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Setting a milestone target for B-Class?

I'm wondering if it would make sense to set a milestone target for B-Class articles (either as a number or as a percentage of our total article base) in addition to the ones we currently have for FA and FC numbers? The high numbers of featured items are great from a morale perspective, but I think we shouldn't embrace them to the exclusion of broader but more gradual improvement to a reasonable quality standard; keeping track of B-Class articles could give us a good sense of whether we're really making progress on making the average article a decent one.

Thoughts? Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 22:18, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Sounds fair to me. In this project, B-Class is definitely an achievement. However if we're going to broaden the base of the figures on the front page, perhaps we should add A-Class and GA, as well as B-Class. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:03, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure that A-Class would be very useful as a target unless we start having significant numbers of them that don't go on to FAC; in the current situation, much of the promotion rate winds up carrying through to FA, so the total remaining at A-Class doesn't really grow as one would expect it to. A target that doesn't get any closer isn't the best motivator, in my opinion.

As far as GAs go, it'd probably be feasible to track them as a target, but I'm not convinced how useful a motivator the number would be; they're still too few to really be considered a target for showing broad improvement across the entire topic area, yet not quite prestigious enough to be our best work (note, for example, that we've never listed them in our showcase). More generally, we've kind of shied away from tying ourselves too closely to the GA process as a project. Now, I suppose we could change this approach, but I think we'd have to do so somewhat more broadly than merely by adding them as a milestone target. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 00:15, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree that GA and A class aren't necessary. Good Articles are kind of in between B Class, which I see as "decent" and A/FA, which I consider "good." The point of having B class goals would be to show that we are broadening our coverage, by having many decent articles, and the point of FA goals is to show that, in these areas, we have really good coverage. – Joe N 00:34, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree to some extent re. A-Class, the majority do tend to go on to FAC (though not all by any means, I know among my own contributions there are some that I still don't feel have quite the legs for the next level). While GA has tended to be overshadowed by A-Class in this project, that's changed somewhat in the last year or so -- witness their eligibility (along with FA) for the monthly writing contest. We may not include them in our showcase but that's not to say we shouldn't. I think GA is also less of a means to an end than A-Class -- again I think of my own experience where I have as many GAs in my 'showcase' as FAs. In all those cases I think the articles have reached their highest reasonable level, mainly due to the lack of more detailed information. Summarising, I think you're probably right on the A-Class figures, but GA is still worth considering. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:48, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Would 10,000 sound like a good B class goal? We are currently at 5,144. Buggie111 (talk) 01:41, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking either that or 10% of our total article count; I'm not entirely sure whether a fixed level or a percentage would be a more useful goal right now. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 03:22, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

The precentage would fluctuate... Buggie111 (talk) 03:48, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, yes; but I see that as a useful thing, since it will follow the growth of the project as a whole. If we're talking about broad improvement, then 10K out of 100K is more meaningful than 10K out of 200K, for example; a percentage will adjust for this automatically. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 12:06, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Personally I'd like to see GA included in our showcase. As Ian notes, part of the raison d'être of GA is that it's an end in itself for articles that are unlikely to progress any further and I think we're permanently excluding a lot of decent content by not acknowledging that. However, I think setting targets for GA would be problematic unless we also set targets for contributing to GA reviews - further swamping the process over there isn't going to help anyone :)

Re a B-Class target, 10% of our current count wouldn't be wildly different from Buggie111's suggestion of 10000 articles. I have no preference for either figure. EyeSerene^talk 08:58, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

GA articles should be included some like the SAS and SBS will never IMO go any higher because of the secretive nature of their work RS are almost impossible to find.--Jim Sweeney (talk) 09:37, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

The only major problem I see with having GAs in the showcase is the question of how we're going to maintain the listing. We don't normally track individual GACs anywhere within the project, so the normal method for updating the listing after promotion wouldn't work. The simplest approach would probably be to use the assessment log to track promotions and update the listing after the fact; but we have to be willing to go through that extra effort. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 12:06, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Getting back to this, I think we have three questions we need to decide:

1. Should the B-Class milestone be a fixed count or an automatically updated count tied to a fixed percentage of all project articles?
2. Should there be a GA milestone?
3. Should GAs be added as a listing in the project showcase?

Thoughts? Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 05:05, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

1. If I'm forced to come off the fence, I'd go for a percentage rather than an absolute figure
2. Yes. At present we have 969 articles in the "War and military" section of WP:GA, but there may be more relevant articles in other sections. I guess an easy milestone would be 1000 GAs to start with.
3. Again yes. Would there be an easy way of transcluding the section from WP:GA or can we just use a category-based listing? EyeSerene^talk 08:13, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Going by the assessment statistics, we actually have a little over 1,000 GAs; we can probably assume that the number is the correct one, since it's tied directly to our project tags. (So it seems likely that we have ~100 articles in other sections.) This would probably make 1,500 or 2,000 the next reasonable milestone, but we can fiddle with that as needed.

As far as generating the showcase listing goes, there's no way to transclude it directly from the GA page (both because that's not technically feasible to transclude off that page and because the section doesn't contain all of our articles). I think the only way to do this would be to manually maintain the listing based on the promotion/demotion reporting in the assessment log; it's a bit time-consuming, but at least it will generate something consistent with the other statistics. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 11:28, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough - 1500 is a nice round number but I'm not fussy :) Thinking further about a GA showcase, the current template allows articles to be both GA and have a project assessment. Will listing those articles in more than one section be okay or should we think about another scheme (perhaps a GA symbol for those articles that are, say, B- or A-Class and also GA)? EyeSerene^talk 14:04, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I would assume we would really be listing GA-Class articles rather than GAs per se, with A-Class articles listed in a "higher" section. I don't really see much value in marking GAs that have moved further up the assessment scale; FAs that were A-Class prior to that aren't marked, for example. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 20:42, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

It seems more reasonable to have B-Class goals as a pecentage so that, as the project grows, our goals grow. While I can't really say I support a GA milestone, if we're going to have it I would oppose having a list of them, because as said above there isn't a way to have this update automatically, so it'd be a lot of work and probably get out of date. – Joe N 14:06, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure how much effort maintaining the list would actually be. We're not tracking the reviews themselves in any case, so I think all we'd have to do would be to check the assessment log and update our list to reflect the promotions/demotions listed there by the bot. It would be an extra task, of course, but probably not a particularly onerous one. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 20:42, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

If we are going to adopt a B-class target then I would propose that we also come up with a B-class award system similar to that which we current maintain for the A-class articles. As to the issue of the target number, I have no strong opinion on the number of B-class articles, but I do have an idea about "quality article" material that would call for us to have a roughly 20% B-class or better content within the project's scope. If this idea seems like something you guys would like to hear more about let me know I will be happy to detail what little more of the idea I have to you. If not, then I let me say simply that I like the idea of showing a little more love to the B-class articles, though at the moment I can not say I am all that thrilled about extending the extra love to the GA-class articles. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:18, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure how we'd make a B-Class award system work formally; for A-Class, we generally give the award to whoever files the ACR, but there isn't necessarily such an identifiable individual with a B-Class article. Having said that, Tom, if you have an idea, we'd all like to hear it. :-)

Beyond that, I think everyone is broadly in agreement that we should have a B-Class milestone at the very least, but I think we need more opinions on what to do about GAs. Perhaps it's something we can defer until the new coordinator tranche is elected, as it will be easier for everyone to take stock of how much work there is and how much effort we can devote to dealing with GAs? Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 11:46, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

No objection to deferring the GA issue for now. EyeSerene^talk 12:01, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree, this is probably the best course of action. AustralianRupert (talk) 07:04, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

I've taken a stab at adding a new milestone progress display to the main project page with a percentage baseline from our assessment categories; it seems to be working correctly, although it's obviously not very precise.

The display currently calculates the target as 10% of our articles being rated B-Class or better (i.e. including FA/A/GA as well); I'm not sure whether it would be better to have it this way, or to have the percentage tied to B-Class only, without any higher grades. Comments would be appreciated. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 00:30, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I like it; no reason to think that there was a degradation of quality when something gets promoted.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:08, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree, B or better sounds good. – Joe N 22:34, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

As long as it's clearly labelled 'B or better' (which it is) I think it's fine. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:48, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

GA tracking redux

Now that the coordinator elections have concluded, should we consider the question of including GAs in the showcase again?

