Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 70

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Project motto

The coordinators have been discussing the idea of introducing a motto for the project. The two initial ideas we've come up with:

  • "They fight, we write"
  • "Our pens are mighter than swords"

Is having a motto a good idea? If so, what should the motto be? (If anyone has suggestions other than the two we've developed, please do feel free to list them.) Kirill 15:41, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

If it's a good one, yes in my opinion. It should not be obtrusive, more primarily for internal motivation. Though of course it should be a succint and suggestive; the biggest aber is finding one that is neither militaristic nor pacifistic. and, of course, not encouraging non-npov-pushing...--victor falk (talk) 18:14, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
A motto isn't that bad of an idea. The "They fight, we write" motto is the better one; short and catchy.--Bedford (talk) 17:11, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
I like it. Especially that it can be interpreted as "we try to do what they do with the same dedication" and "we try to build what others are forced to destroy", or something like that. Maybe I even find it excellent.--victor falk (talk) 18:14, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Can we have an official project beer?--THE FOUNDERS INTENT TALK 17:16, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

hmmmmmmm..... what was the landsers' favourite beer?--victor falk (talk) 18:14, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Kirill, personally I'm not keen although that might be an issue with both the candidates. I find mottos and logos a little twee, since the focus should normally be on getting the job done and delivering effect.
Both suggestions imply a separation, and those of us who are serving or retired members of any armed force might take issue with the implicaiton that we're not included.
ALR (talk) 21:36, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, that's a very good point that we hadn't considered. Upsetting the many current and former armed forces members in the project merely for the sake of a motto (which is, as you point out, intended to be more of a "fun" thing than a serious component of our work) would obviously be a bad idea.
Does anyone have suggestions for a motto that doesn't run into this particular issue? Kirill 21:44, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps "Knowledge out of conflict" PētersV (talk) 21:49, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

"Ex bello scientia" in Latin. (out of war, knowledge)
"Ex bello lumen" (out of war, clearness/understanding) PētersV (talk) 23:07, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Is that latin by chance? I was hoping for a latin motto, but couldn't think of one. I like this one, it seems to encompass everything. Good suggestion. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:41, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
The "they fight, we write" one is a lil cheesy, but then the latin one seems crazy serious though. Esskater11 00:51, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Grammatically it seemed to work better in Latin. :-) And it's why we're participating, no? —PētersV (talk) 01:10, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Is that classical or medieval latin? Also, I'm having second thoughts on "we fight, they write", it is easily misinterpretable. The "war is knowledge/light" is a bit.... bellicosely overglorifying or glorifyingly overbellicose, or something? Gloriwarifying --victor falk 23:35, 22 November 2007 (UTC) In the latin vein, which I think is a good one, I'm thinking about "sangvis et ancra" (I sould get a -1 Latin userbox), but when translated it sounds a bit... I don't know, what do you say?--victor falk 01:43, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Thinking classical, though away from home and without my trusty Cassell's dictionary. Many years of Latin, but a long time ago. I should add it's not equating war is knowledge--this isn't Sun Tsu, it's putting very succinctly, as one can only do in Latin (with implied verbs) that the goal is to learn from conflict. Sorry, didn't mean to get deep! :-) PētersV (talk) 02:56, 22 November 2007 (UTC) [actually, maybe I did mean to...]
"Sanguis et ancra" well, "sanguis ancraque" would be more succinct -- are you sure "ancra" is the word you're going for? ancra = valley, no? PētersV (talk) 03:11, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
hm, no. I was thinking of ink. "Blood and ink". From the French "encre". Checking it out, I see it's "atramentum". "Sanguis et atramentum"?--victor falk 08:06, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Atramentum would be (traditionally) ink made from soot black. Blood and ink just seems a little bit gory, even for Latin. Although going back to the original fight/write, "Ex sanguine atramentum" or... hmm... "Ex bello atramentum" might work... considering how synonymous war and fire often are, there's a transformational aspect to it--from the burnt ruins of war comes the soot black from which we fashion our ink. PētersV (talk) 01:40, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Mm... I think we might be on something here. Soot turned to ink is evoquative; and as you say ink is made from soot. I think we should have blood to complete the liquid part of the metaphore. "Ex bello [soot] et sanguine atramentum"? I suppose 'soot' begins with 's', that will give an alliteration. Too bad Churchill didn't promise "blood, tears, and soot" :)... --victor falk 02:14, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Ex bello sanguinis atramentumque - "Out of war, blood and [sooty] ink." Seems like it's getting a bit long though... PētersV (talk) 05:36, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
It's only four words... but my hat off to the people who can pronounce "atramentumque" with an elegant idiomatic flourish. "Encaustum", originally Greek, is the etymology of ink in French. Ex bello sanguinis encaustumque.--victor falk 15:33, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
It sounds really, really good in Scandinavian: "Ur krigets blod, bläck" (or "bläck ur krigets blod", more germanic syntax methinks). Like a kenning from the sagas. Also in French: "Du sang de la guerre, de l'encre". In German: "Schwärze aus dem Blut des Krieges" (nice w/ the near homophony between "schwärze" and "schmerze"</samll>)--victor falk 02:33, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


Should I pick the beer since no one seems able to?--THE FOUNDERS INTENT TALK 03:18, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Ich würde gerne ein Landser Bier, bitte. --victor falk 08:06, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
What about Czech? As brewed during the 30 yrs war? They had honey and stuff in them back then, that would be different. Of course, who has brewery skills and wants to volunteer:)?--victor falk 17:52, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


I realise that this comes across as US-eccentric, but given that this project formed from the merging of three other projects and the fact the we run something like 30 different task forces it would not be out of the realm of possible for us to consider "E pluribus unum", which roughly translates to "Out of many, one". It also nicely encompasses all the different branches and countries whose article com under our scope, giving each equal representation. Just something to think about. TomStar81 (Talk) 11:45, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I object. This is way too wp:bias|US. And you're lucky government works are released in public domain, or else it would be copyvio and plagiarism :) What three merged projects was that?--victor falk 17:52, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually, the United States does not officially use this motto, according to reliable sources. As for the other half of your question: according to the project timeline, our Military history project was forged from the meregers of WikiProject Battles, WikiProject Wars, and WikiProject Military. It just seemed to be an interesting idea. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:10, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
As an alternative along the same lines of thinking, how about a variant of "ex plures totus" ("out of many, all") or "propter plures, totus" ("because of many, all"). I'll admit my understanding of Latin grammar really stinks. BusterD 16:54, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I like Peter's Ex bello scientia or similar variant :) -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 01:15, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Moving along

So, do we want to go with some variation on the war/ink idea (and if so, which one, and in what language)? Are there other possibilities we haven't considered yet? Kirill 02:15, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I think there are other possibilities that haven't been considered yet, and would recommend waiting to move on this in any official capacity until more people have a chance to weigh in the matter. Perhaps we should put a note in the monthly news letter and wait to see if that generates a more robust response? TomStar81 (Talk) 02:27, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
It'll be mentioned in the newsletter, yes. Kirill 18:12, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea where my Cassell's is, but be that as it may, should we go for Latin, that's the easy part. A more structured approach?

