Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Waricon.svg Military history
WikiProject
Main project page + talk
News & open tasks
Academy
Core work areas
edit · changes
Shortcuts:

Welcome to the discussion area of the Military history WikiProject's coordination department! This page is mostly used by the project coordinators, but everyone is welcome to participate!

If you have a question, concern, or suggestion for the coordinators, please feel free to leave us a note!

Contents

[edit] Handbook

Please see the Academy course for coordinators for general information and advice.

[edit] Coordinator tasks

These tasks should be done as often as needed—ideally, on a daily basis.
Assessment
  • Monitor the daily assessment log. The main things to look for:
    • Articles being removed. This is usually legitimate (due to merges or non-military articles getting untagged), but is sometimes due to vandalism or broken template code.
    • Articles being moved to "GA-Class" and higher quality. These ratings need to correspond to the article's status in the GA and FA lists or the A-Class project review.
  • Deal with any new assessment requests and the backlog of unassessed articles.
Peer review
A-Class review
Featured content
  • For each new featured content candidacy or review:
    1. Add the candidacy or review to the {{WPMILHIST Announcements}} template.
  • For each concluded featured content candidacy or review:
    1. Remove the candidacy or review from the {{WPMILHIST Announcements}} template and the corresponding section in the review department.
    2. If the content was promoted to featured status (or demoted from it), add it to (or remove it from) the project showcase, and note the promotion in the monthly newsletter if needed.
Member affairs
Miscellaneous

[edit] How to...

[edit] Boilerplate and templates

[edit] Open tasks

[edit] Topics for future discussion

  • Collaboration with galleries, libraries, archives, museums, universities, and various other institutions (e.g. Wikipedia:GLAM/NMM)
  • Article improvement drives
  • Featured portal drives
  • Notability guideline for battles
  • Naming convention guideline for foreign military ranks
  • Using the "Results" field in infoboxes
  • How far milhist's scope should include 'military fiction' (possible solution, see scope of Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Military fiction task force)
  • Encouraging member participation in the various review processes (peer, GAN, ACR etc)
  • Recruiting new members (see User:The ed17/MILHIST, etc.)
  • Improving/maintaining popular pages
  • Motivating improvement from Stub to B-Class
  • Enabling editors to improve articles beyond B-Class (possibly utilising logistics dept, also see WP:FAT for related ideas)
  • Helping new members (possibly involving improving/deprecating welcome template; writing Academy course)
  • Recruiting copy-editors to help during ACR
  • Recruiting editors from external forums/groups/etc.
  • Simplifying ACR instructions (old discussion)

[edit] Missing academy articles

[edit] ACRs for closure

All A-Class reviews are eligible for closure 28 days after they were opened, or 5 days if there is a clear consensus for either the promotion or non-promotion of the article under review. Any A-Class review filed on or before 15 January may be closed by an uninvolved coordinator. A guide to closing A-Class reviews is available. Please wait 24 hours after a review is listed here before closing it to allow time for last-minute reviews.

  • This one looks very close so it seems a shame to close it as a fail. I'll review if you don't mind giving me a little time. EyeSerenetalk 11:37, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Three supports now, but obviously I can't close. EyeSerenetalk 11:57, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Good stuff Eye, will aim to promote shortly. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:19, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Done. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:23, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion


Archives
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30
31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39

[edit] Implementing an assessment scheme for lists (Part 2)

To recap the current state of the list-specific assessment scheme implementation effort:

  • We've added a list=yes parameter to {{WPMILHIST}}; this parameter allows us to switch between "article" and "list" assessment hierarchies. At the moment, it's only effective for two levels: FA-Class (which becomes FL-Class when the flag is set) and Start-Class (which becomes List-Class when the flag is set).
  • The assessment scheme switching appears to be working correctly, although the sample size is a bit small at the moment. This morning, I went through the remaining featured lists; all of them should now have the list flag set, and the assessment statistics will hopefully match up to our showcase counts the next time the bot runs.
  • I've also created Category:Military history lists incorrectly assessed as articles, which lists articles that are named "List..." but that do not have list=yes set. This obviously won't catch every list—there are a number of naming conventions for lists where the title does not take the form "List of X"—but it should allow us to collect a significant portion of the lists under our scope.

How should we move forward at this point? I would suggest that we do the following in the short term:

  1. Enable list-specific assessments for the task forces. Currently, only the main project assessment results reflect the list flag; but this was intended as a temporary solution while we tested the implementation, not a permanent condition. Given that nobody has complained about the assessments being unexpectedly broken recently, I think it's safe to enable the flag across the board.
  2. Create "CL-Class", "BL-Class", and "AL-Class" assessment levels and categories; these will be the result of assessing an article as C-Class, B-Class, and A-Class, respectively, when the list flag is set. The new levels will otherwise be functionally identical to their counterparts; for example, AL-Class will still require that the ACR parameters be set correctly, BL-Class will require that the B# checklist be completed, and so forth.
  3. Begin developing variants of the B-Class and A-Class criteria that will be more suited to lists. This will probably take some time, but can be done independently of implementing the assessment levels themselves; the assessment mechanism will remain the same regardless of the specific criteria to be applied at each level.

Thoughts? Kirill [talk] [prof] 21:41, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Anyone? Kirill [talk] [prof] 00:33, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
I agree with point 1, and tentatively with point 3, but am divided about point 2. While I recognize the desire to be able to classify lists, the usual wiki-wide classification system only allows for "list" and "Featured List". I'm not sure implementing new list-classes for only our articles would be the best way to proceed. Thoughts on this? Nikkimaria (talk) 04:47, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
The idea of creating project-specific assessment levels isn't a new one; WikiProject Mathematics, for example, has used a unique "B+" rating for years. (Indeed, the original discussions about setting up the bot-assisted WP1.0 assessment scheme considered this very scenario, and purposely designed the scheme so that individual projects could add assessment classes as desired.) Further, many of the classes which are now considered standard (e.g. Future-Class, Current-Class, etc.) were original project-specific ratings that saw wider adoption over time; it's quite possible that, if we demonstrate the effectiveness of a split article/list assessment structure, other projects will begin to use it, and the classes will eventually be considered "standard" ones. I wouldn't be overly concerned, therefore, about creating unique assessment classes in and of itself.
The broader question of whether having dedicated classes would be useful for us is, of course, a valid one. Personally, I think that using them will make it easier to track the progress of lists through the assessment hierarchy and generate statistics on list quality; while this could, in principle, be done through a combination of the standard assessment levels and category intersection with a separate (non-assessment-level) list category, that method would add significant complexity and wouldn't be useable with the standard WP1.0 assessment tools. So long as we clearly document the presence and role of the new class tags, I don't think using them would add a significant amount of overhead to the assessment process (particularly given that almost all of the underlying logic will be automated based on the existing assessment parameters and the list flag). Kirill [talk] [prof] 12:56, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Any other thoughts? Kirill [talk] [prof] 19:11, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Damn, I missed this topic having pushed for it! Yes, awaiting implementation of some form of AL/BL/CL rating standard to allow for a new scale as previously discussed, as well as assessment criteria. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 00:09, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
Damn, I missed this too — but then, I'm not a coordinator. I thought there was consensus at WT:WikiProject Military history/Archive 105#Proposal to add List-Class for rankings between List and FL. I did a bunch of work with User:Ling.Nut (who since has retired for the third time — I'm hoping there will be a fourth in the future) over the summer at List of American Civil War battles. But to get from List to FL seems like such a long hill to climb that it's really quite daunting. The incremental ratings and the guidance provided by the criteria would, I think, be really helpful since at this point I'm not sure what the next step for List of American Civil War battles might be. I'm sure there are other editors that are/have been in the same situation, and the easiest thing is just to move on to some other article — it's not like there's any shortage of stuff to edit around here — this just might keep some editors working on MILHIST related tasks instead of something else. Mojoworker (talk) 19:27, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Quarterly awards

If anyone wants to find the people who reviewed articles this quarter, I'll go ahead and award htme when the time is right. Buggie111 (talk) 14:52, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Oops, this needs to get done, and I don't have time to do it. Anyone? Check the history of this page for examples, we've done it every quarter. - Dank (push to talk) 15:14, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
Working on it...Nikkimaria (talk) 15:38, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
We really need to find a way to allow you to delegate stuff, Nikki, you do so much. Maybe the WMF could hire you a couple of secretaries ... - Dank (push to talk) 15:48, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
Username PR
Oct–Dec 2011		 ACR
Oct–Dec 2011		 FAC
Oct–Dec 2011		 Total
Oct–Dec 2011
User:Adamdaley 0 1 0 1
User:Anotherclown 0 16 0 16
User:AustralianRupert 2 16 5 23
User:Brianboulton 1 0 2 3
User:Buckshot06 0 1 0 1
User:Buggie111 1 1 0 2
User:Carcharoth 0 1 0 1
User:Cla68 0 1 0 1
User:Dana boomer 1 0 2 3
User:Dank 0 9 29 38
User:DCI2026 0 2 1 3
User:Demiurge1000 0 1 1 2
User:Ealdgyth 2 0 2 4
User:Ed! 0 4 2 6
User:Eisfbnore 2 5 0 7
User:Fifelfoo 0 15 6 21
User:Finetooth 1 0 0 1
User:Fnlayson 0 1 0 1
User:Grandiose 2 3 1 6
User:Grapple X 0 1 0 1
User:Hawkeye7 0 4 4 8
User:Hchc2009 3 12 3 18
User:HJ Mitchell 1 1 0 2
User:Ian Rose 0 8 8 16
User:Jappalang 1 0 1 2
User:Jim101 0 2 0 2
User:Jim Sweeney 1 1 0 2
User:Kirk 1 6 5 12
User:LauraHale 0 1 0 1
User:MisterBee1966 0 2 0 2
User:Mjroots 1 0 0 1
User:Nev1 1 0 2 3
User:Nick-D 0 7 3 10
User:Nikkimaria 2 13 28 43
User:Otto Tanaka 0 4 0 4
User:Parsecboy 0 5 0 5
User:Piotrus 0 3 0 3
User:SandyGeorgia 0 1 3 4
User:Sp33dyphil 0 3 2 5
User:Sturmvogel 66 1 6 5 12
User:The Bushranger 0 1 1 2

Okay, done, though feel free to check my math. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:08, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and I didn't do the awarding. Buggie, are you still up for that? Nikkimaria (talk) 17:31, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Yup. I'll get to it tomorrow. Buggie111 (talk) 00:30, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
All done. Buggie111 (talk) 17:35, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
"cough" ...besides me. ;) Buggie111 (talk) 17:37, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
All done. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:10, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
What is "ACR"? Adamdaley (talk) 07:50, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
A-Class Review. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:51, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Bugle newsroom format and related issues

As we prepare for our new Bugle publication schedule, there are a few questions that I think might warrant some consideration:

  1. Would it be useful to change our newsroom from the current layout (with directly transcluded newsletter sections, etc.) to something akin to the Signpost newsroom (with links to and status of sections and areas for discussing each section)?
  2. On a related point to #1, I don't think we ever really finished our discussion on whether the newsroom needs a separate discussion page; this is probably something we should consider based on whether some of the discussion will take place on the newsroom page itself.
  3. Do we want to adopt the Signpost's approach of transcluding per-article comments to the bottom of each article?

