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Archive 15Archive 16Archive 17Archive 18Archive 19Archive 20→Archive 25

Proposal to Include Small Mention of the Creation of Free France in Early Europe War (and other things)

I noticed that no mention of Charles de Gaulle's creation of Free France is made during the portion describing the fall of France and the Vichy French Armistice of June 22, 1940. I think it suitable that a small mention be made for two reasons: 1. The Free French government would be considered the de jure government of France (or the continuation of the Third Republic as opposed to the de facto French State). 2. The Free French are mentioned later in the article (under the North African Campaign) with no background explanation as to who they actually are. I think a small blurb in the same manner as that detailing what happened to Poland following the fall of Poland should be made in the appropriate portion (detailing the fall of France). Also, there should be some slight clarification as to the part mentioning Operation Torch; General Giraud is referred to as a Free French general, which he was not. Although modern simplification tends to describe everything French that is Allied between post-armistice 1940 and 1944 as "Free French", Giraud was in fact not in league with General de Gaulle until 1943.

small changes

Couldn't find a section with changes, so just do it here: a. Changed Biowarfare (in the technology section) to chemical warfare. Correct me if i'm wrong, but biowarfare was not used in WW2, no? b. in the same section, only some technologies and/or weapons were crucial. The effect of the V2 missile was for example not relevant anymore to the outcome of the war...Sikkema 11:55, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The after the war map for Germany has some mistakes: 1. the two German Sttes were both founded in 1949 2. GErman Reunification was in 1990 not 1991 So: internal GErman borders 1945-1991 is definetly not correct. 3. the terretorry east of the Oder was officially under Polish or Soviet Control, I wouldn't use the term "annexed by" 4. there is also no mentioning of what happened to Danzig

Article Size

I've noticed that many of the articles on major wars are far too long; So, I've decided to section them all off into smaller articles. This is a really big project, so it will take awhile, but sometime in the next month or two I will probably redo this article as well. Please tell me if you have any concerns about this, or have any material you want me to leave intact on this page. Thanks! Ahudson 18:34, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

While articles shouldn't grow to extreme proportions, there is often a relationship on Wikipedia between subject matter importance and article length. World War II is obviously one of the central pages on WP and shouldn't in my opinion be arbitrarily shortened to satisfy some perceived guideline that it's too long. I would hesitate to allow such changes unless many editors were in agreement with the above. MarkThomas 19:34, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Ahudson, your work would probably be welcome. Make sure to at least review the discussion of this article's length at Talk:World War II/Archive Length. It is FAR too long. --Habap 22:22, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Actually, it's too short - there are a lot of key facts missing. Breaking it up won't help with that. MarkThomas 22:24, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
It's supposed to be an overview of the war with links to articles which contain all of the key facts. Otherwise, we need several hundred pages in the main article. See Wikipedia:Article size for an explanation of why 32kb is better than 128kb. To quote on readability "Readers may tire of reading a page much longer than about 6,000 to 10,000 words, which roughly corresponds to 30 to 50 KB of readable prose." --Habap 22:29, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

that may be true, habap, but you can't just say "hitler started the war in europe. france surrendered. the americans and british landed at normandy, and the russians came in from the east. germany surrendered. the end." those guidlines make sense for normal articles, on say, belly button lint; but on an article like World War Two, you have to have a lot of information. i agree with MarkThomas, it's too short. the point of the article is to provide information, not to link to 9000 sub articles. does it make sense to say "the japanese bombed pearl harbor in 1941. now here's a link to the main article" and say nothing more? it generally IS formatted like you want it, habap. most of the entire article concerning the war are a few sentences or a couple short paragraphs, with links to the main articles. there's not too much you can take from this article, without it becoming a hollow shell. Parsecboy 12:26, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

You are correct, Parsecboy. A five-sentence article would be inappropriate. The difficulty with your reducto ab absurdum argument is that our choice is not between 5 sentences and more than 40 pages (printing from IE6 to a Brother HL-1240 shows 38 pages in print preview and you're asking for more to be added). Right now, the main article contains so much detail that we have to break it into dozens of sections. I mean, there's a section 3.6.1.6 in this article.
The trouble is, most readers will stop long before they read the whole article. If the article were a quarter of it's current size, it would actually get read in it's entirety by most readers (according to WP:Size, not my own guesses). If you put a lot of information in there and no one reads it, it's the same as leaving it out, except you don't get to decide what's important, the location in the article does.
If this article gets broken into parts dealing with the campaigns or years or topics or whatever, then the reader can get a 10-page overview of the war here and follow links to the parts that interest him or her.
Imagine your high school teacher asked you to summarize World War II in five pages. Would you say that it can't be done or would you try to determine which points are the most important and stick to those? --Habap 14:23, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
The size article also says that decisions need to be made case-by-case, and that there are exceptions.
I disagree that readers "don't get to decide what's important". I'm sure lots will skip over what doesn't interest them; there is also an outline to see at the outset what is there right away. It is also not necessary to read the article in one visit; readers can just bookmark the page, look it up again, or print it out.
As for the question "...would you try to determine which points are the most important and stick to those?". A big difference here is that a number of people edit this article, and they will not agree what should be left out. Saros136 20:05, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
One of the most important things about an article is it's readability. It seems to be general consensus that the article should be a first-stop reference for basic information about WWII. Going from there, an article for a topic as important as a World War should serve as a reintroduction to those who have forgotten some of their history, as that is what the average user will be using this article for. There for, contrary to what Saros has just said, the article does need to be readable in one visit, because a user does not want to have to spend a lot of time on reading an overview. The idea of an article is not to provide the only reference a reader will need on the topic, it is to equip the reader with the basic tools they need to understand the rest of the field. I haven't actually sat down and figured out what needs to be in the article and what doesn't, but I would think that less than ten pages would be needed to explain the war and it's era enough for readers to understand it and most of its implications. That may be a bad estimate, but if I was trying to get an overview of World War II, and I ran across this article, I would have to find a different source of information, because there is too much here. Heavy Metal Cellisttalkcontribs 04:36, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