Out of
From		 war
suffering
conflict
chaos of war
warring peoples
blood		 comes
is produced
rises		 knowledge
enlightenment
wisdom
(our) writing
history
blood
ink
perspective

Of course we could go for something completely different, "The sword cleaves, the historian weaves." But somehow anything that rhymes doesn't seem to do the topic and mission justice. —PētersV 03:50, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, rhyming does seem a little less serious than expected. Kirill 18:12, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
I just discovered this thread, looking for the military memorials corner around here, but it seems to me that the only really good motto is Kill them all, wikipedia will recognize their own. or perhaps, Kill them all, let wikipedia sort them out. . . .......... Or not. Carptrash 01:17, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Clever, certainly; but too likely to be perceived as a bit tasteless for general use, I suspect. Kirill 06:54, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

The story of my life. Thanks, though, for the reply. Carptrash 15:17, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps 'Lacrimat bellum sanguine atramentumque'? 'War weeps blood and ink'Cromdog 15:05, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I REALLY hate the idea of a "Motto" for the project, and dislike all of the suggested ideas so far. As as been mentioned earlier, it's thoroughly twee, adds nothing, and, IMHO, makes us look like pretentious wankers.--Commander Zulu 23:55, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Commander Zulu, minus all the funny British words that I had to seek definitions for. --ScreaminEagle 19:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me (opinion) that we'd all be kept on our toes a bit if we were to adopt "The first casualty when war comes is truth" as a motto. Carptrash (talk) 08:31, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Late to the discussion as I've just found it, but "Semper exaro" (forever digging up and writing on a wax tablet?) or "Semper Stilus" (forever writing?); the dangers of computer translations ... not that I'm really in favor of a motto. "Eternally editing"? htom (talk) 14:13, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
You are more than welcome to use my old Official Wikimotto:Sapere Aude or Póg Mo Thóin!
)--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) (talk) 02:52, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Flag icons

A difference of opinion has arisen on the utility of the small national flag icons which appear on many biographical infoboxes. Those icons have been removed from (and in some places restored to) infoboxes which contain miniature flags in fields such as place of birth, place of death, etc. (I do not believe they have yet been deleted from infoboxes on military campaigns or battles.) In order to centralize discussion I have opened this section.

Questions which perhaps should be considered are:

  1. Do they add to the appearance and visual appeal of the infobox and page, or are they a distraction?
  2. Do they add value to an infobox which already contains appropriate textual information? Do they do any harm?
  3. Are they, or are they not, "encylopedic", however that term is defined?
  4. Are there limitations which should be considered in order to prevent their propagation to every place where a nation or locale is listed?

A more complete discussion of relevant considerations can be found at WP:FLAGCRUFT.

Particpants may also want to consider whether icons should be used for some purposes (e.g., branch of service, nationality) but not others. (See Wikipedia:Use_of_flags_in_articles#Not_for_use_in_locations_of_birth_and_death.)


This list of course is not exhaustive; add to it if you wish. Kablammo 13:52, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Question: of course this isn't a vote. It would be helpful if those wishing to use these little icons could provide an encyclopedic rationale for their use, beyond mere decoration of course. Arguments about 'at a glance' and 'instantly recognisable' don't seem that compelling to me; words, especially when presented in a standardised infoboxes, are surely far more recognisable than tiny flags, to most of our readers? --John 07:34, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

  • Keep — (I know its not a voting issue but its easier to see how many are for or against the use of them) — Personally I feel they add to the visual appearance of a page. They are not distractive and do not harm the appearance of an infobox when used in that medium. Additionally many viewers, who do not speak English as a first language or are visually impaired, will find them of use to get further information. For example the icons on the Richard Dannatt article info box, note the text is small and the icon is more obvious in its meaning, therefore enhancing the information given. Richard Harvey 15:29, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Remove - The flagicons serve now purpose. They are often incorrect and lead to misconceptions by the reader. For example on a number of the commander-in-chief pages the flagicon of the United Kingdom was placed however teh United Kingdom hadn't been formed yet, this lead to people thinking that the Kingdom of Great Britian had been written by mistake and so changed the words to United Kingdom. This means that many people have unknowingly given false information. Additionally the flags make the info boxs look untidy an ddistract you from the article. Carrying on from a point made by Richard Harvey if you are visually impaired it doesn't matter if the information is in text or picture form thay still cant see it and as i earlier pointed out the differences between the Un ited Kingdom and Kingdom of Great Britian flags are very minute. (Electrobe 08:25, 2 December 2007 (UTC))
  • Keep - I agree with Richard Harvey. Advantages (i) they help identify at a glance whether the person is Army, Royal Navy or RAF (ii) the logos - particuarly those that identify the service concerned are in keeping with the military ethos of displaying insignia (iii) they add a bit of colour to what might otherwise be a drab article Dormskirk 15:54, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Partial keep, partial removal — as per Wikipedia:Manual of style (flags), they are often problematic for the placeofbirth and placeofdeath fields of Template:Infobox Military Person, and should be avoided there. However, the "at a glance" argument for keeping them can be satisfied by using them for the allegiance and possibly the branch fields, and that usage is not contradictory with the MOS guideline. This is a similar situation to the sportsperson infobox examples, where the MOS discourages the use of flag icons for place of birth and death, but permits them for "national team" or "competed for" fields. Andrwsc 16:17, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep I agree with the comments so far. My reasoning for keeping is simple - they do no harm and they do not distract from the information. Instead they add to the infobox visually, emphasising the biographical nationality/armed forces branch of the individual or in the case of military campaigns the key participants. From a personal perspective I think they make an infobox look nice. LordHarris 17:05, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Partial Keep - I agree with Andrwsc above, the flags are very useful to denote the allegience and Branch fields so strong keep there but I have reservations about the birth and death fields as these are of limited value and often misleading especially for British people. Kernel Saunters 17:24, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. It's worth noting that much of this is already pointed out by WP:MILMOS#FLAGS. Kirill 17:42, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

  • Keep Flags are sometimes useful and sometimes not. In the case of info-boxes. The value of an info-box is that it gives quick at a glance information. So if you had someone born in Rhodesia who served in the RAF, then flags would be useful. The Royal Navy once had an admiral from Ceylon (one of his nicknames was "The Man from Ceylon"); the flag of Ceylon in his infobox is nice and eye-catching, and helps the reader.--Toddy1 18:08, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
It is misleading and inaccurate to put the Sri Lanka flag in tho...and if you put the historically accurate flag in I'm not sure it would be useful to most readersKernel Saunters 18:11, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, the modern Sri Lankan flag wouldn't really be correct here unless he was actually born in the modern state (see also the fourth bullet here). (That's one of the main reasons why place-of-birth/death flag icons are a more complex issue than, say, allegiance icons; locations aren't necessarily in the same country now as they were when the individual was alive.) Kirill 18:23, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Partial Keep. They're fine for 'Allegiance' but not for 'Place of Birth' as they can be misleading for 'at a glance' readers. This would accord with WP:FLAGS. Cop 663 18:23, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Remove per WP:MOSFLAG. There might be an argument for keeping them for the allegiance field, as this is at least verifiable. Definitely not for the birth/death field, and I am against using them in the Branch field; I find it hard to see what advantage they confer in any location to be honest. --John 18:36, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Partial Keep I agree with all of the statements about them being useful for 'Allegiance', but definately not for birth or death. Regarding Kirill's statement above, another very problemmatic example for birth and death locations/flags would be Adolf Hitler and rest of the Nazi Party. wbfergus Talk 18:51, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Partial Keep Keep the icons where they make sense: nationality, allegiance; but not for birth and death as no one picks where/when they are born and very few decides where and when they die.--Boffob 19:39, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
  • meta:voting is evil, but anyway. I think the allegiance flags should be kept, for some older Navy admirals, it is helpful when distinguishing which squadron they were from, and under which ensign they flew under. I agree that the place of birth ones are a bit useless though. Woodym555 20:42, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Remove Aside from the rules as set forth in the existing WP:MOSFLAG I think that if we start adding flags to all the places, then its only a matter of time before people start adding them for the battles, wars, medals and various other fields in the infobox. If we aren't careful the articles could look more like a myspace page then an encyclopedic article.--Kumioko 03:12, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Remove. Too much clutter in the infoboxes detracts from the simple, easy-to-read summary. Only key, defining characteristics of subject should be in the infobox as icons/images. — ERcheck (talk) 03:32, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Flags provide a useful amount of information without requiring translation. They're instantly understood by readers, and can help with the flow of an infobox by breaking up unbroken text. JKBrooks85 04:46, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me just to come onto the point above but (as i have already further up in the discussion pointed out) the flags are often incorrect and lead to people editing the article to what they believe to be correct when infact it is the flag that is wrong and there are sometimes they small differences between flags which at the size of which they are shown make it almost impossible to tell between. (Electrobe 08:38, 2 December 2007 (UTC))