Thoughts? Kirill [talk] [prof] 20:08, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Regarding point three, I think allowing for more visible comments gives the opportunity for greater reader interaction. Nev1 (talk) 20:11, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
In order: yes, probably not if point one works out, and yes. I'm very much in favor of point three. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:29, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
I agree completely with Ed. In regards to point 1, can we re-use the coding the Signpost uses, or would this be too difficult to tweak/overkill? Nick-D (talk) 22:55, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
We'll need to play with the formatting a bit, but I think we can definitely use the core of the Signpost's code. I'll play around with it over the next week or so; hopefully, we can have all of this implemented for our January issue. Kirill [talk] [prof] 19:17, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

[edit] FAC update, Jan 8

Yawn, another week, another four promotions: Nicky Barr (Ian Rose), Titchwell Marsh (Jimfbleak), German battleship Tirpitz (Parsecboy) and HMS New Zealand (1911) (Sturmvogel 66). New FACs: Franco-Mongol alliance (Elonka), Hector Waller (Ian Rose), Mark Satin (Babel41), German battleship Bismarck (Parsecboy), John Tyler (Designate), and South American dreadnought race (The Ed17). - Dank (push to talk) 00:55, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] FAC delegate resignation

Hey guys, in case you all missed it in the mass of text over there: SandyGeorgia has resigned as FAC delegate. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 07:18, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

You're kidding me. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 07:20, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
Nope. It's a complete and total mess over there right now. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 07:23, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
It's a big loss. I had gotten the impression that Sandy was tiring of the role though. Nick-D (talk) 07:25, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
Yep, saw that earlier. I'm surprised she stuck it out this long, frankly -- I totally understand her leaving, for all sorts of reasons. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:46, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
A shame, but understandable. Hchc2009 (talk) 08:55, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
It came as a surprise to me. The practical effect is that it's going to be harder for all of us at FAC to keep up with the work for a little while, so I'll go offer my assistance to User:Ucucha, the other FAC delegate. - Dank (push to talk) 13:43, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
I hope that you're considering offering your services as a FAC delegate proper... :) Nick-D (talk) 09:31, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Whether Dank wants the position or not, let's not start any rumors... cf. Wehwalt vs. Sandy on WT:FAC and ANI. :/ Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:32, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
FAC is a complex environment; I wouldn't recommend that anyone angle for any job there. (And the signal-to-noise ratio at WT:FAC is low at the moment, it's not recommended reading.) It's been true for a while now that, if you can get your article through A-class, you can have a reasonable expectation of getting it through FAC, if you've got some patience and flexibility to spare. It's way too early to know how FAC is going to change after Sandy's resignation, but it's likely that not much will change for Milhist ... we'll still be able to get our articles through. - Dank (push to talk) 13:53, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
As with quite a few areas of Wikipedia at the moment, the seemingly large amount of drama is actually being generated by a small number of editors, and I suspect that most FA nominators are oblivious to it. With no disrespect whatsoever intended to Sandy (who has done an excellent job throughout her term), it seemed to be that she'd been tiring of the job for the last year or so, which is fair enough given how long she'd been doing it. Nick-D (talk) 07:36, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. My views are at WT:Featured article candidates/archive55#Ucucha. - Dank (push to talk) 13:06, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

On a related note, it seems to me that some of the frequent reviewers at FAC are adopting a sharper tone than usual. If that's happening, I don't think this means anything, I just chalk it up to increased tensions and the current politicized climate at FAC. If it's still going on in a month, I'll raise the subject then. - Dank (push to talk) 14:25, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay, the voting page just went up, although I don't know when the vote is coming: WP:Featured articles/2012 RfC on FA leadership. - Dank (push to talk) 03:47, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
As much as I like the idea of having periodic elections for FA delegates, the 'debate' so far and the Byzantine processes which are going to be used to sort this out are the best argument for dictatorship I've seen in a long time... Nick-D (talk) 07:34, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Input from uninvolved coords needed on a couple of things

There seem to be two tasks which need input from uninvolved coords at the moment:

  • First, Parsecboy has been nominated for his 15th A class medal, and further votes and then someone to hand out the award are needed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Awards#Parsecboy (15)
  • Secondly, the whole issue which is being discussed at WT:MILHIST#Continuing problems regarding Anzac/ANZAC/Australian and New Zealand Mounted Division would benefit greatly from a coordinator's attention. This debate over the names to use for units and battles of the Palestine Campaign of World War I has been continuing for months in various forums. I had a go at encouraging the editors towards a formal dispute resolution process late last year, but without effect, but I don't think that I'm sufficiently uninvolved to push this given that I've worked closely with all the editors on one side of the debate and not the editor(s?) on the other side. The 'hot issue' here from a coordinator viewpoint is that all the participants in the debate are excellent editors, and there's a risk that they'll get discouraged by this keeping coming up. Nick-D (talk) 07:37, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] closing A-Class reviews for Ray Farquharson and Bastille

Sorry for asking, but can these two articles be passed? If yes, please let me know and I will try to run the process MisterBee1966 (talk) 17:55, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I think there was a tweak I was supposed to do on the Bastille - I'll check. Hchc2009 (talk) 18:43, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
Actually, Hc, while I was waiting for a response to my minor comments you garnered a third support, so technically Misterbee could promote now but be nice for completeness for you to check it once more. Re. Farquharson, that could be closed right now as Ed! has added his support. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:34, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
Sorry for appearing so dumb, I ran the process for Ray Farquharson. Can somebody please check and confirm that I got it right, partly right or made a mess of things? Thanks MisterBee1966 (talk) 08:23, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Looks pretty good to me, you can keep your job... ;-) Two minor things: 1) judging by the diff, you may not have updated the count on the A-Class articles showcase page; 2) on the Bugle articles page, in bios we tend to just use years in the life dates to save some space (like on TFA). Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:42, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Hermann Fegelein

I would like a second opinion from one of our coordinators on how I am handling the inclusion/exclusion of portrayal in films and potential other media. Please comment on the Fegelein's talk page if you can. Thanks MisterBee1966 (talk) 00:33, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Would some please intevene here on my behalf Diannaa (talk · contribs) keeps deleting properly sourced information. Whether the content is subject to deletion is properly being discussed on the talk page. I am about to lose my temper on this because I find this uncivil behavior. MisterBee1966 (talk) 08:13, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
There doesn't seem to be a clear consensus on whether this should be included, though the discussion (in which I commented) appears to be trending towards keeping it. Leaving the article as-is for a while until this is more settled won't do any damage though. Nick-D (talk) 10:01, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. - Dank (push to talk) 11:27, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
I am staying away from this discussion from now on. I have a very big problem with the most recent statements made on the talk page. I would like to ask another coordinator for mediation, I am too involved and not objective anymore. MisterBee1966 (talk) 09:30, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes, an uninvolved coord would be helpful here. Nick-D (talk) 09:56, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Push! Can somebody please have a look and drive this to resolution without taking position themselves? Thanks MisterBee1966 (talk) 11:17, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
Ping MisterBee1966 (talk) 11:00, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Military historian of the year contest now open

I've just - slightly boldly - kicked this off (it had been scheduled to start on 1 January...) at WT:MILHIST#Nominations for military historian of the year for 2011 now open!. From memory, there was some unhappiness about voting being allowed at the same time as nominations last year, so I've taken the liberty of specifying a one week nomination period followed by a one week voting period. I hope that this is all OK! - feel free to jump in and fix things and/or trout me if I've missed anything. Am I right in thinking that we haven't used bot-driven notifications for this process in the past? Nick-D (talk) 10:39, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Heh, good call, guess we all dropped the ball and forgot about it. Your format works fine for me. I think we should probably send bot notices out, as the Bugle doesn't reach the Milhisters that unsubscribed. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:08, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
I have no idea how to arrange bot notifications - could you handle this? Nick-D (talk) 22:37, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
Sure, what would you like the message to be? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:53, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
How about something like: Nominations for the "Military Historian of the Year" award for 2011 are now open. If you would like to nominate an editor for this award, please do so here. Nominations close at 23:59 (GMT) on 21 January and will be followed by a one week voting period. Nick-D (talk) 05:06, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Sent out. Using "Military history coordinators" in the sig looked weird, so I went with "On behalf of the coordinators," with our sigs. Hope that's alright with you. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 23:00, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Thanks Ed, that looks great. As a question to everyone, how should the voting be conducted? Should we 1) allow people to vote for as many of the nominees as they'd like (which seems to have been the method used last year, or 2) ask people to only cast a set number of votes (for instance, three). Nick-D (talk) 10:30, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

  • Bump* Does anyone have a preference for the voting system? I prefer option 2), but without anybody else supporting this, it might be best to stick with option 1) Nick-D (talk) 23:00, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
I'd prefer to allow people to vote as many times as they like—it worked quite well for the coords' election, and we should try to keep this as something fun (and a good way for project members to recognise the achievements of others) rather than get bogged down in procedures and who's voted how many times. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:15, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
OK, I've gone with that option - thanks for your comment Harry. Voting is now open. Dank, Kirill or Roger, would you be able to close the election in a week's time and hand out the awards? Nick-D (talk) 06:40, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
Sure, with pleasure,  Roger Davies talk 06:50, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
Well done for setting this up, Nick. Sometimes someone has to be a little bold to make sure things actually get done—a very Wikipedian way of doing things! ;) HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 07:33, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

(od) I've closed the vote and given out the Gold Silver and Bronze Wikis to AustralianRupert, Ian Rose and Nick-D respectively. I wasn't clear on what to award the runners up so perhaps one of the other coordinators could handle that, as well as the announcement for the Bugle. For ease of reference the tallies were:

The late Bahamut0013 is obviously a special case so perhaps we could put some extra thought into how we commemorate his work for the project. I'm sure that his family would likely appreciate that.  Roger Davies talk 01:42, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Awards#"Military historian of the Year" updated to include 2011 awards. Have created a new transcluded MHOTY sub-page to make it more manageable in future. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish[chat] 01:53, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm handing out awards to the runners up right now. Nick-D (talk) 03:25, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
OK, I've just awarded the WikiChevrons to all the runners-up. I think that this was the best field for this award yet. It was noticeable that all the runners up had multiple barnstars and thank you notes on their talk page from other editors. Nick-D (talk) 03:56, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] WikiChevrons

The WikiChevrons template still refers/links to peer reviews as part of MILHIST. Could someone change or remove the link as appropriate now? Ta, Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 18:37, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I assume you're referring to something other than {{WPMILHIST WikiChevrons}}, which doesn't include any citation text? I'm not aware of any other templates for the WikiChevrons, so it would be very helpful if you could point out the specific one you have in mind. Kirill [talk] [prof] 02:18, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Sorry! I meant the " Content Review Medal of Merit" template. It links its title to the WikiChevrons section and somehow I got confused. It mentions "Peer reviews" which are then linked to the deprecated page. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 11:13, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Renaming of Russian and Soviet military history task force

The Russian and Soviet military history task force was renamed to the Russian, Soviet and CIS military history task force (per the results of the page move discussion) this morning. I've now gone through and cleaned up the various associated categories/templates/links/etc.; while I think I've caught everything, I'd appreciate it if someone could take a look and see if there's anything major that hasn't been appropriately moved or renamed. Thanks! Kirill [talk] [prof] 20:38, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Updates to Bugle newsroom and article formats

As discussed above, I've made a number of updates to the Bugle newsroom and article formats:

  • The newsroom now uses a task-tracking format similar to the one currently used by the Signpost. Each of the listed items has appropriate preload templates set up, to help with month-to-month page creation.
  • Articles now have a footer section (example) which contains some of the general links from the front page as well as an integrated comment section.

