Template talk:Campaignbox Syrian civil war

Why the divisions?

There is no need for this template to be divided into sections. Earlier today I removed the sections, but User:Greyshark09 has undone my change without explanation. The revert also messed-up the chronological order.

The template is now divided into "protests", "engagements" and "incidents". However, these headings are inaccurate. In many of the articles under "protests" there were armed engagements. In some of the articles under "engagements" there were protests. Finally, the heading "incidents" is vague and it includes an armed engagement! In other words, these articles can't be divided into such clear-cut sections. Take a look at Template:Campaignbox Northern Ireland Troubles where battles, bombings, shootings, riots, protests a.s.f. are all under one heading.

What does everyone think? ~Asarlaí 16:29, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

First of all, let me reply - while making the chronological order (which is a good thing) you messed up the classifications without any proper discussion. Sorry for my revert, but you also messed up things. The "protests" and early "sieges" were a part of unarmed civil uprising, with very few actual engagements (FSA was formed in a relatively advanced stage of the uprising). Regarding the Turkish border clash, i have no problem with your making it part of engagements, but the reason it was included in International incidents in the first place was because it had happened with alleged logistic support of Turkish army.

Many boxes on wiki are a mess and uncomfortable to navigate, so bringing bad examples (Iraq War or Borthern Ireland Troubles) is not a good idea. Take in mind the box should also be navigatable, and currently it serves as such (and so is Template:WorldWarIISegmentUnderInfoBox). I think mashing up all events into a long unified list won't help, and we do have a good separation logic between civil protests and armed engagements (and also unclassified like Damascus bombings). If you have a specific example not fit for such segregation, please lets discuss it, i will be ready to question the logic of current box design.Greyshark09 (talk) 21:57, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

I suggest that everything but the bombings be put under one heding: "military operations and clashes".
Why? Becauz all of them ar either military or paramilitary operations. Yet half of them ar called "protests"!
This is how I think it should look. ~Asarlaí 01:11, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I think the the template should remain divided into three sections. The Syrian Uprising is an evolving conflict that has had different stages the first one involved peaceful protests that were marked by government sieges of protesting cities. The second phase started in the fall with clashes between the Syrian army and the FSA. Also the following Human Rights Watch articles give an idea of the timeline of the events and the naming of the events as distinct sieges.

• We’ve Never Seen Such Horror
• By All Means Necessary!
• We Live as in War

--Guest2625 (talk) 02:08, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

But ther is no clear cut-off point. In the beginning it was mostly protests and very little armed action. Over time ther has been a gradual increase in armed action.

Furthermore, what about articles that deal with events from the "first phase" and the "second phase"? Articles like Siege of Homs, Aleppo during the 2011–2012 Syrian uprising, Deir ez-Zor during the 2011–2012 Syrian uprising and 2011–2012 Hama clashes? ~Asarlaí 02:26, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The sieges are clearly defined events with dates and go in the first phase. A bunch of the other articles should have been split removing the siege events. Homs had a clearly defined siege in May or June, and I also think Deir ez-Zor had one, and there was also the Hamas article that should have been split after its major crack down in August. The main reason for keeping the parts separate is so that the early peaceful protests don't just get washed into the armed uprising and perhaps later civil war. It's an evolving event and it's historically best to just break off the pieces as they move into the past. What's important for these subsections is that more background, description and content is placed in them. --Guest2625 (talk) 05:13, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that the articles about the uprizing ar in a mess, but how do you decide which articles go under which heding?
All of the articles below ar about military operations by the SA and/or FSA. Some of the SA operations wer sparked by protests, but none of the articles ar about protests alone. That's why I suggested putting them under one heding: "military operations and clashes".

Article	Period covered
April–May 2011 Daraa operation	25 Apr—05 May 2011
Deir ez-Zor during the 2011–2012 Syrian uprising	15 Mar 2011 onward
2011–2012 Hama clashes	15 Mar 2011 onward
Aleppo during the 2011–2012 Syrian uprising	13 Apr 2011 onward
Rif Dimashq blockades	25 Apr 2011—?
Siege of Homs	06 May 2011 onward
May 2011 Baniyas operation	07 May—14 May 2011
May 2011 Talkalakh operation	14 May—19 May 2011
Siege of Rastan and Talbiseh	18 May—04 Jun 2011
June 2011 Jisr al-Shughur operation	04 Jun—12 Jun 2011
2011–2012 Idlib Governorate clashes	10 Jun 2011 onward
August 2011 Latakia operation	13 Aug 2011—?
2011–2012 Daraa Province clashes	16 Sep 2011 onward
Battle of Rastan	27 Sep—01 Oct 2011
October 2011 Jabal al-Zawiya clashes	03 Oct—05 Oct 2011
2011–2012 Damascus clashes	03 Nov 2011 onward
Homs airbase ambush	25 Nov 2011
December 2011 Syrian–Turkish border clash	05 Dec—12 Dec 2011
Battle of Zabadani	07 Jan—18 Jan 2012
Battle of Douma	21 Jan—30 Jan 2012
Second Battle of Rastan	29 Jan—01 Feb 2012

