Talk:History of merit badges (Boy Scouts of America)

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Rlevse (Talk)

February 22 is the birthday of Robert Baden-Powell and his wife Olave Baden-Powell

Contents

[edit] Copyright of images on this page

The creator of this article took the photos of the merit badge images used in this article. The merit badges are in his personal collection. The motif/design of the badges is what is copyrighted by BSA, which the creator of this article secured permission for on 13 Dec 2005. Written confirmation of this is in the works to be submitted to Wikipedia. Rlevse 18:25, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Consensus on one of the other scouting pages was to use the logo tag on these images, and note that it is a copyright or trademark of the BSA. --Gadget850 17:08, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

The logo image tag is: {{logo}}. See Wikipedia: logos for more info. --Gadget850 18:22, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Someone needs to apply that consistently then. Any takers? :) --JohnDBuell 18:45, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

How about a compromise - let the first image stay with fairusein, since Rlevse arranged it himself and took the photo (or, actually it looks like five images combined on a computer, but that's still Rlevse's original arrangement). The individual badges change to the logo template? --JohnDBuell 19:08, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Actually, I scanned all the MBs in this article on my scanner (did not use a camera) for use herein. For the group shot, I took the five images you see and combined them using PowerPoint, grouped them, then pasted them into Paint and saved as a jpg. Good eye, John! I'll start on your proposal now. Rlevse 19:40, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Done with changing to logo tag. I left the group shot alone. Rlevse 19:55, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Article name

Okay, why Merit Badge Types instead of Design History? Types, to anyone who knows something about the BSA's program, usually means a category (like had been done in the 1960s) or is used to designate the difference in "Mandatory for Eagle Scout" vs. "Non-Mandatory for Eagle Scout." --JohnDBuell 18:32, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I thought MB Types would be less confusing to non-BSA folks because if we use "design history" I have no doubt that someone will claim it should refer to the artwork/motif of the MB. Maybe we should just leave the title alone for now until we are ready to resubmit it to FAC. Thoughts? Rlevse 18:41, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Regarding naming: good point. That would only leave potential options as something like Generations of BSA merit badges or Designs of BSA merit badge generations or something else like that. I think you're right, leave it where it is, maybe get some more feedback (is there a WikiProject for Scouting yet?), re-work, and re-submit. --JohnDBuell 18:42, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
I think a WikiProject on Scouting is a great idea. There does not appear to be one in the list. Thoughts? Rlevse 19:42, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] References

If possible, can you include the page numbers with the references to the Merit Badge Field Guide book? --JohnDBuell 18:56, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Done. Rlevse 22:45, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Writing style

I'd like to follow up on my disparaging comments on the featured-article proposal. I've rewritten the Type F section; I hope it looks better now. --Smack (talk) 19:27, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for being willing to help. It would be nice to have a consistent style that all can agree on in the Type A-J sections. So far I like what you're doing. I'm eager to see what it looks like when you finish as I see you're right in the middle of it at the moment. Rlevse 19:35, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I edited that section just to demonstrate what I meant. (Sorry if I didn't make that clear.) I'm trying to get through a huge backlog on my watchlist and to-do list, where the articles need help more urgently than this one. I may come back here later, but if you want to pick up in the meantime where I left off, that would be great. --Smack (talk) 18:13, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

It's just so hard to make those paragraphs sound good. I can't find a way to make them anything other than disjointed collections of facts. It almost seems that they would read better if they were broken up into several columns. Take a look at Merit badge types (BSA)/temp. --Smack (talk) 19:22, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmm. This may be a great idea (table redesign). I may do this when I get more time (there'd be 10 to redesign and reedit. THx! Rlevse 21:30, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalization

Scout is always capitalized, even in ranks, when it refers to Scouting in English. Chris 16:17, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

You're right, and the usage wasn't consistent through the article. I've made them all with an uppercase "S", except the ones that are links to articles or websites. Thanks for catching it. Rlevse 16:35, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] internal source help

/sigh I'm still unsure how to do interal source citing ... I just added a line to the "Badge History" section: "Currently, the BSA "field testing" Hunting merit badge but it has not yet been released on a national basis. which I got from [1]. This source is already cited internally elsewhere in the article. If you can fix this for me that would be great. --Naha|(talk) 19:51, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

It's only in the ref (now) and external links. I made the external link go specifically to the MB section, so I feel this is fixed. Rlevse 21:38, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merit badge collecting

I saw the comment on the FAC page about needing to edit or remove the collecting section. I have to agree that unless it mainly contains info on badge collection as a hobby (as opposed to other BSA memoribilia) that it should be removed. Over the last hour I've been looking for info via Google searches about badge collecting as a *hobby* and am not really turning up anything good. All the collection information I can find is in regards to the scouts *earning* the badges and the criteria needed to earn them. I'll look some more I guess.--Naha|(talk) 21:32, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Citation needed?

Does this claim really need a citation? "Spoof badges should never be worn on a Scouting uniform" ? I mean ...it makes complete sense. What offical group of any kind that pridees itself in the manner in which it awards its members would allow that? I think citing sources is wonderful, but over the last week or so it seems like all of a sudden people think every sentence in every article needs a citation. Seems a bit out of control. --Naha|(talk) 21:59, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

It makes complete sense to me too, but I added two refs anyway.Rlevse 22:15, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Cool, better to overcite than leave people wondering I guess ...I'm just on a citation-police tare at the moment lol. --Naha|(talk) 22:21, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] LOL

  • Normally this criteria is something like, cooking, or weaving, but other useless feminine activities are also uncluded.
The above has been reported as vandalism. Rlevse 03:07, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

ALL VANDALISM ON THIS TALK PAGE AND THE ARTICLE PAGE HAS BEEN AND WILL BE REPORTED. Rlevse 03:17, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Start Year of Scouting

This page says Scouting started in the UK in 1908. It didn't - it was 1907. 2007 (ie next year) is our 100th anivesary and there is all sorts of things planned. See www.scouts.org.uk for further proof. Can someone change this (don't want to do it myself as it's a featured page and there's lots of warnings about vandals here).

Thanks for catching that. Can't believe I missed that. Fixing it would not be vandalism, but helping. Rlevse 10:56, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Temp page

If someone who is an editor of this page can look over Merit badge types (BSA)/temp and see if there is anything to merge. The temp page has remained unedited for 2 months now. It should be deleted if there is nothing to save. Once anything is merged, place a {{db|temporary page}} tag on the page and an admin should speedy delete it. Pepsidrinka 04:56, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I forgot all about this. It can be deleted. Rlevse 16:53, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spoof Merit Badges/Whitewater Kayaking

Under the section titled Spoof Merit Badges, it is mentioned that whitewater kayaking would possibly be approved by the BSA, but currently isn't. There is, in fact, a Whitewater merit badge. Perhaps this part of the article should be changed to reflect that reality. Mathboy965 17:02, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Good catch. I just removed it to avoid confusion. Feel free to join the Scouting Wikiproject. Rlevse 18:10, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
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