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Academy writing contest

  • Note: due to school, this is likely to be my last post until Thursday or Friday of this week.

I suggested this to Roger, and he liked it so I am now suggesting here for everyone else to consider. I'd like to propose that we start a drive within the project to expand our academy so that we can add a link to the academy in the project's welcome template. My proposal is to create a writing contest which will run from now until the next coordinator election, during which anyone who writes an article for the academy receives a barnstar, with a bronze, silver, and gold wiki going to the three editors who add the greatest number of useful articles to the academy in the time period. With a little luck, by new years, we can have a full functional online academy for the n00bs and that should help free up some time for us coordinators and the veteran users by allowing us to link to the relevant material rather than have to explain from scratch the answer and why the answer is answered thus.

To run this I propose we create a contest section on the Academy talk page, and invite those participating to list themselves there along with the articles they have created for the drive. We can then check the added material and polish it as necessary to ensure that it is accurate and explained simply enough for our newer editors or editors unfamiliar with the territory to grasp. The goal to generate enough credible material to the academy to add a link to the academy in the project welcome template by the end of the year, if not sooner.

If you are in agreement then we can send this out in the Bugle's June edition. I created the following for publication in the "From the coordinators" section:

Back in February we introduced a new feature to our project: The Academy. Designed to be an online school for our new members and for those who may be unclear on policy or procedure as it relates to our project, the academy has the potential to assist our new members by offering self-instructional courses on all aspects of project operations. Unfortunately, though, only a few editors to the project have penned the material we need to get the academy up and running in full capacity, consequently the academy in its present state is of little use to anyone. As a result, the coordinators are initiating a contest - beginning July 1st and lasting until the end of the October coordinator elections - that aims to bring the academy up to fully operational status. During the contest period we will offer barnstars for anyone who pens an essay for the academy on a area not yet covered. If you would like to participate, add you name to the academy talk page and any articles you created under your name, and state your preference for receiving your awards at the end of the contest or as you reach each milestone. Coordinators for the project will track the academy content as it is added, polish it as needed, and answer any questions on the contest on the academy talk page.


  • WikiChevrons for 1 article
    WikiChevrons for 1 article
  • Helping Hand Barnstar for 2 articles
    Helping Hand Barnstar for 2 articles
  • Guidance Barnstar for 3-4 articles
    Guidance Barnstar for 3-4 articles
  • Tireless contributor for 5 articles
    Tireless contributor for 5 articles
  • Working man for 6-7 articles
    Working man for 6-7 articles
  • Special Barnstar for 8-9 articles
    Special Barnstar for 8-9 articles
  • Writers Barnstar for 10 articles
    Writers Barnstar for 10 articles
  • Motivation Barnstar for 11-15 articles
    Motivation Barnstar for 11-15 articles
  • All Around Amazing Barnstar for 15+ articles
    All Around Amazing Barnstar for 15+ articles
  • Third place overall
    Third place overall
  • Second place overall
    Second place overall
  • First place overall
    First place overall

Please feel free to polish and trim it as you see fit. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:56, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I like this idea -I've been trying to expand and organise the reviewing/assessment section, but there's much work still to do and my time has been very limited recently. I hope this helps to up the rate of progress! Nice work Tom ;) EyeSerenetalk 07:59, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I also like this idea, although I probably won't be able to help with the effort due to limited on-wiki time. —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 03:24, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Question about "late" contest entries

I've been working on scoring the June contest entries and had a question about some entries added by a user at 00:39 (UTC) on 1 July, and am not sure how to proceed. The main reason for asking is that the inclusion (or not) of the entries has the potential to change the winner this month.

A related (but not identical) situation was discussed here (same user, incidentally), but offers no guidance. As far as this case: on the one hand, the work for the articles was done during the month of June, and they were almost listed on time. But on the other hand, that's not necessarily fair to those who have planned ahead for their contest entries. For now, I have scored only the entries listed in June and await consensus on the "late" ones. — Bellhalla (talk) 12:48, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

As one who, like Bellhalla, has not entered the June contest, I should be able to speak with impartiality here...! I know these entries aren't very late but I tend to go for the "rules are rules" argument - when do you make the cutoff for work done during one month but not entered until some time into the following month? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:12, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I concur in this case (since it affects the contest's outcome). If they were submitted in July, even if only just, they shouldn't be counted with the June entries; I think doing so would leave the editor who would otherwise have won with a valid grievance. EyeSerenetalk 14:00, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
You both had the first reaction I had: that the entries were too late. Assuming further discussion doesn't sway the consensus to the other viewpoint, the contest results can be considered final, then. — Bellhalla (talk) 21:57, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I would have to agree; the entries were submitted in July. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 00:59, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
Unfortunately for Ed!, there's a reason why it's the June contest. I do feel bad for him though... —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 03:06, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Our input is needed to resolve a debate

A cruft incident has taken shape on the SR-71 Blackbird article that has resulted in the creation of the article List of fictional appearances of SR-71 Blackbird. I attempted a prod earlier, and the reply I got was that this was the agreed upon course of action for the pop culture material on the page as per a talk page discussion.