World War II cannot be sufficiently summarised in 5 pages. or even 10. it's far too broad a subject. i recall in my high school junior english class, for the final paper at the end of the year (the paper was supposed to be about history), the teachers strongly recommended that we did not pick a topic like World War II because it's just too broad, and the project was for a 12-15 page paper. not 5. saros has a very good point. the World War II article is edited by many people, so finding a consensus on what "should" be left out is nigh impossible. what are the "less important" areas that should be left out? the fighting in southeast asia? china? surely the war wasn't won or lost in those areas. but then you get a euro/america-centric article, and that's unacceptable. Parsecboy 21:28, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Parsecboy, nothing will be left out. All the points willl wtill be there, but the details, such as the precise ratio of Finnish to Soviet troops and the precise course of battles in the eastern theatre, would be in a seperate article, divided by time period, or perhaps by a trend in the war. In other words, what is taken out is only what is not needed for basic understanding of the subject; the main points of every front and every major trend in war policy and reality are still there. Ahudson 22:06, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
I am shocked that you feel it is impossible to match the article to the needs of the reader. I feel that you should be able to write an article of any length on World War II. If someone has 30 seconds, you can't tell them much, but if they have 10 days, you can tell them a lot. So, we match what they can read in one sitting with our article length - that means 6,000 to 10,000 words. That's all they are going to read if it's in one article anyway. In Ahudson's plan, we move everything on 1939 into an article on that and summarize the year in a paragraph. Details will still exist in the sub-article, so nothing will be lost. --Habap 16:36, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I think many of you are missing my point. Please read my reasons for doing this before you keep arguing:

1) As it is now, the article is too long for almost anybody to read. Most people have a limited attention span, and will only get halfway through this article; this means that the purpose of having a single article is defeated anyway.

2) Splitting up an article will leave it readable for most people, but leave the information still there for those that wish to look for it.

3) Sectioning off an article would leave a summary of the key points still in the main article. Being a complex war, mostly trends would be summarized, however with major events still in place.