I don't see how you can split thoze into two clean-cut groups. Doing so would mislead the readers and I think it'd be foolish (maybe even WP:OR) to try it. ~Asarlaí 07:25, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The protest articles are those that do not involve clashes/battles between the Syrian Army and the Free Syrian Army. To see how to possibly break off the articles its useful to look into the "view history" and see the dates of heavy editing.

Article	Period covered
First Phase (Protests)
April–May 2011 Daraa siege	25 Apr—05 May 2011
Rif Dimashq blockades	25 Apr 2011—? (I don't know the exact details of this event, however, there were a series of blockades in the spring that were mentioned in the human rights watch articles. further research and expansion is needed on this article.)
Siege of Homs	06 May 2011 onward (this article should have the siege broken off as a subarticle 6 May - 10 May.)
May 2011 Baniyas siege	07 May—14 May 2011
May 2011 Talkalakh siege	14 May—19 May 2011
Siege of Rastan and Talbiseh	18 May—04 Jun 2011
June 2011 Jisr al-Shughur operation	04 Jun—12 Jun 2011
2011–2012 Hama clashes	15 Mar 2011 onward (the article should have the hama siege/ramadan incident broken off 31 July - 4 August; that was originally a civilian attack infobox)
August 2011 Latakia siege	13 Aug 2011—? (looks like the siege ended on about the 16 August but the exact date needs to be researched)
Aleppo during the 2011–2012 Syrian uprising	13 Apr 2011 onward (title is correct and the article chronicles events in aleppo)
Deir ez-Zor during the 2011–2012 Syrian uprising	15 Mar 2011 onward (this article needs expansion to actually understand what happened in Deir ez-Zour)
Second Phase (Protests and Clashes)
2011–2012 Idlib Governorate clashes	Oct 2011 onward
2011–2012 Daraa Province clashes	16 Sep 2011 onward
Battle of Rastan	27 Sep—01 Oct 2011
October 2011 Jabal al-Zawiya clashes	03 Oct—05 Oct 2011
2011–2012 Damascus clashes	03 Nov 2011 onward
Homs airbase ambush	25 Nov 2011
December 2011 Syrian–Turkish border clash	05 Dec—12 Dec 2011
Battle of Zabadani	07 Jan—18 Jan 2012
Battle of Douma	21 Jan—30 Jan 2012
Second Battle of Rastan	29 Jan—01 Feb 2012

-Guest2625 (talk) 14:35, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I would just like to point out some events are minor to be specified in the main box (and some might not be notable, but that's a difficult question). Anyway, Idlib Governorate clashes encompass the October 2011 Jabal al-Zawiya clashes, the December 2011 Syrian–Turkish border clash and the December 2011 Jabal al-Zawiya massacres, so i have created a sub-campaignbox for them. Asarlai has proposed to merge them - it is discussed at Talk:2011–2012 Idlib Governorate clashes#Merge.Greyshark09 (talk) 18:36, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Guest2625, I'll acsept the divisions, but I think they should be re-named. The name of the first group is "Protests and Sieges" and the name of the second is "Battles". This is misleading, as both groups involv'd protests, sieges and/or battles. I suggest the two groups be re-named "First phase" and "Second phase".

However, that would still be misleading, as some events (such as the Siege of Homs) belong to both phases. So, if everyone still wishes to keep the divisions, I suggest that theze events be removed from the groups.

Thoughts? ~Asarlaí 11:24, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

I wait'd more than a week and nobody replied so I boldly made the changes. ~Asarlaí 16:36, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

can someone write an article of the battle of Azaz,between the syrian regime army and the free syrian army

2011-2012 Damascus clashes

It seems to me the 2011-2012 Damascus clashes should be split into a second article named Rif Dimashq offensive, which showed a very much new phase of the conflict. Thus we can resolve our disagreement, and include Douma and Zabadani in the offensive article.Greyshark09 (talk) 18:21, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

* Damascus

it a battle that happen in damasacus on may 20 2012 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.0.200.186 (talk) 14:30, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Damascus

it a battle that happen in damasacus on may 20 2012 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.0.200.186 (talk) 14:30, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Idlib Governorate