  • Keep. Lots of good reasons above given why flags should be used for alliegence and branch and why they should not be used for place of birth or place of death. To assist with the issue of which flags should be used historically, perhaps some form of simple database could be prepared (or in fact may well already be in existence) explaining exactly when each flag should be used to make it clear.--Jackyd101 12:08, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Well then your not keep your partial keep. (12:17, 2 December 2007 (UTC)) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Electrobe (talk • contribs)

Agreed that this is a consensus for partial keep. Please can I now suggest that the flags for allegiance and service / branch be restored (being careful to use the flag of Great Britain where appropriate) but that flags for places of birth & death not be restored Dormskirk 13:21, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

That seems fair. Okay i think this debate is pretty much over and i think that the general consensus is that we do a partial keep with alligence and service/branch being restored were they have been deleted but not the location of birth and death. (Electrobe 15:46, 2 December 2007 (UTC))

I would concur, keep flags for alligence and service/branch but not location + birth/death. LordHarris 16:11, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Partial keep - Flags should be kept for allegiance since they directly & clearly relate to military service -- one of the major uses of flags. But they should be removed for birth & death since, among other things, B&D flags will distract from absorbing the relevant information about allegiance. WP:FLAGS has more explaining that rationale, but the best way to think about it is that a visual tag should be used only to highlight the most salient & notable & defining aspects of a person. In many instances, flags for residence, birth, death, etc., are a distraction from what makes the person notable; but for military people, they are part & parcel of what makes them notable. --Lquilter 16:34, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, the overall sense I'm getting is that allegiance and service flags are more or less fine (or at least not too objectionable), but birth/death ones are typically too problematic to use, at least in the general case. (Obviously, there are almost certainly exceptions to both points, depending on how unusual the historical circumstances are.)
Assuming this general view holds—a couple of days probably isn't enough for everyone to comment, so I expect we'll be getting additional input for some time yet—do we want to leave this as an implicitly understood convention, or would we want to explicitly note this point in our style guide? Kirill 16:37, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
I'd go for style guide as a reflection of the consensus Kernel Saunters 17:23, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

This is something I have been meaning to raise for some time. When in Frankfurt (or was it Stuttgart I forget) I remember passing a model shop and in the window were several models of World War II German ships. The owner of the shop had covered the flags on the ships because apparently it is illegal to display a Nazi swastika in public. I am not sure what the law would be for printing out pages from an internet site (for use in schools etc) which displayed a Nazi swastika, but it would be a shame if the English Wikipedia pages could not be used in such circumstances just because the flags add eye candy to the page. --Philip Baird Shearer 18:28, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Curious. I was under the impression that the German laws permitted use of Nazi insignia in educational and historiographic contexts, and that Wikipedia pages would qualify under this exemption; is this not the case? If not, it's a bigger issue than just these infoboxes, since Nazi flags are used all over the place (e.g. for ships, and so forth) without any attention being paid to that. Kirill 21:20, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Wouldn't Wikipedia not being censored mean that nothing can/should be done about this? --Nick Dowling 07:26, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
To an extent; but we should at least be aware of whether or not there's actually a problem. Whether we choose to do anything about it is a different matter. Kirill 13:45, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
There are legal disclaimers, with links relating to Polish and German use of the Swastika on its image page here:- Image:Flag of Germany 1933.svg, with the same on the Waffen SS image here:- Image:Flag Schutzstaffel.svg. The Image:ArrowCross.svg was used in 1933 by Fascists and remains banned in Hungary, though no disclaimer is on the image page. Richard Harvey 11:39, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Update German Wikipedia, I see, is having swastika-related problems --ROGER DAVIES talk 14:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Further Update (from Wikipedia:Press coverage): "Richards, Jonathan (2007-12-07). "German Wikipedia accused of promoting Nazism". The Times. Retrieved 2007-12-08. Discusses the withdrawal of claims by Katrina Schubert, deputy leader of the Left Party, that the Wikipedia promoted the use of banned Nazi symbols." --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 22:04, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Remove. They add nothing but distraction and confusion. What is the point of having an English flag next to the word "England"? Not to mention all the anachronism. No, unless they actually add something, we can do without them. Coemgenus 02:21, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, sometimes it can be useful, I think it is easier to have a little English/British flag and 'Northampton' rather than have to go into which Northampton you mean in an info box. However, there are some instances when it is just silly to have the flags (To use an example from annother wikiproject, someone added a flag to the name of a team, how can a name have nationality? Plus the sillyness of adding a flag to 'Silverstone' in the British Grand Prix article to indicate that silverstone is, yes, in Britain.) So I guess what I'm saying is flags should be used where informative and not simply used whenever something could vaguely, in some way, have a nationality etc. Narson 14:00, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

  • Comment, even the allegiance and branch of service can be problematic. Look at a recent DYK entry, Stanley Goble, born in Australia, didn't maange to get into the Australian Imperial Force to fight in WWI so made his own way to the UK and ended up flying for the RNAS, transferred to the RAF on its creation, returned to Australia to be a founding figure of the RAAF (resigning his permanent RAF commission in the process) and ending up as RAAF Chief of Staff. How do you summarise that in a flag (or an infobox for that matter). David Underdown (talk) 16:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
By adding two lines in the infobox Kernel Saunters (talk) 16:57, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Since the discussion seems to have died down, I've added what I think can be safely extracted from it to WP:MILMOS#FLAGS:

When dealing with biographical infobox templates, the most common practice is to use flag icons to indicate allegiance or branch of service, but not place of birth or death. However, there remains considerable disagreement regarding the appropriateness of flags in such cases, so editors should not regard this as a universal rule.

Further comments are, of course, entirely welcome. Kirill 04:55, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Does "or" mean that it is acceptable to use one OR the other, but not both in the same infobox? I've noticed a number of recent additions of branch icons to infoboxes where there was already an existing allegiance icon. — ERcheck (talk) 07:48, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
The or isn't really meant to be exclusive here; it's only pointing out that the selection is optional. Would a different wording be clearer? Kirill 13:30, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
  • CommentThe flag icons could be helpful if they are correct for the period, which in many cases they are not see below on (Austrian flags). Additionally, the resistance to having an icon in the template altertered is enormous, given most info box entries are unsourced/unreferenced to begin with. If the correct icon for the period can't be used the icons, which by any measure are 'chrome' and somewhat redundant therefore, should be removed as they perpetuate misinformation.Tttom1 (talk) 00:58, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

How do I semi-protect the Korean War article?