4) Other than deleting content, the only way to make an article this size accessible is to section it off. The information is still there, most of it still in it's original form; however, just in manageable pieces. Thanks for your input, everybody. It helps. Ahudson 21:46, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Ahudson, if you check through the article you'll see that there are already 96 pointers to well over 100 separate "main articles". Virtually every seciton of this article is alrady a summary of another article. Can you indicate which specific sections are left to split off? -Will Beback · † · 22:50, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Probably the Chronology section; however, now that I take a closer look at this article, what it needs is more removal of duplicate material instead of sectioning off, and moving as much as is reasonable into the existing articles. I just realized a general trend in all the big War articles, and posted the same message on a few of them (see Vietnam War, World War I, American Civil War, Korean War, etc.) Ahudson 01:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
The chronology section is the heart of the article. It'd be better to remove the rest and leave that section. It's distressing that you don't appear to have actually read the article all the way through. -Will Beback · † · 01:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Of course I didn't read the article, it's too long; I did skim it though. I will read as much as I can handle before making any changes, though; but I probably won't get to this article for awhile, I was going to start with Vietnam War. Although, if I run into a lot of objections that I need to deal with first, I might start somewhere else. And in terms of sectioning off for this article, I think it would be best to do it in terms of year, and leave a much more concise summary here. I think one article for each year would work, titled like "World War II (January-December 1939)" or "World War II (1939)" or something along those lines. Also I would want to narrow down sections like "Causes", "Casualties..." and "Aftermath". Does that sound like an acceptable plan? Ahudson 01:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Also you don't seem to be understanding what I've been talking about all along-- I'm not removing anything, just moving and summarizing. The content will still be here, just summarized. Ahudson 01:57, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I strongly urge you to A) read the entire articles before editing them, and B) get more experience with Wikiepdia before taking on major edits to articles that have extensive community involvement. Your desire to improve articles is great, but these are not the articles most in need of help. -Will Beback · † · 02:07, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Whoa! Back off. First of all, WP:BOLD encourages people to be BOLD in their editing. Ahudson has done you a favor in even mentioning that he is planning on reducing the size of the article. Both of you probably need to cool down a little, especially Will. Calling his experience into question doesn't help. It also looks like you haven't realized that he hasn't actually edited the WWII article yet. Before you start telling him what he should have done before editing, you may want to wait until he edits the article first. Heavy Metal Cellisttalkcontribs
Many have talked about reducing the size of this article. No one has been able to see it through. This article has a life of its own that is beyond all of us. Haber 05:54, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Ahudson has done you a favor in even mentioning that he is planning on reducing the size of the article. Favour to us? No. He did favour to himself because it can be very depressing to make major rewriting of so big article and then get it reverted immediately(which would had certainly happened). As haber said this has been discussed before and so far there haven't been achieved any consensus to shorten it. Of course it theoretically could be shortened, for example there is also short version of WW II at the beginning of this article(overview section). But until there isn't general agreement that new version would be better than old one no permanent changes can be made.--Staberinde 10:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Which comes nicely back to my point: it will be better almost no matter what I do, because right now there is so much text and information that any sense of progression or contiguity is lost. With the changes I am proposing, the article will become accessible. Plus, with this article having "a life of its[sic] own", anything that I do that people don't like they can modify or add to instead of blatant reversion. Wikipedia articles are never finished-- they are always works in progress, imperfect even now. And sometimes, to fix stuff, you have to go backwards. Ahudson 16:15, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
The only change you've proposed so far is splitting the article into pieces by year. I don't see how that would in any way help its sense of progression or contiguity, just the opposite. As mentioned before, this article is mostly a set of summaries of other articles. It may be possible to shorten some of those summaries, but that is small-time wordsmithing. Perhaps we could take a leaf from the Encyclopedia Britannica's Macropedia/Micropedia concept and write a short "WWII overview" article for folks who aren't interested in reading 30 pages, but retain this comprehensive article for those who are interested in a fuller picture. -Will Beback · † · 21:40, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't only section stuff off, that's already been done to a ceratin extent. What I was thinking is that I would turn at least some of these "main article" refrences into inline links, and merge their accompanying paragraphs. I'm sorry, I completely forgot to say that. But as to your idea for an article that went into more detail-- that is precisely what the sectioned-off articles should be. That is the idea behind this whole thing. Ahudson 22:48, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
May I suggest, then, leaving this article as it is and starting fresh with a new summary/overview article? I don't think anyone would have a problem with that approach. -Will Beback · † · 23:36, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. I do not feel that we need to worry about whether this article is too long for any one reader to read. What we do need to worry about is whether it is clear, coherent, and provides good and useful information. thanks. --Sm8900 23:55, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
OK, do you feel there are any problems in those departments with the present article? -Will Beback · † · 00:22, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Not really. I agree with your comment, above,to start a new article, for anyone who feels we need a shorter article providine an overview of World War 2. By the way, i just realized it sounded like i was disagreeing with you in my earlier message. i really meant to disagree with the general issues in that thread. Thanks. --Sm8900 15:26, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with another of the comments above. no one here can state that "any changes will be better" just because they will make the article more readable; I do not agree that such changes would do that. There are many goals and ideas which many of the people who contributed here are trying to put forth. So any changes should occur individually and reflect the ideas and viewpoints of the many people and viewpoints who have contributed here. --Sm8900 15:30, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Sidenote, Habap please do not put your comments in the middle of older comments. I strongly dislike it because it makes harder to follow the text, especially then its as long as here and not all users put date and time to their comments. About shortening the article I think that Will's proposal to make new article "Summary/Overview/What_ever_you_want_to_name_it of World war II" is best solution.--Staberinde 12:25, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

So, judging by your comments in the past few posts, both Will Beback and Sm8900 feel that the prose in the article is perfectly clear, and there are "not really" any problems in terms of whether it is clear and coherent. Am I right? Heavy Metal Cellisttalkcontribs

that's basically correct, in regards to your summation of my position. I realize that not everyone here agrees with me. Thanks. --Sm8900 00:27, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Debate over article size

People seem to be getting really bent out of shape over changing the article size. At this point, I think the article probably will be re-written to some degree, and it will probably end up a little shorter, although not necessarily with less material. I have browsed parts of this article, and some of it can definitely be re-written to condense the article without taking out any information.

At this point, it would be more productive to briefly state your concerns about re-writing to Ahudson, as he has volunteered to make the time committment needed to improve the article, instead of arguing over who said what etc. Heavy Metal Cellisttalkcontribs