Our MoS explicitly states that cruft is to be avoided. IF it has to exist then it should exist in the article, IMO. We had an article on list of fictional aircraft carrier appearances that got whacked, I'm of the mind that the SR-71 pop culture article should meet a similar fate and the article be protect to some extent to prohibit people from adding pop culture material to the article, or if the pop culture section is actually needed in the article, then to regulate the material through the use of hidden messages and the inclusion of inline citations to reliable sources. Thoughts? TomStar81 (Talk) 02:20, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Frankly, I'm not convinced that it's a problem (for us) if people want to go off and create such lists. As long as the fictional material isn't harming the core articles themselves, I'd be satisfied with letting the normal inclusion/deletion debates deal with the spinoff ones. If the editorial community as a whole is willing to allow such things to exist, so be it; the material is better off isolated than bloating the articles themselves, in my view. Kirill [talk] [pf] 02:27, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
Haha, Ace Combat is listed there. Good game, although the SR-71 played only a (very) small role in AC5 (can't remember when it was in AC0). Anyway, on to the debate. I rather agree with Krill above; I'd much rather have a separate article like that than a pop-culture section in the main article. —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 03:05, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
I agree that it's not a problem for us, but the article should be nominated for deletion per WP:IINFO, WP:CFORK (sort of: it's a bad idea to create a deeply unsatisfactory article as a means of getting unsatisfactory material out of another article) and the essay WP:HTRIVIA. There are any number of precedents for articles similar to this being deleted via AfD. Nick-D (talk) 10:23, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Review recognition April to June

Bryce has very kindly done the hard graft on the review statistics from the period 1 April to 30 Jun. I've tweaked it around as follows and suggest the following awards:

Chevrons
  1. Joe N (38)
  2. The ed17 (38)
  3. YellowMonkey (24)
  4. Cla68 (22)
  5. Jim Sweeney (22)
  6. AustralianRupert (21)
  7. Nick-D (19)
  8. TomStar81 (19)
  9. Abraham, B.S. (15)
  10. Ian Rose (12)
Content Review Medal
  1. Patar knight (9)
  2. Piotrus (7)
  3. Patton123 (6)
  4. Sturmvogel 66 (6)
  5. Bellhalla (5)
  6. Skinny87 (5)
  7. Ed! (4)
  8. Magicpiano (4)
  9. Maralia (4)
  10. Wandalstouring (4)
  11. Cool3 (3)
  12. Hawkeye7 (3)
  13. IceUnshattered (3)
  14. Jackyd101 (3)
  15. MBK004 (3)
  16. Simon Harley (3)
  17. Vantine84 (3)
Two Stripes
  1. EnigmaMcmxc (1)
  2. Kyriakos (1)
  3. Saberwyn (2)
One Stripe
  1. Brad101 (2)
  2. Dhatfield (2)
  3. Kirill Lokshin (2)
  4. Kirk (2)
  5. Mm40 (2)
  6. Admiral Norton (1)
  7. Askari Mark (1)
  8. Benea (1)
  9. Binksternet (1)
  10. Brianboulton (1)
  11. Btphelps (1)
  12. Cam (1)
  13. Cuprum17 (1)
  14. Geoff Plourde (1)
  15. Guyinblack25 (1)
  16. Hartfelt (1)
  17. HLGallon (1)
  18. Juliancolton (1)
  19. La Pianista (1)
  20. Nosedown (1)
  21. Ost316 (1)
  22. Parsecboy (1)
  23. Redtigerxyz (1)
  24. Rosiestep (1)
  25. Ruhrfisch (1)
  26. Socrates2008 (1)
  27. Sumanch (1)
  28. TechOutsider (1)
  29. Xatsmann (1)

If there's no opposition to this, I'll awards the medals tomorrow and include them in the current issue of "The Bugle".  Roger Davies talk 09:11, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

That all looks good to me - thanks Bryce! The number of editors who qualified for the awards is also very impressive, especially when you consider how unusually quiet things were for much of May and June Nick-D (talk) 09:47, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Looks good to me as well. Thanks! TomStar81 (Talk) 21:48, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
I may be missing something obvious but what's the rationale for 1 stripe vs. 2 stripes? We have people with 1 review and people with 2 reviews mixed in both - I would've thought 1 review earns 1 stripe, 2 reviews earn 2 stripes, and 3 to 9 (or 3 to 11, could be either with this lot) earns the Content Review Medal... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:46, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
People get two-stripes if they got a one-stripe last time, irrespective of number of edits. It makes it a kind of ongoing progression and hopefully encourages them to keep at it for a three-stripe.  Roger Davies talk 03:37, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
Now it makes sense...! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:12, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
All looks and sounds good to me. You said it, Nick; it is great to see that the number of reviews is still rather high, despite this being a more inactive period. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 06:01, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators for the cold war task force

Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Cold War task force has not officially been assigned any coordinators. I think we ought to assign coordinators for this TF sooner rather than later. I'd be willing to list myself as a coordinator for the TF, but we still need one or two more coordinators to volunteer for the task force. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:48, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Add me to that list willing. -MBK004 22:11, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Me too... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:40, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, that was easy. The three of us it is then, at least until October. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:26, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Contest Dept (for June)

I see that Bellhalla has done the asssessments already (for which, many thanks!). Does anyone have time in the next few hours to tally up the figures for the Awards and Honours section of the June issue of "The Bugle" and award the gongs please? I've got a few other things to sort out for this issue and I'm running out of time today. If no one can spare the time immediately, I'll do it myself but perhaps not until tomorrow morning.  Roger Davies talk 10:38, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Just awarded the gongs, and am about to tally up the figures. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 01:35, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Just added the results to "The Bugle" then. Feel free to tweak as necessary. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 01:46, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


