Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history

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Gettysburg articles

I recently came across the following articles recently:

• Anderson's assault
• Crawford's charge
• Johnson's assault
• McLaws' Assault

I was wondering if it is necessary to include articles about the actions of individual divisions at Gettysburg. Wild Wolf (talk) 15:59, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Certainly a lot of prose, refs and nice maps there.. well 3 anyway.. would be terrible to lose any, but they probably should be merged into the main article, which isn't terribly long, and redirect them to it. Might need to go via WP:PM to make sure no one objects, though, to avoid disputes afterwards if it's done without consensus. Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 16:54, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I also found a few other articles here and was wondering if these places were notable enough to warrent an article:

• Big Round Top Observation Tower Foundation Ruin
• Consecration of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg - wondering if we need both this article and the Gettysburg Address.
• The Peach Orchard
• Knoxlyn Ridge (apparently its only use was a staging area for Confederate attacks).
• Blocher's Run
• Guinn Run
• Rose Run
• Winebrenner Run

Apparently, most of these articles were created by Target for Today (talk). Other than they are all connected to the Gettysburg battlefield, I don't see much reason for keeping them, unless someone else thinks otherwise. Wild Wolf (talk) 17:02, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

The last 5 (stubs) seem a bit scrappy and lacking. I personally wouldn't merge the consecration and Address. One is a notable event which might have been better suited at the end of the Battle of article, one is a highly notable speech which certainly warrants an article of its own. Not sure about the Observation Tower. Seems to be more an inherited notability than having notability of its own. Also probably better suited in the Battle of article, some heading like "Modern day battlefield" with details of its observation points, visitor center, tours, etc, but non-promo. Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 18:17, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I also found these articles which look to me like canidates for deletion:

• Zeigler's Grove
• Wheatfield Road
• White Run (Rock Creek)
• Stevens Run (Rock Creek)
• Stevens Knoll
• Spangler Spring Run
• Spangler Woods
• Spangler Spring
• Barlow Knoll

Do anyone else think these should be deleted? Wild Wolf (talk) 03:15, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

All are stubs. However, I could add a substantial amount of information from my personal family website about Barlow Knoll, where two of my ancestors fought David and Thomas Moll. The source of that page being the 1909 History of the 153d Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Bwmoll3 (talk) 10:20, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I took a brief look at Target for Today's contribs. It seems he's adding a lot of Gettysburg stubs and fairly insignificant categories, which are now being nominated for deletion, by other editors, as people feel there are too many or they don't serve a purpose. Might be useful to reel him into a discussion here and plan a more objective approach: instead of a plethora of stubs, one substantial article, which might actually attain A-class and GA status, would be better. Several of these could easily be merged into the Gettysburg battlefield article to make it a lengthy, centralised article. When you tour a battlefield like that, you usually want to see it all, you don't go to one small area then done. Same for wiki. Redirect these to that one and give a bigger picture. Focusing on small zones is not really achieving anything, imo.. though the information is still valid, the splits are not as notable compared to merging them into one nice detailed article. Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 15:45, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I left a message on his talk page. Wild Wolf (talk) 16:31, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

It would also be a good idea if some more expert editors looked at the categories being created starting at Category:Gettysburg Campaign working down to come up with a plan of how best to fit the articles in them into an appropriate categorization scheme. Thanks. --Starcheerspeaksnewslostwars (talk) 22:54, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I have put some of these pages up for deletion; please comment on the deletion log page. I will also alert Target for Today. Wild Wolf (talk) 23:39, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Additional articles have been put up for deletion on this page. Any and all feedback will be welcome. Wild Wolf (talk) 22:20, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I just noticed that on some of the first round of deletions I put up, The Bushranger suggested merging some of the pages (like Zeigler's Grove, Rose Run, and Knoxlyn Ridge) into a single article like "List of minor locations of the Gettysburg Battlefield". Sound like a good idea to anyone else? Wild Wolf (talk) 04:41, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

• WP:TROUT to this idea, which was provided without rationale by the article nominator at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zeigler's Grove and by the endorser who placed it here. Problems that indicate such an article is ridiculous:
  1. Scope: In what way are the areas minor, e.g., horticulturally: are we going to have the area with the tree dedicated to Eisenhower's WWII leadership (clearly a minor area) and areas not related to trees listed together? Ditto for all the other types of areas. There are probably 100,000 distinguishable areas on the Gettysburg Battlefield which spans about 4 miles north-south and 10 miles east-west (some modernists want to mistakenly include the Battle of Hunterstown battlefield), and just the ones in the borough are so numerous that it is ridiculous to try to list them. For example, the area of each monument is notable (that's why a monument was placed there), and the area of each marker is notable (Ditto), and the area of each battlefield burial site before the site's bodies were exumed… one can go on for such types in the dozens. Just the individual archeological areas (e.g., each lunette and other earthworks) are separate places and extensive enough for their own list:

List of Gettysburg Battlefield earthworks (cf. Fort Mill Ridge Civil War Trenches)

List of Gettysburg Battlefield ecoregions

List of Gettysburg Battlefield artillery locations

List of Gettysburg Battlefield sniper locations

List of Gettysburg Battlefield … [on and on]

2. Definition: What is the cut-off point for "minor"--is it where a sub-engagement of the battle was held--as by definition, the Gettysburg Battlefield is an entire specific region of military engagments over the 3 days, i.e., the major area. Is the minor definition by non-contiguous location (the areas outside of the largest area--called "Infantry area" during the commemorative era--, e.g., first shot area, area of the east cavalry battle, etc.). Will the smaller areas of the minor areas (sub-minor? areas) which are also notable (i.e., meet the wikipedia notability requirement for an article) be listed in separate list articles?:

List of military engagement areas of the Gettysburg Battlefield

List of post-battle encampment areas of the Gettysburg Battlefield

List of visitor service areas of the Gettysburg Battlefield (toilets et al)

List of parking areas of the Gettysburg Battlefield

List of Gettysburg Battlefield areas visited by presidents
…

3. Content: The size of this article will be extensive since the notable information in the articles proposed for deletion (and recommended for this list article) is extensive--just look at The Peach Orchard, which has extensive historical information. Of course the notability of each area meets the criteria for having separate articles, so of course the list isn't necessary--there's a category that lists the articles for the Gettysburg Battlefield: people, landforms, etc.
4. Notability: Having a list for Gettysburg Battlefield areas, as with all the lists of NRHPs, is by definition, identifying the areas are notable. Why not a list for the "major areas", as they are of course, more significant in some major way--clearly if that list isn't needed, then the "minor areas" list isn't needed.
5. Validity: Is expanding the "List of minor…" article/category tree also valid for the following non-places and for the following higher-level places? This recommendation opens the whole wikipedia sub-namespace for "minor" topics to include articles such as List of minor military engagements during the Battle of Gettysburg (e.g., Confederate Private Able killed Union Private Baker at the woodshed of the Charlie house on Delta street in Gettysburg on the afternoon of July 1 where they engaged in hand-to-hand combat with bayonets.) et al:

List of minor figures of the Gettysburg Battlefield

List of minor events on the Gettysburg Battlefield

List of minor places of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

List of minor places of Adams County, Pennsylvania

List of minor places of Pennsylvania
…

Category:Lists of minor places by county

Category:Lists of minor places by state
…

Category:Lists of minor places by continent

Category:Lists of minor places by planet

Category:Lists of minor places by galaxy

Category:Lists of minor places by constellation

6. Naming: Why have the extraneous "lists of…" wording -- the unreasonable proposed article is solely about Minor places of the Gettysburg Battlefield (the category tree is Category:Places, not Category:Areas, etc.
Again, WP:TROUT for proposing the list article and even moreso for deleting the notable articles. 69.46.35.69 (talk) 18:50, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Why not just toss them into Gettysburg battlefield? I doubt anyone is ever going to search for "minor locations" anywhere in the world, as the term is somewhat ambiguous and subjective, imo, and I'm not sure if it would improve their notability as much as if under the main title. Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 04:46, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Because per WP:MOS, Gettysburg Battlefield is a main article and is not to have the level of detail of its sub-articles, which meet the WP:NOTABILITY requirements. 69.46.35.69 (talk) 18:50, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

With the deletion proposals, there seems to be much support with keeping the streams articles as part of the Rivers and Pennsylvania WikiProjects but there are few comments on the others. Perhaps, as MarcusBritish suggested, the other geographical features should be redirected to the Gettysburg Battlefield article, since many of these, such as the Slaughter Pen and Excelsior Field, were the focus of the actions of only three or four regiments in total, and others, such as Knoxlyn Ridge and Warfield Ridge, only served as staging areas for assaults and saw no military action. The following setup might work:
Redirect and merge into Gettysburg Battlefield:

• Biesecker Woods
• Excelsior Field
• Knoxlyn Ridge
• Lohr's Hill
• McMillan Woods
• Plum Run (White Run)
• Rose Run
• Slaughter Pen
• Spangler Spring
• Spangler Woods
• Stevens Knoll
• Warfield Ridge
• Wheatfield Road
• Zeigler's Grove

Keep but remove from Gettysburg Campaign categories:

• Guinn Run
• Pitzer Run
• Spangler Spring Run
• Stevens Run (Rock Creek)
• White Run (Rock Creek)
• Winebrenner Run

Merge to Battle of Gettysburg, Second Day:

• Anderson's assault
• McLaws' Assault
• Johnson's assault
• Crawford's charge
• Battle of East Cemetery Hill

Any comments? Wild Wolf (talk) 05:09, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

If you're happy doing that, I'm happy to support it! Cheers, Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 08:25, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

There seems to be increased interest in deleting some of the Places of the Battlefield entries, so I'll wait a few days to see how it turns out before creating the mergal proposals. Wild Wolf (talk) 02:19, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I've put up a couple of categories up for deletion here. Any comments would be appreciated. I will try to get to merging the Second Day articles later today. Wild Wolf (talk) 14:20, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I've added additional articles here. Any comments would be appreciated. Wild Wolf (talk) 15:12, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I am finding it difficult to maneuver through this blizzard of proposals and update all of the appropriate comment pages. But let me say in general that I support Wild Wolf's attempts to clean up this area and remove or merge all of the splintered articles about micro subjects relating to Gettysburg. The strategic and tactical description of the Battle of Gettysburg has already been split into an overview article, nine major subarticles (first day, second day, Cemetery Hill, Culp's Hill, Little Round Top, third day cavalry battles, Pickett's Charge, Union OOB, Confederate OOB), and two campaign articles. This is substantially more detail than is written for any other American Civil War battle. Breaking down the description into even more subarticles does not make it any easier for the reader to understand this important battle. Furthermore, the minor streets, streams, and hills in the Gettysburg area have virtually zero notability outside of their involvement in the tactical details of the battle. The appropriate place to describe features such as Winebrenner Run or Wheatfield Road is in the related battle subarticle, not articles of their own. Hal Jespersen (talk) 19:16, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

• Keep -- I urge the nominator, in the strongest possible terms, to hold back from ever considering making another nomination for deletion, unless they learn how to do a web search first, to determine whether or not WP:Reliable sources cover the topic of the article. Just a few seconds showed me RS existed. I added three references. Geo Swan (talk) 06:37, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
  • WP:BEFORE should have been done... --Bryce (talk | contribs) 11:43, 19 January 2012 (UTC) The above 2 posts pasted here from the an article's delete discussion. 69.46.35.69 (talk) 18:50, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

To paraphrase Blueboar, "The question here is not whether Wikipedia should discuss this (place) or not... the issue is whether it should have a stand-alone article devoted to it. Information is always best when presented in context... the existence of this (place) is trivial, except in the context of the civil war battlefield. Placed in the context of the battlefield it is worth mentioning." This is why I nominated so many articles, since having these articles contributes nothing to the understanding of the battle or battlefield and these places didn't have any impact at all on how the battle played out. Wild Wolf (talk) 22:30, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

In case nobody noticed, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abraham Bryan is still open. Since this happened on the Gettysburg battlefield, I guess this is comes in part under WPMILHIST jurisdiction. Some comments from this community would be nice. 76.7.231.130 (talk) 21:11, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Isn't anyone from this project going to comment on the deletion proposal? 76.7.231.130 (talk) 04:29, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

This proposal has been up for nearly two weeks now, and so far no one from the ACW task force has commented on this. In fact, has anyone from WPMILHIST commented on this? 76.7.231.130 (talk) 05:01, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Gettysburg categories

