Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 36

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Archive 36


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New coordinators

The coordinator election has concluded; we now have six new Assistant Coordinators:

Congratulations to the newly elected, and thanks to everyone who participated in this process, in whatever capacity! Kirill Lokshin 00:04, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

This may not be the most appropriate place, yet I would like to congratualte my fellow Assistant Coordinators and thank all canditates on there showing and good manners. As well a heartfelt acknowledgement of all participants. And of course a Merci to all those that voted in my favor, I did not think I had made such an impression on my fellow history contributors and enthusiats. I can only hope to live up to your expectations.--Dryzen 18:01, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I, too, would like to thank everyone who supported me, and everyone who took part in the process, whether running for a position or voting. I will do my best.--Nobunaga24 23:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank You to users who offered to serve and were not chosen this time

Maybe someone has already done this, but I want to express my personal (and perhaps not just my) thanks to all four members out there who volunteered for service but weren't chosen amongst assistants or leaders. Know that many of us appreciate your courage for offering yourselves for the responsibility, and regard you as leaders without title. So users Geo.plrd, Harlsbottom, Hossen27, and Loopy, thank you for offering to serve in specific roles; I have confidence the community thinks not a whit less of each of you because only some could be chosen. Someone ought to offer those nice users a barnstar just for standing. BusterD 01:58, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I just gave those four the epic barnstar. BusterD 02:38, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
<joking mode>Do I also get one for choosing not to run?</joking mode>
With the new generation of leadership under the direction of our wise leader Kirill Lokshin, I am sure the project is in good hands. Retired generals get more respect, so I'll claim the honour of being the first retired asst coordinator for this project... :D I'll still be around, of course. -- Миборовский 05:49, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
<joking mode>And like all good retired generals Миборовский time for you to fade away. Do we get a Shinny too?</joking mode>
Glade to have you around.--Dryzen 18:18, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Retired generals have lots of time to work on articles. Wandalstouring 20:56, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Indeed! Working on one right now. OK it's a list, but still counts right? -- Миборовский 17:37, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Future plans

I thought this would be a good opportunity to put some thoughts, plans, and ideas for the near future down on paper. They are, of course, subject to modification, and comments and suggestions regarding any or all of them are extremely welcome! Kirill Lokshin 00:04, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Organizational changes

  • Mothball the cartography and translation departments; they don't seem to have gone anywhere, and it's not clear whether trying to bring them back to activity would actually provide practical benefits in any case.
  • Create an automation department to coordinate various bot-driven work; in particular, we should try to arrange for more active bot-driven tagging of articles in our scope.
--> I'll create a draft soon enough, I'm really willing to move this one forward. (as I said on your talk page before you posted here :P) -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 01:38, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, please go ahead. Just so we don't all go looking in different places later, would Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Automation be a good place to work on this? Kirill Lokshin 01:46, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Sir, sure thing, sir :) -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 12:06, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Bring the requests page back to a usable state, and field article/image/map/cleanup/translation requests there (in addition to having them occur through the task forces, of course).
  • Have a more active rotation of articles needing attention or cleanup through the main open task list, and complete the development of task force sub-templates for the existing task forces. Kirill Lokshin 00:04, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Article quality

  • Implement the multiple reviewer model for promoting articles to A-Class, and use them as a sort of in-house pre-FAC level.
  • Put together a section of advice for editors preparing articles for FAC, enumerating some of the more common issues that should be addressed for a successful nomination.
  • Continue to work on bringing more activity to the project peer review. Kirill Lokshin 00:04, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Kirill Lokshin I have been a strong believer in the multiple reviewer model for not just promoting articles to A-Class, but using them as a sort of in-house pre-posting review for any new article. Personally, I don't put any new article in now without getting multiple reviews from other, respected, editors. I suggest we put panels together of our best reviewers in any given field, like Wandalstouring on weapons, and require they be used before any new article is posted. old windy bear 12:50, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
    Too strict, we should allow posting before we get the review of multiple people. The more people you want to involve, the slower it proceeds. Making any user "the authority" for a field of interest is dangerous, because he makes mistakes for sure and it can violate NPOV-policy. We should access all new articles, including stubs, in our field for a basic review. Especially for stubs it is useful to give a review with a brief outline structure for the further development (even if the content is missing), like controlled growth. Perhaps we could import another German model, creating labels (that are easy to understand) for all qualities, while we do only have barnstars here now. A big interest of mine for FAC review is getting people with some profound (for example professional) knowledge on board. I think we should be active in this field, because at the moment our peer review has some weak points in reviewing the factual content of articles. Generaly about critics in peer reviews, we tend towards an executioner style, that can easily demotivate if you don´t get your barnstar at once, while our voluntaries need to be motivated. I suggest coaching them a bit more in such cases. My proposal is a combination of criticism and providing help at same time to solve the problems mentioned (see restructuring requests). Furthermore we need to give them reasons for our demands. We have to handle a high percentage of intellectuals and they work better with reasons that make sense to them, than orders or abiding by the regulations. Wandalstouring 14:42, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
    Yes, requiring reviews before articles are created would be too strict (and probably not enforceable, in any case). I think that, given the number of articles involved, we're naturally going to be in a position to spend more time reviewing the high-end ones (via peer review, and this A-Class model); there are dozens (sometimes hundreds!) of new stubs created each day, so going through all of them formally would be impractical. Obviously, individual project members should feel free to review and critique whatever they find time for, though! Kirill Lokshin 16:44, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
    We should think about a possibility to better keep track of stubs, they can grow fast and present dubious content. Wandalstouring 21:36, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Kirill Lokshin Yes, I can see where that would be too strict, and too hard to enforce - there are literally hundreds being created daily. BUT, I still think on major military projects - like the one I am currently working on after Wandalstouring got me into archery research - i. e. a comparison of all the types of bows, that before it is posted, it should be reviewed. I also think right now we do tend to be way too erratic. Some of our reviewers are like Kate used to be, trying to motivate people through positive reinforcement, while pointing out weaknesses in the articles. Contrast that to any number of reviewers who basically redline anything they don't agree with, without in many cases giving the original editor(s) a chance to prove the veracity of what they are writing with good sourcing. I would like to see the Assistant's given particular areas to work on - say assign Wandalstouring to weapon related articles, myself to the Mongols or the Carolingians - and in those areas, post lists of articles being reviewed, and try to come up with a panel to work with us. I also agree with Wandalstouring on the growing problem with stubs. They in many cases present EXTREMELY dubious content with little or no review! old windy bear 23:07, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's a major project, not a stub! ;-)
My main point is that formal reviews tend to work best when the article already has substantial content to critique; if you try to send a stub through peer review, most responses would be of the form: "It's just a stub, fill it out" rather than offering concrete feedback. (Or, in other words: an article can be so poorly written that trying to identify isolated problem areas will fail, as the entire article will be one big problem area.)
I do have one interesting idea: rather than having a full review process, why not simply use the existing "New articles" page and allow project members to indicate that they have reviewed the (new) article for some basic level of coherence and accuracy. This won't be as rigorous as the endgame review process for high-quality articles, obviously; but that's not a problem, in my opinion, because it would be silly to argue about issues of citation and balance when the article in question is a five-sentence stub. It would, however, allow us to catch the more egregious nonsense earlier.
The main practical problem with this is that the new article page hasn't been maintained very well since Gsl left; to actually make this work, we'd need some way of collecting a meaningful proportion of new articles in our scope, and I'm not sure how best to arrange that. Kirill Lokshin 23:34, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree with you on using a major review process on stubs. I like your idea of using the new article page to have existing project members make a stab at a basic review on stubs, just checking for basic coherence, et al. Like you I have no idea how to keep up the new articles page - but assuming that could be done, I like the idea. old windy bear 00:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Categorization