User Bwmoll3 and USAF units

Having been long-interested in USAF units, I've just pulled one of the standard references that User:Bwmoll3 has been using to create the unit articles and have discovered what appears to be extensive near plagarism from Maurer, Air Force Combat Units of World War II. Specifically, it's nearly word-for-word on 323d Air Expeditionary Wing#World War II, second and third paragraphs, and p.203-4 of Maurer. However there are near hundreds of these pages. What should I do? Buckshot06(prof) 16:43, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Bring it to the attention of Moonriddengirl (talk · contribs), she will be able to tell you what needs to happen next. TomStar81 (Talk) 16:46, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
I went ahead and dropped a talkback note for her. -MBK004 18:15, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
For what it's worth, Corensearchbot agrees. See the revision history of 20th Bombardment Wing (World War II) and [1]. The first thing to do is to address the contributor. Is there any chance (I ask, hopefully) that this text is pubic domain? Or that User:Bwmoll3 is authorized to release it under our license? We need to find out. I see that there were questions raised in December 2008 about another source as well. Once we know if there is some good reason that this text is usable, we can figure out the best way forward—either through providing whatever licensing attribution may be necessary or removing. (Would one of you like to notify him of these concerns or shall I?) (And do others of you have access to this book?) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 18:24, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Given the timeliness of this matter, I'll go ahead and address. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:00, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

←All right. Let's see. Google books says of this, "Reprint of the 1961 ed. published by U.S. Govt. Print. Off., Washington." If the book was originally published by the United States Government Printing Office, this would be a great relief, since the odds of its being public domain soar. (Confusing the matter, another book by the author is coauthored by the United States and the USAF Historical Division, but google claims the text is copyrighted.) Buckshot06, you have your hands on the book. Can you search it for copyright indication in the front or back? --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:11, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

It might be PD details One part says "This volume is, in a large measure, the work of Miss Mary Frances Morgan (M.A., University of Georgia), Miss Merlin Elaine Owen (M.A., Tulane University), Mr. Sam H. Frank (M.A., Florida State University), Mr. Herman A. Higgins (M.A., Peabody College), Mr. Richard C. Lukas (B.A., Florida State University), and Mr. Wesley P. Newton, Jr. (M.A., University of Alabama). These young graduate students, who joined the USAF Historical Division in the summer of 1957, were well qualified for the task of conducting the research and preparing the draft of the book. Each had excellent training in history and historical methodology. Each proved to be a first-class researcher" - They seem to be sponsored by or students/borderline staff of a US Govt body. A report written by a public servant is PD, but do PhD students at army colleges, do their work become PD if their ideas are attributed or anything like that? YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 01:58, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Also, one of the versions is full view in googlebooks [2] Is that an indication of PD? I mean if it was still on sale who would put it on full view? Most books on full view are diaries of 19th century explorers adn the like YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:00, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
IANAL, but I'd say that kind of arrangement would make them employees of the USAF (it seems safe to assume that they were being paid either a salary or in kind) and the book part of their work for the USAF. As such, it should be PD. Nick-D (talk) 08:01, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
I concur; good sleuthing YellowMonkey. :) Thanks also for noting your concerns and following up, Buckshot06 (important to keep us legal!) I think we may be okay with this one, which is a tremendous relief, since we've just uncovered (sadly) one where we aren't. :/ See here. I'm running our handy-dandy little contributor surveyor program to see how extensive issues might be and will update when it is finished. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:07, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes, checking at the front, it's 'Office of Air Force History.' Seems its a false alarm. Cheers and thanks Buckshot06(prof) 12:11, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi. This one needs cleaning up. Please help contribute to cleanup if you can and, even if you can't, please help reach a good approach for those who can. :) Details at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#Rather large good faith copyvio problem. I'm attempting to devise instructions for how to handle this in the subsection there. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:18, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Closing A-class reviews

The walk through for closing the ACR process on the review department page needs to be updated to better explain how to get the article history template fields filled in correctly; I couldn't quite get all of the fields in place for the promotion of British Army during World War I, and if I had trouble with it I am sure others probably had some trouble with it too. Incidentally, if someone out there happens to be real good with the closing and archiving of these pages you may wish to consider writing something for the academy on it; sooner or later our newer coordinators will be doing the same thing and may need some walk through advice on the process. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:39, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Whilst not a coord anymore, I used to use the base templates found at User:Woody/Sandboxes/Royal Navy, it adds in everything but the oldid which can easily be worked out by clicking permanent link in the sidebar on the main article page.
You've also got to make sure you get everything in the history particularly if there is a GAN or other PR etc. (otherwise Sandy will be on your back ;) Most of these can be acquired using User:Dr pda/articlehistory.js. Hope this helps. Regards, Woody (talk) 19:58, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
It does. Thanks, I appreciate it. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 19:19, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Running late

I've had a confluence of several real life problems this week and the Bugle is running a bit late. I'm aiming to finish it off tomorrow morning and get the Academy Contest Drive up and running at the same time. I've got various bits done, that just really need tying together so it shouldn't take long. Apologies,  Roger Davies talk 18:24, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

