Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history

Skip to Table of Contents

Summary of Military history WikiProject open tasks watch · edit · full list
News and announcements The May newsletter is now available. Editors are advised that Featured Articles promoted before 2016 are in need of review, if you had an article promoted to Featured status on or before 2016 please check and update your article before they are listed at FAR/C.	Current discussions No major discussions are open at the moment
Featured article candidates Turabay dynasty • Thomas Neville (died 1460) • Battle of Poison Spring • Yugoslav submarine Mališan • Shigi Qutuqu • John Savage (soldier) Featured article review USS Wisconsin (BB-64) • Edward III of England • Byzantine Empire • Battle of Red Cliffs • Edward I of England Featured picture candidates Thorsten Nordenfelt A-Class review Henry Biard • Battle of Saipan • Fort Corcoran • Sihanouk Trail • Battle of La Haye-du-Puits • Battle of Tinian • Henry Macandrew • Boot Monument • HMS Sardonyx (1919) Peer reviews Muckrach Castle • Battle of Pandu • West Point, New York • Charles the Bold • Regency of Algiers • Wolfgang Larrazábal	Good article nominees Reza Qoli Mirza Afshar • Nazran uprising • Abu'l-Fath Khan Javanshir • Iga ikki • Kōka ikki • Ava–Hanthawaddy War (1401–1403) • William Henry Harrison Seeley • Aérospatiale SA 330 Puma • Khalji Revolution • Travis King • 1864 Washington Arsenal explosion • Antoine Hamilton • George II of Greece • Roswell incident • Podgorica Assembly • Masopha • Sam Bahadur (film) • Maximiliano Hernández Martínez • Mohammad Shah Qajar • HMS Renard (1909) • Battle of Meligalas • Blohm & Voss BV 40 • Zeppelin-Staaken L • Gubir shootdown • The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Chestertown Armory • Mariano R. Vázquez • Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk • Gotha WD.7 • CSS General Earl Van Dorn • Cultybraggan Camp • HMS Basilisk (1910) Good article reassessments Loitering munition
Articles that need... work on referencing and citation (147,312) • only work on referencing and citation (43,149) • work on coverage and accuracy (122,421) • only work on coverage and accuracy (19,621) • work on structure (31,776) • only work on structure (359) • work on grammar (8,191) • only work on grammar (45) • work on supporting materials (32,741) • only work on supporting materials (1,336) • assessment (17) • assessment as lists (121) • project tags fixed (8) • assessment checklists added (11) • assessment checklists completed (36) • task forces added (298) • attention to task force coverage (680)

Flag use in infoboxes

At Template_talk:Infobox_Military_Conflict#Flag_use_guidelines, Himasaram has proposed some guidelines on the use of flag icons—probably needed given the spread of flag use—that I think we could adopt across the entire range of infoboxes we work with. I've taken the liberty of slightly rewording them to apply to the more general context:

• When dealing with a particular time period, use contemporary flags only; for example, use Germany for a battle in 1993 and Germany for one in 1893.
• In a naval context, such as for a naval battle or commander, use naval ensigns, such as Russia.
• In the case of non-state or non-sovereign parties, use either the personal standard of the individual involved or the actual flag flown by the group in question. Do not use the flag of a future state.
• If no flag is available, a coat of arms may be used instead instead, such as File:Duchy of Warsaw 11.PNG Duchy of Warsaw.
• Avoid using flag templates in fields that indicate location.

Comments would be very appreciated! Kirill 14:53, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, similar to guidance applied to ship boxes. Three points to mention: 1) apparantly there's scope for error over correct use of the Free French ensign, as FF has a restricted definition see here, 2) there's a template that will select the correct US flag (no of stars varies), it's {{USN flag|yyyy|nnpx}}, yyyy is the relevant year and nnpx is the required size, eg 20px (intended for use with naval issues, see USS Antietam (CV-36) as an example) and 3) the "British" White Ensign was used as a common ensign for all Empire navies until the 1960s. There's a reference list here. Folks at 137 16:50, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing it here Kirill! (And for clarifying my language. =) )

BTW, I'm also struggling a bit with French flags. First, I wonder about the Vichy France flag in very popular use here on the 'pedia () - it being a presidential standard, is it really correct to use it in for example battleboxes? Secondly is flags of the pre-Revolution kingdom. Several different are used all over the project. I tried to make a summary of them over at Template talk:Country data France. --Himasaram 06:25, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

You're right about the Vichy flag. It was only in use during the German occupation, by the vichy governement. Free French forces would use this one : . In fqct, {{History of France}} use it, that's why it's barely everywhere... I'll try to see what I can find in my books about the pre-revolution flags ! NicDumZ ~ 08:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Answered overthere NicDumZ ~ 14:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Have we really surrendered to flagcruft without a fight? File:White flag icon.jpg The arguments against them have been oft-stated (here and at WP:Flag): flags in infoboxes usually serve no purpose other than decoration in an already crowded table; they don't work well in many situations, etc. For example, in practically none of the conflicts I write about are flags appropriate, since many of the combatants are non-state peoples (i.e. tribes) or Euro-American frontiersmen (where they're not often acting on behalf of an established state with a flag). Adding flags to some of the combatants but not others draws attention to Wikipedia's most pervasive (but least understood) bias in favor of the European-style state. History is not just the history of states, but I digress....

The problem with having guidelines for flag usage, as Kirill ( / ) has suggested elsewhere, is that this essentially promotes their use. Sure, we can recognize that flags are already all over the place and thus create guidelines for their usage. But people who added the flags have already ignored the guidelines by putting them into the military infoboxes in the first place; there's no reason to assume that they will follow the new guidelines listed above. Does it make sense to change the guidelines to accommodate people who aren't interested in our guidelines?

If we must surrender to those who paste flags all over the place like little kids with stickers (if you're reading this you're probably not one of those people, I hope), let's at least make it a negotiated surrender by keeping something in the guidelines about flag usage being optional, and discouraging flag usage in infoboxes where not all of the combatants used flags. —Kevin Myers 12:04, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Mmm, I have no problem with keeping a general discouragement of flag icons as a preface to anything else we say on the issue. As Himasaram has said, though, we seem to be losing the battle to keep them out entirely; so I think having some sort of fall-back to get rid of the worst abuses is a good idea, even if it's not the most desirable outcome from our perspective. Kirill 13:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, we seem to be losing the battle on this one (it's more of a route, really). I do agree, though, that we should preface any guidelines with a statement indicating that the use of flags is entirely optional (with perhaps a little explanation of why, along the lines of pointing out the bias Kevin describes above). Carom 14:38, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

We could also add that flagicons are only sanctioned for traditional European-style state vs. state conflicts, and even then exclusively for clear-cut state combatants. That would narrow their use somewhat. --Himasaram 23:22, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, our policy of passive disapproval ought to continue full force, although we should still tolerate flag use on a limited scale. Commanders do not warrant flags. Naval or army jacks are not a good idea (and, in passing, the Combatant field should read e.g. "Empire of Japan," not "Imperial Japanese Navy"), nor is a mix of modern flags and coat of arms. If Kevin Myers permits the inference, I'd venture to add, per him, that flags should be discouraged or even removed from templates which feature non-state combatants (i.e. if one combatant has no flag, the other should not have one either). Inaccurate or excessive flags ought to be removed on sight. Oversized flags culled or squeezed down to 22px. Simply put, flags should be on probation. Let them fear us. Albrecht 23:57, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I hope you will be able to maintain the statement that "flag icons are not recommended" because I have been using that to good effect in keeping them out of the American Civil War articles. In the ACW, these flags are completely useless because the battle boxes always show the USA on the left and the CSA on the right. It might be appropriate to limit the use of these flags for only those cases in which multinational ( > 2) combatants are involved. For example, in World War II, multiple nations fought in individual battles and the units involved sometimes had officers from one nation leading troops of another. In those cases, the little flags actually do make some sense because you can tell at a glance who is who without having to click on the links. For a two-party war, they are a waste of bandwidth. (In the ACW there is a further justification in that the various Confederate battle flags are considered pejorative symbols by a nontrivial percentage of the U.S. population, so there is no sense proliferating them in every article.) Hal Jespersen 00:50, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Ignoring, for the moment, the questions of specific fields in infoboxes and of non-standard flags (i.e. coats of arms and naval jacks), which are relatively minor points, it seems that we can proceed from two basic principles:

1. The use of flags in infoboxes is discouraged.

   We can go into some more detail here on some of the especially bad things that crop up; in particular, the all-or-none point with regards to flag availability (per Albrecht) can be mentioned, as can the clutter factor of flags that don't provide useful information (per Hal).

2. If flags are used, they must be historically accurate.

   This can be annotated with several corollaries: flags must correspond to the correct time period; state flags must not be used for non-state actors; etc.

