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Project style guide and MoS

I've been involved in a discussion regarding the role of WikiProjects in the FAC criteria (Wikipedia talk:Featured article criteria#Unsure about #2). The upshot seems to be that WikiProject guidelines will not be considered to have "official" weight unless they're part of the WP:MOS. In light of that, I'd like to propose the following:

1. Move our existing guidelines (i.e. the contents of WP:MILHIST#Guidelines) to a subpage.
2. Redirect the subpage's talk page to the main project talk page, to retain a single place for discussion.
3. Get community consensus to tag said subpage as a part of the formal MoS.

Feedback on this idea would be appreciated! Kirill 17:28, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Based on a very cursory review, I have have no objections and commend you for taking the initiative to stay abreast of such issues that may affect the project. wbfergus ^Talk 17:51, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia feedback

I'm anxious to see this excellent guideline page become a part of the manual of style; I think you may have to eventually post to the Village Pump to gain wide consensus.

Some specific feedback:

• To agree with WP:MOS, can you eliminate the "e.g." (replace it with prose) in If disambiguation is needed, the year may be added in parentheses (e.g. ... and throughout? Following MOS guidelines will help remind editors to ... follow MOS guidelines.
• I'm unclear on whether adding this page to MOS implies broad consensus to all the subpages mentioned (for example, those listed under the section headings, Topic-specific conventions, Additional conventions and Weapon); I haven't reviewed those pages for possible contradictions with MOS.
• Rank: in the past, I've tried to help out with copyediting and FAC prep of several MilHist articles. As a person completely unfamiliar with the military, I need a guideline on military rank, how they are abbreviated, and so on. Is that here somewhere?
• Casualties: in the past, Kirill has mentioned the need to cite casualty numbers, and the issue of rounding. Is that included somewhere?
• Regarding Infobox templates (pause for a deep breath); depending on which computer/browser I'm using, the MilHist template size appears gynormous and dominates the text on my screen. Is there any possibility they could lose 10% in width without sacrificing content?
• Size guidelines; I remain interested in a discussion of Campaign history of the Roman military with respect to WP:SIZE and whether the Project wants to say anything specific on massive topics. I cannot load the Roman military article when I'm traveling and forced to use a dialup; it takes almost a minute to load even when I'm home. You all have many topics which can tend towards massive size (World Wars); can any guidance be provided?
• When you spin the guidelines off to an MOS page, should Featured article advice be part of those guidelines, or separated by TOC?

None of this rises to the level of opposition to the MilHist guidelines becoming part of MOS, but they are issues I'd like to discuss. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:13, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Let's see, in order:

• I have an unfortunate tendency to overuse Latinate abbreviations, but we can probably just run a search-and-replace on the text to get rid of those.
• The subsidiary pages are largely intended as collections of advice (mostly things like translation notes specific to particular armies) rather than proper guidelines. We could probably reword the introductory statement above the links to make that clearer. The only one that should really be here is the weapon structure suggestion, which was left on the Weaponry page when originally developed; I'll go ahead and move that here for people to mull over.
• Nope, we have nothing written down on ranks at the moment. We can work on developing something, but it'll probably take some time.
• Statistics are mentioned as one of the points to be cited in the section on citations.
• The template width is controlled project-wide by a meta-template, so it would be trivial to "change"; but the fundamental reason for the current setting is the convention of using a 300px image in the infobox. To have any effect, a width change would need to be accompanied by some sort of automated resizing spree on those.
• As regarding ranks, we have nothing firm on article size at the moment.
• The FA advice should probably stay on this page; it's even less of a real "guideline" than most of what we have, and I can't really see us calling that part of the MoS.

Kirill 20:22, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry I can't remember where or when the conversation occurred, but you said something once about rounding in casualty estimates, and I had an issue with an estimate's overprecision. If you can recall, and add any guidance, it would help. I'd also really like to see something about how to trim the massive War articles; World War I and World War II were always massive, and now we've got Roman military as well. Not a sticking point for me, just a good time to discuss this. And I had a hard time copyediting Hispanic Americans in World War II without knowing how to deal with ranks and their abbreviations. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:29, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Just a note:

• Abbreviations have been eliminated.
• Nature of subsidiary pages has been made more explicit; obsolete ones have been removed; and the weaponry article structure recommendation has been moved here.

Kirill 20:57, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Sandy asked me to look at this proposal as I worked on MEDMOS. I support the push to move this to be formally recognised as an official guideline. You'll earn a link from the list on the RHS of the MOS and hopefully the extra traffic will be beneficial both to the guidelines and also their use in relevant articles. A few quick comments:

• Move this to a page of its own ASAP. It will help people focus on what is in and what is out. Have you thought of a shortcut? WP:MILMOS or WP:MILHISTMOS? There seem to be loads of variants used in MOS subpages.
• My main issue is that it is overlong. Some suggestions for shortening the guideline page:
  • Only include MILHIST-specific guidelines. For example, the sections on Citation styles and Requesting citations are not specific to MILHIST.
  • Focus on guidelines rather than merely helpful information. The Templates section could be drastically reduced and some content referenced on the talk page. For example, the list of Infoboxes could be a sub-page of this project. While you could view this as a loss here, it might also enable such a list to be expanded to be more helpful (if required).
  • Categories takes up a huge amount of text. Both naming guidelines and insertion guidelines. Perhaps this whole aspect could be moved to its own subpage. This would leave the remaining text to focus more on writing the article.
• This is a good time to review your FAs (you've got a lot!) and ensure your guidelines match best practice.

Colin°^Talk 12:52, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I'll try to move them onto a subpage (likely still transcluded, at this point) when I get the chance. Both of the shortcuts you mention seem sensible; there's no reason why we can't have two.

As far as the length is concerned, I expect there are multiple schools of thought on this. I tend to think that having the material easily available in one place is worth the extra bulk; in my experience, just about nobody reads an entire MoS page straight through, so the average person isn't going to be unduly inconvenienced so long as the page is easy to navigate. Moving things out to individual subpages is neat, but makes it easier for people to overlook things.

(Having said that, the category documentation is indeed quite long; so perhaps moving it to a page of its own—if not now, then at a later date—may be a workable approach.) Kirill 14:19, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

It seems really silly to rearrange this project to fit a wording problem at WP:WIAFA; the simpler solution is to make clear there that the weight given to project standards should vary, depending on the weight they deserve. This, and MED and Math would get a lot; something slapped together in five minutes by WP:Fancruft would get none. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that Math has ever been exposed to broad consensus or enjoys the reputation MilHist enjoys. Which Projects enjoy this "weight they deserve" is opinion; subjecting it to broad consensus of MOS is more clear. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:29, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've moved the guidelines in question out to Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide, redirected its talk page here, and left some brief links to it at WP:MILHIST#MOS. Comments on how this looks now, especially from people that have needed to consult the guidelines before, would be very appreciated! In particular, is the style guide easy enough to find? Kirill 12:41, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Easy enough to find ... from where? Eventually, it will be linked from WP:MOS, no, at {{style}}? I'll have a look, but a suggestion is that you might want to open up the talk page at the new guideline page. What's hard to find is this discussion, and you might want to have clear links there showing consensus when you add it to MOS. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:49, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

From within the project, obviously. ;-)

As far as the talk page goes: given that the main idea behind this exercise was that we would continue to retain only one central place for discussion, I don't think that's going to be helpful. Kirill 12:51, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, how about a shortcut on this talk section then, for quicker, easier access? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:56, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

PS, yes it's easy to find; I see it right there at the top of the MilHist main page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:58, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

WT:MILHIST#MOS work? I've also linked the discussion from the top of the style guide page itself. Kirill 12:30, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Can we include a policy on recommended guidelines on image usage? I often see articles which are overloaded with every image available for the topic. Oberiko 13:09, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

How to proceed?

So, given the lack of objections from the project and the RFC lists, I suppose the next step would be dropping a link to this discussion at the Village Pump? Does anyone have further comments before we do so? Kirill 11:20, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Interesting—I found out about this from the newsletter this morning. I just announced that the first draft of the WikiProject Scouting style guide is available for review. I wonder how many other projects are working this? --Gadget850 ( Ed) 16:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've left messages at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) and Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) inviting feedback from the community; hopefully some people will stop by now. Kirill 20:32, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide

After seeing Kirill's note on the village pump inviting comments I read through Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide. It looks good. I have no improvement suggestions but I thought I'd start the discussion. Does anyone else like it?--Phoenix 15 (Talk) 14:33, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

It might be better to un-redirect the style guide talk page so that discussions are focused instead of getting spread across this page. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 20:54, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

That would actually cause discussions to be split rather than focused, since we'd now have two pages (this one and the style guide one) where things would be discussed. (It wouldn't help things that this page is by far the higher-traffic one, either.) Kirill 21:06, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

• It's well-written and all, but why does it need to be part of the MOS when the topic is so specific? There are already too many topic MOS subpages, and WT:COUNCIL has ongoing discussion of doing something with all of these things, such as creating a new category and template for WikiProject-generated quasi-guidelines (the principal problem with which is they generally do not draw enough WP-wide editorial interest to reflect a broad consensus, though they typically are useful to people within the relevant project). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:02, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

  Short answer: because WP:WIAFA makes no provision for any non-MoS guidelines. Kirill 01:04, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Kirill here, the council discussion is something that may bear fruit, but it is still a long way off. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 01:18, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Forts and Fortifications

You've got sections for units, battles, and wars, but how about one for forts and fortifications? I'd suggest something like Boden Fortress as an example. I'm not sure that the recommendations for either battle or unit would adequately help someone working on a fortification topic. I'd also suggest that a fortification listing might be helpful in the naming conventions section. Does anyone else think this might be a good idea? If so, I'd be happy to add it.JKBrooks85 02:33, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Please feel free to propose draft text for anything you'd like to see added (preferably in a new section on this page, as working out new guidelines is likely to take some time, and I'd like to avoid inadvertently holding up the MoS discussion due to that).

I'm not sure, though, whether a separate mention of fortification naming conventions is worthwhile. Is there anything specific to them that needs to be said, beyond what's already covered in the base Wikipedia-wide conventions? Kirill 02:43, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure. I'll draft something up, and you (or someone else) can judge. JKBrooks85 11:24, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay. I've inserted two new sections -- one in naming conventions, and the other in the article guidelines. JKBrooks85 17:37, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Looks good; they seem to match current practice overall. I've given them a little copyedit. Kirill 17:43, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. JKBrooks85 19:13, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Any remaining concerns?

Are there any substantive concerns remaining with the proposed material here? (I don't think there are, as best as I can tell; but perhaps I've missed something.) If there aren't, I think we can proceed; the matter has certainly been advertised as widely as it could be. Kirill 23:30, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Discussion for various United States General articles

Rather than scour all over WP looking for articles and discussions and edits and reversions, this section will be one stop shopping to help discuss and improve the content and layout of the various 4, 5 and 6(?) star United States General ranks. — MrDolomite • Talk 18:35, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

• General (United States)
• General of the Army (United States)
• General of the Armies
• General of the Air Force

I personally believe that these ranks are different enough that each would be able to substantiate its own article, along with the rank's history, with some overlap (as most WP articles have on related subjects). — MrDolomite • Talk 18:35, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

The ranks are currently different, but their history is all intertwined. The General (United States) article already covers all the information that is included in those other articles, so there's no need to have separate articles. Overlap should be minimized. Also note that the General (United States) article explains very clearly that the ranks are currently different. So it's not as if covering them all on the same article will cause people to think they're currently the same rank. - Shaheenjim 18:56, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Just wondering--I set Five-star general to redirect to General of the Army (United States); I've only ever heard the term "five-star general" used about U.S. Army generals of that rank, and more generally, the "n-star general" form is a common shorthand for references to U.S. general officers, because of their insignia.

I see that Shaheenjim changed the page to redirect to Field Marshal. Can I ask why he made this change? It doesn't make sense to me. I'm not aware that any field marshal was ever referred to as a "five-star general", since a field marshal is not a "general" at all! I think the term is used exclusively for US Army officers, and, of course, we do not have the rank "Field Marshal" in this country. (Yes, "General of the Army" is intended to be a rank equivalent to "Field Marshal", but, still, Marshall was a general, not a marshal, if you take my meanin'.)