While we're on the discussion of Gettysburg articles, perhaps we should also talk a look at the categories of the Gettysburg Campaign and decide which ones are really necessary. There seems to me to be a case of overcategorization here. I have already nominated Category:Gettysburg Campaign military engagements in Pennsylvania for merging on this page, along with Category:Gettysburg Battlefield woods. I have also nominated additional categories here on this page. Any comments would be appreciated. Wild Wolf (talk) 16:34, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

We are finding whole rickety category structures being created to support some of the low level categories (for example, see the mass nomination I made at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 January 19#Category:Military sites by country to get a picture of how one such tree sprang up) which in turn are used for some of the small articles discussed in the previous section. There is also a set of cold war categories, mostly from the same person, which look much the same in terms of excess. I've put this to AN/I as people have complained about this to him/her to no avail. Mangoe (talk) 21:59, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Made my views known, as there appear to some over reactions on AN/I. Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 23:21, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

In the Category:Defunct places of the Gettysburg Battlefield, there are some early 20th century military camps (mostly connected with WWI and WWII) included. Should these be removed, since they have little to do with the Civil War era sites on the battlefield? Wild Wolf (talk) 16:41, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

As long as there are no objections, I will be removing the articles on the camps. Wild Wolf (talk) 15:25, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Now that most of the Gettysburg categories are merged into the Gettysburg battlefield category, we might want to look into the articles included in it. For example, there are several on the rail stations previously located on the battlefield, which I'm not sure should be included. In my opinion this category should cover the features associated with the Civil War battlefield. If anyone has any thoughts on this, comments would be appreciated. Wild Wolf (talk) 21:28, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Category:Gettysburg Battlefield memorials and monuments

I wanted to bring up the articles in this category, which seem to be mostly the work of Target for Today. I was wondering if it might be better if all of these articles were merged into a single article (perhaps entitled "Monuments of the Gettysburg Battlefield"). The momument of the 11th Mississippi is just a small stone slab, while there are two other articles on the monuments of single regiments (the 72nd PA and 44th NY). This seems to be overkill on coverage of the battlefield. Wild Wolf (talk) 22:22, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

It would make a certain sense, especially since some of the memorials have intertwined histories (e.g. the two Pa. memorials). The main impediment is that Eternal Light Peace Memorial is something of a monument to overcitation (and it's worse than it looks at first, because a lot of the citations are embedded links that don't appear in the references list). Mangoe (talk) 16:27, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Would there be any problem to removing any unnecessary citations from this article? For example the sentence "President Franklin D. Roosevelt arrived at a temporary platform[21] on his special train via the Reading RR from the North[22] after leaving Springwood at Hyde Park NY[23] that morning.[24]" has four cites, which could be reduced to a single citation at the end of the sentence. (Surely FDR arriving at a platform doesn't needed a citation of its own.) Wild Wolf (talk) 16:41, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

No one has opposed this proposal, so I'm going to create the page Monuments of the Gettysburg Battlefield using the three regimental monuments pages and adding tags to the other articles proposing a merge with this page. Wild Wolf (talk) 16:12, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

hi, i tend to agree with the merger of markers, but would prefer that notable statuary monuments be separate. (iconic enough for coinage) especially when they are on the Smithsonian database. some even rise to the level of the national register. a comprehensive list would be nice too with gps. (might make a nice walking tour) Slowking4⇔ †@1₭ 04:32, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that being put on a coin would make this particular monument (the 72nd PA) significant. Wild Wolf (talk) 04:46, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Since SlowKing4 hasn't responded, and no one else apparently cares about this, I'd say go ahead and merge away. (At least no one can object that you ignored their opinion.) 76.7.231.130 (talk) 15:29, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

There's some debate going over at Talk:List of monuments of the Gettysburg Battlefield about merging the Gettysburg monuments to this page, especially concerning the North Carolina, 72nd PA, and Eternal Peace monuments. Any other comments would be welcome. Wild Wolf (talk) 04:04, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

ACW stubs

I've been going through some of the ACW task force's stubs and found that some of the articles with stub tags are long enough to be start class. Also, several articles which were classes as stubs on their talk pages were too long to be stubs when I checked the articles. Other pages which actually were stubs didn't have stub tags on the article page. 76.7.231.130 (talk) 02:49, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Be bold and edit accordingly. I find that stubs are often not reasessed when they are expanded. But also be cautious - unstructured, unreferenced material does not automatically become a start because it is longer. As the definition of a stub says "It is usually very short, but can be of any length if the material is irrelevant or incomprehensible."Monstrelet (talk) 09:41, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for doing these - it's a long-term maintenance task that takes quite a while to bring up to date. (By my estimates, at least 10% of stub-tagged or stub-rated articles are start-class.) As Monstrelet says, many people don't change the rating themselves after improvement - some don't realise they can, some don't realise there are talkpage ratings, some don't think they're "allowed" to... often, if it's a series of successive small improvements, any individual editor may not think they've "destubbed" it themselves, but the cumulative effect is there. As there's no mechanism for systematically regrading articles, it basically relies on them being caught manually. Shimgray | talk | 11:57, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I am going through these articles but since there are over 2,200 articles in the ACW task force assessed as stubs, it would be nice if I had some help going through all of them. Also, I noticed several articles which are assessed start class which might be better assessed as C or B class (and there are probably some C class which are actually B class). 76.7.231.130 (talk) 15:26, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Here are 600 or so 701 articles that have already been assessed, and pretty much accurately: User:MarcusBritish/ACWR If you do review and change the class of any of these, please can you update the table by adding a tick to the new class, but please don't remove the "initial" ticks. Thanks, Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 15:31, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Just ran a count and 145 of those 701 Regiment articles from Dyer's Compendium are Stubs. Well... I suppose that save you checking 7% of those 2,200 again, lol.. every bit helps. Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 16:05, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I've been running through these articles in the ACW stub class category and found many to be start class, not stubs. Still got several hundred to go through. There might be a B-class backlog reduction drive in March; if so, this might be a good place to start, trying to improve at least some of these articles to B-class. (Some of the unit stubs could be improved to start class with a simple internet search. I can do some once I get through with the Gettysburg controversy). Wild Wolf (talk) 21:13, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

I think the IP contributor there has stopped bothering with us, seems to have taken the huff over something.. so I don't know if they plan to continue with those stubs. I guess not, though. I would imagine, with the vast amount of literature available on the ACW, that books would provide better material and sources for upgrading some of the stubs to B-class; although there is a lot of good history material online, I find a lot of the references gathered from a basic Google search get challenged come ACR, GAR, etc. It takes time to sift through Google results these days.. all the commerical and amateur crap, old 404s, unsourced claims, etc, leaves perhaps one reliable site in 100. Backlog reduction drives are one thing, but if it means a lot of editors are simply using Google and referencing whatever they can find online, rather than engaging in dedicated research through books and records, and expressing their understanding by writing prose with genuine interest, I feel the effort is somewhat artificial and unproductive. To use an analogy: anyone can put a quick coat of paint over a bare wall, but it takes time and effort to properly paper one. I'd rather spend a month writing and developing one GA article than a month trying to raise 100 from Start to B with less effort per page. That's just my practice, though.. given that you have worked on a lot of ACW articles, I expect you have books and reliable sources in mind that would be beneficial rather than padding. I have about 30 good ACW books myself, and when I've finished, or need a break from, working on Napoleonic stuff, I might lend a hand with ACW material, as it's been a while. Adam and I have about 700 regiment articles to worry about also. That's a big job! Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 22:02, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

With the internet search, I was referring to getting stubs up to start class (perhaps C), using books to get them up to B-class. (Sorry I wasn't clear on that.) I've got a collection of my own, and I live within driving distance of three libraries with good collections of Civil War books. I'm steadily working on improving articles to B-class but with other personal commitments it's slow going. Can't seem to improve articles to GA though; apparently a good B-class is not necessarily GA ready. Wild Wolf (talk) 23:19, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

GA is somewhere around A-class, aiming for FA but not as close, I think. GAs are a bit more speculative than classed articles, as they don't need to meet various MOS standards or as heavily referenced, in some cases. I think, with MilHist having some of the strictest criteria of any WikiProject, that an A-class MilHist is far close to GA than a lot of other project GAs, which is why we attain them in large numbers, because there's lot less to do to round-off an article for GAN once it is rated A-class by our members. Some members do it the other way round, they attain GA, then go for ACR and sometimes find that they still have to improve the article a little to get a GA to meet ACR approval. Most MilHist members seem keen to get the double A/GA reviews under their belt, and I don't blame them. Also, one reviewer can pass a GA, ACR needs 3 supporting reviews, which makes ACR a little more involved. GA is going to be an easy process if you've passed the ACR first, I find, and a lot of GA reviewers are not experts in any one topic, they review by criteria/content alone without WikiProject interests in mind, unless the article is really involved and needs a second opinion. But being impartial does mean you get an honest GAR, I find. I would try to avoid making GAN during GA drives also.. again, there is always going to be the odd reviewer more interested in boosting their own numbers than genuinely improving content. I prefer a reviewer with the interests of the project at heart, than themselves, willing to show interest in the article's development. Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 01:26, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

You've got it backwards. MilHist A-class is nearly FA-class in quality whereas GA is only a step up from B-class and a significant step below A-class. I have ten times as many GAs as I do A-class articles.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:51, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

So I see. Curious.. I tend to see more MilHist members with the same A/GA titles than A/FA titles, on their userpage "articles I wrote/developed" wall of fame. Perhaps they just don't like the FAR process.. I know I don't fancy it. Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 02:05, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Many people dislike the FAC process and don't bother. I've gone back and forth on it myself.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 04:45, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I've tried to get a couple articles to GA (Battle of Bentonville and the Wilderness) but failed both, the Wilderness because of too few references. Any suggestions on how to get these two to GA? Wild Wolf (talk) 02:17, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

You already answered that one yourself: you need more references. :) Chances are that "key" information, i.e. dates, statistics (i.e. troop totals, casualties), quotes, claims are not full cited. You need to cite anything which people might be able to challenge, particularly numbers. Grab a copy of Shelby Foote's trilogy The Civil War: A Narrative, as one of the most prolific ACW historians, his massive work is bound to have such data, and he is a highly respected authority on the war. Great bloke to listen to also, if you've ever see him in Ken Burn's The Civil War, which is an amazing series, beautiful work, and the accompanying book is massive and very good too. Highly recommend all these to anyone new to the topic, or even with a lot of knowledge. There are a lot of books available on "battles of the Civil War" which would probably give some good general information, also, for citing. e.g. ISBN 978-1862274334 Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 02:33, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I find battle articles very hard to write for anything over a medium-sized skirmish because you really need to master the available literature on the topic and that can be daunting for the popular or well-covered battles. I doubt that that would be a problem for Bentonville, but it probably would be for the Wilderness. Another issues is that you need to cover the battle in more detail for GA than at B-class. I'd recommend that you look again at the comments at your failed GANs and try to correct the issues found by the reviewer and also to follow several GANs that are reasonably close to your topic as they wind through the reviewing process. This should help to illustrate what reviewers typically look for.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 04:45, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I wish someone with a lot of experience in writing battles from scratch for Wiki would write a comprehensive "how to" for Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators#Missing academy articles. It would be most helpful, as there a couple I would like to write about also. I have read plenty of descriptions books and on Wiki, but I'm not sure the best way to approach describing one without it coming across like something semi-fictional, e.g. a Sharpe novel battle. I wonder if others feel the same way. Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 04:55, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I will try placing Bentonville and the Wilderness up for peer review in the near future. But I have a few other projects to clear out of the way first. I'm still trying to wrap up all of the article deletions, mergers, and category discussions from Gettysburg, which will probably take a couple weeks. I'm also doing research on several articles to expand them to B-class, and also several orders of battle. So I might not get to Bentonville and the Wilderness for several weeks. Wild Wolf (talk) 19:40, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Came back to see if anything has improved but I see nothing has changed much since I left you guys. Nothing much is getting done by the ACW crowd. The three big discussions on aCW topics in this talk page and how many taskforce guys are taking part? A grand total of three and one (Wild WOolf) is doing most of the talking for the group. You would think that if a topic about the ACW came up on this page more than three people would be interested, especially when the task force is supposed to have over 60 participants. What exactly are they participating in? Many of these guys haven't even edited in years but are still listed as "Participants". And how many articles has anyone improved lately to B class? Wild Wolf did 40 last year alone. Why hasn't any tried improving some of the articles to GA or A class? Or are you expecting Wild Wolf to do that as well? Lets see some ACTION people! And somebody get stub tags on those stub articles! And check if they really are stubs! 76.7.231.130 (talk) 13:51, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Hey, if you have nothing better to do than rudely complain, please don't bother posting at all. If you want to see members prioritise one small section of Wiki above everything else in their lives, try offering a bloody pay cheque! Comparing what editors have done is little more than condescending behaviour and belittlement. Each to his own. Each of us are busy in our own departments, and is hardly going to rush to improve 2,200 in two weeks just because you have a problem with them. They'll get there in their own time. The ACW isn't the whole of MilHist, and MilHist isn't the whole of Wiki. And Wiki isn't the all and everything of life. I don't see you editing for the last week, Mr Anonymous. So put up, or shut up! Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 14:04, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm just saying that if people put their name up as a participant in this particular project, then it might be a good idea if they actually participate in the proces just a little bit. As I believe Wild Wolf said above, a few minutes of internet searching probably would get enough info to expand a couple of stub articles to start class, which itself should take only a few minutes. And is asking that each "participant" to expand just 'one article per month to B-class really expecting too much out of these people? Taking only twenty or thirty minutes out of an entire week for this should show some kind of improvement here, right? 76.7.231.130 (talk) 14:20, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

