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Project style guide and MoS

Shortcut

I've been involved in a discussion regarding the role of WikiProjects in the FAC criteria (Wikipedia talk:Featured article criteria#Unsure about #2). The upshot seems to be that WikiProject guidelines will not be considered to have "official" weight unless they're part of the WP:MOS. In light of that, I'd like to propose the following:

  1. Move our existing guidelines (i.e. the contents of WP:MILHIST#Guidelines) to a subpage.
  2. Redirect the subpage's talk page to the main project talk page, to retain a single place for discussion.
  3. Get community consensus to tag said subpage as a part of the formal MoS.

Feedback on this idea would be appreciated! Kirill 17:28, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Based on a very cursory review, I have have no objections and commend you for taking the initiative to stay abreast of such issues that may affect the project. wbfergus Talk 17:51, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
SandyGeorgia feedback

I'm anxious to see this excellent guideline page become a part of the manual of style; I think you may have to eventually post to the Village Pump to gain wide consensus.

Some specific feedback:

  • To agree with WP:MOS, can you eliminate the "e.g." (replace it with prose) in If disambiguation is needed, the year may be added in parentheses (e.g. ... and throughout? Following MOS guidelines will help remind editors to ... follow MOS guidelines.
  • I'm unclear on whether adding this page to MOS implies broad consensus to all the subpages mentioned (for example, those listed under the section headings, Topic-specific conventions, Additional conventions and Weapon); I haven't reviewed those pages for possible contradictions with MOS.
  • Rank: in the past, I've tried to help out with copyediting and FAC prep of several MilHist articles. As a person completely unfamiliar with the military, I need a guideline on military rank, how they are abbreviated, and so on. Is that here somewhere?
  • Casualties: in the past, Kirill has mentioned the need to cite casualty numbers, and the issue of rounding. Is that included somewhere?
  • Regarding Infobox templates (pause for a deep breath); depending on which computer/browser I'm using, the MilHist template size appears gynormous and dominates the text on my screen. Is there any possibility they could lose 10% in width without sacrificing content?
  • Size guidelines; I remain interested in a discussion of Campaign history of the Roman military with respect to WP:SIZE and whether the Project wants to say anything specific on massive topics. I cannot load the Roman military article when I'm traveling and forced to use a dialup; it takes almost a minute to load even when I'm home. You all have many topics which can tend towards massive size (World Wars); can any guidance be provided?
  • When you spin the guidelines off to an MOS page, should Featured article advice be part of those guidelines, or separated by TOC?

None of this rises to the level of opposition to the MilHist guidelines becoming part of MOS, but they are issues I'd like to discuss. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:13, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Let's see, in order:
  • I have an unfortunate tendency to overuse Latinate abbreviations, but we can probably just run a search-and-replace on the text to get rid of those.
  • The subsidiary pages are largely intended as collections of advice (mostly things like translation notes specific to particular armies) rather than proper guidelines. We could probably reword the introductory statement above the links to make that clearer. The only one that should really be here is the weapon structure suggestion, which was left on the Weaponry page when originally developed; I'll go ahead and move that here for people to mull over.
  • Nope, we have nothing written down on ranks at the moment. We can work on developing something, but it'll probably take some time.
  • Statistics are mentioned as one of the points to be cited in the section on citations.
  • The template width is controlled project-wide by a meta-template, so it would be trivial to "change"; but the fundamental reason for the current setting is the convention of using a 300px image in the infobox. To have any effect, a width change would need to be accompanied by some sort of automated resizing spree on those.
  • As regarding ranks, we have nothing firm on article size at the moment.
  • The FA advice should probably stay on this page; it's even less of a real "guideline" than most of what we have, and I can't really see us calling that part of the MoS.
Kirill 20:22, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry I can't remember where or when the conversation occurred, but you said something once about rounding in casualty estimates, and I had an issue with an estimate's overprecision. If you can recall, and add any guidance, it would help. I'd also really like to see something about how to trim the massive War articles; World War I and World War II were always massive, and now we've got Roman military as well. Not a sticking point for me, just a good time to discuss this. And I had a hard time copyediting Hispanic Americans in World War II without knowing how to deal with ranks and their abbreviations. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:29, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Just a note:
  • Abbreviations have been eliminated.
  • Nature of subsidiary pages has been made more explicit; obsolete ones have been removed; and the weaponry article structure recommendation has been moved here.
Kirill 20:57, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Sandy asked me to look at this proposal as I worked on MEDMOS. I support the push to move this to be formally recognised as an official guideline. You'll earn a link from the list on the RHS of the MOS and hopefully the extra traffic will be beneficial both to the guidelines and also their use in relevant articles. A few quick comments:

  • Move this to a page of its own ASAP. It will help people focus on what is in and what is out. Have you thought of a shortcut? WP:MILMOS or WP:MILHISTMOS? There seem to be loads of variants used in MOS subpages.
  • My main issue is that it is overlong. Some suggestions for shortening the guideline page:
    • Only include MILHIST-specific guidelines. For example, the sections on Citation styles and Requesting citations are not specific to MILHIST.
    • Focus on guidelines rather than merely helpful information. The Templates section could be drastically reduced and some content referenced on the talk page. For example, the list of Infoboxes could be a sub-page of this project. While you could view this as a loss here, it might also enable such a list to be expanded to be more helpful (if required).
    • Categories takes up a huge amount of text. Both naming guidelines and insertion guidelines. Perhaps this whole aspect could be moved to its own subpage. This would leave the remaining text to focus more on writing the article.
  • This is a good time to review your FAs (you've got a lot!) and ensure your guidelines match best practice.

