be a good idea? And would members here be willing to help answer such questions if a desk were set up?

Comments and suggestions on these points would be very appreciated! Kirill 00:39, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I personally think these are excellent ideas. For the bar idea maybe a bar can be awarded for good work in a specific task force. Kyriakos 02:12, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
For the WikiChevrons, maybe award it to people who worked to bring MILHIST articles on featured-quality? Maybe do it retroactively too. "Task force clasps" would also be useful I think... As for the reference desk, support it all the way. Миборовский 19:21, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
I counted 4 articles within this talkpage as of this moment that could/would be moved over to a RD-like page, if one is set up... Although it's hopeful that the number of articles would grow if we have a decently-staffed, individual page for it. But the best thing would be to integrate it to the main RD platform... which those guys don't seem to want to do? Миборовский 19:46, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

War films?

On a somewhat random note: is there any interest in creating a task force covering war films? We've brought cultural depictions of military history into our scope some time ago, but we haven't set up any of the proposed task forces for dealing with them; and, seeing as WP:FILMS is currently beginning to create task forces, this seems like as good a time as any to pursue this. Kirill 02:41, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

If FILMS is setting up task forces then we should capitalize on the chance to invest in a war film task force. We already have our in house guidelines, and we are the project that oversees the articles regarding the equipment shown in the films. It would also allow us a chance to firm up the film front while adhering to our pop-culture rules (IE, it removes any conflict of interest we may have). Thats my take. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:59, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
No objection. Sounds like a good would-be asset to this project. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 17:46, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps a good idea anyway to think how to handle taskforces that overlap between projects. In the recently created WikiProject Netherlands for example we have listed this projectsDutch military history task force as an affiliated task force to prevent overlapping initiatives.
As many projects seem to be expanding into task forces it might be a good idea to think about how to link these in; in a more general way. Arnoutf 17:54, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Once again we lead the pack in innovation... hehe. Миборовский 19:10, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Distinction between projects and task forces

Hello, this current topic got me thinking off-topic a bit. How do we define the difference between a project and a task force? For example, what makes this a project as opposed to a task force for the larger (in scope) History Wikiproject? What happens if a task force grows to the point that it wants to have its own branches, will they be sub-task forces?

Am I correct in thinking that a task force is basically a juvenile/stripped-down Wikiproject? Something that, if its members choose to do so, can become a full project (with various parent projects) on its own? Oberiko 19:05, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The fundamental difference, in practice, is one of infrastructure. A WikiProject maintains its own infrastructure (i.e. review processes, assessments, etc.), while a task force makes use of a parent project's infrastructure instead.
(Beyond this, of course, is a fairly complicated—and not really well-documented—understanding of what scopes work and don't work in terms of the social dynamics of the editors involved. The History project, for example, is almost certainly too broad to function as a cohesive group. But this level of detail isn't really needed for understanding the distinction.)
As for sub-task forces, we already have a few; the ACW task force, for example, is functionally a sub-group of the US one (at least as far as scope is concerned). The project-task force relationship is always one level deep in practical terms, however; a task force couldn't treat another task force as its parent project because that second task force doesn't have an infrastructure of its own to use. Even where more complicated relationships between the task forces exist, the functional link is always to the central core project.
There's nothing inherent in this system that would prevent a task force from splitting off and becoming a separate project; but it would lose all the benefits of using a larger project's infrastructure, so actually going through with something like that would be (in my opinion, anyways) a rather poor idea. Kirill 19:23, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Task force now open

With many thanks to Kirill for the boilerplate, the War films task force is now up and operational. All interested participants are welcome to join both this task force and the Films WikiProject. Girolamo Savonarola 05:08, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Info mainly for Coordinators

A bit off-topic, but I thought perhaps the Coordinators (or others who could be involved in future dispute resolutions) and others in this project might be interested in at least reading the series of discussions going on at Wikipedia talk:No original research. I kind of accidentally stumbled into it a few weeks ago, and after being involved in the discussions, I now see that I have inadvertently, even though in good faith, violated this policy on occasions.

