Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 15

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Oh for the love of...

m:Don't vote on everything - can someone please explain to me why there is a need to have a election for this wikiproject? Is there more than one person who even wants the job? Raul654 04:48, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

It is needed due to the expansion of both the size of this project (now over 80 members!) and its scope (from coverage of battles and wars to ALL aspects of Mil history). Given this, many here feel that more than simply an informal consensus is needed. A vote will, at best, make it official and help avoid or allieviate future conflicts, allowing us to operate more efficiently. Or, at worse, no harm in trying :>--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 21:42, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't know who decided these things, or if they have authority to do so, but I sincerely think that this community should get stronger. Perhaps new changes would stimulate things around here to the better. A proof of my argument is that few, if any, battle articles have been featured. Who decides what articles are to be featured anyway? Oh, yeah! Nevermind!!! ;) --Candide, or Optimism 07:50, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, there are a number of people who have expressed interest.
Somewhat more generally, we probably don't need an election, in the sense that nothing is going to break if we don't have one. Certainly, open voting is the exception rather than the rule in this project (I cannot remember a single prior occasion in which it was used).
As part of the introduction of these positions, however, we would like to have a concrete display of community confidence in the selected coordinators; given the large size of the project (and the comparatively small number of people who commented during the initial discussion), it was felt that an open election would be a good way of accomplishing this. Not the only way, of course; but a easy and generally understandable one. As an unrelated benefit, it provides a reason for less-active project members to visit the project page.
If it fails, of course, we'll take it as a lesson for the future. Given that the worst potential consequence of this will be a bit of wasted time for the participants, though, I see no reason why we cannot be indulged ;-) —Kirill Lokshin 10:05, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I'd be happy to indulge, but must admit i also see little point. You function as de facto coordinator at the moment anyway, so why the need for confirmation of this? But like i said, happy to indulge. The Minister of War (Peace) 11:50, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Cause we're looking to have three coordinators? ;-) —Kirill Lokshin 14:19, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Hahaha! So youre asking for assistants? :-) The Minister of War (Peace) 14:48, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
It seems like he is...are you volunteering? If so you have my vote, Sir:>--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 22:19, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm flattered! But alas, i am so busy in real life i hardly have the time to cater my Wiki-addiction as is. I'm staying a simple editor for now. The Minister of War (Peace) 07:30, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Le sigh...the same reasons keep me from running as well. Along with laziness and a burning lack of ambition. But hey, we still get to enjoy our capacities as informal advisors. Influence is better than power in some ways...it is power without responsibility, which truly rocks ;>--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 02:07, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Battle of Cable Street

KI added {{WikiProject Military history}} to Battle of Cable Street. I am not sure that the article is appropreate for the Military history WikiProject as it is not about a battle in the military sence rather it is about a street controntation between facists and anti-facists. It was not part of a war in the traditional sence.--JK the unwise 12:39, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

It's probably just a mistake based on the name. I'd go ahead and remove the tag; otherwise, we risk getting War on Drugs in the next round ;-) —Kirill Lokshin 14:20, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Dont forget the War on Christmas!! :-) The Minister of War (Peace) 14:22, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
No no, clearly the greatest war of all time was the one detailed in the Chappelle show - the battle of the New York street gangs, as led by General Cornrow Wallace. Raul654 14:47, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Bud Harper

Folks, I've created a stub on Joseph H. Harper. He was a Colonel in the US 82nd Airborne Division during WWII, but made it to Major General after the war. Thus far, I have nothing on his background (other than that he wasn't a ring-knocker) and no knowledge of his ascent to stars. Any help appreciated. (Am working on articles on US paratrooper and glider regimental commanders and their regiments.) --Habap 21:14, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Not really much to find on Harper online. Odd, really, but maybe he just wasn't famous enough. (Yes, he delivered the "Nuts" message, but he didn't write it or anything. He fought, true. So did a lot of other people. Guapovia 09:41, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Added to Cavalier Article

Not a big edit, but added some details I found on a BBC site. Added a link, put in a subheader, a few explanatory sentences. Question: Should "Cavaliers" be expanded to encompass ALL of King Charles I's supporters? or should it just stick to the traditional explanation of what a cavalier is? Cheers, Guapovia 10:13, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Second Battle of Zürich

The article traditionally featured the following sentence: "Betrayed by the Austrians but still undefeated, Suvorov heroically retreated across the Alps, performing a military feat unheard of since the time of Hannibal." Claiming this was an "unsourced POV pushing", User:Pecher repeatedly deleted it. Please comment on the issue. --Ghirla | talk 15:40, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Commented on Talk:Second Battle of Zürich. —Kirill Lokshin 16:15, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Moi aussi...--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 02:24, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Asked at Wikipedia:Help_desk

Advanced Search Tools for WikiProject or user? Any know?