One of the questions we were left with is the level of effort needed to track them. I think that we could probably get away with simply using the daily assessment log to drive updates to the GA listing—in other words, one of us would need to check the log and then update the showcase based on the promotions/demotions reported by the assessment bot—without really adding any overhead in terms of having to monitor additional pages or keep track of the GA reviews themselves. Are we in a position to do this consistently?

Beyond that, are there philosophical reasons for or against listing GAs that we haven't considered yet? Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 02:10, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Since I'm not a coordinator, I'm not sure how meaningful my input is here, but the main argument against the inclusion of Good Articles in the wikiproject's showcase is that oftentimes they don't show the project's best work. Or, when they may show the project's "best work", they do so only after eliminating all the A-class and FA-class articles from the scale. So, one could use the same methodology to justify the inclusion of B-class articles, since they are the project's best work compared to all articles, after discounting GA-class, A-class, and FA-class. Now, it is fair to say that GA-class articles are definitely a step over B-class articles, but oftentimes not even this is true. The main difference in the assessment is in the language, and to some marginal extent content, but the valuation of both of these characteristics is dependent on the reviewer's subjective standards. A-class and FA-class articles are distinguished in two ways: they were reviewed by at least three editors, and as a corollary to the last, they are reviewed in such a way where different subjective perspectives rate based on an objective standard.

This is not to argue that there are not some Good Articles which deserve to be showcased. However, I would argue that instead of showcasing them as GA-class pieces, there should instead be an incentive to put them through the A-class review (and there already is great incentive to improve an article towards meeting the A-class criteria). In any case, what reasons are there for showcasing GA-class entries? Perhaps some sort of compromise could be developed, because I am sure there are good reasons for it. JonCatalán^(Talk) 02:29, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I think if we regard GA as the target minimum acceptable standard of article on Wikipedia (which I believe was one of the reasons GA came into existence), recognising it within the project might help to motivate and reward those many writers who don't for whatever reason take their articles any further. I agree with your point about "if GA why not B-Class?" because they are very similar, but for me the main difference is that GAs are formally reviewed outside the project by an accepted community review process. Admittedly GAs aren't examples of our best work, but I think they're still worth acknowledging somewhere in our pages. We perhaps have a slight 'elitist' outlook when it comes to articles; our reputation for quality work means we spend an awful lot of time on A-Class and featured content, which is a Good Thing^(TM), but I'm concerned that we don't then overlook the efforts and results of others lower down the scale. EyeSerene^talk 11:00, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Why not just link to the already existing archive of military history related Good Articles? JonCatalán^(Talk) 02:21, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

The only issue with the GA list is, as others have pointed out, not all milhist-related GAs are listed in that section. I wonder if we can do something with the "GA-Class" in our template instead? I'm slightly hesitant about adopting Kirill's suggestion of a manually maintained list if there's an automated solution, but he knows the inner workings of our maintenance systems better than anyone and I defer to his judgement. EyeSerene^talk 08:23, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Why not get JL-Bot to generate the list? Nev1 (talk) 19:02, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

We could, I suppose, although I'm not particularly impressed with how irregularly and infrequently it updates. The main limitation of that approach would be that the list wouldn't really be useful as anything other than a rough display (it wouldn't serve a check against unexpected changes to assessment, since the count would be out of sync with the assessment scheme between updates, and the invisibility of updates would prevent it from being used as a driver for ACM-like awards); but if a display list is all we want, that might not be too much of a problem. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 22:51, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

So, any thoughts? Should we:

(a) Not list GAs in the showcase for the time being

(b) Use a bot-generated list, despite the infrequency of updates

(c) Use a manually-generated list and take on the additional work of updating it

On a secondary note, do we want to add a GA milestone target to the current ones on the main project page? This can be done directly from the category, so doesn't require any particular course of action with the showcase. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 18:54, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi, my take is that we shouldn't list GAs in the Showcase because of the overheads involved. Additionally, I think because GAs are not necessarily our best work, or even peer reviewed by a member of the project, I'm thinking we cannot really be certain of the quality. At least with A class articles they are reviewed by project members who decide if it is quality and FAs, it goes without saying, are worthy of Showcasing. Of course, if others disagree, though, I'm happy to pitch in and help maintain the list if need be. AustralianRupert (talk) 01:10, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Given the relative lack of enthusiasm for having the GA listing, I wonder if we should defer actually adding a list of GAs to the showcase for the time being, but move forward with adding a GA-Class milestone target (which will send a signal to people working on GAs that, yes, their work is important) and otherwise improving the integration of the GA process within the project. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 17:23, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

The milestone is a good idea. Also, would be possible to have some way of tracking GAs, so that we can be more effective in handing out GA barnstars? JonCatalán^(Talk) 17:32, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Pretty much every way I can think of would require some level of manual work. The easiest approach, in my opinion, would be to monitor the daily assessment log for promotions to GA and add those to a list; this was also my idea for manually updating the showcase listing.

The alternative would be to have people list their own GA promotions (e.g. as in the contest department), but that wouldn't necessarily result in a comprehensive listing. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 17:38, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not really inclined to do this because I think that the work required outweighs the value of recognizing our GAs.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:27, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I've added a good article milestone target to the main project page, as well as a reference to (but not an actual listing of) good articles to the showcase (WP:MILHIST/SHOW#GA), primarily to serve as a link target from the main project page. This should let us track GA numbers for recognition/motivation purposes without requiring any actual maintenance work; everything is driven by the category counts, which are automatic. Comments would be appreciated! Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 19:07, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Task force allocations

• There are 47 task forces currently and 15 of us, while that may average out to about 3 per person we like to have more than one person overseeing each task force. With a total of 4 slots for each spot in a task force on the chart - 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and standby - that means that everyone ideally should pick up about a dozen different task forces.
• Be Bold. Most of our task forces see little traffic outside the usual PR, ACR, FA, FAR(C) notices, so don't be afraid to sign up for a task force you know little about.
• Add your name to the nearest open slot please, using the format [[User:example|example]]; this helps us keep track of who's on first.
• Veterans, please leave a few spots in the popular task forces open for the new guys. Morale improves when we get to oversee our personal areas of interest, and it will help the new guys gain experience points.

Task force adopted	Coordinator	Coordinator	Coordinator	Standby
Fortifications	Dank	Ranger Steve	Woody
Intelligence	Ranger Steve	Dana Boomer	Woody
Maritime warfare	Sturmvogel_66	The ed17	Parsecboy
Military aviation	Cam	Ranger Steve	Ian Rose
Military biography	Shimgray	AustralianRupert	Woody
Military historiography	Shimgray	Dank	Woody
Military land vehicles	AustralianRupert	Sturmvogel_66	EyeSerene
Military memorials and cemeteries	Ranger Steve	AustralianRupert	Woody
Military science and technology	Dank	MBK004	EyeSerene
National militaries	Shimgray	Dana Boomer	Woody
War films	Dank	Ranger Steve	Woody
Weaponry	Ranger Steve	Sturmvogel_66	EyeSerene
African military history	Dank	Dana Boomer	Woody
Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific military history	AustralianRupert	Ian Rose	The ed17
Balkan military history	Ian Rose	Joe N	EyeSerene
Baltic states military history	Joe N	Sturmvogel_66	EyeSerene
British military history	Shimgray	Ranger Steve	Joe N
Canadian military history	Cam	The ed17	Woody
Chinese military history	Parsecboy	The ed17	EyeSerene
Dutch military history	Shimgray	Sturmvogel_66	The ed17
French military history	Ian Rose	Joe N	EyeSerene
German military history	Cam	Ian Rose	Parsecboy
Italian military history	Cam	Sturmvogel_66	TomStar81
Japanese military history	Cam	Ranger Steve	The ed17
Korean military history	AustralianRupert	Parsecboy	TomStar81
Middle Eastern military history	Dank	Ian Rose	The ed17
Nordic military history	Dana Boomer	MBK004	Dank
Ottoman military history	Dank	Ian Rose	TomStar81
Polish military history	Joe N	Parsecboy	TomStar81
Russian and Soviet military history	MBK004	Joe N	TomStar81
South American military history	Dana Boomer	Sturmvogel_66	The ed17
South Asian military history	Shimgray	AustralianRupert	TomStar81
Southeast Asian military history	MBK004	AustralianRupert	TomStar81
Spanish military history	Sturmvogel_66	Parsecboy	Woody
United States military history	MBK004	Joe N	TomStar81
Classical warfare	Sturmvogel_66	Parsecboy	TomStar81
Medieval warfare	Dana Boomer	Sturmvogel_66	TomStar81
Early Muslim military history	Dank	Parsecboy	The ed17
Crusades	Dank	Parsecboy	Woody
Early Modern warfare	Cam	Joe N	EyeSerene
War of the Three Kingdoms	Shimgray	Parsecboy	EyeSerene
American Revolutionary War	Dana Boomer	MBK004	Ian Rose
Napoleonic era	Shimgray	Joe N	EyeSerene
American Civil War	Dana Boomer	Joe N	Ian Rose
World War I	Shimgray	Dana Boomer	AustralianRupert
World War II	Cam	Ranger Steve	Dana Boomer	Joe N
Cold War	Cam	MBK004	Ian Rose

