Template talk:WikiProject Military history

Missing file

This template tries to display File:PB Poland CoA.png with Polish-task-force=yes, but no such file exists (it was deleted on Commons). – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 14:31, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

WPBS error

When housed inside {{WikiProject banner shell}}, this template seems to be putting empty space between it and the template above it, as seen at Talk:Robert J. O'Neill and Talk:Kevin St. Jarre. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 13:17, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Fourthords, this is caused by extraneous whitespace within the template arguments passed to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, and can be fixed by removing that whitespace. Kirill Lokshin (talk) 17:28, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

That's strange, because it's a new glitch (I always use the leading whitespace with the WPBS) and only happens with this template. That's a good temporary fix, though, thanks! — Fourthords | =Λ= | 20:28, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Considerations regarding a switch to WPBannerMeta

A switch to {{WPBannerMeta}} was floated on WP:VPR. The following items merit discussion:

• A switch to project-independent quality ratings is being considered; its implementation should be scrutinized to see how it affects {{WikiProject Military history}}.
• In the current MILHIST template, task forces are divided up in two groups, "general topics", and "nations and regions", which is quite clean. I don't believe WPBannerMeta supports that.
• No matter what you put in |class=, if the MILHIST banner is on a template page, it will override and say: "Template-class".
  • On redirect pages, WPBannerMeta banners will automatically show "Redirect-class" if |class= is empty, but if |class=C is set, they'll happily say C-class, which leads to miscategorization. I don't know if WPBannerMeta supports the MILHIST banner's current behavior of overriding incorrect categorizations.
• A WPBannerMeta version of MILHIST's banner is available in this template's {{WikiProject_Military_history/sandbox}}. It's not at feature-parity. For example, the sandbox version is still missing the B-criteria class mask (where an article rated |class=B|b1=no will automatically be shown as "C-class" due to the failed B1 criteria. This is very easy to implement in WPBannerMeta, but I don't have much time. I'm not sure if the current behavior of |class=C|b3=no leading to Start classification is supported by WPBannerMeta, but it should be.

DFlhb (talk) 14:09, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Comments

• Looks good. Better than I had hoped.
• The sandbox version is still incomplete - periods and conflicts and special projects are missing. Need to check if it can support them all.
• Looks like support for aclass is present. Will need to test this.
• Switching to the new template should not require any bot runs.

• I will run some test cases.

Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:01, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that sandbox version is still far from done. I don't know if I'll have time to bring it to complete feature parity (time isn't what I have the most of these days). DFlhb (talk) 10:09, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

I'll just keep adding notes here, for anyone who wants to work on the sandbox version.

• The task force names were incomplete, so |US=yes worked, but |USAF=yes didn't. I think I added everything, but this should ideally be checked by at least two people besides me. Don't want to risk any omissions. These TF names are case sensitive, see this post. The non-WPBannerMeta main template is also case-sensitive for TF names.
• Operation Majestic Titan is still not implemented. It should take in numbers from 1 to 5, not "yes/no", so either a custom parsing function should be written, or maybe there's one we can reuse.
• I've still not implemented the B-criteria class mask, described in the last bullet point of my first post.
• This article is not currently associated with a task force. To tag it for one or more task forces, please add the... is still not implemented.
• I've not even taken a quick glance at the A-class implementation yet; it may be completely broken.

DFlhb (talk) 13:55, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

• A-Class has been hooked to Template:WPBannerMeta/hooks/aclass and it looks okay. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:34, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

@DFlhb: Where did we get to with this? So should we go ahead with it? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:40, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

I've run into the limits of my very minimal template-editing knowledge, so I had to give it a rest. It's still missing support for OMT, B-criteria overrides (B3=no --> Start-class, even if |class=C), and I haven't done much testing for feature parity (wikibreak due to work). Wish I could've been more helpful DFlhb (talk) 11:21, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I can help if needed, but currently tied up with the enhancements to the banner shell template. Let me know if there is something specific I can do? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:27, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

See if you can find a way to support Operation Majestic Titan (OMT). We can forego the B-critieria overrides. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:07, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

It would be really helpful if you could help make {{WikiProject Military history/Class mask}} match the behavior of {{WikiProject Military history/Class}}, since it would ensure |list works correctly, and would probably ensure MilHistBot has no issues with the new version. Every other outstanding issue is likely easy to fix, but this one goes over my head.

I created {{WikiProject Military history/class}} that calls {{WikiProject Military history/Class mask}}, but maybe both can be combined into one. DFlhb (talk) 19:22, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Status of WPBannerMeta sandbox version

This as a scratch pad (that anyone can edit) for bugs and missing features.

