Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 85

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Question 1: I notice that on both of these pages (VC & GC), the infoboxes say they are the same order of precedence. This is/was certainly not the case in Australia. (In Oz, the Oz gov has "decreed" that, for Australians, VC is higher.) Is the situation in other countries awarding both the VC & the GC different from Oz? Pdfpdf (talk) 09:19, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Question 2: If they are the same precedence, that would mean that anyone who earned both, and earned their GC before their VC, would wear their GC before their VC. However, the VC article says: However, the VC is higher in order of precedence and would be worn first by an individual who had been awarded both decorations (which has not so far occurred).
Hence, I am confused.
Either they are the same order of precedence, or they are not. To me, the article seems to be contradicting itself. However, given that it has been through the FA process, this "contradiction" must have been addressed. Can someone enlighten me please? Pdfpdf (talk) 09:51, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

The latest Order of Wear for the United Kingdom shows the VC before any other award including the GC (which is 2nd).[2]. MilborneOne (talk) 21:47, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea where you gained the impresson that the Australian Government has decreed the VC as higher, but I assure you the GC and VC are equal in level, the VC is just higher in the order of wearing (as indicated by MilborneOne) because it was the first of the two to be established (VC=1856, GC=1940). Abraham, B.S. (talk) 23:45, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you gentlemen. It would that there is confusion between "order of wear" and "order of precedence". So, although they are the same "order of precedence", the VC has higher "precedence" in the "order of wear".

In which case, the VC article is, at best, confusing, and at worst, wrong. (As I said, "However, given that it has been through the FA process, this "contradiction" must have been addressed." - Maybe not?)

Looking at the Victoria Cross article:

• The second sentence says:"It takes precedence over all other orders, decorations and medals." - Isn't that false? Aren't the VC and the GC of equal precedence?
• The last sentence of paragraph one says: "However, the VC is higher in order of precedence ... " - Again, isn't that false?

Pdfpdf (talk) 13:17, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh. Re: "I have no idea where you gained the impresson that the Australian Government has decreed the VC as higher" - I gained the impression from Australian Honours Order of Precedence; I did not realise that there is a difference between "order of precedence" and "Order of precedence for the wearing of decorations and awards". The "Order of precedence for the wearing" quite clearly says:

1. VC for Oz (footnote3: this also refers to VC)

2. GC ("foot"note *: Articles marked with * are awards of the United Kingdom and are now considered foreign(footnote2: "All Imperial awards made to Australian citizens after 5 October 1992 are foreign awards and should be worn accordingly).

However, despite your assurance, I have not been able to find anything to confirm that the Australian Government considers that "the GC and VC are equal in level". No doubt you have this information at your fingertips; could you point me to it please? Pdfpdf (talk) 13:17, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Questions:

Abraham, B. S. (or anyone else, for that matter): I'm awaiting a response.

In particular: Are "Order of Precedence" and "Order of Wear" the same thing, or two different things?

We have references to "Order of Wear" for both UK & Oz. Do we have any references to "Order of Precedence"?

Where have the Oz gov (and/or the UK gov) specified that VC and GC are the same order of precedence?

Thanks in advance, Pdfpdf (talk) 12:52, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Still awaiting some answers. Pdfpdf (talk) 11:23, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

This is not a discussion for here. It is only splitting up the conversation. Please keep the discussion in one place, namely the original discussion over on Talk:Victoria Cross. Incidentally, I think the posts below answer your questions. Regards, Woody (talk) 11:32, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

<od>a) I would indeed prefer to discuss it ALL in the one place. b) They do not even address the questions I asked, let alone answer them. c) Talk:Victoria Cross sounds a good place to me. Pdfpdf (talk) 11:40, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Presumably you've done your own research on this. How did you get on? What were your findings? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 11:42, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for asking.

Yes, you are correct. (However, I would use the word "investigations" rather than "research".)

Sadly, the results-to-date are unsatisfactory.

(This is a quick preliminary answer - I can add more detail later if it is requested.)

I have been able to locate a number of related discussions. e.g.:

• Talk:Victoria Cross#Victoria Cross vs George Cross
• Talk:Victoria Cross#VC vs GC 'equivalency'
• Talk:Victoria Cross#Order of precedence
• [Others that I can't locate right now - will add them in when I do locate them.]

All of the above are somewhat inconlusive and somewhat repetitive.

Hard facts:

• There is such a thing as an "order of wear"
  • It is well defined by the UK & Oz [add references]
  • It is variously, and somewhat confusingly, named; some names include the words "Order of precedence".
• Many talk about what they call an/the "Order of Precedence"
  • They don't define what it is.
  • They either imply, or state, that it is "different" to "order of wear", but do not define what the difference is.
• I have not been able to locate any "official definition" of an "order of precedence" that is not referring to "order of wear".
• There is a contradiction between the text of the VC article and the contents of the infobox in the VC article.

Beyond that, there have been lots of words written on the topic, some of which are interesting, most of which is opinion or observation (which I believe WP calls "original research"), but almost none of which are independently verifiable facts.

Again, thanks for asking. Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 21:59, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Have you done any actual research outside of wikipedia? Official websites, books and so forth? That might help. Skinny87 (talk) 22:21, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

"Have you done any actual research outside of wikipedia?" - Yes.

"Official websites, books and so forth?" - Yes.

"That might help." - How "might it help"?

(As I said above. Twice. It didn't help. I'm not quite sure why I have so say it a third time, but here goes: I have not been able to locate any "official definition" of an "order of precedence" that is not referring to "order of wear".)

Pdfpdf (talk) 11:24, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

And while it seems necessary to repeat myself:

There is a contradiction between the infobox and the text of the article.

Either, VC & GC are the same "order of precedence", or they are not.

If they are the same, (as stated in the infobox), then one is not higher than the other (as stated in the article).

If they are not the same, (as stated in the article), then they are not "the same", (as stated in the infobox).

MilborneOne recognised this, and made this edit, which makes the article and the infobox consistent. Maybe consistently wrong - I don't know; I can't find evidence either way - but at least consistent.

David Underdown subsequently made this edit with the comment: "Restore previous ordering of awards in infobox, using alternative reference, otherwise we contradict the article text." Sorry David, but what you reverted was consistent. What you restored is inconsistent.

So, with this edit, I said "Had it occurred to you that the article text may be wrong? Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#VC vs GC, and I would REALLY appreciate your input."

David responded, but his response did not address these issues.

Entirely reasonably, Abraham, B.S. reverted saying "rv; please wait until consensus has been reached at the discussion before changing things", (to which I responded on his talk page: "Fine by me"), however, despite the number of words and opinions, no-one seems to be addressing the topic I have raised.

And the text and the infobox are still contradictory.

This seems obvious to me. Why is it not obvious to everyone else? What am I missing?

How did the article get through GA without someone picking this up? What am I missing?

This is not "rocket science". Pdfpdf (talk) 12:02, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

A lot of the edits regarding the GC were made after the FAC. The main point to take from this is that there is no right answer to this question, a lot of knowledgeable people have responded but there is no official answer. David's answer below best sums it up in my opinion. Woody (talk) 12:41, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Woody:You said the same above. I will repeat what I said there, and have just said again above: "No-one has addressed the question I have asked." And independent of your opinion, David's words below do not address the question, let alone answer it.

I'm afraid I can neither accept that "there is no right answer to this question", nor that "there is no official answer". In matters of protocol, there is ALWAYS both a "right" and an "official" answer, and "order of precedence" is most definitely a matter of protocol.

It's a very simple question, and has a very simple answer.

The problem is not that "there is no right answer".

The problem is: "As yet, we have been unable to determine the answer".

Somewhere the answer is defined. It's just a matter of finding it.

On-the-other-hand, playing devil's advocate, if it can not be demonstrated that they are the same "order of precedence", then the statement in the infobox saying they are the same "order of precedence" should either be removed from the infobox, or a {{cn}} should be placed against it.

And it is very clearly obvious to me that the article and the infobox are inconsistent!

It seems to me that I have addressed every point I have raised at least twice, and nobody other than MilbornOne has addressed any of those points at all. Pdfpdf (talk) 14:11, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

simple question

To make it easy for everyone, I will ask just one simple question. Pdfpdf (talk) 14:11, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

In article Victoria Cross, the infobox says that GC & VC are the same "order of precedence", and the body of the article says VC is higher precedence than the GC.

Question: Is this inconsistent?
Answer: Yes / No.

VC vs GC break 1

I have seen this argument made a number of times, however I have to say that nothing has been said to sway my view that the VC takes precedence over the GC, and that they are _not_ equal. It is not a matter of 'which came first', otherwise the GC would then take precedence over the 'VC for Australia'. The terms 'Order of Precedence' and 'Order of Wear' seem to be used interchangeably on various website. See for example the Australian Government website It's an Honour, which states There is an established order of precedence for the wearing of Australian decorations, and then goes on to invite you to download a copy of the Order Of Wearing Australian Honours and Awards document (my bolding). The NZDF site on the George Cross states the George Cross (GC) was the highest gallantry award available to civilians and ranked immediately after the Victoria Cross (my bolding). The Royal Warrant establishing the GC explicitly states at clause 7 that it shall be worn immediately after the Victoria Cross, not by virtue of it's date of issue. Discussion also here. PalawanOz (talk) 13:21, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

What you have presented just reinforces that the VC is higher in the order of wear then the GC. The VC for Australia was adopted along with a complete new honours system to phase out the Imperial equivalent, and used the same basis/scaffold for the placement of honours; which was predominantly ordered on the time in which each honour was created. Take the Distinguished Service Cross, Military Cross and Distinguished Flying Cross for example. All three honours are of the same level, awarded for similarly ranked acts of gallantry, but are ordered the same as above (DSC -> MC -> DFC) due to the years of establishment. The Victoria Cross and George Cross are equal in the level of gallantry the recipient of either preforms. Take the latest GC recipient as evidence; Matthew Croucher was only awarded the GC instead of the VC he was originally recommended for due to the fact that there was no hostile force present in the initial stages of his actions. Abraham, B.S. (talk) 04:17, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm confused by this response. First you say: "the VC is higher in the order of wear then the GC.", for which there is supporting evidence. Then you say: "The Victoria Cross and George Cross are equal in the level of gallantry the recipient of either preforms". Perhaps. Have you got any independent supporting evidence? And anyway, so what? That adds no value to answering the questions at #Questions: Pdfpdf (talk) 11:32, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

An important point of order... the VC and GC are not 'equal in the level of gallantry' - the VC is earned for a 'pre-eminent act of valour '. The GC is awarded for 'most conspicuous courage '. In the world of medals for gallantry, there is a distinct difference between the two words - see the Australian Honours Order of Precedence (Cross of Valour above the Star of Courage), also the Canadian Bravery Decorations (Cross of Valour above the Star of Courage), the Polish bravery awards (Cross of Valor above the Medal for Sacrifice and Courage). I believe that in this discussion, there is a lot of weight being given to the terms "Order of Wear" and "Order of Precedence" - yet, I still believe (as pointed out above in the Govt site), the terms are used interchangeably. PalawanOz (talk) 12:31, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

The most recent award of th GC was to Matthew Croucher. He deliberately threw himself on a grenade to save the other members of his patrol. By a fluke, he survived virtually uninjured. He was awarded "only" the GC not the VC purely because the grenade was set off by a tripwire, and therefore the action did not take place "in the face of the enemy". Similarly Christopher Finney received the GC, not the VC, because the planes firing at him were American, not Iraqi (curiously one of the other personnel in that incident received the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross, rather than the George Medal, presumably because the warrant for the CGC describes it as being -from memory- "for gallantry on active operations against the enemy", rather than using the same wording "in the face of the enemy" as for the VC). Similarly, some RAF personnel, notably Nicky Barr have received both the MC (for actions on the ground, often for escaping, or evading, capture as a POW) and the DFC. Barr won his DFC first, but would wear his MC first as that comes higher in the order of precedence/order of wear, but would you say that the MC requires a higher level of gallantry? Holders of the VC seem happy to treat the holders of the GC as their equal, after some initial ambivalence when the GC hadn't been established for very long, GC holders were soon admitted as full members of the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association.

We essentially seem to be tangling up two different ideas of precedence, that defining the order in which medals are worn, and postnominals written, and the idea of what different decorations and orders are awarded for. The order of wear/order of precedence includes both gallantry awards, and the various orders (and their degrees) that military personnel (and civilians may be awarded). Most of the orders take precedene over decorations, so logically, if you're gonig by that ordering the VC is followed by GC, and then a Knight of the Garter, Kngiht of the THistle, Knight of St Patrick etc, but that doesn't seem a particularly helpful way of looking at the ordering. It seems more helpful to me to look a tthe relevant level of gallantry required for each award, as that is probably more comparable between nations, and seems to be the way the (British) MOD looks at things as demonstrated at http://www.operations.mod.uk/honours/honours.htm David Underdown (talk) 14:23, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Squaring the circle

As I said before, the main problem is the different notions of precedence which are being used. The order of wear is a form of order of precedence, but since the official documents all seem to refer to the term order of wear when talking about medals, we should do the same. In British usage, the idea of the Order of Precedence, normally refers to things such as the Order of precedence in England and Wales which is essentially used to determine how people sit, or how they stand in formal processions, in ceratin very formal circumstances. Thecomplication is that there is a certain overlap between these two ideas, if you are for example made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, you receive the relevant badge and ribbon, and the right to use postnominals. In the case of the Bath you also receive social precedence. However with the VC, whilst its postnominals "outrank" those of KCB, there is no social precedence attached. Then there's also the hierarchy of what different gallantry awards are actually given for, as set out in this British MOD document: http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceFor/Veterans/Medals/HonoursAndGallantryAwards.htm, which groups the available awards into "Levels", 1-4.

Now, we could slavishly follow the order of wear when filling in the infobox, but that doesn't seem terribly useful to me. People are likely to try to use this to get an understanding of the rough equivalence of decorations awarded by different militaries, so we can say the Medal of Honor is roughly equivalent to the VC, the Navy Cross to the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross etc etc, whereas the order of wear "jumbles up" both military and non-military awards, and those for gallantry (whether "in the face of the enemy" or otherwise), with those for operational efficiency (for want of a better description)

This perhaps begs the question of whether we tweak the infobox so it doesn't use the term precedence either. I'm not quite sure what the best alternative would be though. David Underdown (talk) 17:09, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

(VC) Higher award: None (for gallantry). (GC) Higher award: None (for courage). Just a thought, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 22:14, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I like your description of 'social precedence' versus 'order of wear'. I think there are two issues in play:

1. The wording of the VC article, and the slight contradiction in it re VC vs GC, and
2. The use of "Higher" and "Lower" in the infobox.

Re the first, I'll leave that to a discussion on the VC Talk page, as it really only refers to that article (and the GC I guess)

Re the second, I'll start a discussion on the Template talk:Infobox Military Award page

both of which I'll start this afternoon after work today (unless someone else does first!) PalawanOz (talk) 20:31, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you David. Those are exactly the issues I've been trying to highlight, and your response gives me the sort of answer I was looking for. From my point of view, I am now "happy"! Pdfpdf (talk) 22:06, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Palawan: Yes, I like that description too, and thanks for suggesting a way ahead. Pdfpdf (talk) 22:06, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

The A-Class review for Frank Hubert McNamara is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Nick-D (talk) 10:16, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

The peer review for Battle of Mobile Bay is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 19:37, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

An interesting discovery has turned up. Restoration on a photograph of the Wounded Knee Massacre aftermath has revealed four human bodies in the foreground, previously misidentified as debris due to low contrast in the original image. This might be a significant discovery: the event is an important one in Native American history and a limited number of photographs exist of the scene. Bibliographic notes date this three weeks after the event, which might make this evidence of a significant delay in burial. We don't endeavor to do original research here, so requesting assistance of fellow MILHIST volunteers to make contact with scholars or other published authors in the field. Durova^Charge! 23:53, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi guys, I'm new to Military History. I live in Brookings and have a particular fascination with the Lookout Air Raid, which none of you have probably heard of before. Anyway, I'm rewriting the article and am looking for articles on the I-25 submarine or the E14Y floatplane which may mention the lookout air raid. I found this particular website with a nice article, here, and was wondering if anybody could confirm its relability. Thanks, -- Noj r (talk) 09:18, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

• The Wikipedia articles I think you're looking for are Japanese submarine I-25 and Yokosuka E14Y. I don't know about any external articles that would be of use to you, sorry. I find that general books on military history for the nation and period (in this case the United States or Japan during World War II) are good starting points, and can often lead to more specific works to consult. -- saberwyn 11:12, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Try Google Books on the "limited and full preview only" search parameter for possible references. As to the site, I am almost sure that it is reliable (they look like they are a publisher of some magazines), but put in a query at WP:RS/N to be sure. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 15:44, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you both for your help : ) -- Noj r (talk) 17:18, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Check this page out for more info on I-25. That site is considered to be a reliable source. Cla68 (talk) 23:48, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your help Cla68, that site was very useful. -- Noj r (talk) 01:59, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

A discussion is currently going on at talk:Yom Kippur War#Battle of Baltim. It concerns use of sources, and the article is currently an FA within the scope of this project. Input from members of this project would be welcome. Thanks, Nudve (talk) 15:03, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

The peer review for Timeline for aircraft carrier service is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Nick-D (talk) 01:19, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