We have two major categorization cleanup projects (military personnel and military units) that need to actually be completed. Past experiences suggest that we should pick one of these and take it through to a practical conclusion rather than splitting our attention to both at once; which one we should proceed with first is entirely up in the air at this point, so suggestions would be appreciated! Kirill Lokshin 00:04, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Kirill Lokshin I humbly offer the thought that we should select one, and finish it ASAP, then do the same to the other. I have found simple plans are the best. Select one, throw all our personnel at it, and finish it. But I will happily do whatever Kirill feels is best. old windy bear 01:23, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I would suggest starting with military units, as that seems to be the more straightforward one; but I'm open to other preferences on this point. Kirill Lokshin 07:32, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
There's a lot of of missing military units as I'm sure you know. Two from the U.S. 4th Infantry Division I'm looking for in particular: 12th ID and 22nd engineers.Marky48 14:28, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Military units are fine with me, just give me the details of how we are going to do this, and the green light to go! old windy bear 23:08, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Support divide and conqueror; Lets tackle one of these at a time and see it through to the end.--Dryzen 18:29, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Proposal for regional meetups

I'm wondering in view of the success of Wikimania 2006 that we might consider periodic face-to-face meetups by region organized as best possible by project. I met 500 new friends at the WM conference; I'm wondering about the feasibility/desirablility/appeal of such an idea amongst project members. BusterD 01:42, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Wow, it's amazing to think that a WikiProject is considering some sort of a meetup. I guess this is the largest WikiProject, huh? --Cyde Weys 01:51, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I think so, but the last time anyone actually tried to go through and get a sense of WikiProject numbers was a few months ago. We were neck-and-neck with WP:COMICS at the time, if I recall correctly. Kirill Lokshin 02:03, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Regional meet-ups is really an excellent idea. But I donot know if it is realizable.--Yannismarou 13:43, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
First we must know where our regional editors are. Than we must know how many people will come for sure, big problem. A university or a school could be a suitable host during vacation time, so this is perhaps the smallest problem. Eating and drinking could pose some problems. Wandalstouring 14:02, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure this couldn't be a set of hosted or sponsored events, but at this point, I was envisioning front room meetups, maybe pub meetups. I wasn't envisoning flight time or even extensive travel time, keeping this a local affair. It does introduce issues of potential regional bias and other politics (like more accessability for big city residents), so there are reasons for caution, but I was wondering what people thought. With 345 project members, I'll bet there are a dozen or so in my urban area. At this point I'm more wondering, would folks come, if it didn't take excessive resources? That seems the first question before any discussion of how, where or when. BusterD 15:08, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
"front room meetups"
No official wikipedia meetings in private houses. The host feels bound to let everybody in who says to be from wikipedia. We can be dead sure, that one day this will create problems and can be massively counterproductive for the project.
Pubs are no good idea for meetings if we want to keep the impression of working on something. Besides there are age restrictions in pubs and this way we exclude some editors. Wandalstouring 20:54, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Private homes are probably a bad idea, as you said. How about something more general, like restaurants/museums/etc.?
(I don't think the "impression of working on something" is all that important; meetups have always focused to a large extent on merely informal discussion and social interaction, rather than on massively productive work.)
No idea if anyone would actually be interested in doing this sort of thing, though. Kirill Lokshin 21:00, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
The place must be suitable for discussions and have no restrictions (age, gender, etc.). Favorable would be if we could use laptops, hold lectures and even have internet access. Naturally this depends on size and topic of the meeting.
Delousing each others fur should work on a less official basis outside the wikiproject. Of course we can make contact to such fanclubs. Wandalstouring 21:13, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
No pubs, then. What's the location, anyway? If it's in the East (US) I can plan my college visits appropriately. If it's in the West I can simply drive there. :) And on a related note, we can have a project-wide IRC/MSN/AIM/ICQ chat session... -- Миборовский 22:34, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Discussion seems to be focused on the how, where and when instead of the if. Some excellent concerns expressed however. No private homes, check. Makes total sense. Pubs likewise. How about public library or public college venues? Sponsored or hosted venues (businesses)? And I was thinking very regional at first so as to minimize travel and cost issues. I am still listening for enthusiasm, and I'm not really hearing so much. BusterD 00:03, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Buster asked for enthusiasm, so I shall voice mine. I think a meet-up would be great. I somehow failed to make it to the conference or to meet up with anyone that weekend despite the fact that I lived in Boston at the time. In any case, if any sort of meet-up does happen, I would be most eager to join in; I am currently in New York, and shall be moving to London in the near future, so one way or another, I imagine I'd be pretty close geographically to a number of you, no? LordAmeth 00:12, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Ditto. I'd certainly be interested in having some form of meetup (whether a more formal working one or just an informal occasion to get together and meet everyone in person). The real question is whether there's enough of a concentration of interested members somewhere to make this practical. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 01:27, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I can beg/borrow/steal space on the Columbia U. campus up through the first week of October if the NYC area people want to do a meetup. Unfortunately leaving the area then. C'mon; college students out there; I know you guys can liason with a group or professor to secure space. Pubs don't have age restrictions during the day; though 10 guys pulling out laptops might be a bit excessive. In NYC, there's plenty of WIFI parks, too. We can just camp out in Bryant Park. --Mmx1 14:29, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm into it, so if anyone's in Atlanta we could meet at any one of the number of WIFI-enabled coffee shops! plange 14:36, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
So there is some interest in meetups, perhaps we form local groups like the task forces to organize such events. Wandalstouring 17:01, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Or perhaps follow the Wikipedia:Meetup model and simply have people propose meetups on a central page and go from there? I'm not sure that creating a local bureaucracy will be particularly beneficial in this case. Kirill Lokshin 17:04, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I wanted to make sure that at least somebody is present at a meeting because several people agreed on the date and location. We are a small departement, so we could start with the last point of the Wikipedia:Meetup model
  • Create a list of Wikipedians interested in future and regular meetups for a given location where they can sign up (alternatively, userboxes with corresponding categories can be used). Wandalstouring 17:09, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Wouldn't the obvious solution simply be to not have a meeting if not enough people express a willingness to come? ;-) Kirill Lokshin 17:13, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok, how about this to start off: create a section on the outreach page where people interested in meetups can indicate their location, and see what kind of clumping we get? Kirill Lokshin 17:17, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Visit this spot for first tally: Wikipedia:Meetup/Military history. I guess I was misreading between the lines. It appears this is interesting to several. I'm glad to see that there's an existing structure and some rule sets established through practice. In order to broaden the base, I wonder if MIL HIST group couldn't host regional wikimeetups (would be an excellent chance to recruit new project members). And ladies and gentlemen, I'm thinking long term, perhaps quarterly. The existing local meetup locations provide a nice starting base. Let's see what we've got. BusterD 18:43, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I simply added myself even thoguh I dont not curently havea meeting location.--Dryzen 19:30, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to all who have supported me :)

