Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 86

This Military history WikiProject page is an archive, log collection, or currently inactive page; it is kept primarily for historical interest.

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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NATO task force?

After browsing around this WikiProject, it seems that it might be a good idea to have a task force for NATO. Naturally this would in some sense duplicate a lot of the coverage of task forces devoted to various NATO member states, but I think that NATO has a distinctive enough subject area that an independent task force is merited. After all, NATO is one of the most significant military security organizations of all time. I apologize if this has been discussed before, but I didn't see any related threads. Cool3 (talk) 05:26, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

You have to assemble enough interested editors to start it. Wandalstouring (talk) 08:50, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Considering that we have task forces for most of the important NATO members, I don't see the usefulness of such a new task force. --Eurocopter (talk) 19:21, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Task force would be superflous. We could set up a "military alliance" task force though.--Patton^t/c 19:58, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Admittedly, the task force would duplicate some functionality, but many topics are truly NATO topics, such as the NATO page itself, ISAF, KFOR, IFOR, Able Archer 83, etc., just to name a few. In some respect, the NATO task force would be like the WW2 task force, bringing a broader perspective to related topics than just the task force of any given country. Suffice it to say that if no one else is interested, I won't force the issue though. Cool3 (talk) 04:55, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Task forces are largely demand driven. If enough editors are interesting in participating in this and there's a clear body of articles which they can work on the task force will be viable. Nick-D (talk) 06:55, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I've been doing a lot of work on NATO - main article and Category:Military units and formations of NATO, but don't see the need for a specific TF for it. We've got enough semi inactive task forces as it is. What might be good is a European TF that could cover the uncovered countries, NATO, and WP. Buckshot06(prof) 12:59, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps a broader Cold War task force is needed? The topic covered would most likely have interested editors, and would cover NATO. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 00:01, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I would like to join Support creation.--Patton^t/c 00:03, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

A Cold War TF wouldn't be a bad idea IMO; even if there is only a few people now who would join, that would certainly grow over time. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 05:38, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Are people aware there is a Wikipedia:WikiProject Cold War? Cheers Buckshot06(prof) 15:13, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

But that WikiProject covers non-military aspects of the Cold War, which would fall outside our project scope. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 16:36, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

It also seems to be pretty inactive, in any case. Kirill ^[pf] 18:13, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

(Deindent) It might be even better to have something a bit broader than the Cold War. Our task force coverage ends with World War II, perhaps a task force on modern war? Cool3 (talk) 05:17, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Help please!

I need to find out the date of birth of a British soldier who gained the Military Cross in WWI - is there an official listing somewhere online that might give this? Thanks Jasper33 (talk) 19:05, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Type in his name on the national archives website and it iwll give you other details and why he was awarded it ;-)--Patton^t/c 20:00, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the medal archives give DoBs, and it'll cost you £2 to see his medal card. There is a good guide to researching someone's military records on the site though. EyeSerene^talk 20:05, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help! Jasper33 (talk) 10:55, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

FA cleanup needed

According to Wikipedia:Featured articles/Cleanup listing, in spite of a FAR a year ago, F-4 Phantom II is in dire need of cleanup. Hopefully, editors will get on it right away, or the article should be submitted to WP:FAR for review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:51, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

FYI (because it took me a while to figure it out), this article is in 6 cleanup categories due to several {{As of}} tags, 3 {{fact}} tags, and 1 {{verify source}} tag. The {{As of}} tags are not critical, but the others should be addressed. Maralia (talk) 23:15, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Battle results in Infoboxes

Do we have a guideline about how to use the Result section of a Battle infobox? If not, it strikes me one is needed. What tends to happen and I have seen again and again is...

Someone puts in a one or two word description of the result, e.g. "Draw"
Someone else changes this to another short description e.g. "German tactical victory"
There follows a brief edit war and then a discussion on the talk page as both editors discuss what happened and the significance of the battle in different contexts and timerames
Someone puts in a 'compromise' wording along the lines of "decisive Japanese tactical victory but utter strategic disaster, results in U.S. declaration of war, defeat of Japanese Navy and nuclear bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki"
Someone else complains that this new 'compromise' wording is still POV and is in any case far too long
Someone trims it down to one word again, putting the article back at a); at least, until a different group of editors repeast the same cycle.

Some clear guidelines about the length of the text in the Result section, the context in which it is to be viewed (the objectives of one side? the objectives of the other? the immediate impact? the long-term impact? the success of other battles the same year or the same war? the success of other battles in comparable conditions?), and what to do when these differ, would be welcome. If it already exists please point it out to me!! The Land (talk) 11:45, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

POV? How "decisive victory for X" is POV is beyond me. It may be inaccurate, sure, but not POV.--Patton^t/c 13:27, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Inaccurate, POV, whatever; someone will find it objectionable. The Land (talk) 11:37, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Get rid of it. I am going through just such a wrangle at the present time, concerning the Battle of Hampton Roads, where we seem to be unable to agree on how to evaluate the result in only a few words. For the moment at least, I have thrown up my hands and have deleted the section. The more I think about it, the more I think that this is the correct general solution. Historical reality can often be reduced to soundbites (thanks to Hal Jesperson for the terminology), but just as often cannot. When the result is so clear that a verdict of win/loss/draw can be issued, there is no need for anyone to be advised of it. I think that the material in the infobox should be confined to raw data, and let any interpretation of events be covered in the article. PKKloeppel (talk) 14:33, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

The article is the best place to discuss complex results. You can use a wikilink within the article and point the reader with a few words from the infobox to the discussion that absolutely can only be based on the assessments in reliable sources. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:41, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely keep it. While it can be problematic, and might serve better as a link to the Aftermath section in the article where it is discussed more in depth, it is very useful if one wishes just to gain a quick look at the battle. If I just heard someone talking about, say, the Battle of Moscow, and go to its article, I want to be able to look over and see, oh, it was fought in 1941, between the Soviets and Germans, near Moscow, these people had an important role in it, a whole lot of people died, and that it was a Soviet strategic victory. I don't want to have to go searching through the Table of Contents for the Aftermath section, and then read it till I get to the part about who won. Though it can be problematic, it is very useful to the casual reader who we wish to impress and keep coming back to Wikipedia. – Joe N utter 17:59, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

It should be noted that this is an optional field in the infobox, and can be left out if the results are either unclear or disputed. Nick-D (talk) 06:30, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

So - am I to understand that we don't have a guideline, and no-one is interested in producing one? The Land (talk) 13:59, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Surely the result should be sourced to reliable sources? Skinny87 (talk) 14:13, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Certainly it should always be referenced to reliable sources, but if it is really disputed (i.e. not disputed by clearly disruptive editing) then just say disputed in the infobox and link to a footnote or section of the text that discusses the outcome.--Jackyd101 (talk) 16:12, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Hey, I like that idea. I might suggest that at the Dunkirk page. Skinny87 (talk) 16:15, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that sounds like a good idea for me, for the ones where a long explanation is needed or the outcome is disputed in sources. – Joe N utter 17:29, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Battle of Dunkirk

Copied from my talk page – Roger Davies ^talk 12:59, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Battle of Dunkirk ^talk

There has recently been some conjecture as to how to describe the victory by the German forces. Can you or other members of the project group please assist in the discussion on the talk page. I intend to call for a consensus decision in order to establish the infobox statement regarding the outcome of the battle. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 12:53, 2 March 2009 (UTC).

The same user who has brought this up on the Dunkirk page has also been creating similar, usually disruptive, conversations on other articles, including Operation Market Garden, Battle of Crete and Battle of Britain. They never bring in sources to back up their claims, and usually state that infobox results, usually defined through talkpage consensus, are examples of 'British bias' or somesuch. Some real help would be nice in these articles. Skinny87 (talk) 13:47, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, yes, I can recall we had simular trouble with this editor a few months back with adding uncited material to Charles Upham. Following a very lengthy discusion requesting a reference be provided to support his claim rather than personal views, he finally came up with one. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 03:01, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Please also see here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history#Battle_results_in_Infoboxes The Land (talk) 14:05, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

New Wikipedia book tool

In case you haven't noticed, a new feature has recently been rolled out which allows editors to create PDF or hard copy books of multiple Wikipedia articles. It seems to be very well suited to this Wikiproject given that many of the articles within our scope cover related topics. Instructions for the book feature are at: Help:Books. As part of playing around with this feature I've created a very, very simple sample book at User:Nick-D/Books/Allied cruiser killers of World War II which suggests that there's considerable scope to use this feature to generate useful reference works. Nick-D (talk) 06:21, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

That looks like a fun feature...but I must say, I absolutely love the topic you chose for that book. :D —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 07:54, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

The pdf and book generation feature was recently turned on. (The sidebar feature is not yet available for those who don't use monobook) I've created a test book here - Wikipedia:Books/End of World War II. Raul654 (talk) 18:22, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

This could be a rather satisfying endpoint for the the WWI Centenary Drive, I think—a print[ed|able] encyclopedia about WWI. Kirill ^[pf] 01:43, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

GT query

Nick got me thinking about what I might call the GT I am aiming for...so what would you guys think of a GT consisting of:

This isn't counting the Scharnhorst's, as their status as battlecruisers is highly disputed, and the same for the Dunkerque's (the article is Dunkerque-class battleship!).

The question, of course, is what to call the topic and what the "anchor" of the topic will be.

The alternative is making a "cruiser-killer" article and making that, Alaska class, and Design 1047 into a FT, which I would not be opposed to either. This option would also stop The Land from yelling at me for calling the Alaska's "battlecruisers". :D Thoughts? —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 07:51, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

It would be wrong to create a "WWII battlecruiser" topic for, well, all the obvious reasons ;-) It is very difficult to think of a satisfactory title. "Large cruisers, small battleships, and newly built battlecrusers of WWII" is probably accurate but is a bit unwieldy! Damn the navies of the 1940s for not adopting a consistent classification system :P The Land (talk) 12:11, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't aim low, you can earn much more kudos with "warship types of WWII". That as a GT or even FT would really impress people. Wandalstouring (talk) 17:04, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Lol @ The Land. :) Well, maybe I'll just aim for the cruiser-killer topic, as that is more defined. Maybe if I add Stalingrad-class battlecruiser to that list I will make a topic with the anchor being List of large cruisers, as technically they are all large cruisers with their armor values (the Alaska's had the most out of all of them o_O), and that would definitely exclude Scharnhorstand Dunkerque.

(@ Wandal) - O_O that would not be easy, but someday. One down, but many more than you think have to be done... :/ —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 17:33, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Why not just "Cruiser", and trying to explain it there? KISS everyone ;) --MoRsE (talk) 01:07, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

All cruisers of WWII would be very hard too; there were a lot. :) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 05:20, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Cruiser is in need of a lot of work. The Land (talk) 14:19, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Japanese battleship Haruna now open

The A-Class review for Japanese battleship Haruna is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 05:27, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

No milhiststub?

Don't we have a stub for the WikiProject? I cant find any mention of it or its template in the Project Main Page. AshLin (talk) 08:06, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

See {{Mil-hist-stub}}. :) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 08:12, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanx. AshLin (talk) 08:15, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

BTW, added mention of stubs to the templates/categories page of the Wikiproject.AshLin (talk) 19:24, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Handling time and dates of military events

I have been working on a way of indicating chronologies in articles on military battles. This also allows the various locations of the events of the chronology to be seen in google maps (as well as other mapping applications. For example, take a look at Battle of Corydon "engagements" infobox at the end of the article. The sites of each of these events may be seen by installing a toolbar if you use Firefox, but next year this functionality is supposed to be native in most browsers. If you'd like to try it out, further background may be found here. I'd be interested in people's opinions. -J JMesserly (talk) 03:26, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Which toolbar? "After installing Firefox (free), next add Firefox's free Operator toolbar." (more) --PBS (talk) 18:45, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

It's a clever use of microformats, but the box itself is cryptic to the point of being unreadable; and, at least for longer engagements, a chronology would duplicate much of the material in the article. Are there any methods by which we could either (a) tag text in the article itself with the needed markup, or (b) generate markup in a way that's accessible to the browser but not directly visible to the reader? Kirill ^[pf] 03:58, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

No sweat, just putting display:none as a style on the navbox and it is out of sight, but all the microformat functionality is there. We could do css styles like the coord guys are doing. A milhist class could default have the display off in monobook, but folks could turn these navboxes on if they were heavy into details. Here is the version with the navbox hidden[1], but will leave the live one visible for now. This is a variation of an idea Para had about how coord's could be stuck at the end of the article. The main problem is that in non CSS versions, the more hidden coords you put in, the more unreadable the non css version becomes (for instance, Falklands War has Goose Green, Bomb Alley, and Mount Kent indicated, and there are a heck of a lot of other notable locations to map for that conflict. But the non CSS text becomes tortured so using footnotes avoids this. In Falklands war, an editor might wonder what the heck the location footnotes were doing in there because they appear to be self evident facts. Anyway, this is the event version of the same idea. Certainly, my presentation in the Corydon engagements list is clumsy and unpolished. I have seen some order of battle presentations that were far more interesting and less cluttered than mine. In this exercise, I was trying to see if I could convince myself whether a contributor might want to present the details on the skirmishes to those readers interested in in depth details. For this particular raid, the trick was getting across the Ohio before the federals could block them with gunboats or pin them with artillery fire (General Hobson was in pursuit of this force). So a lot of attention was paid to the details of how the first steamship that was captured. By some curious coincidence, the steamship captured just happened to be one with a longtime business relationship with one of John Morgan's senior commanders (also his brother in law).

Admittedly, some of these facts may not belong in WP. There are tons of such minute details that don't belong in an encyclopedic treatment, but they are pertinent to a military historian going for greater depth. This raises the issue of how these details get tied together- how they interoperate with other sites that do go into the details. You don't know unless everyone can tell time, and indicate place in some universal way. We got the place part figured out. What about time? -J JMesserly (talk) 04:43, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I have looked at your Battle of Corydon "engagements" infobox at the end of the article. I think the information in it belongs in a table or bullet-pointed list in the article. You must have especially good eye-sight to find the "engagements" infobox convenient to read.--Toddy1 (talk) 05:32, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. This example demonstrates just one of many approaches where the notes are recorded alongside the pertinent text using group footnotes. But certainly they could be placed in a separate bullet list buried at the article end or even completely hidden, they could use a less diminutive font size etc etc.- those sorts of stylistic presentations are all up to contributors. Such stylist variation is not what is being showcased here. Rather it is the microformated data using template {{event}}. As you scan for {{event|, you will find the template text is extremely verbose for this example, but more typical usage the contributor might simply specify the date/time and geo coordinates and move on. -J JMesserly (talk) 06:33, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Relying on (the possibility of) browsers catching up with the idea, seems to me to be putting cart before horse. A simple timeline with appropriate references to map marked with "A", "B" etc would work. GraemeLeggett (talk) 07:33, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I think everyone favors maps. They are irreplaceable. But I'm confused about what you are proposing. You seem to present this as an either or proposition. If so, why need this be so? Contributors can create a simple timeline as Toddy described above using this mechanism. Are you saying that specifying the time and coordinates of engagements should be prohibited in order to encourage people to create more SVG maps? It's not speculative as you suggest. You can view these locations now, and are being specified in countless milhist articles by employing the {{coord}} template to record the sites of engagements. You just can't do it a lot because it clutters the article. This solves that. You've seen these globes in the upper right hand corner of articles right? You click them and you can see the locations. That's now, not tomorrow. Well, several of these globes would be listed for each event in a Toddy list. For instance, all the locations and times of major engagements of the first Iraq war could be listed in a navbox list like the one I had for Battle of Corydon in a bulleted list. Click on the globes, see the locations. No clutter because the navbox is default collapsed, or by choice it is default invisible except to milhist buffs who turn it on in their monobook css. What's wrong with that? -J JMesserly (talk) 17:35, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Here is an alternate format[2] reflecting the following suggestions:

uses normal size fonts
uses a bulletted list
uses coordinates, but not inline where they would clutter the text- instead in a collapsed (potentially hidden via CSS) list at the end of the article.

The earlier version tagged the text inline. I was not at all happy with this approach, because it cluttered the wikitext, like what you get with heavily cited articles. It was frequently unclear what was in the body of the article, and what was a reference. Also, the citations for the facts listed could not themselves be footnoted, because they were already in a ref section. The event template encapsulates all the needed microformat data. The coordinates, if present are emitted via the standard {{coord}}. The rest of the data is accessible from Operator as described in the instructions on how to view the extra data. Of course, the coord stuff works without any browser add ons, just click the globes to see the location of the wreck of the Alice Dean, or the site of the battle (barricades and cannon are visible from satellite view). I especially recommend launching the metadata with google earth. If you bring it down to 200 feet elevation, you get a clear idea of the terrain. This is essential for understanding many battles, and not readily understandable from inline maps.

We have spend a great deal of attention on place but there are some issues with specification of time. Regarding the format of the time parameter for {{event}}, I chose natural language rather than numeric syntax. Compatibility with the older numeric format for birth dates would have required syntax that is not especially intelligible . For instance, with timezone indicated (important for Pacific theater WWII), with {{event}} template, you would simply put 1:00PM HST, 7 December 1941 in the first parameter. Alternatively, current numeric templates like {{start date}} force the user to figure out the hour difference from Greenwich mean time, which is not trivial in many locations when you consider daylight savings time. The old syntax for the completion of the second raid on Pearl Harbor would be {{start date|1941|12|7|1300||df=yes|-10:00}} (Note the double pipe arcanery) and the output would be: 13:00, 7 December 1941 (-10:00). It's error prone and the output is not especially what every editor wants. {{event}} allows the contributor to format the time and date any way they prefer. There was a discussion on this issue at Manual of style, and all commenters except one (a former author of the old template) agreed that this sort of template syntax that is needlessly complex should not be used.

The implications of this is that yes, this would mean a shift from standard operating procedures using previous date templates. Kumioko has raised the perfectly valid point on my talk page that we already do have a lot of date templates, and that perhaps we should try and fix the old ones rather than invent a new syntax. My response is that the current scheme is needlessly complex especially as we move into specifying time of day. So why keep sending good money after bad?

