Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 94

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Help with campaignbox

Is there any way to force a campaignbox to display by default when it's not the only collapsible template on the page? Fort Jefferson (Ohio), which I've just created, has two other collapsible templates, but it seems to me that {{Campaignbox Northwest Indian War}} should be fully visible regardless of the others. Could someone please fix this issue if possible, and also rate the article while you're at it? Nyttend (talk) 04:38, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I've changed the default state on the campaignbox to be uncollapsed; that will force it to display in the full format regardless of any other templates on the page. I'm not sure if this is the optimal way of doing it, however; it might be more useful to be able to control that on a per-article basis rather than a per-campaignbox one, but setting that up would involve both (a) adding a passthrough for the state parameter to each campaignbox that we wanted to have this functionality, and (b) modifying each article that needs to have this functionality to pass in the state to the campaignbox in question. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 14:41, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for USS President (1800) now open

The featured article candidacy for USS President (1800) 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 20:36, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Peer review for Heinrich Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein now open

The peer review for Heinrich Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 20:44, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Chochiwon now open

The A-Class review for Battle of Chochiwon is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 20:46, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Lester Brain now open

The featured article candidacy for Lester Brain is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Ian Rose (talk) 07:26, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

FA category growth

There is an interesting conversation going on here about the changes in concentrations of FA articles, what Raul selects for main page, and so on. Auntieruth55 (talk) 21:55, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I think we have our editorial for April :) Thanks for the link, Ruth. TomStar81 (Talk) 10:38, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

New Zealand and Australia task force

I have a few ideas for the Australia and New Zealand task force that is about to be merged from the Australian and New Zealand task forces.

• Southern Cross task force (since Australia and New Zealand have the Southern Cross on them)
• Australia and New Zealand task force (for obvious reasons)

Jeremy (talk) 21:35, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Consensus in the previous discussion seemed to lean towards Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific taskforce as the name, with the Southern Cross as/incoporated into the taskforce symbol. Considering that the newsletter has only just gone out requesting final opinions, should the relevant discussion be un-archived (Archive 93)? -- saberwyn 22:36, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Unarchiving would be good...or retooling this to serve as the final discussion should people wish it. The ANZSP task force, with the Southern Cross as/incorporated into the symbol seems like the best option, IMO. Since the other names have some reasonable objections, I think it works the best.Cromdog (talk) 22:50, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I personally believe that ANZAC task force would be the best name. Kyriakos (talk) 05:39, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

The problem with calling it "ANZAC" is that the task force is also intended to cover the South Pacific nations, which are well outside most definitions of Anzac. -- saberwyn 05:51, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Then use "ANZIO" (Australia, New Zealand, and Islands of Oceania) as an acronym. Expatkiwi 21:18, 8 April 2010 (CDT)

Although long-winded, I'd personally prefer the spelled-out "Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific taskforce" (for reasons of "does what it says on the tin), with both WP:ANZAC and WP:ANZSP as redirects (we can probably get around the use of ANZAC here as its a redirect, not the name itself) -- saberwyn 21:24, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

If anyone is interested, the pre-Signpost discussion has been un-archived and can be found at #Merging the Australian and New Zealand task forces. -- saberwyn 21:24, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Just as a two-cents-worth note, "ANZAC" would be the term I'd look for first, in looking for such a task force. - The Bushranger (talk) 22:48, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

afd notification

I have nominated the article July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike, which is within the scope of this project, for deletion. All interested editors are invited to comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike. TomStar81 (Talk) 18:53, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Tom, I don't think that there's any need to post routine deletion notifications here - that's what the military deletion sorting list is for. Nick-D (talk) 00:11, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

In this particular case there were two other projects laying claim to the article, to notify them without raising issues of canvassing I felt it was necessary to place a similar notice here. TomStar81 (Talk) 10:59, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Battle of Naktong Bulge now open

The featured article candidacy for Battle of Naktong Bulge 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 18:50, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Chonan now open

The A-Class review for Battle of Chonan is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 19:17, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Old merge discussion

An old merge discussion here concerning the merge of the List of wars 1945–1989, List of wars 1900–1944 and List of wars 1990–2002 into one list has been open for some five months now, and over that period no consensus to merge has appeared. Unless some more input occurs (always welcome) I would suggest this discussion is archived now and the matter can be revisited at a later date if deemed necessary? Benea (talk) 23:07, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for Douglas MacArthur now open

The A-Class review for Douglas MacArthur is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 01:41, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Deletion of Type 096 submarine article

In my humble opinion the Type 096 submarine article should be deleted. It is just a rumour that this submarine is the newest chinese SSBN. Global security (http://www.globalsecurity.org), nor Sinodefence.com http://www.sinodefence.com/navy/vessel.asp, mentions the Type 096. Wikipedia should not contain articles based on just rumours. I hope somebody will take it up.

It may be a rumor, but you don't ordinarily see models built out of whole cloth. It's fine as a stub that can be expanded or deleted as events play out.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:40, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Merging the Australian and New Zealand task forces

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

---

• Based on the consensus of participants, the task forces will be merged to Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific task force as soon as possible. Thanks to all who participated in the discussion.

---

As most of you recall, late last year we concluded a long discussion concerning the merging of several largely inactive task forces into healthier task forces to streamline parts of the project's operation (discussed here). All have since been merged with one notable exception: we were unable to effect the merger of the Australian and New Zealand task forces due to a lack of consensus for a name for such a task force.

To solve this, we are seeking input on what this merged task force should be called. Proposed names last time included (but were not limited too) Australasian task force, Oceaniac military history, and Australian and New Zealand military history task force. These three names seem to have the most consensus last time around, and most of the editors appeared to favor one of these three options; however, since this discussion has started anew, any additional suggestions for the name of this combined task force will be given consideration. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:59, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Australasian Task Force sounds best to me Nick-D (talk) 07:38, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I would support Oceanic as this would give the island states of the Pacific a task force to integrate their activities. Buckshot06 (talk) 21:21, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Definitely Australasian Task Force. 98.9% of the content is going to be Australia & New Zealand-related anyway, so that's the name to go with IMHO. Commander Zulu (talk) 08:41, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I still support Oceanic: while the majority of the articles will be about Australia and New Zealand, this name would be more conducive to including other South Pacific islands. Also, I have never heard the term "Australasian" outside of these discussions, while Oceanic is commonly used. – Joe N 14:04, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd go with Oceanic. Yes, most will be about Australia and New Zealand, but (for example) Tonga participated in the Guadalcanal Campaign. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 01:41, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I live in Australia the word "Oceanic" is almost never used in this part of the world in reference to it. Perhaps a compromise of Australasian & Oceanic Taskforce? Commander Zulu (talk) 01:47, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I favor the merger. As for the name, I prefer Oceanic for a few reasons. I've seen both terms used to refer to that part of the world, which makes them both decent choices. However, I see one big reason to support Oceanic over Australasian. Australasian is a combination of 'Australian' and 'Asian,' yet it seems that either way, this article would apply to Australia, New Zealand, and the island nations usually defined as being outside of Asia. Since my understanding is that nearby places like Indonesia etc that are considered as being part of Asia would remain solely within the confines of the SEA task force, this task force will have no 'Asian' components, thus making the term 'Australasian' a bit of a misnomer.Cromdog (talk) 00:22, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

• Definitely support the merger as a housekeeping item. First name that popped to mind was some variant based on South West Pacific Area (command) since much of the Aust and NZ military history is WWII-centric. "Oceanic" makes me think of the various islands and not Aust/NZ itself. I'd never heard of "Australasian" and that does imply a larger area but exclude NZ. Just my 2c. — MrDolomite • Talk 02:33, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

This is a symptom of a much larger debate, regarding the naming of that part of the world. NZers and Aussies do NOT use "Oceania". Its strict definition does not include Aust or NZ, and includes such areas as Hawaii, which would not fit into this task force. NZers tend to refer to their geographical region as "South Pacific", which excludes Aust. "Australasia" is often used to refer to combined Aust and NZ (as a region, or for combined organisations), but is not greatly liked in NZ; it also excludes the Pacific Islands, which would naturally fit into such a combined task group. How about a simple unambiguous Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific taskforce. Or, since this is a military taskforce, ANZAC might work as a short name. While it has a strict WWI definition, its colloquial meaning is much broader. Gwinva (talk) 03:12, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Gwinva's suggestion of the name "Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific taskforce" sound sensible to me. I'd be disinclined to go "ANZAC taskforce" for the same reasons as "Australasian" and "Oceaniac"...they're all not clear, and for various reasons don't correspond completely with the intended scope of the taskforce (although "ANZAC" as part of a shortcut would be acceptable). -- saberwyn 05:23, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Endorse Aust, NZ, and SouthPac task force. ANZAC is unsuitable as a name, but I agree, could be used as part of a shortcut. Buckshot06 (talk) 05:33, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Australia, NZ, and South Pacific is probably the least unsuitable name (As has been mentioned, the word "Oceanic" is almost never used in self-reference in Australia/NZ), but I do have to ask: Honestly, how many of the Pacific Islands (besides Fiji, Samoa, and maybe Tonga) would actually have much (military-wise) that would be considered notable enough to warrant having a taskforce devoted to it? I'm not saying it should be ignored, I'm just saying I don't think there's a lot of material out there anyway, and I do have concerns about "Task Force Splintering" where (IMHO) trivial things end up with entire Task Forces devoted to them and nothing seems to get improved anyway. Commander Zulu (talk) 05:45, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) As others have pointed out most Australians would not use the term Oceanic to describe the region. The term "Australasian" is more commonly used here, however, I also agree that it would be problematic in this case. My preferred option would be "Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific taskforce" as it would, in my opinion at least, deal with any ambiguity. — AustralianRupert (talk) 06:13, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I support the "Gwinva solution" as a sensible compromise. EyeSerene^talk 19:29, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific taskforce is also my preference. Excellent idea Gwinva. ChoraPete (talk) 14:52, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I too think the ANZSP task-force would work as an alternative name. It's precise, neutral, and, if not concise, at least to-the-point. Cromdog (talk) 04:17, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

How about keeping it simple and having it be just the South Pacific task force? Australia and New Zealand are both part of the South Pacific area, so it would clearly include them and be much shorter. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe 05:43, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

That would be ambiguous. Aust is not really part of the South Pacific (although it has a Pacific Coast), and while NZ is geographically within the South Pacific region, its identity is somehow distinct from the "Pacific islands"; a "South Pacific" designation needn't include NZ, and would be too ambiguous. On the other hand, ANZSP does exactly what it says on the tin.
On a practical note, what needs to done to merge the taskforces? Gwinva (talk) 21:52, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

A fair bit :) From what I recall of doing the last lot (under Kirill's invaluable guidance!), it means moving one TF to the new name, then manually merging in the other (this can take a while for the membership lists and other 'custom' information) and leaving behind redirects on the old TF main- and talk-pages. The categories, /Popular pages and /Article alerts for each TF need to be deleted (around 15 pages for each TF, though the Australian one seems to have many more for some reason) and new equivalent categories created for the new TF. Any userboxes need to be sorted out and {{MILHIST}} needs to be amended in various places to ensure the navigation links in our banner template send everything to the right place, even under the legacy TF names. The task force listing page and navigation template also need to be altered. Because I'm familiar with the process I don't mind doing the honours again when the discussion closes, though if you fancy having a go I'll be happy to help out and I'm sure Kirill would too. EyeSerene^talk 18:44, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm happy to help. Is this discussion here enough or does it need mentioning at the respective task force pages? And any ideas for a combined icon, since flags won't work? A southern cross would be one possibility. Gwinva (talk) 07:12, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

It might not hurt to mention it on the TF pages or perhaps put a note in the next newsletter - there's no rush, and we need to ensure everyone who wants a say has had the opportunity. While merging the TFs is complicated, un-merging them again would be a nightmare. Re the images, with the other mergers I tried to pick something neutral - usually a map or something of the area - and then mentioned on the TF talk page that members could pick (or design) a more appropriate image if desired. The Southern Cross sounds fine to me, but I have no idea if it might be more associated with one country that the entire region. EyeSerene^talk 09:14, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• The next newsletter is going to have a list a mile long of new and ongoing discussions, so adding one more mention here will be no big deal. FWIW, I think we should go with Oceanic. As far as notices are concerned, I think we should hold off on adding those until after the coordinator elections end so we can avoid having multiple notices up all over the place. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:28, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Trying to say this as nicely as possible... but Oceanic taskforce is a ghastly name in my opinion (sorry Tom). I'm fairly confident few, if any, Aussies or Kiwis would have a clue that that referred to them. I contributed to the original debate and at the time resisted the idea of any merge. However I am currently serving overseas in the Middle East so haven't been able to routinely contribute to wiki again until recently. As such if I have to live with one of these I would chose Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific taskforce (with the abbrev ANZSP) as it says exactly what it is. Anotherclown (talk) 15:06, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Closing soon

Just dug this out of the archives; perhaps a good indication that everyone who wants to has had their say. To summarise the above in no particular order:

• Australasian task force - 2
• Oceanic task force - 4
• Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific task force - 9
• Other - 2

If no-one has any objections, I suggest leaving it until the end of the week for any last-minute comments and then closing this up. EyeSerene^talk 12:45, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

For anyone paying attention, there is post-announcement commentary on the name at#New Zealand and Australia task force -- saberwyn 21:24, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

• This discussion will close at 23:59 UTC Friday, so that we can get this merged completely in time for the upcoming news dispatch. Also, I like Oceanic task force, so I'm casting my lot in with them. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:59, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The ANZSP suggestions sounds good to me. I've changed the numbers above, as previously I supported Oceanic. ANZSP, however, avoids Orwellian connotations and terminology which may not be familiar to everyone. It's excessive length can be compensated for with the acronym. – Joe N 20:53, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I support ANZSP as well. I've changed the figures above to reflect this. Ranger Steve (talk) 21:55, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks all and thank you for the link, Saberwyn. The idea of ANZAC as an additional shortcut is certainly worth implementing if that's what the task force members want. EyeSerene^talk 14:17, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

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

merge Ottoman Navy with History of Turkish navies ?

All is in the title. --Kimdime (talk) 05:07, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Can I ask what this is here for? There's no merge tag or discussion on either of these articles. If you have a case for a merger, wouldn't that be the place to start? Xyl 54 (talk) 23:34, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

It is there just to bring the subject to your attention.--Kimdime (talk) 12:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Alex Kennedy (British Army soldier)

I'm not entirely convinced that Alex Kennedy (British Army soldier) is notable, he is claimed (sourced to The Sun) to be perhaps the youngest recipient of the Military Cross since the Second World War, which seems a bit tenuous. On the other hand, I'm aware that in my early days I wrote William Chesarek on the grounds that he was the first US recipient of the British DFC since WWII (he also happened to be invovled in the action that led to the award of the first MC recived by a woman), so I'd feel a bit hypocritical prodding or AFD-ing the Kennedy article. What do other folks think (of both articles). David Underdown (talk) 12:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately I don't think Alex Kennedy meets the guidance in WP:MILPEOPLE. In the past six months or so there have been numerous AFDs for stubish articles on US Silver Star recipients, which suggests that if we are to be consistent, we would probably hold the same view with this. In regards to William Chesarek, I feel that a similar conclusion may also be reached. I'm in no rush to delete content, though, so I'd be happy to be convinced otherwise. Cheers. — AustralianRupert (talk) 13:26, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Without passing an opinion, thought it worth mentioning that his picture graces the front cover of this morning's Times, which is a slightly better ref than the Sun. Also mentions his age, unlike the article we have (which seems a bit odd given his claim to notoriety). If there's an AFD can someone mention it here for future ref? I'm a bit undecided on this one... Ranger Steve (talk) 19:53, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Greco-Italian War

Some input regarding sources that might be pov or not would be valuable here--— ZjarriRrethues — ^talk 21:47, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Human Terrain System

Anyone with any expertise to take a look at this? It has significant NPOV and tone problems. --Cameron Scott (talk) 09:16, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

To me, this looks like its one straw short of a trip to afd. TomStar81 (Talk) 09:35, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The article is full of jargon and isn't of great quality, but the current version seems to reflect the debate over this tactic when it was introduced. The concept is highly notable, and there's no way that it would be deleted in an AfD. Nick-D (talk) 10:46, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I should note that the article has been much improved today. Nick-D (talk) 10:57, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Can we get some more eyes on this - certainly looks like someone wants the article to reflect 'THETRUTH'. --Cameron Scott (talk) 19:49, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I spoke with my anthropology teacher today, she suggest a few places I might look for sources. I'll see about adding sources sometime over the weekend and see where that takes us. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:22, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Would these fall under the MILHIST project

Over the past few weeks I have run across a number of articles without assessments and in many cases without any tlak banners at all. For example General Schedule, Senior Executive Service and a variety of others. For lack of better direction I added the MILHIST US but woudl these also fall under milhist? IF not were shoudl these go? --Kumioko (talk) 17:56, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

They are civil service pay schedules. So I'd say no. Auntieruth55 (talk) 18:42, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I understand that they are civil service but they also pertain to military affairs. Just like Mary Walker and Buffalo Bill were civilians working for the military. If it doesn't fit into MILHIST is there another place that might that you know of? How about something like Defense Integrated Military Human Resources System that relates directly to the miitary. Technically as with the others its military "related" but military related doesn't mean "military history". I hope Im not overthinking this too much. --Kumioko (talk) 18:55, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm with Auntieruth55; they're generic civil service ratings. Found just as much in the Department of Education as they are in the Department of Defense.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:32, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

OK thanks, thats two comments so I guess Ill go with that and apply the usgovernment wikiproject banner and the US WP banner. --Kumioko (talk) 17:47, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Sociology of peace, war, and social conflict

Members may be interested in the discussion here. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:22, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Saiga semi-automatic rifle

One of my students has created this article, Saiga semi-automatic rifle. It probably does not fall into the realm of military, since it is a civilian grade weapon, but we could use some help. I know nothing of firearms, and he needs a reviewer. Could someone please take a look and give him an assist? I think it needs to focus more on the distinct differences in the models (military versus civilian), and how the military one is changed. Also I'd like to see a section on its civilian uses. Is this just a pretty thing to hang on the wall, take down and clean once a week? Auntieruth55 (talk) 00:31, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

You might want to also drop a line at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Firearms...they'd be more capable of commenting on civilian usage than MILHIST. -- saberwyn 00:37, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

good idea. (working on vapor lock) Auntieruth55 (talk) 00:40, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Peer review for John S. Loisel now open

The peer review for John S. Loisel is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 01:58, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Captilization of German terms in English articles

I just had a look at the copy edited article Jagdgeschwader 11. The editor SMasters (talk · contribs) put a number of German terms in lower case, examples include Staffel (squadron) and Gruppe (group). German spelling requires the capitalization of all nouns. I understand that in the English language nouns are not capitalized unless they are names. What rule applies here? My feeling is that the German rules apply here since the terms are German and in italics. MisterBee1966 (talk) 14:55, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

An article on the German military in en.wikipedia is going to be read by Germans and Germanophiles, and "staffel" looks wrong. There's an easy solution for this particular article, I think: leave the first occurrence as it is, "(German: Staffel)", and replace the other occurrences of "staffel" by "squadron", which I think is required anyway by our policy WP:UE, since there are tons of English-language sources that talk about German military units. - Dank (push to talk) 17:43, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

On the one hand, it annoys me that someone would decapitalize Staffel, on the other, this brings up a good point. Staffel, Jagdgeschwader, etc., are not really loan words, not in the way corps, Gestapo, Stasi, etc., are, at least. Consequently, we should probably not use them generally. That said, we do have articles using the German title for most of the terms you use. MOS:Foreign terms says to use terms sparingly. Auntieruth55 (talk) 17:59, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

My preference is to use the German term after having provided the nearest English equvalent on the first use. Mostly, I think, because the terms are often not quite equivalent. An American or British wing of WWII is about 60% or less of the size of a Jagdgeschwader. That said, I prefer for the terms to retain whatever capitalization used in their native language, with the exception of first word in a sentence, etc.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:08, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not an expert in this area, but if Staffel etc. are the most accurate terms to use then we should use them rather than an approximate English term. When we do so, we should always explain and link the term, but should always write them in the manner they should be written in their original language (and in italics).--Jackyd101 (talk) 21:13, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

No, I'd go with Dank and Auntieruth. If the guidelines say we should use foreign terms sparingly, and use english for preference, what is the reason to ignore them? Why does the text need to be peppered with German terms at all? It just looks pretentious.