If we don't want to have a separate "General of the Army (Unite States)" article, I think "Five-star general" should redirect to General (United States). -- Narsil 20:43, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Is the "X-star General" terminology really just used in the United States? I think of it as being applicable internationally, and the Field Marshal page was as close as Wikipedia has to an international page on five-star ranks. The Field Marshal page links to the General of the Army (United States) article as the American version of the generic five-star rank. - Shaheenjim 20:50, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Upon further consideration, rather than have "five-star general" redirect to "Field Marshal," maybe we could have "Field Marshal" redirect to "five-star general." We could use that as the international page on five-star ranks, and there we could have links to the US rank of General of the Army and other countries' Field Marshal ranks. - Shaheenjim 20:52, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

That seems a bit counterintuitive; "Field Marshal" is etymologically closer to "Marshal" than to any type of general.

I'd suggest merging Field Marshal to Marshal and Five-Star General to General, with breakout articles for particular (country/service) ranks or rank types as material allows. Kirill 20:58, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd be open to changing the five-star general redirect to Marshal instead of Field Marshal, (or having Marshal redirect to five-star general or Field Marshal). Although I do not suggest merging the international pages on five star rank with the international page on General (the four star rank). The American five star rank and four star rank have histories that are intertwined, so it makes sense for them to be on the same article. But there's no need to have the international version of four star and five star on the same page, because their histories aren't intertwined in the same way that the American versions are. - Shaheenjim 21:04, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like I might be in the minority here, but I think the articles regarding the various US five-star generals should be separate. They are tied together in some repects, but each rank represents a different branch of the military and have been occupied by different people. I would equate these articles with Sergeant Major of the Army, Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, and other similar ranks. ++Arx Fortis 22:11, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

The General (United States) article explains that the five-star ranks represent different branches of the military and that they have been occupied by different people. There's no need to have separate articles that cover the same things. Overlap should be minimized. - Shaheenjim 22:15, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I side with Arx Fortis on this one, I feel the articles rgarding the various five star generals should be seperate oweing to the uniqueness of the rank and the circumstances of the promotion. In my minds eye I see this as a form of natability, it isn;t every day that generals get promoted to a five or six star rank' therefore to me, the uniqueness of the rank justifies having seperate pages. Thats my opinion on the matter. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:24, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

The General (United States) article explains that the five-star ranks are all unique. There's no need to have separate articles that cover the same things. Overlap should be minimized. - Shaheenjim 23:35, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Shaheenjim wrote "Overlap should be minimized." I agree with that sentiment as at the moment some pages on Wikipedia have not been updated to reflect corrections made to the main articles about each rank. However, the individual article about each rank are the core articles about each of the ranks. While Congress and/or the military may have created similarly named ranks that does not mean they "overlap." They were specific ranks created for specific occasions. From the core articles on each rank we can have auxiliary articles should reflect data documented in the core articles. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 02:42, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting that the ranks themselves overlap. And the General (United States) article does not say that the ranks themselves overlap. But their history overlaps. That's why many of the different articles have much of the same text in their history section. - Shaheenjim 02:53, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

It's ridiculous to have three separate articles which all basically say the same thing. I know that General, General of the Army, and General of the Armies of the United States are three different ranks, but that does not mean they all require their own article, when the articles are so similar (they look as if most of their content has been cut-and-pasted from one to the others). I would suggest either merging the latter two into General (United States), or reducing their length and inserting {{main|General (United States)}} instead. Also, it would be unjustificably US-centric to turn Field Marshal into a redirect page: America might not have field marshals, but plenty of other countries do, and it should be kept. Richard75 15:24, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Just FYI, I'm the one who cut and pasted the info from one article to the others (and also the one who attempted to merge them). But even before I cut and pasted the info from one article to the others, they already covered the same history. I just rephrased the information that was already on each page to make the similities more clear. - Shaheenjim 16:55, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Upon further consideration, I suppose there is no reason to merge the article for General of the Air Force with other articles. It doesn't share much of a common history with them. But I still think the articles on General (United States), General of the Army (United States), and General of the Armies should be merged, since they have so much common history. - Shaheenjim 03:45, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Hey, as long as we have four, five, and six star general experts here to discuss the merge, can any of you guys answer my questions at the bottom of these talk pages: page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4, page 5, page 8, and page 9? They're all about three+ star general equivalents. Some of them are the same question on multiple pages. - Shaheenjim 07:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

For your Russian questions, check the Russian/Soviet taskforce talkpage for an earlier discussion on this issue. Cheers Buckshot06 20:31, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I removed those questions from the list above. - Shaheenjim 15:34, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

First section break

This situation just exploded when I discovered that Shaheenjim has attempted a sneaky merger of General of the Armies, General of the Army, General, and Lieutenant General all on the main General (United States) article. I ask others to look into this since I am at the top of 3RR. See Talk:General_(United_States)#Investigation_into_non-consensus_merger for the full details. Thank you! -OberRanks 03:39, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

We've been discussing that here for like two weeks. Also, I don't know why you'd redirect the discussion from here to the General page, since there's already a note on the General page redirecting discussion to here. - Shaheenjim 03:43, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Erm, guys, please, let's not have this turn into an edit war. Discussion is good; reverting each other without it, not so much. Kirill 04:13, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. I will not violate 3RR here. I have attempted to get other opinions about this. Right now, SJ has created carbon copy articles of a semi-merged General article on General (United States), Lieutenant General (United States), and General of the Armies even after agreeing that the articles should stay separate. All changes are being reverted, even a cleanup tag on the General article which is now a mess because of this. Thats where we stand right now. Intervention and opinions by others is badly needed. -OberRanks 04:21, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I already responded to that at Talk:General_(United_States)#Investigation_into_non-consensus_merger. I don't know why you insist on having the same conversation in multiple places. It's actually quite ironic given the topic. - Shaheenjim 04:24, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I can't seem to figure out how Lieutenant General got dragged in here; it's a three-star rank—and a highly international one, to boot—so there's no apparent reason for it to be involved in a merger of four-star and five-star rank articles.

Aside from that, I'd suggest using "general" as a shorthand for "general officer" rather than as "[full] general". So we'd wind up with a set of articles for the internationally-common ranks:

• Major General
• Lieutenant General
• Colonel General
• and so forth

Meanwhile, the article General (United States) could cover all general officers rather than just four-star generals; it'd have a structure something along these lines:

• Brigadier General
  • {{details|Brigadier General}} + short summary
• Major General
  • {{details|Major General}} + short summary
• Lieutenant General
  • {{details|Lieutenant General}} + short summary
• Full general
  • Detailed section on four-star ranks (in the US)
• Higher ranks
  • Detailed section on five-star ranks (in the US)

This way, we minimize the redundant content, while allowing the major cross-nation ranks to be easily carried over across the many nations that use them.

(Obviously, this is a rough sketch; but I think it's suitable at least as a starting point for further discussion.) Kirill 04:26, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Thats a very good start, to be sure. My main concern is the pretty obvious violation of WP:CON, i.e. SJ participated in a vote where it was determined NOT to merge, yet merged anyway and then tried to decieve editors by maintaining the three separate articles as if they were separate when in fact they were now copies of all the same semi-merged article. I've done all I can about that and as we have not seen a response on the Admin Noticeboard, this doesnt seem to be high on the list right now. Something needs to be done about this as we cannot have three carbon copy articles of the same material. Meanwhile, SJ launches into edit wars and claims to be the victim, and has asked the administrators to ban me from this site for challenging his edits. [1] Obviously there is no desire there to work with me ,so this is as far as I can go for now. -OberRanks 05:14, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Kirill: The history of Lieutenant Generals in the United States is tied in with the history of Four Star Generals in the United States. Both are ranks that, for a long time, were only used in times of war. For example, after Washington, there were none of either until the Civil War. Then we readded both ranks. Then when the Civil War ended, we discontinued both ranks.

OberRanks: I already responded to that at Talk:General_(United_States)#Investigation_into_non-consensus_merger. I don't know why you insist on having the same conversation in multiple places (let alone why you insist on saying the same things multiple times, even after I've responded to them). It's actually quite ironic given the topic. - Shaheenjim 05:25, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I looked at these articles and yeah, the redundancy has to go. At a minimum, the three-star material needs to come out of the five- and six-star articles. I like Kirill's proposed list of summaries for each rank, with articles linked for details/documentation specific to a particular rank (didn't the General (United States) article use to have that?). I suggest the following changes:

Lieutenant General (United States):

Merge with General (United States). The history of three- and four-star ranks in the US boils down to "which was the highest general officer rank and when?", so it doesn't make sense to discuss them separately, and once all that is moved to the General (United States) article, there's not enough left to justify a separate LTG (US) page unless you think that list of famous three-stars merits a page in itself.

General (United States):

Frame as a generic general officer page. First section is the history of the ranks in the US; second section discusses modern usage, including detailed discussion of three- and four-star ranks; third section is a list of summaries of responsibilities and insignia for each rank. Remove most of the discussion of five- and six-star ranks, but link General of the Army (United States) and General of the Armies.

History

• Narrative of general officer ranks in the US, which would include basically the entire text of the current Lieutenant General (United States) article.

Modern usage

• Detailed discussion of three- and four-star ranks (temporary nature, statutory limits, require Senate confirmation, etc.).

Ranks

• Brigadier General - assistant division commander, etc.
• Major General - division commander, etc.
• Lieutenant General - corps/army commander, etc.
• General - combatant commander, etc.
• General of the Army - {{details|General of the Army (United States)}} World War II rank, now inactive
• General of the Armies - {{details|General of the Armies (United States)}} Pershing/Washington rank, now inactive

General of the Army (United States):

Remove discussion of everything except the Civil War title and the World War II rank. Seniority relative to General of the Armies goes in the General of the Armies article.

General of the Armies:

Remove discussion of everything except Pershing, Washington, MacArthur, etc., and its seniority relative to General of the Army.

If people find this structure acceptable, I would be happy to make these changes myself over the weekend. Morinao 06:20, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

A merge of Brigaider, Major, and LT General might be warranted with separate sections on GenArmy and Armies with links to the main articles on those two subjects. I would be good with that. -OberRanks 06:27, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

There's pretty much how it's already set up. Some notes:

There isn't much in the General of the Army (United States) article except the discussion of the Civil War title and the World War II rank. And that is almost all overlap with the General (United States) article.

You can eliminate the long discussion of the seniority relative to General of the Armies from the General of the Army article. But if you do that, you should at least link to the other article.

There isn't much in the General of the Armies article except the discussion of Pershing, Washington, MacArthur, etc., and its seniority relative to General of the Army. And that is almost all overlap with the General (United States) article.

It's hard to remove the discussion of five- and six-star ranks from the history of three- and four-star ranks, since the five- and six-star ranks used to be three- and four-star ranks. They passed legislation to give Washington the General of the Armies rank as a three-star rank, although he died before it happened. And Sheridan had the General of the Army rank as a three-star rank. Grant had the General of the Army rank as a four-star rank. And Pershing had the General of the Armies rank as a four-star rank.