The Idlib province had been a scene of sporadic clashes through 2011 and until March 2012. On late March the Syrian Army began an organized offensive on the province, which lasted until the cease fire took effect on April 14. Hence, the 2011-2012 clashes phase was finished with the April offensive. There were new clashes afterwards, but many weeks later (13 May - [1]; 4 June - [2]), but they are probably a different phase of the conflict. It seems then, the sequence was "2011-2012 clashes", "March-April offensive", "cease-fire", "13 May 2012-present clashes"

The idea of this article (which i helped to create), was to group a the series of events, not to create an endless timeline. I think only Siege of Homs can be truly considered a continuous event from all the events in the Syrian uprising.Greyshark09 (talk) 18:04, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

First, there was no ceasefire. Battles continued, some areas were retaken by army, some army lost. Rebels were dying, soldiers were dying and civilian, as usual, took the worst of it. Campaign never stopped. Just because I or other editors were not adding content like "on x day 10 soldiers were killed, on x+1 day 5 soldiers, 5 rebels and 10 civies died" etc. and therefore not turning article into WP:NOTNEWS doesn´t mean that fighting stopped. If you browse history of LCC webpage you can clearly see they reported KIAs from province on daily basis. Thing confirmed by journalists who visited the province, by tons of video materials etc. This whole, let´s divide it into phases and make for each one new article seems to me like WP:CFORK, just like Damascus and Homs sub-articles. Take as an example Battle of Brega–Ajdabiya road where frontlines have not changed for months and lull in fighting was even greater, we didn´t need to create three articles for each phase. I really should start proposing those merges. EllsworthSK (talk) 00:05, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Inconsistency

The articles are awfully inconsistent. Some say siege, some say clashes, while Deir ez-Zour says "during the uprising". What's the consensus? For instance, can we change the Homs article to "2011-2012 Homs governorate clashes," with a separate article for the city of Homs proper? UltimateDarkloid (talk) 17:18, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

removal of Nov 2012 Damascus clashes

Deonis 2012, you have twice reverted the addition of a link to Battle of Damascus (November 2012) from this template:

• 07:36 UTC, 30 November 2012
• 20:08 UTC, 30 November 2012‎.

Edit warring is unacceptable in the Wikipedia. Removing significant material without an edit summary nor discussion on the talk page is unlikely to be accepted by other editors - since they don't know what your reason is. Please explain why you think the link should be removed. Others might agree with you, or they might not. IP user 24.0.208.70 believes the link is relevant. I agree, since, although the article needs work and reduction of duplication with related articles, the sources presently seem to justify it. Boud (talk) 22:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

International incidents

I'm not claiming WP:OWN on that section (even though i'm the one to have originally put it here), but it seems to me that separate events could not be grouped into "border disputes" for Turkey and Iraq. Turkish pilgrim bus incident for example was not on the border. Regarding Rif Dimashq airstrikes, Israeli involvement is so far alleged, so we cannot put it in the title per WP:ATTRIBUTION; same way we cannot say "Reyhanli bombing by Syrian Mukhabarat" because no proof or responsibility was so far provided there as well.Greyshark09 (talk) 21:28, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Lets call it for what it is

Whats the problem in using "Israeli airstrikes" in the International incidents section? First it was "Alleged Israeli airstrikes" and now its "Alleged attacks on Iranian weapons". I will change it back to "Israeli airstrikes" for the following reasons; the airstrikes were conducted by the Israeli Air Force, which were confirmed by Israel. Ratipok (talk) 00:33, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Nothing was confirming by Israel; not even Syria blamed all the 3 incidents on Israel (only 1 was blamed and 1 was hinted; another one was denied by Syria). Putting "Israel" is violation of WP:V; same as putting Syrian government responsible for the bombing in Reihanli.Greyshark09 (talk) 21:03, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

There is no alternate explanation for the airstrikes, and they were widely reported as Israeli. The circumstances of the Turkey bombings are not certain by any account, so is not comparable. FunkMonk (talk) 05:28, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 00:05, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Template:Campaignbox Syrian civil war → Template:Campaignbox Syrian Civil War – The main page was just moved from "Syrian civil war" to "Syrian Civil War", there should be consistency. Charles Essie (talk) 18:28, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

• Support - a technical issue.GreyShark (dibra) 18:31, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Tweaking civil uprising

I have tweaked the civil uprising into a single event in this campaignbox, since the overall importance of the single sieges and protests seems negligible in the context of the entire war. To describe the subevents of civil uprising i've just created template:Campaignbox civil uprising phase of the Syrian Civil War.GreyShark (dibra) 21:20, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