Surely the correct course would be to use the German term once in italics (and capitalized) with an English equivalent, un-capitalized, and then use the equivalent thereafter (Thus "Staffeln (squadron)", then “the squadron”, “squadrons” etc).

Or for unit names we could use the German, followed by an abbreviation eg Jagdgeschwader 1 (JG 1) and use the abbreviation therafter (as the article already does in places).

I’d also wonder why the same can’t be done with military ranks; is it really necessary to write Hauptmann, etc in full every time? An English equivalent would be “Flight Leutenant” in full once, then “Flt.Lt” thereafter. Surely they have abbreviations, don't they? Xyl 54 (talk) 23:26, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

There is a real danger when an editor knows both languages that they write something that is comprehensible to them will be near gibberish for a monoglot English speaker. When Miles Kington wrote a regular column Parlez vous Franglais for Punch, said that his editors would pull him up when his column became too French. -- PBS (talk) 09:16, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

After having finished a re-edit of the Jagdgeschwader 11 article (version from: 12:36, 11 April 2010), I come to the conclusion that improving the policy situation on foreign military terms would bring some advancements. I don't think it's desirable to use the English approximations of, in this case, German military terms. Sturmvogel 66 has made a good point here, by referring to the size of wings vs. Jagdgeschwader.

The target of this endeavour should be unification and clearness. If using German military ranks for German soldiers and American military ranks for American soldiers, etc. it may be easier for the reader/user to tell apart from German and American soldiers. Same thing with military units. The use of abbrev. for foreign ranks might be enworsen the situation - for readers/users who have no idea of military ranks, it is tough enough to discrimitnate between Oberstleutnant and Oberleutnant, if heading for the abbrev. OTL and OL (this is used in lists only - for common usage in text one uses Oberstlt. for Oberstleutnant and OLt for Oberleutnant)

My concept for improving is the following:

• Links to foreign military units/ranks should not be in italics any more. E.g. Oberleutnant instead of Oberleutnant.
• Foreign military units/ranks should be used in the manner of their originating country. E.g. Unteroffiziere instead of unteroffiziers.
• Stay at one way to use these terms - don't switch all the time.
• Create a section/box featuring the translations/approximations at either the bottom or top of the page. (Since afaik the wikimedia software does not enable a mouseover-solution for this. please tell me if i am misinformed). Reading translations/approximations all over again within in continuous text is quite distracting.

Advantages: Unification brings structure. This will simplify the reading pleasure and therefore the understanding of this and other articles.

Disadvantages: To apply this reform to all articles with military ranks/units is quite a bit of work.

Drop some lines what you think of my attempt to reform the policy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peter Weis (talk • contribs) 13:31, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with this assessment. It makes the most sense, and also avoids POV/country-centric issues. - The Bushranger (talk) 17:29, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Remember, the object of an encyclopaedia is to provide people with little knowledge of a subject with some general information and point them the way to learn more; and the object of the English WP is to do that for people whose first or only language is English. Which is what the current guidelines are there to facilitate.
So no, cluttering up articles with foreign words does not achieve clearness.
To your first point, the convention in English is to put foreign words in italics, so not doing that is a non-starter.
As for your second, neither unteroffiziere nor "unteroffiziers" would be particularly desirable; it would be better to re-phrase the piece to avoid using them altogether, if possible. It works that way for handling the varieties of English; it’s not beyond the wit of man to do the same here.
Third: not at the expense of clarity; and if we stick with English, we should mention the German somewhere.
Fourth: Distracting for whom? And why would the article need a glossary box? Most of these terms have their own pages, and can be blue linked. Also, if the differences are really so significant it should be explained there.
And, as to the final point, on POV/county-centric issues, this only seems an issue with articles on the German military. Articles about the Soviet, or Italian or French Air Forces (for example) manage to follow guidelines quite easily; what is so complicated about German that makes this difficult? Xyl 54 (talk) 01:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, not all terms have exact translations. Having a combination of non-exact translations and foreign terms isn't ideal by any means. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs/^Vote! 02:06, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I have been a silent spectator of this discussion from start even tough I am the one who has heavily contributed to the article in question. Chief reason is, that I have been in a similar discussion before at the time of A Class review and FA Review of JG 1. My only point this time is, One of the Best articles Werner Mölders, follows Sturmvogel's logic and keeps the Germans word without any problem. If we are talking about French Air Force, that article and Soviet Air Force are barely rated a start. Italian version doesn't even have its own talk page. On the other extreme is the Imperial Japanese Air Force article on WP:en partly in Japanese. Then there's Royal Netherlands Air Force once again striking a balance like Werner Mölders. My point is, comparing to other country air forces is pointless as they may or may not have respective language names for units. More importantly, if the rank or unit size does not translate to an equivalent English speaking country version, then the reader, needs to be informed as such so as to make apples to apples comparison. The English speaking reader (even if that's their only language) came to the Wikipedia for Luftwaffe, then it does imply their willingness to dedicate time to understand Luftwaffe. If they need to follow some German words because there is no equivalent English, then the editor should make an effort to explain the word at first instance. The reader can refer to that on following instances. It would be undermining the reader and Luftwaffe on our part if we provided wrong information to the reader by substituting English equivalents indiscriminately. '  Perseus 71 ^talk 23:28, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I have just been alerted to this discussion, and as the copy editor who made these changes, I would just like to make a few points. Firstly, it is important to note that my copy edit was of the whole article. To be fair to me, I did not just go and "decapitalize" selected words. Nor was it my intention to annoy Germans and Germanophiles everywhere. My job was to copy edit the article to ensure that it complies with the rules for readers of the English language. The full edit took some six hours and the changes I made can be seen here. Wikipedia, like any good publication (print or online) has a set of rules that govern what styles apply. I do not necessarily agree with all these rules, but I will follow them as it will allow consistency to be applied throughout. For example, I personally believe that President, Chief Executive Officer, etc. should always be in caps, but Wikipedia policy states otherwise, so I comply. The question now is, do we follow grammar rules set for another language, even though we are writing in English? In this situation, it is not for an editor to decide. S/he refers to the MoS and follows the rules there. Whatever the consensus is here, in order to change the rules, you should seek to amend the policies governing this in the MoS. -- S Masters (talk) 07:01, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

To be clear, it was not my intention to criticize you S Masters. My sole intention to raise this topic here, is for me to understand what is right and wrong. It is more shades of gray so far. The issue to me still seems to be twofold. First, do we use German terms or not? My understanding so far is that it is legitimate because a semantic one to one mapping is not always given. Second, if we use German terms do we then use English grammar rules. Personally I would oppose this, it just curls my toenails but then again it is my German background. If the consequence is that rules are rules then I would recommend to use the closest English equivalent following the first occurrence of the German term. MisterBee1966 (talk) 20:32, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Battle of Pulo Aura now open

The featured article candidacy for Battle of Pulo Aura 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 05:11, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I've added my review to this. Jacky's article was the first GAN I did, and it's been fascinating to watch this article grow. Please go take a look! Auntieruth55 (talk) 17:24, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for Heinrich Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein now open

The A-Class review for Heinrich Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! - MisterBee1966 (talk) 09:35, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Question

• I would like to post a Proposal to add a section to either 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion or Khe Sanh. Could someone please point me to the correct discussion page. Thank you Mlpearc MESSAGE 17:17, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

The best place, I think, would most likely be those articles individual talk pages, either: Talk:3rd Reconnaissance Battalion or Talk:Khe Sanh. Cheers. — AustralianRupert (talk) 22:40, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

• That was my first thought and I was going to post it at 3rd recon till I saw This, which is ok, I'm just not used to seeing a blank talk page. It looked "closed" to me, but if it's up and going there's where I'll post Mlpearc MESSAGE 23:10, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
  • It is up and running, although no one has left any messages yet. — AustralianRupert (talk) 12:58, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Military fiction task force

shouldn't the Military fiction task force be flagged onto the WPMILHIST banner? The previous discussion died here and at WT:NOVELS, but the discussion seemed to lead to it being ok Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Novels/Archive 15.

70.29.208.247 (talk) 06:38, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

It's on our to-do list once the Australian/New Zealand task forces are sorted out. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 16:04, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Question on List of Fully Enclosed and Armored Breech Loading Ground Fighting Vehicles

A recently created article I came across, List of Fully Enclosed and Armored Breech Loading Ground Fighting Vehicles seems to effectively be a list of tanks and selected (enclosed) SPGs ordered by gun size. Notwithstanding that its currently very incomplete and has a title with capitalization issues, are there any opinions to its merits as opposed to the use of categories? GraemeLeggett (talk) 17:59, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

It's redundant to Lists of armoured fighting vehicles, and since no one uses this terminology to refer to a tank, there's no reason to retain it as a redirect. I deleted it and removed all the links pointing to it. Parsecboy (talk) 18:35, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

User:Blablaaa

There is currently a discussion of the indefinite block I have placed on Blablaaa (talk · contribs) at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Blablaaa which other admins and editors in this project may wish to comment on. Nick-D (talk) 00:21, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for 22nd Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry now open

The A-Class review for 22nd Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 05:52, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Battle of the Cedars now open

The featured article candidacy for Battle of the Cedars 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 03:14, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

This candidacy could use comments. Thanks for contributing! Magic♪piano 01:53, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

A comment from a former Marine

Via email:

I've noticed on many of your [articles] when referring to sailors, soldiers, Marines ... Marines is always spelled with a lower case m. This is an error. When referring to U.S. Marines, the name Marines is always spelled with a ... CAPITALIZED M.

It would take me forever to correct on your sites all the errors of this matter, so I leave it to you to honor our Marines by correcting the spelling their designations with a capital M.

No opinion, just passing the comment on. Guy (Help!) 20:01, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

With all due respect to the former marine, we have no responsibility to, and moreover no business, honoring members of the USMC by following their capitalization style. This is not an American project, it is international; to capitalize Marine (as well as "Soldier" in reference to soldiers in the US Army) would be incredibly biased. Likewise, this is an encyclopedia, not a publication from the US DoD. Parsecboy (talk) 20:10, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Point of clarification: there are no former marines; once a marine, always a marine :) Secondly, in a larger context, this point may warrant some discussion since the for basic units of an armed service are the army, navy, air force, and marine corps. A fireside chat about the merits of capitalizing these names wouldn't hurt the project in the long run, and could help us feel out whether adopting one position or the other - or both for that matter - would be beneficial for us int he long run. TomStar81 (Talk) 20:16, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Just FYI, Associated Press style capitalizes "Marine." Maurreen (talk) 20:27, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

The AP is an American organization; we are not. Parsecboy (talk) 20:33, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I am still on the fence about wether it should be capitalized. I have seen something stating it should be but can't seem to find it. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Military terms seems to indicate that it should be then there are a couple other places that indicate otherwise. --Kumioko (talk) 20:40, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I fail to see how using the proper useage of the term would be "bias". If "Marine" is supposed to be spelled with a captial M, wouldn't refusal to do so be bias in and of itself, merely in the opposite direction...? - The Bushranger (talk) 20:42, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Is this a case of a proper noun as in Marine the rank? Compare with Private as opposed to the generic term "soldier". Consider writing about the "generals and colonels at the headquarters of Division nn" rather than "General X and Colonel Y at the divisional headquarters" GraemeLeggett (talk) 21:18, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

In addition to my earlier comment I also believe that the Mainre Corps holds trademarks and copyrights on various different terms such as the Eagle Globe and Anchor, possibly including the term United States Marine. I have done a little research and have found some evidence of this but nothing about the term United States Marine. If this is the case however then capitalizing the term Marine, depending on the trademark, would be appropriate. --Kumioko (talk) 21:21, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I have Always used "M" for Marine and the same to all branches. Mlpearc MESSAGE 22:26, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

The Marines is almost certainly the grammatically correct form, just as Army soldiers is correct when referring to soldiers in the US Army, as opposed to army soldiers referring to ground infantry in general, without referencing a specific army. To use marines would imply you are NOT referring to a specific military organization referred to as 'Marine.' After all, would it be appropriate to talk about 'royal navy seamen' aboard one of Her Majesty's ships? The Marines use their branch name as a noun for themselves, thus demanding the use of a capital.Cromdog (talk) 03:33, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Aside from the point Parsecboy made very well above about Wikipedia not being compliant to US Military style guides, many other countries also have marine units. A lower case 'm' seems appropriate when writing 'marines' or 'a marine'. Nick-D (talk) 04:17, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

The ordinary rules of English grammar regarding proper nouns should govern this. Referring to the organization US Marines is correct, but a Marine tank is not. The AP stylebook violates those rules, for reasons unknown to me. Possibly to stop letters from irate marines who miss their capital letter.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:11, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

This article also tried to track down why certain style guides capitalize Marine, with no success. I'm sure the reason is that Marine is seen as the "short form" of the proper noun United States Marine. A "short form" is a capitalized, shorter verison of a longer proper noun. For example, if you're writing about the United States Congress, you can use the capitalized short form, Congress, even though congress is also a plain old noun. That's why "Marine" is capitalized (it's a shortened proper noun) but "soldier" is not. —Kevin Myers 08:25, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

WP:BIAS to USMC if you refer to a seaborne military servicemember specialized in land warfare (marine) as "Marine". It shows undue favoritism to a particular service (to the detriment of squids and assorted landlubbers). If you refer to the USMC as "Marines", that's fine though. If you refer to a USMC marine as "Marine" then you'd have to refer to a Royal Marines marine as a "Royal Marine" instead of a marine, etc ad infinitum. 70.29.208.247 (talk) 21:56, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Peer review for SMS Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand now open

The peer review for SMS Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Buggie111 (talk) 02:29, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Peer review for Indiana class battleship now open

The peer review for Indiana class battleship is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 05:14, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Identifying a First World War British unit

Dear all,

I'm still at the Eastbourne Redoubt, and at the moment I'm transcribing some letters left to the museum some time ago. They're from several different soldiers writing home - one from France somewhere and another from Alexandria - during the First World War. I'm trying, both for the letters themselves and as a matter of personal interest, which unit one of these chaps was attached to. He might have belonged to the Royal Sussex, and what I gather is the first letter (of many) he wrote to a woman back in Britain has his unit at the top. It reads '16 Battery R J A British Expeditionary Force', although for some reason the 'A' is written as a lower-case 'a', leading me to think it might be another letter. I thought of the usual suspects - Royal Artillery, Royal Garrison Artillery - and the like, but I can't identify what the R J A might be. The date is 14/1/1915 if that helps at all. If anyone can help me with this, it would be much appreciated. Cheers, Skinny87 (talk) 11:51, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Have you tried to see if the soldiers records still exist at Kew? they might provide some clues. Do you have the names and service numbers of the individuals you are interested in ? MilborneOne (talk) 12:20, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The "J" could easily be a misread G or F, given contemporary handwriting ;-) FWIW, 16th Battery RFA started the war with XLI Brigade, 2nd Division (per [1]). 16th Heavy Battery RGA saw service in mid-1915, 16th Siege Battery RGA ditto, and 16th Mountain Battery wasn't formed until 1918. There was a Royal Indian Artillery, but the divisions serving in France seemed to use conventional RFA batteries; if he's writing from the BEF, it must imply he's in France.

The lowercase "a" is interesting - can't think what it might signify, though. Do you have any later letters from the same chap? Shimgray | talk | 12:38, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Surviving service records are online on Ancestry, and you should be able to get free access at your local library 60-70% were destroyed in WWII German bombing though. However, anyone who served overseas should have a medal index card, again available through Ancestry, or indexed sightly diferently, through Documents Online on The National Archives' website (£2 per download in that case). I wondered about Royal Jersey Artillery, but the Royal Militia of Jersey seems to have been infantry only. There was an RGA battery based on Jersey, but that has a different number, and doesn't fit with the sender's location. Try the Great War Forum - lot's of very knowledgable folks there. David Underdown (talk) 12:41, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the help gents, very much appreciated. I do have a name and service number, and the soldier in question seems to have moved about a fair bit during his service - several times he changes company, moving from 'A' to what appears to be 'Z' company, as well as different platoons - A at one point, and 14 sometime later. He seems to identify his regiment or parent unit as '8th W R R' or 8th W R P'. Very mysterious, and if I'm able to do further research for these letters - I'm hoping to do a display with them - I'll use the forum and govt services identified. If anyone is interested, his service number appears to be 28980-2, with the '-2' not being certain. Skinny87 (talk) 13:31, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Is he called William Clark - http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/details-result.asp?Edoc_Id=1969570 regiment given as West Riding Regiment on his medal card which would fit with WRR, 8th would indicate 8th Battalion. Companies were usually A-D I think, but particularly where more than one battalion of the same regiment was in the same brigade they sometimes switched to using X-Z to avoid possible mixups. David Underdown (talk) 13:46, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

And if it is he, his medal card indicates he was killed in action on 9 August 1917, but I can't currently track him down in the CWGC records. David Underdown (talk) 13:59, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

