Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators
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! |
Handbook
- Please see the Academy course for coordinators for general information and advice.
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.
- A-Class review
- For each ongoing A-Class review:
- Determine whether the review needs to be closed and archived, per the criteria here.
- If a review has been open for a month without at least three editors commenting, leave a reminder note on the main project talk page, using the following boilerplate:
{{subst:Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/Toolbox/A-Class review alert|Name of article}} ~~~~
- If an article has been put up for A-Class review in the past and you receive a request for assistance per WP:MHR for a fresh review, follow the procedure below for creating an A-Class review or reappraisal. This will make way for the normal A-Class review initiation process, so advise the nominator to initiate per the instructions.
- Quarterly Reviewing Awards
Quarterly Reviewing Awards - manual process
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Quarterly reviewing awards are posted on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Awards page by the MilHistBot. As with other awards, change the status from "nominated" to "approved" to approve the award.
- Member affairs
- Invite editors to join the project, using the following boilerplate:
{{subst:Wikipedia:MILHIST/MILHIST Invitation|signed=~~~~}} - Welcome anybody who joins the project, using the following boilerplate:
{{subst:Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/Toolbox/Welcome|~~~~}}
- Miscellaneous
- Vote on any open proposals to award the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves and approve any A-Class medal or A-Class cross nominations.
- Update the monthly newsletter with new developments within the project.
- Verify entries in the monthly article writing contest, hand out prizes, and update the monthly scoreboard and the newsletter accordingly.
- Fix the {{WPMILHIST}} invocation syntax on any articles in Category:Military history articles needing attention to tagging.
How to...
| Create a new task force |
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Before a task force can be created, it is necessary to decide on a name for it. The process requires both a full name (e.g. "French military history" or "American Civil War") and a one- or two-word or acronym shorthand used for some template parameters (e.g. "French" or "ACW"). The instructions below use the "Fooish military history" task force (shortened to "Fooish") as an example; when creating an actual task force, remember to substitute the correct name, rather than actually creating the example pages.
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| Creating an A-Class review or reappraisal | ||
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Creating a new A-Class review or reappraisalIf an article has been put up for A-Class review in the past and you receive a request for assistance per WP:MHR for a fresh review, a new version has to be created manually. Find the archive page
Find the last review
Move the review page
Update the talk page
Update the archive
Create the new review
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| Establish coordinator election pages | ||
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Under the current system used by the Military history Wikiproject, coordinators are tasked with handling certain project-specific operations such as closing A-Class reviews. Because coordinators are held accountable to the project an election is held once a year to determine who among the community's members will serve as a coordinator. While the election itself is a simple approval vote, creating the pages needed for the election can be tricky. Therefore, this Academy page will serve as a walk-through on how to correctly set up the election pages. Before the electionBefore any election pages are created, the matter of the coordinator election must be brought up with the current coordinator tranche. Ideally, this should be done sometime between mid-July and early August. The reason that the coordinators must first discuss the matter of the election is to settle on the finer details of the upcoming election. Three key aspects should be decided. The first detail relates to the project's activity level: as the activity level in the project rises or falls, the number of coordinators judged to be needed to effectively run the project increases or decreases. Accordingly, then, the coordinators need to establish how many slots should be opened to the project members. In general, the project currently operates efficiently with roughly 8–11 coordinators, although the exact number settled on for the upcoming tranche must understandably be decided based on the workload and the efficiency of the current coordinator tranche. The coordinators must also decide if the total number should include or exclude the Lead Coordinator, which can cause the total settled on to fluctuate by one. The second factor that needs to be discussed is the election format. Historically, when the system was introduced, the format was 14 days for nominations followed by 14 days of election, which worked well for the community but created an illusion that the process was "slow". As a result of this perception the community approved a change in the process that now sees the election format using a 10-day nomination period followed by a 10-day voting period. This process is marginally faster than the older two week system, which helps speed the process up. While the coordinators have used this option for several years, they also have the option of introducing or implementing a new nomination/voting scheme if one is judged to be needed. Accordingly then, the coordinators will need to settle on which of the three options they feel will work the best for the upcoming election. The final matter that must be discussed is the exact date of the election. Ideally, the entire election should take place in the month of September, but as there are 30 days in September the coordinators will need to officially designate a starting day for the nomination period. Once this day is decided, the format the coordinators have agreed upon can be used to determine when the nomination period will end, and by extension when the voting period will start and end. Collectively, these three points once settled will provide the information needed to establish the election pages. Creating the election pagesWikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/(MONTH) (YEAR)replacing the MONTH and YEAR with the month and year in question. Once you have the correct red link the following information should be added to the page verbatim: {{WPMILHIST Navigation|no-banner=yes}} {{/Tally}}
{{TOC limit|3}}
== Overview ==
This election is to appoint the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators|project coordinator team]] for one year, from (ADD THE DATE OF THE INCOMING TRANCHE HERE USING DAY MONTH YEAR FORMAT) to (ADD THE ENDING DATE OF THE UPCOMING COORDINATOR TRANCHE HERE, USING DAY MONTH YEAR FORMAT). Coordinators are generally responsible for maintaining all of the procedural and administrative aspects of the project. All of the coordinators, and especially the lead coordinator (or lead coordinators), serve as the designated points-of-contact for procedural issues and focus on specific areas requiring special attention. They are not, however, endowed with any special executive powers.
=== Responsibilities ===
From [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators]]: <blockquote>The primary responsibility of the project coordinators is the maintenance and housekeeping work involved in keeping the project and its internal processes running smoothly; this includes a variety of tasks, such as keeping the announcement and open task lists updated, overseeing the assessment and review processes, managing the proposal and creation of task forces, and so forth. There is fairly little involved that couldn't theoretically be done by any other editor, of course—in only a few places have the coordinators been explicitly written into a process—but, since experience suggests that people tend to assume that someone else is doing whatever needs to be done, it has proven beneficial to formally delegate responsibility for this administrative work to a specified group. <br/><br/> The coordinators also have several additional roles. They serve as the project's designated points of contact, and are explicitly listed as people to whom questions can be directed in a variety of places around the project. In addition, they have (highly informal) roles in leading the drafting of project guidelines, overseeing the implementation of project decisions on issues like category schemes and template use, and helping to resolve disputes and keep discussions from becoming heated and unproductive.</blockquote>
Practical information on coordinating may be found [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators|here]] and [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Being a coordinator|here]].
The current coordinators are:
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Name
! Position
! Standing for re-election?
|-
| Add the name of the first current coordinator as shown on the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators|coordinator's page]]
| The current position the above named editor holds. By virtue of the currently used system, this slot will always be "Coordinator" with the exception of the editor who holds the position of lead coordinator, whose position box should be filled in as "Lead Coordinator"
| This slot MUST be added to for each coordinator and should be left blank since only the listed coordinator can decide if he or she wants to stand for reelection.
|}
=== Election process ===
* '''Nomination period''': (Add the day and month the nomination will begin and the UTC time, day, and month the nomination will end here. For example, "8 September to 23:59 UTC 18 September")
* '''Voting period''': (Add the day and month the election phase will begin and the UTC time, day, and month the election period will end here. For example, "19 September to 23:59 UTC 29 September")
* Any member of the project may nominate themselves for a position by adding their statement in the [[#Candidates|"Candidates" section below]] by the start of the election. The following boilerplate can be used:
<pre>
=== Name ===
{{user|Name}}
: Statement goes here...
==== Comments and questions for Name ====
*''What have been the achievements of which you are most proud within the Military history WikiProject?''
**
*''What skills/qualities can you contribute as a coordinator?''
**
==== Votes in support of Name ====
#
</pre>
* The election will be conducted using simple [[approval voting]]. Any member of the project may support as many of the candidates as they wish. The candidate with the highest number of endorsements will become the lead coordinator (provided he or she is willing to assume the post); this position may be shared in the event that multiple candidates receive the highest number of endorsements. The remaining candidates with twenty or more endorsements will be appointed as coordinators to a maximum of eleven appointments (including the lead coordinator). The number of coordinators ''may'' be increased or reduced if there is a tie or near-tie for the last position.
* Both project members and interested outside parties are encouraged to ask questions of the nominees or make general comments.
== Candidates==
{{/Status}}
<!--
As per long standing consensus both new candidates and returning coordinators are listed alphabetically below, so add your user name accordingly. Thank you for your cooperation.
-->
}}
Create the status templateThe second page that will need be created will be the status template. (A completed example can be found here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/September 2017/Status). This template uses a set of established parameters to inform editors, readers, and other interested parties when the nominations will open, when the voting will open, and when the elections have concluded. The template itself resides at the top of the Candidates section, and will be present in the page you just created by virtue of the its presence in code copied from the preceding section. To access the template, add/Statusto the current election page so that the election page looks like Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/(MONTH) (YEAR)/StatusIt should give you a red link, click it and then add the following to the status page: ;{{#switch:{{CURRENTYEAR}}
|2015={{#switch:{{CURRENTMONTH}}
|8=<big>The election has not started yet. Please do not edit this page.</big>
|9={{#ifexpr:{{CURRENTDAY}} < 8|<big>The election has not started yet. Please do not edit this page.</big>|{{#ifexpr:{{CURRENTDAY}} < 19|<big>Please <big style="color: red;">DO NOT VOTE</big> yet; the voting phase of the election will open at 00:01 (UTC) on 19 September.<br>If you wish to run, please sign up by 23:59 (UTC) on 18 September.</big>|{{#ifexpr:{{CURRENTDAY}} <= 29|<big>Voting is now open; project members should vote for any candidates they support by 23:59 (UTC) on 29 September.</big><br>(This is a [[approval voting|simple approval vote]]; only "support" votes should be made. All other votes will be discounted.)|<big>Voting is now concluded.</big>}}}}}}
|#default=<big>Voting is now concluded.</big>
}}
|#default=<big>Voting is now concluded.</big>
}}
Current time is '''{{CURRENTTIME}}, [[{{CURRENTDAY}} {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}}]] [[{{CURRENTYEAR}}]]''' (UTC)
Once the above has been added take care the you change the year and the days to match the current election year and the days for the nomination and voting periods. Once the information has been updated save the page, this will result in the template on the election page being created and if done correctly should automatically switch messages to notify interested parties when the nomination and election phases open and when the election concludes.
Tally Box/Tallyto the current coordinator election page so it looks like this: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/(MONTH) (YEAR)/Tallytaking care to replace the MONTH and YEAR tabs with the current election month and year. Once you have the red link, add the following to the page verbatim, taking care to not that MONTH and YEAR in the example below will already reflect the current election month and year: {| class="plainlinks sortable" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="2" style="width: 200px; background: whitesmoke; margin-left: 15px; float: right; border: 1px black dotted; "
|-
|+ <big>'''Tally'''</big> <br/> <small>[{{fullurl:Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/MONTH YEAR/Tally|action=edit}} edit]</small>
|-
! Candidate !! Votes
|-
|}
After adding the section save the page, this will result in the Tally Box being created and added to the election page proper. With this done all three pages for the coordinator election should be created and no further action should be required on your part. With all three pages now live, the current coordinators and the editors of the Military history Wikiproject will be able to edit the pages to announce their candidacies or their decision not to seek reelection. Notify the projectSee Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Using MassMessage for Project Notification for details on how to send a mass message. Suggested form is: Nominations for the upcoming project coordinator election have opened. A team of up to ten coordinators will be elected for the next coordination year. The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes. They do not, however, have any authority over article content or editor conduct, or any other special powers. More information on being a coordinator is available [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Becoming a coordinator|here]]. If you are interested in running, please sign up '''[[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/September 2024|here]]''' by 23:59 UTC on 14 September! Voting will commence on 15 September. If you have any questions, you can contact any member of the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators|current coord team]]. After the electionClose the voting{{archivetop|The election is now closed. ~~~~ }}
to the top of the election page and {{archivebottom}}
to the bottom of the page. Notify the winnersFor the newly elected coordinators, a suggested form is {| style="border: 2px solid lightsteelblue; background-color: whitesmoke;"
|rowspan="2" style="vertical-align:middle;" | [[File:US-O11 insignia.svg|100px]]
|rowspan="2" |
|style="font-size: x-large; padding: 0; vertical-align: middle; height: 1.1em;" | '''The ''[[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/September {{CURRENTYEAR}} |Coordinator stars]]'''''
|-
|style="vertical-align: middle; border-top: 1px solid lightsteelblue;" | On behalf of the members of WikiProject Military history, in recognition of your election to the position of Coordinator, I take great pleasure in presenting you with the Coordinator's stars, and wish you the best of luck for the coming year! ~~~~
|}
For the lead coordinator, a suggested form is: {| style="border: 2px solid lightsteelblue; background-color: whitesmoke;"
|rowspan="2" style="vertical-align:middle;" | [[File:US-O12 insignia.svg|100px]]
|rowspan="2" |
|style="font-size: x-large; padding: 0; vertical-align: middle; height: 1.1em;" | '''The ''[[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/September {{CURRENTYEAR}} |Lead Coordinator stars]]'''''
|-
|style="vertical-align: middle; border-top: 1px solid lightsteelblue;" | On behalf of the members of WikiProject Military history, in recognition of your re-election to the position of Lead Coordinator, I take great pleasure in presenting you with the Lead Coordinator's stars, and wish you the best of luck for the coming year! ~~~~
|}
For a coordinator emeritus, a suggested form is: {| style="border: 2px solid lightsteelblue; background-color: whitesmoke;"
|rowspan="2" style="vertical-align:middle;" | [[File:Milhist coordinator emeritus.svg|100px]]
|rowspan="2" |
|style="font-size: x-large; padding: 0; vertical-align: middle; height: 1.1em;" | '''The ''[[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/September {{CURRENTYEAR}}#Nomination for Coordinator Emeritus (<editor>)|Coordinator Emeritus stars]]'''''
|-
|style="vertical-align: middle; border-top: 1px solid lightsteelblue;" | It is with immense pleasure that I pass on the unanimous decision of the members of the WikiProject Military History that as a mark of the great esteem in which they hold you and your judgement you be appointed a Coordinator Emeritus of the Project for as long as you should choose to remain one. Congratulations and many thanks for all that you have done for the Project. ~~~~
|}
Update the coordinators listEdit the lead of Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators to reflect the current list. Update the notification templateEdit Template:@MILHIST to reflect the current list. Update the categoryEdit the coordinators' user pages to add Category:WikiProject Military history coordinators and remove it from coordinators who are no longer active. Update the BugleAdd the election results to The Bugle at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/October 2024/Project news |
| Establish military historian and newcomer of the year election voting | ||
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Under the current system used by the Military history Wikiproject, coordinators are tasked with handling certain project-specific operations. This Academy page will serve as a walk-through on how to correctly set up the election pages for military historian of the year and newcomer of the year elections. AboutThese elections are conducted between 1 and 30 December each year. Before the electionCreate the election pagesSubstitute the following on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history page before 1 December: {{subst:WPMILHIST Nominations for military historian of the year}} ~~~~
{{subst:WPMILHIST Nominations for military history newcomer of the year}} ~~~~
Notify the projectSee Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Using MassMessage for Project Notification for details on how to send a mass message. Suggested form is: Voting is now open for the WikiProject Military History newcomer of the year and military historian of the year awards for {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}! The the top editors will be awarded the coveted Gold Wiki. Cast your votes [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#Nominations for military history newcomer of the year for {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}} are open!|here]] and [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#Nominations for military historian of the year for {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}} are open!|here]] respectively. Voting closes at 23:59 on 30 December {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}. On behalf of the coordinators, wishing you the very best for the festive season and the new year. {{subst:Currentuser}} via ~~~~
After the electionClose the voting{{archivetop|Voting is now closed. ~~~~ }}
to the top of the election page and {{archivebottom}}
to the bottom of the page. Notify the winners on their talk pagesFor the winners of the Military History Newcomer of the Year, a suggested form is: {{tmbox
| image = [[File:Goldenwiki 2.png|60px]]
| style = background-color: #fdffe7;
| text = '''{{font|text=The Golden Wiki|size=x-large}}''' {{hr}} Congratulations! You have been selected as the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Awards/MHNOTY|Military History Newcomer of the Year]] by a popular vote of your peers in recognition of your contributions to the English Wikipedia's coverage of military history. On behalf of the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators|coordinators]] of [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history|WikiProject Military history]], it is my pleasure to present the coveted '''Golden Wiki'''; we hope to see more of you in the years to come. ~~~~
}}
For runners-up, a suggested form is: {{tmbox
| image = [[File:WikiprojectBarnstar.png|60px]]
| style = background-color: WhiteSmoke;
| text = '''{{font|text=The WikiProject Barnstar|size=x-large}}''' {{hr}} You have been selected as a runner-up for the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Awards/MHNOTY|Military History Newcomer of the Year]] by a popular vote of your peers in recognition of your contributions to the English Wikipedia's coverage of military history. On behalf of the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators|coordinators]] of [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history|WikiProject Military history]], please accept this token of gratitude and appreciation on behalf of the project; we hope to see more of you in the years to come. ~~~~
}}
For winners of the Military Historian of the New Year: {{tmbox
| image = [[File:Goldenwiki 2.png|60px]]
| style = background-color: #fdffe7;
| text = '''{{font|text=The Golden Wiki|size=x-large}}''' {{hr}} Congratulations! You have been selected as the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Awards/MHOTY|Military Historian of the Year]] by a popular vote of your peers in recognition of your contributions to the English Wikipedia's coverage of military history. On behalf of the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators|coordinators]] of [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history|WikiProject Military history]], it is my pleasure to present the coveted '''Golden Wiki'''. ~~~~
}}
For second place: {{tmbox
| image = [[File:Silverwiki 2.png|60px]]
| style = background-color: WhiteSmoke;
| text = '''{{font|text=The Silver Wiki|size=x-large}}''' {{hr}} Congratulations! You have been selected in second place for the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Awards/MHOTY|Military Historian of the Year]] by a popular vote of your peers in recognition of your contributions to the English Wikipedia's coverage of military history. On behalf of the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators|coordinators]] of [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history|WikiProject Military history]], it is my pleasure to present the esteemed '''Silver Wiki'''. ~~~~
}}
For third place: {{tmbox
| image = [[File:Bronzewiki 2.png|60px]]
| style = background-color: NavajoWhite ;
| text = '''{{font|text=The Bronze Wiki|size=x-large|color=maroon}}''' {{hr}} Congratulations! You have been selected in third place for the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Awards/MHOTY|Military Historian of the Year]] by a popular vote of your peers in recognition of your contributions to the English Wikipedia's coverage of military history. On behalf of the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators|coordinators]] of [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history|WikiProject Military history]], it is my pleasure to present the esteemed '''Bronze Wiki'''. ~~~~
}}
Update the winners listsThese are located at
Update the BugleAdd the election results to The Bugle at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/January 2025/Project news The suggested form is: The [[Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history#Nominations_for_military_historian_of_the_year_for_2024_are_open!|Military Historian of the Year]] awards have been distributed, the Golden Wiki going to {{u|gold}} for third year in a row. The Silver Wiki was awarded to {{u|silver}} and the Bronze wiki jointly to {{u|bronze}} and {{u|bronze}}. {{u|runner up}} and {{u|runner up}} were runners-up.
