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Dear all, I was doing some checking on support / admin units for the Air Force Academy when I noticed that someone had put 2+2 together about the time it took to remove the lame duck appointees that Trump had appointed to the Board of Visitors. Despite the usual 2-4 meetings of the Board a year, in the period where the Trump nominees were made, and then removed, a long delay, over fifteen months, took place without any meetings. Somebody had noted this in the article.
Somebody else had removed it.
I was intrigued and managed to find an official USAF page saying the board should hold 4 meetings a year. This made the very visible fifteen month delay in meetings a clear breach of the Air Force's own expectations.
The two referenced statements were removed again.
This time the edit summary was OR and 'not notable.' I believe the two Air Force pages contradicting one another makes this referenced and not OR; but happy to hear third opinions; I also believe the delay is notable. What do others think?
cc PmsyyzElKevboBilCatBuckshot06(talk) 19:32, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
Note: This has been the subject of several RfCs in years past and seems to be somewhat contentious. Users with experience with the relevant sourcing here would be appreciated. -Indy beetle (talk) 20:26, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
Comment This is a question of whether the sources are describing a result (Indian defeat or Pakistani victory) or such a result would be WP:SYNTH? Cinderella157 (talk) 00:45, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
FAR for Battle of Ceresole
I have nominated Battle of Ceresole for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Z1720 (talk) 16:56, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
This is a new area for me, but I wanted to have a crack at the Umma-Lagash war, which Professor of History Lorenzo Kamel deemed "the first recorded war in human history".
Please can a volunteer have a look and copyedit? I'm keen to bring it to DYK. :)--Coin945 (talk) 05:07, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
I have noticed some articles use the Newspapers.com auto-filled page number (ie 5 instead of B2 for instance) while others use the page number of the original publication. Is there any difference for ACR or FAC purposes? Therapyisgood (talk) 14:49, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
Battle of the Tenaru casualties
Original discussion here, input from editors familiar with the Guadalcanal campaign and the secondary sources for it would be appreciated. Hog FarmTalk 22:25, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
I'm not sure that they are about the same thing. The first is about armies that recruit rather than conscript, while the second is about part-time defence militias. Both need a lot of work though. Alansplodge (talk) 18:38, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
Actually the second is more about volunteer units and doesn't really mention militias at all. They could easily be merged into a single article, which could then be expanded. Of note, the United States Volunteers article is also in horrible shape. Intothatdarkness 15:23, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
If there were a formal proposal to merge I would strongly oppose. They are about different things, each noteworthy. The content of military volunteer may need moving - I withhold my opinion - but Wikipedia needs the article and it should not be merged with the only tangentially related volunteer military. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:55, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
There needs to be solid content to move first. As it is there's really not much of use. Renaming Volunteer Military might help, but the existing military volunteer article isn't even close to being useful. Intothatdarkness 22:12, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
Volunteer military is just a list, as of now. Anyway, if it ever comes a consensus not to merge, then I strongly recommend renaming Volunteer military to more appropriate and less ambiguous title "All-volunteer force" as in Britannica.--2409:4073:318:20AF:7056:A715:9160:17FE (talk) 08:32, 20 August 2022 (UTC)
Is there any real difference between Military reserve force and Military reserve? Only Wikipedia distinguishes it, I cannot find any sources on the internet distinguishing both. While the Military reserve force has some sources, the Military reserve is completely unreferenced. There could be difference in the type of reserves, but I doubt if these titles are correct, shouldn't there be a disambiguation instead? 2409:4073:4E8B:2A14:31A3:56A1:2E3C:4844 (talk) 12:08, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
I was going to say bold merge, but the two do discuss completely separate topics. The former is about a civilian/military reserve or part time service arms like the U.S. Army Reserve, while the latter is about the concept of "holding forces in reserve" during battle. The latter might not need its own article, but they are two different subjects. -Indy beetle (talk) 20:29, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
The "military reserve" article contains no references at all. Which template do we use to flag this up? Alansplodge (talk) 12:26, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
Thanks, I couldn't find the right one. Alansplodge (talk) 13:21, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
Although apparently referenced, military reserve force contains lots of WP:OR and unsourced content, needs a source verification check and should be re-written appropriately and drop unsourced content.--2409:4073:318:20AF:7056:A715:9160:17FE (talk) 08:39, 20 August 2022 (UTC)
No. 151 Wing was reformed on 10 March 1944 as a transport wing headquartered at RAF Habbaniya in Iraq, and operated until its disbanding on 1 June 1946.[13][14] From 1 October 1959 to 9 September 1964, 151 Wing was an air defence missile unit, probably operating Bristol Bloodhound surface-to-air missiles.[13][citation needed]
Does anyone have a better citation than [13] please? Regards Keith-264 (talk) 14:51, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
The categorization of Other Ranks in Indian Army article is incorrect. Lance Naik, Naik and Havildar are "non commissioned officers" (reference para. 6). I also disagree with splitting commissioned officers as "Junior officer" and "Field/senior officers", first of all, there is officially no such categories, and junior/senior is SUBJECTIVE, isn't it? Beside, are commissioned "junior officer" and junior commissioned officer not confusing?
The technical help I want is to correct Template:Ranks and Insignia of Non NATO Armies/OR/India. It is factually incorrect. Senior NCOs and Junior NCOs should be changed to "junior commissioned officers" and "non commissioned officers", respectively (use the same reference above), and Lance Naik, Naik and Havildar should be grouped under NCO. 2409:4073:318:20AF:8800:BF02:98B9:C3A4 (talk) 15:16, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
I have corrected the status of ranks in non-Nato OR templates (Armies, Navies, Air Force) to JCO and NCO. But I am still figuring out how to group the ranks. I am not an expert in markup language. As of now, the senior NCO rank appears as junior JCO rank in all non-Nato OR templates (1, 2, 3). Since this effects 100s of templates, it requires an expert to handle it. I hope someone will correct it.--The Doom Patrol (talk) 15:16, 20 August 2022 (UTC)
The templates you changed are the ones in use for international comparison based on US standards which tends to be the source when comparing ranks of different nations to each other. If you look on the articles about the ranks specifically for India, you will find they use the correct Indian designations for the rank groups, so there is no need to change the template that is used for international comparisons. Cdjp1 (talk) 19:54, 20 August 2022 (UTC)
US is NATO standard, that cannot be used in non-NATO countries. However, I agree to use Senior/Junior NCO since most non-NATO countries don't use the JCO term. But the ranks are still grouped incorrectly, one Junior NCO rank appears extra in Senior NCO.--The Doom Patrol (talk) 07:51, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
I am well aware that countries like India are not NATO, and that is not the argument I made. I referenced how the US provides literature showing comparisons in ranks between the US and near every other country, so when these templates are used in international comaprisons, we use that as a reference for how to compare them. It is this standard that the templates have been built upon, but as I previously stated, in article where such comparison does not occur, we provide the correct grouping as more that country's standards. Cdjp1 (talk) 15:18, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
I don't think you are aware enough to distinguish both. In a recent dispute on a non-NATO template, you asked me to go ask "US DOD", a NATO member. Since when did US started assigning ranks to non-NATO countries?--The Doom Patrol (talk) 17:40, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
I don't know whether the Indian Army still officially divides its officers into junior and senior (field) officers, but the British Armed Forces, from which India takes many of its traditions, certainly do and always have done (and thus the British Indian Army would have done), so no, it's certainly not subjective. In fact, it's standard practice around the world to refer to captains and lieutenants as junior officers and majors and colonels as senior officers. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:25, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
HMS Malabar
In File:Edward_Duncan_-_The_Explosion_of_the_United_States_Steam_Frigate_Missouri.jpg, there's some lines across the ship's stern, roughly in the rectangle defined by 1600<x<2200 and 3900<y<4500, though they do extend a little beyond that, and there's a couple more similar lines a little more to the right (2500<x<2650) that might be from the boat lowering to water level. Anyone see any reason the ones on the stern shouldn't be removed? Am I right the ones to the right are valid? Adam Cuerden(talk)Has about 8.1% of all FPs 19:51, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
A couple of the lines seem to come from the davits, but most don't have an obvious source. I'm talking about the long, lighter-in-colour, semi-vertical scratch-like lines. The two at 2100 might be from a davit, but the three more diagonal ones left of that look similar, but have no obvious start point. (It's awkward as having very similar-looking lines make me wonder if I should treat all of them the same, but some seem valid and some don't) Adam Cuerden(talk)Has about 8.1% of all FPs 20:23, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
I think they're ropes. They're much more clearly shown in this lithograph which was presumably based on the same source material (a sketch by Lieutenant George Pechell Mends?) - Dumelow (talk) 20:54, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
Ah, yes! Thank you so much! Adam Cuerden(talk)Has about 8.1% of all FPs 21:12, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
No worries, would you mind pinging me once you have finished cleaning up the image? Would be great to see the finished article - Dumelow (talk) 21:19, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
Will do! It's actually getting pretty close - there's about... well, I'm combining short words in my count, but 8 words I still need to clean up in the lower right side. (See the PNG's file notes for VERY detailed progress.) Adam Cuerden(talk)Has about 8.1% of all FPs 18:10, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
@Dumelow: And it's done, nominated at WP:FPC, and spread around a few articles. By the way, I think that image you found, despite some mislabelling, is actually Duncan's original artwork that the lithograph was based on. It's not at all in the style of a lithograph, and has 2/3rds of the chain of names. Adam Cuerden(talk)Has about 8.1% of all FPs 19:24, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
Thanks Adam, I don't know enough about images to vote on the FPC but it looks great to me - Dumelow (talk) 06:14, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
@Dumelow: Much obliged! Honestly, this came about from finding the wrong USS Missouri when one of the other ships of that name was at... I want to say A-level review, but the images were way too good not to do something with them. And Malebar... well, this was the only illustration available hitherto.Adam Cuerden(talk)Has about 8.1% of all FPs 20:17, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
Featured Article Review: Andrew Jackson
I have nominated Andrew Jackson for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. FinnV3 (talk) 20:59, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
M2 Browning
Our article claims that the requirement for the M2 Browning heavy machine gun originated in the introduction of the Junkers J.I armoured ground-attack aircraft. However, work started on the M2 in July 1917, but the J.I didn't appear until August 1917, so this seems dubious at best. The claim is referenced to a 1951 book by George M. Chinn, the passage in question seems to be this one. I posted a query about this on the talk page a year or so ago, but it failed to elicit a responce from anybody and has now been archived. Any thoughts anyone? Alansplodge (talk) 14:53, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
That passage in Chinn refers to use of .50 Calibre Browning machine guns for aircraft use - the development of water-cooled .50 in Browning machine guns for Land use (which wasn't the M2) started in July 1917 - the first land gun was ready for testing in October 1918 - see pp. 181–186 of Chinn.Nigel Ish (talk) 18:31, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
Thanks Nigel Ish, it's not a model of clarity is it? Alansplodge (talk) 15:09, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
Spotted this article at AFD today - it's an interesting one and I can't seem to find any specific contemporary sources for an expedition being sent to Hanoi. Does anyone know of contemporary material that might be able to confirm or deny the fighting took place? Andrew Gray (talk) 17:24, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
I can confirm the article's reference to Alexander Mikaberidze's The Napoleonic Wars is correct. On p488: "By 1808 the British were concerned that Napoleon might exploit Franco-Vietnamese ties to establish himself in southeast Asia where he might help the Nguyen ruler build a navy that could threaten British trade in the South China Sea. Drury's mission was to prevent this from happening. Arriving in the Gulf of Tonkin, Drury tried to sail up the Red River to strike against the Vietnamese navy and force Gia Long to compromise. Yet the Vietnamese fought back, destroying several of Drury's ships and forcing the main body of the British squadron to sail on to Macao. After this setback the British made no further attempt to intervene in Vietnam until 1822." He cites "Papers regarding the combined Naval and Military Expedition sent from India to Macao in September 1808 to forestall a possible French occupation" which the National Archives website says is available at the British Library under ref number IOR/F/4/307/7025 - Dumelow (talk) 20:42, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
@Dumelow Thanks - that's really helpful. I had poked around the digitised India Office papers but hadn't found this - it seems Series F wasn't digitised so this might be a bit hard to track down. (Interesting it's presented explicitly as an expedition "from India to Macao" with no mention of Vietnam (or Tonkin/Annam/etc) in the abstract, though...) Andrew Gray (talk) 22:06, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
Drury arrived at Macao on 11 September [1], an event which is quite well documented by internet sources, unlike the Red River foray which seems to escape mention anywhere except for the book cited above. Does anybody know by what name Vietnam was known in English at that date? Vietnam and Indo-China have been unproductive search terms. One would think that if "several" British ships were actually sunk, the event would appear in print somewhere. Alansplodge (talk) 21:08, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
Very interested to know what "burned and destroyed" ships these were. Surprising that none of the sources deign to name them. They're very excited to explain that Drury lost some of his ships; one would expect them to be equally happy to put names to the vessels of the vanquished foe. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 22:52, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
The History of British India describes Drury leaving Madras/Calcutta in June-July, arriving at Macao in September, and ignominiously departing again in December. It doesn't seem to mention Vietnam, or such failure. Drury's fleet for the expedition is listed as Russell, Greyhound (lost on 4 October), Dover, Phaeton, Jaseur (lost in August), and Dédaigneuse. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 14:17, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
Six Day War
I'm not sure about the exact procedure, but I think the lead of the six day war article may need a bit of attention, is this the right place/way to bring attention to that? Tttmaker (talk) 11:56, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
You could post about it either here, or on the talk page of the article itself. In either case, you are probably going to get much better results if you specify the exact issues you have with the lead. Loafiewa (talk) 14:23, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
It doesn't seem to summarize the article very well. It seems to have lost cohesion. Various parts that may, at one point, have fit together, seem to have subsequently changed so that they no longer fit together, if that makes sense. Also I think there was a Syrian front to the war? It seems to mention at least in passing the Jordanian front, but the only mention of Syria seems, at a glance, to be a mention that israel occupied the Syrian Golan Heights... Also possible balance/weasel wording issues... Also general focus, and... content issues? Tttmaker (talk) 20:12, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
Wikiproject Military history coordinator election nominations now open
Nominations for the upcoming project coordinator election are now open. A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next coordination year. The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers. More information on being a coordinator is available here. If you are interested in running, please sign up here by 23:59 UTC on 14 September! Voting doesn't commence until 15 September. If you have any questions, you can contact any member of the current coord team. Hog FarmTalk 02:08, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
What do we think about Oryxspioenkop (Otherwise known as Oryx), the open-source intelligence defence analysis website as an RS? I would argue they definitely have a strong case to be Subject matter experts (SME).The Creators of Oryx both have a more than suffcient amount of experience working in open source intelligence and also writing about Eastern/Soviet weapons and military vehicles.Both have written 2 books relating to this that were published by Helion & Company. Oryx has also been cited by countless RS during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine-such as Reuters, BBC News, The Guardian, The Economist, Newsweek, CNN, and CBS News (Forbes has called Oryx "the most reliable source in the conflict so far", calling its services "outstanding").This source has been cited it seems in many WP since the start of the war.