(od) Yes, it is indeed Clark, but this poses something of a problem David. You see, I have a letter written by Clark dated 20-12-18 stating that he had been through a lot during the war, and his brother was apparently killed, but he was alive. This is intriguing! Skinny87 (talk) 14:02, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I've looked at The National Archives version of the card, which is in black-and-white, and only shows the front as they were digitised from microfilm of the cards. The version hosted by Ancestry is in colour and has both sides of the card - the back was used for notes on correspondence, and might clear matters up. If he actually survived, it would explain why I can't find him on CWGC, the clerks were dealing with thousands of records, so some errors were bound to be made! The card indicates he received the British War Medal, and the Victory Medal, but there's no indication he was eligible for either the 1914 Star or 1914–15 Star which would tend to suggest he did not go overseas before 1 January 1916 (this eligibility is sometimes on a separate card, but I can't trace on in this case). http://www.1914-1918.net/dukes.htm says the 8th Battalion went out to Gallipoli on 7 August 1915, and remained in the Mediterranean theatre until July 1916, when it moved to France. So putting that together, he probably went out to Gallipoli as a reinforcement in the first half of 1916, and then transferred with the battalion to France in July 1916. The medal card also shows the service number 3/9378 which would suggest he was initially in the third battalion. This was the Special Reserve battalion (descended frmo the militia) which acted as a training regiment, so he probably signed up to the Special Reserve. If you're looking for his records, try that number too, the indexing on Ancestry can be a bit variable. The Great War Forum is definitely the place to go, they'd love to get their teeth into this one, and there's almost certianly a West Riding Regt expert on there. David Underdown (talk) 14:16, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Appears to be only two pages surviving in his service record - 28980 William Clark of 83 Leeds Street, Keighley appears to have joined the 3rd West Riding Regiment on 16 August 1916 aged 26. He declared he had served before in the 3rd Duke of W. WRR looks like 7 years. In the have you any preference for any particular branch or service it says Yes - R then a single character like a crossed 7, and a small a !! looking at similar document it could Royal Field Artillery. The back of the medal card is blank. MilborneOne (talk) 19:47, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Ancestry has a whole load more on him. Originally 3 West Yorks, posted to 2nd West Yorks 1914 on mobilisation. Later posted to 1st Garrison Btn West Yorks. Discharged on termination of engagement from 1st Garrison Battalion West Yorks in 1916 (joined 1909) as a lance-corporal having been in hospital for hand grenade wounds to head, left arm and groin. Qualified for 1914 star. Retained under Military Service Act and posted to 8th Battalion West Yorks (attestation does state preference for RFA as MilborneOne says) in France December 1916. Wounded at least two times while in France. Discharged in Mar 1919 to class Z of Army Resevre and then served 8 years in the TA 6th Batt DWR in May 1925 until 1933. NtheP (talk) 21:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Posted to 2nd West Yorks on mobilisation is a bit odd - they were in Malta! Presumably this would mean "left at depot waiting for them to come home...". Anyway; this would mean arriving in France with 8th Division in November 1914, so perhaps he was lurking around their artillery units? The RFA batteries were 32, 33 and 36 (in XXXIII Brigade); 1, 3, and 5 (XLV Brigade); plus O and Z Royal Horse Artillery (V Brigade RHA). There was also 7th Mountain Battery RGA, but we're still not really closer to identifying the mysterious "16 Battery RJa". (...unless! Did batteries normally break up into sections? He might be writing from 1.5 Battery, which might be misreadable as 16...) Shimgray | talk | 22:58, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Careful, West Yorkshire Regiment and West Riding Regiment are different - are we still actually talking about the same bloke? He could well ahve been sent out to Malta on mobilisaton, the peace-time and war-time regimental establishments for regiments were different, or at the very least they'd have wanted to make sure battalions were at full strength. So he had probably been a regular, which at that time entailed signing up for five years' active service, followed by seven in the reserve (there might be still further records referring to this, and there must somewhere be another medal card for the 14 Star). The reserve commitment expired during the war, at which point he became eligible for conscription, he attempted to leave the infantry and get posted to the RFA - to which he had perhaps at sometime been attached (trench mortar batteries might also be worth investigating). I don't think batteries except the heavy batteries were normally broken up. 16 Battery was originally in XLI brigade, attached 2nd Division. David Underdown (talk) 08:44, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Definately the same man, I was very careful to check the service number each time. I'm pretty certain about the units but I'll have another look. NtheP (talk) 17:04, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

service numbers were only guaranteed to be unique within a battalion, not even necessarily within a regiment at this time. A unique army number was introduced only in the 1920s. So it is just about possible that two different William Clarks could end up with the same number. David Underdown (talk) 17:11, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Point taken about regiments. Take all my references above to be to DWR West Riding Regt not PWO WY (my bad, sorry). Potted service history 29890 W Clark; 3rd Batt DWR 1909 - 1914. Mobilised 5 Aug 1914 at Halifax. Posted to 2nd Batt DWR 20 Sept 1914. Promoted paid L/Cpl 2nd Batt 12 Feb 1915. Posted to Depot 24 April 1915. Posted 3rd Batt 16 June 1915. Transferred to 1st Garr Batt 1 August 1915 (notes specify WO9/Gen 5294 28 July 1915) as private. Promoted paid L/Cpl same date. Sepnt time in Malta as it's listed in his service record. Posted back to depot 13 Feb 1916. Discharged 4 March 1916. Then he reenlists 16 August 1916 and is posted to 8th Batt DWR.

Unless there are two William Clark's both 26 in 1916 and from Keighley all the records point to the same person. Although at various times his service number has been quoted as both 9378 and 22739 as well as the more common 29890. So at the date of the original letter it looks like he was with 2nd Batt DWR part of 13 Brigade, 5th Div who I think were in France at the time. I don't know if this helps or hinders as I haven't a list to hand of 5 Div artillery units. NtheP (talk) 19:02, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

(od) Gents all assembled, I can't thank you all enough. This is an incredible mystery that I've managed to stir up! I won't be at the Museum again until Saturday, but I'll be spending the whole day there transcribing these letters. There are several more soldiers who replied to 'Miss Betty' and I'll get their details down here as well. Whilst I can't promise anything, these details would seem to be incredible material for a permanent display in the Redoubt next year - 'Dear Miss Betty...' or somesuch. I'll talk to the Museums Officer about it and see what he thinks! Skinny87 (talk) 12:44, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Certainly sounds like a worthwhile project, it's the small personal details that really bring home the reality of things. I've been helping with some research into the men listed on the Central Council for Church Bell Ringers' Rolls of Honour, and it's amazing the detail you can find after all this time. I was particularly chuffed when I managed to track down a photo of one of the men I'd been researching, who actually rang occasionally in the same churhc where I now do most of my ringing. Anyway, it might perhaps be more appropriate to address any further queries on user talk pages or via email, rahter than cluttering this place up any further! David Underdown (talk) 13:19, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Right, I'm back transcribing. First letter (or rather postcard) I've found is from Pvt Clark, dated 4/8/15. It states that he is in Sheffield at the 'Hillsborough Barracks' and is part of the '1st P. B Regt' at that time, which is soon to head to India. I'm not sure if this matches with his potted service history as above: the letter doesn't mention a Garrison Battalion, although the dates would seem to match up, the postcard being sent only a few days after being transferred to the Battalion and he does mention a new unit. If anyone wants to know more, then do let me know - I don't want to ramble on! Skinny87 (talk) 09:55, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I have to admit, there's one thing that depresses me about these letters from Clark. I'm not reading them in any distinct order as I transcribe them, and I've just hit upon one he wrote in December 1917, when he was apparently back from the front. He talks about getting a letter from his brother and passes the news onto Miss Berry. However, one of the first letters I transcribed from Clark made mention of his brother; this was from December 1918, and was quite short and hard to read, but it seemed to hint at his brother either being killed or badly wounded. So it's rather odd to read one letter where his brother is dead, and then another where he's alive and writing letters - like a time machine. Unfortunately, I don't have a first name or unit, because I would dearly like to know what happened to him. So I'm going to keep transcribing, today and next week, and see if I can't turn up a name. Skinny87 (talk) 13:55, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, this is odd. The letter I assumed was from William Clark is actually from his brother! I didn't notice until I saw the better style of handwriting and his initials. Pte J. Clarke 97888 B Company 3rd Battalion Sherwood Foresters. Based at Cleadon Camp near Sutherland around December 1917. Can anyone shed light on what J Clark did, and if he did in fact die as his brother's letter hinted at? Skinny87 (talk) 14:00, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

John Clarke, Private 97888, 9th Sherwood Foresters, died 6 October 1918. "son of Francis and Mary Clarke, of 83, Leeds St., Keighley, Yorks", which matches the address for William above, http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/178277. So near to the end of the war. The additional service numbers 9378 and 22739 for William have turned up another medal card http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/details-result.asp?Edoc_Id=1983314 which I will look at properly tomorrow. Confusingly, this does give his regiment as West Yorkshire Regiment... David Underdown (talk) 16:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

The other medal card is indeed his 1914 Star entitlement, it remarks that he was discharged, which fits with everything in the service records. Date of entry to a theatre of war given as 20 September 1914 (in my experince this is often actually the date of embarkation, rahter than the date the man arrived in theatre). Skinny, it occurred to me last night that since William survived the war, you may need to be careful about copyright, which may still belong to his estate if he died later than 1939. David Underdown (talk) 09:19, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

USAF Coat of arms question

Could someone figure out the coat of arms one the plane? [2] [3][4][5] Seems they were Air Force Systems Command, Flight Dynamics Laboratory and a unknown one. Matthew_hk tc 11:59, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

The first is the Air Force Flight Test Center - commons:File:Air Force Flight Test Center.png. Shimgray | talk | 12:15, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Loss of faith in the ACR process

I just noticed that the Kenneth Walker ACR has been closed with no consensus and although I certainly understand the reasoning, I must confess myself...dissapointed. This would be the fourth ACR I submitted and although the other three passed, they too had dubious results in ACR, causing me to lose faith in the process itself. This isn't just reserved to ACR's either I'm afraid and appears to have become somewhat epidemic of all the avenues of review whether that be GA, FA, FL, A or PR. GA being a prime example as it got so bad they had to institute a sweeps to garner interest. --Kumioko (talk) 03:54, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I am admittedly new to the ACR process, and so what is occurring right now seems the norm for me. What changes would you propose, and what needs to be done? Do you have any specific gripes with the ACRs? NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs/^Vote! 04:00, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't know how to fix this problem but my gut feeling is that we need to review the process and change it. Perhaps, if an article has been submitted and a couple of reviewers have reviewed and made comments, and any changes have been corrected, then that article coudl be promoted if it meets the criteria in the eyes of the few with the power to promote. Kinda like a GA-Plus because in my opinion the act of awaiting consensus only causes a delay in the article being promoted. The articles that don't pass just get resubmitted a couple weeks later continuously until they eventually pass. Many of us put a lot of stock in statements like Wikipedia has X number of featured articles, Good articles or what have you and the problem is there are A LOT of other articles that either meet or are very close to meeting the criteria. But few seem interested in taking them the rest of the way. Its the same dozen people submitting, reviewing and promoting. --Kumioko (talk) 03:54, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

The big problem is participation. I myself just started to get involved in reviewing (starting with ACRs) again, but another 4-5 people are seriously needed to make it a decent process, I'd say. And the more the merrier, really. More comments = better article quality.Cromdog (talk) 04:10, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

It makes sense. I'm trying to figure out ACR to help in that department, and whole thing seems fairly confusing. Also, people oppose, issues are addressed, people support, and then they fail or go no consensus, something that shouldn't happen. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs/^Vote! 04:13, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Some more things that may help is if we create a more robust description of what exactly classes of articles should contain. As it is know is extremely subjective and although it seems to be mostly undocumented there is a distinct line that can be drawn as to what kinds of things should and shouldnt be in the various classes and what tools should be used. For example. Whenever I review I use the FA tool checker to review the disambiguous links and the external links, I check the article in AWB, I check the images referencing and structure. If there is an applicable infobox or portal. If its a person does it have the persondata template, etc. Other editors look specifically for prose and sentence flow. All important things, but my point is each person has their fortay. Some other things I think we could do is to setup some kind of process where the article is nearly immediately reviewed by some of the service bots (like Wildbot, Yobot and the one that checks the images I can't think of at the moment) and AWB. This would knockout some of the simple and obvious issues and eliminate some of the more mundane things and would in my opinion take some of the guesswork and manual labor out of the review process. If we begin somewhat of a reverse engineering process to review the various different items that editors commonly look for I think we can make the process flow a bit better and make it bit less ominous and scary. --Kumioko (talk) 04:28, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

The main issue I can see that you have brought up is that even if there has been a good amount of reviews but no supports or one the article is closed as no consensus. If we were to have the coordinators promote articles when the reviewers have not supported yet there would be an even larger backlash against this process than when articles are closed per the 28 day limit. The main issue with this specific review is that the reviewers did not show up until the review had been open for a good chunk of the allowable 28 days. This time limit is set in stone, so if reviewers reviewed articles earlier when they were first nominated instead of waiting and there were more reviewers there might be a different outcome. As a coordinator, it is not something I take pleasure in to close a review as no consensus after 28 days when it appears to be very close to passing as it was in this case, but I do it to maintain the integrity of the process and our reputation. -MBK₀₀₄ 04:38, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

The biggest problem with the ACR process is the lack of participation. For some reason, the project seems to think that only a select few are entitled to review articles submitted for A-class rank, and that just is not the case. We have tried a wide range of things to get people to participate, but by and large it ends up being the same 10-20 editors that review all the ACRs submitted. Its becoming a wiki-wide problem: put simply, people want the high ratings but are unwilling to do any of the work in the review process to get there. Automated tools may help, but our articles have particular needs and the tools will not help out beyond the most basic level. We provide a chart documenting the expectations of the article classes within the review department we run, so everyone should have an example there, but I have no idea how many people are willing to make use of that. I can certainly sympathize with your position, and I am open to ideas on how to improve the process, but remember that no matter how hard we try and improve the system it will not work unless more people take an interest in it. That said, if you have ideas, lets here them, because I am desperate enough to improve the ACR system participation that at this point I am willing to try just about anything. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:55, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Maybe give people the option of doing a complete review of the whole article, or picking a small bit from a checklist and doing part of the review? I find that if you point people towards doing small bits of checking, they get drawn in and end up making more suggestions and comments to improve the article. That's what happened with most of the articles I've ever got involved with. Carcharoth (talk) 06:56, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

As one of those who don't participate, maybe my perspective may help. My main reason for not participating are time - I'd rather use my wikipedia time elsewhere - but also a lack of enthusiasm for the nit-picking approach that's needed. You need a certain mentality (and I say this without disrespect) to get into that level of technical detail and probably only a minority have the gift. I have been taking more of an interest in the assessments process recently (and do contribute to assessing new articles and even PRs I know something about) and am happier at the subjective (lower) end. The other thing is there are unwritten conventions that you only pick up by participating/watching. For example the B class rule that there must be a minimum of one in line citation per paragraph. So, in summary, it's a highly specialist job with a lot of formal and informal learning to do and not everyone is cut out for it.Monstrelet (talk) 08:14, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm a relative newby as well, so treat my opinions with a pinch of salt, but... personally I find the large white space of a new ACR request slightly daunting. I'd probably find it easier commenting if there was a table with the A1-5 criteria in there, along with the additional explanatory points given under the project's FAQs, with a box on the right to fill in comment on. For example, for A2: (and apologies in advance for not knowing how to put in tables!)

A2. The article:

• ...is comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral and focused on the main topic? (box to fill in)
• ...it neglects no major facts or details, presents views fairly and without bias? *(ditto)
• ...and does not go into unnecessary detail? (ditto)

In particular, the article:

• ... reflects all major threads of scholarship? (box to fill in)
• ... reports both sides of a conflict even-handedly? (ditto)
• ... and contains an appropriate amount of context? (ditto)

It would break the white space down a bit, as well as reminding newbies like me what the criteria are! Hchc2009 (talk) 18:35, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Given that many of the people who review many or all of the nominated articles now have their own niche area that they look in specially (prose/writing for me, referencing, etc.) I'm not sure how much they would use the proposed table, outside of the one or two criteria that they really went in depth on. Perhaps have the table for yes/no and basic comments, and still allow people to post more detailed, lengthy suggestions and comments. – Joe N 20:06, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

There are a few simple things that you guys who do not participate can do just to get a feel for the process. For example, running the auto-scripts and proof reading the articles. The big problem here, IMO, is that you really need to make mistakes in order to learn about the higher process, but everyone seems to be worried that making said mistakes will result in a loss in faith in their ability from the project as a whole, which is not the case. Like any great endeavor, you have to make mistakes so you can learn from them. As time goes on you will feel out the more refined and more difficult areas of the process, and then your horizons will grow. TomStar81 (Talk) 10:23, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd also recommend new reviewers to pick a criterion and review to it, then state which criterion you were checking in your review. I mostly review regarding criteria 1a and 4 and trust those more inclined or educated to check other aspects. As you read other's comments you'll become aware of more subtleties. I'm by no means a pro reviewer, but I'm learning. BTW, I think ACR is valuable as pre-FA because it's so much less pressured while the standards are, essentially, the same. Become an WP:Eventualist, it'll restore your faith and maybe even your patience ;) Doug (talk) 00:42, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Chinese armies (pre-1911)

Does anyone here know about Chinese military history? While the article on Chinese armies (pre-1911) has 47 inline citations, I'm concerned that it may be unbalanced. For example, it neglects to mention the Sino-French War, and uses hyperbole such as "Southern armies won great victories in the late 4th Century CE", "Most of this equipment was very advanced for its day and helped the Chinese win great victories over their opponents", "These powerful horsemen, combined with the superior firepower of the Chinese infantry, made Chinese armies the best of their day", and "Throughout most of China's existence, the Chinese armies were the most advanced and the most powerful in the world". Such assertions are bold and where sourced usually to just one book. It's possible there may also be misrepresentation of sources or misunderstanding going on, as Temple 1986, 248 is used to support the following conflicting statements: "China has the longest period of continuous development of military culture of any civilization in world history and had arguably one of the world's most advanced and powerful military for almost 2,000 years until the 18th century" (own emphasis added), compare with "Throughout most of China's existence, the Chinese armies were the most advanced and the most powerful in the world, especially after the Warring states era". Concerns have been noted by another editor, and I'm worried that the article may descend into an edit war without knowledgeable input. These issues have been lingering on the article's talk page for months and have largely gone unaddressed. Nev1 (talk) 14:29, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Little to no knowledge of the subject here, alas, but unfortunatly it seems that Chinese military articles tend to attract nationalistic-POV issues - a number of aircraft articles (recent example, J-XX) have had to deal with this. This seems like it might well be another in that vein; based on those quotes, a good copyedit for neutrality by somebody knowledgable might be in order - The Bushranger (talk) 19:35, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Someone familiar with the subject would be ideal, but unfortunately Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Chinese military history task force doesn't seem to be active (although I've just left a note there about this discussion). I have next to no knowledge of the subject, but the use of phrases such as "best of their day" rings alarm bells for me. It's fine to say something was the largest, or fought the most battles as those are based on statistics, however judgements such as "best" are subjective. That's the kind of thing it's difficult to find agreement on, and I've expect to see qualifiers such as "one of the best", if such phrases were to be used at all. Nev1 (talk) 19:41, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Did you try asking WP:CHINA ? 70.29.208.247 (talk) 21:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

The article needs to be split up. The period it wants to cover is excessively broad (4000 years? There's no functional difference between that article and an article on the entire history of warfare in China from 10000BC to 2000AD! ) Splits could be made at major innovative changes, or societal changes...