So the other thing to consider is whether it would be ok with folks to use the free text way of specifying dates and to allow the gradual upgrade of the old numeric syntax to the new syntax in the military articles? My presumption is that no one would especially care so long as the date looked the same in the article, and the template did everything the old one did.-J JMesserly (talk) 23:41, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Pageview stats

After a recent request on my talk page, I added WP:MILHIST and all task forces listed on Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Task forces to the list of projects to compile monthly pageview stats for. The data is the same used by http://stats.grok.se/en/ but the program is different, and includes the aggregate views from all redirects to each page. The full list of pages is:

Full list of pages

The pages will be updated monthly with new data. The edits aren't marked as bot edits, so they will show up in watchlists. The list of projects needs to be manually updated, so if any new task forces are created and you want me to add them to the list, let me know. (Note that due to an error, Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Military science task force/Popular pages was skipped this month, this page will be created next month.) I can also get provide the full data for any project covered by the bot if requested, though I normally don't keep it for much longer than a week after the list is generated. If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Thanks! Mr.Z-man 06:13, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

That's excellent - thank you for this. Nick-D (talk) 07:30, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I've added a link to the relevant pageview list to each task force's to-do template. Kirill ^[pf] 12:53, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Peer review for Battle of Balaclava now open

The peer review for Battle of Balaclava is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill ^[pf] 13:01, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Partner peer review for Dead Head Fred now open

The peer review for Dead Head Fred, an article within the scope of the Video games WikiProject, is now open. The Video games WikiProject is currently partnering with our project to share peer reviews, so all editors are cordially invited to participate, and any input there would be very appreciated! Thanks! — Levi van Tine (t – c) 14:17, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Xa Loi Pagoda raids now open

The A-Class review for Xa Loi Pagoda raids is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill ^[pf] 02:47, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Question about Army-Navy ‘E’ Award page started

I started a page about Army-Navy ‘E’ Awards which I have only scratched the surface about. I noticed about 20 Wiki articles about companies mentioned the award but there was no article to tell the readers what this award was about. I am working on some images to add to this article. Is the article within the scope of WikiProject Military history? How I wish someome knew where the penant was for the place where I work. I have a photo of when it was received of people standing outside our building but nobody knows where the penant is. I'm looking for one of those... Anyway would appreciate any comments on the talk page for the article it's no where close for a perr review yet. Mfields1 (talk) 02:53, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, topics having to do with wartime production, the home front, and so forth are all in scope. Kirill ^[pf] 02:58, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Amagi class battlecruiser now open

The A-Class review for Amagi class battlecruiser is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill ^[pf] 04:28, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Victoria Cross recipients

I have been working through articles about VC recipients. I noticed that most of them had a rather cumbersome and overladen 'standard' text. I set about removing this, but was told about concerns with insufficient assertion of notability with my text. Having given it some thought, I would now simplify this to "...the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy awarded to British and Commonwealth forces." Please see example here.

Even simpler would be "...the Victoria Cross, the highest military award given to British and Commonwealth forces." Please see example here

Ohconfucius (talk) 06:51, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I believe the most ubiquitous form at A/FA-Class level now (Bryce Abraham can confirm) is "...the Victoria Cross, the highest decoration for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to a member of the British and Commonwealth forces." I think this is pretty reasonable and it appears most reviewers agree. Taking too much out risks minimising the importance of the award. To compare with your first example, it helps to have "that can be awarded" because just saying "awarded" makes it sound a little too routine. In your second example, aside from anything else, the word "given" isn't really appropriate; "awarded" is better. Where I wouldn't mind compromising on the wording I quoted if others think it's too long would be to lose "a member of the", which perhaps doesn't add that much. This would give us a final version of "...the Victoria Cross, the highest decoration for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces." What's everyone else think? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:54, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Having had the pleasure of working on some of these FA-bound articles, I believe that introductory phrase has indeed become pretty much standard. It is slightly ponderous, but then the VC is as prestigious an award as it gets and I think merits a full exposition. Having said that, I think Ian's alternative version is good, though I'd perhaps replace 'forces' at the end with 'military personnel' or something similar. EyeSerene^talk 08:50, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

We could add Military decoration for gallantry --Jim Sweeney (talk) 09:13, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Yep, Ian's example is pretty much the explaination I typically implement in the articles on Victoria Cross recipients I work on. The whole point about the introductory phrase (as EyeSerene describes it) is to explain to the average reader exactly what the VC is; not everyone who visits Wikipedia is going to know. It can also be helpful in addressing the issue of notability when raised. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 09:31, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The distinction about being "in the face of the enemy" is important. The George Cross is arguably in some the senses the equal of the VC, but is awarded when the enemy is not physically present (see the most recent recipient Matthew Croucher for how tightly the distinction is made). David Underdown (talk) 11:51, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm with Ian and David here, you need to make sure that in the face of the enemy is included. I do think that the "blurb" is important in asserting notability as well as introducing the subject to the casual reader. By removing it, you are removing that link with what makes that individual important and notable. Regards, Woody (talk) 21:39, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The newsletter image

Not very important... I believe there was some kind of discussion about the use of the Bugle picture in the newsletter banner but I fail to understand the rationale behind using it. Could someone please guide me to such a discussion if there has been any? -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 12:52, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/Workshop and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 82#Our newsletter: a bit of fun!. Kirill ^[pf] 13:16, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Whats wrong with the logo? I think it looks quite neat. Skinny87 (talk) 14:35, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Kirill. I like it Skinny especially that I now got to know that it adds some fun to this serious project. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 14:52, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Allegiance section in Infobox

User:Wallie is altering the Allegiance section in Infoboxes, often changing their allegiance from who they were fighting for to the nation they were born in. I've reverted him several times, but I'd like some consensus for this. What does the Allegiance field mean in the Infobox, and what should be in there? See [diff] for an example. Skinny87 (talk) 14:06, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Military Person says it means "the country or other power the person served". -- Nudve (talk) 14:29, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

So, in the Diff provided, Allegiance would be to the British Commonwealth and not New Zealand, then? Skinny87 (talk) 14:33, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I would say so. It seems there was a discussion on the template talk page, where this issue was raised, and Kirill arrived at that conclusion. -- Nudve (talk) 14:39, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I certainly agree with the general point (and I've also told Wallie this before now). In the specific example provided, since his commission was in the RAF, I'd give the allegiance as United Kingdom myself, rather than bringing the Commonwealth into it. David Underdown (talk) 14:41, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Wallie has done this to a number of articles, including several that deal with lists of Allied commanders/flying aces, and this is concerning me; he doesn't seem to respond well to people discussing this matter and others with him. I've left him a note on his talkpage, so we can see how he reacts. Skinny87 (talk) 14:50, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

(od) I'll quote from my talkpage what Walie's response to my question was: 'Complete rubbish. A person's allegiance is to their country, unless they are a traitor. This English bias you are all trying to push is just too much. For example, Bernard Montgomery is shown as having allegiance to the United Kingdom. This is true. I find it also disgusting, as he had South African soldiers in his command and had no allegiance whatsoever to them. It confirms everything I have always believed about the English. Wallie (talk) 15:50, 4 March 2009 (UTC)'. I think that says it all. Skinny87 (talk) 15:52, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Re: User:Wallie is altering the Allegiance section in Infoboxes, often changing their allegiance from who they were fighting for to the nation they were born in. I've reverted him several times, but I'd like some consensus for this. What does the Allegiance field mean in the Infobox, and what should be in there? See [diff] for an example. Skinny87 (talk) 14:06, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

My mother was from Gisborne and knew Kain very well, in fact grew up with him. I rang her up. She said that it was laughable what you are saying. His allegiance was 100 percent with New Zealand. He didn't even like the English, and thought they were snobs. This totally biased English rubbish is facually incorrect. It insults everyone else who fought in the war. People like Skinny87 disgust me. Wallie (talk) 16:04, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Wallie, the fact is when you join the armed forces of a country you swear an oath of allegiance. Kain was commissioned into the RAF, not the RNZAF so his oath would have been to the British Monarch (same person as that of New Zealand of course, but legally separate). Now to an extent I agree with you taht Give his allegiance as Commonwealth is rather meaningless, the United Kingdom accuratley describes his legal position at the time. David Underdown (talk) 16:23, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

So why are the English people allowed to put their allegiance down as being "United Kingdom" and the "Johhny Foreigner" has to go down as "British Commonwealth"? I find this is purely arrogance or worse and nothing else. This is vicious, below the belt, and demeans and subordinates other people, and is intended to. Cobber Kain would be disgusted with this put down. It is only because he died that you can say this about him. Wallie (talk) 16:48, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I know it's meaning in this context is correct, but WP has to deal with the Least Common Denominator of language knowledge. We should be able to replace one word with at least 14 to do the same job of explanation. :) It's a template - just change the word to something less ambiguous than "allegiance", like "Country for whom the person was fighting for even if they wern't born there".- BillCJ (talk) 16:28, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The country he was fighting for was France. So I will change it to that. Thanks. Wallie (talk) 17:04, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

That doesn't seem correct - it was the UK, surely? Heck, he flew for the RAF after all. Skinny87 (talk) 17:08, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Wallie, I've left a note on your talk page. Please don't make any further changes without discussing them on the article talk-pages first, and let's try to tone down the assumptions that other editors are acting from malicious motives. EyeSerene^talk 17:12, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Of course people are acting from malicious motives. There are just more of you. You can steer the articles whichever way you want. Wallie (talk) 19:13, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Stop with the chronic assumtions of bad faith and accusations POV pushing please. He was in the RAF, that's not a POV that's a fact.--Patton^t/c 19:17, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

He's talked himself into a break. EyeSerene^talk 19:24, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Nassau class battleship now open

The A-Class review for Nassau class battleship is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 21:27, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Coordinator elections

The coordinator elections, to appoint the coordinators for the April–October term, are due to start this weekend. They will run on the following schedule:

Nomination period: 00:01 Sat 7 March - 23:59 Fri 13 March
Voting period: 00:01 Sat 14 March - 23:59 Sat 29 March.

The appropriate pages will go up on Friday 6 March, here.

If you are interested in running, and we can always use new coordinators, you might like to start thinking about what to put in your nomination statement and so forth. The last elections, September 2008, are here to give you an idea about what to expect.

There's been discussion in the /Coordinators talk page – here and here – which will be of interest.

The idea this time is to appoint all nominees, up to a maximum of fifteen people, who garner twenty votes or more because the system runs so much better with more instead of fewer coordinators. There will also be two referenda: one formalising the coordinators' role in coopting/removing coordinators; and the other about the implementation of C-class. – Roger Davies ^talk 05:59, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The election pages are all set up, so let's get those nominations rolling! (The actual voting doesn't start until Saturday 14 March.) Remember, it's self-nomination only but you can always ask encourage people to stand with messages on their talk pages. Good luck everyone, — Roger Davies ^talk 04:56, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Front/campaign articles

All of our "theatre" article names are formatted "Middle Eastern theatre of World War I" or "Pacific theatre of World War II" etc, though our front/campaign articles are mostly stuff like "Balkans Campaign (World War I)" and "Eastern Front (World War II). I propose moving them to names like "Eastern Front of World War II", because that's the most unambigious common name for them. Most books and websites say "of X" when the meaning isn't plainly obvious, so I prefer it to a disambiguator. I also suggest we remove the capital letters from "Campaign" and "Front" articles, "front" etc is more correct. What do you think? This would affect lots of articles.--Patton^t/c 17:00, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

It make sense to me provided the titles are tidy. I'd double check whether Front or Campaign should be decapitalised however: when we write Battle of Waterloo for example, the word Battle should be capitalised as it is part of a proper noun and Campaign and Front may be the same.--Jackyd101 (talk) 18:28, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes actualyl I hadn't thought of that. I had better check whether they are proper nouns or not.--Patton^t/c 18:33, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, I see no compelling reason for change and always find the "of" formula a bit clunky. An advantage of retaining the existing format – Eastern Front (World War I) – may be that it's slightly easier to pipe out the disambiguator in links within an article, ie [[Eastern Front (World War I)|]] than to type out [[Eastern Front (World War I)|Eastern Front]]. – Roger Davies ^talk 18:51, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't really have an opinion one way or the other, but would like to point out that if articles are moved, Roger's pipe trick would still work with redirects left behind. — Bellhalla (talk) 22:45, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for SM UB-43 now open

The A-Class review for SM UB-43 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! --Eurocopter (talk) 19:33, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposing a task force: War of 1812

May God Bless You Always!

I am trying to work on this article's need for citations and reference. My goal is to improve this article and then move on to the Battle of Lundy's Lane. I have jsut finished Donald Graves' book The Battle of Lundy's Lane on the Niagara in 1814. This book gives a good coverage of the events and battle surrounding Lundy's Lane and then goes into depth for the Battle of Lundy's Lane. This is a good book.

I need a lot of help. This is an important project, but I need others to help me. The more people who work on this project and the more likely that our edits will be good. There are a number of War of 1812 Articles that are either lack citations and references or does not have enough. Other War of 1812 Articles need to be edited and the qauilty improved. The War of 1812 is probably the most neglected of the United States major wars and this should be changed.

I would like to create a War of 1812 Taskforce of people dedicated to improving and protecting this neglected conflict. I would be willing to dedicate much of my Wikipedia-time to working on these articles. I would like to have each article be Grade A or better. The biggest problem I have is my lack of wiki knowledge. I know a lot about history abd will read more, but I do not know the HTML or wiki stuff to create such a taskforce. I would be willing to head it up, but I do not know how to set it up.

In conclusion I have three questions

What do you think of my prososal?
Is there anyone that can help me set it up
Are people interested in working on this taskforce?

(Steve (talk) 22:01, 5 March 2009 (UTC))

On a procedural note: if the task force is approved, the coordinators will set it up for you; there's no need for you to worry about the infrastructure yourself. Kirill ^[pf] 05:14, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I wonder if this is such an important topic deserving a separate task force (as the War of 1812 is currently covered by the US Task Force). Before you submit a proposal for a new task force, you should already know if there are any potential participants/interested users. Once these two are clarified (notability and participation), me or other coordinators could help you setting-up the task force. --Eurocopter (talk) 22:12, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

War of 1812 fits nicely under Napoleonic. At least that's where I've been placing them in addition to US. --Brad (talk) 22:16, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Um...it was my understanding that Napoleonic covered Europe during those time, as Napoleon had no appreciable effect on the U.S...

Well, of course the War is covered by the U.S. and British TF's, but I don't think this is just another random minor war. And we've got a Revolutionary War TF... Maybe a task force would be in order here, especially because it appears that there is going to be a very active contributor there.

(@ Steve) - This page may be of use to you. :) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 22:27, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I don't know. I've always interpreted "Napoleonic era" (as opposed to "Napoleonic Wars") to refer to the entire period; and certainly there's an argument to be made that the War of 1812 was caused, in part, by the conflicts taking place in Europe. Kirill ^[pf] 05:14, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

One contributor does not a task force make. A work group perhaps, but not a task force. I believe the number is 6 users wanting to be a part of a task force and something like 100 articles within its scope make a task force viable, although I may have mixed the article number with a project proposal. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:33, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The bottom line for me is that there are a lot of War of 1812 articles that need citations and references and then the articles need to be added to and/or cleaned up. I am concerned about making the edits alone. A group of people working towards the same articles helps to ensure accuracy and makes the searching of source simpler. It is always good to bounce ideas off of others. (Steve (talk) 04:11, 6 March 2009 (UTC))

You could create a work group. Those are ad-hoc groups developed by users to assist with a push of certain task. Just something to think about. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the numbers are fairly reasonable. I'm certain that there are more than a hundred articles on the topic, though, so the real question is whether there are enough interested editors to make setting a task force worthwhile. Kirill ^[pf] 05:21, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Building an active pool of participants is the key. As Tom suggests, it might be best to start out as a working group under the umbrella of one of the task-forces - we'd certainly be happy to have you over at the Napoleonic era task force. If participation takes off, it would be easy enough to split your working group off into a task-force of its own, and if not, you won't have lost anything and you'll still have easy access to the milhist infrastructure for any work you wish to do. We've recently had a suggestion for a Napoleonic Fiction working group over there; it's still something of a work in progress, but perhaps you could take a look at that to see if you think something similar might be useful to you? EyeSerene^talk 17:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

notability help on an individual article

Hi- I could use some help with an article for Elmer Thomas Hill. I don't know enough about military history or notability guidelines on Wikipedia to respond with 100% accuracy regarding the notability of this article, and I'm hoping at least a few of you can help. I'm not looking for agreement- I'm looking for expert opinion, positive or negative. Thanks tedder (talk) 17:41, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

If you can find any references at all that back up tthe information in the article then it is notable. I've searched the web and havn't found any though. Perhaps there are some offline.--Patton^t/c 18:17, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Even if there are references, what specifically makes it notable? It's an article about someone with an E6 and a purple heart who was an aide to Patton- none of which confer notability. tedder (talk) 18:20, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Good question - I don't believe it quite meets "significant, interesting, or unusual enough to deserve attention or to be recorded." Verifiability is probably the more fundamental issue though; unless we can verify the material by reference to published works, the notability issue is moot because it can't be established anyway. I couldn't see anything online either, so AfD might be the best place to go. EyeSerene^talk 18:31, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Notability is a badly named guideline which says that articles which can't be referenced need to be deleted. It says nothing about subjects being interesting, significant or anything else, otherwise we'd only have about 100,000 articles and not 2.77 million.--Patton^t/c 18:36, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

In a nutshell If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article.--Patton^t/c 18:40, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The "interesting, significant etc" is quoted from WP:BIO - my point was that, even if it can be referenced (which at the moment looks doubtful), the article topic may not meet biographical notability guidelines. On a related point, do we have a Milhist bio notability guide anywhere? I thought we did, but can't find one :P EyeSerene^talk 18:48, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

There's WP:MILMOS#NOTE Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:06, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

(out-dent) Having had a quick look at the article, I'm not too sure the subject meets the notability guidelines. His only "claim to fame", so to speak, was that he "was a pre-war time aide and friend to General George Patton" (article talk), which just isn't enough really. The article appears to have been created by Hill's grandson, information of which probably came from family records, etc, and is probably more of a memorial than anything. I believe AfD is probably the best option in this case if no further notability for a Wikipedia article is evident. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 01:17, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree; there's no evidence of any notability. The minor claim to notability on the talk page is the only thing stopping me from speedy deleting the article, and I've just nominated it for deletion. Editors who wish to comment on this nomination should do so at: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Elmer Thomas Hill. Nick-D (talk) 10:25, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

The name of the physical document that evidences a military commission

I moved this from Commissioning Scroll to Commission Warrant, which I now agree was an error. Should it go straight back or have a different title? Your input welcomed at Talk:Commission warrant Petecarney (talk) 11:11, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Notability question

I'm working on giving Operation Colossus, the first British airborne operation, and I'm looking at the case of Lieutenant Anthony Deane-Drummond, the only member of X Troop to escape after it was captured and make his way back to England; there he joined 1st Airborne Division and became a Major in charge of the division's communications. He served during Operation Market Garden and was captured, escaping for a second time. Post-war he rose to the rank of Major-General and served as Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff (Operations), and receieved the MC, DSO and C.B. (not sure what that is). Does all that (I'm thinking primarily the rise to Major-General and serving as Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff) make him notable enough for his own article? I'm sure I can dredge up enough sources on him to actually write the article if he is notable. Skinny87 (talk) 19:47, 7 March 2009 (UTC) Addendum: It appears he also commanded No. 22 Special Air Service Regiment during the 1950s. Skinny87 (talk) 19:48, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd say he's certainly notable: he was a general in a position of authority post-war, won a number of awards during the war and also played a prominent part in Operation Colossus. Maybe these things don't make him automatically notable on their own, but when combined with sufficient secondary sources to develop a proper biography they should make him qualify under Notability guidelines.--Jackyd101 (talk) 20:01, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Notable. British Gliding champion. CO of 22nd SAS Regiment. Assistant Commandant RMA Sandhurst. Oldest living former member of the SAS. Has entry in Who's Who and was featured on This is Your Life. Wrote three books: Return Ticket (1951), Riot Control (1975) and autobiography Arrows of Fortune (1971). Papers are in the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King's College, London. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:35, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

NB: CB is the Companion in The Most Honourable Order of the Bath, a British military honour for brigadiers and major generals. Ranks just below a knighthood. See Category:Companions of the Order of the Bath Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:42, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, looks notable enough. In fact, I have the Who's Who link around here somewhere, I'll cobble something together just now. Shimgray | talk | 21:48, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

...and done. Anthony Deane-Drummond. Enjoy! Shimgray | talk | 22:14, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

