Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 91

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Book-class

Since this is one of the bigger projects, and that quite several Wikipedia-Books are Milhist-related, could the Milhist project adopt the book-class? This would really help WikiProject Wikipedia-Books, as Milhist people can oversee books much better than we could as far as merging, deletion, content, and such are concerned. Eventually there probably will be a "Books for discussion" process, so that would be incorporated in the Article Alerts. I'm placing this here rather than on the template page since several taskforces would be concerned.

There's an article in this week's Signpost if you aren't familiar with Wikipedia-Books and classes in general. Thanks. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 20:29, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd support this. I suspect that many of the milhist books can be/would be tagged by their creators anyway, so it wouldn't require, much, if any, work. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 20:43, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
Lemme know if you have questions/feedback. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 21:26, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
I feel that this is a great idea, especially seeing as it would, as Ed has already said, require little, if any, work. My regards, Laurinavicius (talk) 23:50, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
It does seem easy enough to change the template, and it certainly wouldn't hurt anything. – Joe N 01:43, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
This would be good, since this project does a lot of clusters -- submarines, pilots, that sort of thing. I was considering collecting the Cologne War articles into a book at some point. If they are ever done. Auntieruth55 (talk) 02:53, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Note that a quick and easy way to create a book is to take a good/featured topic, or a category and simply arrange the articles in a coherent way. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 02:57, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
This should be easy enough to add; if there are no objections, I'll do it sometime in the next day or two. Kirill [talk] [pf] 04:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Good suggestion, I think it's well worth implementing. EyeSerenetalk 17:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Any updates? Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 21:19, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

It's done, I think; please let me know if anything is broken after the updates.
(I'm not particularly happy about the fact that books are in the project namespace; dealing with them would be considerably simpler if they had their own.) Kirill [talk] [prof] 02:14, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
Well there's a proposal on the Village Pump to create a book namespace. That would probably simplify things. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 02:31, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
Everything is working as intended Kirill. I'll go ahead and populate the category by tagging all of the books that have been created from our Featured and Good Topics. -MBK004 02:23, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
BTW, it should be book-class, and not BK-class. See message at Template_talk:WPMILHIST#Book-class. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 02:37, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
Replied there. The template accepts all of the standard class names, FWIW. Kirill [talk] [prof] 02:54, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

'Nazi Germany' or 'Germany' on the World War II article

There's currently a discussion at Talk:World War II about whether the article should refer to Germany as either 'Germany' or 'Nazi Germany'. Interested editors are encouraged to provide their views in this discussion. Nick-D (talk) 22:01, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Johann von Klenau now open

The A-Class review for Johann von Klenau is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Nick-D (talk) 00:16, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Verifiability and FPC

In late October the Library of Congress research librarians confirmed Roger Davies's correction for the identity of a British field marshal. More recently their staff confirmed Monstrelet's identification of a crashed German biplane as an Albatross D.III (plus a few other identifications by Eurocopter, Monstrelet, and myself). Unfortunately it is taking longer than the projected three weeks for these corrections to go live on the LoC website. I have emails from LoC personnel to confirm the updates. Have asked the featured picture community for an opinion whether to continue waiting for the Library of Congress site to update, or to move forward with featured picture updates and candidacies on the strength of the research librarians' emails. Discussion is underway at Wikipedia_talk:FPC#Verifiability_and_FPC. Durova371 19:22, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Battle of Shenkursk

Hi! Anyone interested in doing a quick review of the Battle of Shenkursk?

Thanks --Zegoma beach (talk) 20:53, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Notability of war heroes

I would invite all of you to please enter the discussion regarding awardees of high-level commendations for valor on the WP:N page. It is my assertation that winners of the MoH, DSC, and SS (and their deeds), should be considered notable in of themselves. WP:BIO already lists a set of guidelines for notability that includes such figures as professional sports players, Olympians, actors, professors, and Playboy Playmates as being notable. I believe that our war heroes should be considered no less so. Rapier1 (talk) 19:03, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

If you are talking about the highest awards (such as the VC) you have (perhaps) a point. But I would be very warey of such a list (for example is Sep Detrich a war hero?). Moreover how do you rate heroes from organisations that do not have medals, but who perform acts of bravery in combat (or even from before the wide scale issuing of medals? What about medals awarded for service but not for bravery (such as the Gongresional medal of honour)? What about civilain medals (such as the George Cross, an award for bravery.Slatersteven (talk) 19:10, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

If you are talking about the Medal of Honor, sometimes mistakenly called the Congressional Medal of Honor, that is the highest decoration that the United States military can award, and is the United States equivalent of the Victoria Cross. Rapier1 (talk) 23:42, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Except the CMH can be given to civilans, the VC cannot, nor can the VC be given unless the act of bravery was under enemy fire, so again a differance. In this respect rthe CMH is closer to the GC. This is one reaso I am not sure about this, not all medals are recived (or can be given) for the same reasons. For example is Charles Lindburg a war hero?Slatersteven (talk) 14:47, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
This project has recently developed a notability essay for military people which can be seen at WP:MILMOS#People and covers the kind of awards which can be assumed to mean that people awarded them automatically meet WP:BIO. Nick-D (talk) 23:29, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
This raiseas point, the George Cross is n ot (strickley) the UK's second highest award, its then highest award made to civilians and solders whos acts wer not under enamey fire.Slatersteven (talk) 17:40, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
Hero is almost by definition subjective. Sep Dietrich was a hero in his context. In another context, he was a war criminal. He is certainly a notable military figure. If I understand it correctly, the discussion has been to try to create criteria to achieve a more objective approach to encyclopaedic notability. At the same time, we can't lose the celebrity context altogether - how people were perceived within their culture or among their peers and how that affects their future life is potentially significant in its own right.Monstrelet (talk) 09:41, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps all this discussion occuer in one location? As, a great majority appears to be happening here. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 12:33, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
Actually the VC can be awarded to civilians if under military command (there are I think some examples during the Indian Mutiny, and possibly even Rorje's Drift - comissaries were not strcitly speaking military at that time I believe). The George Cross is essentially equal in status to the VC, the Ministry of Defence refers to both as "Level One" awards. This all really boils down to the availability of relaiable sources. For the VC and GC, and I assume for other nation's "equivalent" award, we say that recipients are automatically notable since many books etc have been devoted to writing about the recipietns, the acts taht won them the medal, and their wider biography. In general such detailed sources do not exist for recipients of lower level decorations, despite their heroism, there are simply too many of them. Some individual recipients may have sufficient sources, but these will often relate to some other aspect of thier life that makes them notable in Wikipedia terms. David Underdown (talk) 19:33, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Additional opinion request

I have tagged certain portions of the article Eric Shinseki since September 2009 with clean up templates relating to WP:NEU, and recently WP:COATRACK. On the talk page section I have received zero comments regarding my opinion of the sections. On the article Helen Thomas, after some time, I removed the section that appeared to be coatrack related, and it actually improved the article by reducing the amount of POV related edits to it. Since it has been several months since this section was tagged, would I be right to remove the content in question? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 22:21, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Disregard, I have decided to be bold and delete the content. If anyone disagrees I am sure they can always revert the edit, and discuss the reversion on the talk page. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 22:27, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Vernon Sturdee now open

The A-Class review for Vernon Sturdee is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 22:44, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for James Whiteside McCay now open

The A-Class review for James Whiteside McCay is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 23:12, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Cleomenean War now open

The featured article candidacy for Cleomenean War is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 23:32, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom election reminder: voting closes 14 December

Dear colleagues

This is a reminder that voting is open until 23:59 UTC next Monday 14 December to elect new members of the Arbitration Committee. It is an opportunity for all editors with at least 150 mainspace edits on or before 1 November 2009 to shape the composition of the peak judicial body on the English Wikipedia.

On behalf of the election coordinators. Tony (talk) 09:39, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Thomas Baker (aviator) now open

The A-Class review for Thomas Baker (aviator) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Abraham, B.S. (talk) 02:50, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Submarine articles

May I just ask for attention to the contributions here of User:AchimKoerver. I have left a friendly message on his/her talk page, however thought it appropriate to leave one here too. The user adds hidden messages to the sections they add warning users not to edit them:

<!-- --> <!-- Please DO NOT CHANGE the text in this chapter - it is a CITATION FROM ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS --> <!-- If you want to add a correction or a comment, please use the footnotes. Thanks. --> <!-- My sources - Wright or Wrong... --> <!-- -->

As well as having some stylistic things which I have advised him from, and some NPOV and OR statements such as "this obvious breach of International Law" such as "lso S.S. Belgian Prince on 31 July, survivors being lined up on submarines deck and drowned" both from SM U-44. Just for your information, the user has written several articles now - he or she is quite prolific in his writing. SGGH ping! 22:04, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I had concerns as well, I actually raised this separately at WT:SHIPS here within five minutes of your post. Benea (talk) 22:11, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Does anyone have access to the sources used? The wording of the hidden comment could indicate possible copyright vio... (just thinking "worst case" here) EyeSerenetalk 23:48, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
I can't say for sure, but assuming this is what it is represented to be this looks like British intelligence information from World War I (and thus well out of copyright). However, adding it directly to the articles in this format is not appropriate: it violates WP:NPOV for a start, such information was often of only limited accuracy and from the looks of it this transcription seems incomplete. It certainly isn't good prose. It does look at this point as if this is a good faith user however, and with a bit of explanation and guidance they could be an asset to the project. --Jackyd101 (talk) 00:43, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
it looks like it might also violate OR, if the material isn't published, or accessible in some way. Plus there is always the prose issue. AND although it might not be a copyright vio, it isn't a good idea to transport text verbatim either. Better to paraphrase and contextualize it. And there is also the apparent ownership issue. Auntieruth55 (talk) 00:51, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
If they are copyvio, it's a biggie, 'cause he looks like to be using a cut & paste; a lot of pages have little more than the names changed. On the plagiarism issue, presuming it's a verbatim lift, that's broader than just AchimKoerver, since many of the USN ship pages are verbatim lifts from DANFS. (And, yes, this is an issue I've complained about before, to no avail.) Don Bolan I'll get to it, Leo 00:59, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
well perhaps he thinks that by citing the source in the header (where did that idea come from), s/he's avoided the plagiarism thing. I'm having a hard time resisting a little tinker with the text, just to see what the reaction would be. My-bad. Auntieruth55 (talk) 01:02, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
DANFS is public domain, you are not going to win that battle, plus the entries are modified to be less POV-pushing, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships/DANFS conversions -MBK004 03:06, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
"DANFS is public domain" That's the same bullshit argument I've been hearing all along. All it means is the publisher can't (won't) sue you, not that it's not plagairism. Wrong, I fear, is still wrong. (And yeah, adding the "DANFS" tag is all most are bothering to do. Lazy.) If there's less "POV-pushing" in them, I haven't seen it. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 03:44, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Estow the tune of DANFS, Gentlemen, there will be time to handle that issue later. The problem right now is that this behavior can not be allowed to stand. Whether they are copyvio's or plagerized does not change the fact that we have WP:OWN issues here, and if this problem is not managed quickly NOW then its going to create problems for us down the road. We need to:

  • Remind the editor that no one owns any pages here,
  • mark the pages as possible copyvios,
  • remove the hidden messages, and
  • Look into how many page may be effected.

If the user in question decides to join us and contribute in a manner consistent with all established guidlines and policies then so be it, if not then we may need to consider blocking the account. For now, lets get to work on the above points. 76.211.107.188 (talk) 05:44, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

At the risk of appearing to both defend copyvio, & contradict myself, may I suggest not being too hasty? First, let's establish there is a copyvio? Probababilities & appearances do not guilt make, so posting copyvio warnings may be premature. That said, I fully agree, remind on own & remove the hidden msgs. As to #pp affected, it appears to me all the sub pages posted are, in 1 degree/another, since they seem to be boilerplated, with details changed as needed. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 08:26, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
Hence the "possible". As both you and MBK have pointed out, there is disagreement over DANFS material and its status for use here, and there is more than one way to mark a page as a copyvio. A simple listing of articles here that have the hidden messages would suffice for now until we can locate the sources used in the articles. 76.211.107.188 (talk) 10:03, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
Hello again. I have received an email from the user asking me to explain my actions. He lists some issues of perceived political bias on Wikipedia, but in all his hasn't been offensive or anything (I shall reproduce the email if so required). I have replied in a friendly manner and explained my actions. I believe he has also emailed one User:Brad101 (a user I don't believe I have met before) asking for clarification. I shall summarise my reply as follows: I didn't change his introduction because it was subjective nonsense as I accused me, but because it was a summary of the entire war not a WP:LEAD of the article. I did tag a couple of controversial statements with citation needed tags. I did not "manipulate" his footnote, merely placed it outside of a section heading. I did not censor the article. I do not have "Hitler-friendly" views as he stated to me in his email. I appreciate him taking the time to email me, and advise him to contact a second admin to review all our actions if required. I informed him I would reproduce his email (with his email address censored for privacy) if required to by any 3rd party.
That's a summary of the email. As I said, I can reproduce it in its eternity if required. The IP address above made the following suggestions, and I have added on my actions thus far:
  • Remind the editor that no one owns any pages here, (I have done so on his talk page)
  • mark the pages as possible copyvios, (I will leave that to someone familiar with the source as per concensus)
  • remove the hidden messages, (I have removed one from the article I first found, which I trimmed down overall and changed to fit guidelines as I interpret them, and I have removed the hidden message only from one other.)
  • Look into how many page may be effected. (I believe a list of his contributions may help here.)
Thank you for your assistance thus far, I shall be here for any questions on my actions thus far. Cheers. SGGH ping! 13:42, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
How did he get "Hitler-friendly"? These are World War I submarines!--Jackyd101 (talk) 14:04, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
Yes, that struck me as odd. SGGH ping! 14:27, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

This is somewhat tricky. The user in question reprinted two volumes of a post-WWI account of British naval intelligence by Birch and Clarke, both of whom served in Room 40. Quite apart from the bias one might expect in a work of this nature, and a certain level of inaccuracy, there is also published evidence that in certain places Clarke lied outright to sully a naval officer's name. I was in touch with Herr Koerver over the summer to draw his attention to this fact. --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 14:53, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I have received another email apologising for earlier hostility. The user writes that he has read up on policy and is happy to nuance his articles to reflect it. I've given him some final points of stylistic advice and also reminded him to remove the hidden warnings. Hopefully these will be put into effect and all's-well-that-ends-well. SGGH ping! 16:13, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
That seems hopeful, it sounds like you're resolving this in the best way possible. Nice work :) Obviously we'll need to keep an eye on things for a while, but there are plenty of experienced editors (and admins if necessary) around these pages to help out. However, I still think we need to be clear about the provenance of the information they've been adding, which sounds from Simon Harley's post that it might be more of a plagiarism than a copyright issue; equally unacceptable, but for ethical rather than legal reasons. It's all part of the learning curve though... EyeSerenetalk 17:54, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
  • ...congratulations may be premature. From what I've seen of the editor's contribution history, he may not understand the problem. He seems to think that an original source must be cited in its entirety, and doesn't need footnotes, that it cannot be broken into smaller cites (as evidence used in specific instances, combined with other material, and so on). These seem to be dated after the SGGH conversation (he attributes the edits to SGGH guidance), but there isn't much difference that I can see....? Auntieruth55 (talk) 21:56, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

(od) I suppose the question to ask is whether there are any RS secondary sources for these U-Boats? If so, they can be added and the primary stuff deleted or edited as required. If there isn't, then it might be more troublesome. Skinny87 (talk) 10:17, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

