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Assistance in updating dead references in this Anoa APC article

I got a lot of dead reference links in Anoa (Armoured Personnel Carrier). This is I'll be busy for a while and I do need some help in archiving the dead links or finding similar article links to replace the ones that are outdated. Thanks for any help referred. If someone does let me know how many dead reference links are in the article, that is also grateful so that I/some contributor will know what to do next. Ominae (talk) 06:48, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

If you click here you'll get a list of all the external links in the article and their status. Hopefully this will help in identifying what needs replacing. You might also find the internet Archive to be of use in digging up older versions of web pages (assuming they've been archived of course). Where they exist, the archive pages can be used to replace the dead links. EyeSerenetalk 09:05, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

1944 Vågen explosion

This is currently a redirect but it is worth an article. Seems every bit as notable as the Halifax explosion and the Bombay Explosion (1944). Any member of this WP up to writing the article. Knowledge of the Norwegian language would be an advantage here. Mjroots (talk) 09:19, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

The Norwegian-language WP article states something like this:


I do speak Norwegian, but unfortunally I don't have any special knowledge about the incident. --MoRsE (talk) 15:20, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
Piqued my interest, so I did a quick google. I've turned up a couple of pages with further information in English, including some referenced translated quotes. I've placed them in the external links of the diverted article ST Voorbode, as a resource for anyone who picks up the baton on this. One word of warning though - even that quick search showed that numbers in different versions differ and it may be difficult to get definitive answers. Monstrelet (talk) 15:46, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
As with any article of this nature, where numbers are uncertain, this can be covered in the text by giving a range of numbers and the sources. Mjroots (talk) 14:24, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Article recreation check please

Resolved
 – Article deleted Nick-D (talk) 10:48, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

The article Special Operations Forces Tier System has just been recreated. It was previously deleted following Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Special Operations Forces Tier System. The closing Admin no longer has aces to the Admin toolset so it would be useful for someone with appropriate access to have a look.

It doesn't look as if there is any substantive difference between the deleted article and the new one, and in particular no sources have been provided.

TIA

ALR (talk) 10:33, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

It was the exact same article (minus wikilinks and references). I've deleted it per criterion for speedy deletion G4 and left a note for the editor who recreated it. Cheers, Nick-D (talk) 10:48, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Category:Military history

Not sure of the category structure but User:Uhlan has been adding Category:Military history to a lot of articles (for example Invasion of Canada (1775), if it is the same as the aircraft articles the user is adding high level parent cats to articles that dont need them but I am not an expert on the mil hist category tree. MilborneOne (talk) 20:04, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

"This category serves as the root for several different schemes for classifying military history, as well as general historiographic topics; it should contain only general articles and sub-categories. It is not the top-level category for all topics related to military history;"
Please ask them to stop, and not add anything and everything, per its heading. If you can, please undo those few he added.. it only adds clutter. There seem to be a lot of articles in the category already than need not be. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish[chat] 20:19, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Seems to me that the main Military history article should stay in this category. But should the remainder of the articles be removed or should certain ones stay? (I want to make sure before I start removing articles). Wild Wolf (talk) 03:00, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
Specific articles... battles, units, weapons, campaigns, etc don't belong in it. The category isn't designed for all those. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 03:42, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
O.K lets be clear here. Please list what is allowed in the Military History catergory and also isn't. Cheers. Uhlan (talk) 22:02, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
Articles that bear on military history but are not otherwise readily categorizable into one of its sub-categories should be directly in Category:Military history. Most of the articles you added the category to are already categorized into one or more of its sub-categories. (Most of what is directly in the top-level category right now shouldn't be.) Magic♪piano 22:12, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps it needs to be tagged with {{parentcat}}? - The Bushranger One ping only 22:14, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
"This category serves as the root for several different schemes for classifying military history, as well as general historiographic topics" – the kind of things in the top subcats, but most of the articles included are not correctly listed. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 22:22, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Is anyone actually doing anything about this besides talking? It looks like everyone is agreeing to remove articles from the category but only Wild Wolf seems to actually doing it. 76.7.231.130 (talk) 15:33, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

The category has now been cleaned up. Thanks to Wild Wolf for his time. Magic♪piano 19:45, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Changes to the way reviews are announced

As a result of this discussion on the coordinators' talk page, notifications of new featured, A class and peer reviews will no longer be posted on this talk page. Instead, they will be listed in the open tasks box at the top of this page, which has been edited so that it's always maximised. If you'd like to keep an eye on the currently-open FA and A class nominations, I'd encourage you to add {{WPMILHIST Review alerts}} to your user page. This change has been made in response to the high volume of posts on this talk page and feedback that people were no longer noticing the new review notifications at a result. For the coordinators, Nick-D (talk) 07:24, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

USMC disambiguators

I've just noticed 6th Machine Gun Battalion, which has a very generic name, and so a good example of the sort of thing that can be pre-emptively disambiguated. There are several other groups of USMC units with very generic names - 1st Tank Battalion, 1st Intelligence Battalion, 1st Maintenance Battalion, 1st Medical Battalion, etc.

What should the suffix be, though? There seem to be a number that use (United States), but in almost all cases they have "Marine" in the title anyway, and so are unlikely to conflict with any US Army units; one uses (United States Marines), and one uses (United States Marine Corps). Shimgray | talk | 13:17, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

(United States Marine Corps) seems the best choice to me as its unambiguous. Nick-D (talk) 01:30, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
It would be a good idea to turn these into set index articles (much like how WPSHIPS handles theirs... (ie. USS Enterprise) Then we can list all units with this generic name or relatively similar ones (ie. Machine Gun Battalion VI). 70.24.247.54 (talk) 05:43, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Template for deletion

It may interest the project that {{Lada class submarine}} has been nominated for deletion. - The Bushranger One ping only 22:26, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

requesting copy-editing

Hi. I have just performed a major rewriting of Domitian's Dacian War. Although it's not an urgent thing, it would be nice if someone could take a look. Thanks!--Dipa1965 (talk) 00:40, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

A quick thought. Where the article's saying "According to another view,", it would be useful for it to clarify whose view it is; e.g. ("According to historian John Smith,...", or "According to contemporary historians..." etc..) Hchc2009 (talk)
I think the problem is trying to retain consistency with the linked wiki article, which makes this claim but has no references - hence "another view". I'm not sure about the stacked info boxes though. If the article is about a campaign, should it not have one overview campaign box? I will do a little copyedit as requested Monstrelet (talk) 09:09, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
The Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology has an entry on Decebalus and also cites primary sources which is says are 'confused' and 'perplexing'. It might be good to take a close look at the primary sources. Flaviusvulso (talk) 12:36, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you both for the observations. There are two cases where modern views differentiate from each other. I tried to make it clear in the article but it seems I failed a bit:

  • According to another view, he personally led the successful operations then he returned to Rome to celebrate a double triumph[4][5]. As the citations show, Salmon and Bunson support this view, while Mocsy says that it was Fuscus who was responsible for the initial success.
  • According to one view, this is the battle where Legio V Alaudae was annihilated. At any case, this legion disappeared from the Roman army list.[4] This view is supported by Salmon. On the contrary, Mocsy claims that V Alaudae was destroyed in 86, under the command of Oppius Sabinus.

I already fixed (removed) the stacked infoboxes and mentioned specific historians in the cases above. I would be glad to have some support in this effort.--Dipa1965 (talk) 10:27, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I will have a look. Flaviusvulso (talk) 11:47, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I've done a bit on it, but I'm not as familiar as I'd like with the style for the ROman articles. Hchc2009 (talk) 11:49, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

ACW bio stub?

I've noticed that there are many ACW stubs which are biography articles. Would it be a good idea to create a seperate stub tag and category for these? Wild Wolf (talk) 16:50, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Probably best to tag them with an existing {{bio-stub}} or {{US-army-bio-stub}} (in the case of Yankee soldiers) template and {{AmericanCivilWar-stub}} which are currently setup, than create more. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 20:31, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Reminder: World War II anniversary

Please have a look and sign up if you're interested Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Incubator/World War II anniversary MisterBee1966 (talk) 19:28, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

More categories for discussion

There are more ACW categories up for discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 February 13#Category:Union Army regiments . 76.7.231.130 (talk) 20:02, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

This would fall under the jurisdiction of the ACW task force, so shouldn't someone from that task force be commenting on the discussions? 76.7.231.130 (talk) 02:06, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Fortifications help

Could someone familiar with fortifications topics look at this article and comment on the article's talk page about what information it lacks? Thank you. Cla68 (talk) 22:57, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Talk:19th Tactical Air Support Squadron: Duplication talkpage

Resolved
 – Converted to a redirect Nick-D (talk) 06:52, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

The above talkpage is a duplicate in the "B-class" section of ours. Could someone remove it from the "B-class"? It would be appreciated. Adamdaley (talk) 06:24, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Done - I've converted it to a redirect to Talk:19th Weapons Squadron. Nick-D (talk) 06:52, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks Nick-D. Adamdaley (talk) 07:12, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Talk:2nd Amphibian Tractor Battalion: Duplication

Resolved

The talk:2nd Amphibian Tractor Battalion talkpage in the "B-class" Assessment section redirects to the page: 2nd Assault Amphibian Battalion. Could it be removed? I've got it bookmarked and I'll assess the "B-class". Adamdaley (talk) 10:44, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Done. All that needs to be done to these orphaned talk pages is to turn them into a redirect into the talk page of the article under its current name Nick-D (talk) 10:48, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Notable or not?

John Alan Coey: This article has just been submitted for GA review. Although it appears to be a well written and cited article, I have doubts as to the notability of Coey. Your advice / opinion would be appreciated. Farawayman (talk) 20:46, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Even if you don't think his military career was notable, he is a published author, and he is mentioned in several books and newspapers, as a cursory search on Google will reveal: [1]. I will of course bow to consensus, but this article has existed for thee years already as little more than a stub; I see little reason to delete it now, especially when it has received so much improvement in recent weeks. —Cliftonian (talk) 21:02, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
It barely scrapes through GNG for me; much of Cliftonian's google refs seem to be fairly trivial references to him. I'm more concerned that the article is something of a hagiography. The nearest we come to criticism is "the controversial views it contained" But here is a man, according to The Nation, "eulogized in the American Nazi paper" (from Cliftonian's google refs - the Nation volume 222). Some balance? --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:21, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
The article does not itself praise Coey, it reports what other people said and did regarding him. I think a fair amount can be taken from the kind of people who wrote letters of consolation for him, personally (see "Reactions to death" section). I hadn't actually spotted that ref from The Nation, I'll put it in now. —Cliftonian (talk) 01:27, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
I also put a rather damning quote box into the final section from Gerald Horne, which I think helps provide a bit of balance. —Cliftonian (talk) 01:42, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
This conversation is now concluded, with consensus reached between the two main editors: see here and here. —Cliftonian (talk) 00:26, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

ACW task force

I've went through some of the "participants" listed on the tsak force page and noticed there are users on the list who haven't edited at all for two or three years (not days or weeks but years). Why are these user still listed if they are obviously not participating in Wikipedia at all? 76.7.231.130 (talk) 03:17, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I already answered this a couple of weeks ago in detail, and I'm not wasting more time digging up the diff. Do we really need another superfluous thread cluttering up this page? We already get the point that ACW interest has grown thin, and nobody participates in your somewhat tactless discussions. You're going to just have to accept it and move on instead of preaching about it. Ranting won't create interest. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 06:24, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Since interest in the ACW has grown thin, as you say, then why bother having a seperate task force anymore? Why not just eliminate it? (And I'm keep ranting because nobody is doing anything about these things.) 76.7.231.130 (talk) 14:48, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
I think one of the main reasons for having participant lists is so to encourage interaction between editors, in which case indicating in some way who is inactive may be useful. Here I split the list into those who have edited from 1 January 2011 onwards (even one edit) and those who have not, describing them respectively as 'active' and 'inactive'. While it may be useful – for instance someone looking for someone to contact regarding the task force now has a third fewer names to worry about – it does dramatically increase the amount of maintenance the task force needs. While it was simple to do once for the ACW task force, MILHIST has dozens of task forces and to be of any use the lists would need to be updated regularly, even if it's just every three or six months. It would take a considerable amount of time which could IMO be better spent on articles. An option would be to roll the list out for just the ACW task force, but I'm not especially keen on that. Perhaps a bot could be used, but setting one up is far beyond my abilities. Nev1 (talk) 15:30, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
This is WP:MilHist, not WP:ACW, and IP 76's incessant disparaging remarks towards MilHist members in general seem to imply that everyone should be interested in the ACW, as though it was the main event the world has ever seen. Short of becoming annoying, I find IP 76's remarks unfair, and off-putting. Yes, we all know that there are a lot of inactive task force members, we all know there are a lot of stubs need work, we all know Wild Wolf does a lot of the work, and we all know there are CFDs, but we don't need sarcasm and insults slapped up each time no one responds to some IPs daily demands for action. Almost all the task forces are the same, right across the board. MilHist, and Wikipedia itself, is suffering a lack of fresh editor interest at present, MilHist is down on long-standing experienced coords, from last year, and has backlogs left, right and center that coords work on. The continued remarks from IP 76, virtually harassing people to "do this", "do that", and "why the hell did no one answer me" posts are not helping anyone. Nor do they look particularly inviting to potential newcomers. I know if I was new to Wikipedia and saw a talkpage full of rants belittling members rather than supporting them, I wouldn't be tempted to partake in their work, due to some IP stressing everyone. Is it any wonder IP 76 gets no responses, and lacks the ability to muster interest, with their constantly rude approach? The task forces are an administrative measure, to help roughly determine members key areas of interest, and should not be regarded as some roster that requires a weekly role call to see who is active, we don't have the resources for that. There is no definitive way of tracking editors on Wikipedia at present. Especially IP users who are too idle to register but seem to enjoy lashing out at members, pretentiously. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 18:58, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
To be honest I don't care about your complaining about the IP's complaining. The issue is whether it's worth doing anything about inactive task force members. Removing them from a task force's membership list seems excessive while noting that they haven't edited in x months, or y years might have some benefit, but probably only if it could be done without significantly increasing the workload of those maintaining the task forces. Nev1 (talk) 20:28, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
A number of WikiProjects have "active members" and "inactive members" lists, with users being moved from the first to the second after a certain inactive time. - The Bushranger One ping only 20:52, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes, so do you have an opinion on the matter? Nev1 (talk) 21:15, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
If the process of separating active from inactive can be automated, do it. If not, and if there's no one willing to step up and administer the process, let it stay as it is.Intothatdarkness (talk) 21:34, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Nothing can be done that isn't time consuming and a waste of resources. Even the process of checking who is active is not fool-proof.. just because an editor appears active on wiki does not mean their last 3 months of edits, or whatever period matters, was for the specific task force/s they've enlisted their name on. No one is going to wade through hundreds of names cross referencing activity and whether the edits relate to MilHist, at frequent intervals.. it's hours of mind-numbingly tedious work, which a bot couldn't do either. And to be honest, it's pointless.. because the lists aren't really that functional or heavily used for a wide-scale purpose, they're just general lists and are not well maintained. To be honest, if you're going to eradicate one, might as well eradicate them all.. the only purpose I see in them is when looking for a member of a task force to request help in the field.. such as a peer review, or a second opinion, RFCs etc, where specific knowledge may be required. Other than that, the main MilHist member list is usually used. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 21:58, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Makes total sense to me. I just wanted to make sure (more for my own thought process than anything else) that it wasn't something that could be easily automated. Agree about the lists, though.Intothatdarkness (talk) 22:03, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Not sure if this is already there (I haven't checked), but might it be worth adding a disclaimer to the list along the lines of "Before contacting an editor on this list, please check their contributions to ensure they are currently active"? I realise this doesn't resolve the problem of listing inactive editors but it does perhaps recognise it. On the listing issue I agree that there's no easy way of removing inactive editors. Perhaps the best solution (if one is needed) would be to spam all the listed editors asking them to sign up to a new list if they still wish to be listed, give them a month or so, and then replace the old list with the new. EyeSerenetalk 10:40, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Task force member lists already start with "If you approach anyone from this list for advice or help, please check their contributions first to check if they've edited recently. This list may contain people who have not edited Wikipedia in a long time." Deciding the criteria of who is active/inactive would actually be quite easy, actually implementing the change it the time consuming part without a bot. Nev1 (talk) 13:08, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Nev1 is correct about deciding who's active or not: 8th Ohio Volunteers hasn't edited at all since March 2011, Amishjedi hasn't edited since January 2009, and Auror hasn't edited since June 2009. This is the point I was trying to make and MarcusBritish apparently missed. Seperating users who haven't edited Wikipedia at all for more than a year (not just MILHIST articles) could be placed in a seperate list from the others would prevent people from having to go through the entire list of 64 users to find out who is currently editing and who isn't. Setting up a bot to check user's contribs list and then updating the list as needed doesn't sound too hard. 76.7.231.130 (talk) 02:44, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
I didn't miss any point. You did – a bot cannot determine if an editor's contribs are project related. An editor could be listed on the ACW task force, and yet none of their edits in the past year of an ACW nature. That hardly makes them "active" in that task force, or any they enlist on. That's why it would require a person to do it, and no one is going to wade through dozens of users and their contribs making such checks, it's impractical. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 02:56, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
You kind of are, and becuase of it you're over complicating things. The assertion isn't that these people are active within the task force, just that they have edited Wikipedia within a set time and at one point expressed an interest in the task force. If an editor hasn't edited Wikipedia at all in the last 12 months why not say as much. Keep it simple. If they're still editing Wikipedia but not active within the project then so what, they could still be approached on the off chance they may have something to contribute. Nev1 (talk) 03:03, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not talking about ACW-related or project-related editing, I'm talking about any editing at all. Checking the links I placed above shows that those user haven't made any edits on any Wikipedia article at all for the last two or three years. Why can't a bot determine when a user's last edit occured?

The new upcoming memberlist will be determining whether MilHist members are active on wiki itself. I don't see the need to fuss over 64 names on a sub-list at an IP editors whims. One step at a time.. action is already being taken, and the continuous complaints here aren't going to speed it up, these things take time and process. IP 76 will just have to wait, like the rest of us. 64 names takes all of 5 mins to check. As has been said, the task force lists are just general signs of interest, not activity. IP 76 has it wrong that they should indicate present activity. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 03:16, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Spanish conquest of Guatemala FA nom

Hi all. I've just posted Spanish conquest of Guatemala as a Featured Article Candidate and invite any comments on its review page. Thanks, Simon Burchell (talk) 23:10, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

AFD notice

The article 2009 Kabul International Airport attack has been nominated for deletion. - Jorgath (talk) 07:31, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I've tried to justify its retention but I don't like its chances. Seems to be several editors intent on wiping it.Flaviusvulso (talk) 13:40, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

The Bugle wants your input!