Can somebody take a quick look at the Korean War article and see why the semi-protection isn't working? About two or three weeks ago the semi-protection template was removed, and ever since it seems like an endless cycle of vandalism by IP addresses folowed by a revert by an established user. I re-added the semi-protection template, the DumBot removed it, so I re-added again with the nowiki markup per the instructions, but it doesn't seem to be working. IP addresses are still vandalizing the page. Thanks. wbfergus Talk 22:56, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Adding the template does not protect the page. Only admins can protect an article. You can ask for protection at WP:RFPP. As it is, i looked at the history and it was quite full of vandalism so I have protected it for 3 months. Woodym555 23:00, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Ah. That's what I was thinking, but wasn't quite sure from the instructions on the Dumbot page, which said anybody could re-add the semi-protect template. It seemed like another step would have still needed to be done, like an entry on a master list or something. Thanks for your help. wbfergus Talk 23:58, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Baia now open

The A-Class review for Battle of Baia is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Eurocopter tigre 17:19, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Improving US raid on Iranian Consulate General in Arbil

This article is tortuously bad and a complete mess, anyone with some knowledge of the incident feel like helping edit it? Or barring that can some show me how to tag it with NPOV as I can't seem to get it rightRastov 22:19, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

A question about style

I have question about style in citing distances or other measurements (such as tons, kilograms or miles per hour) in article for military history. Some editors seem to insist on inserting certain code that creates space. But military history books I read are fairly consistent in listing measurements in following style:

155mm ... 12ft 8in ... 100m ... 70mi

Which way is correct? Where do we have standard Wikipedia style rule? I believe we should have consistent style in describing measurements that is consistent with professional use. May we discuss this please? Shibumi2 00:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia does have a house style, at least for uses in article text; from Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Unit symbols and abbreviations:

Values and unit symbols are spaced (25 kg, not 25kg). The exceptions are degrees, minutes and seconds for angles and coordinates (the coordinate is 5° 24′ 21.12″ N, the pathways are at a 180° angle, but the average temperature is 18 °C).

Kirill 00:22, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

This is good. Shibumi2 (talk) 00:27, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

War deaths graph

Do we have a graph that shows war deaths? I've seen one before, and it increases up to ww2, then decreases. There's a couple of pages that could use the graph, and I'm wondering if we already have one, or if someone could make one. - Peregrine Fisher 04:51, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Trip Johnson

There's an editor called User talk:Trip Johnson. He's making uncited amendments to the casualty figures for various battles. He's editing articles about two minutes apart so I doubt that his changes are authentic. I haven't quite decided that he's a vandal yet, but could people keep an eye on him? Nunquam Dormio 18:41, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Relevant discussion on MOS

There is a discussion over at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Hyphens between number and unit in military and naval articles about, well you guessed it, hyphens in military articles. Woodym555 19:58, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Relation between military and intelligence

Military intelligence obviously is within the scope of our project. But what about (currently unclaimed by any project) more generic intelligence (information gathering), espionage and their various subarticles? Should we adopt them? Or should we encourage creation of some 'spying' dedicated WikiProject - or a task force? -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 01:09, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I've been trying to get a formal or informal project going. Look at my userpage to see articles on intelligence that I've either created or heavily revised, which are within a structure (originally suggested, IIRC, by ALR, and with great help from AzureCitizen). For a number of orphaned articles, I have placed merge proposals. Thoughts would be greatly appreciated; I'm a bit brain-numbed tonight on having had to split clandestine HUMINT and sub-articles several times. Also, I did a major rewrite of intelligence analysis.
It is hard to separate special operations, and I have been filling in the main special operations missions, especially as they relate to intelligence. Part of the challenge in organizing both intelligence and special operations is that many articles overemphasize fiction and popular culture. Do the "lists of fictional characters" belong in main articles, or separate lists? Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 02:13, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

If there's any interest, we can certainly create a military intelligence task force. This probably won't cover everything, but it should include the bulk of the core topics, at least. Kirill 04:12, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Some categorization work at the Commons will be needed. The last time i checked that there it was still a mess. I'll try to deal w/ that later on. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 14:57, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
This could problems with the UK, as the traditional counter-espionage and espionage departments (popularly known as MI5 and MI6, after their original Military Intelligence designations) are actually run these days by the Home Office (interior ministry) and Foreign Office (exterior ministry) as civilian organisations. The CIA is civilian too. --ROGER DAVIES talk 15:24, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Roger, Security Service, GCHQ and SIS report to their respective secretary of state, but they're not run by the department. The JIC sets the national intelligence priorities and the three agencies deliver to those priorities. They are however predominantly civilian organisations, I'd agree with that.
JTAC on the other hand is a mixed organisation.
There is little clarity around the mil/civ boundary in most activities.
ALR (talk) 16:19, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
By no means would this be limited to the US mil/civ. Certainly with the US, NATO, UKUSA, perhaps ASEAN, and others, there's not just a failure to have a distinction between military and civilian, but among strategic, tactical, and operational. As a US example, there are at least four major programmatic and budget components:
  • NFIP (National Foreign Intelligence Program) strategic, but feeds TENCAP; tends to include "civilian" agencies that still have large military components, or vice versa
  • TENCAP (Tactical Exploitation of National Capabilities), where warfighters can get downloads from strategic assets, on a blurred civilian-military boundary (is NGA output from a NRO bird civilian or military?)
  • JMIP (Joint Military Intelligence Program), more strategic than tactical
  • TIARA (Tactical Intelligence And Related Areas), which still can produce national-level information at the same time as tactical.
Further, such missions as Special Reconnaissance, while usually by special operations forces on the ground, still are often tasked by theater level and above. What if a corps-level long range surveillance mission comes up with nationally significant data?
I don't see any easy civilian-military split, and, with roles such as Special Reconnaissance, Counterproliferation, etc., it's going to be very hard to exclude military special operations units -- to say nothing of CIA paramilitary officers.
My proposal is to try to come up with an outline of the problem, and then fit military and civilian, to the extent that it is useful, under it. I do have an outline, linked to a good deal of content, on my userpage, with crosslinks in some areas thanks to AzureCitizen. The SOF part is weaker, but SR and military force protection CI is under HUMINT. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 15:38, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't see an easy way to discriminate between military and non-military intelligence activities, since essentially both support the policy and operational objectives of the state. The military are just a bit more rowdy about it than the diplomats. The civilian agencies use uniformed manpower for a lot of the collection, I believe that the relationship between NSA and the military collection assets is reasonably well documented in the public domain for example.
I'd just put one word of caution, a lot of the articles do appear to be very US-centric, probably a reflection of the effort that Howard has put into them. I saw the discussion around counter-intelligence but didn't have the personal bandwidth at the time to contribute to it, especially split over three different pages. That is something which can be finessed through though.
I'd lean towards encompassing the whole lot under MilHist
ALR (talk) 16:19, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Agree completely with it being multinational, although we also have to recognize interoperability needs among alliances. The key question for international writing is whether there is a generally common framework around which the specific implementations go. A concern might be, when bringing in fUSSR/Russian material, about whether maskirovka needs to be considered everywhere. Also, one country may have legal separations that another does not, but the same functions should be there.
While I know a good deal about Canadian details, I realize that I knew more about fUSSR doctrine than UK. I suppose that is reflected by running into a cheerfully drunken GRU man at a diplomatic party, who kept toasting "you were such great enemies!" He kept bringing drinks while the rest of us invented secret weapons, but then realized we might be inventing something that actually existed. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 16:55, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Might we create a intelligence task force within WP:MILHIST, but specifically state that it covers more than the boundaries of our project, and note that there is scope for any interested/appropriate projects to share ownership, following discussion in order to give focus for the purely civilian aspects. It might be a task force to save admin for everybody for the moment, but might need to be split off or reorganised in the future. Buckshot06 (talk) 23:56, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree completely. To complicate things further, intelligence intertwines with special operations. Are all sabotage and direct action operations military? What about terrorism, including assassination? To put it in perspective, I once wrote a little piece on C3IRSTA requirements for the Tribe in the Big Cave By the Wide River's mammoth hunt. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 00:02, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
I would propose we say this putative task force includes intelligence aspects of special operations - definitely things like the Intelligence Support Activity/or whatever it's known as right now - but clearly states that while the subjects are intertwined, it only covers the intelligence aspects of such anti-terrorist, covert action, etc type activities. The other side of those things would be picked up by the putative to-be intelligence wikiproject that would joint-parent this hypothetical task force, and, on the other side, other task forces - or even the main project - from WPMILHIST. We do not have a 'land forces' or 'special operations' task force at the present, so by default they're handled by the whole project. Incidentally, understand what you say about the requirements for a neolithic era mammoth hunt, but I personally believe that when one gets to C4ISTAR (a la the Joint C4ISTAR Battle Center at Suffolk, VA) or C3IRSTA or whatever superacronyms are used, they begin to lose their meaning. I would argue for the neolithic mammoth hunt, simply C2 and reconnaissance covers most of it, as recce in most senses generally covers the I, S, and TA of C3IRSTA. Just my 2 cents. Buckshot06 (talk) 02:26, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm really going to have to find that article, if for comic relief. Geophysical MASINT does seem to cover weather intelligence these days, so when the Chief sends a scout to watch the grass to figure out which way is downwind of the mammoths, that's one subdiscipine, and the ear to the ground is seismic. The hunters have to keep the herd under continuing surveillance, and then the chief needs the TA to figure out both where to put the spearmen, and where the cliff is to drive them over. IMINT is going to be a problem, I will admit, but who says a UAV has to be electronically controlled? What about a hawk or vulture (well, the latter aren't direct controlled, but they are autonomous and multispectral...) Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 05:02, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't think a fairly broad scope would be problematic here; "military history" is broader than formal military actions in any case, so partially or even mostly civilian intelligence work in support of military institutions, warfare, defense, etc. could still be reasonably covered. We could even omit "military" and simply have the "intelligence task force".
(A few topics completely unrelated to us, e.g. the specifics of corporate espionage, may need to be left for a potential wider project on espionage to deal with, however.) Kirill 02:50, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Apropos the above, some countries are doing a blend of industrial/sales and technology recruitment, or even just buying samples. Incidentally, I spun off "Clandestine HUMINT asset recruiting", which was almost instally deleted by ST47, who hasn't responded to queries.
I copied you, Kirill, with his messsage saying, apparently, that it was properly deleted and that it had to be encyclopedic, notable, referenced and coherent, and Wikipedia "doesn't do spinoffs". Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 15:11, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree; I specifically said 'intelligence task force' rather than 'military intelligence task force' above to cover the wider intelligence issues. Buckshot06 (talk) 04:16, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Apropos national approaches