So I recommend keeping all the history on the General (United States) article. And if we don't want a lot of overlap, we could merge the other articles with General (United States). Or if people want to keep them as separate articles, we could keep them as separate articles, but just have the history once on the General (United States) page, and have the history section of the other articles link to that. - Shaheenjim 06:37, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree, the history should all go in the General (United States) article. I think General of the Army (United States) and General of the Armies should remain separate articles, since they each contain a level of detail that doesn't need to be in the main article, but the Lieutenant General (United States) article should be merged with General (United States). I'll go ahead and make these changes over the weekend, with appropriate links between articles, if no one objects. Morinao 06:52, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I made the changes. - Shaheenjim 07:46, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Note that OberRanks has unmerged the articles for Lieutenant General and General. He also deleted some relevant information from the article on Lieutenant General (such as the passage, "The practice of using Lieutenant and full General as a temporary rank continues to the current day, although the term “temporary” is in name only since most three- and four-star generals are expected to retain their rank regardless of their assignment.") I'm not sure why he would delete that passage. He seems to think that if people don't agree to merge two articles, that gives him the right to delete information from an article even if it's relevant to that article. Anyway, I restored that information, but left them unmerged. - Shaheenjim 05:03, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I simply reverted to the last unblanked version of Lieutenant General after another user stated they were against the merger. I did not change the reverted version and haven't touched the General article. And, as stated on your talk page, thanks for letting the unmerger of LTG stand until we get this worked out. -OberRanks 08:43, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Portal

I'd like to propose the creation of Portal:Military history. It would aid those interested military history immensely. They would be introduced to the subject and shown many important articles within our scope. What do you guys think? If we did create it it would be yet another tedious task for the coordinators but it would be worth it. Maybe we could get other users to maintain it?--Phoenix 15 (Talk) 21:51, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Woo, another obvious redirect that nobody had thought of creating. ;-)

(Or, somewhat more seriously: the "main" portal for the topic has existed for a long time now, but is located at Portal:War.) Kirill 21:56, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

It exists?well, maybe it should be moved? or another created? Military history and war are different; Military history takes in peace time developments and other things--Phoenix 15 (Talk) 22:00, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

The exact name of the portal seems a minor issue, given that renaming it would involve moving close to 500 pages; while our scope is broader than only war itself, I think redirects handle the matter adequately. (The reason for the choice of name, incidentally, is that the portal predates the formation of the consolidated "military history" project.) Kirill 22:07, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

In that case, let's just leave it as a redirect--Phoenix 15 (Talk) 22:38, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

A proposed generic structure for "XYZ Air Force" articles

Your comments are appreciated on this proposal. Askari Mark (Talk) 20:19, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject History

Just to let you guys know that WikiProject History has been tottally reorganised. Some of you might like to join seeing as this is WikiProject Military history--Phoenix 15 (Talk) 20:29, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Infobox font size

Per some comments at Template talk:Infobox Military Conflict#Width and font-size, I've reduced the font size in our infoboxes to 90%, which seems to be the standard value across other infoboxes & navboxes. If anyone has major problems with this (or has other suggestions regarding the sizing), please drop by the linked discussion. Thanks! Kirill 03:33, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The discussion is also getting into the size of the lead image in the infobox, for anyone interested. Kirill 04:36, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

(I made this comment in the discussion on the conflicts infobox, but I'll leave it here as well.) In my opinion, it is too small. I preferred the easier-to-read size that we've had. — ERcheck (talk) 05:11, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I like the decision. The differing font sizes allow for greater style differences between the infobox and the main text, helping a reader's eye track more quickly to the infobox, potentially creating faster access to the article's information. The human eye generally looks for differences, and differing the infobox from the main text is definitely important, IMHO. JKBrooks85 10:50, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Breaking news

Tag & Assess 2007 is now underway. The current top four are:

• Cromdog (talk · contribs) 1150
• Woodym555 (talk · contribs) 670
• Colputt (talk · contribs) 620
• Eurocopter tigre (talk · contribs) 600

However this still leaves well over 150,000 articles to tag and assess. You can help too, please sign up today here. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 09:25, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally FayssalF has come from nowhere to shoot into the lead with 1250 articles tagged. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 17:11, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Same as your score, no? ;) Ok guys, at work please. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 17:37, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I've just been notified that assessments should include a task force tag. Is this the case, and if so, can the instructions be so modified? I've been just putting the regular tag and class into the talk pages. JKBrooks85 20:20, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Nope, it's optional though various editors are including them voluntarily. The taskforce structure is rather complicated for people outside the project or without much military history knowledge to get to grips and asking them to add taskforces may cause more trouble than it's worth. The instruction overload involved will also significantly reduce the number of people helping. In any case, taskforce tags can be added later in a second pass of a much reduced list. Kirill is, incidentally, updating the taskforce tags so that they're shorter (to save typing time). Once Kirill has sorted this, the instructions can be updated with a link to the taskforce list for those that want to include them. Hope this helps ... --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 21:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

It does. I'll be including the tags from here on out -- I just wasn't sure if I needed to go back and add them to all of the assessments I've already made. Thanks for the clarification. JKBrooks85 22:28, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

For the curious, {{WPMILHIST}} now supports short-form task force tags; see the project banner instructions for more details. :-) Kirill 03:06, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Kirill. great time-saver. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 11:36, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I really was thinking about that yesterday and here's the response. Good job Kirill. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 12:00, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

• Query: Does this project include cities noted for their military bases (e.g., Chuhuiv). I'm assuming not. Askari Mark (Talk) 17:56, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I guess not too. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 18:01, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

• No. --Eurocopter tigre 18:11, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

It is rather relative. I believe there are some exceptions. I'd rather include El Alamein while not Dresden. As the article says "El Alamein played a major role in the outcome of World War II. Two extended battles were fought in that area..." There are some places who are notable only because of its military history. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 20:13, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

ummm. At a second thought, i think it would not make sense since we already have separated articles for those battles. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 20:17, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

WikProject History A-Class nomination

The airship article is currently undergoing an A-Class review at Wikipedia:WikiProject History/Review#Airship. WikProject History has a very small membership so I thought some of you might be interested--Phoenix 15 (Talk) 11:47, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Collaboration

Do you have any idea how to make this project dept./section work better? I've got some ideas but i'd like first to hear about your opinions and see if anyone is interested in moving forward before we discuss it in detail. For now, at least we can make it explicitly visible at {{WPMILHIST Navigation}}. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 18:10, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, there's a reason it was deactivated after the writing contest had begun. ;-)

Quite simply, editors are not generally willing to work on an article that doesn't interest them, and, given our range, it's almost impossible to pick a single article that interests enough people to make it worthwhile. The program ran for a year, and only a handful of the articles it "worked on" actually saw any meaningful editing; most of them had only incidental edits by people unconnected with the collaboration, if any. I don't think trying to bring this back to life is going to produce any results that are worth the trouble, to be honest. Kirill 18:19, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

We can wait until we finish the ongoing contest :)

The idea is to reinforce the role of the task forces. Low profile task forces will at least increase their chances to get more featured articles and thus become more important. The other important point is that we really have forgotten vital articles covered by this project and it would be a shame to let them suffer (i.e. Arms race, Military service and the list in long).

• Define and detect vital articles. For an idea participants can refer to Wikipedia:Vital articles. We can first try to define Wikipedia:Vital articles/Military history or even Wikipedia:Vital articles/Military history/X task force.
• Every week or fortnight we'd pick a task force and get a vital B-Class article which will be selected as the collaboration.
• We have 42 task forces and 52 weeks (probably by next year we will be creating a few new task forces). So it will be better to base the collaboration on a weekly basis.

This way it will certainly be interesting for participants. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 18:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, the real question is this: will editors actually be willing to invest enough time to improve the articles on a regular basis? We can certainly keep the collaboration "running" in the sense that all the paperwork gets done, new articles get selected, and so forth; but, looking at the results over the year the effort was undertaken, the actual editing doesn't seem to match up with it. Most articles were not, in fact, collaborated on to any significant degree; I don't see anything which is likely to fundamentally change that.

This is all aside from the fact that the old collaboration format may not be the best approach for something like this, since it presumes no pre-filtering of articles. So setting up something like a "Vital articles drive", with the task force rotation being only one aspect of it, may be closer to what you have in mind. That's certainly something that can be considered further. Kirill 18:44, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Kirill. Well, it would be better then to consider this discussion a starting point whenever we'd get back to the collaboration dept. issue. The idea of a drive and a contest may be effective but better wait and see the outcome of the ongoing drive first. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 18:55, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Dyrrhachium (1081) now open

The A-Class review for Battle of Dyrrhachium (1081) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 22:39, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Richard Williams (RAAF officer) now open

The A-Class review for Richard Williams (RAAF officer) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 03:43, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Redesign of {{war}}

There's been some discussion started at Template talk:War#New Template about possible ways to redesign the {{war}} template; the ideas are all in the extreme prototyping stages now, and any suggestions and critiques would be very welcome! Kirill 17:32, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Fortification task force?

Are there editors who would be interested in participating in a task force covering fortifications (notably medieval castles, but other types as well)? Kirill 01:34, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Would the taskforce cover fortifactions in modern times or just medieval and achient forifacations? ForeverDEAD 01:37, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

All periods, I suppose (although obviously the bulk of the articles will be pre-modern). Kirill 01:41, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I am. And it might attract editors from other projects. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 11:05, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Isn't this already covered by the Military Technology and Engineering task force? JKBrooks85 12:43, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

In theory, yes; we're considering creating a more specific group (similar to how the Weaponry task force covers a narrower portion of the T&E scope). Kirill 12:46, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I've always been interested in field fortifications. Sounds good to me. --MKnight9989 14:41, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

To clarify, Kirill, this is when the Castles wikiproject is to be merged to? Buckshot06 16:05, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

That's the general intent, although the exact specifics of what will happen vis-à-vis WP:Castles are still somewhat hazy. Kirill 16:43, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I've been using the memorials task force to tag fortifications. I support a separate task force since most of the forts and castles aren't considered memorials officially. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 17:18, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah. I've been putting them into technology and enginerring. Perhaps best is to tag as "fortifications=yes", which the template can pick up in due course, and maybe redirect as necessary if the Fortifications Task Force doesn't go ahead. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 17:29, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good, I'd join if one was created--Phoenix 15 (Talk) 17:27, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I defintly join if one was created ForeverDEAD 19:50, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

While waiting for its creation, i've just started using Fortifications=yes. Is there someone interested in creating it? If not i'll do it but not today or tomorrow. Probably this coming week-end w/ the help of someone else. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 19:58, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Sure, I see no problems in why not having it. Kyriakos 21:10, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, the Fortifications task force has now been created; please sign up if you have an interest in the topic. Kirill 02:09, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

A template too far

Please see Template:Campaignbox Central Europe and Template talk:Campaignbox Central Europe --Philip Baird Shearer 11:39, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Support deletion. Buckshot06 11:49, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Support deletion. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 11:51, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Yep, seems rather confused. There's probably potential for an overall campaignbox covering the Allied advance across the Rhine and into Germany (probably pulling in the Siegfried line one as well); but putting bombing raids into it on a chronological basis is overkill. Kirill 12:22, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Alright, I've removed the strategic bombing. I'm not sure about merging with the Siegfried Line though, as that'll basically divide the Western European Campaign into "Overlord (June - August)" and "Everything else (September - May)". Right now, I see it broken down into four basic sections "Overlord" --> "Siegfried Line" --> Ardennes Offensive" --> "Central Europe"; the first three already having navigation boxes / categories. Oberiko 15:58, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it may actually be possible to condense everything post-Overlord into a single campaignbox. There aren't that many articles, and things tend to follow a nice chronological pacing. Kirill 16:49, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

This template seems to be a template for template's sake, not to combine related knowledge. Can we agree that templates are the means to show existing knowledge in a structured way, not aims in their own end? Arnoutf 17:09, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your argument there. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 17:12, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

So, something like the following then? Oberiko 18:52, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

This template seems to cover everything. Cla68 20:59, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think this version works better. Kirill 01:30, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Something of a USA bias in that name the West European campaign started in 1939! I think you mean "West European Campaign (1944-1945)". Also I think it should be "West European" not "Western European", and it needs to redirect to Western Front (World War II)#1944-45: the Second Front ie

"name=West European Campaign (1944-1945)"

Not sure about the "raw name" field and unless it is a common name (the British campaign name is "North West European Campaign") campaign should start lower case. --Philip Baird Shearer 09:23, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Perhaps the alternative would be the Allied North West European campaign? To distinguish it from the 1939 German campaign. But then again, Dieppe Raid should be listed as Allied NW European battle. Mmmm, perhaps 44-45 is not so bad. Arnoutf 09:43, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I know that the English and the French do not like each other very much but they were Allies in 1939 the alliance did not start when the Americans joined it 8-0 -- Philip Baird Shearer 12:53, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Edit war at Continuation War

It seems that admins cannot deal with the revert war going on at Continuation War because it is simply a content dispute. Can someone knowledgeable about the subject help? -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 21:41, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm at it. Wandalstouring 09:19, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Moving Military of the United States

'Military of the United States' is simply wikipedia convention for those armed forces which don't have known formal names. 'United States Armed Forces' is not formally defined or used. What do people think about having the page moved to 'United States armed forces', making it clear that there is no single formal title? Please respond at Talk:Military of the United States. Cheers Buckshot06 02:59, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

How about United States military? I thinkk that sounds better--Phoenix 15 (Talk) 17:20, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