If you need a hand, just shout. EyeSerenetalk 19:21, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
It would be great if you could come up with some ideas for the wishlists I've added to the Academy courses section. And, of course, tweak any currently there that you feel are misfilled or poorly titled. TIA  Roger Davies talk 18:22, 10 July 2009 (UTC)
Done - any else got any ideas for courses? EyeSerenetalk 20:14, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

bots and messages

We have 52 task forces. Each task force has a talk page. We also have a main project page. We invite people to post there for subjects that effect the project as a whole. Therefore, I am of the mind that there must be someway to get a message from a bot posted only on the main project talk page about a change to a system. Can we use the no bots tag to do this? Is it even possible to get bots to post a single message here? I mean I'm not trying to deny task forces the ability to keep tabs on there current events, but seeing the same message from the same bot 52 times on a watch list seems a little like overkill. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 00:11, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, I suppose we could use nobots tags to block out bots from the task force pages; but, given that these mailings aren't very frequent, I'm not sure setting it up (and maintaining it for different bots) would be worth the effort. Plus, we'd probably run into problems with some of the shared task forces, since the members of the other parent project will be left wondering why one of their task forces isn't getting notifications.
A more useful thing might be to ask the bot operators to only leave messages on the parent project page when both a parent project and its task forces would be receiving them; but I'm not sure how feasible that would be in practice. Kirill [talk] [pf] 03:49, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
" Plus, we'd probably run into problems with some of the shared task forces, since the members of the other parent project will be left wondering why one of their task forces isn't getting notifications."
...oh. Yeah. I forgot that some of our TFs our jointly run. (sheepish grin :) Oh well. Guess we just have to endure it. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 06:06, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Tag & Assess 2010?

I know that there are still four more months left on 2009, but I had this interesting idea the other night and I wanted to bounce it off the coordinating body here to see if there is any support for the idea.

I'd like to propose that we run another tag and assess drive next year, but run it all year long, and split the drive into three or four distinct parts:

  • Part 1: FAC/ACR reassessment: We spend three to four months encouraging our editor base to adopt an article rated FA, GA, or A-class that has not been reviewed in any officially capacity for at least 12 months and place the article through a review process. Ideally, we look for articles that have had no formal review for a year or two and make a hard push to make sure that everything is up to date here. Given the tendency of the criteria for these groups to tighten over the years this would help us ensure that the article we have at this ranking our at there peak, and help ensure that things like dead links, disambig links, uncited info, etc are caught and fixed to the best of our ability.
  • Part 2: BCAD: we encourage our editors to go through the list of B-class articles with incomplete checklist and fix them. Spend three to four months on this task.
  • Part 3: Image drive: this is the one I am unsure about insofar as our project is concerned, but I would propose encouraging our members to go through our articles and locate any free content media that can be transferred to the commons and tag it as such. We could also give some thought to tagging fair use images as being within our scope since they have to exist here anyway, and if we do the image part of this drive we could look to make sure all non free fair use rational templates are up to date, check to ensure the external links to the sites where the images com from are up to date and working, and make sure all applicable tags on the article are being used. If we do this then three months a piece I think, otherwise four months a piece for the remaining three.
  • Part 4: Tag and Assess : We regenerate our lists and encourage our members to tag as many within our scope as possible, making sure that the class and task forces are filled our accordingly.

The idea here would be to borrow from Roger Davies and attempt to keep things fresh, in effect "relaunching" tag and assess every few months with a new goal in mind. In this manner we may be able to hold onto more contributors. We could really turn this into a competition too by creating different award trees for each of the individual elements. Another bonus for our project is that by splitting up the task we can ensure everything stays current with our high assessments, so we can trim the ones that should not be listed so as to better gauge how many higher ranking article we really have. And if we carry through the image part of the drive we could help the commons and other language milhist projects gain access to valuable media for their own articles.

Now like I said, at present this is just a crazy idea I had while lying awake in bed last night, but I am interested in hearing any feedback or suggestions on it. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 19:20, 15 July 2009 (;UTC)