The [[Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history#Nominations_for_military_historian_of_the_year_for_2024_are_open!|Military History Newcomer of the Year]] awards have also been handed out, with {{u|gold}} receiving the Golden Wiki and {{u|runner-up}} and {{u|runner-up}} the WikiProject Barnstar.
Congratulations to all members of the project on your achievements last year, and best wishes for 2025!
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Boilerplate and templates
| Public boilerplate notices |
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| Hidden structural templates & boilerplates |
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| Military history awards |
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| Coordinator userboxes | ||||||
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Open tasks
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)
Missing academy articles
- Writing a B-Class article
- Performing a Stub- to B-Class review
- Performing a peer review
- Writing good articles
- How to improve images
- Working with free content images
- Battles: understanding the terrain
- Using media files
- Handling FAC
- Reviewing featured articles
- Creating images
- Original photography
- Image quality and accuracy
Open award nominations
Nominations for awards are made and voted on by coordinators at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history/Awards. An A-Class Medal nomination needs at least two coordinators' votes to succeed, and the Chevrons with Oak Leaves a majority of coordinators' votes. All coordinators are requested to review the following:
- Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history/Awards#Ian_Rose_(2) Could all @WP:MILHIST coordinators: please review this nomination? Thanks, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 05:10, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
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 23 June 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.
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/John Hoskins (officer): nominator requests this be closed/withdrawn. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 20:48, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
- I've changed the code on the article's talk page IOT run the bot for closure - hopefully I got it right. Is this all I need to do [1]? Anotherclown (talk) 22:37, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
- Yep. All done. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 22:43, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks for checking (I'm used to having to do it manually - the bot is a great addition). Anotherclown (talk) 22:46, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
- Yep. All done. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 22:43, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
- I've changed the code on the article's talk page IOT run the bot for closure - hopefully I got it right. Is this all I need to do [1]? Anotherclown (talk) 22:37, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
Discussion
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1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 |
A Couple of Point for the Coordinators
@WP:MILHIST coordinators: With July winding down I have a couple of point here that we need to look at:
- Is anyone updating our announcement template? I went looking for the ship hulls discussion and its apparently been archived for some time, and I am sure that there are other instances of that in the template that should be looked at and removed.
- No one has looked at Portal:Flodden and suggested a course of action for the material there yet, we really need some feedback if we are going to move on that front.
- We are proximately 6 weeks out from next round of coordinator elections, which means the time to start warming up the engine for that locomotive is now. We could probably stand to put something in The Bugle this month to remind people about that, and if anyone has any suggestions for people thinking about running we would do well to invite them to consider the idea at this point. Along with this comes two additional points for consideration:
- Should we link to or run the Coordinator Specific academy pages for the membership to read through in the lead up to the election, and
- Should we maintain the current number of Coordinators? Last year we reduced the number from 15 to 12, but it wouldn't hurt to look at the matter again to see if 12 works or if we could reduce the number further.
If anyone has any feedback on these points, or if anyone happens to see something important that I missed but that should be looked at now, feel free to bring it. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:19, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
- I'd just state that I think that with the advent of Milhistbot (Thanks again Hawkeye7) we could probably get away with ten coords. There was some discussion here last year, and I would support a reduction to 10. PS. I've done a couple of years, so I'm going to rest on my proverbial and concentrate on content production for a bit. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 07:43, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
- With regard to the announcement template, most of the list-of-articles-type content is being updated by Milhistbot, if I'm not mistaken. The section that isn't is the "current discussions" list, but we haven't really used that over the past few years in any case. What do people think about removing that section from the template?
- With regard to Portal:Flodden: the user who created it hasn't edited since then, and the portal is obviously unfinished. Under the circumstances, I would suggest simply nominating it for deletion; I don't think there's any point to us trying to complete building it.
- In terms of the coordinator election, are we talking about 10 coordinators plus the lead, or 10 including the lead? Note that we currently have 12 plus the lead. Kirill [talk] 14:29, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
- I'd be in favor or retaining the section for those rare times when we have a discussion or an event (like coordinator elections) that we need to broadcast to widen the participation field in order to find consensus, but thats me. Agree that Flodden is probably a lost cause, and should be nominated for deletion. TomStar81 (Talk) 16:37, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
- I think we've used the news section in the template for stuff like the elections in the past, so I'm not sure there's much value in retaining a second section there. Kirill [talk] 18:37, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
- 10 plus lead, Kirill Lokshin. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 02:12, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
- I think we've used the news section in the template for stuff like the elections in the past, so I'm not sure there's much value in retaining a second section there. Kirill [talk] 18:37, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
- I'd be in favor or retaining the section for those rare times when we have a discussion or an event (like coordinator elections) that we need to broadcast to widen the participation field in order to find consensus, but thats me. Agree that Flodden is probably a lost cause, and should be nominated for deletion. TomStar81 (Talk) 16:37, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
Coordinator Election 2015
@WP:MILHIST coordinators: We appear to agree on the number of coordinators for this upcoming tranche as 10 and the lead, although if anyone disagrees there is still plenty of time to discuss the matter. As for the dates, we have a few options:
- 14 days nomination, 14 days voting, which we used way back in the day, however this does lend a perception that the process drags, or
- 10 days nomination, 10 days vote, which is what we did last year and it worked out fine.
- a new day nom/day vote scheme.
In light of last years...interference, there us also the matter of whether we want to put page protection on the process this year or not. Preemptive protection is bad, I know, but nothing says we can not discuss the matter. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:23, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- I'd say 10/10, and I'm against pre-emptive protection, if we get any disruption we have admins on hand who can protect it. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 04:36, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Agree with Peacemaker67--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 04:46, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- I think last year went okay, so let's make it 10/10.
- I also have no prob with 10 coords plus lead, but suggest we be flexible depending on how the final votes tally up.
- Lastly, like PM, I'm going to take a break from MilHist coordination (my first since being elected), partly because I'll be travelling for the first month or two of the next tranche and will probably want to concentrate on content afterwards. I'm happy to continue as co-editor of the Bugle if people are okay with that, though. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 04:54, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Be sorry to lose you as a coord, Ian. You have been an absolute stalwart as lead this year. Re: The Bugle, are you kidding? Please help keep it running, it continues to go from strength to strength, and you have been an important part of that. Regards, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 05:20, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- Very kind of you, PM, especially coming from someone who always seems to have been there whenever something needed doing this past year. I think we can afford to have a few experienced coords take a break now and then, though, because good people are always coming to the fore in this project -- must be something in the water... :-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:53, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
- I'm looking at this thinking, what, a year is up already? Was there interference last year? auntieruth (talk) 20:43, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
- Heh, it does go quickly doesn't it? Yes, there was some nonsense last year but we dealt with it and I'm sure we could if it occurred this year. cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 04:05, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
Election pages
@WP:MILHIST coordinators: I've set up the coordinator election pages for 2015, they are currently sitting at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators/September 2015. An extra set of eyes to make sure everything got punched in correctly would be appreciated. Also, if anyone wants to start penciling in whether they will be running or not for the upcoming tranche then please do so. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:02, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
- Thank you very much for setting that up, Tom -- something I can take off my list before I go! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 03:00, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
- I've scanned over the pages, and everything looks good to me. Kirill [talk] 11:32, 27 August 2015 (UTC)
- Very good then. We will open the nomination phase on September 8, and let that run to September 18, then hold the actual election from September 19-29, as agreed above, to elect 10 Coordinators and 1 Lead Coordinator. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:33, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
- @WP:MILHIST coordinators: Just a note that the nomination period is now open. Kirill [talk] 11:51, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
- Very good then. We will open the nomination phase on September 8, and let that run to September 18, then hold the actual election from September 19-29, as agreed above, to elect 10 Coordinators and 1 Lead Coordinator. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:33, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
A little help
@WP:MILHIST coordinators: I'm contemplating doing something stupid and/or crazy (but in the spirit of BOLD and/or IAR), but I need a little help - a copy edit (big surprise, right? :) If your interested in the copyedit, lemme know. If you interested in the stupid and/or crazy thing (but in the spirit of BOLD and/or IAR), or you'd like to be a part of it, then you can piggyback on the copy edit request. Assuming I don't lose my nerve between now and when I get my 9 hours of sleep I'll move forward with my stupid and/or crazy thing thats in the spirit of BOLD and/or IAR when I get back on here this evening (or tomorrow morning, which every happens first...). TomStar81 (Talk) 16:26, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
- I am always around to help with anything that is (in the spirit of BOLD and/or IAR) that's what keeps wiki chugging. --Molestash (talk) 18:23, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
- Same here, but you didn't say what you're thinking of doing, other than....it's Bold and/or IAR. ???auntieruth (talk) 17:58, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
Assistance at The Bugle in September-October
Hi guys, Nick-D and I have been comparing notes and find that we will both be travelling overseas in September and October, so it'd be great to get some assistance on the The Bugle for those months. Of course everyone is always welcome to make contributions but what would be particularly helpful is:
- On the September and October Project News pages:
- Someone could take responsibility for noting any Awards and Honours made the previous month (by checking Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Awards)
- I've got this bit as well as the bit below. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 11:16, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
- Mate, you read my mind, I was just about to check on that...;-) Tks/cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:25, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
- I've got this bit as well as the bit below. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 11:16, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
- Someone could take responsibility for writing up the results of the previous month's contest -- perhaps your department, Peacemaker?!
- I've got this. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 07:32, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
- Someone could take responsibility for noting any Awards and Honours made the previous month (by checking Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Awards)
- On the September and October Article News pages:
- Any coordinator closing an A-Class nomination as "pass" could also write up the blurb for that article -- this is a brief description of the subject plus any interesting snippets from the nomination statement, the June issue gives a good idea of how we do it.
- Someone could be responsible for writing the Featured Article blurbs -- if an article has already passed ACR this can be as simple as re-using/tweaking the A-Class blurb from the relevant past issue of the Bugle.
- Adam Cuerden has indicated that he should be able to look after Featured Pictures.
- N.B. Remember that, as with awards and contest results, the Article News section runs in arrears, i.e. September's issue highlights content promoted in August.
- On the September and October Book Reviews pages:
- Even if no-one can write up a full review of a book, if someone could add a few external reviews (as in the June issue again) then that helps -- Hawkeye, does this sound like you?!
- Okay, I can do that. Hawkeye7 (talk) 07:36, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
- Tks Hawkeye. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:25, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
- Okay, I can do that. Hawkeye7 (talk) 07:36, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
- Even if no-one can write up a full review of a book, if someone could add a few external reviews (as in the June issue again) then that helps -- Hawkeye, does this sound like you?!
- On the September and October Op-Ed pages:
- TomStar, if you can carry on your great series of op-eds (and WWI timelines) as usual, then we have this covered.
- I'm in. TomStar81 (Talk) 07:45, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
- Great, Tom. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:25, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
- I'm in. TomStar81 (Talk) 07:45, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
- TomStar, if you can carry on your great series of op-eds (and WWI timelines) as usual, then we have this covered.
Other points:
- We're going to run an interview in the August edition, so there's no need for anyone to organise interviews in September-October. Likewise the Review Essay department is not run every month unless someone has something special to contribute there.
- Dank has kindly agreed to do some copyediting of submissions in September and October, so if we get volunteers in the other areas mentioned, I expect I'll be able to spare the time to write up a quick From the Editors and despatch via MassMessage as usual.
- As far as timing goes, we like to try and distribute mid-month (i.e. September issue should go out mid-September) but in practice it's usually about a week after.
- All the links for the upcoming issue's departments can be found at the Newsroom.