In fact, once we'd change the title of the "Military of the United States" we'll be obliged to change most of other titles (Spanish Armed Forces, Brazilian Armed Forces, etc). -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 18:44, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes we would have to do that, and I recommend to do that, as we shall respect the official designation of those armed forces. Example: the translation of Forças Armadas Brasileiras is Brazilian Armed Forces. Why not posting the official name? --Eurocopter tigre 19:24, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Strangely, it's redirected from Brazilian armed forces to Military of Brazil. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 19:58, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, I still support my opinion that we should change it and respect the official name. --Eurocopter tigre 20:00, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not disagreeing with you :) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 20:02, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I know, but i'm insisting and would like to see other comments before we would change the article's name. --Eurocopter tigre 20:06, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I agree that the official name should be used, but the US military has no formal name--Phoenix 15 (Talk) 20:20, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Therefore, we should decide ourselves which will be the best name for it here on wiki. --Eurocopter tigre 20:22, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

That ws my point in fact. If it has no official or formal name then there's no need to start changing everything everywhere. I am just against changing 10 and leaving 200. Whether we change all or keep the status-quo for all. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 20:53, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Different countries may use different names for their military/armed forces. The choice here is to adopt the name closest to the 'official' name for each country, or alternatively to choose one format for all armed forces. This is not a trivial choice and we should consider well the implications. Arnoutf 21:14, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I would have thought that the article that describes the military of a particular country should all be Military of XXX it would then branch down into the correctly titled armed forces of that country. Military of XXX is clearly a wiki convention and could be seen as an overview and not an official title of anything. MilborneOne 21:49, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

A few thoughts:

• The current system has categories (Category:Military of the United States) matching the corresponding articles (Military of the United States). If we move the articles, should the categories be renamed to match?
• As an extension of the above, we get into the old never-quite-implemented suggestion (don't quite recall who started that discussion) of abandoning the use of the "Military of X" categories as the top level ones for each country, and instead moving to something like:
  • Military history of X
    • Armed forces of X (or X Armed Forces, etc.)
• Finally, I'd suggest that, while "X Armed Forces" would be a good title where it matches an official one, "Armed forces of X" seems like a neater one if we're simply going to construct. Adjective forms tend to be more trouble than they're worth, and most of our by-country categories avoid them.

Kirill 22:40, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

• It would be highly appropriate to match them for clarity and ease of use sake.
• Good idea. It goes w/ the structure of the project.
• Good idea but it will need some work. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 23:54, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Tag & Assess progress

Here are the top assessors, as of about midnight (London time) tonight.

1. FayssalF 2000
2. Cromdog 1300
3. Maralia 1250
4. Colputt 750
5. Euroocopter tigre 750
6. Woodym555 740
7. JKBrooks85 700

Can I remind everyone that there's still a load of work to be done and that all assistance is welcome ....

--ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 23:25, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

"Military", "military history", and top-level categories

Some (likely very rough, and possibly silly) thoughts:

There is, in my opinion, some confusion regarding how "military history" is used in category names that has led to some fairly bizarre category trees. In the broadest sense (e.g. the one used in, say, the name of the project), "military history" includes all aspects of history that deal with warfare and military affairs. In a narrower sense, "military history" is used to refer to the historical discipline of military history—the study of military history, in other words.

For example, one of the areas that military science studies is military history. The development of military science is, however, itself a part of military history. This type of relationship may work (albeit confusingly) in prose, but breaks down when dealing with categories; in the past, it's led to things such as Category:Military history being both a parent and a child category of Category:Military science, and so forth.

"Military", conversely, is always used in an over-broad sense, often referring not only to formal armed forces, but to anything that's related to military history. This has led to a rather peculiar twin-tree model of how the various categories interact with each other

I'd like to suggest something along the lines of the following:

1. Turn Category:Military history into the highest-level category for the entire tree.
2. Move some general categories from Category:Military to Category:Military history
3. Rename Category:Military to something like Category:Militaries or Category:Armed forces
4. Create a Category:Military history (discipline) for the narrow meaning of the term

(The category names are somewhat convoluted, obviously; I'd welcome suggestions for better ones.)

We might then wind up with a top-level category tree along these lines:

• Military history - top-level category
  • Military history by country, by era, by armed force, etc.
  • War - root for things related to warfare
  • Armed forces - root for things related to armed forces
    • Military organization, facilities, personnel, etc.
  • Military science - root for study of military affairs
    • Military history (discipline)
      • Military historiography, etc.
  • Military operations, art, images, etc.

Obviously, working out the exact category structure would be a major undertaking; but I think it would be worth it in the end to finally form things into a single tree.

Comments would be very appreciated! Kirill 02:12, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't "Military operations" go under "War" in that schema? Askari Mark (Talk) 02:23, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Military conflicts (which is a sub-category) does; but not all military operations involve actual warfare, so I wouldn't think that nesting the two completely would work. (This is the way it's currently set up, incidentally; military operations are a sub-category of military, but not of war.) Kirill 02:25, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Everything makes sense. As for point 4, Category:Military history (discipline) would be a child of Category:Military historiography. If not we can limit it to the latter. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 02:55, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it is better that "Military ..." is the highest category and "Military history" is a sub-category. As current events move into history then articles can be moved from current into history. So "Military" becomes the top level category. (This seems to me to be a re-run of the debate over combining the projects "Military" and "Military history"). --Philip Baird Shearer 09:06, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

It could be done that way, I suppose; but that leaves us with two issues that don't appear here:

• There have been multiple complaints that the most common usage of "military" (at least outside the US) has a narrower meaning, referring only to the Army. (Whereas "military history" seems to take the broader sense everywhere?)
• If the distinction is going to be based on current events versus historical ones, would it make sense to push most things down to the military history level anyways and only have current events explicitly at the military level? So, something like:
  • Military
    • Current military affairs
    • Military history
      • War
      • Military operations, treaties, etc.
    • Military art
    • Military science
    • Armed forces
      • Military organization, personnel, etc.

(I'm not set on either approach; my main intent here is to get us to have a single category tree, regardless of what the root category winds up being.) Kirill 12:30, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not a big fan of dividing it into current/historical for the simple reason that what is current has a way of becoming historical very quickly. If a conflict is wrapped up in a week or two, it becomes history, and then there's the problem of recategorizing everything that's been labeled current. Using military history as the parent for everything, while not as precise, saves a lot of time in the management and organization phases, and that's not something to be ignored. JKBrooks85 14:18, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Battle of the Plains of Abraham

Achieved GA class.... Oct 2007 help requested with new tag please. See discussion regarding This article's representation of one or more viewpoints about a controversial issue may be unbalanced or inaccurate. Thank you.SriMesh | talk 05:19, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Tag & Assess - What to do about...

• fictional military characters (e.g. J Lonesome Jones (fictional character)),
• military novels,
• military video games, etc...? -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 14:46, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

• Characters (such as we have—there are major pushes going on to merge character articles in with the associated works) would probably follow the same rules as the work they're from. If a movie is considered to be relevant to us, then (military-related) characters would probably also be. Is this going to be much of an issue? I would think that most characters to have their own articles would be from works of no interest to us (e.g. sci-fi, etc.).
• Other media presumably follow the same principles as films; if they're based on real events/people/groups/armies/etc. to the extent that a discussion of historical accuracy is relevant to them, or if they are significant in discussing the cultural impact or influence of real military affairs, then they're in our scope.

Does anyone else have any problems with this interpretation? Kirill 16:43, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I've not been including fictional characters, games, or novels in my assessment -- there are other wikiprojects that are far better suited for each, and I just think that trying to make them a part of the military history project runs the risk that we'd stretch ourselves too thin. We don't even have task forces for any military fiction other than films, anyway. JKBrooks85 20:23, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, over-stretching is something we need to keep in mind. I'm not sure if it's really a practical concern as far as simple logistical tagging is concerned; the project members will devote—or not—time to those articles regardless of whether they're formally tagged or not.

(As a practical matter, I doubt that this particular area will be a very fertile one for us regardless of what approach to tagging we take. Aside from military literature, which may have enough material to hold up a task force in its own right, the topics in question are going to include rather few articles; whether we tag them now, or when we get a group together to deal with them, or not at all isn't really going to impact us too much.)

A task force to deal with wargames might be an interesting idea to consider, incidentally; but most video games with "military" content wouldn't really qualify for that regardless. Kirill 22:26, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. While specific task forces might be overkill, a collective "Military Fiction Task Force" could work. I'm just not sure that there's the demand or the will for such a thing yet. JKBrooks85 02:35, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Same thing as w/ JKB. I haven't not been taking care of them but still had doubts. In fact, we have Category:Fictional military personnel and it is well organized. It could be better if we used "characters" than "personnel".

From Kirill's interpretation(s) i understand that there aren't thousands i believe of articles. Again, it is about notability, relevancy, etc. There must be a kind of a relationship between the character, the novel or the movie and the event itself. M.A.S.H series for instance is an example. It would be up to us to decide who/what's notable and who/what is not. In case of doubt, one can read a few lines and verify quickly the references section and see what can be done. So these are our limits.

In fact my main query was about tagging/task forces. i wanted to know exactly about which task force that stuff would fit into. Would it be better to have a Media task force and merge the existing Films one into? i am afraid we are tagging articles while not being sure yet if we would get back changing those same tags a few weeks or months later. Everything would change but how? Maybe we can temporarily stop this drive until we define the main columns of this project. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 03:19, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I don;t think it a good idea to stop the drive - we are to far into already. My suggestion would be to tag only the obvious military stuff. When the tagging and assessing drive is largely over we can go back and take a closer look at the article that seem iffy then decide if they should be in our group or not. Since the article deemed to fall outside our perview are being crossed off and left on the page rather than removed from it we can afford to wait and work out the specifics rather than risk delaying the opening moves for the drive. In fact, I was going to suggest that we invite some of the other projects in after our dive to look at the articles we got in our dragnet and see if any of them happen to fall within their scope; the Anime and Manga project and Game project both seem to be well represented here. Thats just my take. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:29, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, stopping the drive isn't really needed here. It's worth keeping in mind that the task force tagging is only a secondary aspect of it; the main point is to get articles into the project's core assessment system. We'll no doubt continue to create new task forces over time, and they'll need to update the tags on articles within their scope; but this will (a) be done primarily by the editors participating in the newly formed task forces, and (b) run over those articles that we know are in the project's scope already, rather than having to spread out over vast lists of completely unrelated things. Kirill 03:40, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree guys. Contacting some concerned sister projects and ask their members for some help. At least they would get informed. I also agree that task forces' members would get back there sooner or later (we like it or not) tweaking or reorganizing stuff depending on the development of new task forces. Sounds reasonable. Thanks. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 04:15, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Enemy (military)

• Enemy (military) - the article I created is up for deletion, if you would like to participate there is a discussion on the article talk page. Chessy999 13:20, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Thoughts on replacing World War II theatre/campaign template

Hello. I'd like thoughts on replacing the current WWII theatre/campaign template.

Existing	Proposed

I propose this for a few reasons. First, it looks much cleaner, and, IMO, is easier to navigate. Second, if we include "campaigns", then we potentially can have dozens of entries, as WWII was notorious for both nested campaigns and each nation having its own definition of what actions constituted a campaign, especially as during the course of the war the boundaries of various command areas shifted with the situation. I think it'd be better to explain those details within within the theatre articles themselves.

To facilitate this, I'd create theatre articles for those that don't have them (ie. Balkans theatre of World War II). If a theatre is adequately explained with a single campaign/battle (ie. North Africa, Italy, Madagascar), I'd just keep it as the link. Thoughts? Oberiko 16:53, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Further discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/World War II task force#Thoughts on replacing World War II theatre/campaign template. Kirill 18:34, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Goals

Shouldn't we add answering questions about military history on the reference desk, especially the humanities reference desk, to our project goals on the project page?--Phoenix 15 (Talk) 13:24, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

It's a good idea but aren't we spreading ourselves very thin just at the moment? Adding new taskforces every couple of days, major tagging initiative, FAC re-writing initiative, possible restructure of the category system ... The hardcore of volunteers is still quite small. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 13:40, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I suppose we are, just a bit, but we wouldn't have to form any new task force or other group, we could just add it to our goals and some of our less-dedicated members could do some work there. I think it would give extra attnetion to the reference desk also--Phoenix 15 (Talk) 14:06, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

But if they're "less-dedicated", are you sure you'll get the support from them to do it :) ? --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 14:50, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. More generally, while it's certainly a worthwhile goal to do this, it's unlikely that we have the interest needed to do it in any particularly organized fashion at this point, especially given that there's no easy way of directing project members to needed areas.