In drives we've run the peak activity has been in the first few and last few weeks. The few first weeks is the response to the buzz. Many of the early participants fall away quickly, and despite promises to the contrary, don't come back. The last few weeks activity is down to the die-hards who grit their teeth to hit personal goals. The only really successful drive we've done was the first one, and that was probably because it was new, heavily hyped, and became fashionable. Even so, most of the work was done by a very small number of people.
With no disrespect intended to those that participated in them, the later drives were hardly worth the effort of setting them up, looking after them, dealing with task page stuff etc. Smaller numbers of participants; much lower overall results. On the last drive, the total tally was about 20,000 articles, a quarter of the first one. And because some people were only tagging for the barnstars, and doing a slapdash job, perhaps a third of those tagged weren't tagged properly.
The back-to-back idea simply won't work, because we have a limited number of people available. They'll bite for the first one, then back off when they realise how much (boring) work is actually involved. Perhaps half of this group might be motivated to sign up for the second. Perhaps half again for the third etc.
Sorry to be a damper.  Roger Davies talk 19:52, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Unfortunately I've got to agree with Roger, but Tom, you do have a great concept. As I have mentioned on the main project talk page, I believe that the only way to eliminate our backlog of incomplete B-Class checklists will be a drive if we want it gone within a year. I say this because it grows by as much as we normally try to reduce it each day (at least this is my observation). -MBK004 20:41, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
B-class checklists is something that could possibly be dealt with a work group, recruited from serious and experienced wikignomes. It might take a while to get it zero but the results would be infinitely more reliable than using newbies seeking barnstars.  Roger Davies talk 08:58, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Agree with Roger as well; the later drives weren't really worth the effort, in my opinion. If we are to do further project-wide drives, we should focus on something other than mere endless cycles through our assessment system; a content-producing drive might be worthwhile, but I don't think one that does procedural work is.
Beyond that, I remain of the opinion that the suggested procedure for Part 1 is a bad idea in and of itself. Forcibly submitting all our old FAs to review processes is quite likely to alienate a significant number of our FA writers, with no real benefit other than speeding up FAR's schedule a bit. The existing method for removing non-compliant FAs is functioning adequately, I think; there is no need for us to pour project resources into it. Kirill [talk] [pf] 00:46, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
(butting in helpfully) I'm in agreement with Kirill that adding a new sweep of reviews might not reach the desired effect without undesirable unintended consequences, but Tom is correct in thinking ahead to the end of 2010. January 2011 will be the tenth birthday for Wikipedia. This gives us an important target date for accomplishment. While it's clearly essential to encourage and direct important assessment tasks, for 2011, we might focus on building a framework of top-level featured pagespace upon which the project can add important structure later. We might work at the top, trying to get top-level, most visible pagespace a regular and rigorous vetting. The project could attempt to get all project portalspace to FP status (that's low-hanging fruit indeed). We could design a sort of long-term plan for the next ten years; I mean we were writing new stubs about bear skins and stone knives not that long ago. We've learned a lot since then. Now we might envision content we'll need to build in the future, and deal with the logistical issues as we can better predict them. Sorry for batting for the bleachers. BusterD (talk) 01:21, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
One of the problems with longterm planning is that people come and go. I read somewhere that the average life expectancy on Wikipedia is eighteen months. People sign up for stuff today but aren't around to do it next week. The other major problem is that Milhist is in many ways a federation of task forces: people work in and around the TFs/subjects close to their heart and don't do a lot of pan-Milhist stuff. So while we might have large numbers of members, the number who mobilise on specific issues is small.  Roger Davies talk 08:53, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

You could start a drive for people to improve them without waiting for the hammer. True though most people make a giant dummy spit if their FA gets questioned even if they are clearly worse than GA. No surprise that most people wait till the guy retires before they nominate for FAR (even if it already flagrantly violated WIAFA) YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 01:29, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

For my part I'm giving out barnstars to people who fix up articles at FAR or review them in detail. Still, judging from past FARs, MILHIST seems pretty content to lose 30-40 or so FAs per year. Only Greek, Australian and Astronomy articles get saved regularly. I guess with 400 FAs around it isn't that much of a big deal but maybe if the main guys who write FAs like Bellhalla stop working for whatever reason there might be a drop-off in the replenishment, which I've noticed in the last two or three months of newsletters. Doing some repairs even if add hoc can make things easier in future. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 01:55, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Indeed though that would probably be best organised on a TF/Work group level than pan-Milhist. People who are interested in WWI or classical warfare aren't likely to do much on articles way outside their sphere of interest.  Roger Davies talk 08:56, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps a touch of Devil's Advocacy here, but does it really matter if articles have incomplete B-Class checklists? Those articles that someone is interested enough to develop will be nominated for proper assessment when they're ready, and the rest... unless we're going to actually do something with the article, what's the payoff in trawling through tens of thousands of articles just to update a template only we care about? EyeSerenetalk 09:05, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

