Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/King's Regiment (Liverpool)

King's Regiment (Liverpool)

I've been intermittently developing this article for over a year. But compelling distractions have prevented me from completing this project (I'm on an occasionally enforced wikibreak;-). This article will undoubtedly surpass 60kb and I've therefore decided to omit the regiment's peripheral activities (this prominently includes its service in India and Macedonia during WWI). While I hope this decision won't be at the expense of the article's comprehensives, no online history, even published book, could possibly hope to equal Everard Wyrall's staggering three volume, The History of the King's Regiment (Liverpool) 1914-19;-). Three sub-sections still require substantial expansion: the "Colonial wars" (i.e. the Second Boer War), "1918", and "Burma". I suspect the prose is deficient in areas and certain sections are sparse. So suggestions and constructive criticism would be appreciated. SoLando (Talk) 20:50, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Kirill Lokshin

Very nice, overall. Some suggestions, in no particular order:

I would try to avoid omitting any significant topic, particularly as the article is already over the recommended size. What I would suggest doing instead would be creating daughter articles (King's Regiment (Liverpool) in World War I and perhaps King's Regiment (Liverpool) in World War II) for the more detailed narrative, and trimming back the material in the main article to a more condensed summary. This would allow you to achieve comprehensive coverage without running into article length concerns.
The "History" header seems extraneous; I would suggest removing it and having those sub-sections directly off the main body of the article.
The battle honours can be placed in an infobox field now.
The table of VC recipients may be better off floated on the side rather than in an otherwise empty section of its own.
The rump "Batallions" section needs to either become a legitimate summary of the linked article or be eliminated; it shouldn't be difficult to work that link into the text somehow, in any case.

Hope that helps! Kirill Lokshin 22:06, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

As ever, I appreciate your input.

Yes, that might be the most viable solution; however, the WWI and WWII sections are essentially, in their present form, already condensed summaries. I'll attempt to compress the 1918 sub-section into two paragraphs detailing the Spring Offensive and Hundred Days. Perhaps two paragraphs for India and Macedonia. I'll investigate the possibility of branching the history, but it could be problematic ;-)
Done.
Incorporating so many battle honours into the infobox makes the latter extremely cumbersome and disrupts the layout of the page. Any alternative?
I'm tempted, very tempted, to convert the VC section into prose. What would you suggest?
I've placed the link to the list of battalions in the infobox.

Again, I thank you. SoLando (Talk) 22:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Let's see:

The current content could likely be condensed further, but that's not the main point; my idea was more to create a place for more detailed coverage, thus eliminating the question of whether the article was comprehensive by allowing the material not fully discussed in this article to still be adequately covered in the child articles. (In any case, branching the history means simply putting the source article in your original edit summary; so this shouldn't be a practical concern. ;-)
You could, I suppose, have a separate table listing the battle honours by war and so forth; the main thing is to avoid the simple long list that we currently have.
The VC section might be workable as prose, but it's going to be somewhat repetetive. Perhaps the easiest approach would be to split it apart and add the recipients into the text in the relevant narrative sections?

Kirill Lokshin 23:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'll attempt to formulate a subsidiary History of the King's Regiment (Liverpool) (preferable for the purposes of context). I can be an obsessive perfectionist (even if that is rarely evident;-), so it's conceivable that such an article would exceed 90kb alone (if it is initiated). My hands are trembling at such a prospect...
A table could have application here; I've seen a similar approach but can't remember the name of the article.
Integrating the recipients into the relevant sections seems preferable, although I'll miss that table. ;-)

SoLando (Talk) 00:07, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've compiled a list of the regiment's Colonels-in-Chief, Colonels of the regiment and a modest number of "famous" members. This could be the ideal location for the VC recipients; however, it's of questionable encyclopaedic merit. Then again, the existence of numerous lists of even greater question which have survived AFD mitigate that somewhat;-)SoLando (Talk) 00:27, 15 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]