If only the world worked that way... if you had been reading the topics on this page and around MilHist you'd know that about one-third of the memberlist has been inactive for more than a year, and probably around another 20% for 3+ months, which means, or our 1,200 members, only about half are active "now". Applying the same average to ACW task force, that makes about 20–25 active "now". It's not as simple as you think. And simple web-searches don't always cut it. There are a LOT of non-authoritarian/amateur websites on the ACW, which would need to filtered out to get to reliable sources. I personally don't believe it's good practice to add any old info to an article to get it to a higher class. Because the higher up the quality scale we go, the more demanding the criteria on referencing and reliability of sources. "Yankee Joe's Union Army fanpage" may seem like a good source for a stub, but come A-class, it's just junk that needs to be removed, and the text rewritten and recited by a proper source or recognised historian. It's sometimes harder to redevelop an article, than simply build on it a step at a time. Articles are best taken one at a time, and developed from 0 to 60 in a few weeks, than a push to painstakingly bunny hop from stub to start to B to A by a dozen uncoordinated people, because it becomes a mess, that no one is willing to pick-up before long. Wiki doesn't work well as a manufacturing line, with people adding bits here are there, when articles are "specialised" subjects. History is generally a specialised subject, not because it's hard, but because the material is interpretative and articles need to be developed objectively. It's not easy when everyone is stepping on each others toes. So, no.. there would "necessarily" be an improvement. It would be better if each active participant took one article and worked on it a little each week from stub to A/GA or even FA, and dedicated their efforts to that article only until a high-standard was achieved. I don't see the point in having 2,200 B-class, instead of 2,200 Stubs. I'd rather see 10 stubs become 10 GAs a month than 2,200 sloppy B-classes that won't get anywhere after they hit B, because no one likes clean up. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 14:44, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I've been reading through some of the comments made about the ACW articles. Both MarcusBritish and I have gone to the trouble of ordering (and receiving them) the Frederick H. Dyer "A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion" (First Published in 1908 and Second Published again in 1959). Which is a total 1,796 pages over 3 Volumes (3 books). All the articles in the ACW that have information from these books we both hope that we can improve them and eventually they can become better articles. At the moment, not much is moving, while it is difficult for just one person to go through the 1,796 pages and get every detail referenced or sourced correctly. Adamdaley (talk) 14:42, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

If half of the people on the participants list are inactive, then why in heaven's name why hasn't someone removed their names from the list?! Guess that means I'll have to do it since no one else seems to want to keep the information accurate. (And under my suggestion 60 articles would have become B-class per month, which I thought would have been slow enough to allow for carefull review and revision from the other WPMILHIST members on the assessment page. But since nobody actually assesses articles on that page and there are far less than 60 participants in this task force, I guess that was hopelessly optimistic.) 76.7.231.130 (talk) 16:51, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Please don't start removing names from member lists or task force lists. We are in the middle of redeveloping the member list format, and it may disrupt the process. Normally we don't remove names from the list, they add/remove themselves, and I suspect many would not appreciate an IP-editor removing them without permission, and normally we'd review all the task forces for such an update, not just one. Some members may simply be on a long wiki-break or other personal reasons for a long away period. Regardless, any such removals should be discussed with the project coordinators first. Even those who are active may be engaged in other areas of Wikipedia, so the removal selection would be subjective anyway. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 18:00, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

As long as somebody is doing this, then fine. I don't see what is so "subjective" about removing non-participants. Either one is participating in the task force or one is not. I don't see how not editing articles included in the task force can be considered "participating" in any way. (One more thing: Is anyone going through the ACW stubs? I see Wild Wolf doing so and I've done a few but I don't see anyone else doing it. Considering that there are still more than a thousand articles to go through, a little help would be appreciated.) 76.7.231.130 (talk) 04:27, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

It would seem no one is raising their hand. But you needn't worry.. there are no deadlines, so take your time. Help will either come along, or it won't. As for "subjective", yes it is very much so. Some editors, hopefully most, don't have a one-track mind and won't only edit for one task force all the time, they get involved in 2 or more topics or WikiProjects, and lead a diverse Wiki career. As a result, you can't start taking editors off task force lists just because they've stopped focusing on MilHist for a few weeks.. people don't come to Wiki to be pressured into doing one thing, nor is it respectful to expect every member of ACW task force to be active, to be reading this talk page, to be running around in circles improving stubs, to be answering to IPs who won't take time to register and become part of the community they're complaining about every day. It is fairly hypocritical, and you make some rather unfair opinions of MilHist, expecting every member to to be interested in one war alone. You really need to develop some patience, or before long you are going to find people here aren't going to be as welcoming, especially if you maintain the condemnation you keep offering. Perhaps that is why you get so few responses? You're also overlooking the fact that if there are ~60 editors in the ACW task force, and let's say about half are active, but not replying here: then they are either not interested in those stubs, or, more likely, don't have this page on their watchlist. In which case you're pretty much only going to get a response from the same 3 or 4 people who care about the subject. So, if any of this is getting through.. I've indicated what the problems are, so it should be obvious how you can address them, but I'm not going to paint them out, I'll let you work on your own initiative. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 09:02, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Just went through 23 articles in 16 minutes, upgraded 3 to start, and slapped a stub tag on the rest. Just think how much faster this would have went if some of the 63 "participants" of the ACW task force had helped. 76.7.231.130 (talk) 15:28, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Got the backlog down to less than a thousand. At the rate I'm going, its going to take two or three months before this is finished if I do this alone. 76.7.231.130 (talk) 04:37, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Voting for military historian of the year for 2011 now open!

Military historian of the year 2011

Nominations for this year's "Military Historian of the Year" award have now closed, and it is time to vote for who you think deserves this honour. As with the awards for previous years, the second and third placed editors and all the runners up will also be acknowledged.

The nominees for this award and the statements given in support of these nominations are provided below. All editors are welcome to vote, and you may vote in favour of as many of the candidates as you wish. The winner will be the editor who receives the most 'support' votes by the time voting closes at 23:59 (GMT) on 28 January.

Good luck to all the nominees! For the coordinators, Nick-D (talk) 06:34, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Comments and discussion

• I could have voted for all nominees, but restricted myself to five votes. Those I did not vote for don't take it as a snub. You are all worthy. Jim Sweeney (talk) 19:31, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
• Abstain. I think to pick people would to miss the point - I'd prefer to reward individual achievement with my personal thanks when I cross paths with another editor. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:39, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I think we all try to do that. This is just one more way to honor those who have done a lot in the field of military history – it's supposed to be an honor to have been nominated, much less get first, second, or third. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 19:46, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

I understand, my abstention was not to make a point, but just to put it on the record that I'd noticed and wasn't deliberately overlooking the field, or something else. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 23:50, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

• Like Jim, I've gone for a deliberately stingy number of votes; I'd happily vote for you all. Hchc2009 (talk) 19:48, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
• Ditto. Have supported 2 nominees, looking to support 3 tops, but it's a tough choice. Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 19:55, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Query: What happens in the case of a tie in any of the places.. do you present it as joint-winners or is there a deciding vote process? Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 00:01, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
    • I'd wondered something similar myself, though having "too many" excellent candidates is a good predicament to be in! ;) HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:09, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
      • The usual procedure for tied votes everywhere on Wikipedia seems to be to declare joint winners, and I imagine that's what would be done here. User:Roger Davies has volunteered to close the voting and hand out the awards though. Nick-D (talk) 00:14, 22 January 2012 (UTC
        • Sharing the award is the easy way out and dilutes its value. Would it not be more appropriate to have a second round of votes to decide the winner between the tied candidates? Farawayman (talk) 17:25, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
          • That could complicate matters. For example, if three people came joint-first, technically they should be taking 1st/2nd/3rd. A revote would simply take more time and effort and could cause another draw. What if there are 2 firsts, 4 seconds, and 3 thirds, for example? Do we revote the top 2 for 1st/2nd and the revote 4 for 3rd, and everyone else runner up? Just gets far too messy and tactical voting can result which causes animosity. Better diluted, it's the honour that counts, not fighting over the title itself. Maybe in future years we should adopt a Eurovision-style system, in which every voter can award 5-points to their fav, 3-points to second fav and 1-point to a third fav, no more-no less. We tot up the points at the end and have a better chance of clear-cut positions. Something like that.. we could worry about the details later, if members think shared titles have less impact. Personally, I don't.. it's all just a bit of fun, in the end. Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 18:17, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
          • It's worth noting that there is precedent for a tie in this vote; the 2008 awards saw a tie for third place between TomStar81 and Skinny87, and the end result in that instance was that both editors shared the award. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 00:28, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• Heh, interesting how we're self-imposing vote limits here, isn't it? I feel the same way a bit and I think I've done that in previous years. Well, I can't fail to support the five I nominated -- after that we'll see... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:41, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
  • I think it's a nice gesture. I find that MilHist is a very modest WikiProject, members here are very professional and discreet, despite covering a vast and involved topic with very high standards to maintain, and a lot of academic scrutiny to contend with. I'm sure there are "lesser" WikiProjects would sooner run their own flag up a pole than adopt the same principles we have here. T'is a good team, with a good "aura" despite that we all work in different areas of the project. The fact that we're each choosing to limit our votes and be discriminate, rather than patronising and vote for everyone, is a positive attribute, imo. Ma®©usBritish ^[chat] 02:52, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
• I could easily have supported all the candidates. I only supported five, but it was tough! It's great to see such a good candidate pool—it's a good indicator of the health and strength of the project overall. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 08:30, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
• As usual every nominee is a fine editor and worthy of recognition for their amazing work. Others have already said it, but it does make it very difficult to narrow down the field. This year I've not voted for any project regulars—you all know how good you are!—but confined my votes to those I believe to have been outstanding newcomers in whatever area they've chosen to work in. Congratulations to everyone nominated and thank you for making Milhist a great place to be. EyeSerene^talk 11:53, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
• As with several others I also found it hard to choose just a couple but I mostly restricted mine to the editors I have worked with most frequently over the last year or so. --Kumioko (talk) 00:40, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
• Apologies all for missing the votes, there are a lot of people who would have got an extra tick from me. Ranger Steve ^Talk 15:24, 2 February 2012 (UTC).