...and assessed - needs infobox and a bit more detail but looks well on the way to B-Class with your structure and attention to sourcing. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:59, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

As a reminder, the requirements for sourcing at WP:BIO are what determines notability, and not the person's achievements per-se. Nick-D (talk) 22:22, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Peer review for Australian light destroyer project now open

The peer review for Australian light destroyer project is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Nick-D (talk) 23:09, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Unit infoboxes

I have seen some infoboxes for units use the units arm insignia as the image in the infobox Ex. 1, but some articles use the patch/flag in the infobox Ex. 2. Which one is better? I mean, which should be used, when both can be found. TARTARUS ^talk 00:42, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Both? It's possible to place two images side-by-side if they're fairly narrow. In any case, the infobox has a number of additional image fields (e.g. the various insignia ones), so there shouldn't be a problem including the secondary image somewhere else in the infobox. Kirill ^[pf] 01:47, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your info, I checked the infobox template, and can see where it is to be used. TARTARUS ^talk 02:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, one more question. It says Aircraft Flown, but does that mean all aircraft ever flown in the squadron/wing/unit, or just those currently being flown by that squadron/wing/unit? TARTARUS ^talk 22:35, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Quick prod. TARTARUS ^talk 23:08, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

It's up to the editors of the individual article to decide which option is more meaningful for the reader, I think. Obviously, units no longer in existence are going to have a somewhat different approach to this than currently active ones. Kirill ^[pf] 23:14, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Dynamic plotting of military events using kml template

Coordinates displayed inline in text are pretty jarring, but they can be hidden and we can still get their benefits. I'd be interested in people's feedback on article USS Queen of the West (1854)[3]. In the gallery section, click either Live Search or Google Maps for a plot of all the gallery events depicted for this gunboat. This also allows these applications to create inbound links to wikipedia content. For instance, the way Google earth currently has a Wikipedia layer, or in the foreseeable future, a GPS reciever that tells its user what historical events happened nearby their present location. The same thing can be done for non gallery presentation of events with or wihout coordinate display- as in Battle of corydon engagements navbox that we discussed earlier. The {{kml}} template does the work of the interoperability of the map interface. The prior edit of Queen of the West[4] shows the interface with the coordinates on. The cost of hiding the coordinates is that users lose functionality of WikiMiniAtlas gadget and the GeoHack page to interface to a wider number of mapping applications. I can see arguments both ways whether coordinate display should be on or off. My assumption is the {{event}} template used in both these templates should by default leave them off. Comments? -J JMesserly (talk) 16:56, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

A proposal to hide coordinates in the way you describe, depriving users of functionality, and hiding data from them, should be discussed at WT:GEO; and in any case such a detrimental change should be avoided.. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 17:26, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I proposed both ways. Up to contributors to decide. Your vote appears to be: the default option should be not hidden. In any case, since you have reverted the demo article to not hidden, I direct those who are interested in the more uncluttered look to this version without coordinates displayed [5]. -J JMesserly (talk) 17:57, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

~~Could the markup use something like a span with "display:hidden" to leave the coordinates in the page but not show them to the reader directly? Kirill ^[pf] 18:05, 7 March 2009 (UTC)~~

I think part of the problem is simply the cluttered layout in the gallery; I suspect that we could get something more structured that would allow the coordinates to remain without having them simply trailing off the ends of the descriptions. Kirill ^[pf] 18:08, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

From the "it's clutter" POV, I would ask: "Does the average reader actually need or want to know exact coordinates? 35.134°N 90.075°W is useful valuable to them only indirectly- through the map applications. So why do we make them read it? The philosophy of some factions in the microformat community is that when microformats are not visible, then no one maintains them. That is not as true in our case, since editors see the wikitext, and the functionality breaks when someone messes the data up. Besides, there is no hard rule that microformat data must be displayed, so we have a free hand. But if we go with default display coordinates, one option is to put them at the beginning and trim the text. Corydon uses the coordinates first option. Galleries are tough. By structure, you mean separate cells, right? When I structure it more, I wind up with a lot more whitespace. When I make the pictures smaller, the caption becomes overcrowded, or if I put it to the side, more whitespace. Are there examples of the "more structured display" of a gallery with coordinates that you favor? -J JMesserly (talk) 18:30, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Concerns about hidden metadata, while valid, are secondary; my points, which you seem to have ignored, were about hiding useful data from our users and removing functionality; and the need to discuss such a radical change with regard to coordinates, at WT:GEO. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:40, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

It's a neat idea, especially, in articles without maps. (I really like maps for campaigns, to give an idea of the ground.) I think Kirill's right that it's just a matter of cracking the layout. — Roger Davies ^talk 18:15, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

(undent) Ok, how about this minimalist version? [6] -J JMesserly (talk) 01:48, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

It may be easier if you prototype the examples in your sandbox instead of in a live article. You could have several variants for comparison. — Roger Davies ^talk 17:21, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I heavily use sandboxes for many purposes, but in this case I only see disadvantages to what you are proposing. There is nothing sacred about a "live" article, especially one that is still stub class. The last so called prototype is the current version. Actually, they are all acceptable from different points of view. There is no efficiency gained by sticking them in user space sandboxes that could be deleted. These versions are all comparable from links to history as I have provided, and in point of fact waste less space than redundantly storing all data for the article when only slight differences need be stored. The histories survive and can be referenced years later for people interested in different ways of treating coordinates. -J JMesserly (talk)

Alex Raymond

Hi. At WP:COMICS we've worked up the Alex Raymond article and submitted it to GA for review. Since Raymond served during WWII, I didn't know if you guys wanted to run your eyes over the article and see if we've missed anything from your end. Hiding T 12:44, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure someone can, but we won't tag it as within our scope—he isn't notable solely for being a soldier. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 85#Scope clarification for more info.--Patton^t/c 16:59, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I've had a look and made some minor edits, but it looks fine to me. Although I agree that the article is outside our scope and shouldn't be tagged as part of this project, I'd encourge such articles to be brough here for comment to help ensure that military aspects of a person's life are properly represented.--Jackyd101 (talk) 18:41, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, it's that kind of stuff we need more than it being tagged within your scope. I'll copy you in as necessary, and thank you very much. Hiding T 16:51, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Trincomalee

who was c-in-c in ceylon in 1841? Kittybrewster ☎ 12:42, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Major-General Sir Colin Campbell was governor - does that help? EyeSerene^talk 20:46, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

78th Regiment

how do i get a list of officers in 78th Regiment in 1841? Kittybrewster ☎ 11:52, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

http://books.google.com/books?id=UnynibYnWPAC&pg=PT233&vq=78th should do the trick. If not go to http://icanhide.com and put the link in the box at the bottom. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 12:09, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Rifle Brigade

Anyone know if the WWI regimental diaries for 9/Rifle Brigade have been published? Would these be available in Kew or the Green Jackets museum? Kernel Saunters (talk) 16:09, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Volunteering at a Regimental Museum m'self, and having seen our archives, I'd say the Greenjacket's museum is your best bet - they'll probably have them, or at the very least point you in the right direction! Skinny87 (talk) 16:18, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

They don't seem to be amongst the War Diaries that TNA have put online (see search page), but it may be worth you trying a few more variations in search terms, and there's usually a fee for downloads from DocumentsOnline, unless you're actually at Kew. The originals are open for inspection at Kew however, catalogued as WO 95/1901. David Underdown (talk) 17:30, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, much appreciated Kernel Saunters (talk) 21:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Vote on article name for 2008 South Ossetia war (aka August War, Five-Day War, Georgia-Russia Conflict, Russia-Georgia War ...)

The name of that article has been disputed almost from the second it was created. Following lengthy (but unfortunately unproductive) discussions on the talk page, we are currently holding a vote to settle the issue and stop it from being a constant source of distraction. Since there was an incident of vote canvassing, comments and votes by neutral outside editors are especially welcome. --Xeeron (talk) 19:18, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Which country comes first in infobox

Is there a guideline which says which belligerent should come first (be on the left side) in the infobox? Is it true that the attacker (aggressor) should come first? Offliner (talk) 00:31, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Not that I'm aware of, but that is often the way it is presented. — Roger Davies ^talk 06:10, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Anyone familiar with French WWI era chemical weapons and tear gas?

Some help is needed here to clarify something. Thanks. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 04:09, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

RfC for Siege of Leningrad

There is an ongoing dispute on the talk page of Siege of Leningrad concerning the article's content and structure. Any input there is greatly appreciated! Cam ^(Chat) 04:19, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Operation Cockade

I am looking for help in making Operation Cockade look like, or similar to, Operation Tractable. Any help at all is appreciated. TARTARUS ^talk 23:08, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure, I think I have some sources on it. Hit me up on my talkpage and we'll discuss it in more detail. Skinny87 (talk) 10:23, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Henry Wells (general) now open

The A-Class review for Henry Wells (general) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Abraham, B.S. (talk) 09:45, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Fort Ticonderoga now open

The A-Class review for Fort Ticonderoga is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Magic♪piano 14:40, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Heated naming dispute

There's a rather heated naming dispute going on at Talk:M10 Wolverine. I'd like wider input from the community as currently it's just me and somebody else and neither of us are going to give.--Patton^t/c 20:23, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Request for comment

RFC raised on British Military Intelligence Systems in NI related to single sourcing, source quality and how the source is used. Grateful for some eyes on.

ALR (talk) 09:33, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Anyone? Appreciate that sourcing quality is a complex issue, but could do with some informed eyes on. At the moment the article just regurgitates a book. ALR (talk) 10:41, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Picture Peer Review

Do you accept WP:PPR in your MILHIST Peer Review section? I am currently wondering about transcluding Wikipedia:Picture peer review/Victory Monument and Wikipedia:Picture peer review/Soldiers and Sailors. I am beginning to go through my pics and get feedback at PPR and may have more forthcoming.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 18:51, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the convention has been to allow them using the same method as we use for other external reviews (see the "Transcluding a review from another location" portion of the PR instructions). The only difference will be that you'll need to place a {{WPMILHIST}} tag on the talk page of the image in order to have the proper markup appear. Kirill ^[pf] 07:25, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Why aren't they appearing in open tasks?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 16:09, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Because the list hadn't been updated yet. ;-) Kirill ^[pf] 01:18, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Infobox Military Person Template

After a protracted and comprehensive discussion on the use of "allegiance" in the biography template (see: discussion "string", I would like to request a revision to the template to incorporate the following changes: Create a Nationality and Military service listing in replacement of the current (optional) Allegiance category. The following examples show the changes:

F/O Edgar James "Cobber" Kain Nationality: New Zealand (country of birth) Military service: Royal Air Force (Great Britain)

P/O William Meade Lindsley "Billy" Fiske III Nationality: United States (country of birth) Military service: Royal Air Force (Great Britain)

FWiW, simply adding a Nationality listing to the present MiltHis Infobox does not work, you have to actually rewrite the entire template. Bzuk (talk) 17:23, 7 March 2009 (UTC).

I can understand the rationale for this but wonder whether it is going to increase not decrease info box disputes? Nationality is a fairly recent concept in military history terms and in earlier times it was often vague. I can see scope here for great bickering. There are perennial disputes about whether the Scots, Welsh, Irish and English ~~are~~ should be lumped together as British; at what point Indians became Pakistani; whether Newfoundlanders were Canadian in WWI etc etc).

The term "Military service" is also potentially misleading because it implies conscription.

Thoughts? — Roger Davies ^talk 17:42, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I think I agree with Roger on this, there comes a point where we have to remember that the infobox is not stand alone, it is next to thousands of bytes of info, we can't summerise /all/ of it in there. For some stuff people will just have to read the article. --Narson ~ Talk • 17:51, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

One option might be to do something like what WP:SHIPS does; the ship template allows for multiple "blocks", each representing service in a particular nation's military. The advantage there is that the name of the military itself is not labeled, avoiding arguments over what the correct label for it is. I think changing the template to do this would be feasible in technical terms, but we'd have to do some prototyping. Kirill ^[pf] 17:59, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I don't see any reason to change the infoboxes. I see it as pretty straight forward; listing the nation(s) the person in question served with. As Roger states, changing the infoboxes in such a way could potentially invite more disputes, and this one only really came about by one editor not understanding exactly what should be placed in this section. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 23:04, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree, the proposed system is overcomplicated. If its such a problem then lets just change the wording from Alliegance to something else thats less likely to be misunderstood.--Jackyd101 (talk) 23:24, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Jaclyd. The allegiance should be changed to something else, as it is too complicated, and misnamed. I just think the template needs to be changed. The allegiance as it stands appears to associated with a service/branch rather than an individual servicemen. Wallie (talk) 15:49, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

In this context, "Allegiance" means "the country/power the person was fighting for". I can't think of an alternative but concise way of putting it. All suggestions welcomed :) — Roger Davies ^talk 16:14, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

So who is Billy Fiske fighting for? What country? What power? The allegiance says United States of America. That surely indicates the problem with the word allegiance. Wallie (talk) 20:19, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

His should state "United Kingdom". I do not believe there is any problem with the use of "allegiance", the problem is a select few's interpretation of it. I'm with Roger here; there isn't really any alternative and allegiance is the most suited word in this context. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 21:48, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Roger and Abraham; thinking about it, this does seem to have the potential to cause even more arguments - remaining as it is seems the best option. Skinny87 (talk) 21:56, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Skinny. So what is it? You agreed with Roger and Abraham. Then you disagreed with them. Wallie (talk) 07:48, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I havr to admit, Wallie, after looking at it more closely, changing it does seem like it would create more problems that it would solve. I'd still support changing it to an optional part of the infobox, however. Skinny87 (talk) 08:08, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Skinny. So do you think that Fiske should have his allegiance changed to United Kingdom or to remain as the United States of America? Wallie (talk) 08:25, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Per the template guidelines, it should say "United Kingdom". — Roger Davies ^talk 08:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

In the case of Fiske, Wallie, it does seem like his allegiance (if in the infobox) should be United Kingdom, because that's who he was fighting for at the time of his death. He certainly wasn't fighting for the United States by joining the RAF and fighting in the Battle of Britain. I think the same for Kain as well; he was fighting for the United Kingdom - I think it was Abraham B.S. that gave the excellent explanation that many in the colonies during the conflict still saw the UK/England as 'the mother country' and their allegiance was to it first, and their birthplace second? Skinny87 (talk) 10:42, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

"The mother country".... For God's sakes, what an imperialistic point of view. It was the 1940s, not the 1790s! The American Revolution was successfully completed in 1783. Long before the 1940s, American's no longer thought of the UK as "the mother country". Taking this point of view I gather you would suggest that since Polish airmen also fought in British fighters they should be classified as "British" also. How about all the American who fought in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade? Should they be listed as "Spanish"? During the early days of WW II, Americans enlisted in British or Canadian units either for the simple adventure of fighting or because they recognized that Fascism needed to be stopped. Not because they were "fighting for the mother country." As long as they were American citizens, their allegiance was still for the United States. Otherwise, you will soon claim that the Irish Brigade in the Army of the Potomac during the American Civil War was made up of "British troops". Thomas R. Fasulo (talk) 11:56, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

No, the point is precisely that allegiance is not necessarily a matter of citizenship. You virtually always have to swear some sort of oath when you join a country's armed forces, so you do owe that country allegiance even if you are not a citizen. So whether or not the troops of the Irish Brigade held US citizenship, their fighting ws done in the Union Army, so thier allegiance was to the USA. On the point of the mother country, throughout the Second World War, wherever in the British commonwealth someone came for, strictly speaking their nationality was British Subject, or possibly British protected person. Citizenship of individual countries within the Commonwealth was (with the exception of Ireland, who later left the Commonwealth) not set up until the late 1940s. David Underdown (talk) 12:06, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

According to the guidelines, this has nothing to do with any oath. The guidelines mention the "country or power the person is fighting for". Incidentally the oath for the RAF says absolutely nothing about any country whatsoever. It does mention the Crown, superiors and other entities. On the point of allegiance, as in the oath, it would be interesting if Fiske swore an oath of allegiance to the Crown. If he did, then he would immediately lose his American citizenship!! For this reason, Americans did not have to swear this oath. As Fiske was pretending to be a Canadian, he may well have. Also, he would have then fought as a Canadian, as the King was also the King of Canada. I am quite happy if this matter is resolved, as long as it consistent. I still don't like the term "allegiance" as it is being applied here. Wallie (talk) 12:35, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

And why is that described as Allegiance? precisely because it's well-defined, and because of such things as the oaths. Yes in British (and Commonwealth) traditions, allegiance is normally actually sworn to the Crown, but remember there is not one Crown but many. All worn by the same person, but legally separate. If you're joining the British Armed Forces, you're swearing to the Crown of the United Kingdom, not Canada, Australia etc. David Underdown (talk) 14:04, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

(od) This is veering alarmingly off-topic. All we are trying to do here is to state which flag the person fought under, nothing more, nothing less. I'm not wedded to using "Allegiance" to describe that (even though it is the usual military parlance) if we can come up with something better and I repeat my request for a simple, preferably one word, replacement. Ideas anyone? — Roger Davies ^talk 14:27, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps "enlistment"? I think Wallie et al have a point; although "allegiance" is used in its secondary sense (ie adherence to a cause rather than loyalty to a nationality), it is potentially confusing. EyeSerene^talk 14:59, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Yes, they have a good point and "allegiance" is horribly ambiguous, which is why I'm trying to get the discussion moving in the direction of replacement text :) Incidentally, won't "Enlistment" sound a bit odd in anything other than a modern history context? — Roger Davies ^talk 15:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Enlistment seems less obvious too me (and strictly do officers enlist?). David Underdown (talk) 15:11, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Country of Service perhaps? Skinny87 (talk) 15:18, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

The problem here is that many wars didn't involve countries (especially in the classical period, City States and confederations etc) ... — Roger Davies ^talk 15:54, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Place of Service? :) Skinny87 (talk) 16:19, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, Collins thesaurus has "adherence, constancy, devotion, duty, faithfulness, fealty, fidelity, homage, loyalty, obedience, obligation, troth", and the Oxford thesaurus has "loyalty, obedience, fidelity, faithfulness, duty, devotion, constancy, adherence, homage, fealty"... none of which seem suitable (though "Troth pledged:" has a certain ring to it). I honestly don't think we're going to get a better descriptor than allegiance, so would something like Military allegiance be sufficiently unambiguous? EyeSerene^talk 19:16, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I seriously don't think we are going to be able to find a suitable replacement for allegiance, but EyeSerene's suggestion seems the best bet. "Military allegiance" potentially allows for less confusion, and is sufficiently clear in wording as well as context. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 02:50, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

"Affiliation"? It's not perfect but at least it doesn't come with connotations of fealty. — Roger Davies ^talk 06:18, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Heh, sorry Roger, but that connotes religion for me (says the athiest)...! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:21, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

← Maybe part of the problem is that we're unnecessarily limiting ourselves to isolated terms, when we could be using context within the infobox itself? For example, we could change the label to something like "In service to", and then move it below the "Service dates" field, resulting in something like this:

Service dates: 1939–41
In service to: United Kingdom
Branch: RAF

This is not, admittedly, the smoothest wording; but it gets the point across without implying anything more than a military service relationship. Kirill ^[pf] 06:41, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

That could also work though the "In service to" is, as you say, a bit clunky. — Roger Davies ^talk 07:18, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Served for: ? Have to admit Allegiance still works fine for me... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:21, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Now we've reverted right back to original question. Here is the revision:

F/O Edgar James "Cobber" Kain

Nationality (country of birth): New Zealand
Service dates: 1936–40
Military service: Great Britain
Branch: RAF

P/O William Meade Lindsley "Billy" Fiske III

Nationality (country of birth): United States
Service dates: 23 March 1940 - 17 August 1940
Military service: Great Britain
Branch: RAF

FWiW Bzuk (talk) 19:37, 10 March 2009 (UTC).