Colin°Talk 12:52, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I'll try to move them onto a subpage (likely still transcluded, at this point) when I get the chance. Both of the shortcuts you mention seem sensible; there's no reason why we can't have two.
As far as the length is concerned, I expect there are multiple schools of thought on this. I tend to think that having the material easily available in one place is worth the extra bulk; in my experience, just about nobody reads an entire MoS page straight through, so the average person isn't going to be unduly inconvenienced so long as the page is easy to navigate. Moving things out to individual subpages is neat, but makes it easier for people to overlook things.
(Having said that, the category documentation is indeed quite long; so perhaps moving it to a page of its own—if not now, then at a later date—may be a workable approach.) Kirill 14:19, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
It seems really silly to rearrange this project to fit a wording problem at WP:WIAFA; the simpler solution is to make clear there that the weight given to project standards should vary, depending on the weight they deserve. This, and MED and Math would get a lot; something slapped together in five minutes by WP:Fancruft would get none. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't think that Math has ever been exposed to broad consensus or enjoys the reputation MilHist enjoys. Which Projects enjoy this "weight they deserve" is opinion; subjecting it to broad consensus of MOS is more clear. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:29, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've moved the guidelines in question out to Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide, redirected its talk page here, and left some brief links to it at WP:MILHIST#MOS. Comments on how this looks now, especially from people that have needed to consult the guidelines before, would be very appreciated! In particular, is the style guide easy enough to find? Kirill 12:41, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Easy enough to find ... from where? Eventually, it will be linked from WP:MOS, no, at {{style}}? I'll have a look, but a suggestion is that you might want to open up the talk page at the new guideline page. What's hard to find is this discussion, and you might want to have clear links there showing consensus when you add it to MOS. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:49, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
From within the project, obviously. ;-)
As far as the talk page goes: given that the main idea behind this exercise was that we would continue to retain only one central place for discussion, I don't think that's going to be helpful. Kirill 12:51, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
OK, how about a shortcut on this talk section then, for quicker, easier access? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:56, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
PS, yes it's easy to find; I see it right there at the top of the MilHist main page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:58, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
WT:MILHIST#MOS work? I've also linked the discussion from the top of the style guide page itself. Kirill 12:30, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Can we include a policy on recommended guidelines on image usage? I often see articles which are overloaded with every image available for the topic. Oberiko 13:09, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

How to proceed?

So, given the lack of objections from the project and the RFC lists, I suppose the next step would be dropping a link to this discussion at the Village Pump? Does anyone have further comments before we do so? Kirill 11:20, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Interesting—I found out about this from the newsletter this morning. I just announced that the first draft of the WikiProject Scouting style guide is available for review. I wonder how many other projects are working this? --Gadget850 ( Ed) 16:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've left messages at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) and Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) inviting feedback from the community; hopefully some people will stop by now. Kirill 20:32, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide

After seeing Kirill's note on the village pump inviting comments I read through Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide. It looks good. I have no improvement suggestions but I thought I'd start the discussion. Does anyone else like it?--Phoenix 15 (Talk) 14:33, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

It might be better to un-redirect the style guide talk page so that discussions are focused instead of getting spread across this page. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 20:54, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
That would actually cause discussions to be split rather than focused, since we'd now have two pages (this one and the style guide one) where things would be discussed. (It wouldn't help things that this page is by far the higher-traffic one, either.) Kirill 21:06, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
  • It's well-written and all, but why does it need to be part of the MOS when the topic is so specific? There are already too many topic MOS subpages, and WT:COUNCIL has ongoing discussion of doing something with all of these things, such as creating a new category and template for WikiProject-generated quasi-guidelines (the principal problem with which is they generally do not draw enough WP-wide editorial interest to reflect a broad consensus, though they typically are useful to people within the relevant project). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:02, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
    Short answer: because WP:WIAFA makes no provision for any non-MoS guidelines. Kirill 01:04, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Kirill here, the council discussion is something that may bear fruit, but it is still a long way off. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 01:18, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Forts and Fortifications

You've got sections for units, battles, and wars, but how about one for forts and fortifications? I'd suggest something like Boden Fortress as an example. I'm not sure that the recommendations for either battle or unit would adequately help someone working on a fortification topic. I'd also suggest that a fortification listing might be helpful in the naming conventions section. Does anyone else think this might be a good idea? If so, I'd be happy to add it.JKBrooks85 02:33, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Please feel free to propose draft text for anything you'd like to see added (preferably in a new section on this page, as working out new guidelines is likely to take some time, and I'd like to avoid inadvertently holding up the MoS discussion due to that).
I'm not sure, though, whether a separate mention of fortification naming conventions is worthwhile. Is there anything specific to them that needs to be said, beyond what's already covered in the base Wikipedia-wide conventions? Kirill 02:43, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure. I'll draft something up, and you (or someone else) can judge. JKBrooks85 11:24, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Okay. I've inserted two new sections -- one in naming conventions, and the other in the article guidelines. JKBrooks85 17:37, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Looks good; they seem to match current practice overall. I've given them a little copyedit. Kirill 17:43, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. JKBrooks85 19:13, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Any remaining concerns?

Are there any substantive concerns remaining with the proposed material here? (I don't think there are, as best as I can tell; but perhaps I've missed something.) If there aren't, I think we can proceed; the matter has certainly been advertised as widely as it could be. Kirill 23:30, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, as there haven't been any objections, I've gone ahead and marked the style guide as a component of the Manual of Style. Any further comments are, of course, entirely welcome. Kirill 23:34, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Discussion for various United States General articles