It's a touch better in the obvious copy-pasting (compare this & this). It looks to me like inadequate grasp of method of citation more than intent to copyvio, but maybe I'm being too generous. There seems to be an effort to get the pages in line (his contributions page is showing extensive revision efforts), but citation is still weak. As to RS, this appears to be reproducing original docs, which might confirm some of the uncited stuff. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 15:51 & 15:57, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Not sure if you were aware or not, but that link you gave is related to the user judging from the email address he originally emailed me from. SGGH ping! 17:36, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Based on the similarities of the names of the user and the author of that website, there may be a conflict of interest going on, too. — Bellhalla (talk) 19:45, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Not aware of any connection. I'm judging on the docs alone. Are they authentic/not? If yes, I'm not clear if COI makes a diff; they could be obtained from Kew by anybody, no? (Admitted, not expert on COI...) That said, I'll leave the new ish to others & suggest our Brit cousins have a look & see if they can authenticate locally (or by permission to the Archives site, which I don't have...) TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 02:05, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't think there is a doubt that that they aren't authentic. You can easily find them in the National Archives cataglogue and they are available to purchase (caveat I haven't actually compared what's in the archives to what's on http://germannavalwarfare.info) but if it is a hoax it's an elaborate one. I wonder if AchimKoerver's attitude about changing any of thw wording comes from the NA copyright rules here http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/legal/copyright.htm e.g. the bit about "material may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium provided it is reproduced accurately and not used in a misleading context". I don't see COI or OR as issues here if all he has done is reproduce the text of historical documents
Also I think AchimKoerver should be cut a little slack here. On any of the articles he's created he's been very careful not to claim that these documents are correct about the movements of each U-boat but are the operations as known to British intelligence. If those need a health warning because either British intelligence was wrong or the author of those documents had reasons for faking records then that can/does need to be addressed (and it might be that topic forms an article in itself?) but I don't see a reason for discounting the information at the moment especially in the absence of anything that can be considered more accurate e.g. log books, German naval records. NtheP (talk) 08:58, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
For myself, I certainly hadn't considered the material was deliberately inaccurate, beyond the POV of the original source anyway. I think as long as there's no copyvio, the editor is engaged productively with others, and they're working to our verifiability and neutrality policies (even if the material is hosted on their own site, the articles I've looked over seem neutrally written), there's nothing much to worry about. EyeSerenetalk 11:01, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
(od) The editor is now re-writing the articles to remove their comment and clarify the sourcing (eg, in edits such as [1] this). I think that British wartime intelligence files are very bad sources given that secondary works using German records have long been available, but until someone comes along to use these sources to redevelop the articles it's pretty inoffensive behavior as at least they're adding some content, even if it is patchy and contains inaccuracies. Nick-D (talk) 11:09, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
"Authentic" maybe not the best word; do they accurately represent the content? (They evidently do.) Is a "health warning" needed? For inaccuracy, perhaps, but I'd argue no more than any wartime doc (incompleteness & rush, if no other reason); Rm40 would be doing it's damndedst to get it right, 'cause they're providing info to A/S (ASW...) forces trying to sink U-boats. Same applies to falsification; these are internal intel docs, not for public release. Ineed, some of the public release docs are more suspect; USN WW2, for instance, made many false (public) claims of U-boat sinkings in the "Happy Time" period, for reasons of morale (not to mention prestige). And yeh, there might be an article (or section, for sure) on the falstiy of public statements. Propaganda in wartime? I agree with Nick-D, it looks like a misunderstanding of process to some degree, & overuse of blanket pasting, & AchimKoerver certainly seems to have the right attitude about fixing it. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 21:15, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
As a side, perhaps that these edits would be better at WikiSource? Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 23:37, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
That's not a bad idea. Just dropping a note off here to say that I assessed these as start-class, but if they are reduced in length and tidied up (some of them copy the same introductory text about WW1 submarine warfare), the assessment may need to drop back to stub. On looking at them more closely, I share some of the concerns expressed above, and feel I should have edited the articles rather than assessed them (or done both), but there are rather a lot of them (about 20-30 so far that I can see). I had presumed that the German records were not available, but from the above it seems they are, and those should definitely be added. Carcharoth (talk) 12:18, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Just call me if you have problems acquiring these German sources or need some translation. Wandalstouring (talk) 15:53, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
I may have spoken too soon. This & this suggest an inability to recognize a citation needn't quote from the source entire, nor retain original formatting. I'm disinclined to suffer reversion... I did leave a note on his talk, where I see previous cmt in the same vein. Maybe just inexperience? TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 16:12, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Or maybe not...judging by this. :( For which I tried leaving a friendly note (on top of TheWeakWilled's warning). For the effort AchimKoerver's put in, it'd be a real shame to see him blocked. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 16:29, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
More bad news. It appears from this AchimKoerver prefers to quit WP & delete all the pages he's put up... (I did try & encourage him to stay.) TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 04:52, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
It appears that he did make a "last stand" in trying to get "his" articles to appear the way he wanted yesterday in addition to just on U-71 (there were about 15 treated in the similar way but were not blanked when he was reverted), of which I have just reverted a great deal of, but some further examination of his recent contributions would be appreciated. This truly is a mess... and while it is sad we are apparently losing an editor who knows a great deal about the subject, they simply do not understand why their actions are wrong per our policies. -MBK004 05:27, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
It looks like there's some ignorance, based on his talk comments; how much of that is willful & how much is an unwillingness to admit error (which of us does that well? :) ), is unclear. (I dislike seeing anybody quit here, esp over a fixable problem. {Vandals I'd ban on a 1st offence, but that's another ish entire. ;p}) OTOH, if the docs here are reliable (& they seem to be his main source), it's not a dead loss. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 07:27, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
From the interactions I've had with the user, and the evidence here, it just strikes me as a user who has not yet made the transition from history work to Wikipedia writing. SGGH ping! 11:52, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
I've left another message at his talk trying to use myself as an example of how he'll need to use Wikipedia as Wikipedia, and not as a history book or journal. SGGH ping! 12:02, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I ended up looking into this situation from a tangent while looking at something else only slightly related (but not related to Achim). For the past few days, I've been going through all the contributions of Achim, so I can get a grasp on the nature of the controversy, and I did not know until today that this long discussion even existed (thanks to SGGH for pointing it out to me). I believe some of the above was a misunderstanding. If you will all look at the SM U-92 article, you will see a new way that Achim is presenting the data so as to, show the actual source document in an image, which makes clear that what he is providing is simply a strict transcription of that image. I believe that that, not OWN is why he placed the particular hidden message. Not to claim ownership but merely to point out that *what follows* is a transcription. In a few cases, he tried to enquote the material to make this even more clear, but that enquoting was reverted. Enquoting or <blockquote>ing might be another way to make that more clear to a casual reader. Achim's primary language is not English and so the way he expresses himself is not that clear. His use of the word "citation" for example I believe means "quotation". At any rate, I have been working with him a bit to try to resolve this.Wjhonson (talk) 19:59, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid the issue goes beyond misunderstanding of "citation" or "quotation". This suggests any change to what he's written will be reverted. And, for myself, I find posting the actual docs a "See, I'm right'. As noted on Wjhonson's talk, AFAIK, nobody's questioning their existence or authenticity, nor the accuracy of the transcription, only the attitude over changes with no impact on the factual content. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 23:04, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
When you are providing a verbatim transcription, you should stick to only and exactly what it states. That's my opinion. And enquote the entire block you're transcribing to make that clear. Any notes or amendments can still be added before or after that transcribed block right? That's how I'd do it, in this same situation. The posting of the doc images was partly my suggestion so it could be made clear to the casual reader that the block of text is actually a transcription.Wjhonson (talk) 08:38, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. If I'm quoting verbatim then typos and all it all goes in with notes afterwards. I think it's coming down to a matter of style. If the section started 'Room 40 recorded the misions as . . .' then I'd <blockquote/enquote>. If it started 'Room 40 recorded the missions and they can be summarised as . . .' then as long as the data is accurately summarised, the format, spelling etc can be varied from the original. Reproducing the documents in full is maybe not the way I'd have written the section as it's quite a considerable part of each article but I can understand why it was done that way and can now appreciate the 'warning' given, clumsy as it might appear to those of us where English is our first language. NtheP (talk) 09:13, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Oh, I've no quarrel with blockquotes including every spelling error in the original. (I dislike blockquotes for appearance reasons, but that's another kettle of fish...) What I don't see here is the need to quote entire. (As noted elsewhere, some docs should be quoted entire, & some famous or imporant quotes, ditto. Can you imagine describing FDR's call for war 8 Dec, "Yesterday, the Japanese attacked"? 8o ) Here, provided the factual information is preserved, isn't a less "listish" page a better one? Compare this to this. The second preserves the information, & IMO is a better page. This isn't out of line (& I wouldn't stong oppose, but mislike); IMO, with the duplication, somebody's bound to del Achim's quoted text anyhow, sooner or later (probably sooner), so we've solved very little. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 11:12, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
I get the sense that he is trying to create an online digitised version of the National Archives holdings on these submarines (well that may not be his intention but it seems it will be the outcome). He is continually insisting that the verbatim transcripts be retained, and left unedited, but now as a semi-compromise the version at SM U-79 has been proposed, which is half actual researched article along wikipedia guidelines, half a text dump from the archives. If he cannot be encouraged to actually write articles using his own words rather than the century-old words of British Intelligence, can he not be persuaded to try wikisource instead, which would seem to be the perfect place for this? Still retaining this uneditable, unformatted, at times misleading and incorrect source which at best just repeats what is in the actual article, and at worst confuses readers with inconsistencies seems flawed, and a sop to this author. Benea (talk) 12:06, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
I've only given this exchange a cursory examination, but it seems to me that [2] is the place for this info; links could be added to the relevant pages. Overwhelming articles with primary sources is certainly not allowed, but it would be a pity to ditch the work all the same.Dduff442 (talk) 13:18, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

<--I'm getting tired of this. Does anybody think this & this doesn't look like WP:OWN? Same content, only formatting changes, gets reverted. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 16:55, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

We do not have a requirement to write articles using our own words, in fact the best practices are articles which are partly secondary, partly primary, and partly smoothing that transition using our own words. I don't think we need to needlessly annoy a user who is in the process of contributing so much material, so disputing on this and bringing up policy issues isn't a good plan to move forward. I've suggested the version at SM U-79 as an intermediate method to move forward. I would expect that the prose portion could be expanded tremendously over time. All new articles look a bit odd when they are new, that doesn't worry me. Hopefully all parties can find a way to work together here, that's the goal. The article I pointed at is a compromise position.Wjhonson (talk) 18:38, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

P.S. please look at the user's responses on his talk about this. You can see that he is attempting, as am I, to find a compromise position where all parties will be somewhat happy. Hopefully we can let these articles develop over the next few weeks or so and see what they look like again, once the editing simmers down a bit.Wjhonson (talk) 18:45, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
P.P.S. Trek I know that here you were simply trying to undo the wordiness but your revert also removed the images. I don't think that's what you intended. The first section, which right now simply repeats the transcription is Achim's olive branch to allow you to rewrite it in a prose form. That's why it's there. Unless you no longer are interested in that kind of work.Wjhonson (talk) 19:06, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Frederick Scherger now open

The featured article candidacy for Frederick Scherger is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Ian Rose (talk) 01:29, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Tom Clancy franchise books

FYI, a bunch of Tom Clancy franchise novels have come up for renaming, see WP:RM for December 6th. These are military fiction and espionage fiction novels. 76.66.192.35 (talk) 04:55, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Charles Fryatt

The Charles Fryatt article, previously a copyvio, has been deleted and rewritten from scratch. As such, it now needs (re)assessment. Mjroots (talk) 09:12, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I see you've gone ahead and done it; strictly speaking it's probably best not to assess your own work, but I've got no argument with your conclusion. Nice article :) EyeSerenetalk 12:44, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Henry Wrigley now open

The A-Class review for Henry Wrigley is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Ian Rose (talk) 02:18, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Task Force housekeeping

Now might perhaps be a good time to consolidate some of the quieter TFs into larger, more active, ones. Obvious candidates are:

Thoughts?  Roger Davies talk

Initial comments

Agree with all suggested mergers. Buckshot06(prof) 14:27, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
No objections here. EyeSerenetalk 16:04, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
I disagree with the Ottoman one. The Ottomans were from very early on a European power as well as an Anatolian one, and a very active one at that. One could even argue that the centre of power of the Ottoman state before 1517 was in Europe rather than Asia. But even after the defeat of the Mamelukes, and with the exception of the wars with Persia, most of the Ottoman military activity actually happened in Europe. The Middle East may have formed the bulk of the Empire, but in terms of foreign policy & military history, the Ottomans were most active in Central, Southern and Eastern Europe. Constantine ✍ 17:48, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm of the same mind with the Ottoman Task Force. The Ottoman Empire's main military campaigns were fought on European/Central Asian soil (with Russia, Austria, Austria-Hungary, etc). I have to agree w/ Constantine that Ottoman Military should remain separate. As for the others, I have no objections. Cam (Chat) 19:17, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
I agree that's true, but this is more about whether or not the Ottoman TF is active enough to support its existence as a standalone TF. Perhaps we could look at other TFs to find a more suitable one for a merger? EyeSerenetalk 07:28, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

(od) Agree with all mergers; they can always be de-merged if enough people join them. Skinny87 (talk) 09:34, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Keep in mind that while separating two merged task forces may be theoretically possible, it's an utter nightmare in terms of practical logistics; so we shouldn't make this decision lightly, with the idea that we can flip between the two arrangements. If we're going to merge things, we should be reasonably confident that we won't need to un-merge them at least in the foreseeable future. Kirill [talk] [pf] 21:15, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Disagree with naming of new Australizan/New Zealand Task Force, if its scope is going to include other nations in that region, perhaps it should be named the Oceania task force.
  • Disagree with the merging of the Taiwanese and/or Chinese Military History Task Forces. As seen in the argument of who is a Taiwanese and Chinese American both words are politically loaded and contentious, and although all editors are suppose to maintain a NPOV, this may cause some tension in the future.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 13:49, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
  • "Oceanian military history" sounds like a reasonable alternative to "Australasian military history"; I assume there's nothing controversial about the term in the region in question?
  • Nothing wrong except your suffix. I've never heard of 'Oceanian', ever. I'd suggest sticking with Oceania. Cheers Buckshot06(prof) 21:34, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Really? I'd always assumed that "Oceanian" was the common adjective form (cf. Category:Oceanian countries). Do people there normally only use the noun form, even in an adjective role? Things like "Oceania history" and so forth sound off to me, but that could be a mistaken assumption on my part. Kirill [talk] [pf] 21:46, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Although, looking at this further, Military history of Oceania uses "Oceanic" instead. Is that a more common term? Kirill [talk] [pf] 21:49, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
  • To be honest, I've never heard of either. Prefer 'Oceania military history.' Buckshot06(prof) 00:09, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
  • I've heard both Oceanian and Oceanic, but never Oceania as an adjective. Perhaps Oceanic would sound better here. – Joe N 01:05, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Seems I'm outvoted. Oceanic military history will do fine. Cheers Buckshot06(prof) 05:44, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
  • As far as the Taiwanese one is concerned, I don't think that we should let the political issue keep us from doing what's best for the project. The alternative, in my opinion, would likely involve deleting the Taiwanese TF entirely; it's far too small and inactive to sustain itself, or be worth maintaining merely for organizational value. Kirill [talk] [pf] 21:13, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Another possible candidate might be the Romanian TF into the Balkan TF. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:48, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I was under the impression that Romania was normally not considered part of the Balkans. Is that not the case? Kirill [talk] [pf] 21:13, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
What about upgrading the Romania task force into a central Europe task force that would cover all the missing countries? - Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria, etc? Buckshot06(prof) 21:34, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
It's more Eastern Europe than Central Europe, really—and that's one area where trying to merge task forces together will almost certainly cause huge fights to break out. It's better to leave those particular task forces well enough alone, in my opinion, even if they're not quite as a active as we'd like.
(The potential is certainly there, in any case; the sheer numbers of articles involved are quite high, even if we have too few editors working on them.) Kirill [talk] [pf] 21:46, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
If we created just a general Eastern Europe TF that included the Balkans, Romania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Belarus (possibly even the countries currently in the Nordic TF), and overlapped slightly with European Russia, that would avoid political issues. The main drawback would be that it might become rather large in terms of number of articles. – Joe N 01:05, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
Whatever Romania is, it certainly isn't Central Europe, which would be Germany, Switzerland Austria, the northern part of Italy, Czech republic, and an eastern swath of Hungary. If you look at the history journals that deal with "Central Europe"... they define it pretty clearly. Eastern Europe, then covers Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, etc. Point: for a good part of the early modern and modern past, most of the armies from those areas would fall under Habsburg or HRE categories. While they have a long history as a people, they have a relatively short history as a state.
  • One of the elements I find fascinating about this discussion is the move from nationalist military history, toward geopolitical definitions that are not necessarily nationalistic. Veeeeery interesting. Is there a problem with having task forces that deal with the areas/states that have active members, and then putting the others in general geographic clusters? Auntieruth55 (talk) 23:09, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm a bit concerned at the name Military science and technology task force - I think the military science part gets lost, and it sounds as if it's just about science and technology in a military context. Military science is, of course, the study of the causative factors and tactical principles of warfare (per Dictionary.com - though Military science seems to think it's about technology and equipment) and thus embraces articles on strategy and tactics rather than technology. But then I'm a member of the Military science task force, and I've never done anything specifically arising from it, so my views shouldn't count for much. Cyclopaedic (talk) 17:39, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Weighing in finally on these...
  • Taiwanese military history absorbed into Chinese military history: Have to admit the first thing I thought of here was current political significance of such a merger, even though I know that's not what's meant with this proposal, so I have to say I'm not particularly comfortable with it.
Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:41, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
I'd vote for Australasian task force- almost no-one uses "Oceanic" in everyday use and Australia and NZ are going to be the major components of the taskforce anyway, so "Australasian" is fine IMHO. Commander Zulu (talk) 07:13, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
I'd also say "Australasian". "Oceanic" is an adjective that refers to the oceans rather than Oceania. Constantine ✍ 14:09, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
Australasian works best for me. It's unambiguous and, as Ian mentions, Oceania is very Nineteen Eighty-Four.  Roger Davies talk 08:03, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
Disagree. I see nothing wrong with having both an Australian task force and a New Zealand one. IMO an Oceania task force would be difficult to live with (being melodramic of course), although an Australasian one would be acceptable but only grudgingly. I think the Australian task force in particular is a fairly active one and if we accept the recent rogue creation of the Pakistan task force we should be able to justify the continued existance of the Australian one. Personnally I don't see the need for the change. Anotherclown (talk) 08:17, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
That part of the proposal isn't about ending the existence of the Australian TF, which I agree is one of our more productive ones, but rather finding a natural home for the all-but-inactive New Zealand TF. I suppose there's no real harm in keeping inactive TFs on the books, but in terms of the (albeit small) administrative overhead it makes sense to rationalise them where we can. EyeSerenetalk 09:03, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone else have any comments? Kirill [talk] [pf] 04:47, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Kirill, you've seen my comments above - just want to say I continue to support the merger of TFs as per my notes above. Don't really have any strong opinion what the Aust/NZ task force is called, but believe it should be merged. Regards Buckshot06(prof) 18:41, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
Kirill, I too support a merger of the Australian and NZ task forces, however, because it has been proposed that the smaller populated island nations be included within its scope, I only have disagreement on what it is named. For that part I believe the name should be as inclusive as possible. Furthermore, I believe we all have the understanding that military forces in American Samoa will remain within the scope of the US Task force?
However, I do object to the merger of the Taiwanese/RoC Task Force with the Chinese/PRC Task Force, due to the political issues that may arise from it, as I had stated above.
For all other mergers, I have no opinion on them, and should continue per consensus, if one has been reached. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:43, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
Hi RightCowLeftCoast, what Kirill's told me in the past with 'delineation' issues like American Samoa is that he's happiest if there are no particular inclusion restrictions. Am Samoa issues might attract two taskforce tags, but his argument would be there's no harm in that.
For the record, I have no objection to merging the ROC and Chinese task forces. Buckshot06(prof) 20:41, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
I see no harm in both TF's being able to improve any military articles relating to American Samoa, just as long as there is no exclusion, of the US Task Force, then it should be all gravy. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 08:17, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
While my contributions in this area have been modest, I don't see the wisdom in merging Military Science with Military Science and Technology. The former is more fundamental and relatively invariant with time whereas the latter has many many more pages devoted to it and changes constantly. Military Science has no real impact on technology. Technology does mediate the application of Military Science but not the fundamental principles which are centuries old. Dduff442 (talk) 12:16, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd say change the Indian one to a whole subcontinental/South Asia one. The Pakistan one is simply pointless and some SL and Bangladesh are floating in SE Asia YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive) 08:20, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Good suggestion.  Roger Davies talk 10:19, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
I support this suggestion. --Rosiestep (talk) 04:24, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Add Nepal to the subcontinent/S Asia one, maybe Afghanistan as well; the Taliban is current "middle east" YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (help the Invincibles Featured topic drive) 04:28, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
I'll flag this discussion up in the new edition of The Bugle to get a bit more feedback so we can move it towards a resolution.  Roger Davies talk 09:59, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
I'd agree to a South Asian task force. In fact, this has been proposed before as well. Taking an example from the area I work in; articles related to the Sri Lankan civil war either have no regional task force or are in the Idian/south east asian ones as YellowMonkey mentioned. ≈ Chamal talk ¤ 08:07, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree with this one, also. — AustralianRupert (talk) 00:17, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

From my perspective, the conversation so far is fairly chaotic, and deliberation about any one task force suggestion is getting lost in between the conversations relating to the others. I think a subsection for each proposal should be created (maybe with a summary of the opinion so far as observed by one or more of the Coordinators): that way, we can keep discussion of the proposals out of each others' way. -- saberwyn 08:24, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Summary

As requested, with the caveat that I've contributed to the discussion above so am not technically uninvolved. If anyone feels I have misjudged consensus as a result, please feel free to amend as necessary :) I suggest further discussion, if desired, takes place under each proposal's individual section. EyeSerenetalk 11:00, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Taiwanese military history and Chinese military history

  • Original proposal: Taiwanese military history (one editor) could be absorbed into Chinese military history.
  • Summary of discussion: Few explicit opinions (outside blanket approvals) have been offered either way. The main objection is that the merger may have awkward political ramifications; this has been countered by the suggestion that politics should have no bearing on what's best for Milhist, and because the Taiwanese TF is so small the alternative might be to remove it entirely.
  • Consensus position so far: Merger approved
I believe that I am the only one opposed to the merger at this point. No? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 11:56, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Ian Rose also expressed a concern, for the same reasons, although it wasn't an outright oppose. EyeSerenetalk 12:06, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Australian military history and New Zealand military history