Keen to here what you guys think though. Basedosaurus (talk) 00:04, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
Funnily enough, I just started to use it as a source a few minutes ago. I think its ok to use with two caveats. It claims should be attributed (unless confirmed by multiple independent sources). Also, since a lot of its work seems like WP:PRIMARY, so I would summarize its claims as not go into too much detail (again, unless other reliable secondary sources have given it detail). Intelligence analysis by its very nature can be very detailed and we don't need to reproduce every detail on wikipedia, just the main conclusions.VRtalk 03:02, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
@Vice regentThat was sort of my thoughts.Claim should definitely be attributed. Basedosaurus (talk) 07:24, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
I started a different discussion about Oryx reliability on this page a few weeks ago. Schierbecker (talk) 07:45, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
I would certainly want to see it treated in accordance with WP:BLOGS, noting that exceptional claims require WP:EXCEPTIONAL sources. But it seems reliable to me within those parameters. I agree it should be attributed WP:INTEXT regardless. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:32, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
n+1'ing the above: Use sparingly, with in-text attribution, and only for relatively unexceptional claims. -Ljleppan (talk) 12:08, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
Per PM - WP:BLOGS. It has been cited by countless WP:NEWSORGS, which are qualified WP:RSs. That it has been called "the most reliable source in the conflict so far" say more to the lack of good quality sources overall (IMHO). Cinderella157 (talk) 22:58, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
The current Battle of Shiloh is a former featured article that was demoted in 2020. It has had 25,863 views in the last 30 days, and its size is 94,918 bytes. I have written a potential replacement that I believe will get it to at least Good Article. The replacement is currently located at User:TwoScars/sandbox2. It is 99,447 bytes, and I believe it provides more information on the second day of the battle compared to the current version. I will wait until October 15 before I replace the current version. This should give anyone enough time to compare the original to this sandbox version, and notify me about any thing that should be changed. I am hesitant to replace an article that has 25,000 views per month, but this should give everyone enough time to "speak now or...." I am concerned about the article's size, but I don't want to leave out discussion of famous places and major issues concerning the battle. Thanks in advance if anyone is willing to look it over. (Hal, you are the original author of the current article and I know you are mostly retired. If I can get it to GA, and you want to push it to FA, that would be great!) TwoScars (talk) 21:03, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
Notice: "Largest naval battle in history"
Please see associated talk page for this article, along with recent discussions there and recent, significant changes to the article's content. The objective is to, by way of consensus, determine if a name change is needed, as well as which content (which battles) should be listed, (and what criteria to use), and any other changes and/or improvements as needed. But this starts with getting more editors involved. Thanks - wolf 04:14, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
Now sorted. Many thanks. Alansplodge (talk) 10:27, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
Resolved
Discussion on RSN
Discussion posted at RSN regarding the reliability of globalsecurity.org, see-> link. - wolf 20:58, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
Tank identity
Could someone more knowledgeable about this kind of thing than I identify this tank for categorisation purposes? I assume it is either an M26 Pershing of M46 Patton. Thanks! —Brigade Piron (talk) 10:07, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
That appears to be a M26A1, as the difference from the M26 was the bore evacuator on the barrel (the thing that looks like a sleeve). They had different muzzle brakes too, which would be the clincher, but not visible in this pic. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:12, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
A lot of the details were internal, but if you look this one , which is at the Army Museum in Brussels, you can see it is signed as an M26A1 and has the bore evacuator and the single baffle muzzle brake. I can't see any differences from the first one. Anyone else? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:37, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
Though it may not help a great deal, the tank in the original picture only moved to Tancremont in 2021 (pictures showing vehicle arriving are online). Before that, it was at Boncelles (Again, images online). Given the company it kept at Boncelles , it is possible it is the same tank that was in the Royal Museum in Brussels shown in the M46Brussels file. I suspect - it would need some more detective work to show for sure - that parts of the Brussels collection have been dispersed to other museums. This doesn't prove whether it was correctly identified as an M46 in the original photo, of course.Monstrelet (talk) 12:31, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
Thanks everyone. I think on numbers alone it is more likely to be an M26A1 so it seems reasonable to go with that. I do not think it is the same tank as the M46 in Brussels although that is a reasonable guess - the front lights are different. —Brigade Piron (talk) 17:29, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
I think you are mixing the Brussels tanks up. That ID-ed as an M46 has the same markings, type of lights, bow machine gun mount and tow hitch. The M26A1, also in Brussels, differs on all these counts. Whether the one identified as an M46 is an M46 rather than an M26 is beyond my knowledge, however. Monstrelet (talk) 17:40, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
Apologies. Yes, quite right. I see what you mean... —Brigade Piron (talk) 19:31, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
2022 MILHIST project coordinator nomination period closing soon!
The project has the following featured article candidates open, and several of them need feedback! Our project's goal is 1,500 Featured articles, and we're currently only at 1,372, so reviewing the current nominations will help us achieve our goal!
Of equal importance are the following featured articles currently undergoing featured article review. These are liable to be delisted without intervention:
TLDR is that we're making and preserving content, and many hands make light work! Hog FarmTalk 00:43, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
Changes following the passing of Elizabeth II
I see people are already champing at the bit to change any instances of "Her" to "His" in UK-related government and military articles, but can I suggest we all just take a pause, and hold of on any such content changes and page moves until they are properly supported by sourcing that states such changes have actually occurred? (jmho) - wolf 15:46, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
This may be difficult, as not all will necessarily be publicized as they will be assumed automatic. We may find it difficult to get RS sources for each change. I suspect it will be difficult to enforce, as eager editors rush around wikipedia making changes. Unilaterally deciding Milhist will not follow this trend may cause awkward edit warring to little benefit too. Monstrelet (talk) 17:51, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
Well, perhaps this should be co-ordinated with Wiki-Project Gov't? Anyway, The same policies apply. We don't just change content and move articles becuase we "assume" it's the correct thing. Content and changes need to be supported by sourcing. We can't just call "Her Majesty's Naval Service" as "His Majesty's Naval Service" in Wikipedia's voice unless there is a source that supports that change. Those who know that should be following it and those who don't, well... that's why we have revert buttons, page protection and talk pages to educate those who need it. We've handled stuff like this before. We shouldn't let it pass just because we can't be bothered. - wolf 18:13, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
One would think a press release or a news agency will add something to the effect of "With the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Her Majesty's Naval Service is now known as His Majesty's Naval Service and etc." -Indy beetle (talk) 18:29, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
I dunno that that's even necessary. This strikes me as a WP:BLUE situation. Parsecboy (talk) 18:47, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
Well, as I always say, if the sky is really blue, certainly someone will say so? -Indy beetle (talk) 18:59, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
I've always hated "sky is blue" as an example, because sky can be of so many colors. Ljleppan (talk) 19:08, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
Let's not get hung up on the metaphor; the point is Charles III is the individual to whom the "H" refers, and no one is legitimately disputing that. Parsecboy (talk) 19:16, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
It is (for example) HM revenue and customs, not His (or Her) Majesty's revenue and customs, for this reason. Slatersteven (talk) 18:52, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
I'm sure something sufficient will come along soon enough to support any necessary changes. - wolf 19:09, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
No, there is a Wikipedia page called, "HM Revenue and Customs". The tax agency is called, "Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs", as established in law in the Revenue & Customs Act 2005. Just because wikipedia editors think something, does not make it so, unless and until there is a sourced change. Thom2002 (talk) 20:19, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
You don't need a source to claim the sky is blue. WP:NOTBLUESchierbecker (talk) 20:02, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
Exactly - this is WP:BLUE and WP:COMMONSENSE. What's expressed above is a falsely pedantic misunderstanding of the aims of WP:OR. There are multiple sources discussing generically the automatic nature of these types of change effective yesterday. To revert editors because a particular organisation hasn't issued a press release "announcing" the change is ridiculous. DeCausa (talk) 20:39, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
That's a singular exception; the fact that Elizabeth had to explicitly instruct that the name was to rename the same proves our point. Parsecboy (talk) 21:11, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
No, the exception proves that someone actually has to sign-off on each of these name changes - that's when the idea of not changing that name came from.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:25, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
On the contrary; the fact that she had to order the name to remain as it was demonstrates that the assumption was that it would have changed automatically. If it was the case, as you suggest, that these have to be affirmatively changed, then there would have been no need for her to have instructed otherwise. Parsecboy (talk) 21:38, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
My recollection of the sequence of events (so, not an RS - I heard this from someone apparently in a position to know at the time) is that Elizabeth had to authorise the name change, which triggered the thought that it should remain unchanged. That supports the idea that nothing changes automatically, but that someone has to sign it off. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:47, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
Fair enough - I wasn’t around then, so I’m just going off the characterization in the source cited in our article. Parsecboy (talk) 21:55, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
Yes, my (non-RS) source was old and I was young at the time. Who knows what is right - the best witness is sadly no longer with us.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:13, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
Agreed. Someone above also raised HMRC's name being set by statute. I haven't checked if that's correct - but even if it is then there can be a discussion specifically on that at that Talk page. In other words, there should be a presumption the change can be made unless someone has evidence in a particular case that it shouldn't, rather than the other way round. DeCausa (talk) 21:20, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
The legislation giving the full name of HMRC[2]ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:34, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
Surely the name of these various organisations remain unchanged until formally changed. Government entities have had ample time to prepare for this - there is plenty of evidence of that online, so one must suppose that formal name change procedures are required before a press officer can put the pre-prepared post on the appropriate website. If any editor feels compelled to make some sort of edit without an official name change, then the solution is to put a footnote against the "Her" that says something like "after the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the accession of Charles III, it is expected that the name of Her Majesty's ------ will change to "His Majesty's -----". However, any formal announcement on a name change has yet to be made." That will keep happy all those anxious to be the first editor to make the change, but avoid their embarrassment if a different course of action is taken. Alternatively, a bit of patience whilst press officers consult with the appropriate authorities...... ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:25, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
And what could the "different course of action" be? Singular they? I think it's worth taking the risk to avoid looking silly. DeCausa (talk) 21:33, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
The point is that the name does not (as far as I can tell) change automatically. Presumably there will be some mundane bit of legislation put through parliament on the nod that does a bulk change. But until it's done, the name hasn't changed. Otherwise all those contingency plans for this event would have changed all those government websites by now. They have had all day to do it. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:37, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
Unless it's triggered by the formal coronation. Intothatdarkness 21:56, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
Coronation has no legal or constitutional significance. The change has happened. DeCausa (talk) 21:58, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
Do you really think Her Majesty's Inspector of Anatomy for Scotland aka Prof. Findlater is going to issue a press release saying he's now "His Majesty's". No. There's going to be hundreds of these changes that won't be noticed until letterheads are reprinted, websites quietly change. This is such a wild goose chase requiring sources for the obvious. DeCausa (talk) 21:58, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
Under-staffed agencies, perhaps not, but larger organisations clearly have contingency plans in place - see for example [3] - I find it hard to believe that was drafted today, much more likely a round of contingency planning meetings several years ago. Those meetings will have discussed name changes, the cost of reprinting headed paper and business cards, etc. It defies belief that an automatic change would not have happened if it were possible. I have looked for coverage of this point in a good quality newspaper. Whilst QCs change to KCs and the national anthem changes "by custom", mainstream newspapers are silent on the rest of the matter. At best, nobody knows. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:10, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
Then Wikipedia will do what it always seems to do...make up its own rules and insist they're correct. No matter what the rest of the world might be doing. (and I say that only partly in jest). Intothatdarkness 00:12, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
You mean "make up its own rules" and ignore exsisting ones. What's the harm in waiting for a press release, or mention in a related article, or until an website changes it's header from "Her" to "His" before making changes here? Why is it that a handful of ip users, a couple of new editors, and Parsecboy, are in such a hurry anyway? - wolf 03:25, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
You're trying to put the genie back in the bottle, wolf. Most of Wikipedia has already been updated. Governments generally run a little slow, especially at times like this. There are news articles all over the internet regarding the changes, many of which will take time, such as printing new money. But others have been immediate, such as addressing the king as the king. The changes on Wikipedia have been inline with that custom. Quit stonewalling. BilCat (talk) 03:44, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
You seem to be using (most of) Wikipedia as an RS. The relevant government departments did the planning for this years ago - their websites rapidly had a consistent and clearly well planned banner announcement. In that context, absence of formal change has to be significant. It may be as simple as Charles signing the appropriate bit of paper – particularly for things like HM Courts and Tribunal Service and many military entities (what do you think is in those red boxes delivered daily to the monarch?) - but he is a little busy at the moment at a difficult time. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 06:55, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
I didn't even imply that. However, a discussion on a project page by a few editors is not going to change anything. What's done is done. Move on. BilCat (talk) 07:37, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
Early on I reverted one page move and one content change, then started this discussion (12 hours ago) and haven't made any related edits since. So, two whole edits... that's hardly "trying to put the genie back in the bottle" and doesn't come close to "stonewalling". If there are as many sources aavailable now as you say, what is the issue with citing them as part of any moves or changes, like we normally do? (and like we're supposed to?) - wolf 03:57, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
I would suggest that the best course is to be conservative. While it is pretty blue that these changes will occur (and there are probably existing detailed plans about how these things will occur) it is ridiculous for us to preempt such changes - even to the point of bad taste and disrespect let alone WP:P&G. I would suggest that articles affected (or likely to be affected) be templated with a banner to the affect that we know it will change but will not preempt the change. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:10, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
Exactly. - BilCat (talk) 07:51, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
(edit conflict) It's too late for being "conservative". Like it or not, most of the changes have already been made, and the few of you here aren't going to get a large enough consensus to change anything, and it won't stay changed without widespread full page protection. Charles Montbatten-Windsor is already king, barring something drastic occurring in the next week, and the changes that have been made on Wikipedia simply reflect that reality. Most of what we're talking about is simply terminology such as HMS, and a few organizational titles that use HM, and so on. The big things are money, flags, etc., and those will all come with time. If we got something wrong, we'll fix it as soon as we know it. BilCat (talk) 07:48, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
He was only just now (literally an hour ago) proclaimed king. All of the things will come with time but it is not for WP to usurp the process. Some are little more than a pack of vultures wanting to be first to claim the points for being first to make an edit regardless of WP:P&G. Cinderella157 (talk) 11:11, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
Drop the stick. BilCat (talk) 19:28, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
Interestingly, the Accession Council confirmed the complexity of the "Her Majety's/His Majesty's" situation. The business of the council included confirming that government departments could continue to use the old seal until a new one is issued by the new monarch. At the same time, the proceedings referred to gun salutes at, among other places, His Majesty's Tower of London. We are looking at a level of complexity that is not properly dealt with by something out of a Wikipedia editor's head, but which should come from well selected RSs. Agreed it is too late for Wikipedia to sort out the current mess – but it is a lesson learned for the future. Wikipedia has certainly not covered itself with glory on this matter. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:07, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
Seriously? LOLOLOL! Granted, I haven't seen what the Accession Council said, since you didn't bother to link to any statement issued by them, but what you said backs up my previous comments. Things that can be changed simply already have been. That includes what's on Wikipedia. The rest will be changed in time. BilCat (talk) 21:23, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
I fear that you are the wrong side of the Atlantic to be able to access this[4]. Newspaper reports, such as [5] do not give any of the tedious detail I was referring to. My main point is that, in time, Wikipedia should assess the way it has responded and consider if any lessons need to be learnt.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:37, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
Ok thanks, as I am on the other side of the pond. I'm sure the video will be made available to those of us who no longer (Thanks, GW!) pay British taxes soon enough. Howerver, I have yet to be shown where Wikipedia got anything wrong. That's why I found your comment, "Wikipedia has certainly not covered itself with glory on this matter", ludicrous. If we genuinely goofed in our rush to update articles, I'll admit it. But I haven't seen it yet. No one posted any made up flags of the king, or any contrived logos, to my knowledge. If sucn were posted on Wikipedia, then of course that should have been reverted. But updating uses of "Her Majesty" to "His Majesty" is just common sense. BilCat (talk) 21:46, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
What can appear to be common sense sometimes needs an RS. Reading the legislation that sets up HM Courts and Tribunals Service I don't see anything other than "Her Majesty". (But legislation is tough to read.) The organisation's website resolutely uses (and has used, for some years) the initials "HM" (contingency planning?). That page move appears to be wrong. It needs investigating – not right now, but when we know the full story.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:58, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
That's appears to be an edge case, and I certainly understand your viewpoint on it. The situation could probably have been avoided by using "HM Courts and Tribunals Service" as the title per COMMONNAME, as also used in the service's logo and website, but that's a discussion for elsewhere. If other pages are moved to use "HM" in the title as a result, then that would be good in my opinion, regardless of one's stand on the overall issue here. With the modern focus on non-gemdered language, the official titles may well move to something else in the future, or standardize on "HM" being official. BilCat (talk) 22:13, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
Her Majesty's Government became His Majesty's Government in an instant, while the same happened to Her Majesty's Customs and Excise...