Let me just say that I completely disagree with any thought of shortening this article just for the sake of shortening it. If other Wikipedia editors have added information because they thought it was appropriate, then that is fine. If we find that specific points or items here or there are outside the article's scope, then we can discuss those individually. However, we should never just shorten an article just because we say it needs shortening, particularly when the contents of the article are the result of many different contributors' hard work.
Again, one discussion which we can have is over the true scope of the article, and which facts might fit most usefully in there. However, there is no benefit to discussing how long or short an article should hypothetically be. The value of Wikipedia is its ability to combine the knowledge and insights of many different people at once. When we start talking about inordinate length as an isolated topic, and not in relation to anything else, then we are simply glossing over the real details of what goes into the making of this or any other article.
In closing, I would just like to say that i do not consider this article to be excessively long at all. plenty of encylopedias have long articles. just take a look at Encyclopedia Britannica to see some examples of this, and similar works. thanks. --Sm8900 23:45, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I support not just leaving the article alone, but to add more information to this article. Sm8900 has completely proved his point. Deleting information will only destroy this still inadequete information. Like his previous argument, this article and the WWI article are results of editors time and effort. WWI had the same issue, and I am pretty sure the same editor brought it up there. ChockStock 13:38, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I did propose this there as well. But for the last time, I'm not deleting anything. Just summarizing. For an example of how this might work, compare User:Ahudson/Sandbox with Vietnam War#Americanization. I might even add stuff; there's hardly anything but military history here, very little on the social implications of the war (which I think are the most important part) Ahudson 16:21, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply. However, sorry, but summarizing is deleting, if you are broadly changing material which was written by someone else. Anyone's work should be changed on an individual basis, not on a wholesale basis. By the way, your additions, of course, are welcome. I think I'd be very interested to see what further material you'd like to add. perhaps we could focus on that for now. Thanks. --Sm8900 16:50, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
I respectively disagree that nothing should be removed from this article, which should summarize World War II. It currently prints out at 38 pages. Almost no one will read that much. If no one reads, does it really matter whether it is well-written? According to WP:Size, the average reader will read 6,000 to 10,000 words, which corresponds to 30-50kb. With the article at 128kb of text, they are likely to read far less than half of the article. That's the same as stopping writing the article in 1942, since they won't read past that.
I do, however,agree with Sm8900 that summarizing is deleting. The thing is, while we may delete it from this article, we are not deleting it from Wikipedia. For example, if you summarized the action on the Eastern Front in Europe during 1944 into one section (instead of 4), the information on each of the Soviet and German offensives could still be easily found using links -- or, as Ahudson proposed at the beginning of this discussion, we could take those 4 sections and put them in a sub-article called World War II/1944 Eastern Front (I am working on a sample) and the entire text placed in the subarticle. --Habap 18:13, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Here is the sample: User:Habap/World War II. It is only the 1944 Europe part of the main article, not an entire article, designed to demonstrate what I think ought to be done. I may have erred in summarizing because I was just reducing what was there - in order to summarize, someone would have to be more conversant than I with the Eastern Front. Note that all of the original text landed at User:Habap/World War II/1944 Eastern Front, which would be a sub-article, named World War II/1944 Eastern Front. Hope this clarifies what is being proposed. --Habap 18:35, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
you said:
If no one reads, does it really matter whether it is well-written?
My friend, I think we are misunderstading the meaning of the word "encyclopedia". It really does not matter whether the article is readable by a single person. What matters is completeness of information. There are many Britannica articles which are extremely dense. Their value is the completeness of information. this is the mark of any encyclopedia which is meant as a scholarly work, not as a quick reference. And Wikipedia is the equal or superior of many scholarly works. Through collaboration, we have created a work which presents more information, more coherently, than many privately-written works. I am happy to read this article, and see a work which reflects the true complexity of its topic. Every single section leads the reader easily to further information, yet each section also accuraely reflects the complete view of its subject matter. So I do not see a need to go through the whole article and to try to shorten the whole thing. --Sm8900 20:45, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Wow. I guess we just have a completely different philosophical approach. For me, an encyclopedia is the first place to look for something on anything. It is a starting point and may point you to other sources that will have information in greater depth. Thus, no encyclopedia is a scholarly work, but all are simple references.
I thought we writing in order to be read, not simply to satisfy ourselves. Isn't the goal to spread knowledge and make it more accessible instead of less?
My impression from WP:Size and WP:Summary style was that short, readable articles that summarize topics are the goal. I thought this was the consensus of the community. --Habap 21:21, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
The Encyclopedia Britannica's article online WWII article is 49,359 words. [1] On the other hand, Encarta's WWII piece is about the same as Wikipedia.
The print edition of Britannica has several levels. A one-volume Propædia gives a detailed outline, a 12-volume Micropædia with short articles (don't know how long WWII is), and the 17-volume Macropædia with articles sometimes running over three hundred pages.
The other popular encyclopedias I've seen do tend to be shorter, though in general.
So the examples of other encyclopedias could be used as examples to support either side, in some way.

Saros136 09:00, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you all for contributing to the discussion. From what I have read of all of your opinions, none of us completely agree on what the appropriate "article length" in terms of number pages/words. That is understandable, and I expect everyone to always disagree on the issue of an ideal numerical article length.

We have also made major progress in terms of understanding the other side. Everyone should now have it figured out that there is one side of the argument that is worried that a shorter article, and even the article we have now, would/does not give a comprehensive full story. There is another side of the argument that is worried that the article is too long in terms of actual numbers of words and/or length in pages to be useful to the average user.

What both sides can agree on is that we need to make the article less confusing and easier to read. The article does not flow well, and could be re-written to make it easier for a user to read it and get what they need from it. I'm not talking about summarizing things to make the article shorter, I'm talking about rewriting and reorganizing the material that is already there to make the article flow better. Maybe moving around sentences and paragraphs so that facts do not have to be restated, manipulating the progression of information to conserve space. I don't know exactly how we would do this, because I haven't taken an incredibly detailed look at the prose. I also think this could make the article both shorter and easier for a user to deal with, without compromising the article's integrity.