• such as:
  • from pre-Hsia -> Warring States ; Chin -> Three Kingdoms ; North&South -> Southern Song ; Yuan -> end of Empire ;
  • from pre-Hsia -> end of chariot warfare by nobles in chivalrous feudal combat ; foot-armies -> introduction of gunpower weapons ; gunpowder foot-armies -> cavalry supported gunpowder foot-armies ; gunpower cavalry -> Sino-Japanese War with steam naval boats ; Sino-French War -> Communist Revolution ;

70.29.208.247 (talk) 21:43, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Sub-articles could be nice, as they have done for Economic history of China (pre-1911).Teeninvestor (talk) 21:46, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Good point about WP:CHINA, I've left a note on the project talk page inviting them here to keep the discussion in one place. Nev1 (talk) 22:07, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Peer review for No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando now open

The peer review for No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 05:08, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

A-class medal graphics

I know I'm probably making a mountain out of a molehill, but is there anyone with the graphics wizardry skill (and the patience to do something fairly trivial) who would be able to remove the background from the four A class medal graphics so they can be superimposed over different colour backgrounds (like most barnstars)? -- saberwyn 05:03, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I should be able to do this. Should I create them with new filenames, or replace the existing images? Magic♪piano 20:36, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Replacing the existing images would make things easier for everyone, I think. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 16:06, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Magicpiano. -- saberwyn 21:16, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome. I forgot to leave a note here that I uploaded them... Magic♪piano 21:23, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Slater's Knoll now open

The A-Class review for Battle of Slater's Knoll is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! AustralianRupert (talk) 14:52, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Hey, all you military aircraft people, look at this

Scroll down on this page for online books on B-52s and some other aircraft (also Air Warfare - An International Encyclopedia and Modern Fighter Aircraft Technology and Tactics) [6] —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 05:50, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for 102nd Intelligence Wing now open

The A-Class review for 102nd Intelligence Wing is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 06:15, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Douglas MacArthur now open

The featured article candidacy for Douglas MacArthur is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 23:18, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for Deutschland class battleship now open

The A-Class review for Deutschland class battleship is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 23:29, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

FAR

I have nominated Aleksandr Vasilevsky 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. YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 05:18, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

4th Canadian Infantry Brigade

It appears that 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade and 4th Infantry Brigade (Canada) duplicate the same subject. The first article is more complete, but I suspect the second is the more proper name. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:24, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

definately candidates for merging as one article deals with WW1 and the other WW2. As to name it's not so clear cut. As per other threads on here 4th Infantry Brigade (Canada) would appear to be correct but I suspect that the 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade may be might appropriate as the common name of the unit. As in both wars Canadian forces served under British command it became normal practice to refer to 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade to distinguish it from 4th Infantry Brigade of the Brtish Army. Even what appears to be a semi-official history written [7] refers to it as 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade. NtheP (talk) 11:37, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

If there wasn't a 4th Infantry Brigade in the Canadian Army between the end of the First and the start of the Second World War, then I would suggest 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade (WWI) and 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade (WWII) as reasonable article names.GraemeLeggett (talk) 13:30, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I disagree Graham - same formation. I would advocate a consolidation under 4 Cdn Inf Bde. Buckshot06 (talk) 02:43, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

List of medieval weapons - request this page get locked

Due to the subject of weaponry, especially gamers, I request that this page gets locked due to multitude of vandels. Check the history and notice that numerous vandels editing that page. Thanks, Marasama (talk) 17:57, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Most of the vandalism seems to be of the "rude word" type rather than the gamer type - the insertion of fantasy weapons or descriptions into medieval weapon articles is their usual MO in my experience. Locking the list is probably pretty harmless, although it's by no means a complete list of wikipedia medieval weapon articles, so it may prevent its completion. No sign that anyone is actively working on it, rather than defending it, though.Monstrelet (talk) 07:57, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for Action of 1 August 1801 now open

The A-Class review for Action of 1 August 1801 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 21:34, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for Russian battleship Slava now open

The A-Class review for Russian battleship Slava is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 21:38, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Japanese battleship Tosa now open

The featured article candidacy for Japanese battleship Tosa 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 21:43, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for Heinrich Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Heinrich Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 21:45, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

This has three supports now and no outstanding issues, so I'm closing/promoting it. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:04, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

FAR needs help

Hi everyone! The article Military history of France is at FAR at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Military history of France/archive1. The main contributor has done quite a bit of work on the article, but does not have the amount of time necessary to finish the amount of work needed to bring the article back to FA status. Additional help (or reviews) would be appreciated! Dana boomer (talk) 01:59, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Use of flag icons and command structure parameter in infoboxes

Several recent changes have been made to articles on units of the Australian Army—for example 8th/9th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, Pilbara Regiment, Norforce—which I feel need to be discussed with some input from project members to get some consensus. The issues are two fold. (1) Are country flag icons acceptable/desired in the infoboxes? (2) In the Command structure field in the infobox, should the unit's superior unit, e.g. a brigade or division be included, or should the Corps to which the majority of its members belong be included, e.g. Royal Australian Infantry for 8/9 RAR? My take is that a Corps such as RAINF is not a command structure and that flag icons are acceptable, however, I wish to hear what others thinik. Any opinions are welcome and I am happy to go with whatever consensus decides, however, I feel that this is an issue (at least the flag icons) that could affect many milhist articles so I would greatly appreciate a broad consensus on the issue before sweeping changes are made. Thank you. — AustralianRupert (talk) 12:39, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

IN my opinion having the flag for the Country and the branch of service is fine but displaying the ranks, unit flags, award ribbons and the like shoudln't generally go in the infobox. However, if the article is for the unit itself and not a member of it or a battle it participated in then its reasonable to me to want to put the units flag in the infobox as well. --Kumioko (talk) 13:33, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

No to icons. For the command structure its generally that branch of the service it is currently in. Eg a No. 1 Squadron RAF is currently under RAF Air Command but the hostilities-only No. 630 Squadron RAF was only under RAF Bomber Command, but the parent division might be appropriate for a tank unit such as 2 RTR, rather than putting "Royal Armoured Corps"GraemeLeggett (talk) 14:00, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Graeme is there something written somewhere that says no icons? IMO it should be the higher headquarters not the corps that is listed. i.e. 7th Brigade, not Royal Australian Infantry Corps (although I am not a disinterested editor in this matter and I can cite nothing to back this up other than it seems logical to my mind). Specifically although the bulk or personnel from an infantry battalion will of course be from the infantry corps, personnel from many other corps will also be posted to the unit (i.e. RAEME, Transport, Ordinance, Intelligence etc). Equally a corps in this sense is not a command formation at all, more an organisation responsible for training soldiers and setting and maintaining standard skill sets etc. Cheers. Anotherclown (talk) 08:21, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your opinions, gents. I'm not so much tied to flag icons (although I think there is an issue on which we will probably never get concensus, as some people like them and others don't), but I am very much concerned about getting the command relationships right. In the Australian Army a Corps such as RAINF does not have a command function. Its role is to maintain traditions and esprit de corps, but also to manage the training and standards of infantrymen who are then posted to battalions which fall under the command of the various brigades and divisions. Within an infantry battalion there are personnel from many different Corps (e.g. infantry, transport, ordinance, medical, electrical and mechanical engineers, etc.), thus it is completely wrong to say that because they are posted to 6 RAR they fall under the command of RAINF. It is, however, correct to say that the Royal Australian Regiment exists underneath the RAINF, as the RAR is not an operational grouping as such. Anyway, while we are here, does anyone else have an opinion on the matter of the flag icons and command structure field? — AustralianRupert (talk) 08:31, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

(outdent). Can we please have some more opinions on this matter? The issue has come up again on other articles, e.g. 3rd/4th Cavalry Regiment (Australia), 1st Armoured Regiment (Australia). — AustralianRupert (talk) 21:11, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion I like to see rank insignia's in the infobox, my reasons for this I think it's helps, Identify and is "eye" pleasing and adds to the layman's assumption of "Military Decorations". As to flag of country served sure, and branch logo also, it is all "easy to look at" helps the "everyday reader" and of course adds to the "military decor", sorry I'm having a hard time putting this into words. At the same time a cluttered infobox would look worse, so a line has to be drawn, and (of course) where is the question. I would like to see rank insignia's (in a proper size) next to the written rank as maybe Richard A. Anderson, in my opinion this infobox looks great(maybe a couple px's smaller on the Corporal stripes) and this very well could be a standard, as to country service flag, branch insignia's, and rank insignia's. Anything more, unit flags, boot camp flags, Station assignments etc. should be worked into the body of the page or come up with a adaptable form section to display all "extra" insignia's. Mlpearc MESSAGE 22:22, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't mind flags in unit infoboxes, particularly as they're often the only image in the article and command structure should be whichever unit the unit in question reports to. In this particular case, Australian infantry and armoured units don't report to their parent corps as these institutions have, in my understanding, become little more than ceremonial associations. Nick-D (talk) 03:20, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Change the infobox display parameters to make it clear. 'Administratively part of' or 'Operationally part of' would solve your problem. Buckshot06 (talk) 05:11, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

What people don't seem to realise is the difference between the operational element of an army regiment and the regiment as a whole. While use of the word "battalion" enables people to easily see the difference, use of the word "regiment" in both contexts presents confusion, especially when used to refer to armoured regiments in the armies that use the British naming system. In this instance, while "regiment" is used to describe the operational element (the "battalion"), it is also used to describe the regiment as a whole, including the Regimental Headquarters and administrative apparatus that will remain at home. This would be clearer if armoured units had more than one operational unit (as the Royal Tank Regiment does), as there are articles for the RTR as a whole, which describe it as being part of the Royal Armoured Corps, and both 1RTR and 2RTR (which would then be described as part of an operational formation, in much the same way as individual infantry battalion articles do). However, for most of these units, this is not the case, and so the article describes both the "administrative" and "operational". Because the operational part is just one element of the regiment as a whole, the article is used to describe the regiment as a whole, and thus should be deemed to be part of whichever administrative apparatus is responsible for it. This is the case with most articles concerning units that are part of the British system, be it the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, India et al, if people care to look. It is only the Australian units that seem to have been altered away from this system, which has been in place for some time. I advocate the system as it is, and also have advocated in many other areas that I have an interest in, that if change is agreed on, then it must be complete and widespread, covering all affected areas, and not just those that individuals have an interest in themselves. Hammersfan, 18/06/10, 12.39 BST

Thank you for presenting your views, however, I do not see why consistency should override accuracy. The Australian Army does not follow this system for armoured, engineer and artillery units (although it does for infantry, in so much as there are multi battalion regiments, ie. RAR, RQR, RVR, etc.), we know this, so why should we deliberately get it wrong? These units that you've been changing have only one operational/administrative HQ, with all subunits existing under that at squadron/company level. They are not regiments in so much as the RTR is a regiment with battalion-equivalent level subunits. I would agree with you if that was the case, but it is not. AustralianRupert (talk) 12:04, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Hammersfan, I agree with much of your logic, and indeed it is entirely correct in the circumstances of which you speak. Regardless it is incorrectly applied in the case of the Australian articles, and indeed for any unit that is not a multi battalion regiment (or equivaulent formation). Per Rupert your logic is correct when it comes to the Royal Tank Regiment, but of course not to 1RTR or 2RTR (as you correctly recognise). However it is not correct when it comes to say 1st Armoured Regiment (Australia) or similar articles such as the Lancers etc, as regiment in this context refers to an operational unit-sized formation, not a ceremonial organisation. Likewise while the Royal Queensland Regiment is clearly part of the Royal Australian Infantry Corps, and the info box should recognised this, the 9th Battalion, Royal Queensland Regiment is not (it is part of the 11th Brigade). The argument that it is right in some circumstances so we should apply it in all circumstances seems a little sloppy to me. Anotherclown (talk) 14:42, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for 22nd Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for 22nd Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 20:47, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Italian Somaliland 1941

The Royal Navy captured a number of ships in Italian Somaliland in 1941, amongst them Leonardo da Vinci. Can anyone expand the article with details of the RN ships involved please? Mjroots (talk) 11:30, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Looks Like HMS Shropshire was involved. Mjroots (talk) 11:58, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Newsletter

Hey MILHISTers. I just wanted to check with you whether you minded me shamelessly ripping off your rather wonderful newsletter to provide the structure for a new WP:ECON one I am hoping to write. There are so many contributors and newsletter history around the place I'm finding it hard to track down all the individual contributors and whatnot, but I hope it's alright with you nonetheless. Thanks, - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 11:52, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Go for it. Do be aware that our newsletter employs a few project specific elements )like the logo we use), otherwise have at the design for your own. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:16, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Anthony Perici

This article claims, based on an American local news story, that the subject is a George Cross recipient, but he does not appear on List of George Cross recipients and it sounds unlikely to me (possibly the journalist was confused with the GC given to the island of Malta). Can someone confirm whether this is an error?--Jackyd101 (talk) 18:19, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

It must be a journalist error, the Victory medal is a WWI award and if he served in the RN he would have also qualified for the 1939–45 Star the War Medal 1939–1945 and poss the Defence Medal. --Jim Sweeney (talk) 19:19, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

MoS naming style

There is currently an ongoing discussion about the future of this and others MoS naming style. Please consider the issues raised in the discussion and vote if you wish GnevinAWB (talk) 21:03, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Imperial Japanese Navy weapons

I've been finding various mentions of a particular naming convention ("Xth Year Type", where X is the year of the Taishō Emperor's reign) among IJN weapons from the pre-WW1 through inter-war years. I'd appreciate anyone else working in this area to assist. See Taishō period weapons. I am also not at all certain that this material ought to be on that page (Imperial Japanese Navy Technical Department) and would also welcome other suggestions. Thanks, - Peter Ellis - Talk 06:39, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Opium War

FYI, Opium War has been proposed to be repurposed, see Talk:Opium War

70.29.208.247 (talk) 23:25, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Seeking input on possible Operation re: American Civil War 150th

Hoping to get some suggestions from any interested members of the MILHIST project regarding setting up an "Operation" to observe the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War (next year!). A brief discussion got started on the ACW talk page here. After consulting with one of the project coordinators, it's been suggested that I post here to seek input, advice, support, etc. from the larger MILHIST community. Something should certainly be done to observe the anniversary on Wikipedia. Given the short timeframe, we probably won't be able to organize anything as impressive as Operation Great War Centennial. But surely we can put together something. Perhaps as simple as manageable list of articles to get to FA. And the work could actually be spread out over the next five years...articles on battles, for instance, could be targeted to hit the main page on their 150th anniversary (this would span 2011 to 2015). It's been suggested we start with getting the Civil War page to FA. Then perhaps we choose a manageable number of battles/leaders/topics to get to FA? Thoughts would be most welcome. Historical Perspective (talk) 18:34, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

CAme up so fast! I'd be fine. Buggie111 (talk) 18:54, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Guys, just a quick note, I'll set up a dedicated subpage under the ACW task force page in a short while so this can be fleshed out. In the meantime, to avoid cluttering up the main MilHist talk page too much, suggest any comments/ideas go to the original discussion here. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:21, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Got it. Thanks, Ian. Historical Perspective (talk) 23:53, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I've created a dedicated subpage for this, similar to that of the Normandy special project, under the ACW Task Force here -- have at it! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:39, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Brian Eaton now open

The featured article candidacy for Brian Eaton is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured articles; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Ian Rose (talk) 01:54, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Military and military history

Given that WP:MILITARY redirects here, and the project tag is customarily applied to articles on non-historical issues related to military theory, technology and recent developments (such as ongoing conflicts), I wonder - shouldn't the front page statement "We are a group dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of topics related to military history." be adjusted? As it is it suggests a much more limited scope than the project has. Alternatively, the project could be renamed (yes, like this is going to fly :D). But we should at least make it clear (for the new editors) that the "milhist" label has now officially taken over its "military" parent (and in fact it is its parent). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:26, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The actual "Scope" section on the main page is fairly explicit about this, but it's a bit farther down. I wonder if we should (a) change the first sentence to read something along the lines of "...topics related to military history, theory, and practice" or (b) change the link on "military history" to point down at our scope section rather than the actual article. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 19:05, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd personally prefer option (a), if not both. Why send potential members bouncing all around the place to find out who we are and what we do? -- saberwyn 09:06, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Agree with saberwyn - (a) is better. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:29, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Seems like we have a consensus? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 04:50, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I like (a) as well. Kirill, you have a penchant for good ideas. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 04:54, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Done, with thanks to Piotrus for spotting this. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 04:56, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Merging Problem

A person wanted to merge Caco War into United States occupation of Haiti because it talks about a minor event during the occupation. The person put the talk page on the latter article, not the former article. Can this be fixed? B-Machine (talk) 14:51, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I didn't quite see the talkpage issue here, but I merged the main article as it was a clear merge candidate. Regards, Woody (talk) 09:50, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Slater's Knoll needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Battle of Slater's Knoll; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! AustralianRupert (talk) 08:54, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

The Crusader Project - a reliable source?

Hi all

Am unsure if this is the right place to ask this, am a little concerned from the fact that various articles have started to use information from The Crusader Project; an online blog that is to "accompany the preparation" of a book apparently they are aiming to publish sometime this year.

The authors dont seem to have provided their details, although from comments it seems at least one guy has been floating around various history forums and wargaming sites over the last few years but nothing that would establish if he has published before, and in addition they dont appear to provide any sources to backup the information presented in the blogs - that are being used as source material in a few articles.

link

views?--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 08:01, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

No way is this reliable - the blog's introduction states:

So, this site is the final truth on operation CRUSADER then?

Well, no, actually. It’s a site on the internet, not the Bible. This site is a work in progress, just as our research. What we post here is going to be a reflection of the best attempt we can make at description and analysis at the time of writing. Where we are not certain about something we’ll say so. Where we find later, after posting, that there are errors or omissions, we’ll correct them.

It is later stated that the authors haven't yet found a publisher for their book and I can't see where the people behind the blog identify themselves, which by itself is a very bad sign. As such this is a work in progress by what appear to be amateur historians - anything cited to this blog should be removed. It's an interesting site, but its anything but a reliable source. Nick-D (talk) 10:25, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I just want to mention that while I agree that the lack of identification is a very bad sign, it is a very bad sign about internet culture. I have had serious problems once when someone found out my real name and started harassing me. So I won't do that again. You can read into that what you will. All the best, Andreas 193.128.202.131 (talk) 15:50, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I am the owner of the blog. I used to edit Wikipedia under the nick Andreas1968, but lost my login. Anything that's on the blog can be verified by me by giving you the document details in the archives. I haven't published in the field of military history before, but I would like to point out that I do not provide information on Wikipedia that could not be verified, and that my aim is to provide knowledge, not to distort it. I am therefore extremely careful about what I add. For example, the recently added reference to the firing trials on the Matilda II page is a translation of a document from the appendices to 21st Panzer Divisions war diary. This can be seen at Duxford, and I'd happily email it to anyone who is interested. The disclaimer cited above does not refer to the documentary evidence, but to our analysis and conclusions, which I do not add here. I would also like to point out that there is no commercial interest involved here. I do not expect the book to ever be published by normal means. Once I finish it I'll probably just turn it into a free download. If however the book finds a publisher, my co-author will work on it to ensure it is proper. He is a trained historian with previously published/currently under publication historical works. All the best, Andreas 193.128.202.131 (talk) 10:53, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Welcome to this page Andreas :) It's great that you're familiar with Wikipedia policy, because you'll already know that we need reliable secondary sources to provide verifiability. Your blog, as Nick says, looks fascinating and personally I'd be very interested in seeing your conclusions, but I think the problem with it being used as a source for Wikipedia is that it doesn't really meet current standards for WP:RS. I have no hesitation in accepting that you are basing your work on verifiable information; the main difficulty lies in the fact that the blog is a self-published source. Wikipedia edits could perhaps be cited to the original sources used to write the blog (providing it was done sparingly and with care - using primary sources introduces risks of original research), but not to the blog itself. EyeSerene^talk 12:22, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome Eyeserene. In the end, to me this is a question of whether verifiable information is used or not in a source, regardless of what form the source takes. If you or the other people participating in the project want to apply the guidelines strictly, remove it by all means, and I'll stop adding information to Wikipedia. If the information were linked directly to the documents, it is clearly original research, so would clearly not be allowed. If you want to label a website unverifiable despite my offer to verify any piece of information, simply because it is self-published, that's your decision. In the end it is the users of Wikipedia that will not have easy access to the information. I am not going to lose much sleep over it either way. It's up to you, really. I just posted here because I wanted to make clear that Nick-D's categorical statement is not in fact supported by the facts. All the best, Andreas 193.128.202.131 (talk) 12:32, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

A good example of where information is going to be lost to Wikipedia users is the page on Bonner Fellers. Unless someone can show me an online example of one of his memos other than the one on my blog (and I mean it! I really would love to see more of his memos...) All the best, Andreas 193.128.202.131 (talk) 12:42, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, I think the OR stuff isn't quite so clear-cut. We do make use of primary sources all the time for simple facts and figures, but we can't then draw our own conclusions from those facts and figures because that would be OR. I believe this is the essential issue with your blog; you understandably do draw conclusions from the data - there would be little point in doing what you do otherwise - but because your site isn't peer-reviewed or fact-checked by other subject experts in the same sense that a published book would be, we can't reproduce those conclusions. We'd be limited to filtering out the bare facts and figures from your primary sources... in which case, why not just cite the sources themselves? I hope that makes sense. Having said that, I know we use some websites that belong to published military historians (for example, http://w1.183.telia.com/~u18313395/normandy which is run by Niklas Zetterling), so it's quite possible that should you get published by a third party your blog would come under the "belongs to a recognised expert with credentials in the field" clause of WP:SPS and would thus be acceptable as a source. EyeSerene^talk 13:18, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Look, I am not going to get into a what I think is an arcane discussion on Wikipedia rules. It's up to you and your colleagues to figure out what you want to do. The info is there, the site is there, you make of it what you want. I am not going to remove the info, but I'm also not going to add anymore to Wikipedia or revert any removals. I am certainly not going to bother to rewrite articles doing OR that I could instead use for my blog/book project, so it will take other contributors to lift the info from my blog and integrate it. That would be a waste of time and effort for me. But we all know that won't happen, so the info won't make it into Wikipedia. I just wanted to make clear how I see things, especially regarding my reliability. I believe that the articles I have worked on have been improved with my material. Your mileage may vary. All the best, Andreas 15:05, 30 April 2010 (UTC) 193.128.202.131 (talk) 15:12, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

American mutilation of Japanese war dead‎

Some issues concerning verifiability of content and balance which were discussed in this article several months ago are currently being discussed again. Interested editors may wish to review recent changes to the article (including those made by myself, of course) and join the discussion on the article's talk page. Nick-D (talk) 00:01, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

{{Infobox military person}} and {{Persondata}}

Most biographies here on this project make use of the {{Infobox military person}} template while only some also use the {{Persondata}} template. With the exception of the "short description" all the information to populate the {{Persondata}} template is already provided in the {{Infobox military person}} template. Is there an intelligent way of combining both, either by using variables or by integrating some of the functionality? MisterBee1966 (talk) 06:48, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

IIRC, the template {{persondata}} must exist on its own, at the end of a biographical article, for technical reasons. So, the way to handle it would be to have a bot translate the infobox into the persondata template. 70.29.208.247 (talk) 12:30, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Check needed on two articles relating to US Department of Defense, Inspector General

I've found these two newly created articles which are verbatim copies from various pages and files on the US Department of Defense, Inspector General website. This is not my area at all, so you might want to check whether they duplicate or significantly overlap with existing WP articles. Note they are also completely unwikified.