There certainly will be different names for similar functions, but what, I suspect, is especially important to recognize early (not necessarily solve) are different cognitive and management approaches. I broke cognitive traps out into a sub-article of intelligence analysis, but I would be fascinated to know if these turn out to be US-centric or not.

I'd note that the cognitive trap work probably preceded a lot of knowledge management technologies. Do various countries organize information in a like manner? Certainly, there has to be agreement, within NATO, on things like geographic coordinates and message priorities, or there is no interoperability.

What may or may not be still-relevant questions get into the use of information. Recognizing I'm going to use examples that aren't particularly intelligence related, I remembered a discussion between Patton and Montgomery, where Patton treated an order as only giving discretion about the means of execution, while Montgomery regarded an order, to a senior officer, as a basis for discussion. In a different area, I first saw the "O Group" as a UK custom, but the term seems to be propagating. Does it have the same connotation to all countries? If, then, there is a framework for propagating the commander's intent and getting staff/subordinate input, is intelligence used in a like manner? I'd guess that the greatest differences among countries would be in the more interpretive parts, not collection or even basic analysis. In the dissemination article, I make some distinctions between estimates, and a broader concept that I think can encompass both US "net assessment" and Soviet (and presumably Russian) "correlation of forces", the latter term being more evocative for me. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 19:19, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Intelligence task force

So, are there any objections to creating an "Intelligence task force" to cover these various topics? Kirill 13:38, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the question originally posed related to whether this information properly fell into military or non-military project coverage. While I see no difficulty with eventually mustering sufficient editors to cover the task force work needs, I'm wondering whether WikiProject Top Secret or WikiProject Spies and Spying wouldn't be a better platform than an inside MilHist Task Force. After all, much of spying relates to diplomacy and information (public and private sectors), not military specific information gathering. Private security contractors would normally not fall under the MilHist banner, so private investigators and corporate spying would also fall outside the project. I'm not sure I claim to know the correct answer, and I certainly don't object to creating an intelligence task force, I'm wondering whether a different approach might be more flexible long term. BusterD (talk) 15:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
I think there's potential for both an in-house task force dealing with the military/national security aspects of intelligence (which is what I think Howard is focusing on), and a broader project dealing with espionage (which I suspect would lean quite heavily towards popular culture aspects). As a practical matter, editors working on, say, Bond films and editors working on, say, SIGINT are probably not going to have all that much potential for common discussion. It may be better to fiddle with the edges of the scope a bit and cover all "dual-use" aspects of intelligence ourselves, rather than pushing everything out to an external project.
(But I'm not really set either way. If the people actually working in this area would prefer an entirely separate project, that's fine with me.) Kirill 15:35, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Kirill that it sounds like two distinct areas. "Spies and spying" doesn't equate to intlligence gathering on a national and quite possibly industrial basis. OSINT is very important for industrial work, although HUMINT takes place. At the national level, the budgets go to SIGINT and IMINT collection, but everything being discussed is collection, rather than analysis and dissemination. The "national" gets tricky, because it may be even more critical to know the thoughts and messaging of the political and diplomatic level, which will order military action.
Some areas, such as special reconnaissance, fall into both intelligence collection and special operations. I'm unclear, however, how private security contractors, as I understand the term, have much to do with intelligence.Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 16:30, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
I suppose that employees of Blackwater Worldwide might be able to clarify that last issue a bit for you. We live in an era of the emerging dominance of private security firms and activities. In the US today, the majority of paid guns in holsters are private sector (contractor) weapons, not military or law enforcement weapons. I visited a major military installation last week, and visible base security was entirely civilian contractors (gate and roving patrol). Private contractors sort through intel for government. Private investigation and private data analysis are growth industries (based on comparative stock values in the sector). We could choose to ignore this in the task force coverage (which sounds like what is going to happen), or we could devise a receiver for those civilian intel pages as we stumble across them. It's not a minor issue, but it poses no obstacle from creating an in-project task force. BusterD (talk) 14:23, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Without turning this into a political issue, I think that would have to be outside scope. First, providing visible security services doesn't fall under the usual definition of intelligence. At best, it's a low-level function attached to physical security, which, depending on one's preference, falls under intelligence cycle security or under counterintelligence. There are contractor and consultant firms in OSINT, and to some extent in areas such as SIGINT and IMINT, often with people retired from government. There's no question that high-dollar collection equipment is built by contractors. Whether a gun in a holster is private or public, that's really on the periphery of what I would call intelligence.
The first question that I would ask, however, is whether or not the process of SIGINT collection, or OSINT analysis, etc., is generally different than what would be done by a soldier or civil servant. Remember, the intent here is also not to be US-centric. If their analytic or collection methods are different, that would be notable. OSINT is probably the best example of collection, and I do have some reasonably recent experience with that. Most of the same data bases and techniques are used.
I wouldn't know where to start getting a general idea of the true intelligence methodology used by private contractors. In general, the programs I know about use the government doctrinal manuals. Where a private data collection firm is involved, its methods may be harder to get at than the classified public. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 14:47, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I see you've already investigated Wikipedia:WikiProject Intelligence Agency, which isn't currently active. I hope I'm not sounding argumentative in this thread. My point is that considerable (and growing) intel tasks and resources are being given to the private sector, and perhaps we should find some meaningful way to embrace this material. I would assert that the vast majority of intel and counter-intel activities take place under the umbrella of diplomatic and corporate activity, not military activity. I'll concede that last assertion is OR. BusterD (talk) 15:00, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
As you say, I don't think we are in that much disagreement. Ironically, while I haven't worked much on OSINT, there was a flap there because one of the recognized private-sector OSINT group gave links, but was chased out because people regarded them as spamvertising. This is a problem we may run into elsewhere, and, if we do have a project/task force, with some ground rules defined, we probably need to say something like "Links to substantive web sites dealing with this topic is not considered spam, if (1)the firm is recognized in the area and (2) the site speaks about their methodology (and possibly sponsors/customers)."Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 15:37, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I've run into similar difficulty when revising Computer repair technician. Virtually any link I can find relating to practices or procedures links to manufacturers or products. While reading about this non-military intelligence issue, I noticed that WikiProject:Law Enforcement doesn't want to be associated with Security guard, so there's definitely a hole in the project structure. BusterD (talk) 15:53, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, we could probably step into the gap to a certain extent, since we already cover mercenaries, private armed forces, and so forth; but there's a distinction between security contractors of the Blackwater type versus run-of-the-mill security guards at a local mall that would need to be somehow dealt with. Kirill 16:02, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Gents, I think in the PSC/ PMC marketplace there is a broad range of firms providing services, and a huge grey area. Some PSC/ PMCs provide purely risk assessment services, Int assessment by any other name, using Open Source and their own routes to other sources. There were until recently also firms which offered some of the collection services, I don't know if the US still uses privately contracted interrogators for example; a considerable leap too far from the UK perspective, where it is firmly a government function. I guess there is a broader MilHist question about treatment of logistics firms and the links who do provide services fairly far upthreat.
I still prefer the idea of Int related work falling under the MilHist project; the majority of collection assets have a heavy military presence and the assessment organisations have either military origins or a strong military relationship. I have a feeling that a task force is the way ahead, although it might struggle to get enough active contributors. I do know that I haven't got a huge amount of time and I'm also very wary of discussing quite a lot in the article set, because most of the sources I have access to aren't really appropriate for this medium.
With respect to links, the guidance at External Links is pretty clear. If the topic is covered in the article then nice to have links aren't required, if it's not covered in the article then make an effort to include it, if that's impossible then clearly the links aren't appropriate. If it is covered then the link could be used as a reference. I'm not a big fan of long lists of links and other reading since in many cases it is advertising or spam.
ALR (talk) 08:57, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I think there's enough here to work from; unless there are strong objections to the idea, I'll go ahead and create an intelligence task force sometime in the next few days, and we can fiddle with the fringes of its scope later on. Kirill 15:06, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