It's behind a paywall so I can't see the rest. Anybody with a subscription? Alansplodge (talk) 10:48, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
To summarise the article - a lot of things like HMS meaning His Majesty's Ship and HMRC becoming His Majesty's Revenue & Customs were automatic and instant. Other things like changing the helmet badges of Metropolitan Police officers which carry the Queen's cipher and EIIR may or may not be changed. Nthep (talk) 17:00, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
Thanks. That's very helpful to know! BilCat (talk) 18:44, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
One slightly different point relates to references to military units and other organisations prior to the Queen's death. An IP on the talk page to King's Guard has complained that the pic caption's now refer to the King's Guard or the King's Life Guard. The photos, taken before 8 September, remain of the Queen's Guard etc. They seem to have a point - and one which is probably quite widespread. DeCausa (talk) 13:10, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
I think there is a distinction to be made between the automatic changes like HMS and lower level stuff which isn't automatic and will rely on orders being issued. For example Queen's Company, Grenadier Guards is still the Queen's Company, it has not yet become the King's Company. Likewise Queen's Colour Squadron RAF Regiment. Nthep (talk) 14:27, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
I wasn't addressing when an article should be changed. I was saying that when changed for what ever reason (whether or not automatic and whether or not sourced) there will still be need to retain "Queen's...", "Her Majesty's..." etc when referring to pre-8 September events/facts, such as photo captions in order to avoid anachronisms. It isn't a blanket change. Likely as with the photos in King's Guard that may be a widespread error. [[DeCausa (talk) 14:36, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
Wikiproject Military history coordinator election nominations opening soon!
Voting for the upcoming project coordinator election opens in a few hours (00:01 UTC on 15 September) and will last through 23:59 on 28 September. A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next coordination year. The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers. More information on being a coordinator is available here. Voting is conducted using simple approval voting and questions for the candidates are welcome. The voting itself will occur here If you have any questions, you can contact any member of the current coord team. Hog FarmTalk 22:26, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
Warrant officer schools of the Russian Armed Forces
Hello everyone!
User Onel5969 moved the article dedicated to Warrant officer schools of the Russian Armed Forces, which was created by splitting the article "Military academies in Russia" in accordance with the reached consensus few month ago, to the draftspace. I've edited the article in the draftspace and submited it for review. Please review the article. K8M8S8 (talk) 18:47, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
Are '1st Free French Division' and '1st Motorized Infantry Division' the same thing?
In French Expeditionary Corps (1943–44) rev. 1110682942 (16 Sep 2022) under section #Order of battle, we had doubly linked subsection title "[[1st Free French Division]] aka [[1st Motorized Infantry Division]]". I'm not sure these two article links represent the same thing and are deserving of an "aka". When I followed the links to the two articles, the "§ Composition" section of 1st Free French Division does list 1st, 2nd, and 4th brigades, so seems to be a match with FEC; but 1st Motorised Infantry Division (France) has a long list under "§ Organization" that doesn't seem to be a match. (Above where I say, "we *had*" that subsection, what I means is, it no longer has that title; in an unrelated edit I removed the wikilinks in several section titles, including that one, per MOS:NOSECTIONLINK and then had to decide what to do with those two former "aka" links, and was unsure how to deal with it.) It looks to me like "1st Free" and "1st Motorized" are *not* the same thing, but I'm not that used to dealing with MILHIST, and if someone could help unscramble the situation among these three articles, I'd appreciate it. (It also doesn't help that other than the brief intro, the remainder of "French Expeditionary Corps (1943–44)#Order of battle" section is unsourced.)
The problem seems to be in translating the French titles. The prewar 1re Division d'Infanterie Motorisée existed until it was disbanded after the French defeat and was not reformed by Vichy. The 1re Division Motorisée d'Infanterie was created by redesignating the 1re Division Française Libre in 1943 and appears to have been disbanded after the war. So they're really two separate units.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 10:41, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
The 1re Division Motorisée d'Infanterie was renamed the 1re division de marche d'infanterie (DMI) on 1 May 1944 and was disbanded on 15 August 1945. I suggest adding a hatnote to the 1st Motorised Infantry Division (France) page, as the reader will almost certainly be seeking information on the better-known Free French unit. Hawkeye7(discuss) 20:04, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
Yes, I found the same thing independently.[1] A related problem, it seems, is just general lack of inline citations. A lot of these articles may date back to pre-2007, when verifiability and citations were not that well observed, but many newer articles seem to have the same problem, and some brand new ones are being created with poor or no citations that would never get through AFC. But I digress. Thanks for the responses; the hatnote sounds like a good idea, and I'll add this source to the article. Mathglot (talk) 07:45, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
This seems to be a common issue with French divisions; see this recent discussion. BilledMammal (talk) 08:31, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
References
^Clayton, Anthony (1988). France, Soldiers, and Africa. Brassey's Defence Publishers. ISBN978-0-08-034748-6. OCLC1027225599. Some idea of the practicalities can be assessed from the semantics ; Koenig's 1re Division Française Libre had to become the 1re Division d'Infanterie Motorisée ( DIM ), on joining the Armée d'Afrique, and later to avoid confusion with the Moroccans, the 1re Division de Marche d'Infanterie. The Division in practice continued to use its old DFL title to the end and the Cross of Lorraine remained on its vehicles. [bold style in the original]
I propose merging Advanced Landing Ground into Advance airfield. I think the content in Advanced Landing Ground can easily be explained in the context of Advance airfield, and a merger would not cause any article-size or weighting problems in Advanced Landing Ground. You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Advanced Landing Ground. --Bero231 (talk) 08:56, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
Raising the Flag at Fort Sumter
Hi all, I've raised some concerns about the article Raising the Flag at Fort Sumter on its talk page. If anyone would care to weigh in that would be greatly appreciated. Eddie891TalkWork 14:14, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
After looking into this, IMO it should be redirected. Hog FarmTalk 03:03, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
Liner Orduna
I know our ship trackers are some of the most enthusiastic here. I have just linked "Orduna" in Commander-in-Chief, South Atlantic. I'm pretty sure it's the right ship, but someone might like to check. Long live the memory of HMS Achilles!!Buckshot06(talk) 06:13, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
Perhaps some members of this WikiProject could take a look at this Help Desk discussion. It's related to the article Texas Jack Vermillion and claim that the subject has been misidentified. The article just underwent a major revision that I reverted per WP:STATUSQUO to give the matter a chance to be discussed on the article's talk page. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:03, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
Conflict of Interest and Notability questions
Greetings,
I'm coming back after a wikibreak and I'm contemplating taking a stab at creating my first ever article. I don't know if I have the time nor wikiexperience to do this, and I certainty don't want to put a bunch of work into something that would just get preemptively denied, so I want to make sure I clear some hurdles first.
Through genealogical research I've come across a 3rd cousin 4x removed that I think is an interesting character and would make a good wikiarticle: Julius S. Turrill.
First potential hurdle- Would my quite distant relationship be considered a conflict of interest? It's not anyone I ever personally knew nor ever knew anyone on the entire branch of that family (in fact it's eight relations till I even get to a family member I knew personally). I only discovered him through genealogical research.
Second potential hurdle- I think he seems interesting but would he meet notability guidelines? He commanded a key battalion at Belleau Wood (WWI), 2nd ever commander of and set up the structure of the USMC Reserve, held 3 different, at times overlapping, commissions: USMC (rose to Major, retired as a Colonel, then promoted to Brigadier General on the retired list), US Army- (Commissioned as a 2nd Lt, and eventually made a temporary Lt. Col commission in WWI), & Major General in the Garde d'Haiti as Commandant & Chief of the Gendarmerie. Received both the Army Cross and Navy Cross in addition to numerous Silver Star Citations, the French Legion of Honor and several Croix de Guerre, and at least one Haitian medal, partook in the "Great White Fleet" circumnavigation, At different points he Commanded Marine Barracks Quantico, a naval prison, Cavite in the Philippines, a base on Guam, the American Rest Camp in Southampton in WWI, and possibly (I need to re-find the source to confirm) Naval Station New Orleans. He was a Graduate of UVM and of both the Staff College and the Army School of the Line at a relatively young age, and he may of fought in Cuba, the Philippines, and the boxer Rebellion (those last three as of yet unconfirmed) in addition to WWI. Would that be enough to satisfy notability?
Could he be added, justifiably, with references, to List of commanders-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Haiti, as a major-general in Haitian service? If so, as a chief of defence force in the grade of major-general, he would definitely be notable. Buckshot06(talk) 16:26, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
On that grounds, no. That list specifically starts in 1934 and he was in there 1920s, after the cacao war and after the worst of the abuses, during the transition of the gendarmerie into the Garde. Gecko G (talk) 17:29, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
You misunderstand me. Any seniormost commanders of any national armed forces - a state's senior military officer - are generally considered notable. Any man that has served as senior military officer (US= general/flag officer) of a state's armed forces. So that goes at least from 1915 - start of the Gendarmerie of Haiti and beforehand. That list needs to be expanded so it covers every senior military officer that has ever headed Haiti's armed forces. Could he be justifiably added on that basis? It appears yes if he was in post in the 1920s. But it must all be tied to multiple independent reliable sources. Buckshot06(talk) 19:00, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
I see. I definitely have sources that he was Commandant of the Gendarmerie. While his commission was from the President of Haiti, Haiti wasn't exactly fully sovereign at the time, does it have to be a fully sovereign state to still meet the notability requirement on that criteria? If not, would any of the other points (individually or collectively) exceed the notability threshold? Gecko G (talk) 19:36, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
I have been dissecting his period as a major-general and head of an organisation to verify notability on those grounds, but yes, I believe he is notable overall. Ask Hawkeye7 if you want a second opinion. 197.237.141.133 (talk) 06:10, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
Addendum: what I would advise you to start with is adding a couple of referenced paragraphs to Gendarmerie of Haiti about Turrill's period of command. Buckshot06(talk) 19:03, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
Good idea. I'll see about working that up this weekend. Cheers. Gecko G (talk) 19:36, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
Hanford Site Featured article review
I have nominated Hanford Site for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:27, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
Wikiproject Military history coordinator election voting closing soon
Voting for the upcoming project coordinator election closes soon, at 23:59 on 28 September. A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next coordination year. The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers. More information on being a coordinator is available here. Voting is conducted using simple approval voting and questions for the candidates are welcome. The voting itself is occurring here If you have any questions, you can contact any member of the current coord team. Hog FarmTalk 20:13, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
In its 13.86 years on the site, this article has had—at best— two reliable sources previously, and those were oft subject to blanking by SPAs. With this re-write, only thee sources presented themselves, and the weightiest one is dubious. This has failed the notability guideline for longer than some productive editors have been alive, and even now doesn't meet muster.
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.
Would appreciate someone taking a look at this draft from both a notability perspective and prose cleanup. It is clear the editor, who is new, spent some time creating it. S0091 (talk) 21:10, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
Had a look, OK except for not knowing much about WP such as overlinking, not citing the material and not alpha sorting the references. Evidence of the author not having English as a first language. Couldn't resist a cheeky little drive-by edit. Keith-264 (talk) 12:19, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
These two articles (William Black (soldier) and Edward Black (soldier)) appear to be about the same person (youngest serving soldier in the American Civil War). Perhaps there is an editor here experienced with American Civil War era sources who could sort it out and merge the articles if appropriate? Archer1234 (talk) 10:33, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
Just noting that these were created by the same editor hours apart and had, at least back then, a see also from Edward to William: [6], [7]. Perhaps brothers? Ljleppan (talk) 11:20, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
Does appear to be the same person. I would also point out that there are at least two other William Blacks who were soldiers, so "(soldier)" is incomplete disambiguation. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:25, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
Featured article review for ironclad warship
User:Buidhe has nominated Ironclad warship for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:04, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
Reverting a sockpuppet's edits
A sockpuppet has over the course of two years made extensive and wide-ranging additions to the pages of multiple former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, chiefs of staff of the United States Air Force and related officeholders, and various United States Air Force generals. A majority of these edits are large paragraph additions to the officers' military careers which often source U.S. military books and documents via Worldcat.org. These additions could be interpreted as unsourced or dubiously sourced word salad, not to mention having a visible pattern of poor grammar and capitalisation (which aren't major issues themselves, but on this scale definitely is).
I've already done massive manual reverts and corrections before for pages like Richard Myers and Mark D. Kelly (both full-day affairs), but I am now requesting help on reverting the sockpuppet's edits. For cases like George Scratchley Brown, the sockpuppet's edits have largely lingered in some form for months or years without significant changes, which could gravely damage the reliability of many U.S. military officer articles. They are too massive with unrelated edits in between for me to handle alone, and should be within the remit of this project. Additionally, veterans of this project may have access to the books and sources cited via Worldcat by this sockpuppet, which will make it easier to determine whether their edits can stay in some form. This talk page has an incomplete list of the sock's most commonly edited pages, but the aforementioned editors seems to have lost steam with reverting the edits, given how extensive they are.
Thank you. SuperWIKI (talk) 06:23, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
Ficticious Ottoman-Portuguese battles nominated for deletion.