Total task forces adopted

Coordinator	Total
AustralianRupert	8
Cam	8
Dana Boomer	10
Dank	10
EyeSerene	10
Ian Rose	10
Joe N	11
MBK004	7
Parsecboy	10
Ranger Steve	9
Shimgray	9
Sturmvogel_66	10
The ed17	9
TomStar81	10
Woody	11

Task force discussion

• I've added the table for you Parsecboy (best check it though...). In the interests of good sport I'll give it a while before I pick any for myself! Ranger Steve (talk) 19:02, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll let Parsec, Ed, Sturm and co. battle it out for Maritime Warfare. I prefer not to have to fight to the death for that particular spot, so I'll leave it vacant. Cam ^(Chat)(Prof) 19:51, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll drop out of any task force I've picked if it turns out to be so popular that someone signs up in the "standby" column. - Dank (push to talk) 19:54, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Taken some of mine, I'm happy to pick up the rest later when the dust settles. I'm also happy to forgo my place on WWII if anyone else wants it, I'm sure it'll be popular (in fact the same goes for most of the ones I've chosen, just bung me a message). Ranger Steve (talk) 20:10, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm willing to negotiate if anyone is mad keen on any I've picked -- pls note I've wangled a 3-week trip to Egypt starting tomorrow but I'll have my baby laptop along so wi-fi permitting will be able to check in every so often... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:46, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Other than Tom (who seems to be on a break at the moment), are we waiting for anyone else to sign up and/or sort out their entries, or can we go ahead with this list? Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 02:04, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Mine are finalised. Sorry I couldn't take more this time (very busy at the moment). AustralianRupert (talk) 05:55, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm done (feel free to bump me as necessary), though I don't mind taking a couple more if necessary. EyeSerene^talk 10:27, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I think we can go ahead and assign these -- Tom can pick up the ones he wants when he returns, I guess... Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:09, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Done. - Dank (push to talk) 00:44, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Dank. AustralianRupert (talk) 09:49, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

FLC announcements

I've just listed List of battlecruisers of the Royal Navy over at FLC. Do I announce that using the same templates as for a FAC? And I'd be obliged if someone uninvolved could close the ACR as I believe it has enough supports already.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:09, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

We don't have a template for FLCs specifically—there don't tend to be enough to require a template—so I would suggest just copying an existing FAC notice and replacing the links as needed. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 02:39, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:32, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Could somebody close List of breastwork monitors of the Royal Navy for me?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:05, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

September contest

Hi, I've started verifying the entries for the September contest. Its 01:30 where I am so I think its time to go to sleep. There's still quite a few to do, so if anyone can and wants to help out, I'd greatly appreciate it. All you need to do is check the article talk page to verify what rating the article had at the start of September and then what it has now. You also need to check that the points assigned are correct (the table showing this is on the contest page) and then you just sign the "verified" column. Cheers. AustralianRupert (talk) 15:34, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I'll take care of all those that aren't mine shortly.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:40, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I've checked off Sturm's entries, so we should be good to go. Can someone who's not involved in the contest tally up the points and hand out the awards? Thanks in advance. Parsecboy (talk) 20:55, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, lads. I'll tally them up now. AustralianRupert (talk) 22:53, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I've done this now. Points table updated, awards handed out and newsletter updated. Thanks for your help - makes it a lot quicker! :-) AustralianRupert (talk) 23:25, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for restructuring task forces

For anyone not watching the STT talk page, we've finished putting together a coherent proposal for restructuring our task forces, which is now posted at WT:MILHIST#Proposal for restructuring task forces. Input there would be welcome. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 14:50, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Mothballing some parts of the STT

Given that the archives and statistics and observations divisions of the STT haven't seen any real activity since being created, would there be any objections to getting rid of them until there's actual interest in working in those areas? Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 15:18, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

No objection here EyeSerene^talk 08:11, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Sounds sensible to me. Woody (talk) 13:41, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I've redirected the two divisions back to the main STT page. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 18:29, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Review gongs table

Username	ACR Jul–Sep 2010	PR Jul–Sep 2010	Total Jul–Sep 2010
User:Airplaneman	1	0	1
User:AirplanePro	0	1	1
User:Alexf	1	0	1
User:Anotherclown	11	0	11
User:AustralianRupert	36	11	47
User:bahamut0013	1	0	1
User:Buckshot06	1	2	3
User:Buggie111	1	0	1
User:Climie.ca	2	0	2
User:Cplakidas	0	1	1
User:Cryptic C62	0	1	1
User:Dana boomer	1	0	1
User:Dank	14	0	14
User:Diannaa	1	0	1
User:Dhatfield	1	0	1
User:The ed17	5	0	5
User:EyeSerene	2	0	2
User:Fifelfoo	11	1	12
User:Fnlayson	1	0	1
User:GraemeLeggett	1	0	1
User:Hchc2009	1	0	1
User:Ian Rose	9	2	11
User:IceUnshattered	2	0	2
User:Intothatdarkness	4	0	4
User:Jim Sweeney	3	5	8
User:Jim101	1	0	1
User:Kevin Rutherford	1	0	1
User:Kirk	0	1	1
User:Magicpiano	2	0	2
User:MBK004	1	0	1
User:MisterBee1966	2	0	2
User:Mjroots	1	0	1
User:Nick-D	9	5	14
User:Nigel Ish	1	0	1
User:Parsecboy	8	0	8
User:Piotrus	1	0	1
User:Ranger Steve	1	2	3
User:saberwyn	1	0	1
User:Simon Harley	0	1	1
User:Skinny87	1	1	2
User:Sturmvogel 66	12	0	12
User:Sumanch	0	2	2
User:The Land	1	0	1
User:TomStar81	6	0	6
User:Villick	1	0	1
User:White Shadows	1	0	1
User:Woody	0	3	3
User:XavierGreen	2	1	3
User:YellowMonkey	2	0	2
User:Yoenit	0	1	1

This all looks good to me (though I haven't checked the raw data). Well done, AR!