Hi all, just a reminder that your monthly MilHist newsletter, The Bugle, is always on the lookout for contributions, especially in the form of op-eds. To get an idea of these things, you can find a complete list of those published to date here. We also run a regular book review section, generally Nick-D's specialty, but he's always happy to share the stage with new contributors, and we have an occasional "review essay" column, where you can offer your thoughts on other military artefacts that you've experienced, for instance war museums, cemetaries or memorials. As far as this month's issue goes, we should be ready to publish this weekend, but we're happy to look at last-minute additions if anyone has something up their sleeve along the lines of that mentioned above -- just let us know here or on the Newsroom talk page in the next day or two, otherwise please consider putting something together for forthcoming issues. Thanks/cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:11, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

American Civil War units

I've noticed there's a disparity in home Civil War regiments are named. For instance, compare 68th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment and 23rd Ohio Infantry. Is there one correct form, or are they different for a reason? I didn't want to start moving things without discussing first. --Coemgenus (talk) 17:09, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Technically all Union regiments raised by states or territories were Volunteer regiments, to distinguish them from Regular Army regiments. Some works use the full form as seen with the 68th New York, while most use the "short" version seen with the 23rd Ohio. Either could be considered correct. I think it's just a matter of standardizing which we consider proper for an article title.Intothatdarkness (talk) 17:33, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Please look through User:MarcusBritish/ACWR, you will see that there are dozens do not match a standard format. Probably different editors covering different states without looking for a "right" format. It is something needs addressing, but around 200 Ohio unit articles are out of sync with the rest on the list.. it's a lot to move, if you feel like it, as long as the name is correct. Dyer's Compendium is likely to give the correct name, however.. the correct name is preferable to a "wiki standard". Ma®©usBritish[chat] 17:38, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Quite. I'd also prefer that the correct name be used. If you go back to period documents, the format used for the 68th New York (68th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment) is correct. Dyer can be deceptive because the regiments are first organized by state (for example, New York and then Ohio) and then by number (so you'd find 68th Infantry in the New York section and 23rd Infantry in the Ohio section).Intothatdarkness (talk) 17:49, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

How would we determine the "right format" for the titles? Wild Wolf (talk) 19:25, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

  • We've discussed this a few times before - no real conclusion, though, and it's not always clear there is one single clearly-correct form across all states and units. Redirects from variant forms would certainly be advisable in most cases; if we can decide on what the various "options" are, I'll create a redlink table for populating them. Shimgray | talk | 19:33, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
I think it should be the long form for article titles, since that is the official version. The shorthand is certainly more common, but that doesn't reflect the way they were mustered into Federal service (which was with the longer title). Suggest we use the long title for article titles and then use the shorthand in the article itself.Intothatdarkness (talk) 20:20, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Long form is preferable and less ambiguous. It could help clear any confusion between battalions, regiments, brigades, etc. If there is a single source for the correct names it would be the Official Records of the American Civil War but that may find itself at odds with the common name or nicknames known to regular folk (such as Louisiana Tigers). I would recommend against trying to homogenize naming conventions systematically and instead consider things case by case.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 20:30, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
OK, but where there is no unusual nickname (like the Louisiana Tigers), where the unit is known as the ##th [State], if makes sense to standardize the names in the long form, as they were mustered in. --Coemgenus (talk) 20:39, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

United States v. The Progressive

This is a fascinating legal case, anyone want to collaborate on improving the page with me? Please leave a note on my user talk page, — Cirt (talk) 18:24, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Images from NARA

Was wondering if there is anyone with a scanner willing to go the College Park still pictures branch of NARA and help out with this request (originally here). I can narrow the list down if someone is willing to help out here. Thanks so much in advance, – Connormah (talk) 23:32, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Athenian army

I've just done the MILHIST assessment on this article. As a subject of some significance in our coverage of Ancient warfare, it's rather poor, seemingly containing significant recycled material from out-of-copyright sources and failing to bring in modern scholarship. It also has an impressive collection of improvement tags. Perhaps interested editors might see if improvements could be made. Monstrelet (talk) 08:38, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Review of List of Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross recipients (E)

Interested? Then please visit the review page. MisterBee1966 (talk) 13:03, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

B3 fails

I've been looking at Military history articles needing attention only to structure in case there are any articles in my area of interest there. I've done a couple but I notice that about half the articles here are ship pages. Many (but not all) seem to fail B3 because their lede is deficient. I don't know enough about what ship lovers like to see in their article structures but the articles from the few I've sampled look well put together, so it is a shame to see them not reaching their B class potential. Any naval enthusiasts willing to do a bit of work there? Articles are mainly late Victorian British and US Navy of various periods, with a few Spanish. Monstrelet (talk) 15:58, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I've noticed the same and have fixed the leads of several ship articles over the last week. If anyone else works on them and reassesses the B-class criteria for a specific article, please update the relevant section of Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Operation Majestic Titan/Phase I. Zawed (talk) 21:26, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Upload file problems

I know this might sound really stupid, however I have tried uploading an image titled "149thArmorRegDUI.jpg" onto WikiCommons (and when that failed) and Wikipedia and I got the warning "File extension ".jpg" does not match the detected MIME type of the file (image/png)." even though the file ended with jpg, one of the allowable file types. What's with that?

So for those who would like to assist me, here is the information if you'd like to try this yourself:

{{Information |Description = A Gold color metal and enamel device 1 1/8 inches (2.86 cm) in height overall consisting of a shield blazoned: Or, chain mail Vert, in chief a prickly pear cactus of the last and a fleur-de-lis Gules and in base a carabao affronté Sable. Attached below and to the sides of the shield a Black scroll turned Gold inscribed “MEN AND STEEL” in Gold letters. |Source = http://www.tioh.hqda.pentagon.mil/ImageProxy.ashx?n=1&t=original&id=13388 |Date = 21 May 1953<br/>Uploaded on ~~~~~ |Author = [[United States Institute of Heraldry]] |Permission = {{PD-USGov-Military-Army-USAIOH}} |other_versions = }}

The Distinctive Unit Insignia that I am trying to upload can be found here; it is for use at the article 149th Armor Regiment (United States). Thanks in advance to whomever is successful in the task that I have failed at. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:35, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

I think what the error is trying to tell you is that while the file is saved as a .jpg, it isn't a .jpg file - it's a .png file. Try changing the file name on your computer to "149thArmorRegDUI.png", try uploading again, and see if it works. - The Bushranger One ping only 00:38, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
When I uploaded it onto my computer, I uploaded it as a .jpg file, so shouldn't it then be a .jpg? image file?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:45, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
OK, uploaded with the .png file extension you spoke of, worked like a charm. Thanks! --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:51, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Sometimes computers can do strange things like that. Glad it worked! :) - The Bushranger One ping only 00:56, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Medal bars and styles

I seem to have stumbled into an edit war at David Richards (British Army officer) over two different types of sections in biographical articles. One is the old row about re-creating an officer's chest decorations (often based on original research) at the bottom of the article (like so). The other is over whether or not to list every combination of titles and post-nominal letters the officer has held along with the dates that they held them (often based more on guesswork than original research), like so (sourced to unithistories.com in this case). These sections are randomly added periodically (often by IPs without edit summaries, example) to British Army officer biographies, and I routinely remove them when I work on an article that contains them. That they are unsourced and more than likely unsourceable amply justifies their removal. I also fee they lack encyclopaedic value and are redundant and duplicative of the prose (and, in the case of significant awards, the infobox). Can we have a discussion about the value of each type of section, and could folks keep an eye out for he restoration of unsourced/poorly sourced material to Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein. Thanks, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:10, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree, but I've said my piece on the first before :-). This debate has been running for some years and I don't think we've ever had a consensus - perhaps some kind of widespread RFC and an update to the MOS to clarify how and where it's appropriate is in order?
As to the second, I think this is bleed-over from the "general" articles on peers, where it's been common for some time. I'm not sure they're really necessary, but especially with people whose names visibly change on taking a title and who continue to have active careers under the new name, a short index of who they were when can be useful. We sometimes do similar things in articles on companies, or military units, or other institutions with sequential name changes. Shimgray | talk | 13:33, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm with HJ Mitchell on most of this - i think for someone of Field Marshal rank or similar a summary of their ranks and when they obtained them may be useful but not for a bog-standard general Kernel Saunters (talk) 13:52, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Since I did kinda start this debate (again) I should firstly mention that the second (being the so) is something I did'nt read throughly first and will admit this particular type of section is picarius at best and I would like the fist mentioned by HJMitchell to be discussed. I'm not going to say my bit again but it can be found here. I must apologise to anybody including and especially HJ Mitchell for anything I have said in bad taste. Nford24 (talk) 00:14, 28 January 2012 (AEST)
No apology necessary. The Internet has a way of frustrating us (myself very much included) that we don't get in real life! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:03, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
My thoughts on this, which I've been prepared to air whenever this comes up, are pretty well identical to HJ's. Anything of this sort not referenced should be removed on sight, and even when references are provided, the rows of ribbons imitating they way the medals are worn or the tables listing every medal with an image beside it are, in a biographical article, unnecessary from an informational point of view and unencyclopedic in appearance. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:42, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Delete them they serve no purpose. However this does seem to come back like a boomerang every few months. Jim Sweeney (talk) 23:46, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree, I find the appearance of ribbons in these articles to be unsightly, unnecessary (as usually the medals are referred to the text/infobox) and usually not in keeping with the tone of a biography article. Zawed (talk) 00:18, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Of course if the Medals and or ribbons cannot be referenced then they shouldn't be there. With that said ribbons and medals are an important aspect of the military and IMO should be displayed on the article somewhere even if they are suppressed in a show/hide box as they are on some articles. Deleting the ribbons and medals would be the same as making no mention of the ranks they achieved or wars in which they fought. I realize that its hard for folks not in the military to understand this and many think that having the colored bits of cloth is rather pointless but its part of the culture. --Kumioko (talk) 00:30, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
I see no reason to display ribbon bars, even for the most eminent of military men. Not least because many, if not most armies, have lots of medals/ribbons that really don't mean very much. A quality article will cover the acts for which the significant medals were awarded.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:51, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Agree with Ian Rose and Sturmvogel. If the honours and awards are listed in the text (often with links to the article on the individual award) and sourced, these ribbon bars are superfluous and unencyclopedic. Peacemaker67 (talk) 00:54, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

The issue arises with awards given to vessels, etc. For instance, there is the set of awards shown at USS_Iowa_(BB-61)#Awards which not only is not completely necessary, but which differs from the actual awards board carried on the battleship, as discussed on the article's talk page. There appears to be too much of an element of original research when arranging the awards. For me, that is reason enough to put a project-wide stop to the practice. Binksternet (talk) 01:36, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

So for example; 'in 2008 I was awarded the Community Service Medal for 10 years service to the RSL, it has no post-nominals and it therefor would not be note-worthy as it is considered much like a jubilee/coronation/centenary medal etc, (which is awarded for community service and other etc.)' and would not appear within a biography at all?. I seem to have a problem with that. Nford24 (talk) 17:56, 28 January 2012 (AEST)
Agreed. There are many decorations that otherwise would not appear in the text. David Richards (British Army officer) shows an image of the officer, and the reader might well be interested in wanting to know what the ribbons represent. (Was he mentioned is despatches?) There is a debate at Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board#These.3F_in_notable.27s_articles at the Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board about this.
While the medal ribbons came from the American articles, the styles arose from the British editors. In fact, the Duke of Wellington has an entire article on his styles and honours: Arms, titles, honours and styles of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington! The reason is that for some British people their actual name changed over time due to the receipt of titles, so that George Grenville became Lord Temple and then the Duke of Buckingham. It mainly affects British articles, so really is up to you guys to sort out. Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:13, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't think there's any debate about mentioning awards for acts of gallantry or conspicuous service, even if they don't have post-nominals, like an MiD. These should not only be described and cited in the text, they can and should be listed in the infobox. For me it's the ribbon images, which belong in the medal articles only, and the lists of service/campaign medals that were awarded to everyone who participated in a particular war/theatre/etc, that are over the top. I say this will full respect for the guys who were in those actions (which should be described in a bio anyway, obviating the need to mention the associated medals) and as the son of a pilot who received seven such medals for service in WWII and Malaya, as well as the Air Force cross for achievements above and beyond the call -- the latter is the only one what would/should feature in a WP bio. Now, Nford, if you had a bio in WP mentioning/citing your Community Service Medal in the text it wouldn't be an issue as far as I'm concerned -- not everyone gets them, do they? What I wouldn't expect is to see it in a list at the end of the article with a ribbon device next to it. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:53, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
A lot of people use the ribbon displays as a guide to get an idea what people should have and how they should be displayed. Just having a list of awards is going to make a lot of people not use these biographies as much. General MacArthur also has a separate article for his awards. I also think that if the ribbon displays are going to be removed then a lot of the ribbons and medals will end up being deleted as non noteworthy. Thats going to further degrade the reliability of the articles because its going to prevent them from being accurate. --Kumioko (talk) 15:32, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
So are you saying some of the medals displayed are only noteworthy because General xxx was awarded one. Has anyone ever asked Wikipedia:WikiProject Orders, Decorations, and Medals what there opinion is? Jim Sweeney (talk) 15:39, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
When looking at honours that have ribbon bars there are orders, decorations, and medals. I think that everyone knows the definition of an order, but decorations and medals are sometimes used interchangeably. A decoration is typically awarded for some specific act of service, that could likely be described in the text with a reference. A medal usually refers to service and campaign medals. Those are awarded for length of service or are "been there, done that" awards. If decorations are listed in the bio infobox and circumstances of receipt are described in the text, then there may really be no need for the big display of ribbons. Especially if we are talking about campaign medals or general service medals that were presented to a few million people, and receipt of them is hard to verify with a reliable source
MacArthur, the Duke of Wellington, or Marshal Tito were individuals who were presented a vast array of awards and honours, so that is likely why they have separate articles. Just my 2 cents for what it's worth. EricSerge (talk) 17:08, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Reply to Jim Sweeney. Well partly but I can see where some would argue that having a Sea service deployment ribbon or a NATO ribbon isn't noteworthy enough to be in the article. Even if there is a reference that says they have it. Additionally, I think that many will find that having a list of medals and decorations, especially for those with a lot of them such as Smedley Butler, Audie Murphy and the like quite difficult to look through. However having the ribbon display with a table below it removes almost any doubt what the individual has or what it is. As I mentioned in these discussions before, if the decision is made to display these in a showhide box or something that is a little less picturesque then I can live with that but to remove them entirely, to me, does our readers a huge disservice and reduces the readability and usefullness of the article to those who may wish to read it. --Kumioko (talk) 17:47, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
I am not sure most readers would know what the medal ribbons are and would rely on the related link, so really they are just being used for decoration and are not needed. MilborneOne (talk) 19:50, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
MilborneOne; I beg to differ, I agree with Kumioko 100%. In reference to 'campaign medals' (as mentioned above), it is possible to service in a theatre and never qualify for that particular campaign medal for example; General David Hurley, AC, DSC (current Chief of the Defence Force - Australia) has served for 40 years in places like Somalia and Malaysia and has never been awarded a campaign medal reguardless of the positions he has held in the Australian Army. My point is the display of ribbons can help people understand what a person's career was kinda like whilst serving for example, if they were awarded a campaign medal, long service medal, foreign medal or a decoration like the VC, CV, SC, MG, DSC etc. In my various services i supply my local RSL Sub-Branch, I assist in medal/ribbon identification and I have also in the past instructed on rigging a medal bar with the correct order of precedence, I tend to refer people to various pages on wikipedia (such as Sir Phillip Bennett, Peter Cosgrove, Angus Houston etc.). Nford24 (talk) 00:48, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Just for the record, regarding Arms, titles, honours and styles of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington: It is fair to say that Wellington was one of the most decorated generals of the British Empire, but also that he was awarded a multitude of titles, honours and decorations by most of Europe and Russia following Napoleon's defeat in 1814 and 1815, which not all generals have had the pleasure of receiving. The article serves to address all those awards in one gp, because those lists would appear as clutter amid his biography, and it is also very difficult to try to slot each award, title, decoration, style and rank into the article within the chronological sequence of events and not make the prose sound cheesy or look bloated. Only his commissions and a few of the notable titles are noted, because they are critical to following his career as an officer. Within one article they are easier to put into context and cite in bulk, also. With regards to ribbons, I personally have no idea when the practice of coloured ribbons and medal bars began, but for anyone who has seen File:Phillips-Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington.jpg, you can see he is plastered with decorations in a very different and more elaborate manner, and only two medals were issued relating to the Napoleonic War and aware to British soldiers anyway. So the article really aims to incorporate a lot of rather lengthy lists, more than anything, because there is no better alternative that allows for an objective overview. As Hawkeye7 mentions, some of these awards to peerage status changed a persons name.. i.e. Baron of.. Marquee of.. Duke of.. all aristocracy and pomp, which Wellington wasn't always keen on, which I will end on here by quoting: "What the devil is the use of making me a maquees?" — Wellington, 1812. A true Englishman (i.e. a moaning git!). Cheers, Ma®©usBritish[chat] 08:34, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Hawkeye7 mentioned an article on Wellington's honours, after a discussion on the talk page of that article about how many field marshal batons he had, I wrote one on the Batons of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington! Wikipedia also as an article called victory title and an article there is an article called nobility of the First French Empire which also has paragraphs on victory titles dished out by Bonaparte.
Nelson being in part a showman (like many senior officers) often appeared wearing lots of decorations, I believe it was one of the things that made him a target on the Victory. There is a section in his biography on his titles and honours.
For many articles on British nobility there are sections on genealogy, it dominates some article. Clearly genealogical information is of more interest to some editors (and presumably some readers) than the notable achievements (if any) of the biography's subject. I suspect that like genealogical information, these sections on chest decorations and a list of every combination of titles and post-nominal letters, are the main focus of interest to some editors and readers. Given that, if the sections are sourced, is there any reason to remove them as a matter of course? -- PBS (talk) 09:24, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Just FYI, we're chewing over a proposed RfC on this issue on the coord's talk page at the moment, to be put to the project when we've agreed the wording. Due to the frequency with which this comes up I think we should look at developing a guideline sooner rather than later. Further input is welcome :) EyeSerenetalk 10:51, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


Amongst the reasons given on Talk:David Richards (British Army officer) for removing the medal ribbons were that they were unsourced and trivial. However, pictures of Richards wearing exactly the ribbons depicted can easily be found from reliable sources and, as for "trivial", these are hard-won decorations awarded by the Crown and deemed sufficiently important to be displayed on a uniform and I feel we should display them on articles. Two points of view expressed in a previous discussion with which I agree were that ribbons both add to the visual appeal of an article and could provide a unique reason for people to come to articles here. Several editors have used the term "unencyclopaedic" which I don't understand - ribbons are a summary of a serviceperson's career, and very relevant. People have also expressed concerns about verifiability, but, especially if a table is used (rather than recreating the rows of ribbons) I don't see that this should encourage speculative information, certainly no more than other aspects of biographical articles. In terms of taking up too much space, David Richards is head of the UK armed forces and only has 8 decorations, so I don't see a problem - I don't know the US system well enough, but I'm sure the less relevant decorations could easily be excluded. Antrim Kate (talk) 19:54, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
So, is anyone saying the display of ribbons is "unencyclopaedic" able to give a reason for that (or those just saying "I agree with HJMitchell" able to give any reasons for their view)? Antrim Kate (talk) 00:17, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
What encyclopedic value do they add to the article? And how reliably sourced can the order they are displayed in be? - The Bushranger One ping only 01:35, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
On the first question thats a matter of opinion but I would say they are very relevant for a military persons ribbons to be on the page. As for the order that's an easily proved thing for most of the US ones, I can't vouch for the Non-US ones.
Here is what I think is going to happen if they are not displayed. People are going to start edit warring and fighting about why they are or aren't there. If we only display valorous ones people will argue that the article is incomplete, that the ribbon display is out of order, incorrect, etc. I also envision folks arguing that the lower rating ribbons are not worthy of being on the article. As with Antrim I believe that if they are allowed to be worn on the uniform then they should be on the article. I also think that if we remove them from biographies then we need to remove them from Ships, units and the like. Personally, if the decision is made to remove these from the articles, I would have to do some major soul searching on whether or not I should even bother using my time to update military biographies anymore. If such an important aspect of military service doesn't rate to be on the article, particularly when that's what the person is known for such as the Medal of Honor, then there's not much point in keeping the article either. --Kumioko (talk) 04:15, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Following on from some of the above comments, if the only awards mentioned in an article were ones with post-nominals for instance then for example the Australian Honours System allows for 24 awards with post-nominals and 41 without (including coronation/jubilee medals but not including the various commendations or state awards {state awards are worn on the right breast}). The UK system has even more, the US system has no post-nominals at all (including but not limited to; Medal of Honor, Navy Cross, Navy Distinguished Service Medal, Presidential Medal for Freedom, Congressional Medal of Honor etc.) The reason (in my opinion) that the ribbon bars are displayed above the main awards body for example - {Major General John Cantwell, AO, DSC} is because different countries wear their medals in different ways, Australia in rows of 4 (rows of 3 for women), UK in rows of 4 (rows of 5 for the old style battledress), US rowns of 3 etc. --Nford24 (talk) 16:03, 10 February 2012 (AEST)
To me, the argument that if they're important enough to be awarded then they should be in the article is an argument for including them in the text (and categorisation, where appropriate), but doesn't directly follow through to justifying a set of images. Do the images really provide any more information than the running text of the article to the reader? Is this material that any other reference work would include, and if not, why not? Shimgray | talk | 13:08, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
In my opinion, yes. Having the awards mentioned scattered throughout the article is in my opinion rather messy.--Nford24 (talk) 20:56, 12 February 2012 (AEST)
I think the reason ribbons are encyclopaedic is that they are an important part of the military system, worn on a uniform, and a visible record of a career. As for the order, in the UK system the decorations are always worn in the same order, but campaign medals are worn in order of receipt, so a published photo would be needed. In answer to Shimgray, I think simply listing decorations in the text will not have the impact of a visual display, which would firstly educate the reader as to the meanings of the ribbons and might lead them to seek further information on the awards, where a list in the text could easily be missed. We also list the appointments of senior officers in a table as well as putting them in the text. Why display these but not medal ribbons? Antrim Kate (talk) 22:51, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Another factor that I think needs to be taken into consideration is that a great many articles already have a display of ribbons in them - someone has even developed a template for displaying different numbers of the US devices on the ribbons - and in many areas it appears to be the de facto standard to include ribbons, so I can foresee problems if an attempt is made to remove all the existing ones. Antrim Kate (talk) 01:22, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

A possible solution

I think I might have an alternative solution, to those put forward so far. Looking at the discussion Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board#These? in notable's articles I do not think that the proposed table solution suggested there is desirable because for long serving officers you end up with a large salad bar such as described in the Chester W. Nimitz article.