• The Department of Defense Whistleblower Program
• Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Defense

– Voceditenore (talk) 18:07, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

They appear to be in need of cleanup, but the material is legit and I can not recall seeing other articles here that touch on this aspect of the US Military. As a note to anyone else who reads this, the source is .mil, which makes the material PD in nature. TomStar81 (Talk) 18:13, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the copyright issue is OK, although the attribution is not sufficient. Below is another one you might want to check by the same editor and sort of related to the military:

• Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) verbatim from the CIGIE .gov and also PD, but not adequately attributed.

– Voceditenore (talk) 18:22, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for Japanese aircraft carrier Kaga now open

The A-Class review for Japanese aircraft carrier Kaga is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 03:22, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for HMS Lion (1910) now open

The featured article candidacy for HMS Lion (1910) 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!--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:36, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Adding lat/long fields to ship infobox

A discussion has been started proposing the addition of lat/long fields to the ship infobox. Please feel free to add your comments and opinions at Template talk:Infobox ship begin/doc#Coordinates, redux. Thanks! - The Bushranger (talk) 17:10, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg TFA tomorrow May 3

I just figured out that a Military History and Biography article Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg will be "today's featured article" tomorrow May 3. Auntieruth55 (talk) 18:10, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

FAR for S-mine

I have nominated S-mine 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. YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 01:15, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for Indiana class battleship now open

The A-Class review for Indiana class battleship is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 04:55, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Military magazine criteria?

Does the project have any guidance on military magazines? I'm not clear what task force they come under and would be interested to see what criteria are used for inclusion. I've assessed one or two and they usually consist of a brief paragraph or two on period covered, editors name, time magazine has existed. Useful but scarcely encyclopaedic. Few I've seen feature any critical external comment of their worth or notability. Be interested to know what the MILHIST view is on what should be included and what not, or it just falls to enthusiastic readers or magazine editors.Monstrelet (talk) 08:17, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

This project doesn't, and I don't think that magazines are within the scope of Wikipedia:Notability (books). Articles such as Military Heritage (which I note you've recently assessed) don't make any claim of notability and it seems unlikely that these publications meet WP:N. I've seen quite a few examples of publishers using Wikipedia to promote their magazines. Nick-D (talk) 08:54, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Action of 1 August 1801 now open

The featured article candidacy for Action of 1 August 1801 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 19:24, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons

The WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons (UBLPs) aims to reduce the number of unreferenced biographical articles to under 30,000 by June 1, primarily by enabling WikiProjects to easily identify UBLP articles in their project's scope. There were over 52,000 unreferenced BLPs in January 2010 and this has been reduced to 35,715 as of May 1. A bot is now running daily to compile a list of all articles that are in both Category:All unreferenced BLPs and have been tagged by a WikiProject. Note that the bot does NOT place unreferenced tags or assign articles to projects - this has been done by others previously - it just compiles a list.

Your Project's list can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Unreferenced BLPs. Currently you have approximately 242 articles to be referenced. Other project lists can be found at User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects/Templates and User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects.

Your assistance in reviewing and referencing these articles is greatly appreciated. If you have any questions, please don't hestitate to ask either at WT:URBLP or at my talk page. Thanks, The-Pope (talk) 17:04, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

wayyyy off topic, but one of my students needs help

One of my students submitted the article 2009–10 Duquesne Dukes men's basketball team for GA, and It would be helpful to have an external review of it before I have to hand in grades next week. Would one of you kind people be willing to do it? Auntieruth55 (talk) 18:11, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Admiral Popoff, 1863

I came across mention of an Admiral Popoff, who held that rank in 1863, on "Pereleshin, Mount". BC Geographical Names.. I don't see anybody on the list at Popov who fits the description, though I haven't looked through all the disambiguation pages yet. If anyone can link him on Mount Pereleshin please do so (I've asked about Lieut. Pereleshin before, here and on WP:Russia, but lacking any further details went and made the Mt Pereleshin article without specifics on him).Skookum1 (talk) 22:09, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

This is Rear-Admiral Andrei Alexandrovich Popov. He commanded a Russian squadron in the Pacific at the time, and visited San Francisco in October 1863. We don't have an article on him yet. Benea (talk) 22:21, 5 May 2010 (UTC) - Article created. Benea (talk) 00:47, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for SMS Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand now open

The A-Class review for SMS Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 02:06, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

ANZSP task force icon

There is currently a discussion underway about what would be an appropriate icon for the new Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific task force. Currently it is the Australian flag, but we are looking at changing this to something that represents the entire region. Interested parties can find the discussion here. Cheers. — AustralianRupert (talk) 07:44, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Armed forces / Military

Could you help me to clarify the difference/relationship between Armed forces and Military?

• Currently the definitions inside the articles are more or less identical
• In 2009 there was an unresolved merge proposal with recommendations to ask for more opinions here
• Some people suppose that Armed forces is somewhat broader than Military

The current situation doesn't allow to create unambiguous interwiki links for several languages. My English and my knowledge on the subject are not good enough to solve the problem myself so I ask for your opinion. --Nk (talk) 19:58, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

From a purist perspective military is the officer corps of the Army, whereas Armed Forces is the entire body of Army, Navy and Air Farce including both Officer and Other Ranks.

Current usage does however differ with Military being seen as equivalent to AF.

ALR (talk) 20:54, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

I've never seen military defined as the officer corps in the US, though. Might be true for the Commonwealth countries.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:50, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

My opinion would be, 'military' is the standing military of the country/political body. In the US case, that would be the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps. 'Armed forces' would include all of those, plus other paramilitary and government units that can be combat forces in time of war - which would, in the US case, add the National Guard, Air National Guard, and Coast Guard (at least). - The Bushranger (talk) 12:36, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I can't fathom ALR's narrow interpretation of "military".

My understanding is that Armed forces and Military are the same. Are there any references that say otherwise?

But if we're going to have a distinction, Bushranger's is reasonable. Maurreen (talk) 13:07, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

My definition is based on discussing it on both the Junior Division and Advanced Command and Staff Course at Joint Service Command and Staff College. As a professional officer it's worth knowing ones profession as well as understanding why the technically correct language use is probably counter-productive.

I'm not in the Army so I don't meet the correct definition for being military, however it's an easy an non-contentious shorthand when I'm speaking with someone, particularly those that think everyone wearing camouflage is in the Army and don't appreciate the distinctions of service.

The question was asked, what's the difference. The resolution is really around whether we want Wikipedia to be correct or convenient?

Incidentally, that definition is circular, you can't realistically describe the military as being the standing military of...

ALR (talk) 13:27, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Hence common usage.

The definition is based on the evolution of the General Staff under the Prussian system. That essentially created a Military and a Naval component. Clearly the Air component also developed a lot more recently and drew from both systems.

Common usage has evolved over about the last 40 years, with an increase in jointery and a much more rigorous approach to amphibiosity, air mobility and Ship to Objective Manoeuvre. The single service disciplines are no longer as stovepiped as they were, and here in the UK our staff training is about 80% joint with a small single service element.

ALR (talk) 13:21, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I would support a merger. Maurreen (talk) 13:49, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

As I understand it, "Military" is indeed equivalent to "Armed Forces" in the UK, but not necessarily in the US where Military can be taken as meaning only the land forces. I'm perfectly willing to be corrected (as an ignorant Brit!), but given the different usages of the word I think there is an argument for keeping the articles separate. EyeSerene^talk 14:50, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Somewhere in the anals of my memory I have heard something similar to ALRs description, and it would make sense in histories where the officers have been the only 'registered' (for want of a better word) members of an army and the men merely 'enlisted' into it (if that makes sense). On the other hand, growing up the way I understood it (and this is just my understanding of it, I don't have a reference for you) was that armed forces meant just that - armed servicemen/women and people in the related corps of the Army, Navy or Air Force. Military is the establishment behind it, which includes the numerous support organisations, schools, canteens, NAAFIs, Whitehall, Pentagon, whathaveyou. Military can include civilian professions and roles, whilst armed forces are employed in HM Armed Forces. Ranger Steve (talk) 15:11, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

EyeSerene, I'm an American, from a military family, and WP is the only situation in which I'm aware of any distinction being made. Maurreen (talk) 15:34, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Which goes back to the question I asked above, do we want Wikipedia to be correct or convenient? The point I've made each time is that there is a distinction but it's not commonly applied.

Essentially just because it's not common in the US doesn't mean that we should dumb down Wikipedia to suit.

ALR (talk) 15:55, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

@EyeSerene - You've got it back to front. The US don't make a distinction, I'm not sure if they did in the past, in the UK we do have a distinction but in practice most people don't bother. It's one of those little bits of interesting detail, like calling a Union Flag a Union Flag and understanding why military swords and naval swords have different patterns. See the Naval and Military Club in St James for a practical example, historically open to Military and Naval Officers.

@Ranger Steve - Try going into the Whitehall madhouse and suggesting to anyone in uniform that one of the Civil Serpents was military and see what kind of response you get. Let me know when you're going to try, I'll be elsewhere ;)

ALR (talk) 16:01, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

As far as being correct or convenient, but going back to my question, do we have any references that support differentiation? Maurreen (talk) 16:10, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I'll have a dig around in my staff course notes, that may take a little while as they're in a box in the loft. Essentially I don't see a merge as viable, there is a difference, at the very least in usage.

ALR (talk) 17:02, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I know there was little (if any) distinction made when I was serving; I attended the Royal Military College of Science, which catered for Army, Air Force and Naval officers. Your nugget about the difference between officers and other ranks is interesting, but if there was a distinction made I think it was probably more in the nature of Steve's post - though we do seem to be conflating both our colloquial and your technically correct usage in this thread. Whatever the reasons though, I think we're heading in the same direction. The usage of the terms is certainly different across the Atlantic; no Brit would have said "I'm in the Military" whereas I commonly heard the word used in that sense from US soldiers. EyeSerene^talk 18:04, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I did a couple of short courses at Shrivenham and that was really my first experience of a joint mess. I did my in-service degree elsewhere but we came up to Shriv for software engineering and project/ programme management. Nice place, I quite enjoyed the times I was up. There would have been a small number of Royals there as well, mainly on the postgrad courses; Logistics management, Ordnance engineering, Design of Information Systems and Advanced IS.

I did Junior Division just after the new staff college opened but at the time it was pretty much self contained, there was no need to go into the main site for anything as we had our own gym, dining room and bar all inside the new-build. I've been back a couple of times since and it looks like I have a couple of weeks there again this summer.

ALR (talk) 18:18, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Maureen, for some evidence of British usage see Military Secretary as opposed to Naval Secretary or Air Secretary. David Underdown (talk) 19:53, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

David, thanks. That is somewhat similar to the office of the United States Secretary of War. (That office was usually in charge of the army. The USA now secretaries for each branch, overseen by the secretary of defense.)

It would make sense to include a little info that in some (limited) contexts, "military" has a limited meaning of "army" or whatever. Maurreen (talk) 21:33, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Not quite, the Military Secretary is a serving officer, whereas the Secretary of State for War (like his US counterpart) was a civilian (usually cabinet level) office. David Underdown (talk) 09:28, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, 'military' means the same as 'armed forces' in Australia, and I'm pretty sure that the same is also the case in the U.S. The definition in my Shorter Oxford Dictionary says the term relates to a 'soldier or soldiers of armed forces' or 'belonging to an army or one of the other armed forces'. Of course, 'military history' also relates to all branches of the military (as well as relevant civilian sectors). I think that applying this term to only land forces is now obsolete usage. Nick-D (talk) 12:39, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Note that we have also Army = land forces. --Nk (talk) 18:31, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Guards unit

Stumbled on this when doing an assessment. I expected it to be a summary article on elite units globally and historically but it is purely about Soviet and Soviet-descended units. At the very least it could do with a less ambiguous name. I also noted the following as linked articles : List of guards units of Russia, List of guards units of Ukraine, Russian Guards. Some or all of these overlap and there may be an argument to create a better article by merging some content. However, I know little about the Russian military. Would a more qualified editor please have a look? Thanks Monstrelet (talk) 18:47, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, "Guards" is/was, as I recall, the highest honorific that could be bestowed upon a Soviet unit. So it makes sense that Russia and Ukraine would both have them now (as descendants, as it were, of the USSR). Merging might be possible/desirable (don't have time to check), but I don't see why any disambiguation would be required - while a number of nations do indeed have units called "________ Guards", I don't think any others have "Guards units". - The Bushranger (talk) 18:51, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

But for the purpose of clarity we may need to disambiguate and add hatnotes. I haven't found anything which explains what the origin of the Guards epithet in general is - which would be a good starting point. Guards unit mentions a link with the Russian Imperial Guard. The latter being contemporaneous with Napoleons "Old Guard". There's also the Prussian Guard. These are all elite units carrying "Guard" in their name. There are also related articles including Foot Guards but for some reason Guards is an article on an obscure (possibly not even notable) American rock group. GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:42, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

It needs renaming, as I expected to find mention of Guards Armoured division. As has been point out Nappy also had guards units (not just uhits called Guards).Slatersteven (talk) 20:03, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

On top of which the UK also had the Guards Infantry Division (a ww1 and ww2 incarnation), numerous infantry and armoured brigades with the title not to mention at one point six regiments of guards within the Army - although granted most of this is covered in the above mentioned foot guards article. Then you have various incarnations of the Lifeguards i.e. Prince Rupert's Lifeguard etc--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 14:59, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree on the renaming. Particularly if English wasn't your first language, it wouldn't be intuitively obvious what the difference was between a a Guard unit and a division (or regiment etc.) of Guards, and you might expect to find a link to both in the same place. Hchc2009 (talk) 17:07, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

In respects to this page I am not sure what the differance is between a guards unit and a a unit of guards. I assume the page is about is guards formations, I.E. formations of guards units operating as indepedant formations of at least divisional level. This page (guards units) would be a good disabiguation page for all pagers about millitarty units that have guards in thier title. As to what this articel should be called, how about former soviot guards formations?Slatersteven (talk) 13:12, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Nimitz class aircraft carrier

I was wondering if someone could have a look at this article (doesn't need to be a proper review), and give me some pointers as to where it could be improved. I'd like to get it up to A-class or possibly FA at some point. I'd like to work on it gradually, although I don't really know where to go from here. One specific question: has anyone come across [8], and if so, is it a good enough RS? I have used the site a couple of times, but it doesn't really say where they get their info from, so I was wondering wheter it's good enough. Fourth ventricle (talk) 18:21, 6 May 2010 (UTC) (Jhbuk)

In a ten second glance, my advice would be to get your citation templates in order. Check every ref, and see if you've included all information available. Get some consistency- you have authors both Last, First and First Last; at least three different date formats (even two within the same citations), an author's name in all-caps, citations like "Popular Mechanics October 1998" that don't really give enough information to track down the source, etc. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 18:27, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

A-class symbol on articles?

There is a discussion and !vote regarding the placement of A and GA symbols on corresponding mainspace articles (similar to the FA stars) here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Good articles#Should GA and A-class articles be recognisable through a symbol on the article page? As we are one of the few projects that maintains a formal A-class review system, participation from this project would be helpful. Thank you, —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 03:44, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

One big normall article for Polkovnik, Polkovnyk, Pułkownik, Plukovník and etc.

Do we need multiple identical articles about the same Slavic colonel in different countries, which is in many ways written?

1. Polkovnik
2. Polkovnyk
3. Pułkownik
4. Plukovník

Yes, Ukrainian colonel was not only commander of a regiment, but head of an administrative unit. But is it so necessary to make a separate article or will be enough to make a section in a general article about the Slavic colonels?UeArtemis (talk) 15:13, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

It was done. ^_^ Terrible things happen in wikipedia: people create empty articles about the same ranks in different countries. For example, sotkin and sotkyn. I will join ranks which have one origin, as far as possible.UeArtemis (talk) 12:39, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Tagging a Category

I would like to inform you that I'm going to start working on tagging Category:Military personnel by nation, I think that might add a big number of un-assessed articles to the project. --Saud (talk) 10:24, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

MiG-23

The Operational history section of the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 page seems...awkwardly worded at best; slightly POV-ish (in both directions, at times) at worst. Perhaps somebody better at phrasing/with better sources could give it a look over? - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 15:33, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Canadian Navy

A user, and his apparent IP sock, have been removing the italicized perotion of the following sentence from the Royal Canadian Navy article: "The modern Canadian navy is officially known as Canadian Forces Maritime Command (MARCOM), however, unofficially MARCOM is represented as the "Canadian Navy" and maintains many traditions of its predecessor. See [9] for his latest revert and edit summary. Any help resolving this would be appreciated. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 16:28, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Not only is he ignoring the official Canadian Forces website, but he's threatening other users with the WP:3RR club. Which, a quick check of the edit history shows, he is pretty close to breaking if he hasnt already. - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 17:49, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

First War against Napoleon

I've been trying to do something about the rather badly written and unreferenced articles First War against Napoleon and Second War against Napoleon which essentially cover Swedish involvement in the Napoleonic Wars from 1805 till 1814. I've redirected the latter article to the War of the Sixth Coalition but the former has been harder to deal with since it deals with Sweden's involvement in both the Third Coalition, Fourth Coalition and then the fallout of the British attack on Copenhagen, when Sweden was in a constant state of war against Napoleon until the Treaty of Paris (1810).

I'm really not sure what to do here. Firstly, I feel the name has to change. I doubt anyone outside of Sweden refers to this war as 'the first war against Napoleon'. But I really don't know what to change it to or even if it should just be turned into a redirect. Centy – reply • contribs – 21:42, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for Army of the Danube order of battle now open

The A-Class review for Army of the Danube order of battle is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 21:46, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for SMS Habsburg now open

The A-Class review for SMS Habsburg is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 21:49, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for SMS Árpád now open

The A-Class review for SMS Árpád is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 21:49, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Grand View, Louisiana?