This isn't really anything that we don't already advocate, I think, albeit not always in writing. If nothing else, I think putting it down explicitly will actually help with reducing flag clutter by providing an "official" guideline to link to when we do so. Thoughts? Kirill 01:02, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Though I agree with or understand most of the concerns about flagicons raised above, I have the opinion that they do have educational value:

• Gives a visual impression of the development of (mainly European) national flags. In the case of the American Civil War for example, the Confederate States had three distinct national flags ( -> -> ) as well as a naval ensign, () facts that would be illuminated by their inclusion in the battle boxes.

• In the case of naval or war ensigns, lets the casual reader know that a large number of nations in the world use a different flag at sea or in battle. I, for instance, did not know this before I started working on battle articles here on the 'pedia, so it has certainly been educational for me.

I do support strict guidelines for flagicons with strict enforcement, but I also want to emphasize that they aren't purely bling-bling. --Himasaram 02:03, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

This can be the case, but only incidentally, and it can sometimes cause more confusion than enlightenment.

If the point is to show that a certain unfamiliar flag was used in a particular period or context, better to actually put that flag in a thumbnail box, with a caption explaining that "Country X used the historic flag Y during the Z Campaign", with links to the relevant articles. —Michael Z. 2007-08-11 00:17 Z

Exactly. I think your edit summary says it best: "To teach about flag development, write about it instead of letting the reader learn by accident or through frustration". Carcharoth 00:24, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

So, does anyone else have any suggestions? How should we proceed from here? Kirill 18:15, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I would strongly recommend discouraging the use of flag icons in infoboxes. In cases where it is helpful (the multi-participant battles is a good example), yes, but in most cases, rather than stick a flag in the infobox, it is better to use words in the article and to link to articles containing the flags. This means that when people click on the link, they will see the flag in full at Confederate Army or Imperial Japanese Navy. If you need to tell people reading an article about the flag being used, then you can use words to say this, linking to Flag of the United States if people need more information (for example, if you have an old picture of a US flag). If, instead, you just stick a flag icon in the infobox, it may look nice, but many readers will not be quite sure what the flag is indicating, and will click on the flag, and then reach a dead end. What they should be doing is clicking on the article link, and being told at the article that the combatant fought under such-and-such a flag in the time period in question. If, on the other hand, the information about the flags is trivial, then it shouldn't be shoehorned into the article in the form of a decorative flag icon. Ultimately, it would be best to keep careful track of the use of flag icons by some combination of what links here on the flag images and having the flag icon templates generate categories. That way it is possible to browse and see if the guidelines are being followed. Carcharoth 20:01, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm less bothered about use of flags, not even sure of the problem, particularly as it highlights the existence of separate combatants within a single force. I think any qualified use of flags, as suggested above, would lead to repeated debate about application of rules. So, it's "in" or "out". Given that choice, I'd vote "in". With one proviso: use of national flags only - not naval ensigns/ jacks (except in ship boxes). Sorry to break the consensus, chaps. Folks at 137 21:50, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Ignoring, for the moment, the discouraged/not discouraged issue, are you also against requiring that the flags be historically accurate ones? I would think that we wouldn't want something that's simply incorrect regardless of anything else, no?

More generally, I think there are three sort of distinct points here:

1. Should flag use, as a whole, be encouraged, discouraged, or neither? The majority of people commenting both here and in previous discussions have tended towards discouraging it, I think, with some notable dissenters.
2. Do flags need to be the correct ones? I'm hoping we can get a strong consensus on this point, if nothing else; the worst thing about flags being inserted is that they're quite often the wrong flag for the country/period in question (see, for example, the various sorts of nonsense put up as a flag for the Holy Roman Empire in various articles).
3. How, where, and which flags should be used? This encompasses all the minor points about naval ensigns, use in location fields, etc.; we can debate it to death or leave it entirely alone, I think, as it's the least important of the points, and the one most amenable to per-article decisions.

Kirill 22:02, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I would say discourage decorative flag use in favour of writing something in the article about the use and history of flags. This is after all WikiProject Military History, not WikiProject "identify the flag for bonus points". If you find yourself struggling to write anything meaningful about the flags, well, that indicates that the flags probably aren't needed at all, either as icons or as text. Some clear examples would help demonstrate this. Carcharoth 00:28, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

1. I would prefer to discourage it, but I don't know if there's consensus for that, and in some cases I don't mind flags used sparingly. Let's start with a list of where flags shouldn't be used—there's a good start in the discussion above. From this, we could compile a list of exceptional situations where they might be used.
2. Yes, encyclopedically correct symbols for what is being represented, please. We should acknowledge that this may reduce their usefulness to the general reader somewhat.
3. Another unfortunate use of flag icons, not yet mentioned, is in a dazzling array resembling an expressionist flower garden. For instance, to bedeck a list of more than about 5 countries. Real example in this old revision of "T-34" — compare for readability. —Michael Z. 2007-08-11 00:30 Z

Case in point: the link to the MBT 2000/Al-Khalid tank has been removed and restored on the template:Modern tanks a number of times recently, over whether it should bear a Chinese or Pakistani flag, or both. The template looks bad with 19 flags scattered across it, anyway. The edit war continues, and if anyone wants to contribute some wisdom, it would be welcome. —Michael Z. 2007-08-12 14:40 Z

I removed the flags. If we need to explain the history of a tank to justify the flag, then it is best to leave the flags off and explain the history in an article or list of tanks by country. Carcharoth 14:57, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll go out on a limb and suggest that in this instance, the use of flags is justified. It's not obvious at a glance which country each tank is from, especially for those identified with just a code number (quickly, where do the T-84, T-90, M-84 and Type 96 come from?), and I consider myself at least somewhat familiar with mil tech. Of course, it can be debated whether a flag is that much more identifiable, but it's something. At least you have a tooltip that pops up if you hover over the graphic. -- Hongooi 08:34, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Equally it is not obvious from a glance when each tank was built (quickly, when were the T-84, T-90, M-84 and Type 96 built?). Surely that information would be more useful in a template showing modern tanks? Carcharoth 14:24, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Please take discussion specific to template:Modern Tanks to the the template's talk page. You're both right, but there are potential problems with both approaches. In particular, the question of which flags has caused revert-warring over the removal of links. —Michael Z. 2007-08-13 19:53 Z

Draft text

Based on the comments above, I've taken a first stab at a (very basic) draft guideline on the matter. I've tried to omit some of the more arcane points about where and how to use particular flags in favor of something a bit simpler to deal with, but also hopefully less controversial:

• In general, the use of flag icons is not recommended; neither, however, is it prohibited. When deciding whether flag icons are appropriate in a particular context, consider:
  • Do the icons convey useful information to the reader, or are they merely decorative?
  • Will adding them disrupt the existing structure or flow of the text?
• When flag icons are used, they should be historically accurate ones. In particular:
  • When dealing with items related to a particular time period, avoid using anachronistic flags from other time periods. Be especially careful to avoid using the flags of modern states for ancient ones; in many cases, the proper successor state of one no longer in existence is a matter of considerable controversy.
  • Avoid using state flags in non-state contexts, such as for groups or individuals not aligned with any state.

Comments? Is there anything in this that people have strong objections to, or can we sort of get behind the basic principles here? Kirill 15:39, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The question "Do the icons convey useful information to the reader, or are they merely decorative?" is vague because "useful" is entirely in the eye of the beholder. It could be improved with some examples:

• Useful: Differentiate organizations and personnel in lists that contain combatants from numerous locales, in which it would not be obvious from the names what the affiliations are.
• Not useful: Adds irrelevant information, such as the flag of the state/province/city in which a commander is born.
• Decorative: Duplicates information already presented unambiguously nearby in text form (adjacent, column/row headers, etc.).

For U.S. readers, unfortunately, the use of the term "state" will be misinterpreted. I see tendencies to use flags of U.S. states where the country should be used instead. I am unsure what the best solution is, other than the current "the use of flag icons is not recommended." Hal Jespersen 22:03, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

We can change "state" to "national" easily enough without losing any of the meaning, I think. Kirill 22:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, somewhat revised and expanded:

• In general, the use of flag icons is not recommended; neither, however, is it prohibited. When deciding whether flag icons are appropriate in a particular context, consider:
  • Do the icons convey useful information to the reader, or are they merely decorative? Icons that differentiate among several parties—where such distinctions are not already obvious—are likely to be useful, while icons that convey irrelevant or redundant information are usually not.
  • Will adding them disrupt the existing structure or flow of the text?
• When flag icons are used, they should be historically accurate ones. In particular:
  • When dealing with items related to a particular time period, avoid using anachronistic flags from other time periods. Be especially careful to avoid using the flags of modern countries for ancient ones; in many cases, the proper successor of a country no longer in existence is a matter of considerable controversy.
  • Avoid using national flags in inappropriate contexts, such as for groups or individuals not aligned with any country.