I am familar with many differnet ways to search Wikipedia articles using Google, in-line search, or WhatLinksHere. Is there a tool, process, or Robot to do advanced searches? Example: Tiguex War is a new stubby article, but not tagged on the talk page as a WikiProject Military history, so it is hard for that group to know about it. However two editors mildy debated the correct stub classification. A search of all articles in a category of Military History (and all sub-categories underneath) to find those articles that do not have the WikiProject notice on their talk page would be helpful. Google cannot do that, that I know of. Another example, a search to find all the articles in the WW2 categories and sub-categories that are also in a WWI category or sub-category would be very helpful. That type of article should be very rare. No automated changes, just advanced search. Wendell 06:39, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

The best way to do something like that would be to grab a database dump and search it offline. The drawbacks of that approach, though, are that (1) it's not up-to-date and (2) it requires being able to search a database dump ;-) —Kirill Lokshin 14:30, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Found a tool to do extactly what I wanted, and this project really needs. Its linked from the Wikipedia:Browse and called Category Tree. Needs a decent browser with Javascript. Wendell 22:56, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

As a wiki-tool, it has the usual dis-claimer, This script is developed and maintained by Duesentrieb. It is work in progress but will eventually be released under the GPL. The source code is available on request. When I made category changes last night, this tool immediately recongized the updates, so it is linked into the real database, not an off-line copy.

The tool is very nice for visualizing, navigating, and maintaining a large collection of categories. There are two aspects of the tool: Category Tree and CatScan

I will post some more complete stats this weekend. There is some discussion Here about server loading, so please use this resource wisely. Wendell 22:59, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Category Tree:

  • Input a category, and Tool shows parent and daughter categories categories.
  • Can expand daughter categories, or re-focus the tree on any category.
  • Graphic interface, point-n-click to explore up and down.
  • Does not show articles in that category.

Great tool, but it gets better...

CatScan:

  • "Search in category" User Input (scans listed categories and all sub-categories)
  • Search For:
    • pages by category
    • pages by template (not fully functional?)
    • all pages
    • stubs, with a couple of options on stub size and # of wiki-links
    • changes in the last XXX, with options to hide minor or bots
    • all images
    • all templates
    • another category

Some basic examples:

  • 138 Categories under Category:World War II
    • There are 534 Articles within Categories under Category:World War II, that contain less than 1000 bytes.

Wendell 22:56, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Duplicate Campaign Boxes

I am trying to update the Campaign list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Campaignboxes. Wendell 01:08, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Found some potential duplicates.


This link might be helpful for future reference Wikipedia:Templates_with_red_links/Campaignbox

I've redirected {{Campaignbox Mesapotamian}} to {{Campaignbox Mesopotamian}}, as it's clearly an incomplete duplicate. The other three (the second one isn't used anywhere, incidentally) should be merged into a single campaignbox; I'll do it in a little while if nobody gets there first. —Kirill Lokshin 01:17, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Change to Warbox

Natalinasmpf has added what appears to be a "Notes" section to the warbox template. I can't see any use for this, personally, but maybe somebody can think of one? I'd like to know that I'm not missing something obvious here. —Kirill Lokshin 01:21, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

It's now been explained to me that this is for exceptional circumstances ;-)
I'm still unsure about having this, since I suspect that people will start putting everything but the kitchen sink into that field; but if anyone else thinks that it would be useful, we can keep it. —Kirill Lokshin 01:44, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

As it can be seen, it's been used in Battle of Thermopylae. Such a section was handy for the situation, and we would probably just discourage it except for the most exceptional circumstances, especially if you're dealing with historians like Herodotus. ;-) Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 01:52, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Personally I don't see much use for it, since a notes section cramps the battlebox, which should be compact. Besides, we can just move the notes section to the bottom of the main article space. -- Миборовский U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai! 03:51, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
That was my suggestion, given that footnotes now work properly when used inside the infobox. —Kirill Lokshin 04:44, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but that might not be good for the flow in all exceptional circumstances, given that we still want Herodotus' figure to be prominent, and at the end of the infobox, rather than at the end of the article; for flow purposes. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 14:30, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