I came across this placename in the article for USS De Soto (1860). However, there appears to be no such place. There are three Grand Views mentioned in Google but none of them are obviously the Grand View mentioned in the article. Anyone have an idea what the correct name/state might be? Gatoclass (talk) 03:34, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Hirohito

FYI, the naming of Hirohito is up for debate again, see Talk:Hirohito. As Hirohito was central to the unconditional surrender of Japan in WWII, this may be of interest to you. 70.29.208.247 (talk) 06:20, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Peer review for British Commandos now open

The peer review for British Commandos is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 01:52, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Wiki style help for military rank

Could someone please point me in the direction of any Wiki guidance on how to use US military ranks in biographies? I'm looking for guidance on where/when to use a person's rank, correct format for (retired), use of abbreviations, etc., especially in the lead section. I can't find anything in the Manual of Style, and various articles seem to have different approaches. Thanks, RadioBroadcast (talk) 13:23, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

There's a little at WP:MOSCAPS#Military terms, and at WP:MILMOS, don't think it fully addresses all your points though. In general, for the article subject, prefix name with current (or last) rank in the lead, I personally wouldn't use (Retired) or anything, but just say "is a retired army officer" or whatever. In the rest of the article, just use their surname. I'd tend to avoid using abbreviations too much in article text too. David Underdown (talk) 13:41, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, that's what I needed.RadioBroadcast (talk) 18:53, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

New article - David Tyacke

Hi, I've just written a new article which may be of interest to members of this project. It is David Tyacke - last CO of the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, also GOC Singapore District, and Controller of the Army Benevolent Fund. He was at Dunkirk, and in Burma with Orde Wingate and his Chindits. The article's a bit stubby (just what I could cull from a couple of obits), so any help expanding it would be very much appreciated. DuncanHill (talk) 13:45, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

War in Vietnam (1945-1946)

Should this be merged into History of Vietnam or First Indochina War? B-Machine (talk) 14:29, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Peer review for List of X-planes now open

The peer review for List of X-planes is now open; any and all comments and suggestions would be great, thanks! - The Bushranger _{Return fire}^{Flank speed} 14:58, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Peer review for Reinhard Scheer now open

The peer review for Reinhard Scheer is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Parsecboy (talk) 15:41, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for SMS Hannover now open

The A-Class review for SMS Hannover is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Parsecboy (talk) 15:53, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for SMS Helgoland now open

The featured article candidacy for SMS Helgoland 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 02:01, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for Klis Fortress now open

The A-Class review for Klis Fortress is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 02:13, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

A-Class review for John S. Loisel now open

The A-Class review for John S. Loisel is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 02:13, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Peer review for Order of battle of the Battle of Trenton now open

The peer review for Order of battle of the Battle of Trenton is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 19:22, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

In particular, I am looking to prep this article for WP:FLC; it could be the first non-naval order of battle to go through that process, so commentary on the type of content and form would be appreciated. Magic♪piano 03:32, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

1421: The Year China Discovered the World

FYI, 1421: The Year China Discovered the World has been controversially merged into Gavin Menzies. An RfC has been opened on the issue, see Talk:1421: The Year China Discovered the World

70.29.208.247 (talk) 03:04, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Empire Comfort

Whilst searching for sources to expand the SS Empire Comfort article, I came across this. The background to this seems complicated, but appears to be in the aftermath of the Declaration of Independence of Israel and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Are there any members of this WP who are familiar with this area that can incorporate some details from the source into the article? Mjroots (talk) 06:03, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Fajr-2

The article Fajr-2 has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

A search for reference did not find any for the "Fajr-2", There are multiple references for Fajr-3, 4 & 5. Fails WP:N & WP:V

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{dated prod}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:42, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for HMAS Australia (1911) now open

The featured article candidacy for HMAS Australia (1911) 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 03:00, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Battle of Valcour Island now open

The featured article candidacy for Battle of Valcour Island 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 03:00, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

POW camp

Is there a good infobox to use for a POW camp? In particular, I don't think Oflag XIII-B is using the best choice, since that one is really designed for municipalities. I have used {{Infobox concentration camp}} before, which is close, but it seems a bit much for a POW camp. Another could be {{Infobox military structure}}, but it doesn't exactly fit either. Any ideas? Thanks! Plastikspork (talk) 04:30, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Preemptive disambiguation

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

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• The result of the straw poll is retain the status quo. At present it appears that our project members are not interested in altering the MoS, so we will continue to make use of preemptive disambiguation within the project in a manner consistent with our current MoS guidelines. TomStar81 (Talk) 10:08, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

---

I've discovered that Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide advises the use of preemptive disambiguation:

In cases where a unit's name can reasonably be expected to be used by multiple armed force—particularly in the case of numerical unit designations—the units should generally be preemptively disambiguated when the article is created, without waiting for the appearance of a second article on an identically-named unit. If this is done, the un-disambiguated version of the unit name should be created as a disambiguation page (or a redirect to the disambiguated version).

Such speculation contradicts Wikipedia's project-wide naming conventions (under which we don't redirect "Foo" to "Foo (disambiguation term)") and is counterproductive.
If multiple military units with the same (or essentially the same) name are known to exist, it's trivially easy to at least create stubs for each of them (linked from a disambiguation page). The mere assumption that multiple entities are likely to exist isn't nearly sufficient.
Can someone please link to whatever discussion[s] led to this text's inclusion? Thank you. —David Levy 06:46, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

The discussion you're looking for is from back in 2006 (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 44#Naming conventions for military units, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 50#New unit naming convention); the provision for preemptive disambiguation of numerical unit names has been in the unit naming convention since it was first created. The provision was adopted, if I recall correctly, because some countries (e.g. Germany, China, the Soviet Union) had such enormous numbers of numerically-designated units that virtually any such name was likely to require potential disambiguation, but was unlikely to require actual disambiguation because of those units' obscurity. Whether that reasoning is still applicable now is, of course, open to debate. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 06:57, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I think that there was also a discussion of this a few months ago in which most of the editors who commented agreed that there was no need to disambiguate one-off names of military units and that we should err on the side of not disambiguating in cases where its possible that there's been more than one unit of that name. That said, in cases where its reasonable to assume that there have been multiple units of the same name, preemptive disambiguation makes sense as it doesn't discourage creation of articles on these other units. Nick-D (talk) 07:09, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm confused as to how assigning "Unit name" to the one unit with an article (until such time as other articles are written) "discourage[s] creation of articles on these other units." Redirecting "Unit name" to "Unit name (country)" still places "Unit name" in use and causes it to lead to the very same article. I seriously doubt that an editor converting an active redirect to a disambiguation page would be reluctant to take the one extra step of moving the very same target page first. —David Levy 07:32, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. What I don't understand is the concept of "potential disambiguation." In other words, why was it deemed beneficial to accommodate articles that don't exist (and might never exist) by redirecting "Unit name" to "Unit name (country)" (thereby resulting in the base title leading to the specific article anyway, but in an indirect manner considered improper under our general naming conventions)? Why not simply wait until "actual disambiguation" is required (as is done with other subjects)? —David Levy 07:32, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I take your point, but when I was new to Wikipedia articles such as 1st Regiment were routinely about only a single unit, and their name implied to me that it wasn't possible to create new articles on the other units of the same name. In my view, adding a disambiguation in instances likes this encourages article creation by making it seem less foreboding to new editors. My general approach to article names though is that if one viable name redirects to another viable name there isn't a major problem. Nick-D (talk) 07:47, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I understand why a new editor might feel that way, but I don't perceive a setup in which "Unit name" redirects to "Unit name (country)" as any less foreboding. If an editor mistakenly believes that an assigned title is locked in, he/she probably will think the same of a redirect (the nature of which can be less obvious to inexperienced users, as the actual page remains hidden to those unaware of how to access it).

Also note that the practice of preemptive disambiguation (and redirecting "Foo" to "Foo disambiguation term)" misleads editors to assume that this is the norm (even in cases not covered by the guideline as written). The article that brought the issue to my attention was Women's Army Corps, which was moved to Women's Army Corps (United States Army) in June 2008 and had remained there since then. —David Levy 08:14, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

David has made some interesting points. For me, the most thought-provoking is that we disambiguate and redirect where only a single article exists; clearly a disambig page is pointless for a single article, so I think the solution is probably to simply delete the redirect. Wikipedia's search function has improved dramatically over time and many redirects are nothing more than carryovers from the time when 'search' was far less accommodating. However, I think so-called pre-emptive disambiguation has a number of advantages. Firstly, it puts in place the structure to guide the creation of other articles. An editor wanting to create an article about, for example, the Canadian 1st Infantry Division will see something like 1st Infantry Division (United States) and can immediately grasp what pattern their article name should adopt. Secondly, it reduces housekeeping; newer editors may be unaware of the need to create disambiguation pages and redirects. Thirdly, "if it ain't broke..." :) The system works, and has been working, for some time now. I think unit names are something of a special case and perhaps weren't envisaged by the writers of the project-wide naming conventions; does it really improve Wikipedia to change everything around? Finally (a minor point), thanks to the pipe trick it takes no more effort to write the disambiguated name than it would the non-disambig version. EyeSerene^talk 09:03, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, the idea of deleting the base titles is infeasible. In addition to being highly unintuitive within the Wikipedia community, such a setup would lead to a never-ending supply of redlinks (and broken links on external websites) and would thwart visits by users who navigate to articles via their browsers' address bars (as I frequently do).

Secondly, I honestly don't see how this subject area differs from others to such a great extent. It could be argued that preemptively applying parenthetical disambiguation to every article title would "[put] in place the structure to guide the creation of other articles" (e.g. preemptively moving Aziz Ansari to Aziz Ansari (entertainer) would provide a helpful frame of reference if/when someone wanted to create an article about another Aziz Ansari), but this is stylistically undesirable.

When it comes to military units, the most significant distinction of which I'm aware is the fact that they either exist (in which case it's trivially easy to create stubs—the only placeholders widely accepted within the community) or they don't (in which case no disambiguation is required).

The "if it ain't broke..." argument is flawed in the respect that redirects from "Foo" to "Foo (disambiguation term)" are widely regarded as inherently sloppy/improper within the Wikipedia community. —David Levy 09:30, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that I'd agree with your above points David. An important factor here is that many militaries routinely use generic names for their units, so you end up with dozens of armies having a 1st Infantry Battalion, 3rd Cavalry Division, 8th Artillery Regiment, etc. This isn't the case for most other organisations, which typically deliberetly pick unique names so that they're not confused with similar organisations. As large military units are generally assumed to be notable (though there's no consensus on what this threshold is exactly) there is a strong case for preemptively disambiguating them in instances where it's likely that other countries have units of the same name, which is what the guideline says. WP:MILMOS exists to provide guidance on how to accommodate military topics within Wikipedia and translate military terms it into less technical terms (any number of dictionaries exist to do the same thing), and this is an instance of where it provides useful guidance in my view. Nick-D (talk) 11:00, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not comparing military units to other organizations; I'm comparing them to all entities for which we write Wikipedia articles.

My point is that, for example, a second notable (or arguably notable) person by the name of Aziz Ansari (or a more common name, if you prefer) could suddenly emerge tomorrow or the next day. Meanwhile, it's relatively unlikely that this will occur with a military unit by a particular name (which typically either exists today or will not exist in the foreseeable future). And if a new military unit by a given name is created, its notability (or lack thereof) can be determined with greater ease than one would find in many subject areas (for which straightforward criteria don't always exist).

But let's set aside all of the above and accept that for whatever reason, many notable military units with generic names currently lack English Wikipedia articles. I still don't understand how the setup in question aids in future expansion. I would understand (though not agree with) the preemptive creation of disambiguation pages. This, of course, would substantially worsen navigation to the existent articles, but it also would advertise the missing articles' absence and encourage their creation. Redirecting "Unit name" to "Unit name (country)," conversely, sends readers to the same articles at which they would arrive if they were located at the base titles. There is absolutely no indication that any expansion is desired or explanation of when/why to use such a naming format.

You're referring to distinctions that seem obvious and make perfect sense to members of this WikiProject, and you need to think about how the setup comes across to everyone else (no disrespect intended).

I've edited Wikipedia for five years, and the notion that this was intentional didn't even occur to me until I later found Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide (which most users never will). Any experienced user from outside this WikiProject will assume that this is an error (and possibly attempt to correct it, as I did).

Meanwhile, inexperienced users (lacking knowledge of our naming conventions, let alone the specific guideline in question) will assume that every article about a military organization is to be named in this manner (without regard for issues of disambiguation). This is why I encountered various examples where disambiguation clearly was neither required nor recommended by your guideline.

So not only do I dispute the assertion that this setup "provides useful guidance," I contend that it confuses both experienced and inexperienced users. (I do so with the understanding that your WikiProject has acted 100% in good faith and the hope that I don't offend anyone.) —David Levy 15:21, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

You make a fair point regarding deleting the redirect page - maybe that wasn't such a bright idea :) However, like Nick I believe that military unit articles are a valid exception to the rule. Whether it's better stylistically or not... that's another discussion entirely. My real point, though, is that our system was put in place by consensus and has been working smoothly for us since. Personally I think that between WP:PRECISION and WP:DAB there's a fair amount of leeway and where changing our unit naming guideline would bring no perceptible benefit to readers and cause a fair amount of disruption to the project, is it really worth changing? Of course, consensus can change, so this debate is very welcome. EyeSerene^talk 12:14, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm still struggling to understand the basis of this exception. As noted above, the harm arises when someone unfamiliar with its background (the vast majority of the site's editors) stumbles upon it; an experienced editor will perceive it as an error, while an inexperienced editor will have no concept of (and likely misconstrue) its purpose/scope.

Regarding consensus, please don't take this the wrong way, but is this your WikiProject's consensus or one reached via the involvement of the general community? I don't mean to disparage your WikiProject in any way, but I've encountered cases in which WikiProjects (acting with the best of intentions) enacted guidelines without realizing that "consensus" was limited to their small group of editors with specific interests/biases and directly contradicted widespread Wikipedia consensus.

One WikiProject believed that there was "overwhelming consensus" that information within its subject area (a particular fiction genre) was to be deemed notable/non-notable based upon the language in which the work was presented (and segregated accordingly). In other words, a German translation was notable only at the German Wikipedia, a French translation only at the French Wikipedia, and so on. As a result, these individuals went around removing "non-notable" information from articles and reverting all attempts to add/re-add it as a violation of the "guideline" (with the advice to instead add it to the corresponding languages' Wikipedias, because "that's what the other language wikis are for.")

This is an extreme example (and I'm not suggesting that it's comparable in severity to the matter at hand), but it illustrates the extent to which a WikiProject—acting 100% in good faith in a manner that makes perfect sense to its members—can err in gauging consensus. —David Levy 15:21, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, I sincerely appreciate the courteous manner in which I've been treated by your WikiProject's members. When I expressed my concerns regarding the aforementioned WikiProject's language segregation guideline, some of its members essentially told me that I was wasting my time by questioning the "overwhelming consensus" (which, as it turned out, was based upon a tiny amount of discussion among five members of the WikiProject). —David Levy 15:53, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I completely agree that a few individuals (or an entire WikiProject for that matter) can't override wider community consensus. It's also true that the milhist consensus regarding this was formed some time ago and perhaps it is time to revisit that discussion. However, I believe our guideline falls in the grey area between WP:DAB and WP:PRECISION, and without a compelling reason to change the practice - which as Kirill and Nick have pointed out, only affects certain articles in a reasonably easy-to-predict way (hence its utility) - I remain unconvinced that from a cost/benefit perspective there would be any real payoff. The perfect solution would be as you suggest; to create stubs for the "missing" articles that have made the disambiguation necessary in the first place, but of course that takes time and suitable numbers of willing, knowledgeable editors (perhaps an idea for a future project drive?). Thank you by the way for your kind comments - we try to make everyone feel welcome here and your collegiate approach has also been very much appreciated. EyeSerene^talk 17:44, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

To me, there are four compelling reasons to abandon this practice:

1. It results in confusion (such as my own and that of editors misconstruing the practice's purpose/scope).

2. It contradicts a widely accepted Wikipedia naming convention in a manner regarded as stylistically sloppy and undesirable. (Function is more important than form, but we don't want our encyclopedia to come across as unprofessional.)

3. Regarding function, I don't believe that there is any significant benefit (at least, among editors not acquainted with your WikiProject's guideline, who compose the vast majority of editors) to outweigh the above. I see far more potential for negative effects than for positive ones.

4. I believe that the intended benefits could be derived via an alternative solution. For example, instead of using preemptive disambiguation (in the hope that editors will appreciate the elusive significance and learn by example), why not simply create an explanatory page (containing explicit instructions on when/how to move an article from the base title, create a new article and link both from a disambiguation page) and link to it via a hatnote template along the lines of the following?

For help creating an article about a different military unit with the same designation, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Article creation.

Wouldn't that be considerably more helpful (and more professional than a seemingly accidental redirect notice)? —David Levy 18:18, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps, although I suspect people would start complaining about self-references in articles and so forth.

One issue that I don't think has been mentioned yet, but which I recall was a major point when this was originally discussed, is that in a number of cases (chiefly, during WWII), a name in the article text can be ambiguous; there are cases where identically numbered units from several countries were involved in a single event. One of the reasons presented for preemptive disambiguation was that having it in place would force (or at least encourage) editors making in-article links to link to the disambiguated article rather than just the ambiguous name, avoiding the problem of having to later determine which country's unit was being discussed.

I'm not entirely convinced whether this has actually worked out in practice; it'd be interesting if anyone can comment on whether having the redirects in place to the disambiguated version actually caused them to change the links. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 03:26, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Hatnotes are not universally adored, but they're generally accepted when used constructively. I can't imagine that the community would find them more objectionable than redirects from "Foo" to "Foo (disambiguation term)."

More importantly, such hatnotes would actually accomplish the intended task: informing editors of how to create articles about military units whose names are used by other military units with Wikipedia articles. (That it would do so in a manner compliant with Wikipedia's general style rules is a bonus, as our main goal always is to accommodate the site's users.) In my opinion, the current setup makes matters more confusing.

I understand the idea of "editors making in-article links to link to the disambiguated article rather than just the ambiguous name, avoiding the problem of having to later determine which country's unit was being discussed," but it seems highly unlikely to work in practice. There's nothing stopping editors from linking to the redirects, either because it's easier than piping (and because the above logic is far from self-evident) and because many will naturally do so without even realizing that the article has a different title (hence Wikipedia's multitude of accidental links to disambiguation pages). —David Levy 16:25, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

This is a fairly long chat, so apologies if I've missed any points, but I thought I'd chime in with my thoughts. I like to try and consider things from the casual reader's position as much as possible, and with that in mind I do see a benefit to disambiguation. This is just a usefulness factor though, and not a reflection on the rights or wrongs of policy or the reason behind this chat. With military units, having a country after a title is often quite useful as it informs the reader about a considerable factor in the first instant. I imagine that fairly often a reader will come here to search for (or be linked to) a unit's name without knowing anything about it. Having a country in the lead instantly tells you something quite important, and in that sense it is descriptive. Its neutral and tells you instantly that "whatever else you might have been looking for, this article is about this specific unit". For example, if you follow this link: 1st Airborne Division, you'll be taken here: 1st Airborne Division (United Kingdom). Now I'm fairly sure there must be lots of other 1st Airborne Divisions, so having a country after the unit name is quite useful when my browser opens a new page. There are a few reasons for this - one is that many unit articles are in a bit of a state in that they don't mention a country in the lead (this may be because the title does, and so the lead is sloppy). Another is that I recently had a discussion with an editor who believes that flagicons (which we commonly use in these instances) are largely unnecessary. So I'd be concerned that the more we standardise, the less descriptive article's titles and infoboxes become.

Now like I said this is just a usefulness thing. I fully realise that not all units are, or ever can be, standardised in such a way - there are a lot of other units that will never need disambiguation. It's also related to the state of the articles themselves or the article linking to it (ie. not stating a nationality clearly enough). So this usefulness is sporadic, but I do find it helpful when I come across it. But I usually come across it when I expect there might be a variety of similarly named units (even if those articles, or indeed those units, don't actually exist). Just a thought.