Who would like to dish them out? The formula is WikiChevrons to those completing 10 or more reviews, the Content Review Medal to those with 3-9, two stripes for 2 reviews, and one stripe for 1 review. The templates for the awards are User:Roger Davies/Award templates#Content review.  Roger Davies ^talk 13:23, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

All the awards are done plus a Roll of Honour on the main talk page. I'll add something to the awards section of The Bugle as well (just in time for this issue too).  Roger Davies ^talk 09:26, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Roger. AustralianRupert is certainly making all the other reviewers look lazy! (though I do note that four of the top seven reviewers are Australian). Nick-D (talk) 10:05, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, truly amazing that, isn't it? I can't work out whether it's because they're an industrious, dedicated, hard-working bunch, or whether it's because there's not a lot else to do in the outback? (Rog runs for shelter.) Either way, the project benefits enormously ;)  Roger Davies ^talk 10:14, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

There's more sunshine in that photo then there is in all of Europe :p Nick-D (talk) 10:07, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

...and less greenery than in my back garden ;) EyeSerene^talk 10:25, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear about your respective countries' faults. Might I suggest moving to the United States to avoid such issues? ;) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:12, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

The work which went into these awards has really paid off - there's been a big upsurge in the numbers of peer and A class reviews since the awards were handed out. Nick-D (talk) 23:42, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed -- thanks very much AR and Roger. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:12, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

September Newsletter

Moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/Strategy think tank/News and editorials division#September newsletter. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 01:54, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Outstanding award nom

Just a reminder that Magicpiano has been nominated for the Chevrons + Oak Leaves here; all coordinators are invited to vote. I'd also encourage our new coords to watchlist the awards page; voting normally doesn't take long and because minimum numbers of votes are required for our project awards, everyone's input is important. Thanks! EyeSerene^talk 11:10, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

It's been awarded, but ES' advice still holds. I can only remember one rejection in my time, and I think it was because they hadn't received the normal chevrons, but input on our most prestigious award is always appreciated. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 19:08, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

More Wikileaks

As a heads up, Wikileaks is planning to release 400,000 intelligence files relating to the Iraq War in the near future: [1]. The Afghan release didn't seem to impact on the relevant articles that I saw, but it does raise the potential for OR and selective quoting of primary sources (intentionally or unintentionally). Nick-D (talk) 01:35, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for letting us know, Nick. AustralianRupert (talk) 11:44, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Near-term priorities

I'm not sure if Parsecboy has any particular priorities that he'd like to pursue in the near term—if he does, I apologize for stepping on his toes—but there are a couple of issues that I think we ought to look at in the next month or so:

Task forces

We can probably start rolling out the new task force structure in a few days, once any stragglers brought in by the Bugle notice have had a chance to comment. Most of this is just going to be a matter of reformatting the material on the TF page, but we're going to need to do some extra work for the joint TFs that are located outside the project, as we'll need to coordinate with the other parent project about where the TF talk page is actually redirected.

Once the restructuring is done, we may want to look at doing another round of consolidation; if I recall correctly, the last discussion we had on the topic suggested collecting some of the smaller European TFs into regional clusters.

Special projects

OMT is obviously running along, but the other three special projects seem to be rather quiet; I'm not sure if that's due to a lack of activity, or just a function of there being little to discuss. In any case, it might be worthwhile to see if there are any coordinators whose interests match those of particular projects; perhaps those coordinators could take the lead on trying to drum up some more activity for each project. (Certainly, the success of OMT suggests that the special project model may be a good one to expand on.)

On a related note, if someone has a bit of free time, it might be useful to help WikiCopter out with the setup of the new special project page that he's trying to put together (see WT:MILHIST#New special project); regardless of whether it takes off, we should at least make sure that the infrastructure is more or less usable.

Working groups

Our working groups seem to be rather catatonic, and while they're not necessarily doing any harm in that state, we may want to absorb them into their parent TFs and/or otherwise deprecate them just to simplify the infrastructure types. The idea hasn't really taken off, and there's no particular reason why we need to have three types of sub-groups within the project.

Academy

We've been sitting on this for a long time now, and we should really try and get at least the beginner-level courses cleaned up. There's a lot of material there, and cleaning it up is something that can be easily broken up into small chunks that we can take on when we have periods of free time.

Any comments on these (or any other) matters would be appreciated. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 06:18, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

@joint TFs, perhaps we put links to both of the project talk pages and ask editors to use one or both (ie the talk page would have nothing but two links)? Ugly but functional, I think.

@special projects, I'm wondering if OMT is a special breed simply because we get to benefit from smaller-scope articles coupled with awesome productivity from Parsec and Sturm. The ACW and WWI projects both ask for large-scope articles to be improved, while Normandy asks for articles that are just short of having large scopes (I mean, imagine trying to write about all the complicated planning and actions that occurred all around Juno Beach, for instance – very daunting!).

@working groups, I agree. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:29, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Joint TFs: How many of these are there? If we're going to get into ownership issues with other projects, perhaps it might be politic to retain their talk pages (maybe with links as Ed suggests)?

Special projects: I only have experience of the Normandy one where progress is being made, albeit slowly at the moment. I have a suspicion that recent events took the wind out of people's sails a bit and I know that RL commitments have (temporarily) reduced editing levels from some of the main contributors. However, if we need to make more of an effort to drum up support we can certainly do that, and if appointing coords to the special projects will help then I'm all for it.

Working groups: If these are moribund there's no reason to retain them. In fact, I think they've been largely made redundant by the special project concept anyway so I'd rather see working groups abandoned in favour of more focused activity (ie new special projects) in the future. I think we need to be quite strict about asking for evidence of activity and commitment before setting them up though, to avoid having the same problem with special projects that we've got with working groups this time next year.

Academy: Absolutely. Maybe we could post up a list of the initial articles for cleanup (in groups of five?) and encourage editors to sign up - run it as a sort of contest or drive. I think we'd need one or two completed lessons/courses to use as examples first though. EyeSerene^talk 09:37, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Task forces: As the reformatting currently has support and no opposition, short of an influx of opinion from Bugle readers it looks set to go ahead. Ideally someone familiar with the subject area would remodel the task force page, but I don't think this is necessary. The main sticking point is what to do with the talk pages of joint task forces. It's not a question of ownership or "our territory", but where is the best place to handle discussion. Co-ordinating with the other projects will be important; perhaps they don't consider the task force worthwhile. I think the default position should be to leave those talk pages in place initially and deal with each one on the individual request of the linked project.

Special projects: Why not ask the members of special projects why things seem slow? Are things progressing quietly away from the project talk pages, or are there problems? If the former is the case, I don't think we need to worry. An inside view would be useful.

Working groups: Per some thoughts here, I don't think working groups are effective. As Kirill says, they don't seem to do any harm but the project has a sprawling structure and I think that cutting out some of the dead ends by merging working groups into parent task forces would help. Nev1 (talk) 13:17, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I am borrowing a friend's laptop for this, so I must be brief, I do hope thats ok with everyone. As to the above:

Agreed, and good idea, and I think we have something like 7 TFs that are joint (ballpark figure, I counted once, but that may need a double check)

Good idea, we could assign TFs to SPs for oversight if this happens to be the case (just a thought),

WGs are/were designed to be highly focused; It had been my intent to run OMT off WGs to keep work loads manageable but the advent of SPs made that something a mute point. The one active WG I can think of is the one for the black projects, that one could be merged somewhere I gues and the model retired, though it may do better a proposed model for individuals looking to do highly focused work on just a few select articles (again, just a thought).

Agreed, the basics ought to be done in the academy at a minimum. Perhaps create a special point category for the contests for this type of work? It could help drum up submissions.

Also, not to nitpick, but its been almost a month now and I still have yet to get my last coordinator term wikiproject barnstar; remember that the current tranche gets stars and the retiring tranche gets the wikiproject barnstar (and those who straddle the lines get both), so if someone could get to that I would appreciate it. TomStar81 (Talk) 14:02, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry about that oversight Tom - now remedied I hope. EyeSerene^talk 19:30, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

In order of appearance:

• I support implementing the new TF model. Regarding joint TFs, how about just putting a placeholder asking posters to make their comments at whichever project (or both) they think is most appropriate?
• Projects; I guess I am one of the co-ords with an interest in a project (Operation Normandy). EyeSerene has it right I think in that recent events have rather deflated a few key contributors. I'm all for drumming up more interest, but I think we need to be wary of self promoting. OMT is a brilliantly successful model, but as far as I can see, it draws on a group of interested editors who will be contributing anyway. The other projects lack that sort of general contribution that happen to fall within its scope.
• Working groups. I'm not keen on redundant groups and the WGs don't seem to be doing much whenever I drop by. If everyone felt the same way, I'd be steering towards folding them.
• In a similar vain, I have my concerns about setting up a Nautilus project per Wikicopters idea. I seriously wonder how much support this might get and I'd be more comfortable if it were a user led project along the lines of this or this.
• Academy: Agreed, small chunks are nice and digestible, although as most of you will have spotted I have a bit less to do with this.
• Sorry Tom. Hope you get your web back soon though.
• On a related note, I wondered what other co-ords felt about Farawaymans comment here? I'm personally all in favour of it - it might not directly help improve article content, but I feel this sort of interaction is important for a community feel at Milhist (as long as it doesn't get out of hand). Any thoughts?