Comments? Kirill 19:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. But examples will really help show what is intended here. Give extreme examples at either end, and let people work out for themselves where the middle ground should be. Maybe a few seemingly borderline cases if they are actually clear cut and help show the intent of the guideline. I tried to find a few examples, but failed. Surely there should be some easy way to query the system and return a list of "all articles with the WP:MILHIST tag that use some form of "flag" template"? Carcharoth 20:23, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I can't think of any easy way to do it, particularly given that many articles use raw flags rather than templates. Do people have examples of good/bad icon usage? (I'd be particularly interested in usages that broadly anti-icon editors would consider good, as well as usages that broadly pro-icon editors would consider bad. We should probably stay away from anything that's actually disputed if we're going to provide specific examples.) Kirill 00:24, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Some examples (I looked mainly in the WW2 categories and other 'industrial' battles): Battle of the Denmark Strait [1], Battle of the Gdańsk Bay [2], Battle of the Philippine Sea [3], Battle of the Atlantic (1939–1945) [4], Siege of Malakand [5], Siege of Barcelona [6], Battle of Vélez-Málaga [7]. The permanent links at the time of writing are in the brackets. Carcharoth 00:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Of those, the Battle of the Atlantic seems like the most appropriate use of the icons, since they're actually useful in matching up commanders with combatants. The others seem more borderline, at best, but I'm not sure if, formatting aside, there's anything wildly inappropriate there. Comments from some other people would definitely be good here. Kirill 12:27, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

The point about flags being useful in many cases (particularly in WWII and other modern battles) to help label the allegiances or national identities of commanders is an excellent one. I also think that the use of flags helps to reinforce the chronological identity of the combatants beyond simply the use of the name of the country/faction. As for naval flags, my two cents is that for the sake of consistency we should stick to national/state/faction flags and not use naval standards; after all, we're not using army/military standards for non-naval battles, and sticking to national flags will more directly and accurately represent the nations being discussed. ... All of that said, most of the articles I work on are pre-modern or early modern and do not involve flags in the traditional Western sense anyway. I think flags are really useful in these kinds of situations where they help to identify the countries involved, and in associating commanders with their country when necessary, but I would definitely advise caution in going overboard with symbols or emblems or other non-flags for those factions which lack them. In other words, I have no intentions of adding kamon to any of Japan's pre-modern battles to represent the warring samurai clans. LordAmeth 14:15, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Another example

Discussion seems to have stalled on this. Does anyone want to comment on the examples I provided? I found another example recently: War of Heaven [8]. It seems faintly ridiculous to have a battle infobox for this (it can't really be called military history by any stretch of the term), but have a look at the flag used for St Michael. It reduces a biblical myth to the level of a wargaming episode. Completely and utterly ridiculous. Carcharoth 12:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Heh. This one violates much of the stuff above, and large parts of the general MoS to boot, but I wonder if picking a fictional example is going to be useful here. Kirill 12:30, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, in most of the battles I deal with the combatants don't even have proper flags. For example, in the Battle of Wayna Daga I think the Moslem side had red banners (I know at one point the Imam handed out white banners for his troops to fight under), but the Ethiopian (& Portuguese) really didn't have flags. Probably standards...but does anyone think a parasol would be appropriate? -- llywrch 23:32, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I suppose it may be worth mentioning that one shouldn't make up flags for groups that didn't have any. ;-) Kirill 05:05, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Or at least where there are no reliable sources for one or both sides -- that might help discourage "flagcruft." ;-) llywrch 18:28, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Moving forward

So, any other comments? Can we move forward with something practical here, or are there still major issues that people would like to see addressed? Kirill 05:05, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm still unclear on one point. In some cases it seems that the use of flags in military personnel infoboxes is almost encouraged, particularly in the cases of wars where more than a few countries were involved. On the other hand, the idea of using duplicate information (Allegiance: United States (insert U.S. flag here)) is discouraged. So for military personnel infoboxes, which is preferred? --ScreaminEagle 19:36, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I can't really think of any benefit to using flags in personnel infoboxes, since the visual information will basically always be redundant to the text right next to it. (I'm sure somebody will now proceed to come up with some suitably clever use for them, proving me wrong. ;-) Kirill 00:22, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that placing flags in personnel infoboxes is unnecessary and I'm willing to support a formal, written policy on the issue. Cla68 07:23, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Good. Make it really, really clear please, so that when I direct people to that page and point out that it's unnecessary, indeed highly discouraged, to insert country flags in their personnel infoboxes, they won't give me a line of crap about how it makes it look better or it's important for clarification or some such thing. --ScreaminEagle 01:01, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Yet another draft

Slightly cleaned up, and with some thought given to examples:

• In general, the use of flag icons is not recommended; neither, however, is it prohibited. When deciding whether flag icons are appropriate in a particular context, consider:
  • Do the icons convey useful information to the reader, or are they merely decorative? Icons that differentiate among several parties (for example, icons used to indicate commander allegiance in Battle of the Atlantic (1939–1945)) are likely to be useful, while icons that convey irrelevant or redundant information (for example, icons used to indicate place of birth for a military commander) are usually not.
  • Will adding icons disrupt the existing structure or flow of the text?
• When flag icons are used, they should be historically accurate ones. In particular:
  • When dealing with items related to a particular time period, avoid using anachronistic flags from other time periods. Be especially careful to avoid using the flags of modern countries for ancient ones; in many cases, the proper successor of a country no longer in existence is a matter of considerable controversy.
  • Avoid using national flags in inappropriate contexts, such as for groups or individuals not aligned with any country.

Comments? Kirill 16:39, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

My point earlier is folks using flags to denote commanders' (or other personnel) country of allegiance, not just place of birth. That's my only clarification.--ScreaminEagle 15:51, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I figured as much; but since the "good" example is doing just that (albeit in a conflict infobox rather than a person one), I thought it might be a bit too confusing to stress that point. Kirill 17:18, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

So if it's too confusing to make the distinction, do we care about such things to begin with? Just let it go? --ScreaminEagle 17:29, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's something that requires some thought on a case by case basis, so it's not really the best example to use in a guideline, which should really go for something unambiguous; but presumably each scenario has better and worse options for editors to choose. (It's possible to use allegiance flags for something useful, incidentally, albeit in relatively few cases; for example, a general that served several countries and held different ranks or commands in each could have that information indicated by using icons next to the listed ranks/commands in the infobox. So I wouldn't necessarily say that they're always inappropriate even for personnel.) Kirill 18:03, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't wish to encourage it, perhaps guidelines could mention sources for the correct and easy to use flagicon/country templates: Wikipedia:Inline templates linking countries or for more obscure historical/naval flag templates: Find the country from the category Category:Country data templates, taking care to note that some cases have several entries, e.g. Germany:

• Template:Country data Germany
• Template:Country data German Empire
• Template:Country data Nazi Germany

Japan (Template:Country data Empire of Japan) and Italy (Template:Country data Napoleonic Italy) are some of the obvious others with multiple templates.

--Deon Steyn 09:47, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

To repeat what I wrote above (in response to Kirill), should we also have a rule that unless both sides have a verifiable flag or standard, none should appear in the infobox? That would discourage their appearance -- or at least force people to do more research on the matter. I believe this would result with almost all battles before (IIRC) AD 700 & almost all non-European battles would not have flag icons. -- llywrch 18:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

That's my personal feeling, but I'm not sure if we really want to elevate it to the level of a hard-and-fast rule. It might be better to mention the potential problems, but leave it up to editors to decide on whether any benefits of having partial flag coverage outweigh them. (As a practical point, it's worth noting that most alliances mentioned in infoboxes don't have flags. For example, if an infobox has "Axis (Germany, Italy)" and "Allies (UK, US)", it would arguably be legitimate to provide flags for the mentioned countries even though the alliances have none.) Kirill 03:08, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

So, does anyone else have an opinion on this? :-) Kirill 22:10, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Nope, I'm done. (Insert collective sigh of relief.) --ScreaminEagle 18:15, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Final? draft

Barring any objections, I'm planning to put up the following on the project page in the near future. It's essentially the above draft with a note about consistent usage among parties added:

• In general, the use of flag icons is not recommended; neither, however, is it prohibited. When deciding whether flag icons are appropriate in a particular context, consider:
  • Do the icons convey useful information to the reader, or are they merely decorative? Icons that differentiate among several parties (for example, icons used to indicate commander allegiance in Battle of the Atlantic (1939–1945)) are likely to be useful, while icons that convey irrelevant or redundant information (for example, icons used to indicate place of birth for a military commander) are usually not.
  • Can flag icons be used consistently? In other words, do all the groups in a given list have usable flags? If only a few have them, it may be better to omit flags for all the items than to have a different layout for each one.
  • Will adding icons disrupt the existing structure or flow of the text?
• When flag icons are used, they should be historically accurate ones. In particular:
  • When dealing with items related to a particular time period, avoid using anachronistic flags from other time periods. Be especially careful to avoid using the flags of modern countries for ancient ones; in many cases, the proper successor of a country no longer in existence is a matter of considerable controversy.
  • Avoid using national flags in inappropriate contexts, such as for groups or individuals not aligned with any country.