Any comments regarding these changes or suggestions for further improvements would be appreciated—as would additional testing of the new features and reporting of any bugs! Kirill [talk] [prof] 02:06, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

We should, incidentally, start getting the January issue ready for publication; assuming that we want to have something beyond the bare-bones project/article news, we're still missing quite a bit of material. Kirill [talk] [prof] 02:08, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Yep, we've been working on it... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:36, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Thanks a lot for doing this as well as moving the taskforce Kirill Nick-D (talk) 04:47, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Nice work Kirill. I like the general layout, but I think it's a bit too big on the right. Maybe we can include a history section in the newsroom and link to it? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:53, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
I actually put the history blurb there just to take up more space; otherwise, the right side looks really sparse if there are a few comments added on the left side. If you don't think that's an issue, I think we can just remove it. Kirill [talk] [prof] 05:02, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Ah, I see. I think we're in a bind in any case, as if there's more than three or so comments, it's going to look sparse. Also, I wonder if we shouldn't turn the watchlist and purge links to the normal shade of blue? Mostly because I don't think people will realize that they are links. I didn't say this yet, but thanks for doing this. I really appreciate it. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:42, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes, tks Kirill for all that stuff. I already addd a comment (for real!) to Nick's book review and that saved all right. One thing though, I then tried adding more to the same comment and it still only registers the original wording on the book review page. Is that a known limitation? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:11, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
I think it's just a caching issue; purging the article page seems to update it immediately. Kirill [talk] [prof] 23:34, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Something else while we're here... Now we're publishing January's Bugle in January, we have to ensure that the Article News is for the previous month (December 2011 in this case) not the current month, as it is right now by default. We could do this by manually changing the Article News link in the current issue to the previous rather than the current month, or we could rename December's Article News page to January, January's to February, and modify the code in the A-Class Review Closure instructions to point to the next month rather than the current month, so things stay in sync from now on. I'm happy to to take care of that either way but I think my pref is the latter method so everything in the Bugle code is for the current month. Thoughts? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:24, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Could we make it simpler for everyone by just listing promoted articles in whatever the next issue might be, regardless of which month they were actually promoted in? Kirill [talk] [prof] 23:34, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
The new format looks really good. Re your last, will that give us a problem with automating the links from the various instruction pages? At the moment they use {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} to get to the right page. It's not a big issue I know, more a convenience. EyeSerenetalk 11:34, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
Just a thought (moments after I'd clicked 'save'), but to address my previous point could we perhaps place all article summaries on a permanent holding page that's cleared by the newsletter editors when they compile the current issue of the Bugle? EyeSerenetalk 11:38, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I saw that, we'd need a NEXTMONTHNAME instruction, if there is one, and an if statement to roll over the year if current month is December, so it does get a bit complicated. I think keeping a subdivision of promotions in each month makes things easier, however. For now it might be best if we err on the side of pragmatism and just change the January issue background code to point to the December articles page (my first thought above) and consider a longer-term solution later. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:31, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
Keeping our former system would be my first preference. It ties in with the way we base the rest of the newsletter on the happenings during that month, and is the reason we kept two advance issues up in the newsroom. Is there any reason we can't go back to that and have not only the upcoming issue but the next as well on the newsroom page (retaining Kirill's new layout of course)? EyeSerenetalk 12:48, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
There's no reason we can't list multiple upcoming issues; I've gone ahead and added the dashboard code for the February issue.
As far as the article news are concerned, changing the links to point to the December page is somewhat impractical; much of the new layout code uses the month/year contained in the page title to automatically generate links, and all of that functionality will be broken on the December page. To address the immediate problem, I've copied the article summaries from the December page to the January one, and from the January one to the February one; that should line them up as far as promotion months are concerned.
In the long term, we could code up an equivalent to a NEXTMONTHNAME in template form; alternatively, we could have all summaries go to a holding area and only get placed on the actual monthly page as needed. Personally, I don't have a strong opinion as to which option would be preferred; that's more of a question for the people writing the summaries. Kirill [talk] [prof] 14:49, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
As long as there's a convenient link from the ACR closure instructions to the summary page I have no cast iron preference :) EyeSerenetalk 10:08, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] FAC update, Jan 15

Promotions this week: 1st Provisional Marine Brigade (Ed!) and Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias (Lecen, Astynax). New articles at FAC: Relief of General Douglas MacArthur (Hawkeye7), George Andrew Davis, Jr. (Ed!), Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi (Sturmvogel 66, Cla68), Ray Farquharson (Nikkimaria), and William S. Clark (Historical Perspective). - Dank (push to talk) 04:33, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] World War I and Wikimedia UK

Hello coordinators! Now the fundraiser's over, I'm starting to make some progress with Wikimedia UK's World War I related outreach efforts. I'm keen to speak to you about it! What's the best way for me to fill you in? It's not all stuff I'm able to post on-wiki yet. I think many of you have my email address... The Land (talk) 11:37, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Not I, though mine's available through my talkpage.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:40, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Feel free to drop me an email via mine. Hchc2009 (talk) 17:09, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
Feel free to send me an email too. We may be able to coordinate efforts with celebrations in Australia. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:12, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
I've emailed a few co-ordinators whose addresses I had in my inbox. Hopefully one or more of them can pass the message on (the email user feature gets a bit clunky with contacting lots of people). The Land (talk) 20:13, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
We should create a coordinator Google Group so it's easier to mail all of us at once. Not that it'd get a lot of use, but it'd be helpful. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:30, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
We could ask the Foundation to set us up a mailing list... HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:22, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
We could do that, I suppose. If everyone thinks that's the right approach, I can ask Philippe to create one. Kirill [talk] [prof] 14:28, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
As long as the other coords think it's a good idea. It might be useful to have a single email address that reaches all of us, for occasions like this, though obviously it shouldn't replace on-wiki discussion. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:27, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
I'll go along with that but agree wholeheartedly with your caveat. EyeSerenetalk 10:13, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I agree. Off-Wiki scheming does tend to end badly. ;) Nick-D (talk) 10:18, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
Funnily enough that case came to my mind too. I can't imagine any coords would consider doing anything similar, but the appearance of propriety is often as important as the actuality of it. EyeSerenetalk 10:40, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Resignation

My apologies, but for various professional reasons I can't hold a coordination post on the project in the light of the recent Wikipedia SOPA initiative/announcement. Been great working with you guys however so far this year. Hchc2009 (talk) 06:36, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

No worries, though I hope that you reconsider. Holding a position as a coordinator of this project isn't any form of official position with the English-language Wikipedia itself, though I appreciate that this nuance might be lost on some employers. Thanks for your contributions in the role though. Nick-D (talk) 06:55, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Thanks - unfortunately the nature of the press release, especially Jimmy Wales' declaration, doesn't give me a lot of wiggle room professionally. Hchc2009 (talk) 07:00, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
I think we can all understand your reasons, though I don't think any of us will be happy about it... ! Best of luck, and I hope we'll still see you around. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 07:03, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
hchc2009 ... I honestly don't know you that well, while I hope to see you on Wikipedia editing again once you feel upto doing some editing again whenever that maybe. We'll certainly miss your valuable contributions to WikiProject Military History even as a normal user. Adamdaley (talk) 07:47, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Sorry to hear that Hchc. I hope you'll consider still dropping by this page when you can though :) EyeSerenetalk 10:12, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
The blackout isn't being done at the right time or done in the right way, but after comments by 1800(?) Wikipedians, I'm agreed that the worst case here would be if the Foundation (yet again) took no action after an apparent community-wide consensus. So, about all I can say in favor is that we're avoiding the very worst case. Hchc, your contributions have been huge ... let us know if we can support your work in any way. - Dank (push to talk) 14:22, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
You could make it a temporary "resignnation due to health concerns", then join the force post blackout :). Anyway, thanks Hchc for all you've done. Hope to see you back next term (if possible). Buggie111 (talk) 17:09, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Cheers, Hchc2009 (talk) 18:35, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
I can fully appreciate such concerns. If Wikipedia is suddenly going to become political I think there are many editors that will have to question whether they can continue to support it. I believe fairly strongly that the blackout was a significant error of judgement. It seems that Wikipedia (which was meant to be a global, apolitical effort) has now been co-opted to push a narrow agenda about a local issue in which many of us had no say. As someone who has donated a not inconsiderable amount of my own time (and some money) to the project I cannot help but feel aggrieved (or at least misrepresented). Anotherclown (talk) 12:18, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Wikimania

Hey guys. Scholarship applications to attend Wikimania 2012 are now available. I'd like to see most of you there, so I hope y'all apply! In a related thought, is there any interest putting a presentation together? Perhaps on how/why our project is successful on-wiki and what others can adapt to their own projects? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:39, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

You should post this on the main page as well Ed :) It would be interesting to know how big the pool of money is for the grants; Wikimedia seems to have lots of money for this sort of thing. Nick-D (talk) 07:09, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Good point, I'll do that now. This says $50,000, but I think that's just what the Wikimania planners are putting towards it and doesn't include WMF contributions. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 08:05, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] FAC update, Jan 22

No promotions, no new FACs this week. One name change, to President Truman's relief of General Douglas MacArthur. User:Raul654 appears to be on the road to reconfirmation as the FA Director at Wikipedia:Featured articles/2012 RfC on FA leadership. - Dank (push to talk) 00:42, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

"you folks at MilHist could significantly speed up your FAC turnaround time if you'd train someone over there to do image reviews and to spotcheck sources for close paraphrasing (hint :). Sandy gives a couple of helpful links. Also see Nikki's and Ian's replies. - Dank (push to talk) 04:49, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

And if anyone is interested in doing spotchecks but isn't sure how, both Tony1 and I have guides on the topic. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:07, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not on a wikibreak, but I'm unwatching a bunch of pages. This will be my last FAC update for a while, and I won't be copyediting or reviewing for a while. I've been studying the copyediting and prose reviewing at FAC, and this stuff is really hard ... and what makes it worse is, surprisingly, no one's written a suitable usage guide that covers collaborative writing as it's done in Wikipedia in 2012. I'm not sure if I can write or co-author that book, but I'm going to give it a shot, and I need some time and some mental distance from Wikipedia to do it. Still, if there's something I can help with, don't hesitate to ask on my talk page. I hope these FAC updates have been helpful. I'll provide an outline of what I want to cover in the book soon, in case anyone wants to collaborate. - Dank (push to talk) 13:30, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for putting these updates together so far, Dan. If more than a couple of people would like to see them continue, I'd be happy take it on -- let me know here, guys... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:30, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher: GAN Review