Rather than scour all over WP looking for articles and discussions and edits and reversions, this section will be one stop shopping to help discuss and improve the content and layout of the various 4, 5 and 6(?) star United States General ranks. — MrDolomite • Talk 18:35, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I personally believe that these ranks are different enough that each would be able to substantiate its own article, along with the rank's history, with some overlap (as most WP articles have on related subjects). — MrDolomite • Talk 18:35, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
The ranks are currently different, but their history is all intertwined. The General (United States) article already covers all the information that is included in those other articles, so there's no need to have separate articles. Overlap should be minimized. Also note that the General (United States) article explains very clearly that the ranks are currently different. So it's not as if covering them all on the same article will cause people to think they're currently the same rank. - Shaheenjim 18:56, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Just wondering--I set Five-star general to redirect to General of the Army (United States); I've only ever heard the term "five-star general" used about U.S. Army generals of that rank, and more generally, the "n-star general" form is a common shorthand for references to U.S. general officers, because of their insignia.
I see that Shaheenjim changed the page to redirect to Field Marshal. Can I ask why he made this change? It doesn't make sense to me. I'm not aware that any field marshal was ever referred to as a "five-star general", since a field marshal is not a "general" at all! I think the term is used exclusively for US Army officers, and, of course, we do not have the rank "Field Marshal" in this country. (Yes, "General of the Army" is intended to be a rank equivalent to "Field Marshal", but, still, Marshall was a general, not a marshal, if you take my meanin'.)
If we don't want to have a separate "General of the Army (Unite States)" article, I think "Five-star general" should redirect to General (United States). -- Narsil 20:43, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Is the "X-star General" terminology really just used in the United States? I think of it as being applicable internationally, and the Field Marshal page was as close as Wikipedia has to an international page on five-star ranks. The Field Marshal page links to the General of the Army (United States) article as the American version of the generic five-star rank. - Shaheenjim 20:50, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Upon further consideration, rather than have "five-star general" redirect to "Field Marshal," maybe we could have "Field Marshal" redirect to "five-star general." We could use that as the international page on five-star ranks, and there we could have links to the US rank of General of the Army and other countries' Field Marshal ranks. - Shaheenjim 20:52, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
That seems a bit counterintuitive; "Field Marshal" is etymologically closer to "Marshal" than to any type of general.
I'd suggest merging Field Marshal to Marshal and Five-Star General to General, with breakout articles for particular (country/service) ranks or rank types as material allows. Kirill 20:58, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I'd be open to changing the five-star general redirect to Marshal instead of Field Marshal, (or having Marshal redirect to five-star general or Field Marshal). Although I do not suggest merging the international pages on five star rank with the international page on General (the four star rank). The American five star rank and four star rank have histories that are intertwined, so it makes sense for them to be on the same article. But there's no need to have the international version of four star and five star on the same page, because their histories aren't intertwined in the same way that the American versions are. - Shaheenjim 21:04, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Sounds like I might be in the minority here, but I think the articles regarding the various US five-star generals should be separate. They are tied together in some repects, but each rank represents a different branch of the military and have been occupied by different people. I would equate these articles with Sergeant Major of the Army, Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, and other similar ranks. ++Arx Fortis 22:11, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
The General (United States) article explains that the five-star ranks represent different branches of the military and that they have been occupied by different people. There's no need to have separate articles that cover the same things. Overlap should be minimized. - Shaheenjim 22:15, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I side with Arx Fortis on this one, I feel the articles rgarding the various five star generals should be seperate oweing to the uniqueness of the rank and the circumstances of the promotion. In my minds eye I see this as a form of natability, it isn;t every day that generals get promoted to a five or six star rank' therefore to me, the uniqueness of the rank justifies having seperate pages. Thats my opinion on the matter. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:24, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
The General (United States) article explains that the five-star ranks are all unique. There's no need to have separate articles that cover the same things. Overlap should be minimized. - Shaheenjim 23:35, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Shaheenjim wrote "Overlap should be minimized." I agree with that sentiment as at the moment some pages on Wikipedia have not been updated to reflect corrections made to the main articles about each rank. However, the individual article about each rank are the core articles about each of the ranks. While Congress and/or the military may have created similarly named ranks that does not mean they "overlap." They were specific ranks created for specific occasions. From the core articles on each rank we can have auxiliary articles should reflect data documented in the core articles. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 02:42, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm not suggesting that the ranks themselves overlap. And the General (United States) article does not say that the ranks themselves overlap. But their history overlaps. That's why many of the different articles have much of the same text in their history section. - Shaheenjim 02:53, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
It's ridiculous to have three separate articles which all basically say the same thing. I know that General, General of the Army, and General of the Armies of the United States are three different ranks, but that does not mean they all require their own article, when the articles are so similar (they look as if most of their content has been cut-and-pasted from one to the others). I would suggest either merging the latter two into General (United States), or reducing their length and inserting {{main|General (United States)}} instead. Also, it would be unjustificably US-centric to turn Field Marshal into a redirect page: America might not have field marshals, but plenty of other countries do, and it should be kept. Richard75 15:24, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Just FYI, I'm the one who cut and pasted the info from one article to the others (and also the one who attempted to merge them). But even before I cut and pasted the info from one article to the others, they already covered the same history. I just rephrased the information that was already on each page to make the similities more clear. - Shaheenjim 16:55, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Upon further consideration, I suppose there is no reason to merge the article for General of the Air Force with other articles. It doesn't share much of a common history with them. But I still think the articles on General (United States), General of the Army (United States), and General of the Armies should be merged, since they have so much common history. - Shaheenjim 03:45, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Hey, as long as we have four, five, and six star general experts here to discuss the merge, can any of you guys answer my questions at the bottom of these talk pages: page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4, page 5, page 8, and page 9? They're all about three+ star general equivalents. Some of them are the same question on multiple pages. - Shaheenjim 07:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
For your Russian questions, check the Russian/Soviet taskforce talkpage for an earlier discussion on this issue. Cheers Buckshot06 20:31, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I removed those questions from the list above. - Shaheenjim 15:34, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

First section break

This situation just exploded when I discovered that Shaheenjim has attempted a sneaky merger of General of the Armies, General of the Army, General, and Lieutenant General all on the main General (United States) article. I ask others to look into this since I am at the top of 3RR. See Talk:General_(United_States)#Investigation_into_non-consensus_merger for the full details. Thank you! -OberRanks 03:39, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