History of India WikiProject

The History of India WikiProject was created a while ago, but no one knew about it. The project has been discovered and revived. Hopefully history enthusiasts from this project will help support this derivative project. deeptrivia (talk) 04:33, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

While I broadly welcome any cooperation between WikiProjects, I'm not really sure how India is derivative from Military history ;-) —Kirill Lokshin 04:43, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
I imagine that india's fought quite a few wars and battles. I'm sure we could drop them a line if we ever cover wars in India. Actually, I see that the Kargil War is one of this week's projects, so we may have more to do with India than previously suspected. :) Guapovia 17:17, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Complete list of Campaignbox templates, plus analysis

Well, I improved my ability to search Wikipedia. I found a way to cull out all existing Article names, either in the main, template, or category namespace. So I did a search for all templates with starting with Campaignbox.

See list & stats here Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history/Campaignboxes/Stats 26 Jan 2006. Wendell 05:32, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Summary:

  • 11 fictional campaigns included (Star Wars, LOTR, Star Trek)
  • 16 re-directs (I did not do an exhaustive search)
  • About ~390 unique Campaignboxes that relate to this project
  • However Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Campaignboxes shows 321 entries (I counted this morning)

So it seems that list is missing about 70 Campaignboxes. Or there are alot of non-obvious re-directs. Wendell 05:32, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Impressive. Palm_Dogg 07:05, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Very interesting. Some curious points:
  • {{Campaignbox}} is a relic of the battlebox method of including campaignboxes, and will be deleted when {{battlebox}} is.
  • The American Civil War has lots of useless single-battle campaignboxes.
  • The Mexican-American War has a number of overlapping campaignboxes (as noted above).
  • Many of the "missing" campaignboxes seem to relate to Korean battles.
If nobody else gets to it, I'll comb through the list later and see what I can dig up. —Kirill Lokshin 11:20, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Succession Boxes for Campaigns

Nifty idea, don't know if it's been suggested before. Anyway, in addition to campaign campaign boxes, at the bottom of the battle page we could have a modified succession box: "Previous battle" and "next battle", instead of the once and future kings, respectively. Makes the reading more linear - when' you've scrolled to the bottom, just click the next link.

Interesting?

Guapovia 09:08, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

This was the way campaignboxes were implemented, originally. The approach was abandoned when it was discovered just how badly WWII suffered under it; it breaks down rather obviously when multiple battles occur concurrently. —Kirill Lokshin 11:09, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Maybe on a campaign-by-campaign basis, then? Guapovia 14:43, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Still too difficult to be worth it, in my opinion (and that is aside from all of the other problems with using succession boxes); the really old discussion here provides some examples of problems with such an approach. —Kirill Lokshin 14:49, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Good point. Guapovia 16:35, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Star wars battles

I've removed the WikiProject Military history template from some pages about star wars battles. I believe this project is not for fictional events. Am I wrong ? --Melaen 17:02, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Pretty sure that's right. Given that the fictional battles sit under Category:Battles and use a lot of the project's other templates (infoboxes and such), you might forgive us for the occasional over-tagging ;-) —Kirill Lokshin 17:04, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Plus I'm not a fan of the "New Jedi Order" series of books anyway. ;) Guapovia 17:18, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Operation Shingle

I was asked to add an infobox to this article; could someone with more knowledge of this period please look it over to fill in the missing fields (and make sure that what I put in is correct)? —Kirill Lokshin 17:30, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll check it out. --Loopy e 20:10, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Project page layout

I've fiddled with the headings on the project page slightly in an attempt to make the layout easier to navigate. Any feedback would be appreciated! —Kirill Lokshin 22:33, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Another question: if we keep the new arrangement, do we want the announcement/task list box at the top, or further down the page? —Kirill Lokshin 01:34, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I'd keep the announcement on top, myself. Easier to read, don't need to scroll down to find it. I like the changes. Subtle, yet effective. Guapovia 09:17, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Renaming A Category

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_January_26#U.S._civil_aircraft

Vegaswikian has nominated a bunch of categories for renaming from "U.S." to "American". I think the change is unwarranted, but could you folks take a look at his proposal and see if he has a point? I know it's not Military History, but y'all are more experienced than I am in this case. Thanks! Guapovia 09:12, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