Well, elections are now over and I'm now an assistant coordinator elected with a lot of voices :)

Thanks a lot to all of you who trusted me and allowed me to get there. I'll try and not disappoint you during these 6 months! -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 14:36, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to all who have supported me also! :)

I also wish to thank again those who supported me, and I also will try not to disappoint those of you who trusted me during the next six months. old windy bear 00:30, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Muster the Legions!

Or the Greek Phalanx, or whatever is the predominate military formation of your ancient nations of choice.

It seems that the Classical Warfare task force has flagged seriously - and needs a jump start.

What should be the set of core articles for this task force (Military history of ancient Rome, Military history of ancient Greece/Military history of Greece, the Roman legion, etc.), are in dire need of cleanup, and in the case of Ancient Greece, don't even exist yet! These at the very least should be brought up to featured article status as a core to work outwards from (probably followed by the Punic Wars, the Greco-Persian Wars, etc.).

All interested ancient historians are strongly urged to pitch in.

We should also look at recruitment. There are some excellent scholars and editors out there that are sort of poking away (albiet it very effectively), who might not even know about this Wikiproject, and should be invited into the fold.

So - its a general call to arms people :) - Vedexent 15:45, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I work on the Punic wars, but it is very difficult and I still source. Wandalstouring 20:47, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Currently on the Byzantines and 18th century France, but I can make time to read some edits as I have done with Wandalstouring's excellent work on the Military history of ancient Rome.--Dryzen 19:11, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
It was just a translation and I still haven`t inserted it yet, because I did not get all German sources to source it. Wandalstouring 21:02, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Automation department

The automation department is now open, courtesy of Grafikm; all project members are invited to propose new tasks and to comment on the suitability of particular proposals for automation. (Anyone with access to a bot or AWB is also cordially invited to sign up to actually implement these things.) Kirill Lokshin 17:28, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Proposal I: Mothballing two departments

The cartography and translation departments don't seem to have gone anywhere in practice, and aren't likely to, in my opinion. I would propose deactivating them, as follows:

  • Requests for maps would be taken on the combined requests page.
  • Requests for translation help would be taken on the combined requests page.
  • The two department pages would be archived, to be re-activated if or when a need for separate processes develops.

Would this be an acceptable approach? Kirill Lokshin 01:47, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Sure. Wandalstouring 17:02, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Sir, aye aye, sir. -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 17:08, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Support, too few cartographers with the time needed (I haven't forgotten Chalons!). Both are technically trequests, so its a logical demotion.--Dryzen 19:14, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
SIGH. Is there not some way to salvage them? Say demote them to task forces or merge them into a single department? Or a single TF even...there is some overlap, maps come in many different languages and often require translation. Likewise placenames change over time. These two departments could be very useful, if people would only use them. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves."--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 21:10, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
As I said, "to be re-activated if or when a need for separate processes develops". It's clear that they're not being used in practice, and no amount of bureaucratic handwaving on our part will change that. The most practical part—the requests—will be retained; as far as the cataloguing, I'm not convinced that we even need to do it here, rather than on Commons—but, even if that were the case, there hasn't been any interest in actually working on it in the many months that this has existed. Kirill Lokshin 21:21, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
What harm is there in simply leaving them as is? Are they really that much of an administrative burden? We already have a small, but impressive, library of maps and a fairly large corps of translators. The simple fact we have such departments is a demonstration of this project's level of organization and professionalism. To me, it would seem more of a pain to mothball just to possibly reactivate them later, than to make like the Beatles and "Let it be" :>--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 21:52, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
You haven't looked at the navigation box recently, have you? ;-)
We've sort of reached the point where trimming some of the excess "stuff" that has been found not to work has actual (small but perceptible) benefits in terms of simplifying the overall structure of the project (which is important for newer members, of course, but would not, perhaps, be entirely unwelcome even among the "regulars").
More to the point: is there any actual benefit to leaving these departments in place? As far as I know, the cartography department stopped actually doing anything a few weeks into its life, and the translation department still hasn't done anything other than providing another place where people must remember to add their name. Maybe the answer is simply that a separate process for these things isn't the best approach (at this time, or even entirely), and that the only way we'll see practical results is by absorbing them into a larger process? Kirill Lokshin 22:04, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
So basically, we should mothball them because it will make the navigation bar look smaller? By the same criteria then, why not also mothball the Collaboration and Outreach departments? From what I see they have done even less and are less directly useful to our main goals of article building/improvement. And if you really want the nav bar to look slim and sleek, we could mothball or merge about half dozen or so inactive TFs (TaskForce bloat anyone:). Now that, dear friend, would be simplification:)--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 22:31, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Both the outreach department and the collaboration are active (outreach highly so; but most of its activity does not involve posting to the department page itself); cartography and translation are not. And, again, what's the benefit of having them? At what point would you be willing to entertain the question of whether the creation of these departments may not have been the best approach to actually getting something done?
(I feel that task force are a subtly different matter, since (a) they serve as recruitment and tagging points, even if their actual work isn't all that great; (b) they have well-defined groups of participants; (c) they help funnel stuff off the main project page; and (d) a few more subtle and obscure reasons. You may, of course, disagree.) Kirill Lokshin 22:50, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Apart from making the navigation bar look "prettier" to some, and easier for newbies to navigate, what are the real advantages to mothballing them? You still havent provided any compelling rationale apart from they havent done anything recently ("What have you done for me lately?";). I will acknowledge that they are not the best approach to actually getting something done, when someone comes up with a better way of accomplishing the same tasks. Thus far I've not seen this. So let's leave them be AND try your idea of a combined requests page. If it proves more effective, or less inactive, then you will have my blessing to mothball both departments perminately.
BTW, subtle and obscure reasons aside, task force bloat is a bad thing, for the very same KISS principle you invoke above....which I agree with you on;)--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 23:41, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, my main reason for wanting to see the cartography department gone, in particular, is because I'm convinced that trying to catalogue maps—as oppposed to simply adding them to the appropriate articles—is something best done on Commons rather than locally on en:. But, fair enough; if you wish to see the combined request page in action, so be it. Kirill Lokshin 23:57, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Well then, Sir, our proceedings here are closed...for now;>. Here's to finding a better, or at least more active, mousetrap.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 04:40, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I always saw them more as a request area myself.--Dryzen 13:39, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Proposal II: A-Class review