  • Original proposal: Australian military history and New Zealand military history, with a scope expanded to include the Pacific Islands, could be merged to form the Australasian task force.
  • Summary of discussion: The idea of some form of merger has attracted almost unanimous support; however, what to call the new task force has been more contentious. Suggestions have included "Australasian military history", "Oceaniac military history", and variants on the two. Both Australasian and Oceaniac have attracted support.
  • Consensus position so far: Principle of merger approved; no clear consensus as yet for the new task force name (although "Australasian military history" may have a slight edge)
    • I would lean towards "Australasian", as, although I am familiar with the term "Oceania" for the region, I have never heard the term "Oceaniac". Also, at first glance, most people would read the name as task force for oceans. -- saberwyn 03:35, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
      • I've changed my mind to be in favour of Australian and New Zealand military history task force, and limiting inclusion to those two nations. -- saberwyn 20:38, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
    • Although I have already stated it, I support a title relating to the Oceania region, it is more inclusive a term and doesn't favor a single nation within said region. Alternatively South West Pacific redirects to the Oceania page, at like the suggested South Asia TF, SWP TF may also be an idea and has historic precedents in the SWPA. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 09:53, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
      • Would SWP then also include the Phillipines, then? If not, we're likely to cause confusion due to the common meaning of the name in WWII matters; but I'm not sure that there's a good argument to be made for expanding into SE Asia either. Kirill [talk] [pf] 03:01, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Agreed, lets leave SE Asia out of this discussion. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 04:17, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
  • I would support a task force called 'Australian and New Zealand military history task force, but I would not support a task force called Oceaniac or Oceania military history task force. My reason for this is that the majority of the articles that would be in the task force would be Australian and New Zealand and hence the other hangers on would just be the poor cousins that probably wouldn't get improved anyway. Why not an A&NZ task force, which could exist alongside the currently existing South East Asian task force, which could be expanded to include the Pacific Islands nations. — AustralianRupert (talk) 04:15, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Another idea is that there could be the ANZAC or Australian and New Zeland task force, or whatever you want to name it, leave the South East Asian Task Force as is, and then have/create a Polynesia/Micronesia/Melanesia task force for those other nations and territories which were termed by someone else in this discussion as "poor cousins". --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 04:17, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Whatever we do, I would really like to see something covering all those islands. I support Oceanic, which covers those and sounds less awkward than Australasian (it's really long and hard to spell). – Joe N 21:25, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Lebanese military history and Ottoman military history

  • Original proposal: Lebanese military history and Ottoman military history are merged into Middle Eastern military history.
  • Summary of discussion: This has attracted little explicit support (although comes under several blanket approvals). There have been no objections to merging the Lebanese TF with the Middle Eastern TF; the main opposition arises from suggestions that the Ottoman sphere of influence was not limited to the Middle East. However, the question of whether it is active enough to support its stand-alone existence, or could be merged with a more suitable task force, remains to be examined.
  • Consensus position so far: Lebanese task force; merger approved. Ottoman task force; accounting for blanket supports, there is a weak consensus for the merger. However, further discussion may be desirable.
I support the merger of the Lebanese task force into the Middle East task force, but think that perhaps the Ottoman task force needs to be separate. After all it is not so much a geographical grouping in that regard, but rather a period of history. For example, the ACW task force is separate from the US, as is Napoleonic from French, British etc. I'm not involved in any of these task forces, though, so my vote might be a little redundant. — AustralianRupert (talk) 04:38, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Military science and Military technology and engineering

  • Original proposal: Military science could be merged with Military technology and engineering to form the Military science and technology task force.
  • Summary of discussion: Again, this has attracted a number of blanket but few explicit supports. A concern was raised that Military Science has meanings incompatible with Military technology and engineering, but although acknowledged this has not been widely echoed.
  • Consensus position so far: Merger approved

Romanian military history and Balkan military history

  • Proposal emerged during debate: Romanian military history could be merged into the Balkan military history task force.
  • Summary of discussion: The point was made that Romania is not considered part of the Balkans; further suggestions then involved the creation of a wider "Eastern European task force" that might include "Balkans, Romania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Belarus (possibly even the countries currently in the Nordic TF), and [portions of] European Russia".
  • Consensus position so far: Not moved beyond initial proposal stage; further discussion needed
Approve merger of Romanian task force into Balkan task force. Buckshot06 (talk) 02:11, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
I also support this merger. — AustralianRupert (talk) 04:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Indian military history and Pakistani military history

  • Proposal emerged during debate: Merger of Indian and Pakistani task forces into a newly-created South Asian military history task force, to include areas such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Afghanistan.
  • Summary of discussion: Unanimous support so far.
  • Consensus position so far: Merger approved, although this suggestion has not yet attracted wide participation and further input would be useful.
Approve merger of both into South Asian task force. Buckshot06 (talk) 02:11, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Should it also include Bhutan, Maldives, Tibet, the British Indian Ocean Territories, per the South Asia article? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 10:01, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Tibet seems out of place, both politically—the Chinese/Taiwanese thing is paralleled here—and historically, since there was little military similarity between Tibet and the Subcontinent. (Having said that, I'm not sure if we even have any articles on Tibetan military history at the moment, so this may be a moot point.) Kirill [talk] [pf] 02:57, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Not Tibet, as there is little/no military activity across the Himalayas until the last 100 or so years and Tibetan military issues have always been with Chinese invasions. In the old days, Chinese pilgrims and Buddhist scholars etc always went up to Kazakhstan and turned around and went through modern Afghanistan and Pakistan to get to the foothills of Nepal to places like Varanasi and Lumbini. The Himalayas were virtually impassable. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (help the Invincibles Featured topic drive) 03:11, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
How about the eight SAARC nations, since these are the ones generally regarded as south asian countries? ≈ Chamal talk ¤ 03:37, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
I would see no problem with that, except in so far that it should include the islands of the Indian Ocean north of the equator and east of the 60E Longitude, and should not extend to China if it were to become a full member of SAARC. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 07:27, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
That sounds like a suitable scope to me. My regards, Laurinavicius (talk) 22:17, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Next steps

This thread has now been archived a couple of times for lack of comment, which may be an indication that everyone who wants to has had their say (at least for the moment). Therefore unless there are any objections, I'm intending to close up those proposals which have consensus in the next 48 hours or so. Summary below. EyeSerenetalk 09:32, 2 December 2009 (UTC) Struck; last call for comments going out in newsletter so will hold off for a little while. EyeSerenetalk 15:01, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

At the moment the following changes are approved:

  • Taiwanese military history will be absorbed into Chinese military history
  • Lebanese military history will be absorbed into Middle Eastern military history
  • Military science will be merged with Military technology and engineering to form Military science and technology
  • Romanian military history will be absorbed into Balkan military history
  • Indian military history will be merged with Pakistani military history to form South Asian military history

Those areas that do not have consensus are:

  • The scope and name of the new combined Australia/New Zealand/Pacific Islands task force
  • The absorption of Ottoman military history into Middle Eastern military history (no consensus=status quo, so the current position is that Ottoman military history will be retained as a separate entity)
  • The scope of the new South Asian military history task force
Fully support these proposed changes; I'm sure the remaining issues can be worked out in time. Buckshot06 (talk) 22:09, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
What objections I have have already been expressed, and seeing as how I appear to be in the minority opinion, the ROC/PRC military history merger shall continue.
There appears to be some additional backing regarding my defined scope for the South Asian military history task force, see above.
I don't believe there is so much a question of scope, as much as name. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:03, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Well, unless I've missed something I'm not seeing any objections to "South Asian military history" as the name. Have I understood your point correctly?
Re the scope, I agree it does now seem there's a consensus emerging to include India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and the islands of the Indian Ocean. EyeSerenetalk 08:44, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
No objection to the name, no objection ot the scope. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 09:11, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Endorse name and scope for SATF. Buckshot06 (talk) 21:55, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
No objections from me. — AustralianRupert (talk) 02:52, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Oh, forgot one thing, the islands of the Indian Ocean shouldn't include the islands off the eastern coast of Africa, which should be in that task forces scope. Therefore Madagascar, Seychelles, & Mauritius should fall under African military history task force. And thus my statement earlier regarding the part of the Indian Ocean that should be under the new SATF.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 04:28, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Maybe Military Science and Military Technology would be clearer. Very very few people with an interest in military matters have an interest in Mil Science. The vanishingly small number will struggle to find it under 'Science and Technology'.Dduff442 (talk) 18:49, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Walter Peeler now open

The featured article candidacy for Walter Peeler is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Abraham, B.S. (talk) 07:15, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

James Symonds

This U.S. navy officer's only claim to fame is some involvement in Ronald Reagan's funeral. Does this really make him notable in wikipedia terms? Seeking others' input on whether this should be AfD'd. Buckshot06 (talk) 02:19, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

On the basis of what's in the article now, no. The non-US Navy references only really mention him in passing. Nick-D (talk) 02:24, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Notable. He's a flag officer. He commanded a large and important ship. He had a small role in a notable event. And if he gets promoted again, we'll look like real dills for deleting the article. Hawkeye7 (talk) 10:40, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Based on what we have worked on in WP:MILMOS#People, I would definitely say the subject is notable.
As for the article, I am sure more reference can be found to support the content. That being said I wonder how much more the article can be expanded by. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 13:06, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Walter Peeler now open

The featured article candidacy for Walter Peeler is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Abraham, B.S. (talk) 07:15, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Open Discussion

Project participans might be interested in the following discussion. As a Third Opinion commenter on the subject I shall not make additional comments regarding the present discussion in the interest of remaining neutral. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 02:18, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Franklin D. Roosevelt FAR

I have nominated Franklin D. Roosevelt for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 19:07, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Peer review for Battle of Szigetvár now open

The peer review for Battle of Szigetvár is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 23:26, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Killed in Action

We have several categories for Army personnel 'killed in action'. I was never sure where to fit David Bedell-Sivright as he died during the First World War, but it was via an illness brought on by an insect bite. So he died during the conflict, and would not have died if he had not been dragged to the Turkish front, but 'killed in action'? Could you verify if anyone who dies while serving in a war (training accident, disease, heart attack in the mess) should be categorised as killed in action or not. Cheers FruitMonkey (talk) 18:28, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

"Killed in action" refers specifically to people who die because of someone actively trying to kill them, to put it succinctly! "Died of wounds" is used to refer to those who die some time afterwards (in hospital, etc) as a result; the third category, of people who die as a result of being in the military but not because of someone trying to kill them, is usually recorded as "died on active service" or something similar. I'm not sure specifically how our categories are used... I note that many of them are "killed in [X war]", which confuses matters a little. Shimgray | talk | 18:40, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
A couple of years ago I created Category:War-related deaths and Category:American Revolutionary War deaths to categorize non-combat war deaths in the War of American Independence, since "military personnel killed in action", as our categories are usually labeled, is just a subset (and often a small subset) of overall wartime fatalities. This approach has not been extended to other wars, but feel free to do so. —Kevin Myers 08:30, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Standard for Order of Battle?

Is there a standard format for an Order of Battle? Battle of Dennewitz has it with a cleanup tag. RJFJR (talk) 17:47, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Military Budget

There is presently a discussion regarding the scope of the article Military budget of the United States. Other interested editors are welcome to join in on the discussion. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 01:38, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Here's A Question

The Tuareg Rebellion from 2007 to 2009 ended in 2009, yet the article (Tuareg Rebellion (2007–present) has the word present in the title. Should the article name be changed to reflect the ending of the war in 2009? B-Machine (talk) 15:54, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this would seem sensible. I take it there's no dispute that it's ended? Shimgray | talk | 17:55, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
From what I see, the conflict ended earlier this year. B-Machine (talk) 18:07, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
Fair enough. I've left a note there asking for thoughts, and if that doesn't gain any opposition in the next week I'll move it. Shimgray | talk | 18:52, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
...and done. Shimgray | talk | 14:03, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

List of War articles

I got message this morning from CPAScott (talk · contribs) concerning the list of war articles we have, some which are in need of help. His concern is that the list of wars articles, particularly List of wars 1945-1989, List of wars 1990-2002, and List of wars 2003–current are currently in disarray, and made the following suggestions for improvement:

  • The 1945-1989 list needs to change to 1945-1999.
  • The 2003-current list needs to change to 2000-current.
  • The 1990-2002 list needs to split; the 1990-1999 conflicts moved to the 1945-1999 list and the 2000-2002 conflicts moved to the 2000-current list.
  • The 2003-current list needs its table to conform to the other list articles.
  • All ongoing conflicts should be removed from the 2003-current list (a separate article exists for these).

A look through the articles does show that they are in need of standardization at a minimum, but I am open to discussion on whether the remaining ideas should be put into action. TomStar81 (Talk) 20:57, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

There was recently a discussion brought up by B-Machine (talk · contribs) who wanted to merge the 1900-1944, the 1945-1989 and the 1990-2002 lists to make a century long list running from 1900-1999 apparently along the grounds that it should be consolidated by century following the 1800-1899 model (the fact the other lists are not century organised seemed to have failed to register), and that it was stupid to do it any other way. The proposal did not achieve consensus, but several days ago he attempted to merge them all anyway. I've unpicked most of them because he was acting against consensus, but I think part of the 1990-2002 list remains in the 1945-1989 one. This could be removed and the article contents will match the titles. But rather than renaming them to match what B-Machine arbitrarily changed the contents to, let's sort out first what sort of time periods we want the lists to cover. Benea (talk) 21:07, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
There are really only two options here that I can see: either we settle on a roughly centenery system of 50 or 100 year intervals, which is obvious but actually goes against historical sense, or we try some how to sensibly divide the eras up, which can be very tricky as what may constitute a new era in one part of the world doesn't necessarily constitute one in another. How long are the lists - would it make sense to split them geographically as well (at least in part) or is this too much of an additional complication? Eitherway, I can see that establishing consensus on this might be tricky.--Jackyd101 (talk) 21:47, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
To add, if this discussion is restricted to conflicts post 1900 (or post 1914) the task becomes easier due to the global nature of 20th century warfare, but it is still fraught with problems.--Jackyd101 (talk) 21:48, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
I for one favor a 100 year approach, thus a list from 1900-1999, with a new one for 2000-2099. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:50, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
Tom, thanks for moving my concerns here. I'm not so interested whether this group wants 50- or 100-year increments, but rather the disorganization of the articles as they exist now. For example, the 1945-1989 article includes a 1990-1999 table. But so does the 1990-2003 article. Its redundant. And, of course, why would a 1990-1999 table be in an article that, by its title, stops at 1989? While we are at it, why 1989 and not 1999? And what's with 2003? Seems rather arbitrary. So, this kind of cleanup can occur seperately and distinctively from the 50- or 100- year discussion. I'm not part of this project, but I propose that we clean up the 1945 to current articles and then can re-engage the merge or keep discussion. --CPAScott (talk) 15:51, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
I've reverted the merging of post 1989 wars into the 1945-1989 list. All the article contents are back to matching the titles, and there are no redundancies or overlaps. We are essentially back where we were before B-Machine started to merge them. Benea (talk) 16:17, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
My $0.02: by century, 1901-2001 (say). Admittedly not perfect... TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 00:57, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Battle of Mór - Balkan task force

The mil. hist. tag on this article's talk page says that there is on task force for this battle, and asks to propose one at this page. Other articles in this series (see Campaignbox at right for your convenience) have been put under the Balkan task force, so I propose that. It may not be entirely accurate thus to assign it, I do appreciate that (and it was not me doing the assignment but someone on the Mil. Hist project) but I guess it is a start so that you good people can take it from there. At the moment it's at stub class on your scale, but probably (like the others) needs to be assessed and likely will be start class (though I'll take no offence if it remains a stub).

Best wishes Si Trew (talk) 08:37, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I've added this to the Balkan task force now. I'm not sure that what I've done is correct, so if other members of the project disagree please let me know and I'm happy if this needs to be changed. I'm not sure if there is a task force in which these articles would fit into neatly, although the Balkan task force does seem to be the one that it would be more likely to fit into. Apologies if I've stepped on any toes. — AustralianRupert (talk) 00:56, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Visiting hours and directions for cemeteries

Can visiting hours and directions for cemeteries be included in article for cemeteries for the American Battle Monuments Commission? I created the article for Brookwood American Cemetery and Memorial and some editor not only wants to delete the article, he has edited out how to find the cemetery and when it's open (see its Talk page). I have seen this information in other cemetery articles, which is why I included, in addition this information was not in any books about the area. I realize that WP is not a guidebook, but it does allow for certain instances to include this. Your thoughts? Thanks. -- K72ndst (talk) 14:22, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm "some editor". See the article talk page; I do not want the article to be deleted; K72ndst (talk · contribs) misread my statement. I deleted the visiting hours and directions per WP:NOTTRAVEL and WP:NOTDIRECTORY. I'm not sure how much weight the "other articles have it" argument holds, but am willing to defer to the opinion of editors who know more about this specific field than I do. KuyaBriBriTalk 14:46, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree it's better not to include it. It's much better to leave that sort of thing to the cemetery's official site, as they are ebtter placed to deal with flagging up any temporary issues and so on. David Underdown (talk) 14:53, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm pretty much aligned with David on this. The nature of the information is better held on their site, it's not particularly encyclopedic.
ALR (talk) 15:27, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
A non-project member here also agreeing with Kuyabribri. Including visiting hours and directions makes the article too much like a travel guide. The hours the cemetery is open does NOT add encyclopedic value to the article. Kyabribri, I see you reverted your deletions pending this discussion. I've added the "Unencyclopedic" tag to the sections so people can participate in this debate. IMO, we should continue all further debate on the article's talk page. --CPAScott (talk) 16:16, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
Among the articles that work in getting to the location is Arlington National Cemetery and The Louvre. I suggest to work in the location of the cemetery into the article, but leave out the operating hours. -- K72ndst (talk) 17:14, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment

I have some concerns about the provenance of the 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment article. I've put them on the talk page but have had no response, so am posting here. Apologies for bringing this to the wider forum, however, I feel that it is reasonably important that it gets resolved. Basically it needs someone with some knowledge of US copyright law. If someone, or a few people, with some knowledge would take a look at the article and then the talk page and give their opinion I'd appreciate the input. Apologies if this isn't the right place for this comment. Cheers. — AustralianRupert (talk) 01:37, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Most publications of the US Federal government are public. On this page, under #2, the policy states: "Information presented on the IMA Website is considered public information and may be distributed or copied unless otherwise specified. Use of appropriate byline/photo/image credits is requested." Although there are two citations to the website, I would say that there should be many many many many more. Most of the text, as you have pointed out, is is very close to the text on the Fort Drum webpage. Auntieruth55 (talk) 02:57, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Submarines of WWI again

In the risk of being repetitive, shouldn't we encourage the use of Wikisource, linked from the article, for these images? Yes, the entries are better, but still not encyclopedic and there is no effort to place the content in context. Auntieruth55 (talk) 01:18, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