An option would be to use the link=link to a file in the [[File:...|link=link to a file]] and make it an option that if displayed outside a dedicated awards section that the medal bars are not over a certain size. Eg:

without gaps
with gaps

The trouble with this solution is that sometimes there is no specific article eg:

Ribbon Award Notes
Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) Awards creation 1961 discontinued 1988 or whatever
Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO)
Knight of Justice of the Venerable Order of St John of Jerusalem (KStJ)
Defence Medal
War Medal 1939–1945
Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal

not in each biography article, but in some articles like the List of Latin phrases, so we have an article that lists all the salad dressing for a given country/service (or whatever) and a way to link from any biography without overpowering the biography article with information that some consider trivial. -- PBS (talk) 00:12, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Chattanooga Campaign

I noticed that there are two seperate categories for battles in this campaign: Category:Battles of the Tennessee River Reopening of the American Civil War and Category:Battles of the Chattanooga-Ringgold Campaign of the American Civil War. From what I've read, the "reopening of the Tennessee River" was just an early stage of the campaign. Should these two categories be merged together? Wild Wolf (talk) 18:02, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

The ACW campaigns were originally modeled on the CWSAC classification. I think we should stick with those campaigns unless there is a compelling reason to deviate. Otherwise, why not just make up our own campaign names and argue about what should be in them? To give you an example, there are some historians who count everything from Tullahoma to Chickamauga to Chattanooga to be the "Chattanooga Campaign." Or you could argue for the "campaigns of Ulysses S. Grant." I don't normally get very concerned about these category definitions and the constant churn of users and bots reorganizing them (because I have never seen any evidence that Wikipedia readers pay attention to them), but since you asked for opinions, mine is to leave it alone. Hal Jespersen (talk) 19:27, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
In case anyone's interested, the CWSAC Campaign list is available at the http://www.nps.gov/hps/abpp/battles/bycampgn.htm URL. Mojoworker (talk) 21:48, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
I brought this up because I had noticed that some campaigns for the Lower Seaboard and Trans-Mississippi theaters had been combined, so I wondered about combining the Chattanooga battles categories. Wild Wolf (talk) 04:25, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Panzer Army / Panzer Group

Resolved

Should 2nd Panzer Group (Germany) and Panzer Group Guderian be absorbed into 2nd Panzer Army (Germany)? Should 3rd Panzer Group (Germany) be absorbed into 3rd Panzer Army (Germany)? As a bonus question: do these units need the (Germany) specifier? Hamish59 (talk) 20:15, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

No, No, and No...in that order. IMO, anyhow. I think you could lose the (Germany) tag unless there's another major military that uses the Panzer designation.Intothatdarkness (talk) 21:32, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Intothatdarkness, can you give a reason why not? Panzer Group Guderian was redesignaed as 2nd Panzer Group (Germany) and then later as 2nd Panzer Army (Germany). Is this not then the same formation under three different names? Hamish59 (talk) 09:11, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
In some ways yes, but I'm thinking that many searchers will be looking for Panzer Group Guderian specifically and not necessarily 2nd Panzer Army. I'm actually fairly neutral on the subject, but I do see some value in leaving them as separate articles.Intothatdarkness (talk) 14:48, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
They're the same unit and should be merged together with redirects from the older names. And the disambiguator can be dropped as panzer is a specific German term not used by anyone else.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:03, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Under WP:MILMOS#UNITNAME, as Sturmvogel66 says, they should be merged together at the name of latest use: xth Panzer Army, no need for disambiguation. Of course, redirects should remain. Buckshot06 (talk) 23:31, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I want to rename 3rd Panzer Army (Germany) to 3rd Panzer Army but there is an existing article with the latter title so the system is refusing to rename. Can anyone help? Hamish59 (talk) 09:50, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Same problem with 4th Panzer Army (Germany) and 4th Panzer Army... Hamish59 (talk) 19:45, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Revisiting AfD

Given the recent AfD regarding Philippa Tattersall, I would like to argue that the AfD of a late PFC Angelo Zawaydeh should be reversed. It is being stated in the AfD regarding P Tattersall that she is notable due to the depth of coverage (which comes in about 1,700 or so google search hits), yet in the case of PFC A Zawaydeh there are 13,800 google searches hits of which there were significant/in-depth coverage in major relable sources (such as the San Francisco Chronicle).

I understand WP:NOTMEMORIAL, but determining notability should not factor whether the individual is alive or dead. Therefore, I am arguing that the AfD of PFC A Zawaydeh should be reversed, and other similar AfDs should be reviewed. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:57, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Per WP:CANVASS I have notified active editors at appropriately related wikiprojects and articles about this discussion. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 06:11, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:DRV is the appropriate location for this if you think that the discussion was wrongfully closed. Please post a notification at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Military if you take it there. I have to say I don't see any indications of this person meeting WP:BIO from what's at User:RightCowLeftCoast/Angelo Zawaydeh, (you could create a similar-looking article on most western casualties of recent wars, and many such articles have been created and merged or deleted on notability grounds) and the closure of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Angelo Zawaydeh reflected the weight of the comments, all of which were policy-based. Nick-D (talk) 07:39, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks; depending on the discussion here I may or may not move forward at WP:DRV.
Although the majority of the reliable source references came after the subject's death, and thus why WP:NOTMEMORIAL appears to have been brought up during AfD, the subject is mentioned in multiple reliable source references, and in several in an more than trivial and in depth focus, especially in articles from the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle; additionally there are over 13 thousand mentions of the subject elsewhere.
As to rebuke the arguement that similar sources can be found to support notabiliy of most western casualties, I would like to say that the coverage of PFC A Zawaydeh was greater than most deceased western servicemembers. For instance, someone whom I have direct connection to, the late SSG R Doria, unfortunately only has less than four thousand google hits. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 09:26, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Sheer numbers of Google hits aren't considered useful for establishing/not establishing notability - please see WP:HITS and WP:GOOGLETEST#Notability. Comments based on numbers of Google hits in AfD discussions are frequently ignored on those grounds. Nick-D (talk) 09:49, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
I should also note that if you redevelop the article so that it's substantially different to the deleted version it can be recreated, but you should ask other editors to confirm that the notability problems are no longer an issue before moving it into article-space (this is probably best done via asking for comments here and at WT:BIOGRAPHY). My two cents on this is that these problems are insurmountable given that the only reason that Private Zawaydeh received media coverage was due to his death in combat (in which he's one of thousands of fatalities of this war), and this doesn't appear to have been a remarkably high level of coverage (all the news stories in the article at present are routine types of coverage for soldiers killed in combat) or coverage which has been sustained over time, so WP:BIO isn't met. But other editors might disagree with me. Nick-D (talk) 10:52, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
If, as it is being argued, that most western combat fatalities received the same level of coverage, and said level of coverage (even if it included indepth coverage in highly recognized reliable sources) is insufficient to meet WP:GNG, and WP:BIO, then what level of coverage would then constitute meeting GNG & BIO? In the case of Zawaydeh, there were two in depth articles written in the San Francisco Chronicle, an in depth article in the Los Angeles Times, in depth articles in lesser known papers such as those based in Oakland and San Mateo, and multiple mentions elsewhere.
Do Obit articles count towards establishing notability? If they do not should other AfDs where significant coverage is meet by the in depth nature of an obit then be up for review again?
If PFC Zawaydeh is not independently notable; as there is the article List of private contractor deaths in Iraq, as those individual servicemembers who died during OIF as a group are notable, should there then be a List of Coalition military deaths in Iraq? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 12:51, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
If PFC Zawaydeh is deserving of an article, it would be on a case basis. Moving to the idea of a list of Coalition deaths changes the goal posts somewhat. I think it would be legitimate to ask what the purpose of such a list would be (given that memorialisation is explicitly non-wiki) and whether/why that purpose would be particular to this conflict.Monstrelet (talk) 13:26, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
If as stated, due to the high level of coverage (multiple in-depth articles from several highly reliable news organizations and dozens of mentions elsewhere) that NickD has stated is "routine types of coverage for soldiers killed in combat", what level of coverage then would be found for a notable non-general/flag officer or non-highest national medal for valor in combat individual?
If the argument that the vast majority of those types of articles are Obituaries, and notability revolves around the death of said individual, and thus they are not notable per WP:ONEEVENT (their death while in uniform), then the question that I have is should obituaries be used to establish notability at all, as has been done in the past? For instance, I have been involved in AfDs that have said that due to the fact that a lengthy obituary is present in a highly reliable news organization that in and of itself indicates that the individual, is at least, highly notable locally and thus are notable enough to have their own article.
Regardless if obituaries are not to be used to establish notability, it is also my opinion as a group of individuals whom are collectively the "Coalition military deaths in Iraq" itself is a highly notable subject per WP:GNG. My belief is based on the multiple stories written by highly reliable sources about them as a single subject (the group taken as a whole), and the multiple (thousands, if not tens of thousands) non-in depth mentions of the group (including nightly mentions on multiple news sources of the group (whether their total statistical number or individuals who are part of the group). As such each individuals who can be classified as part of the notable subject can be verified by a reliable source then should be included in a stand alone list. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:18, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
There have been lots of AfDs for soldiers with unremarkable careers who were killed in recent wars and whose death didn't have significant consequences. As far as I'm aware, all have ended in delete decisions on notability grounds. Articles listing by name casualties of wars also tend to be deleted if they go to AfD. One of the sockpuppets of Top Gun (talk · contribs) did in fact create an article listing every single American casualty of (from memory), the war in Iraq by name, and it was deleted at AfD. Nick-D (talk) 07:33, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
I believe the List that is being referred to is the one AfD'd here. In the closing administrator's opinion that there was a general consensus that the subject was notable, but due to the vagueness of the War on Terrorism that it could devolve into a coatrack article. Also, the Iraq War list AfD had to go three rounds before there was a consensus reached; therefore it does not appear (IMHO) that due to WP:CCC there maybe grounds for an article or list of a similar topic.
As a beginning of a renewed discussion, as my question about level of coverage required for individual notability and the use of Obits to establish notability have so far gone unanswered, is there a consensus that as a group that the subject "Coalition Casualties of the Iraq War" are notable given the high level of coverage the totality of the Coalition Casualties have received? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:14, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
No, that wasn't the article - I've tried to find the AfD, but failed, but it was deleted on the first go (or converted to a redirect as a result of the discussion) and it listed thousands of people by name. I think that there's no question that, at the aggregate level, this topic is notable (likewise articles on the casualties of other major wars), but the results of AfD discussions indicate that individual service personnel are not notable if they've only received coverage due to their death. Nick-D (talk) 06:49, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
That opens up a bigger question then, if an individual's death is an event and therefore covered under WP:1E then can Obits even significant ones in major reliable sources be used to determine notability? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:06, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, I missed your response. My personal take on it is that people whose only claim to notability is due to their death should be covered as part of article on the event which led to their death. However, many of these incidents are not themselves notable under WP:EVENT (for instance, an individual vehicle striking a mine or a small battle). As such, they're out of scope all together. Nick-D (talk) 04:05, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps then, if Obit's are the primary creation of reliable sources regarding an individual then a note of the use of Obit's and notability (creation of sufficient reliable sources that would otherwise create notability if the amount of coverage was not about a death) due to the death of the individual, as per WP:1E, do not themselves create notability should be added to WP:BIO somewhere? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:17, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Battle of Veillane an AfD candidate?

Snipped from Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Is Encyclopedia Britannica a reliable source?

.... I wanted some information on the Battle of Veillane on which Wikipedia did not have an article, so I looked up what was available publicly on the net and three days ago wrote a sub. That stub cites five sources four of which are tertiary sources. I do not think that Wikipedia would be improved by not creating or removing stubs such as this because they cite tertiary sources, instead Wikipedia will be improved when someone, who knows more about the battle than I, who edits my contribution mercilessly by summarising secondary sources. -- PBS (talk) 09:03, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

...Perhaps you ought to consider more closely weight if you're citing online tertiaries. There are no sources therein cited that are tertiary appropriate for the notability of Battle of Veillane; and the single page citations to contemporary works are radically insufficient to establish notability. None of these has the Battle of Veillane as its topic, and therefore you should feel awful about your contribution there. Go read WEIGHT. ... Fifelfoo (talk) 07:54, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I am interested to hear what people in this project think. Is the stub Battle of Veillane a candidate for AfD because it is based on tertiary sources and does not meet WP:WEIGHT (although I think WP:SIGCOV is more relevant), or should it be kept and in due time expanded? -- PBS (talk) 23:13, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

In terms of the battle itself, it appears in a (moderately) well known engraving by Callot, and my instinct is that it is probably notable. (I'll admit, I am a Callot fan though...!) In terms of how I'd justify it, though, I feel I'd have to cite secondary sources in my justification rather than tertiary. Hchc2009 (talk) 23:31, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
I'd prefer to see it remain as the foundation for expansion. It's true that we frown on tertiary sources, but at least one secondary source seems to be used and because we apparently have nothing else on the Piedmont Campaign there's no logical candidate for a merger. EyeSerenetalk 10:16, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Anything covered in multiple tertiary sources can probably be assumed to have also been covered in secondary sources. A search of Google books ([2]) returns several references to this battle in secondary sources. Nick-D (talk) 11:08, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Talkpage Duplication in B-class section.

There is a duplication of a talkpage: Talk:209th Civil Engineer Squadron. When the article is clicked on it goes to Mississippi Air National Guard. Adamdaley (talk) 20:25, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

 Done Adamdaley (talk) 10:10, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Scope of War on Terror article

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:War on Terror#Terminology. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:49, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Montgomery Convention

I was adding stub tags to articles and found that there is a proposal from June 2011 to merge this article with the Provisional Confederate Congress, with one support vote from November 2011. Is there any objection to merging these two? Wild Wolf (talk) 04:22, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

If the proposal has attracted such scant attention I think it's safe to assume it's fairly uncontroversial. Both articles are very short so a merger would certainly make sense to me. EyeSerenetalk 09:38, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Merged articles. Wild Wolf (talk) 14:47, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

FAR

I have nominated Frederick_Russell_Burnham 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 "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:03, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

101 Battalion

Hi all, this contribution reads very much like a copyvio (look at the first edit)---does anyone have access to its main source, Modern African Wars (3) by Helmoed Heitman? If all should be fine you might want to tag this article as belonging to your project. Thanks in advance, Pgallert (talk) 11:59, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

It does not hail from Modern African Wars. It's a 'translated, corrected, edited, and expanded' version of a extract from Beeld an Die SWA Gebiedsmag, by P.H.R Snyman, an Afrikaans book published in 1989. The source was written into the first lines of the original 2007 first edit. I'll alert User:Moonriddengirl and she can give her opinion on whether 'translated, corrected, edited, and expanded' removes the original copyright. Buckshot06 (talk) 23:18, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Alas, no. :( That makes it very much a derivative work, and it needs to be rewritten if it is to be retained. Anybody know enough about this subject to take this on? I've blanked the article and will leave a note for the creator. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 23:49, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
I've got some expertise on this area. I'll maintain a watching brief for now. Buckshot06 (talk) 00:31, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
Thank you all a lot for your quick response and action. It looks like you can access the Snyman reference, I cannot see into it from my location. If anyone wants to send me the Afrikaans text I could help working on this article. --Pgallert (talk) 07:42, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Officer training

I just stumbled across Officer training; it's just a short unsourced paragraph. Surely such a general topic deserves much better coverage. Any suggestions? bobrayner (talk) 19:55, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

A lot of this will involve how things are done in different nations. ie, a section on the United States should link to ROTC, OCS/OTS and West Point. Similar to how many of the military rank pages are done. The articles that you link to should deal with the contents of the training. —Ed!(talk) 01:02, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Polish lancers

I was having a bash at sorting out a query on the Talk:Lancer page about the use of lances by Polish cavalry in 1939. It's a bit of a vexed question because of the German propaganda about lancers charging tanks etc. I found this eye witness account of lances being used: Polish News: Last Great Charge of the Polish Cavalry by Marian Kamil Dziewanowski who seems to be a reliable source. However, we have a list of 1939 Polish cavalry charges at Polish cavalry#Cavalry charges and propaganda but the one Dziewanowski describes is on 09 September doesn't seem to appear on the WP list. Can anyone familiar with the campaign help to identify the engagement, and do we have an article about it? I was planning to add a sentence to the "Lancer" article, to the effect that some accounts suggest that lances were used in 1939, and use the Dziewanowski article as a reference. Advice please! Alansplodge (talk) 17:12, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Talk to User:Piotrus. Buckshot06 (talk) 03:56, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
Agreed with Buckshot, as Piotrus is the Polish history person I'd go to, but a note of caution. Eyewitness accounts aren't generally well-regarded for factual accuracy. I'd corroborate the charge and actions described by Dziewanowski with a secondary source before including it. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:34, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't know if this is the right place to discuss this but I was wondering if mine articles related to the wars they were producing material for should be added in the associated war categories. I rewrote and expanded the Barton Mine article a few days ago. This mine produced molybdenum ore in World War I for military purposes. If war-related mines are appropriate to be categorized with the wars they were producing material for, Barton would go in Category:Canada in World War I. If not I think there should be categories that list topics associated with wars. Volcanoguy 10:16, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Alright no comments. I added the category, as well as the project template. Volcanoguy 03:03, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
I would say no, actually, as our scope would be widened too far (oh, you produced war material at any point in history? Added). Apologies, Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:30, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
Sorry Volcanoguy. I did read this when it was posted but got sidetracked and forgot to come back to post a reply :P I agree with Ed that our template probably doesn't belong on the articles. I'm ambivalent about the category, because although I think it's possible to link almost any material production/manufacturing to a military usage I suppose it's conceivable that a cross-reference would be useful to someone. EyeSerenetalk 09:46, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Unfactual comparisions in AFV articles