Better flow and organization could potentially both reduce the article size and make it easier to add more information to give a complete view of the subject. For example, in the Vietnam war article Ahudson has managed to remove half a page or so from the article, just by reorganizing the introduction, and without removing any significant amount of information from the article as a whole. Would this kind of rewrite, a reorganization of facts without taking any information out of the article, be a good compromise? Heavy Metal Cellisttalkcontribs

Is anyone else going to reply to this? Is anyone else going to express at least some slight reservations about the current suggestion to completely rewrite this article? i would like to get a sense of people's opinions. I myself still have deep concerns about the proposed idea. I appreciate your willingness to discuss this more fully. however, it still sounds to me like there would be quite a bit of removal of material taking place...otherwise, by the terms of your own proposal, it seems like there would not be much point in doing this in the first place anyway. So I still have very deep concerns about any such effort or idea. that's basically my stance. thanks. --Sm8900 04:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
You may touch some sensitive issues leading to back and forth edits. Create a sandbox to rewrite it and allow other users to review the rewritten article before inserting it. Wandalstouring 09:55, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes. Using a sandbox is the only way you can edit an article this large without accidentally creating an edit war.
Oh, and Sm8900, did you read my proposal? At all? I did say, didn't I, on the last line even, that no information should be taken out of the article? Heavy Metal Cellisttalkcontribs
Settle down. All this hot air is not helping the article. No one can pre-approve a drastic change without seeing what it is. You guys need to do some work and then come back to us when you have some concrete proposals. Or just edit the article. We don't own it. All this might be a big waste of your time, but that's the risk you take. Haber 19:15, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi heavy Metal Cellist. Actually, i will accept your point. Perhaps I did not read your proposal with the closeness which it deserves. Obviously, if your intent is only to improve the flow, obviously, I could not have much problem with that; my main question would be how this would be implemented.
I guess my main point here is that i distinguish broad structural changes like your suggestion from smaller incremental changes, where one user is adding some information which they consider useful. When it's just one person adding something, obviously that is not so earth-shaking. Whereas the kind of change you propose, obviously, applies to the whole article, and will change the work of many contributors at once. So I'm not saying that you're wrong; I'm just saying I'd like to make sure we've gotten at least some sense of how some others here think of this.
However, your proposal to simply improve the flow, without removing any information, sounds fairly helpful; I'm just not sure how much anyone could do that practically speaking, no matter how skillful they are; in fairness to you, you may be extremely skillful, and i have no reason to think you have anything other than good motives here. So it's not a reflection on you at all; these are just the sort of concerns I have when anyone proposes any changes of this type. So I welcome your ideas, and others' comments. Thanks for your helpful responses. --Sm8900 23:00, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Size versus organization

Since there have been requests to comment here (remember, folks: WP:MILHIST -- and, particularly, WP:WWII -- are here to help! ;-), I thought I might repeat a few comments I made on one of the previous FACs for this article:

The essential problem, as I see it, is not one of size per se (although the article certainly is rather longer than it ought to be), but of confusing and counterintuitive structure. The main reason for this is the bizarre choice to focus on years, rather than fronts, as the main structure of the article. This leads to an extremely choppy narrative, a proliferation of useless little sub-sub-sub-sections (now done without proper section headers, even!), and a bizarre imbalance of content (the Bismark having almost as much space devoted to it as to the entire Operation Barbarossa!).

Thus, I would suggest abandoning the entire premise of sectioning things off by year, and instead follow a (broadly) theater/campaign based structure (which would allow a much denser summary, with more play being given to in-context links to sub-articles), organized in roughly chronological order. An example structure (with section lengths essentially being pulled out of the air, just to give an indication of relative size -- obviously, this is not meant to be an exact proposal):

  • Pre-war diplomacy in Europe (~3/4 paragraphs)
  • Early Sino-Japanese War & Russo-Japanese War (~2/3 paragraphs)
  • Invasion of Poland (~1/2 paragraphs)
  • Phony War to French surrender (~3/4 paragraphs)
  • Battle of Britain & Battle of the Atlantic (~2/3 paragraphs)
  • Winter War (~1 paragraph)
  • Balkans (~2 paragraphs)
  • Early North Africa/Mediterranean (~2 paragraphs)
  • Barbarossa (~3/4 paragraphs)
  • Japanese offensives (~3/4 paragraphs)
  • Eastern Front: Moscow to Stalingrad (~3/4 paragraphs)
  • North Africa: Alamein, Torch, Tunisia (~3 paragraphs)
  • Southern Pacific (~4 paragraphs)
  • Eastern Front: Stalingrad to Bagration (~4/5 paragraphs)
  • Italy (~3 paragraphs)
  • Allied bombing (~2 paragraphs)
  • Pacific Front: island hopping, China, Burma (~3/4 paragraphs)
  • Western Front: Normandy to Ardennes (~4 paragraphs)
  • Eastern Front: Germany, etc. (~4 paragraphs)
  • Pacific Front: to V-J (~4 paragraphs)