As some of you (ALR, at least), I've been doing a good deal of work recently on the CIA article. When I first looked at it, it seemed extremely biased, and with most content devoted to a litany of alleged and actual covert actions, often with very little substantiation. It's also huge and needs to split up just to be reasonable to edit.
My effort on the "craft of intelligence" itself, in the series of articles mostly descending from intelligence cycle management, and some material about special operations, is that is a less controversial way to avoid the perceptions of "Dark Forces" or "Great Satan". In any event, a large part of what is called "intelligence" in Wikipedia is not; that's one reason that I wrote "Clandestine HUMINT and Covert Action", which points out some of the conflicts and is not unique to the US.
I don't know if there's a lesson to be learned from the CIA article, because I've made a number of suggestions on the talk page, as well as cleanup of the article. There has been very little comment, certainly in the last 2-3 days, from any of the existing editors, especially one who seemed to get very angry that we suggested a 1948 mission definition might be a little overtaken by events. At this point, unless someone knows what is happening with the original CIA groups, I strongly recommending focusing on the process and then giving specific organizational access, rather than starting with organizations. Comments? How do we avoid conspiracy theory, which runs through a lot of the preexisting content, as well as too much emphasis on fiction? Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 16:14, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I've created the task force at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Intelligence task force. Further fiddling with the scope, if needed, can take place there; in the meantime, the editors working in this area can go ahead with their plans. Kirill 02:03, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

FAC for USS Illinois (BB-65) needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the FAC for USS Illinois (BB-65); all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! TomStar81 (Talk) 07:42, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Tag & Assess 2007 - Top twenty

As of 0830 (GMT), 5 December 2007:

  1. Bedford – 6,340
  2. TomStar81 – 4,250
  3. FayssalF – 3,500
  4. Cromdog – 2,200
  5. Roger Davies – 2,030
  6. BrokenSphere – 2000
  7. Maralia – 2,000
  8. Parsival74 – 2,000
  9. Jacksinterweb – 1,510
  10. JKBrooks85 – 1,250
  11. MBK004 – 1,115
  12. Sniperz11 – 1100
  13. Kateshortforbob – 1000
  14. Raoulduke47 – 1000
  15. Welsh – 850
  16. Woodym555 – 800
  17. Colputt – 760
  18. Avocado – 750
  19. Eurocopter tigre – 750
  20. Blnguyen – 580

So far, 78 editors have assessed nearly 45,000 articles. Please help too. --ROGER DAVIES talk 08:46, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I have trouble imagining how people can cover thousands. I am fairly active and I am just approaching 200... that said, bulk of my time does not go into this project, so this probably explains it. The more kudos for the people who do the bulk of assessment - as always, 10% of people do 90% of the work :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 13:23, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Category for people killed by friendly fire?

Would it be useful to create a category for people killed by (or died as a result of) friendly fire? There is Category:Friendly fire incidents which is perhaps sufficient, although it's not named in a way that suggests that individuals such as Stonewall Jackson or Lesley J. McNair should be placed in it. I don't know how many articles would belong in such a category, but probably more than, to name some oddly specific subcategories of the deaths-by-cause category tree, Category:Robot caused deaths or Category:People executed by ligature strangulation. —Kevin Myers 16:31, 5 December 2007 (UTC)


I have a mild discomfort about the concept, which perhaps colours my judgement. Not a category that I see a great deal of value in, and I'd hesitate to use the but it's not as weird as other categories argument to support establishing it. However I'm not opposed to it.
I would prefer a more appropriate title though, there is nothing friendly about fires. In military terms it's fratricide, since you're suggesting only those killed rather than injured, and we should perhaps look to using that title?
ALR (talk) 16:38, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Chinese swords

Chinese swords has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chinese swords 132.205.99.122 (talk) 22:32, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Rereview of some FA articles

The current featured articles First Crusade and Second Crusade are not even good articles. They don't have enough citations and probably they have more problems. They should be reviewed and assessed again.