Comments? Kirill 20:49, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've added the text above at WP:MILMOS#FLAGS. Further comments and refinements are, of course, quite welcome. Kirill 01:48, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Firearms in Popular Culture Sections (or lack thereof)

As we should all be aware, "In Popular Culture" sections in articles are- generally- to be avoided (WP:MILHIST#POP). Now, my understanding is that (and I'm reposting part of a comment I made on the talk page for the Winchester Model 1887/1901 article and the Outreach page here) the Pop Culture guidelines were introduced to stop Anime fans from including every. single. piece of obscure anime in which someone had a Mauser Broomhandle, or people adding lists with things like "A character in Randomfilm can be seen holding a Tokarev TT-33 in the scene when Something Interesting happens". It wasn't intended to create a situation in which we all pretend that firearms don't appear in movies or in popular culture, which is what we're veering dangerously close to at the moment, IMHO. It is (rightly) a given that any given WWII film is going to feature people with M1 Garands, Mauser K98s, or Lee-Enfield rifles, or that people in Westerns will be brandishing Winchester rifles and Colt revolvers, and that this doesn't need to be mentioned. But when people are deleting references to Arnold Schwarzenegger's Winchester Model 1901 Shotgun in Terminator 2 because it's "not notable", or factual references to the Lee-Enfield rifle being mis-used in films (for example, the Turkish soldiers in Lawrence of Arabia and the German soldiers in The Blue Max are shown with Lee-Enfield rifles, despite the fact the Turks or the Germans did not use the rifle in WWI) being removed as being "trivia" I start to get very frustrated. I'm thinking that it might be a good idea clarify the "In Popular Culture" requirements in a more specific way, so we can acknowledge the significance of firearms in movies without crossing the line into trivia. --Commander Zulu 12:46, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not fully aware of our policy, but my belief is that popular culture shouldn't even be a section. If an event / depiction isn't notable enough to appear in the main history of the artifact, it probably doesn't need to be mentioned. Oberiko 14:15, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

One point to mention is the need for sources beyond the original work. In just about every case, poor popular culture sections rely exclusively on the primary work (i.e. "X appeared in the film Y") rather than any reliable secondary source (i.e. "The appearance of X in the film Y has been noted by Z"); the first form is implicitly ORish, in my view, because we have no way of knowing if anyone other than the editor sees the appearance as significant. Conversely, if a secondary source does exist, it shouldn't be difficult to add some explanation of said source's viewpoint on the significance of the appearance into the article. Kirill 14:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

You're rehashing old territory. This debate played out a few times, with you as a participant, I believe Zulu. I still fail to follow your logic and it eludes me how to counter your points as I can't even see where you're going. I don't understand, for instance, how Arnold shooting a 'gimic' gun advanced or decreased the status of a fine, historical weapon. As I've said before, the bar is set really high for inclusion and these two instances you mention aren't even in SIGHT of the bar, let alone close to clearing it. I think it's absurd to have an armchair discussion about how some twit in a movie didn't know or wasn't instructed properly on how to use a rifle. What the F%&# does that have to do with the rifle? How can that REMOTELY be considered notable given the standards of the pop culture concensus?--Asams10 14:40, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure there are examples of acceptable stuff that looks like trivia (but isn't). It might be helpful, when talking about the bar being set "really high" to give an example of something that clears the bar. I'm trying to think of some, but haven't thought of anything yet. The "can it be integrated into the main article" rule of thumb works well. Carcharoth 20:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

To use Arnold's shotgun from Terminator 2 as an example- I'd hardly call it a "Gimmick" gun, given that the Soft Air Gun manufacturer Marushi makes a Soft Air copy of the gun- it's obviously had [i]some[/i] cultural impact if there's enough demand for a Soft Air replica. The M1887's profile and status, as a result, has been affected- people associate it with Terminator 2, and the fact it's a fine (and mechanically interesting)historic shotgun falls by the wayside in comparison to the fact that "The Terminator used one in that film!" After all, if James Bond didn't use the Walther PPK, it would probably be best known as the gun Hitler used to shoot himself. Movies significantly affect people's recognition and understanding of firearms, in other words. To address your other points, Assams, "Historic" movies (and, to a lesser extent, computer games) are generally held up to be a depiction of an historic event, and by and large they try to be accurate. Minor historical inaccuracies are understandable (such as anachronistic music which is of the type that would be heard in the era anyway), but equipping and entire army with the wrong firearm is so spectacularly out of order that it should be noted on. You and I know the Russian army did not make a habit of issuing Lugers to their officers and NCOs, or that the German Army in WWI were not issued with Lee-Enfield No 4 Mk 2 rifles, but your average wiki reader doesn't. As a firearms historian (and writer), I for one find that kind of information to be fascinating. I've had any number of people try and tell me that the Turkish Army in WWI used Mauser Broomhandles because that's what the guy in Lawrence of Arabia had (they didn't, they had S&W Model 10s), or that German POW Guards in WWII had Thompson M1A1s because that's what they saw them carrying in some B-grade film with no budget, or that the only guns Cowboys had were Colt Peacemakers and Winchester M1873s- you get the idea. The idea behind an encyclopaedia is to educate and inform, and pretending that guns have no cultural impact from film/TV is not the way to go about it IMHO. --Commander Zulu 09:11, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Wow, you called me ASSAMS... I consider that a personal attack! I read through your reply twice and, I have to say, you're living in a different world. Were I immersed in a fictional world, I can imagine this stuff would be pretty important to me, however it's a fictional depiction of a real item, it's not the real item. You play with toy guns as a child to learn how to and fantasize about playing with real guns as an adult. You read books to imagine what these things are like... IN REALITY. Airsoft copies, annoyingly, are made of EVERY FIREARM I can imagine and probably a few I can't. That doesn't make any of those toys culturally significant enough to mention them in an article on a REAL gun. To use "Terminator" as an example, the Beretta 92FS that the liquid metal dude uses isn't mentioned under the 'Beretta 92FS' article... why? Because it doesn't matter. They chose the lever-action shotgun because he can do the flippy thing with it... that's it. I knew what kind of shotgun it was, but did the public know? Did ANYBODY go into detail about the gun at all in the movie? Look at the Dirty Harry series of movies. Firearms are constantly discussed in these movies. From the 458 to the Automag, the guns themselves serve pivotal plot points. Heck, if the Sharps rifle don't get a mention of Quigley Down Under I'll be damned if the examples you're giving deserve mention in the articles you're discussing... AND, once again, WE'VE BEEN THROUGH THIS BEFORE and that concensus still stands. It's precedent, we've followed it up till now. Why do you think you get a 'do-over?' What's changed?--Asams10 11:16, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Calm down, everybody has the right to make typos. Zulu has mentioned some points that should be considered. The in popular culture section still seems inappropriate in my opinion. In my opinion it should be mentioned in the movie articles as 'equipment shown in the film', so anyone who cares what gun Bond uses can look it up. Under no circumstances should a list of movie appearances be added to gun articles since that tends to be unmaintainable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wandalstouring (talk • contribs) 12:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

A somewhat general point: it is very rare that asking for further discussion on a topic is inappropriate in and of itself, and we have certainly not reached that level here.

In any case, two points:

• The two examples mentioned by Commander Zulu are quite different, in my opinion. The Terminator reference is, in my view, on the trivial side of things; I rather doubt that the specific firearm used will have been remarked upon by anyone citeable. (Certainly there's a great deal to be said for shotguns in popular culture generally—I expect there's no shortage of sources available for the overall topic—but that's not quite the same thing.) The historical inaccuracy, on the other hand, is something that I would expect to be pervasive and noted by secondary sources concerned with historical accuracy. Is the firearm commonly used as a stand-in for others, and has this been discussed in print? If so, a mention of this in the article, similar to the one the Webley has, seems perfectly appropriate.
• The consensus, as far as I know, has always been that any discussion of cultural impact needs to be cited to appropriate sources; but if there are such sources, then it is quite acceptable to include the material in the article. (That is what our guideline says on the subject, anyways.) Is there some other understanding of the intent here?