- Any questions, just ask here. Nick and I can handle this month's issue, but if anyone feels like getting in some practice with the August edition, please don't hesitate... :-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:44, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks everyone. I hope that you're inspired by the glamorous globe-trotting life which the editors of The Bugle live ;) Nick-D (talk) 11:14, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
- very cool, getting to do the globe trotting....I'll review a book for that issue if you'd like. Probablysomething on the French Revolutionary Wars, since I'm teaching a course on it this semester....auntieruth (talk) 18:00, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
- That'd be great, Ruth! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 04:03, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
- not sure who is actually in charge of the Bugle this month, but I've written up a review essay. Draft is here. 16:14, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
- Per above, I did some light copyediting, feel free to revert. - Dank (push to talk) 18:12, 2 September 2015 (UTC)
- G'day, per the above I have added blurbs for the A-class articles promoted in August here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/September 2015/Articles. Could someone please take a look and maybe check my summaries? Also, could someone please add the featured content? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 07:03, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
- Contest results and awards added. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 08:00, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
- Just checking in on my travels, this issue is looking really good -- a great team effort! Re. Featured Content, I generally check through the MilHist Announcements history for articles, lists, etc, that have been removed from the lists of reviews by MilHistBot during the previous month -- just double-check they were actually promoted and not archived -- and, per above, if an article has already passed ACR you could even re-use/adjust the A-Class blurb from the relevant past issue of the Bugle. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:51, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
- Okay, I've done the featured articles and lists. I am unsure, though, of whether there were any featured portals, topics or pictures. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 02:22, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
- I've looked into it and can't find any either, although I did find two FPs, which I added. Needs to have a closer look though from someone better acquainted with the FP process. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:12, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
I'll get Featured pictures this week. Adam Cuerden (talk) 09:28, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
I lightly copyedited everything currently in the newsroom, including the writeups of the A-class articles. - Dank (push to talk) 14:33, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
- Checking in again, we still need Featured Content (articles, any lists or topics, and pictures) plus if someone could write a short From the editors bit in Project News introdcing this month's content plus a word about the election, I'll be happy to make the actual dispatch via Mass Message (or perhaps Ed could if he spots all's done before I do...!) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:42, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
- Took a stab at the from the editors section. TomStar81 (Talk) 09:25, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
- Sorry Ian, I can't help right now. - Dank (push to talk) 12:26, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
- Shit, Ian Rose, that was a blast from the past. I nearly had to reteach myself how to do it. :-p Anyway, the edition's out. Adam Cuerden, there were two FPs in there; I hope there weren't any more? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:09, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
- Just woke up in Ljubljana to find the Bugle delivered to my (virtual) doorstep. Tks Ed for despatching and to all you guys for putting it together! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:21, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
- Shit, Ian Rose, that was a blast from the past. I nearly had to reteach myself how to do it. :-p Anyway, the edition's out. Adam Cuerden, there were two FPs in there; I hope there weren't any more? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:09, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
Delivery Hiccup
Below is the version of the Bugle deleivered within the last 24-hours:
|
Unfortunately, while we added all the right content, we forgot to double check the links: the Op-Ed on this one goes to August and not September. Can we fix this, or would doing so require another run? TomStar81 (Talk) 10:38, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
- I am correcting this with AWD, have a look if it is correct now MisterBee1966 (talk) 15:45, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
- I think that I fixed it. I may have screwed one or two updates up MisterBee1966 (talk) 17:37, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
- @MisterBee1966: Thank you very much! I thought I got them all ... next time I'll have to use find and replace. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:38, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
- @The ed17: Afraid you got completely the wrong month's FPs - those are from September, we wanted the ones from August. I've fixed it. Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:56, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
- @Adam Cuerden: Actually, that was me and my bad. I'm not use enough to the bugle to know when to start and end the FP content (not yet anyway), but I tried my hand there to help. In this case it appears I gambled and lost :/ TomStar81 (Talk) 20:37, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
- @TomStar81: No matter. I was slow getting to it, because I've been a little ill. Can't be helped. Adam Cuerden (talk) 21:06, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
- @Adam Cuerden: Actually, that was me and my bad. I'm not use enough to the bugle to know when to start and end the FP content (not yet anyway), but I tried my hand there to help. In this case it appears I gambled and lost :/ TomStar81 (Talk) 20:37, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
- @The ed17: Afraid you got completely the wrong month's FPs - those are from September, we wanted the ones from August. I've fixed it. Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:56, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
- @MisterBee1966: Thank you very much! I thought I got them all ... next time I'll have to use find and replace. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:38, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
- I think that I fixed it. I may have screwed one or two updates up MisterBee1966 (talk) 17:37, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
Assessment and task force project
It's self-created of course, but I've been plugging away at the unassigned and unassessed. Just wanted to point out a couple of things. There are a lot of books, art work, and plays, and I'm adding them to films, because there is no other reasonable TF. Memorials also includes museums. I'm trying to add the check list too, and fill it out when I can, if the article is beyond a stub. auntieruth (talk) 17:34, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
- Much appreciated. - Dank (push to talk) 18:04, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
- Seconded, but remember that our TFs aren't meant to be comprehensive, only if members care about that topic. I do believe that there is a tag for no TF that would probably be more appropriate for books, art, etc. than film.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:11, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
- Yep. Haven't done that gnoming work for quite a while, but there is a tag for no task force. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 01:55, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
- Seconded, but remember that our TFs aren't meant to be comprehensive, only if members care about that topic. I do believe that there is a tag for no TF that would probably be more appropriate for books, art, etc. than film.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:11, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
July contest
@WP:MILHIST coordinators: I've verified everyone else's entries but if someone could check mine... Tks/cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:57, 15 August 2015 (UTC)
- @WP:MILHIST coordinators: I've tallied and written up the results in the upcoming Bugle entry here. Could someone pls just check my arithmetic and perhaps make the awards if I got it right...? Tks/cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 15:28, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
Question(s)
@WP:MILHIST coordinators: I was heading over to the membership page to take a look our active contributors list for potential coordinator candidates and noticed that its apparently updated manually from time to time. Is there a way to automate this process either using an existing bot, existing scripts, or MilHistBot? It would be useful to the project as a whole. TomStar81 (Talk) 12:58, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
- and an automatic welcome message for new members would help too. I usually check one a week and welcome people, but that depends on how much time I have (and if my grey matter sparks up). Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 01:21, 25 August 2015 (UTC)
Draft articles
I noticed that User:Mad7744 has created many unsourced articles in the draft namespace of Wiki. Is this encouraged? Many of these articles are also lacking Wikipedia:Notability. Should we take action? MisterBee1966 (talk) 08:52, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
August contest checking
@WP:MILHIST coordinators: I've checked all of the entries bar my own. If someone could check them, I'll tally, award and write up the spiel for the Bugle. Thanks, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 22:07, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
- I've done this. Apologies if this was taking a liberty as a non co-ord. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:30, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks Rupert, we're a bit light-on with Ian away, so I'm sure no-one will be bothered! Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 00:12, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
Traudl Junge
Does anybody know if Traudl Junge was an 'Arbeitsmaid' in 1940? I have a fine photo from that date sent by Traudl to a gentleman in England. She sent the photo and letter from Australia in 1985. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Herpotrichoides (talk • contribs) 20:12, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
So, uh. Elections?
Hi all, I've just noticed that there appear to be no elections yet? Or at least I haven't received a talk page message and don't see a banner notice at the top of project pages? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:46, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
- I'd send a message on the mass media messenger but the last time I did that I ended up making an error (or two), so I'm a little gunshy to try that again. Having said that, you are right in that we usually have a banner and mass message the masses to bring the election/nomination to their attention. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:56, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
- I'm not sure how many people pay attention to the banner versus the talk page messages, but I've gone ahead and enabled it. Kirill [talk] 20:33, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
- Ok @WP:MILHIST coordinators: there are two days until nominations close, and we only have four nominations. If you are nominating for the next coordinator tranche, please do so. If not, and you haven't indicated your intentions, please do that in the table. And please encourage any budding potential coordinators to nominate. Thanks, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 10:29, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
- As a suggestion, if numbers remain low it might be worth extending the nomination period by a week or so. Nick-D (talk) 19:14, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
- @TomStar81: @WP:MILHIST coordinators: I'd be happy to format and send a message to all the Bugle subscribers if you coordinators draft it (I'm no longer a coordinator, so I'll pass the buck ;-) ) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:27, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
- As a suggestion, if numbers remain low it might be worth extending the nomination period by a week or so. Nick-D (talk) 19:14, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
- Ok @WP:MILHIST coordinators: there are two days until nominations close, and we only have four nominations. If you are nominating for the next coordinator tranche, please do so. If not, and you haven't indicated your intentions, please do that in the table. And please encourage any budding potential coordinators to nominate. Thanks, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 10:29, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
- I'm not sure how many people pay attention to the banner versus the talk page messages, but I've gone ahead and enabled it. Kirill [talk] 20:33, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
- How's this:
- "The Military history Wikiproject Coordinator nominations will conclude 18 September. We encourage anyone interested in being a coordinator to sign up to run in the election. More information in the role of the coordinators can be found here and here, and if you have any additional questions feel free to ask any of the current coordinators."
- Does that work? TomStar81 (Talk) 07:57, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
- End of 18 Sep, or what ever is the right word? Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 08:08, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
- Yep, that be the idea. TomStar81 (Talk) 10:55, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
- Just go with it, mate. Time's a-wasting... Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 10:56, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
- Yep, that be the idea. TomStar81 (Talk) 10:55, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
- End of 18 Sep, or what ever is the right word? Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 08:08, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
- FYI, the banner is still inviting nominations instead of votes. We should probably tell folks that the voting stage is underway, and if we're sending out an automated message, I'd say the sooner the better. Even if it's just a brief blurb and a link to the election page.
Anyway, I'm sorry to be bowing out of this amazing team. I just don't have the spare time for Wikipedia that I used to, and the time that I do have for it seems to be largely spent on non-Milhist things. I'll always be happy to help if you need a pet admin/oversighter/Commons admin/OTRS person. Just drop me a talk page note or an email (or use any other method you have of getting hold of me—some of you have my Facebook and Skype details, and some of you might even have my phone number). And of course, I'll keep the Milhist pages on my watchlist and try to check in when I have something to contribute. Best of luck to the next tranche! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:24, 19 September 2015 (UTC)
- We'll miss you Harry.
Hawkeye7 (talk) 10:52, 21 September 2015 (UTC) - I've updated the banner. Should we send out an automated message inviting members to vote? Kirill [talk] 00:49, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
- We'll miss you Harry.
- How does anyone even manage to vote in these? The standard of candidates is so high that any of them would be great. =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 09:43, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
- Its the terrible tyranny of choice, and it is always interesting to see who votes for whom and on what grounds. @Kirill Lokshin: I don't think we necessarily need to send out an automated message inviting members to vote as we did invite the project members to vote in the newsletter, however we could do a pass about 48-hours out from the end reminding people that we are coming down the home stretch such as it were. TomStar81 (Talk) 11:17, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
- Given the relatively low participation, I'd suggest sending out a note in the next day or so rather than waiting until the end, as folks may only be participating during the weekend and may not see a subsequent message until the election is over. Kirill [talk] 23:58, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
- +1. I'll send one now. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:15, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
- And done. I copied the message from last year and used my own signature; I hope that's alright. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:22, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
- +1. I'll send one now. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:15, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
- Given the relatively low participation, I'd suggest sending out a note in the next day or so rather than waiting until the end, as folks may only be participating during the weekend and may not see a subsequent message until the election is over. Kirill [talk] 23:58, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
- Its the terrible tyranny of choice, and it is always interesting to see who votes for whom and on what grounds. @Kirill Lokshin: I don't think we necessarily need to send out an automated message inviting members to vote as we did invite the project members to vote in the newsletter, however we could do a pass about 48-hours out from the end reminding people that we are coming down the home stretch such as it were. TomStar81 (Talk) 11:17, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
MILHIST SWOT analysis or "chucking a dead cat on the table"
IOT to inform the planning process as the next co-ord team (whomever they may be) attempts to help move the project forward this year I thought a brief / crude SWOT analysis might prove instructive. I've made a start below but essentially I was hoping this would be a "group think" activity so if you wish to participate pls add any thoughts you might have under the appropriate heading. What we do with it after that I guess is up to those elected. (Yes a bloody sore back from spinal surgery = lack of sleep, and an under-utilized brain from being off work = me needing something to do, which results in this at Sparrow's Fart in the morning. Note that none of this is an undertaking that I'll fix any of these problems, hence the cat...). Thanks. Anotherclown (talk) 17:22, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
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Strengths
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Weaknesses
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Opportunities
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Threats
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Discussion
- Hmm... Thought provoking. It would also be interesting to get your take on what you'd consider our center of gravity to be as a project. Hchc2009 (talk) 17:32, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
- Good question. Its a bit nebulous but I'd say the ability to maintain a collaborative editing environment will be fundamental to continued success (not sure if I'd pass the TEWT with an answer like that though). Anotherclown (talk) 18:37, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
- The COG is always the ability to concentrate firepower...or maintenance of legitimacy, isn't it...? TEWT, passed! Ah, no...retest! Sorry, bad officer joke... ;-) AustralianRupert (talk) 09:44, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
- Good question. Its a bit nebulous but I'd say the ability to maintain a collaborative editing environment will be fundamental to continued success (not sure if I'd pass the TEWT with an answer like that though). Anotherclown (talk) 18:37, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
- On the last point, even if the English Wikipedia dies, I can't imagine a future in which Milhist doesn't wind up inhabiting whatever follows Wikipedia. (I don't usually engage in futurism, but I don't want people to lose motivation worrying about the health of Wikipedia.) - Dank (push to talk) 17:49, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
- Fair call, I'd say many wouldn't agree with me that it is a fait accompli anyway, whilst if WMF is right the future will see computers automatically writing our articles for us (although I cannot think of a single tech initiative they have developed that has actually worked so I'm fairly dubious of that one!) I was probably over reaching in my threat analysis at any rate. I'm hopeful that what we are doing will survive in some form otherwise I'd be mad to continue doing it. Come to think of it... Anotherclown (talk) 18:37, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
- @Anotherclown: I'm working at the WMF now, and AFAIK there's no plan for bot-created articles to take over for volunteers... that idea mainly seems to stem from Wikidatians and Gerard M. :-p On tech initiatives, in my personal (not WMF) opinion they've had some gigantic missteps but have actually come out with useful things recently. Did you hear about Content Translation, for instance? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:48, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
- Gday Ed, sorry I seem to have de-railed myself and unintentionally headed into the territory of offending people. Will switch to radio silence for a bit and try and get some gonk. Anotherclown (talk) 19:00, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
- @Anotherclown: You haven't offended me in the slightest; I hope my comment didn't come off as angry! I was just explaining things the way I see them. Things like content translation or (surprisingly?) the visual editor actually work and work well now. It's far from where I'd like it to be, but I think things are changing for the better. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:17, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
- Good to hear Ed. I was writing that after about 48 hrs without sleep so was starting to lose my mind (I've never performed well without my beauty rest, once did 5 days straight once without food or sleep and was hallucinating by the end... seeing all sorts of things that weren't there...) I'm sure that there is a lot of effort going on at WMF and much of the site infrastructure and functionality that we take for granted now has no doubt been the product of considerable hard work. Unfortunately though we often only hear about the things that haven't gone according to plan (like most things in the world I guess). Anotherclown (talk) 10:07, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
- @Anotherclown: You haven't offended me in the slightest; I hope my comment didn't come off as angry! I was just explaining things the way I see them. Things like content translation or (surprisingly?) the visual editor actually work and work well now. It's far from where I'd like it to be, but I think things are changing for the better. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:17, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
- Gday Ed, sorry I seem to have de-railed myself and unintentionally headed into the territory of offending people. Will switch to radio silence for a bit and try and get some gonk. Anotherclown (talk) 19:00, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
- @Anotherclown: I'm working at the WMF now, and AFAIK there's no plan for bot-created articles to take over for volunteers... that idea mainly seems to stem from Wikidatians and Gerard M. :-p On tech initiatives, in my personal (not WMF) opinion they've had some gigantic missteps but have actually come out with useful things recently. Did you hear about Content Translation, for instance? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:48, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
- Fair call, I'd say many wouldn't agree with me that it is a fait accompli anyway, whilst if WMF is right the future will see computers automatically writing our articles for us (although I cannot think of a single tech initiative they have developed that has actually worked so I'm fairly dubious of that one!) I was probably over reaching in my threat analysis at any rate. I'm hopeful that what we are doing will survive in some form otherwise I'd be mad to continue doing it. Come to think of it... Anotherclown (talk) 18:37, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
- I want to reflect on volunteers working on "special subjects". Yes, volunteers edit where they prefer, and that is actually a strength as well as a weakness. One of the huge "special subjects" of Milhist has meant that en WP is a high quality reference on some classes of 20thC capital ships. That wouldn't have happened without a handful of editors being keen on such things. My only contribution to that was as a reviewer, but there are plenty of Milhist editors that could say the same. I don't think we need to get too wound up about not having Milhist vital articles at FA. An example from my part of WP is Tito, a level-4 which is currently C-class and subject to continual disputation. The number of reliable sources on him, quality biographies, execrable hagiographies as well as character assassinations are legion. Just getting your head around everything there is to know on Tito during WWII is a massive task that would need its own special group to work on it for many months, let alone his whole life.