That's probably a good solution. Adding information from British intelligence records more or less verbatim and without even checking it against the published secondary sources on the boats isn't a great practice (I still don't think there's any need to use these records given the availability of published secondary sources which have drawn on German records and subsequent research). Nick-D (talk) 19:39, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Rape during the occupation of Japan

Interested editors may wish to comment on this article's content and sourcing. Nick-D (talk) 06:47, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I guess the user never heard of the Rape of Nanking! - BilCat (talk) 07:26, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
According to the editor, the number of rapes committed by Americans was low in "comparison to Nazis for example if you push hard", so I guess they are aware of Axis war crimes ;) Nick-D (talk) 19:06, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Surprise attack

Shouldn't there be an article about surprise attack as a tactic? Or a historical list of surprise attacks? Especially interesting would be surprise attacks which initiated hostilities between two parties which were not previously at war, such as the German invasion of Poland in 1939 or the Japanese attacks at various locations around the Pacific in December 1941. Right now, the Surprise Attack article name is taken by the first album of the band Tora Tora, and there is nothing military written about the subject as far as I can figure. Binksternet (talk) 16:43, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

A source with intelligent arguments: Surprise attack: lessons for defense planning, by Richard K. Betts. Betts describes three kinds of surprise: strategic, operational and tactical. He says surprise was achieved but not a factor in the victory of Germany over Poland, which would have fallen in any case. He says surprise was achieved by Germany against France in 1940—strategic surprise in the way that war could be fought, a doctrinal, organizational surprise. He says Germany achieved a number of surprise elements against the Soviet Union in June 1941, with the timing, location and strength of the German attack coldcocking the Soviets, advancing 400 miles in four weeks. Binksternet (talk) 16:58, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
It's a potentially valuable add, but I foresee a huge page, esp if it's a list. How do you delimit "attack"? Grand strategic (Poland, Pearl Harbor, Barbarossa)? Strategic (NEPTUNE)? Or every tactical op somebody thinks achieved surprise...? TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 18:21, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps the pertinant point should be not that it was a surprise, but that it was notable as a surprise.Slatersteven (talk) 18:39, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
There are also ambushes to think of. Nev1 (talk) 18:41, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
Almost all military operations seek to achieve surprise, so this is probably too unfocused a topic for an article. Coverage of this issue might best belong in the Military deception article (eg, common and notable methods used to achieve surprise in different circumstances, etc). Nick-D (talk) 18:51, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
The military writing I've seen approaches surprise from two perspectives; either, surprise as an intelligence failure - (e.g. "why wasn't the Pearl Harbour/1973 Yom Kippur attack/etc. anticipated?) or from the deception perspective (e.g. how Op Fortitude worked etc.); the former is partially captured under Failure in the intelligence cycle, although it very much focuses on it from an intelligence cycle perspective, rather than the approach across the wider intelligence genre; as Nick-D says, the latter's covered by the Military deception article. I'd imagine that a list approach to 'Surprise attack' would be quite long; a piece that linked out to the relevant specialised articles, but brought them together into a decent article would be quite interesting to read though. Happy to help out with the references if useful.Hchc2009 (talk) 19:47, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


Failure in the intelligence cycle

Formosa Island, Japanese Territory

Relating to an unresponded to discussion on the fringe theory noticeboard an IP editor has added the Republic of China to the Government in exile article. Past consensus has been that the Republic of China is not in exile, as the IP editor has claimed; therefore, without new consensus or references provided, the content was removed from the article. Relevant articles relating to this topic are Political status of Taiwan, Legal status of Taiwan, and Treaty of Taipei. This is a highly contentious topic, and as such WP:NEU clearly applies, and discussion should attempt to remain civil.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

New article Manuel Mondragón

In case anyone wants to help fine-tune, I translated Manuel Mondragón from es.wiki today. He's a major figure of the Mexican Revolution, and inventor of the first automatic rifle, the Mondragón rifle. MatthewVanitas (talk) 01:56, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Thankyou Matthew. Articles like that are always good for helping redress our very heavy English-language subject bias. Buckshot06 (talk) 05:16, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Ostrach now open

The A-Class review for Battle of Ostrach is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 04:40, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Peer review for Joachim Helbig now open

The peer review for Joachim Helbig is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 04:43, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Peer review for HMS New Zealand (1911) now open

The peer review for HMS New Zealand (1911) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 04:45, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Comparison between Roman and Han Empires

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Comparison between Roman and Han Empires. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 12:36, 17 December 2009 (UTC) (Using {{Please see}})

You are invited to join the discussion at [AFD] for Comparison between Roman and Han Empires. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 23:37, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Category:Recipients of a posthumous promotion

I have proposed that Category:Recipients of a posthumous promotion be deleted: see discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 December 14#Category:Recipients_of_a_posthumous_promotion, where input from members of this project would be welcome. (Sorry for not notifying y'all when I made the nomination). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:27, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for SMS Blücher now open

The featured article candidacy for SMS Blücher is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Parsecboy (talk) 02:13, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

A-class review for Florida class battleship now open

The A-class review for Florida class battleship is now open. All editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Parsecboy (talk) 02:13, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Peer review for Battle between HMAS Sydney and German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran now open

The peer review for Battle between HMAS Sydney and German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 02:20, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

New category Category: Human trophy collecting

I'm trying out a new category, tentatively entitled Category: Human trophy collecting. The intent was to group together all the cultural manifestations of collecting human remains. Not to include insanity, medical/educational motives, etc. So to group together both negative (war trophies, etc.) and positive (relics, mementos) manifestations. The current title is a bit more negative, not sure whether to retitle, or group the more positive manifestations separately. Being that such activities are often associated with war, thought I'd run the idea by WP:MILHIST. So, category in progress. Would appreciate any help refining the name, populating, forming the key article Human trophy collecting, etc. MatthewVanitas (talk) 01:31, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

to identify positive and negative attributes to collecting is a value judgment that you might not want to get into. For example, there are people who would argue that anything collected as a relic might be negative, and that a "war trophy" might be positive. Head hunters. Scalping was positive, within the culture in which it occurred. So by putting the negative and positive value judgment on this aspect of human trophy collecting, we would be imposing certain cultural norms that may not be consistent with wikipedia standards. Burials are collections of human remains. Cemeteries are collections of human remains. Collections of heads. Collections of mummies. Relics, yes. Wars have been fought over those. Auntieruth55 (talk) 02:57, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Indeed they have - and the cultural issues of trying to bury the dead or stop burying the dead goes into antiquity - auntieruth55 has a good point here - at the new death project I had said [3] that I thought this was more an anthropological issue rather than death one - and now I read this I can see the potential for the issue of the category to be problematic SatuSuro 05:03, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Call for Opion : Occupied Terroritories : Hatlinks

Dear Editors. I respectively request opinions be cast in the following debate -

Proposal - " An Israel-Palestine Hatlink belongs at the top of the Occupied territories Article ".

Summary of argument for - User:NickCT When I first typed the term "occupied territories" into the wikipedia search bar, I expected to be directed to a page disussing the Israel-Palestine situation. My expectation was based purely on the fact that I had only ever heard the term "occupied territories" used in relation to Israel-Palestine. What I got was a rather dry page discussing the technical meaning of the term, and listing examples (and links to those examples) of which Israel-Palestine was one. I found this a little awkward, as the overwhelming use of the term in the media and public refers to Israel-Palestine (as a quick google search will show). In an attempt to reflect this, I placed a hatlink at the top of the page pointing to Israeli-occupied_territories. Further studies revealed that a hatlink to Israeli-occupied_territories had existed historically on the page, and had only been recently removed.

Summary of argument against - User:Shuki Shuki reverted my edit, saying that including the hatlink was WP:undue. He also stated it lacked NPOV. He said my arguement that "occupied territories" usually refers to Israel-Palestine was WP:OR and POV. He went onto say that there has to be "clear cut evidence" that a term is overwhelmingly used for a certain subject before that subject should get a hatlink.

Wiki rules on this subject are slightly lacking. Could I get some editors to weigh in on this subject? Thanks in advance. NickCT (talk) 03:37, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

George Atzerodt

George Azerodt

Hi, reviewing work for the year and noticed an inconsistency in the galleries. This is a portrait of George Atzerodt, who was one of the conspirators in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. This portrait was taken after Lincoln's death on 24 April 1865 aboard a Monitor-class ironclad (either the Saugus or the Montauk). The background behind Atzerodt is the vessel's gun turret. Although Atzerodt was a civilian he was tried in a military court and executed by military personnel. This image is a featured picture and a selected picture in Portal:American Civil War, but not listed in the MILHIST galleries. Should it be included in our galleries? Durova381 20:16, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm no coordinator but since the image is connected to the American Civil War it is also connected to MILHIST. Therefore, the image should be in our galleries.--Martin (talk) 16:00, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

WP:Books/Biological warfare

Okay this is a bit of an oddball. This seems to be a book about biological warfare... or something like that. Could someone go through it and give it a spit shine (and a better, less misleading name!). Thanks. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 05:25, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, there are certainly a lot of other relevant articles that could be included in such a book about biological warfare. Cirt (talk) 20:39, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Reliablilty of an onlinesource

I have a question regarding the status of StrategyPage.com: Does this site, which covers wide variety of military topics, qualify as a reliable source per WP policy? See comments here by a user adding info on the Soviet aircraft carrier Varyag, most of which is generally rumor. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 05:47, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I think not; while the site's publishers have authored books (albeit fairly lightweight ones) the website often contains highly unreliable information - it's coverage of the Australian military is normally totally wrong, for example - and pushes their conservative views. Nick-D (talk) 07:24, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Project stance on "X item in Y war" articles?

I'm looking for articles to translate from the Spanish wiki, about the Chaco War fought between Paraguay and Bolivia in the 1930s. There are three articles, es:Tanques Vickers en la Guerra del Chaco, es:Anexo:Aviones bolivianos durante la Guerra del Chaco, and es:Operaciones aéreas en la Guerra del Chaco. Do y'all believe these worth translating, or are they too tangential by project standards? MatthewVanitas (talk) 04:21, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

For those of us unfortunate enough to know only one language, can you translate the titles and give us a basic idea of what each article covers? -- saberwyn 04:47, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
The article titles in English are: "Vickers tanks in the Chaco War", "List of Bolivian aircraft during the Chaco War", and "Air operations in the Chaco War", respectively. My regards, Laurinavicius (talk) 05:02, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
I think the Air Operations article is a definite candidate for translating and importing. I leave opinions on the other two for wiser heads than mine. -- saberwyn 06:12, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
I concur, the Air Operations article definitely should be translated. I also feel that the List of Bolivian aircraft article may also be included, depending on its content. However, I don't really see a need for the Vickers tanks article. My regards, Laurinavicius (talk) 06:15, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
Once you've worked on the aerial articles, MatthewVanitas, you might consider working in some of the details on the Vickers article into either the Vickers 6-Ton article, or the main Chaco War article. Congratulations for taking this on. Buckshot06 (talk) 09:54, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
The Vickers tanks page might do for inclusion as a section on an existing page (this {dab}, this, or this, for instance). I'd say ditto on the aircraft; put it on the type page(s), if it's notable (& war use would appear to be). TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 22:51, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

(deindent) Okay,gave a shot at Aerial operations in the Chaco War, but it turned out to be really long, so I'll come back to it later. Left a stub for now. Likewise, the Vickers tank in the Chaco article was really Vickers-centric, so may try to turn it into a general Tank warfare in the Chaco War article. MatthewVanitas (talk) 05:28, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to be working on the Mark VI article over christmas, once I get a few books as presents, and I'd like to see what the Vickers article looks like. I can't see that it has any in-line citations at the moment, however. Skinny87 (talk) 12:11, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
Update: finished translating Aerial operations in the Chaco War, probably will do Tank warfare in the Chaco War next.MatthewVanitas (talk) 00:00, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Task force question

Hello there, I'm interested in this project and have a quick question - would biological warfare fit more under Military technology and engineering task force or Weaponry task force - or maybe both? Thank you for your time. Cheers, Cirt (talk) 20:38, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Weaponry is a sub-task force of science and technology, so if you put it in there it'll be in both, which seems reasonable in this case. – Joe N 23:48, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
Ah okay, thanks for the response. Which of the two should I join, if I have an interest in that topic? Cirt (talk) 09:04, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
For a recruiting perspective, I'd say join the least active or the one with less contributors ;) Otherwise, just try to join both before making your final decision. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 09:16, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
Heh, sounds good, thank you! Cirt (talk) 09:18, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Call for Opion : on merging the articles Occupied territory and Military occupation

see talk:occupied territory#Page merge

The #Call for Opion : Occupied Terroritories : Hatlinks has ended with a successful resolution to the problem. I would like to invite the editors who participated in that discussion and any others who may be interested to consider whether, now the article has been moved to occupied territory, if the article occupied territory and the article military occupation should be merged. -- PBS (talk) 12:01, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Steamer-frigate Taif at the battle of Sinope and Mushaver-pasha Adolphus Slade

During the battle of Sinope the single Turkish steamer-frigate Taif escaped destruction and brought the news to Constantinople. Russian sources state that commander of this frigate was Adolphus Slade, who served in Ottoman Navy with rank of Mushaver-pasha – General-consultant; Russian sources in most cases are very critical about behavior of the captain of the Taif. From the writings of Slade himself can be seen that he was not even present at the battle of Synope. Can anybody who has access to Turkish sources ascertain who was the captain of Taif during that battle? --Jkomis (talk) 16:49, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Lebaudy Patrie now open

The A-Class review for Lebaudy Patrie is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 22:44, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Bita Paka now open

The A-Class review for Battle of Bita Paka is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 22:46, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Peer review for Klis Fortress now open

The peer review for Klis Fortress is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 22:50, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for The Battle of Alexander at Issus now open

The featured article candidacy for The Battle of Alexander at Issus is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 01:37, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Translated Kojak (vehicle) (Bolivian mil dune-buggy)

Found a relatively complete es:wiki article with photo, so translated and brought over here. There's a middle portion with tech details that I haven't translated yet, but the basics are here: Kojak (vehicle). MatthewVanitas (talk) 03:17, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, Category:Military vehicles was getting really crowded, so I dumped most of the subcats into new subcats: "by brand", "by war", "by type", etc. MatthewVanitas (talk) 03:36, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Peer review for Royal Scots Greys now open

The peer review for Royal Scots Greys is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 03:58, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Task Force Thread

Just to let you know the TF thread that was still open has been archived. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 10:55, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

The thread has been auto archived again. I don't believe we came to a consensus on all changes, can someone please bring it back up? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:52, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Done. I've taken out some of the timestamps; hopefully that will keep the bot from archiving it again. Kirill [talk] [prof] 19:57, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Re consensus. It's been two weeks (I think) since the last comment on the thread. It's likely that everyone who wants to say anything has said it. NtheP (talk) 20:16, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree, but I wrote something up for the November newsletter... and due some unforeseen delays that's only just gone out. Hopefully leaving it another few days won't hurt, though only another few days! EyeSerenetalk 20:24, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Peer review for Max-Hellmuth Ostermann now open

The peer review for Max-Hellmuth Ostermann is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 08:34, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Maritime/Tudor period DYK opportunity

There's a planned press release from at least two Wikimedia chapters (UK and Sweden) for an upcoming image donation from the Mary Rose Trust scheduled for January 3. It's going to be accompanied by a major update of the article on the Mary Rose which is going to be suggested as a DYK in conjunction with the press release. If anyone here is interested in joining in, check out Wikipedia talk:Did you know#Scheduling a DYK date.

Peter Isotalo 23:20, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Château-Gaillard now open

The featured article candidacy for Château-Gaillard is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Mm40 (talk) 23:39, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

A couple more for the project galleries

Noticed that a few more of the recent FP promotions haven't been added to the MILHIST project showcase. Posting for review in case there was a reason for not including. Durova386 17:31, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

  • Captain Edward M. Thomas of the Tuskeegee Airmen
    Captain Edward M. Thomas of the Tuskeegee Airmen
  • Military execution of the conspirators in the Abraham Lincoln assassination
    Military execution of the conspirators in the Abraham Lincoln assassination
  • "After the war a medal and maybe a job", political cartoon from 1914
    "After the war a medal and maybe a job", political cartoon from 1914
  • World War I poster urging Yiddish speakers to support the war effort
    World War I poster urging Yiddish speakers to support the war effort
Those all look like simple oversights on our part; I can't see any reason for not listing them, so I've gone ahead and added them to the showcase. Thanks for bringing them up. Kirill [talk] [prof] 04:36, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Thank you. Durova386 18:07, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Charles Eaton (RAAF officer) now open

The A-Class review for Charles Eaton (RAAF officer) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Ian Rose (talk) 01:34, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Contest question

Does this only apply to articles? Can I join up with the intention of improving portals? :) Cirt (talk) 18:50, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

If it doesn't, it should. BusterD (talk) 22:16, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
Okay, thank you! :) Cirt (talk) 22:19, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
I think portals have been entered before, and I see no reason why they shouldn't be included. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 23:50, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
FWIW, current project I'm working on is Portal:Biological warfare, almost done with initial work and then on to WP:PPREV. Cirt (talk) 23:53, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure if they've ever been entered before, but there's no reason that they couldn't be. It's worth noting, though, that since some of the assessment levels don't apply to portals, only some of the point awards will actually be available to them. Kirill [talk] [prof] 04:07, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
Understood, no worries. ;) Cirt (talk) 07:58, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

SS Irish Oak

The SS Irish Oak article has been reviewed following a GA nomination and found to be in need of a copyedit. Is there any editor who would like to polish the article up a bit? Mjroots (talk) 15:55, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Portal:Biological warfare at peer review

A new portal Portal:Biological warfare is now up for portal peer review, the review page is at Wikipedia:Portal peer review/Biological warfare/archive1. I put a bit of work into this and feedback would be appreciated prior to featured portal candidacy. Thank you for your time, Cirt (talk) 22:31, 24 December 2009 (UTC)


Tuskegee Airmen

Can someone tell me how the Tuskegee Airmen and 332d Fighter-Interceptor Squadron are related and whether either or both should be mentioned on {{Aerospace Defense Command}} {{USAAF 4th Air Force World War II}}.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 00:35, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of African-American pilots trained during WWII; they served as pilots in a number of seperate squadrons (99th, 100th, 301st, and 302nd), which were joined together to operate as the 332nd Fighter Group. The 332d Fighter-Interceptor Squadron seems to have nothing to do with the 332nd Group or the Tuskegee Airmen; just a coincidence of numbers.
As to the templates, I'm not sure, but I can't see a pressing reason to include the TA article on either; the 332nd Squadron does seem to have been assigned to Fourth AF, though so it might be appropriate to include it there. Shimgray | talk | 00:50, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
(ec) I think I understant what is going on. I see it is a different 332d.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 00:57, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Redlinked hatnotes

Moved comments to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft#Redlinked hatnotes, as the discussion has sprung up there. Thanks. BilCat (talk) 14:04, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Rename of Obice da 75/18 modello 34

I feel this article should be given a clearer name; what's the convention on re-labelling foreign artillery? MatthewVanitas (talk) 05:22, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

The artillery category uses all Italian names; German and French ones ditto. Soviet ones is English translation, though. Shimgray | talk | 13:05, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Catalan militia articles (translatable with Google and a little puzzling?)