I am not really sure that this belongs here, but I am confident that here someone will read this and fix the problems. Some military articles (e.g. the Stryker, TPz Fuchs, LAV III and many others) include comparision tables. The reason why they were added remain a mystery at least to me, but that's not relevant. More relevant for Wikipedia might be (if these comparsions will not be removed), that factual correctness should be given there. The comparision tables include a lot of mistakes, which could lead to a wrong understanding - I don't want to accuse the writers of these tables of being biased - I just want to note that there are errors inside it. To make this a little bit shorter I think I might use the table from the Stryker article without references:


Germany
Fuchs 		France
VBCI 		Canada
LAV-25 		United States
Stryker ICV 		Russia
BTR-90 		Singapore
Terrex 		Finland
Patria AMV
Weight 18.3 tonnes
20.2 short tons 		26 tonnes
29 short tons 		12.8 tonnes
14.1 short tons 		16.47 tonnes
18.16 short tons 		20.9 tonnes
23.0 short tons 		25 tonnes
28 short tons 		16 tonnes
18 short tons
Primary armament Up to three 7.62 mm (0.300 in) Rheinmetall MG3 machine guns 25 mm (0.98 in) NATO dual feed cannon 25 mm (0.98 in) M242 chain gun 0.50 in (13 mm) M2 Browning machine gun 30 mm (1.2 in) 2A42 automatic cannon 25 mm (0.98 in) M242 chain gun, 105mm stabilised turret or RWS Twin 120 mm AMOS mortars, 105mm gun or 0.50 in (13 mm) M2 Browning machine gun RWS
Secondary armament 7.62 mm (0.300 in) coaxial machine gun 7.62 mm (0.300 in) C6 GPMG machine gun x2 7.62 mm (0.300 in) PKT machine gun, AGS-17 30 mm automatic grenade launcher 40 mm (1.6 in) AGL, 7.62 mm GPMG (twin-weapon RWS)
Missile armament (Range) MILAN
400–2,000 m (1,300–6,600 ft) 		9M113 Konkurs
700–4,000 m (2,300–13,100 ft) 		SPIKE
4,000 m (13,000 ft)
Road range 800 km
500 mi 		750 km
470 mi 		660 km
410 mi 		500 km
310 mi 		700 km
430 mi 		800 km
500 mi 		800 km
500 mi
Maximum road speed 96 km/h
60 mph 		100 km/h
62 mph 		100 km/h
62 mph 		100 km/h
62 mph 		100 km/h
62 mph 		110 km/h
68 mph 		100 km/h
62 mph
Capacity (maximum) 2 crew
10 passengers 		2 crew
9 passengers 		3 crew
6 passengers 		2 crew
9 passengers 		3 crew
7 passengers 		2 crew
12 passengers 		3 crew
10 passengers

The first thing that could be noted as an error is the choice of vehicles featured in the comparision. Why should an IFV (VBCI) be compared to APCs? Why are six-wheeled vehicles compared with eight-wheeled? Why are some of these vehicles from the 1980s and some from the 2000s? Even if the vehicles are used in the same roles is arguable. Even if we would ignore most of it, we would take a look at the data presented in the table... and here it gets only worse: The weight values from some vehicles (Stryker, LAV-25) are from vehicles not fitted with applique armour, while other weight values (VBCI, Fuchs) are from vehicles fitted with applique armour. Then some values show the empty weight (Stryker, Patria AMV), while other weight values are for combat loaden vehicles (Fuchs, Terrex). So, there is no common factor for the weight values. The Fuchs is also the only represented 6x6 vehicle. Then we come to the armament: All vehicles should be APCs, as the Stryker in this comparision is also an APC configuration. But the VBCI (an IFV) is part of the comparision table, and the Patria AMV and Terrex are not presented in the APC configurations. The Terrex does not carry a 25 mm chaingun in fielded APC configurations, while the Patria AMV only carried 105 mm guns or the AMOS mortar system in prototype vehicles, the APC is not fitted with a turret. The Fuchs APC does not generally carry a MILAN ATGM launcher, only sometimes (the Terrex also does not carry a SPIKE launcher, the infantry inside may carry one). About range and speed: On which factors are the values based? Does a Fuchs or a Stryker with add-on armour also have the same speed and range? Were the vehicles fully combat loaden or only carried a driver and a commander? Thn there is the capacity - I must admit that I don't know much about this - but I know that the Fuchs APC at least can carry 10 passengers, but carries only 8 passengers in German army service. Afaik the German army is the only user of the Fuchs as APC.

This was just an example, but the other the comparisions in other articles contain similar errors. It would be nice if someone has time to fix the tables, else I would suggest removing them. --EndlessUnknown (talk) 19:47, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Certainly the duplication from article to article is a problem. It would make more sense to have a comprehensive "list of" article whose selections are more objective. Mangoe (talk) 19:52, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Agree that on the whole such comparisons should not be in articles. I can see exceptions occurring (eg within an article on a country's weapon development/acquisition programme) but in each case the comparison should be based on comparisons made in the reliable sources. And even then I suspect sources compare more general attributes such as reliability and cost than the exact number of machine guns a vehicle might carry. The way to introduce a reader to a similar vehicle is through the See also section (preferably as in linking to a "list of..." article, or the categories/category link where a list does not exist. The reader can then make their own interpretations. GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:10, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
I'd suggest removing these tables for all the reasons above - they're cumbersome and not very useful. A single comparison article might an improvement, though they can be troublesome in their own right given that they duplicate other articles.
I would also suggest removing the tables. EndlessUnknown, if you encounter edit wars or other trouble after removing tables, do not hesitate to raise the problem here. Several administrators (probably more than 'several', actually) monitor this page constantly. Buckshot06 (talk) 03:54, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
I too suggest removing the tables unless they're based on a source that explicitly makes exactly those comparisons (per WP:SYNTH). EyeSerenetalk 09:48, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
Create a page called something like "Comparative analysis of APC's: 2000-2010" (and another for IFV's) and put the tables into these pages - and point to those pages from each APC or IFV article which is analysed in the table. No? This frees the IFV or APC pages from potential edit wars. Farawayman (talk) 09:37, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

A-class fail, FA pass

The article 1689 Boston revolt failed its A-class review months ago because I opened its successful FA candidacy while the review was still open. It's a little odd to have the A-class "fail" and the FA-class "pass" right next to each other on the "more information" template located near the top of the talk page. Is it appropriate to remove it, or must it be kept? dci | TALK 03:32, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Since the A-class wasn't legitimate (as it was opened at the same time as the FAC), I don't think the fail is valid either. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 10:13, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Well, when an A-Class Review stays open for a week and garners comment from a few editors, it's certainly "legitimate" -- the nominator has put it up, people have taken the time to review, and if the nominator chooses to go for FA before the ACR process completes, that's his choice. The ACR has to be closed once the FAC has started, and the only option available in our present system is to "fail" it because there was no consensus to promote to A-Class. The ACR and its result can't be removed from Article Milestones, however there's no reason the full review has to be sitting there in all its glory in the main body of the article talk page, and I'm not sure why it's there at the moment. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:11, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Ian here. Sorry DCI. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:23, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Frederick Russell Burnham

I'm having difficulty getting my point across on talk re: Burnham's official military status in the Second Boer War. Can someone else have a look? Needs some British Army knowledge Kernel Saunters (talk) 10:05, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Flawed template

Hi, is anybody else aware of a fault with Template:WPMILHIST Announcements/Good article nominee? The template only accommodates first-time GAN, so if an an editor nominates an article for GA for the second time, the link at Template:WPMILHIST Announcements would lead to the first GAN review page, not the intended second one (see Talk:Bhagat Singh and Talk:Battle of Magdhaba). Could somebody fix this? --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 07:44, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

List of officers and commanders in the Battle of Stalingrad

This article, which is linked to your project, claims to list all major oficers and commanders, German, Romanian, and Soviet. But unless I am seriously blind, it lists only German officers and no Soviet officers. The article was created in 2007 which means I am not especially hopeful that this will be rectified in the foreseeable future. So what should we do? Do we delete it? Or change the title? Or create a redirect? Currently, the title is misleading. I am not part of your project, but unless any of you plan to take on the task of completing the list in the near future, we need to address this problem, of an inaccurate and misleading title. As it is linked to your project I think your members should lead the discussion about the best solution. Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 18:59, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

A section covering Soviet officers was deleted in November 2011, with Romanian officers deleted shortly afterwards. Arguable this article may be partially redundant to the Axis order of battle at the Battle of Stalingrad and Red Army order of battle at the Battle of Stalingrad.Nigel Ish (talk) 19:17, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, military history is not my thing so I am not the right person to lead this discussion. But the material should not have been deleted in November 2011 - or when it was deleted, the title of the article should have been changed. If the article is redundant with others it should be deleted. I hope some people here will make the right decision. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:32, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I've restored the Russian and Romanian commanders for now. Buckshot06 (talk) 05:02, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
This looks entirely surplus to the order of battles, and not very useful in isolation. Why the German unit names and ranks are in untranslated German (eg, 'Oberbefehlshaber Heeresgruppe B') but the Soviet and Romanian ranks and units have been translated is also something of a mystery ;) Nick-D (talk) 07:50, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Nominated for deletion here. EyeSerenetalk 08:28, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

An interesting question...

...do Texas' new armed Rio Grande patrol boats fall within our scope? [3] And, even if not, are they notable enough for an article? - The Bushranger One ping only 07:54, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

They probably fall within the project's scope (as their purchase is related to an ongoing conflict, and they're heavily armed), and they're almost certainly notable. Nick-D (talk) 09:48, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
They probably also fall under the Law Enforcement and Texas WikiProjects as well. If they were not involved in a conflict, I would say that they would not fall under our scope, but if they become involved in the Mexican Drug War, or some related subject, then I would say yes they do then fall under our scope.
So does that mean that the United States Border Patrol & U.S. Customs and Border Protection fall under our scope as well? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 16:41, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Seeing they're for LEAs, not military, use, I'd say no, nor C&BP. "Drug war" isn't a war, it's a media fiction. It's about lawbreaking, not war per se. If they are, does that put ICE under the project? NCIS? CIA or NSA, because they provide intel? TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 17:40, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm with Trek on this - I don't think it falls under our scope. Parsecboy (talk) 17:48, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Our notes on remit state "Other than a requirement for military or paramilitary involvement, we do not limit the events to which terms such as "war" or "battle" are applied; it is generally enough for the term to be used by reliable sources. Editors should beware, however, of interpreting such usage too literally; the popular media often uses them to describe civil law enforcement matters such as "gang wars" or "street battles", which are not typically within our scope." I would suggest from that that a LEA involved in a "drug war" is outside our currently defined scope Monstrelet (talk) 19:33, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Well, drug "war" aside, they are paramilitary vessels used to patrol a border water - but scope or not, they do seem to be notable enough... *scurries off to sandbox* - The Bushranger One ping only 22:35, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Problem with Sitting Bull article

Hi, FYI Sitting_Bull#Lead_section_does_not_make_sense. I thought I would mention this here because I see this project encompasses the relevant article, and also seems to be fairly active. Regards, 86.160.82.245 (talk) 23:18, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Looks like that link should be Talk:Sitting Bull#Lead_section_does_not_make_sense, instead. -Fnlayson (talk) 23:23, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Ooops, yes! Thanks for your help at the article. 86.160.221.54 (talk) 03:44, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

USS W. L. Bartlett (1861)

I came across this article while adding stub tags and saw that there's been a merger tag on it (to Stone Fleet) since June 2009, but there is no discussion started at the Stone Fleet talk page. What would be the appropriate action here? Wild Wolf (talk) 04:17, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

If there was no discussion and the tag's been on it for this long, I'd call it "stale", remove the tag, and if merger is still supported somebody will bring it up again...as it is, though, I beleve the page should remain, as an individual ship... - The Bushranger One ping only 04:46, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

GA lists

At 497 articles, MILHIST's "Warships" subsection on Wikipedia:Good articles/History is the largest in the entire list, with more links in that subsection alone than the Philosophy and religion and Mathematics pages combined. I'm not sure how to go about subdividing it further; there is already a 97-article "Submarines" subsection I separated a while back but I'm not sure how to go about further dividing them by class. Should we divide articles by nationality? Could we arrange ships by dates of commission/design? Should we just divide the whole thing alphabetically? Looking for feedback. —Ed!(talk) 19:06, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

On a related note, I started a discussion here about whether or not the 1,800 War and Military GAs should get a page of their own on the list, separate from the "History" page, to help divide the GAs more effectively. —Ed!(talk) 19:17, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
What about dividing it between age of sail and self-powered ships? 70.24.251.71 (talk) 09:05, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
That wouldn't work - the vast majority of the articles fall into the latter category. Parsecboy (talk) 12:15, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
Since subs are split off already, this should reduce the problem. Dividing then would only involve powered ships... so, capital ships (BB, BC, CV, CVL), armoured/protected/other cruiser (CA, CL, CVE), small surface combantants (DL, DD, DE, FF, etc), other (seaplane tender, hospital ship, etc) 70.24.251.71 (talk) 19:46, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
I think dividing the Warship articles by Nationality may be good for now. I counted the articles with respect to their Nationality:
Country No. of Warship Articles
Germany 143
UK 136
US 66
Russia 57
France 36
Japan 19
Brazil 10
Austria–Hungary 17
Greece 5
Italy 4
Sweden 2
Australia 1
Countries having less than (lets say) twenty articles may be grouped in a single subsection. --SMS Talk 21:21, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
That would be great. I can put the subs into those sections, too. —Ed!(talk) 21:37, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
There should be 17 Austro-Hungarian ship GAs (see here), most of which probably got lumped into the German tally (for which you're welcome, by the way). Parsecboy (talk) 21:58, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
I'd prefer to avoid any "Other"-type category. I think "Europe", "Americas", "Asia and [Australia]" (whichever preferred term for the last continent) might be suitable. As attractive as pulling out particular countries is, I think it reveals our bias too much. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 12:04, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Well, then there's the problem of breaking it into manageable chunks again - only 76 will be split off from the Americas, and less than 2 dozen for Australasia, leaving another 400 or so for Europe. Sort of defeats the purpose of splitting up the category.
By the way, there should be at least five Greek ship articles - Salamis, Kilkis, Limnos, Hydra, and Hydra class ironclad. Parsecboy (talk) 14:11, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the correction Parsecboy. --SMS Talk 16:14, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
I note some of the articles are about classes and some about individual vessels. Is this an alternative? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 17:49, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
Sorry about that; I got to work on the list after you posted. I ended up dividing the ships by nationality after all, and with the Warfare GAs on their own list I don't think it will be a problem; 596 articles split into 13 sections. A few are one article only, but we have the space on the new page. —Ed!(talk) 20:23, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
That does work, indeed. I was most concerned to avoid an "Other" category. As long as we continue to make new sections for additional nations, that will be avoided. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:37, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
Works for me as well, though there were several Austro-Hungarian ships mixed in with the Germans, along with a stray Yugoslavian ship article. One question though: I notice that Rudyard Kipling (ship) is listed in the British section, but the problem is, she wasn't a warship. Is there a better place to put her? Parsecboy (talk) 20:42, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
I think that eventually, when we have another 600 or so warship GAs, we'll end up subdividing each nationality by ship type, and it might be better placed in an Auxiliary ship list. Down the road thinking, though. —Ed!(talk) 00:50, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Preparing de Havilland Comet for A-level Review

Hello WP:MilHist. Over the last few months, I've been spending sometime redeveloping one of the most crucial civil aircraft in history, the first-ever passenger jet aircraft, the de Havilland Comet. The bulk of this work was actually done back in 2010, the result of which led to the article being listed as a Good Article. It is my intention in the near-future, that the article has reached a level of stablity and refinement since then that it is suitable for consideration at the next level of quality review. With an article as large as this one, I feel it appropriate to notify the community in advance, both in order to garner opinion of suitability and criticism towards improvement - thus this message. If anybody has the time to read over this article, I would appreicate their effort and their thoughts on the matter. Thank you in advance. Kyteto (talk) 18:37, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

For others' benefit, I was the GA reviewer and Kyteto, Bzuk and I spent a fair bit of time getting things to what I think was a high standard. I know the article has also had a Peer Review since (about a year ago I think -- time flies). Anyway, had a quick skim just now and it looks like the essential structure and level of referencing is as I remember, with some further detail added. ACR certainly seems a logical next step now, my only suggestion is one I recommended during the GA review as something to do before FAC, namely add a Legacy section summarising the design's impact on jet travel and also of course on air crash investigations (hmm, good name for a TV show, that)... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:20, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks Kyteto for your hard work on the Comet article, along with the efforts of Bzuk and Ian Rose. I perused the article earlier this year and was very impressed by its quality. My comment at the time recommended taking the article to A-class review, as a prelude to FA evaluation, but there were no responses at the time. I also suggested and ultimately added the new infobox image that the article currently uses. In my opinion, having gone through a number of ACRs and FARs of airliner articles, the Comet article stands a good chance of reaching the top level of Wiki article status. Given time, I may be able to contribute further as well. Regards, SynergyStar (talk) 09:16, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
A legacy section has been kit-bashed together, I found yet another book on aircraft accident investigation in order to write up some of its content. Now that the Avionics and Systems (My own long-term desired section) and the Legacy sections have been installed, I'm open to any other schemes/fundamental alterations/ideas that people may have. I wouldn't say that Legacy is 100% done for all time, but its a reasonable peice/very good start IMO. Kyteto (talk) 03:53, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
On the basis of the positive responses and implimentations made in readiness, I have proceeded with the A-class nomination. I thank you for your participation, and hope that you will support me in my continuing projects. Kyteto (talk) 00:33, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
I would be extremely concerned about the potential for copyright violation in this image this image Fifelfoo (talk) 01:07, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for that timely warning, it is removed from the article due to this doubt - It seems a valid worry to me as well. It is amazing what theings you stop noticing after editing the article hundreds of times on and on. Kyteto (talk) 13:06, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
I'd generally suggest checking your images generally at A and FA, and not simply relying on statements from uploaders but contemplating a little on them. One of the 1970s ones has an obvious video style dot screen, but, given the photographer's history of photographing planes it seems reasonable that that image was theirs. Similarly, with the Darwin ones, that photographer seems to have a life long association with Darwin. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:07, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

This notice is to advise interested editors that a Contributor copyright investigation has been opened which may impact this project. Such investigations are launched when contributors have been found to have placed copyrighted content on Wikipedia on multiple occasions. It may result in the deletion of images or text and possibly articles in accordance with Wikipedia:Copyright violations. The specific investigation which may impact this project is located here.

All contributors with no history of copyright problems are welcome to contribute to CCI clean up. There are instructions for participating on that page. Additional information may be requested from the user who placed this notice, at the process board talkpage, or from an active CCI clerk. Thank you. Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:15, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

In addition to the form letter, I wanted to add that this one looks like it has the potential to be fairly quick. :) If anybody wants to help out, the contributor's primary areas of interest seem to be US military history, although he does range a bit, as for example into Biblical battles. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:15, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Related to this, is there any real need for us to have an article on the Action of 13 December 1941 - this already appears to be covered in the First Battle of Sirte article.Nigel Ish (talk) 14:25, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
The Action of 13 December 1941 was a copyvio, and I've converted that to a redirect. Nick-D (talk) 00:14, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Wrong name all along?