(The old proposal of having an in-house military history reference desk would solve the second problem, but wouldn't mesh neatly with the main reference desk. So I think we're not really going to make very good progress in this area until we figure out how to work through the technical issues.) Kirill 15:39, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, mayb once the assessment drive is over and the project quietens down--Phoenix (Talk) 17:19, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Tagging articles according to sources used

We (the coordinators) have come up with a possible system for tagging articles according to the sources used; this would have obvious statistical uses, but would also be helpful in tracking and raising the quality of sources in the entire set of article we work with. (This has been mentioned before, if I recall correctly, but not at a developed stage.)

In more detail: the {{WPMILHIST}} tag would allow for a set of additional parameters, which would correspond to commonly-used types of sources:

|uses-primary=yes
|uses-secondary=yes
|uses-documentary=yes
|uses-website=yes
|uses-book=no
|uses-journal=yes
|uses-other=no

For cases where specific sources are used across a wide range of articles could have their own tags (which would replace the separate tags currently used); for example:

|uses-source-DANFS=yes
|uses-source-VC=no

All of these tags would, obviously, generate appropriate categories for tracking the articles.

So, the questions:

• Are there any comments on (particularly objections to) implementing this system, at least on a provisional basis?
• What types of sources do people want to see tags for? There's no real limit, so long as we avoid having redundant tags, so we might as well get all the capability we need.

Answers to these points would be very appreciated, as would any other feedback. Kirill 15:51, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea Kirill; we certainly have a lot of garbage web inputs in places. I have just removed a probably phantom Afghan expeditionary force to Tajikistan, 1987-90, to a talk page. However, are we allowed to use primary sources? I thought that was OR. I would also suggest we have some way of distinguishing any old website from reasonably authoratative ones - the DOD from a blog. Maybe you could break down website into govt website, blog, thinktank/academic source, etc Buckshot06 20:22, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I have to ask an obvious question -- what purpose would it serve? Do we benefit by categorizing articles that way? I mean, we've already broken down everything by task force... the tag-and-assess drive is going to make sure pretty much every article possible is a part of the project... why should we add this? It's just a question of utility. JKBrooks85 13:20, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

That's very much my thought. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 13:29, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

It makes clear which articles are reliable and which articles are potentially rubbish. Buckshot06 15:54, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the main practical benefit would be an indication of which articles are more likely to have questionable sources, or sources that can be improved on. Most websites aren't particularly reputable sources, for example; so looking through the articles that rely heavily on them would be a good way of finding things to improve. (It may be more useful, in this regard, to have a count of the sources used rather than their presence; for example "|uses-website=5" for an article that used five different websites. But this may be making things overly complicated.)

The other aspect of this is the purely statistical one; it's useful, in some vague sense, for us to know what kinds of sources our articles are based on. But this is a minor thing, I suppose.

Whether either of these points justifies the effort in putting this system together is open for debate, of course. Kirill 16:00, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

The approach as outlined above would not, by itself, make clear which articles are reliable and which are rubbish. Sure, websites are usually questionable sources, but so are many non-scholarly books. And what if the article uses once-reliable but now out-of-date scholarly sources? (This will be a growing problem on Wikipedia, because with Google Book Search, we now have free, easy access to lots of old, public domain history books, which is great but potentially misleading if you don't read the modern works too.) And so the categories created by this approach would not really be a clear indicator of how reliable the sources are.

Perhaps more useful approach (or an addition to the above) might be to create more specific "attention" fields, e.g.:

|check-website=yes (article may cite unreliable websites)

|check-books=yes (article may cite unreliable books or has inadequate cites, etc.)

or combined:

|check-sources=yes (article may cite unreliable sources; lack sufficient reliable sources, etc.)

This approach essentially duplicates the functions of Template:Refimprove and Template:Unreferenced, but would put them into this project's categories, so that one might more easily find the poorly referenced articles in your area of interest. —Kevin Myers 18:52, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

That's an interesting approach, certainly. One drawback, though, would be that there's no explicit indication that an article does not need a source check; so we'd wind up with some articles known to have problems, and a lot of articles in an unknown state. Perhaps we'd need an additional parameter to indicate that the sources had been reviewed and no problems found?

But, obviously, the general idea of this approach is somewhat different than that of the first one proposed; so which one we should be oriented towards is something that's open for further discussion. Kirill 23:04, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

"attention needed"

I feel compelled to mention that the prospect of more parameters in {{WPMILHIST}} makes me want to jump off a bridge just a tiny bit. Seriously, though, I wholeheartedly support the purpose—improving sources—but I'm not sure how productive another set of template parameters would be. With all due respect, would articles tagged for source improvement honestly get any more attention than Category:Military history articles needing attention does? Maralia 23:38, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree for the most part with Maralia. I agree with the intention of the parameters, the problem of adequate sources is a wikipedia wide problem and it does need attention. It goes hand in hand with the overall wind-change of wikipedia to quality and not quantity. The trouble is we already have the articles needing attention category which no-one gives any attention to. I agree that we need to have some sort of system to judge the quality of the sourcing. Yet i don't think this is perhaps the best way of going about it. For what it is worth i do think that Kevin's suggestion is the most workable. Do we have enough "experts" to try and remedy the sourcing problems though when they arise? Woodym555 23:48, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

We don't, unfortunately, have any accurate statistics on whether articles that get tagged as needing attention are actually receiving it. My impression matches Maralia's—I don't think we've really solved the problem of getting editors to where they're needed on a reliable basis.

Would breaking down the monolithic "needs attention" label to something more specific (e.g. "needs sources", etc.) be helpful?

We could, for that matter, get something potentially useful by having the B-Class criteria generate categories. This would remove the need for extra parameters, and produce "needs sources", "needs structure", etc. categories with no extra effort; it would, however, be limited to those articles where the B-Class checklist is filled out. Would this be at all useful? Kirill 00:46, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be quite useful. For every article i tag during the drive, i add the b-class tags and usually the has adequate references is "no". I find that many articles are well-written, follow the MOS, but are simply without any sources whatsoever. I think Nelson is a good example, although i am steadily trying to rectify that. The prose was FA but the sourcing was start class.

I agree that the "needs attention category" needs attention. Most of the problems that i have seen from a small sample, seem to be about sources. How would a changeover work though? If we do implement the new tags, or categorise the b-class tags then the new categories need to be monitored and occupied. Do we have enough editors at the moment to a) categorise those missing sources and b) rectify the problems? I think categorising the B-class tags would be a good start but it would need a concerted effort to implement. Are we not stretching ourselves a little bit, with the drive and everything else? Woodym555 00:59, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

We probably don't have the manpower to go through the problem articles quickly; but I don't see any reason why run-of-the-mill lack of sources would need to be a matter for urgent attention. We can afford to go through those articles at our normal pace, I think. (Conversely, if we can limit the use of "attention needed" to articles with active accuracy disputes and such, we'd be in a better position to use the category as more than a long-term dumping ground for inadequate articles.)

In any case, I don't think that generating the B-Class categories will require any extra effort; they'll be populated as a side effect of the normal assessment process. What we choose to do with the contents is a long-term question; but we'll at least have the lists available for the benefit of any editor that wants to do specific sorts of article work. Kirill 01:08, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with everything above really. The needs attention category needs to be used for those articles with serious editorial problems including accuracy, NPOV etc. I think adding a category to the B-class tags would effectively be the same as Kevin Myers suggestion although it dilutes the point about accuracy of sources. That needs to be worked in somewhere, somehow, in the future. Woodym555 01:32, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, as a start, we now have:

1. Category:Military history articles needing attention to referencing and citation
2. Category:Military history articles needing attention to coverage and accuracy
3. Category:Military history articles needing attention to structure
4. Category:Military history articles needing attention to grammar
5. Category:Military history articles needing attention to supporting materials

all of which should (slowly) fill up based on the corresponding fields in the B-Class checklist. (There's also a Category:Military history articles with incomplete B-Class checklists, to avoid having articles slip through the cracks here.) To what extent these will be useful, I'm not sure; but they're there for anyone that wants them. Kirill 02:01, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

That's pretty neat. Those categories are (or will be) massive, however, limiting their practicality. Is it possible to subcategorize by subject or task force? If editors could browse "attention needed" categories within their area of interest, that should increase the chance that articles needing attention might actually get some attention. —Kevin Myers 14:43, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Good idea; it would be quite easy (if a bit time-consuming—this will involve creating ~300 new categories) to create a miniature version of this category scheme for each task force, as that's all being fed through meta-templates in the project tag; I'll try to set up the code for this today, and then create all the categories over the next few days.

One question: should the "incomplete checklist" category also have task force counterparts? Or do we only need the central category for that? I'd be inclined to keep things in one place—there's no real reason why filling out the checklist would be directly tied to a particular task force—but it would be easy enough to implement this either way. Kirill 16:21, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that the incomplete checklists should just remain independant of the taskforces. I agree that there is little reason for taskforces to go through the backlog of those requiring checklists. I think the separate subcategories in terms of "Maritime with references problems", would be highly useful though. Great work. Woodym555 16:46, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Providing this is an automated process, I'm happy with it. I'd be very reluctant to support any measure that diverted editors away from the tagging drive or that further complicated assessment. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 17:55, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it would be essentially automated, in the sense that these categories would be generated "for free" on the basis of the existing B-Class checklist.

If we're going to move in this direction, incidentally, it may be helpful to get rid of the manually-tagged parameters ("needs-infobox" and perhaps even "attention" itself) and have everything driven by the checklist. Kirill 18:26, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Excellent ideas. No reservations whatsoever. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 18:37, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

How many of the B-list checklists are actually filled out completely? Every time I look at one, it seems as though it's simply assessed as B-class without someone filling out the checklist. JKBrooks85 19:44, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Most people do not realise that one exists. They were only introduced fairly recently and many were not updated. The Category:Military history articles with incomplete B-Class checklists used to list those classed as B without the correct tags although i think it is now populated with all milhist ones without tags. Woodym555 19:55, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, the code is done, and the categories should be getting generated; I've added automatic links to them at the top of every task force's open task list. I'll be creating the category pages themselves over the next day or so. Kirill 01:50, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

All done now. :-) Kirill 03:15, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Wow, great, barnstar-worthy work, Kirill. I hope these categories pay off. They should: an American Civil War buff, for example, could visit this category and then fix the problem articles in just a few minutes. —Kevin Myers 03:14, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this is really great work Kirill. The B-class assessment template is now really really helpful for finding out which things needed to have sources added (virtually everything!) Is it possible to break the 'missing B-class list' (tens of thousands of articles) down by task force? Cheers Buckshot06 13:22, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

It's possible, but it was suggested that this wouldn't be very useful just above; we need to figure out what we really want! ;-) Kirill 14:48, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Mothballing

For reference, if anyone is curious: the "contacts" program and the publication department have been mothballed due to lack of interest. They can be reactivated if/when the need arises. Kirill 16:02, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Amnesty Act

This is outside my area of expertise/interest, but Amnesty Act needs some attention. It's a stub, but more pressing is at least one sentence that makes little sense.GreenGourd 16:09, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

It made little sense because it was just original research. Did some cleanup and added a some content w/ ref. I think the appropriate title is the General Amnesty Act of 1872. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 02:37, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Władysław Sikorski

Reviewing the list of featured articles needing attention to citations for articles that can be moved, Pagrashtak (talk · contribs) identified Władysław Sikorski as an article that appears to be mostly cited now. It still needs some cleanup, but it should be able to avoid a featured article review. Can folks here please have a look and help with the final cleanup? In particular, I don't know what to do about all those infoboxes in the lead, one seems to be oversized, and their placement leaves a big chunk of white space before the text on my browser. Also, jsut a general checkup, tuneup from MilHist editors would be appreciated. Also, Pagrashtak mentioned that it may have image issues, but I don't really speak Fair Use. Thanks! Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:17, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I've summarized the image problems at Talk:Władysław Sikorski#Image problems. Pagrashtak 19:21, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Took a look at it, fixed a few things (namely configuring the one source citing). Took a look at the images too; most of those could be double tagged with {{nosource}}. Hope this helps. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:34, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Enemy (military)

For your information, the recently created article Enemy (military) is under AFD. Please note, this is not an advertisement or solicitation to participate in the process, it is to note the AFD occurrence. Chessy999 13:19, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Siege of Metz 1552

Hi! I'm not well traversed in military history, but... I'm reading a book where a Siege of Metz in 1552 is mentioned, shouldn't this event an article?