I was wandering about the other language wikis to find topics well-covered in their own language but not in English, and was rewarded with ca:Categoria:Unitats paramilitars catalanes (Catalan paramilitary units). The GoogleTranslate engine is about as good for Catalan as it is for Spanish, and it appears to me that a well-educated English speaker can base much of a translation on the GoogleTranslate text, with reference back to the original version when the English looks hinky. For example, when you plug ca:Voluntaris Urbans into GoogleTranslate like so [4], about 90% of it is just minor cleanup to WP English, and the few hinky bits such as "The initiative of James Saves Christmas" become clearer when you glance at the original and see that "Jaume Nadal i Guarda" is a person's name.

Feel free to dispute, but I think non-Catalan (and non-Latinate speakers in general) can Google-translate many of these basic history articles without much loss of content, particularly if they can just <!-- --> "shield" any truly sticky bits for the moment and then contact a Catalan/Spanish/Portuguese speaker to help the sort out that detail. Seem way faster than waiting for our crew of linguists to work its way through a dozen articles.

Anyone else into guerrilla and militia warfare, like language-technology and/or word-puzzles, and want to give these a shot? MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:08, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

There's also masses in Indo-wiki. id:Kategori:Kodam di Indonesia is an example, but if somebody wants to talk a look at 70th Mechanised Infantry Brigade (Turkey) from Tu-wiki, which I translated partially, that would be really good. Buckshot06 (talk) 21:30, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
For portions where we can't produce intelligible paragraphs, I'd say shielding is the best bet. For example, your lede makes sense in English, and the categories work, so I'd suggest shielding the rest of the text which doesn't GTranslate cleanly, and then leave the "Expand from tr.wiki" tag you have there. That way the article at least exists as a stub. Leaving rough computer-translated text tends to be frowned on though, so best to shield the other paragraphs for the time being? Neat idea though, and at least gets us stubs, ties into category trees, and works the inter-language wikilinks. I just translated the lede of a Catalan article, and snagged a cool photo, to create Awake iron! (Almogavar war-cry). Though I translated that manually, I think a lot of Wikipedians could at least get the lede into quite clear and accurate English using GoogleTranslate. MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:44, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
I've done as you suggest. Cheers Buckshot06 (talk) 21:51, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Mining fr.wiki for Francophone MilHist articles

Since myself and Buckshot can translate from French, and presumably several other TF members can as well, I took Buckshot's suggestion and dug into the fr.wiki for MilHist articles that don't yet exist on en.wiki. The most efficient way, I imagine would be to start with fr:Catégorie:Pays francophone (French-speaking countries), since presumably editors would have access to French-language academic/journal literature on those countries and English-speakers don't.

That said, pickings aren't as thick as I thought. Many countries have no "Military of X" category, or a relatively small one. I started with Sengeal (a few mil units, tons of mil bios), and then Mali, Niger, Ivory Coast (not much in those). The main MilHist content they have that we don't is accounts of individual battles, also accessible more directly at fr:Catégorie:Bataille par pays (Battles by country). Not sure if folks are keen to crack on translating individual fights, but it is a source of info less available to the English-speaking world. Again, given well-educated Wikipedians with a basic grasp of military terminology, many of these battle articles may be translateable with GoogleTranslate and some glances back at the French version to puzzle out the parts where the computer translation isn't sufficient. MatthewVanitas (talk) 23:07, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

I've only edited half a dozen articles on French castles, but the French versions seem universally longer. Unfortunately, they're not always sourced, but there are gaps on the English-language Wikipedia. For example, I just found out that several links in the list of castles in France link directly to the French-language Wikipedia. Nev1 (talk) 00:55, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Possible POV user

User:RealFactsPLA. See his contributions. I'm not knowledgeable enough to tackle this one myself. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 04:59, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Between a revert and a talkpage warning by myself and a revert by User:Hcobb, seems to be dealt with. Buckshot06 (talk) 05:57, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Thanks to both of you for stepping on on this. A Check-user on him might be intersting! - BilCat (talk) 07:54, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Act of war

Act of war has been nominated for retargetting, see WP:RFD at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2009 December 19. 70.29.208.10 (talk) 01:47, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

There is a related page move request for Acts of War → Tom Clancy's Op-Center: Acts of War, see Talk:Acts of War. 76.66.192.232 (talk) 10:27, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Stance on US "line of duty" photographs from publications?

I understand that photos taken by US military in the line of duty are public-domain, so we can freely upload pics taken by US Army photographers throughout history, etc. However, does that apply to all such photos, or technically only if we dig up the original somewhere and scan it? That is, if John Smith's A Military History of Haiti has a photo taken by an official USMC source, can we scan it out of Smith's book and upload it as "public domain line of duty USMC photo" or whatnot? Or does Smith hold some copyright over the photo for having been the person to find it in an archive somewhere? MatthewVanitas (talk) 05:05, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

As long the image was taken by a US service person photographer then its public domain, period. You could copy and paste it right out of the book if you like provided you can provide a source for the image in question (ie:public domain photograph found on pg xx in John Smith's A Military History of Haiti). Note that this does not apply to anything penned in the book unless its was released under copyleft or unless the authored died 100 years ago, so any wording from the book in question that is present with the scan/copy will need to be removed prior to uploading. TomStar81 (Talk) 11:34, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Awesome, there's some Army Signal Corps photos in the current Small Arms Review of an experimental 1945 bullpup rifle called the Model 45A. Seems a really awesome US parallel to the British experimental Enfield EM-2 bullpup. Just wanted to make sure I'm being fair by scanning a single photo from it. Honestly, I think having a brief article and one intriguing photo will make the public far more interested in the writer's article and upcoming book than if said 45A was only known to a few thousand readers of SAR. Plus it'll really spruce up both Category:Bullpup firearms and Category:Trial and research firearms. Will borrow the roommate's scanner and try to have the article up in a week or two. MatthewVanitas (talk) 23:48, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Disagree: not all images taken by a US service person would be public domain. The issue is whether they took the image in the line of duty or not. I took plenty of photographs with my own personal camera while I was off duty that are not in public domain. I happened to be a Navy Photographer's Mate, but that didn't forfeit the creative work I did on my own time. Durova390 00:13, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
My understanding is that if the photo is credited to one of the US military services it's PD, but if its credited to an individual serviceman or woman it might not be. In this instance, if the credit to the photo is 'US Army' or some branch of the Army (eg, 'US Army signal corps', etc) it should be PD, but if its credited to Private Joe Blogs there's a good chance that Mr Blogs or his family holds the copyright. If the author of the book has altered the photo it may also not be PD and the photo caption is almost certainly going to be copyright. Nick-D (talk) 06:27, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

User:JL-Bot 5

Is this something we would find useful? –Juliancolton | Talk 15:21, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

It would be helpful if someone says what it is meant to do - it is not at all clear from the Bot request.Nigel Ish (talk) 17:14, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Essentially it makes a "Wall of recognized content" (AKA, automatically lists all the FAs, former FAs, GAs, former GAs, DYKs, ...) for your project (see example). You have complete control over which to cover, and a lot of control over display (see another example). Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 01:50, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
I believe that there would be a glaring deficiency if this were adopted for use for our project. I do not believe that the bot is properly programmed to be able to keep track of the articles which have gone through our A-Class review process. -MBK004 01:55, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Well it's the time to request features, just drop in the BRFA and mention it. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 02:00, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Also, we already have a "wall of recognized content" that we maintain ourselves quite dilligently: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Showcase. -MBK004 02:35, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, just that this saves you a lot of trouble in the long run (and it covers some things you don't if I recall correctly). I mean if you don't end up using it, I won't cry or anything, just that it's such a big and complex project, and so is a great place to get feedback on things (for instance I forgot about the A-class thing). Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 03:11, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
On a practical level, it's kind of untenable for replace the current showcase with the bot results simply because we track a considerable amount of content (FPs, FTs, etc.) that doesn't actually have the project banner attached. We'd have to do something like replacing some (but not all!) of the current showcase subpages with separate invocations of the bot, each generating a particular type of content—and that seems rather less elegant than the current system.
Somewhat more generally, I'm not convinced it's worth adopting a one-size-fits-all bot, which will probably not do everything the way we want it, given that we have a perfectly functional system in place that has (a) a dedicated maintenance staff and (b) is set up to meet our project's precise needs, rather than whatever the average case is. Kirill [talk] [prof] 03:51, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Friedrich Freiherr von Hotze now open

The A-Class review for Friedrich Freiherr von Hotze is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 23:01, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Peer reviews that need some attention

We have two peer review requests currently open that have sat for some time without any feedback:

If anyone has a bit of free time, some comments at either of these would be appreciated! Kirill [talk] [prof] 04:13, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Indonesian Army units

I checked out Indonesian Wiki at your suggestion, and there are tons of military unit write-ups there. I don't know any Indonesian and don't know how good gTranslate is for Indo, but I did manage to figure out the category names, so inter-wiki'ed the subcats for AF, Navy, and Category:Military units and formations of Indonesia. They list 159 distinct units of the Indonesian military. It certainly is a huge military, not sure how well those units are covered in English-language media. EDIT: A ton of the unit articles are very short and simple, mostly stats and a little history, so might be easy to gTranslate and plug into the English. Here's my stab: Batalyon Infanteri 714. MatthewVanitas (talk) 00:46, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
I'd suggest caution with simply translating unsourced articles on military units - what evidence is there that they're notable? The Indonesian Army has dozens (over 100?) infantry battalions, and I doubt that they're all notable. Nick-D (talk) 00:56, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Why would you advise caution Nick? I thought we had established that even separate combat companies were notable, and separate infantry battalions. The vast majority of these units have been involved in East Timor, Moluccas, the fighting in Aceh, the Dutch/Indonesian war, the various separatist uprisings in Indonesia's early years, and Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation with Malaysia. They will also have been involved in planning to resist feared Australian incursions into Indonesia. I'm frankly surprised at you, because you appear to be displaying systematic bias. Why should we write up the 39th Battalion (Australia) and not write up these units, simply because the details of their exploits are only available in Bahasa Indonesia or books like Ken Conboy's KOSPASSUS and may not come out for a while? By the way, my copy of MilBal 2007 says that the Kodams have 60 battalions, and KOSTRAD nine battalions, plus the three airborne brigades: total of around 78. Buckshot06 (talk) 04:34, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Nick's main point was that many of these articles are unsoucrced. And since sources prove notability, that's improptant too. I think we need to make sure the information we're translating is properly sourced. Many of the other interwikis are very lax on sources, so this may limit waht we can use if it cn't be verified properly. So I'd advise caution too. - BilCat (talk) 04:53, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Of course, we need RSs. But Nick seemed to be claiming they were not notable - it was that point I was addressing.
I wasn't saying that they're not notable - just that they may not be notable and caution needs to be taken. I'm reasonably confident that all Australian infantry battalions have received sufficient coverage to meet WP:ORG as I'm familiar with the level of references available on them, but don't know if the same applies to Indonesian infantry battalions, particularly territorial infantry battalions. Machine translating non enWiki articles is a great way to counter our systemic bias in the coverage of military units, but when the source articles don't have any references care should be taken. Nick-D (talk) 07:14, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Most of WP id is unsourced - and many indonesian editors perpetually try uploading and moving across articles into WP en with not a WP:RS in sight - the WP Indonesia en project has an endless battle with the issue - if military history articles come into the project - then that is fundamentally a member of shooting it in its own foot effort brigade - the Indonesia project would have to put them up for Afd on the grounds that a transfer has occurred without due diligence at sourcing - I can think of a lot better things to do than transfer from WP id. cheers SatuSuro 07:29, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
I have had the same experience and agree with SatuSuro on this one. Maintaining this hard line against transferring un or poorly referenced content into WP EN might indeed create systematic bias, but if I had to chose one evil over the other, then I'd rather have a systematic bias than woeful (or more likely) no referencing. --Merbabu (talk) 07:35, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
If indeed WP:N had the pip over the WP:RS we end up with a huge number of unreferenced stubs (no WP RS - and ok the subject exists but you might not be able to write much about them) - not a pretty sight and something the Indonesian project already has with places - whether we need it for military units is quite concerning that anyone should want to do that to the project SatuSuro 07:38, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Agreed that there's no harm in interwikiing so long as the sources exist both to justify the notability of the battalion, and also sources for the claims made. I'm not sure how this would be established though, without access to an Indonesian-language state/national library - but I'm aware of the idwiki issues SatuSuro and Merbabu have raised and they are real issues. Orderinchaos 10:09, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

(od) OK, points well made. While I was thinking about this earlier I came up with the idea of a List of Indonesian infantry battalions as a central reference point, rather than starting a huge number of unreferenced stubs. Tim Huxley, Director IISS-Asia in Singapore, is the man 'with the book' on Indonesian battalions, and I will poke around again in his published work. I think a list article, well referenced, is indeed the way to go. What I propose is simply listing the battalions from IndoWiki with designation, location, and higher command imported - thus establishing identity - and for anything else, we will have to provide sources. I have an old orbat for KOSTRAD which can form the basis of some of this. Additional comments/violent disagreement? Buckshot06 (talk) 10:30, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

It is extremely difficult to find web sources in Indonesian military units. I can help look for print sources in the Cornell University Library Southeast Asia collection if someone is willing up to take up the project. I do agree that a list article would be best for now. Arsonal (talk) 10:38, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
That sounds good to me. I've got some random sources naming various Indonesian infantry battalions which can be included. Nick-D (talk) 11:02, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
It is really appreciated that the Indonesia project issues have been heard - it is a great relief - as in the past the arrival of new material with inadequate sourcing or signs of cites - has really strained the Indonesian project resources - to see a willingness to work with the project and have sourced material is to be commended - thanks! SatuSuro 15:04, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
The trick is to look for the Indonesian coded designations. Search for 'Yonif 744' (Inf Bn 744) for example. YonArm for cavalry, etc. All the abbreviations are available via the Indo interwiki links. If we get a few people searching for these type of code references we'll get a long way. Various reports etc on E Timor, Moluccas, etc (International Crisis Group) will also help. Buckshot06 (talk) 20:59, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Addendum: page is up, please, somebody watchlist it as well as me, add start adding data.. Cheers and best wishes. Buckshot06 (talk) 21:24, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
Unfortunately - stubs have started with (1) no RS - (2) Indonesian name as title of article - I think we need some further discussion here - in the Indonesian project en - we tend to have the English translation as the title and the Indonesian name as the AKA redirect - could those involved in creating stubs comment on this here please - or we are starting off on a poor start. SatuSuro 08:54, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
The WPMILHIST guideline for unit names is English translation (with transliteration of names/locations etc) - which fits with the Indonsesian project. So by my understanding Batalyon Artileri Medan 11 should be at 11th Field artillery Battalion (Indonesia). GraemeLeggett (talk) 09:08, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Don't worry Suro, I'm keeping a very close eye on this, and I merge stub articles all the time if they cannot stand by themselves. I was also aware of the name issue. There are two possibilities. Matthew Vanitas went with Batalyon Infanteri 714. When I created Infantry Battalion 744 (Indonesia) I went with the opposite, translated, approach. Either is possible, and if you would give your preference Suro I'll switch the form around - either which way. The one thing, in my view, that we should NOT do is '11th x y z.' This does not appear to reflect Indonesian practice. They always use Inf Bn xxx. I reflected this when I created Infantry Division 1 Kostrad. Comments/disagreement welcome. Buckshot06 (talk) 21:32, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
Keeping the Indonesian numbering convention seems reasonable, since WP:MILMOS explicitly makes a provision for keeping numbering conventions (albeit in a slightly different context):

Names should generally follow the stylistic conventions used by the service or country of origin. For example, while US and British usage has spelled-out numerals for army-level formations and Roman numerals for corps, editors writing about different countries should follow those countries' normal usages; thus, "3. Panzer Armee" becomes "3rd Panzer Army", and "18-ya Armiya" becomes "18th Army".

Kirill [talk] [prof] 03:54, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Current practice in the Indonesian project is to find the english translation of the item the article is about - and have the indonesian language versions as an aka and redirect - as it then discourages the issue of Indonesian language only editors feeling that they can add material not in english (which is a serious issue believe me) - in the end if somebody on milhist is going to take issue (sigh) - it doesnt really matter whether the Indonesian name is used for the title - as long as the aka in english/ or indonesian is both a redirect to it and in the lead sentence - as far as the Indonesian project goes - if that happens all is sweet - it is when there is only one version as title and lead sentence item - with no indication of the other language - that it is unreasonable and or unnacceptable SatuSuro 06:27, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
I think it would be better to use the English-translated name. There are special cases where we would use the Indonesian name, especially if the Indonesian acronym would be more well known, e.g. KOSTRAD and Kopassus. Arsonal (talk) 11:21, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

(od) GraemeLeggett has already moved the two battalion articles to the form Infantry Battalion 714 and Field Artillery Battalion 11. The military regional commands are all at KODAM, eg Kodam Jaya. I believe the placing for the KODAMs to be correct - that is the way they are usually referred to in English (do you concur, Arsonal?). We'll make sure all the translations get into place. Any other thoughts SatuSuro? - should we merge the battalion articles which are short and unsourced into the list? Buckshot06 (talk) 18:14, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I do concur. You can verify by searching for "Kodam" and "Kodams" in Google Books (specifically). I've found that doing this usually gives you a sense on how certain terms are used in the literature. Another issue I would like WP:MILHIST to consider is how to treat acronyms in Indonesian military units. More recently, I've been leaning away from full capitalization as acronyms such as KOSTRAD and KOPASSUS have become so commonly used that it can effectively be a word of itself. This treatment of compound words is quite common in the language. Arsonal (talk) 19:06, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Can someone clarify on this - Kodam VI/Tanjungpura roughly works out as Command VI Tanjungpura with Tanjungpura being a place. ie similar to the German practice of giving Divisions names as well as numbers. And if so, is the forward slash actually needed? GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:26, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
You are correct that they are alternative names, but they are not necessarily locations. Some are names of people (e.g. Diponegoro and Pattimura) and states (e.g. Sriwijaya) from Indonesian pre-modern history. Some Kodams are also not numbered. (See Indonesian Army#Military Area Commands.) I am fine with leaving out the numbers in the article namespace and putting a redirect. I should also mention that modern literature most often use the term Kodam to describe the units. However, you may see some literature describing them as "Divisions", e.g. "Diponegoro Division" and "Siliwangi Division", especially those dating around 1940s to 1960s. Arsonal (talk) 19:51, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Correcting myself since I misread your question. I'm not sure if the forward slash is needed. Using it seems common in a Google Books search. We do use slashes a lot, such as in legislation designations. I would be fine with leaving it out, and I trust your judgment in this matter in compliance with whatever manual of style. Arsonal (talk) 19:59, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
I understand the names - for that's what they are - are usually Indonesian mythic 'honorifics;' you could make a comparison to Russian formation honorifics. There are two current Kodams that are not numbered, Kodam Jaya in Jakarta and the new one covering Aceh. I have just moved Infantry Division 1 KOSTRAD back to the original form I created it as, Infantry Division 1 Kostrad, as Arsonal is right - the terms begin their life as acronyms, but become words in their own right and appear to be used as such. The TNI began their existence with divisions, that's correct, but all the divisions were disbanded, with some of the divisions' heritage living on as military regional commands. A comparison would be the high numbered US Army Reserve infantry divisions, such as the 103rd Infantry Division (United States) which became a regional readiness command of the Army Reserve.
With / names, we've got to be careful; for the Kodams it's all right, but would get very confusing if we do it below that level. Every infantry brigade and battalion seems to have a name, and I think we should leave it at Infantry Battalion 714 or maybe Infantry Battalion 744 (Indonesia). Buckshot06 (talk) 06:42, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Cat tagging