It has always bothered me that generals are not automatically notable and that there is no list of British generals, American generals, etc. But we have boxers who were knocked out of the olympics in round 1, porn stars, football players, pokemon characters etc. Very odd. Kittybrewster ☎ 13:53, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure that even Field Marshals are automatically notable Kernel Saunters (talk) 15:09, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

the List of British Field Marshals runs to 139 entries. These were the top of the list: having been generals on the way up. Category:British Generals has about 600 entries with about another 270 in the subcats of WWI and WWII generals. this would give a List page of nearly 1,000 entries: something that categories handle better.GraemeLeggett (talk) 16:46, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Though with categories you can only see the people for whom an article has already been written, there's no easy way of seeing "mising" articles. The list could always be split-up alphabetically or by era. I know the University of Birmingham Centre for WWI studies is trying to establish a list of all British WWI generals (including Brigadier-Generals, I think there's been some discussion here of starting notability at two-star rank, also including those who only held acting rank, they've reached 1257 for the Western Front alone). David Underdown (talk) 17:05, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

With reference to List of British Field Marshals, an IP has added no. 97 as follows [3] seems like a hoax to me, can someone verify please...? Kernel Saunters (talk) 17:13, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I thought that generals are considered to be automatically notable. It's worth noting that notability is dependent on the availability of in-depth reliable sources, not importance pe-se. Nick-D (talk) 01:17, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

While I can't recall seeing this written down anywhere, consensus as far as I've known in the Australian Military Task Force is that 2-stars and above (Major General, Air Vice Marshal, Rear Admiral) are automatically notable. That said, there are plenty of those who don't have articles because they're not particularly notable for anything else and there's little published info about them. Also, while making 2-stars automatically notable when they belong to relatively small services like the Australian Army, RAAF and RAN is one thing, it may be too broad a criterion for bigger forces like those of the US or Britain. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:25, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

True. List of Australian generals and brigadiers is a large article as it is! Nick-D (talk) 02:00, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I think they are notable, providing we have at least a stats database about them and know they exist. One of the things with the Olympics is the wildcard system, which means that most of the athletes from the 3rd world countries are equivalent to school-level competition. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 00:38, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Hey, someone has vandalized the Operation Varsity article and then AnomieBot has come along and tried to fix it, but I don't know how to roll it all the way back to the last unvandalised edit, which is the last one made on 2 February, I think. Can anyone help revert the vandalism? Skinny87 (talk) 08:58, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I tried to restore your last revision. I think it worked. -- Nudve (talk) 09:06, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Done. All you need to do is use the 'history' tab to load the last good version (which will load with a banner at the top saying that it's not the current version) and then edit and save it to over-write subsequent edits. Nick-D (talk) 09:08, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Cheers everyone. I was going to do that, but wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do. At least I know for next time! Skinny87 (talk) 09:09, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

A discussion has been started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Assessment#Time for A-Class Requirement Amendments? regarding whether the requirements for A-Class should be modified; please stop by and comment! Kirill ^[pf] 12:46, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

The A-Class review for Keith Miller is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill ^[pf] 13:00, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

It would be be great if someone with knowledge of the Malmedy massacre could stop by the talk page for the actor Charles Durning, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Charles_Durning#Malmedy_survivor.3F. Durning is a decorated Normandy veteran, and the question is whether the sourcing supports his being mentioned as a survivor of the Malmedy massacre. His name has only emerged in recent years, most recently when he was decorated by the French government. The discussion has delved somewhat deeply into the background of the massacre, and an editor with expertise in that would be welcome in the discussion, given that this is a living person and so forth. Thanks, Stetsonharry (talk) 20:47, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

There is an AfD Discussion for SDK Carbine currently ongoing and I'd appreciate the input of some knowledgeable MILHIST project members if possible; the consensus is currently leaning towards "Keep" for an appallingly written article with no reliable references and no reliable print or web information available. One or two of the editors vaguely recall hearing about the gun years ago, but hasn't been able to dig up any information beyond that. I'm not doubting that he did see an article on the gun in a magazine in the 1960s, but I'm staggered that (given the near-obsession with WWII Germany in some Military History circles these days) that no-one else has written an article on the gun, mentioned it on the Hitler History Channel, acknowledged it in a reference book, or generated discussion on the Major/Respected/Well-known Military Surplus Rifle Shooting forums on it since then... Commander Zulu (talk) 01:38, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

In the course of a CFD re Category:Countries invaded by the United States, the discussion has turned to the larger issue of invasions in general -- whether it's possible to designate something as an "invasion" and whether it's an inherently POV term. Please join the discussion and offer your perspective on this issue. Thanks. Cgingold (talk) 02:55, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

For the context of why I am asking, see Talk:330th Bombardment Group#Deleted stuff. Thanks everyone, —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 22:21, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I do not believe that there is, so I would suggest something like this: <ref name="Order1">info quoted directly from order</ref> TARTARUS ^talk 02:21, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The A-Class review for Battle of Sio is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Woody (talk) 21:54, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

It's always a bit special to find and restore a digitized manuscript map of military history. This one is the oldest yet: Fort Ticonderoga from the French and Indian War. Includes detailed plans for the British assault on the French defenses. Currently at featured picture candidates as Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Battle of Ticonderoga attack plan, 1759; input welcomed. Durova^Charge! 23:15, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

The A-Class review for SM U-68 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Nick-D (talk) 04:15, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The A-Class review for List of Australian George Cross recipients is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Nick-D (talk) 04:15, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

...here. Thanks and cheers, —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 21:31, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The peer review for Battle of Triangle Hill is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill ^[pf] 00:41, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

After a straw poll on the matter I have initiated the FT nom for the Iowa-class battleships. Since this project stands to gain a featured topic if this nom passes I am leaving this message here to inform you of the nom's opening and to offer anyone interested a chance to chip on the matter. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:34, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

The A-Class review for Clare Stevenson is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Nick-D (talk) 09:51, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

The featured article candidacy for M249 squad automatic weapon is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks!--Patton^t/c 15:19, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we could have the Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Members/Active and Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Members/Inactive bot updated? I have a feeling that the current system, relying on declarations, leads to many inaccuracies. Btw, I'd also suggest integrating list of taskforce members into the main list: I am a long term member of the Polish Taskforce, but I was just invited to join the project as apparently my name did not appear in the "main" list :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:27, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

The active/inactive lists are already updated by script; we just haven't run it recently. I expect it'll be updated around the same time as your second request (for which I'm also developing a script). :-) Kirill ^[pf] 23:30, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Nine CIA attribution templates have been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. --Eastlaw ^talk ⁄ _contribs 22:34, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

SR-71 Blackbird has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Articles are typically reviewed for one week. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. -MBK₀₀₄ 22:47, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

This article describes itself as a disambig. While it is a poor, confusing disambig in its current state, I'd rather think it is a core subject for military history project (yet it is not even tagged by the project on talk). I'd highly recommend this article for some expert MILHIST eyes.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 02:28, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

The articles Yamato-class battleship, Japanese battleship Yamato, Japanese battleship Musashi, and Japanese aircraft carrier Shinano are under consideration for Good Topic status. Interested editors may comment on the topic's entry at the Good Topic nominations page. — Bellhalla (talk) 05:31, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm attempting to write up Operation Dragoon as it's in quite a sad state. I have enough info on the landings and the subsequent operations, but little on the arguments leading up to it. I have the two books specifically written about it on the way via post, but they won't be here for a while due to the weather. And my other books that mention the planning/background aren't exactly paragons of reliability, such as Flanagan (awful, awful historian) or Eisenhower (might be biased) and so forth. Does anyone know of any books that might help me out? I have Breuer's Operation Dragoon and Champagne Campaign by whoever, but stuff on the infighting would be appreciated. Skinny87 (talk) 19:15, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I found this book in my library to be extremely helpful when I was writing the Dragoon section for USS Nevada (BB-36): Karig, Commander Walter; Burton, Lieutenant Earl; Freeland, Lieutenant Stephen L. (1946). Battle Report (Volume 2); The Atlantic War. New York/Toronto: Farrar and Rinehart, Inc.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 20:21, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think I found that one in my uni library, thanks ed. Did you happen to find anything on the planning of the operation? I really need something discussing the evolution of Dragoon from its Anvil days. Skinny87 (talk) 21:09, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

No, sorry...I didn't really look for that book. I kind of accidentally found it and opened it to find the Nevada was in the index...I got lucky. My advice is to go into your university library and start looking through general histories of WWII or a general history of the Atlantic part of the war. I don't really know if this approach will work for you, but it did for Nevada lol...all I did for D-Day, Dragoon and Okinawa was to look for the general histories' index to see if they mentioned Nevada in the index because none of the histories that were directly about the ship went in-depth on those events. It'll be harder for you, as you won't be able to just look in the index, but...hopefully you'll find something. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 22:04, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Most libraries have the Time-Life 39-volume set on World War II and I assume that the volume that covers that time period of the European front would cover the background ok. Also, Samuel Eliot Morison's The invasion of France and Germany, 1944-1945 (History of United States naval operations in World War II) might also provide some background as well. Cla68 (talk) 02:37, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Jeffrey Clarke's Riviera to the Rhine Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:52, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi, all. I got a long paper to write this semester concerning Roman Soldiers, which is to cover issues like enlistment, training, religion, retirement and pension, and so forth in that manner. Since I am barred from using online sources (in particular, wikipedia) can anyone suggest a few good books where I may find information on the material? Preferably, it would be nice if the books had first hand accounts and descriptions from those who would have been in or affiliated with the Roman Army back in the day. TomStar810 (Talk) 22:44, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

The Fall of the Roman Empire by Heather, whilst not specifically on the Army, has a lot of stuff on it, including a detailed bibliography. I'd also suggest looking at the Osprey books on the Roman Army; not to cite themselves, but for their bibliographies. The pictures are quite nice to look at as well :) Skinny87 (talk) 22:47, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I doubt that it is first-hand, but J.F.C. Fuller's A History of the Western World may be a decent place to start...(I've never read it, but I've heard that it is very good - apologies if it doesn't cover Romans :)

Also, try Patton. Wasn't he writing a "Roman history during ___ era" in his userspace a (long) time back? ("Polybian" era? somehting like that. Anyway...) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 22:49, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

If you're writing about roman soldiers A companion to the roman army by Paul Erdkamp is what you need. It's a very expensive hardback book though, about €95.--Patton^t/c 23:02, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Adrian Goldsworthy's books on the Roman Army are highly regarded, and cover all the topics you need to cover. Nick-D (talk) 23:07, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, ethical question. You're barred from using online sources, does asking the question explicitly circumvent that or could you have looked at the relevant article and gone to the hard copy sources used in them?

;)

ALR (talk) 23:22, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

You can ask User talk:EraNavigator. He produced several A-class articles on the Roman military such as Late Roman army that contains valuable sources. Wandalstouring (talk) 16:33, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks, all. This will be of great assistance when I get started on my paper tomorrow. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:53, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi everyone. I just wanted to note that a number of articles within the scope of Milhist up at Featured Article Candidacy at the moment, and several have garnered very little feedback making consensis difficult to judge. If anyone has a few spare minutes, it would be much appreciated if you would be able to review—no matter how big or small a review—any of the articles. The links/articles are:

USS Connecticut (BB-18), Edmund Herring, John Whittle, Heinrich Bär, Murray Maxwell, William Bostock, Dreadnought, United States Military Academy, SS Kroonland.

Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 00:10, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

As it currently stands, there is a backlog of 55 articles up at FAC, 14 of which are in the scope of Milhist. This is quite a large backlog and reviewers are in serious need. As such, I wish to propose an offer: I will award a barnstar to any editor who gives a through and comprehensive review to any three Milhist FACs under the criteria between now and the end of the month (28 February 2009). If you believe you qualify, please leave a note on my talk page with the three articles you have reviewed. The 14 Milhist articles up at FAC are as follows:

Juan Davis Bradburn, William Henry Harrison, SMS Moltke (1910), M249 squad automatic weapon, USS Connecticut (BB-18), Edmund Herring, John Whittle, Heinrich Bär, Murray Maxwell, William Bostock, Dreadnought, United States Military Academy and SS Kroonland.

Happy reviewing! Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 10:42, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

There is a low level edit war in the Siege of Leningrad article. I would really appreciate if you could comment the edits and provide some expert view to the article. It seems that I've passed any possibility to reach agreement alone with those anonymous editors. --Whiskey (talk) 23:58, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

No problem. Cam ^(Chat) 02:01, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Urg, what a mess. I've watchlisted the article, and if it helps I have the large hardback edition of David Glantz's book on the siege. That's the first time I've seen someone arguing that Wikipedia should always be consistent with Encyclopedia Britannica though (the normal argument is that EB has been made obsolete and is now irrelevant), so at least it has novelty value. Nick-D (talk) 10:41, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I can't help but note that those 'different' IP editors seem to have the exact same writing style on the talk page and are pushing the exact same agenda. The IP ranges seem to be too great for them to be a single editor with a dynamic IP, so this could be deliberate. Nick-D (talk) 10:43, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi all, amongst the various historic photos that I semi-regularly upload, there's this collection which may have some interesting images for those interested in Australia's involvement in military aircraft construction / maintenance etc. I took a cursory glance at figuring out which articles these images might be a good fit for, and found it difficult to find anything about an 'A 16-10' which is referred to in the title of the image above, so I thought I'd come here for advice - there's quite a few other images of various military planes, so do please feel free to either make additions, or recommendations for good homes.... If you could drop a note in here too, it would be appreciated, because I'd like to try and make sure each article gets one of those 'commons category' links, if possible... many thanks, Privatemusings (talk) 04:54, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Is that like a special version of a really old dive-bomber? I know that the Dauntless was A-24 "something" and the Helldiver was the A-24 "something", so... :/ I really have no idea though - my specialty is ships. ;) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 04:58, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I may not be off by too much (maybe). I went Googling and found the Northrop A-17...but "A-16 bomber" brings up nothing but that museum. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 05:01, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

amazingly quick response! thanks heaps! - I may try and see if I can ask the museum if the caption is just copied directly from their source, or if their curator has any opinion / expertise on the matter - things like this sometimes niggle at me after I've noticed them, so I'll try and track down an answer! A propos nothing however, I must just point out the picture here - the pilot / subject's expression is priceless! :-) cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 05:09, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

(e/c) Could it be the Martin Model 146? It lost to the B-17 Flying Fortress and it can't be the "A-15" (Martin B-10, incidentally from which the Model 146 was designed) or the "A-18" (A-18 Shrike)... taking a shot in the dark here. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 05:11, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Something is probably up with the caption - if that is indeed a Lockheed, our List of Lockheed aircraft says that model number 16 was an "unbuilt derivative of Model 10", while List_of_military_aircraft_of_the_United_States#Attack.2C_1924-1948 says that A-16 was used as "XA-16" before "YA-13" was used (Northrop YA-13), which is not your plane (look at where the propeller is). —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 05:17, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

hmmm.. the fact that the 16 was a derivative of 10 makes me wonder if it remained 'unbuilt', given the A16-10 connection.. could be a coincidence though, and this could be a mistake... is it perhaps possible this plane was built in Australia to a Lockheed design - perhaps one that they themselves never actually used?.... I'll dig around too to try and find an answer... Privatemusings (talk) 05:29, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

The RAAF assigned all of its Lockheed Hudsons serial numbers starting with 'A16', so A16-10 was nothing but the 10th Hudson to enter RAAF service. According to the ever-useful ADF-serials website A16-10 landed on its nose at least twice during its career, and this is the result. As the photo was taken in Sydney I'd guess that this was what A16-10 looked like after its crash at RAAF Base Richmond on 31 October 1940. Nick-D (talk) 07:32, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh fine Nick-D...come in here citing some fancy site after all of my Wikipedia'ing and Googling turn up nothing.... ;) Thanks for helping! (For I was totally on the wrong track...) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 14:27, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

The A-Class review for Battle of Triangle Hill is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill ^[pf] 01:47, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

In light of the comments being made above regarding the need for an improved project page, I've taken a stab at creating a prototype of a tabbed layout:

Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/New page design

The design has the benefit of reducing the length of the project page, and adding to ease of navigation, but may be too complex for first-time visitors.

Any comments, either general or specific, would be appreciated. In particular, is a tabbed layout a good approach, or would people prefer something different as a base? Are there too many tabs? Too few? Should other items (e.g. the style guide, some or all departments, etc.) be added as tabs? What other features would people like to see? Kirill ^[pf] 01:48, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

A more conservative option is reducing the page length but keeping a standard layout:

Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/New page design 2

This design trims the page by moving the lengthy award & showcase listings to subpages, while leaving a familiar navigation structure for visitors. It can be further enhanced by a banner graphic, such as the one used by WP:AVIATION.

Do people prefer something radically different from the current model (despite the confusion it may cause in visitors), or something improved but essentially constructed around the same base layout? Kirill ^[pf] 02:44, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Or perhaps combine the two approaches:

Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/New page design 3

This retains more of the material on the main page, and keeps it in a standard layout, but adds tabs as well. It can't be used all that neatly with a top graphic, however.

Thoughts? Kirill ^[pf] 03:13, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for taking so long to reply. I like the first one by far, though IMHO the tabs should be reorganized with the task forces over on the right and the showcase towards the center - we want to show off our good stuff as much as we can, and not many will be interested in the task forces. My thought is that someone coming to visit randomly will be interested in our positive stuff (i.e. Showcase, newsletter) more than a list of task forces.

Also, should we consider splitting out the A-class reviews from WP:MHR to a separate page and link it in the header? More exposure and will shorten the MHR page...just throwing out ideas, trying to spawn (a) better idea(s) here. :) Cheers, —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 04:50, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, how about Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/New page design 4 (essentially a cleaned-up version of #1 with the header styling from #3)? The "Departments" section should probably be merged into "Structure", but I'm not quite sure how to do that neatly.