A pair of articles on bogus battles involving the Ottomans and the Portuguese have recently been nominated for deletion here and here both by the same user. The members of the WikiProject Military History are invited - and indeed encouraged - to take a look and participate in the process, as another user has considered that the expertise of this project might be useful. There are others that will be nominated in the future. Wareno (talk) 20:38, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
WP:AFD: nominators and others sometimes want to attract more attention from and participation by informed editors. All such efforts must comply with Wikipedia's guideline against biased canvassing...If the article is within the scope of one or more WikiProjects, they may welcome a brief, neutral note on their project's talk page(s) about the AfD. This posting is not compliant. DeCausa (talk) 20:53, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
So currently I'm working on an article on Colonel Philip H. Ellis, a colonel during the Spanish-American War of the 13th Infantry Regiment commanding companies A, C, D and F (see my sandbox for the hypothetical article). The reason why it isn't published is that I'm looking for an image of Ellis but after checking around 20 sites, I can't find a single image of him. I'm not sure what sites have galleries of American officers during the war or if there's even any surviving images of him at all but I was hoping that someone here has an image of Ellis they could provide me with either a link or directly uploading it to Wikimedia Commons. I've currently used an 1893 photo of a list of officers from the regiment as Ellis himself was likely present in the photo but an actual image of Ellis would be greatly appreciated. SuperSkaterDude45 (talk) 15:00, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
superSkaterDude45, I searched on newspapers.com, but there does not appear to be an image of him on there, so chances are bleak. Curbon7 (talk) 16:39, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
@Curbon7: Have you tried similar terms such as "Philip H. Ellis", "Major P. H. Ellis", "P. H. Ellis" or "Colonel Philip H. Ellis"? He's sometimes referred to such in books of the time. I'm still trying to find his image and if it helps, he died by 1914 so that should help with the time period. SuperSkaterDude45 (talk) 01:38, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
Yup tried those. I also tried searching for "Colonel Ellis" and "Major Ellis" in Maryland from 1860-1920. He came up, but no image sadly. Sometimes it is what it is.Curbon7 (talk) 01:53, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
Rather unfortunate news, I thank you for your efforts regardless! SuperSkaterDude45 (talk) 02:17, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
1st Polish Fighter Wing & 2nd Polish Fighter Wing
While looking over No. 131 and No. 133 Wing's RAF i've come across these two articles. Does anyone have any reliable sources for if these two names are correct.
Polish Air Forces in France and Great Britain has the units as No. 131 Wing and No. 133 Wing and is referenced to books in Polish. My copy of (Royal Air Force flying training and support units 1997 by Sturtivant) only mentions No. 131 and No. 133 Airfield Headquarters which became No. 131 and No. 133 (Polish) (Fighter) Wings.
I'm not familiar with Polish Air Forces in France and Great Britain article naming conventions.
Thanks. Gavbadger (talk) 17:25, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
The Poles in internal discussion would have called them one thing, and the British another. I think you will find that the articles may have been created by Polish editors here, drawing on Polish sources. Follow the most reliable sources in English, given that the two wings were part of an English-speaking air force. Buckshot06(talk) 08:35, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
Any help identifying these artillery pieces would be appreciated. I'm guessing the title is correct (that they are mortars), but on the one hand even that is not something I'm sure of and, if they are mortars, I'd like to get a lot more specific. Also, if someone could actually work out which battery at Fort Worden (or possibly Fort Flagler) this is, that would be amazing. - Jmabel | Talk 19:22, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
Trying to get any information about the uniform depicted here. I'm having a very hard time getting solid biographical information about this person, and am hoping the uniform would help pin down the date of the photo, or really anything else about him. - Jmabel | Talk 00:56, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
Colonel Melvin Grigsby (Spanish-American War)
Looks like this fellow except that your subject seems to be a Major General rather than a Colonel. US Army officer uniforms of the 1890s were at their high point of simplicity, unlike the Navy. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:58, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
If the standing image is expanded, I think the shoulder board looks more like a major or lieutenant colonel on a light background. I can't remember when cavalry's branch color changed from black to gold/yellow.--Georgia Army VetContribsTalk 02:30, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
There are two Joseph Andersons in Heitman and no Melvin Grigsby.--Georgia Army VetContribsTalk 02:49, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
@Gaarmyvet: So U.S. Army Major General in roughly the time frame of the Spanish-American War? - Jmabel | Talk 19:09, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
Also, any idea of the earliest date for this uniform? This started from my doubting for internal visual reasons that this was a "circa 1885" photo as claimed at it source. - Jmabel | Talk 19:16, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
Don't remember the dates but Heitman is a great source (without illustrations)
I think the RAF officer standing behind Harris is his chief of staff, Air Marshal Sir Robert Saundby, and the American may be Ira Eaker. I think second from the right is Air Vice-Marshal Ronald Graham. Hawkeye7(discuss) 20:48, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
Agree on Eaker, though interestingly our article says he was promoted to two-star in September and this seems to have just one, but is dated October. (Two alternatives ruled out - the head of VIII Fighter Command, Kepner had a moustache; the head of 9th Air Force, Brereton, had glasses). Andrew Gray (talk) 13:17, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
Aviator replaces Airmen, Airman etc
Hello all. Recently, the Royal Air Force has changed its nomenclature from Airmen/Airman, to Aviator, therefore becoming gender neutral.[1] I make no comment on the change, moreover, do we change some of the articles that specifically state airmen, to the new language? I am not suggesting that a historical subject be changed from what it was, IE "Airmen of No. 124 Wing, provided the necessary support at Alexandria in Egypt during 1942." I am referring to current articles such as ones which describe ground trades; "Airmen undergo eleven weeks of basic training at RAF Halton in Buckinghamshire."
Whilst I appreciate we are driven by sources, this would seem to me to be one that does not necessarily need to be sourced throughout an article as it is part of the general language.
Please note, I am not advocating a change, just enquiring whether or not we should do it..... Thanks. The joy of all things (talk) 19:16, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
Also, couldn't see a history for this in the archives, so I apologise if this has already been discussed. The joy of all things (talk) 19:17, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
You are exactly wrong and for the reason you have already specified: this project runs on sources. There is no need to make sweeping changes to articles because the PC police have now issued different vocab guidelines. I saw Hot Fuzz. We let the articles read based upon their sources. Problem solved. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:23, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
Articles on the modern RAF will need to be updated given the rank title has changed, as references to 'airmen' are no longer accurate. The RAAF made the same change last year, leading to adjustments to relevant articles. Nick-D (talk) 00:38, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
Note that the actual ranks have changed to something else again.[8] No idea what was wrong with keeping "Leading" and "Senior" in the titles (Aircraftman has changed to Air Recruit, incidentally), but there you go. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:29, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
What is the name of this multiple rocket launcher?
T34 Calliope, Rocket Launcher T34 (Calliope), Rocket Launcher T34, Calliope or Sherman Calliope? Eurohunter (talk) 16:33, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
The Army TM 9-394 does not include the word "Calliope." Then we get into WP:COMMONNAME. It might be a good idea to ask this on the article talk page, but my choice would be T34 Rocket Launcher.--Georgia Army VetContribsTalk 19:55, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
R.P. Hunnicutt describes it thusly: "One of these launchers in action produced an awesome sight and sound certainly justifying its nickname Calliope." Schierbecker (talk) 05:17, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
Tanks
List of main battle tanks by generation is an unusual list-type article that (imo) could benefit from a review by some of the experienced editors here. - wolf 16:29, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
I think that both missing man and Missing Man should redirect to missing man formation. I've added a hatnote to the Steve Ditko article, but I think it should be the other way around, particularly owing to the obscurity of the cartoon character.
Comments? Andrewa (talk) 11:30, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
Seems odd, I have never heard of this missing man hero, I have heard of missing man formation. Slatersteven (talk) 11:42, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
Odd indeed. He is not notable enough to have an article. That is why I am suggesting that the redirects be swapped. Andrewa (talk) 01:19, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
I think Missing Man should be a dab for now. Missing Man should redirect to Missing Man formation. You can use WikiNav in a few months time to see what people are actually clicking on. Schierbecker (talk) 04:20, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
I should have said before that missing man and Missing Man both redirect to the comic book artist.
Agree that Missing Man should be a dab. Perhaps missing man is debatable. I would redirect to missing man formation, but for now redirecting to the DAB has some benefits. It's certainly an improvement on the current setup where missing man redirects to Steve Ditko, with the now nonsensical template R from other capitalisation (which is as a result of the bot fixing a double redir I guess). Andrewa (talk) 14:35, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
All fixed for now I think, with a 2-way DAB as suggested. Thanks for the help, and yes we can check in a while to see how it's going. Andrewa (talk) 14:58, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
Question
Anyone here familiar with warshipprojects.com? A significant amount of content has been added to the FA article on Yamato-class battleship, and likewise a significant amount of content has also been added to the FA article on Design A-150 battleship, both by the same user, and in both cases, all this new content is apparently supported solely by an article from warshipprojects.com. I thought I would enquire here first, (before going to, say... RSN). I also thought this post could double as a request for extra eyes from this wikiproject to take a look at these two articles and evaluate these edits. Thanks - wolf 05:26, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
Per the about section, there's nothing to indicate that this is more than a passion project blog. I'm having difficulty tracking down Gergely, the owner/editor, and the the digital artist also just seems to be another naval enthusiast who likes to draw [9][10]. No evidence that these are subject matter experts in the field of ships or naval warfare. -Indy beetle (talk) 05:57, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
Well, since opening this thread, this user has added 20Kb to Yamato-class battleship, with another ≈70 consecutive edits, still all largely, (if not solely) supported by this single source. (There's also this report from Wikipedia:Edit filter/False positives/Reports, from before the editing began.) For this one IP account to date, there has been 80+ edits, with a difference of +27Kb to that page. fyi - wolf 19:59, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
Bear in mind that for FAs a source being a RS doesn't cut it, they need to be "high-quality reliable sources". Gog the Mild (talk) 20:05, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
I'm not sure it even meets RS, (nm high qual), but that's why I'm bringing this to the attention of a wider audience. This is a lot of content, added and changed, all largely based on this source. Have a look and see what you what you think. Cheers - wolf 20:09, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
Huh, didn't know about that one. Thanks GtM - wolf 20:37, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
I'm out of town until Monday and can look at this then! Ed[talk][majestic titan] 21:30, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
I've boldly reverted the changes - judging by recent discussions on RSN, the chances of this source meeting the requirements of WP:RS, never mind the "high-quality" sourcing needed by a featured article is so low as to be a negative number.Nigel Ish (talk) 22:19, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
A good way to quickly check whether websites on topics like this might be a RS is to search for them in Google Books. Searching for this site returns exactly zero hits [11]. As a result, it's unlikely to be a RS. Nick-D (talk) 00:40, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
I've left a message on the user's talk page. The website might not be reliable, but the sources it lists are. If the user wants to dive into those I think we'd welcome the additional content. Ed[talk][majestic titan] 15:36, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
They've now restored their edits to Yamato-class battleship - replacing the references to the non-RS website with ones to - Lengerer, Hans, and Lars Ahlberg. Capital Ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1868-1945: Ironclads, Battleships & Battle Cruisers: An Outline History of Their Design, Construction and Operations. Ann Arbor, MI, USA: Nimble Books, LLC, 2014. - citing the entire book with no page numbers - so the cites are still essentially useless, and have been reverted again on Design A-150 battleship and are objecting strongly to being reverted, calling other editors "a politically fueled grammar and cite nazi out to completely gut peoples changes out of spite". I have warned them about the personal attacks.Nigel Ish (talk) 15:26, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
The book may be [12] but as it appears to be multi-volume book (with at least 3 volumes, with individual chapters sold on Amazon!), we need more details of what volume/edition/part was actually used for it to be citable.Nigel Ish (talk) 18:03, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
My instinct is to scrap the current format and rework (probably slowly) in the fashion of something like List of divisions of the British Territorial Force 1914–1918: a table listing the most common name, the commanders, alternate names, and then some notes about service history and fate. To start out with this, I've gone through (heavily using {{Cite McGhee 2008}}) to begin User:Hog Farm/Missouri CSA to parse out what the heck all of these units listed are. There's some complications that I'd like to hear your thoughts on first.
Missouri State Guard units - while the Guard fought alongside Confederate troops and sometimes under Confederate officers, it technically wasn't a CSA unit. My instinct is to divide the list into separate sections for CSA proper and MSG units. Sourcing these will be harder, as McGhee doesn't cover them and coverage of the subunits of the MSG is often sketchy.
Units that served in multiple branches - See, for instance, the units on my userpage list about Perkin's Battalion, Infantry and Searcy's Battalion, Sharpshooters. Several units formed during Price's Raid as cavalry units were later reorganized into infantry outfits for the final weeks of their military service. Following the current list breakdown: should they be listed in the infantry section, the cavalry section, both, or should the branch of service section break be disposed of?
Miscellaneous stuff - how should organizationally higher-level units be presented (such as Shelby's Iron Brigade or First Missouri Brigade)? How should the various guerrilla units be listed (Quantrill's Raiders etc.). Should they even be listed at all?
I want to do this in an organized, consensus fashion, and this is really the best place to bring this up because the individual article talk page is a tomb. Hog FarmTalk 17:55, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for the notification. When I performed page moves intended to clarify unit naming, I looked at many of these List of State units articles and saw we'd need to rewrite many of them, Missouri and Arkansas, IMHO the most confusing. I did not choose to improve the pages then because 1) I was involved in a strictly naming-related activity which I wished to complete first, and 2) I saw that most of these state-related pages were actually important tellings of the historical narrative and might require some serious research. Here comes Hog Farm, capable and trustworthy, particularly familiar with MO sourcing, and offers to help reconfigure this page, perhaps the most difficult gordian knot to tame. No surprise. This is as good place to start as any.
On the merits, I largely agree with the announced approach and the groupings. I might suggest (to HF's suggestion about "misc stuff") time period may impact contemporary grouping and sources. I had not seen the WWI unit list linked, but see the table format allows the reader to access lots of different kinds of data, helpful in this case. I would think a direction to take might begin with an annotated list of individual regiment, batallion or battery units, then expand to a narrative involving brigade, division, corps, expedition, and army groupings as they evolved over time. The table would largely summarize information about small unit articles already extant, and the narrative would largely summarize information about the large unit assemblies. BusterD (talk) 19:49, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
Thanks, Buster. MO is one of the worst - it doesn't help that a lot of units had like three or so names, with substantial overlap, leading to stuff like this. I'm not looking forward to sorting out the cavalry mess - at a minimum I'm pretty sure the reference to "27th Mounted Infantry" is an error, and there's likely more. Hog FarmTalk 20:08, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
One of the items on my to-do list (which I'd glad hand over to anyone else who wants to have a go) is to provide a help page on Orders of Battle per this edit. If anyone has any suggestions on how they should be laid out, what they should contain, advice or anything at all really, this would be greatly appreciated. Hawkeye7(discuss) 20:49, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
How is the Second Sino-Japanese War a Level 4 vital article if the Battle of Iwo Jima is a Level 5 vital article?