Well, not quite; the latest variants above don't include a new "Nationality" field. Do we actually need to introduce it, given that we already have "Place of birth" just above? The only time I'd see a need for a distinction would be in cases of, say, citizenship in a county other than that of birth; but that wouldn't work with a "Nationality" field explicitly tied to that country. Perhaps we should just add an optional "Citizenship" field for such cases and leave it at that? Kirill ^[pf] 07:29, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree, "Military service" is probably enough, though I'm not convinced about the wording yet. As Roger's noted, we'd need to come up with something that works for all time periods. For example, Epaminondas's allegiance is given as Thebes, which is logical; the concept of 'military service' as we use it wouldn't apply. If we can't use 'allegiance', 'in service to' might be the next best alternative. EyeSerene^talk 09:50, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest keeping as many fields optional as possible, therby particluarly tricky elements can be omitted rather than forcing them into the infobox - eg (Mad) Mike Hoare. Short qualifiers can always be added as refnotes or even in the infobox itself eg that a person though born in X was a Y citizen. Nationality may be an issue with dual nationality but thats best explained in the article. GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:55, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the bigger question which hasn't been put yet is how widespread is the opposition to "allegiance"? It's been in the info box for yonks and this is the first grumble I've heard about it. — Roger Davies ^talk 13:41, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

That's a very good question... :P EyeSerene^talk 13:48, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

And perhaps, even more to the point, in the few instances where this is controversial, why not simply remove the "allegiance" line altogether? This really does seem to be the exceptional tail wagging a pack of dogs :) — Roger Davies ^talk 13:54, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Allegiance is a clear, specific and relevent aspect of a military biog. Who was paying his wages is what I want to know. Nationality is actually a difficult thing to define. How many biogs state whether a person has dual citizenship or the dates when they took up a new citizenship? Lets leave this as is Kernel Saunters (talk) 14:22, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

To answer a few questions that have been posed in the last add-ons to the "string": this query resulted from a sole editor bent on a "crusade" to assign allegiance as a factor of nationality. The questionable crusade ended ingloriously with a dispute across forums, talk pages and home pages that ended with the inevitable "block" of the original editor, more for inflammatory or incendiary rebuttals than the actual challenge that had been made as to interpretation of the terminology in the infobox. I agree that there are few instances of the issue being contentious, and the two examples given are taken from the disputes that had begun this conflab. A sop to all concerned was that the original contention of misinterpretation of the "allegiance" note could be reviewed. First of all, the discourse seemed best suited to this forum, so I posted a question directly. As to the arguments ensuing, I note that the template entry for allegiance is optional, so the entire discussion may revolve around a moot point. FWiW, I also concur that there does not seem to be a consensus emerging other than "leave it as is." Bzuk (talk) 14:51, 11 March 2009 (UTC).

It does seem that we've generated much sound and fury... However, on the plus side the issue has been seriously considered, and that's no bad thing. Given the circumstances and the lack of agreement on any alternative, I'll default to supporting the status quo too. EyeSerene^talk 15:56, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Aye. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 16:05, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

And I thought you were a nice guy, Bzuk. From what you say, you cast doubts on my motives. Do you really have to attack me personally in this way?

Is it always going to be the case that if someone goes aginst the status quo, they will be blocked? You say that the allegiance is optional. And yet, when I tried to remove it in one case, you quickly reverted me. You also come to the conclusion "leave it as it is", and talk about "a sop". This is again reinforcing the status quo. Wallie (talk) 19:06, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

As an aside... please can we get RAF rank abbreviations correct as per RAF usage... RAF officer ranks??? As a retired RAF Officer myself it makes my toes curl to see F/O instead of Fg Off. Sorry to be pedantic, but it would make for better continuity if the same (and correct) abbreviations are used throughout. --KizzyB (talk) 19:15, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

KizzyB. I think you will find that most people here will not be even aware of the official abbreviations. I would suggest that you just make them correct, if you see wrong ones. Wallie (talk) 20:33, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

It might be better to avoid abbreviations altogether and spell out the ranks. Saves the bad abbreviation errors on your end, and makes it easier on the uninitiated to understand what is going on. I'm more interested in ships than planes, and would't have a clue what a F/O or a Fg Off would be...imagine what it's like for a drive-by reader with no military knowlege or background. -- saberwyn 00:58, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Consensus does appear to be on the side of leaving as it is, if I'm reading everything correctly. Perhaps to assuage Wallie, the template could be altered to allow the 'Place of service' as an option as well as 'Allegiance'? Skinny87 (talk) 19:27, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Lets not let accuracy get in the way of inertia. :)

Whilst I do agree with KizzyB on this one I think the practicality is difficult. The abbreviations referred to are in use, I'm not sure if they were ever correct but they do seem to be widely used in reference to historical biography.

In terms of style the first use should be in full, then abbreviation afterwards, and I would prefer the correct abbreviation, certainly in reference to reasonably contemporary history.

ALR (talk) 12:13, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

OK. What about this one? Paterson Clarence Hughes. He has an allegiance of Australia, and yet flew in the RAF. Wallie (talk) 20:48, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Since he served in the RAAF as well, his alliegence should be Australia and United Kingdom.--Jackyd101 (talk) 21:10, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Sounds sensible Jacky. Wallie, there's nothing wrong with going against the status quo - things can benefit from a shake-up sometimes - but on Wikipedia there's ways and then there's ways ;) You've certainly sparked an interesting and useful debate here, and as I said above that's no bad thing. Even if we do end up keeping the status quo, you've highlighted that our use of "allegiance" may unintentionally offend some readers, and that's something we're now aware we need to watch out for and handle with sensitivity should complaints arise. EyeSerene^talk 21:55, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I did focus on content initially. The problem is that others who disagree start on personal attacks. If the person doubts the intention of the attacker, which is natural, then other join in on the personal attacks. Wallie (talk) 06:50, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Could that be possibly fixed by changing "allegiance" to "service for" in the infobox (or something along those lines)? Cam ^(Chat) 22:31, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

If it is changed to "service for" then, IMHO, it kind of makes the "branch" option redundant, and appears to be poorly worded variant of "allegiance". Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 05:59, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

OK. I was never happy with the term "allegiance". To me it is like the Norman Tebitt Cricket Test. It is also full of legalities and technicalities. I was initially upset about Cobber Kain. The thing is that New Zealand quickly sent pilots to the RAF, and did not insist they had an RNZAF unit. The country wanted to help Britain and avoid red tape. Pilots from other countries like Poland, Australia and Canada - these countries insisted that they retained their Polish Air Force, RAAF, RCAF, etc status. To me, pliots from Australia and New Zealand were the same. Both were flying for their own countries. They even had their country's name on their uniform. People also read a lot into allegiance. Wallie (talk) 06:45, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

"Allegiance: British Empire (New Zealand)" covers that, don't you think? It is important to remember that notions of nationality have changed a lot over the last seventy years. For instance, Australians didn't get separate passports until the 1950s: before that they were issued with British ones. — Roger Davies ^talk 06:59, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

If they were commissioned into the RAAF or RNZAF etc, yes, they would have an indication of that on their uniforms, even if flying in RAF units. The main problem seems to be over those people who held actual RAF commissions. I'mnot aware that there woul dhave been any differentiation then. They were RAF officers pure and simple (well, setting aside the complications of those who were technically Auxiliary Air Force or Volunteer Reserve, but British commissions anyway). The Poles were slightly different, I think they did retain some uniform distinctions, but all the pilots were commisioned into the RAFVR, and had to swear the usual oath of allegiance. In their case though, they would all have flown for Poland beforehand, so the indication of their service to the UK should be in addition to their Polish service. Yes it is technical, but that's th ewhole point, it can be objectively defined. David Underdown (talk) 09:42, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

There are post-war examples too Mark Evans, initally served in the British Army, now a senior commander in the ADF. Actually born in Malaya - not at all clear what his actual nationality status is, but his allegiance at different times in his life can be objectively defined. David Underdown (talk) 10:30, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

What was his allegiance when he was in the United Nations force? Wallie (talk) 19:21, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

United Nations? — Roger Davies ^talk 19:24, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

As long as he was commissioned in the Australian Army then it would have been Aussi. The UN doesn't have a standing military capability, it draws on the military capability of contributor countries who retain their own national command and control.

ALR (talk) 21:07, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Gavin unresolved

There was a difference of opinion about the M113 Gavin. The name should be in the article, to my mind. It is similar to the M10 Wolverine discussion. Wallie (talk) 09:38, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

The Gavin is no more than a proposed name. It would be a bit like us renaming the F-111 article 'Aardvark' before that name was made offical by the USAF. Only if it's official - or in very wide popular use, which it isn't - should we include it. - Buckshot06

Sheesh! No one is talking about renaming the article. A lot of articles have various nicknames for various vehicles. For example, the DC3 was called the Dakota DC3. This is also not in Wikipedia, but doesn't mean that it isn't a valid name. Wallie (talk) 12:39, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Featured article review

I have nominated Battle of Warsaw (1920) for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Novickas (talk) 16:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Some articles with USS named ships that were never in the navy.

There are a few Army civil war gunboat articles that mistakenly are named with the USS prefix. For example USS Switzerland (1854) was always operated by the Union Army. There isn't any standard prefix that I know of for these gunboats, like USAT for army transports. The history.navy.mil site refers to these with the "U.S. ram" prefix, eg: U.S. ram Switzerland. To be accurate/(pedantic?), they should be renamed, but alternate prefixes don't look that great to me, eg: US ram Switzerland (1854).

Leave them be (don't move)?
US ram prefix is fine?
Some other prefix?

-J JMesserly (talk) 21:08, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

We need to determine what prefix, if any, is historically accurate. There isn't any reason to not use USS if that is how the ship was originally described. Rmhermen (talk) 21:58, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

This would probably be best discussed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships talk page - they're the experts on ship naming conventions. Nick-D (talk) 23:05, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Nick. I took it there. Maybe it is no big deal. I took a look at some of the historical documents, and they did use the term United States Steamer, but in the contemporaneous documents I didn't run across USS prefix for any of the ones I know were always army. Of course the civil war sites do it all the time, but they also get a lot of facts woefully wrong too. -J JMesserly (talk) 23:37, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

To be historically accurate is probably more trouble than it is worth; until some time around the Civil War (I am not sure of just when), the designation "US ship" would be applied only to a ship — that is, a vessel that was ship rigged. For others you would have "US brig" or whatever. During or after the ACW, the prefix "USS" came to be universal.

By the way, USS Switzerland (sic) was indeed a part of the US Navy, DANFS to the contrary notwithstanding. The whole ram fleet was transferred to the Navy in early November 1862. See Hearn, Ellet's brigade, pp. 77–78. PKKloeppel (talk) 02:14, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Peer review for Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907 now open

The peer review for Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill ^[pf] 02:03, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash now open

The featured article candidacy for 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill ^[pf] 02:03, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Capture of Fort Ticonderoga now open

The featured article candidacy for Capture of Fort Ticonderoga is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill ^[pf] 02:24, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Partner peer review for Planescape: Torment now open

The peer review for Planescape: Torment, an article within the scope of the Video games WikiProject, is now open. The Video games WikiProject is currently partnering with our project to share peer reviews, so all editors are cordially invited to participate, and any input there would be very appreciated! Thanks! — Levi van Tine (t – c) 07:41, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Peer review for Battle of Barnet now open

The peer review for Battle of Barnet is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill ^[pf] 17:45, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Wolfgang Lüth now open

The A-Class review for Wolfgang Lüth is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill ^[pf] 17:45, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Display assesment date on the WPMILHIST bannner

I recently read through this discussion, which notes that sometimes ratings aren't updated as ana rticle is improved. Wouldn't it be a good idea to add the assesment date to the project banner? We could use ~~~~~ (17:45, 14 March 2009 (UTC)) or just subtitue {{CURRENTYEAR}} etc. What do you think?--Patton^t/c 17:45, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it's not possible to do this automatically; and I don't think that requiring editors changing assessments to update a date field manually is going to produce sufficiently consistent results to be useful to us. Kirill ^[pf] 17:49, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

List of United States Naval Academy alumni FLC help

Hello all. The above list, which is under the scope of MILHIST, is at FLC. Unfortunately, the nomination has stalled. If any of you could review or help with the existing issues (mainly images), it would be much appreciated. Regards, Dabomb87 (talk) 01:59, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes please. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:02, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for First Battle of Târgu Frumos now open

The A-Class review for First Battle of Târgu Frumos is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Eurocopter (talk) 15:05, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for No. 410 Squadron RCAF now open

The A-Class review for No. 410 Squadron RCAF is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! TARTARUS ^talk 19:57, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Roles of technology in modern warfare

What do people think of this new article? Is it an essay, or not, and should it be deleted? -Buckshot06

I'm leaning more for deletion; I don't see any notability or need for such an article. One thing for sure, though, it does have a POV slant and it looks more like an essay to me. What do others think? Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 21:18, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd say WP:PROD it, and if anyone contests it, take it over to AfD. It's definitely too much of an essay and doesn't really have a defined, encyclopedic scope. Parsecboy (talk) 23:08, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to Prod it. Would someone please Prod-2 it? Cheers Buckshot06

A-Class review for Moro River Campaign now open

The A-Class review for Moro River Campaign is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 05:52, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Looking for a DYK hook

I recently created the article Take Ichi convoy and would like it to appear on Wikipedia's front page in the 'Did you know...' section. The only problem is that I can't think of a catchy hook! Can anyone think of anything? Nick-D (talk) 07:17, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment.

Is there any reason why this article needs a full stop in its title? Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:09, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Not that I can see - typo error when made? Skinny87 (talk) 21:16, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

That's not correct; gotta be a typo. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:44, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Any guidelines for reading out Military History articles?

Hi,

I recently got interested in a WP:SPOKEN. There is a great shortage of spoken articles in WP and I'm sure that is the case for MILHIST too.

Does anyone have any guidelines, cautions, tales or experiences of reading MILHIST articles that I need to know about?

AshLin (talk) 11:03, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Unit names can be tricky. For example, 40 Commando is pronounced "forty commando" but 45 Commando is always called "four-five commando". Plus, there are generally foreign language placenames, surnames, equipment names and titles to watch out for. — Roger Davies ^talk 11:10, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Noted. Unit names would need to be checked for pronunciation before recording from the relevant army/service/country. Anything else, anybody? AshLin (talk) 13:18, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and military times like 06:00 and 09:44 are "oh-six-hundred" but "oh-nine-forty-four". Plus, lieutenant is pronounced "loo-tenant" if an American rank but "lef-tenant" if British/Commonwealth one (this applies to composite ranks, lieutenant-colonel, flight lieutenant, lieutenant general, lieutenant-commander). Tell me to stop if I'm teaching you to suck eggs :) — Roger Davies ^talk 13:34, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I like sucking eggs so don't stop. This stuff will help formulate a reading guideline for WP:MILHIST. I come from the Commonwealth military heritage, but my experience has mostly been within my country. So as they say in Hindi, Aane they (meaning let 'er roll!).AshLin (talk) 16:40, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

The letters in variant designations of U.S. equipment are pronounced using the NATO phonetic alphabet ("M240B" becomes "M240 Bravo" etc).--Patton^t/c 14:28, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

It might be a bad idea to narrate Oliver Cromwell's campaigns with a heavy Texas accent. For spelling foreign names you might contact people familiar with these languages. All in all, I'm quite supportive. Long ago we toyed with the idea of creating podcasts. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:33, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

[Chuckle] I think it's a great idea too. Need any voice talent, AshLin? — Roger Davies ^talk 14:41, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of podcasts, try out the Military History podcast. I found it on [www.spokenword.org]. Yes, I have a deep Indian voice and I definitely lack talents (you meant gold talents, didn't you) so I just used my own voice to test-record an article at:

. AshLin (talk) 16:40, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Well all of us cannot be as lucky as

but I thought some spoken article is better than none keeping in mind that there are only 773 spoken articles which are just say 8.8% of 2459 FAs and 6520 GAs, and miniscule percentage of all articles. So be BOLD and blather forth. Seriously, Im looking forward to having a good time. And yes, a complete collection of MILHIST articles, say, all the Peninsular war articles will make a great podcast series. AshLin (talk) 16:40, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

You could recruit readers worldwide that send you the required material and you create podcasts from this. In the age of skype many people have one or another possibility to transfer sounds over the net. You might even enhace it and make presentations with sound and images, possibly even simple animations. I can help you with a German accent and to a limited degree with any presentations. Wandalstouring (talk) 10:23, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Danke schon. Mit Roger und sie, Ich habe zwei volunteers already. Let's see what is worth recording first. In the meantime, have a look at this script on Ladakh. The article text (not wikitext) needs to be processed to something like this script. You may find it interesting to read it aloud so as to get the knack. It would also be a good idea to listen to as many spoken articles as you can to get a good hold about things. (Know the territory). I have given a recap of my experiences here. This may give you a an idea of what's involved in making a spoken article.

Since FAs can entail more than half an hour of reading, perhaps we should start with smaller articles. What's your take on this? (Apologies for the forgotten fragments of Schoolboy German!) AshLin (talk) 12:15, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Drei volunteers, actually... Heh, I think the Indian accent'll be fine, as will the German, we should have a mixture in any case (and not just male either). This bears thinking about - of course we can all just "blather forth" but reckon it's worth going about this in a more organised manner. Appreciate what you're saying about the length but my initial take is to go for articles a) baselined at least GA or preferably A/FA (as they should be less volatile than lower-classed and evolving articles) and b) rated at least mid-importance. Anyway, as far as voice talent goes, happy to be directly involved... I've got what they call an 'ABC newsreader' voice - good enough for my local community radio station anyway and, who knows, perhaps I can bribe my wife who presents with me... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:38, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I suggest Hue chemical attacks. It's a small A-class article and it's possible to give the different chapters to different readers. Wandalstouring (talk) 12:54, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Hue chemical attacks seems okay. I would like to ponder some more about multiple speakers for a short article at the moment, because a podcast listener barely gets used to one voice and then another voice comes on which may not be appreciated. Lets take small steps at a time. Collaboration is more complex than single-speaker. Perhaps we could each select a short article first, then prepare a script first, check it out with each other. Then record, check that out too. Then upload. Learn a bit more meanwhile. So if you choose Hue chemical attacks, I would like to try out (decide slightly later) ~~Gurkha~~. Is this okay? We can try larger articles once we iron out initial problems. Try out mixed collaborations later. Then we can go to FA/GA/popular articles as Ian suggested or maybe a theme of articles such as a particular campaign or facet. AshLin (talk) 13:19, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Chemical warfare FAR

Does anyone else want to work on it? YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 02:58, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I can help a bit. Wandalstouring (talk) 09:55, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Keith Johnson (cricket administrator) now open

The A-Class review for Keith Johnson (cricket administrator) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Nick-D (talk) 09:42, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Acting Lt-Cmdr (SL) - (UK)

What does this mean please? Kittybrewster ☎ 11:36, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I believe it means that the person is a Sub-Lieutenant who has been temporarily promoted to Lieutenant-Commander. At the end of hostilities they would go back to the lower rank or would be explicitly promoted to that rank. Where have you seen it? Regards, Woody (talk) 11:53, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

It may depends on the time period you're discussing?