- Without blowing too much smoke up my own fundamental orifice, what I think would be good would be for people keen on certain subject areas to put together something like Operation Bora for their "special subject", listing key articles to cover the subject adequately, and showing progress. This is a much higher level of focus than any taskforce, which are just too broad to get any sense of common effort. In many cases they are small intersections of two or more taskforces. I mean, look at Operation Bora (Yugoslavia in WWII) then consider that the relevant taskforces are the enormous Balkans one along with WWII... New editors with a similar interest could chip in on the less complex articles to build knowledge and skills, opportunities to collaborate will arise organically, and people get a sense of a team working on a "special subject". Despite its obscure topic area, Bora has seen active collaboration on that basis, with several FAs and A-class articles heavily reliant on collaboration between two or more editors. Milhist could put a navbox up linking to these "special subject" pages, and if people had new ones, they could just be added by the coordinators. One that MisterBee1966 works on is the bios of Knight's Cross recipients, one that Tomandjerry211 works on is WWII US half-tracks. It only takes one dedicated editor to drive a "special subject" but others who are interested can drop in to try before they buy, and see how articles develop and progress through the classes, as well as get stuck in. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 02:31, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
I agree to what Peacemaker said. To add to that, I believe that our project and Wikipedia in general has two main focus areas: First, attracting new editors and retaining old contributors, and second maintaining and encouraging a quality system. I also think that anyone contributing and/or wanting to contribute regularly wants his or her work to be valued and acknowledged. Wikipedia can be a very hostile environment, especially for those who are relatively new and who happen to edit in someone else's subject matter area of expertise. Here we run the risk that our well established editors hide their WP:OWN behavior behind our best practices and procedures. Guiding and consulting new editors, and rewording them for the contribution, is the challenge we are facing. MisterBee1966 (talk) 13:47, 22 September 2015 (UTC)
- Re PM's cmt - just to clarify I certainly do not begrudge anyone working on special subjects, ultimately as volunteers we are going to edit what interests us and that is just a fact of life (I do exactly the same thing, indeed I'm sure many editors would say most of my contributions have been in a fairly narrow subject area of interest mostly only to a relatively small number of people that inhabit a large island at the bottom of the world...) I think your analysis of this as both a strength and a weakness is spot-on though, and it potentially represents an opportunity for us as you highlight. However, I do see some issues with our vital articles potentially being neglected as a result though, as this probably reduces the overall value of Wikipedia as a resource (it is probably also a threat to our credibility as well, but that is a good thing in my opinion. It needs to be really obvious to our readers that Wikipedia is unreliable.) Anotherclown (talk) 08:37, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
- I understand that, Ac. In terms of vital articles, in nearly four years I've never had a sense of what ours are, and I believe we would benefit from making it clear on the Milhist page. Is there a way we could do that? Maybe by taskforce or level or something? I'd assumed Tito was vital (and it turned out my assumption was on the money), but most people wouldn't know which Australians were vital, for example. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 07:22, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
- Many projects have an importance or priority indicator in their respective talk page template; see {{WikiProject Biography}} as an example, while ours {{WikiProject Military history}} doesn't. I don't know or recall if this has been discussed before, but if we had such a tag, a high rating would probably be a good indication for a "vital article". MisterBee1966 (talk) 12:34, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
- I'd be happy to work on something other than the interminable backlog of un-categorized articles, btw, if there is something specific (and within my area of experience). I'm also prepping for a class on the conspiracies associated with the French Revolutionary wars, so might identify a list of articles, and assign them to my students....auntieruth (talk) 19:36, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
- Many projects have an importance or priority indicator in their respective talk page template; see {{WikiProject Biography}} as an example, while ours {{WikiProject Military history}} doesn't. I don't know or recall if this has been discussed before, but if we had such a tag, a high rating would probably be a good indication for a "vital article". MisterBee1966 (talk) 12:34, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
- I understand that, Ac. In terms of vital articles, in nearly four years I've never had a sense of what ours are, and I believe we would benefit from making it clear on the Milhist page. Is there a way we could do that? Maybe by taskforce or level or something? I'd assumed Tito was vital (and it turned out my assumption was on the money), but most people wouldn't know which Australians were vital, for example. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 07:22, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
Keeping a watch on ACRs for passing and awards
G'day all, it would be great if we had a system for ensuring that ACRs ready for passing and handing out of ACMs could be streamlined and an effort made to ensure it is not always the same 3-4 coords doing that work. FAC can be frustratingly slow to promote at times, but Milhist should be looking to reward effort on our best articles in a timely way once they have met the requirements. One possible idea would be to allocate each coord one month each year when they are responsible for checking the ACRs every couple of days, and the pending awards every week, or something. Any other ideas? Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 02:56, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
- Per my waffle above I like the idea of allocating all the co-ord tasks, that way as you say it doesn't rely on the initiative of the few to get things done and can take into account periods when someone is unavailable due to RL commitments, travel, etc. I wonder if a task matrix could be drafted of all the ongoing tasks (and even the one offs per year - e.g. drives) and then the co-ords could volunteer for each task and at the end we see what the delta is and work out where we go from there? Anotherclown (talk) 03:30, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
Let's start with a list and work the matrix up from there. Feel free to add tasks as you think of them:
- checking ACRs and listing them for closure when they meet requirements
- checking and closing ACRs 24 hours after they're listed
- checking the awards page and supporting/awarding nominations
- checking monthly contest articles, tallying points and handing out awards
- tallying quarterly review and handing out awards
- welcoming new members
- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peacemaker67 (talk • contribs)
- I don't see reviewing at PR, GAN, A-class and FAC as an obligation for coordinators (or for anyone), but I also don't want anyone to think that people who are reviewing but not closing aren't doing their fair share of the work. - Dank (push to talk) 15:51, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
- Reviewing certainly isn't seen that way by me, but in this case I feel we need to focus on what all coords are expected to do as part and parcel of the role rather than things that are effectively a mutual obligation for every member of the community. Listing ACRs is pretty simple, and closing is so simple these days (since the advent of Milhistbot), it's not exactly a major burden. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 22:47, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
- We're perpetually short on reviewers, so I generally review whether I want to or not, because our system won't work well if we can't generate three supports within a month. I'm not sure how I feel about being handed extra chores; I already volunteer a lot of my time for this project, and I'd like to start volunteering more time for FAC (and possibly A-class?) for other history wikiprojects as well. - Dank (push to talk) 23:31, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
- I'll make this offer: if someone else will volunteer to review all our PR, A-class and FAC articles for a month (other than AR and AC, who already cover A-class and a lot more), then I'll be more than happy to skip reviewing for that month and do all the
admincoord chores. It can be a prose review or any other kind of review, as long as it counts as a support (or oppose) at A-class and FAC. - Dank (push to talk) 23:42, 24 September 2015 (UTC)- Sounds fair to me. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 00:00, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
- I'd also observe that some editors more than pull their weight with GAN reviews, which hasn't been mentioned here so far, and if everyone who nominated an ACR averaged close to two reviews at that class for every nominated article/list, we'd have few issues with the numbers of reviewers. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump)
- Absolutely ... GAN reviews aren't less important, I'm just saying that PR, A-class and FAC is what I do. - Dank (push to talk) 02:36, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
- I'd also observe that some editors more than pull their weight with GAN reviews, which hasn't been mentioned here so far, and if everyone who nominated an ACR averaged close to two reviews at that class for every nominated article/list, we'd have few issues with the numbers of reviewers. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump)
- Sounds fair to me. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 00:00, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
- Reviewing certainly isn't seen that way by me, but in this case I feel we need to focus on what all coords are expected to do as part and parcel of the role rather than things that are effectively a mutual obligation for every member of the community. Listing ACRs is pretty simple, and closing is so simple these days (since the advent of Milhistbot), it's not exactly a major burden. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 22:47, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
- I don't see reviewing at PR, GAN, A-class and FAC as an obligation for coordinators (or for anyone), but I also don't want anyone to think that people who are reviewing but not closing aren't doing their fair share of the work. - Dank (push to talk) 15:51, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
Back to the task list. Some suggestions:
- tagging new articles.
- maintaining the "Articles to be created" section of Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Open tasks
I'd add that neither of these tasks are included above in the Coordinator tasks lists of the handbook either so I propose to adding them there if there is general agreement. Thoughts / cmts? Anotherclown (talk) 09:00, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
- G'day, AC, yes I think it would be a good idea to add these, so long as it is made clear that it is not a requirement for co-ords to do them. We don't want people to feel like it is a chore that they are compelled to do. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 02:42, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
- I'd like to see a narrow list of tasks that coords are expected to do by dint of being elected. I think it is easy to get coord duties mixed up with the general tasks all active Milhist members should undertake. Reviewing, for example, which isn't a coord task per se, is a task all project members need to undertake if the system is to work. I know most coords do more than their fair share of reviewing, but strictly speaking it isn't a coord task. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 01:03, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
- Okay, so just to be clear, it looks like you're rejecting my offer above. This is the last I'll say on the subject until after elections. - Dank (push to talk) 01:48, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
- Gday. Not rejecting, somehow missed it. From my perspective this was never about handing anyone chores, when I mentioned the task matrix I was suggesting we ask the next round of elected co-ords to volunteer for tasks we include in it. It was more of a way of ensuring we have allocated (through individuals volunteering) co-ords to the recurring tasks so that we can ensure they get done, rather than leaving it a bit more to chance. From my point of view I have no issue with anyone's level of contribution. With in our own capacity we all give what we want / are able to give, in the areas we feel we are best able to / are most interested in and that's quite ok with me (there is really no alternative anyway). I sincerely apologise if I gave any other impression than that. I agree though that we are probably best holding the rest of the conversation until after the election. Kind regards. Anotherclown (talk) 05:13, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
- I'm sorry for the confusion, it's my own doing, because I changed my mind halfway through this conversation ... I'm actually going to use this discussion as a jumping-off point to talk about something unrelated, after elections. I'd like to ask everyone's indulgence: pretend for a moment that what's going on here is that there are some who want all coords to pitch in on a set of coord tasks, with no credit for any reviewing work they do, and that I don't see myself having time for that as long as I'm covering almost all of the FAC, A-class and PR articles, so I'm offering a compromise: if someone will cover my reviewing chores for a month, then I'll do one tenth of the total yearly workload from the coord task list (preferably compressed into a month or two). Suppose that's the conflict we're having (and arguably, that's at least part of the conflict) ... is anyone willing to help us out with this conflict by volunteering to cover my reviewing duties for a month, doing whatever form of support/oppose reviewing you're comfortable with? - Dank (push to talk) 13:57, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
- Gday. Not rejecting, somehow missed it. From my perspective this was never about handing anyone chores, when I mentioned the task matrix I was suggesting we ask the next round of elected co-ords to volunteer for tasks we include in it. It was more of a way of ensuring we have allocated (through individuals volunteering) co-ords to the recurring tasks so that we can ensure they get done, rather than leaving it a bit more to chance. From my point of view I have no issue with anyone's level of contribution. With in our own capacity we all give what we want / are able to give, in the areas we feel we are best able to / are most interested in and that's quite ok with me (there is really no alternative anyway). I sincerely apologise if I gave any other impression than that. I agree though that we are probably best holding the rest of the conversation until after the election. Kind regards. Anotherclown (talk) 05:13, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
- Okay, so just to be clear, it looks like you're rejecting my offer above. This is the last I'll say on the subject until after elections. - Dank (push to talk) 01:48, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
- I'd like to see a narrow list of tasks that coords are expected to do by dint of being elected. I think it is easy to get coord duties mixed up with the general tasks all active Milhist members should undertake. Reviewing, for example, which isn't a coord task per se, is a task all project members need to undertake if the system is to work. I know most coords do more than their fair share of reviewing, but strictly speaking it isn't a coord task. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 01:03, 27 September 2015 (UTC)
- G'day, AC, yes I think it would be a good idea to add these, so long as it is made clear that it is not a requirement for co-ords to do them. We don't want people to feel like it is a chore that they are compelled to do. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 02:42, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
New Academy article - "Asking for help"
Gday. I had a few spare minutes so I have drafted one of the missing Academy articles (pls see Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Asking for help). Could some of you guys pls look over it and make sure you are happy with it? If you'd like to make changes / additions of cse feel free to do so. Thanks again. Anotherclown (talk) 04:42, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
- Well done. I'll have a look this arv. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 05:36, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
- Have made a few minor tweaks, looks good to me. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 06:36, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
- Cheers for those, they look good. I've now moved it across to the Academy page. Looking through the list of outstanding articles I think some of these may be a little redundant and are already covered by some of our existing courses so we may be creating unnecessary effort in trying to create new articles on all of these. For instance "Routine Coordinator tasks" seems to be covered adequately by a section on this page itself. Also I wonder if the one on reference templates is necessary. There is scope to cover this a little more in Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Citations and references I'd say. Thoughts? Anotherclown (talk) 18:03, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
- Agreed, also I think "Developing consensus for a major initiative" is probably redundant to Wikipedia:Consensus. Thanks for your work on "Asking for help", AC. All the best, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:44, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks - I've removed the redundant ones from the list now but will revert if there are any objections expressed post this of cse. Any chance anyone is interested in writing some of the remaining missing Academy cses? The low hanging fruit looks mostly gone though... Anotherclown (talk) 09:03, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
- I'll stab myself to do Unit names and abbreviations and Ranks and abbreviations if there are no takers for these, although I'd propose combining them as I see it as a similar issue. Any objections? Anotherclown (talk) 09:06, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks - I've removed the redundant ones from the list now but will revert if there are any objections expressed post this of cse. Any chance anyone is interested in writing some of the remaining missing Academy cses? The low hanging fruit looks mostly gone though... Anotherclown (talk) 09:03, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
- Agreed, also I think "Developing consensus for a major initiative" is probably redundant to Wikipedia:Consensus. Thanks for your work on "Asking for help", AC. All the best, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:44, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
- Cheers for those, they look good. I've now moved it across to the Academy page. Looking through the list of outstanding articles I think some of these may be a little redundant and are already covered by some of our existing courses so we may be creating unnecessary effort in trying to create new articles on all of these. For instance "Routine Coordinator tasks" seems to be covered adequately by a section on this page itself. Also I wonder if the one on reference templates is necessary. There is scope to cover this a little more in Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Citations and references I'd say. Thoughts? Anotherclown (talk) 18:03, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
- Have made a few minor tweaks, looks good to me. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 06:36, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
I intended to bring up after the coordinator elections conclude, but seeing as how its kind of jump started itself here I'll point out that the entirety of the academy pages we have need to be rechecked an updated. Not a few of the academy's page have information and advice that has been render obsolete due to shifting tides here, and as a result they all need a thorough check to make sure that all the information is still accurate and useful. I know for a fact that the main page and the maintaining article courses have obsolete information in them, I doubt that the working group article has any use since the working groups have been out of use for some time, and the A-Class toolbox has more than 4 links now, and that's all just for starters. Like I said, I was gonna bring this up after the next tranche took office so that we could get to work on the material as a new group, but I suppose now is as good a time as any to start thinking about it. TomStar81 (Talk) 09:50, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
- Gday Tom. Sorry for the delayed response, I got sidetracked with RL. Yes you are of cse correct (its something I noticed going through them too), we should try and get something organized to review the current Academy articles in addition to writing any that are outstanding. Happy to hold off on further discussion until the conclusion of the election though so we can hopefully get everyone involved. Anotherclown (talk) 04:56, 29 September 2015 (UTC)
BTW I have now written a draft for Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Unit names, ranks and abbreviations (combining the two as per my post above). I'd be grateful if anyone would have a look at it and make sure you are happy with it / that it reflects an accurate understanding of the current state of play etc before I move the link over to the Academy page. Happy to discuss any changes you might think are req'd of cse. Thanks again. Anotherclown (talk) 19:36, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
- Great work, AC. I had a read through and it seems good to me. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 21:21, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
- As there do not appear to be anymore opinions about this I have now moved it over to the Academy. Happy to discuss further / make other changes though still of cse if there are any saved rounds. Anotherclown (talk) 10:22, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
guidance needed
I want to use a pic from the German article on de:Henning Alexander von Kleist in Henning Alexander von Kleist and it is not in Commons. Is there any way I can move it to commons from the German wiki? auntieruth (talk) 20:33, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
- Commonshelper is a good tool, or see also WP:TRANSFER. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:37, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
Coordinator Election concluded
Our coordinator elections have officially concluded, with the results as follows:
- Sturmvogel 66 34
- AustralianRupert 30
- Peacemaker67 28
- Hawkeye7 26
- TomStar81 26
- Dank 25
- Anotherclown 23
- Auntieruth55 23
- Nikkimaria 22
- MisterBee1966 21
Congratulations to everyone who made the cut, and thanks to everyone who turned out to !vote! TomStar81 (Talk) 00:39, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
- @WP:MILHIST coordinators: I've updated the coordinator page and the notification template. If you received this notification, all is working as expected. Kirill [talk] 00:56, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks, Kirill; I'll try not to let the power get to my head!--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:18, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
- Congrats Sturm and all of you! I guess we could wish for a few new faces in there as well but I for one didn't find the time to solicit potential candidates. Anyway this tranche could do the job with their eyes shut, so coord duties are in very good hands... :-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:52, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks, Kirill; I'll try not to let the power get to my head!--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:18, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
Wikiconference USA
Is anybody planning on attending this, here in DC in a couple of weeks? I'm toying with giving a presentation on why we're so successful; the shortest in Wikimania/conference history: "I blame the Australians!" On a slightly more serious note, if anyone has thoughts on a presentation, speak up; we can probably whip something into shape with a mild amount of effort. I've got relatives coming that weekend, so I won't be able to attend all three days, but I figure we can at least arrange a meet up since I've only ever met Kirill in the flesh.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:18, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
- I'll be there, of course. I'm happy to help arrange a MILHIST meetup in one form or another, but I suspect that most of us aren't in the area? Kirill [talk] 02:01, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
- @Sturmvogel 66: I'll be there! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:05, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
A couple of points for this Coordinator Tranche
@WP:MILHIST coordinators: Welcome to all new and returning coordinators. I have a few points that we need to consider moving forward, and I'm sure you guys have some points to add as well, so lets get'em up here for discussion:
- For starters, as I noted above, our academy needs an update and overhaul to get things current. As I noted above, some of the information is no longer valid, other courses have what would now be considered bad or incomplete advice to editors in a certain area.
- Along those same lines, I think we could do with a dedicated academy page for how to set up the coordinator election pages, covering the tally box, template notifications, and the use of the media delivery service to get the word out. That latter one could be spun out into its own course for those who will in time inherit the responsibility of publishing the bugle.
- We were discussing the idea of maybe putting people on assignment to cover the ACR areas, which has its own section above. If we are resolved to move forward with this how do you want to proceed? Along the same lines, we reserve the closing of ACR pages to the coordinators, so do we want to grant milhist bot a place as an actual coordinator for the project, or just let it be?
- Would it be possible to put a little more responsibility on the MilHistBot vis-a-vis tracking and adding ACR awards and pinging the coordinators about the open nomination?
- I'd be interested in sending out a notice or survey or something of that nature to the milhist members to get a feel for where the community stands and what they think we should prioritize in the next 12 months. I know that the signpost has an anonymous feedback tool that we could look into if we were interested in getting feedback from the community without having it trace back to anyone in particular.
Does anyone else have anything that we should look at here moving forward? I'd be interested in hearing about it, all the more so since we have 12 long months to work with and on it. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:28, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
- A couple of thoughts, in no particular order:
- As far as I know, the Signpost's feedback tool only works for yes/no questions, so I'm not sure how useful it would be for something along the lines of a discussion on priorities. Having said that, I'm not sure that we particularly need the anonymity; I expect that project members would be perfectly happy to respond to a normal on-wiki poll of some sort. We would still presumably need to come up with different ideas for people to respond to, unless we want to make it entirely open-ended.