Resolved

--Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 03:49, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't want to sound like I am complaining here. I feel as if other articles in the same section of "Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher" (which is the article I overhauled and nominated for GAN), has been overlooked by other articles in the same section of GAN. Two of those articles are around a third of the size ... compared to what my article is. Could someone please when they have time GAN review it please? Adamdaley (talk) 02:31, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

I've decided to re-tract my above comment due to the notinations of the "Military historian of the year 2011". Although I have not done much to be nominated, tried my best to keep things flowing and do the best I can. Adamdaley (talk) 02:58, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
I'll take care of it. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 03:47, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Academy article

I started this academy article from the Open Task list up top, but then fell a bit flat on things to say. I decided to save what I wrote so far, however, If anyone cares to pick up where I left off, feel free. Otherwise, I may return to add more over time. It isn't my best writing to date, I admit, but it's a start. My experience with OOBs is limited to early-modern/Napoleonic army structures, so it is lacking somewhat with regards more modern units. Anyone with knowledge of modern OOB structures is welcome to throw in extra details. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish [chat] 05:59, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Nice work. I'll add contributing to it to my to-do list. Nick-D (talk) 10:10, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
Alright, cheers. There are a couple of those wanted Academy titles that I'd like to do, in due course, but they'll need copy-editing just a little, afterwards, I think. As much as I can write, I don't find giving "how to" instruction a strong-point of my writing skills. I'll list any here as and when I do create them. Not sure if many people read the Academy pages these days, but what the hell.. as long as they're short and sweet, little time is lost if no one does. There are a couple of titles I'd also like to see written, so I'm not sure, should I just add them to the Open Tasks list, and see if someone picks them up, one day? Not sure who made up the current list, but to be honest, some of the titles there exist already on other Wiki help pages, in some for or other, and don't really need to be rewritten in a military history tone, imo. Ma®©usBritish [chat] 12:03, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
Please do chip in with anything you think might be useful. Although I've been saying this for years, getting to grips with the Academy is something I'm determined to do in the very near future: sorting, collating, copy editing, courseifying (is that a word?) etc. The more content the merrier! EyeSerenetalk 12:14, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
Well, if you're happy to oversee some kind of organisation of Academy "classes", I'm happy to write a few either from scratch or based on existing ones, and maybe update a couple of older ones. Sounds like a good co-ordinator role, to sort them into some sort of course structure, rather than a list of random titles, and may give attention to them a boost. I think MilHist interest has grown, just a little, but noticeably over the last 6 months or so and more questions are asked on how to do this or that for MilHist which need a prominently positioned set of responses, that perhaps Academy could provide. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish [chat] 12:35, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Another done. May need correcting in any spots where I've got the details inaccurate. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish [chat] 05:29, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Good stuff :) EyeSerenetalk 08:29, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

This one already existed but was a little tricky to follow, and seemed incomplete, so I have rewritten it with an example that anyone anywhere should understand; it is less related to an aspect of military history, but the US Navy example was a bit too specific to follow, as we wouldn't all know the hierarchy of the US fleet to make sense of the categorisation example given. The purpose of the Academy is to give a general idea, rather than confuse further, so I went for a broader topic. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish [chat] 14:50, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Project FAQs need attention

Several of the wikilinks on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment page are non-existent. They are all anchors so don't show as redlinks. They are: all three links in Q6, "peer review" link in Q9, "assessment scale" link in Q10, "coordinators" link in Q14. I may have missed one or two. Thought it best to point these out, rather than just remove them myself, so that someone can update the page if necessary. Redundant anchors seems a bit pointless to me, but I know Kirill usually updates the project pages, mostly, so he, or someone else, may simply have forgotten about these FAQs when tweaking the layout over time, rather than them being left there intentionally. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish [chat] 04:57, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

All of the links are now fixed; thanks for catching this! Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:29, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher: GAN Review (Part 2)

I have decided to withdraw my article that I've completely updated Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher from the GAN Review process. I feel that people are not interested in assessing it due to other interests in the WikiProject Military History articles to be highly assessed than a Biography in the WikiProject Military History. Yes, I am satisfied with the "B class", unfortunately, I knew it wouldn't be good enough for an "A class" assessment, so I tried for a "GAN assessment". In future if I do any overhauling of articles in the WikiProject Military History, I will be satisfied with going upto "B class" to save the hassle, frustration, and other emotions of dedicating my time to specific articles.

This maybe my "flaw" in trying to do get article's upto a good standard, while trying to stick to Wikipedia standards for articles, even though I may not know them all (that is why I ask to see if I can get more input from more experienced editors while learning myself and pass on the knowledge to other Wikipedian editors). I do my best to try and make it look a highly assessed article and the way I feel it would be passed higher than the current assessment, whatever the current assessment maybe. While at the same time, I realise and understand we are short on Coordinators with the recent resignation of hchc2009 in recent days.

Since I've become a Coordinator at WikiProject Military History, I have seen major improvements of backlogs and in other areas of the WikiProject. The most significant improvement has been the backlog of "B class" assessments which started out around 27,800 articles, which is down to 25,671. Which I am very proud of everyone who has contributed to this backlog to become less and is only one of many things WikiProject Military History is about. Finally, I would like to say that I wish not to resign from my position because I am trying my best to be a good and fair Coordinator for the WikiProject Military History and serve out my full term. Adamdaley (talk) 11:55, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

  • By the way, there is no order as to which article should be assessed first. People decide to review a GAN because they have a lot of interest in a particular subject. Your article will be looked at eventually, and maybe earlier if you directly request an uninvolved party to do the reviewing. Trust me, I, and heaps of other people, have waited much longer than seven days for somebody to the press "follow this link" to start the review process. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 12:32, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
No one else is interested, hence why it has been left alone. I feel I have done what you've asked in changing the article. There are reasons why some people may not understand me totally (the Mental Illness), that is why. I didn't want to have that effect the one enjoyable thing in my life and that's Wikipedia. Yes I have my high's and low's with my illness and with Wikipedia, for example lately over the past month. While I do not want people to think that I'm not capable of being a Coordinator or can contribute in a positive way. Adamdaley (talk) 12:42, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
I left you a reply on my talk page, re your GAN request, Adam.. I wasn't sure what was needed, as the GAR seems very well covered to me. But you didn't reply yet so I haven't been able to do anything. Ma®©usBritish [chat] 20:49, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
GAN is, and always has been, a waiting game. Did you notice that the oldest unreviewed nominations go back to November last year? Waiting a week is nothing, patience is the key. Someone will get to your article eventually :) EyeSerenetalk 08:29, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
I made the changes. What is there to wait for? For sp33dyphil, to tell me what else is wrong is has been corrected, update the -/+ sections and add further changes if necessary. Adamdaley (talk) 09:36, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Members' list (Kirill's revamp)

I was wondering if anything is to become of the new project Members' list that Kirill was developing last year which looked promising? I have just gone through the current Active members list, where there were about 1,200 names. I checked them all down to the last of the "B" names, moving those who have not contributed for ~6 months to the Inactive list. Of the 177 I checked, 64 were definitely inactive, only about 3 indef blocks, and many not having contributed since 2009/2010, with a few inactive since early 2011. It would take a looong time to check all 1,200, but if we assume about one-third of the list are inactive, we will lose 400 names.

It might be worth removing those names from the Bugle, to free up bot resources – one member I saw as inactive actually never contributed to wiki after adding their name to the members' list, but has dozens of the Bugle posts on their talk page. Seems wasteful. If Kirill is able to revisit the format he was developing, and if we had a bot that could routinely check everyone's activity, say once a week, to render those who have not contributed for 6 months "inactive" and also pause their Bugle subscription until they possibly return to editing, I think it would be worthwhile and a big step forward for the administration of the project. MilHist is very in touch with its articles, sharing knowledge, and "inner members" but I feel it is a little out of touch with its less involved members, and they soon tend to drift away into other things either out of boredom of due to feeling there is a lack of interest in editors. The list Kirill was developing has the potential to allow various things to be gained from it, whereas at the moment we have separate clumsy member active/inactive member lists, separate Bugle lists, etc.

By knowing who is active, there may be long-term benefits, in terms of knowing who is active, the areas they work on, etc. If we could see some new progress towards getting the member list up to standards with improved functionality that the wiki-technology allows for, rather than a plain ol' list, we might learn what benefits it offers, and possibly be able to improve or boost project interest.

Ma®©usBritish [chat] 18:32, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

The main factors holding up the implementation of a new format for the member list are technical ones. In addition to the need for a bot or script to do periodic activity updates—while obviously highly desirable, this isn't really critical for the initial transition—we need to put together a script that will translate the existing membership list into the new format, ideally with minimal need for manual intervention. In principle, I could write this script myself; but I have any number of higher-priority things to work on (the implementation of the new list assessments being foremost on the list at this point), so I'm unlikely to get to this before late February. Alternatively, I suppose we could find someone else to write the script, but I can't imagine many of our script writers would be particularly enthusiastic about a tedious one-off task of this sort. Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:24, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Okay, I have posted some draft criteria for the new CL/BL/AL classes on the main project talkpage, for further discussion. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish [chat] 03:18, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
I might be able to help out and put something together to translate the existing membership list into the new format — either a simple program or javascript or perhaps just a regex. What do you want it to look like — just the "user=" and "interests=" parameters (plus "inactive=yes/no")? Or were you thinking additional parameter values like the "location=" or "languages=" could be harvested from userboxes or something? Also, should the inactive members be separated or intermingled? — Mojoworker (talk) 04:46, 26 January 2012‎ (UTC)
For the initial conversion, filling out the user= and interests= parameters should be sufficient; trying to collect all of the other information automatically would probably be more effort than it's worth, especially considering that we were planning to ask members to update their entries themselves in any case. As far as activity is concerned, the list should include both active and inactive members in alphabetical order; the only distinction between the two is going to be the value of the inactive= parameter, but that will be reflected in the master table rather than by moving the entries to a separate list. Kirill [talk] [prof] 13:17, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
OK, I'll see what I can do. Mojoworker (talk) 19:22, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Here's my first attempt from the users lists accurate as of 20:10 UTC. I haven't had a chance to proof it very much, so let me know if you notice any problems. I'll look at it in more depth later. Thanks. Mojoworker (talk) 21:43, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
I fixed a few that had spurious "(" left in them. That's the only thing I noticed. I do have one question: does user=Товарищ in the Cyrillic code page sort before user=בינה_תפארת in the Hebrew code page? Currently those are both at the end of the list (and that's where the Hebrew user, alias AdamDavid was in the old list — and from his comment, it appears he self assign himself to the end of the list. The Cyrillic user was previously somewhere in the middle however. I don't know much about Unicode sorting and [1] didn't really help… Mojoworker (talk) 02:36, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Overall, this looks excellent; thank you very much for putting it together!

If it's possible, there are a couple of minor changes I'd like to see made before we finalize the table. First, it would be nice to pre-add blank no_notices= and no_news= parameters to every entry; this will allow us to use the master table to generate the distribution lists for the project newsletter and other mass-distribution notices rather than maintaining a separate subscription list.