From the article Francis, Duke of Guise: "He won international renown in 1552 when he successfully defended the city of Metz from the forces of Emperor Charles V, and defeated the imperial troops again at the Battle of Renty in 1554. The siege of Metz is detailed well in Ambroise Paré's "Journey in Diverse Places" (written around 1580)."

From the article Metz: "Francis, Duke of Guise, commander of the garrison, restored the old fortifications and added new ones, and successfully resisted the attacks of the emperor from October to December, 1552; Metz remained French."

The article siege of Metz is about something else.

So shouldn't there be an article siege of Metz (1552)? Punkmorten 13:01, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Very probably. Why not start putting it together? --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 13:16, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Definitely a worthy topic; but since there are only a couple of editors working on the Italian Wars, it might have to wait a while before it gets a real article. ;-) Kirill 00:50, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

We still have a subsequent stub article Peace of Passau. Maybe we can merge and redirect that to the suggested [Siege of Metz (1552)]. It would be an interesting article indeed. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 23:04, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Passau would probably be merged all the way up to Italian War of 1551-1559; there's no particular reason to single out Metz among the other engagements. Kirill 00:42, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree since both are stubs. It is better to include all in one for now. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 03:31, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Morotai Mutiny now open

The A-Class review for Morotai Mutiny is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 15:15, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

List of military science and technology topics

I've started List of military science and technology topics. The list isn't complete but the infrastructure is there. All contributers are welcome--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 19:05, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I started List of history topics earlier and though it's not as relevant to this project as the former, I could still use some help expanding. We are a history project, after all--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 21:21, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't you achieve the same result with categories? Especially if you added text, images and links to the category headers? --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 22:12, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. It'd also be a quicker process and you might be able to create a bot to assist, though I'm not sure how it would work. JKBrooks85 02:41, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

There's supposed to be a list for every major topic on wikipedia. All the major portals have a corresponding list of topics and lis of basic topics--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 11:55, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure it makes any real practical difference. You can pipe categories so they look like lists, thus: List of war topics and main articles. I just think it would save a lot of work. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 12:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Question about war template

What does the cross symbol stand for under 'Commanders.' Does it mean they were killed? Surrendered? I'm confused. FinalWish 19:13, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

The cross means they're deceased, I think--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 19:48, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

The cross means they were killed in that battle/combat/operation. -Eurocopter tigre 19:52, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

So the # means surrender then? —Preceding unsigned comment added by FinalWish (talk • contribs) 00:11, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes. (If done correctly, you should be able to click on the symbol and get to an article that explains it, by the way.) Kirill 00:39, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Template:ContentReviewMedal

Suggested use: Significant contributions to any aspect of the Content Review process: (such as Military history peer review). --Ling.Nut 01:19, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Category:Official military publications

Do we need this category? Just found Survive To Fight, a British NBC manual listed as a piece of military equipment. Could be used for field manuals, Soviet Military Power, etc Buckshot06 13:32, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Citing Wikipedia

Hi all, I believe from a couple of searches that the Institute for the Study of War, which appears to be a Washington thinktank [2] operating in conjunction with the Weekly Standard may be copying the Iraq War order of battle article without attributing it to Wikipedia. Their latest OB is here [3], and it and the two previous ones look very similar to the article. Do I understand correctly that citing us without attribution is not looked well upon, despite the GFDL? Buckshot06 22:37, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, but you'd need to show that they're copying us, as opposed to us copying them, or both copying a PD (US government) source. Kirill 22:55, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

The article in question has been put together by a whole bunch of people, including user:Dsw, from personal contact with officers in the field and culling through a huge bunch of material. See User talk:Dsw#iraq orbat. I'll see about amassing some evidence. Buckshot06 23:21, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is the most often quoted source without credits. If we track down every case, we would need several task forces for the job. On the other hand proofing wiki as a relied upon source is something good for our image. Wandalstouring 14:24, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

The main problem with allowing Wiki articles as evidence for other is (IMHO) large.

First of all, assuming good faith an unsupported idea may eaily become "truth" by circular reference. (e.g. article A claims "Fish can fly", article B takes up article A for reference that "fish can indeed fly". Article C now quotes B tat "fish can fly". There is critisism in Article A that the claim is unsupported. The editors who put it in go looking for support and find article C, and use that as a reference. This will be hard to spot, as C never links to A. For this reason alone Wiki articles should not be used as sources for other articles. it allows editors with bad intentions who want to make a point to do so by first creating a chain of articles that cite eachother, and then use these to make the point. This can only be checked at much effort by good editors.

Secondly, in an edit war a bad faith editor may start inserting points through similar techniques, if the chain is complex and long enough. The burden is now on the good-faith editors to disentangle this.

To have a chance at preventing this kind of problems, the article that is used should be a high quality article (GA or FA); however, this would complicate the guideline and not all GA and FA articles stay as good, as the moment of review.

We have wikilinks for internal connections, we have external sources to confirm credibility; let's keep them apart. Anyway this kind of discussion is beyond even the largest and best organised project and should be discussed at Wikipedia:Citing sources Arnoutf 15:22, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Peer review for Battle of the Gebora now open

The peer review for Battle of the Gebora is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 00:15, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Civil war in Iraq#Consider seeking more opinions

A proposal to move "Civil war in Iraq" to "Sectarian violence in Iraq" is inconclusive after five days. It has been proposed that outside opinions should be sought in order to further the discussion. You are welcome to comment here. Thank you.--victor falk 11:10, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. JKBrooks85 14:48, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Maintenance bot

There is a new bot, User:Erwin85Bot, that is being used to count articles in categories, specifically to create maintenance backlogs pages. To see what I mean, any how your project may be interested in creating such a list, see the page I recently created, Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Maintenance. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 00:05, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

It's probably not going to be particularly useful for us, unfortunately; as the progress of the assessment drive shows, there are a lot of non-military history articles that wind up (by one means or another) inside the military category trees. Kirill 01:40, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for USS Kentucky (BB-66) now open

The A-Class review for USS Kentucky (BB-66) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! TomStar81 (Talk) 10:48, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Eyeballs needed at SOF Mafia

This page was recently created, but it needs help badly. I tagged it with OR and wikify. but thats about I far as I can take it on my own. Any help over at the page would be apreciated. TomStar81 (Talk) 10:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not entirely convinced that it's justificable at all, I'd support deletion. One camp in internal defence politics really isn't all that notable.

ALR 13:09, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I had a feeling that was going to be the consensus; I just didn;t have the time to read the article when I was tagging cause my attention was somewhat split. Thanks for reponding to my request none the less, I do apreciate it. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:12, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I put a fairly lengthy comment on the talk page. There may be the germ of things such as a general article on technology/tactical communities (jeune ecole, anyone?) and the most recent "revolution in miliary affairs". This isn't clear, though, about notability." Howard C. Berkowitz 21:25, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Peer review for Pre-dreadnought now open

The peer review for Pre-dreadnought is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 17:20, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Pre-dreadnought now open

The A-Class review for Pre-dreadnought is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 18:44, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Military history of Uganda

This is a great subject for a new article but it's in pretty bad grammatical shape etc right now. Appreciate anybody who's willing to help clean it up, and African interested people who can help expand it. Cheers Buckshot06 19:48, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Notice of List articles

Page(s) related to this project have been created and/or added to one of the Wikipedia:Contents subpages (not by me).

• List of basic military science and technology topics

This note is to let you know, so that experts in the field can expand them and check them for accuracy, and so that they can be added to any watchlists/tasklists, and have any appropriate project banners added, etc. Thanks. --Quiddity 20:30, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Peer review for Military Revolution now open

The peer review for Military Revolution is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 17:43, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Soviet occupation of Romania now open

The A-Class review for Soviet occupation of Romania is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 22:47, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

FYI

I just wanted to make two notes while I have the chance:

• 1st: I went through and looked over all the automatically assessed stub articles, reassessing as needed and removing the auto-asses box. Boredom and a headache equals doing random stuff apparently.
• 2nd: With the tag and assess drive going on, I doubt there is time to do this now, but eventually there should probably be an effort to look through the NA-class assessed articles, because I ran across a few actual articles rated NA, and a quick glance at the category seems to show a few more, in addition to a large number of lists that should probably be moved into their own category eventually.

Cromdog 03:05, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for going through the auto-assessed stuff; that's certainly been sitting there for a while!

As far as the lists are concerned, those should (but sometimes aren't) get assessed using the regular article classes (albeit going up towards FL rather than FA status). I've been trying to keep an eye on them and put them back when people clear out the rating, but there's a bunch in the NA category already that need to be pulled out at some point. Kirill 03:16, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

One thing I noticed some other projects doing, which might help here when it comes around to it, is expanding on the NA tag to create seperate tags for catagories, disambiguations, templetes, etc. I've been assessing lists normally, but there are a LOT in the NA-class, so it will require a lot of time and effort. Therefore, I'm returning to the T&A Drive for the time being.Cromdog 03:46, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

If Roger advertised it as the "T&A Drive", he'd probably get a lot more participation :) Maralia 04:04, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm really tired if I didn't pick up on that...Cromdog 04:42, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

HUMINT

I'm still tuning, but is it now out of stub class? Also look at counterintelligence in parallel Howard C. Berkowitz 22:31, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

• Yep, its B class now. Reclassified as such. Good job. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:45, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

General intelligence article overhaul (cloned from espionage)

I've been working on a mostly top-down approach to intelligence, starting with intelligence cycle management. Now that I have a reasonable pass at the technical disciplines, although IMINT could use more work, as well as the general processes of collection guidance, analysis management, dissemination, counterintelligence, I've been working on HUMINT. The HUMINT article has largely dealt with the non-espionage aspects, such as interviewing and reporting. Counterintelligence is both a subset of intelligence cycle security, and also couples closely, especially in the areas of offensive counterintelligence/counterespionage, to espionage.

There's a certain scatteredness going on, which I think can be turned around. The counterintelligence article now deal with most of the cases of mole, defector in place, double, and triple that are mentioned here in espionage, as well as some other variants such as false flag recruitments and provocations. In counterintelligence, I have discussed some of the psychological characteristics of doubles and variants, but not, for example, dealt with the motivational things such as covered by MICE.

It would be my suggestion that "espionage" focus on how someone is recruited at least to the mole and defector in place roles, with perhaps some espionage tradecraft, especially communications. The idea would be that espionage and counterintelligence become mirrors, with espionage dealing with recruitment and counterintelligence with defense, but doubling and such becomes offensive counterespionage.

Individual articles such as moles, doubles, etc., may not have enough meat to be more than stub articles, unless they are places for historical and even fictional references. Otherwise, I'd suggest folding them into espionage and counterintelligence, with appropriate linkages from HUMINT.

The counterterror theme is all mixed in with some of these topics, but also has some Rambo-ish qualities. I've built out a somewhat skeletal structure of counterintelligence and counterterror organizations, which consciously do not include tactical antiterror. I should flag that some antiterror also gets into special ops, and there to special reconnaissance, a HUMINT mission.

Anyway, I'm not necessarily trying to create a project, but I'd certainly like to see a way things can get more focused with less duplication, as well as the occasional drive-by sentence "a spy is this".

Thoughts? Howard C. Berkowitz 02:33, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Tag & Assess 2007 Top Ten

As of dawn 8 November, the top ten are:

• FayssalF – 2500
• Cromdog – 2200
• Maralia – 1750
• JKBrooks85 – 1250
• TomStar81 – 1000
• Bedford – 770
• Woodym555 – 770
• Colputt – 750
• Eurocopter tigre – 750
• BrokenSphere – 650

If you have not yet signed up, or have signed up but not yet started tagging, please do so. You have only 53 tagging and assessing days left before the drive finishes!

--ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 09:25, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Procedural Question

Is the series of intelligence articles within the scope of this Project, for review, rating, etc.? I have posted to what seem to be other relevant projects and gotten no response.