I know Wikipedia allows us to be bold from time to time, but this issue needed to be discussed before these kinds of steps were made. It is not up to us to deem a siege or protest negligible. Also, those protests and sieges were the main catalists of the conflict so just on the basis of that shows they were not negligible. They need to remain in this campaignbox. If the civil uprising part was not regarded as part of the civil war I would agree with you on the split. But it is not, it is also considered part of the civil war. EkoGraf (talk) 04:56, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood me, because you failed to notice that i have added the civil uprising phase of the Syrian Civil War link within "uprising and insurgency" section. I have not claimed that civil uprising is not important - i said that civil uprising should be the main link at the civil war main campaignbox, but specific sieges and protests can have their own sub-campaignbox. Please look again.GreyShark (dibra) 05:20, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I did look and I understood you perfectly. I see no reason that the sieges and protests of the initial civil uprising phase be removed from the box, especially ones as notable as Daraa (flashpoint of the war), regardless if the link is there or not. Your way it looks like the campaignbox is disregarding totally all of the major events of the conflict before November 2011 (some of them even more notable than those later from the conflict which are in this box). We have broken down the campaignbox into sections on different phases with its notable events. I agree on the existence of a civil uprising box that could be used in the civil uprising-related events (remove the main campaignbox of the war from those articles), since we have a whole special article devoted to that phase of the conflict. However the main box of the conflict should also have the events of the civil uprising phase in it. Otherwise, we should make multiple individual boxes for all of the individual phases. EkoGraf (talk) 05:34, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I think each campaign/front needs to have its own campaignbox to replace the main box in the relevant articles because this one is too long and might look confusing for some our readers. For that purpose I created Template:Campaignbox Battle of Aleppo and I'm thinking about one for Idlib among others. Fitzcarmalan (talk) 09:55, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm splitting the battles of the Idlib Governorate clashes (June 2012–April 2013) into a sub-campaignbox (similar to the previous split of Idlib Governorate clashes (September 2011–March 2012)), but we might require a much broader solution in the future (entire phases - like the Civil uprising phase of the Syrian Civil War). It now seems that ISIS is taking up the most of the conflict, and perhaps like @EkoGraf: suggests we can refer to post-January 2014 period as mostly Islamist conflict (mostly ISIS-related).GreyShark (dibra) 17:02, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Removed also the split sub-battles of Aleppo, as suggested by Fitzcarmalan. @EkoGraf: Please take a thought before reverting me (i'm not going to edit war, since i'm highly respectful of you) - we don't remove the sub-conflicts here, but move them into a lower hierarchy, which is the only solution other than blowing up the campaignbox to monstrous proportions (and it is already big!).GreyShark (dibra) 17:07, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

I thought about it and would support Fitzy's earlier proposition for the Iraq box to be implemented here as well. That is to use the Afghan box template, where the miniboxes are put in the overall box. Although that would probably mess up the timeline since we have only two boxes (Idlib and Aleppo). A solution for this can be found if we create miniboxes for each of the provinces just like we have for the Afghan conflict. And than we put all of them into the main box. This would also cut down on the size. However, if we don't want to mess up the timeline (which what I proposed would do), we can create mini-boxes for the distinct phases of the conflict. For example - minibox for protest phase (already exists, thanks Sharky), minibox for initial insurgency, minibox for May 2012–December 2013 period and minibox for the current rise of the radical Islamists. Opinions? EkoGraf (talk) 19:41, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

I think that the regional segregation of conflict to sub-regions is wrong (like @EkoGraf: says - it messes with the timeline), while the timeline separation is much better and logical. Ideally, looking at the template:Campaignbox Afghan Civil War example, we need to decide the main phases of the war and for each to create a mini-campaignbox (currently - civil uprising, insurgency, cease-fire and civil war, Islamist domination). The only problem is that with further developments of this war we need to think how to look at the spillover arenas - Iraq, Lebanon and now Turkish border.GreyShark (dibra) 20:03, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

My aim was to trim the main campaignbox as much as possible to simply represent each front (preferably according to location). The World War I box and how things are organized over there was what I originally had in mind. For now I think we have enough items to create a box for the Kurdish aspect of the conflict, no? Fitzcarmalan (talk) 20:52, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

This is the look I had in mind Template:Campaignbox Afghan War. A main box with mini-boxes within itself. And yeah I agree Shark, phase-by-phase boxes do seem more better so to keep the timeline intact. EkoGraf (talk) 21:58, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