As far as splitting out ACR is concerned, my experience suggests that dividing a review will result in less exposure, not more; that's why we combined the (originally separate) ACR and PR pages into a single review page. Kirill ^[pf] 05:21, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I like 4 then, and feel free to revert my edit to the tab header - now seeing it, 'showcase' is more visible (readable? what word to use...) on tab #2, and IMO, the showcase is one of the things we want a visitor to look through. Am I wrong in this opinion? (I.e. should I stop pushing a minority viewpoint? ;)

(@ ACR) Ah. I wasn't around then! ;) Never mind me... —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 08:29, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I like #4, that's awesome! Too bad I lack the skill to build something like that, but all in all I'd say it gets the point across. Well Done :) TomStar81 (Talk) 08:31, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I like #3 and #4 the best, but I think they somewhat lack any visually appealing elements; in their present state they look to formal and business/office-like. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 08:36, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

At the risk of sounding halfway snobbish (this is not meant as such...), formal is better than silly, laughable or childish... —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 09:04, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

True, but what I was suggesting was only a minor visually appealing element that would enhance the project page and entice editors, as opposed to comming off way to formal and strict. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 09:27, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm with Tom, 4 is excellent; compact, to-the-point and not overwhelmed with too much information. Per Bryce, perhaps we could tweak the colours of the header backgrounds a little to provide a bit of visual variety? EyeSerene^talk 09:50, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

If it comes to a vote number 4 would be my choice Jim Sweeney (talk) 10:08, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I also think #4 is the way to go. I also agree that the page could use some graphics to make it more attractive. For example, Wikipe-tan could be place near the welcome section, and icons of various medals or chevrons could be places at the sides of section headers. Also, we might want to consider advertising The Bugle newsletter. -- Nudve (talk) 10:54, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not wild about Wikipe-tan, just a tad too locker room for my taste. I have though asked Bellhalla to make a graphic like this:

_WikiProject

Military history

in the same style/typeface as the "Bugle", to use as a possible project masthead. He says he's on the case and it should be ready, on his talk page, shortly. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 15:30, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Alright. I'm not "married" to that image, and I'm sure Bellhalla can come up with something better. I was just saying that some graphics could make the page look more inviting. The thing about the newsletter is that it shows the activeness and seriousness of the project. Not all WikiProjects have it. -- Nudve (talk) 15:43, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Sure. Let's see what Bellhalla comes up with ... --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 22:54, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I've tried adding that image at the top; is that better or worse than before?

The newsletter is already present at the "News" tab; I'm not sure if there's any benefit to adding more prominent links to it. (The stand-alone outreach department will probably become redundant under this new structure, incidentally.) Kirill ^[pf] 15:17, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Very good work here, by the way :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 22:55, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Header

I think this version of the project header is better than the current brown lettered image. It's bassed on the aviation header. What do you guys think?--Patton^t/c 22:28, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it's just me, but the gray text on a blue background is fairly unreadable. Kirill ^[pf] 23:29, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

It's harder for me to read as well, especially since the letters overlap, and aren't outlined. It would be better if the colors contrasted more. I do like that the current version matches the header for the Bugle. Parsecboy (talk) 23:35, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Spacing

I'm not sure if this is limited to my higher resultion laptop, but #4 now seems to have a somewhat unappealing gap between the milhist navigation template and the section on style headings. Its not a major hickup or anything, but it would be nice to see something added to the section (or alternatively, to confirm that this is just on the higher moniter settings). TomStar81 (Talk) 18:54, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

That's pretty much unavoidable, since the navigation template is effectively fixed-width regardless of overall resolution. We've been trying to get some sort of clever wrapping in place to reduce that spacing, but no luck so far. Kirill ^[pf] 01:44, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Part of it may be the location of the banner at the top of the page in relation to the navigation template: the current version has the template placed higher than this version, the latter of which helps to ease the empty space issue. In any event though, this does confirm to my satisfaction that the problem is higher moniter settings. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:52, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Voting

Choices are:

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/New page design
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/New page design 2
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/New page design 3
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/New page design 4

Support for New page design

Support for New page design 2

Support for New page design 3

Support for New page design 4

1. Support #4--Patton^t/c 13:00, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
2. Support #4 --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 01:58, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
3. Support #4 Wandalstouring (talk) 17:23, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
4. Support #4 Parsecboy (talk) 17:47, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
5. Support #4 Cam ^(Chat) 20:41, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
6. Support #4 Abraham, B.S. (talk) 22:05, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
7. Support in principle, though would prefer a more appropriate image ;) EyeSerene^talk 08:25, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
8. Support Sweet. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:26, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
9. Support. Buckshot06(prof) 11:37, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
10. Support bahamut0013^words_deeds 13:32, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
11. Support Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 15:18, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
12. Support FOR 4 Jim Sweeney (talk) 18:39, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
13. Support --Rosiestep (talk) 19:05, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
14. Support, but the gold-coloured "Wikiproject Military History" font bothers me for some reason I can't quite put my finger on. Commander Zulu (talk) 12:42, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
15. Support - so much tidier and the tabs are a great and very helpful idea. Nice job. Re: the font, I'm more bothered by the fact that some i's are dotted and some aren't ;-) sassf (talk) 16:08, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
16. Support - Very nice, neat; however, the administator list needs to be edited, it flys right of the screen (well, almost). Resident Mario (talk) 21:54, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
17. Support - Well organized. Navigation tabs need to be added to the top of the AWARDS page. - Canglesea (talk) 14:57, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
18. Support - Nice, clean layout. — Bellhalla (talk) 15:40, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I think MILHIST is eligible for a Wikiproject triple crown, am I right? Chamal ^talk 03:48, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm farily sure we are, though are you sure we have enough editors witht he grular triple crown?--Patton^t/c 15:20, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

There's Belhalla, Piotrus, TomStar81, Kyriakos, Chris.B and Halibutt who are Triple Crowners and have contributed to military history articles. Piotrus is not listed here as a member, nor is Chris.B. If either of these guys signs on to the project, we become qualified for Wikiproject Triple Crown. I just invited Piotrus to join. Binksternet (talk) 17:07, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

See my Comment below :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:29, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Off the top of my head, I know Tomstar, Ed, and Belhalla qualify, and I'm still hanging out on the nomination page (hint, hint, Durova). So we would just need 1 more, and I'm sure there are many more than that. Parsecboy (talk) 17:08, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

We qualify now that Piotrus signed on. :) Binksternet (talk) 19:38, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

If my current FAC passes that's one more :-)--Patton^t/c 20:06, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

←The_ed17 doesn't qualify, his GA isn't MILHIST. The list of current and pending that qualify: TomStar81; Abraham, B.S.; Kyriakos; Piotrus; Bellhalla; and Parsecboy, Mzajac, and the_ed17 is pending. -MBK₀₀₄ 20:07, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Ed will qualify if he resubmits with his newer articles. I'll poke him about it. -MBK₀₀₄ 20:09, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Heh. I'm off to work literally at this second, but if anyone who wants to do it, feel free to nom me with Alaska-class cruiser for FA, Amagi-class battlecruiser for GA (BTW: thanks for the help with that, Parsec :)) and 12"/50 caliber Mark 8 gun for my DYK. (Is that all you need? Sorry if you need more...never nommed anyone there before) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 20:39, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I'll take care of it, along with Tom's upgrade I just poked him for (unless he gets to it first). -MBK₀₀₄ 20:43, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Just nominated myself for the Triple C. —Michael Z. 2009-02-09 20:38 z

I'm not sure if that qualifies since the DYK isn't MILHIST for this. -MBK₀₀₄ 20:43, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Just realized that and updated the nom. —Michael Z. 2009-02-09 20:47 z

By April I might be at the point where I can get Portal:War of 1812 to Featured status, thus earning triple crown for MILHIST. ( I qualify for three triple crowns, but none of my featured portals are MILHIST).--King Bedford I ^{Seek his grace} 20:51, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Just got my crowns, all three in Milhist. —Michael Z. 2009-02-12 14:47 z

Okay I take the hint. ;) Durova^Charge! 21:25, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I believe I might qualify as well, if that's any help (although my GA/FA credits are assists, not solo efforts) :P EyeSerene^talk 09:52, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I think Ian Rose and Nick-D would also qualify. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 04:47, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

If you think so, either poke them to nom themselves or do it for them. The more the merrier, maybe we can have the most qualifying editors of the projects earning the WikiProject Crown. WikiProject Australia has 13 and WikiProject The Simpsons only has the minimum 5. -MBK₀₀₄ 06:54, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

After some digging around, I have just nominated Ian for the Imperial Napoleonic Triple Crown and Nick for the Regular Triple Crown. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 08:35, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that! I had thought of nominating myself a while ago, but didn't get around to it. Nick-D (talk) 10:48, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

If it helps, I think I'm entitled to a triple crown too: for Battle of Arras (1917) (GA & FA) and Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad (DYK). I never applied though cos it seemed a bit complicated. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 07:18, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Lol. If you can provide me with the date for the DYK, I can set the nom up for you. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 08:35, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

4 April 2008. Thanks! --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 08:48, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Done. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 10:37, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I just realised that Woody would be eligible, so I'll go and set up a nom for him now. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 08:49, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I've got an FA (Webley Revolver), an A-class (Enfield Revolver), and 5 DYKs; that's got to be worth something, right? Commander Zulu (talk) 09:17, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

If you have a GA or an article that was a GA and has since been promoted further on top of them, then it does. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 09:27, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Enfield Revolver qualifies, in that case. It was GA and then A-class, from what I can tell. Commander Zulu (talk) 09:33, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

If you were the one who brought it up to GA status, then go ahead an nom yourself. :) Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 10:25, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

It just struck me that MisterBee1966 and Catalan would be eligible too. I have just nominated MisterBee1966 for the Imperial triple crown jewels, but could someone set the nom up for Catalan as I am about to go to bed? I think he would be eligible for the Imperial Napoleonic Triple Crown. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 11:41, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I've just made it easy to track who is qualified and pending: User:MBK004/Sandbox/MILHIST#WikiProject_Triple_Crown_Eligibility. -MBK₀₀₄ 22:16, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I'll set-up Catalan in about an hour and a half if someone doesn't beat me to it. -MBK₀₀₄ 23:15, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Took longer than expected, but Catalan's nom is now active. -MBK₀₀₄ 06:23, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

There's a discussion about moving equestrian order to equites. Please drop by and make sure the name is chosen according to WP:Naming. Thanks a lot. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:05, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Relevant links: Move request and Amended move request — Bellhalla (talk) 15:29, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

The peer review for USS New Jersey (BB-62) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! TomStar81 (Talk) 00:01, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

As a former redleg, I'd been meaning to write an article on Killer Junior, and found just the right source online: http://www.history.army.mil/books/Vietnam/FA54-73/fm.htm . FIELD ARTILLERY, 1954-1973 by Major General David Ewing Ott. Managed to write my article, and add some references to Beehive as well. Definitely a neat resource if you want to cover artillery of the period. I plan to mine it later to do a short article on Riverine artillery batteries, a really fascinating development during the war. Hope others may find this helpful. Quick question: since the pics in that book were taken by military members/gov't employees during service, are they public domain or otherwise wiki-usable? MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:09, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, works by the US government/military are wikiuseable as public domain. Wandalstouring (talk) 17:04, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Cool, I just started Riverine artillery and added two Vietnam pics. I think it's a neat topic that really doesn't get much coverage. MatthewVanitas (talk) 18:12, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

The A-Class review for Joe Hewitt (RAAF officer) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Ian Rose (talk) 14:15, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

The A-Class review for Manifesto of the Sixteen is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Ian Rose (talk) 14:26, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

The A-Class review for Russian–Circassian War is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Ian Rose (talk) 14:28, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

The A-Class review for Powder Alarm is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Magic♪piano 15:16, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

The nomination for this featured picture candidate has been open for seven days and is due to close soon. Currently at 3 supports and 0 opposes, the candidacy is in danger of failing because it hasn't received enough reviews. Please weigh in with your opinion, yea or nay. Durova^Charge! 17:51, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I am nearly finished with a restoration of File:Forces_returning.jpg. I will be nominating it for featured status, and would love to have a translation. I would be willing to share featured credit with the translator. Thanks, — Jake Wartenberg 19:52, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

To clarify, Jake is doing a restoration on a Japanese woodcut about the Russo-Japanese War. It's an excellent high resolution file and should make a strong featured candidate. Looking for translation of the Japanese text. Durova^Charge! 20:41, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Restoration is done, on the left. — Jake Wartenberg 20:56, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Translation needed. Anyone have referrals? Durova^Charge! 22:25, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I think contacting Cla68 would be your best bet. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 02:45, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

The idea is to have a workshop/brainstorm about ways we could improve the project? This is totally free-form and anything goes, so let's get the show going. please reply to as much as you can and add new questions to the other numbered sections below.--ROGER DAVIES ^talk 23:00, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

What would you change?

What do you really hate about Milhist? Really love? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 23:00, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

• Given the rise of custom userspaces and by extension custom projectspaces, I would like to see our mainpage redesigned in such a way as to wow people when the arrive here. For example, our main project pages dulls somewhat next to WP:AGRICULTURE and WP:AVIATION, and although we need not nessicarily follow exactly in their footsteps we could take some time to invest in our project space; with all the other overhauls going on with regards to awards, assessments, and the newsletter looking into this couldn't hurt. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:23, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd be willing to help out with this. Tell me if you want me to. ṜedMarkViolinist^{Drop me a line} 19:41, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the project mainpage needs improvement. It's too long, and it's missing eye-catching sections/headers. Here's an example of a snappy one: WP:WikiProject Vital Articles. Rosiestep (talk) 19:20, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Some preliminary ideas would be creating a mainpage that reflects military-like colors, for example black and gold. We could also borrow a little from Phaedriel's user page adn create an awards section that changes to relfect those who have won awards on a day to day basis. For the task force section, we could add links to those task forces that have associated portals so as to link directly to them. Those are preliminary ideas, for more input we could open a discussion on the project talk page to gain greater input on this. TomStar81 (Talk) 20:36, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Ask, and ye shall receive: #New project page design. :-) Kirill ^[pf] 01:49, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

• I really like the review process - it works well, and is a great way to get extra eyes on articles. Nick-D (talk) 06:32, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
• I would break up this layout into small chapter that can be edited individually without having to search in the whole panoply of answers for the right question. Wandalstouring (talk) 09:13, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
• I may take more than one pass at this thing but the first good point that springs to mind is the review process, namely the assessment page for anything up and including B-Class review by one peer, and then the Peer and A-Class Reviews at the project level. It's pretty smooth and, while obviously there can be backlogs, it's generally a lot quicker than GA. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:48, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
• And I would love a bootcamp for our new and not-so-new editors to find around better their way within this organization. The issue has been raised in the past that the amount of structure this project has seems overwhelming and confusing. I suggest to add a link to this very bootcamp in our very nice welcome letter. Wandalstouring (talk) 16:49, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Something like User:Proteins/Practical Wikipedia tutorial? —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 20:28, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
    • Absolutely, we could ask him and copy some useful parts. Wandalstouring (talk) 08:19, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Aah! Wandalstouring beat me to it! I think that's an excellent idea, along with recruiting newbies. Also providing recruiting, training, and general hand-holding among more established editors for tasks that we need to direct more attention to, such as A-class reviews and such. --Ejosse1 (talk) 16:19, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
    • I'm up for some A-class reviewer tuition (or will be in a month or so, when life stops shouting at me). The few times I've wandered in to a review other than my own, I've not known what to comment on and feel like a blundering fool. -- saberwyn 22:20, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
• I think creating various 'how to' guides as suggested above is an excellent idea; reviewing, article writing, A/GA/FA preparation etc. There are already some starting points on WP:MILESSAY, so it may not be too much additional work to produce such things.