It seems the article Amphibious Assault Vehicle was sitting on the wrong article title the whole time. The article has now been moved to Assault Amphibious Vehicle after this discussion. Marcus Qwertyus 20:47, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Is that really correct? I always thought it was "amphibious assault vehicle" (for which a quick-and-dirty Google search gives 451,000 results, whereas "assault amphibious vehicle" gives 99,000 results). The discussion seems rather brief for one with such wide-ranging implications, what with all the links that'll have to be changed. EyeSerenetalk 20:58, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Google is about as accurate as a random number generator. Better to use Google Books and flip through all of the search results to get to the end. In any case, amphibious assault vehicle (lowercase) is a generic class of vehicles. I'm going to create that article sooner or later. Marcus Qwertyus 21:11, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
(e/c) I thought "amphibious assault vehicle" is a more generic name for these type vehicles. Or maybe the USMC's vehcile's name before the designation change to AAV-7A1. -Fnlayson (talk) 21:14, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Okay, apologies for my 'doh' moment. I failed to realise the discussion referred to a specific vehicle and not the entire class of vehicles. Please treat my earlier comment with the contempt it deserves :P EyeSerenetalk 09:18, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Nancy Kulp

Hi, we are trying to verify the service record and awarded medals of Nancy Kulp (US). Are there any online military databases publicly accessible to check these? Thanks Span (talk) 02:23, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Not that I know of, but those are all pretty much "I was there" medals and awarded to most service people who served there. The Good Conduct Medal is a little harder to earn, but basically means that you didn't screw up too badly. BTW, it was only awarded to enlisted men and women AFAIK, but the Navy might have had different rules back then.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:37, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
If you contact the Navy library location at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington DC they could tell you if they have any info on her. They have biographies of a lot of famous Navy personnel or might be able to get the info you want. ShmuckatellieJoe (talk) 04:03, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

OK, thanks Span (talk) 19:32, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Military biography up for AfD

Can other editors please review the AfD for Frank Penale. It has been relisted after only four editors have commented on whether the subject is notable are not. Disclosure; I am the originator of the AfD.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:47, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you all for those who added additional opinions that lead to the closure of the article. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:37, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

hi guys i made an article

i made an article about a list that shows the most militarized countries by data from BICC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Global_Militarization_Index

i wanted to ask you if you all can help me by making the rest of the list or to tell me if there is some kind of easy way to make the rest of the list with a program or something. I also wanted to know how can i add my article to your project so it can be improved by other active member i know the talk page isnt a good way to write all this.--Shokioto22 (talk) 14:30, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi there, and welcome to the project. I went ahead and tagged & assessed the article List of countries by Global Militarization Index. It looks like it's off to a pretty good start. I'm not sure what task force to assign it, if any. I'm sure more editors will weigh in soon. Boneyard90 (talk) 14:42, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
♠Do you mean to add every single country? 8o IMO, even the top 30, as now, is plenty informative. :)
♠AFAIK, there's no bot to do this; it's all grunt work...
♠I'd also suggest you add some context: what the GMI is, what it does & doesn't count, &, if you can find it, how much the values have changed in the last year, two years, five years. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 17:03, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
Agreed with the above. Also, I'm unclear on the role of the evaluating authority, the Bonn International Center for Conversion. Is that a national organization, NGO, private company? Does it have a known political agenda or who funds it? Are there other organizations that use the GMI? Boneyard90 (talk) 17:53, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
BICC is a thinktank, scrounging for funding like any other. No particular political agenda that I know of, apart from maybe 'conversion,' which is really an early-90s concept and a bit out of date now. Buckshot06 (talk) 03:25, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. When I read it was in the business of "converting" the bases, I thought maybe it was a high-end scavenging and scrap metal business. Boneyard90 (talk) 05:58, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Article contest

To whom this concerns, the contest for February has not been closed yet, nor have the points been totaled yet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.7.231.130 (talk) 23:37, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the reminder, the previous month's contest table should indeed be closed and the current month's table initialised by now. However totalling points for the previous month relies on checking and signing off on entrants' scores, and we're always open to assistance with that... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:03, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Victoria Cross categories

I note that a good percentage of Canadian WWI Victoria Cross recipients were immigrants from Ireland and Britain. Whilst the Irish-Canadians have category for Category:Irish World War I recipients of the Victoria Cross, none of the British ones seem to have the equivalent British category for example: Robert Spall. My question is should we have the two categories for both their countries or have them based on their nationality as at the time of WWI? Kernel Saunters (talk) 12:09, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

I'd think their nationality at the time they were awarded the VC, rather than the country of their birth, would be more suitable. Presumably, given their choice to emigrate, they'd have identified themselves as Canadian (unless we feel there's a need for Category:Irish-Canadian World War I recipients of the Victoria Cross etc). EyeSerenetalk 15:38, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
I doubt that such a category would stand, but good luck. I say this cause a recent deletion of a category that attempted to subdivide recipients from state of origin was recently deleted. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 10:22, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
I don't think that the 'origin' subcat is required TBH, I just want a consistent approach to applying the current cats. My current thinking is to remove the category for their pre-migration country. There are some anomolies such as temporary migrants like William Henry Metcalf who seems to have fibbed about his US nationality to sign-up so I'd leave the American cat on that one Kernel Saunters (talk) 11:39, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
Canada seems to be tricky. As the article on Canada in World War I says, a large number of those in the CEF were born in the British Isles and belonged to a British-Empire/Canadian mindset. A random sample of the WWI Canadian VCs I just looked at were British-born. Also we haveRobert Edward Cruickshank who emigrated from Canada to the UK while a toddler and is lsited under Category:Canadian World War I recipients of the Victoria Cross. Perhaps it would be more constructive to categorize by armed force. Then it becomes Category:Canadian Army World War I recipients of the Victoria Cross which is easier to be clear about. GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:45, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
I like that suggestion. It might help to avoid divisiveness about who was what and when, and as Graeme says it's straightforward. EyeSerenetalk 11:18, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
The Cat would be Category:Canadian Expeditionary Force recipients of the Victoria Cross as opposed to Army for WWI but it is doable. I think we'd need to retain the Category:Canadian World War I recipients of the Victoria Cross for Canadians such as Billy Bishop who served with the RFC? Kernel Saunters (talk) 12:24, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Possibly if you want to be specific about the CEF, though you could also have Category:Canadian Army recipients of the Victoria Cross (assuming "Army" as a catchall for the land element in place of specific title during the past) as a higher cat. Bishop would also fall under Category:Royal Flying Corps recipients of the Victoria Cross. GraemeLeggett (talk) 13:08, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Template for discussion: Template:Infobox castrum

For those interested, there is a request for deletion on Template:Infobox castrum, currently used in a series of articles on Roman castra. For example Porolissum.--Codrin.B (talk) 16:27, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Template for discussion: Template:Infobox dava

For those interested, there is a request for deletion on Template:Infobox dava, currently used in 91 articles about Dacian cities/fortresses.--Codrin.B (talk) 22:16, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Flawed template (2.0)

Hi, is anybody else aware of a fault with Template:WPMILHIST Announcements/Good article nominee? The template only accommodates first-time GAN, so if an an editor nominates an article for GA for the second time, the link at Template:WPMILHIST Announcements would lead to the first GAN review page, not the intended second one (see Talk:Bhagat Singh and Talk:Battle of Magdhaba). Could somebody fix this? --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 07:24, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I suspect the reason no-one's replied is that no-one's sure how :) Maybe Kirill would be the best person to ask about this? EyeSerenetalk 10:55, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Method for Displaying Military Ribbons/Medals as Worn?

What is the best way to display a person's military ribbons (or medals, for that matter) exactly as worn on there uniform? Are there any templates, or are there other means? As a side note, I would like to get an image of the Operational Distinguishing Device for the Coast Guard's Meritorious Unit Commendation ribbon. Where can I do that? Allen (talk) 21:17, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

There is no consensus that people's medal ribbons should be displayed at all, let alone as worn on the uniform (see recent discussion here) so I'd refrain from bothering with this until or unless such consensus is reached (disclaimer: I'm one of those against their display). Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:38, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
As I've been in the United States Navy since 2002, I am all for their display. Allen (talk) 22:58, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
Good on you. Interestingly, I do see a greater predisposition for showing the medals from among our US contributors than from Commonwealth editors such as myself. Perhaps it's a cultural thing, we think you're too ostentatious, and you think we're too stiff and reserved... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:37, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
I think with this subject coming up again and the previous thread now archived, it might be a good time to start that RfC. I'll try and get that going asap. EyeSerenetalk 12:04, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Good idea - defintiely RFC material. GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:14, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
We were just awaiting your pleasure on that, Eye... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:25, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
See below :) EyeSerenetalk 13:02, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Dispute at Western Pipe and Steel

A dispute has arisen at Talk:Western Pipe and Steel Company regarding the most appropriate way to refer to the administration of FDR. More opinions would be appreciated. Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 09:54, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

WP:NOICONS

I ran across this: "Brown crashed into a bowl-shaped valley at approximately 40°36′N 127°06′E / 40.600°N 127.100°E / 40.600; 127.100.": I don't think it's the best use of everyone's time to have an argument about icons and pictographs in running text every time they come up. There's a parameter on that template that allows the icon and coordinates to appear at the top of the article rather than in the text; that generally works for everyone, and so does putting the coordinates and icon in a note at the end or in an infobox. Thoughts? - Dank (push to talk) 17:27, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

[Inserted: when I typed that, an icon appeared before the coordinates, but Dschwen has now changed the default on the {{coord}} template so that most of you won't see that icon now. - Dank (push to talk) 00:38, 9 March 2012 (UTC)]
It depends on the context, which article does that quote come from? For a building I'd expect co-ordinates to be prominently displayed either in the infobox or in the top-right hand corner (or both), but it would be odd in say a biographical article. Co-ordinates mid-prose dont make for compelling reading, but can be useful as that template links to maps. Nev1 (talk) 18:08, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
I'd suggest the paragraph be rewritten to say "Brown crashed into a bowl-shaped valley, some 6km south-south-east of the Kaema Plateau" and include the coord in a footnote. It's in Jesse L. Brown and Thomas J. Hudner, Jr.. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:15, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
Nev, would it work for you (in general) to put the icon and coords in a related caption near the relevant sentence? I can't swear that that's okay with everyone, but I think that's one of the available compromises. - Dank (push to talk) 19:06, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
Tagishimon's suggestion seems to be the way to go for this article, and would probably work in similar situations. "6km south-south-east of the Kaema Plateau" is a more accessible description than the co-ordinates, and moving them to a note would retain the links to the maps. I don't think it would really belong in the infobox, and it wouldn't make much sense to have them floating in the top-right corner for a biography. Nev1 (talk) 19:53, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
Probably better to say "Brown crashed into a bowl-shaped valley of the Kaema Plateau" ... my 6m SSE was 6KM SSE of wikipedia's arbitrary pushpin. But yes, and a footnote with the actual coords. --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:00, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
Please note prior and ongoing discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons#Does Template:Coord violate MOSICON when used in prose?, where a solution has been proposed. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:36, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

For some reason U-boat articles are prone to lots of inline coords - breaking up the reading experience. It'd be a useful if the icon could be turned off. Anyone fancy having a go at the template to add that function? GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:29, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Please see Template talk:Coord and WP:MOS/ICON. Please give your input there on whether the icon should be replaced by an unobstrusive tooltip for coordinates appearing in prose text. --Dschwen 20:38, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks Dschwen. Oops! I promise I wasn't forum-shopping when I posted here; I didn't know anyone was discussing {{coord}} again. I ran across the icon in an article at FAC today, Jesse L. Brown. From my perspective, this is really an argument about copyediting and expectations at FAC rather than about programming and guidelines, and I believe there's a consistent consensus at FAC against using them in running text. I don't see a contradiction here that people might object at FAC and not in other forums; there's a long list of issues related to "looking like an encyclopedia" that seem to matter more at FAC. - Dank (push to talk) 21:31, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
Well, I've switched it form in-text icon to a pop-up that appears when you hover the link. --Dschwen 22:41, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Military history A-class reviews that need attention

G'day all, I know that we decided a while ago not to announce ACRs on the talk page, but there are a few reviews that need some further input so I am posting here to try to bring attention to them. Apologies if this steps on anyone's toes. If anyone is interested, the following reviews need attention:

JSTOR free access beta

JSTOR have started a free access beta test [4]. Only a couple of history titles so far available but may be useful to some project editors. Monstrelet (talk) 10:15, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Calling our graphics troopers

Can anyone help replicate the organisation diagram at http://www.cdi.org/mrp/oft.cfm ? Be a good addition to Office of Force Transformation. Buckshot06 (talk) 03:47, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Would this do? EyeSerenetalk 12:50, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks EyeSerene, that was very quick. Would you mind rechecking your spelling of 'Technology Implementation' in the graphic? Cheers Buckshot06 (talk) 21:11, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
Uff... :( You wouldn't believe how carefully I read it over and that still slipped through. Correction coming up. EyeSerenetalk 09:50, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
Done EyeSerenetalk 11:13, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
Although a LOT larger, you might also consider something like the following, as it allows linking, and readers to copy/paste information.
DIRECTOR
Force Transformation
Vice Admiral
Arthur K. Cebrowski (Ret.)
Personal AssistantDEPUTY DIRECTOR
Capt. Terry J. Pudas, USN
STRATEGY
Vice Admiral
Arthur K. Cebrowski		TECHNOLOGY
IMPLEMENTATION
Lloyd Feldman		OPERATIONAL
CONCEPTS
Col. Pat Garrett		RISK
MANAGEMENT
John T. Hanley		IMPLEMENTATION
APPROACHES
John J. Garstka

(od) That's clever Hohum, I didn't know we could do that :) EyeSerenetalk 10:30, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Operational Distinguishing Device

How do we correctly add the Operational Distinguishing Device as a device for the "Ribbon device" templates? Allen (talk) 05:08, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

People, how do we get this done? I added the device code to the {{Ribbon devices}} template, but it didn't seem to change anything, because, when I invoked the code, the silver Roman numeral 0, associated with the code, didn't show up on top of the ribbon that I used the code with. If someone knows how to do this, that would be great. Allen (talk) 20:20, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Map suggestions wanted

I recently undertook to make an SVG version of one of the main images of the Battle of the Bulge. It is currently at FPC, where it looks like it may well pass. If it does, then in about a week's time I should have an opportunity to do a similar job on another, so I could do with some suggestions. The more important the article, the more authoritative a base map, and complex/useful the map is to the reader's understanding are preferable. Thanks, Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 21:35, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

That's a generous offer! I'm planning to nominate Air raids on Japan for FA status sometime soon, and File:Allied naval operations off Japan during July and August 1945.jpg could do with some significant improvements. While it's a professional map on an important topic, it looks like something drawn by a schoolchild, as the locations of ships and arrows are confusing and the elevation details of Japan are unnecessary. Nick-D (talk) 01:23, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Krásna Hôrka

The Krásna Hôrka castle in Slovakia was destroyed by fire overnight. I've nominated the article for ITN. Assistance is sought from members of this WP in expanding the article and improving the referencing. Knowledge of the Slovak language would be an advantage. Mjroots (talk) 08:20, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Barbados Defence Force and Military of Barbados

Are the two articles should be merged since they are the same topic since all the military of Barbados is part of the Barbados Defence Force ? Amqui (talk) 17:56, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

The obvious objection is that they are not the same topic. Military of Barbados is about the military history of Barbados from the arrival of Europeans up to the present day. The Barbados Defence Force is the name of the combined armed forces of Barbados, established in 1979. Any details of the military history of Barbados prior to 1979 (such as service in the Second World War) would be out of place in 'Barbados Defence Force'. So 'No to a merge' is my immediate response. Benea (talk) 18:36, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
Pertinent answer, maybe renaming Military of Barbados to Military history of Barbados would alleviate any confusion? Amqui (talk) 18:58, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 Done; the article probably needs tweaking and Military of Barbados, once links are cleaned up, should probably be redirected to Barbados Defence Force. - The Bushranger One ping only 19:43, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

How do I submit an article?

Hi, I have several articles i have been working on and would like to showcase them here but I do not know how. Could someone please explain? Thanks.--Collingwood26 (talk) 10:06, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Collingwood, what are you looking to do exactly? The articles in the project's showcase have either passed A class reviews or featured article reviews. If you'd like to nominate some articles for A class reviews, the instructions on how to do so (and the criteria the articles need to met) are at: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/A-Class review. Nick-D (talk) 10:16, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

C.A.V.?

Sorry, but I can't work out the best place to post this question - all advice and suggestions greatfully received!

Bernard Evans (brigadier) is "Brigadier Sir Bernard Evans D.S.O., E.D., C.A.V. (13 May 1905 – 19 February 1981)".
I have no problem with the DSO, the ED, (or the KtB!) But I can't track down what "C.A.V." is.
Can you help, please?
Failing that, any suggestions about how/where I might go about tracking it down would be most appreciated. Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 11:35, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

A foreign order, probably using 'Cavalier' as the equivalent of knight, perhaps? A Knight of the Order of the Tower and Sword has the postnominal 'CavTE', for example. Benea (talk) 11:40, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
That's logical, given that it's at the right end of the list. So he was (amongst other things) a soldier, an architect, a developer, a Lord Mayor and a Freemason. I'm not aware of any Freemason honours that result in post nominals. Lord Mayor seems unlikely to result in foreign post nominals. That suggests it must be due to soldier and/or architect. His ADB Bio gives no hints. What next? Pdfpdf (talk) 11:55, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
BTW: cav is a popular abbreviation for cavalry, but that just seems to obscure things, not narrow the search ... Pdfpdf (talk) 12:01, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
How's this? In 1971 he was appointed to the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity, the third class of which is Cavaliere dell'Ordine della Stella della solidarietà italiana. Cav may not be an official postnominal though, since 'Cav.' as a contraction of 'Cavaliere' seems to be used as an equivalent of 'Sir' for a British knight. When they put up the memorial, they may just have interpreted his list of awards pretty freely. Benea (talk) 12:52, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
That sounds plausible. Particularly so in the absence of any information about C.A.V., and the fact that the only place I can find it being used is on that plaque. Well done Sherlock! Thanks, Pdfpdf (talk) 01:04, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
I also agree that it is an Italian honour. Regards Newm30 (talk) 01:44, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Finding old offline sources

(Question also posted on Wikipedia:WikiProject Romania)

In 1936, Adolf Ongar was the Dean of the Bar Association in Timisoara, Romania; on March 3rd of that year, he was arrested due to allegations that he had committed war crimes during the First World War.

(I have no idea whether the allegations had any merit; the Jewish Telegraphic Agency noted that Dr Ongar was Jewish and that the allegations had been made by the "anti-Semitic Lawyers' Union".)

I'm pretty sure that Dr Ongar meets notability criteria; however, the JTA's archive is the only mention I can find of him online (although future searches will no doubt find this page as well). Would anyone have access to offline sources which might discuss or mention the case of Dr Ongar (was there a trial; if so, was he convicted, etc)? I quite realize that there was considerable turmoil in Romania in the intervening 76 years, but it's worth a shot. DS (talk) 14:41, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Survey invitation

The Wikimedia Foundation would like to invite you to take part in a brief survey.

With this survey, the Foundation hopes to figure out which resources Wikimedians want and need (some may require funding), and how to prioritize them. Not all Foundation programs will be on here (core operations are specifically excluded) – just resources that individual contributors or Wikimedia-affiliated organizations such as chapters might ask for.

The goal here is to identify what YOU (or groups, such as chapters or clubs) might be interested in, ranking the options by preference. We have not included on this list things like “keep the servers running”, because they’re not a responsibility of individual contributors or volunteer organizations. This survey is intended to tell us what funding priorities contributors agree and disagree on.