As a BTW - I have been cat tagging for the new WP:DEATH project - and of course quite a few items overlap with MILHIST - I have come across quite a few obvious MILHIST categories with no project tags at all: Is there any one in MILHIST actually monitoring the category issue - or does checks at all? It is well worth having categories tagged for project maintenance and overall monitoring purposes - also there is the issue that maybe a bot running person no longer does it or is off on holidays - or no-one in the project is doing anything? SatuSuro 06:41, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Also the 'Southeast Asia task force=yes' does not appear to work /appear in the talk page template at the moment - anyone with any idea why? SatuSuro 01:00, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
I find a lot of articles that should have the MHP tag but do not. Some of them are reallllly old. Probably created by someone who did not tag, or did not know how, why, or wherefor. So I just tag. :) To have a definitive answer, one must ask a Coordinator. Auntieruth55 (talk) 01:43, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
Point is there are many categories that are in the ambit of milhist - so it makes sense to put the bare minumum of MILHIST on the cat page - as for articles - I suspect it depends very much in which subject/sub project area you are talking about. It is not fun btw - it can cause RSI very easily SatuSuro 01:48, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Peer review for Battle of Tskhinvali now open

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Peer review for Heinrich Hoffmann (pilot) now open

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A-Class review for USS Hawaii (CB-3) now open

The A-Class review for USS Hawaii (CB-3) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 01:35, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Helmut Lent now open

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USS Syren/Siren

The article on USS Syren (1803) states that in 1809 the ship was renamed USS Siren. This is unreferenced but the page does contain the line This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. However a new user has just added a number of contemporary newspaper reports from the war of 1812 which all refer to the vessel as the Syren. Also I dug up this London Gazette dispatch which names her as the Syren as well. So was the ship renamed in 1809 or does one set of source material contain a mistake? NtheP (talk) 22:05, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

This may be an issue of standardization, which languages were not until later in the 19th century. Some argue that it was part of the national movements. The Dictionary of American Naval Fighting ships, published much later probably used what was the "standard" (and "new") spelling, Siren, whereas the newspaper reports used the "old" spelling. Auntieruth55 (talk) 01:48, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
I did wonder that. DANFS is quite specific about a change in spelling in 1809. I wonder if the change was a directive from the US Government that wasn't carried out by the crew of the ship and hence not by anyone who came into contact with it to reported upon it. The Salem and Boston papers could quite easily be unaware of a change of name but the the report of the captain on the Medway uses the Syren spelling three times and this was probably taken from the log when it was captured. NtheP (talk) 09:08, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Florida class battleship needs attention

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Rifling

FYI, User:KVDP (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has made two requested page moves at WP:RM that conflict with each other

Rifled barrel is a redirect that targets Rifling

76.66.197.17 (talk) 12:32, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

332nd Infantry in Italy in World War One

Is there anyone out there who can help with this one? Currently the article is titled 332nd Infantry in Italy in World War One. There have been some concerns on the talk page about the name and scope of the article. Anyone with some sources on this unit, or an interest in US military units might wish to take a look and add their two cents worth about the issues. Also if someone feels like improving the article that would be greatly appreciated too. Cheers. — AustralianRupert (talk) 23:56, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I would say merge to 332nd Infantry Regiment (United States), except we don't have such an article. Move it and expand with WW2 material? Shimgray | talk | 02:42, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
As the article covers more than just the 332nd Infantry, I'd suggest moving it to United States contribution to the Italian Campaign (World War I) or similar. It's an interesting topic and a perfectly viable stand-alone article. Nick-D (talk) 04:35, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Military history of Asia

I have initiated Afd for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Asia as well as the category http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Military_history_of_Asia and believe that the template possibly needs the axe as well. The rationale behind this move is that the subject and category is far too big and anomalous - it needs breaking down to smaller and more coherent units - like southeast asia - and so on - it is clear that this will require discussion - I do hope some constructive debate will help a move to a more usable and understandable set of articles and categroies rather than what currently stands SatuSuro 02:35, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Both nominations are withdrawn temporaorily in AGF due to possible changes in MILHIST organisation - but will probably be re-nominated in the new year pending the outcome of what happens in MILHIST issues SatuSuro 04:55, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Canadian National Vimy Memorial now open

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Featured article candidacy for Peter Heywood now open

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Firearms articles to translate/mirror from French, German, Italian wikis

I went through the firearm sections at fr.wiki, de.wiki, and it.wiki and found 30-some articles with no parallel at en.wiki (and linked a few others that existed but were not cross-linked). Below are the MILHIST-related examples, so if anyone wants to take a stab. "Translate" is maybe not the right word, as some articles aren't so great and would be better built from scratch in English (and then linked to the it/fr/de version), while others are quite developed, have photos, etc.

German: de:Erma ESP 85 A, de:Falcon (Gewehr), de:FN Model 30-11, de:Gallager Carbine, de:IMI Galatz, de:Le Protector, de:Mauser K98 Spanisch (Santa Barbara) FR 8, de:MG 11, de:MP 41/44, de:Pardini SP, de:Raketenpistole, de:Sturmgewehr 58, de:Tabatièregewehr, de:Terzerol, de:Truvelo SR, de:Tesching, de:Turret-Revolver, de:Vz.24 (Pistole), de:Wieger

French: fr:Fusils et mousquetons Berthier, fr:K3 (fusil), fr:Fusil-mitrailleur de 7,5mm modèle 1924/1929 D, fr:Gorjunov SG-43, fr:RMR, fr:Frontier Bulldog, , fr:Pecheneg, , fr:Ruby llama, fr:Star Modèle 1914 fr:Bakalov, fr:Le Français 6,35 mm/7,65 mm/Modèle Armée (knocked out cross-out ones last evening)

Italian: it:Schioppo a vento Gilardoni, it:Fucile Vetterli-Vitali, it:Winchester - Maxim

If folks actually find this a helpful exercise, I can to the same for military vehicles, etc. Many of which have actually pretty good writeups and pics, just gear Anglophones don't think of as much since it's outside our immediate field of vision. MatthewVanitas (talk) 01:29, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Would you mind doing a runthrough for units: battalions, brigades, divisions, corps, armies etc, and the same thing in the 'Armed forces of X' categories? It would be a useful task list to have for the national militaries task force. Thanks Buckshot06 (talk) 10:46, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
I certainly can, but which languages would be the most profitable for folks? I'm cool spending an hour digging out a couple dozen articles, but only if there's actually some follow-up on it where translators will go in and make good use of the target list. Do we have any "to translate" list for WP:MILHIST anywhere? Just let me know the most productive way to employ a target list, and I'll go rummage around and create more. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:15, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
The German wikipedia is mostly about Europe/NATO units. It's French wikipedia - with its African details - that I would prefer you to focus on. Would you mind going through the African nations' articles in Fr wiki - I'll see that they are followed up. Cheers and thanks Buckshot06 (talk) 21:27, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
If you give me articles that are worth the effort, I can translate them from German to English, however, there's a big problem with citations. Getting them right, might take me some time. Wandalstouring (talk) 15:00, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

White flags in infoboxes

My edit was reverted ({{POW}} → [[Image:White flag icon.svg|15px|Surrendered]]) with words: "We need to keep everything consistent. See other WWII related pages." I need to know—Who 'invented' to use white flags in the infobox for WWII related pages, because I see the {{POW}} template is used in many WWII related pages: [5], and don't see any rule about white flags. And I need to hear its rationale and benefits of this for readers, because longer [[Image:White flag icon.svg|15px|Surrendered]] leads to the image of white flag, instead of {{POW}}, that lead to the Surrender (military) article. — Al3xil ✉ 15:37, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, I dont know where they came from but it is located on a number of other pages. See:Battle of France, Eastern Front (World War II). Its not that bug of a deal and If you like, I can revert my own edit. Thanks--Coldplay Expért Let's talk 15:47, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
That will be great, if you change it back. But I still would to know the standard (flag or template) for the future. Let me know, if there is some rule, and thanks for a quick response. — Al3xil ✉ 16:00, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Well I belive that the new standard is the White flag as readers can recognise that more than a # symbol.--Coldplay Expért Let's talk 16:35, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
It does indeed say more than a # symbol, but it also is a bit problematic. It links to the SVG image, not to an article explaining what it's about, so if the reader doesn't get it immediately there's no obvious way of explaining; the # approach at least means there's a link to surrender. It can also be confusing in a situation where, say, a leader surrenders or is captured but the rest of his force does not; a white flag is a very clear visual symbol, and so it's easy to assume it's more broad than it really is.
Personally, I would prefer using neither - I'm not convinced there's any benefit to cramming as much information as possible into the infobox - but I'm tempted to say the textual one wins out. It's certainly the one still documented as standard here. Shimgray | talk | 17:04, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't see the flag often, but it is a clear indication of what happened to an individual and certainly clearer than #. One issue that niggles with me and seems worth mentioning here is that not every person who ends up in enemy hands after a battle actually surrendered, and I think it might be unfair simplifying situations in that way. I originally added the POW template to an article because the name seemed accurate, but Colonel Frost maintains that his little force at Arnhem bridge didn't surrender, but were overrun. This is fairly true as well, there was a truce, but fighting continued until all the remaining men had been captured (although they all ended up as POW's). I'd be happier if the white flag linked to POW, but that creates issues of its own.... Perhaps rename the template whatever happens? POW and surrender are different things after all. Ranger Steve (talk) 18:54, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
If it were being used solely for those taken prisoner, we could have it generate, say, [POW] after the names, rather than the ambiguous hashmark. Marking "taken prisoner" rather than "surrendered" seems best; if a force surrendered, it'll probably be explicitly mentioned in the infobox anyway! Shimgray | talk | 20:23, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Having something that says POW in superscript sounds good to me. I don't like the white flags at all because of the links and how visually disrupting they are, but the hash mark can be kind of confusing if you don't have popups on. – Joe N 22:56, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

It would be worth standardising, I think, if we do this - Smith[POW], Jones [KIA]. Thoughts? I note that {{KIA}} already has an alternative display mode, which gives (K.I.A.) after the name. Shimgray | talk | 23:36, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree. both have problems. We do need something that just says POW. and one that says KIA as well.--Coldplay Expért Let's talk 01:07, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
I think, [POW] is the best solution for prisoners of war. We might use the white flag for a surrender of complete units like the 6th army at Stalingrad. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:56, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
I agree, the flag is good for large conflicts, countries and armies (such as in the Battle of France), but less so for individual people. Ranger Steve (talk) 14:59, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Suggestions on Air and Air Defense Force of the Islamic State of Afghanistan

Ran across this new stub Air and Air Defense Force of the Islamic State of Afghanistan. I don't know much of anything about Air/AD issues. Should this be merged into something else, or is it worth developing in its own right? MatthewVanitas (talk) 16:23, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Looking at it, and given the fact that the force in question is not all that notable it should be megerd with a page about the Afgan armed forces in this period, which I cannot find.Slatersteven (talk) 17:34, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
While I'm sorting these issues, I've also created Category:Former military units and formations of Afghanistan. Is this the preferred format/term for military units which no longer exist? MatthewVanitas (talk) 17:42, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Okay, I see part of the problem is there's no Military of the Islamic State of Afghanistan article, so the article in question is a bit stranded. For the interim, I've gone ahead and created Category:Islamic State of Afghanistan (1992-1996) to contain any articles on that period, as Category:History of Afghanistan is getting pretty cluttered. MatthewVanitas (talk) 17:51, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
So what we need then is the page to be created, and this page merged with it.Slatersteven (talk) 18:01, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
Or, honestly, we could just merge everything into Islamic State of Afghanistan, which isn't very long. But then it wouldn't be part of the Military category-trees. MatthewVanitas (talk) 18:53, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
I've merged this into Northern Alliance. Matthew, thank you for creating that category, but it doesn't fit with the category structure. Whether they're today's, 1980s, or 1890s, they all go in the same category - Category:Military units and formations of Afghanistan. Otherwise after these new corps eventually disappear, we'd have to move them into that category as well. There is a possibility of something like 'Military units and formations of Afghanistan during the Soviet War in Afghanistan' but there's nothing to put in it yet. Also, 055 Brigade is a component of a non-state entity - Al Qaeda - and doesn't properly belong in the category anyway. Buckshot06 (talk) 21:42, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Partner peer review for Blaster Master now open

The peer review for Blaster Master, an article within the scope of the Video games WikiProject, is now open. The Military history WikiProject is currently partnering with our project to share peer reviews, so all editors are cordially invited to participate, and any input there would be very appreciated! Thanks! –MuZemike 21:00, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

RAF Oxenhope

Somebody might want to look at RAF Oxenhope. Chris (talk) 13:57, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Ouch. Actually doesn't even have the right name, It was RAF Oxenhope Moor. I'll try and straighten it up when I get a bit of time. NtheP (talk) 16:17, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
Thanks to Brichcja who beat me to it. NtheP (talk) 17:07, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

New cat: Category:Trial and research tanks

Created Category:Trial and research tanks, inspired by Category:Trial and research firearms. The category is for prototype and experimental tanks which were never fielded (or fielded only briefly/experimentally). Its parent cats are Category:Tanks and Category:Weapon development. I mostly filled it in with WWI prototypes, but please feel free to add in later experimental tanks. MatthewVanitas (talk) 01:02, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Required task forces?

Do all articles require a task force? This Field Marshals of the Hereditary States of the House of Austria. does not fit any of the categories, unless we go for the time periods Early Modern and Napoleonic. It is distinctly not German, there is no Austrian task force, nor a Habsburg one. So can this article remain without a task force? Also, I'm not sure how I got a period into the title when I renamed the article, but how do I edit that out? Auntieruth55 (talk) 19:12, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

No, all articles do not require a task force. Some regions are not covered. This one you're talking about would go in the time-period TF - as you said, early modern/Napoleonic. Buckshot06 (talk) 21:29, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
Hi Auntieruth, sorry if I've mucked this one up. I originally put the German tag on it because of the category that it is siting in (Field Marshals of Germany). If an article doesn't fit into an already existing task force it can be placed in the "no" task force by adding the parameter no=yes to the mil hist banner. Alternatively there appears to have been a suggestion that it might fit into the Napoleonic task force or Early Modern. I'll leave it up to you to decide though as I've already managed to get this one wrong once before. Cheers! — AustralianRupert (talk) 00:34, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
This is one of those lists that falls into a lot of categories, dating to the time when armies were not national, thus an "Austrian" (or Habsburg) general could be Hungarian, thus not Austrian, or German, again not Austrian, or Russian or Swiss, etc. I think I will leave it without a task force until one is created that fits the bill. Even if we had a Holy Roman Empire task force, it wouldn't apply. Auntieruth55 (talk) 00:48, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

New cat Category:Military disbanding and disarmament

Trying out a new category Category:Military disbanding and disarmament, for historical attempts and programs to disarm groups. Not sure how easy this will be to fill, or how much dispute it will involve, but wanted to at least try the concept. MatthewVanitas (talk) 08:46, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

This is very close to the term Disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration (DDR). That term covers the attempted reintegration into society. Would you mind considering a category name move to cover Military DDR? Buckshot06 (talk) 00:01, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
I would actually welcome a refinement of the cat title. I suggest someone pitch a good idea and we run it by WP:CFD. MatthewVanitas (talk) 04:01, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Taking the 6th

Shouldn't this page really be Sixth Army (Germany)? (And, btw, shouldn't this be von Paulus?) TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 07:20, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Why? (Seriously.) The German wiki page is at de:Deutsche 6. Armee, so isn't this one the direct equivilant? - BilCat (talk) 07:56, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Because in the English sources I've seen, the usual is Sixth (or Fifth, &c). I won't argue with de.wp, 'cause that may be the German (military's) standard. I also find the abbreviated forms too informal. (I don't expect to get much support on the issue, frankly... :( ;p ) TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 10:37, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
Paulus should be von Paulus, I think. As for the Armies, I've always used 6th, 7th, etc. for German Armies in everything I've done, and haven't seen any sources saying otherwise. It may be informal, but if that's what is used, it should be what we use. – Joe N 15:40, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
We've looked at this issue - see the conversation on Indonesia above. WP:MILMOS explicitly says: 'Names should generally follow the stylistic conventions used by the service or country of origin. For example, while US and British usage has spelled-out numerals for army-level formations and Roman numerals for corps, editors writing about different countries should follow those countries' normal usages; thus, "3. Panzer Armee" becomes "3rd Panzer Army", and "18-ya Armiya" becomes "18th Army".' Buckshot06 (talk) 17:50, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
I can live with that. (I wouldn't do it, but that's another issue. ;D ) TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 23:49, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
This page is about the sixth army and they are mostly known under this name in Germany. You're right about von Paulus, although for whatever reasons we Germans often say only Paulus. Since 1918 von is only part of a name and carries no social implications. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:50, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
In the German Army of WWII armies had Arabic numerals, thus 6. Armee (= 6th Army), while army corps had Roman numerals (e.g. XXII. Armeekorps). Army groups would be known by letters (Heeresgruppe A = Army Group A) or a name (e.g. Army Group Weichsel). To make it more confusing, they didn't use the subtractive form of Roman numerals (e.g. XXXXVIII. Armeekorps), but that is another issue.
I do not know what it is, that Paulus is always referred to as von Paulus in English publications. Maybe because his wife was Romanian nobility. Paulus' father was an accountant, but definitely not nobility. --Dodo19 (talk) 16:38, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Korea

A user has raised concearns about the page. One area I agree with him is the fact that UN casualiy total list only killed whilst the communist one adds all casaulties. Problom is I can't edit (or at least do not know how to edit) the pages infobox to corect this.Slatersteven (talk) 15:16, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I think that Slatersteven is referring to the Korean War article Nick-D (talk) 00:22, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
I am and the info box seems to be a unique template, thus I do not know were it is stored.Slatersteven (talk) 15:22, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Hi, you should be able to edit it here - Template:Campaignbox Korean War. Hope this helps. Anotherclown (talk) 23:01, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Thanks but this ism the campign box, its the info box that needs editing. it did however give me a clue cheersSlatersteven (talk) 15:05, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

New article 1st Armored Car Squadron (United States Marines)