Anyway, there is currently much discussion on changing the policy, though the policy itself won't be watered down, primarily just a "better wording" of some points, and much discussion on the issue of "Sources". Since any changes (or proposed changes), could have an impact on some articles here, or the project iteself, I thought that perhaps some of the coordinators might be interested in at least following the discussions, even if they wish not to participate, or offer insights on things that may impact this project. wbfergus Talk 13:01, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Plagiarism?

I realize this is probably beating a dead horse, since nobody else on WP seems to give a damn, as far as I can tell. I've gotten mesaged about replacing the {{DANFS}} tag as with a warning about plagiarism as "POV". POV? How about "ethical"? Or doesn't ethics enter into it? Since plagiarism constitutes copying verbatim, attribution or not, public domain or not, I stand by it. Public domain means "no payment to publisher or writer required", not "I can reproduce this under any name I want". Maybe you ought to investigate the use of plagiarised material. And I'm concerned somebody citing WP may get nailed for unwitting plagiarism, too. Or doesn't anybody here care about that, either? (I'll bet Britannica wouldn't let it go. Of course, as everybody's always saying, this isn't Britannica. That's for sure.) Trekphiler 21:48, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Your question is a little unclear. Are you saying people are removing the DANFS tag and replacing it with a POV tag? That's the silliest thing I've ever heard. And all pages I've seen that have copied text from public domain sites (US Army biographies, etc.) usually have the disclaimer at the bottom stating that the text was retrieved from a public domain source and then specifies exactly what that source is. So is it still plagiarism if the source is quoted word-for-word, but due credit is given at the bottom? I would think if anyone copied from Wikipedia after that, that's their fault for not observing the credited source. --ScreaminEagle 21:58, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
I would also appreciate some clarification here. And in response to ScreaminEagle, I believe the only way to incorporate text from another source is by direct attribution of the material (for example, as a quote) - anything else constitutes plagiarism, even if the article indicates that "text from source X is incorporated." Carom 22:38, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Lets start with something simple: How are you defining plagerism, and what do you consider plagerism? If your definition and view on the matter differ from the definition provided by Wikipedia and endorsed here then the sitution goes from being problem solution oriented to an infinite circle where every agurment presented come back verbatem. IMO, I think the reliance on DANFS does not qualify as plagerism since we are not claiming it to be our own work, merely claiming that we are using someone elses research for our articles. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:45, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Some clarification would definitely be good. Broadly speaking, "plagiarism" as it is understood outside of academic research refers only to the borrowing of material from other authors without properly crediting them. The exact manner of attribution expected tends to vary quite a bit depending on the context; while an academic paper would doubtless need explicitly marked quotes with footnotes, there are other circumstances where a single statement could be approppriate (see, e.g. the attribution on newspaper articles that include sections Reuters or AP material). I do not think that such usage is necessarily inappropriate for our purposes.
(The other, academia-oriented use of the term—referring to producing a work that is merely a regurgitation of other authors, regardless of whether they're credited—is largely inapplicable in the context of Wikipedia; we are explicitly constrained from including any original research, so all Wikipedia articles will necessarily be derived entirely from the work of other authors, at least in substance. We make no claim to producing anything original.)
Note that, in any case, merely citing material is not itself plagiarism, regardless of what that material happens to be. A writer is responsible for properly attributing any borrowed material to its source, but whether or not that source is negligent in crediting its sources is essentially a separate matter. Kirill 23:37, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't want to get into the argument about what constitues plagiarism, but being the one who warned Trekphiler about replacing a {{DANFS}} template (which produces: "This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.") with "This article contains material plagiarized from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships", I'd suggest someone from this project needs to either rewrite the text of the template or nominate for deletion, if its usage indeed constitues plagiarism. Katr67 23:43, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Ah, that makes more sense now. I see what he was getting at and what you are, too. I would just like to point out one thing--Wikipedia is also in the public domain, yes? Other sites like Answers.com (essentially just mirror sites of WP) copy WP verbatim. And yet, as long as they state somewhere on the page that that information came from the article on Wikipedia, they're fine, legally speaking. They are not claiming authorship, but rather giving credit where credit is due. And that's all that Wikipedia requires, if I'm not mistaken. So how is that any different than in a case like this? --ScreaminEagle 00:20, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