ALR (talk) 12:04, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Navy List. He was a Lt. Stayed as acting lt-cmdr 4 years. then retired 1984. Kittybrewster ☎ 12:16, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Probably Supplementary List in that case. SLs were automatic to Lt and then by selection to Lt Cdr. The alternative would be GL, General list, which was automatic to Lt Cdr and then by selection from there on.

ALR (talk) 12:39, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks ALR, learn something new everyday. I thought it would be a bit excessive to be temporarily promoted two ranks. Regards, Woody (talk) 15:09, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

When I had sub-unit command I had to learn all about all three services :) Had a Lt and Flt Lt working for me at officer level, WOs from all three services, Flt Sgts, CPOs and SSgts then mainly RAF below that. Report writing was a complete headache.

ALR (talk) 16:16, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Category notices for decorations and awards

Hi all.

I've just replied to someone who emailed us via OTRS asking why our "article" on the recipients of a particular gallantry award was incomplete - it seems they had interpreted the category page as being intended as an article listing all the recipients, and was wanting us to add someone to it.

This is not the first time I've had to do this - over the past three years, I think I've dealt with emails from five or six people who've got this impression, and strangely it's almost always to do with military decorations. Looking at the category pages, we also have a lot of cases of people trying to add relatives (usually) to the "article" by editing it directly.

On a couple of cases, I've added a headnote to the article to try and explain this, eg:

This is a list of people with Wikipedia articles who have been recipients of the United States military decoration, the Purple Heart medal, for being wounded in combat. It is not intended to be an exhaustive listing of past recipients.

Some have since changed into a much vaguer statement:

This category is for recipients of the Legion of Merit, a military decoration of the United States armed forces which is awarded for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements.

So, my thought. Would it be worth coming up with some kind of standardised template we can add to the tops of such categories, nicely formatted and so forth, which manages to explain clearly and concisely that this is just an index of Wikipedia biographies of people who've received X, rather than a comprehensive list, and please not to add more? It'd also give us a nice prominent point to link to the article on the award itself...

Thoughts? Shimgray | talk | 19:52, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I've often thought along the same lines: a lot of biographical categories seem to have this problem and I think the solution is some form of the blurb mentioned above. I'd provide a link to Wikipedia:Categorization some where in there though.--Jackyd101 (talk) 20:12, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Concur. We'd soon be swamped if we tried to list everyone with a medal, and a little explanation might go a long way. It's not always clear that a category listing is nothing more than an auto-generated article index. EyeSerene^talk 20:47, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Obsolete

At Talk:USS Connecticut (BB-18) some noise has been made concerning the use of the word obsolete to describe predreadnoughts. Nothing serious has happened, but if this turns into a major discussion concerning the use of obsolete it could affect descriptive practices for battleships constructed around the time of HMS Dreadnought. Additionally, to ensure that things stay civil, extra eyes would be appreciated. This message is being left at both MILHIST and SHIPS, so look for both projects to weigh in on the matter. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:12, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Are inline coordinates appropriate for an A class article?

What I guess I ran up against in recent articles using coordinates is a question for all military history articles. Is the display of the numeric values of the coordinates ever part of an A class military history article? We don't make readers read footnotes inline, so why would we do this with coordinates? I asked earlier, "Does the average reader actually need or want to know exact coordinates?" For typical readers, isn't information like 44°06′43″N 87°54′47″W / 44.112°N 87.913°W / 44.112; -87.913 only relevant indirectly, such as through the map applications? So other than the title coordinate for an article in the upper right corner, why would we make visitors read these? What are the acceptable contexts for inline display of numeric coordinates?

In Battle of Corydon and USS Queen of the West (1854), I deliberately selected obscure articles for the purpose of stability of the demonstration. Admittedly, these are not the first articles one would prioritize for raising to A class. But what if some of the battles of Gettysburg needed a dynamic map feature? Are these really entirely replaceable by hand made maps? I think not- just do a 200 foot flyover in Google Earth of the Gettysburg battle site, or the Battle of Buffington Island, and you will see things you never understood from hand drawn terrain maps. If these are desirable, there are dozens and dozens of coordinates of notable actions for Gettysburg. But do we want them littering these articles? Some in the microformats community take a hard line on this, and say that any coordinate emitted in microformats must be displayed to the user. Others take a less religious stance on the question, accepting that there are many instances (eg in the case of ISO dates) that the user need not be see the actual data that is being emitted. We can do proper microformats and keep much of it hidden while reaping the benefits.

The question is, how much is too much. What guidance do we offer? Some of the not necessarily mutually exclusive options are:

Place coordinates inline, next to text they refer to, but use ref to bury them in a footnotes section. As an optional addition clutter removal measure, place them in a reference group and stick that in a collapsed Navbox. (see Battle of Corydon engagements navbox) [7] (Scan wikitext for ref group="✗", and note display of special footnotes designating engagements eg ✗1, ✗2 and so on.)
Dynamic maps are available but the list of coordinates are made completely invisible by hiding the navbox, [8]. (Potentially the navbox is displayable for Milhist junkies by setting CSS options on one's monobook page, as for coordinates? ) (Note that navbox is invisible, but Map all coordinates option works in section external links).
Avoid cluttering the wikitext with inline refs for the coordinates and instead place them in a bulleted list.[9] (Advantage: ref group="✗"'s now no longer clutter the body wikitext, bulleted lists may now cite their facts.).
Add the coordinates in table items, for example in a gallery. [10] (see gallery section) (Note the trailing Coordinate could be in a separate cell more neatly formatted, also some of the detail could be trimmed, but the idea here is that the coord is displayed.)
Hide most of the unnecessary detail, while only displaying what is typical for the context (in this case, just a caption with no coords) [11]. (All Dynamic maps and microfomats functionality work, but of course the GeoHack and WikiMiniAtlas aren't active.)

Note some of these may not have the dynamic maps feature, but if not this is accidental. It is possible with all these variations. -J JMesserly (talk) 17:52, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

We could add a list of coordinates to the end of the infobox. It doesn't annoy anybody there and who wants to find the places has everything at hand. Wandalstouring (talk) 07:19, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Really? 6 coordinates at the end of a military confict infobox? Would that be best practice for a class A article? I don't think so. -J JMesserly (talk) 17:38, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's kind of a circular argument, since the criteria for A-Class status are whatever we define them to be. Having said that, the visual real estate in the top corner of the article seems too valuable to use for a long list of coordinates. Kirill ^[pf] 06:49, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd expect a decent map or two in an A-Class article anyway, so I'm not sure the coordinates are that useful (especially for older engagements where the landscape has significantly changed). I don't see any real harm in including them, but I wonder if it's something we're doing because we can, rather than something we're doing because we should. EyeSerene^talk 21:38, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Let's give people a chance to include sourced coordinates. I don't mind where in an article it is included. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:34, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

No argument here ;) EyeSerene^talk 15:33, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Nor here. — Roger Davies ^talk 16:18, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Commenting a bit late, but the discussion was flagged at WT:AWG. I think there is room for some flexibility in style at A-class, and so it's better to discuss the problem on a case-by-case basis at A-class review. However, if there were so many inline coordinates that they seriously disrupted the reading of the article, I would say that the article failed the Community-wide criterion of "well organized". Physchim62 (talk) 09:28, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

NATO Wikiproject

Hi everyone, just a friendly notice that I've proposed the creation of a NATO Wikiproject, to focus on both political and military aspects of the Atlantic Alliance. If you'd like to join the discussion about this proposal, it can be found here. Cool3 (talk) 04:58, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I suspect the topic is sufficiently narrow that an independent WikiProject will be unable to remain active. A better long-term approach might be to get something like an International relations WikiProject going and then merge NATO, UN, and so forth into task forces off that. There are a lot of treaty- and alliance- related topics for which a joint task force between MilHist and IR would be sensible, if only we had an active counterpart to work with. Kirill ^[pf] 02:25, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Military of Georgia

Not sure where to put this, but I came across Military of Georgia today and noticed that it does not appear to address what I would expect to have been a significant impact on capabilities following last year's war with Russia. Given the subject matter, I was hesitant to do much more than slap a template on the page indicating it needs some help, but I thought dropping a note here would be of benefit. Hiberniantears (talk) 15:59, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I copied some material on the subject to the article from 2008 South Ossetia war. According to some analysts "Russia has has largely destroyed Georgia's war-fighting capability." Offliner (talk) 16:13, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Al Ameer son's administrator candidacy

A member of the project, Al Ameer son, is currently a candidate to receive access to administrative tools. Project members who have worked with the candidate and have an opinion of Al Ameer son's fitness to receive these tools are cordially invited to comment. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:13, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

FA-Class review for Frank Hubert McNamara‎

Just letting people know that the FAC for Frank Hubert McNamara appears to be languishing with two supports only since its nomination nearly three weeks ago. I urge you to have a read/review of this bio of Australia’s first air VC, lest the FAC fail to achieve clear consensus. By all accounts he was a nice chap as well as a brave one, so c’mon – he won’t bite...! Thanks/cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:10, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Ping me in a few hours and I'll give it a look over, Ian. Skinny87 (talk) 08:58, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Templates with red links/Ships

Greetings! Please be aware of this collection of red links, almost all of which are for military vessels. bd2412 T 08:27, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

AssessorTags

Hello! I thought that I'd bring to your attention a new script which I have created, AssessorTags, which helps to add WikiProject banners to talk pages. The banners for this project and its task forces have have now been included in the script, so it may be helpful when locating and tagging articles. Documentation for the script can be found here, and if you have any questions feel free to ask at my talk page. Please not that I will probably not be watching this page, so comments left here will not be responded to. –Drilnoth (T • C) 01:25, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I've just installed this. It's quite neat if you can't remember all task forces tags. (Like me, for example.) — Roger Davies ^talk 22:45, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I like it, it's much easier than making sure that you always get each tf tag exactly right. – Joe N 00:51, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Awesome... just let me know if you have any ideas on how to make it better (other than, obviously, adding support for more projects!) –Drilnoth (T • C) 01:45, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

The main thought is that it would be really good if it added classes, including the B1, B2 etc parameters, as these are often done at the same time. — Roger Davies ^talk 07:18, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

That's on the to do list... I might do that in a separate, but compatible, script, or I may find a way to combine that feature with this one. It'll probably take some time though... I've got a few bugs to figure out. –Drilnoth (T • C) 03:01, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Australian light destroyer project now open

The A-Class review for Australian light destroyer project is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Nick-D (talk) 07:55, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Operation Enduring Freedom - Philippines

I have started a discussion of whether this article on what's a US military operation in the Philippines should include the entire war and whether it is appropriate to include casualty figures which are not presently sourced. Interested editors are invited to comment at Talk:Operation Enduring Freedom - Philippines. Nick-D (talk) 10:45, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Falaise pocket now open

The featured article candidacy for Falaise pocket is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! --Eurocopter (talk) 13:43, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Battle of Stalingrad German Order of Battle

I'm just after a bit of advise: Should the article be moved to Battle of Stalingrad Axis Order of Battle as it also includes Romanian and Croat units, something I didn't think of when creating it, or can somebody think of a better name altogether? EA210269 (talk) 01:32, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

"Axis" is probably better than "German" given the inclusion of non-German units, but either one is grammatically unappealing. How about something like Axis order of battle for the Battle of Stalingrad (which strains the repetition of "battle" slightly more, but is at least correct), or Axis order of battle at Stalingrad (which eliminates the repetition at the cost of a less obvious title). Kirill ^[pf] 01:42, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the double-battle didn't appeal to me either, I think I like your last suggestion best. Thanks. EA210269 (talk) 01:52, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Moved. EA210269 (talk) 03:44, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Infobox Military Conflict Template / MILMOS amendment

To try to reduce some of the disagreements over the "Result" of a military conflict, after discussion in /Coordinators, the Infobox documentation now reads:

result – optional – this parameter may use one of several standard terms: "X victory", "Decisive X victory" or "Inconclusive". The choice of term should reflect what the sources say. In cases where the standard terms do not accurately describe the outcome, the preferred method is to enter a link to the section of the article where the result is discussed in detail (such as "See the 'Aftermath' section").

Ideally, this should probably be reinforced by a reference in WP:MILMOS, perhaps as follows:

The result may use one of several standard terms:
"X victory"
"Decisive X victory" (one which effectively changed the course of the conflict)
"Inconclusive" (which perhaps ended with tactical victory on one side and strategic victory on the other side, or which ended in stalemate).
The choice of which term to use should always be dictated by the sources used for the article. In cases where the standard terms do not properly represent the outcome, the preferred method is to enter a link to the section of the article where the result is discussed in detail (such as "See the 'Aftermath' section").

Unless anyone objects within the next forty-eight hours, I'll update MILMOS accordingly. — Roger Davies ^talk 17:18, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like an excellent change to me, as long as the information is, of course, properly sourced. – Joe N utter 18:51, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I would recommend you delete the option of 'decisive victory'. I have been fighting with people about this for years in the American Civil War space because the term is so widely misused. If you look at the Wikipedia article on decisive victory, you'll see that the term has three different meanings--affects the result of the war, affects the result of a campaign, or synonym for clear or undisputed. Since various secondary sources will use these three definitions without differentiation, it is often quite simple to find a citation that says Battle of X was decisive. But suppose I find other sources that do not make that judgment or that dispute it. It would be misleading to say Decisive in the infobox and then have a footnote many would not read that says historians dispute that judgment. Or should we say "Decisive/Indecisive victory" to represent both POVs? My preference of actions would be:

(best) Limit results to Victory or Inconclusive. These phrases are almost always indisputably correct and rarely require footnoting.
(better than nothing) Allow Decisive only when it applies to the entire war and only when a preponderance of secondary sources refer to Decisive using that definition--otherwise, when POVs differ or they are unclear about which definition they're using, default to Victory. (There are arguably no ACW battles that meet this definition.)
(poor) As a modification the second case, also allow for a no-POV-dispute Decisive victory in a campaign, such as Battle of Gettysburg being infoboxed as the Decisive Union victory in the Gettysburg Campaign. Hal Jespersen (talk) 19:52, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, but if we remove the "decisive" option, then the results can be vague to the point of being misleading. For example, saying that the Battle of Stalingrad and the Winter War were both "Soviet victories" wouldn't really get across the message that Stalingrad significantly changed the course of the war, while the USSR barely won the Winter War. – Joe N utter 20:05, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Using the info box to try to place the battle in an overall context is often half the problem. — Roger Davies ^talk 14:20, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

The appropriate way to depict that is text in the Aftermath section or equivalent, not a single, ill-defined word in the box. If all of your secondary sources say that Stalingrad was the decisive battle of the war (which I would tend to doubt), it would fit into my second option, above. Otherwise, the third option might be more appropriate, referring to decisiveness in the Eastern Theater. Hal Jespersen (talk) 20:35, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, don't really agree per Joe above as well. What about Battle of Berlin, Marne, etc? I still believe that a "decisive" option should be added when sources strongly confirm it. --Eurocopter (talk) 20:50, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

There definitely needs to be a decisive victory option, as not all victories are made equal, and some as others have mentioned above, are more "decisive" than others. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 23:03, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, why not allow other NPOV terms like Major victory, Glorious victory, Inconsequential victory, Accidental victory, Partial victory? None of these are defined any more precisely than decisive victory. Well, anyway, I offered three alternatives above and no one has commented on the second or third. I could live with Decisive in those options where (in Eurocopter's words) "sources strongly confirm it" ('it' being a more precisely defined version of the term than we are currently presenting). Hal Jespersen (talk) 23:18, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Hal. You are right. Decisive victory sounds more POV than Partial victory to me. In war, the generals and politicians all seem to claim victory (a POV term in this context), and many soldiers just die. I expect this discussion will carry on for a long time. :) Wallie (talk) 10:34, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, as long as it is a term used by military historians, we have to make the difference between an ordinary victory and a victory which changed/ended the entire conflict, so if you have any better idea of how to do it go ahead and make proposals. --Eurocopter (talk) 13:27, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I made three different proposals (from "best" to "poor") in the bulleted list above. Hal Jespersen (talk) 14:08, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Those are proposals of how to use/how not to use the "decisive" term. Do you propose another term to be used in order to make the difference between articles as stated above (please note that this should backed by sources, as "decisive" is quite widely used by historians)? --Eurocopter (talk) 14:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy with either "X victory" or "Inconclusive" too. — Roger Davies ^talk 14:20, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Then how would you make the difference between Battle of Berlin-type and Battle of Voronezh-type victories? --Eurocopter (talk) 14:37, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure we absolutely need to and endless disputes about the nature of the victory for an info box summary are more trouble than they're worth. It is worth bearing in mind that people will only look at MILMOS when there's a dispute and if MILMOS provides a simple fall back position that solves it, that's great. — Roger Davies ^talk 14:50, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree, but we still need a minimal opportunity to make the difference between articles in some cases. So if the user above does not come-out with another proposal, we should adopt the guideline as proposed initially. --Eurocopter (talk) 15:56, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that the info box summaries are highly biased at present. I cannot find hardly any example where the Germans or Japanese win. However, the British and Americans nearly always win. Each battle should be looked at as side A and side B, not us and them. Wallie (talk) 16:20, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

In response to Eurocopter's further question, I thought the three proposals were perfectly clear, but I will try rewriting them to make some headway. The first proposal was to not use Decisive at all (which is my strong preference for the ACW space). If you do not agree with the first proposal, the second two proposals are relaxations of it--they allow the use of Decisive, but impose restrictions on its use. The second proposal says that you are allowed to use Decisive only for those battles that decided a war (and not the other two definitions in decisive victory) and only when a preponderance of the secondary sources agree with that. That means that someone cannot find a random secondary source that uses Decisive without making it clear that the term applies to the war and use that as the sole reason for putting Decisive in the infobox. (I don't know about more modern wars, but the authors of the 60,000 books about the American Civil War throw around the term very loosely, generally using it as a synonym for clear or undisputed victory.) The third proposal recognizes that Decisive has an alternative meaning of value when it applies to a campaign rather than the entire war. For example, the preponderance of secondary sources would agree that the Battle of Gettysburg was the decisive battle in the Gettysburg Campaign (only a handful of sources argue that it is the decisive battle of the war). In this case, the third proposal says that you can use Decisive for battles that decided campaigns by explicitly including the name of the campaign, such as Decisive Union victory in the Gettysburg Campaign. (For later wars you might consider identifying the theater instead. I really doubt that any individual battle was the decisive battle for all of World War II, as an example.) In both the second and third proposal, if the conditions are not met, the word Decisive should not be used and any description of the victory should be in the main text of the article, not the box. Hal Jespersen (talk) 19:07, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm willing to accept your second proposal with one condition: use Decisive only for those battles that decided a war should be changed to use Decisive only for those battles that changed a war - this seems an acceptable agreement. -Eurocopter (talk) 19:16, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, no. "Change" is way too imprecise. For example, Battle of Ball's Bluff changed the way the ACW was fought. (It generated so much outrage that U.S. Congress Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War was formed, which affected the way Union generals had to fight and watch their political backs at the same time.) The Battle of Hampton Roads changed naval warfare forever. The Battle of Seven Pines changed the war by putting Robert E. Lee in command. None of these were decisive. A decisive victory decides which way a campaign or war is going to end up. (The decisive moment inside a battle decides how the battle will turn out.) Hal Jespersen (talk) 20:25, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Would it be useful to consider a new section in the infobox, "Consequences" or something, where we can write a brief summary? Then we could restrict the Results box to a few standard phrases. For example, for Stalingrad, we might have

Result: Soviet victory
Consequences: Regarded as the turning point of German fortunes in WWII

I realise this may be moving the discussions from one section to another, but we should provide our readers with the best service possible and I really don't see how we're going to do this, succinctly and accurately, without either giving more information (or giving up altogether and providing none!) EyeSerene^talk 19:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, formulation of that new section would also lead to conflicts in my opinion. I think that we should leave the infobox as brief and simple as possible, with all details presented according to sources in the main body of the article (this would represent enough space to put sources head-in-head and therefore compare them). --Eurocopter (talk) 19:40, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

It might do but separating "Result" and "Consequences" does force people to approach this differently. — Roger Davies ^talk 06:16, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

There's a lot of sense in that, but I'm wary of over-simplification. I've often thought that the infoboxes are incomplete in their summary of battles - to the extent that if as a reader I want to know what happened, I'll generally glance at the forces section of the infobox then skip to the end of the article to find out the result. It would be great if we had some way of getting reader feedback on what works and what doesn't...