Second Sino-Japanese War should be listed as a Level 5 vital article. The start of WW2. Important in Interwar period history as well. Iwo Jima is just important because the United States was involved and since we are an English Wiki, we are biased to think these are more important because we hear about it more. Not saying it isn't important, but if you're telling me Iwo Jima is more important than the 2nd Sino-Japanese War then you're tripping. Alexysun (talk) 02:33, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
That would be WP:VITAL, not this project. From what I've seen, the vital article system is almost purely arbitrary and isn't really a useful content rating system when the rubber meets the road. The Military History WikiProject doesn't use an importance rating. Hog FarmTalk 03:13, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
And IIRC I think the way that the vital system works, level 4 is of higher importance than level 5. Hog FarmTalk 03:14, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
There have been conversations elsewhere in recent months about the relevance, or lack thereof, of the VITAL project, so I'd advise not paying much mind to it. Considering the breadth of articles that fall under MilHist, I think it's a good thing that we don't bother with an importance rating. The reader would never see it either. -Indy beetle (talk) 03:55, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
Level 4 is literally higher than level 5. Curbon7 (talk) 05:03, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
On top of all that, "level" does not equate directly to importance. The articles can be thought of as forming a hierarchy. In our case, the top-level article is War (a level 2 article). So we have War -> Modern warfare -> World War II -> Battle of Iwo Jima. The top-level articles are notoriously difficult to write. Hawkeye7(discuss) 21:13, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
Query
NON-ADMIN CLOSE
Question has been answered.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Hey, WikiProject,
I know nothing about military history but I was following an edit history and rang across some articles for some Nazi war criminals that state they were executed by "decapitation" and "guillotine". This seem like an archaic method to impose the death penalty on military prisoners in the mid-20th century, I'd previously heard about firing squads and hanging, not decapitation! And these facts weren't confirmed by the sources in the article. Does anyone know if this method of imposing a death sentence was still used in Europe in the 1940s? Thanks for any insight you can offer. LizRead!Talk! 19:11, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
@Liz any examples? Guillotining was used by the Nazi government against their own people, many opponents of the government died by this method. Nthep (talk) 19:40, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
I think the French used the guillotine as an execution method well after WWII. -Indy beetle (talk) 20:22, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
I'm not sure the French have ever replaced the guillotine; they just stopped executing people. They used to go on about how superior a method it was - so quick, so hygenic, so reliable! Given recent US troubles with the electric chair, they might be right. Johnbod (talk) 22:51, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
There's nothing civilised, "hygenic" or "reliable" about ritual murder. Keith-264 (talk) 07:11, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
I suppose locking people up in a small boxroom for the rest of their lives is far more civilised! -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:26, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
The French used the guillotine until 1977! Some German states were still executing by axe until WWII! -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:26, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
Not everyone is as barbaric and perverted as Americans. Keith-264 (talk) 14:34, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
I think our botched lethal injections are much worse. There was a judge once who said we should stop kidding ourselves that we can "put people to sleep" and just bring back the firing squad because it at least brings instant death, and if the public psyche can't withstand knowing that executions cause blood to flow, then we should end the death penalty. The man had a point. -Indy beetle (talk) 15:09, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
I'd say the original question has been answered. Intothatdarkness 19:08, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
Indy beetle I think that the Eighth Amendment prohibits ritual murder, all you have to do is enforce it. Keith-264 (talk) 20:26, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
McCord and Trathen
I think everybody (the usual reliable sources, which already disagree amongst themselves on this) is wrong on when McCord (DD-534) and Trathen (DD-530) were laid down at Bethlehem's Union Iron Works in 1942. The evidence is not a slam dunk and relies on shipyard photographs. Does anybody care about such minor issues? Nowakki (talk) 10:29, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
Jefferson Davis FAR
I have nominated Jefferson Davis for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. GuerilleroParlez Moi 13:14, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
I just created an article for journalist James Gordon Meek. Meek primarily reports on military related topics. He has been in the news recently regarding an FBI raid of his home. Any help would be appreciated. Thriley (talk) 04:24, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
Looking for a photo of a U.S. Civil War soldier
Currently looking for a photo/engraving sketch of John C. Gorman, second lieutenant and eventually captain of Company B, 2nd North Carolina Regiment, Confederate States Army. He later served as Adjutant General of North Carolina from 1872 to 1877. He also worked as a printer in the Wake County area and served as mayor Raleigh and in the 1872 legislature. Any pointers would be appreciated, my usual sources aren't putting up. Indy beetle (talk) 19:35, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
User:Buidhe has nominated E. T. Pollock for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:01, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
request for source on F-84 Thunderjet
In the GA reassessment for the F-84 Thunderjet, it has been noted that citations to McLaren, David. Republic F-84 Thunderjet, Thunderstreak & Thunderflash: A Photo Chronicle. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Military/Aviation History, 1998. ISBN0-7643-0444-5 don't have any page numbers - does anyone have access to the book, and if so, can they help out?Nigel Ish (talk) 10:46, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
Vice-Admiral Commanding Channel Squadron
Me again. Over at the Humanities RefDesk, it has been pointed out that at least some of the Royal Mavy officers listed at Channel Fleet#Vice-Admiral Commanding Channel Squadron were not actually vice-admirals; Frederick Warden for instance, died when still a rear-admiral, and Robert Smart wasn't promoted to vice-admiral until he had moved on to another job. So the question is, did the channel fleet command carry a temporary or honorary rank of vice-admiral, regardless of the actual rank of the commander, or is our article just plain wrong? I suspect the latter. If you have any insights, please reply here, as the reference desk discussion has drifted off course somewhat. Alansplodge (talk) 11:20, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
No idea where the name came from in the article, it should just be a list of Commanders-in-Chief, Channel Squadron. See William Laird Clowes' list here. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 14:15, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
Hardly any of them were Commanders-in-Chief, so Clowes was wrong. —Simon Harley (Talk | Library). 14:47, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
I realise Clowes is a pretty old source. Do you have an alternative @Simon Harley:? Also, is Clowes wrong in his listing of the people/ranks, or just in calling them CinCs? Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 14:58, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
Erskine was a second-in-command, not a commander of the squadron. Stopford isn't listed. A few of the dates don't reconcile with individual service records, but then again the latter often don't reconcile with official Navy Lists. —Simon Harley (Talk | Library). 15:19, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
Igor Kirillov
I just created a draft for Igor Kirillov, a Russian lieutenant general who is commander of the Russian NBC Protection Troops. He has been quoted in recent news reports about the potential Russian dirty bomb attack. Thriley (talk) 22:57, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
I'm currently reading Neptune's Inferno by James D. Hornfischer, and have at times been reading through relevant Wikipedia articles as well for additional background/context. In doing so, I noticed that while Hornfischer states that at least some of the the damage suffered to Farenholt at the Battle of Cape Esperance was due to friendly fire, (pp.176-177, 187) our article on Farenholt (a garden-variety DANFS copypasta) is silent on the matter of friendly fire. The only other relevant print work I have with me, The Two-Ocean War, doesn't say anything about friendly fire hitting Farenholt. Does anyone have other relevant sources to consult for this? If the damage to Farenholt was caused at least to a decent degree by friendly fire like Hornfischer states, I feel like that belongs in the ship's article. Hog FarmTalk 02:39, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
She was hit by two American 6-inch shells. I've added a cite to the article, which badly needs to be tossed about with more sources.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 08:02, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
Hoax about the end of WW2?
I think that list of wars extended by diplomatic irregularity may have perpetuated a false claim about the legal end of World War II. Can someone perhaps help investigate if this war a hoax? To repeat myself:
So, I just read the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany on Wikisource. It makes no mention of ending any supposed state of war. Furthermore this page says that the United States terminated its state of war with Germany on October 19, 1951. It says that the peace had been stalled by Soviet government, but not that the Soviet state continued in a state of war with Germany afterwards. The notion that WW2 only legally ended in the 1990s was added to this page back in April 2008 by User:Stor stark7 and cited to a game show (and with 1990 as the "end date", instead of 1991, the actual year the treaty went into effect). I've further not been able to find any source on the web saying that World War II legally continued until 1991. This all feels very bogus. I'm smelling a hoax (or unintentional confusion). I'm going to remove this entry and replace the end date with 1951. Maybe this is a good candidate for Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia.
A lot of Stor stark7's edits were dubious. I caught them adding lots of claims to articles not supported by the sources or where the sources were unreliable. These edits were often seemed to be seeking to advance the view that the Allies were the bad guys in the war and were really mean to the Germans after it ended. I'd suggest removing this claim unless it can be reliably sourced. Nick-D (talk) 22:01, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
Not to be confused with the more extensive English longbow, wiki has a more generic Longbow article. It's not great, with a lack of referencing and too great a focus on the same ground covered in the other article. If anyone has some expertise around Japanese archery and the Yumi and can add cited material, can I urge you to do so. As can be seen from the yumi article, commons has some good visual references. I've also suggested something on the longbow in the Americas - longbows were used in the Northern and Southern continents by indigenous populations - so, if anyone has some expertise on native archery, please contribute. I think this is a good example of an article blighted by too euro-centric a viewpoint, so it would be good to open that up and create clear water between it and the English longbow article. Many thanks. Monstrelet (talk) 17:46, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Could someone with an understanding of WWII US ship procurement stuff take a look at disentangling whatever has happened at Two-Ocean Navy Act? The lede looks fine, but then it rather quickly just spins completely out of control. This appears to be the last "clean" version from 250+ edits and five months ago. - Ljleppan (talk) 10:37, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
There is certainly a way to expand the old version of the article, but what's been done to it in the last 5 months isn't it. Hardly any sources provided, and most of what have been added are primary sources, the content is far too in the weeds (we don't need the specifics of what shipyards were assigned what contracts, for example). I'm going to roll it back to where it was. Parsecboy (talk) 15:29, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Thanks! I was pretty sure a rollback was in order, but given the sheer magnitude of content to be removed (−59,565 bytes, or a cool 89% of the content, it turns out), wanted to leave it to someone with more experience :) Ljleppan (talk) 16:06, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
it's among the largest industrial programs of the 20th century. complexity comes with the territory.
take the articles of 10 ships produced under the program and you will have twice the amount of detail on a topic that is vastly less relevant.
maybe split the article into many articles instead.
or if you care about wikipedia quality, why not start here or here. Nowakki (talk) 17:52, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
No, it doesn't; going into deep detail is not what Wikipedia is for. We are not a specialist source, we provide high-level articles written in summary style that avoid excessive, intricate detail. That you want to write very detailed articles is fine, but you should find another place to do it.
That WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS (either articles on ships built as part of this program, or other articles you find that need to be improved) is wholly irrelevant to the subject of this discussion, which is about the Two-Ocean Navy Act. Please stay focused on the topic at hand. Parsecboy (talk) 18:11, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
it's a complex topic covering more than 15 years of the history of the greatest military power at the time.
it is a summary article. far more than any number of articles that can be given as evidence that wikipedia does not just produce articles of a summary style.
other stuff exists. it's a fact.
anyway, if you want to split the article, that sounds like a good plan.
or maybe keep the original toy article and move the new stuff to a "Details of the Two-Ocean Navy Act" article.
or maybe write a summary in the lead section. i believe this is the reason there is a lead section in articles. Nowakki (talk) 18:30, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Can I give you some advice? You've been editing here for a month or so. I've been editing here for 15+ years. It might be wise to admit that you probably know less about how Wikipedia is supposed to operate than I do. Here's some more advice: don't be defensive if others say the material you added should be removed. We aren't here to stroke our egos; learn from your mistakes and move forward.
Try clicking that link and reading what it says. Pointing to examples of other articles is not an argument. It is, in fact, logically fallacious. Repeating it is not productive. Parsecboy (talk) 18:43, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
i think there are many opinions on how wikipedia is supposed to operate.
if you have had an opinion for more than 15 years, that is fine by me.
that still does not give you the right to effectively delete an article. without making a request through the proper channels or even leaving a single note on the articles talk page.
how can you not pick up those wikipedia concepts and procedures in 15 years? Nowakki (talk) 19:15, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Do me a favor and point to the consensus you had to add the material in the first place. Then we can talk about establishing consensus to remove it. Parsecboy (talk) 19:41, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
you don't need to ask for consensus if nobody complains about what you do.
i complain about your action and now we have to find consensus.
that's how it works. Nowakki (talk) 19:48, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Silence is the weakest form of consensus; any moreover, several people have complained about your edits. The onus is on you to justify keeping the material. That is how it works. Parsecboy (talk) 21:16, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
take for example Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, an article that covers 3 or 4 days in November 1942 where a bunch of ships shot at each other.
the size of that article is 93000 bytes and it is a featured article.
which means you can add several kilobytes of prose to improve the article about the act and still stay below the size which wikipedia seems to have no problem with. Nowakki (talk) 22:15, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
While there is naturally some disagreement over how, exactly, any specific article should look like in any project as large as Wikipedia, articles most certainly should not consist of 26 printed pages of bullet points. See the relevant section of the manual of style at MOS:USEPROSE.
I'm also concerned about the bit where you state some information [..] has been used to augment the incomplete list given in Title IV hearings, with some synthesis that appears inevitable. There is no place for original research or synthesis of sources in Wikipedia. Given how extensively you appear to be drawing on (what I interpret are) primary sources, I recommend reading the section at WP:PRIMARY which describes how to use primary sources and avoid original research and synthesis. Ljleppan (talk) 19:45, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
that's it?
number one: if somebody wants to add prose between the important facts i won't stand in their way.
number two: some synthesis has been done to try and keep the complexity manageable, but the result may not be 100% accurate and a reader that requires that last bit of accuracy would be advised to consult the original source in all it's additional complexity.
best effort summarizing with a disclaimer is not original research. 2 ships have the same name in 2 tables of 2 separate documents, should it not be assumed that those 2 ships are in fact identical? to assume that they are would be original research of the kind that "appears inevitable" to the reasonable person.
it's a conflict of interest, therefore the disclaimer. wikipedia is full of disclaimers. it's a complicated business to write a summary. Nowakki (talk) 19:55, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
The purpose of Wikipedia is to create "a comprehensive written compendium that contains information on all branches of knowledge." (WP:PURPOSE) Deep detail is what Wikipedia is for. Content should not be removed unless it is unsourced, inaccurate, contained in another article or irrelevant. (WP:REMOVAL) Hawkeye7(discuss) 20:59, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
No, deep detail is not what Wikipedia is for. We are not specialist source, we are a tertiary one. Per WP:NOTEVERYTHING, "A Wikipedia article should not be a complete exposition of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject". For example, we don't include exhaustive lists of every individual who served in a given military unit, because that would be excessive. Parsecboy (talk) 21:16, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Some things take a lot of describing and brevity isn't the same as short; a summary gets it said briefly i.e. without repetition, deviation, meandering, circumlocution and flatulent prose. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 21:22, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
i can assure you that the article leaves out a lot of detail. i think it covers less than 0.1% of everything that could be said about the subject.
i remember that the chairman at one occasion accused the person giving testimony of not having the right patriotic spirit. i found that funny, but i left it out. Nowakki (talk) 21:48, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Good grief! I should hope so. If that is an example of the sort of thing on the margin of being included, no wonder a lot of material was removed. No one seems to have yet mentioned WP:BRD. This article has gone through B and R and is now at D: where BRD makes it quite clear that the onus is on the editor who was bold - in this case, boldly expanding the article - to justify their changes. Hawkeye7, deep detail is not what Wikipedia is for. Neither being "comprehensive" nor "contain[ing] information" suggests that it is. Parsecboy's immediate response is a good succinct summary of what policy says in this respect. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:11, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
actually there are hundreds of pages of Navy Department memos and papers not even yet looked at. this article is just about what the department asked congress, hat in hand, to pay for. It also does not include ANY detail about the conversation the president had with the navy department. It does not mention any person in the business sector by name, not even CEOs of involved companies.
there is 1 metric ton of paper between the rude chairman and the next relevant fact that is on the brink of being included in the article. Nowakki (talk) 22:23, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Nowakki: what part of "don’t use primary sources" is not clear? You should only be using secondary sources to write articles here. This is a fairly simple red line. Parsecboy (talk) 22:52, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
wikipedia has no requirements that all articles must be perfect at all times.