←You'll pardon me if, as a writer, I take a different view. Credit alone doesn't excuse passing off DANFS work as WP, any more than whatsisface passing of fiction to Oprah as life experience is okay. It's a fraud. WP guidelines may not prohibit it; I still say it's a fraud. And somebody who doesn't know it's been lifted whole cloth from DANFS and sites it risks getting nailed for doing the stealing. Of course, nobody on WP is actually responsible for what goes up, so who cares, right? Trekphiler 02:02, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

It sounds to me then that you are not complaining about potential plagerism with regards to our ship articles and DANFS, but whether or not the use of DANFS in a virturally intact state here is ethically and morally acceptable. Am I correct in assume this? TomStar81 (Talk) 03:10, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I wonder if it might not be a good idea to reword {{DANFS}} to say something like "Unless indicated otherwise, the text of this article is derived from DANFS..."; that would make the extent of the DANFS material clearer in most cases (and would also encourage people that add additional details to cite the sources for those explicitly). Kirill 11:12, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Doing that would essentially require inline citations for all added text, which AFAIK is not Wikipedia policy, and would also require re-evaluation of the thousands of articles using the DANFS template to determine which text comes from DANFS and which has been added later; unfortunately, I don't think this is a good idea. TomTheHand 13:20, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

You are a member of WP:SHIPS and thus presumably know exactly where to bring concerns about ship articles. Why would you take it upon yourself to vandalize 9 articles with your "plagiarized" claims rather than start a conversation about your concerns in the appropriate place? Maralia 04:04, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

The government of the United States has freely released into the public domain content authored by federal employees in the performance of their duties. That volutary release to the public of information produced by public dollars is dispositive of this question. Legally there would be no obligation to acknowledge the source, but Wikipedia quite properly requires attribution. And those uses, with attribution, are not plagiarism. Kablammo 12:09, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

→Trekphiler. I'm a bit puzzled by your objections to this. The material was written (and commissioned) for a document which, by virtue of US federal law, entered the public domain at the moment of publication. The contributing authors would have been aware of this. I simply can't see who the victim is. --ROGER DAVIES TALK 14:29, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I wrote this on WP:SHIPS, but it seems equally relevant here, since nobody has so far quoted this actual policy
For the official policy, see here - Wikipedia:Copyright problems#Plagiarism that doesn't infringe copyright. In particular this bit seems relevent (emphasis is mine):

Even when material isn't protected by copyright, it is still important to give appropriate credit to its authors and creators when we include that material in Wikipedia. Failure to do so is plagiarism: falsely claiming original authorship of the work. Plagiarising material harms the work's real authors by denying them deserved credit for their work, and it harms Wikipedia by making it more difficult for editors and readers to refer to the material's source. It may also violate the terms of Wikipedia's license: the GFDL.

Material which is plagiarised but which does not violate copyright doesn't need to be removed from Wikipedia if it can be properly sourced. Add appropriate source information to the article wherever possible, or move unsourced material to an article's talk page until sources can be found.