Fixed bugs are collapsed

B-criteria don't categorize for task forces (e.g. Category:South Asian military history articles needing attention to coverage and accuracy Fixed by adding a bunch of |TF_X_HOOK to Template:WikiProject Military history/B-checklist categories Categories are still applied even if category=no is set Never mind, this is normal in templatespace. Always worked fine in talk page space. If a B-criteria is missing, it should not be categorized as if it were failing. This is an awful default behaviour of Template:WPBannerMeta/hooks/bchecklist, and maybe the default should change. Fixed with Template:WikiProject Military history/B-checklist categories B-criteria don't show up with |class=list (nor their categories) Should now show up for "list" and "List". Let me know if MILHIST is supposed to support other spellings, like maybe "L" OMT not implemented OMT now implemented, all 5 phases B-criteria show up on Stub-class if one B-criteria is filled; main template only shows it on B, BL, CL, CL, Start, List regardless of whether they're filled. Fixed in this diff B-criteria show on redirects (??) Fixed in this diff B-class mask not setup The B-criteria now correctly override the stated class based on b1-b5, thanks to the custom reimplementation of {{class mask}} at Template:WikiProject Military history/Class mask. Behaviour matches the main template. B-checklists showed up on userspace, unlike the main template Fixed in this diff "not currently associated with a task force" question mask isn't properly centred Fixed in this diff Category:Military history articles used on portals isn't applied to relevant articles. Fixed inline in this diff and this diff. The needing attention only to categories aren't implemented Fixed pretty elegantly in this diff. A-Class parameter values keep and kept not implemented Fixed by creating Template:WikiProject Military history/aclass There's a strange blank line above the collapsed "More information:" at the bottom of the banner. No idea what causes it. Fixed in this diff The category Category:Successful requests for military history A-Class review shows up on talk pages rated higher than A-class (e.g. FA), unlike the main template which only shows on A-class Looks like the main template does behave like that. I was mistaken. A-class categories fail to override incorrect passed-in parameters (e.g. articles are not categorized Military history articles needing attention to tagging even if they lack a valid SUBPAGE_LINK). This and related bugs were fixed in these diffs OMT categories show up even if |category=no Fixed in this diff Lists aren't implemented; the |list behavior doesn't work. Namespace class overrides aren't implemented Class mask doesn't work properly for lists; it doesn't normalize |class=C|list=y as identical to |class=CL|list=y Class overrides are still not fully implemented; just the B-checklist. A-Class = pass doesn't override |class=GA. All four bugs above have been fixed with these diffs (calling Teplate:MILHIST/Class inline instead of using the subpage method, which AFAIK doesn't support passing in |list or |A-Class) Bug: it should only categorize (based on B-criteria) in "needing attention only to..." for the main cat, not for the task force cats. That was actually an easy fix. Pages will be categorized in Category:Military history articles with incomplete B-Class checklists if the B-checklists follow a different form from "b1", "b2", etc. (e.g. "B-1", "B-2") Was caused by a bug in Template:WikiProject Military history/B-checklist categories, which is no longer used.

DFlhb (talk) 10:23, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

• Does this mean that everything is working now? We can implement? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:10, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  Keep in mind I'm a noob who's learning template syntax for the first time by doing this; so expect it to be a little rough. I wouldn't feel comfortable without someone else double-checking. Above, I've listed the bugs I found. DFlhb (talk) 02:15, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  Also, seems WPBannerMeta only supports one portal. No idea how to fix. DFlhb (talk) 20:49, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  It does only support one main portal, but each taskforce may also have a portal. If you want two or more main portals, you need to code for it specially, see Template:WikiProject Trains/testcases. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:23, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  I think we want neither, since these are neither project portals, nor aligned with task forces (for example, there's a Battleships portal but no Battleships task force). The banner should support receiving |portalX-name and portalX-link (1-5) parameters and display the portal if passed in, and AFAIK the only way to do that is through a hook. Since I can't find one, I'm trying to make one, using code from {{WPBannerMeta/hooks/notes}} as inspiration, but as you can imagine it's a challenge. DFlhb (talk) 22:33, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

  (done, though I did it inline and messy; but at least it works) DFlhb (talk) 00:06, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

  @Hawkeye7 @MSGJ

  I can't believe it, but I think everything now works. Would still appreciate if someone checked; and I do apologize for the code being messy, this is the only way I could find of reaching feature parity. DFlhb (talk) 05:38, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

I have added the module to check for unknown parameters to the sandbox version of the template (diff) in anticipation of the conversion to WPBannerMeta. Any pages using unknown parameters will be categorized in Category:Pages using WikiProject Military history with unknown parameters (unless |category=no is set). Harryboyles 01:16, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

@DFlhb: Can this be implemented now? What will happen if someone makes a change like this? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:14, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

The template has been ready since April; sorry, I should have made that clearer above. I've tested it thoroughly and fixed a few bugs in the task forces and categories, but a few may inevitably remain. Do you know of a tool that could monitor category membership counts? That could help check for categorization bugs after deployment.

This is a problem. Best solution I can think of is for MilHistBot to store every article's class in a JSON, so it can detect whether an article has never been rated, or has just had its rating deleted. The alternative is to do it manually as you did there, which I'm sure you'd rather avoid. @MSGJ:, this is another good reason to do the article-class-conversion bot run ASAP, because I'm now seeing a bunch of people doing it manually, and we can't expect them to know which projects have opted out. That'll be a problem for all these projects that don't have a bot to do the JSON thing. DFlhb (talk) 14:27, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Says start class even though I set |class=C using rater

This WikiProject banner says start class even though I set |class=C using the rater script. Anyone know why? Talk:Red team. Thanks. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:25, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

For MILHIST, C-class requires that B1 or B2 as well as B3 and B4 and B5 be met; per the assessment criteria at WP:MHA#CRIT — DFlhb (talk) 08:10, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

That seems unreasonably high tbh. Needing to meet all but 1 of criteria for B class just feels like it's basically "This article is almost B class but not quite". C class is meant to be a middle ground between Start and B class, not necessarily a placehoder (probably the wrong word) for articles that almost meet B class. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 22:02, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

It was what was agreed upon when the project adopted the C class rating. It was not clear what purpose C class was supposed to have. "This article is almost B class but not quite" has a purpose in that it targets articles that only need a little work to meet the project's minimum standard. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:19, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Still, it feels high. Especially when on articles like Victory in Europe Day in which every other WikiProject has rated the article as C-class... except for MilHist. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 22:33, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, this project seems a bit out of sync with the standard system, which is that stub/start/C can be assessed subjectively by anyone without any formal criteria, and ratings higher than that have formal criteria. Not a big deal though. Was just curious. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:29, 9 May 2023 (UTC)