Kirill 12:40, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I've never seen Quigley Down Under, but if the Sharps Rifle is mentioned somewhat prominently in the film, then I'd say it warrants a mention in the article. Please don't take my mis-spelling of your username as a personal attack- I've honestly always read it as having two "S"s in it. Please accept my apologies. As for the Beretta M92FS- there's nothing special about them, as they're a "standard" 9mm handgun- so an appearance in film isn't notable as a general rule. But they obviously chose the M1887 shotgun for a reason- they could have used a sawn-off Browning A-5, for example. The shotgun in the film isn't fictional- it's an actual shotgun (albeit a modified one). Just because no-one in the film said "Hey, you've got a sawn-off Winchester M1901!" doesn't change the fact that Arnold was, in fact, carrying a sawn-off Winchester M1901. The M1901 shotgun is a distinctive part of the Terminator's image, just at the Walther PPK is a distinctive part of the James Bond image. As for Soft Air guns, as a general rule I agree with you- soft air versions of real firearms are not generally notable (say, a Soft Air Sig P226 or a Soft Air AR-15 are completely un-notable in any encyclopaedic sense- the real guns are very common, and it's a given someone would be making Soft Air copies). A Soft Air replica of an obscure shotgun (the only reason they even make modern 12ga smokeless reproductions of the M1887/1901 is for the Cowboy Action Shooting market and for export to Australia, where pump-action shotguns are heavily restricted) isn't noteworthy in itself (you'll note there's no mention of a Soft Air variant in the article as a result of the consensus that Soft Air Gun articles don't belong on WP, and I agree with that), but in a wider cultural sense there's obviously enough recognition of the Terminator 2 sawn-off M1901 to justify a Soft Air replica, which means (to me at least) that the fact the M1887/M1901's appearance in Terminator 2 is notable enough to warrant a mention in the article, even a simple one line acknowledgement that the shotgun used in the film is a Winchester M1901 that was specially modified for the film. As to why my feelings on this consensus have changed? Well, as I've said before, I believe that the intent behind the consensus is well-intentioned (some of the firearm articles used to have massive lists of every film the gun had been in, relevant or otherwise, and they needed to go), but is being somewhat mis-interpreted by people who are being a wee bit over-zealous in their interpretation of its implementation. I'm not advocating that we mention every time a gun appears in a film, but I am saying that the bar has been set far, far too high and needs to be lowered in the interest of encyclopaedic completeness.

Here's what I have in mind as a form of "Notability Test" (It goes without saying that the film the gun is appearing in must be well-known itself, of course!):

• 1. Is the firearm likely to appear in the film because of historic reasons or being in wide-spread real-life use? (eg, a M1 Garand is likely to be in a WWII film, a Glock 17 is going to be in a modern thriller, a Winchester repeating rifle will be in a Western etc). This is the "Whatever happened to be in the armoury" test- if the answer is "Yes", the firearm's appearance is prima facie not notable.
  • 1a. Is the firearm in the film for historic reasons, but appearing inappropriately enough that it affects the historic integrity of the film? (ie, German soldiers with Lee-Enfields in WWI, Japanese soldiers with M1903 Springfields, etc). This is the "Blue Max" test- if the answer is "Yes", the firearm's appearance might be notable, depending on the overall context.
• 2.Is the firearm commented upon by characters in the film and/or used as a plot point? ("Only James Bond carries a Walther PPK..." etc). If the answer is "Yes", the firearm's appearance is Prima Facie notable.
  • 2a. Is the firearm identifiably used as a signature weapon by the title character? (to be read in conjunction with Rule 1- basically, is the gun also unusual?). This is the "Terminator 2" rule- if the answer is "Yes", then the firearm's appearance may be notable, BUT mentions must be kept brief AND factual- eg "A modified Winchester Model 1887/1901 was the signature weapon of the Terminator character played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1992 film Terminator 2: Judgement Day", "The Mauser C96 was used as the basis for Han Solo's blaster pistol in the Star Wars trilogy", "A modified version of the Minigun, nicknamed Old Painless, was notably used by Jesse Ventura's character Blain if the film Predator"... you get the idea.
• 3. Has the firearm's notability been affected by the film? (this includes making obscure guns well known- James Bond's Walther PPK, for example, or perpetrating false information about the gun- ie, the "Glocks can't be picked up by Metal Detectors" thing from Die Hard 2. If the answer is "Yes", then the firearm is notable
• 4. The above rules are still to be read in the spirit of the general consensus that "in popular culture" sections are- generally- to be avoided where possible.

Anime automatically fails the "Film notability" test because of it's relatively limited audience, as do "Foreign" (non-English language) films not widely released outside their home country. Like I said, I'm not in favour of listing every single film a gun appears in, but I think we should be acknowledging that most people get their information on firearms from movies (and to a lesser extent, TV and video games, which are an entirely different kettle of fish again), and that it can be prudent to acknowledge a particular firearm's notable appearance in film. Does that clarify my stance a bit? --Commander Zulu 13:02, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

We've already GOT a test. How about the 'reasonable man' test. If you take a reasonable man (or woman) and ask them, "Hey, Identify this weapon." If they identify it as belonging in a particular movie, GREAT... add that to the firearm article. If they know what the gun is and say that first, keep it out of the article. You can show somebody a picture of Dirty Harry's gun and many, even gun folks, might even rattle off the lines from the movie, "This is a .44 Magnum...". I'll tell ya, you'd be hard pressed to find a reasonable man that would look at an Enfield and give you ANY of the information you feel needs to be included. Further, show people the [Wild West Guns "Bushwhacker"], chances are, they'd just as soon identify THAT as the weapon in Terminator as they would any other lever action gun. It's a GENERIC lever action. Even seasoned moviegoers just see it has a big barrel and the little flippy trick. What you're gathering about notability is contrived by your knowledge that it was, indeed, the Winchester lever action shotgun (did anybody else make one?) that was used in the film. The average, reasonable Joe wouldn't make that connection and it's, therefore, non-encyclopedic.

The concensus is there, by the way, to keep HUGE retarded popular culture 'sections' from dominating articles. Trust me, the minute you add anything like you did, there will be some 12-year-old boy who's seen an animae film that says, "Oh, it's okay to add fiction stuff so here I go." You don't have to trust me, we've been there. Look here: SIG SG 552, and here:Beretta 92 or here: Desert Eagle, or here: Beretta 93R]. C'mon, this is absurd. Myself and several other editors spent a great deal of our time and effort to see that "Children's Sections" of these articles went away and these are just a few of the scores of articles that were vandalized. It's graffiti. Leave well-enough alone.--Asams10 14:28, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

How about this, if a referenced source (focusing on the artifact, not about the particular film/book it appeared in) can be found that includes material about the artifact has been affected by its portrayal (ie. "X saw a surge in popularity as of late due to its appearance in Y") then we can include it. Otherwise, the information about its appearance would be kept limited to articles on the film/book themselves. Oberiko 15:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think that's pretty much what I was getting at, and what I think the original intent of the guideline was. We should try, as much as possible, to let our choice of material be governed by what our sources choose to note rather than what we ourselves consider to be worth noting. From that perspective, the question is not so much "should we mention the use of the firearm in film X", but rather "has anyone writing about the firearm commented on its use in film X", which is somewhat simpler to come up with an objective answer for. Kirill 16:46, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

While I certainly sympathize with Commander Zulu’s concerns over the potential for abuse of firearm articles with popular culture sections, and think his notability test feasible, unfortunately, I doubt it will have any effect on those who want to add trivia to articles. To a great degree, this is because firearms are themselves an iconic element in popular culture, so allowing popcult sections is just asking for a rapid degradation to lists of trivia – and there aren’t enough fingers to plug all the eventual holes in the dike.

What I’d like to recommend is a separate article on “Firearms in popular culture” – or perhaps a short series of articles (given the breadth of categories of firearms in general) – which addresses their cultural and cinematic aspects. Articles on specific firearms could have a “See also” link to them, if relevant, while the popcult article would have normal hyperlinks to the “technical” articles. One article in that series might even be addressed to “Media misportrayals of firearms”. This approach might serve to convert what would otherwise be widespread cruft intrusion into technical articles into articles of encyclopedic merit themselves. Askari Mark (Talk) 19:06, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Not a bad idea. Perhaps more prolific firearms (such as the Thompson submachine gun) could even have entire "List of media appearances of X" article; on the whole though, I'm drawing black to think of anyway such a list would be useful, or, really, even interesting information for anyone. Oberiko 19:26, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I just breezed through this debate, and two things that were said greatly stand out in my mind...

"In just about every case, poor popular culture sections rely exclusively on the primary work (i.e. "X appeared in the film Y") rather than any reliable secondary source (i.e. "The appearance of X in the film Y has been noted by Z"); the first form is implicitly ORish, in my view, because we have no way of knowing if anyone other than the editor sees the appearance as significant. Conversely, if a secondary source does exist, it shouldn't be difficult to add some explanation of said source's viewpoint on the significance of the appearance into the article."

...and...

"We should try, as much as possible, to let our choice of material be governed by what our sources choose to note rather than what we ourselves consider to be worth noting. From that perspective, the question is not so much "should we mention the use of the firearm in film X", but rather "has anyone writing about the firearm commented on its use in film X", which is somewhat simpler to come up with an objective answer for."

Nice, Kirill. That about says it all right there. Any policy regarding popular culture, IMO, should then simply be this...

Any popular culture item being considered for inclusion in a firearms article should...

A) Be able to be attibuted to a source that is notable and reliable in the field under which the article topic falls; and...

B) Said source must be writing/speaking as a whole about the article topic (ie. the firearm) rather than the pop-culture item as a whole.