This is, of course, an extremely rough idea; but I think the general point should be apparent. Kirill Lokshin 04:48, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. This kind of revision would be very beneficial to the article, and we would probably end up with a shorter, more manageable article with better-flowing prose. I would be willing to help work on this kind of revision. Heavy Metal Cellisttalkcontribs
Let me just say, that once we do achieve some kind of consensus, I am quite willing to abide by it. So I appreciate your input and proposals, and the input of the others here. Obviously, once any sort of edit process is underway, i may still have some comments here and there, like anyone else. thanks for your help. --Sm8900 23:33, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Go for it. All the info to fill up these paragraphs is write here. So it shouldn't be that difficult. Mercenary2k 17:09, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree as well, and would be willing to do a large portion of the work, if there is finally a consensus. Ahudson 18:18, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
It will be a big job, but worth doing, I have also found the current structure to be rather unworkable. For example, at the moment, it is difficult to have short texts on "themes" such as "nuclear weapons", "secret warfare", "resistance and oppression", "genocide and political murder" or whatever. I hope to be able to help with work as the programme gets clearer - can I take it that Kirill Lokshin is kicking off the changes? MarkThomas 19:19, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Heh. I wouldn't really suggest having me take a leading role here; even if I had time to do major article work myself—and I rarely do these days, unfortunately—my knowledge of WWII is pretty rudimentary. I'd be happy to comment on broad structural questions, but the finer details should really be decided by someone who actually understands the material. :-) Kirill Lokshin 05:57, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Just thought I'd give my input: I fully support the condensation of the article. If is much too long and Frankenstein's monster-like, if you know what I mean. — SheeEttin {T/C} 22:00, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Just want to state, I'm fine with any of the volunteers beginning this effort. However, are we still using the idea of doing the initial changes in a sandbox? I'm not saying I'm requesting that as an absolute demand, but it does sound like a good idea. Does that sound good to everyone? I want to thank the people who agreed to take this on. thanks. --Sm8900 15:02, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
I concur that whatever the new version is going to be, it first be completed on a sandbox page. I think that the re-organization is a step in the right direction as the current format is unreadable. --Habap 15:41, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I have finished part of the article (only part, there's still a lot left to go) at [[2]]. I have not added in pictures yet because the article is not finished yet and picture placement will depend on the layout. Any comments on the prose as of yet will be welcome on my talk page. Heavy Metal Cellisttalkcontribs

Hey There

I like this site. I think instead of just eliminating the unnecessary pictures, someone should try to get the very best, possibly most recognizable pictures from the war. There are many, many well-known ww2 photographs other than Iwo Jima. I could cite tons of interesting info about the Pacific War, Burma, Flying Tigers, all that...if anyone wants, they could pick the most important stuff. Maybe there should be more talk about WW2 TECHNOLOGIES AND INNOVATIONS I mean we're talking computers, jet engines, rockets, missiles, a-bomb, magnet fields, the first lasers and extreme high/low frequency waves. I think the results and consequencesof WW2 are actually greater than the war itself. Cold War, Military industrial complex, state of israel and mideast problems, high standard of living in u.s. and europe, GI bill, red china, red korea, even the 60s hippie movement was the result of results from results from WW2. What does any1 think? (ShitakiMan 11:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC))

I agree that the article does not show enough of the effects of the war, and that there are huge technological and social paradigm shifts that are just glossed over. However, the article is already incredibly confusing, so I am going to try reorganize it first before we start adding huge sections. If there is space, I will try to add in some more sections on the more broad-view parts of the war, like the ones you mentioned. Heavy Metal Cellisttalkcontribs

Unclear statement

"The Japanese forces committed brutal atrocities against civilians and prisoners of war in the Rape of Nanking, slaughtering as many as 300,000 civilians within a month." This rather makes it sound as if they were killing as many as 300,000 people every month, instead of killing 300,000 in that particular month...Also, "slaughtering" makes it sound more like a carefully coordinated operation than it really was. Maybe it should be "Estimates as to the number killed range as high as 300,000 over the course of the month-long killings. " or something like that. "...As many as..." just sounds a little too unclear for me. 71.237.89.23 Max

You should edit it. Be Bold. 66.81.49.74

I totally agree with you on that!

Casualty info needed

A pie-chart would be best to compare casualties. Needed for my report. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by VulcanMak4017 (talk • contribs) 03:00, 17 January 2007 (UTC).

Vandalism

Can't revert - protected. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.12.145.206 (talk) 07:27, 12 January 2007 (UTC).

Yeah, someone has deleted the whole page...how would one go about contacting a admin? or was it an admin gone rogue that deleted it? it seems odd that it is locked. 12.218.145.112 20:16, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

don't know what you're talking about, the page hasn't been blanked. try refreshing your browser. Parsecboy 20:18, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Weak and vague opening article

I'd like to suggest that the opening article for this reference is a tad on the weak side in regards to susinctly defining what WW II was. I'd be more then happy to present a draft of something that is a little less vague and perhaps sums up the subject better. An example would be the OPs immediate jump from a general description of the events at the begining of the war to a reference to Adolph Hitler without any connection. Assuming one had never heard of WW II, you might not grasp who Hitler was by reading these first two paragraphs. There are other examples as well. Commnents? Finfyd 01:32, 13 January 2007 (UTC)Finyd