To read more about the survey, and to take part, please visit the survey page. You may select the language in which to take the survey with the pull-down menu at the top.

This invitation is being sent only to those projects where the survey has been translated in full or in majority into your language. It is, however, open to any contributor from any project. Please feel free to share the link with other Wikimedians and to invite their participation.

If you have any questions for me, please address them to my talk page, since I won’t be able to keep an eye at every point where I place the notice.

Thank you! - Stephen LaPorte (WMF) 22:29, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Copied from WP:VPM#Survey invitation, as I think project members will be interested in this. Hopefully this will lead to access to digital databases or small funding grants to, say, enable you to visit a museum and take photos. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:50, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

False Precision

I am concerned by the tendency to try to put numbers for army strengths in the articles and the infoboxes. Until the modern era, reliable numbers for army strengths are almost never available, and people are putting down speculative and often controversial numbers to fill things out. I think it makes more sense, where there is controversy or where there is no data, to avoid putting specific estimates in the infoboxes [or to use the lowest and highest current estimate to give a range], and where there is controversy, to discuss different scholarly estimates in the article. 74.96.61.80 (talk) 00:57, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Certainly a range can be placed in the infobox when reliable sources give different numbers. The differing numbers can be discussed further in the article body text. Binksternet (talk) 01:22, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
Even in a modern article where the figures are good, there can be problems. The Battle of Goodenough Island appears to give exact figures for both sides, which you will find in the references. However, the Japanese figures are just estimates. The Ausytalioan figures are exact, but slightly misleading, because some wounded are double counted. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:50, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
I agree where the numbers are debatable that should be reflected in the infobox. There's also nothing wrong with putting "Unknown, see XYZ" and referring to section in the article body. To my knowledge this is fairly standard practice anyway. 74.96.61.80, are there specific articles where this is a problem? EyeSerenetalk 09:12, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
Battle_of_Adrianople and Battle of Chalons are two, with the latter's text discussing figures smaller than the infoboxes, and the latter cites one source saying 30,000 is too many, while the infobox counts 50-80,000. 74.96.61.80 (talk) 17:31, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
Even sourced numbers before the 19th Century are problematic. Chronicles didn't actually count the numbers on either side, they guessed (& doubtless inflated the size of the enemy to make the "good guys" look better). Read Herodotus. If you really believe ancient Persian armies were that large, I have a bridge I'd like to unload.... Dupuy makes the point best: any single commander before the modern era could scarcely control 10,000 men; an army of over 30,000 would be a rarity. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 18:02, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
Very true; in fact some of the figures for even WWII engagements are largely guesswork on the part of the sources. I've changed the Battle of Chalons to read "See Forces", but if anyone wants to improve on that feel free. EyeSerenetalk 08:46, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
In some cases, the primary sources seem to give reasonable numbers, but there are enough issues that we should look for good secondary sources which discuss their reasoning. Delbrück and Oman are probably the earliest sources we should consider, though I think they go too far towards low counts and they go too far in emphasizing cavalry. 74.96.61.80 (talk) 18:53, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Is there a suitable article on ancient and medieval army sizes, disputes between 'low counters' in the Delbrückian tradition and 'high counters' such as Bachrach, and maybe logistical and demographic constraints? It would be nice to add a 'see also' listing when the battle articles try to estimate army strengths. 74.96.61.80 (talk) 18:53, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't know of one on that specific subject. If meta-sources can be found it might well be worth creating one, though in my experience it can be difficult to avoid original research on these types of article. Perhaps it would be easier with this subject than others? There must be quite a few sources that discuss the issue. An alternative, though not one I'd advocate with any great warmth, might be to expand something like Historiography. EyeSerenetalk 08:38, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
I think one could avoid original research by presenting the different positions without choosing among them, except to the extent of summarizing high-count and low-count arguments. But I'm not sure how much the article should take in: numbers, demographic constraints, logistical constraints, historiography...? Or whether there should be separate articles for different periods or one article stretching from deep antiquity well into early modern times. 74.96.61.80 (talk) 21:24, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Images from a museum in Iloilo City an RS?

You are invited to join the discussion at WP:RSN#Images taken by a CWO4 Vinas. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 10:01, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Should a map of Polish troops activity be included in the Battle in Berlin article?

See discussion here. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me 19:44, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Notability of possible article subject

You are invited to join the discussion at WP:N/N#Death of Sgt. Manuel Loggins Jr.. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:04, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Core Contest

For those who didn't see the brief story in the most recent edition of the Signpost, Casliber (talk · contribs) has re-started the long-dormant Core Contest and is offering prizes to editors who make the most significant contributions to Wikipedia's core articles. These articles include quite a few military history topics, as well as other articles with a military component, so there are lots of opportunities for members of this project to take part. Details on the competition are available at: Wikipedia:The Core Contest. Nick-D (talk) 10:48, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Request for source for Rhino Tank article

Hi all,

I have been editing the Rhino Tank article and the following is attributed to a source, but via a weblink to the book and the link is dead. While i know it is pretty much accurate i dont have a source to replace the dead link. Does anyone have a source that supports the position that the bocage hedgerows were:

"sturdy embankments, half earth, half hedge"

Regards EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 16:02, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Looks like that quote originally came from a 1988 Army type report. See Busting the Bocage.... I added this after the quote at Rhino tank#Background. -Fnlayson (talk) 20:36, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
Awsome! Cheers for that. :)EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 09:08, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Request for additional information on Rhino tank article

Hi all,

It would appear that the article covers mostly everything to do with the tank however it is short on examples of the use of Rhinos/Prongs in action (it currently only has one American and one British example of their use). Does anyone have any anecdotes and sources they could provide to expand the usage section?

RegardsEnigmaMcmxc (talk) 10:23, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

It might be worth trying to find a copy of Steven Zaloga's book Armored Thunderbolt. It's meant to be the best work on the Sherman yet produced (I can't vouch for it personally). Nick-D (talk) 07:58, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Missing biographies for the Norwegian medal Krigskorset

Hi, the highest ranking Norwegian gallantry decoration is the Krigskorset, and it is quite well covered in the Norwegian Bokmål/Riksmål version of Wikipedia, we both have an extensive article that also is featured, and we have a list of all the recipients.

In the list of recipients there is unfortunately some missing biographies of recipients and we have started working to have them all covered with articles. There is a thread with a total list on the discussion page of the list of recipients, any help in finding information and writing articles about the brave soldiers that got this medal, but still do not have an biography is much appreciated. Best regards, Ulflarsen (talk) 14:44, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I think the best thing to do would be to find a translator to get some of those articles migrated to English Wikipedia. —Ed!(talk) 17:13, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm assuming that the list has articles missing in both Wiki, in which case it may be worth creating stubs for the UK recipients. Kernel Saunters (talk) 09:49, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Possible announcement of JSTOR accounts being made available to established editors in the near future

Details here Nick-D (talk) 07:56, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Iraq War in Anbar Province

Hi, I'd like to ask anyone interested in this FAC to give it a look. Neither this article nor (to my knowledge) this editor have been through A-class before, but the work looks promising. - Dank (push to talk) 00:53, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

WP:MILPEOPLE

I've just made an edit to our notability guideline for people, changing the sentence

"Commanded a notable body of troops in combat"

to read

"Commanded a substantial body of troops in combat"

The reason I did this is because the associated footnote reads For the purposes of these criteria, a "substantial body of troops" refers to a capital ship, a division or larger formation, or their historical equivalents. Obviously this makes little sense when the quotation as given in the footnote isn't actually in the criteria.

However, I thought I ought to check with the project that my amendment is in line with our intention in creating the guideline. EyeSerenetalk 17:50, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

If memory serves, it used to say "substantial", so somebody must have changed it at some point. I can see why, but, with the footnote, I prefer "substantial", as some battalions and even smaller units are notable, but most majors/lieutenant colonels aren't. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:50, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Your memory serves you well. It was changed in this edit in April 2010 by User:Kendrick7. To give an idea of what we are talking about here, consider Boris Pash, who is presumed notable under this guideline because he commanded the Alsos Mission, which is definitely notable. (I was planning on fixing up this article in the near future.) There is also the case of Gordon Grimsley King, who commanded the 2/6th Independent Company at the Battle of Kaiapit. In both cases, I could fall back on "Played an important role in a significant military event", but we never defined what a significant military event was. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:29, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
We can't define it, but we know it when we see it? ;) - The Bushranger One ping only 16:30, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
Would anybody object if I proposed the incorporation of WP:MILPEOPLE into WP:Notability (people) thereby putting our project on the same footing as WP:POLITICS and WP:PORN? Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:46, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Equalling the porn project is as good-a-reason as any—after all, we do have the bigger, erm... project! ;) But seriously, incorporating it into the central guideline seems like a good idea. Just beware that some of the people who put a lot of effort into the failed bid to make MILMOS a guideline might feel a bit jaded about such processes. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:07, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Heh :) Thanks chaps, I thought it originally said "substantial" as well. Personally I support MILPEOPLE being incorporated into WP:BIO, but didn't we try it a while back and got blocked by objections of process-creep etc? If I had more time I'd try to find the diffs. Regardless, that doesn't mean we can't have another crack at it. EyeSerenetalk 20:52, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Please, please, please. I tried before, but the RfC said no v_v . I would support another attempt.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:27, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
I would support you on the matter of principle that wikipedia should be clearer on it's criteria, to reduce the amount of time spent policing and deleting articles (or to make that process more straightforward, again saving valuable editing resource). However, IIRC, the opposition on the matter of comparison with porn stars was " that was then - it wouldn't be allowed now" so that argument won't fly.Monstrelet (talk) 09:28, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps if we draft a proposal here first then? I think there's a good case for formalising MILPEOPLE on the lines Monstrelet mentions and because it covers a comparable number of people to those covered by the other guidelines at Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#Additional_criteria. We currently have roughly 42,000 military bio articles (with no guideline), compared to 40,000 actors & filmmakers; 43,000 academics; 68,000 musicians; 71,000 entertainers etc. EyeSerenetalk 08:58, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Since the last attempt was closed by the above editor, how would a proposed draft be worded?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:56, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Proposal

I propose adding the following to the Additional criteria section:

Military biography

Shortcuts
Further information: Wikipedia:Notability (people) and the discussion which led to this essay

In general, an individual is presumed to be notable if they have received significant coverage in multiple verifiable independent, reliable sources.

In particular, an individual will almost always have sufficient coverage to qualify if they:

  1. Were awarded their nation's highest award for valour; or
  2. Were awarded their nation's second-highest award for valour (such as the Navy Cross) multiple times; or
  3. Held a rank considered to be a flag, general or air officer, or their historical equivalents; or
  4. Held the top-level military command position of their nation's armed forces (such as Chief of the General Staff), or of a department thereof (such as Chief of Army Staff); or
  5. Played an important role in a significant military event; or
  6. Commanded a substantial body of personnel in combat, ie a capital ship, a division or larger formation, or their historical equivalents;
  7. Made a material contribution to military science that is indisputably attributed to them; or
  8. Were the undisputed inventor of a form of military technology which significantly changed the nature of or conduct of war; or
  9. Were recognised by their peers as an authoritative source on military matters/writing.

Conversely, any person who is only mentioned in genealogical records or family histories, or is traceable only through primary documents, is not notable.

  • This formalises military people along the same lines as the additional criteria for politicians, academics and entertainers. Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#Additional_criteria. We currently have roughly 42,000 military biography articles (with no guideline), compared to 40,000 actors & filmmakers; 43,000 academics; 68,000 musicians; 71,000 entertainers.
  • The purpose of formalising the guideline is threefold:
    1. It provides editors with a clear set of guidelines as to what is notable, for the purposes of creating and deleting articles.
    2. Given the large numbers of articles in this category, it saves us from endlessly going over the same ground, when consensus already exists.
    3. It makes it easier for editors to find the appropriate guideline.
  • This guideline does not override WP:GNG. Failure to meet these criteria is not conclusive proof that a subject should not be included; conversely, meeting one or more does not guarantee that a subject should be included.

Hawkeye7 (talk) 05:12, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree with that: those points reflect the long-standing outcomes of AfD discussions involving military people. I've taken the liberty of italicising will almost always though, as there are going to be some people who met those criteria but are not covered in reliable secondary sources. Nick-D (talk) 05:32, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
I support this, but I think it might help to first consider how we'll address the likely objections. Based on last time these were:
  1. It's unnecessary/instruction creep/more paperwork/WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS/etc because everything one needs to know about notability is already covered by the GNG.
  2. Some of the criteria are vague (specifically mentioned were 5 and 7)
  3. It encourages an assumption of "presumptive notability" without sufficiently mentioning a need for verifiability against reliable sources
I'm not suggesting we can do much about some of these (the first objection especially), or even that they're all entirely valid, but points 2 and 3 might be worth further consideration.
On another note, I've changed "troops" to "personnel" in number 6 (because we mention ships). What would the air force equivalent be? A Wing? That might be worth adding too.
EyeSerenetalk 09:43, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
Wing should be okay for the USAF; the Commonwealth air force equivalent would be a group.
BTW, and I daresay this conversation has been had before, while I think granting automatic notability to 2-stars, e.g. major generals, rear admirals and air vice marshals, is fair enough I'm not so sure about 1-stars, e.g. brigadiers, commodores and air commodores. Obviously my specialty is the RAAF and in my researches I come across a great many air commodores and my feeling is that those who 'top out' at that rank deserve mention only if they have some other claim to notability, e.g. commanding a large formation in wartime, or having been awarded the Victoria Cross, or been an ace. In practice this criterion would affect post-WWII 1-stars more than anything. What do others think? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:28, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
I agree. I've made some additional tweaks to the essay as follows:

Military biography

Shortcuts
Further information: Wikipedia:Notability (people) and the discussion which led to this essay

In general, an individual is presumed to be notable if they have verifiably received significant coverage in independent reliable sources.

Experience has shown that a military individual is likely, but not certain, to be notable if they:

  1. Were awarded a military grade of their nation's highest award for valour (for example the Victoria Cross, the Medal of Honor or the Légion d'honneur); or
  2. Were awarded a military grade of their nation's second-highest award for valour multiple times (for example the Navy Cross, the Distinguished Service Order or the Ashok Chakra); or
  3. Held a rank considered to be at least a senior flag, general or air officer, or their historical equivalents; or
  4. Held a lesser rank but commanded a substantial force in combat (for example a capital ship, a division or larger formation, a group or wing, or their historical equivalents);
  5. Held a lesser rank but played an important role in a significant military event (for example Major Richard Winters who commanded E Company, 506th Infantry Regiment, the subject of the Band of Brothers TV miniseries); or
  6. Made a material contribution to military science that is indisputably attributed to them (for example Carl von Clausewitz, architect of the concept that "war is the continuation of politics by other means"); or
  7. Were the undisputed inventor of a form of military technology which significantly changed the nature of or conduct of war (for example Sergeant Curtis G. Culin who invented the Culin hedgerow cutter); or
  8. Were recognised by their peers as an authoritative source on military matters/writing (for example historians Charles Oman or John Keegan).

Despite the presumption of notability, any person who would otherwise meet the above criteria but is only mentioned in genealogical records or family histories, or is traceable only through primary documents, is not notable.

I've clarified, trimmed and combined some criteria which I felt were basically saying the same thing. I may well have mucked things up though so please make any amendments you feel are necessary! I'm not sure how we can clarify further - any ideas? EyeSerenetalk 10:27, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
That looks pretty good. I've italicised the 'senior' in the front of the generals though; there are a lot of non-notable generals these days! The wording around this might need to be strengthened further. Nick-D (talk) 10:45, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
I've added some extra examples; not sure how we'd further strengthen that item though (I have changed the emphasis you added but I don't know if that helps) EyeSerenetalk 15:18, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
The thing that's definitely wrong is that you've got the George Cross as a second-level award - it's actually a first-level civilian award (see Military awards and decorations of the United Kingdom). I suggest:
1. were awarded their nation's highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy (for example VC, etc.) or their nation's highest civilian award (for example GC, etc.) in a military context.
Does this translate into other national systems? The UK's second-level awards are the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross, the Distinguished Service Order (for leadership) and the George Medal (second to the GC).
Secondly, in terms of rank attained, given that this is a guideline you don't need to be vague in the definitions, so I'd suggest:
3. held the rank of Lieutenant General (or equivalent) or held a significant appointment as a Major General (or equivalent).
Finally, you could happily lose "held a lesser rank but" at the beginning of 4 and 5. Antrim Kate (talk) 19:49, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Two suggestions: first, remove 'senior' from the generals - yes, there are a lot of WP:RUNOFTHEMILL one-stars around these days, but there didn't used to be (i.e. a one-star was "more notable" historically, if "more notable" is a thing) and also non-American/Western one-stars are likely to be "more notable" than those who get their stars out of a Cracker Jack box! Secondly, I'd suggest that the last line be changed from "are not notable" to "are likely not notable"; after all, there is an exception to every rule without exception, and only Sith deal in absolutes. ;) - The Bushranger One ping only 20:15, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
  • I agree with Ian about brigadiers, but all Australian brigadier generals are notable. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:03, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
    • I would not agree that all brigadiers/brigadier generals/commodores/etc are notable. I would strongly support Antrim Kate's guideline of Lt Gen/equivalent, or major general/equivalent when 'significant' meant that officer commanded in combat. We have too many Western general/flag officers with bios here who have done nothing but admin/tech development. Buckshot06 (talk) 04:00, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
      • Those are the notable ones. Command in combat is unimportant. Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:23, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
        • The list is not exclusive. We're simply trying to produce guidance on the sort of people who are likely to be notable. If an Australian brigadier general has substantial coverage in independent reliable sources, then they are notable because they meet the WP:GNG. However, command in combat is likely to be the main reason more junior officers are given that coverage; I'd guess most independent historians and authors wouldn't write about them otherwise. The intention is to clearly distinguish between very senior officers who despite a largely bland career have suitable coverage by virtue of their position, and others who also have that coverage but not due to their position. As suggested, Lt General/3-star General/Vice Admiral/Air Marshal/equivalent seems to be a good cut-off point for a presumption of notability based on rank alone. EyeSerenetalk 09:29, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Some points here, I like that we are trying to attempt to go for a guideline again, but I for one have seen three issues.

1) The note regarding the multiple grades of the Légion d'Honneur has been removed from the proposed guideline, which has been discussed before.

2) I am of the opinion that all flag or general officers are notable given the high level that is attained by the rank and post. Although NATO O-6 Ranks are more common now the size of the authority is often still substantial and is often of units or post that themselves are notable. Additionally flag or general officers are often special appointment positions requiring approval from a national legislature. Moreover, if we keep the wording as it was "a flag, general or air officer, or their historical equivalents" if a nation does not consider rank X to be a flag officer say Brigadier or Commodore then for that nation said individual would not fall under the guideline's inclusion criteria.

3) Although there is not a consensus for this in the past I am still of the opinion that those who hold the position of Senior Enlisted Adviser of a nation's armed forces, or department thereof, are also notable. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:02, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Looking for input on how to organize long division histories

Hello all. I've been doing some work on military unit articles, and I'm wondering what people would think about how we should organize some of the more popular ones. I've worked on a lot of the inactive US military units with short histories, but it occurs to me that some of the most famous and longstanding US Army divisions which have been in a lot of wars (ie the US 1st Cavalry Division, US 1st Infantry Division, 82nd Airborne Division, and 101st Airborne Division) have a huge amount of RS material to include. For less well-known units like US 7th Infantry Division which have only been in one or two wars, I've preferred to keep them one long article at the expense of some of the finer details. But these more famous units have a lot more coverage. Going off of the precedent set by UK 6th Airborne Division, I imagine they need sub-articles.