Restricting Forts category to Artillery forts

I'd like to suggest we restrict the 'Forts in' category tree to artillery forts, as there are separate trees for 'Hill Forts' and 'Roman Forts', and there is a clear difference in type. This would mean that Forts in Cumbria would go, but most other examples already follow this principle and would be unchanged. Vicarage (talk) 08:41, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Done. Various Forts in parts of Yorkshire categories now empty, but I'm not confident enough to delete them. Vicarage (talk) 10:34, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Add new category Forts on the Thames

This would have some 11 members, and while overlapping with the Kent, Essex and Medway categories, is significant as the forts were built to address the common goal of defending the river. Vicarage (talk) 08:41, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Done. Not sure why Slough Fort Garrison Point Fort and New Tavern Fort don't appear on the map though. Vicarage (talk) 12:09, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for all the work you've done switching the external links Vicarage. With reference to some of the other changes you've made and queries you've posed here, it strikes me that it might be worth considering the option of reformatting our lists of Palmerston Forts. At present they're largely listed on a county basis, but as with the Thames example, they weren't built on such a basis. The Needles Passage was defended by a dozenish forts, but one of those is in Hampshire (the modifications Hurst), so isn't grouped with the rest on the Isle of Wight. Given that authors like Hogg group the forts by the stretch of water they defended, perhaps we could do the same instead of county lists - from memory, that's also how the original Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom proposes them. Ranger Steve ^Talk 15:13, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd spread the scope to forts generally. I wouldn't remove the county classification, but I'd add "Defences of" categories, with the different name so we had "Defences of Portsmouth" to avoid clashing with "Forts of Portsmouth". It would be a biggie, but the big picture is important. I find the categories most useful for their associated maps to visualise the problem. Plymouth and Harwich are obvious candidates too to join Devon/Cornwall and Suffolk/Essex. You might want to add castles back in, like Southsea. Vicarage (talk) 11:17, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Remove Category Napoleonic Forts in Dover

The category only has 2 items, Dover Castle and the Western Heights, better to move things to the higher category Napoleonic Forts in England, which isn't overcrowded. Vicarage (talk) 11:06, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Cateegory refs removed, I'm not confident enough to remove the empty category. Vicarage (talk) 10:37, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Use Wikipedia:CFD#C1 once the cat. has been empty for four days. Just flag it.. be bold, not confident. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 10:41, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Medal bars and styles

I seem to have stumbled into an edit war at David Richards (British Army officer) over two different types of sections in biographical articles. One is the old row about re-creating an officer's chest decorations (often based on original research) at the bottom of the article (like so). The other is over whether or not to list every combination of titles and post-nominal letters the officer has held along with the dates that they held them (often based more on guesswork than original research), like so (sourced to unithistories.com in this case). These sections are randomly added periodically (often by IPs without edit summaries, example) to British Army officer biographies, and I routinely remove them when I work on an article that contains them. That they are unsourced and more than likely unsourceable amply justifies their removal. I also fee they lack encyclopaedic value and are redundant and duplicative of the prose (and, in the case of significant awards, the infobox). Can we have a discussion about the value of each type of section, and could folks keep an eye out for he restoration of unsourced/poorly sourced material to Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein. Thanks, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:10, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree, but I've said my piece on the first before :-). This debate has been running for some years and I don't think we've ever had a consensus - perhaps some kind of widespread RFC and an update to the MOS to clarify how and where it's appropriate is in order?

As to the second, I think this is bleed-over from the "general" articles on peers, where it's been common for some time. I'm not sure they're really necessary, but especially with people whose names visibly change on taking a title and who continue to have active careers under the new name, a short index of who they were when can be useful. We sometimes do similar things in articles on companies, or military units, or other institutions with sequential name changes. Shimgray | talk | 13:33, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm with HJ Mitchell on most of this - i think for someone of Field Marshal rank or similar a summary of their ranks and when they obtained them may be useful but not for a bog-standard general Kernel Saunters (talk) 13:52, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Since I did kinda start this debate (again) I should firstly mention that the second (being the so) is something I did'nt read throughly first and will admit this particular type of section is picarius at best and I would like the fist mentioned by HJMitchell to be discussed. I'm not going to say my bit again but it can be found here. I must apologise to anybody including and especially HJ Mitchell for anything I have said in bad taste. Nford24 (talk) 00:14, 28 January 2012 (AEST)

No apology necessary. The Internet has a way of frustrating us (myself very much included) that we don't get in real life! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:03, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

My thoughts on this, which I've been prepared to air whenever this comes up, are pretty well identical to HJ's. Anything of this sort not referenced should be removed on sight, and even when references are provided, the rows of ribbons imitating they way the medals are worn or the tables listing every medal with an image beside it are, in a biographical article, unnecessary from an informational point of view and unencyclopedic in appearance. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:42, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Delete them they serve no purpose. However this does seem to come back like a boomerang every few months. Jim Sweeney (talk) 23:46, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree, I find the appearance of ribbons in these articles to be unsightly, unnecessary (as usually the medals are referred to the text/infobox) and usually not in keeping with the tone of a biography article. Zawed (talk) 00:18, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Of course if the Medals and or ribbons cannot be referenced then they shouldn't be there. With that said ribbons and medals are an important aspect of the military and IMO should be displayed on the article somewhere even if they are suppressed in a show/hide box as they are on some articles. Deleting the ribbons and medals would be the same as making no mention of the ranks they achieved or wars in which they fought. I realize that its hard for folks not in the military to understand this and many think that having the colored bits of cloth is rather pointless but its part of the culture. --Kumioko (talk) 00:30, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I see no reason to display ribbon bars, even for the most eminent of military men. Not least because many, if not most armies, have lots of medals/ribbons that really don't mean very much. A quality article will cover the acts for which the significant medals were awarded.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:51, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Ian Rose and Sturmvogel. If the honours and awards are listed in the text (often with links to the article on the individual award) and sourced, these ribbon bars are superfluous and unencyclopedic. Peacemaker67 (talk) 00:54, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘The issue arises with awards given to vessels, etc. For instance, there is the set of awards shown at USS_Iowa_(BB-61)#Awards which not only is not completely necessary, but which differs from the actual awards board carried on the battleship, as discussed on the article's talk page. There appears to be too much of an element of original research when arranging the awards. For me, that is reason enough to put a project-wide stop to the practice. Binksternet (talk) 01:36, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

So for example; 'in 2008 I was awarded the Community Service Medal for 10 years service to the RSL, it has no post-nominals and it therefor would not be note-worthy as it is considered much like a jubilee/coronation/centenary medal etc, (which is awarded for community service and other etc.)' and would not appear within a biography at all?. I seem to have a problem with that. Nford24 (talk) 17:56, 28 January 2012 (AEST)

Agreed. There are many decorations that otherwise would not appear in the text. David Richards (British Army officer) shows an image of the officer, and the reader might well be interested in wanting to know what the ribbons represent. (Was he mentioned is despatches?) There is a debate at Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board#These.3F_in_notable.27s_articles at the Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board about this.

While the medal ribbons came from the American articles, the styles arose from the British editors. In fact, the Duke of Wellington has an entire article on his styles and honours: Arms, titles, honours and styles of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington! The reason is that for some British people their actual name changed over time due to the receipt of titles, so that George Grenville became Lord Temple and then the Duke of Buckingham. It mainly affects British articles, so really is up to you guys to sort out. Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:13, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think there's any debate about mentioning awards for acts of gallantry or conspicuous service, even if they don't have post-nominals, like an MoD. These should not only be described and cited in the text, they can and should be listed in the infobox. For me it's the ribbon images, which belong in the medal articles only, and the lists of service/campaign medals that were awarded to everyone who participated in a particular war/theatre/etc, that are over the top. I say this will full respect for the guys who were in those actions (which should be described in a bio anyway, obviating the need to mention the associated medals) and as the son of a pilot who received seven such medals for service in WWII and Malaya, as well as the Air Force cross for achievements above and beyond the call -- the latter is the only one what would/should feature in a WP bio. Now, Nford, if you had a bio in WP mentioning/citing your Community Service Medal in the text it wouldn't be an issue as far as I'm concerned -- not everyone gets them, do they? What I wouldn't expect is to see it in a list at the end of the article with a ribbon device next to it. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:53, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

A lot of people use the ribbon displays as a guide to get an idea what people should have and how they should be displayed. Just having a list of awards is going to make a lot of people not use these biographies as much. General MacArthur also has a separate article for his awards. I also think that if the ribbon displays are going to be removed then a lot of the ribbons and medals will end up being deleted as non noteworthy. Thats going to further degrade the reliability of the articles because its going to prevent them from being accurate. --Kumioko (talk) 15:32, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

So are you saying some of the medals displayed are only noteworthy because General xxx was awarded one. Has anyone ever asked Wikipedia:WikiProject Orders, Decorations, and Medals what there opinion is? Jim Sweeney (talk) 15:39, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

When looking at honours that have ribbon bars there are orders, decorations, and medals. I think that everyone knows the definition of an order, but decorations and medals are sometimes used interchangeably. A decoration is typically awarded for some specific act of service, that could likely be described in the text with a reference. A medal usually refers to service and campaign medals. Those are awarded for length of service or are "been there, done that" awards. If decorations are listed in the bio infobox and circumstances of receipt are described in the text, then there may really be no need for the big display of ribbons. Especially if we are talking about campaign medals or general service medals that were presented to a few million people, and receipt of them is hard to verify with a reliable source

MacArthur, the Duke of Wellington, or Marshal Tito were individuals who were presented a vast array of awards and honours, so that is likely why they have separate articles. Just my 2 cents for what it's worth. EricSerge (talk) 17:08, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Reply to Jim Sweeney. Well partly but I can see where some would argue that having a Sea service deployment ribbon or a NATO ribbon isn't noteworthy enough to be in the article. Even if there is a reference that says they have it. Additionally, I think that many will find that having a list of medals and decorations, especially for those with a lot of them such as Smedley Butler, Audie Murphy and the like quite difficult to look through. However having the ribbon display with a table below it removes almost any doubt what the individual has or what it is. As I mentioned in these discussions before, if the decision is made to display these in a showhide box or something that is a little less picturesque then I can live with that but to remove them entirely, to me, does our readers a huge disservice and reduces the readability and usefullness of the article to those who may wish to read it. --Kumioko (talk) 17:47, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure most readers would know what the medal ribbons are and would rely on the related link, so really they are just being used for decoration and are not needed. MilborneOne (talk) 19:50, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

MilborneOne; I beg to differ, I agree with Kumioko 100%. In reference to 'campaign medals' (as mentioned above), it is possible to service in a theatre and never qualify for that particular campaign medal for example; General David Hurley, AC, DSC (current Chief of the Defence Force - Australia) has served for 40 years in places like Somalia and Malaysia and has never been awarded a campaign medal reguardless of the positions he has held in the Australian Army. My point is the display of ribbons can help people understand what a person's career was kinda like whilst serving for example, if they were awarded a campaign medal, long service medal, foreign medal or a decoration like the VC, CV, SC, MG, DSC etc. In my various services i supply my local RSL Sub-Branch, I assist in medal/ribbon identification and I have also in the past instructed on rigging a medal bar with the correct order of precedence, I tend to refer people to various pages on wikipedia (such as Sir Phillip Bennett, Peter Cosgrove, Angus Houston etc.). Nford24 (talk) 00:48, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Just for the record, regarding Arms, titles, honours and styles of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington: It is fair to say that Wellington was one of the most decorated generals of the British Empire, but also that he was awarded a multitude of titles, honours and decorations by most of Europe and Russia following Napoleon's defeat in 1814 and 1815, which not all generals have had the pleasure of receiving. The article serves to address all those awards in one gp, because those lists would appear as clutter amid his biography, and it is also very difficult to try to slot each award, title, decoration, style and rank into the article within the chronological sequence of events and not make the prose sound cheesy or look bloated. Only his commissions and a few of the notable titles are noted, because they are critical to following his career as an officer. Within one article they are easier to put into context and cite in bulk, also. With regards to ribbons, I personally have no idea when the practice of coloured ribbons and medal bars began, but for anyone who has seen File:Phillips-Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington.jpg, you can see he is plastered with decorations in a very different and more elaborate manner, and only two medals were issued relating to the Napoleonic War and aware to British soldiers anyway. So the article really aims to incorporate a lot of rather lengthy lists, more than anything, because there is no better alternative that allows for an objective overview. As Hawkeye7 mentions, some of these awards to peerage status changed a persons name.. i.e. Baron of.. Marquee of.. Duke of.. all aristocracy and pomp, which Wellington wasn't always keen on, which I will end on here by quoting: "What the devil is the use of making me a maquees?" — Wellington, 1812. A true Englishman (i.e. a moaning git!). Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 08:34, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Hawkeye7 mentioned an article on Wellington's honours, after a discussion on the talk page of that article about how many field marshal batons he had, I wrote one on the Batons of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington! Wikipedia also as an article called victory title and an article there is an article called nobility of the First French Empire which also has paragraphs on victory titles dished out by Bonaparte.

Nelson being in part a showman (like many senior officers) often appeared wearing lots of decorations, I believe it was one of the things that made him a target on the Victory. There is a section in his biography on his titles and honours.