Ranger Steve ^Talk 20:30, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Using a placeholder on the TF talk page is certainly a possible fallback approach if a redirect destination can't be agreed on, but I wouldn't recommend it as a default approach; even with prominent links to other pages, people will ignore them and post messages to the talk page if they land on it. The benefit of using redirects is that the relocation of discussion is transparent to the average user, and I think we should try to implement it unless there are strong objections from the other parent project.

WikiCopter's project is in user space at the moment, but I'm not really sure how much it benefits us to keep the less active SPs there, as opposed to bringing them into project space and getting better integration and visibility into their activities. We should probably set some sort of threshold of participation and/or activity at which point we'd want to roll a user project in as a formal SP, to avoid having situations where individual users feel like they're off on their own and not receiving any interest or support from us. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 23:10, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

On a related note, it looks like WikiCopter has decided to go with a working group for the time being rather than setting up a special project, which does show one benefit of the working group system: it's a place for people to set up efforts that aren't quite ready for something more complex, and yet still have them be "part of the project".

Having said that, I wonder if we could get the best of both worlds here. Rather than having a general system of working groups, would it be better to set up some sort of "incubator" (as part of the STT, perhaps?) that would serve as a host for things that could potentially become special projects or task forces, but that aren't ready for a transition to the full infrastructure? We could then collect all the working groups, user projects, and similar efforts there; a group that proved successful would "graduate" to full SP or TF status (with all the associated infrastructure), while groups that turn out to be inactive or unsustainable could be retained, or mothballed, or rolled into other efforts without too much fuss.

Thoughts? Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 00:50, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to be pretty busy for the next month or so with class, so no worries about toe-stepping, Kirill.

I think Ed, EyeSerene, and Ranger hit the nail on the head with regards to the special topics. At least for the Normandy topic, it probably simply the case that the involved editors have taken a break from editing those articles, whether it be from real-life commitments, projects elsewhere on Wikipedia (for instance, Cam has been doing OMT work lately), or the whole Blablaaa fiasco. Nev makes a good point about asking those involved in the projects.

I totally agree with merging the inactive working groups - if more editors become interested in them sometime down the road it should be no problem to re-create them. And Kirill, I think having an "incubator" for new projects is an excellent idea. Parsecboy (talk) 13:02, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Rolling in to the discussion a little late here, but I've been out of town at a conference for the past couple of days... I agree with most of what's being said here - the new task force model is ready to go, barring any last minute comments/objections. Inactive work groups should be merged - one thing I always thought about MILHIST was that it was unnecessarily sprawling; bringing some of the inactive outlying pieces back into the main fold will be good. As for the special projects, OMT is obviously rolling along well, but the others are slow. Perhaps a contest/drive of the sort that we did with the WWI drive last winter would work? I know proposals for drives/contests keep coming up, and if we have too many we can risk burning out editors. However, given the smaller focus of a couple of the projects (i.e. the Normandy project involves, at least at the top level, many fewer articles than OMT or WWI), one focused drive, be it for a month or several months like the WWI one, could really boost a particular special project's featured/good content rate. WRT the academy, I haven't really had any experience with it so far, but am willing to help if someone just points me in the right direction! Dana boomer (talk) 17:01, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Observation: of the Special projects being run here, OMT seems to the best organized one, the others look a little like they are still evolving. Perhaps encouraging a little more organization would help. Also, OMT is working on a grand total of probably something like 2,000 articles (a ballpark figure for the grand total), while the others are working with what look to be roughly 100 articles or less, and of those some are politically sensitive (WWI and US Civil War for example), so it may be that the progress is slowed down as a result. Just something to consider. TomStar81 (Talk) 17:21, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

OMT also has an advantage in that a relatively small number of high-quality and comprehensive references on battleships allow editors to produce high quality articles with relative ease, so it's possible to maintain momentum. Nick-D (talk) 07:47, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Certainly the sources for the Normandy articles I've worked on are many, varied and often contradictory, making writing them a long and sometimes painful process :) However, we have at least two candidates slowly approaching completion (Operation Goodwood and Hill 262). I honestly believe we're simply going through a temporary activity dip at the moment for the reasons already mentioned, but I guess either Ranger Steve or I (or both of us) would be the logical choices to 'officially' coordinate the Normandy project if that would help. It wouldn't even have to be a milhist coord really - any of the special project members could do the job.

Re Dana's suggestion about a drive, I think that might work better for the large-scope projects. An idea was raised before the elections (can't remember by whom, sorry!) that we turn our attention to improving stub/start/B-Class articles; maybe we could look at this wrt WWI and have a B-Class checklist completion drive or infobox drive or something? EyeSerene^talk 08:43, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

While I'm gung-ho for the concept of an academy cleanup operation, the difficulty with an Academy Drive is that we already have grand vision for a whole set of other drives (B-Class, GA, etc) that we risk overextending our resources, to the point where too few people are working on too many things. So while I'm all gung-ho on the idea, I'd suggest waiting at least until the end of October/beginning of November to start on anything else other than what we're already planning farther up the page. The GA Review drive has attracted a lot of attention (particularly from Skinny and Catalan. My God those two can review!), and I think building on that success with the GA/B-Class drive and Academy drive is something that can be done. That said, I still think we need to be cautious with trying to do too much at once. Cam ^(Chat)(Prof) 03:39, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Move request for our project banner

An editor has requested that {{WPMILHIST}} be moved to a new location; comments at Template talk:WPMILHIST#Requested move would be appreciated. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 13:46, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Five years!

WT:MILHIST#Five years of military history - everyone should probably take a look at this! Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:26, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

And I've been here for three and a half of those (more or less). It's quite an achievement! Cam ^(Chat)(Prof) 18:44, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Incubator

Per the above discussion, I've put together the structure for an incubator within the STT.

The plan would be to move those working groups that aren't going to be merged to this new location, and then use it for any new groups (including potential future task forces, special projects, etc.) that people want to start. This will allow for new groups to be created without requiring any sort of heavy infrastructure, and provide a good place where people can try out ideas that may or may not gather sufficient interest to be viable in the long run.

I envision that we would periodically go through the groups here and archive or merge off those that haven't gone anywhere; successful groups, on the other hand, will graduate from the incubator and evolve to more permanent elements of the project.

Comments would be appreciated! Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 23:28, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Looks good, Kirill. Very easy to understand. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 23:58, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Any other thoughts? Should we take the incubator live and start transitioning the existing working groups and/or user-space groups to it? Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 02:24, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

October contest

I've verified everybody else's submissions for the contest, but I've left my own for somebody else. There are an awful lot of them from the WikiCup so y'all might want to split the task or do it in several rounds.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:34, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I'll make a start on yours, Storm. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:54, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Done 50 and there's about that many to go (not hard to see how you won Wikicup!) -- taking a break so if anyone else wants to pick up the rest, well and good, otherwise I'll probably get the rest done later tonight. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:10, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I've done a few, but probably won't be able to finish them. Got a few things to do tonight for uni, sorry. AustralianRupert (talk) 10:25, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

All done -- actually there weren't almost 100 as implied earlier (but knowing Storm that wasn't an impossible figure!), I must've counted a bunch twice... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:20, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Ian. AustralianRupert (talk) 12:46, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

GAN contest results

I've passed out all the barnstars to the guilty parties and have written a rough draft of the results for the newsletter. Feel free to edit as needed.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:20, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Editorial needed for upcoming newsletter

Hey guys, are any of you interested in writing a piece that will be viewed by all of the Military history WikiProject's 1100+ members? Leave a note at WT:MHNEWS#Editorial? and start writing – we'll need one in the next few days and one about a month from now. A short description of what normal editorials are can be found at WP:MHEDITORIALS, but don't be shy if your idea falls slightly outside that parameter. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 04:44, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Help on source of information needed