(This is separate from the ongoing discussion in regards to reviewing stubs or new articles above.)

Based on my sense of what people liked in the various preceding discussions that touched on this topic, I would propose some variation on the following process:

  • An article is nominated for an "A-Class" rating by being listed in a section (to be created) of the assessment department page.
  • The review is open for some minimum time (24 hours?) to make sure that people have a chance to comment.
  • Reviewers will check the article for substantial problems, and either support or oppose its promotion (naming specific issues if they oppose).
  • After the minimum time has passed, an article will be promoted (by an uninvolved coordinator?) if it has (a) no substantial problems and (b) at least two (three?) reviewers supporting it. Otherwise, it will be failed, and the nomination archived.
  • There is no limit on good-faith renomination; thus, an article in which problems were found can be renominated as soon as they have been fixed.

This would, in my opinion, ensure a review that, while not as rigorous as the formal FAC, would provide a better assurance of quality than the more unpredictable GA process. The major point to note is that it would involve a somewhat vague sense of what a "substantial" problem was; this can be left to the closer or defined explicitly, but the basic idea is to focus on major issues of content and avoid (at this level) the more pedantic wrangling over writing style or formatting that happens at FAC. Comments? Would this be (a) beneficial and (b) feasible? Kirill Lokshin 01:47, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I think that there should be some kind of more stringent review process for "A-Class" articles, especially as the GA process is, as you mentioned, somewhat haphazard. I would personally vote for a longer window for review, given that some editors may be better equipped than others to review articles in certain fields, and we shouldn't necessarily assume that they can access Wikipedia once per day. It also might be useful to come to a general consensus on what constitutes a "substantial problem," although I rather expect that the result will be "we know it when we see it, but we can't define it." Also, I would propose a slightly more explicit wording for the number of reviwers, namely that there must be some kind of clear consensus about the article (i.e., even if an article receives five "support" votes, if it also receives three "oppose" votes, there is something that needs to be resolved, and the article is not ready for "A-class". Carom 13:30, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Review time should be one week. This is wikipedia and things work slowly. For A class there should be no more than one objection. Wandalstouring 17:06, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
If we make it that long, won't people simply go straight to FAC? This has to be some sort of "FAC-lite" if it's going to be at all useful. Kirill Lokshin 17:12, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree that a week seems a little excessive - perhaps a compromise window of 72 hours, or something of that nature? I also tend to agree with Wandalstouring that if there is more than one objection (or the objections are not frivolous), the article should fail, unless it is apparant that someone has attempted to manipulate the results. Carom 18:00, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Considering myself as an exemple, wiht my innactivity over week ends, a time frame should there fore be greater than from friday night to monday morning. What about four days time? A compromise halfway mark between a week and a day, while still being close ot 72 hours? I also agree with Wandalstouring's objection meter rather than aprouval meter, with Carom's specificatiosn of course.--Dryzen 13:45, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Four days might work, with the proviso that the nominations will be closed after four days. I'd like to avoid the month-long debates that sometimes occur on FAC; and, given that there's no limit on renomination, I think it's reasonable that we simply close a nomination where an article is still undergoing substantial work after four days and have it re-nominated when the changes are complete, rather than waiting for everything to be completed while the nomination is running.
Another consideration if we have longer time: would it be easier to create a subpage for each article's discussion (as occurs with peer review and FAC), or to have it occur directly on the main assessment page? Kirill Lokshin 14:07, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I concur - four days would be workable, provided that a decision one way or another is made at the end of four days. I don't think the traffic is going to be very high, but the main page might get a little clogged - subpages might be a better alternative. Carom 19:07, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, there is only 43 A class articles, so there is no need to set up a gigantic structure for so few articles... -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 13:41, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, we are hoping to get some more! ;-) Kirill Lokshin 14:07, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
We sure do, but that shows that the volume per week (or month or whatever) will be quite low as well... :) -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 14:13, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I personally vote for a three-day time period, but four days is ok. Sounds like a simple, effective process to me as described above. Our "A" class review process, plus our peer review, along with the FA review forum, are lot of good resources for editors to utilize to ensure that their articles are truly ready before nominating as an FA candidate. Cla68 17:17, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Okay, looks like this is what we have so far:
  • Reviews will run for four days.
  • Articles will be promoted if they have (a) a minimum of three supports and (b) no more than one substantive objection; otherwise, they will be failed.
  • The nominations will be closed by an uninvolved coordinator.
  • The nominations will be run on subpages of the assessment department; they will be linked to via a new parameter in {{WPMILHIST}} (to be added).
  • There is no limit on good-faith renominations.
Does this look okay? Kirill Lokshin 15:46, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Looks OK Wandalstouring 15:49, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Looks good to me. Also, a suggestion - as we have previosuly not had any protocol for reviewing "A-class" articles, would now be a good time to do a quick check on the existing articles to make sure they are up to scratch? There are only a few, so I don't think we'd find that someone had been sneaking in articles that don't measure up, but it might be good to make sure that our existing "A-class" are of the right quality. Carom 15:55, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Yes, we could probably start off by putting all of the existing articles through this; I doubt it'll take all that much effort, and we can then be sure that the current bunch is up to a reasonable level of quality. Kirill Lokshin 16:15, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I've written up the instructions for the process here. Any comments would be welcome! Kirill Lokshin 17:46, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Looks good. Cla68 18:10, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Also looks good to me. Carom 14:50, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Okay then, let's try it out. I'll nominate a few of our existing A-Class articles so we can run them through the process; once we've figured out how well it works, we'll need to go through the rest of Category:Incomplete requests for military history A-Class status. Kirill Lokshin 21:06, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
I've put three articles up for review to start with; hopefully we'll be able to see how well this process works from that. Kirill Lokshin 21:38, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