For many articles on British nobility there are sections on genealogy, it dominates some article. Clearly genealogical information is of more interest to some editors (and presumably some readers) than the notable achievements (if any) of the biography's subject. I suspect that like genealogical information, these sections on chest decorations and a list of every combination of titles and post-nominal letters, are the main focus of interest to some editors and readers. Given that, if the sections are sourced, is there any reason to remove them as a matter of course? -- PBS (talk) 09:24, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

• Just FYI, we're chewing over a proposed RfC on this issue on the coord's talk page at the moment, to be put to the project when we've agreed the wording. Due to the frequency with which this comes up I think we should look at developing a guideline sooner rather than later. Further input is welcome :) EyeSerene^talk 10:51, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Amongst the reasons given on Talk:David Richards (British Army officer) for removing the medal ribbons were that they were unsourced and trivial. However, pictures of Richards wearing exactly the ribbons depicted can easily be found from reliable sources and, as for "trivial", these are hard-won decorations awarded by the Crown and deemed sufficiently important to be displayed on a uniform and I feel we should display them on articles. Two points of view expressed in a previous discussion with which I agree were that ribbons both add to the visual appeal of an article and could provide a unique reason for people to come to articles here. Several editors have used the term "unencyclopaedic" which I don't understand - ribbons are a summary of a serviceperson's career, and very relevant. People have also expressed concerns about verifiability, but, especially if a table is used (rather than recreating the rows of ribbons) I don't see that this should encourage speculative information, certainly no more than other aspects of biographical articles. In terms of taking up too much space, David Richards is head of the UK armed forces and only has 8 decorations, so I don't see a problem - I don't know the US system well enough, but I'm sure the less relevant decorations could easily be excluded. Antrim Kate (talk) 19:54, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

A possible solution

I think I might have an alternative solution, to those put forward so far. Looking at the discussion Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board#These? in notable's articles I do not think that the proposed table solution suggested there is desirable because for long serving officers you end up with a large salad bar such as described in the Chester W. Nimitz article.

An option would be to use the link=link to a file in the [[File:...|link=link to a file]] and make it an option that if displayed outside a dedicated awards section that the medal bars are not over a certain size. Eg:

without gaps

with gaps

The trouble with this solution is that sometimes there is no specific article eg:

• links an an article called Royal Victorian Order, but it does not give any indication that it is for a rank of "Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO)". So we can take a leaf out of the way Latin expressions are handled: Take for example vincere scis Hannibal victoria uti nescis it can be linked to List of Latin phrases (V)#vincere scis Hannibal victoria uti nescis because the List of Latin phrases consists of tables using {{section}} (a light weight {{anchor}}) that adds a hidden section header for each table entry (some of the better known Latin phrases have redirects to entries in the table eg sub verbo). So using a table like that proposed at Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board#These? in notable's articles:

Ribbon	Award	Notes
	Companion of the Order of Australia (AC)	Awards creation 1961 discontinued 1988 or whatever
	Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO)
	Knight of Justice of the Venerable Order of St John of Jerusalem (KStJ)
	Defence Medal
	War Medal 1939–1945
	Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal

not in each biography article, but in some articles like the List of Latin phrases, so we have an article that lists all the salad dressing for a given country/service (or whatever) and a way to link from any biography without overpowering the biography article with information that some consider trivial. -- PBS (talk) 00:12, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Categories for discussion

The following military history-related categories are up for discussion:

• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 January 28#Category:American Civil War monuments, memorials, and cemeteries in Pennsylvania – Result: Merge
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 January 28#Category:American Civil War monuments, memorials, and cemeteries
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 January 27#Category:Former military facilities in New Jersey – Result: Delete
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 January 27#Category:Forts of the American Indian Wars – Result: Merge
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 January 27#Category:Events on the Gettysburg Battlefield – Result: Delete
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 January 27#Category:Intercontinental ballistic missile sites – Result: Delete
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 January 27#Category:Ancient Greek infantry divisions – Result: Rename
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 January 27#Category:Cold War intercontinental ballistic missiles of the Soviet Union – Result: No consensus
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 January 27#Category:Cold War intercontinental ballistic missiles – Result: No consensus
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 January 26#Category:Maryland Campaign of the American Civil War – Result: Delete
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 January 26#Category:Richmond National Battlefield Park – Result: Delete
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 January 26#Category:Gettysburg National Cemetery – Result: Delete
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 January 24#Category:Defunct places of the Gettysburg Battlefield – Result: Merge
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 January 23#American Civil War sites by state – Result: Merge
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 January 22#Category:American Civil War military engagements in Adams County, Pennsylvania – Result: Delete
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 January 22#Category:Works about the Battle of Gettysburg – Result: Merge

Any and all comments will be welcome. 76.7.231.130 (talk) 21:58, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Struck 2 off; closed. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 22:57, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Striking 10. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 06:24, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Japanese prisoner of war camps

Moved from WT:MHCOORD by Nick-D (talk) 05:06, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi there. I came on your page while browsing 'Japanese prisoner of war camps' and wanted to mention that the camp at Ambon in the Philipines (I think) was not mentioned. It is hard to forget it as it had a death rate of 77%, it was very brutal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mummywolf09 (talk • contribs) 04:29, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Secondly, if you have my first comment of a few minutes ago, I think you have made a major error in referring to the region by the name the Japanese used during their occupation - the Co-prosperity Region. This is a name that can only have the worst associations for those who lived in the area during the japanese occupation.and remember it still. At least the Japanese in Australia got fed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mummywolf09 (talk • contribs) 04:44, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi there.

I was browsing japanese prisoner of war camps and came upon the list you have under internment camps, and noticed that you did not have Ambon, which as an Australian I could not forget, as it had a 77% death rate. Congrats on the article, shocking as the camps were, it is shocking also to see the number of camps in Japan, perhaps helping to explain the brutality of the guards in S>E> Asia.

In one of your articles you refer to the "Asian Co-prosperity Region" or something similar. To the people in the regions so occupied, such a reference would be most offensive and frightening - the Japanese are not forgotten and this particular term would bring up the worst possible memories. I think in bending over backwards not to be anti-Japanese you have lighted on the term most associated with the slavery, degradation and murder of civilians and prisoners of war that you could — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mummywolf09 (talk • contribs) 04:54, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Which articles are you discussing here? Ambon was in the Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia) by the way. Nick-D (talk) 05:15, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

You are right, Ambon is in Indonesia. There were a number of camps on the island alol referred to by that name which is the name of the island and of the main town there. The Co-prosperity reference was in the Japanese War Crimes article. unsigned comment added by Mummywolf09 (talk • contribs) 00:05, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

With regards to the "Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere", as I believe the full name was, I direct you to WP:NOTCENSORED. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:19, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi Bushranger, I think the term that you are defending would be offensive within the wiki guidelines; I had a look at NOTCENSORED. It is the name used by the then government which has been convicted of warcrimes; it is not associated with the current japanese government. Not to use it is not anti=japanese but is sensitive to the sufferings of those in the then occupied territories. unsigned comment added by Mummywolf09 (talk • contribs) 23:53, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Admittedly it's not really a common name though, and it doesn't appear to be used in the image that it's in the caption for (at List of Japanese-run internment camps during World War II). Perhaps 'Japanese occupied territory' might be better? From what I can work out the Co-Prosperity Sphere was an unfulfilled concept (in that they wanted more land than they got). Just a thought. Ranger Steve ^Talk 15:32, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi Ranger Steve, "japanese occupied territories" would be a much more acceptable term, given the fear and distress associated with the other phrase. It is a phrase associated with the then japanese rulers, and has associations like the swastika etc. in Europe. Areas in Europe that were occupied were not referred to as the "Third Reich" but as "occupied France" or whatever. One would hope that the current govt of Japan would want to dissassociate themselves from the names and symbols related to the wartime regime. unsigned comment added by Mummywolf09 (talk • contribs) 23:39, 5 February

2012 (UTC)

Plus, Ranger Steve ! They (the J) had from Japan to New Guinea and from Burma to the Philipines (inc.), and a lot of China in territory, it was a big big war, and the Co-prosperity Sphere was the term used always with reference to the policies in the occupied regions. It is associated absolutely with that wartime regime, and not to my knowledge with any current Japanese govt. To use it now(by a Japanese govt) could only be a deliberate reference to those past events, and therefore a threat. I dont think they would do it ...I am in Aust. and the size of the war is well known. The war in China started in the early 1930s, it went a long time.

I have no reliable sources handy, but I have heard it (from the "friend of a friend" kind of thing) that the CPS is mentioned occasionally, if not officially - been awhile since I heard about it though. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 03:26, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Bushranger, that is creepy. If the Germans started referring to parts of Europe as being in the Fourth Reich... I think I have seen one reference to a CS recently, where I dont remember, but I assumed it must be a really bad mistake on someone's part. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mummywolf09 (talk • contribs) 03:13, 7 February 2012 (UTC) Plus did you know that the civilian/prisoner death toll of the japanese was 30,000,000  ? Higher than the toll in Europe (25 mill), and a much lower survival rate of prisoners. Over 20mill. Chinese,Mummywolf09 (talk) 03:27, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Calling Battle of the Bulge experts

Battle of the Bulge -- the battle box strength quotes could use some work. I've left a comment on the article's talk page with a couple of examples. My suggestion is that rather than trying to present a total for the entire battle, quoting for a particular day, like 16 December 1944, might work better. I am also skeptical of some of the data there (see the talk page comment). Rather than Lone Ranger an effort to provide better data, I think because of the importance of this article that a collaborative effort would be a better approach. I can work up AFV quotes for 16 December 1944 and provide some information on additional vehicles sent into the battle although my information on the latter is likely incomplete. Anyone interested in working on this? Thanks, W. B. Wilson (talk) 18:35, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Short articles?

I've written (with a bit of Wikihelp) British Alpine Hannibal Expedition a while back, and it has recently passed GA review. I think it is fairly complete, but it still is rather short. Is it a suitable candidate for A-class review? Formally, I think it meets all criteria except, arguable, A3. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:48, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Depends a bit on the literature I guess. I thought the article was little short on the "so what" factor: what happened next, what did this event influence, etc. But... that might be because there isn't much to say there, in which case it would cover the topic fairly completely. Hchc2009 (talk) 07:24, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I had much the same reaction. What happened to the elephant afterward? Has anyone else undertaken similar sorts of research (on this or similar expeditions)? Magic♪piano 14:42, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok. I've ordered Hoyte's book ("Trunk road") from AbeBooks to see if I can find more on the context and aftermath. It's cheap, and apparently funny. But it's your fault that I broke my book-buying moratorium. Please send more shelving and a larger flat via email. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:39, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

 :) A generic problem to which many a Wiki MilHist contributor can relate! Well said! Farawayman (talk) 13:11, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Seen positively, our book collections act as valuable additional insulation to our properties during the winter months of the northern hemisphere, however. Or so I keep telling my partner! :) Hchc2009 (talk) 13:17, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm living in Karlsruhe, one of the two warmest cities in Germany. You're not getting out of this that easily ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:28, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I use books in lieu of wallpaper. Strictly for the decorative value, mind you.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:49, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Having thought about the above comments - perhaps we can assist one another in not filling those limited shelving spaces with junk! Firstly, I guess this comment does not belong here - because I am now deviating from the accompanying header to this section, but I think we have the attention of some serious book collectors / owners here. And secondly: I have not stopped buying, but I have tried to stop buying merely for the sake of trying to own every hard-cover book on the military history periods / campaigns which I am interested in. I have thought about selling some, but cant bring it over my heart to part with some books - even though I consider them to not really contain anything of material historical value. I have to target my buying - to the very best books... but I am not always certain which are the de facto reference works on these campaigns or periods? I think there is a need for a "Top 50" reference works per MilkHist subject or era - maybe it exists somewhere in the nooks and cranny's of Wikipedia, but I have yet to find those reference pages. I will gladly list my top recommendations in the appropriate place. Any interest? Farawayman (talk) 18:47, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Sounds interesting. I'm always looking out for the best books on certain topics (where "best" means "brilliant prose, and as accurate as one can expect for the time they were written at"). Of course we run a certain risk of increasing systemic bias if we all read the same books ;-). As for a good place: Maybe the Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities is less prone to inbreeding than this page? Is there a good place to archive the results--Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:04, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

A common problem, indeed. :D Kitchen & bedroom can be small (& are ;p), but I need floor space for my books. :D And how often have I had to refuse a place because I couldn't get it all in, or pay the rent for someplace bigger? :( TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 20:18, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

You have weird rooms in your flat. I currently have the sleeping library, the living library, the cooking library and the hygiene library (the latter mostly has journals, not books). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:25, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

"You have weird rooms" I also have more than half my books in a storage locker because I can't afford double the rent. :( ;p TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 22:42, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Deleting articles with a #redirect

User:Mangoe has used a #redirect to delete three articles on the USAF Texas Towers without merging the information into the article pointed for redirecting. I'm unsure of this, as isn't there an established procedure (RFD) to delete articles? None of the information in the articles was incorporated, and before I revert these actions I wanted to bring this up for discussion here, Bwmoll3 (talk) 06:05, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Just for clarity, from the contrib history I suspect you're referring to the redirects Mangoe added to Texas Tower 1, Texas Tower 2, Texas Tower 3, Texas Tower 4, and Texas Tower 5, all of which now go to Texas Towers. The redirects make sense to me; I don't see why we'd need six articles on now-defunct radar stations two of which were never even constructed. The original content of the articles are not deleted (still there in the history). To avoid unnecessarily upsetting people it might have been better to have posted notices of the intention to redirect on the various article talk pages, and if there were any objections gone through a formal merge proposal dicussion, but other than that I can't see any significant issue with Mangoe's actions. EyeSerene^talk 08:39, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