For example, I would envision a small novel of content for 101st Airborne Division. All of the following could easily be FA material:

Compounded, of course, by the fact that its sub-units also have notability and a huge amount of RS coverage, much of which I fear may overlap:

My question is, does all this sound completely overboard? Is there some better way to cover these units with massive combat histories and RS coverage? Should we be trying to do the same with other divisions with multi-war combat records? —Ed!(talk) 17:36, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

No, it sounds eminently reasonable as a means of keeping article length down. I really have no desire to read articles over 100K in length unless it's something that really, really interests me.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:23, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
(ec) Well, if there's sufficient coverage in scholarly sources to support multiple tiers of sub-articles, then I think it would be reasonable to structure the content that way. Having said that, I would be a bit careful with articles like Famous members of the 101st Airborne Division or 101st Airborne Division in popular culture; while they may indeed be legitimate topics for articles (although the first might be better structured as a list), they also have the potential to become trivia magnets, and will need a lot of eyes on them to keep them at a high quality level. Kirill [talk] [prof] 18:24, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
I'd suggest starting with History of the 101st Airborne Division as the main article, and then split off child articles as needed. Nick-D (talk) 23:17, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
Good idea, Nick. It may also be useful to avoid the brigade breakdown (as much as possible, anyhow), since the battalion-level of those brigades changes over time (even within specific conflicts...the 1st Cav Div provides a good example of this). If you stick with division and then the conflicts thought it might prove more useful.Intothatdarkness (talk) 18:08, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
I would very much endorse Intothatdarkness's views. Concentrate, first, on History of the 101st Airborne Division, then the conflict level articles would be my thought. Cheers Buckshot06 (talk) 22:58, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
Should also say the lineage section does not need to remain as a stand-alone section; should be wound in in its individual sentences appropriately into the history section. Anyone who wants to read the official lineage in its original form can follow the links to the U.S. Army sites. Buckshot06 (talk) 23:05, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
Quite so, especially since the official lineage doesn't always square with historical associations or activities.Intothatdarkness (talk) 14:02, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

The Battalion thing raises another question: with the Combat Arms Regimental System 1986 reorganization, the US Army deactivated its regimental headquarters, which is a nightmare for us. For any who don't know, the Army deactivated regimental headquarters but kept the battalions intact, so the "505th Parachute Infantry Regiment" does not exist, but the 1st Battalion, 505th Infantry and 2nd Battalion, 505th Infantry do. As a result, each battalion has a very different history. We have instances like the 73rd Cavalry Regiment, which now has four active battalions...assigned to four different brigades. My thoughts are to cover the history of the regiment as a whole on the regiment page with a short seealso section in the bottom explaining the battalions took on separate commands in 1986, and then for each battalion page, have a short "Origins" section linking back to the regimental page and then continuing from 1986. Does this sound good? —Ed!(talk) 14:22, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

The whole CARS can of worms actually goes back to the 1950s, and under it battalion lineage is often traced back to specific companies in the original regiment (1st Battalion, Fourth Cavalry linking to Company A, Fourth Cavalry, for example). Only the old separate Armored Cavalry regiments remained somewhat intact for lineage purposes. I think your solution is a good one, but be aware that in many cases you'll have to go back to the 1950s or 60s to find the first historical split.Intothatdarkness (talk) 17:36, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
Ed, the policy has been not to create separate pages for each regimental battalion. British battalions served with multiple different brigades, and can still have all their battalions' history together. There's no need for separate battalion pages unless they are separate battalions - everything can go in the original regimental page - thinking COHORT, among other things! This will also avoid the necessity for for a CARS/USARS split. Buckshot06 (talk) 20:09, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
I didn't think he was talking about creating battalion articles. It was more showing the association of battalions to specific regiments. But I could be wrong.Intothatdarkness (talk) 20:59, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
My concern then, based on my work with 10th Mountain Division, is the four component units are doing four different things at any time these days, especially with rotations in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan from 2003-2011. I could try a "component unit" subsection but this risks making the article very long. I don't really have a solution of my own, but the problem I'm facing with units is that nowadays, the US Army divisions, brigades and battalions keep getting reassigned and detached and doing their own things. —Ed!(talk) 01:27, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
I think that we're going to need separate battalion articles as there were usually more battalions in a given regiment than in the British Army until recently so even regimental articles are going to be big if they cover the 3-4 battalions in each regiment with multiple deployments in the last decade. My main concern, as an OB guy, is that the components of each unit should be delineated with each major change in the articles. Of course that may not really be feasible for Iraq/Afghanistan deployments with battalions/brigades constantly arriving and departing. Nonetheless, snapshot OBs for specific dates would be very useful.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:01, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
One thing that might help is that I've just freed up 10kB in the original division article simply by removing the lineage, so careful editing will create much more room in the main articles. On regts/bns, I suggest we stick with the existing articles to start with, because all the precedent and existing links link to them, but if the articles are going over 100k+ size prescribed by WP:SIZERULE, we can start thinking about splits. Buckshot06 (talk) 03:36, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
With US units, you could very quickly end up with a huge pile of articles if you go down to the battalion level. The Brigade Combat Team stuff drastically reshuffled Army lineage, and created a whole mess of new battalions and such (especially in the cavalry community). While that doesn't mean they should be excluded (and I really think they need to be at least mentioned), I think we do need to be mindful of what could happen. Brigades might be a better stopping point with US units.Intothatdarkness (talk) 13:25, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Help with Armenian Air Force

Hello,

A user has twice removed cited text from the first paragraph at Armenian Air Force#History. I checked the 2nd source (NY Times article) for the last part of the paragraph and adjusted some wording. However, I do not have access to the book reference to check the other text there. Thanks for any help here. -Fnlayson (talk) 18:11, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the help with this, Buckshot. -Fnlayson (talk) 22:32, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Any Arabic language speakers?

I'm trying to fix the proper interwiki link for 15th Division (Syria). Can anyone help or point me to someone who can? Buckshot06 (talk) 22:28, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

You could try Abjiklam (talk · contribs). He was very helpful with a recent issue involving Arabic translation at ANI. EyeSerenetalk 08:23, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

A backlog discovered

Browsing around, I discovered Category:Military history articles with incomplete B-Class checklists which contains talk pages that are missing B-class checklists. Since there are over 25,000 articles in this category, it seems a bit much for a single person to do, so maybe some MILHIST participants can help go through all these. 76.7.231.130 (talk) 04:42, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

I hate to sound defeatist, but many of us have tried and none have succeeded. Anotherclown (talk) 12:28, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
Template:B makes this much more expedient. And WP:AWB is your friend. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 17:43, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
I think another BCAD drive is in order to eliminate the backlog, like the one we did in 2008. —Ed!(talk) 14:39, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
That's not a bad idea and it should be relatively easy to set up. I'm happy to create the pages and start things moving if there's a general feeling that we need a drive to reduce this particular backlog. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:23, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
I would love to participate personally. The current backlog is twice what we had in 2008, so the need is dire I think. —Ed!(talk) 15:35, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
I agree with SMcCandlish that some of this could be done with AWB, though this suggestion was dismissed several times in the past. Of course there are several things that would need to be manually verified but that could get the process started anyway. ShmuckatellieJoe (talk) 18:15, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
I don't think that the backlog is that big of a problem, if you look to the statistics for a year ago the backlog has been reduced by 3,000 from the work of myself and others such as User:Adamdaley. If the anonymous editor believes he is doing the work alone I would respectfully disagree. The past month has shown stagnation in the assessment backlog removal across the board from personal breaks of various volunteers. Perseverance is required with any large backlog and I would hope nobody would become discouraged from the seemingly endless task.--MOLEY (talk) 02:31, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

So will there be another BCAD drive per Ed!'s suggestion or will it be left up to whoever chooses to work on this? 76.7.224.171 (talk) 01:31, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

This will be left to whoever wants to wade through 25,000 articles, I take it. 76.7.224.171 (talk) 13:40, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
Well, even with the technology mentioned above, we're still talking about a lot of pages. Last BCAD dealt with a 13,000 backlog and we still didn't get it down to zero...the backlog now is 25,000. I think we really need another BCAD-type large scale initiative dedicated to this, it's just impossible for one person to do alone. —Ed!(talk) 22:59, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
How long would it take to set up a BCAD contest? 76.7.224.171 (talk) 03:49, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
I'd say that this category needs some going through. I have been finding articles which are stubs but are assessed as start class on the talk pages. Besides the redirects which are still have WPMILHIST templates on the talk pages instead of the talk pages redirecting to the other article. Since it would probably take weeks (or months) of work for a single individual to go through all 25,000 articles alone, perhaps this would be a better job for a group effort. 76.7.224.171 (talk) 04:39, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

USSR and Nazi Germany totalitarian states?

I believe they were and I further believe that such belief is a mainstream view. I am having a discussion about this with another editor who disputes the validity of the term 'totalitarian'. I would appreciate the thoughts and views of MILHIST editors at Talk:Battle of the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket#Propaganda. Cheers, W. B. Wilson (talk) 14:44, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Totalitarianism Bwmoll3 (talk) 14:49, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
I pointed to that article. I have now provided two citations, one from a work cited in this article as well as one from a book by Hannah Arendt. Thank you for the suggestion. Cheers, W. B. Wilson (talk) 14:53, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
I read the discussion, and I've not seen a better example of a political discussion splitting hairs in a long time. I try to avoid those kind of things, as they are never resolved to anyone's satisfaction. Bwmoll3 (talk) 15:01, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, except that exercises in relativism to excuse a straightforward description of a political system are unappealing. I'm no expert on political systems, but to argue that Nazi Germany and USSR were not totalitarian is where the hair-splitting occurs. And when we as a community prefer not to take part in such discussions, then it bodes ill for Wikipedia. Cheers, W. B. Wilson (talk) 17:34, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
This one is claiming a moral equivalency between Nazi Germany & colonial Britain that I find pretty disturbing. Colonial misbehavior, even brutality, inthe 19th Century isn't remotely equal enforced famine & engineered genocide. TREKphiler any time you're ready, Uhura 19:51, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I am surprised that what I think to be a relatively straightforward sentence is apparently so controversial. Thanks to all for the comments. Cheers, W. B. Wilson (talk) 05:10, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

The sentence, as written, states that it is because the states were totalitarian that they both claimed victory."Considering the totalitarian political systems of the Nazis and Soviets, it is not surprising that both hailed the events at Korsun as a victory." There are many instances in military history when both sides claim victory (there are few, or no, occasions of both sides claiming defeat in the same battle - maybe Hastenbeck) and it is never surprising, irrespective of their political systems. Citations that support the conclusion that it was because of their totalitarianism, as opposed to any of a dozen other reasons, national pride e.g., that both sides claim victory are needed.Tttom1 (talk) 14:53, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. I've said something similar on the talk page, as I don't see the relevance of the totalitarianism of the countries. Ranger Steve Talk 15:14, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Napoleonic Era Task Force

Hi,

As somebody who is extremely interested in the Napoleonic Wars, I want the Task Force to have a bit more attention. I would be very, very happy to help with the task force if we can get people working for it. I will be happy if you want me to start making the Napoleonic Era Task Force a working, significant Task force within Wikipedia: Wikiproject Military History. I will start work now, but please reply with your views as I really want to improve the Task Force.

Thanks, pbl1998--Pbl1998 (talk) 19:24, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I share your views, and wish there was more active input in the American Civil War and Napoleonic War task forces, but should add that the majority of task forces are suffering low levels of interest at present. We have a low number of regular participants in the project, we lost long-term coordinators last nominations, and have lost some of the new coordinators since, and generally speaking member input is weak all round, in both coordination and project development. It is hard to develop interest for task forces, possibly because military history Wikipedians just don't seem to pay enough attention to the discussions here, and work in their own corners without looking to form team efforts. I have found that the lack of encouragement here has also affected my overall interest in Wiki, lately, and don't do too much editing, at present. So, I wish you luck in your own editing, but you may find it hard to get much support from committed members. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 21:16, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
I'll second that. We're still fantastically well off in terms of participation when compared to other projects, but it's been tapering off for awhile. That's why you'll find that the task force talk pages are redirected to this page – we've had to centralize all of the discussions to ensure they receive comment. You are of course free to un-redirect the talk page if you find any other interested users. Good luck! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:35, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
I wouldn't necessarily suggest changing the current talk page redirection scheme unless there's a significant long-term shift in a task force's activity levels; short-term bursts of interest often last only a few weeks, and I don't think we want to start having task force talk pages repeatedly being redirected and un-redirected based on momentary fluctuations in activity. Kirill [talk] [prof] 00:14, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
I would suggest treating the task force itself as a secondary concern and focusing more on article-level collaboration. For example, you might start working on a group of related Napoleonic articles, with the goal of creating a featured topic on the subject. In the course of doing so, you'll meet and interact with the other active editors in the area—who may not be aware of or participating in the existing task force—and hopefully build up a core of collaborators. Once that's in place, it will be much easier to revitalize the task force, since you'll be able to work as a team rather than trying to do it by yourself.
(I suspect that something of this sort was the key factor behind the success of OMT; the core participants there were collaborating as an informal group before the formal infrastructure was created.) Kirill [talk] [prof] 00:14, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
I'd agree with the suggestion to focus on some of the articles. You could propose three or four interesting Napoleonic ones to focus on here, for example, and see who pitches in? Hchc2009 (talk) 22:01, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

May Revolution

There's a FAC open for the article May Revolution at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/May Revolution/archive4. All comments are welcomed. Cambalachero (talk) 02:17, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

2nd, 4th, and 5th British Airborne Divisions, and the 58th Division

The above units do not appear on the British Order of Battle as published by Lieut-Col. H.F.Joslen (a very reliable source on the British OOB for the war) however they each have an article. Glancing over the short articles, they are stated to be deception units only. They also appear as individual articles in the Allied military deception in World War II box.

As separate articles they appear to be a complete waste of bandwidth. I propose that they are deleted and their content merged into a single article regarding British deception units during the Second World War. If memory serves, as it is now the box is missing additional British deception units so the current articles do not even represent comprehensive coverage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.8.192.142 (talk) 20:40, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Despite the claims of our article, there was a 58th (2/1st London) Division in WWI, so that at least shouldn't be redirected. In general, though, a single coherent article discussing the deception operations with a list of notional units would be a good idea - there's not much benefit to keeping them seperate. Shimgray | talk | 20:51, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
Agree; reorganising these articles has been on my list for a long time. They should be merged into such a British deception formations in World War II article. Buckshot06 (talk) 20:57, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
Cheers guys!
For info in such proposed article:
40th Infantry Division. The 43rd Infantry Brigade was designated on 9 November 1943 as the 40th Infantry Division for deception purposes. The brigade was in Sicily for "internal security duties on lines of communications". The battalions of the brigade (30 Somerset LI, 30 Royal norfold and 30 Dorset) "were given brigade designations; and every effort was made to appear to be a division. This included the adoption of a divisional sign featuring the diamond and acord of the Great War 40th Div.; these were made up locally and worn on uniform by the personnel of the 'division'-in reality, three battalions of low medical category men armed with personal weapons only and with a skeleton compliment of transport. The deception was played out until June 1944, when the formation was disbaned." (Chappell, p.23)
57th Infantry Division. "...formed in North Africa in November 1943, by the redesignation of the 42nd Infantry Brigade." The units were 30th Northumberland Fusiliers, Bedfordshire and Herts, DCLI, Green Howards, and Suffolks. Used the great war flash of the 57th Division: "The Derby 'D'". The division appeared on the German order of battle "(strangely, it [the flash] was shown as inverted from its Great War configeration) proving that the phantom 57th had done their job". (Chappell, p. 36)
British Battle Insignia (2): 1939-45 by Mike Chappell — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.8.192.142 (talk) 21:26, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
Thankyou 82.8.192.142, that's really helpful to get that information, and especially with the references. Does the book provide any information on the deception airborne divisions? Buckshot06 (talk) 22:50, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
There is not. Sorry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.8.192.142 (talk) 12:54, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
I've now created the resulting British deception formations in World War II article. Buckshot06 (talk) 05:19, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Editors opinions needed

There is a dispute on what the "lists of wars" articles should be like. Please see and contribute to:

Talk:List of wars involving Great Britain#List format / content

This involves a considerable change (essentially a removal of a lot of work) to not only the British article but the Russian one too (and others perhaps). David (talk) 17:18, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Added comments, cheers. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 18:16, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
Added comment as well. Hchc2009 (talk) 18:28, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks guys. That article was becoming a little forgotten in any case - I think it's quite a notable article and demonstrates Britain's rather prolific war-fighting across the globe, with just about every ally and enemy, over the centuries! David (talk) 23:44, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
Might be helpful if you raise your points further in the talk page, otherwise it's just me and him butting heads, rather than reaching a conclusion for or against any particular setup. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish[chat] 00:39, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Does anyone else care to provide input in this discussion? This guy is just going round in circles with the same minimalist nonsense, and not really presenting anything other than his own limited view of what a list should be. Some further thoughts on the article may help. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 21:46, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

It is essentially the one editor v. all, so I wouldn't worry about it for much longer. His edits, which were uncalled for (he should have at least raised it on the talk pages before going ahead), are clearly not supported by interested editors. And I doubt any outside arbitration would assist him. David (talk) 23:31, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
Ha. Now he's taking it to arbitration. He's really going for the long war. *sigh* Can interested editors (and it annoys me to have to ask this again) please chip in here. Thanks. David (talk) 11:24, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

QRpedia

I'd like to draw your attention to QRpedia, a Wikimedia-UK project (applicable globally) which I help to run, to make mobile-friendly versions of Wikipedia articles available, in the user's referred language, via QR codes. It could easily be applied to sites of historic military history, be they archaeological remains, museums, or war memorials. I don't watch this page, so please drop a note on my talk page if you - or the institutions you liaise with - have any questions, or need assistance, or of you deploy QRpedia yourselves. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:49, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

A-class reviews that need attention

Hello all, if anyone has some spare time and is keen to review an article, the following Milhist A-class reviews need some attention (listed in order of oldest to newest):

Relatively easy copyediting jobs

We could really use some help on the FACs listed at WT:MHC#FACs that need copyediting attention. As copyediting jobs go, this is about as easy as it gets ... two-thirds of each article (except one) has been done, and the current and previous FACs by those nominators have detailed comments from copyeditors that may give you an idea what to look for. If you find nothing ... all the better, say so on the FAC page :) And please keep an eye on that section at WT:MHC, I'll add more FACs as they come in. - Dank (push to talk) 01:14, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Renewed Unit Citation discussion

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Salvatore Giunta#March 2012. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 01:58, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Norway's military in "some of the toughest battles" in Afghanistan

"In the spring of 2010 Norwegian soldiers were [participants] in some of toughest battles during the 10 year long Afghanistan mission."

The above quote concerns OMLT 3 (the third group of soldiers serving together as mentors/military advisors for Afghan soldiers/police)at FOB Ghowrmach. This article, http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/artikkel.php?artid=10079837, was published in Verdens Gang. (Personally, I think that the journalists of this article have been somewhat sloppy and non-specific in the way they have expressed themselves.)

(These battles ran their course before the Norwegian ISAF soldier's battle of May 2, 2010, according to the context of the article.)

So if Norway's contribution was so significant, then in what section of what article should these battles be mentioned?

Are there any suggestions regarding any new articles that can be written about Norway's military in Afghanistan or related subjects?