In addition I propose making a task force to review the articles which have been considered as FA before 2007.--Seyyed(t-c) 08:08, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

No need for a task force at the moment in my opinion. Perhaps some sort of drive/contest once our current one is over. We already have Wikipedia:Featured articles with citation problems and our showcase has several blanked out FAs which need improving. Remember though, citation counting is not very helpful. Good idea in principle. Woody (talk) 10:26, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
The coordinators had actually been discussing the possibility of a special contest to improve those "hidden" FAs up to current standards; but we've been holding off on actually starting it while the assessment drive is still in full swing. :-) Kirill 13:51, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
It's written in Wikipedia:Featured articles with citation problems This list is not canonical, a policy, a "punishment" for articles, or a proxy for the regular Featured article review; it is meant to aid people in tracking featured articles that may have citation issues, and not more than that.
Those two article were there for more than a year[1]. So this process can't solve the problem. Can you check them in this WikiProject or I should nominate them in Wikipedia:Featured article review.--Seyyed(t-c) 14:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
I think they are perfectly fine articles; no matter what you do to them now to bring them up to whatever the current standard is, someone will come up some new standard at some point, and all our work will be useless again. We already went through this to bring them up to the FA standard a few years ago. But I suppose it should be easy enough to cite everything, and I think I have all the sources here in front of me to do it, so I will try if I can find the time. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:38, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Deletions page

Could some of the template/layout experts take a look at our deletions review page? The current arrangement means that a box appears to hide the shortcut that allows you to edit, at least when viewed from my computer. If the page could be rearranged so that it's easy to click on one link and contribute, that'd be really good. Buckshot06 (talk) 20:27, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

T-55AGM

I have nominated this article as a copyvio, with disagreement from the page's original creator, user:SuperTank17. However the WP:Copyvio page has a massive backlog. Would WP:MILHIST members who are also administrators please take a look at this issue and speed up a decision either way? Thanks Buckshot06 (talk) 20:27, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

FAR

U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

King's German Legion

I just added my name to the project's members list, therefore I am quite new here and have some questions.

  • I can not find the King's German Legion in the lists, neither in 'British military history' nor in 'German military history', despite the template having been added to the article some time ago.Where is it?
  • I can not find e.g. the name of General von der Decken, whose biography should be added to wikipedia (there is already a link to him in the KGL article).Have I to add the name to the open tasks?
  • I added the name and flag icon of Hanover to the 'Napoleonic wars' info box. Allthough Hanover was ruled in peronal union by the British King, it became a seperate state again in 1813 and should therefore be added to the partners of the 7th coalition.

I hope, this is the place for these question and someone can please answer them. Anne-theater (talk) 01:18, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Let's see:
Kirill 02:51, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the answer! That were the lists I ment. No wonder I could not find the KGL. The French list is absolutely wrong! The KGL was an integral part of the British army and should therefore be listed under British military history articles, besides the German military history. How can this be changed? Anne-theater (talk) 22:10, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Fixed. Kirill 22:35, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! Anne-theater (talk) 22:38, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Peer review for 11th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment now open

The peer review for 11th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 18:58, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Content review awards

Content Review Medal

Just to let everyone know, the coordinators have just awarded the first set of Content Review Medals (seen at right) to some of the more prominent participants in the military history review process:

Congratulations to the recipients! We would also like to encourage everyone to take a more active part in the various reviews, as they're one of the most important ways in which we can help with article improvement. Kirill 16:59, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Peer review for Le Paradis massacre now open

The peer review for Le Paradis massacre is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 21:42, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Tag & Assess 2007

The Top Twenty at dawn (GMT) Sunday, 9 December is as follows:

  1. Bedford – 6,400
  2. TomStar81 – 4,250
  3. FayssalF – 3,500
  4. Cromdog – 2,200
  5. Roger Davies – 2,030
  6. BrokenSphere – 2,000
  7. Maralia – 2,000
  8. Parsival74 – 2,000
  9. Jacksinterweb – 1,750
  10. JKBrooks85 – 1,250
  11. Kateshortforbob – 1,250
  12. MBK004 – 1,161
  13. Sniperz11 – 1,100
  14. Welsh – 1,000
  15. Avocado – 860
  16. Woodym555 – 800
  17. Colputt – 760
  18. Eurocopter tigre – 750
  19. Cricketgirl – 700
  20. Blnguyen – 650

In total, 79 participating editors have assessed just over 46,000 articles. Thanks for all the effort so far and please keep up the good work. --ROGER DAVIES talk 10:08, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Peer review for CVA-01 now open

The peer review for CVA-01 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 12:40, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for 1962 South Vietnamese Presidential Palace bombing now open

The A-Class review for 1962 South Vietnamese Presidential Palace bombing is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 12:40, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Air Force Cross winner Gerald Gustafson nominated for deletion

A winner of the second highest award for gallantry in the USAF is being discussed at AfD here [2]. Any additional sources for the article would also be useful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nick mallory (talk • contribs)

My understanding of this project's manual of style is that only winers of "top-level" decorations (MoH, VC/GC etc) are inherently notable. Have I understood this guideline correctly? David Underdown (talk) 11:04, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
As far as guaranteed inherent notability, yes; recipients of lower-level awards have been deleted in the past. Any particular recipient may still be notable, though. Kirill 13:49, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
So far the only notability being claime din this instance is on the basis of the Air Force Cross. David Underdown (talk) 14:47, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, the content of the article is essentially just his award citation. Unless there's substantial material to be added regarding him beyond that, it may be better off being merged into something like List of Air Force Cross recipients for organizational reasons (as it's going to be a permanent stub otherwise), regardless of the exact semantics of the notability debate. Kirill 21:23, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

As this was spared from deletion, does this prompt a need for us to look again at our criteria for notability (someone mentioned we view only the top awards granting notability by association?). From what I could tell, the view of the community at large seemed to be at odds to the projects. I can't say I see an overwhelming need to expand the idea of 'notability by association' for lower awards as that would seem to make a scary number of people notable. I fear however that people could start using this as a good excuse to add their award winning relatives into the encyclopedia, as it is very easy to get the citation for the award to use as a source. Narson (talk) 09:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Personally I wouldn't, as with many AfDs, several of the keep votes amounted to but it's an article, we must keep it. I wouldn't change anything about the MilHist notability perspective, this really points to the systemic problems with how wikipedia has evolved.
ALR (talk) 11:08, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes. Our existing comments on notability are based on observation of fairly extensive precedent; I'd be very hesitant to say that the general consensus of the community had changed after only a single AFD.
(But see also my comments at #Merging permanent stubs below. We may be able to speak more broadly of awards being sufficient for "inclusion" if this does not necessarily equate to requiring a separate article for each recipient [which I suspect will just leave us with thousands of stubs consisting of nothing but the award citation].) Kirill 13:51, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
On a related note, I have now created Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James 'Jamie' Smith for a Bronze Medal recipient. It is a very similar case to the one above and it'll be interesting to see whether the same . Leithp 09:06, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

famousamericans.net and related links

We've had real problems with several single purpose accounts adding hundreds of these links in spite of requests to stop. I started a discussion at:

then left messages on various Wikipedia noticeboards inviting others to join the discussion. I just learned I should have left a note here, so here it is. The domains include not just famousamericans.net but also at least 270 other domains. famousamericans.net has been blacklisted but there is concern that this was done prematurely and that some of the links were removed with too little thought. Other commenters have been opined that these sites and the Appleton's Cyclopedia on which they are based are unreliable and full of errors.

In any event, if you have a point of view, you are invited to bring your guns and other MilHist paraphernalia and join the discussion there.