On a related subject and also per the above comments, might it be useful to maintain a list of experienced Milhist reviewers that are willing to be contacted on their talk pages to advise newbie article reviewers (similar to the highly informal GA reviewer mentoring system)? EyeSerene^talk 09:12, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Personally, when it comes to improving article quality, I feel I've got far more out of reading A- and FA-Class articles than reading guides; similarly I think good training in reviewing is reading reviews before you start participating. However I like Ejossel's and EyeSerene's suggestions of hand-holding or maintaining a list of experienced editors who'd be willing to be contacted re. mentoring newbies, either in writing or reviewing articles - you can put me on it... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:12, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• It's good that the project currently has seven featured picture and sound nominations, but it's worrisome that all of them have the same nominator. What would this project do in terms of media content if I got hit by a bus? It would be nice if fellow MILHIST volunteers reviewed these nominations more often, and even better if more people learned restoration. Durova^Charge! 20:20, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

The Disambiguation Pages need to be converted into Categories 1st Division (military) is a good example. I'd be willing to do it if we all agree.-SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) (talk) 13:41, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

That is an excellent example. And yes, it looks as if badly needs doing. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 15:51, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

There should be a compact for for The Bugle, like the Wikipedia signpost. Just a sugggestion, though. Resident Mario (talk) 20:13, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators

Do they do a good job? Or a bad job? Is their role clear enough? Are they helpful enough? Should elections be held every six months or every twelve months? What other roles should they take on? What roles shouldn't they do? Should they be paid? If so, how much? (Only joking.) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 23:00, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

• In all honesty, I have no idea what the co-ordinators are actually doing; Kirill and Roger's names seems to be the only ones who pop up regularly on my radar.Commander Zulu (talk) 01:38, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• I'm some what in agreement with Commander Zulu here. While several of the Co-ordinators appear to be doing as much as they can, including a lot of behind the scenes work, there are a couple who don't appear to do very much and one or two who appear, in my opinion, to do nothing at all. That said, most of the Co-ordinators are very helpful and try to assist in any way they can, and the project does run pretty smoothly. I think the six-month elections work best in these circumstances; twelve month elections would just be too long. Abraham, B.S. (talk) 04:24, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• I see co-ordinators performing admin chores, as well as helping out on issues. I don't find them overly intrusive, and I wouldn't want them to be. In general I think they do a decent job. Re. the 12-month vs. 6-month period, I have no prob with the former, time flys when you're having fun and the elections do seem to come round quite quickly. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:48, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• As far as I can tell, I'm satisfied with their performance. Though the main thing I see them do is post and close reviews, this seems to always be done promptly, and they always seem to appear whenever else they are needed. I am very much opposed to switching to twelve month elections, which would lower accountability and make it harder to replace inactive coords. – Joe Nutter 22:01, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Elected officials can be impeached before their term is up... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:12, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• True, but wouldn't it be easier to just have an election? It'd be simpler than having to first of all come up with an impeachment process, and then carrying it out, while embarrassing the person and creating a scene. – Joe Nutter 14:59, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• There are methods more in keeping with the nature of the project... EyeSerene^talk 17:03, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• Where would one comment on the actions of individual coordinators which seem to be grossly injust and go against the good aims of the project? And is there a system for de-coordinating coordinators? Skinny87 (talk) 16:30, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

  The place to start would probably be the coordinators' talk page and a consensus among coordinators that someone ought to resign would be probably the route to de-coordinatoring. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 17:57, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• Just to add to Roger's post, there was a discussion on the coordinator's talk page on this topic a few months ago where, if I remember correctly, the general view was that there wasn't a need to devise a way to impeach coordinators as a) coordinators' official duties are relatively limited and there's not much scope to abuse them (the worst that could happen is that A-class reviews could be wrongfully closed) and b) coordinator misbehavior hasn't been a problem in the past (at least in our opinions!). Nick-D (talk) 07:15, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• I think they should be more aggressive in cracking down on troublemakers, not so much by voting in groups, but by getting on the front foot against POV pushers etc in a natural way. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 06:05, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• One of the reasons that I don't volunteer for a coordinator position is because I don't think I could give the position the time and attention it deserves. In my opinion, the coordinators need to dilligently take care of the housework to keep the project administration running smoothly so that the rest of us don't have to worry about it as we spend our few spare moments of free time writing articles. I think most of them are doing a good job of this. Besides housekeeping like closing A-class reviews, responding to questions on the various project talk pages, responding to MILHIST-related issues in the various admin forums (deletion reviews, FAR's, image licensing, etc), the coordinators should try to participate as much as possible in the peer and A-class reviews, which several of them do. Cla68 (talk) 00:06, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Milhist systems

Are the processes too complicated? Is Milhist too bureaucratic? Is the help/documentation adequate? What about feedback here? What ideas can we steal from other projects? What can we adopt from real life? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 23:00, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

• WE steal the FAC preload template for use with the ACR process, this would allow us to automatically include the toolbox in our own FACs. If we are to improve the odds of an A-class article getting through FAC we ought to endevour to incorporate as much from FAC as we can into ACR. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:23, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
• Agreed, Tom, ACR should be pretty much a project-level FAC; the tougher the ACR, the better preperation it is for FAC. As far as stealing from other projects, nothing stands out, I'd say it's more a case of other projects benefitting from stealing some of our stuff. Dare I bring it up here, but C-Class is still one thing I don't think we should bother adopting... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:48, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Can I just say I disagree with this. We should not be looking to continually toughen our standards for A-class reviews, except perhaps in the actual military history content in the article. The Land (talk) 22:48, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• Mmm, I would disagree with that because adopting C-Class would improve organization without making it more difficult to understand. If anything, it would make it easier to understand by easing comparison of ratings with those given by other projects. As for complication, I think a good thing would be a sort of tutorial or introduction, as it took me a while to get used to the way everything worked. Perhaps also more detailed tutorials on A-Class and Peer reviews would help new reviewers with that. – Joe Nutter 22:04, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
• Some of the task force breakdowns seem over-the-top given that no notices/discussion go there except template notices. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 06:15, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• I do have one suggestion. There are many B class military history articles out there (eg. World War I), but are start class articles because they fail the B class review system. I think you should loosen the requirements so more articles can get their right classification. Bernstein2291 (talk) 07:09, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
• I think the Reference Requirements are getting way out of hand for A-class articles. I mean, the Lee-Enfield article (to use an example I'm currently involved with) has something like 90(!) inline citations, 15 Print References, and 12 External Link references. And people are still saying there aren't enough references in the article for A-class! It's ridiculous, IMHO. Commander Zulu (talk) 07:24, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Awards

Do we give out too many? Too few? Do they always go to the same people? What could be changed? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 23:00, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

• Way, way too few awards, and they seem to go to the same people (none of whom are familiar to me), IMHO. I've never received a single award from the Milhist project and I've put in crazy amounts of time an effort on countless military firearms articles (including getting at least one to FA level). I think the Project should be a lot more active in issuing awards- not just our own, but Barnstars in general. Personally, I feel my work with the project is unappreciated and I'm sure there are other editors who feel the same way. Commander Zulu (talk) 01:38, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• I think we do have quite a number of awards and they are regularly awarded. However, there are those quiet achievers who do get "over looked" sometimes. In many of these cases, I believe an award by a single editor who appreciates the said person's work is usually best suited rather then by the project as a whole. The awards we have as a project that are granted by the Co-ordinators are for extended distinguished service with the project (Chevrons with Oak Leaves) or for having written several A-Class articles (A-Class medal), and these may not be appropiate for the circumstances where a barnstar or the Chevrons is best suited. Abraham, B.S. (talk) 04:24, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• Too few. I even noted that in my advice for new coordinators essay. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:23, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• I agree that too few are handed out. I'd like to see a project-specific barnstar for new editors. Nick-D (talk) 06:32, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• All awards systems are at risk of favouritism, ignorance, or almost any other pejoritive. Some users find them more important than others, just as some find the FA-star more important than others, or the number of edits, or some other 'status' symbol. There shouldn't be too much argument re. awards on the basis of black-and-white stats, like number of articles tagged and assessed, or number of A-Class articles, etc. The issue arises for those that have no firm criteria for being awarded, and I not sure there's much to be done about that other than to scrap them - which would make things a bit dull and predictable. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:48, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• My personal feeling is that (as a sweeping generalisation!) too many awards, barnstars etc are given out on WP for very little, rendering them essentially meaningless. Value is increased by scarcity, so I don't have a particular problem with being parsimonious. Having said that, I think a project-specific barnstar would be a great idea, as something that could be awarded by any member to any other just to let them know that their contributions have been noticed and appreciated; as Bryce mentions above, it's a real shame if good contributors go unacknowledged. EyeSerene^talk 21:50, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
• In terms of the official WikiProject ones, a lot of users miss out, like Djwilms (talk · contribs), I already gave him one, although I agree with EyeSerene that there is sometimes an anticorrelation. A lot of my barnstars were for relatively uninmportant things, and definitely, doing stunts is a more efficient way of getting barnstars unfortunately. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 06:08, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• I think there are perhaps too many awards, too infrequently or selectively awarded. We seem to have a paradoxical system where there are an increasing number of systematic awards or competitions, inside this Wikiproject and outside it (e.g. the WikiCup) - but still achieve remarkably arbitrary outcomes. We also seem to very rarely take the importance or significance of an article into consideration. On the whole I think we need to ask: what is the purpose of these awards etc; is it to encourage article improvement, or is it to give people who make a lot of milhist edits feel tehy're important? The Land (talk) 22:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
• We need some form of GA Review medal, to spur people into reviewing GA articles, as it's a rare day when there isn't less than 20 of our GA articles waiting to be reviewed. Skinny87 (talk) 23:42, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Just an aside, I doubt there would be any strong objections from GA to Milhist reviewing its own nominations, as long as we avoid even the appearance of WP:COI and abide by the normal 'uninvolved' caveat for reviewing. I'd encourage Milhist GA reviewers to pick up articles from outside our subject area too ;) EyeSerene^talk 10:00, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
• It was odd to get a project award mainly for one FA and some category sorting, then follow up by contributing about 20% of the project's featured pictures singlehandedly and the majority of its featured sounds before finally tugging on a sleeve or two and asking if perhaps that qualified for another. Definitely leaves one with the impression of working in a neglected backwater. Durova^Charge! 23:39, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

• I think that far too few awards are handed out and these to a restricted closed group of editors only (my perception). I don't want to sound like a cry-baby but too much work goes by unnoticed. Taking my contribution as an example; I have written 5 featured lists and 3 A-class articles in this domain, with over 15,000 edits and 500+ created articles. I can name a number of editors who have contributed substantially as well. MisterBee1966 (talk) 13:41, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Drives

Is it time for another one? If so, what would it be? And when would it happen? Do we want to check B-class articles for compliance? Comb through start-class to tag and assess missed articles? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 23:26, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

• Given that there are plenty of articles up for Peer/A-Class review that are getting almost no feedback, I think we should be focusing on clearing that backlog before we start anymore drives. Commander Zulu (talk) 01:38, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• Maybe in another few months, yes, but at the moment I don't think it is really necessary. Also, I'm in complete agreement with Commander Zulu; it is mainly the same group of editors who comment in these reviews, and it can take quite some time before feedback is given. A way to somehow further encourage editors to participate in reviewing should be implemented, what, exactly, I don't know. Abraham, B.S. (talk) 04:24, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• I agree with the above comments that the current focus should be on Peer/A-Class reviews. If we do have a drive, however, I concur with Sabewyn's comment, below; a task force level drive is in order. I suggest a WWI Tag & Assess drive, which would prepare for the WWI Centenary and reduce the 22K+ articles with incomplete B-Class checklists. - Canglesea (talk) 05:20, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• Don;t forget about images and other oddbits, a drive to find and tag or transfer audio visual medium couldn't hurt. Also, it may be time to consider granting autonomy to the TFs with regards to drives so that those who coordinate for TFs can organize and run the drives locally. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:23, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• Agree the effort allocated to drives should be 'top-down', e.g. push the Peer/A-Class first, and there may be something in Tom's argument above re. giving greater automony to the TFs for things. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:48, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• While I'm only a member of the WWII TF, it seems to me that it is rather inactive, with the majority of new posts on the talk page about ACRs and PRs, so delegating things to it might not be the best idea. A new drive might not be necessary for another couple months, but if it is one I agree that it should focus on incomplete B-Classes. Perhaps also we could have something like a FAR for A-classes, our standards have tightened recently so it might be wise to review all those from before August. – Joe Nutter 22:09, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
  • I think the main reason to delegate tasks to the task forces would be to attempt to make them more active. Part of the problem is that newer members see a talk page that is primarily littered with announcements and think "Nothing to see here, move along". -- saberwyn 22:37, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• I think T&A drives have broad appeal and participation. I'd favor another one, at Task Force level, or B-class review. As for "when?", how about twice a year; starting 2 months after Coordinator Elections; lasting 2 months each? Rosiestep (talk) 23:49, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
• I'm sort of leery of the idea of assessment drives. I personally don't find "drive-by" assessments to be useful. (I review articles for the Composers project; I see bad drive-by assessments from the Biography project all the time.) That said, a proper review of some subset (by task force, by grade, whatever) of articles that actually documents what needs to happen to the article to improve it to the next grade is something I think is useful. The problem is that these sorts of reviews are work to do -- I easily spend 15-20 minutes on one article in my Composer reviews. Magic♪piano 17:26, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• I haven't been very active in Wikipedia the past few months, but it seems to me that we need to have a drive to bring all of your stubs and starts up to B class.--AtTheAbyss (talk) 21:50, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
  • I like that idea. Lets move away from using drives solely to class or reclass articles, and start looking at the articles themselves. We could look at improving articles to drag them up a level, or maybe we could tie this into the upcoming World War I anniversary and have a list of all WWI-related articles to improve up to B-class level if we want a smaller target.
  • However, I can see that such a drive (if we use the current format of a list of several hundred/thousand articles to be attacked in a short period of weeks) could end up nightmaric to set up and run, so another idea would be to do some housekeeping on the articles themselves. Examples of this would be checking articles for link rot, checking infoboxes are correct and filled out correctly (for example, there are over 2,000 ship articles lacking the current infobox, large numbers of which are warships), adding or removing stub and cleanup tags as appropriate, checking citation formatting, etcetera. -- saberwyn 22:37, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
    • I generally agree that drives could be used for article improvement, but the task should be simple like adding an infobox. Wandalstouring (talk) 17:16, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
      • Surely a bot could be configured/programmed to do this? —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 18:08, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
        • I know nothing about what bots can be programmed to do, but I think doing things like confirming that the correct information is in the appropriate field in an infobox, finding a new source if a website 'dies', or leaving comments on what needs to be done to remove the cleanup tag would be beyond all but the most skilled bot programmers. -- saberwyn 02:27, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
          • That's not what I meant lol. I meant something like 'surely a bot could be programmed to convert the remaining old infoboxes to the new templated system?' —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 02:38, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
• (outdent) My apologies, I understand where you are coming from now. Even so, there are a few different versions of (for example) the ship infobox floating around, as well as some ship articles that are just raw code (see Sea Shadow (IX-529) for one). A bot could do the heavy lifting, but I'd be happier if Mark 1 Human Eyeballs were being used to check that everything went right. -- saberwyn 09:08, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
• I think an infobox drive is a good idea (e.g. there are 2,304 mil bio articles missing infoboxes). Rosiestep (talk) 00:10, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
• Another option: a drive to add an inline citation to articles that lack a reference. Rosiestep (talk) 00:11, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Task Forces

Do they help editors write good articles and discuss issues? Should any new task forces be formed? Should any be wound up? Nick-D (talk) 23:30, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

• On the issue of Task Forces, I can see the organisational and administrative use for these: by collecting all editors interested in a certain subset of military history in one easy-to-find place, and ensuring items of interest for these people are brought to their attention. However, while I can accept that they aid others, I do not personally see the task forces (or at least the ones I operate 'with') as major aids in my efforts to improve the encyclopedia.

I'll take this opportunity to admit that I am a bit of a 'lone wolf' editor: whenever I choose to work an artcle or subject up to a high quality level (for example FA), I work on it in my userspace until I'm happy with the quality, plonk it in mainspace, then go through the appropriate grading processes and coordinate changes either on the article's talk page, or on the talk pages of relevant users. The only time I may see the hand of the task force is when the standard "Article is up for Foo-level assessment." message appears on the task force talk page.

On the discussion of issues, I see this working some of the time, but not all of the time. My personal experience is that a raised issue will have three results: (1) the issue is argued to death until someone gives up in sheer frustration, (2) the issue is discussed and a conclusion reached, or (3) the issue is unresponded to and slips quietly into the night.

I don't know how to improve this, but one idea to explore (which ties in with the "Do we have another drive" issue above) is that so far, all major collaborative efforts in the project have been at project level. Maybe the next drive or collaboration or whatever should be split up and run at task force level instead. -- saberwyn 00:14, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Saberwyn and have noticed the same problem. I have to say the Weaponry Task Force are a good bunch, but we do seem to have way too many task forces in the project, especially in the "X Country Military History" category. I mean, New Zealand? Come on. NZ's military history can be merged with Australia to create ANZAC Military History. Having said all that, I think a "Modern Military History" taskforce might be in order.Commander Zulu (talk) 01:38, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• I think the task forces break the 84K+ articles up into manageable chunks. After reviewing the list of articles with no task force coverage, I have two suggestions: 1) Formally add Sri Lanka to the Indian Task Force and 2) add a Caribbean regional task force to encompass Central America, the Caribbean, and Mexico, all of which have no coverage. - Canglesea (talk) 05:20, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• I think a very important and often overlooked point is that most if not all of the TFs are run jointly by our project and at least one other project where the two happen to meet. We need to make a conscience effort to get not only our own editor but those of these other projects involved in the goings on at the TFs. Admitted on this issue its our project that has the lead position, but even so larger projects like WP:BIO and WP:Films who share a common TF with us should offer more input with these reviews since they also have something to gain from an articles higher assessment. To me, other projects seem to overlook this fact, and it appears that this creates an unessicary burden on our projects members to handle all of the work at TF level rather than just some of the work. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:23, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• I agree that a lot of work could be done at taskforce level. The problem is, articles with overlapping taskforces could be done several times leading to an increased amount of work. To avoid this, we should have a bot-readable time marker when the article was last assessed and thus avoid reassessing recently assessed articles. These new drives will hopefully envigorate the rather sleepy task forces and help to direct more attention to reviews. Wandalstouring (talk) 09:13, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• This is an interesting one. I tend to see them as somewhat more of a coordination/administrative tool than a direct aid in improving articles. I think they help to keep one abreast of like information, and to maintain contact with editors who have a similar focus, so of course that may help in getting more people into the review process for particular articles. Ultimately though, support for improvement in article quality in my experience comes from right across the project and, again, this broad view should aid in FAC preparation as it fills out the potentially narrow view of a TF. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:48, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• I think that there are too many task forces for some topics as Commander Zulu said, but not enough for some others. For example, while there are task forces that cover seperate countries, some regions of the world are left without one. I have noticed this with South Asia, where there is a task force for India. There are several articles involving other countries (particularly Pakistan & Sri Lanka) but these don't have a suitable task force. Would it be possible to create new ones, or expand the scope of existing ones to cover areas like this? Chamal ^talk 13:08, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• I agree that one relatively easy thing we could do would be to redesign the TFs so that there is more complete coverage. For example, Eastern Europe, Central America, and Central Asia are all mostly uncovered, and there is no time one for post-WWII, including the entire Cold War and the weapons and people associated with that. Perhaps by merging smaller ones, such as ANZAC, we could improve organization and make it easier for people to find the TF that deals most specifically with the areas they are interested in. – Joe Nutter 22:16, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
  • There's the dead WP: WikiProject Vietnam War and WP: WikiProject Falklands War 76.66.196.229 (talk) 22:06, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
    • Add the Dutch TF to uncovered Belgium and Luxembourg and you have a new Benelux TF. Rosiestep (talk) 23:29, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