is this an A-class review we are doing here? then there should be a nomination for A-class review first, so we are on the same page. Nowakki (talk) 23:12, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
What on earth are you talking about? A-class (and literally no other assessment level) have anything to do with whether you are permitted to use primary sources in the way that you have been doing. Parsecboy (talk) 23:19, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
can you be more specific? Nowakki (talk) 23:20, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
Nowakki, I think that you are missing the point. The onus is on you to be both specific and relevant. Given that many of your comments are neither I suspect that most editors will cease responding. I shall join them, after recommending that you reread the comments above and on your talk page, regarding them as valuable lessons to be taken on board rather than irritations to be swatted aside. Gog the Mild (talk) 23:29, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
i cannot ask another person to be specific? i just want to know which source is being referred to. do i have to guess? Nowakki (talk) 00:10, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
Let’s put it this way. If you don’t know what a primary source is, or how to tell the difference between primary, secondary, and tertiary sources, you don’t have any business editing Wikipedia articles. I suggest you read our policy pages for a start. Or better yet, take a historiography course. Parsecboy (talk) 00:27, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
you think it would be impossible to add more secondary sources within the general structure of the article? Nowakki (talk) 01:05, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
the NOR rule was bent only a tiny bit in a responsible and transparent manner. besides that, the method used was also used by a secondary source to reach conclusions which are ok to cite. the source said it's ok to draw conclusions about shipyard resources used from laying down and launch dates. add a "dubious" maintenance tag to it, and all is good. the application of the method was even more sophisticated on wikipedia, using additional sources for the shipyard layout and providing corroboration from contemporary photographs. last but not least reliable sources disagree amongst themselves about the keel laying dates of the 2 destroyers mentioned. Nowakki (talk) 10:14, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
what is the problem with the new budget article. should i move all that back into the original article? Nowakki (talk) 15:42, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
RAF Officers seconded to Pakistan Air Force 1954-1961
I’m looking for sources of information on RAF officers who were seconded to the Pakistan Air Force between between 1954 and 1961 - particularly to East Pakistan. Any information would be most welcome. Farawayman (talk) 01:50, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
On page 2 of a Google Scholar search for words: "Royal Air Force" Pakistan [end] there's an interesting book about former Polish RAF pilots serving in the Royal Pakistan Air Force. Should find other things in there too. Buckshot06(talk) 05:11, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
If you can find a copies of the Air Force List it'll give the officers on secondment that month. Eg on page 16 of the April 1955 list - Dumelow (talk) 06:41, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
Dumelow - this is EXACTLY what I was looking for! Buckshot - thanks too, very interesting book covering same era! Farawayman (talk) 12:26, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
No worries. Tracking them down might be the hard part Google Books only seems to have the April 1955 one above, April 1960 and April 1961. My usual go to for the UK military lists, the National Library of Scotland, only has them up to 1945. Possibly they may be available from a library somewhere? - Dumelow (talk) 13:16, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
The RAF Museum has a research enquires service that would likely be helpful here: www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/research-enquiries/ Nick-D (talk) 09:28, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Hello! so…help? User:Shawnday recently started Merritt H. Day. Initially it seems like he’s just some minor territorial legislator who got lucky to be the namesake of a thinly populated county here in the United States. I stumbled across the article, got curious, and added some material. In the course of researching I found that he was involved in the leadup to Wounded Knee Massacre. Anyway here’s where I need expert help. He seems to have made it to corporal in the American Civil War. Some 30 years later he’s going around calling himself “Col.” That’s short for “colonel”…right? and it’s a very different rank than corporal…right? Did he just make that up? How would I confirm that with “reliable sources”? Please advise! Thank you much in advance. jengod (talk) 23:24, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Col. indeed stands for colonel. You find that many "prominent"-type American men from that time period will use that title despite having never achieved that military rank. Sometimes this was an official honorary rank, usually conferred by a governor (see Colonel (U.S. honorary title)). Other times, men would have this title "bestowed" simply by their friends or business partners, who apparently weren't bothered by this appropriation of a military rank. Examples include Francis Henry Fries and Frank Mebane, the latter earning that nickname because his friends called him that in honor of the fact that he had attended a military school, though he never served in the armed forces. -Indy beetle (talk) 00:02, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Aha!! Very good info. So maybe the governor gave him the title on a piece of paper but may he just claimed it. I’ll dig into that article. TY so much User:Indy beetlejengod (talk) 01:19, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Hi jengod, this was actually discussed in a US Congress committee. See this discussion on bill HR 8030 of the House of Representatives concerning pensions for the Spring Creek Company of volunteers led by Day. It was brought by Francis H. Case in 1940. It seems the War Department's position was that the company were not formally mustered, had never drawn pay and Day was never commissioned as a colonel.
Case presented a telegram from South Dakota governor Arthur C. Mellette to Day of 6 December 1890 appointing him as "my aide de camp to dispose of all ordnance and manage Hill's campaign" and a letter of 8 July 1891 accepting his resignation as colonel. He also presented communications to Day from US Army Major-General Nelson A. Miles, Colonel Eugene Asa Carr, Lieutenant-Colonel R.H. Offley and Major Harry C Egbert addressing him as colonel. From my reading of the debate it appears the Governor did not have authority to raise any units of the state militia but that Day's unit was raised under other emergency powers which meant he had no authority to pay them, they received arms and ammunition from the regular army but were not under any formal standing with them. General Frank T. Hines of the Veteran's Administration stated at the time of the hearing that he accepted the company had existed and cooperated with the army but that current legislation meant he could not pay pensions to the men as they drew no pay from the federal government or state, though he felt they were morally entitled to a pension.
I don't know enough about US legislature to know if the bill granting pensions was passed but the main thing seems to be that the governor and regular army officers treated Day as if he held formal rank - Dumelow (talk) 06:06, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Not unusual. State and territorial entities were notorious throughout this period with creating more colonels than corporals any time a "company of volunteers" came into being...usually with the expectation that the Federal government would eventually foot the bill. Obviously this didn't always go as planned, but it did create confusion both then and later. Intothatdarkness 21:35, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Thank you User:Dumelow, brilliant find and write up. I will incorporate much of this into the article with credit to you and Sources. TY!! jengod (talk) 15:48, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Hi, I'm a graphic worker and I have a request that got stuck (stale) in 2019 and I have tried to get some new support for that request before but without any success.
I have tried several times to get back in contact with the user for the request without any success. So I'm now looking for someone who are willing to help me finish them. I will of course provide all the needed drafts and other stuff on how far we got.
Is there a high-level collective term for the various "artistic stuff" associated with a military unit, such flag, march, unit patch, etc.? If context is helpful, I'm basically looking for a title for a section that would then contain subsections for the individual things. Ljleppan (talk) 16:02, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Regalia? Insignia? -Indy beetle (talk) 16:08, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Regalia feels a bit off with the music stuff, but is better than anything I've come up with so far. Would "Traditions" or something like that make any sense in this context? Ljleppan (talk) 16:13, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Traditions might make sense, because it can include a lot of less specific or intangible stuff, like marches, battle honours, uniform dress, regimental history and perpetuated units, etc. —MichaelZ. 21:22, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Heraldry is usually both visual and official (at least in the U.S. military...the army has an entire branch devoted to this). And then there's also the wide range of "unofficial" things that become associated with units. And traditions aren't the same thing as the official stuff. This one's kinda tough... Intothatdarkness 21:46, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
These kinds of things could be grouped together under "unit culture", though that might be too broad for Ljleppan's purposes. -Indy beetle (talk) 00:00, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
I don't know that there will be a single term to encompass all of this, since there are official and unofficial elements involved (at least with US units). Many of the older regiments have marches or songs, but there can be both official and unofficial versions. Unit flags are official, so there's that, but many units have official and unofficial patches (especially when you get below division level in the US Army) and there are others that never had an official patch but one has become so common it's often considered official (the best example of this is Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group: that patch was never official but it's used so often many seem to think it is). I'm not sure Traditions would work, since again we're combining official and unofficial things and Traditions implies unofficial stuff (things that are part of a unit's culture but not necessarily "certified" by higher authority). Just my take, of course. Intothatdarkness 18:22, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
Graphic work request for the flag of the newly reactivated US Army 11th Airborne Division
Hi, I was wondering if there is an existing file for the flag of the recently reactivated American 11th Airborne Division, as can be seen in the background of this image [13]. Right now the 11th Airborne is the only active US Army division without a flag on Wikipedia, and it seems that the author of all the other flags has become inactive. I've had no luck looking for this file online or in any of the US Army's official websites. I was wondering if anyone proficient at graphic design could recreate the 11th's flag, similar to this [14]. Thank you! Meeepmep (talk) 02:58, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing me to the right direction! Meeepmep (talk) 01:30, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
English ship Mary (1650)
The English ship Mary (1650) has been moved to HMS Mary (1650). Am I correct in thinking that this is against MILHIST guidelines, being too early to have used the HMS prefix? Mjroots (talk) 06:46, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
And it was renamed with its acquired year 1660 here HMS Mary (1660). -Fnlayson (talk) 13:35, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
Texas Raiders
A discussion is open at talk:Texas Raiders#Categories re the addition of three categories to the article. Please feel free to join the discussion. Mjroots (talk) 15:38, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
Their second mission was more successful; transported by the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), they attacked three airfields in Libya, destroying 60 aircraft without loss.
Its second mission was a major success. Transported by the Long Range Desert Group, it attacked three airfields in Libya, destroying 60 aircraft with the loss of 2 men and 3 jeeps.
According to Google Books the source states "the SAS attackers destroyed more than 60 enemy aircraft on the ground without the loss of a single man" - Dumelow (talk) 20:07, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
Please see discussion. Cinderella157 (talk) 05:22, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
Battle of Berea Map Request
Hey everyone. I am considering nominating Battle of Berea for A class. Would anyone be interested in creating a map of the battlefield? There is a pretty detailed one on archive.org which can serve as the basis for it. I tried Map Requests already with another request, but people there weren't that interested. Thanks in advance. Catlemur (talk) 12:34, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
Map of the Battle of Berea sent by Governor Cathcart to London
No idea how good it is but there was a map sent by Governor Cathcart to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in his post-battle dispatch. It was included in the 1852 Parliamentary Papers. I've uploaded it to Commons - Dumelow (talk) 13:13, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks a ton Dumelow! Its more or less the same as the map in Sanders' book.--Catlemur (talk) 14:03, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
"German Navy (Kriegsmarine)" or "Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine"
I stumbled across German submarine U-37 (1938) and noticed its lead sentence was different from its classmates (eg U-38, U-39, U-40, U-41, U-42, U-43 and U-44). The former has "u-boat of the German Navy (Kriegsmarine)" while the latter have "u-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine" (U-39 just has "of the Kriegsmarine"). I see the change to U-37 was made last year by User:Sca (who looks to be on a Wikibreak) and saw a handful of similar changes made over the last year or so. Seems like something we should have a standard formulation for. Checking what I presume is our gold standard battleship FAs, I see Bismarck and Tirpitz use "of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine", the latter with a clarification of "(navy)" afterwards. Any thoughts on what is preferred? - Dumelow (talk) 15:38, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
Everyone knows the that from 1933 to 1945, including WWII, Germany was run by the Nazis. But Not everyone in the WWII German navy was personally a Nazi, and a vessel such as a submarine obviously cannot belong to a political party. According to several of the half-dozen biographies I've read, Hitler (I hate to even write his name) quipped to cronies that he had an "imperial army, a Nazi air force, and a Christian navy." IMO, my formulation "U-boat of the German Navy (Kriegsmarine)" avoids guilt by association by not implying that everyone in the German navy was a Nazi. It also avoids using the German word Kriegsmarine -- in English "war navy" -- without explanation in an English sentence. There is no historiographical reason not to use the word "Navy" in an English-language article, as "Kriegsmarine" has not passed into general English usage. Please understand that I harbor no sympathy whatsoever for the ideology or deeds of Nazi Germany. Thank you. -- Sca (talk) 16:37, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
Sca, your points about the use of "Kriegsmarine" without context are on point. However, you've got to understand that the rest of your message sounds an awful lot like the myth of the clean Wehrmacht. Nazis and non-Nazis served in all branches of the German armed forces in World War II, but that doesn't change the fundamental fact that they were all fighting for Nazi Germany, a term that we use to describe the country during this period (just like German Empire covers the monarchical period). Ed[talk][majestic titan] 17:05, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
Just as we would refer to the Communist Red Air Force or the democratic US Army. Have I got that right? Gog the Mild (talk) 18:10, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
No, we don't, because neither of those countries is commonly called by those names in the English language. Ed[talk][majestic titan] 04:16, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
The myth of the clean Wehrmacht was BS, and has long since been disproved. But from what I've read -- and believe me I've read a lot -- the navy was arguably less tainted by Nazism than other branches of the German military. And even though the air force was nominally run by a Nazi bigwig (and I do mean a big one!), few if any of its operations had to do with the Holocaust and other instances of mass murder – notably that of millions of non-Jewish Poles. However, one thing that's generally overlooked in Western historiography was the key role of the German railways (Reichsbahn), which transported most of the captive Jews to the death camps. Even at the Reichsbahn – not a political or military organization – orders were orders and very seldom disobeyed under the ferocious NS dictatorship. Such was that era. – Sca (talk) 19:28, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
Getting a bit off topic, but the head of the German Navy for most of the war Karl Dönitz was an ardent Nazi and expected his officers to also be. None of them apparently joined the anti-Nazi movement as a result: Karl Dönitz#Nazism and antisemitismNick-D (talk) 09:18, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, we know Adm. Doughnuts was a Nazi, and indeed was nominally the last head of state of the Third Reich -- until the Brits threw him in the clink. He spent 20 years in Spandau. However, Dönitz wasn't really part of the AH inner circle, and in WWII was essentially a military bureaucrat rather than a political figure. -- Sca (talk) 13:32, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
Poor judgment on their part. -- Sca (talk) 13:35, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
"German Navy" is going to be somewhat ambiguous w/r/t time, so some temporal expression is helpful if not necessary. Combining it into the country through "Nazi German" doesn't strike me as a bad solution. Ljleppan (talk) 19:10, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
Agree. "Kriegsmarine (navy) of Nazi Germany" doesn't imply the navy was full of Nazi's, we are referring to the country here. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 07:15, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
The expression "Nazi German" will not be used in Military History Project articles (NB: that's the whole closure, without any qualifiers) seems like a rather extreme outcome from... whatever that train wreck of an archived discussion is. Ljleppan (talk) 09:16, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
The background is that there never was a country of 'Nazi Germany': it was 'Germany'. It was agreed that the use of 'Nazi Germany', etc, in various discussions implies that these were separate entities, which is incorrect. The implication that there was a separate 'Nazi Germany' also contributes to confusion over guilt from the Nazi era somehow being limited to that entity. Nick-D (talk) 09:23, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
Undecided about what phrase should be used, maybe German Kriegsmarine would be acceptable to all but currently there are 1316 instances of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine in articles! Lyndaship (talk) 09:53, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
Maybe someone can tee up a bot to nuke'em all... - wolf 23:32, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
W/r/t confusion over guilt, that's a perspective I hadn't thought about. My first instinct was that omitting the "Nazi" gave a lot of the same vibes as myth of the clean Wehrmacht or just trying to downplay the existence Nazism. Regarding the there never was a country of 'Nazi Germany' argument, I'm not terribly convince given that the usage here is essentially a very common shorthand for "Germany of the era when the Nazi Party was ruling". Has there been a widely publicized RFC about this, and how does that play with e.g. the article Nazi Germany or indeed Kriegsmarine itself (see first sentence and infobox)?