What happened? Why did the discussion stop? EkoGraf (talk) 13:29, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm not very comfortable about an Afghan-like box here, and I believe things will be much clearer when the war hopefully ends. It would then be easier to decide whether the events should be arranged regionally or chronologically (I prefer the latter). Like I said before, the World War I template was the one I had in mind, but some work will be required to organize the articles into separate fronts, campaigns, battles etc (better skip this for now). Can we group some battles under the Kurdistan campaign for the time being? Fitzcarmalan (talk) 00:10, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

My biggest issue with the current form is that some highly significant battles (the two SAA Aleppo offensives, etc) have been removed from the campaignbox and put in the Aleppo-only box. The war can drag on for years, that should not mean we should postpone this discussion for that long a period of time without resolving it, especially the issue of the large battles that have been removed. So again, I am proposing to make mini-campaignboxes for specific time periods. Like Grey made of the initial civil uprising phase. We than put in those boxes in this main one and so it will cut down on the size of the template as well as provide the readers with collapsible boxes/lists of battles for specific time periods. We name each mini-box per the time period as we have established at the moment in this main box: Start of insurgency (July 2011–April 2012); Cease-fire and civil war (May 2012–December 2013); Rise of the Islamists (January–September 2014); Multinational intervention against the Islamic State (September 2014–). Or, any other names that you think are most appropriate. EkoGraf (talk) 17:14, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

New phase - Turkish invasion

Seems like the war is quickly transforming into a new phase with Turkish invasion on one side in support of Syrian Opposition, retreat of the ISIS on all fronts and escalating conflict between Ba'athists and Kurds.GreyShark (dibra) 17:18, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Manbij offensive

Could you please help me to understand, why Manbij offensive is not listed on the template? Thank you for your kind answer in advance. Ksanyi (talk) 08:45, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

The phases of the war (escalations, cease and change of fronts)

ISIL suffered a collapse during Central Syria campaign (2017) with the peak of the breakdown of the siege of the city of Deir ez-Zor.

Its total decline was experienced after * Eastern Syria campaign (September-December 2017)

• • Total liberation of the city of Deir ez-Zor
  • Euphrates Crossing
  • Mayadin city liberation and
  • the total fall of the last ISIL Abu Kamal, but the total collapse of ISIL followed by cutting the ISIL corridor across the left bank of the Euphrates River with that pocket in the desert on December 6th. By the 17th of December, there were still settlements from members of ISIL.--Baba Mica (talk) 09:49, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

See talk here User talk:Greyshark09#Reorganising the campaignboxes. Re-organisation was agreed upon to put the whole 2017 disintegration of ISIL into one campaignbox with two linked titles in the heading Post-Aleppo and ISIL collapse in Syria. Putting any more is redundant and over-inflating the infobox considering the links are already also in the list of the box itself. EkoGraf (talk) 10:10, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

State parameter

Hi Wbm1058. Wikipedia:Database reports/Transclusions of deleted templates flagged Template:State as now having a bunch of transclusions. I think this edit needed a tweak and I've now made that tweak in this edit. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:19, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

@MZMcBride: Thanks! I can't say why I did that, and why I didn't catch & fix it right away ("brain hiccup"). The idea is to keep the box collapsed on pages like Siege of Homs, but expand it on pages like Timeline of the Syrian Civil War. – wbm1058 (talk) 13:13, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Sure. I think it was just a simple typo. Template parameters use three curly braces, while templates themselves use two. --MZMcBride (talk) 15:40, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

@MZMcBride: I found that report hiding on the subpage Wikipedia:Database reports/Transclusions of deleted templates/1. Just wondering why it's set up that way. I like to look at the histories to see how well the issue reported has been managed over time. wbm1058 (talk) 13:37, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

If you're asking why the report contents live at /1 in this case, it's because the report is paginated. For larger reports, we sometimes use pagination instead of truncation. Instead of putting 5,000 results on one page or showing only the first 2,000 results, we can use subpages like /1, /2, etc. to put 1,000 results on each. --MZMcBride (talk) 15:40, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Got it, thanks! wbm1058 (talk) 16:41, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 September 2019

New page needed now that August 2019 is over. 75.141.79.8 (talk) 20:29, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

 Not done for now: no page to link to at present.--Goldsztajn (talk) 20:57, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

I've just submitted a draft Draft:Timeline of the Syrian Civil War (September-December 2019), could an admin please review? I'm new to creating articles. JamesRuddy93 (talk) 13:43, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Link new Page

My draft Timeline of the Syrian Civil War (September-December 2019) just got accepted but it appears to be still redlinked in the template, can someone rectify this? JamesRuddy93 (talk) 16:12, 20 September 2019 (UTC)