A close relative of Edmund Roßmann contacted me today and offered help and assistance in the expansion of the article. I would like to explore the legal constraints under which we/I can make use of this insider information which he might disclose. Assuming that he is willing to scan pictures and/or documents in his possession, what does he/I have to do so we don't infringe on copyright questions? And how do we avoid the issue of "original research"? Thanks for all your help. MisterBee1966 (talk) 17:03, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

The relative would be treated like any other editor/content contributor. Images taken by him have to be uploaded by him or by you with an OTRS ticket from him. If he didn't take them, but owns the copyright, then it's the same thing. If he doesn't own the copyright, he has to get permission from whoever has copyright to upload the images. Official documents can be used just like any other source. Self-published sources should be treated according to WP:SPS. Documents are subject to WP:Verifiability guidelines, and as such letters or other documents that haven't been published or aren't available to the general public cannot be used as sources. I'm not sure what you mean by "original research", though? Information given to you by him that is not available to other members of the public should not be included in WP entries. Dana boomer (talk) 17:12, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

For images, the commons template PD-heirs would work well. In contrast to Dana, though, I don't see what would be wrong with using uploaded letters as sources. Similar to SPS, they're reliable because they were written by Robmann. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 18:06, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

As long as the letters were uploaded to Wikipedia, then yes, they would be acceptable (perhaps through Wikisource?). If it was simply the relative telling Misterbee what was in the letters, or only providing a copy to MisterBee with no one else able to see them, then they wouldn't be reliable sources. Dana boomer (talk) 18:49, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Nitpicking here :) They may in fact be reliable even if they aren't uploaded to Wikipedia, but they wouldn't be verifiable... EyeSerene^talk 20:57, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Forewarning of inactivity

Home sweet home

Hi folks, just thought I'd give you a quick heads up that my contributions will be a little sporadic this month. After much thought and deliberation, my better half and I decided to buy a house. Everything so far has gone pretty smoothly (the old owners wanted a quick sale) and it seems like we might be able to move in soonish. I'll still be able to check up on my watchlist at work (when I'm actually at a desk that is), but it does seem likely that I'll be without internet at home (which is where I tend to do my editing) for a while though. Hopefully won't be too long. Cheers, Ranger Steve ^Talk 11:23, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

All the best with your move :) What's the council tax like on a place like that? EyeSerene^talk 08:51, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

At least we all know someone who can lend us space on their couch near the tourist attractions in central London ;) Seriously, congratulations! Nick-D (talk) 10:03, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I think other people pay for me to live there don't they? I would invite you round, but my guards are trained to kill on sight and its hard to get them to break the habit. Ranger Steve ^Talk 13:08, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Task force list

To save some space (and de-clutter the tab header a bit), I've merged the list of task forces onto the main project page; it's now located in a collapsible box under the topics section. Any comments on this approach would be appreciated. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 00:45, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Parsecboy (talk) 05:02, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Me too :) EyeSerene^talk 10:07, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Fine here, too. In terms of overall project "look and feel", it might be a good time to jettison the steel blue backgrounds in favour of white (or perhaps ivory, which is slightly warmer) which will also make the place seem brighter and less cluttered.  Roger ^talk 10:28, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

I think the steel blue and gray combination works well, actually. On a longer page with images/tables/etc, the white/ivory headers don't really provide any visual separation; we might as well be using regular (non-banner) headings at that point. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 11:03, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

I think I agree with Kirill - while the clean look is good in a limited space like the Bugle headers, changing all our banners/headers etc to white would result in something too similar to the one we redesigned to get away from and wouldn't provide enough of a visual demarcation to break up a page. Ivory may appear less washed-out, but because VDU settings vary so enormously I think it's good to have a fairly obvious colour change for the banners. Having said that, we could always test it out. EyeSerene^talk 11:20, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Cleaning up working groups + incubator launch

To follow up on the earlier discussion about restructuring working groups, we currently have 11 working groups within the project:

1. Airborne warfare (no real activity since May 2009)
2. Battle of Jutland (may be active?)
3. Black projects (may be active?, useful for organization)
4. Iraq War (no real activity since June 2009)
5. Italian Wars (no real activity since May 2009)
6. Japanese swords (no real activity)
7. Large cruiser classes (may be active?)
8. Militias (may be active?)
9. Napoleonic fiction (may be active, visible outside project)
10. Paraguay (no real activity since October 2009)
11. Submarine (active)

Most of these are terminally inactive, although a couple do appear to have some activity. In my opinion, we have three approaches that we could take:

1. Move all of the groups into the incubator and defer any judgment of their activity levels for some future time.
2. Move the active/semi-active groups into the incubator and absorb the inactive ones back into their parent task forces.
3. Move the active/semi-active groups into the incubator and contact the creators of the inactive ones to see if they would prefer to be moved into the incubator or absorbed.

Personally, I would tend to favor #2, but I can see valid arguments for all three.

Related to this, the incubator itself is basically ready to go. Assuming that nobody has any further comments on the structure or suggestions for changes, I think we can go ahead and announce its existence to the project at large? Do we want to do this before we deal with the working groups, or as part of a single announcement?

Comments would be appreciated. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 04:11, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Large cruisers was my idea, but I have since moved on to South American ships, so that can just be folded into OMT. Paraguay's primary contributor retired in Dec '09. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 04:52, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd favor #2 as well.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:03, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, option 2 seems reasonable to me. I think 3 might well have the same outcome as 2 anyway (if the working group is inactive I suppose it's possible the creator will be too). The only one I'd question moving to the incubator is "Black projects", which in Tom's hands has been a useful check on some of the WP:FRINGE stuff we get occasionally. I'm not sure what other natural home it might have though. EyeSerene^talk 09:32, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I like #2 as well. Perhaps on the Black projects WG we could wait for Tom to comment before doing anything? We could also see if there is enough interest to turn it into a special project. Dana boomer (talk) 13:35, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree that #2 seems good. I guess it wouldn't hurt to contact the creators of the inactive ones, but if they're not doing anything with it it'd be kind of hard for them to make a good case for keeping it. – Joe N 17:07, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I've announced the existence of the incubator at WT:MILHIST#Project incubator launch; I suppose we'll just have to wait and see if there's any interest. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 20:54, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree with #2 for most of the working groups, but I would note that the working groups were intended to be highly specific and therefore run by a very limited number of editors. Most could safe be absorbed either into task force, or in the case of the Jutland and large cruiser one, into a special project with little to no loss of coverage, but the black project working group is unique and therefore I would argue against having that one disbanded since in a very real sense it offers the only check on fringe material that we have. I keep meaning to take a pass through the articles listed there to update it but I kept forgetting, and with the tower at the house down I did not want to hog a friends computer for the estimated 1-2 hours it would take to go through the list. Thankfully, my family is down for the Thanksgiving holiday, and my brother has offered to lend me his computer so I can go through the list and get it updated. As a practical matter, its not that hard to check the articles listed there, the hard issue is checking to make sure that what is written and what is cited is within the acceptable parameters established for the information present on Wikipedia by the site wide standards and guidelines as the community deems they to apply to the material here. Anyone can do this, but since I am the one who pushed for greater oversight in this area I sort of became the primary care taker for the this particular working group. At any rate, I intend to go through the articles there today or tomorrow and will inform the SST of the findings. Perhaps we can do a Bugle Special Report if anything interesting crops up; who knows, it may inspire some editors to join ;) TomStar81 (Talk) 22:57, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Hence my "useful for organization" comment for it in the initial list. ;-)

In any case, my thought here is that—assuming that there isn't yet enough interest to do anything more substantial with it, which I suspect is still the case—we'd simply move that working group to the incubator; it would be otherwise unaffected, and could sit there gathering editors indefinitely. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 04:41, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Black Project report

I've compiled the most recent black project report, it may be viewed here. Feedback is requested for external sourcing so as to ensure that offsite links are compliant with WP:RS. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:21, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd suggest moving it to the main project talk page rather than the STT talk page, actually; it's likely to get more eyes there, and it's not really the sort of thing where we expect a lengthy, slow-paced debate. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 04:39, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, never mind; I've gone ahead and moved it there. The link is now WT:MILHIST#Black Project report. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 04:49, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Current events edit notice

In the past few months when articles within our scope have cropped up on the main page I've added a custom edit notice template to the articles so that those editing the page will (hopefully) observe a few points that will in the long run help us keep such articles up to date with our standards and practices. The current template I am using is listed below, but it occurred to me bring this up here to see if there was any interest in formalizing this so that we have a standard edit notice template to add in the event that a coordinator deems it either necessary or beneficial to an article linked from the main page or an article that receives additional visitors due to a third party report (ie a CNN story that stirs interest in an article within our scope). Would this be something worth pursuing?