This merger was proposed here when the category which collected them all together was discussed. I'm unclear on what information you are claiming was lost, except for the depth of each of the three constructed towers, where it seemed to me that the crucial information was that Tower 4 stood in twice the depth of either of the others. The location, the staffing units, the dates are all there. I was planning to go after the images which were set aside, but I hadn't gotten to that when it came time to go to bed. In any case, the histories are all there if there is anything else which you would like to take from them and incorporate in the merged article. I'm sorry this came across as a bit of a surprise but (a) it didn't seem necessary to have the same discussion twice, and (b) I guess I expected that anyone watching the five subsidiary articles would have been watching the main article and the category too. Mangoe (talk) 11:04, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

My apologies, I was unaware of that discussion. I've struck part of my above comment accordingly. Bwmoll3, there doesn't seem to be a valid reason for you to revert as far as I can see. EyeSerene^talk 11:28, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree that this seems pretty reasonable and a good move. I also wish that redirecing would stop being described as "deletion". - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 00:04, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

If I was to make an edit to this page and remove your comment, then you would probably quite rightly complain that I shoudl not delete other peoples comments. Deletion of information is distinct from deletion of an article page. If a redirect is made without moving the information onto the target page then information has been deleted. If the information has been moved then it has been merged. -- PBS (talk) 01:25, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Except refactoring other peoples' talk-page comments is against policy, and that is an apples-and-oranges comparison. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 02:34, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

It was the different way in which the word delete is used to describe an action not the policy behind it that I was highlighting, so I do not think it is an apples-and-oranges comparison. -- PBS (talk) 10:04, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, first I must apologize for raising this to this discussion board. The fact is that the merge of the seperate Texas Towers articles is probably a good thing, however I was questioning the method in which it was done, not the validity of the actual actions.

I believed that a discussion on merging was posted on the page to be merged (merge proposal dicussion). I was unaware of the discussion made on the Categories for discussion page, which is not on my watchlist, and which these actions were briefly discussed.

Now why I raised this issue was because when I saw the articles were "merged", which is what the edit to the article stated, I looked over on the Texas Towers article, but I did not see any "merged" data; i.e., it appeared that the merging was stated but the #redirect was used essentially to blank the page.

Now, with regards to the statement that "The original content of the articles are not deleted (still there in the history).", this is true. However, the backlinks to the seperate articles were removed from the Texas Towers article, which means that, although true, the articles are not really visible to the vast majority of users, who would know how to access the previous versions of the article. So again, in essense the #redirect statement was used to blank the page to the vast majority of readers interested in the subjects and automatically direct them to the Texas Towers article, unaware of the previous separate articles.

Also I see the phrase, "...the histories are all there if there is anything else which you would like to take from them and incorporate in the merged article...." I believe the definition of Merging is to copy the pertinent data from the old article into the new one First, before #redirecting it? Or am I incorrect?

Anyway, never mind, and I'll remember this technique when I see some articles in the future which should be merged into another; I'll make a request on the "Categories for Discussion" page, rather than on the page itself; and just #redierct the page, planning sometime in the future to actually do the merging.

Bwmoll3 (talk) 01:10, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

If articles are going to be merged and a discussion is happening somewhere other than on the articles' talk pages, then notification of a discussion should be placed on the article's talk pages at the very least. It is not reasonable to say "This merger was proposed here" as fettling categories is a specialised interest and I doubt if most editors who watch a page also watch all the categories to which they are linked and even fewer watch Wikipedia:Categories for discussion. Further in this case there was an objection in the discussion to the idea of merging, and only one voice was raised positively in favour the the merge, but only after the merge had started "Comment I am at this time working on a merge of the articles...". I think that if Bwmoll3 was to revert the bold merge then given the lack of consensus building that took place, this would fall under Bold Revert Discuss (and the guidance at WP:RM that says "If the page has recently been moved without discussion, then you may revert the move (although this is not required ...) and initiate a discussion of the move on the talk page of the article." (just substitute in "merge" for move" and this seems to me reasonable guidance for contested merges) This was bought in to reduce unnecessary moving to stop people trying gain an advantage by moving a page before discussing it by arguing there was no consensus to move back to the status quo ante -- PBS (talk) 01:25, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

My last comments were edited in before Bwmoll3's last edit and caused a clash, so I had not read Bwmoll3's last comment. To comment on that "I'll make a request on the "Categories for Discussion" page, rather than on the page itself" to do so would be WP:POINTY and WP:DISRUPTIVE. -- PBS (talk) 01:29, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I made that last comment in a sarcastic tone, my apologies. However, that is what appears to be the case here, and I saw no objection to the procedure of using a #redirect to blank a page without actually merging the information after an obscure, brief, discussion in the previous comments (which I disagree with). Bwmoll3 (talk) 02:14, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abraham Bryan

In case no one knew about this, this probably falls under the ACW task force, since this deals with the Battle of and Battlefield of Gettysburg. Since no one from the ACW task force has commented on this, please do so. 76.7.231.130 (talk) 04:22, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

This discussion is now closed. No one from the ACW task force bothered to comment on this at all. Posting this alert was apparently a waste of time. 76.7.231.130 (talk) 13:41, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

No one even cares that this was posted in first place, do they? 76.7.231.130 (talk) 04:30, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

No, IP 76. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 04:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I looked at it when you posted the link, but I didn't see a reason to vote or comment on it. The article has, at most, a tenuous connection to the ACW and if the AfD decided to keep it because of some unique shingles on the house, I couldn't care less. If anything, I'd recommend removing the WPMILHIST template from the article. Mojoworker (talk) 06:54, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Structure of the Australian Army

I have proposed a major restructure of the long-standing (since 2005) Structure of the Australian Army article. Comments on this are welcome at: Talk:Structure of the Australian Army#Proposed new structure for this article. Nick-D (talk) 06:00, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Ulster Defence Regiment

I've drafted a new intro section for Ulster Defence Regiment. I'd welcome more reviews from the wider community: link Kernel Saunters (talk) 10:32, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I feel real progress has been made with what is difficult and controversial subject matter and it would be great if I could get 'uninvolved' editors so we can take this forward Kernel Saunters (talk) 10:29, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Featured list candidacy for List of Ohio class submarines now open

The featured article candidacy for List of Ohio class submarines is now open. Comments from reviewers are needed to help determine whether the article meets the criteria for featured lists; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! --Sp33dyphil ©^hat_ontributions 09:00, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

What should be in Campaign Box templates

Hi there is a content dispute over what battles should be included in the Template:Campaignbox Sinai and Palestine. Several red links and five links to articles, one a GA, have been deleted. If we leave the red links aside for now, the discussion is at Template talk:Campaignbox Sinai and Palestine#Protected for one week, which explains the situation. Could any interested editors comment on if these articles should be included. Jim Sweeney (talk) 12:35, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

As a question of general practice, every engagement that has a stand-alone article should be (eligible to be) listed in a campaignbox somewhere; I don't think there's any good justification for saying that something an engagement is sufficiently notable and significant to merit a full article of its own, but not sufficiently notable and significant to be linked from a navigation template (and, indeed, doing so defeats the purpose of having these navigation templates in the first place).

On a practical level, of course, it's perfectly reasonable to break a complex series of engagements into multiple tiers of campaignboxes; for example, {{Campaignbox Western Front (World War I)}} links only to the parent Battle of the Somme article, and a separate {{Campaignbox Somme 1916}} exists to list the multiple subsidiary engagements. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 12:45, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Redlinks are acceptable, they invite new articles – campaignboxes are a list of battles in a campaign, not only the battled in a campaign that made it to Wikipedia. As for that edit summary which says "delete engagements which lasted less than half a day..." umm yeah, that's "logical", by that standard we should forget the battle of Trafalgar, because it only lasted 3 hours. In short, there is no correlation between length and importance. Seems like a original research from Rskp's POV, and not the first time that opinions have clashed. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 13:16, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

The Battle of Trafalgar was fought between forces which were slightly bigger than a few cavalry or light horse squadrons. These were small scale engagements of short duration, during which or as a consequence of which, no territorial gains were made.

The point is that several engagements, which have formally been referred to by the Official Historian and the Battles Nomenclature Committee (which named the battles and other significant engagements of WW1), as 'Affairs' have been renamed 'Battles'. The officials who first named these engagements used published criteria which was applied in such a fashion that affairs were smaller than actions were, in turn smaller than battles. [Battles Nomenclature Committee, The Official Names of the Battles and other engagements fought by the Military Forces of the British Empire during the Great War ... 1922 p. 7] The result is that these affairs have leapfrogged actions to be renamed battles which, in WW1 terms and technology, they quite clearly were not.

This is not original research as anyone who had taken the time to read the literature would be aware. This is not my opinion, this is what the official published sources state. A copy of the Battles Nomenclature Committee's report which was presented to the British Parliament is available at the Australian War Memorial Library. You will probably find Falls' official history there too. There is also no POV here, but until some more people have read the literature describing the Sinai and Palestine Campaign and associated material then wild accusations will continue to bring into question top quality published sources.

Jim Sweeney's creation of a new article, based almost entirely on material he copied from the Battle of Jerusalem (1917) article, in order to add another battle to the template, flies in the face of Wikipedia instructions not to create articles, which are already covered elsewhere. I am here referring to the Battle of Jaffa (1917) article. See the talk page for confirmation by Jim Sweeney that material was copied from the Jerusalem article

The crux of the matter now is that all these so called battles have been added to the campaign template grossly inflating it and in the process the real battles and the real campaign have been lost sight of. --Rskp (talk) 04:51, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

There appears to be your problem Battles and other engagements fought by the Military Forces of the British Empire during the Great War - two of the articles were not British battles one was French and the other Ottoman. As stated on the discussion page Jaffa is a recognised battle with the award of the battle honour Jaffa, to the forces that participated. It was also a division sized attack that involved an assault river crossing and resulted in the gain of five miles of Ottoman territory. So hardly a small scale engagement with a few horsemen. In reply to the 'Affairs' have been renamed 'Battles', hat has been gone over before it was a community decision to remain neutral and avoid POV. Jim Sweeney (talk) 06:12, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• • Its your problem Jim Sweeney that you refuse to acknowledge an official source. These engagements were fought during British Empire Campaigns when British Empire troops were involved. Its absurd to suggest the French Detachment from Palestine and Syria was involved in fighting a separate battle when it was on the front line during 19 September as part of the Battle of Sharon section of the Battle of Megiddo. This detachment did not engage in a separate attack but was part of the overall attack by five divisions with the detachment on the extreme right flank of the XXIst Corps. The Battle of Arara article should be merged. Are you suggesting that the other five divisions should have their own separate battle articles? Your assertion, that the British source for the names of these engagements is not relevant, is absurd. --Rskp (talk) 00:05, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Note: This is a personal attack. Commenting on editor behaviour or viewpoint is not a personal attack, commenting on character is. I've hung around ANI enough to know the difference! Please refrain from abusing the {{RPA}} to refactor editors comments in future! Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 01:49, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

No it was NOT a personal attack, because the comments were to do with a point of view, regarding a particular source as set out above. That has got nothing to do with the character of the editor. The {{RPA}} has been and will continue to be used when and where it should be. --Rskp (talk) 02:15, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

"Its your problem Jim Sweeney that you refuse to acknowledge an official source." + "Your assertion, that the British source for the names of these engagements is not relevant, is absurd."(Personal attack removed) you're playing in the grey area, these are tendatious remarks. {{RPA}} is not designed to refactor comments, as you did. It could be deleted, just like {{Redact}} if people abuse it. And BOLD CAPS do not impress anyone. Don't get pointy with me. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 02:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Rskp: The purpose of Campaignboxes is to list engagements, regardless of subjective significance. Regardless of what some goon in some Committee named it years ago, an engagement is a military event. Just because it may be seen as a minor affair, does not mean it should be removed as "insignificant". Your own wording "these so called battles" is original research/PO, no matter what rhetoric you spin to suggest otherwise. Campaignboxes need to include everything: Campaigns, battles, engagements, compabts, actions, assaults, skirmishes, operations, sieges, raids, expeditions, reconnaissances, scouts, affairs, occupations, captures, clashes, et al.. your own wording suggests that insignificant actions should be excluded, because major battles take priority. In short, bull shit. The aim of a campaignbox is to detail the events, in their entirety, of a campaign. Campaignboxes which aim to only list major battles are biased and incomplete. Campaignboxes are a form of wikilinking but in a focused manner. They are not designed to simply provide a chronological sequence of events, or major events. Campaignboxes are not even referenced or cited, so your "officially published sources" don't really apply, as campaignboxes are nothing more than a navigation tool. They are not required to follow notability standards, but should always maintain a NPOV. So I don't see your edits to the aforementioned campaignbox as anything but subjective and unproductive, because you're reducing readers options to a select few choice battles only you think need listing based on some nonsense that "these minor incidents over-shadow the battles". Uhh, no they don't.. they provide a full list, just as if you were listing Presidents of the US, or PMs of the UK, you'd list them all, not just the notable ones. You can't "grossly inflate" a campaignbox.. if a half-dozen scrappy skirmishes occurred before a massive battle, they happened.. that is history, as it happened, as the military historian wants to know it happened. Leaving gaps in a timeline based on some theory is bad practice, and really needs to be prevented via a MILHIST MOS guideline, of sorts. And you really need to listen to consensus more often, it seems. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 08:19, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