I can't even recall where I saw mention of this unit, but I marked it for later article creation. I finally got around to creating 1st Armored Car Squadron (United States Marines) (found one USMC website with basic info, and one awesome book on Google Books). Kind of a neat little side-note to the history of armoured warfar. And, me being me, I followed it out to create new articles for all the red wiki-links I created (for the vehicle they used, the company that built them, the founding officer, etc.). I'd love to find a photo, any ideas? MatthewVanitas (talk) 02:27, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Try the bases at which they were stationed, they may have a photograph somewhere. TomStar81 (Talk) 09:04, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Much as I wouldn't want to rain on any parade but is this unit notable? Or should it be a section in 1st Marine Regt? It had a short existence, never saw action and wasn't a large formation. I'm more than happy to be shouted down but when in other areas there are mass deletion of articles relating to decorated servicemen that are deemed non-notable due to the decoration not being one of the highest, having an article for a unit which appears to be little more than a footnote in history seems to me to be not quite right. NtheP (talk) 15:26, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
I figure it's notable in terms of precedent-setting, in much the same way that we have plenty of articles on prototype vehicles, weapons, etc. This is basically one of the first armoured land-vehicle units in US history. MatthewVanitas (talk) 16:49, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
Accepted but that the squadron didn't see action or even go to France still makes me think it lacks notability. To be somewhat ad absurdem about this, the same justification could be used for any unit that was the first to adopt a particular weapon or style of warfare.
I think that the article as it stands doesn't highlight the notability particularly strongly. As written, it doesn't explain why the creation of the unit was any more important than the first US unit to be given the bayonet, or a submachine gun, etc. - of which there would be many around the world in each respective military! It might work better if the article drew out how the unit influenced the evolution of armoured warfare in the rest of the US army in some way. Hchc2009 (talk) 17:32, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Appropriate links for military navboxes

There is a discussion regarding the appropriateness of linking Air Force Blues, an article about an unofficial web comic, in the Template:US Air Force navbox. Please see Template talk:US Air Force navbox#Air Force Blues. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 16:53, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

AfD of Battle of Waddan

Here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:21, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Peer review for Camp Chapman attack now open

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Peer review for Hans Beißwenger now open

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A-Class review for Friedrich Freiherr von Hotze needs attention

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Backlogs needing attention

Please help clear the backlogs of unassessed articles in the following categories:

After assessment, they are automatically removed from the category. Thanks,  Roger Davies talk 11:17, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I have noticed that there are a number of military related articles with nothing on their talk pages (the talk pages are empty) so therefore they would not have these tags, but are not inlcluded in this count. I would recommend someone looking for military history articles with empty talk pages. I was able to do a basic one with the list comparer in AWB and the American military personnel category and came up with quite a few, but I am sure there is a better way to capture more articles than just biographies. --Kumioko (talk) 15:22, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for Petlyakov Pe-8 now open

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Featured article candidacy for Johann von Klenau now open

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Peer review for Nimitz class aircraft carrier now open

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Task Force housekeeping

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Now might perhaps be a good time to consolidate some of the quieter TFs into larger, more active, ones. Obvious candidates are:

Thoughts?  Roger Davies talk

Initial comments

Agree with all suggested mergers. Buckshot06(prof) 14:27, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
No objections here. EyeSerenetalk 16:04, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
I disagree with the Ottoman one. The Ottomans were from very early on a European power as well as an Anatolian one, and a very active one at that. One could even argue that the centre of power of the Ottoman state before 1517 was in Europe rather than Asia. But even after the defeat of the Mamelukes, and with the exception of the wars with Persia, most of the Ottoman military activity actually happened in Europe. The Middle East may have formed the bulk of the Empire, but in terms of foreign policy & military history, the Ottomans were most active in Central, Southern and Eastern Europe. Constantine ✍ 17:48, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm of the same mind with the Ottoman Task Force. The Ottoman Empire's main military campaigns were fought on European/Central Asian soil (with Russia, Austria, Austria-Hungary, etc). I have to agree w/ Constantine that Ottoman Military should remain separate. As for the others, I have no objections. Cam (Chat) 19:17, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
I agree that's true, but this is more about whether or not the Ottoman TF is active enough to support its existence as a standalone TF. Perhaps we could look at other TFs to find a more suitable one for a merger? EyeSerenetalk 07:28, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

(od) Agree with all mergers; they can always be de-merged if enough people join them. Skinny87 (talk) 09:34, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Keep in mind that while separating two merged task forces may be theoretically possible, it's an utter nightmare in terms of practical logistics; so we shouldn't make this decision lightly, with the idea that we can flip between the two arrangements. If we're going to merge things, we should be reasonably confident that we won't need to un-merge them at least in the foreseeable future. Kirill [talk] [pf] 21:15, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Disagree with naming of new Australizan/New Zealand Task Force, if its scope is going to include other nations in that region, perhaps it should be named the Oceania task force.
  • Disagree with the merging of the Taiwanese and/or Chinese Military History Task Forces. As seen in the argument of who is a Taiwanese and Chinese American both words are politically loaded and contentious, and although all editors are suppose to maintain a NPOV, this may cause some tension in the future.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 13:49, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
  • "Oceanian military history" sounds like a reasonable alternative to "Australasian military history"; I assume there's nothing controversial about the term in the region in question?
  • Nothing wrong except your suffix. I've never heard of 'Oceanian', ever. I'd suggest sticking with Oceania. Cheers Buckshot06(prof) 21:34, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Really? I'd always assumed that "Oceanian" was the common adjective form (cf. Category:Oceanian countries). Do people there normally only use the noun form, even in an adjective role? Things like "Oceania history" and so forth sound off to me, but that could be a mistaken assumption on my part. Kirill [talk] [pf] 21:46, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Although, looking at this further, Military history of Oceania uses "Oceanic" instead. Is that a more common term? Kirill [talk] [pf] 21:49, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
  • To be honest, I've never heard of either. Prefer 'Oceania military history.' Buckshot06(prof) 00:09, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
  • I've heard both Oceanian and Oceanic, but never Oceania as an adjective. Perhaps Oceanic would sound better here. – Joe N 01:05, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Seems I'm outvoted. Oceanic military history will do fine. Cheers Buckshot06(prof) 05:44, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
  • As far as the Taiwanese one is concerned, I don't think that we should let the political issue keep us from doing what's best for the project. The alternative, in my opinion, would likely involve deleting the Taiwanese TF entirely; it's far too small and inactive to sustain itself, or be worth maintaining merely for organizational value. Kirill [talk] [pf] 21:13, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Another possible candidate might be the Romanian TF into the Balkan TF. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:48, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I was under the impression that Romania was normally not considered part of the Balkans. Is that not the case? Kirill [talk] [pf] 21:13, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
What about upgrading the Romania task force into a central Europe task force that would cover all the missing countries? - Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria, etc? Buckshot06(prof) 21:34, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
It's more Eastern Europe than Central Europe, really—and that's one area where trying to merge task forces together will almost certainly cause huge fights to break out. It's better to leave those particular task forces well enough alone, in my opinion, even if they're not quite as a active as we'd like.
(The potential is certainly there, in any case; the sheer numbers of articles involved are quite high, even if we have too few editors working on them.) Kirill [talk] [pf] 21:46, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
If we created just a general Eastern Europe TF that included the Balkans, Romania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Belarus (possibly even the countries currently in the Nordic TF), and overlapped slightly with European Russia, that would avoid political issues. The main drawback would be that it might become rather large in terms of number of articles. – Joe N 01:05, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
Whatever Romania is, it certainly isn't Central Europe, which would be Germany, Switzerland Austria, the northern part of Italy, Czech republic, and an eastern swath of Hungary. If you look at the history journals that deal with "Central Europe"... they define it pretty clearly. Eastern Europe, then covers Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, etc. Point: for a good part of the early modern and modern past, most of the armies from those areas would fall under Habsburg or HRE categories. While they have a long history as a people, they have a relatively short history as a state.
  • One of the elements I find fascinating about this discussion is the move from nationalist military history, toward geopolitical definitions that are not necessarily nationalistic. Veeeeery interesting. Is there a problem with having task forces that deal with the areas/states that have active members, and then putting the others in general geographic clusters? Auntieruth55 (talk) 23:09, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm a bit concerned at the name Military science and technology task force - I think the military science part gets lost, and it sounds as if it's just about science and technology in a military context. Military science is, of course, the study of the causative factors and tactical principles of warfare (per Dictionary.com - though Military science seems to think it's about technology and equipment) and thus embraces articles on strategy and tactics rather than technology. But then I'm a member of the Military science task force, and I've never done anything specifically arising from it, so my views shouldn't count for much. Cyclopaedic (talk) 17:39, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Weighing in finally on these...
  • Taiwanese military history absorbed into Chinese military history: Have to admit the first thing I thought of here was current political significance of such a merger, even though I know that's not what's meant with this proposal, so I have to say I'm not particularly comfortable with it.
Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:41, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
I'd vote for Australasian task force- almost no-one uses "Oceanic" in everyday use and Australia and NZ are going to be the major components of the taskforce anyway, so "Australasian" is fine IMHO. Commander Zulu (talk) 07:13, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
I'd also say "Australasian". "Oceanic" is an adjective that refers to the oceans rather than Oceania. Constantine ✍ 14:09, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
Australasian works best for me. It's unambiguous and, as Ian mentions, Oceania is very Nineteen Eighty-Four.  Roger Davies talk 08:03, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
Disagree. I see nothing wrong with having both an Australian task force and a New Zealand one. IMO an Oceania task force would be difficult to live with (being melodramic of course), although an Australasian one would be acceptable but only grudgingly. I think the Australian task force in particular is a fairly active one and if we accept the recent rogue creation of the Pakistan task force we should be able to justify the continued existance of the Australian one. Personnally I don't see the need for the change. Anotherclown (talk) 08:17, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
That part of the proposal isn't about ending the existence of the Australian TF, which I agree is one of our more productive ones, but rather finding a natural home for the all-but-inactive New Zealand TF. I suppose there's no real harm in keeping inactive TFs on the books, but in terms of the (albeit small) administrative overhead it makes sense to rationalise them where we can. EyeSerenetalk 09:03, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone else have any comments? Kirill [talk] [pf] 04:47, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Kirill, you've seen my comments above - just want to say I continue to support the merger of TFs as per my notes above. Don't really have any strong opinion what the Aust/NZ task force is called, but believe it should be merged. Regards Buckshot06(prof) 18:41, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
Kirill, I too support a merger of the Australian and NZ task forces, however, because it has been proposed that the smaller populated island nations be included within its scope, I only have disagreement on what it is named. For that part I believe the name should be as inclusive as possible. Furthermore, I believe we all have the understanding that military forces in American Samoa will remain within the scope of the US Task force?
However, I do object to the merger of the Taiwanese/RoC Task Force with the Chinese/PRC Task Force, due to the political issues that may arise from it, as I had stated above.
For all other mergers, I have no opinion on them, and should continue per consensus, if one has been reached. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:43, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
Hi RightCowLeftCoast, what Kirill's told me in the past with 'delineation' issues like American Samoa is that he's happiest if there are no particular inclusion restrictions. Am Samoa issues might attract two taskforce tags, but his argument would be there's no harm in that.
For the record, I have no objection to merging the ROC and Chinese task forces. Buckshot06(prof) 20:41, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
I see no harm in both TF's being able to improve any military articles relating to American Samoa, just as long as there is no exclusion, of the US Task Force, then it should be all gravy. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 08:17, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
While my contributions in this area have been modest, I don't see the wisdom in merging Military Science with Military Science and Technology. The former is more fundamental and relatively invariant with time whereas the latter has many many more pages devoted to it and changes constantly. Military Science has no real impact on technology. Technology does mediate the application of Military Science but not the fundamental principles which are centuries old. Dduff442 (talk) 12:16, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd say change the Indian one to a whole subcontinental/South Asia one. The Pakistan one is simply pointless and some SL and Bangladesh are floating in SE Asia YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive) 08:20, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Good suggestion.  Roger Davies talk 10:19, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
I support this suggestion. --Rosiestep (talk) 04:24, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Add Nepal to the subcontinent/S Asia one, maybe Afghanistan as well; the Taliban is current "middle east" YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (help the Invincibles Featured topic drive) 04:28, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
I'll flag this discussion up in the new edition of The Bugle to get a bit more feedback so we can move it towards a resolution.  Roger Davies talk 09:59, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
I'd agree to a South Asian task force. In fact, this has been proposed before as well. Taking an example from the area I work in; articles related to the Sri Lankan civil war either have no regional task force or are in the Idian/south east asian ones as YellowMonkey mentioned. ≈ Chamal talk ¤ 08:07, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree with this one, also. — AustralianRupert (talk) 00:17, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

From my perspective, the conversation so far is fairly chaotic, and deliberation about any one task force suggestion is getting lost in between the conversations relating to the others. I think a subsection for each proposal should be created (maybe with a summary of the opinion so far as observed by one or more of the Coordinators): that way, we can keep discussion of the proposals out of each others' way. -- saberwyn 08:24, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Summary

As requested, with the caveat that I've contributed to the discussion above so am not technically uninvolved. If anyone feels I have misjudged consensus as a result, please feel free to amend as necessary :) I suggest further discussion, if desired, takes place under each proposal's individual section. EyeSerenetalk 11:00, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Taiwanese military history and Chinese military history

  • Original proposal: Taiwanese military history (one editor) could be absorbed into Chinese military history.
  • Summary of discussion: Few explicit opinions (outside blanket approvals) have been offered either way. The main objection is that the merger may have awkward political ramifications; this has been countered by the suggestion that politics should have no bearing on what's best for Milhist, and because the Taiwanese TF is so small the alternative might be to remove it entirely.
  • Consensus position so far: Merger approved
I believe that I am the only one opposed to the merger at this point. No? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 11:56, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Ian Rose also expressed a concern, for the same reasons, although it wasn't an outright oppose. EyeSerenetalk 12:06, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Australian military history and New Zealand military history

  • Original proposal: Australian military history and New Zealand military history, with a scope expanded to include the Pacific Islands, could be merged to form the Australasian task force.
  • Summary of discussion: The idea of some form of merger has attracted almost unanimous support; however, what to call the new task force has been more contentious. Suggestions have included "Australasian military history", "Oceaniac military history", and variants on the two. Both Australasian and Oceaniac have attracted support.
  • Consensus position so far: Principle of merger approved; no clear consensus as yet for the new task force name (although "Australasian military history" may have a slight edge)
    • I would lean towards "Australasian", as, although I am familiar with the term "Oceania" for the region, I have never heard the term "Oceaniac". Also, at first glance, most people would read the name as task force for oceans. -- saberwyn 03:35, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
      • I've changed my mind to be in favour of Australian and New Zealand military history task force, and limiting inclusion to those two nations. -- saberwyn 20:38, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
    • Although I have already stated it, I support a title relating to the Oceania region, it is more inclusive a term and doesn't favor a single nation within said region. Alternatively South West Pacific redirects to the Oceania page, at like the suggested South Asia TF, SWP TF may also be an idea and has historic precedents in the SWPA. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 09:53, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
      • Would SWP then also include the Phillipines, then? If not, we're likely to cause confusion due to the common meaning of the name in WWII matters; but I'm not sure that there's a good argument to be made for expanding into SE Asia either. Kirill [talk] [pf] 03:01, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Agreed, lets leave SE Asia out of this discussion. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 04:17, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
  • I would support a task force called 'Australian and New Zealand military history task force, but I would not support a task force called Oceaniac or Oceania military history task force. My reason for this is that the majority of the articles that would be in the task force would be Australian and New Zealand and hence the other hangers on would just be the poor cousins that probably wouldn't get improved anyway. Why not an A&NZ task force, which could exist alongside the currently existing South East Asian task force, which could be expanded to include the Pacific Islands nations. — AustralianRupert (talk) 04:15, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Another idea is that there could be the ANZAC or Australian and New Zeland task force, or whatever you want to name it, leave the South East Asian Task Force as is, and then have/create a Polynesia/Micronesia/Melanesia task force for those other nations and territories which were termed by someone else in this discussion as "poor cousins". --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 04:17, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Whatever we do, I would really like to see something covering all those islands. I support Oceanic, which covers those and sounds less awkward than Australasian (it's really long and hard to spell). – Joe N 21:25, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Lebanese military history and Ottoman military history

  • Original proposal: Lebanese military history and Ottoman military history are merged into Middle Eastern military history.
  • Summary of discussion: This has attracted little explicit support (although comes under several blanket approvals). There have been no objections to merging the Lebanese TF with the Middle Eastern TF; the main opposition arises from suggestions that the Ottoman sphere of influence was not limited to the Middle East. However, the question of whether it is active enough to support its stand-alone existence, or could be merged with a more suitable task force, remains to be examined.
  • Consensus position so far: Lebanese task force; merger approved. Ottoman task force; accounting for blanket supports, there is a weak consensus for the merger. However, further discussion may be desirable.
I support the merger of the Lebanese task force into the Middle East task force, but think that perhaps the Ottoman task force needs to be separate. After all it is not so much a geographical grouping in that regard, but rather a period of history. For example, the ACW task force is separate from the US, as is Napoleonic from French, British etc. I'm not involved in any of these task forces, though, so my vote might be a little redundant. — AustralianRupert (talk) 04:38, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Military science and Military technology and engineering

  • Original proposal: Military science could be merged with Military technology and engineering to form the Military science and technology task force.
  • Summary of discussion: Again, this has attracted a number of blanket but few explicit supports. A concern was raised that Military Science has meanings incompatible with Military technology and engineering, but although acknowledged this has not been widely echoed.
  • Consensus position so far: Merger approved
To acount for the concern of the discrepancy in meaning from "science and technology" to "military science," I would suggest Military arts and sciences task force. I found both US and Canadian official usage to substantiate this name as adequately covering the full spectrum of the merged task forces.
Given all this, it seems to me that the term "military science" is occasionally (or potentially by region) used more narrowly than it is here on Wikipedia. At the same time there is precedent (US DoD and Canadian academia) for using "military arts and science" to cover that broader meaning. MCG (talk) 20:27, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Romanian military history and Balkan military history

  • Proposal emerged during debate: Romanian military history could be merged into the Balkan military history task force.
  • Summary of discussion: The point was made that Romania is not considered part of the Balkans; further suggestions then involved the creation of a wider "Eastern European task force" that might include "Balkans, Romania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Belarus (possibly even the countries currently in the Nordic TF), and [portions of] European Russia".
  • Consensus position so far: Not moved beyond initial proposal stage; further discussion needed
Approve merger of Romanian task force into Balkan task force. Buckshot06 (talk) 02:11, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
I also support this merger. — AustralianRupert (talk) 04:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Indian military history and Pakistani military history