I mention this, as I now several tasks. One is continuing refine existing articles that have gone through major rewrite. A second is to edit some articles (e.g., espionage) that are logical subsets, but also lack some consistency with taxonomies developed in the more extensive articles. I note that some articles, such as espionage and counterterrorism, often are lists of historic and fictional examples.

Where I can use them to illustrate a particular point, I include historical examples, but I haven't, as a routine matter, tried to compile lists. Third, there are a number of things, often example of intelligence tradecraft, that are mostly stubs as now, and do fit into the taxonomy, as in "how to create a spy" and "how to catch a spy" in counterintelligece.

Again, any guidance? Should articles be rated, or are they still too much in development? Howard C. Berkowitz 15:04, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd say that they're probably in scope insofar as they touch on military matters. We don't, unfortunately, have any particularly sophisticated setup for dealing with them at the moment; if we had enough interest, a "military intelligence task force" would be perfect for this sort of thing, but I'm not sure that there are enough editors working in the area to make it viable. You might have better knowledge of that than I do, though. Kirill 15:30, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Isn't there an espionage Wikiproject? I would've thought they'd be all over this. JKBrooks85 21:00, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

No Espionage that I can find. There was on Intelligence Agencies, which I joined, but have heard nothing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hcberkowitz (talk • contribs) 21:12, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Acronym question (BP)

Does anyone know what the acronym "BP" stands for when used on maps or battle planning? For example, at this link it states that "Regt ordered to move 2 Kms North and from there to BP 42, C Sqn to rejoin bringing JAXO (Mobile column).". I also have it shown on maps as what looks like a point-of-interest. Oberiko 15:35, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't find the acronym after a quick search in that long page - what's the date? However I have a sneaking feeling that it may be 'Battle Position' - a pre-designated or ad hoc notation for a defensive position, probably as part of a mobile defence rather than a static defence. British/Commonwealth terminology rather than US. Buckshot06 15:58, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

The date on the page is "15/6/41". I think you're right though, that gives quite a few results in Google Books (including the book "Department of Defense dictionary of military and associated terms") and the phrase pops up in the book that I'm working from. Thanks! Oberiko 16:06, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

It means 'Battle Position' as per Buckshot. Refer to this. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 16:19, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Time to clean some Propaganda?

I grew up in, went to school, lived, worked and taught in different countries. I did well as a consultant, able to cherry-pick, as we all know the term now, debatable material including historical, as work. But almost always, we anglo-americans could argue the morale high ground or pull the foreign propaganda card.

The main reason I left consulting to return to my teaching career was obviously not the money;), in fact, I got a better offer from the Chinese even. But that was part of the problem right there. As much as I had tweaked information, we could always point out we were more trustworthy, believable, but in recent years no. When I could no longer prove our history was any less propaganda than theirs, I didn't even want to work for them instead. Just return to teaching.

I remember the humiliation of having to stand up and explain myself and my country on the gym stage while an exchange student in a country run by a regime we put in place who had us read out in English too, the differences in our historical record and accounts and theirs.

When teaching in other countries, I noticed everyone had their 'propaganda', but it took decades for me to realize and accept that our history books to this day continue to promote our own self-serving propaganda as well. Oh, I wasn't naive about that, so much as I at least always believed we were still more truthful to at least ourselves than anyone else on the planet.

It's like we've given up on even pretending that we care if we are telling the truth in our history classes or news or not. Who was it on Larry King who said the reason when asked today who was responsible for 9/11 70% of Americans will say 'Saddam Hussein and Iraq' instead of 'Bin Ladin'?

There was always the hope that in the same way we eventually, however quietly, admitted that the Spanish didn't actually start the Spanish-American war by torpedoing the Maine, that we'd come clean on other things eventually too. Like Japan never considered herself part of any Axis military alliance with the Nazis. Nor that ww2 was a unified war for that matter. Nor do many nations in fact, you'd be surprised.

Now back in teaching, I'm encouraging our international student exchange programs and I notice that while many othre nations are re-writing/correcting their histories to be more accurate, however it may make our part look less heroic, ie) no longer refering to Japan as part of the 'Axis', or even Bulgaria for that matter. But pointing out our hypocrisies as well.

We're turning into the propaganda-susceptible cultures we always warned against ourselves.

I had hoped wikipedia would, how did one of my genius girl students put it? oh right, if wikipedia could lead the world historians in introducing corrections to our propaganda, however embarassing, it would be like slowly raising the curtain so that our own historians could brave the onslaught of rotten eggs and tomatoes thrown at them by a society slowly exposed to the truth rather than blissfully standing on a fake foundation of historical righteousness the world is calling us on now. You know she'll never be President, but she's right.

But I am shocked. I told my students that instead of just complaining about it, that they actually join wikipedia and especially if they can use our own best historical sources ie) The Oxford Companion to WWII Liddel Hart's History of the Second World War Wint's 'Total War' and so on even without using foreign historians, but use our own to prove the propaganda's we've conveniently chosen not to notice, that wikipedia would support the edits. But they haven't.

This is the first year I've actually seen schoolboards, not just individual schools or staffs or faculties, put Wikipedia on the computer room and class research ban list. Even my own students I kept going on it this year just complain it will be nothing more than our own propaganda and their proven edits don't hold.

So, on my sick day here, I write this little whine. Maybe we just aren't up to the task of admitting our own propaganda and choosing to admit even embarassing truths, even with proof.

You know even when it comes to political or economic matters and our best consultants now work for 'them' instead, and we can't even win the arguement that at least our propaganda is less than theirs', that we're in a bad place internationally.

But now even my best kids say Mr Jones, give it up, like you adults and your 'do as we say, not as we do', Wikipedia and our history don't have that integrity.

Call it guilt, call it faith or confidence, I and a couple left are still here trying for a little while longer.

And no, I'm no self-hating, unpatriotic, turncoat. I live in my home country again eventhough I would've been paid alot more to work for someone else. I no longer get paid for the lies I can convince but supposedly the impirical objective educational truths instead. And I'm trying to get all my kids to visit the veterans here at the Legion Hall more often and not only on Veterans'/Remembrance Day.

But if we want to earn the trust and respect of our own observant youth let alone the rest of the world who haven't already settled on us being no less propagandic and untrustworthy, then we should start correcting our history accounts even if unpopular at home. I'm disappointed even my English-sourced corrections were all edited out with the discussions justified as, hey, if what we said is what we wanted to hear, then leave it alone. I'm tired. It was worth the shot I hope to have at least tried. Befuddler 00:18, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I hate to pester you on a sick day becuase I know from experience that staring at a moniter doesn;t help headaches or eyestrain, but could you provide some examples of your englished source corrections being removed; if they were edittied out on the basis of 'thats not what we want to here' then that qualifies as pov pushing and by extension vandalism. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:28, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah, yes, this matter. Befuddler is of the view that Japan was not part of the Axis powers during World War II—a view which doesn't enjoy much support among our editors on the topic, for fairly obvious reasons. I doubt we'll be able to help here. Kirill 01:56, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Task force scope/renaming

Any thoughts about renaming or expanding the scope of the South American task force? Something like "Latin-American task force" would include countries of Central America which have no task force. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 10:21, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, that was proposed when the task force was first created, and rejected because "Latin America" omits a number of countries (that were, e.g. British or Dutch colonies). As a practical matter, I suspect that we could simply create a separate Central American task force should we desire. Kirill 12:57, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Is it really needed outside of the existing African task force? Oberiko 18:04, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, incredibly dumb post on my account. For some reason I was reading that as South Africa. Oberiko 22:50, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

If all else fails, we could call it the "Not-North-America" taskforce. ;) --Mukk 18:52, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I believe the term Meso-America covers everything south of the US border with Mexico, doesn't it?Cromdog 20:13, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but Mesoamerica is still restrictive. I think it is better to just take 'Central America' which can include Mesoamerica. We can even have Mexico included eventhough it is not really part of Central America. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 17:01, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Rank articles: capitalization of title

I have a proposal which should be straightforward, since it follows Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Military terms, but which I know from a previous experience with one article will be controversial.

A while ago, I proposed to move Rear Admiral to Rear admiral. It got accepted in the end, but the discussion and later reopening of it didn't encourage me to continue these moves. However, I feel that for consistency and per the MOS, they should be done. Thus, I propose the following moves:

• Apothecary General to Apothecary general
• Army General to Army general
• Captain-Commandant to Captain-commandant
• Boy Seaman to Boy seaman
• Brigade General to Brigade general
• Captain General to Captain general
• Captain Lieutenant to Captain lieutenant
• Chaplain General to Chaplain general
• Colonel General to Colonel general
• Colonel-Commandant to Colonel-commandant
• Commandant-General to Commandant-general
• Corps General to Corps general
• Corvette Captain to Corvette captain
• Counter Admiral to Counter admiral
• Direct Commission Officers (DCOs) to Direct commission officers (DCOs)
• Directing Staff to Directing staff
• Division General to Division general
• Divisional General to Divisional general
• Field Artillery Forward Observer 1189 to Field artillery forward observer 1189
• Field Cornet to Field cornet
• Field Marshal to Field marshal
• Field Marshal (Finland) to Field marshal (Finland)
• Flag Admiral to Flag admiral
• Flight Cadet to Flight cadet
• Flotilla Admiral to Flotilla admiral
• General Officer to General officer
• General Officer Commanding to General officer commanding
• Grand Admiral to Grand admiral
• Grand Marshal to Grand marshal
• Italian Army Ranks to Italian army ranks (or Italian Army ranks?)
• Lieutenant Admiral to Lieutenant admiral
• Lieutenant Colonel to Lieutenant colonel
• Lieutenant Commander to Lieutenant commander
• Lieutenant Commander (United States) to Lieutenant commander (United States)
• Lieutenant General to Lieutenant general
• Major General to Major general
• Master of the Horse to Master of the horse
• Officer Cadet to Officer cadet
• Officer Designate to Officer designate
• Other Ranks to Other ranks
• Port Admiral to Port admiral
• Private First Class to Private first class
• Quartermaster Sergeant to Quartermaster sergeant
• Senior Captain to Senior captain
• Senior Colonel to Senior colonel
• Sergeant Major to Sergeant major
• Sergeant Major General to Sergeant major general
• Ship-of-the-Line Captain to Ship-of-the-Line captain
• Ship-of-the-Line Lieutenant to Ship-of-the-Line lieutenant
• Staff Noncommissioned Officer to Staff noncommissioned officer
• Vice Admiral to Vice admiral
• Acting Pilot Officer to Acting pilot officer
• Air Chief Marshal to Air chief marshal
• Air Commodore to Air commodore
• Air Marshal to Air marshal
• Air Vice-Marshal to Air vice-marshal
• Chief Technician to Chief technician
• Flight Lieutenant to Flight lieutenant
• Flight Sergeant to Flight sergeant
• Flying Officer to Flying officer
• Group Captain to Group captain
• Junior Technician to Junior technician
• Leading Aircraftman to Leading aircraftman
• Master Aircrew to Master aircrew
• Pilot Officer to Pilot officer
• Senior Aircraftman to Senior aircraftman
• Squadron Leader to Squadron leader
• Wing Commander (rank) to Wing commander (rank)
• Airman First Class to Airman first class
• Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force to Chief master sergeant of the Air Force
• Senior Airman to Senior airman
• Technical Sergeant to Technical sergeant

and all those listed in Category:Military ranks by country and Category:Military rank stubs not already listed here. Targets which are already bluelinks are (in the cases I checked) redirects to the other spelling, so the opposite of what I propose.

I would urge you all to consider that these article are not about e.g. Flight Lieutenant John Smith, but about all flight lieutenants, and what describes a flight lieutenant. Some (most?) of you may be more isd to seeing the first form, Vice Admiral James Jones, and therefor have at first the reaction that it should be capitalized, but when you speak about the vice admirals of the US Navy, you don't capitalize, and it is that use we should reflect here (as described in the Mos, and as linked to in the MilHist style guide).