At the request of the Military history Project, please observe the following when editing this article: 1. Please use past tense in this article. We are aware that this article documents a current event, but writing in the past tense will make it easier for us to polish the article as it develops. 2. Information added to this article should be backed up with a reliable source, cited using the <ref> and </ref> tags. Information added to this page without a reliable source is subject to removal from the article at any user's discretion.

I don't see a need for this. Most people use past tense anyway, and they aren't going to understand RS and "ref tags" without more extensive directions... which would then run into TL;DR. The last sentence is a scare tactic that will drive people off and should not be included in any circumstances. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 03:24, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Ed. The second point is unnecessary as words to this effect ('Encyclopedic content must be verifiable') appears immediately beneath the editing window. A better use of time would be checking these articles for copyvios - the ITN checking processes seem a bit lax at times. Nick-D (talk) 07:14, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

They spend so much time debating the merits of the subject that many forget to actually look at the quality of the article... Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 08:03, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Upcoming ArbCom case which may be relevant to the project

It appears that ArbCom has chosen to accept a case in which an editor is alleging widespread bias within the Military History project (see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Military history POV-bias). I'm a named party in this case so need to choose my words carefully (and I hope that this note isn't problematic) but once the case begins it may be appropriate to post a notification at WT:MILHIST in case uninvolved editors wish to comment (or it may not; again, I'm not sure about the rules). Nick-D (talk) 01:15, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Generally speaking, drive-by comments from uninvolved editors are of relatively little value in an arbitration case; hard evidence is far more valuable than mere opinion, and editors with no involvement in the dispute are unlikely to have the time or motivation to gather it. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 01:32, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks Kirill. I think that I need to read up on Arbitration cases, though I don't intend to devote much time to this. In my view the case is likely to come down to editor conduct rather than claims of widespread bias anyway. Nick-D (talk) 01:34, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, if you (or any of the other parties) have questions, please feel free to ask me; I can probably explain the proceedings better than most of the documentation, at this point. ;-) Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 01:40, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

• Updated link: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World_War_II EyeSerene^talk 09:30, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I put a few words down concerning the fact that these articles are the most difficult to edit due to the sheer size and scope of the subject matter, and I pointed out that we had a very similar waltz to this tune 6 months ago during the whole blablaaa incident. The allegations of sock puppetry have me worried since the whole thing does seem reminiscent of the blablaa incident, but I digress; its for the arbitrators to decide. When its all said and done though it may make an interest addition to the bugle. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:15, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not keen on post mortems as a rule, but perhaps it would be useful to examine systemic bias within the project as a general issue. Perhaps that would make a good Bugle editorial? Given that we're the English-language Wikipedia our editors are bound to be self-selecting to some degree and the same goes for the subjects we write about (not least because in the main we must rely on English-language sources). Does this amount to a problematic systemic bias or simply reflect the interests of the audience we write for? Should we be trying to force our articles into reflecting a modern global perspective when neither events at the time nor the sources were written from that perspective? I don't have many answers, but I think it's an interesting debate :) EyeSerene^talk 08:44, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Without wanting to cause a spill over from the case, I think that the claims of 'bias' are a red herring here (the fact that one editor is claiming that just about everyone else is biased is a bit telling) and the editor seems to not be familiar with the role Wikiprojects play. Nick-D (talk) 10:10, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Of course the subjects we write about represents systemic bias. The interests we hold are influenced to a large degree by where we live. The real question is whether this spills over into (intentional or non-intentional) POV on certain articles related to, for example, the Eastern Front. Among the coordinators and Nick-D, I am sure the answer is "no", but others may not be as enlightened. All of our articles should reflect a global perspective in (at the least) a "Background" section – ie what global conditions wanted them to be built, or what a country was doing that forced a battle/war/etc. 18:25, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I largely agree. I was kind of trying to divorce the general issue of systemic bias from the current ArbCom case, which I suspect is akin to the earlier case many of us suffered through. I'd certainly be utterly astonished if any coord (or respected ex-coord like Nick) was pushing a POV. Re the general issue though, I think it's perhaps worth discussing whether any systemic bias that may/may not exist in WP as a whole is actually anything we at milhist can do much about... or even if it's that important in the big scheme of things. EyeSerene^talk 18:56, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I think there are definitely situations where the risk of systemic bias is quite severe, particularly with regard to more recent conflicts and controversial aspects of old ones. For example, I've always found it amazing that Bombing of Dresden was not subjected to an endless POV-war over whether it was morally justified or not (disclosure: I personally think it wasn't, but that's beside the point). Similarly, Vietnam War has the potential to be subject to endless POV-wars about atrocities that both sides committed - in all honesty, it has been subject to these in the past. I will agree that there is a persistent bias in terms of what sources we use, but I imagine that the reverse is true on the other Wikipedias. We are an English-language site, ergo most of our references are likely to be in English. Merely the perspective and background of a source itself can open up accusations of bias. I think there's definitely the potential for articles to become biased in terms of the sources used, but in all honesty I really don't think there's a lot we can do about that. In some cases it just means doing more research. It means reading Alan Dershowitz and Noam Chomsky if you're writing on the Arab-Israeli Conflict; it means reading Bernard Lewis and Edward Said when writing about the Middle East. That's one of the reasons that the FAC criteria notes that they should contain "a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature". I think Ed is right about us holding our own interests with regards to specific topics, but I don't think that necessarily prevents us from writing articles. I hold definite interests and biases in the area of political economy/international relations, and as a result I don't write those articles (trying to write neutrally about the Cold War proxy wars was one of the hardest things I have ever attempted to do!). Ideally, our goal should be to sideline our interests to the ultimate ideal of writing articles that represent a diversity of background and opinion as best as we are able within the linguistic and geographical confines of our abilities. Cam ^(Chat)(Prof) 19:20, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I need some help

In an effort to reduce the reliance on MBK to close the ACRs I started a new academy page intended to be a detailed walk through to help the newcomers and the vets without the closing experience get through the process successfully. The current page is located at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Closing an A-class review, but it seems that I have been out of the loop long enough to need help completing my page :) If you guys could help fill in the blanks and copyedit then with luck we can have this up by the end of the year. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:04, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking about this the other day - I'll be happy to help out. In fact, I'm heading there now :) EyeSerene^talk 08:46, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I've been hacking away at the page. One question for Tom—or anyone!—though, further to your text on the Academy page.

You write that the closing coord should archive the review page by moving it to a sub-page before removing the transclusion link from the A-Class review section. This isn't in the current instructions and I haven't ever done so. However, the instructions do ask the nominator to move the original review page if they're putting the same article up for review again.

Should we include this in the closure instructions in future as a coord, rather than nominator, function? EyeSerene^talk 18:08, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

No, it would be uneeded overhead considering that most ACRs pass or fail and don't get renominated. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 18:19, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay, no probs. Incidentally, I've about finished the page now, incorporating Tom's text into mine. The page seems horrendously long but it is detailed and I hope comprehensive. Opinions - especially from regular ACR closers - would be very welcome :) EyeSerene^talk 18:43, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll try to clean up the formatting a bit when I get the chance—at the moment, it's causing the page widths to break—but overall, this looks very good. Once we've finished polishing it up, I'd actually suggest removing the closing instructions from their current location, and just pointing to this course; they're not really something that the average visitor to the review department is going to be interested in, and the new version is both more comprehensive and easier to follow. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 04:47, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

I've manually tweaked the line breaks in the <pre>...</pre> sections. Not ideal I know, but although {{pre}} is supposed to be able to handle text wrapping but I couldn't get it to work for me (it doesn't seem to like templates inside itself so doesn't display them properly). EyeSerene^talk 10:14, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Could I suggest that you include a short version of the instructions somewhere as well as that excellent step by step guide? When I was a coordinator I kept a tab with the instructions which used to be on this page open whenever I closed an ACR to make sure I didn't miss any steps and to copy and paste the relevant code from... Nick-D (talk) 10:50, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

We need to clarify how to handle the A-class award credit when an ACR is co-nom'd, rare though that may be it has been known to happen on occasion. Otherwise, I think this is just about done. Thanks everyone. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:37, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I've added a section for closing reappraisals, added some colour here and there, and found a way to get "pre" text to wrap ({{pre2}} plus nowiki tags :-)). What do we do about co-noms Tom? I assume award a medal to all nominators?