  • Proposal emerged during debate: Merger of Indian and Pakistani task forces into a newly-created South Asian military history task force, to include areas such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
  • Summary of discussion: Unanimous support so far.
  • Consensus position so far: Merger approved, although this suggestion has not yet attracted wide participation and further input would be useful.
Approve merger of both into South Asian task force. Buckshot06 (talk) 02:11, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Should it also include Bhutan, Maldives, Tibet, the British Indian Ocean Territories, per the South Asia article? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 10:01, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
Tibet seems out of place, both politically—the Chinese/Taiwanese thing is paralleled here—and historically, since there was little military similarity between Tibet and the Subcontinent. (Having said that, I'm not sure if we even have any articles on Tibetan military history at the moment, so this may be a moot point.) Kirill [talk] [pf] 02:57, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
Not Tibet, as there is little/no military activity across the Himalayas until the last 100 or so years and Tibetan military issues have always been with Chinese invasions. In the old days, Chinese pilgrims and Buddhist scholars etc always went up to Kazakhstan and turned around and went through modern Afghanistan and Pakistan to get to the foothills of Nepal to places like Varanasi and Lumbini. The Himalayas were virtually impassable. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (help the Invincibles Featured topic drive) 03:11, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
How about the eight SAARC nations, since these are the ones generally regarded as south asian countries? ≈ Chamal talk ¤ 03:37, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
I would see no problem with that, except in so far that it should include the islands of the Indian Ocean north of the equator and east of the 60E Longitude, and should not extend to China if it were to become a full member of SAARC. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 07:27, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
That sounds like a suitable scope to me. My regards, Laurinavicius (talk) 22:17, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Next steps

This thread has now been archived a couple of times for lack of comment, which may be an indication that everyone who wants to has had their say (at least for the moment). Therefore unless there are any objections, I'm intending to close up those proposals which have consensus in the next 48 hours or so. Summary below. EyeSerenetalk 09:32, 2 December 2009 (UTC) Struck; last call for comments going out in newsletter so will hold off for a little while. EyeSerenetalk 15:01, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

At the moment the following changes are approved:

  • Taiwanese military history will be absorbed into Chinese military history
  • Lebanese military history will be absorbed into Middle Eastern military history
  • Military science will be merged with Military technology and engineering to form Military science and technology
  • Romanian military history will be absorbed into Balkan military history
  • Indian military history will be merged with Pakistani military history to form South Asian military history

Those areas that do not have consensus are:

  • The scope and name of the new combined Australia/New Zealand/Pacific Islands task force
  • The absorption of Ottoman military history into Middle Eastern military history (no consensus=status quo, so the current position is that Ottoman military history will be retained as a separate entity)
  • The scope of the new South Asian military history task force
Fully support these proposed changes; I'm sure the remaining issues can be worked out in time. Buckshot06 (talk) 22:09, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
What objections I have have already been expressed, and seeing as how I appear to be in the minority opinion, the ROC/PRC military history merger shall continue.
There appears to be some additional backing regarding my defined scope for the South Asian military history task force, see above.
I don't believe there is so much a question of scope, as much as name. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:03, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Well, unless I've missed something I'm not seeing any objections to "South Asian military history" as the name. Have I understood your point correctly?
Re the scope, I agree it does now seem there's a consensus emerging to include India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and the islands of the Indian Ocean. EyeSerenetalk 08:44, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
No objection to the name, no objection ot the scope. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 09:11, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Endorse name and scope for SATF. Buckshot06 (talk) 21:55, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
No objections from me. — AustralianRupert (talk) 02:52, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Oh, forgot one thing, the islands of the Indian Ocean shouldn't include the islands off the eastern coast of Africa, which should be in that task forces scope. Therefore Madagascar, Seychelles, & Mauritius should fall under African military history task force. And thus my statement earlier regarding the part of the Indian Ocean that should be under the new SATF.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 04:28, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Maybe Military Science and Military Technology would be clearer. Very very few people with an interest in military matters have an interest in Mil Science. The vanishingly small number will struggle to find it under 'Science and Technology'.Dduff442 (talk) 18:49, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Intentional break

So where do we go from here? It appears that most of the proposals have reached consenus, in whole or in part, save some minor adjustment.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 08:05, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

We're waiting to see if anyone who wasn't aware of the discussion sees the mention of it in the newsletter, so if noone else comments in the next few days, it can be implemented as far as I know. – Joe N 14:31, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Discussion closed

Thank you very much to all who have participated; your thoughtful guidance in shaping the direction of our project is hugely appreciated! The five changes that have met with our membership's approval (those summarised in the "Next steps" section above) are now being implemented. A large number of updates to various pages and templates are involved, so the process may take a week or two to fully filter through. EyeSerenetalk 18:25, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Outside of scope?

Generally, you guys rate all articles pretty quickly. I have noticed that you have not rated either Red Tail Reborn or Flight of the Red Tail. Are movies about military-related topics such as Commemorative Air Force projects outside of the scope of the project.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 07:25, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

It seems someone has rated the later. Should these have the MILHIST tag?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 07:27, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
I think they're fine with the milhist tag, and I've rated the other. EyeSerenetalk 21:42, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for Max-Hellmuth Ostermann now open

The A-Class review for Max-Hellmuth Ostermann is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 09:51, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Peer review for USS Missouri grounding incident now open

The peer review for USS Missouri grounding incident is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 09:54, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Peer review for Khalid ibn al-Walid now open

The peer review for Khalid ibn al-Walid is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 21:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for Robert Peverell Hichens now open

The A-Class review for Robert Peverell Hichens is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 21:32, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for Red Tail Project now open

The A-Class review for Red Tail Project is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 21:38, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for Barrage (artillery) now open

The A-Class review for Barrage (artillery) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK004 21:41, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Older Featured Noms

Just a reminder that the following Featured Candidates are still looking for some additional input after around a month of review time:

Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:30, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

The military brat FAR is also in need of opinions, almost entirely about the appropriateness of content rather than anything about MOS etc YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:20, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
And the Soviet invasion of Poland YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:21, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Thanks YM, I've incorporated them above in the original format. -MBK004 03:29, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Military Historians of the Year

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Military historian of the Year 2009

With the end of the year nearly upon us, the time has come to reflect on the past twelve months to see which members of the project should be awarded this years "Military Historian of the Year" award. Any Milhist editor may nominate up to ten editors – this is to prevent any of our resident geniuses from nominating the entire membership list :) – but can vote for as many editors as they like. Self-noms are frowned upon.

The top three get the gold wiki, the silver wiki, and the bronze wiki respectively. All other nominatees will receive the WikiProject barnstar. Please nominate in the following format, with brief comments (twenty words max). Votes go under the nomination and are approval (ie support) only.

  • [user name] [reason] ~~~~
:# Support. ~~~~

Please nominate editors below this line. Thanks!

Nomination and voting

Please try to keep nomination statements to twenty words max. Thanks, and good luck! TomStar81 (Talk) 00:47, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

  • Abraham, B.S, for great bios, branching out from VC winners into RAN, RAAF and general Australian Army work. This year contributed 8 FAs and numerous GAs, and earned 5 A-class medals, 2 Four Awards, an Imperial Napoleonic Triple Crown, and the Wikichevrons with Oak Leaves. An all-round active participant/reviewer and twice-elected coordinator. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 03:41, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  1. Support as nom. Ian Rose (talk) 03:41, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  2. Strong support - you had time to write articles with all of those reviews? —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 06:04, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  3. Support For seemingly trying to give every article at the milhist peer review some useful comments, making the process useful. Nev1 (talk) 15:46, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  4. Support per nom. –Juliancolton | Talk 18:59, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  5. Support per nom, excellent work Abraham! Parsecboy (talk) 13:05, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
  6. Support yup, and very helpful to the newbies (like yours truly). Auntieruth55 (talk) 02:52, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
  7. Support -MBK004 00:08, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
  8. Support—AustralianRupert (talk) 07:46, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
  9. Support TomStar81 (Talk) 11:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  10. Support MisterBee1966 (talk) 06:20, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
  11. Support For his all around dedication to milhis, and especially his assistance to other editors through peer reviewing their work. FloNight♥♥♥♥ 19:24, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
  12. Support. – Joe N 02:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Auntieruth55 (talk · contribs) - Come into the project like a breath of fresh air, contributing a broad range of quality articles (including 3 FAs), detailed and insightful reviews, and plenty of discussion. Recently earned the Wikichevrons with Oak Leaves for all this and more. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:25, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
  1. Support as nom. Ian Rose (talk) 14:25, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
  2. Support. Admirable bunch of GAs and FAs, and along some important key topics too. Cirt (talk) 23:58, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
  3. Support MisterBee1966 (talk) 09:52, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  4. Support TomStar81 (Talk) 11:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  5. Support – an excellent "newbie" editor and person. ;-) Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 11:24, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
  6. Support. Always nice to see a new editor who really jumps in and starts contributing great stuff. – Joe N 02:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
  • BilCat (talk · contribs) - Bill has continued to tirelessly work on aviation and other articles to improve their accuracy and protect them from vandals. While not as flashy as developing FAs and the like, this kind of editing is vital for enhancing Wikipedia's credibility and a brief look at Bill's contribution history on any given day highlights the remarkably wide range of articles he keeps an eye on and contributes to. Bill has also continued to be a great source of advice to other editors working on aviation and military topics. Nick-D (talk) 19:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  1. Support Somebody after my own heart, actually: quietly but thoroughly raising the standards of quality. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 23:21, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  2. Support as nominator Nick-D (talk) 09:58, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
  3. Support TomStar81 (Talk) 11:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Durova (talk · contribs) – She has added to this project's Featured Pictures (I counted 8 or 9 from 2009, although I'm sure I've missed some), and importantly has offered to share her skills with others and teach them how to touch up images. Moreover, her research for Wikipedia has had real-life results with the Library of Congress updating their records about this image. Nev1 (talk) 15:46, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
PS. Turns out those Feature Pictures number a lot more than "8 or 9". Nev1 (talk) 22:05, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  1. Support Nev1 (talk) 15:46, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  2. Support per nom. One of the primary contributors to the project's collection of historical images and illustrations. –Juliancolton | Talk 18:59, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
    Note: While the nomination fairly sums up Durova's dedication to the project, it seems to underestimate the amount of work she's done; according to User:Durova/2009 MILHIST project work, she helped bring 35 relevant pictures to featured status this year alone. –Juliancolton | Talk 04:45, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
  3. Support - per Julian. Parsecboy (talk) 13:05, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
  4. Support Absolutely. Pictures aren't always worth a thousand words, but hers leave me speechless. Auntieruth55 (talk) 02:52, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
  5. Support. Kyriakos (talk) 23:20, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
  6. Support. A most impressive amount of featured credit contributions. The Wounded Knee Massacre restoration made news offsite - and Durova's discovery was incorporated into official exhibit notes at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. This type of effort helps to reflect positively back on the project. Cirt (talk) 00:04, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
  7. Support per all above. -MBK004 00:08, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
  8. Support TomStar81 (Talk) 11:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  9. Support —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 08:59, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
  10. Support. Probably the most important person working on our featured pictures. – Joe N 02:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Hawkeye7, for excellent Australian bio and battle articles, and penetrating A-Class reviews. This year he's contributed 4 FAs and numerous GAs, and earned 6 A-class medals and an Imperial Triple Crown. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 03:41, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  1. Support as nom. Ian Rose (talk) 03:41, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  2. Support —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 06:04, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  3. Support -MBK004 00:08, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
  4. Support—AustralianRupert (talk) 07:46, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
  5. Support TomStar81 (Talk) 11:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  6. Support. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 11:24, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
  7. Support. It seems like every other ACR I do is an Australian general from him. – Joe N 02:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Ian Rose (talk · contribs) - for making a significant impact on Wikipedia's coverage of military aviation-related topics. Ian has developed no less than eight articles to FA status this year (all of which passed ACRs first) and a further four to A class status, achieved large numbers of GAs and DYKs, been elected a coordinator twice and has made a very valuable contribution to the project's review processes. Nick-D (talk) 19:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  1. Support as nominator Nick-D (talk) 09:58, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
  2. Support - per Nick. I'm always glad to see Ian's comments during ACRs. Parsecboy (talk) 13:05, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
  3. Support good writing, good research, and good and helpful human. Auntieruth55 (talk) 02:52, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
  4. Support -MBK004 00:08, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
  5. Support—AustralianRupert (talk) 07:46, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
  6. Support TomStar81 (Talk) 11:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  7. Support – an excellent and ever helpful editor who is a great asset to Milhist. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 11:24, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
  8. Support For his overall work on milhis. FloNight♥♥♥♥ 20:19, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
  9. Support. Great stuff all around. – Joe N 02:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
  • MBK004 (talk · contribs) - For outstanding work as both a coordinator for the project and for his consistent monitoring and updating the status of articles within the OMT page parameters. MBK always seems to be on top of things here, and is always among the first to lend assistance or to correct an error. Its an honor for me to nominate him. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:46, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
  1. Support TomStar81 (Talk) 08:46, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
  2. Support definitely one of the people who fills the tires and keeps everything smoothly running. Auntieruth55 (talk) 02:52, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
  3. Support – ever working behind the scenes to keep the cogs turning, among collaboration and maintenance work on naval articles. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 11:24, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
  4. Support. Lots of behind the scenes stuff most people don't see. – Joe N 02:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
  5. Support Per nom, and willing to help out an editor who get's himslef into sticky situations sometimes! - BilCat (talk) 03:06, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
  6. Support per nom - perhaps our most active coordinator, of no small import. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:47, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
  1. Support Nev1 (talk) 15:46, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  2. Support. His work on the Greco-Persian War and related articles has just been incredible. Kyriakos (talk) 09:46, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Nick-D, for his continuing "big picture" work, particularly achieving FA status for Military history of Australia during World War II, one of 5 FAs this year along with 2 A-class medals and a Triple Crown. Another fine all-round participant/reviewer, twice-elected coordinator, and admin to boot (and don't we all love to boot admins - sorry couldn't resist)...! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 03:41, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  1. Support as nom. Ian Rose (talk) 03:41, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  2. Strong support - great reviews at WP:MHR#A-CLASS + scary good article writer. Australian light destroyer project is one of my favorite articles, while Military history of Australia during World War II is one of the best articles on a large-scale topic that I have seen (I don't think you used enough books, though—I count 67. :) —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 06:04, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  3. Support - Nick always writes great articles, especially the valuable "big picture" type as Ian points out. Parsecboy (talk) 13:05, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
  4. Support. His articles are great and Military history of Australia during World War II is just a phenomenal achievement. Kyriakos (talk) 23:20, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
  5. Support, and I agree with Ed that Australian light destroyer project is one of my favorite articles written this year (too bad it isn't featured, nudge...) -MBK004 00:08, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
  6. Support—AustralianRupert (talk) 07:46, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
  7. Support TomStar81 (Talk) 11:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  8. Support – tireless editor, reviewer, coordinator and administrator. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 11:24, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
  9. Support For his large number of well rounded contributions to milhis. FloNight♥♥♥♥ 20:21, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
  10. Support. Good stuff, including articles and coordinator work. – Joe N 02:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
  11. Support - Good work, good admin (I've felt his boot a time or two - and needed it a few more!), and alwys willing to help out in difficult editing situations, especially in keepin gNPOV in aticles. Great work on Aussie-related articles, but well-rounded too on other areas of the world. - BilCat (talk) 03:06, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Parsecboy (talk · contribs) - I've already had occasion to compare Parsecboy to Bellhalla for quantity and quality of articles. If I have my numbers right, he's contributed to no less than 11 FAs this year, and earned 6 A-Class Medals. His dedication is something to behold, and earned him the Wikichevrons with Oak Leaves as well. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:25, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
  1. Support as nom. Ian Rose (talk) 14:25, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
  2. Support. Steady, reliable. I've been writing for the project 6 months and he's done a lot to help me understand wikipedia and the project. Auntieruth55 (talk) 02:52, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
  3. Support, and do not forget that within those 11 FAs is a fully-featured topic for WP:OMT as well as several other topics that are close to completion! -MBK004 00:08, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
  4. Support TomStar81 (Talk) 11:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  5. Support – amazing article work and ever helpful. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 11:24, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
  6. Support - goodness, six A-class medals as in eighteen A-class articles? Didn't know it was that much. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 08:59, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
  7. Support. Taught me more about German battleships than I ever wanted to know. – Joe N 02:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Sturmvogel 66‎ (talk · contribs) - Unlike my other nominees, Storm doesn't tend to target Featured status (though he has one of those anyway) but has produced a phenomenal number of very useful articles generally of minimum B-Class standard as well as at least 16 GAs (including a Good Topic), 2 As, and a stack of DYKs. Also 5 times winner of the Monthly Article Writing Contest. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:25, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Decline I'm afraid that I must decline the nomination although it was most unexpected as I don't feel that I've done enough to warrant such an honor this year. But wait for next year when I expect universal acclamation for both the quality and quantity of my output! (he said, twirling his moustache, with an evil glint in his eye.)Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 07:51, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
  1. Support as nom. Ian Rose (talk) 14:25, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
  2. Support. Indeed, I am impressed as the nom says, by all those DYKs - and also the 5-time monthly contest winner is no small feat either. Cirt (talk) 23:55, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
  3. Support -MBK004 00:08, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
  4. Support TomStar81 (Talk) 11:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  5. Support – a machine who just pumps out articles! :) Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 11:24, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
  • The ed17 (talk · contribs) – For exceptional and prolific contributions to maritime-related articles, most notably historic battleships. During 2009, The ed17 has submitted to Wikipedia seven featured articles related to military history, two A-Class articles, and an additional eight good articles. He has recently been promoted to administrator, and has served well as a co-coordinator of MILHIST twice. –Juliancolton | Talk 04:55, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  1. Support as nom. –Juliancolton | Talk 18:59, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  2. Strong support This is a hard worker who produces high-grade work, & very easy to work with besides. (Also, he pays well. ;p) TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 23:21, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
  3. Support - Ed produces a ton a high-quality work, and it's been a pleasure collaborating with him on a number of articles, such as Amagi-class battlecruiser, our TFA on the 9th. Parsecboy (talk) 13:05, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
  4. Support, the project and WP:OMT would be at an extreme loss without him. -MBK004 00:08, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
  5. Support TomStar81 (Talk) 11:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
  6. Support – excellent editor who is always ready and willing to assist. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 11:24, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
  7. Support. Lots of contributions to articles and work in the coordinating department. – Joe N 02:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Questions and comments

Eh? What qualifies someone as Military historian of the year? Volume? ratings? Auntieruth55 (talk) 01:19, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Ruth, the emphasis tends to be on quality and volume of articles, but being an all-round good egg helps (a little bit like WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves)...! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:35, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
Like Ruth said, its the person who you think did the most for the project in the last 12 months; someone whose hard work and dedication deserves to be rewarded. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:46, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Does the person who nominates the winning editor get a prize, as well? :) –Juliancolton | Talk 01:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Heh, there's an idea... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:35, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
How about bragging rights for nominating the winner? That sounds like a good prize to me. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:46, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
That'll do, especially since at this stage of the game it looks like I have two shots at those bragging rights... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 15:32, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Jappalang (talk · contribs) has done fantastic work getting the Battle of Barnet and Battle of Bosworth Field up to FA quality in 2009. His articles have been poached tagged by WP:Milhist, so isn't it only fair that Jappalang is eligible to be "Military historian of the year"? He has clearly done fine work in the subject – widening the project's scope, which appears to be obsessed with modern warfare – and yet because Jappalang has not added their name to the project's membership list they're ineligible. Is this fair? Nev1 (talk) 15:56, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I think anyone who's contributed quality content that falls under the project's purview should be eligible, since, after all, the readers won't care whether he's explicitly a member of the project, just whether his articles are well written. :) –Juliancolton | Talk 19:03, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
or she....  !!! Auntieruth55 (talk) 02:46, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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