We've been discussing that here for like two weeks. Also, I don't know why you'd redirect the discussion from here to the General page, since there's already a note on the General page redirecting discussion to here. - Shaheenjim 03:43, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Erm, guys, please, let's not have this turn into an edit war. Discussion is good; reverting each other without it, not so much. Kirill 04:13, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I agree. I will not violate 3RR here. I have attempted to get other opinions about this. Right now, SJ has created carbon copy articles of a semi-merged General article on General (United States), Lieutenant General (United States), and General of the Armies even after agreeing that the articles should stay separate. All changes are being reverted, even a cleanup tag on the General article which is now a mess because of this. Thats where we stand right now. Intervention and opinions by others is badly needed. -OberRanks 04:21, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
I already responded to that at Talk:General_(United_States)#Investigation_into_non-consensus_merger. I don't know why you insist on having the same conversation in multiple places. It's actually quite ironic given the topic. - Shaheenjim 04:24, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
I can't seem to figure out how Lieutenant General got dragged in here; it's a three-star rank—and a highly international one, to boot—so there's no apparent reason for it to be involved in a merger of four-star and five-star rank articles.
Aside from that, I'd suggest using "general" as a shorthand for "general officer" rather than as "[full] general". So we'd wind up with a set of articles for the internationally-common ranks:
Meanwhile, the article General (United States) could cover all general officers rather than just four-star generals; it'd have a structure something along these lines:
  • Brigadier General
    • {{details|Brigadier General}} + short summary
  • Major General
    • {{details|Major General}} + short summary
  • Lieutenant General
    • {{details|Lieutenant General}} + short summary
  • Full general
    • Detailed section on four-star ranks (in the US)
  • Higher ranks
    • Detailed section on five-star ranks (in the US)
This way, we minimize the redundant content, while allowing the major cross-nation ranks to be easily carried over across the many nations that use them.
(Obviously, this is a rough sketch; but I think it's suitable at least as a starting point for further discussion.) Kirill 04:26, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Thats a very good start, to be sure. My main concern is the pretty obvious violation of WP:CON, i.e. SJ participated in a vote where it was determined NOT to merge, yet merged anyway and then tried to decieve editors by maintaining the three separate articles as if they were separate when in fact they were now copies of all the same semi-merged article. I've done all I can about that and as we have not seen a response on the Admin Noticeboard, this doesnt seem to be high on the list right now. Something needs to be done about this as we cannot have three carbon copy articles of the same material. Meanwhile, SJ launches into edit wars and claims to be the victim, and has asked the administrators to ban me from this site for challenging his edits. [1] Obviously there is no desire there to work with me ,so this is as far as I can go for now. -OberRanks 05:14, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Kirill: The history of Lieutenant Generals in the United States is tied in with the history of Four Star Generals in the United States. Both are ranks that, for a long time, were only used in times of war. For example, after Washington, there were none of either until the Civil War. Then we readded both ranks. Then when the Civil War ended, we discontinued both ranks.
OberRanks: I already responded to that at Talk:General_(United_States)#Investigation_into_non-consensus_merger. I don't know why you insist on having the same conversation in multiple places (let alone why you insist on saying the same things multiple times, even after I've responded to them). It's actually quite ironic given the topic. - Shaheenjim 05:25, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I looked at these articles and yeah, the redundancy has to go. At a minimum, the three-star material needs to come out of the five- and six-star articles. I like Kirill's proposed list of summaries for each rank, with articles linked for details/documentation specific to a particular rank (didn't the General (United States) article use to have that?). I suggest the following changes:
Lieutenant General (United States):
Merge with General (United States). The history of three- and four-star ranks in the US boils down to "which was the highest general officer rank and when?", so it doesn't make sense to discuss them separately, and once all that is moved to the General (United States) article, there's not enough left to justify a separate LTG (US) page unless you think that list of famous three-stars merits a page in itself.
General (United States):
Frame as a generic general officer page. First section is the history of the ranks in the US; second section discusses modern usage, including detailed discussion of three- and four-star ranks; third section is a list of summaries of responsibilities and insignia for each rank. Remove most of the discussion of five- and six-star ranks, but link General of the Army (United States) and General of the Armies.
History
Modern usage
  • Detailed discussion of three- and four-star ranks (temporary nature, statutory limits, require Senate confirmation, etc.).
Ranks
  • Brigadier General - assistant division commander, etc.
  • Major General - division commander, etc.
  • Lieutenant General - corps/army commander, etc.
  • General - combatant commander, etc.
  • General of the Army - {{details|General of the Army (United States)}} World War II rank, now inactive
  • General of the Armies - {{details|General of the Armies (United States)}} Pershing/Washington rank, now inactive
General of the Army (United States):
Remove discussion of everything except the Civil War title and the World War II rank. Seniority relative to General of the Armies goes in the General of the Armies article.
General of the Armies:
Remove discussion of everything except Pershing, Washington, MacArthur, etc., and its seniority relative to General of the Army.
If people find this structure acceptable, I would be happy to make these changes myself over the weekend. Morinao 06:20, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
A merge of Brigaider, Major, and LT General might be warranted with separate sections on GenArmy and Armies with links to the main articles on those two subjects. I would be good with that. -OberRanks 06:27, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
There's pretty much how it's already set up. Some notes:
There isn't much in the General of the Army (United States) article except the discussion of the Civil War title and the World War II rank. And that is almost all overlap with the General (United States) article.
You can eliminate the long discussion of the seniority relative to General of the Armies from the General of the Army article. But if you do that, you should at least link to the other article.
There isn't much in the General of the Armies article except the discussion of Pershing, Washington, MacArthur, etc., and its seniority relative to General of the Army. And that is almost all overlap with the General (United States) article.
It's hard to remove the discussion of five- and six-star ranks from the history of three- and four-star ranks, since the five- and six-star ranks used to be three- and four-star ranks. They passed legislation to give Washington the General of the Armies rank as a three-star rank, although he died before it happened. And Sheridan had the General of the Army rank as a three-star rank. Grant had the General of the Army rank as a four-star rank. And Pershing had the General of the Armies rank as a four-star rank.
So I recommend keeping all the history on the General (United States) article. And if we don't want a lot of overlap, we could merge the other articles with General (United States). Or if people want to keep them as separate articles, we could keep them as separate articles, but just have the history once on the General (United States) page, and have the history section of the other articles link to that. - Shaheenjim 06:37, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree, the history should all go in the General (United States) article. I think General of the Army (United States) and General of the Armies should remain separate articles, since they each contain a level of detail that doesn't need to be in the main article, but the Lieutenant General (United States) article should be merged with General (United States). I'll go ahead and make these changes over the weekend, with appropriate links between articles, if no one objects. Morinao 06:52, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
I made the changes. - Shaheenjim 07:46, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Note that OberRanks has unmerged the articles for Lieutenant General and General. He also deleted some relevant information from the article on Lieutenant General (such as the passage, "The practice of using Lieutenant and full General as a temporary rank continues to the current day, although the term “temporary” is in name only since most three- and four-star generals are expected to retain their rank regardless of their assignment.") I'm not sure why he would delete that passage. He seems to think that if people don't agree to merge two articles, that gives him the right to delete information from an article even if it's relevant to that article. Anyway, I restored that information, but left them unmerged. - Shaheenjim 05:03, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
I simply reverted to the last unblanked version of Lieutenant General after another user stated they were against the merger. I did not change the reverted version and haven't touched the General article. And, as stated on your talk page, thanks for letting the unmerger of LTG stand until we get this worked out. -OberRanks 08:43, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Eyeballs needed at SOF Mafia