I'm glad you feel welcomed David. I personally have found this to be the most courteous and responsive wikiproject around. Ranger Steve (talk) 21:39, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

As you note above, this information should be included in the lead, and the utility to which you refer reflects fundamental deficiencies in the articles themselves.

Wikipedia includes parenthetical constructs in article titles exclusively to avoid titular conflicts (and explicitly not to merely provide additional information about the subjects). Otherwise, every title would include a parenthetical. We have countless articles whose names mean nothing to most people (e.g. Pentamethylcyclopentadiene), but we categorically do not append a description to a title purely to convey the subject's nature. That's what the article's body is for. —David Levy 22:11, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Out of interest can you point me to that policy? I can't find it myself and I'm sure I've seen needlessly descriptive titles in brackets before, so it'll be useful to refer to. Ranger Steve (talk) 23:01, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Article titles#Precision and disambiguation. —David Levy 23:38, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually David, I was looking for the policy that says "Wikipedia includes parenthetical constructs in article titles exclusively to avoid titular conflicts (and explicitly not to merely provide additional information about the subjects)". I don't see that there, in fact it seems a bit to vague for me to refer back to when I come across this sort of thing (and I'm thinking of far worse examples than this instance). Ranger Steve (talk) 08:56, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

You're looking for a page with precisely the wording that I used to describe Wikipedia's practices? Those were my words; I didn't copy them from anywhere.

The above policy states that "articles' titles usually merely indicate the name of the topic," explains that "when additional precision is necessary to distinguish an article from other uses of the topic name, over-precision should be avoided," and cites specific examples (e.g. "United States Apollo program (1961–1975)" vs. "Apollo program") to illustrate that it would be incorrect to include extra information beyond the minimum needed to distinguish the article from other uses of the topic name. —David Levy 16:25, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

So would it be fair to say that Wikipedia doesn’t use parentheses in titles exclusively to avoid titular conflicts, and that there is no policy saying that they are explicitly not to be used to provide additional information? WP:Precision is fairly ambiguous on the matter (lots of “generally” and “usually”) and like Eyeserene says, it’s a bit of a grey area (and certainly greyer than you suggest by using terms like exclusively and explicitly). I personally believe that this information is in many cases useful.

Anyway, more generally, the examples on WP:Precision are unique – in that there was only one Apollo program and (as far as I know) only one band of any note called Nirvana. There are in many cases however, literally dozens of military units with the same name. In many cases we may only have an article on one of them, but just because we don’t have articles on the others doesn’t mean that the units themselves don’t exist. As you say, it would be "incorrect to include extra information beyond the minimum needed to distinguish the article from other uses of the topic name", but it really is quite often necessary with military units (other uses of the topic name). Bear in mind that this is topics not articles that we’re talking about.

I’m not sure that only having one article on wiki establishes a primary topic either. WP:primarytopic isn’t especially clear, but it does refer to topics and not articles when deciding. In that sense it doesn’t really seem to discourage pre-emptive disambiguation.

I’d also point out that flagicons in no way reflect on the quality of an article. Some people like them, some don’t, but their presence in no way suggests that an article suffers from fundamental deficiencies. Cheers, Ranger Steve (talk) 18:33, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

1. I see no ambiguity at Wikipedia:Article titles#Precision and disambiguation. It explains that we simply use the subject's name as the article's title unless it's necessary to distinguish the article from other uses of the topic name (in which case we append only as much information as is required for differentiation).

However, you appear to have misunderstood my point. While I have argued against the use of preemptive disambiguation/redirection (which doesn't distinguish the article from other uses of the topic name, given the fact that the topic name still leads to the article), that isn't what I'm addressing in this instance. I'm addressing your statement that "having a country after a title is often quite useful as it informs the reader about a considerable factor in the first instant" (which I interpreted—perhaps mistakenly—as a reference to a perceived side-benefit separate from the core disambiguational issue and hypothetically not restricted to instances in which multiple entities share the same name). My response—which sets aside the issue of whether disambiguation should occur preemptively—is that when titling our articles, we do not append additional information to the subject's name merely (you omitted that word when quoting me above) to provide additional information about the subject (as opposed to information that serves to distinguish the article from other uses of the topic name). For example, we don't use the title Pentamethylcyclopentadiene (cyclic diolefin), as there is no other use of the name pentamethylcyclopentadiene from which the article must be distinguished. Instead, the fact that pentamethylcyclopentadiene is a cyclic diolefin is explained in the lead.

2. Irrespective of whether preemptive disambiguation/redirection in the area of military units is a good idea or a bad idea, it clearly doesn't reflect Wikipedia's conventions (as others from this WikiProject have acknowledged). That doesn't mean that it's out of the question, of course, and the primary matter under discussion is whether to continue making an exception. But if you're suggesting that the practice doesn't deviate from Wikipedia's conventions, you're mistaken. Redirects from "Foo" to "Foo (disambiguation term)" are widely regarded as errors to be corrected on-sight.

3. I wasn't referring to flag icons at all. I was responding to your statement that "many unit articles are in a bit of a state in that they don't mention a country in the lead." Such an omission is a fundamental deficiency. —David Levy 19:45, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

You’ve kind of understood my point, but I’m referring to the side benefit only because it is something that is beneficial when I might expect there to be several other instances of the name (so everything up until you say “hypothetically not restricted to instances in which multiple entities share the same name”, that’s why I said “with military units having the country after the title is…”). It is of no use to have a title like Royal Army Service Corps (United Kingdom) or even Red Hot Chilli Peppers (American) because their names alone make them unique and provide all of the necessary info. But with something like 1st Airborne Division I might expect several uses/units, so regardless of whether we have one article or not, having 1st Airborne Division (United Kingdom) is useful. It is a side benefit but limited to instances where the reader might expect disambiguation (even if, on occasion, no other unit of the same name exists). For that reason I’m afraid I disagree that pre-emptive disambiguation doesn’t distinguish the article from other uses of the name, because it does distinguish the article from any perceived or real alternative uses (whether they exist on wiki or not).

I don’t see much ambiguity at WP:Precision either, but at the same time I don’t see what you appear to do. You’re right that it would be wrong to add additional information to a title just for the sake of it, but it is also wrong to say that brackets are only used for wiki disambiguation purposes – whatever issue it is you’re addressing. The policy doesn’t say that. What it does say is “When additional precision is necessary to distinguish an article from other uses of the topic name, over-precision should be avoided. Be precise but only as precise as is needed.” Adding a country name to a title, when there is a reasonable likelihood that another country may use the same title is as precise as we need to be, without adding unnecessary information just for the sake of it. My point above is (perhaps long-windedly and somewhat round the houses) the same, but is related to the reader’s expectation that there might be a different use of the name. I realise that may not be in line with wiki conventions (is there a specific rule about this somewhere that you can link us to?) but I think this is a fair exception to the rule because readers can reasonably expect two 1st Airborne Divisions, when they obviously wouldn’t expect two Luke Skywalkers.

Actually I think I can summarise it by saying I personally think the reasonable assumption that multiple entities are likely to exist is sufficient reason to disambiguate (should have said this from the start I guess!). But not just for Wiki naming conventions – but for the benefit of the reader.

As for the flags, my apologies. When you said “the utility to which you refer” I took that as flagicons rather than bad articles. Ranger Steve (talk) 20:54, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, each of us partially misunderstood the other. However, my point remains. You describe a side benefit that exists only when an article has been written improperly; the information in question is supposed to appear in the lead (immediately conveying it to readers), so there is no need for its duplication in the article's title.

You noted that the absence of a second article on a subject with a particular name does not automatically establish that the existent article pertains to the primary topic, and I agree. (Due to systemic bias and sheer chance, it's entirely possible that the neglected entity is equally notable or even more notable.) But until the base title becomes a disambiguation page, this distinction is irrelevant; the basic navigational structure is identical (with someone typing a generic military unit designation arriving at a specific unit's article), regardless of whether a redirect is involved.

So consider a hypothetical situation in which a particular entity is the primary use of its name, with one or more articles about secondary uses in existence. In such a circumstance, we know that someone arriving at the article might have a different use in mind. Nonetheless, we rely upon the lead (not parenthetical disambiguation in the title) to convey the article's nature, and we include a hatnote to assist readers seeking other uses of the name.

For example, see the Robin Williams article. We could redirect that title to Robin Williams (entertainer), but we instead explain that the article's subject is "an American actor and comedian" in the first sentence of the lead. Meanwhile, a hatnote assists readers seeking the articles about the writer, folk musician and mathematician.

I propose a similar setup (described here) for instances in which a single article exists for a designation likely to be used by other military units. Rather than attempting to imply that said units might exist (via a method that confuses both experienced and inexperienced editors, as I've explained elsewhere in this discussion), we can unambiguously state this and link directly to a page providing detailed instructions for creating the missing articles and moving the first article to make way for a disambiguation page.

I believe that such a setup would be of far greater assistance to readers and bring the articles in line with Wikipedia's naming conventions.

I would sincerely appreciate any feedback (including suggested tweaks) that you have regarding the idea. —David Levy 21:50, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

While this debate is still going on, can I suggest that articles are not moved until it reaches concensus and conclusion. Based on the log on the WP:MHA page, a number of articles have been moved recently either to add or remove the disambigs, for example 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, 6th Infantry Regiment (United States), 26th Infantry Regiment (United States), 35th Infantry Regiment (United States), to name a few. I feel until there is a decision either way, that the status quo within the project should be maintained. Thanks. — AustralianRupert (talk) 05:10, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, I noted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators#Major milmos incident that "I was unaware of the guideline's existence until now (and based my actions on project-wide conventions)" and "have no intention of performing any further page moves of this type pending [the discussion's] outcome (a courtesy for which I would sincerely appreciate reciprocation, as I put a great deal of time and effort into what I perceived as straightforward cleanup)." —David Levy 16:25, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Preemptive disambiguation (arbitrary section break)

(od; lost track of threading!) David, I think your proposal (ie using a hatnote) has its merits. However, you've characterised our guideline as "a method that confuses both experienced and inexperienced editors". I wonder how widespread this confusion actually is. The system's been in place, from the discussion Kirill linked, since late 2006 and as far as I know (only becoming involved intensively with milhist a couple of years ago) you're the first complainant. I accept that you're a hugely experienced editor and if you were confused, it's likely others will be too, but for all the problems you highlight with the guideline many of us clearly find it very valuable, logical and intuitive. This is the root of my "if it ain't broke" comment; perhaps if it could be shown that the guideline has caused and is causing significant problems, it would be worth changing. To this point though I don't believe I've seen anything to prove that changing things would provide a payoff large enough to offset losing the system's benefits. EyeSerene^talk 09:01, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I realize that the system is intuitive to members of the WikiProject, but its intended purpose simply isn't readily apparent to almost anyone else. This is not to say that everyone will become actively confused (as most will simply view the articles without giving the matter any substantial degree of thought), but I simply don't see how anyone lacking direct knowledge of the guideline is supposed to appreciate (and benefit from) the setup.

Wikipedians in general are conditioned (rightly so, throughout most of the encyclopedia) to perceive redirects from "Foo" to "Foo (disambiguation term)" as erroneous; they're to be corrected on-sight. Perhaps I was the first to spend hours doing so with military unit articles, but I likely won't be the last. Nothing and no one provided any indication that my actions were inappropriate.

Meanwhile, any inexperienced editor will approach the situation without preconceived notions. He/she will see nothing wrong with the titles, but the logic behind them will remain elusive. The most obvious interpretation is that all articles about military organizations are to use this title format (even when their names are unique). There is absolutely no indication (apart from the guideline that almost no one will see) of where or why the line is drawn. This explains the June 2008 move of Women's Army Corps to Women's Army Corps (United States Army), where it remained until I noticed it, prompting the rest of my moves (many of them of articles for which your guideline did not recommend preemptive disambiguation).

On top of that, I noticed numerous articles that already lacked preemptive disambiguation that was recommended (reinforcing my impression that the practice was erroneous), so the setup clearly hasn't been applied across the board. Its somewhat subjective nature (requiring editors to evaluate whether "a unit's name can reasonably be expected to be used by multiple armed forces") contributes to the difficulty maintaining consistency. Another possibility is that some of those articles were moved by other editors conditioned to correct such redirects on-sight.

No offense, but in my assessment, the setup is "broke." It's been applied inconsistently and incorrectly, it misleads editors, and its nature is unclear to anyone to whom it hasn't been explained in advance (e.g. those not involved in the WikiProject).

I'm proposing an alternative that would make sense to everyone, enabling clarity and consistency among the articles and conformity with Wikipedia's style conventions (the latter of which is secondary but not insignificant). The information that currently is supposed to be implied would be spelled out in plain English, complete with a link to actual instructions.

You've noted that the idea "has its merits," and I would sincerely appreciate any specific feedback (positive or negative) that you have. My goal is to come up with a solution that satisfies all parties.

Please keep in mind that most of the changeover work could be handled by a bot, so it would not be a major inconvenience. —David Levy 11:15, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I've skimmed the conversation, but forgive me if I repeat a point that I've missed. For one, I have to admit that the (United States) suffix attached to many United States Marine Corps article titles has been a headache to me for years. Despite the fact that I recently learned the Pipe trick, it still boggles my mind that we append the parenthical disambig to 1st Marine Division when there are no other Marines in the world who field entire divisions, and if they did, probably wouldn't name them as such anyway; similar arguments for the regiments. Luckily, there isn't such an issue with any of the individual battalions or squadrons that I know of.

Of course, the USMC makes up a small slice of articles affected by this. In this, I must agree with David: the average editor or reader, unless familiar with MILMOS, will not see the merit in a disambig unless there are articles for units with similar/identical names that need to be disambiguated. Now, for the concern about articles not yet created, we shouldn't be overly concerned. While there are surely lots of notable units who still lack articles, I think the bulk of article creation is behind us, which was not the case in 2006. If a newbie is confused when he finds an American unit when he was searching for a British one, he will do the usual newbie mischief regardless, and we can correct anything done then as a matter of course. If there are major gaps that I'm not aware of, we can simple use {{See also}} or {{Redirect}} with placeholders or even red links.

To summarize, I think that any guideline (whether it is in place now or I've just been misinterpreting MILMOS since I was a newbie in 2006) that mandates a disambig before there is anything to disambiguate is just silly. bahamut0013^words_deeds 22:15, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I really have to disagree with Bahamut13. Preemptive disambiguation is key for the work I'm doing. This is because, for example, the hundreds of articles for Soviet rifle divisions are being slowly translated. Check the Ru-wiki category for divisions of the Great Patriotic War (WW II) and you'll see literally hundreds we haven't done - ru:Категория:Стрелковые дивизии СССР во время Великой Отечественной войны. Same for Chinese infantry divisions. Has anyone considered that when we create articles for every US infantry regiment, we create a precedent for every infantry regiment in the world that's ever existed, if we can gather sufficient sources, to have an individual article (Eg, literally thousands of Soviet infantry regiments in World War II). We have little or no unit articles for African, South American, Saudi, Indonesian (lots in IndoWiki), lots to be translated from Fr wiki, Turkish, and many historical European units in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

In summary, I think Bahamut's argument suffers from inherent systematic bias. There are literally hundreds of foreign language articles (principally Russian, Indonesian, German, and French) we haven't done, and this leaves aside all the articles that will be created in future. Case in point: Regional Command South, an ISAF formation in Afghanistan, has recently been created. But has anyone remembered that the Military of Kazakhstan has a Regional Command South? (and East, West, Centre, and Astana). When there's enough data, I will create that article, and call it Regional Command South (Kazakhstan). Be a bit hard otherwise.

Thus for reasons of further expansion and fair coverage of under-represented armed forces, I believe we should retain the present system. Buckshot06 (talk) 05:14, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand. Why does the work that you describe require preemptive disambiguation?

Please see my hatnote proposal, which is intended to actively encourage (and provide detailed instructions for) the creation of missing articles. —David Levy 05:33, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Because, for example, there are the 3rd Armored Division (United States), 3rd Armoured Division (United Kingdom), and thereafter, potentially 3rd Armoured Division (Germany), 3rd Armoured Division (Nigeria), 3rd Armoured Division (Turkey)... need I go on? There are very large numbers of 1-50 numbered infantry divisions in the US, British, German, French, Soviet, Chinese, Mexican, Brazilian, etc armies. All these divisions will require brackets.

Hatnotes? My personal opinion is that a hatnote immediately above the text would be uglier than a bracket in the title. While we need {{sources}} or other tags, the idea is to eventually be able to remove them all. Then we'd have to stick in hatnotes? No. I support brackets in the titles. Buckshot06 (talk) 05:54, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, it appears that we've had a bit of a misunderstanding. There is a clear need for parenthetical disambiguation (in precisely the sort of situation that you describe), and no one is proposing that it not be used.

The only question is whether this should be done before a second article about a military unit with the same name is created.

The alternative (Wikipedia's standard procedure) is to create the second article (with parenthetical disambiguation in the title), move the first article to a title with the same format, and replace the resultant redirect with a disambiguation page.

Otherwise, a redirect from "Foo" to "Foo (disambiguation term)" comes across as an error (because there is no obvious indication of why/how any sort of disambiguation is taking place).

Please also note that {{sources}} is a cleanup tag, not a hatnote. Hatnotes are unobtrusive italic text notices (with no boxes or colored borders) used throughout Wikipedia to assist readers seeking articles other than the ones at which they've arrived. (For example, see Monolith.)

The proposed hatnote would be used strictly in articles occupying base titles (replacing the "(Redirected from [base title])" notice that readers currently see), and it would be removed as soon as such an article was moved to a title containing parenthetical disambiguation (upon the creation of a second article about a military unit with the same name). —David Levy 06:29, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Thankyou David for that clarification. Well aware that {{sources}} is a cleanup tag. My point was any kind of awkward italics/tags/whatever that get between the reader and the initial definition of the subject of the article is something we want to phase out in time. Thus the question becomes, with your proposal, where does this type of mass page change/alteration sit in level of priority with other MOS cleanup tasks? Do you believe this is red-hot urgent, because there are literally thousands of pages (mostly US units, given our systematic bias) that would need attention? Are there other article title issues that warrant precedence? Thanks for your thoughts anyway. Buckshot06 (talk) 17:59, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

The systemic bias is there, but that doesn't justify a disambig on an article when there are no other articles to disambig from. Whether or not there will be in the future is not particularly relevant. After all, there may exist a 90th Infantry Division (someothercountry) in the world, but I doubt that the article will be written for a very long time, if ever. And if it is someday, then we can move 90th Infantry Division to 90th Infantry Division (United States) and create 90th Infantry Division (disambiguation). bahamut0013^words_deeds 23:48, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

The proposed hatnotes would be temporary (removable upon either the creation of a second article about a military unit with the same name or the determination that no such unit exists). In all cases, they would replace the redirection notices that currently appear when readers visit the base titles.

No, I don't regard this matter as urgent, and it's quite possible that others are more pressing (and should be dealt with first).

Fortunately, a majority of the changeover work (with double-redirect repair being the most abundant) could be performed by a bot, so the required human involvement would be fairly limited (and I would gladly take part, of course). —David Levy 09:21, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think this kind of thing is a big deal; internal consistency within articles and content issues such as POV are much more important YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 05:30, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I certainly agree that "issues such as POV" are more important. What do you mean by "internal consistency within articles"? —David Levy 08:16, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I would like to put in my 2 bits here. 1) Military naming conventions in Wikipedia with the country in brackets are easily searched by computers and people. It works for all new articles. 2) Newbies see the current format and follow it. They do not read the naming conventions. The format is simple and direct for military units. 3) Changing article names before getting any acceptance or consensus of change causes conflict and misunderstandings. 4) I vote to maintain what was agreed upon in 2006 in military unit naming. Jrcrin001 (talk) 07:01, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

1. Can you be more specific? In what manner does this make searching easier? In case you didn't realize, the titles with the countries appended would continue to lead to the articles (and appear in searches).