- I don't think we need to formally list the bot as a coordinator; from a public-facing standpoint, we wouldn't really want it presented as someone for members to approach for help and such. (On a terribly pedantic note, a coordinator has to mark the review as passed or failed before the bot will do anything, so I'm unconvinced that what it's doing is properly considered as "closing" the review.)
- As a first step towards updating the academy courses, it might be useful to quickly go through them and sort them into those that are still more-or-less valid (but may need minor improvements, etc.) and those that are significantly out of date and need to be rewritten or scrapped.
- Kirill [talk] 02:12, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
- The Bot doesn't need to be listed as a coordinator, but will only respond to requests to promote articles to A-class from someone in the co-ordinators category. I will go through and update it to reflect the current list on the weekend. I'm not an admin, so if your talk page is locked, I'll leave a request. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:05, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
- Okay. All done now. Any suggestions for improving the bot will be gratefully accepted. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:22, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
- Agree with Kirill's suggested approach with the academy pages, suggest we ask the new tranche if they will nominate a month during which they will look after ACR closures, and suggest Milhistbot could ping the coords when it adds an award nom. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 05:21, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
- From my point of view:
- I agree with the thoughts advanced above about moving the Acadmey articles forward again (and Tom's ideas about some of the other topics which should be included are very good - as I said earlier I think retaining corporate knowledge is a key threat to the project so this looks like the solution to me).
- IRT how the year is going to pan out I'd like to see some sort of planning timeline developed with key activities etc and think some sort of "opt-in" task matrix for co-ord tasks would be useful as well (per previous discussions above).
- As much as it is horribly boring work we probably need to organize a backlog drive. Are there suggestions for the best month to do this? Anotherclown (talk) 12:23, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
- re backlog drive, I've been thinking about that. I cannot keep up on the backlog for unassessed/untasked articles. For a while, it was manageable, but one day a couple hundred articles appeared (I don't know how), all created 2–3 years ago and now, new articles show up in the dozens. auntieruth (talk) 15:09, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
- We've held successful backlog drives in various different months. I think we worked out what months might be best maybe last year... I'll search and see. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 21:47, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
Backlog drive (15 October to 30 November?)
G'day all, there being no time like the present, does anyone see major issues with a backlog reduction drive so soon? I reckon six weeks gives people flexibility so they can contribute when they have time. Views? Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 21:59, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
- Six weeks sounds about right; any later than that and we would have issues with the month of December, and we all know what that is about. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:09, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
- @WP:MILHIST coordinators: does anyone oppose? Thanks, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 04:47, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
- sure, why not MisterBee1966 (talk) 06:12, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
- Sounds reasonable to me. Are we targeting a particular subset of the backlogs, or will we just have it include everything? Kirill [talk] 07:43, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
- I'd say everything, then have a more targeted drive early next year. What do you think, Auntieruth55? Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 08:37, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
- I've started a page Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/October 2015 backlog reduction drive, could someone take a look? I'll create the worklist page too. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 09:48, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
- You don't muck around! Thanks for sorting this. Yes I think its a good idea to crack on with this ASAP and 6 weeks sounds good. I just wonder if we are missing an advertising opportunity by timing it to start before the next edition of the Bugle? I guess we could get around that with a mass mail out (no idea how to do them though). Anotherclown (talk) 11:52, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
- I think that Anotherclown makes a good point and we should advertise it in the Bugle first. Can we expedite it's publication enough to make it before the 15th?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 13:02, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
- I wonder if a mass mailout would be more effective than the Bugle in this instance? Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 23:41, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
- I think that Anotherclown makes a good point and we should advertise it in the Bugle first. Can we expedite it's publication enough to make it before the 15th?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 13:02, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
- You don't muck around! Thanks for sorting this. Yes I think its a good idea to crack on with this ASAP and 6 weeks sounds good. I just wonder if we are missing an advertising opportunity by timing it to start before the next edition of the Bugle? I guess we could get around that with a mass mail out (no idea how to do them though). Anotherclown (talk) 11:52, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
- I've started a page Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/October 2015 backlog reduction drive, could someone take a look? I'll create the worklist page too. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 09:48, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
- I'd say everything, then have a more targeted drive early next year. What do you think, Auntieruth55? Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 08:37, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
- Sounds reasonable to me. Are we targeting a particular subset of the backlogs, or will we just have it include everything? Kirill [talk] 07:43, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
- sure, why not MisterBee1966 (talk) 06:12, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
- @WP:MILHIST coordinators: does anyone oppose? Thanks, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 04:47, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
- that works. perhaps just add a column to the reviews? I've done hundreds, and it just fades away eventually. auntieruth (talk) 00:14, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- Will do. On the topic of mass mailout vs. Bugle, I think a direct invitation via mass mailout might be more effective for something like a drive. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 00:16, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- divcol added to the MHA assessments section of the worklists page. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 01:15, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- I have no idea what that means (divcol MHA assessments section of worklists). If I've been supposed to be keeping track of assessments, I've not done it. My bad? auntieruth (talk) 01:19, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- Sorry, I meant that I have added columns to the worklists page for the upcoming backlog drive, because you indicated that you have done lots of them. This way it won't be one long single column list. We don't normally record assessments, but if you join the backlog drive you can, and that accrues points! Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 01:29, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- Okay, I've added my name to thelist. It occurred to me it was probably like the guild of copy editors backlog attacks so I went hunting for it. I've been attacking the backlog in assessments/task force. fixing what I can. It's a massive backlog. I don't know if that should be added or not, but seems to me that it'sbuilding up faster than I can knock it down. auntieruth (talk) 01:38, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- I'm open to including other areas, the ones I put in are just the "general drive" ones we've used in the past couple of years. Given the 2.5K needing assessment, and the 600+ needing task force assignment, I reckon they'd be good additions, maybe at 2 points per article assessed or task force added. @WP:MILHIST coordinators: any contrary views? Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 02:17, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- Category 9 is currently "Assessing articles listed at WP:MHA" (5 points) which I think covers the articles "needing assessment" doesn't it, and not just those that get listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Requests? I think that's how we've do it in the past. That said there is currently no progress bar to reflect it so we could probably add that. The suggestion re the "needing task forces" addition for 2 points sounds good to me. Anotherclown (talk) 08:36, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- No, in the past 3 years it's just been assessing at MHA. These articles are those that have not been improved by a specific editor then brought to MHA for assessment, but merely haven't been assessed after creation. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 10:54, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- Ok - then I a little confused by what is meant by "In this regard, 5 points are offered per article you assess against the B-class criteria during the drive." Regardless, I agree that if they weren't already then articles in the unassessed category should be included in the drive as well but I'd say there really is no difference b/n assessing them and those listed for assessment at MHA, so they should both be 5 points as well (not 2 points as proposed above). Anotherclown (talk) 11:32, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- Noting that the September 2014 drive had a 10th category: "Unassessed military history articles" (5 points). Perhaps we could use this as the template? Anotherclown (talk) 11:35, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- Ok - then I a little confused by what is meant by "In this regard, 5 points are offered per article you assess against the B-class criteria during the drive." Regardless, I agree that if they weren't already then articles in the unassessed category should be included in the drive as well but I'd say there really is no difference b/n assessing them and those listed for assessment at MHA, so they should both be 5 points as well (not 2 points as proposed above). Anotherclown (talk) 11:32, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- No, in the past 3 years it's just been assessing at MHA. These articles are those that have not been improved by a specific editor then brought to MHA for assessment, but merely haven't been assessed after creation. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 10:54, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- Category 9 is currently "Assessing articles listed at WP:MHA" (5 points) which I think covers the articles "needing assessment" doesn't it, and not just those that get listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Requests? I think that's how we've do it in the past. That said there is currently no progress bar to reflect it so we could probably add that. The suggestion re the "needing task forces" addition for 2 points sounds good to me. Anotherclown (talk) 08:36, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- I'm open to including other areas, the ones I put in are just the "general drive" ones we've used in the past couple of years. Given the 2.5K needing assessment, and the 600+ needing task force assignment, I reckon they'd be good additions, maybe at 2 points per article assessed or task force added. @WP:MILHIST coordinators: any contrary views? Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 02:17, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- Okay, I've added my name to thelist. It occurred to me it was probably like the guild of copy editors backlog attacks so I went hunting for it. I've been attacking the backlog in assessments/task force. fixing what I can. It's a massive backlog. I don't know if that should be added or not, but seems to me that it'sbuilding up faster than I can knock it down. auntieruth (talk) 01:38, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- Sorry, I meant that I have added columns to the worklists page for the upcoming backlog drive, because you indicated that you have done lots of them. This way it won't be one long single column list. We don't normally record assessments, but if you join the backlog drive you can, and that accrues points! Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 01:29, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- I have no idea what that means (divcol MHA assessments section of worklists). If I've been supposed to be keeping track of assessments, I've not done it. My bad? auntieruth (talk) 01:19, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- divcol added to the MHA assessments section of the worklists page. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 01:15, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- Will do. On the topic of mass mailout vs. Bugle, I think a direct invitation via mass mailout might be more effective for something like a drive. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 00:16, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
I'm wondering if we want to focus just on assessing articles, including filling in missing B-class checklists, or do we want to do that and all the other stuff, which generally means writing enough to satisfy one or more of the B-class criteria?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:02, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
- My mistake overlooking the Sep 14 drive. I'm interested in what Auntieruth55 reckons, she's been doing a lot of gnoming lately. With these drives, in some cases we might be trying to do too much, and perhaps we should narrow it down to make the biggest difference we can to what matters most. What about tackling only three? 1. those needing assessment (2.5K), 2. those needing B-Class checklists completed (~500), and 3. those needing task force assignment (~600), and allow people to claim all three if they do all three on the one article. Of course, articles that look B-Class will still have to be done through MHA. Thoughts? Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 00:25, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
- @WP:MILHIST coordinators: any other views on narrowing this drive down to just three areas? If this is going in the Bugle, I'll want to get on and trim the page down in the next day or so. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 00:09, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- I see more benefit in a broader drive (i.e. the 9-10 categories we currently have) but will of cse support a more narrowly focused one if the others are for it. I get bored doing the same thing over and over again and I imagine others do too so a drive which only includes three categories might not actually result in more reduction in these areas. Anotherclown (talk) 08:43, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- I can see the benefit of both, actually. We get a lot of articles in the unassessed/unassigned categories that need a basic review, boxes, general comments. Sometimes I do comments, sometimes I don't. Things appear in there seemingly overnight that were written 2–5 years ago, but have not been assessed. I think it depends on what we want to accomplish. However, given that there are likely to be say, 5-10 of us working on this, perhaps it would make sense to tackle a few categories, rather than all of them. I'm not likely to do much content/citation work on anything that isn't related to European wars 1750-1850, and others probabl have areas where they can do stuff similar to that. auntieruth (talk) 19:45, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- I think that we should just focus on assessments and maybe improving B-3, 4, 5 as they generally don't require specialized knowledge or sources to upgrade. B-1 and 2 can generally only be dealt with by somebody upgrading the entire article.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:22, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- I'd support that approach. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 00:33, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
- @WP:MILHIST coordinators: in the absence of any other views, I think we should go with Sturm's suggestion, dropping serials 1. (criteria B1) and 3. (criteria B2) from the scoring list. Any repechages? I need to get it ready for advertising in the Bugle. Thanks, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 22:42, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- Looks good to me. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:44, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- Looks reasonable to me as well. Kirill [talk] 22:49, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- Concur with this suggestion. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:18, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- Yes there seems to be support for this so I'm happy to go along with it. Anotherclown (talk) 07:00, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- Concur with this suggestion. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:18, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- Looks reasonable to me as well. Kirill [talk] 22:49, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- Looks good to me. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:44, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- @WP:MILHIST coordinators: in the absence of any other views, I think we should go with Sturm's suggestion, dropping serials 1. (criteria B1) and 3. (criteria B2) from the scoring list. Any repechages? I need to get it ready for advertising in the Bugle. Thanks, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 22:42, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- I'd support that approach. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 00:33, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
- I think that we should just focus on assessments and maybe improving B-3, 4, 5 as they generally don't require specialized knowledge or sources to upgrade. B-1 and 2 can generally only be dealt with by somebody upgrading the entire article.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:22, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- I can see the benefit of both, actually. We get a lot of articles in the unassessed/unassigned categories that need a basic review, boxes, general comments. Sometimes I do comments, sometimes I don't. Things appear in there seemingly overnight that were written 2–5 years ago, but have not been assessed. I think it depends on what we want to accomplish. However, given that there are likely to be say, 5-10 of us working on this, perhaps it would make sense to tackle a few categories, rather than all of them. I'm not likely to do much content/citation work on anything that isn't related to European wars 1750-1850, and others probabl have areas where they can do stuff similar to that. auntieruth (talk) 19:45, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- I see more benefit in a broader drive (i.e. the 9-10 categories we currently have) but will of cse support a more narrowly focused one if the others are for it. I get bored doing the same thing over and over again and I imagine others do too so a drive which only includes three categories might not actually result in more reduction in these areas. Anotherclown (talk) 08:43, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- @WP:MILHIST coordinators: any other views on narrowing this drive down to just three areas? If this is going in the Bugle, I'll want to get on and trim the page down in the next day or so. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 00:09, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
OK, I think we have a majority, I'll start trimming it down. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 07:51, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- Sorry, I'm late to the conversation, but to be honest I think it might be a mistake to concentrate on just a few categories. (I believe) that the reason the backlog drive was set up as it was in the past was to encourage broader participation by tackling all aspects of the B-class criteria. In its current configuration, the drive may only appeal to a few people. I believe that the key goal of the drive is to encourage participation in the project, rather than simply reducing raw numbers in backlog categories and its success should not be judged by whether we have a positive reduction in x, y or z category. I know this sounds counter-intuitive...but that's my opinion. Anyway, apologies for being a nay-sayer. I will of course support the consensus by taking part in the drive. (I'm sorry if all this sounds overly negative. To be honest, my depression has been worse recently, so maybe that's where this is coming from...anyway, apologies). I certainly appreciate the effort you have all made to try to revamp the drive, to try something new. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:41, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
- That's fine, Rupert, everyone's opinion is valued here. We actually only ended up removing two categories plus the photographs, so it is not too much of a reduction. I'm keen to see how we go with this drive, and perhaps we can focus a bit more on b1, b2 and photographs on the next drive. Regards, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 11:54, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
- Sorry to hear you're feeling bad AR, you can talk with me anytime. - Dank (push to talk) 13:00, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
- @WP:MILHIST coordinators: I think the Bugle is still waiting on FPs, and the backlog drive starts tomorrow. Could someone who "has the technology" send out a mass message about the drive? Perhaps just use the blurb I did for the Bugle? Thanks in advance, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 00:02, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
- @Peacemaker67: - I don't have the tech but I guessed at how to do the FPs (I bit late I know). @Ian Rose and The ed17: - gents are you able to do a quick sanity check then dispatch The Bugle for this month pls? We had wanted to get it out before 15 Oct due to the start of the Backlog Drive but we don't seem to have quite made the deadline. Thank you. Anotherclown (talk) 11:32, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
- Didn't have time to make a thorough check but spotted a couple of things to tweak and have now despatched -- tks everyone for your sterling efforts while Nick and I have been away, you can keep it up after we get back as far as I'm concerned...! That said, I expect to be back on deck mid-November so should be able to do more with the next issue than just send it out... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:54, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
- @Peacemaker67: - I don't have the tech but I guessed at how to do the FPs (I bit late I know). @Ian Rose and The ed17: - gents are you able to do a quick sanity check then dispatch The Bugle for this month pls? We had wanted to get it out before 15 Oct due to the start of the Backlog Drive but we don't seem to have quite made the deadline. Thank you. Anotherclown (talk) 11:32, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
- @WP:MILHIST coordinators: I think the Bugle is still waiting on FPs, and the backlog drive starts tomorrow. Could someone who "has the technology" send out a mass message about the drive? Perhaps just use the blurb I did for the Bugle? Thanks in advance, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 00:02, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
Jul-Sep 15 review tallies
Got a start on this - anyone care to fill in GANs? Nikkimaria (talk) 20:44, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks, Nikki, what's the best way to find the Milhist GANs? AustralianRupert (talk) 10:28, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- The method we've been using is outlined here, although it isn't quite accurate. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:28, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- Gday I've gone and tallied this using the method suggested, hopefully I got them right. I added my own GAs - not sure that's really right. Is someone prepared to verify I didn't fudge my figures pls for the sack of transparency? Thanks. Anotherclown (talk) 23:57, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- G'day, mate, thanks for this. I was half way through myself...seems laborious. Anyway, 8 GANs for you matches my tally. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 00:19, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
- There used to be a way of doing it using the assessment logs, but the search screen doesn't recognise our project anymore. I've asked about it, but got just *crickets*... Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 00:35, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
- G'day, mate, thanks for this. I was half way through myself...seems laborious. Anyway, 8 GANs for you matches my tally. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 00:19, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