This page was recently created, but it needs help badly. I tagged it with OR and wikify. but thats about I far as I can take it on my own. Any help over at the page would be apreciated. TomStar81 (Talk) 10:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not entirely convinced that it's justificable at all, I'd support deletion. One camp in internal defence politics really isn't all that notable.
ALR 13:09, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
I had a feeling that was going to be the consensus; I just didn;t have the time to read the article when I was tagging cause my attention was somewhat split. Thanks for reponding to my request none the less, I do apreciate it. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:12, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I put a fairly lengthy comment on the talk page. There may be the germ of things such as a general article on technology/tactical communities (jeune ecole, anyone?) and the most recent "revolution in miliary affairs". This isn't clear, though, about notability." Howard C. Berkowitz 21:25, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Peer review for Pre-dreadnought now open

The peer review for Pre-dreadnought is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 17:20, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Pre-dreadnought now open

The A-Class review for Pre-dreadnought is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 18:44, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Military history of Uganda

This is a great subject for a new article but it's in pretty bad grammatical shape etc right now. Appreciate anybody who's willing to help clean it up, and African interested people who can help expand it. Cheers Buckshot06 19:48, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Notice of List articles

Page(s) related to this project have been created and/or added to one of the Wikipedia:Contents subpages (not by me).

This note is to let you know, so that experts in the field can expand them and check them for accuracy, and so that they can be added to any watchlists/tasklists, and have any appropriate project banners added, etc. Thanks. --Quiddity 20:30, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Peer review for Military Revolution now open

The peer review for Military Revolution is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 17:43, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Soviet occupation of Romania now open

The A-Class review for Soviet occupation of Romania is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 22:47, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

FYI

I just wanted to make two notes while I have the chance:

  • 1st: I went through and looked over all the automatically assessed stub articles, reassessing as needed and removing the auto-asses box. Boredom and a headache equals doing random stuff apparently.
  • 2nd: With the tag and assess drive going on, I doubt there is time to do this now, but eventually there should probably be an effort to look through the NA-class assessed articles, because I ran across a few actual articles rated NA, and a quick glance at the category seems to show a few more, in addition to a large number of lists that should probably be moved into their own category eventually.

Cromdog 03:05, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for going through the auto-assessed stuff; that's certainly been sitting there for a while!
As far as the lists are concerned, those should (but sometimes aren't) get assessed using the regular article classes (albeit going up towards FL rather than FA status). I've been trying to keep an eye on them and put them back when people clear out the rating, but there's a bunch in the NA category already that need to be pulled out at some point. Kirill 03:16, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
One thing I noticed some other projects doing, which might help here when it comes around to it, is expanding on the NA tag to create seperate tags for catagories, disambiguations, templetes, etc. I've been assessing lists normally, but there are a LOT in the NA-class, so it will require a lot of time and effort. Therefore, I'm returning to the T&A Drive for the time being.Cromdog 03:46, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
If Roger advertised it as the "T&A Drive", he'd probably get a lot more participation :) Maralia 04:04, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm really tired if I didn't pick up on that...Cromdog 04:42, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

HUMINT

I'm still tuning, but is it now out of stub class? Also look at counterintelligence in parallel Howard C. Berkowitz 22:31, 7 November 2007 (UTC)


General intelligence article overhaul (cloned from espionage)

I've been working on a mostly top-down approach to intelligence, starting with intelligence cycle management. Now that I have a reasonable pass at the technical disciplines, although IMINT could use more work, as well as the general processes of collection guidance, analysis management, dissemination, counterintelligence, I've been working on HUMINT. The HUMINT article has largely dealt with the non-espionage aspects, such as interviewing and reporting. Counterintelligence is both a subset of intelligence cycle security, and also couples closely, especially in the areas of offensive counterintelligence/counterespionage, to espionage.

There's a certain scatteredness going on, which I think can be turned around. The counterintelligence article now deal with most of the cases of mole, defector in place, double, and triple that are mentioned here in espionage, as well as some other variants such as false flag recruitments and provocations. In counterintelligence, I have discussed some of the psychological characteristics of doubles and variants, but not, for example, dealt with the motivational things such as covered by MICE.

It would be my suggestion that "espionage" focus on how someone is recruited at least to the mole and defector in place roles, with perhaps some espionage tradecraft, especially communications. The idea would be that espionage and counterintelligence become mirrors, with espionage dealing with recruitment and counterintelligence with defense, but doubling and such becomes offensive counterespionage.

Individual articles such as moles, doubles, etc., may not have enough meat to be more than stub articles, unless they are places for historical and even fictional references. Otherwise, I'd suggest folding them into espionage and counterintelligence, with appropriate linkages from HUMINT.

The counterterror theme is all mixed in with some of these topics, but also has some Rambo-ish qualities. I've built out a somewhat skeletal structure of counterintelligence and counterterror organizations, which consciously do not include tactical antiterror. I should flag that some antiterror also gets into special ops, and there to special reconnaissance, a HUMINT mission.

Anyway, I'm not necessarily trying to create a project, but I'd certainly like to see a way things can get more focused with less duplication, as well as the occasional drive-by sentence "a spy is this".

Thoughts? Howard C. Berkowitz 02:33, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Procedural Question

Is the series of intelligence articles within the scope of this Project, for review, rating, etc.? I have posted to what seem to be other relevant projects and gotten no response.

I mention this, as I now several tasks. One is continuing refine existing articles that have gone through major rewrite. A second is to edit some articles (e.g., espionage) that are logical subsets, but also lack some consistency with taxonomies developed in the more extensive articles. I note that some articles, such as espionage and counterterrorism, often are lists of historic and fictional examples.

Where I can use them to illustrate a particular point, I include historical examples, but I haven't, as a routine matter, tried to compile lists. Third, there are a number of things, often example of intelligence tradecraft, that are mostly stubs as now, and do fit into the taxonomy, as in "how to create a spy" and "how to catch a spy" in counterintelligece.