As I recall, we tightened the A-Class requirements a couple of years back, and I'm not sure if anything was ever done to improve or delist former A-Class articles that don't meet the new criteria. It seems that if we had something similar to GA sweeps over old A-Class articles and either delisted the awful ones or identified areas of improvement for the borderline ones that were then passed on to the task forces for that article, we could make it easy for the task force people to improve those articles and bring them back up to the current standards. – Joe N 13:18, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
There'd be quite a lot of old As to be delisted if a hardnosed approach is taken. Especially with the high quality sources requirement nowadays YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 13:38, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Sorry for not getting back here sooner, my remaining family and I just made a disturbing discovery the other night, and the discovery is weighing hard on me. At any rate, I am glad to see this garnered some series discussion after posting, and to answer both above posts its that tightening of both A-class and FA-class criteria that compelled me to suggested such an idea. I admit that most of the articles are probably still in good shape overall, but there are articles that have had no formal review since their inspection and this I feel deserves a closer look so we can separate the wheat from the chaff. Its in difference to the fact that most who take an article to a higher level also attempt to keep tabs on the article to ensure that it stays current that I suggested this since those who have a stake in maintaining an article at GA/A/FA class would likely at least look to see if there article needed help. What would be really great is if we could develop some sort of system where by articles that have not seen any kind of official review (PR or better) for over a year were brought to our attention, or to the attention of those who either nominated or maintained the articles in question. If this could be done then we would be in a better position to determine whose articles needed help, but in the absence of such a system this is the best I could come up with. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 14:21, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
WP:URFA has the FAs from 2004-mid2006 that have never been FARed. Basically, I think there have only been 3-4 ACRs or existing A articles, so getting the A list will basically get all of them YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 14:55, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
To take a few steps back, the assessment system exists to provide editors with recognition of their work and very broad guidance for how the article could be developed and readers with some indication of how reliable and comprehensive the article is. As such, I'd like to see the assessment process targeted on articles which have experienced significant changes rather than reviewing past assessments. A simple solution would be to encourage editors to keep an eye on Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/New articles (which is interesting for its own sake) and encourage greater awareness and use of Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Requests which is a great way to get a quick assessment of article improvements. I'm skeptical of the value of administrative-type drives, and don't think that they're an efficient way to encourage improvements to article quality. Nick-D (talk) 03:45, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. The problem with T&A drives (other than the most basic to determine whether or not articles are within scope) is that they are basically a substitute for actually improving the articles and provide a false sense of achievement.  Roger Davies talk 04:04, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
"targeted on articles which have experienced significant changes" the ones that have changed a lot after passing FAC are the ones that are more likely to have kept relatively up to speed YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:28, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Of course we could a troll hunting drive.....not likely YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:28, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, monitoring FAs is arguably our lowest priority - the editor(s) who brought them to FA standard are reasonably likely to be keeping an eye on them and most old FAs and FAs which have deteriorated are still reasonably solid articles. I was more thinking of encouraging editors who have developed existing articles to submit them for reassessment rather than going looking for such articles. A troll hunting expedition would be fun - perhaps we can link up with these guys and clean up the streets? ;) Nick-D (talk) 07:43, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Vigilante task force anyone? I think encouraging editors to submit articles they've worked on for reassessment would be a better allocation of our limited resources. EyeSerenetalk 08:10, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Getting back to something that Buster mentioned, I think something along the lines of a featured portal drive might be a good test case for content-producing drives. Featured portals are not very difficult to put together, (they don't require the heavy time and research investment of featured articles, nor the specialized skills of featured pictures), we have a good pool to work on, and getting all (or even many) of them to featured status would be an immediate and beneficial result for the project. I suspect that a simple, low-key drive lasting about a month could probably work through all of our existing unfeatured portals and bring them up to featured status, if we were so inclined. Kirill [talk] [pf] 12:21, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Maybe we can include creation of portals for TFs that lack them in that drive too? I know some of our TFs have portals and some don't, and while a few may not have enough content for a portal most should. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 13:56, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
We currently have eight featured portals that link direct to TFs (plus a floating one, War). The problem with inflating this from "a simple low-key drive" (which is what Kirill mentioned) into a grandiose exercise is not only the lack of articles and the lack of informed people but also the difficulty of starting things from scratch.  Roger Davies talk 14:22, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
I don't think creating new portals is a lot of work at all, actually; the infrastructure can be set up in a few hours. The bulk of the time involved in preparing a featured portal is devoted to finding articles and images to display, and that will be the same regardless of whether the portal already exists, so I don't see creating new portals during the drive as problematic. Kirill [talk] [pf] 00:02, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
Sure, and we can speed up portal creation to some extent, with for example a selection of four or five standard colour liveries but at a few hours each it's still going to be 50-100 manhours to get the basic structure in for thirty plus new portals. The issue then is how closely we want the portals to align with the TFs. Probably the closer they are to the TF's scope the greater the support they'll get from TF members and thus reduce the input from a core group of portal builders. This in turn may make it expedient to repurpose slightly some existing portals to avoid significantly overlapping portals. Some will be easy (the US and British ones, for example) because much material could be cribbed from the existing peripheral portals to create "American (or British) military history" ones.
There are many advantages in creating a portal for each TF; they will help develop teamwork, esprit de corps, and a fun common purpose. They will also provide exposure/publicity for the TFs, which in turn will attract new members. However, this doesn't look to me like a simple low-key drive anymore and I question whether we could get all these done and to featured portal in a month. It's looking like a major timesink over three or four months involving a lot of work by a lot of people, and it is on large-scale building works that we have traditionally run out of impetus in the past.  Roger Davies talk 07:05, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, some task forces will have problems collecting the necessary material, certainly; but at least the larger ones can reasonably gather enough articles for a portal in a few days. Keep in mind that creating a portal involves very little "new" work; you can get 90% of the way there simply by copying an existing portal's template subpages, picking a few dozen B-Class and higher articles, and copying the article leads into the portal.
We may not get all the portals finished in a month, in other words; but I think we can get enough of them there (or at least ready for an FP nomination, which admittedly might drag on for some time) to consider it a significant accomplishment. Kirill [talk] [pf] 16:31, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
Indeed, though it strikes me that's probably more motivational to start with goals which can be realistically achieved than larger ones which may result in failure. Actually, now that I think of it, one way to structure this might be to have a primary objective of say featured portals for the twenty biggest TFs, with a secondary objective of creating skeleton portals for the rest and seeing how far we get poulating them. There are also always people who want to carry one with drives after they finish and gnoming away on the secondary objective is probably a way of giving them something satisfying (and hopefully addictive) to continue to work on.  Roger Davies talk 19:13, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
I concede a point there, but I do note that we don't necessarily have to have both objectives in mind for a low key drive. I have for some time been of the mind that each task force should have a portal for its notable content - FAs, FPs, and such - but creating portals does not have to be a part of low key featured portal drive. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 18:35, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
One benefit of any portal drive is getting editors new experience in portalspace. Lots of knowledgeable editors have zero experience in this arena. By working to build up FPs, we might be able to encourage a few editors to take up portal work on their own. It's work the project hasn't encouraged previously. If the task force has relatively rich article base, chances are excellent a good portal can be created from content drawn from TF assessment lists. I see no reason why normal tag and assess drives couldn't take place during the same periods. BusterD (talk) 20:19, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
It hadn't occurred to me until just now, but a task-force-based tag and assess drive would be an awesome opportunity to gather recommendations for new portal inclusion. Sometimes you see a really nice start-class or B-class article which deserves attention; a well-designed portal setup sandbox might give the assessor a place to stick a jewel uncut. BusterD (talk) 20:31, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, that wouldn't really be a tag-and-assess drive, per se; I think it's more reasonable for people to use already-assessed articles to fill a portal than to hunt through a set of untagged articles for something that may not be there at all. People should be encouraged to suggest articles for portals, of course, but I think that can be done as a routine assessment matter, and doesn't need an entire drive devoted to it. Kirill [talk] [pf] 00:02, 18 July 2009 (UTC)


Report to the Project on our Black Project pages, there current standing, and issues that need to be addressed

I've completed a routine pass through our black project pages, looking at the nature of the articles, the sources used, and there overall state. I have made the following findings and would appreciate any input on the matter. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 02:56, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

On the matter of sourcing, I have identified the following websites being used as suspicious and would like more input on there use in the recon satellite articles before removing them.