{{Infobox Military Unit}}

Some additional eyes at Template talk:Infobox Military Unit#Tartans? would be extremely helpful! Kirill Lokshin 14:50, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Update: issue has been (more or less) amicably resolved. :-) Kirill Lokshin 15:47, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

In line citation

Do the in line citation numbers needs to be so large? They disrupt the line spacing within the article whenever they are used Raymond Palmer 18:54, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

If they are smaller it is hard to read them. Perhaps you can use different citation techniques like adding a list of notes at the end of a paragraph in some cases. Wandalstouring 21:01, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I have an inline citation problem, which isn't specific to this project - but maybe someone here can sort out what is going wrong? The footnotes on Third Servile War seem to have "broken", with the first <ref></ref> pair being labeled 22, not 1, and linking to the 21st footnote. All following footnotes are labeled 22,23, etc., mismatching the notes and the citation numbers. Reverting to an earlier version doesn't seem to fix this. Any ideas what is going on? - Vedexent 08:45, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

It works fine on my computer. Maybe emptying cache and/or logging out then in would help... -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 08:48, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah - thank you. I'm guessing that the reversion did work - I just had a stale cache copy then. Thanks :) - Vedexent 08:58, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Many people reported that problem around the same time as you. I had it too. There is or was a glitch in the system somewhere. • Kevin (complaints?) 13:56, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I had it today also but it worked itself out...weird.Michael DoroshTalk 19:56, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Dude, I had that same problem. Purging the cache did it for me though. Or maybe someone just fixed it on the other end. -- Миборовский 22:53, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Colditz Castle/Oflag IV-C

For the last two months I have been writing articles about Stalags and Oflags and adding to existing ones.

In the Discussion of "Colditz Castle" on August 25 I added the following:

Within Category:World War II POW camps there is a growing body of articles about Oflags and Stalags. I propose to split this excellent article into its two logical parts:

   * Colditz Castle - description and history.
   * Oflag IV-C - during WW II

possibly there should be a third article about the escape attempts as suggested above.

There has been no response. As the subject article is included in the CD Project and the 0.5 Project I hesitate to make the changes, even though I think they are badly needed.

Syrenab 13:13, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion Colditz Castle is renown for the stories of trying to escape during WWII. I think the structure is quite good. Wandalstouring 13:27, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, I think splitting the article might be a bad approach, as Colditz is notable primarily for being a POW camp. As a castle per se, its career was rather less illustrious, and probably not significant enough to need an article of its own. Given that ~80% of the existing article is about Oflag IV-C, you'd basically be turning a (somewhat longish) FA into a high-quality—but not FA-level—article on the POW camp, and a short, lower-quality article on the castle itself.
(As a practical matter, splitting an FA in half is not something to be undertaken on a whim; as neither of the resulting articles are likely to be as polished as the original, this tends to produce a (sometimes temporary, sometimes permanent) loss of quality.) Kirill Lokshin 14:01, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Marocchinate

Has anyone actually read this article? Seems to be the work of a single Italian editor; there is a list of sources at the bottom, but no footnotes in the text and a few weasel words. Also stuff like "Goumiers were considered the diamond point of the French Army" seem to be badly translated into English. The article doesn't seem encyclopedic at all, even if one believes the stuff about male on male rape and bestiality. Other opinions?Michael DoroshTalk 19:55, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I checked the film mentioned. I seems to be written by other editors and refers to the rape. But it is not clear where what information comes from and how reliable the sources are. Wandalstouring 20:06, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
A Google search was not particularly helpful, as most of the results are in Italian or French, neither of which I speak, so it was difficult to assess the reliability of any of them. The article itself obviously needs cleanup, but it really needs an editor who can read either or both of those languages. Carom 20:09, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I have also had problems with the matter on the Alphonse Juin article. The only references I found so far is in Douglas Porch The French Foreign Legion which says that "the Moroccans especially were often accused of being more dangerous to Italian civilians than to German soldiers." But the book is about the legion not the rest of the French force. Carl Logan 20:31, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I wonder if it wouldn't be wise to take the project banner off the talk page until a review can be made? I agree the article needs to be fact checked from the sources provided, if anyone can speak those languages. The guy has obviously put a lot of work into the article, but some of the claims defy belief without a solid source.Michael DoroshTalk 21:19, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
We definitely need to review it, but taking the banner off seems slightly petty; it's not like there aren't other dubious articles tagged with it. Kirill Lokshin 21:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
But if they are dubious, why tag them?Michael DoroshTalk 22:53, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
The bad articles are no less under our purview than the good ones are; indeed, the bad articles probably need more attention from us. Untagging them would be sort of pointless, no? The tags make no assertions of accuracy; and if somebody does decide to work on such articles, we would want to make it easier for them to find their way here, I think. Kirill Lokshin 22:56, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
We are likely to have lots of fun. The editor has been accused of extreme Italian nationalism, violating verifiability and unsourced claims on his talkpage without ever giving response there. Well, I asked him to help us. Wandalstouring 23:02, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Now that it is on our radar shouldn't we at least rate it as Start?Michael DoroshTalk 01:40, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Well given my experience dealing with these kinds of people (ok, not a lot, but enough) it seems unlikely he will be cooperative. -- Миборовский 01:41, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Since most of the information seems to be unverifiable (at least through reliable sources), and the article is almost completely unformatted, I'm inclined to tag it as a stub, at least until someone produces confirmation of the claims made. Carom 15:36, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
If you mean Giovanni Giove with the extreme Italian nationalism, I beg to differ, when I removed the Marocchinate section from Juin article and left a note on his talk page, he didn't revert it and answered polite on my talk page. I for one think we can debate and discuss with him. Carl Logan 07:17, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, he gave response on my talkpage and is cooperative. I checked the sources: Bimberg, Edward L. The Moroccan Goums: Tribal Warriors in a Modern War. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999 ISBN 0-313-30913-2 (152 pages) is in English and seems a decent sourced book on the whole topic. The covertext contradicts the essence of this article, because it says: "Unfortunately for the Goumiers, their military success did not prevent their fearsome reputation from taking its toll as exceptional numbers of Moroccans were executed—many without trial—for allegedly murdering, raping, and pillaging their way across the Italian countryside." Wandalstouring 12:23, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Most sources are located on one homepage: http://www.dalvolturnoacassino.it/ .Several of the articles there used as sources contain racial material. Other sources are from one one newspaper, "la stampa". The only profound work is the English source mentioned above and it contradicts the Italian sources essentially whether French military did react against these warcrimes. I could find no claim for mass rape of Italian men any of the sources, the Italian sources are mostly concerned about the rape of children. Further procedure? (No I am not going to research and rewrite this) Wandalstouring 13:04, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Next procedure would be a dispute tag on the page, I believe, with your reasons on the Talk page.Michael DoroshTalk 14:17, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Requesting two maps