- Gday I've gone and tallied this using the method suggested, hopefully I got them right. I added my own GAs - not sure that's really right. Is someone prepared to verify I didn't fudge my figures pls for the sack of transparency? Thanks. Anotherclown (talk) 23:57, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- The method we've been using is outlined here, although it isn't quite accurate. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:28, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
Nikkimaria, can you spell out what isn't quite accurate in the procedure for tallying, and I'll amend it? Thanks, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 02:48, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
- Just checking in while we have a rare spot of rain on the Dalmatian coast... Unless I misaunderstood what Nikki meant, the potential for inaccuracy is as stated currently, i.e. it depends on people doing the correct thing and listing new Good Articles at WP:GA. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:46, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
- There's that, and also it only counts passed GANs and only counts those listed as Warfare (not History or other potentially relevant topics). Nikkimaria (talk) 12:28, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
- Despite its lack of precision, I think it is worth it. There are several members of this project that work very hard reviewing GANs (Sturm is a great example, having reviewed over 570 GANs), and it is just as important that they get recognition for their work as it is for Peer, ACR, FAC reviewers, IMHO. Regards, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 12:50, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
- I agree that recognizing these reviews is important, I just wish there were a way to recognize all of them. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:56, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
- I'm wondering whether there is potential for a bot to do this work. Is that theoretically possible, Hawkeye7? Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 12:59, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
- It should be possible to track articles that become GAs based on the assessment class change itself, but that would require either parsing the assessment logs or going through the related changes for the assessment category, which I suspect is more difficult to implement than looking at the GA page itself. Kirill [talk] 15:02, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
- I'm wondering whether there is potential for a bot to do this work. Is that theoretically possible, Hawkeye7? Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 12:59, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
- I agree that recognizing these reviews is important, I just wish there were a way to recognize all of them. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:56, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
- Despite its lack of precision, I think it is worth it. There are several members of this project that work very hard reviewing GANs (Sturm is a great example, having reviewed over 570 GANs), and it is just as important that they get recognition for their work as it is for Peer, ACR, FAC reviewers, IMHO. Regards, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 12:50, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
- There's that, and also it only counts passed GANs and only counts those listed as Warfare (not History or other potentially relevant topics). Nikkimaria (talk) 12:28, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
@WP:MILHIST coordinators: I've handed out the awards (bar mine), so if someone could do the honours, I'll add something to the Bugle. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 10:55, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
September contest
Could someone check my September entries at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Contest? Then I'll tally, award and do the October Bugle bit. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 02:35, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- Checked now. Was I supposed to score? I've no idea about the contest, as I've never entered. Anotherclown (talk) 08:42, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- Also the scoreboard currently says: "End of September 2014 contest". Should that be 2015? Anotherclown (talk) 08:44, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- G'day, mate, no it hasn't been updated since then. I used to update it monthly, but I don't think it gets updated anymore. To be honest, I truly believe the running tally should be discontinued. A never ending contest doesn't make much sense to me. A yearly one, maybe... but I think last time I floated this idea there wasn't much support. To be honest, I think we should just do away with the table all together. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:17, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- I'm updating it now, just so we can make a decision based on current conditions. It does create a fair bit of work, but there is no award for say 1000 points or 5000 points, so I'm not sure it is worthwhile either. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 10:42, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- Of course, it only creates a fair bit of work if it is left for a year (there's a mea culpa in there). Perhaps, if we chose to keep it, coords could volunteer to tally, award and update the log one month a year, and we could create awards for 1000 points, 2500 points and 5000 points? Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 00:38, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
- I'm updating it now, just so we can make a decision based on current conditions. It does create a fair bit of work, but there is no award for say 1000 points or 5000 points, so I'm not sure it is worthwhile either. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 10:42, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- G'day, mate, no it hasn't been updated since then. I used to update it monthly, but I don't think it gets updated anymore. To be honest, I truly believe the running tally should be discontinued. A never ending contest doesn't make much sense to me. A yearly one, maybe... but I think last time I floated this idea there wasn't much support. To be honest, I think we should just do away with the table all together. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:17, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
- Also the scoreboard currently says: "End of September 2014 contest". Should that be 2015? Anotherclown (talk) 08:44, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
October Bugle reminder
G'day all, just a reminder that the October Bugle is also a combined effort, so could everyone chip in with the bit they signed up for. The Awards and Contest sections are complete, and I've added a comment to the editors' bit to highlight that we had two members get their first ACM in September. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 02:46, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
- I started the book review section - Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/October 2015/Book reviews. Not sure if its 100% as I've never done it before. Anotherclown (talk) 09:00, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
- Looked pretty good to me, AC. BTW, I noted the suggestion elsewhere to get the Bugle out before the 15th to advertise the backlog drive so if you guys can put it together and ping Ed and me say the day before, then one of us can despatch in a timely manner. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:49, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
- Ok, I've listed the Featured Articles and A-class articles that were promoted during the month, and written blurbs for them all. Can someone please take a quick look at what I've written and give it a quick copy edit if necessary? Also, can someone else list the featured pictures, portals, topics etc. I don't think there were any featured lists. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 03:59, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
- Sure. Copyediting done. - Dank (push to talk) 04:20, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks, Dan. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 04:24, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
- I promised a review, and it's on my sandbox. Not sure how to drop it in. auntieruth (talk) 19:33, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- @Auntieruth55: - Thanks very much for this, I've placed it in as the review essay for the month. Pls see Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/October 2015/Review essay if you wish to make any changes to it before publication. Any chance there are some suitable images which could be added? Anotherclown (talk) 09:51, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- How about a picture ofmy dissertation nd a stack of the books I've cited? auntieruth (talk) 16:53, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- I've copyedited this as well (except I ec'd on Ruth's last change, sorry). I think I've got everything added so far to this edition. - Dank (push to talk) 18:18, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- no problem Dank. Thanks for your input! auntieruth (talk) 18:22, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- I've copyedited this as well (except I ec'd on Ruth's last change, sorry). I think I've got everything added so far to this edition. - Dank (push to talk) 18:18, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- How about a picture ofmy dissertation nd a stack of the books I've cited? auntieruth (talk) 16:53, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- @Auntieruth55: - Thanks very much for this, I've placed it in as the review essay for the month. Pls see Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/October 2015/Review essay if you wish to make any changes to it before publication. Any chance there are some suitable images which could be added? Anotherclown (talk) 09:51, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- I promised a review, and it's on my sandbox. Not sure how to drop it in. auntieruth (talk) 19:33, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks, Dan. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 04:24, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
- Sure. Copyediting done. - Dank (push to talk) 04:20, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
- Ok, I've listed the Featured Articles and A-class articles that were promoted during the month, and written blurbs for them all. Can someone please take a quick look at what I've written and give it a quick copy edit if necessary? Also, can someone else list the featured pictures, portals, topics etc. I don't think there were any featured lists. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 03:59, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
- Looked pretty good to me, AC. BTW, I noted the suggestion elsewhere to get the Bugle out before the 15th to advertise the backlog drive so if you guys can put it together and ping Ed and me say the day before, then one of us can despatch in a timely manner. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:49, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
- IO can do pictures in a day or two. Poke me onmy talk page if there's any problem. Adam Cuerden (talk) 21:57, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- ok, I'm done. added a couple of pictures. finished eds. auntieruth (talk) 16:03, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
I've added another book review; I'd be obliged if somebody could look it over for any issues.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:52, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
- I wrote another book review, which can be found at User:Hawkeye7/Book Reviews. I'm not sure if you want to add it or hold it over for next month. Hawkeye7 (talk) 07:41, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
- I reckon hold on to it for the November issue, Hawk. @WP:MILHIST coordinators: I've now prepped the drive pages per the above discussions, and have added a blurb in the Bugle. I think it is about ready to go out, excepting maybe the FPs, Adam Cuerden? Could someone who knows it better than me take a look and ping Ian to press the red button if it's ready? Cheers, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 10:49, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
- Father's visiting, but I'll try to find some time. Adam Cuerden (talk) 21:29, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
- I've gone through and cleaned up the front page and the header (I removed the interview redlink - I'm assuming we aren't having one this month?). Also I added a by-line for the OPED which seemed to be missing [2]. I'm assuming it was omitted by mistake (pls revert if I'm wrong). I also made a tweak to the project news page [3]. Otherwise, minus the FPs this looks ok to me if people are happy with my changes. Anotherclown (talk) 10:34, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
- @Adam Cuerden: - I've added the FP's now. Could you pls check I got it right? I used the ones for September for October? Link here for convenience. Anotherclown (talk) 11:27, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
- I've gone through and cleaned up the front page and the header (I removed the interview redlink - I'm assuming we aren't having one this month?). Also I added a by-line for the OPED which seemed to be missing [2]. I'm assuming it was omitted by mistake (pls revert if I'm wrong). I also made a tweak to the project news page [3]. Otherwise, minus the FPs this looks ok to me if people are happy with my changes. Anotherclown (talk) 10:34, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
- Father's visiting, but I'll try to find some time. Adam Cuerden (talk) 21:29, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
- I reckon hold on to it for the November issue, Hawk. @WP:MILHIST coordinators: I've now prepped the drive pages per the above discussions, and have added a blurb in the Bugle. I think it is about ready to go out, excepting maybe the FPs, Adam Cuerden? Could someone who knows it better than me take a look and ping Ian to press the red button if it's ready? Cheers, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 10:49, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
RFC Input
@WP:MILHIST coordinators: Can I get some feedback here? This was settled before, but apparently not to one editor's liking. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:41, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
- closed now, so perhaps he has figured out that he's losing. I'd challenge the whole section on WP:Verifiable, too. auntieruth (talk) 15:08, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
Co-ord participation in the Backlog Drive
@WP:MILHIST coordinators: - Just as the boss generally mucks in and helps clean (some) of the gear, it might be good if the troops saw more participation from the co-ords in the Backlog Drive. I'm certainly not suggesting that its a responsibility to participate, just that it might help to spark some interest in it if we are seen to be leading from the front with it. At the very least its probably not a good look if we cannot even get much participation from amoungst our selves for our own drive... For sure though I understand that we all have our own priorities / interests, not to mention commitments in real life as well, so even if you are only able to do a couple that would still be greatly appreciated. Cheers. Anotherclown (talk) 12:32, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
- Of course. And we might also encourage editors who regularly patrol the stubs to actually go ahead and assess them, rather than putting them up on the assessment list for others. I'm reluctant to make this suggestion myself given the editor(s)' previous reaction to this. auntieruth (talk) 15:34, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
- G'day, yes, most certainly. If we could all sign up and even just do maybe even just five assessments (or whatever interests us), it would go some way to promoting the drive. Anyway, I've got a hideous flu at the moment and I'm off work for a bit...so I'll try to do a few today. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 22:54, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks for everyone's efforts so far, much appreciated. Anotherclown (talk) 07:00, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
- G'day, yes, most certainly. If we could all sign up and even just do maybe even just five assessments (or whatever interests us), it would go some way to promoting the drive. Anyway, I've got a hideous flu at the moment and I'm off work for a bit...so I'll try to do a few today. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 22:54, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
Task Force categories
Ihate to ask it at this point, but could we add a "Medical" task force--general topics to our lists? We are getting a lot of hospitals, doctors, nurses, etc., (especially since a large group of early nurses have just been dumped in) and the doctors/nurses in particular are just going into that nebulous group as "Biography" but it would be better to put them under Medical. auntieruth (talk) 18:05, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
- G'day, Ruth, not sure about this one, to be honest. I think it might be too narrow, to be honest, and probably duplicates other lines of operation. The people can becovered by national and biographies task forces, while the hospitals can also be covered by national and maybe specific conflict task forces. That said, the topic of task forces might need some consideration and if there is a broad consensus, perhaps we could consider that one. Coincidentally, I was wondering about another one yesterday...I wonder about expanding "Films" to "Films, video games and fictional works", or something similar. Not that the topic interests me much, as I'm not much of a fan of any of these things, but I have noticed a gap while adding task forces. Thoughts? AustralianRupert (talk) 23:01, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
- Equally, I wonder about potentially expanding the British task force (which just covers England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) to include the Republic of Ireland...maybe it could be called the "British and Irish task force" or some other all encompassing name (if there is one). There are other possibilities for merging too, for instance Portuguese topics potentially could be dealt with maybe under a "Spanish and Portuguese task force", while a home could potentially be found for Belgian topics by grouping it with one of the other European task forces...perhaps the Dutch task force...? Thoughts? AustralianRupert (talk) 23:45, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
- A couple of thoughts:
- Films is a joint task force with WikiProject Films, with a hybrid assessment tracking system (i.e. the task force's assessment categories are identically generated based on an assessment in either the MILHIST project tag or the Films project tag). Because of this, I don't think it would be practical to change the scope to include material that's not covered by WikiProject Films. Having said that, my impression is that most fictional works will be covered by other topical or national task forces in any case; do we have a significant number of fictional topics with no task force coverage at all?
- Belgium could indeed be rolled in with the Dutch task force (perhaps renamed to "Low Countries military history"?), given how much shared history exists in this case.
- Spain and Portugal could potentially be combined (into "Iberian military history"?), but I would be a little hesitant to do so, given how distinct the two countries' respective military histories were much of the time. Other than the two countries being next to each other, I'm not sure that there is much shared between someone working on Spanish military activities and Portuguese military activities.
- Adding Ireland to the British task force seems like a faux pas, politically speaking. Having said that, are there a significant number of Irish military history topics that aren't already covered by the British task force (either because they involved conflicts with the British, or because they cover the period when Ireland was part of the UK)?
- Kirill Lokshin (talk) 00:04, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
- G'day Kirill, thanks for the comments. Yes, I've mainly been using national task forces or conflict specific ones for fiction etc. I like the idea of the "Low Countries military history task force" and was thinking the same. Re Spain and Portugal, agreed...I guess I'm really just thinking geographically/regionally rather than shared histories. Same re Britain and Ireland. I guess my concern with just covering Irish topics in a British task force, is that it could be seen to support a point of view. I'd argue that by putting Ireland in the task force's name, it gives it equal weight. See for instance the mark up used here, where maybe someone was trying to make a point: Talk:Irish Army. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 03:10, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
- That would be why I have repeatedly suggested organizing continental based task forces to help cover the gaps such as they were. Having task forces for Africa, Asia, North America, South America, Europe, Oceania, and Antarctica ensures that all nations and regions are theoretically covered by the project. If we followed up with regional task forces (ie Asia Minor, Middle East, Central American, etc) then we could disband a number of our nation-specific task forces and reactive them as components in the larger continent/region scheme, which would in theory allow us to reorganize the project's task forces into larger bites that would arguably increase editor participation while lowering the number of task forces that through editorial hemorrhaging now serve as a little more than task forces in being such as it were. Reorganizing in this fashion would also help the coordinators somewhat in that fewer task forces would lend the perception that the project's coordinators are making efforts to keep the project alive by combining or disbanding sections that no longer serve the project's best interests. If we could reorganize the national task forces in this way we would be in a position to gauge how open the community as a whole is to further reorganizations of this nature, which could allow us to fiddle with the other two tiers of task forces to see if we could reorganize them to better cover the military history fields as a whole. Any discussion of this nature, however, depends on both coordinator support and community support, and as you may have guessed from the above post I've made this suggestion before only to have it turned down as a whole, so the coordinators as a body haven't thought the idea useful enough to move forward with previously, so I don't know if anyone else would like to seriously discuss the matter with me and/or the other coordinators again. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:10, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
- I actually like what Tom is saying, for a lot of reasons. The "task forces" have long ago become a way of "organising" our project rather than an actual area of effort with dedicated members etc. I think it is time to accept this, and instead make our "task forces" about universal coverage rather than a grouping of interested editors. Continental "taskforces" (we'd have to come up with something other than "taskforces" to cover this, as the term implies a group of people working on it) is a great idea IMHO, with regional "taskforces" (again, with another name) beneath them. It helps to divide our work up in a sensible geographical way, so that people that are motivated in a particular geographical respect can focus in, yet doesn't detract from temporal approaches (ie WWI, WWII, etc), or specialisation approaches (AFVs, fortifications, etc). Cheers, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 09:25, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
- I'd retain "task force" as that is what the greater whole of Wikipedia calls such sub-sections in an established WikiProject, although for the sake of creativity I'd favor using "Joint Task Force" for the description so we could better play-up the jointly run pages with Wikiprojects that also have a claim to existing military articles - for example, the theoretical "North American Joint Task Force" could be see an a collective effort to run Military history pages with the assistance of WP:USA, WP:CANADA, WP:MEXICO, and WP:GREENLAND, and since those groups could now coordinate off one specific JTF page, which would make efforts to notify and involve said projects in collaborative efforts that much easier. Note that if this is a success, we can look at the other two task force categories and see about reorganizing them as well (if need be). TomStar81 (Talk) 10:21, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
- So, I have a question: what is it that we actually want task forces to do (or be)? If the main value of one (to the project, and to participating editors) is for categorization of articles, then I'm not sure that broader categories are going to be more useful than narrower ones. Consider, for example, our hypothetical North American task force:
- Individual editors are, I suspect, unlikely to think of themselves as "North American military historians"; if they have a geographic interest at all, it's probably more likely to be based on national boundaries (e.g. "I want to write about the Canadian military", "I have a book about US aircraft", etc.), simply because that's the way both actual militaries and typical military historiography is structured. If we roll these topics into one bundle, then someone looking for articles to edit about the Canadian military will need to wade through categories full of US military articles to find what they're interested in, which seems like it would make the task force less useful to them.