The capitalization of the first capital in the title of an article is standard Wikipedia practice, in articles both the first and second word should be lower case. This also means that the smae capitalization rules have to be used inside the article, in all the ones listed above and in the single word ranks like captain. This is a huge change, and will not be done in one day or so, but I think it is best that formal agreement on the principle is reached before I (or anyone else who wants to help) starts making these changes. This way, editors can be pointed to this discussion to explain easily why it is done and how consensus was reached. Fram 11:41, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

To me, at least, it's semantics either way. Each of these should have a redirect page going to the other (or vice-versa), so the end result of searching or wikilinking to the article would be the same. JKBrooks85 12:19, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

It's semantics, but also consistency. I agree that having a redirect from the other spelling is always good of course, and I don't intend to remove these redirects. Fram 13:22, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

These moves sound eminently sensible. I've noticed a great deal of inconsistency within articles regarding the capitalisation of ranks and these moves would do a lot to help get across the MOS's guidance on the subject to editors. Leithp 13:57, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I have mentioned this discussion at Wikipedia:Requested moves, so that everyone interested can reply. I have not mentioned this discussion at every article involved, as that would be quite a lot of work, and this is about the general principle. 14:21, 9 November 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fram (talk • contribs)

Support. This issue has come up at least one time before, and I think the general consensus was for lower case, but no one got around to renaming the articles. —Kevin Myers 15:01, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Oppose. Military ranks do not use lower capitals and it would be improper to change them all. MilborneOne 15:31, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what you mean here; the ranks are normally capitalized only when given as part of a title (e.g. "Admiral Smith came" versus "the admiral came"), no? Kirill 15:52, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

MilborneOne: As mentioned above the Manual of Style is quite clear (and correct) on this. Leithp 16:10, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure that the MoS is an authority on this. All I can say is that having been one of the above ranks on the list it was never written with a lower case second noun in any circumstances. So sorry my opposition stands. MilborneOne 17:57, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

The Economist style guide seems to agree with Wikipedia's, and to be honest so do all the military history books on my shelves. "Captain Smith was promoted to the rank of captain in 2007", etc. This doesn't apply to posts, rather than ranks, i.e. "Jock Stirrup holds the rank of air chief marshal and is current Chief of the Defence Staff". Leithp 18:18, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

This is not true in all cases. As stated below, the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy is both a rank and a title of a billet in the US Navy. The same goes for the equivelant ranks for the other four U.S. military branches. Neovu79 06:47, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Whenever i have been on bases (Army and Navy) and in the wardrooms (Royal Navy) they have always been written in upper case e.g. Lieutenant Commander. The RN lists them as such on their website [4] as do the Army [5]. I think the capitalisations should stand, though i am not aware, nor have any experience of, the American way of noting their ranks. Woodym555 18:13, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the Army only does that when using a rank as a title. See this Army article for an example " WO2 Watson is the regimental catering warrant officer of 5 General Support Medical Regiment, based at Fulwood Barracks, while the two lance corporals are based at Weeton Barracks near Blackpool with 2nd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment (Green Howards)." Leithp 18:23, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I think I would support the proposal, though maybe the MoS may need a little clarification (I haven't looked at it). In common U.S. Military usage, the rank is uppercased when used as part of someone's title or command position, but is generally lowercased when used in such a way as to not denote a specific individual or command position. It seems to have the same usage requirements as those posted above for the UK officers. "First Lieutenant Frank Zappa was the leader of 2nd Platoon" would be correct, while "Frank Zappa was a member of Alpha Company as a First Lieutenant" would be incorrect, it should be lowercased in this usage. wbfergus ^Talk 18:37, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, going through the list, we seem to have a number of separate types of articles that may need to be considered separately:

• Non-ranks (e.g. General Officer), which presumably shouldn't be capitalized at all, as they're never used as titles.
• General ranks (e.g. Vice Admiral)
• Country-specific ranks (e.g. Port Admiral)
• Pseudo-ranks (e.g. Master of the Horse, which is properly a unique title similar to Chief of the General Staff rather than a rank)

I suspect that much of the debate could be eliminated (as could a large number of permanent stubs) by merging the more obscure and infrequently-used ranks to by-country articles. If we have an overall article along the lines of Flag officer ranks in the Royal Navy, we could easily merge, say, Port Admiral to it and not need to worry about how the title of a separate article would appear. Kirill 18:29, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

After looking into a bit more, i agree with Kirill, we have several different types here that each have their own usage. Some like Vice-Admiral seem to be capitalised more often than not. It all depends on the placing in the sentence. Obviously, as a proper noun before names, it should be capitalised, yet in most cases, when used as a common noun, it is not capitalised. This varies between some publications I think. Reflecting that most of the general ranks and rates should not be capitalised in the article name. The others, i am not sure about yet. Woodym555 18:53, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Kirill as well, for the country-specific ranks. Pseudo ranks, as titles, should probably remain at their capitalized article, and non-ranks should not be capitalized. Certain ranks, such as Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, I think should be treated as titles rather than ranks. Personally I think that ranks should stay at the capitalized title. I suppose this means that ultimately I oppose? --Mukk 18:57, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I have no problem with reasoned opposed for individual ones where my general reasoning may be incorrect. A good way of checking usage is to put "a" in front of the title, or to search for the plural. The 1911 Britannica used "masters of the horse"[6], as do some other reliable sources: vice admirals is used in lowercase by the military as well[7], as it is with Cornell University Law School[8], Time Magazine[9] (a whole range of ranks here), and US law (if I interpret this correctly at least)[10]. But, as someone will probably soon point out, you can find examples of the opposite as well. True, but when the real world is divided, we should follow the MoS, and things like the Chicago style guide and most major dictionaries. These all indicate that they should be in lowercase. Fram 20:59, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) You're right, Fram. I think the article names should be changed (though I'm not actually volunteering to do it myself, you understand). Kirill makes a valid point which would remove much superfluous stuff but Fram's core argument remains correct. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 21:38, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I prefer to see them remain in captial letter form, as I have never met anyone on base who had there rank spelled with lower case letters. Part of my military upbringing, I guess; it just oppose changes to titles when I think them unessicary. (I will respect the majority opinion on the matter though, whatever that ends up being). TomStar81 (Talk) 21:44, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Oppose: I agree with TomStar81, no military officer would call himself or herself as a Lieutenant general. Besides, if you do uncapitalize, then you run into the problem with particular ranks like Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy, Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, Sergeant Major of the Army, Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force and Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard. These are not only ranks, they are the titles of their respective billets/positions like the Chief of Naval Operations or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Neovu79 05:11, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I too have to oppose this. It's just strange to look at ranks like this in this fashion. Saevurr 06:15, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

It's a question of whether you regard article names as titles (capitalized) or job descriptions (uncapitalized). This is why I thought Kirill's solution was such an elegant one: generic articles on job descriptions (ie "a sergeant is a non-commissioned" etc etc) uncapitalized, with the country-specific titles in country-specific articles. However, it's six of one and half a dozen of the other, and now you've had my two cents/pence, I'll go back to sleep :) --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 08:41, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

1) To misquote Kirill, We have a number of separate types of articles that need to be considered separately and treated differently. To treat all of the enties in the above list in the same manner is inappropriate. There may be arguements for (and against) "Rear Admiral Fred Smith is a rear admiral", but in any and all cases, "Fred Smith is the Apothecary General" (because it's a title, not a rank).

2) However, I feel that for consistency ... they should be done. - It is unwise to apply a consistent rule to a set of things which, themselves, are not consistent. The rule may not be appropriate/relevant to certain cases, and the results may be inappropriate and/or unpredictable.

3) However, ... per the MOS, they should be done. - The MoS is an evolving set of guidelines, not a set of of rules cast in iron. Sometimes they are not appropriate for some situations.

4) Shouldn't the use and presentation of information in wikipedia reflect the use and presentation of the information in "the real world"? To say "the real world is wrong because it's different from the MoS" seems (to me) to be a peculiar POV.

Etc. Perhaps more later, Pdfpdf 13:14, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Re (4). Yes, of course, it should. Fram's proposal is how dictionaries treat ranks. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 13:25, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Re:Re (4). The dictionary omits special grades all together as stated by Neovu79 above; the Sergeant Major of the Army is not in the dictionary. Saevurr 21:51, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. For example, here's an excerpt from the "rank and hierarchy" entry in the Oxford Companion to American Military History. Note the lack of capitalization:

Officers are ranked as admiral (four stars); vice admiral (three stars); rear admiral ...; captain; commander; lieutenant commander; lieutenant; lieutenant junior grade; and ensign. The five-star rank of fleet admiral was ....

This is an issue that can easily be confused, because one would write "Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz", or "Chester Nimitz was a fleet admiral." Another source of confusion is that many more words are capitalized in Older Works than we would capitalize today. And I think some writers in the armed forces have a penchant for capitalizing Terms whether or not they are Proper Nouns; it's a Government Thing. Reference works like Wikipedia should take a more conservative, scholarly approach and only capitalize proper nouns. —Kevin Myers 16:15, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Yep. The other issue here is that names are sometimes implicit; according to some style guides, it's permissible (if somewhat uncommon) to write "The Admiral ordered the fleet to turn" as an equivalent to "Admiral Nimitz ordered the fleet to turn", the admiral's name being assumed from context. Kirill 16:24, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a form of capitalization that I've never seen discussed on Wikipedia, but it can be pretty common because it can be used for just about anything. For example, the article on the United States Declaration of Independence often uses a capitalized "Declaration" as shorthand for the entire proper title. To avoid confusion about style issues, it's perhaps better to avoid the practice of using capitalized ranks as a shorthand for a full name and rank. So, instead of "The Admiral ordered the fleet to turn", use "Admiral Nimitz ordered the fleet to turn", or simply "Nimitz ordered the fleet to turn". —Kevin Myers 16:42, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Red Cliffs at WP:FAC

• All comments appreciated. --Ling.Nut 12:13, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Gheorghe Tătărescu now open

The A-Class review for Gheorghe Tătărescu is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! --Eurocopter tigre 12:19, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Peer review for Battle of Changban now open

The peer review for Battle of Changban is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Woodym555 18:56, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Battle_of_Hulluch move requested

A request has been made to rename article "Battle_of_Hulluch" to "Gas attack at Hulluch". (Discuss) — RJH (talk) 14:12, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Baltic states task force

Anyone interested? We have the Russian (including Soviet era) and the Nordic task forces but not one for the Baltic states. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 16:40, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Please count me in.--Termer 16:46, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me; the full name would presumably be the "Baltic military history task force"? Kirill 18:06, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Count me in too. Martintg 19:23, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

RE: Kirill "Baltic military history task force"? I don't know if it really matters but it might be more clear if the name of the task force referred to the Baltic states or Baltic region instead of just Baltic as the name by itself can mean the Baltic people and Baltic languages, meaning Latvians and Lithuanians only at the time when the most northern Baltic state -Estonians are not Baltic but Finnic. Also Baltic Russians and Baltic Germans might be interested in joining the task force. Therefore it might be more clear if the name referred to the states instead of an ethnicity/language -Baltic. Baltic region would include the Nordic countries + Russia and Germany and Poland as the most of the military history of these countries is related to each other and the subject.--Termer 22:05, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Termer, I agree with you on principle, but there's already an article called Baltic states that encompasses Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. For simple clarity reasons, the name "Baltic states" is probably best, unless you know of an alternative term that might work better. I agree that "Batlic states" is somewhat imprecise, but it's probably the best name available. JKBrooks85 22:48, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Well JKBrooks85, wasn't it more or less exactly what I just said? that the name "Baltic states" would be more precise than just "Baltic" like suggested by Kirill. And an alternative to consider would be Baltic region.--Termer 23:13, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Baltic region may be a bit too broad, as that would include much of the Nordic countries, Poland, parts of Germany, and so forth. As a practical matter "Baltic states military history task force" may be the clearest way to define the scope. (The major issue is just to make sure that the name includes some explicit reference to military history; otherwise, the resulting category names will be ambiguous with those created by a general WikiProject on the Baltic states.) Kirill 23:23, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Additional eyes requested

Could I request some additional eyes to drop by Battle of the Plains of Abraham and its talk page to consider a claim by another editor that the article is biased towards the British version of events? I had been waiting for some added comments from the other editor, User:Plains2007, who posted a lengthy screed on the talk page that had some nationalist leanings to it. Somehow, I completely missed the posting of a long, and referenced, new section to the talk page in late October in which the editor presents an alternate article - or, he notes, something that could be merged. To my eyes, it's over-long and gets into some minutiae, and many of the points are already covered in the text, but there may be some sections that could be brought in. I'd really appreciate if some other voices could chime in and take a look. Thanks. Tony Fox (arf!) 22:59, 10 November 2007 (UTC)