2. Yes, that's my point. "Newbies see the current format and follow it" without reading the naming conventions. That's why we've ended up with numerous incorrect applications of the format. New editors are seeing these articles and getting the wrong idea.

3. I agree. That's why I initiated this discussion (and stopped moving these articles pending its outcome) as soon as I learned of the guideline.

As you noted, most editors "do not read the naming conventions," so this sort of situation (in which someone renames the articles on-sight, as is customary throughout most of Wikipedia) is likely to reoccur. Upon seeing these articles, there is absolutely no indication that any special naming guideline is in effect.

4. Thanks very much for accepting my invitation to comment. —David Levy 08:16, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

David, off the top of your head do you happen to remember exactly how many articles you moved before I left you the message? I did not occur to me at the time, but some of those articles probably had Peer Reviews (and in some cases probably A-class review), and the associated links to these reviews may have been broken as a result of the moves. Since this may last a while I would like to put links to any missing PRs/ACRs onto the talk pages of articles effected as a temporary measure to keep the two together while we discuss this, but to do that I need to get some idea of which articles were effected to generate a list of articles that do have associated PR or ACR links. TomStar81 (Talk) 10:27, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I moved approximately 25 military unit articles, I believe.

Why would any links have been broken? The previous titles continue to function as redirects (and I repaired the resultant double-redirects as I went along). —David Levy 02:17, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

IMO, articles about military units should be unambiguously distinguished from other uses of the topic name. This applies even when there is only one ambiguously named article. I support the existing guideline and believe that there are very valid domain-specific reasons why it should be retained: it assists readers in identifying whether they have found the Apollo program they were looking for, and will encourage new editors to adopt sensible (unambiguous) practices. Dhatfield (talk) 23:17, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

In my view, names that contain number often lead to the question "of which entity?", so I would actually prefer 1st Infantry Division of the United States Army to 1st Infantry Division (United States).  Cs32en Talk to me  23:31, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I've been giving this some thought during my brief absence. Your idea has its merits David, but I can't really adjust myself to the way around it works. In my view, boxes at the top of an article are messages to editors (that an article needs work), but italics are specifically for the reader's benefit and inform them in a way that is permanent to that article. So I don't really like the idea of displaying editor advice in such a way. Added to that, as I said (and a few others have now) the current format benefits the readers, who are far more numerous than editors on wiki. I really do think it works well now.... Ranger Steve (talk) 22:39, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

You say that "the current format benefits the readers," and I'll again reiterate that any properly written article will identify its subject's nature (in this case, including the country in which a military unit originates) in the lead.

You say that you "can't really adjust [yourself] to the way around [the idea] works." But your WikiProject is asking the entire English Wikipedia project to adjust to a nonstandard naming convention (which contradicts a Wikipedia-wide practice) that it implemented without consultation. The alternative that I've proposed is nonstandard as well, but the key difference is that its purpose is clear, explicit and self-evident (as opposed to a practice whose significance is apparent to no one outside your WikiProject).

Please note that I've gone out of my way to work with your WikiProject (instead of slapping {{disputedtag}} on the guideline page and initiating an RfC), as I don't want to come across as confrontational. But the fact of the matter is that a WikiProject lacks the authority to override community-wide conventions without community-wide consensus, and it appears that your WikiProject never sought consensus other than its own. So I would sincerely appreciate a response amounting to more than "thanks, but we like doing it this way." Please try to work with me (and understand why this practice doesn't make sense to those of us not acquainted with your WikiProject), just as I'm trying to work with you. —David Levy 19:25, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Preemptive disambiguation (2nd arbitrary section break)

Excuse me if I've missed any key points here, but I think that it's silly to disambiguate 506th Infantry Regiment (United States) when there might never be another 506th Infantry Regiment. Rin tin tin 1996 (talk) 00:14, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Nope, that is essentially the key point :) However, the rationale behind the Milhist guideline is that we don't know there will never be another 506th Infantry Regiment somewhere in the world (in fact, chances are there already is, has been, or will be, it's just that we don't have an article about it yet). I think David may be right from a strict interpretation of WP:PRECISION ("Be precise but only as precise as is needed" - although personally I'd argue that we are only being as precise as necessary), but I also think that military units are an exception to the rule because was can predict with a high degree of certainty that we will have multiple units with the same titles in this area. EyeSerene^talk 11:26, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but if there is another 506th Infantry Regiment we can write an article about it then and make a disambiguation page then, right? Rin tin tin 1996 (talk) 15:30, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and that's what done throughout Wikipedia.

There are two issues here:

1. Is there an exceptional circumstance that warrants deviation from Wikipedia's usual naming conventions?

2. If so, is the current deviation addressing the issue in a practical manner?

Regarding question 1, I still don't see any exception. We know with absolute certainty that articles throughout Wikipedia have names that one day will be (or already are) shared with other notable subjects currently lacking articles, but we don't preemptively redirect the base titles to titles with parenthetical disambiguation in preparation for the future articles' eventual creation. No one has explained how military unit articles materially differ in this respect. As I previously noted, there is less chance that a notable military unit with a particular designation will suddenly emerge tomorrow than there is that an individual sharing his/her name with a notable person will suddenly become notable by committing a noteworthy act tomorrow (e.g. going on a shooting spree or assassinating a world leader).

Regarding question 2, I still don't understand how the preemptive disambiguation accomplishes anything of value. As noted above, if we want to create a second article about a military unit with a particular name, we can simply move the first one (and create a disambiguation page in its place) then, just as we do every day throughout Wikipedia. The base titles are being redirected to the specific units' articles (in contradiction with Wikipedia's conventions), so readers typing or following links to the non-disambiguated names already are reaching specific units' articles anyway (even if they have different ones in mind).

It's been said that the idea is illustrate the title format for users creating new articles, but there are two problems with that:

1. There obviously is no consensus for such a practice within the Wikipedia community (apart from this WikiProject, which evidently hasn't solicited outside input). We could preemptively redirect Aziz Ansari to Aziz Ansari (entertainer) to illustrate the naming format that should be used when eventually creating Aziz Ansari (scientist) or Aziz Ansari (footballer), but we don't do that.

2. I'll reiterate the two likely interpretations from users not acquainted with this WikiProject:

• An inexperienced user, lacking knowledge of the guideline, will assume that every military unit's article (and maybe even articles in other subject areas) should include parenthetical disambiguation. This is why I encountered articles with titles containing parenthetical disambiguation not prescribed by your guideline.
• An experienced user, lacking knowledge of the guideline, will encounter redirects from "Foo" to "Foo (disambiguation term)", assume that they're accidental, and immediately correct them (as is routine throughout Wikipedia). I spent hours doing this, and I wasn't even made aware of this issue until quite a while later.

In either case, there is absolutely no indication of why the practice is used or when it's intended. Only someone acquainted with this WikiProject can know these things.

So even if we assume that there is a material distinction between military units and everything else on the planet, this naming practice isn't helping. It's generating confusion. —David Levy 19:25, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I’m really not quite sure how to read the tone of your last post to me a little bit above David, but it comes across as extremely touchy. I appreciate you’ve gone to great lengths to work with the project, and I haven’t in any way disrespected that. You asked for an opinion on your suggestion and above is my response. I can’t really see how my reply amounts to “thanks, but we like doing it this way”, as I’ve responded directly to your suggestion. I’m not quite sure how much you expected me to write, but I’m guessing you probably wanted me to agree with you. Sorry, but I don’t. In fact I think its worse than the current system. I don’t disagree that there might be a better system, but your alternative isn’t (in my opinion) it.

The guideline was written long before my time, and dates to a period when a lot of such unofficial guidelines were written that have since become accepted – so please don’t accuses anyone of not seeking any consensus or otherwise implying that this was a deliberate ploy. You’re the first editor to raise this issue (and perhaps the first to have any major problem with it) so unsurprisingly a lot of editors who think the system is fine don’t see it the same way you do. I’m not quite sure why you think I wasn’t trying to work with you, but you can safely assume that I won’t be now – after your last post I’m bowing out of this.

But before I go, for the second or third time of asking, can you please post a link to the guideline saying that we don’t disambiguate Foo to Foo (disambiguation), for the benefit of the discussion? Ranger Steve (talk) 20:39, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, I apologize if I came across as hostile. As I noted, that's what I'm trying not to do. You seem to have misinterpreted some of what I wrote, as none of my intended connotations were demeaning or accusatory.

I'm not asking you to agree with my proposal, which was intended to serve only as an example. I'd hoped for responses along the lines of, "I don't like that, but how about this...", but no counter-proposals have been made. I fully appreciate that you like the current setup and have been candid in expressing that, but I'm asking you (and others) to brainstorm toward some sort of compromise. I've done so without soliciting feedback from outside the WikiProject, as I don't want it to seem as though I'm trying to bully you into compliance.

As noted above, I see no need for any sort of special setup, but I respect the fact that members your WikiProject feel differently. I'm only asking you to try to come up with one lacking the problems that I've cited.

Also, I'm certainly not suggesting that your WikiProject has done anything dishonest. I fully realize that this practice was instituted in good faith. My point is only that all discussion (that's been cited, at least) was confined to members of the WikiProject. I'm sure that there was no deliberate attempt to sneak anything past the community, and it might not even have been realized that the practice contradicted the project's naming conventions. Nonetheless, it does contradict the project's naming conventions, which WikiProjects lack the authority to override. But again, I'm alleging absolutely no misdeeds.

Lastly, I assume that you're requesting a link to a guideline explicitly barring the redirection of "Foo" to "Foo (disambiguation term)". I know of no such page. Like many things not written down somewhere, it's a widely accepted/enforced corollary. It's understood that an article's title should "merely indicate the name of the topic," except when disambiguation from other topics with the same name is needed. Having the base title lead to the article provides no disambiguation (beyond that included in any properly written lead paragraph), so it's considered sloppy and confusing for this to occur indirectly. That's why we don't redirect Robin Williams to Robin Williams (entertainer) (despite the fact that we actually have articles about other persons named "Robin Williams") and why such constructs are routinely corrected on-sight.

Again, absolutely no hostility is intended, so please don't don't interpret the above as having been written in such a tone. (And my apologies once more for anything that came across that way.) —David Levy 22:07, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

A couple of thoughts:

The key difference, I suppose, between military units and, say, people is that military units tend to follow fairly regular naming conventions. For example, if we know that there's a 349th Regiment around, we can reasonably make the assumption that all the numbers up to 349 also correspond to regiments (although, admittedly, this does not hold true in cases where the numerical designators are arbitrarily spaced out to indicate branch, unit type, or some other characteristic). Given that several armies (the Chinese and U.S., and likely the German and Soviet as well) have had regiments numbered into the hundreds, it is at least arguable that every such designator will need to be disambiguated—something that's not necessarily the case for people's names.

Having said that, I'm not convinced that preemptive disambiguation per se is a good approach to actually accomplishing the desired level of disambiguation; as you point out, the principles underlying the approach are by no means obvious to people not familiar with the associated discussions, and it is likely to be interpreted either as a mistake or as a general rule for all units, regardless of how ambiguous the names are likely to be.

I wonder if the better solution, in practical terms, might be to actually create either stubs or list entries for the bulk of the units in question—it should not be difficult to come up with a list of every U.S. regimental number, for example—and then create the associated disambiguation pages with actual links. This would accomplish most of what the guideline was trying to do, without requiring a significant level of disambiguation of terms that did not actually have multiple targets; we would then be in a position to deprecate preemptive disambiguation, since it would simply no longer be needed. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 04:38, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, this is part of what I was trying to say. Military units with particular designations are likely to exist, but this makes it easier to compile lists and create articles now (as opposed to persons and many other subjects, which constantly enter existence and attain notability under unpredictable names).

I noted the possibility of creating stubs to link from disambiguation pages in the thread's first message, and I unreservedly support the idea. —David Levy 05:08, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I think I noted (somewhere!) above that I'd go for this as a way of sidestepping the issue :) Of course, we'd need enough editors to make this feasible, unless we could produce a standard blurb and list of articles and then get a bot to do the work. EyeSerene^talk 18:20, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

The reason for pre-emptive disambiguation was that in the 20th century the military became the biggest bureaucracies on the planet and many nations had military bureaucracies tended to be quite similar in their naming designations. This means that for certain types of names like "divisions" just about every country which has an army of more than 40,000 men is likely to have 1st Division, now we could have gone down the line of well we will follow the naming conventions. We will create an article for the first division for country A, and when someone writes an article 1st Division country B, we will move the article "1st Division" to "1st Division (A)" and change it into a dab page to with links to "1st Division (A)" "1st Division (B)" and then go thorough all the articles changing the link 1st Division to "1st Division (A)". But wait there is another link there which should be to 1st Division country C that has not yet been written and it was just linked to 1st Division so I an not automate the moving of all links from "1st Division" to "1st Division (A)". I have to go through them all checking them by hand with is very time consuming.

This was particularly a problem with list of division for World War II armies. One did not have to be an expert military historian to know that division numbers up to 100 were going to be replicated by several armies. So it is much easier to use pre-emptive disambiguation on those lists than to wait for the inevitable train smash, and also the claims of notability that are inevitably found in the wreckage. So I for one was for pre-emptive disambiguation for unit names that were almost inevitably going to need disambiguation in the future. I was against using brackets because I think it is more natural to write "Indian 2nd Infantry Division" than 2nd Infantry Division (India), and I am very against the dab description of UK for British Army forces as in 1st Armoured Division (United Kingdom) because it is the British Army and not the UK's army -- I see that form of dabbing as an American bias. However the form of dabbing is a different issue from pre-emptive disambiguation 1st Armoured Division which I think is/was a good idea. -- PBS (talk) 11:08, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Can I guess that the major problem is only with large armies? Only maybe U.S.A., Russia/Soviet Union, China, Japan, Germany, Britain, Italy, and France have enough to cause a problem, but the majority of these units probably aren't notable enough. Anyway, as the number of the unit goes up, there are less. 1st Infantry Division gets 35 bluelinks. A search for 34th gets you four bluelinks. The problem seems to be a problem from maybe 15 and below. (I'll check later more thouroughly) Rin tin tin 1996 (talk) 22:54, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

It has also become less of a problem now because much of the initial work has been done and the most common names have already been dabed (so the need for the guidance is less than it was). I don't think it has been made clear enough if an article exists called 10th Division on a first come first serve basis. What should all the other articles link to? Should the link to the 10th Division article be left black (although an article is wanted) or be placed at a red link 10th Division (country) if the latter then it makes sense to link to 10th Division (country) even if that redirects to "10th Division" as in the long run it will probably be moved there anyway. If not and 81 articles were to link in to a red 10th division wanting 9 different articles (one for each of 9 different countries with a 10th division) then on the creation of the first article 72 of those articles are going to be linking to the wrong 10th division article. So what change should an editor make to fix that problem? It seems to me just easier, and less error prone, for editors, with no loss of clarity for readers, to start off with the first article dabbed, and if all of the 91 links are already pointing a the pages where the 9 articles will eventually sit then the work of keeping the links up to date is minimised. In articles about nobility it is nearly always done this way. For example the article on the Duke of Wellington is basically a dab page, but because it has text about the designation, it counts as an article even though it cheerfully admits that actually it should be a redirect to the most notable Duke of Wellington. -- PBS (talk) 13:33, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Straw Poll

Alright, since our members have had their say I think it time we start the ball moving on the suggestion of whether we should continue the practice of preemptive disambiguation or not. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:53, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Retain the Status Quo

We keep preemptive disambiguation in the MoS, as it appears now, with no change.

1. Support Ranger Steve (talk) 21:56, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
2. Support Cam ^(Chat) 23:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
3. Support The Bushranger (talk) 04:49, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
4. Support in lieu of bulk-creation of stubs as placeholders that would remove the need for preemptive disambiguation (which may or may not be feasible). EyeSerene^talk 18:12, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
5. Support Doug (talk) 00:07, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
6. Support Why break a wheel? Auntieruth55 (talk) 00:21, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
7. Support with the caveat that it is applied with common sense (as it has usually been in the past). E.g. if a unit title doesn't need dabing, it shouldn't. E.g 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment doesn't need dabbing, but 1st Battalion (Australia) does. — AustralianRupert (talk) 07:41, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
8. Support preemptive disambiguation works fine, and as the complaint is about missing articles, I suggest building a set-index at the ambiguous name, like ships do ({{shipindex}} articles) 70.29.208.247 (talk) 12:32, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
9. Support Disambiguation helps redirect people to the page with the information they need when there isn't enough information for it's own page. Bernstein2291 ^{(Talk • Contributions • Sign Here)} 23:56, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
10. Support as per User:Bernstein2291 above. Mlpearc MESSAGE 01:19, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
11. Support --Eurocopter (talk) 13:13, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
12. Support - Buckshot06 (talk) 08:52, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Change the MoS

We alter the MoS to reduce or eliminate the use of preemptive disambiguation. If we adopt this option, a further discussion will open up to determine what the MoS should be altered to based on the suggestions above.

1. Support I do not believe that there would be a point to mass creation of stubs, as EyeSerene suggests. There are a few points I would like to make.

First, these divisions and other units most likely fail Wikipedia notability guidelines, and would be found at AFD relatively soon.

Second, Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. How much can you write about the Xth Infantry Division that occupied some place in year XXXX?

I understand the opposite viewpoint, but I think we need a change. Rin tin tin (talk) 20:35, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Rare Photo of MacArthur & Family Now on Wikipedia

Hello, I've uploaded a photo of Douglas MacArthur and his wife and son, taken in 1950. This is its first appearance on the Internet (I photographed the photo, which is in the possession of the Manila Hotel archives). I've nominated it for Featured Picture at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/MacArthur Family and thought that some folks here might like to express their opinion of the suitability of the photo for Featured Picture. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 11:10, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Tim Collins (British Army officer)

Could we have some more eyes on Tim Collins (British Army officer) please? A new editor has been adding info today, often not really meeting WP:BLP guidelines - and on second thoughts I'm not really sure of the reliability of one source he's added. It's not a mainstream news source, but someone else may know more about it (it's the one linking one of his fellow directors of New Century with the private military contractors Sandline and Executive Outcomes). David Underdown (talk) 11:25, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Coming cold to that article, I'm unhappy with these edits, certainly looks like there is an agenda. --Cameron Scott (talk) 11:35, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Third Eritrean Civil War

Does anybody know if this war is real? If it's real, is it still ongoing? B-Machine (talk) 21:17, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

After digging through the author's contribs (and especially deleted contribs), I think it's highly suspect. S/he repeatedly created synthetic articles asserting a similar "war" in Northern Ireland.

Also, I can't find any references to a third Eritrean Civil War in Google News or Scholar. I would suggest taking it to AfD. Parsecboy (talk) 21:37, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

How do I do the AfD? B-Machine (talk) 21:41, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

The instructions are here. Parsecboy (talk) 22:02, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

It's done. B-Machine (talk) 22:24, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

The article has not been deleted. It's worth noting that it appears to have been started and mainly edited by a couple of User:Top Gun's many, many sock puppets and had all the hallmarks of one of his projects (eg, synthesis, OR, made up concepts and dubious casualty figures). Nick-D (talk) 01:31, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Peer review for List of battlecruisers of Russia now open

The peer review for List of battlecruisers of Russia is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 21:39, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Battle of Bardia now open

The featured article candidacy for Battle of Bardia 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! Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 21:57, 15 May 2010 (UTC)