World War II categorization

Howdy. I'd like to redo the World War II categorization scheme since every other military era and major conflict seem to use the same scheme. I've started working on it at this subpage and hope to restructure everything once it's completed. Anyone who wants to give me a hand setting this up is, of course, more then welcome. Oberiko 19:52, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Looks good so far; just remember that the events categories need to eventually filter down to "Battles of World War II" (rather than the expected "World War II battles"). I think Wendell was working on categorization for WWII units; he might be able to comment more.
Incidentally, if there are more people interested in working on this, we could easily start a World War II task force to keep all the discussion in one place ;-) —Kirill Lokshin 20:03, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I find that the "Battles of..." isn't really appropriate in WWII as there are many numerous campaigns and theatres that have that title (ie. Battle of France and Second Battle of the Atlantic), if we define those categorically as battles, then all campaigns are eligible. Additionally, many of the campaign and theatre categories have nothing but battles in them (indeed, a campaign is usually just a string of related battles); this gives us things like Battles of the Western Desert Campaign which leave the parent category, Category:Western Desert Campaign, empty except for the one child and leaves us open to such things as Battles of the Battle of France. Oberiko 20:36, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I do not fully follow the pros and cons of this mini-thread. That is why I propose we not act hasty and consider all the down-stream ramifications we can. For example, perhaps there is an article on the stragetic importance of Malta in World War II. Clearly it should go in a Category:Western Desert Campaign. Another example, some editors are placing military units within their historical Campaigns. Make sense for some key units: German Panzer Army Africa is in category Category:North African Campaign; but the same standard is not applied to the British Eighth Army. However, under Category World War II forces and units, there are sub-categories German units in Africa, German units in Normandy, and German units in the Arctic. Neither scheme is right nor wrong; both could co-exist, but what should the standard be? Wendell 21:15, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Oberiko/World_War_II_categorization_map is a suggestion for categorization i put on the talk page of the subpage. Any good? (It's very similar, just a few small changes. I didn't want to edit the main subpage, that's Oberiko's. Guapovia 20:33, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I hadn't thought about that, I'll relocate it to a subpage of this project as I'd like people to edit freely barring conflicts. Oberiko 20:37, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I've added links to it on the project page and task list. —Kirill Lokshin 21:05, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, I asked questions and gave comments on the original page.... hopefully we will sort it all out. Fully agree this is very important. Agree we will need a World War II task force and since this is a large, complex job; allowing a week or two for many different comments and viewpoints would allow a better solution to emerge. We also need to use the current tools, like Category Tree to understand the existing sub-category structure. Both category names, and # of articles in category. Wendell 20:45, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
Quite true. I suspect, even, that the WWII task force could become a semi-permanent effort, since its scope would be beyond merely rearranging the categories. —Kirill Lokshin 21:05, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Infobox military commander

Looking at articles on individual military officers, I was wondering if we should create a template for military commanders, like we have with units, campaigns and conflicts. --Habap 21:56, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

It's definitely a major item on the to-do list (along with other work on biography guidelines—we have almost nothing in this area at the moment). I don't think any major development is going to take place until the coordinator elections are over, though ;-) —Kirill Lokshin 22:15, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
Things that would be good to include would be branch, notable commands (or heck, all commands)and their dates, rank and dates of promotion. -- Миборовский U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai! 00:59, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Dates of demotion too! --Loopy e 01:41, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
This would be good, the much denigrated Infobox Biography has been used for this purpose previously. Leithp 17:22, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
A wonderful sample has been created by Martorius! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Martorius

Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project

Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-Class and good B-Class articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend some suitable articles on battles or military history? I'd be particularly interested to see your assessments of "must have" topics like World War I. I see that you are a large and very active group, do you perhaps already have a worklist like this one? Please mention any FAs, we will obviously be including those as well. Please post your suggestions here. Cheers, Walkerma 06:20, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, most of the major wars seem an obvious target, in my opinion. (Random ideas) Hundred Years, Civil, American Independence, US Civil War, Norman Invasion of England, Napoleonic Wars, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm. Whether or not they are "A Class" articles I don't know. We could target them for Peer Review and FA status to get them up to speed (if they're not already there.) One thing we'd have to figure out is what kind of article length you're looking for. WWII is long, WWI isn't a lot shorter. What you may end up doing is taking synopses of these articles with links to the real thing online... </random thoughts on the matter> Guapovia 15:15, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Pretty much the entire "War" section of the FA list would qualify. As far as major conflicts: WWI is an FA, WWII was on FAC (don't recall if it was promoted). The other major wars are mostly in a rather sad state; the topics are really too big for a single person to clean up properly. Possibly creating a project-wide collaboration of the week or similar effort could be useful here. —Kirill Lokshin 16:09, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Some more information: here's a list of (some) major conflicts and an opinion of the quality articles (both quite subjective)
The chemistry project's list seems like it might be a nice idea. Any comments on whether we should put together a similar one? —Kirill Lokshin 16:23, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
For biographies, Richard O'Connor springs to mind, it was a fairly recent FA. Oberiko 16:41, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
As well as the shoe-in FAs and war articles, you may want to consider the biographical articles, some of which are very good if not quite at FA status yet. Arthur Ernest Percival that Nickhk has been working on recently springs to mind, though I'm sure there are probably hundreds of good examples. Leithp 16:33, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Am I allowed to dream that the King's Regiment (Liverpool) will achieve such a prestigious status one day? ;-) It's an important topic....really it is.... :-p SoLando (Talk) 16:39, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I like the Chemistry list. It serves a couple of useful purposes in helping to identify which articles we need and which only need a little nudge to get FA status. Leithp 17:14, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I've started the worklist here. Does anyone have one of those "100 most important battles" lists handy? —Kirill Lokshin 17:48, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
I have a book called "British Military Greats". A tad narrow for a world encyclopaedia :-( SoLando (Talk) 17:59, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Do we want to limit the list to "major" topics? Some of the FAs currently listed there are rather obscure ;-) —Kirill Lokshin 18:07, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
All I need to say is this: Countering Systemic Bias ;-) SoLando (Talk) 18:15, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough. However, given that we have, by my estimate, at least 5,000 articles within the scope of the project, we obviously need some criteria for adding things to that list, or it'll become unusably large in short order. —Kirill Lokshin 18:32, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Very true, I just personally don't want inclusion into the worklist to be determined by how well the topic is known in "the West" ;-) SoLando (Talk) 18:42, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
We don't have 5,000 cat B and above articles though, so we can probably list those. We should also list all the embarrassing "important topic-crap article" cases. Leithp 18:51, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Even 500 articles may be too much; we can figure that out as we go along, though. I've linked to this new list from the project page and the task list, incidentally. —Kirill Lokshin 18:59, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
I had a rough stab at listing major wars of the 20th century, my list may well have a western bias though. What do you guys think? Leithp 18:19, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for this! The list here and the worklist, covering a very important subject will be invaluable for WP 1.0, and hopefully useful for this project as well. The WP:Chem list helped provide us chemists with a way of focusing our efforts on articles we felt were important (in some cases these were really bad or non-existent!). The list runs to around 380 compounds, but bear in mind there are fewer people than in this group. One of the group provides a monthly progress update. I hope that your "nominate 5" idea goes well too. This work is so helpful to us, thanks, and keep up the good work! Walkerma 04:21, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Regarding your worklist, and realising that you have a lot of articles to keep track of, I'd like to solicit your comments on a proposal from a Math person to tag B-Class articles. I figure that it might be useful for your project. The suggestion is made here, please add your comments there. Thanks a lot, Walkerma 06:11, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Nominate 5?

Suggestion: Everyone nominate 5 articles we'd like to see there. If we get 5 articles that everyone (ok, 90% of us) agrees is a brilliant idea, improve the hell out of them until they're oozing in Wikipedian Perfection, then submit them. But for starters, let's pick 5 articles. It's easier than 5000, or 100, or so on. What say ye? When we're finished upgrading them, we pick 5 more and do the same thing. If we spread our efforts too thin we'll never get it done. :) Guapovia 22:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

A project collaboration, basically? It's on the to-do list ;-) —Kirill Lokshin 22:29, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but are those the ones we want to send on to Wikipedia 1.0? ;) Guapovia 23:05, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
We want as much as possible, generally speaking. Given that 1.0 is likely several years off (at the least) we have some time to work on things. —Kirill Lokshin 23:15, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Both are quite messy and would require extensive cleanup, though. ;) -- Миборовский U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai! 02:54, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Oh dear. The Chinese history template has to be the most complicated I've ever seen. So many colors... ;-) —Kirill Lokshin 02:56, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
It's nothing compared to this spiral-shaped timeline I have that basically lists all the dynasties and all the emperors and all their reign names and stuff. Sometimes there are more than 20 countries at the same time gobbling each other up continuously and new ones breaking free... It makes your head spin! :D -- Миборовский U|T|C|M|E|Chugoku Banzai! 03:20, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
One article that seems to have been overlooked here is Battle of Chalons. Admittedly, I wrote most of it, but it has remained one of my 5 most favorite contirbutions, & I have long felt it deserved FA status. However when I submitted it to Peer review, the response was that until I could come up with some illustrations it was a no-go. I've been unsuccessful in finding suitable illustrations, & can't create maps on a computer to save my life. Anyone interested in helping with this article? -- llywrch 19:24, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Battles of the Hussite Wars