• Seems like it only makes sense to create task forces where there are editors wanting to work in them. They are groups of editors, not categories of articles. If there isn't a Northern South America task force, it's probably because no editors have come forward wanting to form one. On the other hand, perhaps the proposal should be put forward to form some of these missing task forces to see if there ar editors who would join if the TF existed... --Ejosse1 (talk) 16:27, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

• I think task forces are for editors. If I want to see (apropos of something I'm working on) what good Fortification articles look like, that task force can direct me to them. If I have questions or issues that are particular to my chosen area, I don't need to bore the WW2 writers with questions about Colonial militia tactics (and vice versa). A task force without editors active in it is only very slightly useful. Magic♪piano 18:26, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

• The individual task forces provide lists of editors that one can go to to ask questions of someone that is presumably familiar with the subject. Also, the task force talk pages are good forums to spread information because the editors in that TF presumably have the talk page on their watchlist. Other than that, the TFs don't do much more than that at this stage because Wikipedia participation is still a little too small to generate a critical mass of editors that generates an effective response to any and every issue that arises. Cla68 (talk) 00:13, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
• Most of the taskforces don't really add anything, as they are basically dead or consist of a few people who know what to do and don't say anything. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 00:40, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

• Task Forces can be more than just editors... they aid in classification in ways that mere categories cannot, which in turn aids in outreach, improvement coordination, and other administrative tasks regarding the maintenance of articles. For example, it's easy to say "I'd like to share my time and skill and improve a subject area I am knowledgeable in", but finding all of them in the jumbled mess of categories can be tricky. That is what makes me feel that some areas of interest are not represented in many task forces, while others are too broad. For example, the geographical task forces miss entire portions of the world; but the US and British task forces encompass HUGE amounts of articles that could be further subdivided, but still be kept filled with active editors. Even a task force that seems inactive on its talk page can be useful to "lone-wolf" editors. bahamut0013^words_deeds 14:07, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

• It would be nice of the task forces had a more clearly spelled out scope on the task force pages for those who wish to help tag articles but might not be familiar with their scope. One example: what countries are covered by the Balkans task force? To one not familiar with what exactly is considered Balkan (me, for one), it's a pain to click on a task force only to have to click to an article and read to try to figure it out. — Bellhalla (talk) 22:31, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

A free-form comment

Roger writes at the top this is free-form and anything goes, so since this doesn't fit anywhere starting it as a new section. There's a problem. Even the orientation of the questions here are implicitly text-based, not inclusive toward media. Right now at featured picture candidates there's a restored manuscript Confederate map of the first major battle of the American Civil War. It appears to be the first high resolution digital restoration on any manuscript Confederate map (not just Wikipedia-wide, but anywhere). A few FPC regulars have weighed in; no one from this project has noticed. Restoration on a photograph of the aftermath of Wounded Knee revealed four human bodies which were previously misidentified as camp debris. I'm in communication with the Library of Congress about the discovery; the Open Progress Foundation is heralding that discovery as it negotiates with international archives toward opening more collections. The Library of Congress replies to email; here at this messageboard a notice has sat for two days and no one has responded. Durova^Charge! 20:18, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Respectfully, your prior request here didn't link to or even mention the FP candidacy. I have added that FPC to our Announcements template; this should help generate more feedback. I'm afraid I don't have any personal knowledge of scholarship in the area, but poking around turned up the following prospects:

• The Akta Lakota Museum & Cultural Center [4]
• The Buechel Memorial Lakota Museum [5]
• Robert M. Utley or
• Richard G. Hardorff [6]

The latter two gentlemen have (separately) authored many books on Native American history.

FWIW, it seems there was a blizzard, and the first burials reportedly did not take place until several days to a week later. [7] [8] [9]. The handwritten date on the last image on page 6 of this lesson plan, which appears to match this image, could be 'Jan 17', but from my (extremely cursory) review of (mostly unreliable) sources, it seems unlikely to be a creation date. Note this version with different notation and a 'publication' date of Jan 17. The Smithsonian has captioned the same Trager image ([10], general keyword NAA INV 00499000) as "Burial of Dead 01 JAN 1891". There were hundreds of dead, so it would be imprudent to assume all were buried on that date, but it certainly appears that at least some were. Maralia (talk) 22:36, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the reply. The FPC was already listed at the MILHIST review department and FP status has no direct bearing on this query. I'll get to work on those leads you supplied. Durova^Charge! 22:52, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I think MILHIST needs to set up a new department; let's call it the "Invasion" department. This department would be responsible for invading other wikiprojects and bringing them up to the MILHIST standards :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 02:24, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we could form a media task force to address those concerns, Durova. We could not Featured image nominations, coordinate licencing and categorization, move images to Commons, find and tag military related articles, etc. What do you think? bahamut0013^words_deeds 14:11, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Do we have enough interested people for a task force in that? I'm overcommitted already. Durova^Charge! 17:35, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

We can set it up and see who joins... worst case, it will be inactive till enough people join - but at least there will be a place for them to gather in the first place.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:34, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I'm looking at doing a bit of work on the system of battle honours in the British Army, based principally on the source:

• Rodger, Alexander (2003). Battle Honours of the British Empire and Commonwealth Land Forces. Marlborough: The Crowood Press. ISBN 1-86126-637-5.

As well as a dedicated list of honours, I was wondering whether people thought it was appropriate to mention the honour on the article of the action concerned, particularly since the spelling of many honours is archaic (and thus different from the common name of the action and not obvious). There is also the question of actions fought at the same location on different dates: these are not always differentiated by date in the honour and may cause confusion, especially since many honours were awarded decades or even centuries after the action in question. I have attempted to create an formula for inserting this information, to be added at the very bottom of the articles in question, an example of which I tried out at Capture of Fort Niagara (and have displayed below).

If successful, this idea might be extended to other armies that use battle honours (i.e. India, Australia, South Africa, Canada, Pakistan etc.). Do people see any reason why this information or format might be inappropriate in the article (or ny other article that might be affected), or have any thoughts about the idea? Regards--Jackyd101 (talk) 12:21, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

It belongs in the article text, or even the infobox notes, burying it at the bottom of the article seems out of place. Don't forget that there are battle hounours for the RAF and RN so any system needs to be flexible beyond armies. GraemeLeggett (talk) 13:52, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

So would it be appropriate to add this to infoboxes? I'd have thought that would have been more contentious, as it is so one sided. I hadn't forgotten other services and the template can be changed, for example the Tangail Airdrop in 1971 would appear as:

--Jackyd101 (talk) 14:39, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The text could go in the "aftermath" section of the conflict. Something as simple as "the action is recorded as the battle honour Battle for the British Army units involved. The battle honour was awarded in xxxx." With appropriate cites. I don't think the inclusion is necessarily one-sided whether it goes in the notes section or the main text.GraemeLeggett (talk) 22:28, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I like this idea (and don't think it's one-sided), but agree it would be better at the end of the article rather than in the infobox. Would it be worth making a proper template? EyeSerene^talk 11:18, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Would it even need to be in a template? One idea for its implementation have a subsection of Aftermath (or of the article) for "awards and honours", which would include the battle honour(s), as well as what was awarded to personnel involved on each side (such as listing any Victoria Crosses/Medal of Honors/equivalent national medals awarded, quantities of lesser medals/honours presented, what campaign medal/star/bar participants qualified for, etc)... depanding on the presence of reliable sources for these, of course. -- saberwyn 11:33, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

The main article battle honours could do with a serious revamp too. If you've got a decent source, it would be very helpful, I've had a couple of dust-ups trying to get other editors to understand what battle honours mean. David Underdown (talk) 14:37, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

So would there be any objections if I began incorporating this information into the relevant articles in more or less this format? I'm just trying to establish some form of mild consensus to guard against having to undo it all if it proves unpopular. I would suggest that given the variables involved in the different uses of battle honours between different services and armies, a template might be more restrictive than helpful. (On a side note, this idea might work just as well for US Army campaign streamers and similar awards).--Jackyd101 (talk) 09:54, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

None from me, and I take your point about about the template; it was the collapsibility that appealed. I've also got something I can have a search through if you're after another source - Battle Honours of the British and Commonwealth Armies (pub. 1986 though, so your book is newer). EyeSerene^talk 10:02, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Can I just say that I think adding the battle honours to action related articles is an excellent idea and a long time coming. However, sticking it at the bottom of the article, below the references is a slightly strange idea. This isn't a nav box or suchlike. I don't think someone who comes to an article to find that specific information will find it down there - they would just think the info isn't in the article at all. It belongs in the main body. An Honours and awards section (as per saberwyn) would be the perfect place. Action articles really should be listing medals awarded too, so keeping it all together makes good sense and allows instant access from the table of contents. sassf (talk) 16:01, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I've tried moving it a little at Capture of Fort Niagara, what do people think?--Jackyd101 (talk) 21:21, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Looking at it in situ, maybe it would be better as a subsection per saberwyn etc, without the formatting. I'd perhaps try it with both a L2 and a L3 heading (maybe under Aftermath for the latter), to see what looks best. EyeSerene^talk 09:07, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

On a related note, given the format of British Army battle honours ("Somme 1916" etc), I started on creating redirs from them so Somme 1916 is a redir to Battle of the Somme, but I have dropped the redirs into Category:Battle honours of the British Army. This struck me as a way to get them quickly wikilinked when found in articles and easier for me than typing up a large list. GraemeLeggett (talk) 13:01, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Thats a very good idea. The names of some battle honours are a bit obscure (likewise medal clasps) and I know from personal experience that currently a wikipedia search gets you not much closer to finding out what they relate to - the Niagara example being a case in point. I think these redirects would be very helpful for people (as long as the articles mention the battle honour, obviously). sassf (talk) 15:19, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

With a bit of luck, it'll meet jackyd101's efforts coming from the other direction. For the moment I've managed to create some of the Great War battle honours. Hoever, linking back from units is not so easy -Some of the many regiments have negligible or non-existent battle honours sections.GraemeLeggett (talk) 15:38, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I've tried a new solution at Operation Epsom, what do people think of that?--Jackyd101 (talk) 19:54, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I think that works really well - as prose, it seems much more integrated into the article. The categorisation is also a great idea ;) EyeSerene^talk 08:35, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I've tweked the wording slightly in the Epsom article. Better? or not? David Underdown (talk) 11:04, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Thats fine, thankyou.--Jackyd101 (talk) 18:04, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

It would be a useful thing if a template (whoever small) was used to insert the Battle honour in the infobox - a quick what links here from the template page would allow one to see which have been listed already. unless someone knows a better way. I find myself creating the forward links by semi-randomly picking a regiment with a full battle honours section, editing the page to see whats already wikilinked. Or creating a bunch of redlinks in the section and then search for the appropriate battle. GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:50, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Been working through WW2 battle honours, and its clear that there are some gaping holes in Wikipedia's coverage of the allied advance into Germany in 1945, particularly the British and Canadian push into Northern Germany and the fighting around the Ruhr. Unless I am missing something obvious, there is very little coverage of these fairly major campaigns.--Jackyd101 (talk) 12:00, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I noticed that the Italian Campaign goes almost directly from the actual landings to the invasion of the Mainland - makes Sicily 1943 a devil to link to. GraemeLeggett (talk) 13:40, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

There is Allied invasion of Sicily, that any use? David Underdown (talk) 21:45, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I have made blue discharge a GA after a second reviewer recommended that step. However, it's totally missing images or diagramms. I fully understand the problem of providing such a thing for this topic. So the article is a GA, but we still list it as Start-class because of criterion 5. I feel, we should reconcile on that. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:21, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I added an image of Senator Bennett Champ Clark (quoted in the article), which, in my view, would satisfy criterion 5. — Bellhalla (talk) 15:12, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

But does criterion 5 apply to every article? The criterion reads "it contains appropriate supporting materials, such as an infobox, images, or diagrams", not every article is going to have an infobox or image etc that is useful; isn't that the part of the point of using the term "appropriate"? I personally think that GA trumps the B-class criteria anyway. Nev1 (talk) 15:50, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

No need to be so stringent about things lol if it can't be met it can't be met. The criteria is fine IMO.--Patton^t/c 16:55, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I've assessed articles without pictures/infoboxes/etc as being B-class on occasions when there didn't seem to be any need for supporting graphics and the like. Nick-D (talk) 22:14, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

My undertanding is that GA, being WP-wide like FA, 'trumps' all project-level assessments except A-class. Also, I'd assess as B an article w/o 'supporting materials' or conventions like infoboxes if there didn't seem to be any that were appropriate. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:34, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

B5 is a bit overrated really.... YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 00:56, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi all. A member of the project, Backslash Forwardslash, currently has a nomination/request for adminship active. If you have any experience with Backslash Forwardslash or would just like to comment you can do so here. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 10:05, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi an MILHIST article has been put up for AFD Karl Brommann. The reason seem to be around if a Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross recipient is notable? any input from the project would be appriciated. The AFD entry is here Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Karl Brommann Jim Sweeney (talk) 14:51, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Our current icon image is File:Waricon.svg as in File:WPMILHIST-composite-logo.png. We have also adopted File:Wikipe-tan in navy uniform2 transparent.png and I would advocate it as icon on the main page. Opinions please. Wandalstouring (talk) 15:31, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't like the wikipe-tan image. I think we should keep the waricon image, it's much better.--Patton^t/c 15:51, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. It's an entertaining little icon, but I don't think it's suitable as a symbol of the project in the same way the map icon is (particulary as WP:ANIME already uses it). Kirill ^[pf] 16:17, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Ugh, god no. Wikipe-tan is an awful little symbol - how are we supposed to be taken seriously as one of the best military history encyclopedias if that is our icon? Strongly Oppose Skinny87 (talk) 16:29, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

100% agree with Skinny. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 17:42, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

It could be used as a sort of mascot now and then, but in practical terms the cartoon character can't serve to fulfil the requirements of a symbolic logo. —Michael Z. 2009-02-15 18:05 z

I don't mind the current logo, but if we were looking for a new one, I would consider some variation of the cross-swords map symbol for battlefield. It is iconic and easily recognized (it comes from civilian map-making, not military), international, and associated with not just military matters but specifically history. Unfortunately, I can't find an example of the symbol on the commons. —Michael Z. 2009-02-15 19:04 z

Here's an item about “Five old-school map symbols, which talks about the crossed swords. —Michael Z. 2009-02-15 19:15 z

I know the one you mean; the marking on maps showing where battles took place. No I still prefer our current symbol lol.--Patton^t/c 19:17, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I think we should merge both icons: I'd use the old map icon as a background for the wiki-tan icon. Best of both worlds... :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:47, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Wiki-tan looks very unprofessional. The current map icon is rather busy and unrecognizable, so I would be agreeable to something generic like the crossed swords. – Joe Nutter 20:44, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Concur. Also, What about a sword crossed with a rolled-up scroll, or perhaps 2 crossed swords over an open scroll? - BillCJ (talk) 20:53, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea of the crossed swords, but want to reiterate my opposition to Wikipe-tan or whatever her name is. Skinny87 (talk) 20:55, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I like wikipe-tan myself, but a lot of wikipedians are plus minus on her presence, and for this project in particular, using wikipe-tan could backfire on us since we have a reputation for being serious (if fun loving) people. Also bear in mind that if we opt for a new image logo it needs to be something neutral enough that it will cover all aspects of the project equally. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:05, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

The Wiki-tan image isn't suitable for use as a practical icon or logo. It is too busy and detailed to act symbolically. You can hardly tell it's wearing a navy cap, and can't tell it's saluting at all, at the usual 40-pixel size, and the image will turn to mush if made smaller. Adding a background as suggested will only make it less worse.

And its even at a large size, this picture's usefulness would be questionable. Nothing about this cartoon portrait says military history to me. Most readers aren't familiar with anime, and won't have a clue what this cartoon portrait is doing here. —Michael Z. 2009-02-17 19:47 z

We have:

• Category:Independence movements - no definition, no main article, categorized in "nationalist" and "politicial" movements
• Category:National liberation movements - main article, Wars of national liberation, not that the definition on top of the category claims that it is a category for both movements that desire "regime change or independence". It is categorized in "rebellions" and "secessionist movements".
  • Category:National liberation armies - no definition, no main article, in paritcular, no explanation why something is a movement, and a subcategory of it, an army
  • Category:Resistance movements - no definition, main article Resistance movement, categorized in "National liberation movements", subcategories include only "Eastern European resistance movements" which in turn includes only "Belarusian partisans"...
  • Category:Resistance - no definition, no main article, categorized in "National liberation movements", its includes only "Belarusian resistance" (which ends in "Belarusian partisans")

In other words, we have a mess. I think C:Resistance should be redirected to C:Resistance movements. We need clear definition for C:Independence movements and C:National liberation movements, and they should probably both be subcategorized under C:Resistance movements (not the other way around, as it is done currently); currently it appears we have two different logical trees covering resistance related phenomena, and a mess of general categories created without much logic or structure by various editors.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:46, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi all. The article on Australian Victoria Cross recipient John Whittle is currently up at Featured Article Candidacy, and is in danger of failing due to too few comments received creating no consensus. I strongly urge any and all editors with a few spare minutes to have a look at the article and provide any comments possible here. Thanks, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 00:58, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I need a section of this (the "O Minas Geraes" section) translated - not the entire section, but any parts that are missing from the history of Brazilian battleship Minas Gerais. Thanks everyone! —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 03:50, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Try looking in the logistics department, I seem to recall they had a bilingual section there. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:57, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

There is the problem: Catalan is on break and Trekphiler wouldn't have the level of Spanish needed to translate that. :/

I'll post it there though, in the hope that... —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 04:11, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

That's Portuguese, homeslice. I read it decently, though don't necessarily know all the equivalent words for technical terms. Can you just GoogleTranslate it and then pick out the words that don't translate properly? MatthewVanitas (talk) 04:20, 16 February 2009 (UTC))

(Edit conflict) Knowledge of Spanish won't help much, since that is written in Portuguese! They are similar anguages though, and someone fluent in Spanish may be of help, However, a Portuguese-fluent person would be better. - BillCJ (talk) 04:23, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I'll post a GoogleTranslate on my Userpage, please feel free to chip away at it there and then move the polished text to the new article. MatthewVanitas (talk) 04:25, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Hahahaha that would be a VERY good reason why the Google Translation sucked! :D Thanks everyone! —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 04:27, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Um, another question: is the "he" right? (or is it a wrong translation of "she"?) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 04:32, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm told that some nations denote ships with "he/his" formatting, rather than "she/her". 'Tis possible therefore that this is one battleship whose parent country does so. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:35, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Really? Hmm. Didn't know that.