My phrasing could likely use improvment, but any pop-culture policy really need only be that. —Thernlund ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 00:30, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Maybe this, taking it a tad further (with some wording correction)...

Any popular culture item being considered for inclusion in a firearms article...

A) Must be able to be attibuted to a source that is notable and reliable in the field under which the article topic falls; and...

B) Said source must be writing/speaking as a whole about the article topic (ie. the firearm) rather than the pop-culture item as a whole.

An item meeting these requirements should be able to be worked into the text of the article. A seperate section for popular culture items should be avoided at all costs.

That sounds pretty good to me. —Thernlund ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 00:42, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Adding, of course, that the source be reliable... a reputable news agency, magazine, peer-reviewed article, or creditable published work (no anti-gun hack books or publicity pieces for the Brady campaign). Does anybody looking at this agree with me that this, indeed, sets the bar HIGHER than it was before? Don't get me wrong, I completely agree that it should be higher.--Asams10 03:16, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

That's my concern- I think the bar needs to be lower, not higher. I'm also concerned by what might qualify as a "Reputable and reliable" source, too. FWIW, I'm in favour of doing away with "in popular culture" sections entirely (with exceptions, such as the Webley being a stereotypical British revolver or the Thompson M1928 SMG being associated with the Prohibition era) and just incorporating the information into the main article. This would hopefully keep the kids and the OMG THIS GUN WAS IN MY FAVE FILM!1! lists out of the article, whilst still acknowledging that, yes, this particular gun was used in this well-known film, by this well known character, and that it's appearance is unusual and/or notable as a result. A separate article on firearms in popular culture might be a good idea, as others have suggested. --Commander Zulu 03:21, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I would avoid, in general, applying "notable" to sources; most scholarly works are not notable in and of themselves, even if they're well-respected. Something like "reputable" would better express the intent here, I think. So, somewhat modified (and minus most of the bolding, which is IMO excessive):

Any popular culture reference being considered for inclusion:

A) Must be attibuted to a reputable source for the field of military history under which the article topic falls, where...

B) Said source is about the article topic (i.e. the firearm) as a whole rather than about the aspect of popular culture being referenced.

Items meeting these requirements should typically be worked into the text of the article; a seperate section for popular culture items should be avoided where possible.

(There's no reason to limit this to firearms, incidentally, as it applies equally well to anything else we work with.) Kirill 02:22, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

1st section break for "Firearms in Popular Culture Sections (or lack thereof)"

This is starting to get long, so I am adding a section break to make it easier to add to the section. On that note, my opinion here is mixed. I tend to lean toward the pop culture sections becuase some of the material is interesting and notable; and certain shows and films do specify what kind of gun the characters are using. And yes, I am aware that adding a legitimate pop culture section invites contributers to add instances of minute appearences of the weapon from every single medium imaginable, which doesn;t help the reputation of the pop culture sections. Having said that, I do agree that there ought to be a way for this information to get added to articles. IMO, you should at the information to the page of the company that manufactured the gun; this way, you can combine several otherwise bordline cruft sections into a functional section that can grow (assuming the company in question remains in business, a new or improved gun that makes waves in pop culture could go there). It seems to have worked for me with the Iowa class battleships, but I have no idea how much succsess you would have with it (or for that matter, if anyone else would consent to doing it this way). TomStar81 (Talk) 07:32, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Any other comments? Kirill 20:34, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea of a "Firearms in Popular Culture" article; I'm just concerned about how we'd keep it orderly given the somewhat passionate debate on the subject here. I honestly believe that film appearances of firearms are notable and should be included in articles, subject to a few restrictions (ie, no Anime, no "Obvious Appearances" such as Mausers in a WWII film, no Indie stuff no-one's ever heard of, etc). --Commander Zulu 10:45, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Project style guide and MoS

I've been involved in a discussion regarding the role of WikiProjects in the FAC criteria (Wikipedia talk:Featured article criteria#Unsure about #2). The upshot seems to be that WikiProject guidelines will not be considered to have "official" weight unless they're part of the WP:MOS. In light of that, I'd like to propose the following:

1. Move our existing guidelines (i.e. the contents of WP:MILHIST#Guidelines) to a subpage.
2. Redirect the subpage's talk page to the main project talk page, to retain a single place for discussion.
3. Get community consensus to tag said subpage as a part of the formal MoS.

Feedback on this idea would be appreciated! Kirill 17:28, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Based on a very cursory review, I have have no objections and commend you for taking the initiative to stay abreast of such issues that may affect the project. wbfergus ^Talk 17:51, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia feedback

I'm anxious to see this excellent guideline page become a part of the manual of style; I think you may have to eventually post to the Village Pump to gain wide consensus.

Some specific feedback:

• To agree with WP:MOS, can you eliminate the "e.g." (replace it with prose) in If disambiguation is needed, the year may be added in parentheses (e.g. ... and throughout? Following MOS guidelines will help remind editors to ... follow MOS guidelines.
• I'm unclear on whether adding this page to MOS implies broad consensus to all the subpages mentioned (for example, those listed under the section headings, Topic-specific conventions, Additional conventions and Weapon); I haven't reviewed those pages for possible contradictions with MOS.
• Rank: in the past, I've tried to help out with copyediting and FAC prep of several MilHist articles. As a person completely unfamiliar with the military, I need a guideline on military rank, how they are abbreviated, and so on. Is that here somewhere?
• Casualties: in the past, Kirill has mentioned the need to cite casualty numbers, and the issue of rounding. Is that included somewhere?
• Regarding Infobox templates (pause for a deep breath); depending on which computer/browser I'm using, the MilHist template size appears gynormous and dominates the text on my screen. Is there any possibility they could lose 10% in width without sacrificing content?
• Size guidelines; I remain interested in a discussion of Campaign history of the Roman military with respect to WP:SIZE and whether the Project wants to say anything specific on massive topics. I cannot load the Roman military article when I'm traveling and forced to use a dialup; it takes almost a minute to load even when I'm home. You all have many topics which can tend towards massive size (World Wars); can any guidance be provided?
• When you spin the guidelines off to an MOS page, should Featured article advice be part of those guidelines, or separated by TOC?

None of this rises to the level of opposition to the MilHist guidelines becoming part of MOS, but they are issues I'd like to discuss. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:13, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Let's see, in order:

• I have an unfortunate tendency to overuse Latinate abbreviations, but we can probably just run a search-and-replace on the text to get rid of those.
• The subsidiary pages are largely intended as collections of advice (mostly things like translation notes specific to particular armies) rather than proper guidelines. We could probably reword the introductory statement above the links to make that clearer. The only one that should really be here is the weapon structure suggestion, which was left on the Weaponry page when originally developed; I'll go ahead and move that here for people to mull over.
• Nope, we have nothing written down on ranks at the moment. We can work on developing something, but it'll probably take some time.
• Statistics are mentioned as one of the points to be cited in the section on citations.
• The template width is controlled project-wide by a meta-template, so it would be trivial to "change"; but the fundamental reason for the current setting is the convention of using a 300px image in the infobox. To have any effect, a width change would need to be accompanied by some sort of automated resizing spree on those.
• As regarding ranks, we have nothing firm on article size at the moment.
• The FA advice should probably stay on this page; it's even less of a real "guideline" than most of what we have, and I can't really see us calling that part of the MoS.

Kirill 20:22, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry I can't remember where or when the conversation occurred, but you said something once about rounding in casualty estimates, and I had an issue with an estimate's overprecision. If you can recall, and add any guidance, it would help. I'd also really like to see something about how to trim the massive War articles; World War I and World War II were always massive, and now we've got Roman military as well. Not a sticking point for me, just a good time to discuss this. And I had a hard time copyediting Hispanic Americans in World War II without knowing how to deal with ranks and their abbreviations. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:29, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Just a note:

• Abbreviations have been eliminated.
• Nature of subsidiary pages has been made more explicit; obsolete ones have been removed; and the weaponry article structure recommendation has been moved here.

Kirill 20:57, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Sandy asked me to look at this proposal as I worked on MEDMOS. I support the push to move this to be formally recognised as an official guideline. You'll earn a link from the list on the RHS of the MOS and hopefully the extra traffic will be beneficial both to the guidelines and also their use in relevant articles. A few quick comments:

• Move this to a page of its own ASAP. It will help people focus on what is in and what is out. Have you thought of a shortcut? WP:MILMOS or WP:MILHISTMOS? There seem to be loads of variants used in MOS subpages.
• My main issue is that it is overlong. Some suggestions for shortening the guideline page:
  • Only include MILHIST-specific guidelines. For example, the sections on Citation styles and Requesting citations are not specific to MILHIST.
  • Focus on guidelines rather than merely helpful information. The Templates section could be drastically reduced and some content referenced on the talk page. For example, the list of Infoboxes could be a sub-page of this project. While you could view this as a loss here, it might also enable such a list to be expanded to be more helpful (if required).
  • Categories takes up a huge amount of text. Both naming guidelines and insertion guidelines. Perhaps this whole aspect could be moved to its own subpage. This would leave the remaining text to focus more on writing the article.
• This is a good time to review your FAs (you've got a lot!) and ensure your guidelines match best practice.