I just looked at the To-do list and what I suggest is already mentioned. Finfyd 01:34, 13 January 2007 (UTC)Finfyd
I think the assumption was made that the reader has a general idea of what happened; however, this is not necessarily the case, and I think nobody would object to any changes you made, as long as you don't do anything crazy. Ahudson 05:09, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
The "opening article" is an introduction or summary. The Overview covers the subject in more depth. The "opening article" could explain that the war was in three parts, namely Europe (Germany, France, North Africa, Italy, etc.) Eastern Europe (mainly Soviet Union and Germany) and Asia (Japan, China, India, and various Pacific Isand). However any attempts to expand it will probably involve the Overview creeping back in, and different people weighting it towards one viewpoint or another. Therefore it is best to leave it simple. By the way, doesn't anyone read beyond the intro these days? Wallie 15:07, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
...Not with an article this long.... Ahudson 16:20, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Very drole... Wallie 22:49, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

"Soviet Union" or "USSR" ?

I have always understood that the name "Soviet Union" was introduced after the war, at some point during the 1950s. This is borne out for example by the page Communist Party of the Soviet Union which explains that it only had that name from 1952. I believe it was officially known as the USSR up until about 1975 or something at which point it officially became the Soviet Union. When we use that term we are therefore being anachronistic in the context of this article? I ask for opinions because some time ago I changed the main ally name to USSR but this has just been reverted and stood for some time. Thanks for any help. MarkThomas 23:26, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

To my knowledge, "Soviet Union" is just shortened from "USSR" (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). It was not official name, but it was used to great extent. Like, for instance, official name of Yugoslavia was "Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia", but it was not used in common comunitation.--Brglez 17:06, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I read somewhere that both USSR and Soviet Union were official in the 1980s. Amlder20 12:43, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

i'm fairly certain USSR is the correct offical name for the time period in question, the term "Soviet Union" wasn't used until after the war. Parsecboy 18:10, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
The official name 1922-1991 always was "Union of the Socialist Soviet Republics". "Soviet Union" is a less wordy equivalent. It is also more accesible, especially nowadays since the USSR no longer exists and is no longer common knowledge. Therefore it is more accessible to use "Soviet Union" IMHO.
As for official, are we using the official names for the other nations involved?
  • "United Kingdom" instead of "United Kingdom of Great Britian and Northern Ireland"
  • "France" instead of "Republic of France"
  • "United States" instead of "United States of America" or "USA"
  • "Germany" instead of "German Reich" or "Greater German Reich"
  • "Italy" instead of "Kingdom of Italy"
  • "Japan" instead of "Empire of Japan"
So only the "Republic of China" is mentioned under its full, official name. So why must we put in USSR?
I am not saying that USSR is somehow incorrect, but Soviet Union is more accesible.
I am not willing to edit war over this, but I am also unwilling to yield to nonsense explanations like "anachronism". "Soviet Union" is a short form for "USSR", which was the official name. It is completely irrelevant when the short term appeared for the first time, at least when we are talking years and not centuries. Str1977 (smile back) 16:44, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately the recent discussion on this has already been archived without comning to a firm conclusion. There has to be some consistency and chronicity in the way we name the main combatants of WW2. The country often called "Russia", "Soviet Russia" or the "Soviet Union" was in WW2 almost always called "Russia" or the "USSR". The term "Soviet Union" was not used by the Soviets until the 1950s. This fits in with the use of "Republic of China" in the list of participants, not "China" or the postwar "Peoples Republic of China" since the Republic of China was the name given to the Kaomintang-controlled country, also sometimes known as "Nationalist China". Other issues like the precise full name of other countries are substantially irrelevant since "USSR", "UK" and so on are in any event shorthand. MarkThomas 15:32, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Mark, the archiving was unfortunate, premature and completely uncalled for, given that I had just commented. You might not have read my points. Therefore I am now retrieving the section from the archive.
Now, please do not make such irrelevant arguments: it doesn't matter when the American or the Soviets used the term "Soviet Union". Either we strictly stick to the official name (always USSR) - but this would have to be applied to other countries as well (you cannot simply brush this aside in a cavalier mannner - there were two French governments at the time, but only one Chinese) - or we are considering which name is more accesible. You can well argue that USSR is accesible enough but stop basing claims on colloquial names at the time. Russia in any case is impossible, since Russia was a different state, the largest component of the USSR.
And finally, try to gain consensus for your version instead of pushing it through. If consensus would prefer USSR, I would have no problem with this. But it was you who changed the previous version. Str1977 (smile back) 19:07, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

If we're going to use "Soviet Union" instead of "USSR", the latter being the correct name in WW2, then we should not be using "Republic of China" since that is also a wartime name - it should just be "China". Also, we need to weed through the article and take out any wartime names altogether, since Str1977 only wants to use postwar names for wartime entities. Thanks. MarkThomas 09:03, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Please do not start with this song about the "correct name in WW2", as USSR is the correct name any time between 1922 and 1991. The same goes for "Republic of China", which is the correct name.
I have absolutely no objection to using simply "China".
Consistency definitely should be ensured. I haven't searched this article but I have seen various occurences of "Soviet Union".
Finally, to restate my point: I have no objection to either "USSR" or the "Soviet Union" (the terms, not the entities), though I think Soviet Union a little bit more accessible. What I object to is dictating a change. Str1977 (smile back) 10:15, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
The Soviet Union is a good term, even though it might have been not used during World War 2. Note that the term World War 1 was not used in 1918 either, it was called the Great War. Nowadays most refer to that war as World War 1, and most now refer to "Russia", as it was called during World War 2, as the Soviet Union. Wallie 12:14, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not really trying to force it, just raising the issue, but if Soviet Union stays in then really we shouldn't bother calling it "Republic of China" and just put "China". MarkThomas 21:27, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