Matthew, you can remove that from your userpage whenever - I copied it into my sandbox. Thanks! —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 04:40, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I went and checked pt.wiki to see if that is the convention, and it does indeed appear that ships are referred to as "o" ("he"). Not just ships that are gramatically masculine (which I thought might be the case), but apparently all ships. The GoogleTranslate looks really quite good, only a few points that are a bit confusing. Feel free to mention them specifically here and I or another Port. speaker can glance back at the article and summarize the quirky bit. MatthewVanitas (talk) 04:42, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Alright - thanks! —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 05:09, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

• Restoration on the Wounded Knee Massacre yields a discovery
• 
  Unrestored version: mislabeled scattered debris of camp in Library of Congress bibliograhic notes.
• 
  Restored version: four human remains in foreground partially wrapped in blankets.
• 
  Detail from restored version: a face in profile, hand at right.

Library of Congress staff are updating the description. An excerpt of their reply follows:

Upon viewing the high-res TIFF file we made of the file, the human remains are quite visible, indeed. Thank you very much for contacting us regarding this image, and for your interest in our collections. You can imagine that among a collection of 14 million items here, there are a lot of secrets waiting to be uncovered!

Wanted to share; this doesn't happen every day. Durova^Charge! 18:39, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Wow, that incredible. This belongs in the milhist history section, its like when Simon Fowler saluted our project last year. I'd suggest leaving a message at WP:POST as well, they certainly would like to here about this. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:38, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll leave a post at the Signpost. Not sure where the milhist hist section is? Durova^Charge! 20:39, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Status -MBK₀₀₄ 10:17, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you; done. Durova^Charge! 21:42, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

The peer review for Braunschweig class battleship is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 21:03, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I had a request on my talk page to generate pageview stats for the Military history project (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Popular pages for an example). I'd be willing to add the project, but before I do, I'd like to know which would be more useful: One page for the entire project, listing the top 1000 pages, or a separate page for each (or a subset) of the task forces, listing the top 1000 pages (or all if there's <1000) in each task force. The pages would be updated monthly, starting with the data from this month. Mr.Z-man 21:12, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Maybe you could do both? I think that would be very useful. Thanks a million.--Patton^t/c 21:40, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Hey friends, I just noticed that John McCain is within our scope and is tagged as such. I don't think it should be. He was a soldier, but he's more notable for a being a politician. I think we should change the scope to include people who are primarily notable for their service in the armed forces, and exclude those who are notable for other things and who just happened to serve in the armed forces.--Patton^t/c 21:54, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

That may be a good general idea, but for John McCain, I believe that the emphasis of his military career—POW, pilot, etc.—in his political campaigns makes it more apropos in this case. What do others think? — Bellhalla (talk) 22:41, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I think Belhalla's statement is spot-on. People who aren't notable for their military service (i.e., some random Senator/Rep/MP/etc. who also happened to serve in a military service) shouldn't be in the scope of MILHIST, but in some cases, like John McCain (whose military service is important because it's related to his political career), should fall under our project. Parsecboy (talk) 22:49, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Bellhalla. Also, don't forget about lineage: both father and grandfather attained the rank of 4-star Admiral. -MBK₀₀₄ 22:54, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Patton asks a very valid question but I also agree with Belhella in this instance. We could be quite hardline and ask, would so-ond-so's military career alone qualify them for notability under the project guidelines, regardless of what else makes them notable such as a political career or, for instance, a sporting career (yes I am thinking of Keith Miller here)...! On the other hand, as Belhella reminds us, we have to take into account the importance of the military career to the politician's or sportsman's life, even if it may not be notable in its own right. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:20, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Here's an example that might better fit Patton's thoughts: Chesley Sullenberger, most notable for the ditched US Airways flight, not his military career. What thoughts on this one? — Bellhalla (talk) 23:32, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

That looks borderline. His air force service obviously trained him to fly and that's how he became a commercial pilot after leaving. Not sure myself.--Patton^t/c 23:49, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Belhalla puts it very well. Adding that POW issues were a prominent part of US public discussion during the latter part of the war and afterward, and Senator McCain is the most notable indidual among them. Durova^Charge! 00:12, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. We already have the following in our scope:

Note that military service does not in and of itself place an individual within the scope of the project—particularly in the case of service in modern militaries. To qualify them, an individual's military service must have been somehow noteworthy or have contributed—directly or indirectly—to their notability.

Keep in mind, also, that the distinction becomes much more blurred as you go back before the 20th century, since many leadership positions implicitly included military activity. Are Napoleon, Ceasar, and Genghis Khan "primarily" notable as political leaders, or a military ones? Kirill ^[pf] 05:23, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it should matter for those ones, as they would be notable as military commanders even if they had no political career. Nobody is going to choose between a politics or a milhist tag for Eisenhower for instance, or restricting to one sport wikiproject tag in the case of dual internationals. Secondly in those days, the emperors etc dealt directly with the generals and interfered more deeply, rather than a modern western world army where there is a proper hierarchy in the DoD. In the old days the emperors had to directly manipulate and balance all the generals to prevent palace coups, and were involved in orchestrating/thwarting or being defeated by all such coups. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 05:35, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

The A-Class review for SM U-66 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 22:40, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I've noticed recently some requests [11] [12] for translation help and it occurred to me that it might be of benefit to have a list somewhere of project members who are able and willing to translate from/into other languages. If the coordinators are in agreement perhaps they could create a page somewhere and allow editors to go sign their names to it along with the other languages that they have some ability with. Cla68 (talk) 23:36, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

As TomStar81 pointed out above, there actually is a section in the Logistics Department that includes a linguistics section, but it isn't very well know of. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 01:24, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I had never noticed it before even though I've explored our project pages several times. I just added my name to it. Cla68 (talk) 06:13, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

The peer review for Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron, an article within the scope of the Video games WikiProject, is now open. The Video games WikiProject is currently partnering with our project to share peer reviews, so all editors are cordially invited to participate, and any input there would be very appreciated! Thanks! Vantine84 (talk) 06:25, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Also, would it be possible to put this article in the peer review section of the template at the top of this talk page, for easy access? I'm not a member of the Military History WikiProject so I'm not sure if that's OK. Vantine84 (talk) 06:25, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

All WikiProjects are invited to have their "milestone-reached" announcements automatically placed onto Wikipedia's announcements page. Milestones could include the number of FAs, GAs or articles covered by the project. No work need be done by the project themselves; they just need to provide some details when they sign up. A bot will do all of the hard work. Click here for more information or to sign your project up.

I thought this WikiProject might be interested. Ping me with any specific queries or leave them on the page linked to above. Thanks! - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 22:07, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Poke. Does anyone think that we should do this? —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 08:21, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

We're so large that we're not likely to have many meaningful milestones in the near future; but we might sign up for something like FAs/As/GAs on the hundreds, and total articles on the tens of thousands. Kirill ^[pf] 13:58, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I suggest we move all "Military of Country" articles to "Armed forces of Country", because while "military" means the army, air force, navy and otehr armed organisations of a country, it can also refer to just the land army, so it is ambigious. "Armed forces" can only mean the armed organisations of a country, and would be a much better name IMO.--Patton^t/c 20:33, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

This comes up regularly, which doesn't mean it shouldn't be acted on :) In fact, I brought up this very point a year or two back. The arguments then were: (i) Yep, it's a good idea; (ii) no, it's a bad idea; (iii) military means different things in Commonwealth and American English; (iv) it's a lot of work and (v) it will upset the category system, leading to vast recategorising. What's the feeling now? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 20:43, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

"Military" means different things in different types of English, yes, but "Armed forces" dosn't, which is why I'm suggesting this. We don't have to go out and do it all straigh away, just move them as we come across them. Yes, it will certainly upset the category system, how lucky then that I have approval to run a Category bot ;-) That should help vastly.--Patton^t/c 20:50, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Won't it just :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 20:54, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I'd support this too, because military is primarily an adjective, and armed forces is clearly a noun. Sounds less awkward.

Incidentally, I've checked a few dictionaries and I only see “land forces” as an alternate sense of the adjective, and not a particular meaning in British English. (“Commonwealth English” is a myth perpetuated by people who noticed that Canadians spell differently from Americans, but don't really know why.) —Michael Z. 2009-02-07 04:51 z

We could put this up to the community in March along with the other 3 current proposals. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:27, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Would we run into any oddities with countries which define themselves as possessing an "armed force" which is not part of their military, or vice versa? List of countries without armed forces seems to suggest we have some interesting ambiguities here... Shimgray | talk | 03:06, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Has there been any more word about an exclusive Triple Crown just for MILHIST?--King Bedford I ^{Seek his grace} 08:48, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

If you look in the section above, you can see that Durova has acknowledged that there are enough Triple Crown eligible Milhist editors, but whether she has got around to working on it or what have you I have no idea. Perhaps we can ask her, or give the good lady a little nudge? Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 09:27, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

See this: User:MBK004/Sandbox/MILHIST#WikiProject_Triple_Crown_Eligibility, there are still a few crowns pending for members of the project. Perhaps she is waiting until those are awarded before giving the special crown to the project. I've already poked her once a few days ago. -MBK₀₀₄ 16:03, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I have a GA and FA, but I only got a 5x expansion DYK - does that I don't qualify? Skinny87 (talk) 16:58, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

As long as one of each is within the scope of the project, you'd help us qualify. (You qualify for an individual crown regardless of project scope.) By the way, a DYK counts whether it's by expansion, new article, or even if you nominate someone else's work. (Basically, if you got a DYK notice on your talk page, it counts) — Bellhalla (talk) 17:06, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I just set up your nom, Skinny. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 21:43, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay guys, time to do this. What's needed is a project-specific image that fits in the middle. For The Simpsons I put a crown on a donut. Obviously this project spans a lot of eras so any image would reflect some people's interests more than others. What's fair for MILHIST: a cannon? Durova^Charge! 18:44, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I think a cannon or artillery piece would would work best. Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 21:26, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

How about the head of Ares?, using the head and helmet from File:Ares Canope Villa Adriana.jpg?--King Bedford I ^{Seek his grace} 21:31, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

A crown on a corinthian helmet ? --Jim Sweeney (talk) 21:34, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

There are a several crowned helmets which may be extracted from coats of arms in the Commons: heraldic helmets, Polish nobleman crown and helmet. A very elaborate pickelhaube might be fun. —Michael Z. 2009-02-17 22:24 z

Some other Wikipedias are adopting a new graphical style for infoboxes. See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Adoption of V2-style Infobox headers, as developed on other Wikipedias (includes links to mock-ups). If this follows through, we should be prepared with one or more good infobox header graphics. —Michael Z. 2009-02-17 20:35 z

Thanks for the info. Some of the new look ones are excellent. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 20:47, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

The A-Class review for Hill 262 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! --Eurocopter (talk) 21:40, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

So I finished USS Connecticut (BB-18) and nommed it for FAC in the hope of getting it on hte main page on the 22nd, but there are not enough comments on it to warrant a pass...would someone be able to go through and help me out? The FAC page is here. Thank a ton, —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 03:28, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I'll take a look... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 03:35, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

It would be great if other editors could add HMS Vanguard and Triomphant submarine collision to their watchlists while it is on the main page as a news story (which will probably be for the next 12-24 hours) to keep an eye out for vandalism and nonsense claims. Nick-D (talk) 10:31, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Jeesus H...

A story that has no mileage and probably deserves a paragraph in the respective hull articles manages to get an article all to itself. Full of speculative media tripe and noise.

ALR (talk) 16:32, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

It seems like an OK topic for an article to me, and isn't too bad at the moment. Nick-D (talk) 10:02, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Critically? It's twice the size it can justify and needs heavy caveats added to the poorly informed speculation and original research section.

Mainly a rant about the recentism phenomenon I guess.

ALR (talk) 11:04, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Unless I'm missing something (and I probably am), the Wiki article on the Pacific Theatre of World War II is four paragraphs long and conveys almost no useful information whatsoever. An inexperienced Wiki searcher would type "Pacific Theatre" into the search and get that four paragaph page, missing the actual "Main article" at Pacific War. I'm thinking that a "You probably want to be looking at This Other Article" tag is in order, and that something needs to be done with the Pacific Theatre page. Military operations aren't my specialty, unfortunately, or I'd try and improve it myself, but I figured this really needed to be brought to someone's attention so something could be done about it. Commander Zulu (talk) 10:51, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Done (I think). I also removed the infobox as it was inappropriate given that this article covers the US military organisational concept, and not the actual war. Nick-D (talk) 11:00, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that; someone might want to put a mention in the article that it's about the US Military concept rather than the geographic area the war was fought in, but again that's probably best left to someone who knows more about the organisational side of it than I. Commander Zulu (talk) 11:06, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Rather than have Pacific Theatre redirect to Pacific Theater of Operations, I've converted the former into a dab page. I've also redirected several of the other redirects to Pacific Theater of Operations to the same dab page. I also heeded your advice, Zulu, and reworded the notice at the top. Thanks for bringing it to attention. — Bellhalla (talk) 17:24, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Support Bel's actions, was about to suggest it m'self. Skinny87 (talk) 17:46, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Yep. Good call. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 20:46, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Excellent stuff! I knew someone would know how to do something useful with it. :) Commander Zulu (talk) 10:09, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

The Yugoslav domain name .yu will stop working in October, and all websites that previously used it will be converted to .rs and .me. We'll have to update all of our links to such sites accordingly, or they won't work. There are currently 7272 links to .yu domain sites on enwiki, and a sizable proportion of these are on articles within our scope. Should we organise a sweep to change them?--Patton^t/c 11:11, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Can't this be done by a bot? Wandalstouring (talk) 15:48, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure it could, though I don't know anything about coding. Firstly we'd have to find which articles contain these links.--Patton^t/c 15:53, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

There's probably someone here would could handle this. It would be a nightmare by hand. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 20:48, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

The 7272 figure comes from Special:Linksearch/*.yu - there's your list! As for a bot replacement, this will probably work for the most common domains, but a lot of the odd ones will (which only appear once or twice) will effectively need to be done by hand. Did you see the mailing list post about this? Shimgray | talk | 21:14, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

That's how I found out about it ;-)--Patton^t/c 21:16, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I could get my bot to do this when the time comes. Message me when this is needed doing. — neuro^(talk) 00:27, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Great, thanks, will do.--Patton^t/c 12:03, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

The following articles:

• U-27 class submarine (Austria-Hungary)
• SM U-27 (Austria-Hungary)
• SM U-28 (Austria-Hungary)
• SM U-29 (Austria-Hungary)
• SM U-30 (Austria-Hungary)
• SM U-31 (Austria-Hungary)
• SM U-32 (Austria-Hungary)
• SM U-40 (Austria-Hungary)
• SM U-41 (Austria-Hungary)

are under consideration for Good Topic status. Interested editors may comment on the topic's entry at the Good Topic nominations page. — Bellhalla (talk) 22:17, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

If anyone happens to share my interest in tiny mortars, I could use some help with Commando mortar. I don't really have any reference books covering them, but will drop by the university library to see if I can find some. I'd also appreciate any input as to whether small mortars like the 37mm Spade Mortar and the Type 89 grenade discharger can be fairly categorised as "commando mortars", or whether that's too OR. MatthewVanitas (talk) 23:17, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Not a commando mortar, but while we're talking tubes I did also drag this over from the Russian site: Aasen mortar. There were a few technical bits I don't quite catch, and I don't know how to cross the images over to the en: side of the house, or WM them. Suggestions? Neat concept overall, and fits in with existing coverage of Nils Aasen's inventions. EDIT: also found another mortar covered in Russian but not here, still needs polishing: 9 cm Mortar Type GR MatthewVanitas (talk) 00:09, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a member, but I have a question regarding this article. I tagged it as a stub, but I didn't know what kind of template to use, so I just used {{stub}}. Could someone please find the correct template? Thanks. →Dyl@n620 17:16, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Done. --Eurocopter (talk) 20:00, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Hey all. At this page, I'm setting up an eventual Good Topic I want to put together on British airborne operations during WWII. I have a fair way to go, writing British airborne operations in North Africa at the moment in sandbox, but I was wondering if anyone thought I was missing anything major. Also: if I put in the Battles of Arnhem and Oosterbeek, do I also need to promote Operation Market-Garden to GA as well? That's the big question at the moment, because it's a heck of an article to fix; if consensus if yes, then I'd also have to include Operation Dragoon as the main article to Operation Dove. So, in conclusion, any comments welcome! Skinny87 (talk) 19:09, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Were there any Far East airborne operations? That seems to be the big potential omission. Shimgray | talk | 19:23, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I've been looking, but I'm not sure. I get a feeling there might have been one by an Independent Brigade somewhere. Skinny87 (talk) 19:51, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I've added Battle of Elephant Point for me to write; it appears during Operation Dracula in May 1945 a Ghurka battalion was parachuted into Burma. I get the feeling I'm missing a larger Far Eastern operation, however. Skinny87 (talk) 20:06, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Would Operation Thursday count? Parsecboy (talk) 20:21, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm. I guess so; seems more of an airlift, but the initial bits make it seem like it should be in the GTC. I'll add it in. Skinny87 (talk) 20:28, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