Burma Road and Ledo Road would much be served with the addition of maps showing the route. Is there a World War II task force of MILHIST that can handle this request? Thanks! --Cyde Weys 01:58, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

There is: WP:WWII. No guarantees that any maps will be forthcoming quickly, though. Kirill Lokshin 02:01, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
I've uploaded this map of the lines of communication in that theater; the Ledo and Burma roads are at the far right, but are somewhat difficult to see, so somebody may want to do some cropping and highlighting of the map. Kirill Lokshin 02:18, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
When I get home I will look through my stack of maps and see if I can find one of these. -- Миборовский 17:34, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Nope. :( -- Миборовский 01:54, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Is such a restriction existing?

"I know of no featured biography that lists all the letters its subject wrote (full length books, yes, but not short correspondence). The main article links to Joan of Arc facts and trivia twice: at the start of the legacy section and at the "See also" section. It would go against Wikipedia convention to add a list of section headings to a Wikilink."

From the Joan d'Arc peer review. Wandalstouring 16:43, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, that seems pretty commonsense, actually; as she's not primarily known as a writer, devoting a substantial portion of the article to listing out everything she wrote would be inappropriate. (It might be different for articles about writers; but even those usually don't discuss letters, except where a collected edition of them has been published.) Kirill Lokshin 16:46, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Her letters are not without political meaning. She claims the divine right to tell people what to do. She wrote a letter to the Hussites and on the Great Schism. These were not minor issues, especially concerning her position in the French military. Well it is not undisputed, whether she wrote these letters or one of her close associates wrote them. Her letter to the Hussites (in English): http://archive.joan-of-arc.org/joanofarc_letter_march_23_1430.html Wandalstouring 16:52, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I'm familiar with the letter to the Hussites (I vaguely recall that I brought it up at some point when the article was originally going for FA). My point is that, while isolated letters may be mentioned as appropriate, it's unnecessary to provide an exhaustive list of everything she wrote, as letter-writing was not her primary role. Kirill Lokshin 16:57, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Sure, I never suggested to make a list of her complete known correspondance. I think some letters should be reflected to better show her position and self-perception. Wandalstouring 17:03, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Help

Wikipedia:Featured article review/Joan of Arc has taken several days already and is getting nowhere. It is very hard to remain polite. Wandalstouring 19:00, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Responded on the review page. Kirill Lokshin 19:31, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Things are looking good.--Dryzen 14:02, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

King William's War campaign box

I'm currently rewriting the War of the Grand Alliance. I would like to see the North American actions of the war get their own campaign box called King William's War; the Irish campaigns of the War of the Grand Alliance, the Williamite war in Ireland, have been seperated into their own campaign box. If we are to seperate the war's theatres, Ireland, N.America and Europe, they should have their own campaign box. Does anyone agree/disagree? Raymond Palmer 20:05, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

What about campaigns within a campaign. We had this as a problem several posts earlier, I think it is solved by now. Wandalstouring 20:10, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
I doubt this will come up here, as the war isn't that complicated. I would suggest the following:
  • Have a separate campaignbox for each theater (America, Ireland, Continental Europe).
  • Create a fourth campaignbox linking the three theater articles (similar to, say, {{Campaignbox World War II}} or {{Campaignbox Punic Wars}} in setup).
Kirill Lokshin 20:14, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Where's 'setup'? Raymond Palmer 21:28, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Meh, sorry if I was unclear; I just meant that the conceptual idea of linking to the high-level articles would be the same as in those campaignboxes. Kirill Lokshin 21:35, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Silly me. But I am new to this game :) Raymond Palmer 21:43, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll be looking forward to seeing how this will turn out, the current North american theatre of the Grand alliance is rather wanting in information. --Dryzen 14:03, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to see more articles added to this subject before breaking up the Campaignbox. The North American theatre box could at present only scrape together two battles, which would leave articles like Battle of Quebec (1690) very lonely (several battles have yet to be written, of course, see Battle of Montreal). Albrecht 14:59, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, all the yet-to-be-written battles should be listed on a campaignbox as well; whether that's done on the main campaignbox before the split or on the subsidiary campaignbox after it is mostly arbitrary, I think. Kirill Lokshin 15:07, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

::::*The King William's War campaign box will include Schectenady, Port Royal, Quebec, La Prairie and Hudson's Bay. Others, including actions in the West Indies will be added later.

Quebec and Husdon's bay should be removed from the War of the Grand Alliance's c/box.

War of the Grand Alliance
Bantry Bay – Walcourt – Fleurus – Beachy Head – Staffarda – Cuneo – Leuze – Barfleur-La Hogue – 1st Namur – Steenkirk – Lagos – Landen – Marsaglia – Charleroi – Torroella – 2nd Namur – Barcelona

This box should be renamed eg:War of the Grand Alliance (Continental European Theatre) - to distinguish it from the King William's War and Williamite War's c/boxes. Also, ALL my sources spell La Hougue as, La Hogue. I think this should be changed both in the c/box and in the article's title.

Also, the Williamite War's c/box has two battles called Limerick. These should be renamed 1st Limerick and 2nd Limerick.