Colin°^Talk 12:52, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I'll try to move them onto a subpage (likely still transcluded, at this point) when I get the chance. Both of the shortcuts you mention seem sensible; there's no reason why we can't have two.

As far as the length is concerned, I expect there are multiple schools of thought on this. I tend to think that having the material easily available in one place is worth the extra bulk; in my experience, just about nobody reads an entire MoS page straight through, so the average person isn't going to be unduly inconvenienced so long as the page is easy to navigate. Moving things out to individual subpages is neat, but makes it easier for people to overlook things.

(Having said that, the category documentation is indeed quite long; so perhaps moving it to a page of its own—if not now, then at a later date—may be a workable approach.) Kirill 14:19, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

It seems really silly to rearrange this project to fit a wording problem at WP:WIAFA; the simpler solution is to make clear there that the weight given to project standards should vary, depending on the weight they deserve. This, and MED and Math would get a lot; something slapped together in five minutes by WP:Fancruft would get none. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that Math has ever been exposed to broad consensus or enjoys the reputation MilHist enjoys. Which Projects enjoy this "weight they deserve" is opinion; subjecting it to broad consensus of MOS is more clear. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:29, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've moved the guidelines in question out to Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide, redirected its talk page here, and left some brief links to it at WP:MILHIST#MOS. Comments on how this looks now, especially from people that have needed to consult the guidelines before, would be very appreciated! In particular, is the style guide easy enough to find? Kirill 12:41, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Easy enough to find ... from where? Eventually, it will be linked from WP:MOS, no, at {{style}}? I'll have a look, but a suggestion is that you might want to open up the talk page at the new guideline page. What's hard to find is this discussion, and you might want to have clear links there showing consensus when you add it to MOS. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:49, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

From within the project, obviously. ;-)

As far as the talk page goes: given that the main idea behind this exercise was that we would continue to retain only one central place for discussion, I don't think that's going to be helpful. Kirill 12:51, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, how about a shortcut on this talk section then, for quicker, easier access? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:56, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

PS, yes it's easy to find; I see it right there at the top of the MilHist main page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:58, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

WT:MILHIST#MOS work? I've also linked the discussion from the top of the style guide page itself. Kirill 12:30, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Can we include a policy on recommended guidelines on image usage? I often see articles which are overloaded with every image available for the topic. Oberiko 13:09, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

New Member

Hello, I just joined the wikiproject; my main interests are medieval weapons and armaments of European/Asian origin. While it seems that the majority of the weaponry task force is concentrated on modern weapons, any pointers on style, categorization, or anything else would be greatly appreciated. Gizzakk 01:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Military_terms

From the talk page of (Talk:Battle of Waterloo#GA review)

throughout the text, links to "Battle of . . ." should not have a capital "B". Please change these to lower case. (Jackyd101 29 August 2007 )

From lower down the same talk page Talk:Battle of Waterloo#Capitalization page:

Capitalization, especially of unit names, is somewhat nonstandardised in the article. Unfortunately, Wikipedia doesn't currently have style guidelines for this, so I've proposed some on the relevant MoS page. Please have a look and see if you agree. Once they're stable, I'm going to go through and standardise. -Kieran 23:29, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I think this needs discussing here. --Philip Baird Shearer 06:06, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

For battles and campaigns, I believe the Chicago Manual of Style recommends that only names that have achieved recognition as proper nouns should be capitalized. Thus, it's the Battle of Thermopylae, but the battle of Obscure Creek. The problem with this approach, of course, is that there's no easy, objective way to determine when a battle name has reached the status of a proper noun. Therefore, Wikipedians generally capitalize all battle names, i.e. "Battle of Foo", which seems okay to me. But they tend to go nuts with capitalizing theater and campaign names, raising descriptive names to the status of proper nouns, like "Lower Seaboard Theater of the American Civil War", which looks fine as an article title, but silly in the middle of a sentence. —Kevin Myers 07:47, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Ooh. I'm glad this is finally coming up. I find this to be a problem especially in the fields in which I work - Japanese has no equivalent for capital vs lowercase letters, and so the question of whether something is a descriptive title or a proper noun is in most cases up for grabs. Some sort of standard does need to be reached, though I'm not sure what. The basic idea of "only names that have achieved recognition as proper nouns" is a great one, though of course I agree with Kevin that there's no real objective yardstick for that. ... I'm sorry I'm not contributing anything meaningful to this discussion, but I am definitely eager to see this develop and for some kind of policy/guideline to be established. LordAmeth 08:58, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the "recognition as a proper noun" criterion is a good one. This definitely seems to be the spirit of the Chicago MoS. As for problems with borderline cases, I think the best way to handle that is through case-by-case consensus. (General Wikipedia policy on interpreting style guidelines is to go with consensus.) Let's throw it around a bit more, and if we all agree, I'll write this into the style guideline -Kieran 10:52, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Concur, with the proviso that if the linked battle has an article here then the default position is capitalise. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 11:24, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. I think it's better to over-capitalize these than to under-capitalize them; the "my battle is more important than yours"-type fights just aren't worth it here. Kirill 11:29, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

On a closely-related point, what do we feel about capitalised Actions and Raids? Treat as Battles? --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 11:24, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd assume they'd follow the same rule, being capitalized when they're used as part of a "proper noun". Kirill 11:29, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Same here. Should this be added to the MOS page? --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 11:31, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Added. Please edit the style guide if you can see a way to improve it. I've also added a small notice to the section stating that it is under discussion, to be removed once we've worked through as much as possible. Be bold! -Kieran 21:36, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Expanded it to make it more all-embracing, added examples, and strengthened the default nature of article titles. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 23:47, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I seem to have iadventantly started this debate, I basicially always assumed that the word "battle" was not a proper noun and so should not be capitalised when used in a sentance. I've always found it slightly jarring to see a capital in the middle of a sentance like that but I bow to consensus here.--Jackyd101 22:36, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, the discussion seems to have died down, and we seem to all agree. I'm going to remove the notice that the guideline is under discussion, and leave them as they are in the MoS. -Kieran —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 14:09, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Ship names

It might be helpful to have a standard for fighting ships too. These appear variously as (a) HMS Victory or (b) Victory. I suppose that (a) could be used for first mention, with (b) thereafter but I have no preference whatsoever myself. --ROGER DAVIES ^TALK 13:20, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

That suggestion is normal convention in military usage. The other point might be reference to warships, there seem to be some who refer to ships in a neutral way, rather than using the feminine.

ALR 14:57, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, the use of ship prefixes is addressed in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships)#Referring to ships, and the use of neutral vs feminine gender is not addressed in conventions. In practice, ship names with or without prefixes are acceptable, as long as there is enough information in context (i.e., in an American Civil War naval battle, it might be advisable to use prefixes extensively, since numerous ships were captured and changed sides during battles). As far as gender, most at WP:SHIPS prefer and use feminine, but we treat it as contributor preference - neutral is not wrong and therefore not corrected in an existing article. Maralia 15:22, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Category for deletion

Just wanted to get this up before it closes: Category:Recipients of the Ranger tab was nominted for deletion. Looking at the comments there, it is obvious that the nominator and at least one voter has no clue about what the ranger tab and ranger qualification means, so I'm asking people from here to go and comment before it closes - I'm not asking you to say keep - delete if you think it should be delted, but I think people who might know a little more about it should comment on it.--Nobunaga24 00:58, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

France potentially being delisted as major power in World War II infobox

Hello. Normally I wouldn't think such a minor alteration would warrant a posting on the MilHist page, but there's been a lot of contention around this before and I'd like to do what I can to maintain neutrality and avoid original research.

A few contributors have determined that France should not be listed as a major power of World War II. The details are on the template discussion page. Any feedback is more then welcome. Oberiko 00:01, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

First they removed France, and I didn't speak up,

Because the French surrendered in eight weeks.

Then they removed China, and I didn't speak up,

Because Chinese contribution was limited to one theatre.

Then they removed the UK, and I didn't speak up,

Because they wouldn't have lasted if not for American help.

Then they removed the Soviets, and I didn't speak up,

Because they were commie bastards as evil as the Nazis.

Then their goals were achieved, and no one was left to speak up,

Because apparently, America won WWII alone.