Again, any guidance? Should articles be rated, or are they still too much in development? Howard C. Berkowitz 15:04, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd say that they're probably in scope insofar as they touch on military matters. We don't, unfortunately, have any particularly sophisticated setup for dealing with them at the moment; if we had enough interest, a "military intelligence task force" would be perfect for this sort of thing, but I'm not sure that there are enough editors working in the area to make it viable. You might have better knowledge of that than I do, though. Kirill 15:30, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Isn't there an espionage Wikiproject? I would've thought they'd be all over this. JKBrooks85 21:00, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
No Espionage that I can find. There was on Intelligence Agencies, which I joined, but have heard nothing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hcberkowitz (talk • contribs) 21:12, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

A few updates

I've added a few additional articles, some of which have a clearer military focus. The most recent is "special reconnaissance", subordinate to "HUMINT". While I haven't brave enough to take on a rewrite of the "espionage" article, I have created "clandestine HUMINT sources", which rather neatly picks up some tradecraft and counter-tradecraft from both "espionage" and "counterintelligence".

Another editor is making major changes to "intelligence analysis" -- some make sense but I question others.

Again not having found an ideal active project, but that I do have a design of a hierarchy and flow of articles, is that worth preserving in an "official" place other than my userpage (which I'm now going to update)? Howard C. Berkowitz 19:56, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Acronym question (BP)

Does anyone know what the acronym "BP" stands for when used on maps or battle planning? For example, at this link it states that "Regt ordered to move 2 Kms North and from there to BP 42, C Sqn to rejoin bringing JAXO (Mobile column).". I also have it shown on maps as what looks like a point-of-interest. Oberiko 15:35, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't find the acronym after a quick search in that long page - what's the date? However I have a sneaking feeling that it may be 'Battle Position' - a pre-designated or ad hoc notation for a defensive position, probably as part of a mobile defence rather than a static defence. British/Commonwealth terminology rather than US. Buckshot06 15:58, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
The date on the page is "15/6/41". I think you're right though, that gives quite a few results in Google Books (including the book "Department of Defense dictionary of military and associated terms") and the phrase pops up in the book that I'm working from. Thanks! Oberiko 16:06, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
It means 'Battle Position' as per Buckshot. Refer to this. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 16:19, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Time to clean some Propaganda?

I grew up in, went to school, lived, worked and taught in different countries. I did well as a consultant, able to cherry-pick, as we all know the term now, debatable material including historical, as work. But almost always, we anglo-americans could argue the morale high ground or pull the foreign propaganda card.

The main reason I left consulting to return to my teaching career was obviously not the money;), in fact, I got a better offer from the Chinese even. But that was part of the problem right there. As much as I had tweaked information, we could always point out we were more trustworthy, believable, but in recent years no. When I could no longer prove our history was any less propaganda than theirs, I didn't even want to work for them instead. Just return to teaching.

I remember the humiliation of having to stand up and explain myself and my country on the gym stage while an exchange student in a country run by a regime we put in place who had us read out in English too, the differences in our historical record and accounts and theirs.

When teaching in other countries, I noticed everyone had their 'propaganda', but it took decades for me to realize and accept that our history books to this day continue to promote our own self-serving propaganda as well. Oh, I wasn't naive about that, so much as I at least always believed we were still more truthful to at least ourselves than anyone else on the planet.

It's like we've given up on even pretending that we care if we are telling the truth in our history classes or news or not. Who was it on Larry King who said the reason when asked today who was responsible for 9/11 70% of Americans will say 'Saddam Hussein and Iraq' instead of 'Bin Ladin'?

There was always the hope that in the same way we eventually, however quietly, admitted that the Spanish didn't actually start the Spanish-American war by torpedoing the Maine, that we'd come clean on other things eventually too. Like Japan never considered herself part of any Axis military alliance with the Nazis. Nor that ww2 was a unified war for that matter. Nor do many nations in fact, you'd be surprised.

Now back in teaching, I'm encouraging our international student exchange programs and I notice that while many othre nations are re-writing/correcting their histories to be more accurate, however it may make our part look less heroic, ie) no longer refering to Japan as part of the 'Axis', or even Bulgaria for that matter. But pointing out our hypocrisies as well.

We're turning into the propaganda-susceptible cultures we always warned against ourselves.

I had hoped wikipedia would, how did one of my genius girl students put it? oh right, if wikipedia could lead the world historians in introducing corrections to our propaganda, however embarassing, it would be like slowly raising the curtain so that our own historians could brave the onslaught of rotten eggs and tomatoes thrown at them by a society slowly exposed to the truth rather than blissfully standing on a fake foundation of historical righteousness the world is calling us on now. You know she'll never be President, but she's right.

But I am shocked. I told my students that instead of just complaining about it, that they actually join wikipedia and especially if they can use our own best historical sources ie) The Oxford Companion to WWII Liddel Hart's History of the Second World War Wint's 'Total War' and so on even without using foreign historians, but use our own to prove the propaganda's we've conveniently chosen not to notice, that wikipedia would support the edits. But they haven't.

This is the first year I've actually seen schoolboards, not just individual schools or staffs or faculties, put Wikipedia on the computer room and class research ban list. Even my own students I kept going on it this year just complain it will be nothing more than our own propaganda and their proven edits don't hold.

So, on my sick day here, I write this little whine. Maybe we just aren't up to the task of admitting our own propaganda and choosing to admit even embarassing truths, even with proof.

You know even when it comes to political or economic matters and our best consultants now work for 'them' instead, and we can't even win the arguement that at least our propaganda is less than theirs', that we're in a bad place internationally.

But now even my best kids say Mr Jones, give it up, like you adults and your 'do as we say, not as we do', Wikipedia and our history don't have that integrity.

Call it guilt, call it faith or confidence, I and a couple left are still here trying for a little while longer.

And no, I'm no self-hating, unpatriotic, turncoat. I live in my home country again eventhough I would've been paid alot more to work for someone else. I no longer get paid for the lies I can convince but supposedly the impirical objective educational truths instead. And I'm trying to get all my kids to visit the veterans here at the Legion Hall more often and not only on Veterans'/Remembrance Day.