  • I have partially written the infoboxes for the three theatres of the War of the Grand Alliance here: User:Raymond Palmer/Sandbox. The first infobox, simply called War of the Grand Alliance, will be for the 'hub' article from which the three theatre articles (Continental Europe, Ireland and North America) will branch off. Are the titles of the four infoboxes acceptable? Raymond Palmer 13:56, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
    Those look fine (although I would use colons, e.g. "Irish Theatre: Williamite War in Ireland"). Just remember to trim out all the empty casualty fields and so forth. Another point to consider is whether you want to list only military leaders or both military and political leaders under the "Commanders" field. Both styles are popular, so it's probably down to which one is more meaningful in this particular case. Kirill Lokshin 16:39, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
No distinction needs to be made between "War of the Grand Alliance" and "War of the Grand Alliance: European theatre." The three boxes should simply read: "War of the Grand Alliance," "Williamite War in Ireland," and "King William's War." Also, it would help to replace the old Campaignbox with the new ones created for the different theatres (i.e. in Battle of Quebec (1691)). Albrecht 19:14, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Core biographies

I just looked over the Biography WikiProject's core biographies page; out of two hundred entries, thirty-eight (perhaps more, but I didn't look through the list exhaustively) are within our scope:

  1. Abraham Lincoln Featured article
  2. Adolf Hitler
  3. Akbar
  4. Alexander the Great
  5. Attila the Hun Featured article
  6. Augustus
  7. Benito Mussolini
  8. Charlemagne
  9. Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
  10. Constantine I
  11. Cyrus the Great
  12. Franklin D. Roosevelt Featured article
  13. Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor
  14. Frederick II of Prussia
  15. Genghis Khan
  16. George Washington
  17. Hannibal
  18. Henry VIII of England Featured article
  19. Heraclius
  20. Hernán Cortés
  21. Hirohito
  22. Ivan IV of Russia
  23. Joan of Arc Featured article
  24. Joseph Stalin
  25. Julius Caesar
  26. Mao Zedong
  27. Napoleon I of France
  28. Otto von Bismarck
  29. Peter I of Russia
  30. Philip II of Spain
  31. Qin Shi Huang
  32. Saladin
  33. Simón Bolívar
  34. Shaka
  35. Suleiman the Magnificent
  36. Timur
  37. William I of England
  38. Winston Churchill

No idea what, if anything, we should actually do with this list; but I thought it might be an interesting data point to bring up. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 17:37, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

War is humanity's favorite hobby?--Dryzen 17:44, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Probably true (if a bit morbid). Another interesting point is the overwhelming number of national leaders-as-military leaders versus purely military personnel. We should probably try and push a few of these (Napoleon? Genghis?) towards FA status. Kirill Lokshin 17:48, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
War FAs make 10% of total FAs, so yes... :) -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 17:51, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


Hannibal is in Punic as common as John is in English and there are several Hannibals jumping around in each war. Wouldn't his full name Hannibal Barca be a better choice. There are not quite as many Hannibal Barca. Wandalstouring 17:53, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm guessing the placement is due to the fact that the average reader would probably associate "Hannibal" with Hannibal Barca, rather than the other Hannibals. Kirill Lokshin 17:57, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Of course the average reader does, but he wants to be informed here. His brother Mago Barca (there was also the explorer Mago Barca, crossing several times the Sahara), his other brother Hasdrubal Barca and his father Hamilcar Barca are all listed with their family name. Wandalstouring 18:08, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but the naming convention calls for the most common name, even if it's not the most accurate one (e.g. Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, etc.). I doubt trying to fight this would be particularly productive (especially given the extent to which this project relies on that particular convention for its own use). Kirill Lokshin 18:14, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
But in case of Hamilcar Barca it was made to distinguish between him and a Hamilcar commanding the fleet at the Battle of Drepanum. While Hannibal Barca had a staff officer Hannibal Monomachus, who advocated ideas like training the troops to eat human flesh to solve the provision problems in war. I am still working on this, but it seems there are some major errors in several books about Hannibal, because they were confused. Wandalstouring 18:22, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
In fact, George Washington is a current AID if we want to help pitch in.... plange 17:54, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Heres another biography thats in our area, Sun Tzu i'm some people here have read his book The Art of War. I think his biography should be added to the list.Hypnosadist 13:37, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
I suggest to focus stronger on important personalities in the specific taskforces. Yes, Sun Tzu receives lots of credit and his book contains basics on warfare, so he is a notable person. Although personally I felt not very inspired after reading it. Perhaps too many people quote it. Wandalstouring 14:25, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Units format

Is there any agreed standard format for discussion of individual units? Articles don't appear to have a coherent shape at the moment, some leading with extremely text dense histories before a short section on current role, with others opening on current role before moving on to history. My own inclination is to have current information up front, wupported by historical and contextual information, but if there is an agreed standard then I'll stick with that. cf Royal Marines and Special Air Service to see what I'm getting at. ALR 07:40, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I like your proposal and if there is no standard, I strongly argue to make this standard. Wandalstouring 11:30, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
There are some basic guidelines on the project page; but I don't think that trying to impose a more rigorous rule will be productive. Just go with whatever makes sense given the history and role of the particular unit in question; so long as the result is well-written, nobody will complain. Kirill Lokshin 12:15, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Fort featured articles

Can somebody point me to some featured articles about forts/ castles or guidelines about what a good article about these should consist of? I will be expanding some articles on forts shortly -- Lost(talk) 11:40, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

We have been discussing about castles somewhere above this issue. There exist no guidelines.
Fortification is the main article and fort is a directory article to fortification. First step for an article about forts is to define, why they are a special subgroup of fortification. From this point onwards you can start to tell the story. Take Medieval fortification or Star fort as guide. Wandalstouring 11:57, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Thank you very much -- Lost(talk) 13:34, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

BTW, does an infobox for castles/ forts exist? -- Lost(talk) 15:58, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Umm, yes it does: {{Infobox Military Structure}}. Kirill Lokshin 16:14, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot -- Lost(talk) 16:22, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

im thinking of making an article on forts in the medway area so something like that would be handy Pratj 18:52, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

volunteers for image requests

I need some volunteers to answer the image requests. Usually it is enough to copyedit the name into a search-engine for images. Afterwards you send a request to the administrator of the site (email is usually under "Contacts"). The request must contain:

  • It works better if you name the website's url or the url of the images and if you offer to provide a link to the source.