I made the above suggestion because I think splitting out the 'trivial' result (win, loss, etc) from the analysis (decisive, tactical, phyrric etc) might give us more leeway in how we fill that gap. To take another WWII example, an editor above mentioned the battle of Crete, for which we might have:

Result: German victory
Consequences: No further large-scale airborne operations undertaken by Germany due to prohibitive casualties.

I think it could work, but of course I'll support whatever consensus emerges ;) EyeSerene^talk 20:29, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I rather like this approach and while, as Eurocopter says, it might lead to disputes, almost anything we do will so the questions are "Will it lead to less disputes?" or "Will it lead to more easily resolvable disputes". — Roger Davies ^talk 06:16, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I think the bigger concern is that the "consequences" of a conflict is an even more vaguely defined category than the "results" of one, particularly for conflicts of macro-historical importance. Would it be reasonable, for example, to list the eventual collapse of the Byzantine Empire as one of the consequences of the Battle of Manzikert? Or the formation of the Netherlands as a consequence of the Battle of Nancy? Kirill ^[pf] 06:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Yep, that's another risk. — Roger Davies ^talk 07:10, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm... we'd obviously need to restrict the mention of the battle's important consequence(s) (we could find a more appropriate word - perhaps "Significance" would be better?) to the sources in the article's Aftermath section. If such sources generally agree that, for example, Manzikert led to the collapse of Byzantine power, it would seem to deserve a mention. I agree that the Results section should be concise - one or two words per the above discussion - but as Roger says, there will be disputes whatever we do, and I believe we could deflect many arguments about bias and misrepresentation by including an expository blurb immediately following the results. EyeSerene^talk 08:54, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

(Indent) In general I don’t like info boxes because they simplify fairly complex (and often controversial) topics. However, if we continue to use them I do not think we should simplify the information they contain just for the sake of making it easier for the lay reader or high school student to understand. Why? Because every war, every battle is unique in history. We should not seek to categorise these events along the lines of three classifications of who won.

The Battle of Crete has already been cited as an example. Some editors want to label it as decisive German victory, which is true in some respects given the circumstances; others (like myself) believe that although they won the positive strategic gain was minimal compared to the negative strategic consequences (halt on extensive use of airborne assault, diversion of resources and continued resistance). Many historians classify it as a pyrrhic victory for this reason.
Another contentious case I’ve got entangled with is the War of Jenkins’ Ear where a group of patriotic Spanish (or pro-Spanish editors) have been trying to classify it as a Spanish victory (on the basis of a decisive victory at Cartagena). The eventual outcome of that war was actually a return to the status quo ante – the result box currently cites "Uti possidetis" – which is pretty technical, but a simplification to inconclusive would be misleading in many respects.

I think the issue here is that we are trying to qualify some battles with adjectives that they do not need. Terms like decisive are bound to be controversial. Perhaps we should set down minimum criteria for using such words: say, for example, a 10:1 ratio of historical sources defining the outcome in that way against sources describing it differently. If that ratio cannot be sustained we just say "x victory" and leave it at that. Complicated? Maybe, but so are the events we are trying to paint onto a complex and broad historical canvas. Wiki-Ed (talk) 12:36, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, if there is such a big problem with the "decisive" term, we can give up and adopt the guideline with only two standard sets (x victory and inconclusive). --Eurocopter (talk) 13:17, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I've gone on at length above and not actually made the conclusion I intended to. What I meant to say was that the discussion seems to be aimed at developing a system for using terms in order to bring about some sort of consistency, but that this is not really desirable given the complexity of the outcomes. Indeed, if we're going for a neutral approach we shouldn't be summarising events with one or two words. Personally I like the articles which use the format "Result: Treaty of Whatever". This takes the reader to a page telling them what actually happened when the fighting stopped. It might be more difficult where the article is about a small battle or an ancient war where there was no formal conclusion, but it would better reflect the fact that in war no-one really wins. Wiki-Ed (talk) 16:58, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

First of all, this guideline is aimed to reduce conflicts regarding battle results in infoboxes, that's why we tried to propose a set of results as simple as possible. Secondly, a treaty is not a result of a battle, it is a consequence (of a war, more exactly). Thirdly, when an article is about a small battle or an ancient war where there was no formal conclusion, it should be tagged as inconclusive. --Eurocopter (talk) 17:10, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

My preference is to just get rid of the item, at least in big modern wars where "victories" or "defeats" in battle are subsumed in the result of the overall conflict. This means that any nominal victory gained by the side that ultimately loses must be somehow qualified. It does no good to appeal to the authority of the previously printed word, as reputable historians disagree. (Add a few more examples to the list of battles that excite controversy: Battle of Jutland (compare the English treatment with the German), Battle of Hampton Roads, Battle of Pearl Harbor.) If all battles are therefore to be treated as inconclusive, why bother writing about it? Furthermore, it allows (even encourages) editors to impose their points of view, and it results in edit wars. Why not put only elementary data in the infobox (list of participants, casualty figures and other losses, etc.) and leave all interpretation to the article? PKKloeppel (talk) 16:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, let's get rid of the entire infobox, so that everything would be put in the main body of the article (there were several disputes regarding infobox dates/commanders/images/captions as well)... --Eurocopter (talk) 17:10, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

That is a problem of historiography, not point of view. PKKloeppel (talk) 02:04, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

It always struck me that editors — perhaps reflecting their interests or specialties — were deathly grim about what has always been a rather banal and benign stylistic convention aimed at standardization. The idea being that rather than selecting and citing hundreds of different adjectives according to the editors' preferred monographs—"Crushing victory," "Brilliant victory," "Overwhelming victory," "Shocking victory," etc.—we would simplify matters with one adjective across the board; decisive: convincing, emphatic, unmistakeable, unquestionable. Let's emphasize this: The term "decisive" has nothing to do with the outcome of the conflict. Are we to suppose that Napoleon never won a decisive victory simply because France ultimately lost the Napoleonic Wars? The idea, whichever word we choose, is to convey the difference between a a Ligny and a Waterloo; a Lobositz and a Rossbach, etc.

I'd also like to reaffirm the conceptual need for this distinction in military theory. The vast majority of historical military engagements resulted in a clear victor (through balance of casualties, possession of terrain, or other factors) without otherwise achieving a "decisive" result, i.e. the encounters left both combating forces relatively intact and on comparable strategic footing. In reality, the conditions that make a battle "decisive" in the commonly understood sense — let's say the rout, capture, or annihilation of the enemy force, but there may be others (an irreversible shift in a relative strategic positions, for instance, such as the Marne 1914 and 1918) — are not necessary for adjudicating a simple victory or defeat. We need to return to the assumption that there's a fundamental qualitative difference between a a Ligny and a Waterloo; a Lobositz and a Rossbach, etc. Albrecht (talk) 17:20, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I completely agree with Albrecht's assessment regarding the word "Decisive". Moreover, I would like to reiterate my view expressed earlier that when there are legitimate grounds for disputing either the outcome or the "decisiveness" of a battle then a compromise (based on reliable sources and possibly a list of acceptable terms limited perhaps to "Victory", "Defeat" "Inconclusive", "Decisive" and possibly "Disputed") be placed in the infobox for the benefit of the casual visitor and a more detailed discussion of the historical dispute over the outcome in the "aftermath" (or whatever) section linked to so that people who wish to understand more are easily able to do so. We should eliminate other words that crop up, especially "XXX failure" and the word "phyrric" (even at Battle of Heraclea).--Jackyd101 (talk) 18:27, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

And what if the reliable sources don't describe the outcome as "decisive" and instead describe it as "pyrrhic". I find it remarkable that you think we have the right to redefine the outcome of the Battle of Heraclea just because it's administratively inconvenient (indeed, it's bordering on original research). I think this has to be all or nothing: we either use adjectives (if they are sourced) or we do not. We cannot second-guess published sources if their consensus view is that a particular battle should be described in a particular way. We can, however, bypass them by removing the entry from the info box and covering the outcome in the article proper. Wiki-Ed (talk) 20:40, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

That's because the notion of the "decisive battle" was something that Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy coined back in the mid-19th Century in his famous work The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World. The 19th century focus on the battle as the decisive factor in war to the exclusion of all other topics of military history was a feature of military history in the late Victorian era. It became discredited among serious military historians during the late 20th Century and few today venture to categorise any battle as "decisive". Hawkeye7 (talk) 00:04, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the results of this discussion are a demonstration that even the learned members of this group do not agree on the definition of Decisive. If you recall, I pointed out that the Wikipedia article on decisive victory gives three different definitions and the members of this group cannot agree on which one is referred to if Decisive is used in the box. Even ignoring the POV aspects of ensuring that the appropriate numbers of secondary sources agree with the word (and that they explicitly agree with what you think the definition of the word is), it is a disservice to the reader to have term with disputed definitions in the box. (It would be like having a box that said "color of national flag" and we allowed the entry "a primary color." The color of the flag may correctly fit into that category, but what good is the entry if the definition is so imprecise?)

If members of the task force are unwilling to drop the word Decisive entirely (which remains my recommendation, particularly for the American Civil War space), it would be possible to differentiate the three definitions of decisive victory in the box with the following three textual representations:

Decisive XXX victory of the NameOfWar (note, there is no example I can give for the American Civil War, but perhaps this may be right: Battle of Waterloo: Decisive Coalition victory in the War of the Seventh Coalition)
Decisive XXX victory of the NameOfCampaignOrTheater (e.g., Battle of Gettysburg: Decisive Union victory of the Gettysburg Campaign)
Decisive (undisputed) XXX victory (e.g., Second Battle of Winchester: Decisive (undisputed) Confederate victory) Hal Jespersen (talk) 23:44, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

So where does all this leave us? Just two infobox options? "XXX victory" and "Inconclusive"? That certainly seems the simplest and least controversial option. — Roger Davies ^talk 13:45, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Considering that there are so many different opinions, I would suggest a brief approval vote, in which users would express their support for the preferred version of the guideline. I think three sections would do: 1.xxx victory/decisive xxx victory/inconclusive; 2.xxx victory/inconclusive; 3.not adopt the guideline at all. --Eurocopter (talk) 19:49, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

That might be the simplest way to get a handle on what everyone thinks. I'm not a fan of approval votes as a rule, but if we can point to general support for whatever's finally implemented we can at least give editors some ammunition to deal with these results disputes. EyeSerene^talk 22:08, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I just helped solving the dispute at Battle of Dunkirk. Central problem is that the German objective is an enigma, so judgements can only be made on the British perception. Naturally that differs widely because of the national pride over the successful evacuation. To reach a conclusion in such cases we need all possible formulations to fit for individual solutions. Imposing strict rules just creates unsolveable discussions that seriously hamper the actual work on articles. I'm also very supportive on expanding the information in the infobox to include a brief summary of consequences because that actually helps the reader. The argument that any new element leads to new problems is true, but we should stick to our goal to:

To create the foremost reliable and accurate free-content encyclopedia of military history in the English language.

That entails maximum comfort for the reader and workable solutions for us. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:32, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I think there should be some leeway for description other than "XXX victory", especially for wars, which have political results. The Thirty Year War resulted in the Peace of Westphalia, the Polish-Soviet War resulted in the Peace of Riga, etc. These are notable peace treaties that have their own articles and I don't see a reason not to include a wikilink in the infobox. -- Nudve (talk) 14:34, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

And what about Operation Freshman? I just got it up to A-Class and it's currently labelled as 'British defeat'. Given what the straw poll is showing, this would have to be changed to 'German victory', but that seems a tad unfair. If you read the article, all the Germans did was discover some crashed gliders, take the survivors prisoner and then execute them. It almost seems unfair to label that as a German victory when the Germans did practically nothing. Skinny87 (talk) 14:38, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I only have experieence of this as an issue over the battle of Jutland. This was a german victory on comparison of losses. It was a german defeat in terms of affordable losses. It was a german defeat and British victory in terms of the main aims of the two combattants, a British defeat in terms of the subordinate British aim of inflicting decisive losses. It was inconclusive in that there was no significant change in overall positions. It was a conclusive victory in that there was no overall change in overall positions (ie it confirmed British dominance). It was a decisive victory in that it instigated a switch from surface to submarine warfare. If the battlecruiser action is considered, it was a German victory, if the fleet action then a British one. Sources agree it was a complicated result. There was an attempt in discussion to lump all this under 'inconclusive' because of the conflicting outcomes, but it simply wasn't. Trying to say so is worse than useless because it misleads a reader who just glances at the box when faced with a very daunting read to find out what the article says in detail. Sandpiper (talk) 07:25, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Infobox Straw Poll

The proposal is whether to restrict the options in the "Results" parameter of the {{Infobox Military Conflict}}. The main choices are:

Status quo: leave it as it is, with freeform entry. ("Decisive XXX victory", "Stalement", "Tactical XXX defeat" etc)
Two-entry: restricting the choice to "XXX victory" or "Inconclusive".
Three-entry: restricting the choice to "Decisive XXX victory", "XXX victory" or "Inconclusive".

In each instance, the choice would have to be backed by reliable sources. — Roger Davies ^talk 23:28, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

~~Do you mean inconclusive?--Jackyd101 (talk) 23:39, 11 March 2009 (UTC)~~

Yes. Sorry - very long day. — Roger Davies ^talk 23:46, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Comment. With respect to my vote below, I should specify that I took it to mean "recommend that the options in the Infobox be" as opposed to "restrict the options to." In other words, "decisive" should remain the recommended descriptor for the purpose of consistency, but "any brief description, provided it's supported by sources" may be warranted in any number of cases for reasons endogenous to the article in question. Albrecht (talk) 16:34, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, is this closable now? I think everyone involved in the discussion expressed their vote and there is enough consensus to adopt option 2. --Eurocopter (talk) 08:05, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Let's leave this open a while longer, see where it goes ... Say til tomorrow night? — Roger Davies ^talk 20:01, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Or even longer. As it stands, options 1 and 2 enjoy essentially identical levels of support; I'm quite unconvinced that it would make sense for us to proceed with such a major change based on a single-vote margin in the poll. Kirill ^[pf] 01:43, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps, or try a different approach altogether. With the current split, there's no consensus for anything, let alone radical change .... — Roger Davies ^talk 08:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Could be; a one or two vote margin is nowhere near enough to indicate general support for anything (in fact, across three options, it indicates majority opposition). However, I'm in favour of leaving this open for a while longer before we give up ;) EyeSerene^talk 09:18, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

You might consider evaluating the proposals I made above for actually fixing the deficiencies of the ill-defined Decisive choice. So far, the opinions expressed are roughly "Decisive doesn't work for the following reasons" and "I like Decisive because there's a particular battle that I consider Decisive [and everyone presumably agrees with my definition of Decisive]." Hal Jespersen (talk) 16:12, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

What is this obsession with "my or your definition of 'decisive'?" It's an English word. Look it up in a dictionary. Albrecht (talk) 16:28, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia's own article on decisive victory gives three different definitions. If you look through this discussion, you'll see members of this group implicitly using each of them for different battles: (1) decided the war, (2) decided a campaign or theater in a war (but not the complete war), or (3) simply a synonym for a clear or undisputed major victory. The English dictionary does not help to differentiate between these three cases. Therefore, in a military context, using 'decisive' without clarification is introducing an undefined term and that is inappropriate for the infobox. I have offered suggestions on how to differentiate between (1) and (2) and recommend that (3) be discarded. Excuse my obsession for precision in the formal writing we are attempting here. Hal Jespersen (talk) 00:07, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, the majority for adopting the guideline is quite clear (option 2+3), and considering that option 2 gathered the most votes, I think it should be adopted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eurocopter (talk • contribs) 14 March 2009, 22:59

Deducting opposed from supported, option 2 (+5) is one vote ahead of option 1 (+4) (thanks to your vote), both of which are some way ahead of option 3 (-2). The scores have changed a little over the last two days, but only between options 1 and 2. Wiki-Ed (talk) 01:42, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

(od) What may be helpful is to ignore the polls for a bit, concentrating instead of defining "decisive" for milhist purposes as a general guideline. With that resolved, how to handle "results" will probably be a lot easier. Thoughts? — Roger Davies ^talk 11:10, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Defining "decisive" without adopting the guideline (option 2) would be insufficient, as I haven't seen any current conflict contesting the use of the "Decisive" term in the result. In my opinion the poll should have been only an approval vote, without complicating it with opposes. --Eurocopter (talk) 11:40, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

So, what about now? We have a draw for Options 1 & 2, and a majority of editors supporting the adoption of the guideline (option 2+3) with the preference of option 2. Any ideas? --Eurocopter (talk) 15:57, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I think Roger's approach of trying to deal with "decisive" as a term rather than an infobox value is a good one, if we must move forward. Given the spread of votes and the low participation, however, I don't see any real consensus for any of the options, at this point; perhaps we should simply let this rest for a time and then restart the discussion with a call for new ideas a month or two down the road. Kirill ^[pf] 02:23, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

That seems reasonable - the results are only a problem when they're a problem, and we can continue to emphasise being guided by the sources in the meantime. EyeSerene^talk 19:46, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Option 1

The status quo - any brief description, provided it's supported by sources.