Second, the raw wiki-syntax currently places each entry on a single line; while this is a more efficient use of space, it will make it somewhat more difficult for people to update their entries. I think it might be better to format each parameter on a separate line, to match normal template documentation syntax:

{{WPMILHIST User 
  | user= 489thCorsica 
  | location= 
  | languages= 
  | help_adm= 
  | help_cpe= 
  | help_map= 
  | help_img= 
  | help_pho= 
  | help_src= 
  | no_news= 
  | no_notices= 
  | interests= WWII Aviation History
}}

As far as the unicode sorting is concerned, the Cyrillic name is the equivalent of the English "Tovarisch", but I have no idea how the Hebrew one is transliterated. In the interests of simplicity, I'd suggest simply leaving both at the bottom and letting the users move the entries manually if they're so inclined.

On a different note, do you think the overall size of the page is still reasonable? It would probably be worthwhile to create alphabetical sections to make editing easier, at the very least; but I'm wondering if we'd also need to split up the page itself. Kirill [talk] [prof] 04:21, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, I made the changes, but the formatting seems to be messed up compared to the first version — User David Frommer is combined with user David Underdown for some reason. I don't see anything obviously wrong at that spot in the markup. As for the overall size of the page, it seems reasonable to me. Is it possible to have an option to inhibit display of the inactive members? Mojoworker (talk) 05:41, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
David Underdown has missed a closing "]" in one of his interests; ODNB. Adding it renders the table properly. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 05:53, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes. I went back and looked at it, commented out that record and it worked, so I looked at it more closely and found the problem you mentioned and fixed it — so we must've found it at about the same time. Mojoworker (talk) 06:02, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Kirill: To reduce the table size, why don't we just remove names that have been inactive for a hellish long time. Many of these editors have not edited on Wiki since 2009, a lot since 2010.. I don't see why we need to "hoard" names that old. I think we should drop anyone who hasn't edited since 1 Jan 2011. Not sure if keeping them on the list serves any practical purposes. If they return to the project, it should be up to them to readd their names. Don't want to be negative here.. but for all we know some of those people from 3 years ago could be deceased, and we've never been informed. Some may have just quit editing altogether. Either way, I think a year is a long time for someone to not return to their account, and a members list of ~30% defunc accounts is a lot to sift through if you're looking for someone for a specific purpose. It would also flush out anyone who has been indef blocked/banned since pre-2011 and shown no interest in returning. Administratively, it would be a good move to reorganise and only import those who have been "Wiki active" since 1/1/11 and routinely mark anyone who has not edited for 3+ months of what remains as "inactive". A bot should be configured to update inactives and purge anyone after a year of zero-edits, to help maintain efficiency and reduce the appearance of artificial members. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 06:09, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

The principle seems reasonable enough. I'm not sure, however, whether the threshold for total removal should be one year or something longer; we have had people returning after a year of inactivity, and it's nice to still have their names on the list when they do. On the other hand, perhaps the number of such cases is so small that it doesn't make sense to adapt the general rule to it? Kirill [talk] [prof] 20:19, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Well, as I noted in the OP, I checked 177 names, and moved 64 to inactive. I would estimate that about 50 of those had not edited since 2009/10. Assuming the whole member list follows a similar one-third inactive average, that's going to reduce the actives by ~400. Even if we were fortunate enough to have 20 of those, or 5%, return one day, is it worth keeping all their names, and all that superfluous data on the list, when they could easily readd themselves in a few seconds? I think 12 months inactivity suggests loss of interest, on the most part. In the odd rare case where someone does return, after a year they are going to find that many areas of Wiki have developed and moved on.. can't expect us to hang on to them forever nice or not; it's not like we're abandoning them, simply reducing overheads, especially if we tie in the Bugle delivery with the new list. Also, that might be a parameter worth adding. |bugle = yes/no, for delivery. That way, at least all the member data is central. Not sure if having an extra list on Ed17's sandbox is practical, as many editors still try to remove themselves from delivery by editing the member page, as past edit summaries will confirm. We need to identify the advantages the new format offers, and utilise them. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 21:48, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Fair enough; if people think that removing people after a year of inactivity is the best approach, then I won't object.
As far as the Bugle delivery is concerned, that's already taken care of; see my request to add a no_news= parameter earlier in this section. Members will be able to unsubscribe from the newsletter by setting that parameter to "yes". Kirill [talk] [prof] 23:48, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Ah, must have missed that post. I think the double negative parameter might be a bit confusing, i.e. |no_news=no it's similar to the way people write "not unlike" when they could just put "like", it's a bit verbose. Wouldn't just using |news=no |notices=yes be clearer (and less Kb as the table [hopefully] becomes more populated), in the long run, with a note in the template comments that they are "opt-in" parameters? Ma®©usBritish[chat] 00:03, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
I would prefer to have the parameters be unambiguously opt-out rather than opt-in as regards the actual subscription; the general convention for project newsletters is that all project members receive them unless they specifically request otherwise, while having a plain news= parameter would imply—at least in my mind—that one must specifically request delivery in order to be subscribed.
As far as page size is concerned, that's not a factor at all; the page rendering mechanism doesn't include the raw names of the template parameters from the wiki markup into the final result, so the longer parameter names don't actually affect the size of the page seen by readers. Kirill [talk] [prof] 00:14, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
I know the browser output won't be affected. I've always been a fussy git whenever I've written any form of xhtml/css/PHP/SQL, sort of a minimalist coder.. the less bytes sent to the parser, the quicker the execution and return, less bytes shaves execution time, slightly. Of course, that goes back to the days hosting offered X-Gb of bandwidth per month, though now most offer unlimited, the habit remains. In terms of Wiki and the vast amount of data it processes per second, I can't help but feel the more optimised the code we create, the better the site will perform overall, quicker parsing, less "database lag" delays, etc.. overheads are easy to avoid. Anyway, if the need is to work from an "out-out" perspective, that is understandable, I am still concerned that the no_param wording is going to cause some confusion for a minority, and should be clearer. People may [rarely] say "yes, I want no news", but never "no, I want no news". The double "no" just doesn't make sense, to me.. so I don't know what sense it would make to those who don't speak English as a first language. Perhaps |news_opt-out or |cancel_news would make more sense? Ma®©usBritish[chat] 01:11, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
If the idea is to avoid a double negative, news_opt_out= (and notices_opt_out=) would probably work. Kirill [talk] [prof] 02:58, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I think it would be a safer option, though I'm just throwing my thoughts out here as the new member list format develops so it can move forward, not insisting on anything that would be unreasonable, I hope. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 03:08, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Are we sure new_opt_out= would work with EdwardsBot? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:16, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
EdwardsBot expects a raw list of usernames, so the new directory format wouldn't be directly usable in any case. We'll need to put together a script that parses the directory and generates the bot list based on the opt-out tags. Kirill [talk] [prof] 03:19, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Alright, fair enough – just checking. Allanon [talk] [master] 08:55, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I've modified Mojoworker's sandbox version to include alphanumeric headings and a TOC. How does the new format look, in particular with regard to the ease of adding a new entry? Kirill [talk] [prof] 03:19, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Whilst adding a new entry would be easier.. i.e. not having to load 1,200 rows worth of data (which takes ages with WikEd active and stalls the browser several times) just to add one, I wonder how this will affect searching. For example, if I wanted to find someone who can take on-site photos, I'd normally click that column's sort arrow until they all clump at the top then compare who is active and their locations, perhaps, to find suitable names. With headings, that would mean going through as many as 28 tables, looking for results. So there are pros and cons to having and not having headers. Is there no method available that will allow a user to complete a template on an otherwise blank section and on submit it merges itself to the table, or has that ability not yet been conceived? Ma®©usBritish[chat] 03:36, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
That capability doesn't exist, unfortunately. The closest that we could come to that would be to let people leave new entries on some other page and have the coordinators manually insert them into the main table; but that obviously adds quite a bit of overhead to the process. Kirill [talk] [prof] 08:41, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Can you tell me, please, where can I find out how we create pre-filled "add section" pages with top info boxes such as this [2]. Been looking through help pages, but seem to be at a loss, and I often see user talk pages with a top info box when I add a message but can't figure out how it's done. Have an idea, but don't want to jump the gun, just yet. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish[chat] 11:27, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm not aware of any particularly good documentation on the topic; the construction preload templates seem to be something of an arcane art passed along from master to apprentice rather than a standardized science at this point. In practical terms, the new structure for the Bugle newsroom includes both preload templates and explicitly invoked editnotice templates, so it's probably a good place to look for examples.
I assume your idea is to use a preload template to generate the blank user entry boilerplate? While that's a good idea, the fundamental limitation is that preloads only work for creating a new page or new section; there's no way to have preload syntax appear at the bottom of an existing section, for example. Kirill [talk] [prof] 12:19, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
My idea is that a pre-loaded template which creates a row from |- to the bottom of the template could be created, i.e.:
|-
{{WPMILHIST User 
  | user=
  | location= 
  | languages= 
  | help_adm= 
  | help_cpe= 
  | help_map= 
  | help_img= 
  | help_pho= 
  | help_src= 
  | news_out_out= 
  | notices_out_out= 
  | interests=
}}

thus creating:

|-
{{WPMILHIST User
...}}
|-
{{WPMILHIST User
}}
|-
{{WPMILHIST User
...}}
|-
{{WPMILHIST User
...}}

strongly warning members not to add a subject/headline. That would then save into a page, which may not render properly when viewed per se, but if transcluded to a page between the {| and |}, i.e.:

{|
! header !! header !! header !! header...
{{MilHist memberslist}}
|}

may create a table, and save editors having to load 1,200+ rows to add themselves, and would make "full" sorting available, rather than split tables, which negates the point of the sorting facility. To be honest, I don't know if that would work.. but if Wiki can render the {|--data--|} into one table, flawlessly, it should, in theory, work. The preloaded page could also be permanently semi-protected so only registered members can use it, to reduce chances of IP vandalism, and fewer opportunities for mistakes to happen. I doubt coords would ever have to remove more than 1 or 2 accidental subject lines, every so often, thus very low overhead. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 12:43, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Clever, very clever. (And, yes, the result will render correctly, assuming that the headers aren't entered; the new section form responds to a missing header by omitting the entire header line from the result.)
The main problem I see is that the list won't be in any particular order; while this isn't a big deal from a display standpoint (since we can always sort the table by username), it does mean that anyone trying to modify their entry will need to search for it through the entire list. In essence, this format will be optimized for new entries and viewing, but will introduce overhead for in-place modification. Kirill [talk] [prof] 13:10, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
I see you tested it out.. nice to see it would work as I anticipated. Not really clever, just that I'm an old school procedural PHP'er, never could stand OOP, so I sometimes think linearly to devise solutions. I think the code will look the same in edit either way, if a member wishes to remove themselves or opt-out of something, they just won't be able to Preview it properly. I don't think it would be a frequent problem, but if we can include an info box on the edit page, such as ANI and other pages use, to give clear instructions on how to edit an entry, I don't foresee many problems. So far all the alternatives have had pros and cons, this one included. We really need to determine what has the best balance, which is most flexible, and most usable. A simple "if you have any problems, please contact a project coord" also makes a big difference, someone asking a coord to opt-out Bugle, so they don't balls up the table, isn't a big concern, 2 min job to edit vs a 5 min fix if they do make a mess. I think, regardless of what format the table takes, it needs monitoring. The current bog-standard list states that members will be moved from active to inactive after 3 months of inactivity. I don't think anyone has done that for a very long time.. so this new table, if we can employ a bot to do that, as well as one to handle Bugle delivery, is going to reduce far more overhead than it gains, in the long run. Sorting by username, as default, seems the best. Although if it could be sorted by "active" as default I think it would put them in DESC order of username secondary, so actives would be listed above the inactives. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 13:26, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Editnotice is all I can find for top edit notices, but I'm not finding anything that explains how to preload a template into the input box for a user to complete and submit. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 14:27, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Preloads are implemented at the link level rather than the page level; to use a preload template, you need to have an edit link similar to this. Kirill [talk] [prof] 14:37, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
So the template pre-exists on a page somewhere, and the link takes you there.. but how does it get saved to where it needs to be, as a completed copy, rather than over-writing the page? I'm not sure I follow the working process here. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 14:44, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
The preload only provides the blank, boilerplate syntax; the user making the edit will still need to fill in the actual fields in the template. Kirill [talk] [prof] 14:55, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
Ah, so if I understand correctly, the {{WPMILHIST User ...}} template is created somewhere, unlinked, like WP:MILHIST/members/adduser and it is the "preload=" argument in the url GETS that template, loads the members page in Add Section mode, with the template put into the input box, so it can be completed and saved, whilst the adduser page itself is never opened. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 15:17, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Any update on this? I've been manually keeping the version in my sandbox synchronized with the live version, but there have been 6 changes in the last couple of days. Looking through recent history, that seems a little higher volume than usual. It's not a whole lot of effort, and I'm sure you have a lot of things on your plate, so I'm happy to continue keeping them in synch, but if it's going to be a while, it may be easier to just run through the recreation process again. Mojoworker (talk) 17:55, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I apologize for the delay. At this point, it looks like it will take us a little while to work through the options for preload templates and determine how the list will need to be structured, so it probably makes sense to hold off on further synchronization and simply regenerate the list once we've decided on the final structure. Thanks again for all your help with this! Kirill [talk] [prof] 23:07, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] List format in project showcase

Quick question: what do people think about switching the list format in the project showcase from the current vertical one to a horizontal one (as in WP:FA)? This would get rid of some of the currently wasted space and eliminate the need to worry about column alignment. Thoughts? Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:31, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to keep them labeled/alphabetized, but if that's possible, I see no problem with it. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:10, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I was thinking of something along the following lines:

#
A

I don't know whether that's sufficiently organized for our use, or whether it looks more like an "unreadable wall of text", as Nick mentions below. Kirill [talk] [prof] 13:25, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd prefer to stick to the current format. The approach used for WP:FA and WP:GA produces an ugly and almost unreadable wall of text. I don't think that space is being wasted in the showcase as it goes a long way towards making the list easily readable. Nick-D (talk) 05:23, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Nick. The current format is easily readable and quickly searchable, and I don't have any problem with whitespace at the end of the columns. EyeSerenetalk 08:23, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
I was thinking more of the whitespace in the columns themselves—the article titles don't take up the full column width, so about half of the available screen space is empty—rather than the space at the end of each column. Kirill [talk] [prof] 13:28, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
One other option, incidentally, would be to have the showcase available in both formats, and allow viewers to switch between the two. The new "hlist" mechanism works based off the class parameter to a tag enclosing the list rather than the list itself, so the same underlying FA/FL/A/etc. lists could be rendered in either horizontal or vertical format based on a parameter passed off the main showcase page. Kirill [talk] [prof] 13:42, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Two more questions regarding the showcase format:

  1. Given the number of images involved, might it be better to change the FP listing from a gallery to a list of links, as we have for FAs, etc.?
  2. Now that the featured sounds process has been deprecated, do we want to retain our listing of featured sounds, or should that be removed as well?

Comments would be appreciated! Kirill [talk] [prof] 13:39, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I misunderstood. Wouldn't the amount of whitespace then depend on monitor width and screen resolution? On my 1920x1080 desktop monitor there is rather a lot; on my 1280x800 laptop much less so. I'm not sure we can really budget for that, though I guess we could try four columns instead of three. Perhaps it comes down to what the purpose of the showcase is: if it's to enable readers to easily find a particular article I think I prefer the vertical lists to the block format under pretty much all circumstances. If not, it probably doesn't really matter and a block format is certainly more compact.
Re images, I like the gallery listing simply because we can see the image, but I accept there's a lot of data there that impacts on page load times etc. Listing them as links... that's coming back to my question about the purpose of our showcase :) Re sounds, I see no point in continuing to list external assessments that are now deprecated. EyeSerenetalk 10:44, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
You're right about the resolution issue; the amount whitespace is really driven by the relationship between the width of the text in each column and the overall width of the column, so wider resolutions will have more whitespace while narrower resolutions will have less. Unfortunately, I don't know of any good way to change the number of columns based on screen resolution.
As far as the purpose of the showcase, I've always viewed it as a combination of a project-level "brag list" and a pool of examples for people interested in seeing a high-quality article. Neither of these, in my view, revolves around finding any individual article in the list; the first is more concerned with the overall list than with the individual entries, and the second can be satisfied with any article rather than only with a specific one. Having said that, perhaps other people view the showcase differently? Kirill [talk] [prof] 20:16, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Academy development

Over the next few weeks/months I'm planning to make an effort get to grips with organising our Academy. I envisage this involving an initial stocktaking of the existing content, followed by collation and rationalisation to group related information together and remove repetition. Finally the content will need to be organised and some sort of overall structure put in place.

The end point I'd like to achieve is a hierarchical set of courses/lessons on each topic, linked in some way (possibly by template), any of which can be dipped into at will or all of which can be completed as a coherent course, with a mixture of technical 'how to' stuff (like our closing an ACR page) and advice from experienced editors, and all following a common style. I'd also like to include some means of obtaining feedback from users and possibly a directory of 'tutors' (ie editors willing to assist Academy users with personal advice etc on each topic).

Obviously this isn't going to be a trivial task and it will involve substantial editing of the content others have already contributed. With this in mind...

  1. (and most importantly) Does anyone have any objections or concerns?
  2. To facilitate the work, can we temporarily reactivate the Academy talkpage? (it currently redirects here)
  3. Can anyone see any technical issues? One that occurred to me is that the work will probably involve lots of copy/paste moves of existing content - does this give us a problem with copyright?

Thoughts welcome :) EyeSerenetalk 09:11, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

1) No, and I think that there's a lot of scope to be bold 2) Yes that would be sensible (though a note about this should probably also be left at WT:MILHIST) 3) My understanding is that if you say where you got it from in the edit summary it should be fine. It's basically the same as splitting and combining articles. Nick-D (talk) 10:12, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Will try and chip in how and where I can. What with helping apply list classes, wanting to revamp the memberlist, and working on articles across 2 WikiProjects, I have a nice full plate, but nothing is considered urgent or priority, so I'm good whether it takes the weeks or months, though I guess it all depends on how many other members offer a hand. I think some of the open task "wanted" Acadademy titles given are specialised (graphics; photographs; how to FAC, coord, review, etc), and worth waiting for, I think some of the titles are too broad and already covered enough in Wikipedia Help pages for the average editor not to need another. And, finally, I think a few more, specifically MILHIST related titles are required: Who to write a battle account? How to determine primary/secondary sources? Those kind of things. We not only need Academy courses that explain how to do trivial things, but ones that inspire editors to want to out try new ideas that lead to great articles. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 10:41, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure that reactivating a separate talk page is going to be particularly useful—if the idea is to get more people participating in the discussion, it would probably be easier to hold it on a higher-traffic page (such as here or on WT:MILHIST) rather than on a new one—but it's not a big deal either way. Kirill [talk] [prof] 13:33, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to say, though slightly off-topic, that I find a lot of discussions on WT:MILHIST can become problematic, because the Archive time of 7 days is sometimes too short. For all those ACR/FAR notifications, it's fine. For long-term issues, such as the list assessment which had to be reopened 3(?) times to maintain dialogue, the Archiving is a hindrance and issued get dropped before they have a real chance to develop, mainly because everyone is so busy. It is a shame there is no template to make the bot ignore/bypass a thread that needs to be kept open to allow gradual fruition. In relation to Academy: I expect discussions will also extend over long-term by a small dedicated number of editors, and that Archiving could prove awkward if we use the main talkpage. If practical, I support EyeSerene's idea to use a separate talkpage, with manual or 30 day plus archiving, and simply use the main talk to notify editors of any major discussions. If EyeSerene's is as it sounds, then the Academy could seen as a sort of administrative task force, with its own team working towards developing a sub-section of MILHIST for the benefit of the project. If that is the case, its own talkpages would facilitate its ability to rebuild, develop and function from a central point, rather than messages being mingled amongst everyday discussions and too quickly archived, or individual user talk pages. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 18:17, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
The automated archiving is timestamp-driven; the bot simply looks for the last UTC timestamp in a section and archives it if the current time is later than that timestamp plus X days. To prevent a section from being archived prematurely, you can put a future timestamp (e.g. current time + 1 month) into an HTML comment in the section; this will delay the archiving until the specified time has passed. Kirill [talk] [prof] 20:18, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, didn't think it'd be that simple; I expected it to be database driven, using microtime, etc. But I suppose user-created bots wouldn't be given database access, to prevent abuse and attacks, so it makes sense. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 20:35, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Kirill, I put <!-- 08:00, 12 February 2012 (UTC) --> in the List-class discussion on WT:MILHIST, but retardobot, or whatever it is, has still gone and archived the bloody thread, which annoys me because we haven't progressed since I wrote some criteria, and the discussion has been dug up three or four times already.. should that timestamp have been ignored, because it is exactly as you said to do, and we're not even at 12 Feb yet..? Ma®©usBritish[chat] 04:55, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure why the bot archived the section regardless; the format of your comment seems to match the one generated by {{do not archive until}}. The only theory I have at the moment is that the bot only looks at "signature-like" timestamps; in other words, it expects to see pairs of the form {link to user page, timestamp}, and ignores timestamps that can't be matched up with user signatures. In this case, your signature was followed by a real timestamp and then a fake one, so the latter may not have been recognized as something the bot should pay attention to. This is, however, pure speculation, although I suppose we could test it by unarchiving the section and adding a copy of your signature to the comment block.
Having said that, I'm not sure that keeping the discussion open gains us much, given the apparent lack of interest among the membership. I would suggest, instead, that we work on a more detailed draft of list assessment criteria among the coordinators, and reopen the general discussion once we have a more-or-less finalized proposal to make. The discussion can then be reopened on the basis of a concrete proposal, which will allow editors who recognize the need for the criteria—but have no personal interest in writing them—an opportunity to simply approve an already-prepared draft. Kirill [talk] [prof] 21:40, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

This might be a stupid question, but do all of these topics need to be Milhist-specific/targeted? Obviously some are by their very nature, but there are non-Milhist guides on working with free images, for example, or reviewing at FAC. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:31, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think they necessarily need to be specific to the project so long as they're broadly relevant to our work. To give some concrete examples, guides about FAC have been universally viewed as acceptable because our project works closely with FAC, and much of our article assessment and review infrastructure is oriented towards bringing articles there; conversely, a guide about gaining adminship was generally viewed as too far outside our range of interest to be retained. Kirill [talk] [prof] 04:05, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

To address some of the points above:

  • Per Marcus, I think a separate talkpage would be useful to assist with coordinating work and keeping clutter off the main project talkpages (it might well get very lengthy if we also use it as a holding area for content during the reorg). I don't think we'd want it auto-archived, but Kirill's point about directing potential participants there is important. Perhaps we could do this via a hatnote or one of the existing templates we use on higher-traffic pages? I'd also add that, at least in the initial stages, a smaller team might be better than a larger one until we've settled on a structure and layout. Perhaps part of the problem is that we really have no idea how long this will take and what level of interest it will generate. Based on past experience though I expect the latter to be fairly limited.
  • Per Nikki, although the emphasis should obviously be on milhist I see no reason why we wouldn't cover related topics. It would make sense to avoid reinventing the wheel because there are guides elsewhere to much of the basic stuff, but I agree with Kirill that courses on for example svg map creation, or writing good prose, are generally applicable anywhere. Ultimately it would be nice to create a resource that can be used by any Wikipedian, milhistorian or not.