To keep the campaign boxes from getting too large and unwieldy, we normally create a hierarchy, whereby wars are divided into theatres, theatres into campaigns, and campaigns into battles. If the campaign boxes become cluttered they lose their purpose. The Manhattan Project banner explicitly does not list all the subarticles, because there are just too many of them. And by explicitly, I mean a comment that says: There are hundreds of articles in Category:Manhattan Project. Let's keep this navbox more focused than that. Don't be afraid to delete something if you find it irrelevant. That applies to all navboxes. Since the navboxes navigate to articles, and all the articles must be notable, all the entries in the navboxes have to be notable! It is certainly possible for a minor skirmish to be notable; but that does not mean that it should be added to the campaign box! And we do not want to be creating our own battles and campaigns; that is WP:SYNTH. Where possible, do as Rksp suggests and hew to the official nomenclature except where a battle or campaign is better known by another name. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:59, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The campaign box is hardly grossly inflated there are sixteen articles now five blue links that were deleted and five red links for battles that had not been created. That version is here [1] two of the red links were even added by RoslynSKP. The matter of the article names is immaterial to this discussion as they only appear in the box as the battle name Katia and not as Battle of Katia. Jim Sweeney (talk) 09:50, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Think I need to clarify my previous comment, as it comes across like I mean "absolutely everything" needs to be in a campaignbox, which I don't. When I say "major" or "minor" I'm referring to those which are at least notable, and written about, by historians. Below that there are likely to be a significant amount of trivial engagements, skirmishes of such small consequence that there would never be enough material to form an article of notable value.. perhaps a stub, at best. I think, or at least I believe, Jim is concerned that articles are being removed from the campaignbox in question yet there is no way they are non-notable, including a GA. If an article is long-standing and notable it should be in the campaignbox, regardless of nomenclature, which does not dictate wiki practices, and is possibly biased in itself as a single source. If there are concerns that items in the campaignbox are not notable enough, then editors should be raising those articles as not notable and AfD'ing them. Trivial engagements are normally sub-headed under more notable events, but campaignboxes don't normally link to anchors. AfD is the appropriate place to determine notability or an article, and therefore its rightful inclusion in a campaignbox. If the result is "keep" then it should be in the box also. Bearing in mind that if an editor raises a bunch of articles with AfD just to exclude them from a box, it would be an WP:POINTY and not tolerated very well. Hence why we have consensus: "Don't be afraid to delete something if you find it irrelevant" is not consensus. Relevance is subjective, and disruptive if the result is war editing, as is the case in that template. In this case, I see more of WP:IJDLI. WP:SYNTH is about taking info from numerous selective sources and forming a single conclusion, with intent to reach that conclusion from the outset. You can't really synthesise a campaign.. either the engagements occurred, or they didn't, you can't "make up" a battle, if it is listed in records, memoirs, or some other reliable source.. you can only determine its notability in terms of notable or trivial. Trivial engagements are the "clutter", minor skirmishes are simply lesser battles. Would you also exclude them from the related campaign Category, if they're not good enough for the box? Can't have it both ways.. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 10:10, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh but you can. Consider this stupid campaign box. It is pure POV pushing. It constructs a campaign out of a series of unrelated battles, and not one reputable historian accepts the campaign as actually having happened. Hawkeye7 (talk) 10:35, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

If the campaignbox is drawn from the article, then the article should be challenged at AfD, and the result of that decision used to justify an AfD for the template. Given the overwhelming number of Aussies en project, I doubt either would succeed, based on the chances of COI/biased voting, alone. Though I'm not saying all share that attitude. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 10:53, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The article is okay; it merely explains that the campaign is a WP:FRINGE theory. The problem is with the bogus campaign box which gives it WP:UNDUE weight contrary to WP:NPOV. I have listed the template for deletion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 February 6. Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:27, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

As has been pointed out several times using a British name for an attack by Ottoman or other forces is POV. The British Battles Nomenclature Committee's report would have no interest in a French or Ottoman battle or the naming of them and if they did its obvious POV if both sides fail to use the same name. All this however has nothing to do with their inclusion in the campaign box template. If you unhappy with an article set up an AFD, its not a reason to remove them from the campaign box. Jim Sweeney (talk) 12:00, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

How can it be POV when it is a British Empire campaign being described on the English language section of Wikipedia. This is not the French language section, nor the Turkish language section. The Battles Nomenclature Committee's report named the battles fought by the British Empire in WW1 and remains THE authoritative English source until scholars revisit the area. As far as I can see the only reason you question the value of this source is because it doesn't list all the fights you would like to identify separately as battles. This logic would have the French (called the Palestine and Syrian detachment) attack identified in a stub article as the Battle of Arara. But then the five other divisions which attacked at the same time on 19 September along the same front line would all deserve separate battle status. All were fought equally hard and with great courage and determination. Added to these six battles you would have to add the day long preliminary attack by XX Corps and the main attacks by that corps' two divisions. So on one day you would have 9 battles along the same front line. The BNC identified two; the Battle of Sharon and the Battle of Nablus. Newly created article Battle of Jaffa (1917) is like the Battle of Arara part of a larger battle and is identified by the BNC as a subsidiary battle of the Jerusalem battle. If all these battles were recognised by separate articles and listed in the campaign template the campaign would be completely fragmented and a hopelessly confusing view of the campaign would be created. Is this your aim? --Rskp (talk) 00:30, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Campaign Box templates - arguments for and against

(Comment from uninvolved editor) Hello everyone, I've become aware of this thread through the dispute resolution noticeboard thread on this subject. I wanted to jump in here as it looks like the discussion might be in danger of going round in circles, and I think if we can structure things a little bit better then it might save everyone some time. To get everything in one place, how about we make a list of all the arguments for using the British naming including the disputed articles in this particular campaignbox, and all the arguments against? As well as making the arguments clearer, this will set the discussion up well for an RfC if we can't reach consensus here. I'll set out the format below, but don't feel that you have to follow it - this isn't my WikiProject after all. If you would rather just keep discussing, then feel free to ignore it. Best regards — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 03:55, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Arguments for including the disputed articles

1. Campaignboxes aim to provide a complete coverage of a campaign, as a group of wikilinks (inc. redlinks), to aid timeline and navigation purposes. They should not exclude battles that:
   • "Are trivial not notable" – if the battle is not notable it shouldn't have an article on Wiki, period. If it does it should usually be linked.
   • The thoughtless remark above – "How can it be POV when it is a British Empire campaign being described on the English language section of Wikipedia" – is a moot point. en:Wiki relates to use of the English language for reading purposes. It does not mean we should only be using English sources, English POVs, or English naming conventions. History is an international subject, and battles are not named by or only given notability for English speakers. Foreign sources can, and should, be considered, though translations are usually required.
   • Redlinks are acceptable in campaignboxes, to encourage editors to write articles. Wiki is incomplete, which means even some notable events have yet to be written about.
   • Inclusion is not based on article class. Links can be to stubs through to FAs. There is no convention because notability is not class related, and even if it was, all low-quality articles have room for improvement.
   • A campaign is not a one-sided affair, unless it's a civil war. How can a campaign against a foreign nation only be a "British Empire" matter? That thought process resembles a non-NPOV also, which needs to be condemned, because it leads to articles representing national bias, rather than neutral examination of facts and events.
   • Basing a campaignbox on some nomenclature from the defunc. British Empire POV presents bias and does not represent the war objectively, only how one side perceives it, and subjects its own importance to it. That is not a NPOV. And speaking as a Brit, the Empire was up its own backside much of the time, and is unlikely to have presented its history as anything but "perfect". Single sourcing is bad practice.
     • Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 07:05, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
     • Support Jim Sweeney (talk) 09:04, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Arguments against including the disputed articles

Joan Pujol Garcia - review/assess, please?

It's been 8 days since I put this up for assessment. Could someone at least review it? Thanks! Allens (talk) 11:16, 6 February 2012 (UTC) Y Done Jim Sweeney (talk) 14:00, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Category:Arkansas in the American Civil War

I noticed that the units articles were included in this category but I can't find on the page the coding which adds these articles to the category. Could someone help me with this? Wild Wolf (talk) 16:15, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

It's included within the {{Arkansas in the Civil War}} footer bar. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 16:34, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Would removing the <includeonly> tags fix this? Wild Wolf (talk) 16:43, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

No. "includeonly" means the {{Arkansas in the Civil War}} only lists the article it appears on, and not itself, in the category when it is transcluded. i.e. {{Arkansas in the Civil War}} is not listed in Category:Arkansas in the American Civil War. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 16:47, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

That's what I meant by the question (sorry I wasn't clear on that). I wanted to know if removing the tags would mean that the template would appear in the category but not the articles in is included in (such as the units articles). Wild Wolf (talk) 16:52, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Your best bet would probably be to remove the category link from the footer template altogether, then manually place Category:Arkansas in the American Civil War in any articles that actually need it. Including it in the template has been a bit of a lazy move by someone in the past, I gather, to blanket cover all Ar-kan-saw related articles. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 16:59, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

A little off topic but I personally never liked embedding categories like this in templates. It tends to make things more confusing. --Kumioko (talk) 17:13, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I've removed the category link and it looks like it worked. All of the unit articles are gone from the Arkansas in the CW category. Wild Wolf (talk) 17:32, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

You've left a stray </noinclude>, which will display as text. Needs removing or pairing. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 17:39, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

You may want to check these articles...

Hello, over at WP:Videogames we've had a user User:Collingwood26 that has been deleting perfectly acceptable categories from articles. Going through their edit history I spotted that they've actually been pretty active in you area of interest. They've deleted flags and categories from articles - possibly valid, but I'm not an expert on your subject, so you may want to double check their edits. The user has been active since November 2011. Also ignore any edit summaries, the user uses summaries like "Spelling mistake" when they're actually deleting categories. - X201 (talk) 22:54, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

New map of the Battle of the Bulge

New (left), old (right)

I've created File:Wacht am Rhein map.svg as an SVG version, with some improvements, to File:P23(map).jpg. I'd love to hear if you think it's good - I'm considering whether to send it down the FP route, it's not one I'm familiar with - also check that I've transcribed it correctly (the dates in particular were difficult to read). I also omitted the red hatched area, as I didn't know what this was - could anyone enlighten me? Finally, if you think it's an improvement, could someone replace the original file's uses (the SVG creator doing this is sometimes frowned upon). Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 23:06, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

That image looks like a big improvement to me. I'm pretty sure that the red hatched area is the German Siegfried Line, but there's no good reason to include it in the map given that this was a German offensive. Nick-D (talk) 07:38, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I would like to see the units names in their home language which would allow to use the map in different Wikipedias. Furthermore, as the map is called Wacht am Rhein you maybe should change the colours because the file name intends the map shows the german perspective of their offensive but they wouldn't sign their own positions with hostile red. --Bomzibar (talk) 07:49, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Shouldn't be too difficult at all to translate the map into a German version, if someone gave me the translations. I've already tweaked it from the original for pro-allied "bias" (changing the front lines from blue to grey). Ultimately I can't think of another colour that would would work to replace red, which would mean just swapping them and we'd have the problem in reverse. It's a German offensive, so red mmakes more sense, I would think. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 09:48, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

One more thing: Is there any reason some cities are written in capital letters and others not? --Bomzibar (talk) 07:59, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I went with the source map on that, presumably something to do with size/importance. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 09:48, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Understand you followed the original map on this. I also understand Bomzibar's comment -- Bonn more significant than Cologne? Only in postwar federal politics. Not sure why the original map creator put caps on some of those names. W. B. Wilson (talk) 05:19, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