So what it's saying is that copying material without "[giving] appropriate credit to its authors and creators" is plagiarism. What we should do is therefore "add appropriate source information to the article". Which is what the DANFS tag does. It provides "appropriate source information", and therefore the work is no longer 'plagiarised', but 'properly cited'. Removing those tags makes the work effectively 'plagiarised', because there is no citation. So you can't refer to it as plagiarism because it isn't. And you can't remove those tags because you are then creating that problem yourself. As to the ethical dilemma over whether wikipedia should have articles with some parts (quite legally) quoted verbatim, I think you need to take that to higher powers, such as God, or his representative here on earth, Jimbo. And claiming that this is an ethical dispute and people who disagree are by implication unethical, is a tad POV and borders on the incivil. Benea 08:44, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
This is probably not the place to discuss WPs approach to use of open source information, but I'd suggest that there is a difference between sourcing information from a public source, generalising this away from US gov publications, and copying verbatim whole swathes of material. I think that the disclaimer suggests the former whereas Trekphiler appears to be concerned about the latter.
I think there probably is an ethical debate to be had about how to treat publically available information, some seem to go completely OTT on removing material based on it being a copyvio regardless of the nature of the information. I added a list of affiliations to a ship article at one stage and had it removed as a copyvio of the royal Navy website. My thinking at the time was FFS it's a list, there is nothing I can do about that other than listing them in a different order to that on the RN site. I see that as wholly different to pasting in analysis and prose from open source, which essentially implies that it is the work of WP editors. Personally I don't like it, I feel that it's sloppy editing and lacks intellectual integrity, neither of which are generally considered as issues in WP unfortunately.
I think it's a little disingenuous to suggest that this is something that needs King Jimbos involvement, the copyright pages are the place to discuss it and seek to come to a reasonable and sensible conclusion which can then be applied across the initiative.
ALR 11:35, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Forgive me, I was being flippant, but I was trying to distinguish between the technicalities and the ethical implications. You're right, it is sloppy and lazy editing to copy and paste verbatim. If you were at university and writing an academic paper on a subject and copied and pasted a large section and cited it, you would still get short shrift, because the intention is to assess how well you had learnt your stuff, and to produce a creation of your own. Wikipedia is not here to test its editors in that regard, and there is no barrier to doing this. Technically Trekphiler's argument does not stand up, and he can't call it plagiarism. The ethical situation is more complicated, that whilst it is technically allowable, is it morally so? That needs debating at a higher level than us and would depend a lot on an individual's feelings on the subject. No, Jimbo doesn't need to make a ruling, but to come to a clear decision, there needs to be a change in how this is viewed at the higher levels for all of wikipedia. Benea 15:45, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Navboxesetc

For those few who still have ethics, perhaps this is useful?

Trekphiler 02:02, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Fort Corcoran now open

The A-Class review for Fort Corcoran is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 02:16, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

How to request expert for a military history article?

I know other portals have templates that will send out a call for experts on a topic. I am lost as how to find the same for military history on Wikipedia. Any guidance will be appreciated. Typing monkey 03:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

On any given talk page you will should find the Military history Wikiproject template at or near the top of the page. Within the template add the line |attention=yes exactly as it appears here and the page in question will be added to our Category of Military history articles needing attention. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:56, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Or one can use {{expert-subject|Military history}}, which feeds into Category:Military history articles needing expert attention. Kirill 11:10, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Tank or Armoured for Ukrainian formations today?

User:Ceriy, who is doing great work on Ukrainian units, has just created 17th Armored Brigade (Ukraine). However I believe the better translation would be 'tank', as per former Soviet units; I doubt the actual name in Russian or Ukrainian has changed. What do others think? Cheers Buckshot06 11:16, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

In English White Book - Armour brigade (http://www.mil.gov.ua/files/white_book_eng2006.pdf pg91). In Ukrainain articles on MoD website its called Tankova. In English Section its called Armoured (http://www.mil.gov.ua/index.php?lang=en&part=structure&sub=army)Ceriy 12:50, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, no worries; if that's the Ukrainian standard when they use English, nous dovons change (er, we must change to that). But I believe we should name the units 'Guards' if they are Guards, as the 17th is. Thus producing '17th Guards Armored Brigade', like the 2nd Guards Tamanskaya Motor Rifle Division. What do people think? Buckshot06 15:14, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Translation from French

Currently, English Wikipedia is missing articles on the main Austrian generals in the Neapolitan War, Frederick Bianchi, Duke of Casalanza and Adam Albert von Neipperg. However, the French Wikipedia has two decent articles at fr:Frédéric Bianchi and fr:Adam Albert de Neipperg. I would be grateful if anyone who is fluent in French could translate the pages from the French Wikipedia. Thanks. Centy – reply• contribs – 13:27, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

My French is a bit sketchy but looking at Bianchi I shouldn't have too many problems doing the translation. I'll give it a bash in my sandbox. Buckshot06 15:23, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Neipperg's done. It needs referencing with English-language sources --ROGER DAVIES TALK 16:51, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Capitalisation guidelines for military terms

I've been trying to develop guidelines on the capitalisation of military terms, on the relevant manual of style page. So far, there's been little interest, but since this heavily affects the work of this WikiProject, I was hoping that some of you might want to contribute. There are links to various other style guides' policies on this in the posts I put on the talk page [7], [8]. -Kieran 19:36, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Replied there; the proposals as stated seem uncontroversial. Kirill 20:13, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
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