Support:

Support as long as it's supported by the preponderance of reliable sources. If there are any significant deviations between sources, including numerous sources that do not mention or explain the adjective in question, go to Option 2 and explain the result in the text of the article. Hal Jespersen (talk) 05:18, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
We should reflect what the sources say. That's what Wikipedia is about. Stricter adherence to the relevant policy should avoid most debates. Those that cannot be resolved - as per Hal's comment - go to option 2. Wiki-Ed (talk) 11:23, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
Support give our editors as much freedom as possible to solve the disputes. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:18, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
As per my comments above. Sometimes the results are notable in their own right, so leeway is needed. -- Nudve (talk) 14:45, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, often it is not possible to declare a clear victor (especially when sources contradict itself), so it must be possible to make a more detailed statement of the result. StoneProphet (talk) 02:02, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Gives as much freedom as possible, provided that it is cited. Cam ^(Chat) 03:42, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
In some cases it is simply not possible to define the result in one word and attempting to do so is misleading readers. Sandpiper (talk) 06:40, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Although I would not like to see the continual rangling that now appears as an editor tries to define a conclusion, it does make sense that editors can set forth a view and have substantial and authoritative resources to back it up. Any other editor can challenge as is presently the case. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 11:22, 15 March 2009 (UTC).
The information presented the people in the infobox ought to be expanded upon in the article or elsewhere anyway, From where I sit we should maintain the current system and allow the vicotry/defeat/incoclusive part to work itself out in the article and let people judge for themselves how the battle/war/conflict/engagement/whatever-it-be ended. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:29, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Oppose:

Would not solve any of the problems meant to be solved by adopting this guideline. POV conflicts will continue as until now. --Eurocopter (talk) 09:51, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
Agree with Eurocopter. This would not help solve the interminable disputes about exactly what kind of victory, etc, it was. The Land (talk) 11:15, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
Not only can we often not decide who won, we also can't decide what is meant by `preponderance of sources.' PKKloeppel (talk) 12:54, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Option 2

Two choices - the "Results" box would read either "XXX victory" or "Inconclusive".

Support:

This is the only non-POV choice and is almost always correct without additional clarification. Hal Jespersen (talk) 05:18, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
Per Hal Jesperson, this would be my first choice. In the absence of giving the full picture in the infobox, this seems to be the next best thing. EyeSerene^talk 10:45, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
Happy with this. The Land (talk) 11:16, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
Provides a correct if not full summary. Wiki-Ed (talk) 11:23, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
Agree with Hal Jespersen. Objective choice. Hawkeye7 (talk) 12:42, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
The best option presented; my preference is still to abandon the item altogether, and this choice will limit the damage. PKKloeppel (talk) 13:00, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
per Hal Jespersen. --Rosiestep (talk) 15:44, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
This would be acceptable as well. --Eurocopter (talk) 22:54, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Oppose:

Oppose because it creates more conflicts by a narrow definition. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:20, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
It would not provide enough freedom to differentiate between major victories and those that just barely occurred. – Joe N 20:10, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
Options are designed to force a choice which may be a false description of a complicated outcome. Sandpiper (talk) 06:56, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Not enough freedom of choice. At the very least distinction should be made between major/significant victories and minor, inconsequential ones. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 15:25, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Option 3

Three choices - the "Results" box would read "XXX victory", "Decisive XXX victory" or "Inconclusive".

Support:

This would allow the freedom to be more descriptive while still allowing for more standardization and less POV than we have now. – Joe N utter 00:10, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
Decisive: 1. having the power or quality of deciding; <a decisive battle>. 3. unmistakable, unquestionable; <a decisive superiority>. Synonyms, see conclusive. Seems like a pretty robust definition to me. And for all the epistemological protests over substituting one word for another (I presume these editors write articles by way of wholesale plagiarism for fear of giving in to POV), this doesn't strike me as a huge leap from Option 1, except that, in the interest of consistency and stability, we've settled on one descriptor beforehand instead of abandoning the Infobox to the whims of editing hordes citing whichever descriptive phrase strikes their fancy — probably after considerable squabbling and edit warring between them. Albrecht (talk) 15:46, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
As above, I agree with Albrecht on this issue, although I should apologise for my somewhat tongue in cheek remarks about the Battle of Heraclea: every rule has its exceptions and that battle certainly should be one to this rule.--Jackyd101 (talk) 19:07, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
This is a good choice and allows the reader to see the difference between a win and a total thrashing. Gaia Octavia Agrippa^Talk | _Sign 19:55, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
I hope it's alright that a new member of the milhist group comments, but I think of the three options given, this is the best. However, I do think three isn't quite enough, there could be more, for instances like Heraclea, or the German "victory" in which they really didn't do anything but find some gliders. So, really, I think there should be more than three - but however many it is, it should be a specific, limited number. 2Q (talk) 10:17, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Oppose:

Decisive is an ill-defined, POV term. Without specifying which of its three definitions is being cited, its use is meaningless or misleading. Hal Jespersen (talk) 05:18, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree; what's decisive? The Land (talk) 11:17, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
Castrated version of option 1 with none of the NPOV benefits of option 2. Wiki-Ed (talk) 11:24, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
This option merely allows the editor to advance a more finely-tuned POV. PKKloeppel (talk) 13:05, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
Oppose, too little freedom of choice. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:20, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
Oppose, too little freedom of choice, although having the option of 'decisive' is better than not having it. (option 3 preferable to option 2)Sandpiper (talk) 07:25, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

WP:VP

Will you be showcasing WP:VPs?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:52, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't that be up to the editors who raise suggestions at the village pump? Nick-D (talk) 09:53, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I think he means Wikipedia:Valued pictures. -MBK₀₀₄ 10:04, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

You know, I think we should. This would offer extra incentive to take pictures :-)--Patton^t/c 14:25, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I meant WP:VPICS.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 06:21, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I may have WP:MILHISTs first WP:VPC at Wikipedia:Valued picture candidates/Soldiers and Sailors Monument‎. However, at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Open tasks I don't even see a place for WP:FPCs. I will let those of you more involved in the project add the nomination if it belongs.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 06:21, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I see FPCs fall under "Other featured content candidates". I am not sure where a VPC would fall.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 21:22, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure either. Aren't VPs basically the picture equivalent of GAs? We don't list candidacies for the latter individually at this point (although there was some discussion earlier about perhaps changing that). Kirill ^[pf] 01:22, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

List of Canadian Chiefs of the Defence Staff

Could I have someone experienced in the field of lists take a look at this to give me some help? Thanks in advance, TARTARUS ^talk 18:56, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

At first sight, it looks very good. What help were you looking for? Just a check through by someone knowledgeable in the field, or something more specific? Roger Davies ^talk 19:00, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Copied to the Canadian military history task force Roger Davies ^talk 19:04, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, just if it could be considered to have met some (or all :) ) of the WP:FL criteria, and if it made sense to someone not knowledgeable in the subject. TARTARUS ^talk 19:05, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Happily, we have several featured list experts on the premises. I'm not particularly knowledgeable on the subject and it made sense to me :) Perhaps the best place for suggestions would be the article's talk page? Roger Davies ^talk 19:10, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Who would you suggest at getting for the FL criteria checking user? And yes, the talk page is most definately the best place for suggestions. :) TARTARUS ^talk 19:12, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

User:Woody can help you for sure with anything regarding to FLs (he currently has 16 promoted). --Eurocopter (talk) 19:15, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I think he may be tied up with RL things at the moment ... Roger Davies ^talk 19:18, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

But he is still quite active currently. --Eurocopter (talk) 19:29, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Bombardier

Bombardier → Bombardier Inc.
Bombardier (disambiguation) → Bombardier

A rename related to Bombardier has been proposed at WP:RM, see Talk:Bombardier

76.66.193.69 (talk) 01:30, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Last stand

Just wants to bring attention a minor suggestion regarding the article Last Stand i made on the talk page, think more opinions then my own and one other person is required before any possibal change is made. --> Halmstad, Charla to moi 15:28, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Nassau class battleship now open

The featured article candidacy for Nassau class battleship is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 15:48, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Lafayette Square, Buffalo now open

The A-Class review for Lafayette Square, Buffalo is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 16:21, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Ton That Dinh now open

The A-Class review for Ton That Dinh is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 16:23, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Featured_picture_candidates#MILHIST_Review_department

The MILHIST review department is under discussion at featured picture talk. Started a subthread because it was mentioned in passing in another thread, and in a surprisingly negative light. This project has been accused of canvassing and of lowering review standards. Durova^Charge! 17:24, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Origins of World War I

There is a discussion underway here about moving this to article to Causes of World War I. Thanks!--Patton^t/c 23:03, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Using Doctoral Theses as sources

This is no doubt a question for the RS noticeboard, but I'd rather get the opinion of the people here first. I'm sure this has been discussed not too long ago but I can't find it using the search function. I have a copy of a PhD thesis from the University of Hull entitled "The Jutland controversy: a case study in intra-service politics, with particular reference to the presentation of the Battlecruiser Fleet's training, conduct and command." While the author has made a few ignorant claims regarding technology, there is a great deal of new materiel concerning the so-called "Jutland Controversy" and people who played a part in it. What's the consensus if one exists on using doctoral theses, since essentially they've already been peer-reviewed to be accepted? Cheers, --Simon Harley (talk | library | book reviews) 16:56, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

It's quite common for academic journals or other scholarly monographs to cite dissertations — in fact, were doctoral theses not expanded and republished in book form so often, I suppose historians would cite them almost exclusively. Turning to Wikipedia:Reliable sources, I get the sense it could be problematic if you were trying to push an extremely controversial or fringe interpretation via a source that has not "entered mainstream academic discourse" ; has received no scholarly citations ; and has not been "published in reputable peer-reviewed sources and/or by well-regarded academic presses." But on the whole I'd give a green light. Albrecht (talk) 17:08, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why PhD theses aren't reliable sources given that they need to be researched and written to the highest academic standards. That said, they're probably not suitable for establishing notability per WP:N as they're not professionally published. Nick-D (talk) 08:01, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Albrecht and Nick, a published (e.g. on the web) thesis is perfectly acceptable as a reference - I've used a couple myself in articles that have successfully gone through A/FA-level review - but I'd be a bit dubious about using one as a sole source or as prima facie evidence of notability. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:34, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Agree with the others. Doctoral theses are excellent sources in my view and I used one extensively in Spanish Civil War articles a while back. I agree with Nick that they don't establish notability though. — Roger Davies ^talk 07:22, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

There was until recently a doctoral dissertation is the reactivation section of the Iowa class battleship article, and it remained in for some time. It was moved to the article United States Naval Gunfire Support debate per WP:SIZE compliance, but during a review issues arose concerning its use which ultimately compelled its removal from the article. Just something to keep in mind if you plan to use a thesis paper. TomStar81 (Talk) 07:31, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Horses for courses, I guess. There's one from the US Staff College that's extensively used in the outside world as a source on the German elastic defence in the First World War. It ended up getting republished as a case study. — Roger Davies ^talk 07:40, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

The concerns that tom is referring to were raise by me, I was less concerned by the fact that it was the outcome of the academic process but with the weight that was applied to it when we didn't really know enough about the context of how it was written. I do appreciate that the Reliable Sources guidance is very dumbed down, from a profesisonal analysis perspective, but I would say that the material should be judged on its merits, and not approved or disapproved on the basis of what it is. RS allows editors to use all kinds of garbage, just because it happens to be in a newspaper or media outlet because of the blanket reliability of the media view prevalent over there.

ALR (talk) 10:50, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely, if there's any dispute, these things do need to be judged individually on their merits. Plus, of course, the higher up the grade scale the article is, the more important it is to have a comprehensive range of sources. — Roger Davies ^talk 11:06, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I think like any source one should not just blanket accept a doctoral thesis because sometimes even odd things get through. Goldhagen's book wasn't just published by a good publishers, it was his doctoral thesis. There are also issues with a doctoral thesis not being /as/ reliable as, say, a peer-reviewed piece of work in a journal etc. I suppose one could look upon the university's reputation for an idea, though again, Goldhagen's came from...Yale was it? Something prestigious. Narson'sPetFerret (talk) 10:55, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, good point. (Love the ferret, by the way.) — Roger Davies ^talk 11:06, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree; its obviously important to remember that theses aren't professionally edited and published. Moreover, some institutions now routinely make all completed theses available online, even when they only just made the minimum acceptable standard. Nick-D (talk) 11:18, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the rule of thumb should be that the doctoral thesis of a respectable academic is probably ok, apart from that you are going to have to apply some common sense? I mean, I know Doctors who publish respected books on subjects whose doctoral thesis isn't published and I don't think I'd have much issue using them if I could lay my hands on them. (And the Ferret is my account for these university computers. Never know what dirty filthy software is running so the Ferret runs down the tubes for me! Good ferret.) Narson'sPetFerret (talk) 11:24, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Comment In general Doctoral thesis undergo intensive peer review by the author's supervisor and the Doctoral Thesis Committee. A good practice is to actually submit parts of the thesis as one or more journal papers for external peer reviews. However it should be kept in mind that not all Universities are same and may not have the highest standards for PhD thesis. In essence, my point is that doctoral thesis can be cited, when journal publications of the same are not available unless there is specific Wiki policy (that I'm not aware of) barring it. --Louisprandtl (talk) 07:25, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

All photos found on the Naval History & Heritage Command website are PD

Please see this for more. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 17:08, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, for the record everyone: all images can be uploaded here, but not to commons; evidently the images are only public domain in the United States. So, if there is any question of possible copyrighting issues for other countries (i.e. it doesn't say "official U.S. Navy photograph"), upload to here with {{PD-US}} and {{Do not move to Commons}}. I will also have an OTRS ticket to double-confirm this. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 17:15, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Operation Varsity as TFA

Hey all. Operation Varsity is currently on the front page; I'd planned to spend all day monitoring thearticle, but I have to go and do some MA research. So any eyes on the article to revert vandalism would be much appreciated, thanks! Skinny87 (talk) 08:46, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh, snap, I had forgotten you had gotten that on today. Congrats, Skinny! I'll help keep an eye on it. Parsecboy (talk) 11:37, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh snap agreed. I totally dropped the ball here...I've got my eye on it too. Congrats Skinny! —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 16:03, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Matsushiro Underground Imperial Headquarters

I've created an article on the Matsushiro Underground Imperial Headquarters, a secret bunker built by the Japanese during WWII to house the emperor and staff officers. I'd appreciate help in expanding it. Raul654 (talk) 03:24, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Is axishistory.com a reliable source?

The Axis history fact book has a lot of detailed content on World War Two Axis military history. I've just checked it out against reliable sources on a couple of obscure Imperial Japanese Army divisions, and it came up reasonably well. However, the entries on the units don't cite any sources and the site's FAQ section states that it's basically self-published by an amateur historian. I'm also a bit concerned about the statement that the site "began in 1994 with a collection of links to policial sites (that part of the site is long since closed down)". As such, I'm a bit unsure whether the site meets the criteria for self-published sources at WP:SPS. Nick-D (talk) 11:31, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

It's a good place to ask for information and to find out where to get it, and the forums are informative, but I don't think it's a reliable source. Roger Davies ^talk 17:33, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed; he's not a "noted expert". (Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-06-26/Dispatches) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 22:58, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Unsourced means speculation. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 02:10, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that - I'll stop adding external links to the site. Nick-D (talk) 07:41, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

"Unsourced means speculation"? Well... not really. Unsourced can mean speculation, but it can also just indicate someone who's not particularly concerned about citing their sources (as we were until a few years ago), and it's a bit of a stretch to automatically equate "not rigorous" and "making stuff up". Shimgray | talk | 20:45, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

They did provide me with information on Fritz von Lossberg but no sources to back it up. The information turned out to be reliable and has since been more or less confirmed elsewhere. Roger Davies ^talk 20:59, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I've used it extensively and it's far from WP:SPS as it's a collaborative effort as you can see if you check out the associated forum. However, I'm not so sure that it would count as a reliable source without citations. I agree with Roger Davies's assessment. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:57, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Military science fiction

Would this article be within the scope of this project? PS. War novel is. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 01:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

~~Probably~~. War computer games are, military sports teams used for propaganda, war music etc are, after all. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 03:31, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah, the others are right... fogot about the unrealisticness. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 02:57, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure on this. Normally, only fictional works that portray war in a realistic light fall under the project, right? —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 03:33, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

That's an interesting question. If we cover normal fiction, why not sci-fi? Fiction is fiction... where do we draw the line? The project covers espionage... does it cover James Bond? He is not sci-fi... but he is only a tad removed from a superhero :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:09, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

As a gut reaction I'd say not - per ed, we do deal with some fiction, but only under very specific conditions. From the project's front page: "Note that the project generally covers only those depictions for which a discussion of historical accuracy or real military influence is applicable. A distinction is therefore made between fictionalized depictions of historical warfare and purely invented depictions of fictional warfare; topics sufficiently divorced from actual history that a discussion of actual military history would no longer be relevant to them—such as futuristic warfare in Star Wars—are not considered to be within the project's scope." EyeSerene^talk 18:13, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm going to go with no per EyeSerene. Science-fiction novels are almost entirely outside the scope of this project, as, by definition, they do not portray real wars in a realistic manner.Cromdog (talk) 18:45, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the_ed17, EyeSerene and Cromdog here. The key factor is accuracy. Roger Davies ^talk 20:34, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

EyeSerene pretty well nailed it IMHO. The majority of F&SF seems to have some combat in it, but little of it is relevant to Military History per se. Askari Mark (Talk) 22:36, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

In that case, which military wikiproject would cover this article? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:26, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't expect there to be one, really, since it's not a topic heavily related to actual military matters. Whichever WP deals with other science fiction topics is probably the best place to deal with it. Kirill ^[pf] 02:05, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

WP:NOVELS and the sci-fi TF there would, but no military one that I know of. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 03:50, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Project scope and name

This leads me to another question. WP:MIL redirects here, and our project seems to have no problem covering articles such as military science and it subfields, such military sociology, military organization, military education and training , military strategy , military doctrine , military geography , military logistics , military technology and equipment... and even the basic article on military is here. Since military history is only an equal to the above terms, shouldn't we face the truth and rename our project WikiProject Military? We may all be used to our name, but it is confusing to the outsiders and newcomers. Alternatively, we have to remove our project tags from many articles which are outside the scope of pure history.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:01, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

No simple term can perfectly capture the precise details of the scope. Military history is as accepted a name for the entire field as any other; using "military", for example, would cause more confusion regarding paramilitary and pseudo-military warfare than it would remove about history.