I agree with Nick that summary instructions are still needed as a quick reference - my take on the course is that it's for those coords who haven't yet closed an ACR and need more guidance than our review page instructions currently give. EyeSerene^talk 12:51, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

For the short version I always used the instructions and got the tabs I needed from there. Woody (talk) 13:31, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

The main drawback of keeping the instructions separate, in my opinion, is that we now have two pages that need to be kept in sync, which is generally nothing but a headache. Perhaps it would be better to move the short-form instructions into the course as well, and then transclude them into their current location? At least that way we've consolidated everything to a single physical page. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 01:53, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

That had occurred to me too - great minds think alike :) Tbh the course page might be a pain to keep in synch with itself anyway because there are up to three repetitions of similar sections on the page. However, like you I think it would be easier to manage a single page rather than two. I'll get to it when time permits. (Incidentally, could you confirm that we do track both nominators for ACMs in the case of joint noms?) EyeSerene^talk 09:45, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

That's always been my understanding, although it's a somewhat theoretical one—how often have we actually had joint nominations? Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 13:47, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Oddly enough I've just closed one :) I've had a go at tabulating the closing instructions (see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history/Academy/Closing_an_A-class_review#Summary). Obviously some judicious noincludes and maybe design tweaks will be needed, but as a concept for the ACR page what do you think? EyeSerene^talk 14:02, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Very nice! The table format works really well, I think. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 14:16, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I've transcluded the summary in below for further input; the style now hopefully matches our other instructions. One question - I can't get the edit link to open up just the summary section of the Academy page (I'm guessing it doesn't like the anchor). Would you be able to fix that? EyeSerene^talk 15:54, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Got it, you had to add " &section=38 " too :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 00:18, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Ed! EyeSerene^talk 08:20, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I've added the instructions table to the ACR section of our review page and removed the instructions from the previous instructions. This means the Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history/Review/A-Class_reappraisal_review_instructions page is now to all intents and purposes orphaned within milhist (although it seems to be in use at Wikipedia:WikiProject Korn). I hope this is okay - please feel free to make any changes etc! EyeSerene^talk 08:45, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Everything looks good to me. I've added a link to the course onto the academy page as well.

As far as the old reappraisal instructions are concerned, I'd suggest either subst:ing them into their remaining transclusion or simply moving the page under WP Korn; in either case, I think we have no further use for it. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 19:01, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Done. Tbh the Wikipedia:WikiProject_Korn/A-Class_review page looks like a placeholder that was never fully ported across. It contains a number references to Milhist that should probably be removed to prevent someone following the instructions there and ending up with their article at milhist ACR instead. EyeSerene^talk 11:44, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Military historian of the year

Assuming that we're still planning to run this award again this year, should we go ahead and start nominations/voting at this point? We probably need to get started soon if we want to complete the process before the end of the year. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 23:05, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm thinking so. I'll copy the notice from last year onto the main talk page sometime tomorrow, I'll also put it in the newsletter. Cam ^(Chat)(Prof) 02:12, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi, there is a question on the main project talk page about when voting for the Military historian of the Year closes. I don't know the answer (I think it would be the end of December, wouldn't it?), so can someone who knows pop over and answer the question please? Cheers. AustralianRupert (talk) 07:02, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

The conversation link is here. Can someone please answer this? AustralianRupert (talk) 09:09, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I would assume we'd keep things open until the end of the year and announce winners on the 1st. It's not meant to be a highly formalized process, though. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 15:36, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Makes sense. Cheers. AustralianRupert (talk) 22:47, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Contest page

Hi all, something strange has happened to the Contest page (Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Contest), the Scoreboard and the current entries seem to be merging. I can't work out how to fix it. Can anyone help? Cheers. AustralianRupert (talk) 12:06, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

As you were, I believe I've fixed it now. AustralianRupert (talk) 12:11, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

A-class medals

Can we tweak these wordings? "For prolific work on List of battlecruisers of Japan, Japanese battleship Kongō, and Japanese battleship Hiei promoted to A-class between September and December 2010, by order of the coordinators of the Military history WikiProject you are hereby awarded the A-Class medal with Oak Leaves." <-- Does not sound right. I think this would sound a lot better:

"By order of the coordinators of the Military history WikiProject, you are hereby awarded the A-Class medal with Oak Leaves for exemplary work on List of battlecruisers of Japan, Japanese battleship Kongō, and Japanese battleship Hiei, all promoted to A-class between September and December 2010." Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 09:11, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree, that does sound better. Sorry, I guess I was just being lazy and copying the previous format. AustralianRupert (talk) 09:17, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Not your fault, I copy previous awards too, and I'm pretty sure everyone else does (hence my post here rather than your talk) :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 09:29, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Milhist articles and Portals

• Discussion moved to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history/Coordinators/Strategy_think_tank#Milhist_articles_and_Portals. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:30, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

Thought I'd take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. I hope you enjoy yours, however you may be spending it. I'll be out of town with the family, but I will be back in time for New Years :) TomStar81 (Talk) 05:32, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Merry Christmas to you as well Tom! Cam ^(Chat)(Prof) 07:10, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Cheers, Tom, I hope you have a safe trip and enjoy yourself. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 22:32, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Merry Christmas from down under from me as well. Nick-D (talk) 23:18, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

And a Merry Christmas from the snowy midwestern US here! I hope you all have a great holiday, with plenty of food and football :) Dana boomer (talk) 23:33, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Seasons Greetings from No. 82 Wing RAAF, 1954

Thanks Tom. Happy Christmas to one and all from across the seas, and the years, to a time before F-111s (let alone Super Hornets) and especially before Photoshop! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:31, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Nice Ian :) Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda from snowy Wales - as always it's been a pleasure working with y'all! EyeSerene^talk 14:35, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Ditto from me! Except I hail from snowed-in Yooperland... Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 15:58, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Hyphen question

Don't want to bore the troops, so I'll ask here. Navweaps often writes "12-in Vickers"; we often write "12-inch guns", but most of our inch-caliber gun titles lose the hyphen: Vickers 14 inch/45 naval gun. Not knowing any better, I just took it on faith that it's written without the hyphen in most of the sources, but now I'm seeing it with the hyphen. "14-inch" certainly looks odd there without the hyphen, both because it's an adjective and because a slash usually means "group these two things together", so most readers are going to stumble for a second before they figure it out. - Dank (push to talk) 14:47, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

You don't seem to be asking a question, just making a statement. Are you asking for permission to move the relevant articles? How many articles does this affect? Nev1 (talk) 15:02, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm asking how you want the links to appear at A-Class Review, and I'm asking what you guys see in the majority of the well-written sources. - Dank (push to talk) 15:37, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

"14-inch gun" certainly feels better to me, but I'm honestly not sure what is standard - I've seen both in use. DANFS uses "10-inch" and "6-pounder", so supports the hyphen, and poking a couple of general-purpose style guides gives the general suggestion that we should use hyphens "...to form short compound adjectives, eg two-tonne vessel", which seems appropriate here. I note we have articles using the " form, as well - 14"/45 caliber gun - which is a little more technical but neatly sidesteps the issue!

On the metric hand, "76mm gun" or "76 mm gun" seems a lot better than "76-mm" - I suspect the distinction here is because one's an abbreviation, though it's a pretty odd distinction to draw. Shimgray | talk | 21:37, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. If there's no other feedback, I'll add the hyphen when I'm copyediting at ACR. - Dank (push to talk) 14:30, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

(fashionably late to the party) I'd use the hyphen. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 06:46, 4 January 2011 (UTC)