I noticed that a majority of the battles of the Hussite Wars were stubs. I edited all of them except one, and I would like to know if they are still stubs. Thanks. Rshu 23:19, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

It looks like most of them are still stubs, I generally agree with the current markings. Oberiko 23:48, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, you should have seen them at the beginning. :-) Anyways, is there anything else I could do to those articles to make them any better? Rshu 00:16, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Relative WikiProject sizes

I vaguely recall that the question of what the largest WikiProjects were came up a week or two ago. Being slightly bored, I decided to take a look. Note that the numbers may not be quite accurate, due to some projects not listing members and so forth, and that I only looked at subject-area projects (obviously some of the Wiki-cleanup projects are quite large).

  1. Comics (209 members)
  2. Mathematics (110 members)
  3. Military history (97 members)
  4. Harry Potter (91 members)
  5. Philosophy (87 members)
  6. Melbourne (85 members)
  7. Cricket (72 members)
  8. Professional wrestling (72 members)
  9. Films (66 members)
  10. Tree of Life (64 members)
  11. Beer (61 members)
  12. Doctor Who (58 members)

Quite interesting—especially from a systemic bias perspective ;-) —Kirill Lokshin 07:25, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, we beat Harry Potter. I have a sense of accomplishment now. :p Guapovia 08:26, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
It's a sad state of affairs that nourishing, life-giving Beer only appears as number 11. Leithp 08:32, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Melbourne threatening to surpass Philosophy - one doesn't know whether to laugh or cry! --Loopy e 08:59, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Let's get 4 blokes and join Melbourne, just to show those Philosphers who's boss! :p Guapovia 05:14, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

New navigation template

Further attempting to simplify the layout of the project page, I present, for your approval, {{WPMILHIST}}:

Comments and suggestions would be very appreciated! —Kirill Lokshin 21:03, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Looks nice. Palm_Dogg 21:22, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I like it. :) Guapovia 11:08, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Any way we could throw the current discussions in there as well? (cat map, co-ordinator elections etc. etc.) Oberiko 14:43, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Will do. —Kirill Lokshin 14:44, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Done! —Kirill Lokshin 14:49, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Looks good, thanks Krill. Oberiko 15:56, 30 January 2006 (UTC)


Military aviation task force

I've (tentatively) created a skeleton here.

I've asked Guapovia if he could recruit some people from WikiProject Aircraft; anyone reading here is, of course, encouraged to join as well. —Kirill Lokshin 23:07, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll help where I can, though firearms and AFV's are more my thing. I know little about the task forces, are they going to have a structured heirarchy among the users? Oberiko 02:19, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
The plan so far is to leave it up to each task force (within reason, obviously). While they're small, there's probably no need; but we can leave the option of introducing hierarchies open if they grow large enough. —Kirill Lokshin 02:23, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I've begun the Hunting... :) Guapovia 03:07, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Sino-Japanese Wars

Sorry to bother everyone again. I know I post on this here talk page a lot. But I'm curious for people's opinions on a small issue. The article on the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) has been renamed First Sino-Japanese War.

I'm really not sure how much I like the idea of this article title being "First Sino-Japanese War." Firstly, I do not believe I have ever seen any historical text refer to this as the "First ...", only "the Sino-Japanese War". The event presumably labeled as the Second Sino-Japanese War is, in my view, an element or a theater of World War II, and not a war unto itself. In any case, it just feels wrong to me. I'd be curious what others' opinions on this are. Thank you all. (I am contemplating posting this on the Japanese wikipedians' noticeboard as well, but I don't want to be seen as a flooder/spammer sort...) LordAmeth 03:14, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Commented on the talk page. —Kirill Lokshin 14:41, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

General Percival

For those interested in World War II, military biographies and detailed analysis of just how a complete and utter disaster can be allowed to occur, Nickhk's rather good bio of Arthur Ernest Percival has just been listed on peer review for your comments. Leithp 15:28, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

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