In any case, given that our scope is prominently and explicitly defined for anyone visiting the project page, I see no practical reason to make superficial (but extremely difficult and time-consuming) changes to what is now a very well-known name. Kirill ^[pf] 18:28, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

. . . in addition, today will be history tomorrow. - Canglesea (talk) 01:51, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Moltke class battlecruiser now open

The A-Class review for Moltke class battlecruiser is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 15:20, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Oil Campaign of World War II

I have opinions on the naming of the article Oil Campaign of World War II and two related articles: Oil Campaign of World War II (Chronology) (not my choice) and Targets of the Oil Campaign of World War II (my renaming of Oil Campaign of World War II (Targets)). There's really just me and User:Mugs2109 having a to-and-fro on the editing, so not a lot of scope for a variety of opinions. Anyone care to contribute some advice on the naming before it becomes an issue of contention. However, contributors to the articles would also be welcome - this is not an obscure topic of the strategic bombing of Europe. There could also be more on the Transportation Plan and the targeting of German aircraft production. At the moment we seem well served on city bombing but less so on these other topics. GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:37, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Britain stood alone against the Axis in 1940

The members of this Wikiproject may be able to help move forward a current discussion over at Talk:United Kingdom involving the question of who stood alongside Britain in 1940 against the Axis. There is a dispute over the need of the word "unoccupied" in the sentence: At one stage in 1940, amid the Battle of Britain, it was the only unoccupied nation in Europe fighting the Axis. At issue is whether the forces of occupied nations such as Poland, Norway, the Netherlands, etc. should be acknowledged, or whether Britain was the only nation in Europe fighting the Axis at that point in time. The discussion is at Talk:United Kingdom#At one stage in 1940, amid the Battle of Britain, it stood alone against the Axis.. Regards,--Skeezix1000 (talk) 16:56, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I've been through this one with the folks at the 1995 VE-Day Anniversary celebrations. British people consider that Britain "stood alone" notwithstanding the presence of its Allies like Australia and Canada. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:35, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, the previous wording was that it was alone, without clarification over the Empire, seems to have been accepted a wrong. The current proposal is to say that they were alone among the European powers. --Narson ~ Talk • 01:36, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

To say England stood alone or Britain stood alone is plain wrong. Britian had all sorts of very large countries supporting them, including Canada, Australia, South Africa and India. I'll bet that England wouldn't say that Germany had stood alone, if all these big countries were supporting it. Also, don't forget that the US was supplying intelligence reports and lots of armaments. Wallie (talk) 10:40, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

The rest of the Empire hardly qualifies, in my opinion, as other nations standing alongside Britain. The Empire *was* Britain, and all of the dominions and territories and whatnot Wallie mentioned were part of the Empire. 2Q (talk) 10:23, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

No Britain is an island in north western Europe. India, South Africa etc were completely seperate nations (They had and still have completely different cultural and social norms).--Patton^t/c 11:19, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Surely the best solution is to use a quote that illustrates the idea that "Britain stood alone", but doesn't state it as fact. Then supplement it with a footnote explaining the problems with this point of view.--Jackyd101 (talk) 12:04, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Or using what the BBC source says and saying 'in Europe'. --Narson ~ Talk • 12:08, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

(od) Isn't the "standing alone" thing usually meant as an image of physical isolation rather than a statement of hard fact? The opposite, I suppose, of standing shoulder to shoulder, which is also rarely meant literally. As encyclopedias deal in fact, it may be best to state the position factually – Britain remained the only European country at war with the Axis (or similar) - instead of resorting to metaphors, which some people may read as puffery. Roger Davies ^talk 12:22, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd be fine with something like that. Though I think the chaps who objected may declare that even though they had been occupied, Poland et al were still in the war etc. --Narson ~ Talk • 12:30, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. That's the sort of thing my "(or similar)" was meant to cover. Complicated things, wars :) Roger Davies ^talk 12:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

To say that "Britain stood alone" is just myth making. Everyone outside England can see right through it. If the English gave some credit for the efforts of other nations, others might return the favor. If you let others do the fighting, and then take the credit yourself, then others won't like this. They will also question any effort England has anything to do with. Wallie (talk) 17:32, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I think you will find everyone in Scotland and Wales will also say Britain stood alone is this an anti English thing? --Jim Sweeney (talk) 18:15, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Hey Wallie, go back and play on You Tube. Rebel Redcoat (talk) 16:15, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:25, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

I know this project already use the alerts, but there is talk to include internal peer reviews. Since this project is pretty structured, could you detail how your review process work on this page? It would greatly help B. Wolterding to implement this feature (if it's possible).Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 23:46, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, will do. Kirill ^[pf] 01:57, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 03:46, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Partner peer review for First-person shooter now open

The peer review for First-person shooter, an article within the scope of the Video games WikiProject, is now open. The Video games WikiProject is currently partnering with our project to share peer reviews, so all editors are cordially invited to participate, and any input there would be very appreciated! Thanks! Randomran (talk) 20:51, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Peer review for Take Ichi convoy now open

The peer review for Take Ichi convoy is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Nick-D (talk) 00:07, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

A-Class review for Samuel Burston now open

The A-Class review for Samuel Burston is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! – Joe N 20:10, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Featured topics

Good day, everyone. I hope I don't evoke anyone's wrath, but I've gone around and created Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Showcase/FT, and added Featured Topics to the opening statement on the main page. The only problem is that you have to do a manual count because it returns a wild "350" for the count-only function. ResMar 20:52, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

FTs were already present under the "Other featured content" heading in the showcase, but admittedly displaying them in full looks nicer, given that we have space now.

In any case, I've fixed the layout and the transcluded counts, and created individual sections (and counts) for featured portals and featured sounds as well. Any comments would be very welcome! Kirill ^[pf] 02:42, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Comment - Krill, you are amazing. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 03:11, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

American Forces casualties in the war in Afghanistan

Am I right in thinking that there's a general view that hugely detailed articles like this one which individually list fatalities are frowned upon and considered to violate WP:NOT#DIR and WP:NOT#Memorial? I'm sure that I've seen similar articles deleted. Nick-D (talk) 04:47, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Ugh, yes. What a lot of work, too. It seems to be a result of a dispute at Talk:Coalition casualties in Afghanistan#Casualty dispute (continuation of previous section). Maralia (talk) 04:57, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Apart from violation of basic WP principles, from a practical point of view it looks to me that a list of all casualties (and not just US) can be viewed at one external site - perfectly legit to include a link to that site but repeating all its info - or a major subset - in a WP article is not appropriate. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:06, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

It also seems that there's some original research going on from the discussion at Talk:Coalition casualties in Afghanistan#Casualty dispute (continuation of previous section). The inclusion of sailors killed while inspecting Iraqi boats in the Persian Gulf, a soldier killed while on leave in the US, etc, is pretty questionable. Nick-D (talk) 05:33, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

This article, although maybe a violation of WP:NOT#Memorial, is not without a precedent. There have been other articles that listed by name soldiers killed in the Afghan war specificly. Those are: Operation Slipper, British Forces casualties in Afghanistan since 2001, Canadian Forces casualties in Afghanistan, German Armed Forces casualties in Afghanistan. So why not have one for American Forces casualties?

Furthermore, this article was created, for a number of reasons. The first was so to have an article with an overall number of all American soldiers killed in the war in Afghanistan since the article Coalition casualties in Afghanistan only lists those killed in the country itself and not those that died in other surrounding countries but still died in support of combat operations in Afghanistan. So it was misleading since readers who visited the article will think the number showed there was the real number, which it isn't. The creation of this article was originaly proposed by User Jezarnold during a discussion here Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Coalition casualties in the war in Afghanistan for the deletion of an article called Coalition casualties in the war in Afghanistan. That article was created in an attempt to give the overall number of coalition fatalities in the war, all those who died as the result of the war, but it was found the article was to much of a copy like Coalition casualties in Afghanistan so it will most likely be deleated. So following Jezarnold's suggestion I took it upon myself to do the article. But following that more reasons have been found for the creation of the article. Among them are that it has been found that icasualties.org lists seven soldiers killed IN Afghanistan more than the DoD's site. And the number provided by the DoD has been used up to now by the article Coalition casualties in the war in Afghanistan.

Another reason found for the article was that the article Coalition casualties in the war in Afghanistan listed by incidents all coalition soldiers killed in Afghanistan so the article was getting to big unnecesarily. So it will help to shorten the article if this article exists. I found [12] that Jezarnold already proposed this three months ago. Also, if you still think this article is a problem because it looks as a memorial than the article Coalition casualties in the war in Afghanistan is also in violation of that rule since it listed by names and circumstances all of the incidents of coalition deaths in Afghanistan.

To continue, you stated the inclusion of a soldier killed on leave in Kansas and the two killed in the Persian gulf. The soldier was on leave from here unit which was based at the time in Kuwait supporting operations in Afghanistan, also the soldier has been officialy decleared as a casualty of operation Enduring Freedom by the DoD. As for the two sailors who died in the Persian gulf, those deaths happened one month following the start of the war, when there was still no other Operation Enduring Freedom operations except for the one in Afghanistan, the ship they were assigned was supporting operations in Afghanistan and they have also been confirmed by the DoD as OEF casualties. Since then all casualties in the Gulf region have been atributed as the result of the Iraq war.

Operation Enduring Freedom consists of five specific sub-operations, those are: OEF-Afghanistan, OEF-Phillipines, OEF-Horn of Africa, OEF-Trans Sahara and OEF-Guantanamo bay. Of all confirmed OEF casualties, 41 have been found on the icasualties.org's list to have died in Africa, Cuba or the Phillipines so logic dictates that all of the rest died in support of OEF-Afghanistan.

To conclude, this article is needed to:
Number 1: Give the real number of all American soldiers killed as the result of the war in Afghanistan and not just those killed withing the borders of the country. As it is now that other article is missleading. Some users have already voiced their concern about this.
Number 2: Shorthen the article Coalition casualties in Afghanistan since it is getting to large unnecesary because of the inclusion of the names of all soldiers killed and the cirsumstances of their deaths. Number 3: It has been established the number provided by the DoD is incorect, the summed up number given by them doesn't match up with the number of soldiers they themselves confirmed as OEF casualties. So a real solid number is given.BobaFett85 (talk) 06:08, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

In short, that seems to be WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Nick-D (talk) 06:31, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Than why has not this issue been raised over the Canadian, British, Australian or German casualties articles? In any case, I am talking about why this article is needed and there is no harm for it to exist since there are dozens of other articles like it.BobaFett85 (talk) 06:35, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps because it's the largest and has the highest profile? It's not being singled out as the same arguments apply equally to all the others. I'm personally not keen on any article which deals with (memorialises?) recent, current or ongoing events because the academic context and perspective is usually missing and the sources tend to be news stories. There are also inevitably issues of notability and sythesis. If the purpose of the article is to refute DOD figures, that raises more alarm bells, because that's not really Wikipedia's role. Having said that, I fully understand that these kinds of article are always created in absolute good faith, with the noblest of intentions, and take much dedication to maintain. The problem is that, for the reasons outlined above, not everyone sees them as encyclopedic. Roger Davies ^talk 06:53, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Like I said, the main reason is not to refute DOD figures. It's to shorthen the article Coalition casualties in Afghanistan since it is getting to large unnecesary because of the inclusion of the names of all soldiers killed and the cirsumstances of their deaths. And to give the real number of all American soldiers killed as the result of the war in Afghanistan and not just those killed withing the borders of the country. And also, like I said, as it is now that other article is missleading. And I also said that some users have already voiced their concern about this. If anything you can look at it as moving the content of Coalition casualties in Afghanistan (names and incidents) to a separate article.BobaFett85 (talk) 06:58, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

The key point here perhaps is that it is likely to get a rocky ride and may even be nominated for deletion. Roger Davies ^talk 07:15, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

On a related point, should we really be listing totally non-notable people as suicides on one of the world's most visited websites? This seems to show scant respect for the deceased's children/parents. Roger Davies ^talk 07:19, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Please listen, this article is in essence content removal from the article Coalition casualties in Afghanistan to a totaly new article so to shorten the other one. This was agreed upon by several users, not just me. If the problem here is it's to big then please tell me why you didn't delete that other article since it also listed all American soldiers killed in Afghanistan by name? As for the suicides, they were already listed as suicides in the article Coalition casualties in Afghanistan. But if you have a problem with that too much we can change the circumstances of their deaths from Suicide to Non-combat cause. Is that all right with you?BobaFett85 (talk) 07:32, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I have a proposition, what if we could only list those killed outside of Afghanistan in the article. We would delete the names of those killed in the country itself. We would say that per icasualties.org 608 soldiers have been listed as killed in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Uzbekistan, while we also put a list of the 28 killed in those other countries? But we also put a notice in the article Coalition casualties in Afghanistan that no more adding of names of soldier's names, rank and age killed in the war be added again since that too would be a violation of the memorial rule. We would list just a few high-notable deaths among soldiers.BobaFett85 (talk) 08:06, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

This is difficult. As BobaFett85 has mentioned, we have lists of soldiers killed for other countries in Afghanistan - British Forces casualties in Afghanistan since 2001, Canadian Forces casualties in Afghanistan and German Armed Forces casualties in Afghanistan. So why not have one for American Forces casualties? While I understand Nick-D comment above that WP is not to be used as a memorial, if you see what not a memorial says, "Memorials. Wikipedia is not the place to honor departed friends and relatives. Subjects of encyclopedia articles must satisfy Wikipedia's notability requirements." The Notability article states that this should be applied to individuals articles i.e. a single Person. The topic of the article should be notable, or "worthy of notice"; that is, "significant, interesting, or unusual enough to deserve attention or to be recorded." Whilst Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia, I would imagine that the writers of paper based encyclopedias would not want these lists due to space constraints. Something that Wikipedia shouldn't have to worry about..

This really opens a can of worms! Perhaps Casualty lists in recent conflicts, should be an overview page i.e. 13 people died in Suicide bombings, 45 is hostile fire, 6 in helicopter crashes, AND ALSO the actual list should be on the page BUT hidden (like some Templates have the ability to hide). This would make the article concise, but if I did want to view this list, then I can CHOOSE to do so?? just a suggestion. Not sure how or if this could be done. Jez t e C 09:47, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

The crux of this is in BobaFett85's last post. Without detracting from the personal tragedies that each of those names represents, very few would be notable in Wikipedia terms. I think notability has to be established for all such articles on a case-by-case basis. This might mean that in this case the article becomes redundant, because the remaining contents could be merged back into Coalition casualties in Afghanistan, but that would be for the editors to discuss. The idea that the intention is to "give the real number of all American soldiers killed as the result of the war in Afghanistan" is slightly worrying though, as per other comments above this sounds like original research. EyeSerene^talk 09:59, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I am not going to comment on Original Research. However, there was comment within WP:Memorial (archive10) about adding lists of casualties to articles. It was decided that

The main criteria is probably the size of the list and of the event's article. If the list of names can be comfortably included within the article, then that is the best option. If the list is fairly large, but not so large as to be unmanagable, and there is interesting or useful auxilliary information about the victims, then I think a list article supplementing the main article is the best option. Finally, if the list is particularly long, such as with an event that involves hundreds or thousands of deaths or more, then the list as a whole should probably be placed instead as an openly available source document at Wikisource that articles about the event can interlink to for reference.

There is further discussion at Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not/Archive_5#What_does_Wikipedia_is_not_a_Memorial_actually_mean.3F and Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not/Archive_4#Wikipedia_Is_Not_A_Memorial, and finally the article Sept 11 Casualties has a brilliant example of how these articles should be created. Jez t e C 10:16, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I would think that Casualties of the September 11 attacks is a good example it provided a reasonable summary of those killed without long list of individual names and those who are notable enough for an article are dealt with in a category. I do have a problem which probably to to with WP:RECENTISM and why should more recent wars be treated any different to older conflicts. Nobody would think it reasonable to start a list of American casualties of the second world war, or British and German casualties of the first world war. Sorry but the current lists just look like memorials. MilborneOne (talk) 10:33, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I have just checked the British Forces casualties in Afghanistan since 2001 which includes non hostile fatalities (car crash, Nimrod crash etc) while tragic for the friends and family should we be recording them here ?. The vast majority on these lists are not notable enough for their own article, possibly the best way to deal would be via an external link to MOD, DOD sites --Jim Sweeney (talk) 10:54, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

So death whilst engaged in real operations is less recordable than actually being shot or blown up by Terry Taleban? For what it's worth many of the car accident deaths are whilst engaged, being run over by the vehicle following egress.

I'm not keen on these articles at all, but given the reliance on media reporting and press releases our understanding of the deaths is very limited so I'd be uncomfortable about trying to unpick the reasons.

ALR (talk) 11:14, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

You said that my statement "give the real number of all American soldiers killed as the result of the war in Afghanistan" is original research. It's not original research at all. Listen, the current article, Coalition casualties in Afghanistan lists only servicemen killed inside the country but not those that supported the combat operations there from other countries. There were hundreds of US soldiers killed in Laos or Cambodia but are listed as victims of the Vietnam war. Just like dozens of US soldiers who died in Kuwait are listed as victims of the current Iraq war. Currently operation Enduring Freedom has five different operations: OEF-Afghanistan, OEF-Horn of Africa, OEF-Trans Sahara, OEF-Philipines and OEF-Guantanamo bay. Icasualties.org has a filter instaled to filter out soldeirs killed by country in which they were killed. I checked and 41 soldiers have been listed as killed in African or Southeast Asia countries or Cuba. Thus those 41 died in OEF-Horn of Africa, OEF-Trans Sahara, OEF-Philipines and OEF-Guantanamo bay. That would mean the rest died in OEF-Afghanistan, there is not any other current OEF operation to atribute the rest of the deaths. Of the remaining deaths the icasualties.org filter showed 608 have died in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Uzbekistan, that leaves 28 OEF fatalities that were not in Africa, Cuba or Southeast Asia, thus they were supporting combat operations in Afghanistan. It's not original research, it's simply mathematics based on verified references, sources and a highly notable site. In any case, I proposed in the case that you do not want to keep the list we delete it and just say that 608 soldiers died in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Uzbekistan, while we keep only the list of 28 soldiers who died in other countries in support of OEF-Afghanistan along with references so readers can confirm this. But, again, this is a compromise solution I am willing to take if a majority is for the deletion of the list until then I am of the same opinion as Jezarnold.BobaFett85 (talk) 11:08, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

From a personal perspective I'm not keen on these lists, from an information perspective I'm also fairly sure that they're in contravention of the guidance around memorials and directories, as well as the recentism point above. I'd quite happily see them all disappear. Notwithstanding that, if they have to exist they should be comprehensive.ALR (talk) 11:14, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

The page American Forces casualties in the war in Afghanistan should be nominated for deletion because:

It clearly contravenes Wikipedia:No Original Research
It is inaccurate and unverifiable (Wikipedia:Verifiability)
It seeks to establish an exact number where none is available.
As has been stated, this will open a real can of worms.
The page was created as a result of an editorial dispute.
The unmanageability of the much larger number of American casualties.

There are in the neighborhood of 630 American casualties in the war in Afghanistan. This unmanageable number will probably further increase by over 100-150 a year for several years. (In 2006, the number of US soldiers killed was 98, in 2007 it was 117, in 2008 it was 155, and 2009 is predicted to be even worse given the deterioration of the situation and the surge of many thousands more U.S. troops on the ground.)

There are no editors that will reliably maintain this information listing each of these 600-something cases (700-something by next year).

By comparison, the numbers of casualties for the other countries (152 for the UK, less for other countries) are manageable, exact published numbers for the other countries that can be cited are easily available, and there are many editors that can and do maintain the information reliably for each of the other countries.

For the US, there simply is no exact published number available for the number of US casualties in the war in Afghanistan, yet Bobafett85 created this article in order to define one. Icasualties.org publishes only the total number of OEF casualties combined from several different operations worldwide. The DoD's official casualty status page gives the number of US casualties "In and Around Afghanistan" which it defines as deaths in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan. That is the cited number that has been used for many years in the Wikipedia article on coalition casualties in Afghanistan. Bobafett85 seeks to replace that official DoD number with his own number, and created this page to support his number.

What Bobafett is doing, with this and many other articles related to this war and other wars (Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history editors in particular should be worried), is sifting through hundreds of individual cases, arbitrarily and inaccurately categorizing each according to his own feeling, and then presenting his arbitrary and inaccurate tally as if it's a definitive figure. He then introduces and propagates his "exact" numbers into other Wikipedia military articles, again as if they were official figures, with his own articles as the source. That kind of research/study to come up with an abritrary number - unlike quoting published estimates or tallies from recognized sources - crosses the line into Wikipedia:Original Research, creating material that is of a primary source character.

76.65.182.93 (talk) 05:58, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm making no comment on the reasons for writing the article, but I do have serious concerns about WP:OR. Per that, and other policies such as WP:NOT#MEMORIAL, WP:NOT#DIR and WP:CFORK, I've nominated the article for AfD. Please understand this is not a reflection on either the editors or subjects of the article, merely an examination of whether this article (and by implication other similar articles) are within Wikipedia editorial policy. EyeSerene^talk 09:01, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

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