Additionally, in this most recent pass I have identified two pages of concern:

  • Atlas Carver - this page reports on an alleged spy satellite. I can find no information on the project via Google, and no sources were provided for the article. I have thus nominated the article for deletion.
  • Stealth Blimp - this article appears questionable, the vast majority of it was alleged sighting. I believe the sitings section fails WP:CRYSTAL, but the information was cited in compliance with WP:V. Should we remove the citing, and if we do, should we move to delete the article on WP:CRYSTAL grounds?
Tom, I've started to heavily work in this area with the Timeline of spaceflight. Two of the sites you have identified are reliable, infact one is the site of a Harvard professor, and the other is frequently used by NASA PAO to answer questions. I am going to invite the editor who maintains most of the space articles to comment here since I believe his input would be valued. GW Simulations (talk · contribs) -MBK004 03:10, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
Thats fine. I make these reports every so often because someone needs to be keeping track of the black project pages, and I would prefer that they stay in a state of acceptance rather than become infested with forum and conspiracy theory sites and such. The only thing I have done so far that is of note has been file that afd. TomStar81 (Talk • Some say ¥€$, I say NO) 03:17, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
  • With regards to the sourcing issues you have found:
Source Assessment Comments
http://www.planet4589.org/ Reliable Website is well established (about 20 years old), and is regarded as one of the more reliable sources in the area. The author is a doctor of Astrophysics, and a professor at Harvard University, who has a number of scientific publications. The website is mentioned in his formal biography (presumably from Harvard University), and I seem to recall that it has also been republished by at least one major space news website, although its name escapes me.
http://www.daviddarling.info/index.html Reliable Author has several published works in this area.
http://reseau.echelon.free.fr/ Not sure Information seems fairly accurate, but I can't be sure of reliability. Could do with someone with a better grasp of the French language than me having a look.
http://www.zen32156.zen.co.uk/disappearencs.htm Borderline Information seems fairly accurate, and although I can find no formal evidence of reliability, the images published on the main page suggest that the author is fairly competent in the field of satellite observation.
http://space.skyrocket.de/ Fairly reliable I have used this to find information on a number of occasions, and it has almost always proven to be a useful and accurate source. Most of its information can be backed up by other sources as well.
http://www.sworld.com.au/steven/space/ Handle with care The author has been published by a number of major scientific organisations (admittedly not all in this field), and his historical information seems fairly accurate. Care should be taken when using his pages on future launches, as they are often out of date, and may even contain launches which were cancelled some time ago.
http://www.n2yo.com/ Reliable Fairly well known and respected site, I believe it is currently the most used real-time satellite tracking website, which would support claims to reliability
http://www.satobs.org/seesat/ Handle with care This is basically a mailing list, and most of the posts on it are not reliable. It is, however, used by a number of respected and published experts in the field of visual satellite observation, and their posts can be considered reliable sources. This specific post was by one of those experts.
http://www.astronautix.com/ Reliable This website has been cited by the NASA History Office on several occasions. It also has a number of positive comments from organisations including the London Sunday Times, CNN, the New York Times and Encyclopaedia Britannica.
http://w2.eff.org/Activism/stealthwatchers.article Probably not reliable Seems like a diary/journal entry. The information on satellites seems fairly useless, but there might be something to be said for the information on other topics, so someone who regularly edits articles on "black" aircraft should have a look over it.
Black projects are a fairly unusual area, in that they are highly notable, yet few reliable sources exist. I would say that this is a case for WP:IAR, and that we should, if highly reliable sources are not available, use slightly less reliable sources, as long as they can be proven accurate in other areas, and they do not contradict any more reliable sources available. In some situations, it may be appropriate to present speculation, as long as it is presented as such, well sourced, and does not represent a minority viewpoint (for example; Amateur observers studying USA-144 believe it is the second Misty satellite (backed up with a cite from something like Seesat). That is my opinion, others may differ. --GW… 09:24, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
I also think that these articles should be kept under closer scrutiny, and I would suggest that a black projects task force be established under this project, with some collaboration from WP:SPACEFLIGHT, to provide this. --GW… 09:36, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
I suspect that there won't be enough interest to sustain a full task force at the moment, so I'd suggest creating a working group (under Military intelligence or Military technology) for the time being. Kirill [talk] [pf] 11:12, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Annnd the spotlight falls on ... USS Massachusetts (BB-59)!