That said, I also dislike the use of Kriegsmarine in the prose (I think find it broadly equivalent to someone writing Väinämöinen was a coastal defence ship of the Finnish Merivoimat..), so perhaps I'm in the minority here. Ljleppan (talk) 10:20, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
From what I've seen, Wehrmacht is pretty much accepted in Eng. historiography, but Kriegsmarine isn't. -- Sca (talk) 13:46, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
Just like Panzer and Luftwaffe.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:55, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
In my experience, only the German military branches active in the Nazi period are privileged to this extent both in popular culture and on Wikipedia. My view is the same as Ljleppan. Not to mention I rarely have heard Wehrmacht or Luftwaffe even pronounced correctly in English media. -Indy beetle (talk) 07:37, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
That's not quite true; German words are also used in the Napoleonic era cf. Jäger (infantry) While the present-day German Air Force is called the Luftwaffe, we made a decision on Wikipedia to use that for the World War II-era and German Air Force for the post-war. The sources use the two terms interchangeably for both. Hawkeye7(discuss) 09:46, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
At least Luftwaffe plainly means "air force". Wehrmacht means "Defense Force", I guess because the Germans had to defend Poland from the Polish people. Wonder why we (or rather the historians) prefer using that broader term pseudo-metonymically to mean the German Army of the time instead of using the more precise and more neutral name for the ground forces, das Heer. -Indy beetle (talk) 04:54, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
Even today people refrain from using the distinction Bundeswehr and Heer in everyday life. A good friend of mine was a high ranking officer in the Heer of the Bundeswehr, when he explained what he did he always said "I commanded tanks in the Bundeswehr". MisterBee1966 (talk) 05:14, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
Germany started using submarines in large numbers during the First World War, when the government was different. So, we have a unified list at list of U-boats of Germany. As the concept seems essentially continuous, it would seem simplest in English to talk about German submarines or submarines of the German navy. The only time that political disambiguation or further qualification might be needed is when Germany was divided but it appears that East Germany did not operate any submarines and so the problem does not arise for that type of vessel. Andrew🐉(talk) 17:33, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
I have nominated Paul Kruger for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Z1720 (talk) 02:38, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
Citation style and HarvErrors
I am a big fan of using User:Ucucha/HarvErrors which I find significantly helps finding errors in referencing and citations. When looking into the Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet article, I noticed a number of references missing, misspelled or inconsistent. With good intentions in mind, I converted the citation style, using template {{Sfn}}, to detect all "errors" and fixed these "errors" by adding missing references or correcting spellings, not at all changing the content of the article. However, @Kyteto: believes these fixes to be in violation of WP:CITEVAR and in consequence reverted my edits. I tried discussing the topic here, see Talk:Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet#Reference style. I would appreciate a second opinion please. Thanks MisterBee1966 (talk) 08:19, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
@Magnolia677: - Out of curiosity, what exact criteria are you thinking for this? Is this intended for things that were completely (I actually just rewrote the article for the ship that destroyed Eunice, Arkansas) or would it expand to things that were mostly ruined, but were later rebuilt, like Osceola, Missouri? Hog FarmTalk 05:54, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
@Hog Farm: I posted here in the hope some Civil War buffs could expand the category. The category needs some inclusion criteria so that places like Osceola can be added. Other settlements, like Bruinsburg, Mississippi, weren't destroyed, but just ceased to exist after 1865. Magnolia677 (talk) 15:46, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
ACW photographer. Text of the first two paragraphs after the lead is awfully close to https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/285472 to the point of copying the poetical use of "Gotham" for New York City. It feels dodgy at best. Adam Cuerden(talk)Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 04:53, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
Ended up cutting it a little and rewriting. Adam Cuerden(talk)Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 05:42, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
Apparently there's over 1,000 of them. Is anyone a file mover over on Commons? Because this is a several years old mess. Makes it darn near impossible to images when you need them. And of course when they uploaded it all, they found it useful to upload junk like File:The Photographic History of The Civil War Volume 04 Page 352.jpg. (gonna list that up for deletion) Hog FarmTalk 06:12, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
There are over 1.7m uncategorized images on Commons, but the attitude there seems to be that everything is "useful" and no uploader should ever be forced to properly name or categorize images, so you have these uploaders (or their bots) that just grab and upload all sorts of images without making any effort to make them searchable. Some are great (if you can find them) but many are complete garbage. Mztourist (talk) 08:11, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
You can just move individual files at Commons. I agree that mass uploads like this are irresponsible and totally pointless as the images are basically unusable. A then-admin there threatened me a few years ago when I started moving some of the images they mass uploaded under generic and impossible to use names, so the problem runs pretty deep. Nick-D (talk) 09:46, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
I tend to get away with these things. But it's annoying. As you know, I do restorations, but the number of times I've tried to make a coherent set (restored file as JPEG and PNG and original) only to later learn someone had uploaded a basically undocumented copy of the original... then have someone delete the copy that actually has documentation. Damn pain. I have filemover. MY tendency for file disambiguation is some combination of these elements:
[Artist -] Subject [- disambiguating description] [(Year)] - [Source] - [Disambiguation used in library] [- Original]
TL;DR version: lets make this page a DP named Lists of battles of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and create separate battle lists for each of the wars according to the List of battles of the War of the First Coalition model.
Explanation: I just ran into this list, I have never seen it before. It's interesting, but I'm not sure if this is the best way to present this information. Because I've been writing lists of battles for each of the Coalition Wars, there are large WP:OVERLAPs now. If I had found this list sooner, I would probably have done things differently. So I'm afraid we'll have to make some though decisions.
Let's do the semantics first. Strictly speaking, 'Napoleonic Wars' refers to the Wars of the Third to the Seventh Coalition (1803/5-1815), while the Wars of the First and Second Coalition are known as the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1801/2); that means only my Third Coalition list overlaps with the Napoleonic battles list. However, Napoleon seized power in France with the Coup of 18 Brumaire (9 November 1799), so an argument could also be made that all battles afterwards are already counted as 'Napoleonic'. Even more broadly speaking, this project has a Napoleonic era task force whose scope extends "from c. 1792 to c. 1815" (somewhat fair, as Napoleon already rose to fame during the First and Second Wars, seizing power during the Second, although he really played no nationally prominent role until 13 Vendémiaire in 1795). The question then is how broad 'Napoleonic' is, and if it doesn't encompass the entire 1792-1815 period, where should we draw the line? As someone said at Talk:List of Napoleonic battles, perhaps List of battles of the Napoleonic Wars is a better name, which would draw the line at 1803/1805 (wherever you want to pinpoin the start of the War of the Third Coalition). Another thing that has also been noted in Coalition Wars is that some wars in this 1792-1815 period were 'French Revolutionary' or 'Napoleonic' wars, but not 'Coalition Wars', such as the French invasion of Switzerland, so there may be reasons not to lump them all together under the same headings.
Let's do the size and practicalness and navigation issues second. The current Napoleonic battles list doesn't even come close to including all battles of the entire 1792-1815 period: e.g. it has no battles from 1792 or 1795, just 1 battle from 1793, just 2 battles from 1794, and just 3 battles from 1797 (compare 'my' List of battles of the War of the First Coalition). But if we were to throw them all together, this list would probably become way WP:TOOLONG. Perhaps it's simply more practical for size and nagivation purposes to have separate battle lists for each of the wars. Then it would make sense to make this a DP with a name like ListS of battles of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and then redirect readers to more specific lists.
Let's do list format third. The format of my three Coalition Wars battle lists so far has been based on common conventions for "List of wars involving [country]"-type lists: a sortable wikitable with the parameters Date, Battle, Front (indicating the region or modern-day country where the battle and/or campaign took place), French forces, Coalition forces, and Notes (including the result of the battle, and perhaps other relevant notes such as 'King Louis XVI captured' (during the Insurrection of 10 August 1792). 'List of Napoleonic battles' has a very odd format that I have not seen anywhere else, however: Today's location of the battle, its name and date, French leader, Coalition leader. The latter two colums are subdivided by 'Victory' and 'Defeat' columns every time, and includes a rather random sample of commanders on each side. The list is not sortable, and it would need a lot of fixing to make it sortable. It oddly adds the national flag of the country in which the place of battle is currently located (irrelevant and misleading), even for naval battles. Below the table, there is yet another list with a random sample of 'Napoleonic battles' (again with very few early 1790s battles) in alphabetical order (unlike the table, which is in chronological order). I don't really see the point in having two separate lists. Especially if we've got a sortable wikitable (as in the Coalition Wars lists), the reader can sort them in any order they like. I would humbly suggest that the Coalition Wars sortable wikitable lists are much more convenient to use, and also to edit (that's probably why this sort of model has been widely adopted by "List of wars involving [country]"-type lists).
Finally, let's talk sourcing. 'List of Napoleonic battles' is WP:UNSOURCED. Admittedly, my Coalition Wars lists are not extensively sourced either, but how strict do we want our standards for these lists to be? Apart from perhaps which belligerent to award the victory to (which in my lists is simply copied from what the 'Result' parameter in each infobox of each battle page says), and debates about periodisation and which campaigns to include or exclude, do we need extensive referencing for each and every claim? What are the sourcing conventions for lists of battles within MILHIST?
I'm curious to know your thoughts about this. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 21:00, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
PS: I now see that the reason some pre-1803 battles have been included in 'List of Napoleonic battles' such as Siege of Toulon (1793) appears to be the fact that Napoleon personally took part in them as commander of the French forces. That means it duplicates Military career of Napoleon Bonaparte#Battle record summary. But as post-1803 also include battles fought by other French commanders, there seems to be a mixing of 'battles involving Napoleon' and 'battles of the Napoleonic Wars', which are overlapping but not the same sets of items in a Venn diagram. As a result, 'Napoleonic' means two different things lumped together. We should unweave them. I think it's clear now that the current situation is untenable. I'm gonna do some WP:BOLD edits, but I remain open to suggestions and alternative solutions. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 21:26, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
I have just added a new section to Chemical weapons and the United Kingdom, talking about production in South Africa and a (proposed but never carried out) test in Botswana, and I'd appreciate it if an expert could have a look. This came out of work on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office migrated archives article, which was the context the story was published in, and I was trying to find a better home for it.
It's all a little odd: the sources seem reliable enough (two newspaper stories in reputable publications outlining a recent archive release; the archive material is not online but the title definitely bears it all out) but it seems to have gone unnoticed outside the Bechuanaland/Botswana colonial files. It seems to indicate both a new strand of the UK program that was not previously mentioned in its article, plus an earlier SA program not mentioned in South Africa and weapons of mass destruction - which feels like quite a big thing! I'm not sure whether to add it in there or not, and it would be useful to know if any of the specialised sources mention it. Andrew Gray (talk) 13:27, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
There were a few of these tests around the world during the war. Mustard gas was tested in Australia as part of a joint Australia-UK-US program for instance: [15]. Nick-D (talk) 09:48, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
@Nick-D thanks - good to know this isn't quite as out-there as it originally sounded! Andrew Gray (talk) 12:06, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
Archival source looks legitimate. Seems entirely possible. David Underdown works at the National Archives, but isn't editing frequently. Buckshot06(talk) 07:29, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
Nominations for military history newcomer of the year for 2022 are open!
Military history newcomer of the year 2022
First place
Runners up
As we approach the end of the year, it is time for us to nominate the editors whom we believe have made a real difference to the project. In addition to the Military historian of the year, all Milhist editors are invited to nominate a promising newcomer that they feel deserves a nod of appreciation for their hard work over the past 12 months for the Military history newcomer of the year award. The award is open to any editor who has become active in military history articles in the last 12 months.
Like the Military Historian of the Year, the nomination process will begin at 00:01 (UTC) on 1 December 2022 and last until 23:59 (UTC) on 15 December 2022. As the awards process is one of simple approval, opposes are deprecated. After that a new thread will be created and a voting period of will commence on 00:01 16 December 2022 during which editors will be able to cast their simple approval vote for up to three of the nominees. At the end of this period on 23:59 30 December 2022, the top editor will be awarded the Gold Wiki; all other nominees will receive the WikiProject Barnstar.
Please nominate editors below this line, including links in the nomination statement to the most significant articles/lists/images editors have worked on since 1 January 2022. Please keep nomination statements short and concise; excluding links to the articles/list/images in question, the ideal nomination statement should be about 20 words. Self nominations are frowned upon. Please do not vote until the nominations have been finalized. Thanks, and good luck! For all the coordinators, Hog FarmTalk 00:47, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
Stanley Bannerman - for doing good work in the New Zealand military history field. Zawed (talk) 06:35, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
Nominations for military historian of the year for 2022 are open!
Military historianof the year 2022
First place
Second place
Third place
As we approach the end of the year, it is time for us to nominate the editors whom we believe have made a real difference to the project. As part of the first step to determining this year's "Military Historian of the Year" award, all Milhist editors are invited to nominate those that they feel deserve a nod of appreciation for their hard work over the past 12 months. The nomination process will commence on 00:01 (UCT) on 1 December 2022 and last until 23:59 (UCT) on 15 December 2022. As the awards process is one of simple approval, opposes are deprecated. After that a new thread will be created and a voting period of will commence on 00:01 16 December 2022 during which editors will be able to cast their simple approval vote for up to three of the nominees. At the end of this period on 23:59 30 December 2022, the top three editors will be awarded the Gold, Silver and Bronze Wiki respectively; all other nominees will receive the WikiProject Barnstar.
Please nominate editors below this line, including links in the nomination statement to the most significant articles/lists/images editors have worked on since 1 January 2022. Please keep nomination statements short and concise; excluding links to the articles/list/images in question, the ideal nomination statement should be about 20 words. Self nominations are frowned upon. Please do not vote until the nominations have been finalized. Thanks, and good luck! For all the coordinators, Hog FarmTalk 00:38, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
CPA-5 - for consistently writing a number of high-quality and actionable reviews, as can be demonstrated by going through our log of promoted A-Class nominations. Hog FarmTalk 14:41, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
Hog Farm - for work in the American Civil War field, e.g. Battle of Lake Providence, and also for contributions in article reviewing and quality assessment. Zawed (talk) 06:37, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
Robinvp11 - for work on topics pertaining to the English Civil War, e.g. Thomas Rainsborough, and later periods in English history. Zawed (talk) 06:43, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
Please comment at the subject RfC. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cinderella157 (talk • contribs) 10:01, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
Tiger categories on Commons
Not sure if this is the correct place to mention it, but someone has made Tiger I and Tiger II child categories based on turret numbers - which makes it look like tanks with the same turret number are the same specific tank, which I don't think is true.