Миборовский 00:37, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that's very helpful. The debate is about if France's contributions are more similar in scope to "minor powers" (such as India, Canada and Poland) rather then the "major powers" (U.S., U.S.S.R., and U.K.). If you have something specific, we're asking to hear it, but please don't frame this discussion in the same light as the First they came... speech, which alludes to Nazism, I think that could be taken as being quite disrespectful. Oberiko 01:01, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Merely stating what I observe to be the trend. American editors, discontent with simply glorifying their own contributions to the war (which are numerous and crucial), have to disparage and downplay the contributions of other countries as well. We've already been through this many, many times. It's also interesting that (just an example here) Chinese casualties may be used to belittle French contributions to the war in this instance, but the same data was discounted when Chinese contributions were in question a while back.

But you are correct, it wasn't helpful. I was just... frustrated. Миборовский 01:55, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

That's a pretty broad generalization. And to whom are you referring? I myself am Canadian. Oberiko 02:24, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Identify that tank/gun, Round 3

Well, I have news that is both good and bad at the same time. Per previous discussion here, today I ambled on down to tank row at the entrance to the aberdeen proving ground. You can imagine my surprise when I saw that it was no longer there :(

So I drove a mile down the road to the musuem, and asked what happened. Apparently they took them all back and put them in the field in back of the musuem, with all the other pieces (the same field that I have twice photographed. So the news is good and bad at the same time. Tank row was next to the entrance, and they get *VERY* upset if you are photographing stuff near the entrance (such pictures could help out terrorists planning an attack on the base to get inside), so getting permission to photographs the tanks there was uncertain. The bad news is that they did not keep the tanks together - instead, they split them up and placed them all over the field. So the only way to make sure I get them all is to go through the field and photograph everything (for the third time). This is not something I am willing to do. However, I did shoot some more pictures of ones that I don't think I got the last two times. I'll be uploading them tonight for identification. Raul654 19:04, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

It's been a couple of years since I've been there, but I could have sworn the tanks were like that (out in back with everything else) originally. In fact, I recall taking photos of them out back. I don't remember any such Tank Row when I was there. So it would seem it was only meant to be a temporary display anyway. --ScreaminEagle 20:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

You're right that most of the tanks were in back of the musuem - but they put another dozen-or-so next to the visitors entrance. That was tank row. I just asked a colleague who has been there since the mid-80s -- he said Tank Row has been there ever since he started working there. It's just my luck that the day I go to take a picture of it is the same week they get rid of it ;) Raul654 20:26, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah. Well, I've never said my memory was perfect. I still don't remember them there, which means I probably missed out on something pretty cool. Oh well. --ScreaminEagle 22:06, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

GO!! Raul654 00:32, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Excellent work by Bukvoed, who managed to identify all but one. Raul654 19:44, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Organizational Order of Battle

This is one of the project's less helpful articles- a exhaustive listing of the types of wings and other units that Strategic Air Command had at certain times, ie 'Reconnaissance Air Divisions - 1 in 1955 and 1 in 1971' and so on like that. I think by itself this is too esoteric and unusable, and it should be deleted, though some information may be migrated first. What do others think? Buckshot06 22:05, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

The information is already in, e.g. Strategic Air Command divisions; so I don't think we'll lose much by getting rid of this particular list. Kirill 12:29, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Rejection of unit veterans as primary sources on unit history

I have concerns that veterans of the 3rd US Infantry Regiment, as well as the senior command staff of the United States Army, have been arbitrarily rejected as primary sources contrary to WP:NOR to make a point regarding the history and naming of that unit. As a matter of respect for the unit veterans, the Chief of Staff's office and his subordinate staff officers, I am no longer contributing to or commenting on Wikipedia articles pertaining to any element of the United States Armed Forces, and I have informed my students that such articles are not acceptable for citation in their academic work submitted for publication. I may continue to contribute to the German General Staff article or other articles on other-than-American topics as I find credible sources authored by recognized military historians in the future. Hotfeba 15:33, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Not being familar with this particular case (so I may be wrong), it sounds from your post like an improper interpretation of WP:NOR. The only way NOR itself would be involved is if you (or any other editor) engages in "original research", drawing conclusions or making interpretations not based on a published source. Veterans and any command staff are clearly regarded as primary sources. There is currently a very lengthy discussion on the talk page of NOR. We are discussing how to remove the definitions, etc. of the various types of sources, so that the policy concentrates solely on "no original research", not on side topics like what kind of source something is. If there are any objections to what I think you are complaining about, it seems like it would be more related to the verifiability or reliable sources policies. Hope this helps some. wbfergus ^Talk 15:55, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Under WP:NOR section on "Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources", a credible primary source includes those persons "very close to the situation being written about". Unit veterans reasonably qualify as primary sources, but their account of the unit's name is rejected in favor of after-the-fact standardization of unit article names by at least one Wikipedia editor. I have provided a good secondary source (written by a 19th century unit veteran/primary source) on the article talk page from www.army.mil/cmh on the unit's official name as it (3rd United States Infantry Regiment) was rendered as early as 1894 under the US Army's commanding general at the time, which should settle the issue but for one's desire for standardization. In any case, the Wikipedia article is merely a tertiary source at best, not suitable for citation on its own. Other Wikipedia policies may apply, but I found the above source policy on another editor's recommendation for avoiding OR in this specific matter. Hotfeba 16:18, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, a couple of different things then are "in play" here. First, article names aren't really 'standard' representations of what something may actually be called, it's primarily used (especially here in MILHIST) for easier 'sorting' or 'grouping' purposes. This project has many different "3rd" or "Third" on here from a lot of various nations. It was agreed upon a year or so back that browing through the non-standardized names was becoming quite a chore, and standardizing the names would greatly simplify the task. An article "name" doesn't really matter to much, as withing the text of articles, the linkage to the article can still be piped to the applicable name (or real) name. I can see where you would like the actual article name to be the correct representation of what the unit actually is called, but when it's conglomerated in with 30 other "3rd's", it easy to get lost in the shuffle. Within the article itself it could (maybe should?) clearly state what the "official" name is. Depending upon how your edits were worded may reflect on whether or not the other editor correctly assumed "original research" on your part. If, within the article, your edit consisted of something like "In 1894 the US Army's commanding general organized the unit as the '3rd United States Infantry Regiment'", followed by a reference to the applicable 'source', then it is simply a statement of fact and not original research. However, something like "Many veterans of the unit insist that the appropriate name of the unit is '3rd United States Infantry Regiment' and has been called that since 1894" could easily be called OR, as it seems to be making a conclusion or interpreatation of facts not augmented by a published source. wbfergus ^Talk 16:33, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

For reference: this is the matter discussed in #The Old Guard above. Briefly: our guideline calls for the official name to be used, there's some disagreement over what that official name is, and people have unfortunately become upset because of the dispute. Kirill 20:10, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I was asked to comment on others' edits -- I have refrained from editing that article after a US Army photo I attributed to www.army.mil was removed as not public domain several months ago -- and I am removing my user name from the MILHIST project per accepted Wikipedia policy on conflict avoidance. Hotfeba 20:12, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Issy Smith now open

The A-Class review for Issy Smith is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 20:01, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Military history of Gibraltar during World War II now open

The A-Class review for Military history of Gibraltar during World War II is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 20:01, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Barrosa now open

The A-Class review for Battle of Barrosa is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 20:01, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

the X legio

I was just reading about it and it REALLY needs to be restarted in two different sections it's talking about 4 different legions--Rofur 00:35, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

A-Class review for Fort Runyon now open

The A-Class review for Fort Runyon is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 18:31, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

IRA - Terrorists?

An anon ip has removed all reference (diff) to the IRA as terrorists in the article, The Royal Irish Regiment (27th (Inniskilling) 83rd and 87th and Ulster Defence Regiment). This would seem to be a non-neutral edit to me. It is classed as a terrorist organisation by the U.K and by Ireland. Yet terrorist is also subjective from an Irish Republican perspective. Should it be reverted? Woodym555 17:47, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Quintessential example of WP:WTA. Discourse is preferable to reversion. There are neutral alternatives that should be sufficiently acceptable to both satisfy the various viewpoints and remain descriptive of the organisation. Indeed, the qualifier could just be omitted, thus nullifying the source of contention. SoLando (Talk) 20:45, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

The usage of the qualifier in the article does tend to rather over-egg the situation and could quite easily be seen as pejorative in its own right, so I'd be ambivalent about reinstatement. That said I think that the change from Murdered to Killed in one of the statements should probably be reversed. IRA killings of uniformed personnel were at best unlawful and whilst murdered is a loaded term I don't think killed adequately represents the situation.

Notwithstanding all of that I'd question the value of the Roll of Honour section in the article at all. WP is not a memorial and I do not believe that these sentimental memorials have any place in articles, so would quite happily support removal.

ALR 08:34, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Portal

Hello WikiProject Military history members, I'm Neranei. A few weeks ago, I rescued Portal:NATO from an MfD, and it seriously needs upkeep. As NATO is within the scope of your project, I was wondering if anyone would be willing to take this portal on. If you would like to, either post here or come talk to me. Thanks! Neranei (talk) 19:51, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Try a do-it-yourself approach. Wandalstouring 09:20, 24 September 2007 (UTC)