- Partner projects will, as a matter of principle, only care about articles that are in their scopes. WikiProject Canada, for example, might be very interested to get statistics/worklists/etc. for articles about Canadian military topics; they won't, however, care about the same for articles about Mexican military topics. If we can only provide this information on a continental level, then I'm not sure any of the national WikiProjects would have any reason to participate in this arrangement.
- As a practical matter, in cases where dual-tagging arrangements with national WikiProjects already exist (e.g. either the MILHIST tag or US tag will categorize articles into the US task force), we don't have any effective way to stop the other project from continuing tagging; even if we try to roll the task force up into a combined North American task force on our side, the other project will still be generating the substantive pieces of the national task force.
- If our main goal is to ensure that we have 100% article coverage by "geographic" task forces, while at the same time providing a categorization that will be useful to individual editors and attractive to potential partner projects, I would argue that we'll get more value by adding more narrowly scoped task forces that line up with the scopes used by these partner projects and their associated militaries (e.g. having an Argentinian military history task force that can be run in partnership with WikiProject Argentina and can work with Argentinian military historians and institutions, versus having a South American military history task force that doesn't have a one-to-one relationship with an external project or military). Now, obviously, this would mean that we'd need to figure out some way to have a large number of narrow task forces without unduly increasing overhead; my impression is that the current per-task force level of effort on our part is quite minimal, and that this consequently shouldn't be a show-stopper, but perhaps others have a different view on this.
- On a slightly different note, I would suggest that we should consider how we can make task forces more useful to individual editors, regardless of how they're structured. At the moment, aside from the assessment statistics and the "needing attention" categories generated from the assessment checklists, I don't think there's much that the typical task force offers; the other portions are either unmaintained (in the case of, e.g. the open task lists) or not really used (in the case of, e.g. the participant lists). Are there things that we can do (via structural changes, more automation, better templates, etc.) that would actually make these task forces more "usable"? Kirill Lokshin (talk) 13:44, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
- Perhaps then the best way forward would be to continue to discuss this here and add a special report tab to the upcoming Bugle edition soliciting input from the community on the task forces. Ultimately, any attempt to reorganize the task forces has to be done with community consent, so we're gonna need to include them in any reorganization attempt. As for the narrow scoped task forces: to adequately cover all those bases we'd need task forces for every country that operates some sort of military, and that could get exhaustive for us since the world has something like 200 nations, from superpowers all the way down to micro-nations. Admittedly we wouldn't need to have task forces for every nation since some nations are military-less, but there are a decent number out there that have some sort of military presence. From this point of view then a continental and region based set up allows us to cover all the nations on earth with a vastly reduced number of task forces for overhead. We can still keep nation specific task forces if the community thinks that the national task force in question is warranted, and we would still be in a position to create new nation specific task forces if the community wants. Otherwise, the continental/regional based task forces could be used as a sign of good faith that we do work to cover the military forces of every nation, even if the nation in question isn't specifically named. TomStar81 (Talk) 07:59, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
- G'day, Tom, yes, I agree totally regarding community engagement. I wonder if the task forces could be made more robust by having sortable sub categories. I don't know if this is possible, but for instance taking the example mentioned above about Argentina, could we have say a "Latin America task force" (as we currently do), but have sub-categories within that which allows articles to be sorted by countries within that task force. That would allow someone who is only interested in the one country to get a list of articles in their field of interest that they can work on. Perhaps that solution would also work for Ruth's question about a medical task force. For instance, it could be a sub category/task force within say "Science and technology" (for example, or something else if that isn't appropriate). @Auntieruth55: Thoughts? AustralianRupert (talk) 01:38, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
- This would actually be quite easy to implement by using the task force inheritance capability within the banner template (i.e. having the flag for one task force automatically sort the article into another task force, similar to how, for example, all ACW task force articles are automatically flagged for the US task force as well). In the case of countries versus continents/regions, we could have the larger task force inherit tags from its constituent smaller ones; thus, for example, all articles tagged as "Italian", "French", "German", etc. would automatically get a "European" tag. This also has the advantage of allowing continental/regional task forces to be quickly populated without the need for extensive manual re-tagging, since we'd be able to leverage the existing national tags. Kirill Lokshin (talk) 01:45, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
- So, I have a question: what is it that we actually want task forces to do (or be)? If the main value of one (to the project, and to participating editors) is for categorization of articles, then I'm not sure that broader categories are going to be more useful than narrower ones. Consider, for example, our hypothetical North American task force:
- A couple of thoughts:
- Equally, I wonder about potentially expanding the British task force (which just covers England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) to include the Republic of Ireland...maybe it could be called the "British and Irish task force" or some other all encompassing name (if there is one). There are other possibilities for merging too, for instance Portuguese topics potentially could be dealt with maybe under a "Spanish and Portuguese task force", while a home could potentially be found for Belgian topics by grouping it with one of the other European task forces...perhaps the Dutch task force...? Thoughts? AustralianRupert (talk) 23:45, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
help with James F. Amos biography
Good Day, Thanks for your help. I would like to garner support to revise the living biography of James F. Amos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_F._Amos) who retired as Commandant of Marine Corp in fall 2013. I am happy to make revisions myself but I don't want to get into edit war or cause problems. We need to remove the media garbage from this webpage; it's irrelevant to his service to the Marine Corp. Any allegations were unsubstantiated and we should not be documenting them in Wikipedia. The following sections in the biography need to be removed entirely: "Conflict with Marine Corps Times", "alleged abuse of power in misconduct cases", "Resume controversy". By allowing these sorts of media driven topics to dominate a military service personnel's record on Wikipedia, we are mistakenly degrading the value of Wikipedia. We cannot allow Wikipedia to simply be an extension of media by approving any topic that is published in a newspaper. Citing a bunch of Marine Corp Times articles is not appropriate. We must be held to a higher standard.
All leaders face scrutiny in the media but we should draw a line and focus on the meaningful events of person's career.
Can we please proceed with removing the three sections entirely? I can do that, or maybe one of you with a better reputation on wikipedia. I am just an end-user not a contributor. I have been stunned for a few years that this living biography was not improved previously. It's graded as a "C" . Let's improve it! Thank you very much, signed, Usa usa 123 (talk) 15:33, 15 October 2015 (UTC)USA USA 123.Usa usa 123 (talk) 15:33, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
- G'day, thank you for your interest in the encyclopedia. I think this would be best posted on the article's talk page. That would potentially allow you to try to develop a consensus there (amongst regular editors of that article) about what should be included in the article. As co-ordinators we have no more say about content than any other editor. If you can outline relevant policy-based arguments about why these sections should be reduced or removed, then you may be able to establish a consensus to adjust the article's coverage (I'd potentially suggestion WP:UNDUE may be as a start, but equally I think you will need to provide some coverage of these things to satisfy all perspectives). Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:16, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
No associated task force seems broken
We are missing the articles A-G on the "not task force" section. These disappeared yesterday while I was working on them. auntieruth (talk) 14:51, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
- Are you sure they weren't just tagged to a task force? The category is small enough that someone could go through the A-G articles fairly quickly. Kirill Lokshin (talk) 15:00, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
- Pretty sure Hamish did it. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 01:41, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
- Problem seems solved now, but no, it was a matter of 10 minutes and no one could go through several hundred articles that fast. auntieruth (talk) 15:00, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- Pretty sure Hamish did it. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 01:41, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
Revisiting the position of Coordinator Emeritus
@WP:MILHIST coordinators: We've currently two Coordinators Emeriti, and it is possible (although unlikely) that the position may be awarded to others at some point in the future. Given concerns raised when Roger Davies was originally nominated to be the second Coordinator Emeritus for the project (and in specific relation to the desire at the time not to have the position become some sort of automatic promotion when a lead leaves office) I have been thinking it might be a good idea to establish some kind of criteria for the position, nothing too formal or too high-set mind you, just some general guidelines that can be applied to the position. At a minimum, I think the following could be attached to the role at no consequence to the position itself:
- A perspective Coordinator Emeritus should have a unique skill set or otherwise be judged valuable enough that the project considers the person's role in the system to be vital to the project as a whole in some way, shape, or form.
- To be nominated for Coordinator Emeritus, the coordinator must discuss the matter to determine if the editor in question meets the first criteria for elevation to Coordinator Emeritus. If consensus emerges from within the group that the editor's retention would be beneficial to the project as a whole they should reach out to the editor in question to determine if they would be interested in hold the position, citing the reason(s) given for consideration of the title Emeritus. If the editor in question is agreeable to the proposal that he or she receive the title Emeritus then the coordinators may add such a motion for promotion to the upcoming coordinator election page for community input on the proposed addition of a new Coordinator Emeritus.
- The position may be held for as long as the given editor wishes provided that the editor in question continues to assist the project in a meaningful way. Active editors who hold the position but have not edited for the project for at least one year may have their emeritus status removed without prejudice to reappointment if it is shown that they have assisted the project in some way, shape, or form in the last year.
Under these rules then our Coordinator Emeritus position would only be offered to editors who remain passive in the project and who possess a skill set judged to be important enough to the coordinator corps to merit retention. In the case of our two current Coordinators Emeriti, Kirill Lokshin would still hold his title as he has computer (coding?) capabilities that we rely on to help the project as a whole, while Roger Davies may end up having his pulled since I'm not sure if he has any specific skills that we lack (although he has a few edits within the last year related to the project). Any thoughts on this? Is it worth pursuing, or should we let this lie? TomStar81 (Talk) 05:44, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
- Hi Tom, I'm not sure I'd want to be that prescriptive. IMHO the emeritus position should be for active editors (they might well be active elsewhere in the Wiki universe rather than in the day-to-day of coord duties, like Kirill), who have been lead coordinator for at least one tranche, and who would be a good ambassador for the project in the wider Wikiverse. As far as "retiring" an emeritus goes, Kirill still steps in to answer questions and help out with curly issues, but I haven't heard from Roger since I joined the project nearly four years ago. I think the position of emeritus should be reviewed every 3/5? years or so after appointment, immediately prior to and separate from a coord election. I don't see it as a gold watch, but about having made a really significant contribution to the project in the past (in order to be appointed) and still showing an interest today (to be retained) might be the minimum expectations? Cheers, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 06:13, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
- Agree with the active editor criteria and the minimum 1-tranche guideline. I like the idea of ambassador bit as well, and I do agree wholeheartedly that Kirill is and remains active with the project. Roger is a little harder to vouche for at this point, as you've noted he doesn't much contribute to the coordinator-tasks, but based on his contributions he has done some work on milhist articles, and at any rate this proposal is still in its infancy. We can hammer out more specific details if people like the idea of some sort of emeritus guidelines, but I do agree that what you and I have here is at a minimum a place to start. TomStar81 (Talk) 07:19, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
- It is true that Roger is a semi-inactive editor. Lately most of his activity has been related to ArbCom, where it has been highly controversial. That having been said, Roger founded our project, which remains one of the most successful on Wikipedia by a variety of measures. The position of Coordinator Emeritus was created for him in recognition of that, but there was also concern that the process of electing ccordinators could cause the project to run off the rails. Roger may be semi-inactive on Wikipedia, but he's still around, and can be dragged in if there's a crisis. Later, when Kirill was elected Coordinator Emeritus, the main concern was that the honour would diminished by becoming a routine appointment of the retiring lead coordinator. Especially as many people considered Kirill to be Roger's sidekick. With the passage of time, things appear a bit different. I personally feel that Kirill has become a model Coordinator Emeritus. The fear that honour would become tarnished by routinely being conferred has not happened. Nor has our election process been compromised, although elections have generally faired poorly on Wikipedia. In sum, I see no need for change. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:51, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
- @Hawkeye7: I think you might have mixed up Roger and me here. I was the person for whom the position was created, and Roger was the second person elected to it (after having succeeded me as lead coordinator). Kirill Lokshin (talk) 22:02, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
- Aaarghh. That's right! This is why we need you! Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:05, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
- Yes, Kirill was first, then came Roger. After that we've had no more Coordinators Emeriti, although if the pattern of promotion from Lead Coordinator to Coordinator Emeritus had continued it would've have likely been Parsecboy, then Dank, then Australian Rupert, then TomStar81 (maybe; it was the first time I hadn't sought reelection), then Nick D, and lastly Ian Rose. That makes 8 possible candidates under this particular scheme, although as you can see only 2 of those 8 were confirmed through community processes to officially obtain the position. I'm ok with retaining the status quo if that is what it decided, I just want to make sure that there is some sort of check or process to ensure that we a some kind of guideline for adding and/or removing coordinators emerti. Don't want us to be accused of have just handing this out on whim or that the project has a despotism-based process for joining or leaving the emeritus community. TomStar81 (Talk) 07:47, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
- Aaarghh. That's right! This is why we need you! Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:05, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
- @Hawkeye7: I think you might have mixed up Roger and me here. I was the person for whom the position was created, and Roger was the second person elected to it (after having succeeded me as lead coordinator). Kirill Lokshin (talk) 22:02, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
Mass page move
@WP:MILHIST coordinators: As any FYI, Necrothesp (talk · contribs) has apparently undertaken a mass move of several of our high ranking officer pages with what appears to be no attempt to ascertain consensus for the move. I caught this when he hit General of the Armies and moved the page to General of the armies (which I subsequently moved back since a similar incident in 2011 sparked a 3-week edit war). Is this something we need to look into and/or reverse? I'd be loath to wade into this messy debate again, but no consensus means we're gonna have some degree of conflict over the next few days as people lobby for a return to the old name or support the move and its new title. TomStar81 (Talk) 10:36, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- He should submit a RM because it is contested. We can all then wade in or not. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 10:39, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- But he didn't submit an RM, which is the problem. I'd be of the mind to file one colossal RFC or Move Request on the matter, but really at this point I think we ought to entertain move locking the pages to prevent this sort of thing from occurring without any consensus driven input. TomStar81 (Talk) 11:10, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- How many pages are we talking about? Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 11:20, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- Excluding the talk pages, its probably something like 75-100. I mean literally every highest ranking military rank page has been displaced from its original title - you can see that in the contributions tab for the editor if you look. TomStar81 (Talk) 11:27, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- Correction - its more like 200-250 pages, including talk. TomStar81 (Talk) 11:28, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- I agree that's pretty crazy. I'm moving back some pages that I have watchlisted, mainly German WWII ones. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 11:30, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- I'll come back to this tomorrow, but its late here and I really need some sleep. I'll leave it in everyone else's hands to come up with a plan to move forward with this. TomStar81 (Talk) 11:36, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- @TomStar81: You've really got to give credit to someone who estimates about 65 page moves (most of them utterly uncontroversial by anyone's standards, e.g. Lieutenant General (Pakistan) to Lieutenant general (Pakistan), and many of them not even ranks, e.g. Physical training instructor) as 200-250! That's really what you call overexaggeration to make your case in the hope that nobody will actually check! Or could it be that you've just made a wildly inaccurate statement because you couldn't be bothered to check? -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:24, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- Oh, and "I mean literally every highest ranking military rank page has been displaced from its original title". Hyperbole is clearly your strong suit! Literally every one eh? Or two or three maybe?! Good grief... -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:04, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- Actually, I guessed pretty correctly then since 200-250 divided by two would be about 100-125 articles, only 35 off your actual total. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:43, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- Oh, really? So overestimating by at least one third is pretty accurate is it? In what world would this be? And why would talk pages be relevant here, since they're usually moved as the main article is (another example of overexaggeration in order to strengthen a weak case, I fear)? In any case, as I've said, despite your hysterical response only a few could be considered controversial even in your eyes (unless you're in favour of recapitalising all ranks, which is clearly against long-established consensus)! -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:56, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