EyeSerenetalk 10:24, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

In terms of getting traffic to a separate talk page, I've found that periodic "announcements" of discussions there tend to be more effective than permanent hat notes and the like; many people tend to ignore anything at the top of a talk page.
Another possibility to consider if we're reviving a separate academy talk page, incidentally, would be to direct comments regarding the individual courses to it, rather than having them on each course's own talk page; that would get you more traffic and more viewers with no real downsides. Kirill [talk] [prof] 20:25, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
In that case, here are some possibilities: WP:CT for reference templates (although that could be expanded); WP:Graphic Lab, Wikipedia:Graphics_tutorials, this, this, this, this and this for various aspects of images; this for PR, though we probably would want a more specialized version; Wikipedia:Featured_article_advice or this for "handling FAC"; this or this for reviewing at FAC. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:57, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
I think we should also include Tony1's self-help tutorials. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 10:29, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Looking at the current MilHist Academy, it is fairly uninteresting in terms of appearance, just a few lists under 5 headings, but nothing really welcoming or explanatory. I think if the Academy were designed with a more captivating portal-like appearance, i.e. more modular, it may gain more interest in the long run. Nothing really suggests "academy" at the moment. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 22:41, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure that "portal-like" is the best design paradigm to use; portals are generally designed to showcase a rotating set of selected content, while the academy is going to have a relatively static content pool.
Having said that, I do agree that the current appearance is rather plain. Perhaps something flowchart-like would be a good way of presenting things, especially once we've organized the courses into a more hierarchical structure? Kirill [talk] [prof] 23:53, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
That's certainly something to consider, though perhaps in the latter stages. I agree that a modular/flowchart type structure would be more logical and more accessible.
Re Nikki's suggestions, we've used something along those lines where Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Reviewing good articles is transcluded in from the GA WikiProject. The major advantage of transcluding as I see it is that content like my link and some of those you've linked (especially specialist advice like copyright and FA reviewing) has been developed by the experts in those areas and is presumably maintained by them too, so our courses would be automatically kept current and correct without much effort on our part. My only reservation is that as we develop a house style and course structure the existing pages may not be amenable to being hammered into that style/structure. In the short term transcluding gives us a relatively painless way of padding out course content, but it may be that over time we decide to develop our own content anyway (possibly by adapting the existing stuff). Alternatively we could do that from the start and link existing similar pages under a "See also" section. I don't know... we might well end up with not only a set of Milhist courses but also what amounts to a directory of "how to" content stored elsewhere on Wikipedia. EyeSerenetalk 08:59, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I suppose this would be a good time to decide what the Academy's scope is going to be. Are we going for a 'how to edit' to advanced courses? Are we just trying for Milhist-specific courses that assume basic knowledge of wikiing? Are we trying for both? We seem to be trying for both right now, but I don't know if we've ever explicitly defined the scope, and that could be helpful. Our decision there may give us the answer to EyeSerene's question. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:31, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Good point, you're right that the scope is quite wide at the moment. My personal feeling is that I'd like to avoid anything too basic (essentially anything covered in Help:TMM) because we might assume that if an editor can find the Academy and has reason to need it they can already edit at a basic level. We could link to that sort of stuff, but I don't see a need to write it ourselves. I'd also like to concentrate at first on stuff that's directly relevant to milhist. However I think that no matter how we define it, scope is inevitably going to wander :) EyeSerenetalk 10:16, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree with that, but <veering off my original topic here> if we're going to assume that the most basic user here needs help writing an article, he/she's going to have a terrible time looking for what's going to help him/her. I think we need to reorganize the academy to make it easier to navigate, probably by category. We should also brainstorm more topics that we want – It's always easier to write for designated red link than trying to come up with something on your own. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 10:29, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Project discussion proposal: The use of pictograms in articles

I'm proposing that we attempt to develop a project consensus on the above issue. This is the sort of thing that would formerly have been discussed at the STT but I feel here might be a good venue to chew over how we should frame what we put to our members.

To refresh memories, we get regular posts at WT:MILHIST about articles (usually biographical) that include a 'salad bar' of medal ribbons and/or icons or images of medals. Examples are here, here, here and here. There has also been a recent discussion at WikiProject Australia about the issue. We've had debates on WT:MILHIST a few times but I feel that the number of queries we get indicates that this remains an ongoing concern for our members. Developing some clear guidance backed by project consensus would, I think, be a useful exercise.

My questions then:

  1. Do we only ask about medals or do we widen the scope to include all icons/pictograms of this nature (ie flags, unit symbols etc)?
  2. I think given the inconclusive nature of former discussions, a support/oppose/neutral type poll would be useful. However should we go straight for this, or have discussion first, or mix the two? Normally I'd say "discuss first" but my fear is that some members may already be discussed out on this issue.

Your thoughts? EyeSerenetalk 15:48, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I would suggest limiting the scope to medals and similar pictograms. The flag icon issue is currently in a relatively stable state, and I'd much prefer to avoid unnecessarily stirring it up again.
As far as the format is concerned, I think we'll need to go through several iterations to get to a consensus in either case, so I don't think it matters a great deal. Perhaps some sort of preliminary poll to help identify the major positions in the debate would be more useful than something focused on a particular proposal? Kirill [talk] [prof] 20:22, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
I think that this should be limited to medals and the like for the same reasons as those suggested by Kirill. Given that debates over this topic tend to get surprisingly heated, I'd suggest developing a draft guideline and then asking for comments on it. One approach might be to include different options for the key parts of the guideline. Based on the discussion at WT:AUSTRALIA, I'd suggest asking for input from editors outside this project as well, as I suspect that the views of the editors who're deeply interested in this topic might not be representative of those of the broader community. Nick-D (talk) 00:51, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I suspected the answer would be "medals only", but I've noticed unit insignia being mentioned on occasion so thought it might be as well to ask! Since Nick's advised getting as wide an input as possible, might it be worth (as Shimgray has suggested here) configuring the discussion as an RfC? As noted we need to identify positions before we can formulate a guideline, so can I suggest the following?:

Proposed RfC wording
The presence of medal ribbon pictograms in articles has been frequently discussed here and elsewhere on Wikipedia. Because of the re-occurrence of this topic, and the inconclusive nature of the discussions, the coordinators are requesting your assistance in developing a guideline that can be added to our project's manual of style.

Examples of medal pictograms in articles can be found here, here, here and here. Previous discussions have taken place in varying degrees of detail here, here, here, here, here and most recently here.

As the first stage of this process there are two questions we would like to put to editors:

  • Should medal ribbon pictograms be used in articles?
  • If so, where and under what circumstances?

At this early stage these questions are intended to prompt discussion rather than support/oppose type comments. However, please feel free to respond in whatever way and with as much detail as you wish. The responses will be used to formulate a guideline to be put before the project for consensus at a later date.

Obviously there are some links and background information needed (eg links to examples like those above), but would this be along the right lines? Please feel free to amend etc! EyeSerenetalk 10:08, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

A RfC sounds like an excellent way of handling this. I've very slightly tweaked that wording. Nick-D (talk) 10:20, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Added a selection of links and mentioned this on WT:MILHIST (where yet another discussion about the issue is ongoing). EyeSerenetalk 11:05, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#A possible solution -- PBS (talk) 00:16, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
Discussion there seems to have died down for now. I don't want to pre-empt anything by jumping to a proposed solution before we've decided as a project whether we want medal pictograms in articles at all, but I trust you won't mind if your ideas (along with those suggested elsewhere) are incorporated into the debate at an appropriate juncture?
Does anyone have anything else to add? Any improvements to the proposed wording above? If not, perhaps we can go ahead and set up the RfC? One point to consider is where we want to advertise it - I'm assuming the Australia WikiProject and probably the Biography WikiProject, but other suggestions would be welcome :) EyeSerenetalk 08:54, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
Anyone? I'm a wee bit reluctant to post anything one behalf of "the coords" based on the opinions of only two of my estimable colleagues :) EyeSerenetalk 08:43, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
I have been reluctant to comment because I don't feel too knowledgeable about this topic. I personally like the use of flag icons to help visualize affiliation and branch of service. Regarding the use of ribbons I believe a case by case decision is needed. An example for my reasoning is the use of ribbons for high awards in the German post WW2 Bundeswehr. WW2 recipients of high awards, such as German Cross and Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross were allowed to wear ribbons indicating that they had received such an award. However during WW2 such ribbons did not exist in the Wehrmacht. Net-net I would not recommend a flat out use of ribbons however I do believe in some cases they help visualize. As a rule of thumb I would suggest something along the lines of "did the individual ever physically wear such a ribbon". If this question can be answered with "yes" than it is probably okay to have this in the article. MisterBee1966 (talk) 09:03, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree, I don't think it's going to be a black and white issue. However, do you think that it would be useful to put the question to our members as proposed in the boxout section above? EyeSerenetalk 09:30, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I would support asking the greater community. MisterBee1966 (talk) 10:40, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
Eye, I think your wording is as transparent and neutral as could be wished. As to interested parties, obviously MilHist and Bio spring first to mind. Australia has held a discussion on it too but if we ping one country's project then perhaps we should be pinging every one whose compatriots have offered opinions in the past... Cheers Ian Rose (talk) 11:50, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks Ian and Mr Bee. If there are no further comments I'll wait until the current discussion on WT:MILHIST gets archived then get this started. EyeSerenetalk 12:30, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Is WT:MILHIST too busy?