I wouldn't mind (reading and) contributing to an encyclopedic version of Norway's military's successes and failures in Afghanistan.--Rugcity (talk) 20:54, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

This discussion is being sabotaged by an agenda pusher of Norway-releated subjects, see [5]. --Rugcity (talk) 21:20, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Start with the existing articles for Norway's military. Then if the content there gets lengthy, then a split may be in order. -Fnlayson (talk) 21:54, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
The person who opened this thread, User:Rugcity, appears to be a sock of User:Sju hav and is now blocked. EdJohnston (talk) 04:04, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Interwiki to a Norwegian article about Norwegian ISAF soldiers and shootings and battle involving them

Can an article titled Timeline over battles involving Norwegian ISAF soldiers or Timeline over shots fired involving Norwegian ISAF soldiers be interwikied to the Norwegian article which is linked here, http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidslinje_over_skuddvekslinger_med_norske_ISAF-soldater?

The title of the Norwegian article can be translated as "Timeline over exchanges of firing (of weapons) involving Norwegian ISAF soldiers". The article includes mention of the battle where 9 Norwegian soldiers were wounded over a couple of hours (over half of the ISAF soldiers on that detachment returning from their patrol mission).

Or is there consensus that we can redirect to a future section of the article about Norwegian Armed Forces, "Timeline over exchanges of fire (of weapons) involving Norwegian ISAF soldiers"? --Tumorlenk (talk) 02:24, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Do we really need an article describing every skirmish fought by Norwegian soldiers in Afghanistan? That would probably violate WP:NOTNEWS. It would be better to create a Military history of Norway in the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)-type article which describes Norway's overall involvement in the war, and mention these as appropriate. Nick-D (talk) 10:28, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
"It would be better to create a Military history of Norway in the War in Afghanistan (2001–present)-type article"? Maybe you are right.
I believe in the importance of interwiki. Can someone please contact wikipedia.no (bokmål) at http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:Torget, and ask if Norges militærhistorie i krigen i Afghanistan (2001- ) is a notable subject for them. If they say yes, then maybe the idea of Nick-D, is the way to go.
(The mentioned Norwegian discussion, accepts questions in English.) --Tumorlenk (talk) 14:16, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
Here is a link to my suggestion for text that can be part of the type of article that Nick-D has proposed, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Norwegian_Armed_Forces&oldid=484027660#Military_history_of_Norway_in_the_War_in_Afghanistan_.282001.E2.80.93present.29. --Tumorlenk (talk) 16:33, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Category:Three-Cornered Conflicts

Category:Three-Cornered Conflicts, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:08, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:BradTraylor/Battle of Imizu

Comment/judgment/vote by editors with knowledge of ja and Japan are needed. Thank you. Oda Mari (talk) 09:39, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Handwriting decyphering

Can anyone read the name of the chap seated on the ground at the front of this photo. Cheers. NtheP (talk) 11:31, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

The last 3 letters look to me like "loy", or possibly "lay". --Tumorlenk (talk) 14:20, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
There appears to be a long upright written across the button-line of the jacket, with a stroke coming out to the right which terminates just under the collar button - it doesn't seem to follow back upwards, suggesting a capital E or F rather than P or H. Might it be Finlay? One possible approach might be to track down a list of officers in the battalion on mobilisation, and see who's missing from your transcript... Shimgray | talk | 16:37, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
After checking, either of the Finlays in the June 1914 Army List seem to be N Staffs officers. There's a couple of Foleys and a Furley, but again no luck there; perhaps he was a recently mobilised SR officer? I note there's one other attached from the 3rd Battalion... Shimgray | talk | 16:59, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
I think I'd go with Palay or just maybe Prilay (neither a name I've ever seen before). Initial seems to be V. Monstrelet (talk) 18:05, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
No Palay, but three Paleys, none apparently him; no Prilay or any variant. Hmm. Shimgray | talk | 19:06, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
Maybe a wargraves search would find something? You can use wildcards there, so could search on *lay or *loy. It would turn up loads of entries though and, of course, he may have survived the war. Monstrelet (talk) 07:34, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm trying to find a copy of the war diary to see if that has the officers on mobilisation listed in it. NtheP (talk) 08:04, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
I might have a lead, 2nd Lt Hubert Francis Patry who was only commissioned in September 1914 but died on the 13th of the same month. NtheP (talk) 09:42, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
Do puttees vs. boots tell us anything?--Gaarmyvet (talk) 21:00, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Radio news report on Pearl Harbor

This may be of interest to those participating here. There is a 25 second news report (radio) talking about the attack on Pearl Harbor, Sunday evening at 9:35 PM from December 7, 1941, the day of the attack. It's at the beginning of an Inner Sanctum show titled "Island of Death" (the show title is just a coincidence and was written long before the attack). Here's a link to the page at the Internet Archive or for those who are lazy, a direct link to the MP3 (13.1 Mb). 64.40.60.22 (talk) 14:42, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Award identification assistance request

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Orders, Decorations, and Medals/Archive 6#Help identifying medal. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:38, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

M40 recoilless rifle

An expert with considerable hands-on experience of the M40 recoilless rifle is interested in improving the article about it, and has posted a lengthy list of corrections, suggestions and comments on the talk page of the article. If anyone has time, please could you look over his suggestions and comment on some or all of them, or update the article based on some of them, as appropriate. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:34, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Excuse me Sir !, I regret to inform you, your troops are all dead.

Sir, the military outposts Genesis I and Genesis II falling under the command of Wikiproject military history no longer have any of the Madagascar hissing cockroachs, or South African flat rock scorpions formerly onboard, and the colony of seed-harvester ants has gone missing, presumed dead. They are all dead sir, from old age or old wars, sir. I suggest as there were no other armaments on board these space station prototypes, and the station computers are not designed for autonomous military maneuvers, that these two outposts be removed from the list of WikiProject Military history articles. Some would suggest these station prototypes were civilian all along, but we pay them no mind, sir. Penyulap ☏ 03:58, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

No – we'll lose the valuable military training programs that have sprung from the Space Bingo game on Genesis II! :) dci | TALK 22:22, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
Buckshot06 has removed the banner from one, I have removed the banner from the other. Penyulap ☏ 12:19, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

MoS & GEN Patton

The article George S. Patton has a wikilink to the article Master of the Sword, but it appears to be about a different subject then what is discussed in the article that it links to. Is there a need for a disambiguous page, or should a new section be added to the wikilinked article? --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:00, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

In Patton, I delinked from Master of the Sword because it pointed to the position at West Point and linked to the Mounted Service School (a redirect). I think the long term solution is a page describing the position generically, as distinguished from it existence at USMA. The subject is outside my technical competence.--Gaarmyvet (talk) 00:22, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
I set out to move Master of the Sword to "Master of the Sword (USMA)" then decided some agreement is necessary. It may also serve to add other Master of the Sword positions and their present and former incumbents to the existing page, using headlines for the individual positions. Are there such positions at places like VMI and the Citadel?--Gaarmyvet (talk) 15:44, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
It appears that there are other usages of the term "Master of the Sword" other than the position at West Point and United States Cavalry School. It appears that a disambiguous page is necessary and separate pages are required, and the USMA article be appropriately renamed. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 02:02, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
I posted a question about Master of the Sword to "The Citadel External Affairs," which I take to be the public affairs office of The Citadel. Their short answer was that they don't think they ever had such a position, but that one of their historians has been planning some research. They asked that I give them a couple of months to look into it. I also made an inquiry to Norwich.--Gaarmyvet (talk) 15:07, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Upload assistance requested

Although I have asked for help in the past, I am having problems again with this file from the Institute of Heraldry. If anyone can assist me with this, it would be appreciated. The newly uploaded file will be used to replace this file.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 22:32, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

 Done You can find it here Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:31, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
Thank you very much. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:56, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

What use could we make of the UK's National Maritime Museum catalogue?

I've been talking to the National Maritime Museum in London (as some of you might know). They are interested to know what use we could make of the material in their archive catalogue. If we could get a bunch of Wikipedians to turn up, request bits of archival material, probably scan/digitise it (copyright allowing, but most of it is quite old), as well as look up the secondary sources in their library and go and look at / take photos of stuff in their collections - what would people be interested in getting hold of and what use would we make of it? NB I'm hoping for a more specific answer than "we want ALL OF IT and we'll use it EVERYWHERE" ;-) - I am looking for some concrete examples from you guys to go back to them with. :D The Land (talk) 20:46, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

High quality scans of maps and charts of notable voyages and battles would be very useful. Nick-D (talk) 23:18, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
Archival information on Royal Navy organisation (fleets and squadrons), especially pre-1890. User:Simon Harley does very good work, but mostly focuses on affairs after that date. Buckshot06 (talk) 23:41, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
Would you mind putting a few search terms that you personally might be interested in, through the archive search tool and seeing what stuff there is there that you'd be interested in? The Land (talk) 07:08, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
As examples, charts of the Battle of Jutland such as BTY/24/23-39 and BTY/24/14-22 and some of Matthew Flinder's charts of Australia such as FLI/15/24 Nick-D (talk) 07:32, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
Reference file items (a) MLN/161/7, Parliamentary paper: Navy (Channel Squadron), copy of the report of the Adm in Command of the Channel Squadron 2 Apr 1867, (b) MLN/161/10 Parliamentary paper: Navy (Channel and Mediterranean Squadrons), copy of reports upon the performances of the ships of the combined Channel and Mediterranean Squadrons during the Cruise between 23 Aug and 2 Oct 1869, 24 Feb 1870, (c), PHI/137/9, Admiralty letter re. the proceedings of the Channel Squadron between 5 Aug and 24 Sep 1874.

(d), PHI/137/62, Admiralty letter re Vice-Admiral Lord John Hay's return to England from Gibraltar with the Channel Squadron. (e), PHI/102/13, Commands off the West Coast of Africa, of the Flying Squadron and the Channel Squadron: general memoranda, Apr-Nov 1867, and I can find more if you like.. Very many thanks for this initiative. Buckshot06 (talk) 23:36, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Interesting WWI collaboration...

Just wanted to flag up a project that might be of interest to WWI milhisters. Oxford University are going to be crowdsourcing a livetweet of Battle of Arras (1917) & encouraging people to upload resources to Wikimedia Commons. I'm planning to join in. If any other Wikipedians also wanted to that would be great - there are bound to be more cooperation opportunities with the people behind this project in future. The Land (talk) 16:44, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

American Rev. infobox

Users might be interested in an ongoing discussion here regarding the ordering of combatants in the American Revolutionary War infobox (particularly if the US or France should go first). Hot StopUTC 16:49, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Default notablity guidelines

I'm not sure if this is the place to ask, but do any of you know if there are any default categories for notability with regards to military rank. Say, is a General always considered notable the way a state senator is, even in there isn't significant media coverage? See: WP:Notability (people)#Politicians Thanks, Dkriegls (talk) 05:59, 30 March 2012 (UTC).

That is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks :) Dkriegls (talk) 07:41, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Dispute resolution over at List of American Civil War Generals (Confederate)

User:IcarusPhoenix and I are edit warring over if the clusterfuck of a notes section should be included in the List of American Civil War Generals (Confederate) article. A third opinion would be appreciated here. Brightgalrs (/braɪtˈɡæl.ərˌɛs/)[1] 20:18, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually, that's not what the edit war is about; it's about whether Brightgalrs should have come along and make wholesale 300,000 character changes that were already being made in a different format and according to consensus without once bothering to discuss it - before or after - with any of the many other editors who had contributed countless hours of work to the page. IcarusPhoenix (talk) 20:47, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
Icarus, don't use this page to WP:BATTLEFIELD. If the issue relates to 300,000Kb+ which are the Notes section, then Binks is correct. However, we don't tolerate arguing on this page. Please keep your discussion on the pages it is discussed on. The matter of editor input time is moot, in any argument. Articles develop, and are rewritten constantly. Old revisions are replaced as articles evolve. Doesn't matter who contributed previously, and how much, if their edits are challenged that is the way Wiki works. In this case, 470,000Kb+ of data is the result of many editors piling unimportant trivia into the page non-stop until it becomes a big shit-heap of nonsense, rather than a quantitative table of useful data. Those editors didn't do a good job, imo, and the mess needs dealing with. My response is on discussion page, in detail. Please curb your attitudes and focus on developing the article, not your issues with each others opinions. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 21:54, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
Just to be clear, Marcus, I'm actually the one who objected to the overly-cumbersome notes in the first place (long before this dispute cropped up), which is why Donner60 was already paring them down to bring them in line with the sister article List of American Civil War Generals (Union), where we agreed on very specific and limited standards for the column. As Hal Jesperson suggested to me, Donner60 perhaps should have placed a WIP template on the page, but by failing to look at long-standing discussions and the article's own recent edit history, Brightgalrs has actually, in my opinion, taken the article's progress backwards. In short, the issue is not the size of the notes; that issue was already being resolved; the issue was another editor's decision to change the very nature of the page without having the common courtesy to discuss it with other editors. IcarusPhoenix (talk) 22:11, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
If every edit being performed on Wiki required "common courtesy", instead of WP:BOLD action, nothing would ever get done. Proof of this lies in then fact that the article has now been protected due to your inane war editing. Doesn't matter to me what done in the past, it's your behaviour now that matters. Doesn't matter to me what other editors are doing to the article either. If they are in the middle of a refactor they should deal with the matter, not have you wrongfully accuse people of "vandalism" like some vigilante. You blew the matter out of proportion, and your bullish tactics, i.e. polemic attacks of those editors, are typically uninspiring when you could have found a better resolution. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 01:47, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
...which you keep hammering on despite the fact that a) everyone actually involved (myself included) has already admitted that particular error brought about by an ill-considered snap-judgement on my part, b) despite the fact that it is peripheral to finding an actual solution to the problem, and c) despite the fact that on the actual dispute resolution page itself, you have already been chided for assuming bad faith and for trying to make this about me personally (with the exact same comment made above) rather than discussing solutions to the actual conflict. If you're going to bring up WP:BATTLEFIELD in regards to this page, might I recommend reading it yourself? It primarily addresses assumptions of good faith and matters of courtesy that you have apparently since chosen to ignore in this specific case; and act which - in a quick reading of your previous contributions - appears to be a decidedly uncharacteristic trait for you. At this juncture, everyone involved in the discussion seems to have opted for a polite conversation about fixing the page, with the sole exception of you; there's a reason that Be Bold spends half the page talking about civility. IcarusPhoenix (talk) 03:14, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
More polemic remarks to better yourself? Know that bullish behaviour has no effect on me, especially from someone with an agenda to push. My previous or present contribs have no bearing on the matter, whatsoever. You appear confused how to collaborate with others. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 04:18, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
May I politely recommend looking up "polemic" before misusing it again? Disagreement is not the same as a personal attack, which might be why a moderator of the dispute resolution board specifically warned you to stop assuming bad faith in others. I fail to understand why you seem to see other opinions and good faith discussion as a personal affront. IcarusPhoenix (talk) 05:08, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
No, you may not. Wiki has no "moderators", FYI. And even if it did, no one warned me of anything, and his comments were false anyway so I don't give a stuff. I see you fail to comprehend that your war editing and selective choice of editors to comment whilst accusing the other editors in the DR as "vandals" is indecent behaviour. Hence why I assume bad faith and stand by it. No warning could change my mind. Polemic refers your tit-for-tat remarks about the opposing editors. You frequent fail to "comment on the contribution, not the contributor", accuse them of vandalism, doing an "amateur hack-job", and refer to sympathy for past editors to back your case, to strengthen your case, something not covered in policy/guidelines. It's all quite pathetic, and seems to lack American-value. Except the warmongering type. Trying to win the "hearts and mind" of people in order to retain past contribs, rather than refer to policy and guideline, is not appropriate, imo. But I've given my opinion of the Notes column now, so that's all that matters. You can attempt to WP:SOUP is down, along with any other editor's opinion which contradicts yours, but in the end, we're wise to those type of underhand tactics. Ciao, Ma®©usBritish[chat] 13:19, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
Marcus, in the interests of actually accomplishing the original goal of finding a solution to the dispute in question, I'm going to request you absent yourself from the discussion; there are two currently-open disputes in which you are a participant in the discussion, and in both cases you are doing so with extreme vitriol and personal attacks against specific individuals, while all other participants are focusing on the respective disputes themselves. I do not "frequently" do any of the acts of which you accuse me of; I did them exactly once in the heat of irritability (which brought about the dispute resolution process in the first place), and I have since acknowledged my error and moved on. You specifically addressed WP:BATTLEFIELD and WP:BOLD earlier, but it is clear that you have read neither; Had you done so, I have to assume that your remarkably hypocritical and combative attitude would subside, to say nothing of your interesting slander above against my presumed nationality. The point to dispute resolution is to resolve disputes, not to assign guilt, and by insisting that you are the sole authority on the latter, you have been a constant hindrance to the process. IcarusPhoenix (talk) 17:14, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
Ah, the true colours are revealed. You attempt to make other editors frustrated then ask them to withdraw from the dispute, thus eliminating opposition. Aka WP:CPUSH. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 17:18, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
Actually, Marcus, it was a polite request based upon my opinion that your actions have demonstrated you less interested in solving the dispute than placing blame for it. It is my opinion that your constant mischaracterization of my words and actions combined with your interminable vitriol and your willingness to resort to such tactics as nationalist slander all demonstrate someone who has no interest in contributing to the discussion, and while I've no real expectation that you'll accept my request at face value, I rather optimistically was hoping - for the sake of my own temper and in the interest of actually moving the conversation back to resolving the matter rather than your personal crusade against myself (among others) - that you would at least start approaching the conversation with some measure of reasonableness which you have, thus far, not demonstrated. IcarusPhoenix (talk) 17:40, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
Why don't you just cut the shit, and refer to your first post in this thread. You resent that a second opinion was asked for, and attempted to point blame on the editor removing 300,000 chars rather than the idiots who added it in the first place, and you went around campaigning editors calling for arms against a "vandal". In short, you're a bully, and you're pissed off that you can't get all your own way. Stuff your "temper", if you haven't got the mentality to control your anger typing online, you shouldn't be on Wiki. Your comments on my behaviour are nothing but whitewash to cover up your own aggressive actions against those opposing the removal of the junk-laden Notes column. Quit the WP:BALLS, don't fucking tell me who I am, or what I should be doing, don't stalk my contribs and history. Sort yourself out. The problem lies in your refusal to allow consensus, which approves of removing the Notes. You're attempting to bully your own reasoning for the column through, using rhetoric and such to cover up your dismissal of fact that the objections outweigh your own paltry excuses for retaining them. One policy/guideline applies here, and that is WP:TRIVIA. The Notes should not be there, they are over-bearing unreadable junk. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 17:53, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
Guys, step back, look at what you are saying. This is not the place for this dispute - wikipedia has plenty of places where this can be taken to be resolved.Monstrelet (talk) 18:45, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
Thank you, Mostrelet; Marcus has already done his best to make this about me personally on the dispute resolution board where the conversation at least belongs, and I think you're right that there is no need for us to intrude on substantive discussions here with this increasingly-bizarre conflict; I, at least, will now confine my comments on this matter to the place where they belong. Marcus, I've decided that the best way to handle your increasingly violent temper and sophomoric linguistic talents is to view you as a source of comedy; since I was the one to object to the cumbersome notes in the first place, you are in fact arguing with your perception of me, rather than my actual position, and doing so with a remarkable lack of civility; thus I can only quote something you yourself wrote above: "...you're a bully, and... if you haven't got the mentality to control your anger typing online, you shouldn't be on Wiki." IcarusPhoenix (talk) 18:53, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
Further polemic WP:CPUSH, though WP:TRIVIA still applies. As does WP:TOOLONG. Where's the policy/guidelines to support retaining trivial notes that you vehemently insist on keeping? Ma®©usBritish[chat] 19:25, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I would just like to follow Monstrelet's comment - this started with a few admittedly intemperate remarks, but seemed to rapidly escalate into vitriolic abuse, with no apparent reason why! This simply isn't appropriate, whatever you think of the person you're arguing with or what you feel they have done wrong. Shimgray | talk | 22:04, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

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