- Actually, I guessed pretty correctly then since 200-250 divided by two would be about 100-125 articles, only 35 off your actual total. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:43, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- Oh, and "I mean literally every highest ranking military rank page has been displaced from its original title". Hyperbole is clearly your strong suit! Literally every one eh? Or two or three maybe?! Good grief... -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:04, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- @TomStar81: You've really got to give credit to someone who estimates about 65 page moves (most of them utterly uncontroversial by anyone's standards, e.g. Lieutenant General (Pakistan) to Lieutenant general (Pakistan), and many of them not even ranks, e.g. Physical training instructor) as 200-250! That's really what you call overexaggeration to make your case in the hope that nobody will actually check! Or could it be that you've just made a wildly inaccurate statement because you couldn't be bothered to check? -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:24, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- I'll come back to this tomorrow, but its late here and I really need some sleep. I'll leave it in everyone else's hands to come up with a plan to move forward with this. TomStar81 (Talk) 11:36, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- I agree that's pretty crazy. I'm moving back some pages that I have watchlisted, mainly German WWII ones. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 11:30, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- How many pages are we talking about? Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 11:20, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- But he didn't submit an RM, which is the problem. I'd be of the mind to file one colossal RFC or Move Request on the matter, but really at this point I think we ought to entertain move locking the pages to prevent this sort of thing from occurring without any consensus driven input. TomStar81 (Talk) 11:10, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- One can understand the rationale that ranks are not (usually) proper nouns. But the German-language moves are definitely wrong as all nouns are capitalised in German. Opera hat (talk) 12:50, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- That also applies to some other languages, and such a mass move of so many articles was inappropriate. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 13:08, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- Sorry, but rubbish. We decided long ago that all ranks should be lower case unless they are unique positions. At the moment most are, but a few break this rule for no apparent reason (e.g. Field marshal (United Kingdom) is lower case, but General of the Army (United States) was upper case, although Fleet admiral (United States) is lower case; Master of the Horse is about a generic title, not a unique position, so should be at Master of the horse; why should General of the Infantry (Germany) be capitalised? It's not a specific position and it's not even in German.). I fail to see why it is relevant what language the ranks are in, since this is English Wikipedia and if we stuck to, say, German capitalisation rules for articles on German subjects then the articles would look bizarre indeed (and for the record, most of the article I moved were in English anyway). This move was not inappropriate in the slightest since it appears to me, a long-term editor of articles on military subjects, to be completely uncontroversial. And RMs are, of course, only required where a move appears to be controversial, not for every move as seems to be suggested above. It seems to me that the opposition here is from a couple of editors who disagree with or are unaware of the general consensus we have had on Wikipedia for years or who think their particular country should be a special case; that's what's crazy. For those spluttering about all nouns being capitalised in German, let's remember that ranks are usually capitalised in English too, and that's how we used to title articles on them; however, we decided long ago not to do this. I was one of those who opposed this at the time, but other editors won and it now seems mad to have this inconsistency. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:41, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- Opera hat is correct as to German ranks. All nouns (even common nouns) are to be capitalized accordingly. The fact this is English Wikipedia makes no difference. Kierzek (talk) 13:53, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- Of course it does. Does German Wikipedia follow English capitalisation rules? I very much doubt it. But I'm happy to concede that ranks in German should be left in upper case if that's what editors want; but there is no reason whatsoever why German ranks that have been translated into English should also be in upper case. German capitalisation rules do not apply to them (although personally I'd rather keep them in the original language). -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:58, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- If one is using the original German name for a rank, the proper form is to capitalize since this is how the rank is written on every document and in every source. I should also add that even in German, this only applies to a few ranks such as Oberleutnant zur See, Oberst-Gruppenfuhrer and maybe a few others (Generaloberst im Range eines Generalfeldmarschalls is another good example) The German ranks almost exist in their own Wikipedia-world with unique rules. If you write them in German, they should stick to the original form. If you translate them, English capitalization should indeed apply. More info on this issue can also be found here. -O.R.Comms 14:17, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- "The German ranks almost exist in their own Wikipedia-world with unique rules." A perfect illustration of why for consistency's sake they should be changed, no? -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:26, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- But it's not simply a matter of a mass page move, it also means potentially changing the text within the articles themselves. When a title is part of a name, it should be capitalized. Major General So and So. So and So was a major general in xxxx. I can find the chapter and verse in Chicago Manual of Style if needed. auntieruth (talk) 14:58, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- If one is using a German term in its original form for an article it should be kept in the proper form of the isolated foreign words; consistent with the grammar rules of the original language and consistent with WP:RS sources. Kierzek (talk) 15:14, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- "Major General So and So. So and So was a major general in xxxx." My point exactly. Doesn't matter what nationality they were. So also, Generalmajor So and So. So and So was a generalmajor in... I don't see the fuss. It makes as much sense with German words as with English words. It's even less logical with ranks translated from foreign languages into English. Why should it be "Smith was a general" but "Schmidt was a General of Infantry"? Or indeed "Montgomery was a field marshal" but "Eisenhower was a General of the Army" (or indeed, "Montgomery was a field marshal" but "Cunningham was an Admiral of the Fleet"). It makes no sense. It's utterly inconsistent. And note the indefinite article. Eisenhower was a General of the Army. Cunningham was an Admiral of the Fleet. Not the General of the Army or the Admiral of the Fleet. That would make it a unique position and would make capitalisation acceptable. In this case, it isn't; it's just a rank. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:13, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- Not mentioned so far, German ranks, like any other foreign words, are also written in italics, an example of this would be Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel. Among other reasons, putting a word in italics is to signal usage of a foreign word (see Italic type#Usage). In these instances, I would expect that the foreign word is represented in its correct native spelling. Therefore, both variants, Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel, and Erwin Rommel was a Generalfeldmarschall, are correct. The suggested variant Erwin Rommel was a generalfeldmarschall would give the impression of incorrect spelling of a foreign word. My five cents. MisterBee1966 (talk) 20:41, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- It is actually extremely rare to write ranks, foreign or otherwise, in italics, especially not when putting them before someone's name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:56, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
- I disagree, all the more recent German articles promoted to GA-class or higher use italics. see Gottlob Berger, Hermann Fegelein, Wolf-Dietrich Wilcke. And for featured articles like Werner Mölders or SMS Bayern and lists like List of Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross recipients (A) this is a must. MisterBee1966 (talk) 10:50, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
- I actually meant in the real world, not the Wikipedia world! -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:19, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
- I disagree, all the more recent German articles promoted to GA-class or higher use italics. see Gottlob Berger, Hermann Fegelein, Wolf-Dietrich Wilcke. And for featured articles like Werner Mölders or SMS Bayern and lists like List of Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross recipients (A) this is a must. MisterBee1966 (talk) 10:50, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
- It is actually extremely rare to write ranks, foreign or otherwise, in italics, especially not when putting them before someone's name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:56, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
- Not mentioned so far, German ranks, like any other foreign words, are also written in italics, an example of this would be Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel. Among other reasons, putting a word in italics is to signal usage of a foreign word (see Italic type#Usage). In these instances, I would expect that the foreign word is represented in its correct native spelling. Therefore, both variants, Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel, and Erwin Rommel was a Generalfeldmarschall, are correct. The suggested variant Erwin Rommel was a generalfeldmarschall would give the impression of incorrect spelling of a foreign word. My five cents. MisterBee1966 (talk) 20:41, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- "Major General So and So. So and So was a major general in xxxx." My point exactly. Doesn't matter what nationality they were. So also, Generalmajor So and So. So and So was a generalmajor in... I don't see the fuss. It makes as much sense with German words as with English words. It's even less logical with ranks translated from foreign languages into English. Why should it be "Smith was a general" but "Schmidt was a General of Infantry"? Or indeed "Montgomery was a field marshal" but "Eisenhower was a General of the Army" (or indeed, "Montgomery was a field marshal" but "Cunningham was an Admiral of the Fleet"). It makes no sense. It's utterly inconsistent. And note the indefinite article. Eisenhower was a General of the Army. Cunningham was an Admiral of the Fleet. Not the General of the Army or the Admiral of the Fleet. That would make it a unique position and would make capitalisation acceptable. In this case, it isn't; it's just a rank. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:13, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- If one is using a German term in its original form for an article it should be kept in the proper form of the isolated foreign words; consistent with the grammar rules of the original language and consistent with WP:RS sources. Kierzek (talk) 15:14, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- But it's not simply a matter of a mass page move, it also means potentially changing the text within the articles themselves. When a title is part of a name, it should be capitalized. Major General So and So. So and So was a major general in xxxx. I can find the chapter and verse in Chicago Manual of Style if needed. auntieruth (talk) 14:58, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- "The German ranks almost exist in their own Wikipedia-world with unique rules." A perfect illustration of why for consistency's sake they should be changed, no? -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:26, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- If one is using the original German name for a rank, the proper form is to capitalize since this is how the rank is written on every document and in every source. I should also add that even in German, this only applies to a few ranks such as Oberleutnant zur See, Oberst-Gruppenfuhrer and maybe a few others (Generaloberst im Range eines Generalfeldmarschalls is another good example) The German ranks almost exist in their own Wikipedia-world with unique rules. If you write them in German, they should stick to the original form. If you translate them, English capitalization should indeed apply. More info on this issue can also be found here. -O.R.Comms 14:17, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- Of course it does. Does German Wikipedia follow English capitalisation rules? I very much doubt it. But I'm happy to concede that ranks in German should be left in upper case if that's what editors want; but there is no reason whatsoever why German ranks that have been translated into English should also be in upper case. German capitalisation rules do not apply to them (although personally I'd rather keep them in the original language). -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:58, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- Opera hat is correct as to German ranks. All nouns (even common nouns) are to be capitalized accordingly. The fact this is English Wikipedia makes no difference. Kierzek (talk) 13:53, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- Sorry, but rubbish. We decided long ago that all ranks should be lower case unless they are unique positions. At the moment most are, but a few break this rule for no apparent reason (e.g. Field marshal (United Kingdom) is lower case, but General of the Army (United States) was upper case, although Fleet admiral (United States) is lower case; Master of the Horse is about a generic title, not a unique position, so should be at Master of the horse; why should General of the Infantry (Germany) be capitalised? It's not a specific position and it's not even in German.). I fail to see why it is relevant what language the ranks are in, since this is English Wikipedia and if we stuck to, say, German capitalisation rules for articles on German subjects then the articles would look bizarre indeed (and for the record, most of the article I moved were in English anyway). This move was not inappropriate in the slightest since it appears to me, a long-term editor of articles on military subjects, to be completely uncontroversial. And RMs are, of course, only required where a move appears to be controversial, not for every move as seems to be suggested above. It seems to me that the opposition here is from a couple of editors who disagree with or are unaware of the general consensus we have had on Wikipedia for years or who think their particular country should be a special case; that's what's crazy. For those spluttering about all nouns being capitalised in German, let's remember that ranks are usually capitalised in English too, and that's how we used to title articles on them; however, we decided long ago not to do this. I was one of those who opposed this at the time, but other editors won and it now seems mad to have this inconsistency. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:41, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
- That also applies to some other languages, and such a mass move of so many articles was inappropriate. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 13:08, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
Moving Forward
@WP:MILHIST coordinators: So now that we've all had a day to read up on this and hear from the editor responsible for the mass move what should our next course of action here be? I personally favor returning the pages to their original titles, but in the interest of establishing consensus here I would like some input on the matter.
Additionally, to help prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future, should we entertain move protection for these kinds of articles, add some sort of edit notice disclaimer, amend the milmos, or proceed along some other larger line to better anchor the articles where they are? At a minimum, and RFC on the matter would probably be a good idea insofar as it would allow us to gauge what the community thinks about this, but I have no strong desire to back and forth the issue. Any thoughts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TomStar81 (talk • contribs)
- Looking at the moves, I get the impression that only a portion of them are objectionable; some of them, while part of the same bundle, appear to be corrections/clarifications/etc. that are either entirely unrelated to the capitalization issue or make uncontroversial capitalization changes. Consequently, I don't think it would be particularly beneficial to revert all of the moves en masse; we can more efficiently deal with the subset that is actually controversial by addressing them individually.
- As far as paths forward go, I do think that an RFC (or perhaps several different RFCs), with the results potentially being incorporated into the appropriate guidelines, would help clarify matters here. I think that there are several questions we might wish to consider
- How to deal with untranslated non-English ranks, such as "SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer";
- How to deal with translated non-English ranks, such as "General of the Infantry (Germany)";
- How to deal with English ranks, such as "Admiral of the Fleet".
- The consensus on these will not necessarily be the same, so it may be beneficial to present them as separate RFCs rather than bundling them together. Kirill Lokshin (talk) 03:05, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
- For the special five and six star ranks of the United States military, there has in fact been years of consensus built up to keep them in their capitalized form. The talk pages of those articles are indeed full of discussions, counter-discussions, and consensus votes. I saw somewhere below in this thread that they were stated to be "generic ranks", but this is not accurate; they are highly unique and have only been held by a few people in history and will most likely never be held again. The British and European ranks which were moved I don't have that much knowledge of expect for the German titles. As has been repeatedly brought up in this thread, and many others, there is major consensus to keep the German ranks in their capitalized form. This can be seen even in the act of editors, completely unrelated to this thread, immediately reverting the page moves as well as all the comments here. With that said, I think all that remains then is the British titles and some of the lesser European ranks. I actually, in most of those cases, think the page moves were fine. Debates on those should be discussed on individual talk pages to avoid filling this thread with such material. -O.R.Comms 15:23, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
- Good suggestion (although I don't think any of these moves are "objectionable"). @TomStar81: Which articles do you favour moving back to their original titles? All the ones I moved? Including the vast majority that must be utterly uncontroversial even to you (if you actually bother to look at the list instead of making wild accusations)? Frankly, this would be (a) an utterly ludicrous and hysterical response to responsible page moving in line with general consensus and consistency by a very experienced editor, and (b) actually pretty insulting and a suggestion that you know better than I do. If you want to challenge individual moves then do so (I stand by all of them, incidentally), but please don't suggest that I've done anything wrong or that a mass revert should be applied to all my moves. -- Necrothesp (talk) 07:56, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
- I don't think there is a need for a RfC on untranslated German ranks. It is blindingly obvious to anyone with a modicum of understanding of German that initial caps of all nouns is required. The moves of the untranslated German ranks were all completely wrong-headed. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 09:37, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
- I think at this point there is fact overwhelming consensus that untranslated German military and paramilitary ranks (especially those of the Nazi era) should stay in their original capitalized form. I lost count after the fifth or sixth editor who agreed. It also just doesn't make sense to do otherwise. To lowercase all the German ranks would go against every source on the subject and, by this logic, we should start going through articles on Hitler and changing them to "der fuhrer" instead of "Fuhrer". Per:WP:COMMON I think this issue is one which has been settled. -O.R.Comms 13:59, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
- No, not at all, since the Führer was a unique title and not a generic rank. Just as we would commonly say in English "the Queen" or "the Prime Minister" (when referring to a specific person), but "a queen" or "a prime minister" (when referring to the title generically). -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:09, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
- I think at this point there is fact overwhelming consensus that untranslated German military and paramilitary ranks (especially those of the Nazi era) should stay in their original capitalized form. I lost count after the fifth or sixth editor who agreed. It also just doesn't make sense to do otherwise. To lowercase all the German ranks would go against every source on the subject and, by this logic, we should start going through articles on Hitler and changing them to "der fuhrer" instead of "Fuhrer". Per:WP:COMMON I think this issue is one which has been settled. -O.R.Comms 13:59, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
- No, don't agree, despite having more than a modicum of understanding of German! Particularly German as it appertains to military ranks! There's no more reason to capitalise German words when being used within an English work than there is to capitalise any other words. Nothing "wrong-headed" here! Apart perhaps from the frankly amusingly hysterical, inaccurate and ill-considered responses it's generated from a couple of editors. If you don't like a move then move it back and we can take it to RM if necessary. Honestly, it's very simple. Most of you have been here long enough to understand how page moves work. And no, every page move doesn't need prior discussion. This is quite clear from the guidelines. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:41, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
- Please come off your high horse. There are no hysterics, there are no crusades, there is no mass mobilization of editors out to destroy you, you've not been reported at ANI, or AIV, or any other official venue, and therefore there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to remain so openly hostile. Surely you can have a conversation without getting overly defensive at every little reaction, can't you? TomStar81 (Talk) 10:58, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
- Now, I didn't say there were any crusades or mass mobilisation against me did I? I said a couple of editors had completely overreacted. In fact, any hostility or high horses have come from you who started this whole debate, instead of just moving back articles you objected to, claimed they should all have been discussed first and vastly overexaggerated the situation. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:04, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
- Please come off your high horse. There are no hysterics, there are no crusades, there is no mass mobilization of editors out to destroy you, you've not been reported at ANI, or AIV, or any other official venue, and therefore there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to remain so openly hostile. Surely you can have a conversation without getting overly defensive at every little reaction, can't you? TomStar81 (Talk) 10:58, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
- I don't think there is a need for a RfC on untranslated German ranks. It is blindingly obvious to anyone with a modicum of understanding of German that initial caps of all nouns is required. The moves of the untranslated German ranks were all completely wrong-headed. Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 09:37, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
Page Move Index
Just for reference, this is an actual list of the military page moves I made yesterday.
Which exactly are "objectionable"? Should they all be mass reverted because there was no discussion? Have 200-250 pages been moved? Has "literally every highest ranking military rank page...been displaced from its original title"? No. Three, I think! As for German ranks, there are precisely six untranslated ranks in there! Maybe this will illustrate my points about hyperbole and overreaction. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:56, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
- I think for individual article moves, they should be discussed on each particular talk page. That would seem better than trying to discuss them all individually here. -O.R.Comms 15:26, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
Opt out of notifications
I haven't been on Wikipedia in ages, and recall that there is a way to opt out of project notifications, but can't recall how. Thanks! BrokenSphereMsg me 01:55, 24 October 2015 (UTC)