I think that WT:MILHIST is in danger of becoming a victim of its own success. While it's excellent that the project's main talk page is busy, there have been over 30 new threads started in the last week (including review notifications) and I'm finding it hard to follow what's going on, and I'm sure that others are in the same boat. The most obvious way to better manage the discussions seems to be to reactivate the most-relevant task force talk pages (eg, those for the German, Australian and New Zealand and British TFs) and encourage non-general discussions to take place there. Alternately, and I'm not sure if this is technically possible, I've always liked the idea of setting up some thematic talk pages (eg, one for general business, one for discussions of MOS-type issues, one for discussions of notability and so on). Do other coordinators think that this is something which is worth addressing though? Nick-D (talk) 07:44, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Incidently, this graph of page views over the last 90 days seems to illustrate the surge in traffic, though it does suggest that this might be an unusual surge. This historical page view data shows that nothing like this took place during the same period last year ( [3] and [4]), and it's encouraging that the average number of page views at present (about 200 per day) is about double that of the average this time last year. Nick-D (talk) 07:50, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
If we went with your second option, we could organize it like Wikipedia:Village pump, where no posts would be put on the main project page. I'm worried that dividing the pages will result in less discussion participation, though. A less-drastic could be placing review notices and moving long substantive discussions to separate subpages (while keeping the section headers on the main page). We could give that a month-long trial and assess if we need stronger or weaker changes. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 08:00, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I object to the idea of "thematic" talk pages, since that will create a lot of confusion. I think we should rid the ACR, FAC, and PR notifications because they're repetitive and "in your face" (if you know what I mean), and over time, I have to say, I don't pay attention to them anymore. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 09:52, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
(Non-Coord opinion) If we stopped the ACR/FAC/PR notices, perhaps the answer would be to make the summary of open tasks at the top always open (whether it should be hideable even if the default was "open" is another matter). Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 09:58, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
And maybe to colour-code the FACs and ACRs according to the age of the nomination and/or the amount of attention a particular page is receiving. A bot may be relied on for carrying out the latter, as it may take up some valuable time from other editors that may be better used in other tasks. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 10:10, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I too find it difficult to keep up; with active discussions moving up WT:MILHIST with great rapidity it's easy to lose track of which ones I'm following (when's Liquid threads happening again?). I prefer the idea of thematic talk pages to reactivating the TF talk pages, though I believe the impetus behind closing down those we've tried (like the STT) was the lack of participation. I'm not sure if we'd just be opening ourselves up to the same problem again. However, I do think it would be a good idea to stop posting review notifications as a matter of course. We list them all in the announcements template anyway, and the occasional notice where a review needs particular attention is more likely to stand out from the crowd that way. EyeSerenetalk 10:46, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I like the idea of separating the administrative housekeeping announcements from the discussion topics. Keeping an abbreviated version of the open tasks at the top of the talk page is a very good suggestion. I could envision some type of FIFO type of ticker that shows the last 7 (subject to debate) events/days only. For the full list we already have the page Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Open tasks. MisterBee1966 (talk) 11:09, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I tend to agree with Sp33dyphil that trying to create "thematic" talk pages will be confusing for most participants; to take the example of the Village Pump, the scope of the technical subpage is fairly well-defined, but the scopes of the other four are not, and any particular discussion may wind up taking place on any of them, almost at random. Beyond that, I'm generally wary of pushing discussions off to subpages as a matter of principle. In my experience, every additional level of subpaging reduces readership and participation by an order of magnitude; recall, for example, the failure of the strategy talk page (which was, in some ways, an attempt to split off a particular "type" of discussion).

If we're going to end regular review notices, I would suggest replacing {{WPMILHIST Announcements}} (at the top of the talk page) with {{WPMILHIST Review alerts}}; the former is quite dense (and quite large), and its presence in a fully expanded state would likely turn people off reading the page. As MisterBee1966 says, the dedicated open task page is always available for anyone that wants to see more detail or items not listed in the smaller templates.

One other option we might consider would be to start more regular use of the various templates like {{resolved}} or {{discussion top}}/{{discussion bottom}}, although I'm not entirely sure how much that will improve readability. Kirill [talk] [prof] 13:53, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Your suggestion regarding replacing {{WPMILHIST Announcements}} with {{WPMILHIST Review alerts}} makes sense to me. I also see no problem in principle with using administrative templates on the page, though I suspect one reason we've never done so before is that it requires someone to take a command decision and traditionally we all adopt a rather hands-off approach. I'd be wary of us being accused of closing discussions prematurely, for example, and being perceived to be 'managing' the talk page in the same way as happens at venues like WP:ANI. I doubt that using {{resolved}} would be controversial though, at least for obvious questions; in fact we could always ask the editor posting the question to add the template themselves when they're happy with the response. EyeSerenetalk 17:41, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
As a non-coord who views the main talk page virtually daily, I note too that there are days when a lot of things get added in a short period of time, some become lengthy and it becomes too much to get through them all. I don't think people pay much attention to the PR/ACR/FAR notices, and we should stop those, as after a while they become clutter, except in the cases when perhaps a nomination has been open for a while an gotten no reviews. I support use of {{resolved}} but also think if people mark tasks as YesY Done or N Not done it helps people scan through the discussions faster. Although wiki is generally "not a forum", some of the conos can become chatty, which I don't see as an issue, to maintain rapport. But in terms of tasks, article discussions, etc, the use of templates to help administrate the discussions cannot be anything less than professional, in only to maintain the work flow. When there are quiet days on the talk page, it gives us time to work on things without as many distractions. Some of the more trivial comments being left on the main talk page.. pushy IPs.. you know who I mean.. are starting to become bothersome, I feel. We need to make sure they don't start affecting the morale of the project with their opinions, also. I have voiced my concerns to them directly, however, and hope their attitude changes. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 17:59, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
I have no prob ceasing the PR/ACR/FAC announcements -- is there anyone actually opposed to that idea, since a couple of ACRs at least have just been added (one of them mine) for which I'd usually make an announcement at this point, but my impression is that we all feel they can stop. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:04, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
There seems to be a consensus that we should stop the PR/ACR/FAC announcements, and use a different template at the top of the page to highlight reviews. I'm not sure about using {{WPMILHIST Review alerts}} though - it's easy to miss, and leaves out the peer reviews and FA reviews. Nick-D (talk) 09:22, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
I find {{WPMILHIST Announcements|simple=yes}} this easiest option: it shows you every review, plus announcements and news, and it doesn't take up too much space. I have it on my user page and practically live in it. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:47, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
That's my preference as well. Nick-D (talk) 09:57, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
That's actually more or less what we currently have; the |simple=yes parameter doesn't actually alter the appearance of the standard {{WPMILHIST Announcements}} (it's a holdover from when we had task force announcements integrated into the master template). The only difference between WT:MILHIST and Ian's user page is that the template is forced into a collapsed state on the former; I'm assuming that the idea is to turn that feature off, and have the box appear expanded by default? Kirill [talk] [prof] 03:08, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
Yes, that's what I was thinking. Nick-D (talk) 03:28, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
Ditto -- I think we can afford that much space at the top of a page being taken up with this info. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:02, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I've taken a stab at rearranging the header on WT:MILHIST. The new layout eliminates the standalone news/announcements box (in favor of the corresponding fields in {{WPMILHIST Announcements}}) and shows the open task summary box in a fully expanded form. Comments would be appreciated; in particular, should we perhaps have the open task box omit the category listings at the bottom to save space? Kirill [talk] [prof] 01:00, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Kirill, that looks great to me. I think that the open tasks should remain there - they don't take up much extra screen real estate. Nick-D (talk) 02:01, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Nick. It occupies between 1/3 and 1/2 of the screen space depending on which monitor I'm using, which doesn't seem excessive. Making it collapsible might lead to it being completely overlooked; we do want it to be noticed after all :) EyeSerenetalk 08:40, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
A trivial point, but the "Military history Wikiproject" (lowercasing is really out of control on WP btw) sidebar at the top of WT:MIL and this page wouldn't look cramped at all if it were 1/3 to 1/4 narrower ... that never bothered me before, but the announcement template at the top of WT:MIL could use all the space we can give it. - Dank (push to talk) 05:17, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
I see a couple of issues with reducing the width of the template:
  1. While the entries which are visible by default are indeed relatively short, a lot of the other ones (e.g. some of the task force names) are quite a bit longer. Reducing the width of the template would require either having the template expand when those sections are displayed (which is obviously not an ideal approach, and very visually jarring) or having the longer entries broken onto 3–4 lines (which, in my opinion, looks rather unsightly).
  2. Over the past few years, there's been a lot of effort to standardize the width of various templates (including project navigation templates, small-form project banners, and so forth) to a common value. Changing the width of our template will break its alignment with those other templates on pages where they are present.
Beyond that, I'm not sure that a minor reduction in the width of the navigation box will have any profound effect on the announcement box, which already takes up 3/4 of the total available space. With the way the announcement box is constructed, the height will remain relatively stable regardless of small changes to the width; and the box isn't going to extend below the first screen in any case. Kirill [talk] [prof] 23:20, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

[edit] More input required

Hi can this discussion Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#What should be in Campaign Box templates be added to the Template:WPMILHIST Announcements to generate more input. Jim Sweeney (talk) 20:13, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Done. Kirill [talk] [prof] 23:24, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher (Part 3)

Dear fellow Coordinators,

The article that I've worked hard on has been moved to Vilyam Fisher. Yes it did make "On This Day....." for February 10, 2012, which I aimed for this year. Other than that it was good enough to become a GAN article. After realising a while that it has been moved and continually minor changes done to the article, it has lost it's GAN version release as well as more than halved it's original GAN number of 1428. I am in the process of sorting it out with the person who has moved it. I feel that there needs to be someone from WikiProject Military History Coordinators to be involved. Adamdaley (talk) 00:40, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

It has been moved back to its original name. Unfortunately, the loss of GAN Review Release and loss of 866 points down to 606, which had additional information added to it since the original GAN review took place. I would like it to be re-assessed for GAN assessment. All I ask is there was no edit wars for the name change of the article, it has been on Wikipedia for around 7 years and has had been on numerous "On This Day....." (front page of Wikipedia English) and had reached GAN status prior to the name being changed. Therefore it shouldn't be a problem being GAN article for Review Release and get the score back to near it's original 1428. It would be appreciated. Adamdaley (talk) 02:11, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
Hi, Adam, the changes since the article's GA status was awarded don't appear too significant to me. I believe that they can be summarised by viewing this diff: [5]. I don't want to sound discouraging, but is a second GA review really necessary then? It might be better for the article's progression to list it for an A-class review, rather than another GA review. That is just my opinion and you are welcome to disagree, of course. Regarding the points rating that you speak of, I might be wrong, but my understanding is that it is based off page views. As such it will always fluctuate and it is to be expected that on a topic such as Fisher that its points upon receiving GA will be higher than later as its views will increase when it is listed for GA review as people view the article to decide whether or not to undertake the review themselves and then decline when the article no longer appears on the GAN page and its visibility drops off. My personal view is that I don't worry about the points rating of an article as it doesn't appear to have anything to do with its quality. That is just my take, though, and you may find others differ in their opinions. Good luck with whatever you decide. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 03:00, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
The points system is explained here: Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Article selection. Views do play a part, amongst a load of other things. Points use the Importance Scale also, which we don't use, so there's no point in bothering with points much. Ma®©usBritish[chat] 03:49, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history/Coordinators&oldid=476392241"
Personal tools
Namespaces
Variants
Actions
Navigation
Interaction
Toolbox
Print/export