I'm sorry to overlook this WikiProject in my earlier notifications; pleas don't shoot! --A. B. (talk) 23:39, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Heuschrecke 10 now open

The A-Class review for Heuschrecke 10 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 02:51, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

This was withdrawn. <DREAMAFTER> <TALK> 03:00, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Peer review for Heuschrecke 10 now open

The peer review for Heuschrecke 10 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 21:40, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Fourth generation jet fighter

Can we please have some more eyes on this page? We have an exercises section, somewhat sourced, attempting to compare various fighter combat exercises as part of the article. I've reverted people deleting the section a couple of times, but there may be reasons to delete it after all. Would people with more knowledge than me about these matters please kindly take a look, and we can come to some greater consensus than there is at the moment... Thanks Buckshot06 (talk) 09:12, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Peer review for Sissi (Finnish guerrilla) now open

The peer review for Sissi (Finnish guerrilla) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 04:05, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Help

I just rewrote USS Illinois (BB-65) to improve her shot at passing FAC, but I need new eyes to correct the sp&g errors and ensure that I didn;t leave anything out. Thanks in advance. TomStar81 (Talk) 13:04, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

On that note, there are actually a couple of FACs at WP:MHR#FAC that could use some additional input, if anyone has a bit of free time. Kirill 17:55, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Peer review for Swarming (military) now open

The peer review for Swarming (military) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 17:55, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Tag & Assess 2007 Top Twenty

With nearly 55,000 articles tagged and assessed, the current Top Twenty is:

  1. Bedford – 6,580
  2. Parsival74 – 5,000
  3. TomStar81 – 4,250
  4. FayssalF – 3,500
  5. Kateshortforbob – 2250
  6. Cromdog – 2,200
  7. Roger Davies – 2,030
  8. BrokenSphere – 2000
  9. Jacksinterweb – 2,000
  10. Maralia – 2,000
  11. MBK004 – 1,281
  12. JKBrooks85 – 1,250
  13. Sniperz11 – 1100
  14. Raoulduke47 – 1000
  15. Welsh – 1000
  16. Blnguyen – 880
  17. Avocado – 860
  18. Woodym555 – 800
  19. Colputt – 760
  20. Burzmali – 750

The drive has two weeks left to run so there's plenty of time to earn some lovely barnstars. See Tag & Assess Drive sign up for details! Happy tagging and happy holidays! --ROGER DAVIES talk 10:32, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Removal of {{essay-project-note}}

This page may in fact be an official manual of style guideline, but it is not an official notability guideline, because it has not received (or been proposed for) wide approval as a notability guideline. This notability section is fine as an essay, but it would never achieve approval as an official notability guideline because it is at odds with the general notability guideline. Marking this with the {{essay-project-note}} tag is appropriate. Please see WP:N#Additional criteria and WT:BIO#How to fix the Additional criteria section. —gorgan_almighty (talk) 14:10, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Note: this is in reference to the style guide.
This seems like bureaucracy for its own sake—to my knowledge, nobody has actually objected to our interpretation of the BIO guideline—but, in all honesty, I don't care about the absence or presence of some tag all that much. Kirill 14:13, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Ehm, the removal of the tag is appropriate. --Rschen7754 (T C)

Merging permanent stubs

I'm wondering if it would be helpful to add some material to the style guide regarding permanent-stub articles and the preferable approach to dealing with them. I think that we may be able to minimize the potential impact of deletion nominations if we have a coherent guideline advocating merging snippets of information on the more minor people/events/etc.—about whom there is insufficient information available to sustain full articles—into overview articles/lists (e.g. Battles of the Crusades, Military leaders of World War I, etc.) rather than simply deleting them.

Is this worthwhile (or even sensible?), or am I overthinking things? Kirill 15:57, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Good points Kirill. Following your logic, do you (or anyone else) think about using "permanent stub" as a 'concept' instead of just a 'procedure'? -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 16:28, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure what you mean; is there a practical difference that would result from making that distinction, or is it just a terminological matter? Kirill 03:21, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
What's a permanent stub? Isn't the general idea to expand all articles to contain as much relevant information as possible? JKBrooks85 (talk) 04:06, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Brooks im gona guess that a permenent stub is an article that doesnt have enough infomation to make it past stub size. BonesBrigade 04:16, 18 December 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by BonesBrigade (talk • contribs)
Pretty much. Examples can be found everywhere, but the typical ones would be obscure ancient and medieval topics; there are many battles for which all we know is the year and the kings fighting, for example. Having an article that's almost certainly not going to grow beyond "According to the Chronicle of N, the Battle of X was fought in 903 by Y and Z" isn't really the optimal approach, I think. Kirill 04:22, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Japanese swords discussion at JA:WP

A discussion [3] regarding Japanese swords is taking place at JA:WP, regarding the validity of some articles/article entries. Any input would be welcome. TomorrowTime (talk) 13:46, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Peer review for Anglo-Japanese Alliance now open

The peer review for Anglo-Japanese Alliance is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 21:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Unit numbering

In my assessment efforts, I have noticed a number of articles (specifically those on WWII/Cold War US Bombardment Groups) which feature numbers such as 382d and 333d instead of 382nd and 333rd. Is this standard in modern unit designations, or is it a mistake? LordAmeth (talk) 13:59, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

It's a usage common in US military documents, if I recall correctly. Kirill 14:04, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
The problem with it, I think, is that it /looks/ like a mistake to the untrained eye and that the articles are often inconsistant and use both. I acctually fiddled with one a while back as half were 33rd and the other were 33d. Narson (talk) 15:00, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Infobox query

Folks, looking for a bit of advice here. Having worked on several Battle of... articles in the past few months, I'm about to start on my first Siege of... article, and it strikes me that {{Infobox Military Conflict}} may not be entirely appropriate for a siege. Is there an alternative infobox more suitable for a siege article, or can someone point me at a decent quality (GA/A/FA) siege article so I can check out parameter usage and stuff?

Thanks in advance. Carre (talk) 17:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The only siege articles at the A/FA level that I could find are Defense of Sihang Warehouse and Siege of Malakand (although a few other battles may be borderline, or include siege components), both of which use the infobox. Personally, I'm not sure what the problem with using the infobox for a siege would be, and most developed siege articles I've seen use it with no issues; is there some particular problem with it that you see? Kirill 18:27, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for those links Kirill; the infobox doesn't look too bad for those ones. The main things I was concerned about were the numbers: Strength isn't so bad, as I take it the number should be the highest during the period of the siege (although the fact I have to assume that isn't ideal); Casualties is the main problem though. For a protracted siege (over months or years), Peninsular War historians (the articles I'm playing with) don't give definitive numbers list of casualties, not even Oman. Any sally or sortie gets its own casualty figure, and notable injuries or deaths are recorded, but not a lot more. I guess I should just leave the casualties out of the infobox, and follow the historians lead. Carre (talk) 18:45, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Ah, ok. This isn't really an issue limited to sieges, I think, since there are many pitched battles for which we don't have casualty figures as well. Leaving out the casualty figures entirely is one option. Another option would be to give any known numbers as a lower bound; if, for example, one assault is known to have caused 5,000 casualties, but no numbers are available for the entirety of the siege, one can give "5,000+" as the overall number (see, for example, the infobox and footnote #2 here). Kirill 18:53, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Johnson Beharry‎

Could we have some eyes on Johnson Beharry‎ there have been a couple of recent attempts to insert a "Controversy" section into the article - so far without giving any sources at all, so I've reverted per WP:BLP, and I'm trying to get some discussion going, but since I really only went to the article to fix the London Gazette refs, I'll soon be out of my depth. David Underdown (talk) 19:51, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

That looks like a clear cut case of ill-informed speculation and POV pushing. VCs are only handed out after very careful consideration, so any claims that a VC winner didn't deserve their medal need a very strong citation to be worth including (eg, something which quotes a recognised expert). It's notable that the source provided by User:Lloyds2007 is "Controversy highlighted in ARRSE (Army forum)", which isn't close to being a reliable source, and the disputed text looks like it's a collection of message board posts from armchair generals. It looks like there might also be some sock pupetry going on with User:Lloyds2007 and User:Whygurkhas? making identical edits... --Nick Dowling (talk) 09:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
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