British intelligence and special forces teams were also parachute dropped in Burma and Malaya. A British parachute brigade was sent to the Far East after the German surrender and was to have landed in Malaya in September 1945 as part of Operation Zipper. It took part in the liberation of Malaya after the Japanese surrendered before being sent to the Netherlands East Indies where it got caught up in fighting against Indonesian nationalists. I don't think that it made any parachute drops though. There were also large Indian airborne forces, but I don't think that they were ever parachute-dropped. Nick-D (talk) 07:01, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

There were a number of "airlifted" or "air-supplied" things during the Chindit campaign, which may be what I'm thinking of, but I'm not sure if we'd count them as "airborne". Seems to be the closest major thing, though. Hmm. Shimgray | talk | 13:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

There was also the failed glider operation at Telemark see Norwegian heavy water sabotage. I can not find the Operation name ? --Jim Sweeney (talk) 12:46, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Just found it at Operation Freshman according to the article the first Glider operation carried out by the British in WWII --Jim Sweeney (talk) 12:51, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

(od)Heh, Jim, I wrote Operation Freshman! There weren't any other airborne operations for the Norwegian heavy water attacks, unless you count parachuting in agents - but then there'd never be a complete topic! Skinny87 (talk) 17:39, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Usually we have a battle and no picture to illustrate it with. This time, we have a picture (National Museum in Poznan - battle of Asola .JPG) but I cannot find any info about the battle, other then that it "there was a siege of Asola in 1516 by troops of Maximilian I" (that's from Italian wiki article about 'the painting - as far as I can tell even the it wiki has no article about the battle). If anybody could stub the battle, it would be nice - I give up... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:46, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I'm actually a member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Pharmacology, but I just noticed that your assesment system doesn't have a list class. Why and how is that? You have all kinds of lists: list of planes, lists of tanks, etc. yet you have no list class, I think that's essential. I think every WikiProject should have a list class as part of their assesment scale.Cssiitcic (talk) 23:06, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Lists are graded using the same levels as normal articles. The use of a generic "List-Class" is a shortcut taken by some projects to avoid having to actually grade lists; given that we have a rather well-developed assessment system here, it's not really necessary. Kirill ^[pf] 00:54, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

We try to improve the quality of lists, and have several A-class and FA-class lists. Lumping them into a 'list class' wouldn't encourage the development of good-quality lists. Nick-D (talk) 06:56, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Could someone who knows a bit more on the subject than I do check to see if the stub article Ruhr Campaign is about the same campaign which is the subject of the Ruhr Pocket article, and a possible redirect candidate? They sound the same, but external searching on "Ruhr campaign" also leads to references for the Battle of the Ruhr, which is not the encirclement mentioned in the Ruhr Campaign stub, so it's a bit confusing. -- Michael Devore (talk) 01:06, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I believe Ruhr Campaign refers to the Ruhr Pocket and should be redirected there. It mentions encircling troops, which would not have been done in an air campaign. – Joe Nutter 01:39, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, if the stub article is meant to be the Ruhr Pocket campaign, but some sources list the Battle of the Ruhr when searching on "Ruhr campaign", maybe the Ruhr Campaign article should become a dab page to the other two articles? I don't know what would be the optimal resolution. -- Michael Devore (talk) 05:40, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I've redirected Ruhr Campaign to Ruhr Pocket, which I believe is the more common reference. Battle of the Ruhr was the 1943 bombing campaign to cripple Germany's industrial centre. A disambig page might be useful though if the sources are confusing/confused on this. EyeSerene^talk 14:03, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I just crawled through the Russian, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish, and French wikis in the last two days, and got dozens of articles (many illustrated) that aren't covered on en.wiki. Even did a bit of Swedish, though I can't truly read it, but I can get enough to figure out what's what. In any case, I can keep doing this and getting articles by the dozen, but polishing slows me down. If anyone can help polish (and categorise) these up that'd help a ton. You don't even have to know the language in many cases, just be able to convert computer-generated translation into normal English. Here are the French articles from today:

• Mauser M712 Schnellfeuer
• Rast-Gasser M1898
• MAS 1873 revolver
• Roth-Steyr M1907‎
• 1872 Swiss revolver
• Bodeo revolver‎
• Signal Pistol 50‎
• Signal Pistol m/18-65
• Berthier carbine

For other folks that like digging like this, I pretty much cleaned-out Spanish/Portuguese/Turkish/Russian/French so far as small arms go, except that there are a good scattering of submachineguns left in French and Russian. I haven't even scraped the surface of larger armaments. MatthewVanitas (talk) 05:47, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I have nominated Witold Pilecki for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Tom B (talk) 16:55, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Hey, I'm really into military and I found out that USMC article is featured and perfect, while maybe even more important article about US Army needs to be improved. I'm asking anybody who can for the help. The goal is to have US Army featured article. Thanks --Novis-M (talk) 22:16, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Editors interested in working on this should be aware I've got User:Buckshot06/Structure of the United States Army in my userspace, a counterpart to Structure of the British Army, Structure of the Australian Army, and Structure of the Pakistan Army. Please feel free to improve it. I believe a significant chunk of the main US Army article should be moved into that sub-article when it is moved to mainspace. Cheers Buckshot06(prof) 13:36, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Since this project is one the most prolific featured article producers, members may wish to know of the proposed addition of a criterion to the featured article criteria. See Wikipedia talk:Featured article criteria#Proposal for 1(f). Dabomb87 (talk) 22:41, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Unless we get a real big base of support, and get it real quick, were are really going to miss our chance to have anything remotely related to the Great White Fleet up on the mainpage 22 February. C'mon, people, its not that hard to read and article and type support/oppose/neutral on the FAC page, is it?!?!?! TomStar81 (Talk) 06:37, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Holy crap. It's the 21st. (Time flies....) Help please! :S Thanks all, —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 07:08, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

While the new layout of your project looks very nice, it doesn't display properly on my screen. See File:WPMILHIST.jpg: the far right of the front page is getting chopped off, and the same happens with other pages. I assume this problem affects others who use IE7. PC78 (talk) 14:50, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Checked using IE7, no problems, it's probably your screen resolution.--Patton^t/c 14:59, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

My screen resolution is 1024 x 768. I don't have trouble viewing other pages. PC78 (talk) 15:09, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm...that's the old standard resolution, so I can't see why it would be having problems. My resolution is 1440x900, a very new widescreen one. Not sure what it could be.--Patton^t/c 15:12, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I get cut off as well with IE7 @1024x768. OK with Firefox and Safari.Nigel Ish (talk) 15:45, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm also having trouble with the new layout as well. Is there anyway it can be changed, so that it is less wide? Gaia Octavia Agrippa ^Talk | _Sign 17:51, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I've taken ~50px off the logo width; does that fix the problem? Kirill ^[pf] 18:02, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I've figured it out; IE interprets any percentage width as applying to the entire field of view, not to the immediate enclosing element. The problem should be fixed now. Kirill ^[pf] 18:10, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Much better. Cheers! PC78 (talk) 18:39, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Accusations of bias, difficulties of source interpretation, etc are currently cropping up on articles such as Winston Churchill, Dresden, Bombing of Dresden in World War II, particularly about where responsibility for the bombing lies. Some more neutral/knowledgeable eyes would be helpful here. Benea (talk) 16:59, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I've stuck my nose in, asked the user for some sources backing up his accusation. Skinny87 (talk) 17:17, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

There are quite a few A-class nominations open that need comments from more than just one or two editors... Please consider commenting on at least one or two. The full list of nominations can be found here Thank you for your help, —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 01:30, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Some I polished more than others, but I thought it best to transfer quick and early, put up appropriate templates, and let them develop as needed. Mainly GoogleTranslated, and did some touch-up on various articles, though others still legible but rough. Some neat stuff I'd never have thought to create on my own:

• Bergmann 1896 ‎
• Korovina
• Glisenti Model 1910
• M43 mortar ‎
• 9 cm Mortar Type GR
• Aasen mortar ‎
• Savage Model 1907
• Schouboe Automatic Pistol
• Makarych
• Osa (pistol)
• Steyr M1912
• Veresk (submachine gun)
• SIG MKMS
• Uru (submachine gun)
• Tokarev 1927

If any of y'all have a basic understanding of other languages and haven't tried this yet, it's a pretty fascinating way to run across articles not yet covered on en.wiki . I'll try to repeat this with Portuguese, Spanish, and Turkish and see what lost articles I can find. There are still plenty of subguns covered on ru.wiki that I haven't moved yet as well. I'd imagine de.wiki and ja.wiki have a lot of great stuff, but I don't speak German or Japanese. MatthewVanitas (talk) 03:27, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm a native speaker of German and did translations, but the material isn't worth the effort because the German articles lack inline citations. That's a problem when transfering material from all other wikis. Essentially, one has to rewrite a sourced version. Wandalstouring (talk) 13:44, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Noticed that Brazil was not covered on Service rifle, so added a section. It was tricky to nail down some of the transition dates, so if anyone has a more reputable source some fine-tuning would be appreciated. All the major  Brazil rifles have Wiki articles (or at least articles on the original rifle Brazil made a variant of) except for the Mauser M954, not exactly sure whether to just link that to a different Mauser section or no. I'm sure there are more countries that we can add to Service rifle. Neat list, and I don't think it gets much attention. Maybe there's some better title or way to file it so that folks realize it's a full list? For weeks I just assumed it gave the definition of "service rifle" rather than explaining each country's armaments for a century. Ditto Service pistol. MatthewVanitas (talk) 17:57, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Created Service_rifle#Austria, expanded Service_rifle#Italy back to 1870, Service_rifle#Mexico back to 1895. Expanded Service_pistol#Switzerland back to 1872, created Service_pistol#Austria and created Service_pistol#Hungary. MatthewVanitas (talk) 07:57, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

It's very nice and all, but on my computer (IE8) about 15px are cut off on the right side. ResMar 18:05, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

See #Problem with new layout just above. :-) Kirill ^[pf] 18:11, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't see that. Fixed! Thank you. ResMar 18:32, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

USS Connecticut (BB-18) is today's featured article, and Brazilian battleship Minas Gerais is the lead DYK (the one with a picture meaning that it will probably get the most views). Eyes on the two would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 00:04, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Ed, I've watch listed both. They're an excellent pair of articles. Nick-D (talk) 00:05, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

No, thanks to you. :) Also, I left you a note here, Nick. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 00:07, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I think this is the first time that there are three battleships on the main page because Danton is still in the In the News section! -MBK₀₀₄ 00:09, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh my gosh, I had forgotten that. Hahahaha awesome timing :) Who wants to take a screenshot? —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 00:10, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

So in case no one noticed, we have three battleships on the main page again. (with Haruna) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 19:10, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

People should be aware that this has been under discussion elsewhere - see Talk:Military of Italy#Move?. Cheers Buckshot06(prof) 14:15, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

See #Move all "Military of Country" articles to "Armed forces of Country", above--Patton^t/c 14:21, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

The A-Class review for Design 1047 battlecruiser is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 02:09, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Jordanian military ranks has been prodded for deletion by someone. 76.66.193.90 (talk) 06:28, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Military mistakes has been prodded for deletion. 76.66.193.90 (talk) 06:33, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Could we have some help please with:

• Category:Unassessed military history articles = 4 articles unassessed and

• Category:Military history articles with no associated task force = 303 articles unassessed.

There's a permanent link to these here WP:MHAB, if you'd like to bookmark/watchlist ...

Thanks very much in advance, --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 03:38, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm going through some right now, but is 2000 Camp David Summit really in our scope? —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 04:20, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Same question about 2009 satellite collision? —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 04:21, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I'd say the summit is, as it was about ending a conflict, but the satellites aren't our concern.--King Bedford I ^{Seek his grace} 04:33, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not so sure it isn't our concern, one of the satellites involved was a military satellite. -MBK₀₀₄ 04:46, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, MBK and I (maybe others, I dunno) have gotten it down to 91 articles; I'm done for now, but I may do more later. :) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 05:36, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Alright. The category was just pwned, and only a few remain. Those were the ones where I couldn't and can't decide if they are in our scope or ones where the talk page needs to be deleted (the talk page of a redirect...someone was trying automated tagging and screwed up). A lot of stuff that isn't in our scope, like Talk:Israel and the apartheid analogy, was tagged by User:WOSlinker...should we leave him a message? (it was like 10-ish articles) Cheers! —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 09:20, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much, you've broken the back of it :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 10:14, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I've cleared the unassessed ones. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 10:05, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

And deleted the redirects, de-scoped some too. Both categories now empty. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 10:14, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

If you delete the redirects there is a high chance they will get tagged again by a bot. I usually replace those with {{WikiProject Redirect}} or you could enable the new Redirect class for the project. --Brad (talk) 11:03, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I only deleted orphaned talk pages but thanks for the tip. Redirect class? What's that about? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 11:54, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Apparently all of the project banners can use the following if desired:

{{cat class}}Our talk page was categorized, so {tl|} added by me. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 14:45, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

That one is for the ships project but I couldn't find the equivalent for milhist. Using each one is optional of course. --Brad (talk) 21:51, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Is that really needed? I think that would just create extra work...just tag with {{WPRedir}} and leave it, IMO. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 02:13, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Do United States Coast Guard Stations fall under the scope of MILHIST, per cr. 5 on as shown on the project main page, just a bit curious as I will be doing work on this topic pretty frequently in the coming months. -Marcusmax(speak) 02:30, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

*Gulp* I may have been wrong in de-tagging those. I didn't remember that the Coast Guard is one of the branches! :/ Opinions would be helpful... —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 14:48, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Ha Ha, it is not a very big deal, I just was curious if it should be tagged or not as I would not want to create these articles and have to go re-tag them later. -Marcusmax(speak) 22:36, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I started turning Lazenby's Defence of Greece into a pdf today and will send it to another editor to source articles about the Greco-Persian Wars. That inspired me to suggest rearranging our personal library system into an exchange platform for digitalized book content. Well, I'm not familiar with the legal limitations and awaiting input on that, but when we have clarified these issues we sure could handle that somehow. Wandalstouring (talk) 14:42, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Assuming it's legal, that would not be a bad idea! How would it work (i.e. how do you digitize it?) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 14:46, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree it's a great idea, but I'm pretty sure it's also a copyright violation in most places. Making an electronic copy for your own personal use is one thing, but then sharing it with other people on the internet (even if they are Wiki users) is another, unfortunately. Commander Zulu (talk) 14:50, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Unless the book is PD, or if the copying falls under a country's fair use/fair dealing rules (in the UK for private study, noncommercial use I think this is limited to copying no more than 10% of the whole work, or no more than one chapter, whichever is the lesser amount, but I may have got that wrong). David Underdown (talk) 15:06, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

That's a given, I think. ;) Commander Zulu (talk) 15:09, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Erm, Wandal, I think the activity you mention above is kinda...illegal, given that the book in question was only published in 1993. I'd be against any form of digital exchange system - I like not breaking copyright laws :) Skinny87 (talk) 19:27, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

In Germany, I have the freedom of doing such things as part of academic works on the subject. Wandalstouring (talk) 09:16, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

(od) True, but I doubt that's the same in all the countries represented by MILHIST members, and I doubt our respective countries copyright laws allow it - it would be a legal nightmare. Nice idea though, but not really workable in practice. Skinny87 (talk) 11:55, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

So you are saying it's like communism? ;) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 14:24, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

@ed17: Visit a Kibbuz.

Ok, I understand that most of you can send books, but not bookcopies. However, we should be able to provide at least more information about the things we can send, so this idea might actually work. Wandalstouring (talk) 16:19, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

The A-Class review for Battle of Morotai is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Nick-D (talk) 11:11, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I have prodded The race to the Dan River. Article improvements or comments are welcome. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:22, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

No argument with the prod, though a redirect to Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War might be another solution. EyeSerene^talk 19:41, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I was originally going to put this on the logstics page but it says "try asking first on the talk page of the appropriate wikiproject" :P. Anyway, I would like three photographs similar to File:5.56mm-military-rounds.jpg of ball, tracer, armour peircing and blank cartidges in one picture of the three main NATO cartidge types, 5.56x45mm NATO 7.62x51mm NATO and .50 BMG as that picture isn't of great quality, only cover 5.56 rounds and doesnt show armour peircing rounds. I would be extremely grateful to anyone who could help, thanks!--Patton^t/c 21:20, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

As part of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/World War I task force/Centenary drive (and since I need a break from trying to get the Lee-Enfield article promoted :p), I'm embarking on an extensive re-write, copyedit, and reference addition effort on the Lewis Gun article. There's a lot of work to do, so it's going to take some time, but I'd be glad for any help that can be offered, especially in regards to formatting and MoS issues- my strength is the information in the article itself, rather than the formatting stuff.... Commander Zulu (talk) 06:10, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm definitely not trying to have a shot at you, but if you intend to improve this article and bring it up the quality scale, then remember to cite all of your paragraphs along the way so you don't have the same referencing issue you are now facing for the Lee-Enfield article. I just found that when improving or creating articles it is a hell of a lot easier if you cite everything along the way, so if you bring it up the quality scale you then only really need to focus on MoS and prose issues. Just some friendly advice. :) Cheers, Abraham, B.S. (talk) 07:23, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Don't worry, I plan to. The thing is that the Lee-Enfield article has been on Wiki since 2002(!), well before my time here, and it was already a pretty substantial article by the time I started working on it in 2006, so it was going always going to be a lot of effort to bring up to A-class standard... Commander Zulu (talk) 07:48, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

As a minor, and probably not terribly helpful, note, the Australian military also used the Lewis Gun during World War II for training purposes and to provide anti-aircraft armament for auxiliary warships. I'd be surprised if Canada and New Zealand didn't do the same. Nick-D (talk) 09:14, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

It's covered under the Commonwealth of Nations user listing, because otherwise it would take too long to list every single part of the then British Empire that used the Lewis. But you're right, Australia, NZ, and Canada did use the Lewis quite extensively in both Wars. Commander Zulu (talk) 10:45, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Just in case anyone is interested, I've nominated the article for A-class Review. Commander Zulu (talk) 11:51, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I'll take a peek at it since I'm doing some work on the FG 42, inspired by the Lewis operating principle. Koalorka (talk) 13:32, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi everyone. The Featured Article Candidacy for Australian Second World War Victoria Cross recipient Tom Derrick is now open. All editors are invited to participate, and any and all comments are welcome, not to mention much appreciated. If anyone has a spare minute or two, it would be great if you could review the article against the FA criteria and leave any comments here. Thanks! Abraham, B.S. (talk) 07:52, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

• 
  WikiChevrons
• 
  WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves

One of the grumbles during the recent workshop was that awards and barnstars aren't given out often enough. This is just a reminder that anyone can give out the WikiChevrons to editors whom they consider deserving. Easiest is to use this template:

{{subst:WikiChevrons|message ~~~~}}

The project's higher award, the Wikichevrons with Oak Leaves, has specific requirements but, if you believe they have been fulfilled, please nominate deserving editors here.