The direction arrow for the movement of VII Corps is reversed from what it should be. Check against the other file. Also suggest using the same font size for units of a particular size (all corps with one font size, all divisions with a smaller font size, etc.) There should also be a legend explaining the dates that apply to the various front lines shown on the map. W. B. Wilson (talk) 20:36, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Now changed. Also had a go at standardising font sizes. In so far as "explaining the dates" - what sort of thing do you mean? I'm no real army guy - I couldn't tell you which level is a corps or unit or whatever so best to give me an example if you have something specific. Also, for interest, what are the vaguely horizontal lines with "XXXX" or "XXXXX" in them? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 21:01, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

You have a typo - Colonge instead of Cologne. Other than that, it looks pretty good. Parsecboy (talk) 21:42, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Changed. You know I stared at that for a minute, swore that it was wrong but couldn't put my finger on it. Sigh. How silly of me. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 21:51, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes it's those little things that slip by. I don't know how many times I've made silly mistakes like that in articles. Parsecboy (talk) 22:20, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

RE the lines: XXXX indicates Army size unit, XXXXX Army Group, so by my reckoning they mark the boundaries between units. GraemeLeggett (talk) 22:15, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Yup, they're unit boundaries. Parsecboy (talk) 22:20, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Re questions. Unit sizes -- Allied Army Groups are literally identified on the map, the German ones are "H" and "B". I suggest leaving those alone even though they are the highest echelon shown on the map. The armies are all literally spelled out so they should be easy to identify. The corps are shown in Roman numerals with the exception of "BR30" which is the British 30 Corps. The small numbers like "84ID" are divisions. Explaining the dates -- look at the original drawing. In the upper left part, there is a legend explaining the meaning of the solid line, the dashed line, and the dotted line (showing where the front line was on particular dates). For example, the solid black line on your drawing is where the front line was on 16 December 1944, but on your drawing there is no legend explaining that -- this is a must-have for a military battle map. Let me know if this explanation is still not clear. BTW, a suggested font size for the corps would be that used for the "I SS Pz" corps. Thanks, W. B. Wilson (talk) 05:10, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

There is a legend provided on the file description page – this is normal for maps, because it makes it a lot easier to translate them. Will examine the "I SS Pz" issue. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 10:48, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeaaah, but a legend would be more useful for interpreting the graphic immediately than the spot on the image showing the location of Belgium in Europe -- my take is that the image should be self explanatory and not rely on text in the file description page. Nice colors on your version, they're easier to look at than the reds in the original version. W. B. Wilson (talk) 20:56, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Template:Infobox castrum

You may want to take a look at {{Infobox castrum}} with examples like Porolissum or Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa. It was developed initially for WP:Dacia but should be usable in any Roman province, and not just for castra but other types of fortifications also settlements/cities etc. Looking forward for your feedback. Cheers! --Codrin.B (talk) 15:48, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Looks highly specialised and rather more than an overview of key information but I have little grasp of what's important to a scholar of Roman military bases. Something wrong with using Template:Infobox military structure, Template:Infobox_settlement Template:Infobox archaeological site? as required. GraemeLeggett (talk) 17:51, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Names of militias

Hello. I'm copy editing an MILHIST article in response to a GOCE request. In the article, I see inconsistency in the capitalisation of "North Carolina M/militia" and "C/colonial M/militia". I am familiar with WP:MILTERMS. My only question is whether these two terms are accepted proper noun phrases or not. The article is discussing events in the middle to late 18th century. Regards. --Stfg (talk) 20:40, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Offhand I'd say the first should have the caps but the second not. In Google searches, the second comes up with caps but only apparently as article titles, not when used in the body of a sentence. W. B. Wilson (talk) 05:12, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much for taking the trouble. I'll follow that advice in Griffith Rutherford. Regards, --Stfg (talk) 10:51, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

NARA Images (American four star generals)

Was wondering if there is anyone with a scanner willing to go the College Park branch of NARA and help out with this request. I can narrow the list down if someone is willing to help out here. Thanks so much in advance, – Connormah (talk) 02:42, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

President of the American Historical Association praises Wikipedia

For those who haven't seen it, this story in the current edition of the Wikipedia Signpost describing a recent article on Wikipedia by the President of the American Historical Association is really interesting. His article is here and is well worth reading. Hopefully it does encourage more professional historians - including military historians - to engage with Wikipedia, and it's likely that the article will help with efforts to engage with museums. Nick-D (talk) 10:22, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Could we focus on the following:

Could we concentrated/focus on the following sections for a few days?

• Category:Unassessed military history articles = 66 articles unassessed.
• Category:Military history articles with no associated task force = 24.
• Category:Military history articles with incomplete B-Class checklists = 25,874.

The first two would be nice to be back to a low number, possibly 0. It would be appreciated, that we could get these down, especially about 200 to 300 incomplete "B-Class" articles. It is a little too much for just me to do, so I am asking for some help from fellow Coordinators and/or WikiProject Military History Users. Adamdaley (talk) 12:26, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

In wandering through the unassessed articles, I found that Redirect-class articles are being dumped into this category. Should we split these out into their own category, similar to Category:Redirect-Class Ships articles?

We use it in WikiProject United States as do nearly all of the United States related/supported projects. Not every redirect needs to be tagged of course but if it is tagged it should fall into the correct category. --Kumioko (talk) 18:26, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Category:Unassessed military history articles is now down to 31. I wa about to assess Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 133 when I was struck by doubts about its notability. And having just looked at its references for evidence of significant and independent coverage I find copyvio of this entry at Globasecurity.org. Opinions? GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:01, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Duplication Detector report. I think the unit is probably notable, but it desperatl needs a total rewrite to be rid of that (and preferably rid of GS as a reference altogether). - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 20:14, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Concerning the incomplete B-class checklists, I believe that something was mentioned a few weeks ago about a B-class backlog drive contest. Is this still being orgainized? Wild Wolf (talk) 04:09, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Wild Wolf ... I don't know anything about the B-class backlog, it seems like over the last 2 or so weeks, 100 to 150 articles has been added to the incomplete B-class list, which was a major let down for me because I could see that WikiProject Military History Coordinators and users were getting the number down at an incredible rate. Unfortunately, it's gone up and has slowly stopped to the point where only a few are being done and more articles keep getting added to it. As for the American Civil War articles in the B-class section the majority of them will be taken upon myself and MarcusBritish due to us both having the Frederick H. Dyer compendiums and he has a subpage of military units listed by each state. I am currently doing two of them at the moment, but the two I'm doing are at a slow progress. Adamdaley (talk) 07:22, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for any delays in the Dyer articles progress. I'm aiming to gather as many titles as possible onto the ACWR list I made before anything, as well as awaiting the photo books, after that I should be closer to getting started. Not planning to steamroller through them though, just take them one at a time, get them organised steadily, quality over quantity, etc. The list on the ACWR page is up to 949 articles, since the inclusion of 3 more states and USCT. There may be more to add though. Original creation of these regimental articles was by no means organised; different editors started different states, and each had different approaches. Most, however, are C-class at best for the time being. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 07:44, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

949 articles for American Civil War? I'm going crazy with the backlogs above especially the B-class backlog! I look at the number and think, I've put myself into a position that I cannot get out of! Honestly, I don't know what other people think ... Either Coordinators or Users of Military History. Feel we need to put personal articles aside and doing making progress. On the other hand I know we are short for Coordinators. Adamdaley (talk) 11:53, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

949 regiments. I don't know how many other articles there are relating to anything else for the rest of the ACW.. about 2,000 I think, if IP 76 is right. Don't worry though, there's no deadline.. once we get started the numbers will gradually fall away. The ACW Dyer articles are never going to achieve a really high-quality each, so there's no need to rush to get them all done fast. If it takes a year, then so be it.. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 12:17, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

unsuitable image used as icon representing Goths?

Hello. In quite a few infoboxes of articles about battles where Romans encountered Goths or other Germanic peoples (eg Alamanni) this image from Commons is used (at very small scale) as an icon representing the Gothic party. See, for instance, the battle of Abrittus. However, I doubt that this knot has anything to do with most of the Germanic peoples of the late Roman period. Therefore I plan to remove it from these infoboxes. Question is, am I correct or I am really nitpicking? Thanks!--Dipa1965 (talk) 17:23, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

If there's good reason to believe its use is incorrect, or original research, remove it and leave a note in the discussion page in case anyone, including the original editor who added it, wishes to provide a source, or query the removal. Just leave a clear edit summary to indicate your reason and to see the talk page, and you should be fine. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 17:39, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

"Knot"? That's an image of a pendant representing Mjölnir, or the hammer of Thor. The original pendant is from Sweden, and I believe from a several centuries later than the classic Roman Empire. I think we'd be quite justified to remove that icon. I'm not against using some icon for the Germanic tribes, but let's find one that's culturally and historically relevant. Boneyard90 (talk) 18:20, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. The original image caption is clear what this is and it is both culturally Scandinavian and later, so justification is clear. ideally an alternative should be found - this is quite nice, in period and artistically typicalMonstrelet (talk) 19:22, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Looks much better (hope you don't mind that I fixed your link btw, you had a pipe in there that was causing an error). EyeSerene^talk 19:29, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Happy for your help - I always struggle with images Monstrelet (talk) 19:58, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

If you're going to be using that in infoboxes, I'd suggest asking if someone might be able to recreate it as a 2D vector image.. the photo has a fairly grey background, and the DOF was very narrow so the tips are out of focus (bokeh). It probably won't look as stunning used as a small scale icon: — as seen here. I would offer, but not sure that I could do it justice. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 19:52, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you all. I appreciate MarcusBritish suggestion (about creating a vectorized icon) but I am not competent in those things. Perhaps a downsampled transparent gif version of the Ostgoten-fibel.jpg, with its shadow and background removed, would do the job. I hope gifs are acceptable in infoboxes. You may check the result here: Battle of Philippopolis (250) :) --Dipa1965 (talk) 23:24, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

PNG would offer better transparency. GIFs tend to look tatty round the edges. You might be able to do that, though.. removing a background is easy enough. Ma®©usBritish^[chat] 00:55, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Converted to 30 px transparent PNG.--Dipa1965 (talk) 09:05, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikimania 2012 scholarships and submissions

Spreading the word about Wikimania 2012 call for participation (talks, panels, workshops, whatever, don't be shy!) and travel scholarships (deadline Feb 16). Wikimania 2012 is in Washington, DC and we hope to offer side-events and tourism opportunities, like backstage tour of the National Archives, hopefully the Pentagon and other cool military history-related places. Cheers. --Aude (talk) 20:35, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Early and Later Israelite Campaigns

I came across a series of articles related to what are called the Early Israelite Campaigns and the Later Israelite Campaigns which are sourced to – and, at times, quote large portions of – one or more versions of the Bible. While the Bible may be a valid primary source for Biblical topics (I say "may be" due to the fact that there are different translations and interpretations), it is most definitely not a reliable source of historical data.

Affected articles include, in addition to the two 'campaigns' articles:

• Battle of Ai
• Battle of the Spring of Harod
• Battle of the Valley of Elah
• Battle of Michmash
• Siege of Jebus
• Battle of Edrei
• Israelite-Aramean War

I am not sure whether the problem is one of the articles themselves or rather of how the information is presented – from the Biblical point of view. Most of the articles were created by User:Scarfaced Charley and my first inclination was to discuss the matter with him; however, as he has not edited in over four months, I am bringing the issue to this project's attention. Thank you, -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 00:00, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Use of the German term "Fall" in an article title

Can someone give me steer on why we seem to be using the German word "Fall" meaning Case ie Fall Weiss rather than Case White in WW2 articles? Thanks. Peacemaker67 (talk) 06:29, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

"Case" is not commonly used in military terminology in English, so most sources do not translate it. Therefore, the German form is the more familiar one to English-speaking readers. I blame Barrie Pitt. (As an aside, why do we have Operation U-Go? I mean, doesn't "Go" mean "operation"?) Hawkeye7 (talk) 12:31, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

A class reviews

Given that the requirements for A-class and Featured are now the same, I am proposing that the Featured criteria wording be used in lieu of our existing A-class criteria. Hawkeye7 (talk) 12:40, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry did I miss something? We've always considered A to be near-FA quality, but I don't remember anyone suggesting they were exactly the same before. Funny, I was saying to Eye (here or on the Coord's page, can't remember) that I was considering a Bugle op-ed on the (occasionally subtle) differences between writing/reviewing at the various class levels -- perhaps this is impetus to do it sooner rather than later... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:56, 9 February 2012 (UTC)