All right. I am open to see people discuss this. And I have posted my stance on China (hitherto the only strictly formal name used). Str1977 (smile back) 22:18, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Are you kidding me? During the time of the country's existence, both terms were acceptable. Although I'm not positive, I believe the official name was the "Union of Soviet States of Russia." Neither the "Soviet Union", nor the "USSR" is the correct term, neither is the official name of the country, but those are both equally known to refer to the country between modern Russia, and the Russia before the Revolution in 1917.

What no Ike?

Random reason I came across this, but not once in the artical is Eisenhower mentioned, (I used find tool) is it just me or is that a very stupid complete oversight. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Frenzy54 (talk • contribs) 03:23, 17 January 2007 (UTC).

I agree. Where do you think the best place to put him is? Haber 04:44, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Good spot. There is not much mention of personilities, mainly event focussed. Ike should defintely be mentioned one, two or maybe more times. Wallie 09:46, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
i don't know, just mentioning him for the mention's sake seems kind of redundant. i think we shouldn't just count how often people are mentioned, but rather if they fit in context. 84.184.221.132 21:39, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Don't forget, if we mention Ike, we also have to mention MacArthur, Zhukov, Montogomery, Chiang Kai-Shek, etc. things have a way of snowballing around here. :-) Just wanted to mention that. --Sm8900 16:22, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
On the other hand, some relatively more obscure generals are mentioned. Actually, the list you mention plus a few others isn't a bad idea. I don't think we should be influenced by the inevitable squabbles not to put information in at all, or to rationalise the article. MarkThomas 16:21, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
It is completely wrong to not mention Eisenhower. But, if a general did something worth mentioning, it shouldn't be hard to find their name and insert it into this article. What there should be is a list of generals, or leaders of some sort... war heroes maybe... but there should be a list and a brief (very brief) description about why they are worthy of inclusion in this article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bendersgreat (talk • contribs) 18:23, 20 February 2007 (UTC).
I think Ike is mentioned around D-Day. Feel free to edit the article if you think there is a better way to introduce him. You might also like this article: Commanders of World War II. Haber 18:27, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Why is the german ww2 article much better?

Correct answer: Because of Political Correctness you guys try to evaluate all topics even. You have to set priorities. Example: Europe is more relevant than Asia, so write more about Europe. Battle of Britain is more relevant than Battle of Iraq, so write more about battle of Battle of Britain. Some years are more relevant than others, so write more about the relevant years. To link everything is not the best solution at all. Have a look at the this. Greetings from German Wikipedia....--Prisoner 911 22:27, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it's just me, but I smell arrogance ... Rex 22:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I would say this article is better than the German one. But who is to say that I am right, or you for that matter? As far as being important, Asia or Europe, depends on where you live. For France or Poland, Europe is more important. For Australia, Vietnam or the US for that matter, Asia is more important. For example, the US was directly threatened by Japan, whereas Germany posed little threat to the US. Wallie 22:47, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Sure every country's view is to be the most important one in this conflict. But I believe one can rate the importance in an objective way. For example by death tolls or by it's influence on the progress of ww2. Anyway, I was just trying to help, didn't want to seem arrogant.--Prisoner 911 23:06, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm sure the "arrogant" comment was meant as a silly joke. The whole aim of these discussions, as you rightly pointed out, is continuous iomprovement. The German article is also very good, and this article could be improved by adding ideas from it. (I have also referred to the German article myself, and carried ideas from it here. Wallie 09:53, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, for the article to really be considered "good," it has to cover all the bases. Prisoner makes a good point about objectives and everything else he said, but the article should contain information that is available, not just what points out the importance. I'm sure there are people in the Battle of Iraq, as an example, who do not appreciate their efforts belittled as such. Basically, if it is worthy of being in the article, then it's worthy, but being under a certain topic, again like what battle it was, doesn't make the information more important. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bendersgreat (talk • contribs) 18:28, 20 February 2007 (UTC).

small changes

Couldn't find a section with changes, so just do it here: a. Changed Biowarfare (in the technology section) to chemical warfare. Correct me if i'm wrong, but biowarfare was not used in WW2, no? b. in the same section, only some technologies and/or weapons were crucial. The effect of the V2 missile was for example not relevant anymore to the outcome of the war...Sikkema 11:55, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, biological warfare was used in World War II, by the Japanese against the Chinese. They used bubonic plague several times, including allegedly against the Russians and Mongolians in the 1939 Nomonhan incident. read about Unit 731. also, when you start a new topic on a talk page, please start it at the bottom. Parsecboy 13:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Probably used to kill Heydrich in Prague too. Wallie 12:00, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Only 21 refs?

Shouldn't an article of this importance have more reliable sources?--Winterus 17:30, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

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