We have also expanded the awards section, to include many barnstars which aren't military-history specific but are nevertheless popular within the project. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 10:33, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

A good award we could adopt is ; for articles on VC, Knight's Cross recipients etc --Jim Sweeney (talk) 22:49, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

A user has been changing redirects at Amphibious assault and Amphibious Assault from Amphibious warfare to Fallon Bowman#Amphibious Assault. The user has also been removing the hatnote from the Amphibious warfare page. I don't see how Amphibious warfare is not the primary topic here, nor do I see the need for a DAB page for only 2 topics. I'm not exactly sure where to go with this issue. Any help would be appreciated, no matter your opinion on the issue. Thanks. - BillCJ (talk) 19:21, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Clearly the warfare page is the primary topic; the band doesn't even have its own article. I've reverted the user a second time and left a note on his talk page. Hopefully that should take care of the issue. Parsecboy (talk) 19:29, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! - BillCJ (talk) 19:36, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi, all. While reviewing Battle of Vimy Ridge for FAC, Labattblueboy and I uncovered some possible WP:ENGVAR issues that neither of us can answer. Specifically, is it "fuse" or "fuze" in Canadian English? I think there are others that Labattblueboy has found, but did not mention specifically on the review page. Are there any canucks around who can lend us a hand? Thanks. Parsecboy (talk) 19:23, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I think it's less a matter of national variations, but partly of technical usage. As a Brit I'd normally write fuse, but was convinced by arguments at talk:Falklands War that technically if it's anything more complicated than a slow-match or powder trail, then technically it's a fuze. David Underdown (talk) 22:15, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm Canadian and I wasn't even aware that fuze is a possible spelling of that word.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 22:30, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

The A-Class review for SM UB-45 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! -MBK₀₀₄ 20:04, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

The A-Class review for Operation Freshman is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill ^[pf] 02:34, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 06:00, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I was regarding the previous discussion as stalled without consensus.

But when three of use were in agreement, I made some article edits, which has resulted in a sort of discussion at Talk:Leopard tank#Operators Flags, and another editor is asking for more opinions, if anyone is still in the mood to put in their 2¢. —Michael Z. 2009-01-23 23:37 z

Timestamp added for bot. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 18:21, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I have nominated Chemical warfare for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Xasodfuih (talk • contribs)

Timestamp added for bot. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 18:21, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I was going through the Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/World War I task force/Centenary drive just before and noted how the vast majority of articles there aren't even B-class. That, of course, is the entire purpose of the drive, but I've noticed that rather a lot of FA- and A- class MILHIST articles are... shall we say... of limited interest and/or usefulness?

I'm not for a moment denigrating the quality of the articles themselves or the effort their editors have put in (they deserve the ranking the articles have, no doubt), but it does strike me as interesting that articles of widespread interest (such as M16 rifle and Fighter aircraft) are ranked as "start" when we have FA articles on obscure battles of the Texas revolution and someone who was captain of an Iowa-class battleship which suffered a turret explosion. Obviously this is reflection of the interests of particular dedicated editors who have the time, knowledge, and expertise to get an article to FA level, but I must express concern that, IMHO, there appear to be so many "Limited Interest" FA- and A-class topics when a number of "Wider Interest" topics are so poorly ranked.

Perhaps this might be something worthy of further discussion? Commander Zulu (talk) 05:27, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I know that in my case I have areas of expertise. I have studied American Military History since I was in fifth grade, but my focus has always been 1700s and 1800s with particular interest in the American Civil War and the American Revolution. Lately I have been reading books on the War of 1812 as well. I confess to having no more than a cursory things like an M16 Rifle or Fighter Aircraft. If I ever find enough time I intent to work on rewriting or adding to some of the Trans-Mississippian Battles of American Civil Ar. These may not be of wide spread interest, but I believe it is still important and it is what I know. I will more than likely never be a weapons' expert, but I will contribute to what I do know. This is all I or anyone else can promise. Yours in Christ, (Steve (talk) 05:45, 28 February 2009 (UTC))

Don't get me wrong, it's editors like yourself diligently working away on topics that aren't of widespread interest that make this project the success it is. What I mean, though, it that we have a lot of limited-interest topics as FAs (nothing wrong with that) and not nearly as many "General Interest" topics; I merely offer the observation as a discussion point. Commander Zulu (talk) 05:58, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

(e/c) The problem here is that (I think all?) people want to write articles on certain topics they like, whether its Battleships or the Guadalcanal Campaign. You can't force people to write articles that are important. Someone has to want to do them, and the problem is that, quite frankly, articles with that wide of a scope are going to take many trips to the library, some money to get books, and a lot of time - all of which many people will not do. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 05:54, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

That's a very fair observation. Commander Zulu (talk) 05:58, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

That's an excellent, and important, topic to raise. In my experience, editors tend to shy away from high profile articles because it's relatively hard to work on them and they're seen to be maintainence-intensive. It's less daunting to develop an article on an obscure topic than a high profile one as you generally don't have to worry about IPs undoing your good work, edit warriors defending their turf, etc. Moreover, its simply easier to write articles on smaller topics than larger ones as there isn't so much ground to cover and sources to consult (it took me months of on and off work to get Military history of Australia during World War II to A-class standard - in the same time I probably could have promoted several smaller articles such as Battle of Morotai). That said, once the effort is put into developing an article to a high standard its relatively easy to keep it there - World War II is the obvious example of this. Nick-D (talk) 06:09, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I have to admit that I do this sometimes, focusing on less main-stream articles (although to be fair that's because airborne warfare is mainstream but in a dire state on wikipedia) and airborne warfare is my main interest. But I'm often driven away from working on main-stream articles because they're chock-full of idiot ip editors, POV warriors, SPAs and generally disruptive editors. It's like herding cats most times, and drives me away; hell, just look at the state of the Operation Market Garden talkpage at the moment. I want to get that to at least GA if not further, but constant edit-warring and ignorant editors just make me throw my hands up and go back to less main-stream but more stress-free articles. Skinny87 (talk) 14:29, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Good point indeed. My experience with the Cold War article tells me that is really hard to work on such an article. After months of work the article only reached A-class/GA and failed two FACs – I believe that in the amount of time spent working on that article, I could have probably promote 4-5 lower profile articles (plus avoiding all the stress and frustration). --Eurocopter (talk) 15:33, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely right. I admit that I can be part of this myself, spending much of my time on articles about the Eastern Front of World War II, but try to make up for it by working on stuff like list of battles by casualties, which was in a very sorry state six months or so ago and gets ten times the views of Stalin's ten blows, for example. I spend enough time reverting vandalism and unsourced additions on battles by casualties, I don't even want to think about what it would be like on something really big, like World War II. As I recall, the Special Projects Department was originally founded to work on the ten most viewed articles in our scope, but, as far as I know, that didn't really go anywhere. Perhaps we could offer a barnstar or something for people who can get an article with over X views per day to A-Class/FA? – Joe Nutter 17:54, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Or we could organize an impromptu massive collab right now and help Cam in his attempt to totally rewrite World War I and bring it to FA. :) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 18:07, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Hey, we're about to deploy Article alerts on a bunch of WikiProjects in the near future. What Article Alerts is is basically a bot-handled news delivery system for when articles enter WP:AfD, WP:GAC, WP:PROD, WP:PR and many more. I was browsing Category:ArticleAlertbot subscriptions and I noticed that WP:MILHIST wassn't in there. So, since you guys are one of the biggest, and IMO, the most bestest Wikiproject hands down, I thought that you could subscribe to WP:Article alerts for a couple of reason.

1. You have ~85.6K articles in your scope. Article Alerts would greatly improve your ability to monitor what is happening, and certainly make it less tedious. The reports are delivered on a daily basis.
2. Since you aren't currently subscribed, it allows us to battle-test our new interface at the WP:Article alerts HQ. We'd know if it's easy to get around, and if it's easy to find the information you are looking for. And we'd also get feedback about the ease of setting up the alerts, ease of customizing reports, etc...
3. Because of the sheer numbers of articles covered by WP:MILHIST, and because WP:MILHIST and its taskforces are very active, this would allow us spot out (m)any bugs that might've been missed by the less-active projects, and to really test the taskforce support of WP:Article alerts, as well as test the new bug report interface.
4. You'll probably also have new ideas for features and what workflows to cover, so we'd be able to the new feature request interface (and add features to WP:Article alerts).

I'm not telling you how to subscribe, because it should be clear how to subscribe both the main project and its taskforces from the WP:Article alerts page, and we want to test if this is actually clear. Of course you may choose to not subscribe if you don't feel like it, even though I can't fathom why you'd choose to opt out of this. Feedback can be left on Wikipedia talk:Article alerts or on my talk page. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 08:11, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

That sounds very useful. We wouldn't have to bother with doing it manually any more. Woudl it be possible to include the project's native peer and a class reviews in this alert system?--Patton^t/c 10:42, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

We might have some use for it, however, it can not substitute hundreds of active editors watchlisting articles, but may help our administration and our GA reviews. Wandalstouring (talk) 10:54, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

No of course, but it's not mean as a replacement for watchlisting. It's meant as a centralized "news report" on what happened during the day, with links to relevant discussions, etc, which can then be transcluded on subpages (or any other pages, like user pages, newsletters, etc...). The advantage goes beyond not having to monitor things yourself, and to manually notify projects and taskforces: you eliminate the possibility that articles go through processes like WP:PROD without people knowing about it.

Including internal A-class reviews is definitely possible if the process is streamlined enough, but there might be technical issues. Just make a Feature request, and the bot coders will take a look at it and tell you if its feasible or not. Someone else proposed it and I commented that I thought it was kinda pointless to include them since the goal of AAlerts was to report what was going on outside of WikiProjects, and the projects are obviously aware of what is going on internally. But if interest is there (and it looks like it is, since this proposal came from two different projects), I don't see why it shouldn't be implemented. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 11:57, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

With a project of this size the only reason we know what's going on intenally is because the coords spam news onto this talk page ;-)--Patton^t/c 12:02, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Isn't this a bit redundant to the news box at the top of the page?--Patton^t/c 12:05, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this is a pretty big project, so task-force coordination alone is a pretty big argument for including internal workflows in Article Alerts. And what newsbox are we speaking of?Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 12:13, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

{{WPMILHIST Announcements}}--Patton^t/c 12:14, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

There is certainly an overlap in that page and the article alerts, but the article alerts it covers much MUCH more than what is included the MILHIST Announcements (WP:PROD, WP:AfD, WP:TfD, WP:MfD, WP:DYK, WP:ITN come to mind amongst others). The only thing currently not covered by the Article Alerts system is the "Articles needing attention" part of the announcements, but that could possibly be included in future version of the bot. I don't code the bots so I can't answer you if it can be done, so making a Feature request is probably the best course of action. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 12:27, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

It's not fully redundant in any case, since it's a list of what reviews are currently open rather than a list of what reviews were opened; if we had that, then, yes, we could automate the announcements. I expect the automated alert list will be much more useful for task forces, which don't currently have a continuously updated listing. (Plus, we can subscribe all the task forces en masse by fiddling with the standard page elements.) Kirill ^[pf] 13:47, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I support the idea of getting notifications for each task force. It will make it easier to keep track of the progress of articles maintained by our task forces. Gaia Octavia Agrippa ^Talk | _Sign 13:03, 17 February 2009 (UTC) Support then...--Patton^t/c 13:08, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Seems to be a useful addition to me as well. I know Tom had some problems with people AfDing articles he had written, and not notifying him (or presumably other interested editors/projects too) that the articles were at AfD. This would help to avoid issues like that in the future. Parsecboy (talk) 13:26, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

For the project-wide listing, would it make more sense to transclude it on the "Status" tab or the "News" tab? Or add a new "Article alerts" tab (or replace the "Open tasks" tab with it)? Kirill ^[pf] 13:47, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Break it up into the different kinds of alerts and have a watchable news page for every kind of alert. Additionally, the taskforces should be notified about alerts within their scope. This way we will have split a heap of hundreds of alerts into small pieces.Wandalstouring (talk) 15:53, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I dunno about the feasibility of alerting every task force, but I definitely support splitting it up (if possible) - with 80,000 articles, that's a lot of possible alerts. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 20:06, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, each task force will have its own, dedicated alert listing for articles pertaining to that task force; is that what you mean?

As far as splitting up the project-wide listing by category, I don't really see the point; that adds maintenance overhead for us since we have to keep up with any changes to the categories, and doesn't really buy us anything since the bot will overwrite all the listings regardless. Given the structure, I think it's easy enough for anyone interested to simply scroll down to their preferred section in the list when the update takes place, rather than seeing a dozen separate updates on their watchlist. Kirill ^[pf] 00:34, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

...I didn't realize that there would be sections (thought that it was all alphabetized or something). Never mind! —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 00:42, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

(Unindent) I've noticed that WP:MILHIST isn't yet a subscriber of Article Alerts. Are you having any problems setting up the alerts, or are you still in the process of debating/voting if you should go forward with it? Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 22:15, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

We're still discussing some of the details, as you can see above. ;-) Kirill ^[pf] 01:53, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Implementation of article alerts

Okay, as a first step, I've set up article alerts for all of the task forces; the alerts will be transcluded in each task force's to-do list template. Let's see how well this works. Kirill ^[pf] 23:53, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I also suggest setting one up for the WP:MILHIST mainpage as well, so people can have an project-wide overview, and make it easier to coordinate. But do things like you feel like. Also, since we're rolling this thing out on a massive scale, I'd appreciate if you'd let me know how easy it was to set up, and if the documentation was clear/confusion (of course with suggestion to improve it if you have any). Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 10:42, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

As far as setting it up goes: the documentation was quite clear, and I didn't run into any problems following it. The one complaint I do have has to do with the template itself; it would be very useful if, in the initial output (when the alerts page hasn't been created yet), the template printed out the values of its parameters. Otherwise, it's very difficult to determine if it's set up correctly when the parameter values aren't literal strings. Kirill ^[pf] 04:16, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

It would be enormous, though, on the main page, no? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 12:27, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

The layout is problematic such as in Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Classical warfare task force#To do. I suggest to have these templates on a more visible place like the talk pages of the task forces. It would be a good idea to write in the templates to which taskforce they belong and make them copyable to editor's own pages like our announcements and open tasks template. Wandalstouring (talk) 12:45, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

• Wandalstouring: Hmmm, that looks like a bug recently introduced. I'll file a report.

Actually this is caused by the project using the display=columns settings in the subscription {{WPMILHIST Announcements/Classical warfare}}, which specifies a width=100%. You happen to transclude the alert into a width=30% divbox, which causes a problem. The quickest way to fix this would be to use the default setting (aka ignore the display= parameter) or to use display=plain. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 13:59, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

More fundamentally, the 30% layout should no longer be used for task force to-do boxes anyways; the boxes should have been converted to full-width some time ago, but it looks like we missed some.

I'll work on getting the boxes more easily transcludable; unfortunately, I was a bit excessively clever with the code to generate the lists in the first place, which means that, at the moment, they don't show up unless the box is on the task force page. Kirill ^[pf] 16:57, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

• Roger Davies: Enormous... well yes and no. Transclusions only list the 10 most recent articles in each sections (with a "list goes on..." link if there are more than 10 articles), so there's an upper size limit to transclusions. There are also ways to reduce the size, such as setting low archivetimes and excluding some less-essential things like Did you know? and In the news... But the size of it shouldn't really be a problem if you place it in a hiding box (or give a link to the page, rather than transclude it). For example, here's the transcluded list from WP:BIOG (which has more than 615,000 articles in its scope). Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 13:50, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

{{hidden | css = | headercss = background: #ccccff; font-size: 110%; | contentcss = | header = WikiProject Biography's alerts | content = <div style="font-size: 90%; -webkit-column-count:3; -moz-column-count:3; column-count:3"> {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Article alerts}} </div> }}

We also have the new "Status" subpage that's not really heavily used; I think we could easily get away with putting the alerts there and just letting the size fluctuate with them. Kirill ^[pf] 16:57, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Some updates:

• A project-wide list has been set up, and should appear at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Status#Article alerts shortly.
• The task force templates have been fixed so that they can be properly transcluded from anywhere.
• Instructions for transclusion have been added to each task force template.

More prominent placement of the task force templates is still to come. Kirill ^[pf] 19:04, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Any final feedback? If I'll unwatch this page two days after the last comment about this, after which I may be reach at either WP:AAlerts or on my Talk page.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 08:26, 1 March 2009 (UTC)