Well, a quick look at Tiger II "300" has two different vehicles, as one has the early pattern turret and the other has the later turret. There are also pictures of the Bovington "300" tank in a plain dunkelgelb finish elsewhere that are not in the category. A better classification scheme may be to use the location of preserved tanks, not turret numbers, as these may be both spurious and subject to change. Monstrelet (talk) 11:57, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
New article could use expert help
I came across Force Design 2030. It began as a stub in July, then a new (2 edit) editor vastly expanded it. That content needs extensive rewriting. The article also needs to address concerns and criticisms of the plan. I've added some sources to the talk page, if anyone is interested in taking it on. (I tagged it for copy edit, but as it's about restructuring of the U.S. Marine Corps, an editor familiar with the military could likely do a better job.) Schazjmd(talk) 01:21, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
I'm sure everybody here remembers the immortal story of Captain Edward Fegen sailing into certain death to divert a pocket-battleship from his charges while covering an Atlantic convoy in 1940. However, I have just discovered that the AMC in question, "Jervis Bay," also rammed the old destroyer HMS Sabre (H18) on 13 October 1939 at Rosyth, requiring over six months of repairs to Sabre. I have just copied that detail from the Sabre article to the Jervis Bay article. But there was no source listed in the Sabre article. Can our ship experts fix this? Many thanks and kind regards Buckshot06(talk) 05:04, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
Added a ref for the collision to HMS Sabre (H18). Hope this helps. - wolf 05:32, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
At Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Military history#On maintaining NPOV terminology, I've asked a few questions that are important for the long term quality of the MILHIST WikiProject. Perhaps few people are following that talk page, because nobody responded so far, so I thought I'd link to it here. I'd appreciate some feedback if anyone has something useful to say; your imput would be welcome. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 06:55, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
I have nominated Benjamin Franklin Tilley for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Hog FarmTalk 03:46, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
I was thinking that it might be a good idea to promote this achievement in The Signpost, but what do people think? There's probably three options:
1. A new article, perhaps an interview?
2. A republish of our 200th issue article
3. a brief note within some smaller article.
As I complained about it a bit at the time: I had some issues with The Signpost a couple months ago, but, well, they weren't from malice, just mistakes were rather too easy with the systems we had in place. Once things calmed down a bit, a bunch of monitoring categories got set up that should help with that. Adam Cuerden(talk)Has about 8.3% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 02:53, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
Looking at Mirimar and Lentons books. Mirimar has Bremerhaven as a war loss on date and location as per article. No mention of salvage. There were two V.805's, the first ex mercantile Island was mined 20 July 1943, the second a naval trawler was completed in October 1944 and had been launched as MFL.8 and became M.3683, she survived the war. Lenton does not list Vp.412 as a war loss, the first VP.805 he does, the second assuming it Vs.805 he states was KFK.94 and it was surrendered to the RN in 1945 and became a mercantile. more muddy waters I'm afraid but I think Bremerhaven was not subsequently V.805 Lyndaship (talk) 18:12, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
Dumelow posted the correct source for the claim. I'm leaning towards Lyndaship's assessment that the claim of salvage is incorrect. Mjroots (talk) 18:17, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
I have nominated Diocletian for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:46, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
Disambiguation of links to Military deployment
Could you help to disambiguate the links to Military deployment? There are currently over 150 articles with links to the dab page (shown in this list) and it is often unclear from the context which specific article the link should go to. Any help appreciated.— Rodtalk 21:30, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
Ranks on death
This might already be covered somewhere else, but I'm terrible at finding that kind of information! The rank in infobox military person is usually, if not always, the last/highest rank the person held. What do we do when a person dies while holding an appointment rather than a permanent rank? For example, Arthur Forrest was a Royal Navy captain; this is the rank at which he died in 1770, as listed by sources such as Syrett & DiNardo's Commissioned Sea Officers of the Royal Navy. However, at the time of his death he was serving as CinC Jamaica Station, for the purpose of which he was appointed a commodore. As such he died a commodore, but this wasn't actually a rank and had he survived to the end of his appointment or retired during it instead of dying, he would have been Captain Forrest once more. Is it right for the infobox, etc, to rank him as a commodore, or should it be captain? Thanks, Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 13:37, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
I would say commodore. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:26, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
HTMS Sukhothai
Members of this WP may be aware that HTMS Sukhothai sank yesterday. If you are able to improve the article, please do so. Mjroots (talk) 18:26, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
I have a 1926 New York Times article that refers to a "Senator Nash", but can't find any reference to him. Anyone know who he was? Hawkeye7(discuss) 02:13, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
I'm baffled. I dug around, and was able to establish that the cadet involved was appointed from the 12th District of Missouri, but the only Missouri state-level legislator with the surname Nash wasn't a senator and was from a century earlier. Senator Nash was apparently from St. Louis, but that isn't helping much. Hog FarmTalk 02:52, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
The only connection I can find between a "Senator Nash" and St. Louis is Ken Nash was apparently as Massachusetts State Senator who briefly played short for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1914, but I cannot find any connection between him and James Leroy, so I don't think that's our senator. What baffles me the most is that I'm finding articles from states across the country referring to the incident, all of which just say "Senator Nash", as if this fellow would be known across the country, but I'm not seeing any evidence that whoever this person is was high-profile. Hog FarmTalk 03:08, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
If it's any consolation. I had the same problem. Hawkeye7(discuss) 04:03, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
https://www.lrl.mn.gov/legdb/fulldetail?id=14103 John P. Nash? Died before the incident, but not so far back that he couldn't have a nephew. Remember that it was harder to check things back then, so if a local paper covered James Leroy Nash and mentioned their local senator John Nash, that could easily get propigated without the "Minnesota State Senator" part getting kept. Don't worry about the "as if this fellow would be known" part: it's probably literally just "And he should have known better as he's a senator's relative".
Remember we live in an era where a certain level of fact-checking is easy. These papers did not. Possibilities - and I'm pulling all these out of my arse, but you get the idea - range from "The surname is misreported; He was related to James Leroy Nash on his mother's side, but someone assumed", "The surname for both of them is misspelt. We should be looking for Nasser", "actually, he was a Representative, oops", "We reported it right. He's the nephew of Mark Senator Nash, son of Letitia Nash (née Senator)", "We thought it made a better story if we tweaked the facts."
We've got a number of older article sitting at WP:MILHIST/ACR, our own project-specific review process. The following nominations are over 3 months old and could use some input ad detailed below:
It would be nice if we could get some of these finished up over the next few weeks. Hog FarmTalk 15:08, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
Notability of vorpostenboote
An editor has raised the issue of the notability of individual vorpostenboote at WT SHIPS. Please feel free to comment there. Mjroots (talk) 15:10, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
'Notable participants' section in battle articles
Hi all, someone recently added a 'notable participants' section to Battle of Monte Cassino, which is something I don't think I've seen before, and was wondering whether it's something that should be avoided or not. Cheers. Loafiewa (talk) 12:45, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
I don't like it. Keith-264 (talk) 17:48, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
I have seen a few of these in other articles, unsure about it myself. Slatersteven (talk) 18:02, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
Wouldn't that create extremely cluttered articles for important and large scale battles like the Battle of Berlin?--Catlemur (talk) 18:21, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
Agree that this is not good. There's no reason to mention these people on battle articles unless they come up in the natural narrative of events. Their participation in said battles will already be reflected on their own bios surely. Cramming potentially dozens of names into the bottom of the article including people who's contribution amount to changing tires and boiling soup will not help the reader better understand said battle. Over a million men participated in the Battle of the Bulge. Who wants to guess on top of how many generals there were all the privates, corporals, NCOs, and first lieutenants who served there and went on to become successful businessmen or regional politicians? Do we need to know at Battle of Okinawa that L. Richardson Preyer, heir to the Vicks VapoRub fortune, manned an AA gun on a destroyer? -Indy beetle (talk) 20:55, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
Agreed. Anyone who played a notable role in battles or where the battle had very important consequences for a later-notable person should be mentioned (and linked where WP:BIO is likely to be met) in the article. A section comprising a list of people notable for other reasons who fought in the battle is WP:TRIVIA. This is especially the case for articles covering the age of mass warfare and conscription where vast numbers of people were involved in many battles. Nick-D (talk) 21:49, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
Agreed, mention it in the text or a note but not in a section, it's elitist piffle. Keith-264 (talk) 22:05, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
I'm going to be slightly contrary and say this feels like the kind of thing that could reasonably be a list article linked from the main article. Adam Cuerden(talk)Has about 8.3% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 02:32, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
If WP:RS cover it in-depth then so should we... Its not up to us to decide which participation is important and which isn't, we leave that to WP:RS per WP:NPOV. If its just a passing mention as in "X was also at the Battle of Y" I don't really see a case where it would be due. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:07, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
William Harper Featured article review
I have nominated William Harper (Rhodesian politician) for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:40, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
Question on the copyright status of this image.
I found a image on [16] and I was curious if it was in public domain. Are the cards published in that era created by the Federal Government or contractors? Thanks, Carpimaps (talk) 09:58, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
Yes, it is in the public domain. Feel free to upload it to Commons. This one was created by the Army Corps of Engineers, which is part of the Federal government. This is the case with most of the ids created by the Manhattan Project. The Metallurgical Laboratory was run by the University of Chicago under contract, but the ids were issued by the Army. The id card is signed by the area intelligence officer, Lieutenant Thomas O. Jones. Hawkeye7(discuss) 19:25, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for the help! Carpimaps (talk) 01:13, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
Cold War page split
It seems that a few months ago, User:Micga split Cold War (1947–1953) into two articles: Cold War (1947–1948) and Cold War (1948–1953). I'm not necessarily for or against the split, but I wanted to bring it to the attention of the WikiProject as it's splitting off a relatively small period of time and it seems there was no attempt to involve other users in this decision. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:04, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
Eli Lilly Featured article review
I have nominated Eli Lilly for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:38, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
A New Sub Task Force
I’m recruiting for a new task force. Our goal would be to create pages for Members of The Resistance. We would focus on WW2 resistances and each group would do a different country. If you have any interest please contact.
I am already starting on the Austrian Theatre
I would appreciate someone with experience GeekyDave (talk) 14:54, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
The book you want is William Franklin, Casualties and medical statistics (1972), a volume in the History of the Second World War United Kingdom medical series. Unfortunately, I do not have access to my copy at the present time. Hawkeye7(discuss) 20:00, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
Thanks, that's going to take some digesting! Alansplodge (talk) 13:17, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
You are presumably aware that the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site allows you to export search results (example search, with no names input[17]) to a spreadsheet, in which you can then do all sorts of processing. One interesting outcome of this is that you can plot graphs of deaths by day, which illustrate variously (depending on the search criteria entered), the level of fighting in any particular campaign (for instance, showing the build up to the crossing of the Rhine, as well as the actual assault), sinking of individual warships, etc. Obviously the searches on which these exports rely do not have any names in them. You need care when putting in unit names, as the CWG are not consistent with these - better to export everything and find the unit in a spreadsheet search. There are some clear simplifications to this – for instance people dying of wounds after evacuation would not be detected. So the data is more illustrative than an exact count. However, the graphs of deaths by day present the information in a way that simple totals do not.
Of course, the criticism of WP:OR would always hang over this. For the less complex processing, I would argue that you are simply looking something up in a list, then WP:CALC applies for simply counting entries and putting them in a graph. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 20:49, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
Proposal to establish an Internet Archive library for the project
As many members of the project will be aware, the Internet Archive has published the full text of a vast number of books as part of its Open Libraries program. These books can be borrowed for an hour at a time if you register an account. This is an excellent resource, but can be difficult to navigate and find (and re-find) works due to the search function being somewhat clunky. To encourage greater use, I've started Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Internet Archive books as a collaborative library of works members of the project have located and found useful. Would other editors consider this useful? If so, I'd encourage you to add works to the list. Thoughts and comments on the usefulness of this would also be very welcome. Nick-D (talk) 04:33, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
Anything to get us away from Global Security-tier sourcing. I've been steadily adding all available Janes year books to my sandbox. Feel free to crib from that. It may also be good to also note offline books that active members have access to, (be it at their local public library or on their own bookshelf). There is a pending Hatchette lawsuit against the Internet Archive regarding their book-scanning operation, so we should be prepared for the possibility that this service gets Napstered. Was also wondering if there was interest in exploring some sort of partnership between Internet Archive and WP:MilHist that would locate copies of books that are identified to be of high value to the project? Does anyone have a connection to either Internet Archive or a collection that would be willing to donate material? Schierbecker (talk) 05:48, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
Useful, very much so. Potentially borderline w/r/t WP:LINKVIO, unfortunately yes. Ljleppan (talk) 08:26, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
That's a good point. The Internet Archive seems to be fairly ferociously defending the legal case and is a sensible outfit, so presumably wouldn't have launched this project unless it thought it was on solid legal ground. Nick-D (talk) 06:27, 25 December 2022 (UTC)
Sounds cool. Thanks - wolf 11:17, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
I assume the purpose of this is to provide links to useful works and not just to books in the Internet Archive Library, so I have added a number of works with direct links, where they can be read or downloaded, not just "borrowed." Also, I would add a caution that the attitude of Wikimedia and the Internet Archive tends to be quite different in the area of what is referred to as "fair use." Lineagegeek (talk) 22:57, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
RfC about World War 2 first two sentences
There is an RFC discussing the lead sentence of the World War 2 article in its talk page. Your input is welcome! --Thinker78(talk) 00:28, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
FAR for Ernest Emerson
I have nominated Ernest Emerson for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Z1720 (talk) 23:49, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
Not directly since there is nothing specific about such formatting for Good Articles (see WP:GACR) which is a notch higher than B class articles. This seems to be more of an implied thing that goes with overall article quality. -Fnlayson (talk) 05:38, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
Years ago, we had to "un-imply" that for the GA process, because some editors would overlook things that matter (like missing content, which is easy to overlook) but reject nominated articles because they didn't like the way the refs were formatted. Maybe we need to add something specific to B-class. Ref formatting contributes to the Halo effect, but it's really not important in the way that content and source selection is. (FAC coordinators have told me in the past that if an article's only unresolved problem is ref formatting, they'll do it themselves.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:47, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
I don't think that that's been a thing since FAC started requiring specific source reviews, which include consistent formatting of refs and the like. I'll require it in ACRs as well, but not at GA.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:31, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
The MOS explicitly says that when an article calls for a date format, for example {{Use dmy dates|date=}}, the date format does not apply to citations. However, our bot overmasters have decreed that if the date format template is applied to an article, it shall be applied to citations. Lineagegeek (talk) 00:18, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
I think that consistency is a good thing and should be encouraged. Keith-264 (talk) 10:53, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
I agree, but encouraged, not required for assessments GA and below.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 12:54, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
Famous Armored Commanders of the Spanish Army
Hi, I was looking at Spain's military history, and it doesn't say anything about the armored commanders of the Spanish Army, even though tanks were made in WWI. Can you list one please? Faithful15 (talk) 20:38, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
GAR notice
2007 Balad aircraft crash has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 19:04, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
Battalion organization is fairly simple. Depending on the time frame you're going to have a headquarters company and up to four line companies (plus service and support stuff). The number of battalions is a much trickier question, because the US Army likes to mess things up by using regiments as essentially "historical parent units" for smaller elements. So you could have one battalion active at any given time, or three battalions (not always numbered consecutively). You might try a web search for the Center of Military History and have a look at their lineage stuff. Intothatdarkness 21:24, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
Thank you so much! I will when I get a chance to. Faithful15 (talk) 21:31, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
Figuring out the number of battalions in each regiment can be relatively easy in recent times. Which year are you talking about, or are you talking about right now, 2022-23? Buckshot06(talk) 23:21, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
Note that is guided by the Wikipedia pages for the regiments, who cued me to which Army websites to look for. There may be other battalions, which may be revealed by other searches. Buckshot06(talk) 23:40, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
Resolved
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Welsh Revolt § Breverton does not seem to be a good source. Jr8825 • Talk 19:02, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
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