Hello my fellow coords! :-) An article within the scope of our project, USS Massachusetts (BB-59), has been selected to receive the recently-reactivated Spotlight during the week of 1 August. Any help that could be offered would be greatly appreciated! Some sources availiable for use in expanding the article can be found here. Cheers, —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 05:02, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Article history of List of foreign recipients of the Knight's Cross

Hi, I'm not quit sure if this is the right place to ask. The article was recently promoted to A-class. However the article history was not updated. Could someone here look into this? Thanks MisterBee1966 (talk) 10:16, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

All fixed; sorry about that, MisterBee. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 10:40, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Sanity check

This is something of a venue of last resort; normally I'd take such things to ANI, but my request there for a review of some of my recent admin actions has now dropped off the board with only one (productive) response, for which I'm very grateful to Fram. If anyone's got the time I'd really appreciate some outside opinions. It's complicated, but basically I've been dealing with two editors, Hiens (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Kurfürst (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who have been increasingly disruptive on various articles, notably Aircraft of the Battle of Britain and Battle of Britain. There's a potted summary at the above ANI archive link, and their talk-pages, and sections of mine (including my email inbox) are also quite instructive.

My latest concern is the mutual admiration society they seem to have formed on Kurfürst's talk page, where they've plenty to say. The snipes at me personally are neither here nor there as far as I'm concerned, but I'm not the only editor being targeted and the tone suggests that no lessons have been learned and the disruption is likely to resume once my latest block of Kurfürst expires. These editors have made some good edits, but taking a cost-benefit view of their recent performance I'm inclined to doubt their continued value to Wikipedia. My instinct is to show them both the door (or Kurfürst at least), but I may be being over-harsh given my increasing loss of patience with the situation. Since this concerns our project, I'd welcome some input... EyeSerenetalk 18:33, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I have only glimbsed over some of the stuff that has been going on with this, but, EyeSerene, I feel compelled to say that, in my experience, you are one of the most helpful, just, fair and kind admins on Wikipedia. It is quite obvious that these two do not follow Wikipedia's guidelines or policies—particularly in the area of WP:Assume good faith and WP:Civil. I think the best course of action for you at the present time is to step back from both of these editors and the disputes, leaving a further note at WP:ANI or the admins' noticeboard for other admins to watch the conduct of these editors and the dispute. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 00:57, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
I'll second pretty much everything that Abraham said. EyeSerene, your actions here have been perfectly reasonable; if the two editors persist in pushing an unsupported theory against a consensus backed by reputable sources, that's their problem. Leaving the matter to other admins on AN/I if they go back to their previous behavior is certainly an option—particularly if you'd prefer not to bother with it further—but I don't believe there's any reason why you couldn't continue to deal with the dispute yourself if you were so inclined. Kirill [talk] [pf] 02:48, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
Agree largely per Kirill. Whether you take this forward yourself depends entirely, I suppose, on your will to continue it. You don't seem to be involved and it would be best, if you continue, to keep it strictly that way. Being accused of bias or involvement, incidentally, does not make it so. One course of action is seek a community topic ban at AN/I though it might be a bit early to do that yet. In general, the shorter and simpler the message at AN/I, the better the response. For example, UserA and UserB have been disrupting [article1] and [article2] with peremptory reverts (diffs), editwarring (diffs) and incivility both on the article talk pages (diffs) and elsewhere (diffs). They have been warned/blocked (diffs) but the disruptive conduct continues (diffs). A community topic ban is probably now the best way forward etc etc. I hope this helps,  Roger Davies talk 05:02, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
I must say that the first thing I clicked on ("plenty to say") indicates to me they might move forward and try to make an article featured, which is obviously not a bad goal. The problem is that the rest of the dialogue, and most of the other things I looked at, indicate that there may be problems. In my (non-admin) view, it seems like you did the right things here. Cheers, —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 05:23, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
Wow, I just looked at Kurfürst's block log then. All I can say is how is it possible s/he isn't indef blocked yet?! Lol, I don't think I have ever seen such a colourful and long block log. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 05:42, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you all very much for taking the time to look over this; your advice and comments are most welcome :) I was really starting to wonder if I was losing perspective and handling things poorly, though I've been careful to remain uninvolved and of course will continue to do so. However, in the light of your responses I'm quite happy to run with it, so I'll wait and see how things develop when Kurfürst's block expires (and you're right, Bryce, if a further block is necessary it will likely be indef). A topic ban may effectively amount to a complete ban, given the restricted areas they edit in, but I'll certainly keep it in mind as an option, and your advice Roger about tl;dr is noted ;) Once again, I'm really grateful for everyone's input. EyeSerenetalk 08:47, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Just to pile on, I've also had a quick skim over this dispute and also agree with your handling of it. I'd also like to endorse Abraham's comments on your behaviour in general - it really is outstanding. As a rule of thumb, any editor who relies on primary sources and posts long-winded messages isn't worth worrying about. Nick-D (talk) 08:59, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Nick :) EyeSerenetalk 11:37, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Academy

I did a pageview check on it and the essays are only getting about 2 reads per day for each of them. Do they need to be advertised more? YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 07:46, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't expect them to get much traffic, but that is a bit worrying! The best way to advertise them may be to point to them when answering requests for assistance. Nick-D (talk) 11:43, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
I think the plan is to add the academy to the welcome template once the drive is completed; at the moment, it's not linked from there, which I suspect explains at least part of the low traffic. We really need to get it in better shape before we advertise it more, I think. Kirill [talk] [pf] 11:52, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

World War II article

As a heads up, this article is going through another busy period, with an editor recently making very significant unilateral changes. More eyes on this article would be great, as the status-quo seems well worth protecting given the amount of work which went into it. Nick-D (talk) 08:33, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

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