But if we want to earn the trust and respect of our own observant youth let alone the rest of the world who haven't already settled on us being no less propagandic and untrustworthy, then we should start correcting our history accounts even if unpopular at home. I'm disappointed even my English-sourced corrections were all edited out with the discussions justified as, hey, if what we said is what we wanted to hear, then leave it alone. I'm tired. It was worth the shot I hope to have at least tried. Befuddler 00:18, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I hate to pester you on a sick day becuase I know from experience that staring at a moniter doesn;t help headaches or eyestrain, but could you provide some examples of your englished source corrections being removed; if they were edittied out on the basis of 'thats not what we want to here' then that qualifies as pov pushing and by extension vandalism. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:28, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Ah, yes, this matter. Befuddler is of the view that Japan was not part of the Axis powers during World War II—a view which doesn't enjoy much support among our editors on the topic, for fairly obvious reasons. I doubt we'll be able to help here. Kirill 01:56, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Task force scope/renaming

Any thoughts about renaming or expanding the scope of the South American task force? Something like "Latin-American task force" would include countries of Central America which have no task force. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 10:21, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, that was proposed when the task force was first created, and rejected because "Latin America" omits a number of countries (that were, e.g. British or Dutch colonies). As a practical matter, I suspect that we could simply create a separate Central American task force should we desire. Kirill 12:57, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Is it really needed outside of the existing African task force? Oberiko 18:04, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, incredibly dumb post on my account. For some reason I was reading that as South Africa. Oberiko 22:50, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
If all else fails, we could call it the "Not-North-America" taskforce. ;) --Mukk 18:52, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I believe the term Meso-America covers everything south of the US border with Mexico, doesn't it?Cromdog 20:13, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but Mesoamerica is still restrictive. I think it is better to just take 'Central America' which can include Mesoamerica. We can even have Mexico included eventhough it is not really part of Central America. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 17:01, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Red Cliffs at WP:FAC

A-Class review for Gheorghe Tătărescu now open

The A-Class review for Gheorghe Tătărescu is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! --Eurocopter tigre 12:19, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Peer review for Battle of Changban now open

The peer review for Battle of Changban is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Woodym555 18:56, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Battle_of_Hulluch move requested

A request has been made to rename article "Battle_of_Hulluch" to "Gas attack at Hulluch". (Discuss) — RJH (talk) 14:12, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Baltic states task force

Anyone interested? We have the Russian (including Soviet era) and the Nordic task forces but not one for the Baltic states. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 16:40, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Please count me in.--Termer 16:46, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Seems reasonable to me; the full name would presumably be the "Baltic military history task force"? Kirill 18:06, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Count me in too. Martintg 19:23, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

RE: Kirill "Baltic military history task force"? I don't know if it really matters but it might be more clear if the name of the task force referred to the Baltic states or Baltic region instead of just Baltic as the name by itself can mean the Baltic people and Baltic languages, meaning Latvians and Lithuanians only at the time when the most northern Baltic state -Estonians are not Baltic but Finnic. Also Baltic Russians and Baltic Germans might be interested in joining the task force. Therefore it might be more clear if the name referred to the states instead of an ethnicity/language -Baltic. Baltic region would include the Nordic countries + Russia and Germany and Poland as the most of the military history of these countries is related to each other and the subject.--Termer 22:05, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Termer, I agree with you on principle, but there's already an article called Baltic states that encompasses Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. For simple clarity reasons, the name "Baltic states" is probably best, unless you know of an alternative term that might work better. I agree that "Batlic states" is somewhat imprecise, but it's probably the best name available. [[User:JKBrooks8--Termer 00:16, 11 November 2007 (UTC)5|JKBrooks85]] 22:48, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Well JKBrooks85, wasn't it more or less exactly what I just said? that the name "Baltic states" would be more precise than just "Baltic" like suggested by Kirill. And an alternative to consider would be Baltic region.--Termer 23:13, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
Baltic region may be a bit too broad, as that would include much of the Nordic countries, Poland, parts of Germany, and so forth. As a practical matter "Baltic states military history task force" may be the clearest way to define the scope. (The major issue is just to make sure that the name includes some explicit reference to military history; otherwise, the resulting category names will be ambiguous with those created by a general WikiProject on the Baltic states.) Kirill 23:23, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
There are 2 aspects to it. Northern crusades, Livonian War, Great Northern War etc. (the main conflicts in the region) would fit right into a category "Baltic region military history task force". Even the Estonian War of Independence would fit under it fine since the war involved Estonia, Russia, volunteers from Denmark, Finland etc. So I'm not afraid that it "may be a bit too broad". Now, once the task force would be the "Baltic states military history task force" , on it's own (except Lithuania) it would cover the modern era + the time between the 2 World wars mostly and the pre Northern crusades era perhaps. So it might be too narrow. And the last, there is no general WikiProject:Baltic_states, each country has their own Wikiproject: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Estonia, Wikipedia:WikiProject_Latvia, Wikipedia:WikiProject_Lithuania. --Termer 23:43, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
I suppose that's true; if we want this to include the Teutonic Knights and such, we'd have to use the broader term. I think either is reasonable, as both cover the core area that's not covered by any current task force; it's just a question of whether the potential participants want a narrower focus or a broader one. Kirill 23:51, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
The way I see it, if we'd have "Baltic states military history task force" it would become an additional Wikipoject to the Nordic and Russian military history task forces that cover these major conflicts in the region. Meaning, more nested WikiProjects on the talk pages. If we'd have a broader but more specified task force that covers the Baltic region only and the conflicts in the area, a category project that would include the national military histories of the Baltic countries, it would unite editors from different countries under the relevant Wikiproject. Practical win would be cleaner talk pages as well. So I personally would go with the broader solution for now but lets first see any other takes on it as well.--Termer 00:16, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Here is an example what I'm talking about: Major Carl Mothander, the commander of the Swedish volunteers in the Estonian War of Independence, should this article be a part "Nordic military history" and "Baltic states military history" or just "Baltic region military history". Or should we still keep it simple and call it "Baltic military history" and just specify the Scope that it covers the military histories of the countries around the Baltic Sea? That would include the Nordic countries involvement in the area, +Poland, Germany, Russia and the Baltic countries all together? I mean, Poland and Lithuania were in the Union for long time. So were the Baltic states a part of Russia, Soviet Union, Denmark and Sweden, not to mention the German Livonian Order. It seems it would make sense to make the scope of the Baltic Military History to cover all the countries around the Baltic Sea.--Termer 01:22, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Keep in mind that task forces are not mutually exclusive; Mothander would still be tagged as part of the Nordic task force regardless of what the exact scope of the new one was.
As for your other points: including the entire military history of every country on the Baltic would result in a massive task force, as you'd essentially absorb several current ones. I think this is both impractical and undesirable from the standpoint of creating coherent task forces; someone working on Swedish military history would be entirely unconcerned with, say, Russia's battles in Korea. I would prefer, as a practical matter, to see a "Baltic military history task force" with a scope defined to include the military histories of the Baltic states as well as other military events in and around the Baltic Sea; or, as a second choice, a "Baltic states military history task force" covering only the three states themselves and their precessessors.
In particular, I do not think it would be a good idea to try and absorb the bulk of German, Polish, or Russian military history into a newly created group. Kirill 01:45, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
I didn't say or at least the point wasn't to "include the entire military history of every country on the Baltic" but exactly like you pointed out "with a scope defined to include the military histories of the Baltic states as well as other military events in and around the Baltic Sea".--Termer 01:57, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Ah, ok; I was a bit confused by the "Poland, Germany, Russia and the Baltic countries all together" bit. Kirill 02:00, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually, poking at this a bit more: the convention used with national/regional task forces has been to include past states in the same area under the respective modern states (with a few explicit exceptions). I see no reason why we cannot follow the same principle here and just have a "Baltic states military history task force" which includes the three states in question in their modern incarnation, as well as former states in the same area (e.g. the Livonian Confederation, etc.). This would cover pretty much everything that isn't already taken up by some combination of the German, Nordic, Polish, and Russian task forces, without forcing us to get into some convoluted definition of what exactly qualifies as "Baltic" and how things should be arranged vis-à-vis the surrounding countries.
Any objections to taking this approach? Kirill 01:59, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Makes sense to me.--Termer 02:05, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok, we seem to have come up with three (basically interchangeable) options:

  1. "Baltic states military history" - includes the Baltic states and their predecessors
  2. "Baltic region military history" - includes the Baltic states and their predecessors, as well as other military events in and around the Baltic Sea
  3. "Baltic military history" - includes the Baltic states and their predecessors, as well as other military events in and around the Baltic Sea

Any of these seem like reasonable scopes for the task force, so it's really a question of editor preference. Which version do the potential members (we do have some, right ;-) prefer? Kirill 02:04, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

There are just about 5 million people living in the Baltic states all together. So getting potential members from WP together for the group is not going to be a matter of days I think but it might take some time. How many guys are needed? currently there are 2 me included. Regarding the options, I think I'd leave the choice up to you since you have more experience with the matters here.--Termer 03:10, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
As long as there's enough editors to take care of initial tagging and such, it should be fine. I'd aim for getting four or five people before the task force was created, but we can start it up with fewer than that so long as the initial members are willing to do a bit more work. :-)
As far as the name is concerned, I'm leaning towards the first option just for the sake of simplicity; if nobody else comes forward with objections or different opinions by the time we create the task force (in a few days, probably), that's what I'll go with. Kirill 03:15, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
I would be happy to participate - although as military history is not among my interests, I suspect my help would be mostly "clerk work", ie tagging, categorizing, keeping an eye out for vandalism, scripts to help with tagging etc. -- Sander Säde 06:15, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Sander Säde! All the help is greatly appreciated!--Termer 10:12, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Except for some (fairly ancient as I recall) Estonian-Latvian skirmishes and the Duchy of Courland's Caribbean and African colonies, the bulk of "military history" of the currently defined Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) is in fact a military history of all the regional powers: Germany, Sweden, Russia, Poland. The Baltics are where all those ambitions converged: the scope of this project should be to accurately reflect all those ambitions--regardless of what other "project" they fit in currently--and how they manifested as military actions on Baltic soil. <- Sounds like an introductory paragraph, no? :-)
   I am not a great military history buff, however, I do have some fairly unique sources (mainly Latvian) that I can work to scan and put up on my web site to make them available for research and reference. PētersV 15:23, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi PētersV it seems you missed out Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the first modern independence periods of the Baltic countries. Otherwise yes it "is in fact a military history of all the regional powers" that was the reason for me to suggest and broaden the scope to the Baltic region. But I don't mind keeping it narrower as well sticking with Baltic states and their predecessors. As one could always interpret it the way that the entities of "the predecessors" included "the regional powers".--Termer 23:04, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually I have one of the definitive recent texts on the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Yes, there is that small matter of a kingdom stretching from the Baltic to Black Seas. I do view the wars for independence a struggle against externally imposed powers as well--there's the whole Goltz then Bermondt thing with a (Latvian) Baltic German commanding the forces that took Riga at one point. Without giving it a whole lot of thought, I do think it might help focus the project and prevent overlap and duplication to stick to military actions roughly on the territories historically inhabited by the Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians. I'd support including Königsberg in this as well (no strong opinion for or against) as it was a historical center of learning for the Baltic States area, and at least from my perspective, was victimized even more than the Baltic states proper in WWII. PētersV 23:30, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

The most important, did I get it right that we have 4 interested editors at this point to start up the task force?--Termer 02:39, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Probably so; but, in any case: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Baltic states military history task force. Enjoy! Kirill 02:59, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for all the help!--Termer 06:24, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Gheorghe Tătărescu needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Gheorghe Tătărescu; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! Kirill 07:16, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

American Revolution Task Force

Shouldn't there be a task force for the American Revolutionary War? I wouldn't mind starting one if need be.--Bedford 06:24, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

This has come up before, but we never seem to come up with more than two interested people at a time. If there's interest out there, let's hear it! —Kevin Myers 10:04, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
TO ARMS! TO ARMS! :-) TomStar81 (Talk) 18:57, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Not sure how much I could contribute, but I would sure like to see 'stuff' about the 2nd Virginia Militia. I had a couple relatives serve in that unit, but I haven't found anything yet on whether they actually fought or not. wbfergus Talk 19:01, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Looks like 3 so far, so progress has been made. ;-) --Bedford 19:04, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Here you go: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/American Revolutionary War task force. Kirill 02:59, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
He shoots, we score. (Gawd I love this project soooo much... :-) TomStar81 (Talk) 07:10, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
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