It is a good idea to copyedit your request letter instead of writing a new one each time. If somebody needs help, I have written several letters.

A hidden request page for images is here: Wikipedia:Requested_pictures/Military

You could help me a lot, so I can concentrate on more difficult image requests. Wandalstouring 11:41, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

New eyes needed

I have been updating inormation on Wisconsin’s reactivation potential in lieu of the Nataional Defense Authorization Act of 2007s battleship transfer requirements. I was wondering if someone would read through the section and check for spelling and grammar mistakes, as well as ensuring that the POV still be N. Thanks in advance. TomStar81 19:15, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

No offensive, but it is turgid. Could you keep the sentences a bit less convoluted?
Take the sentence structure of USS Wisconsin (BB-9) as a guide. Wandalstouring 21:18, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Meh. I would say it's a bit choppy, rather than turgid; but given that it passed through FAC, it's probably not too big of an issue. Kirill Lokshin 23:07, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Articles should be a joy to read, not a pain to follow the thread of each sentence. Wandalstouring 10:39, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
True, but what exactly "a joy to read" would be tends to be quite subjective (c.f. all the usual fights on FAC about particular writing styles), unlike issues of formatting or accuracy, which can be more objectively determined; some people prefer simpler writing while others are more comfortable with denser prose, and both styles tend to be used in FAs. Kirill Lokshin 16:36, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Map bases?

I have resigned myself to the fact that I will have to manufacture several maps that I require to "flesh out" several articles that I'd like to bring up to FA status.

Does anyone know of any "base maps" that can be built off of, or tools that might generate these? Ideally I'd like a topographically-shaded set of maps, with no cities, or borders (these I can add myself). Ultimately I'd like a set for most of the "classical world" - and online or software tools would be able to generate these - although right now I'd settle for a map of the Italian peninsula.

Any ideas?

Vedexent 11:59, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Ask Dryzen, he is our professional in this field. Wandalstouring 13:49, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
I haven't heard back from, Dryzen yet, but I managed to find the Demis map server, which allows public use of the maps produced by their system, and has a "demo" flash client on their website here. I managed to create some maps for the Third Servile War article by using their maps as a base and adding in details with SmartDraw. You'll have to judge the results yourself :) - Vedexent 16:20, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Pardon for my late reply, it is notoriously dificult to geta hodl of me on wikipedia over the weekends and this one had a national holiday as well. As for the maps, I am a professionnal (as in it is my profession) yet I've had the pleasure of working with some rather expensive and specialized software. Currently our licences extend only over the databases holding information on our local region. For freeware, things get harder. This Demis seems to be high grade stuff (I`dd heard of their work with Worldwind). If you have the cash to spend I would suggest geting MapInfo, not too user friendly but its information is sound and clear. Another cheap but powerful graphics editor is CorelDraw suite, but you can get just as good with some of the freeware available like GIMP or Inkscape. Like you've already found out the cheapest is to meld representative data (attained from free groupes such as Google Earth) and home made graphics (drawing over a screen capture). Its not much but I hope this helps. If you have any questiosn on conventions or some such send a message.--Dryzen 13:56, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Editing taskforce announcement templates?

How would one go about adding new fields to the announcement templates? I tried to add a heading for categories needing to be tagged with the {{WPMILHIST}} and/or the Canadian Taskforce notice, but I coulden't get anythin to show up...Mike McGregor (Can) 18:56, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

They're all run from a common meta-template, to ensure that the formats are (somewhat) consistent between task forces. We can certainly add additional fields as they're needed, though. What exactly did you have in mind here?
(As an aside, it may be easier to request simple tagging at the automation department than to do it by hand.) Kirill Lokshin 19:06, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
For example, I was going through Category:American colonial wars in which some articles fell under the scope of the Canadian task force, needing to be tagged, and some did not. Would a bot be able to differentiate between what should be tagged or what shouldn't? Or would this need human eyes? If the later is the case, I thought it might be useful to list the category (and categories like it) as needing attention for selective tagging with the task force notice. But then again, while I'm at it, why not bring attention to cats that could use the attention of a bot incase someone with a bot comes along?Mike McGregor (Can) 22:25, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
The automation department can certainly accept requests that need to be "semi-automated" (in other words, where each change needs to be verified by an actual human). Whether listing it there or on the task force template (or both) is the best idea, I don't know, so I'll leave it up to you; in the meantime, I'll create a field in the base task force list that you can use if you want. Kirill Lokshin 22:34, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Ok, the tagging= parameter will work now; just make sure to preface the category links with a colon so that the template itself doesn't get categorized somewhere ;-) Kirill Lokshin 22:39, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

A separate talk sub-page for task-force discussions?

I noticed that the talk page seems to get a bit cluttered with so many discussions going on at once. would it be useful to start a sub-page of the talk page for things like new task force proposals and other general type discussions regarding task-forces? Mike McGregor (Can) 19:01, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

That's a really bad idea, in my opinion. Things like new task forces are one of the things that really do need maximum input from the entire project, which breaking them off to a separate page would prevent.
In any case, the reason the page seems so cluttered is because we have a massive spike in major proposals at the moment; once we run through these, it should go back down to normal levels of activity. Kirill Lokshin 19:06, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if breaking off talk pages like that is the way to go - but I agree that the main talk page can get a bit clunky. It is very easy to lose track of comments and discussions, as a half-dozen posts can be made between the times that one checks the talk page. I think that the amount of "talk traffic" here is way above what simple talk pages were designed for. I'm tempted to say that we should create a forum/bulletin board system for project discussions - but that would require going outside Wikipedia to do - and I'm not sure that is a wise step to take. - Vedexent 01:30, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the devs are apparently planning on rolling out a more forum-like talk page system ("LiquidThreads") at some point; I have no idea what the timetable is, but I think it was one of the Google "Summer of Code" projects. Kirill Lokshin 01:38, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Interesting. For those who want more info - the project page is here. - Vedexent 10:43, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

rating?

I've completely written the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment page. It used to be classified stub. What is the process for re-classifying? Sorry, I'm not TOO involved with the wikiproject, though I know most of you from my work in the genre.⇒ SWATJester Ready Aim Fire! 10:38, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

You go to the assessment department and you add in the list of requests for assessment. But don't worry I have assessed it. Kyriakos 11:39, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Or you can just rate it yourself, if you're comfortable doing so; I very much doubt it would be regarded as problematic for the lower ratings (up to B-Class). Kirill Lokshin 15:34, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

WikiLinking to another language edition of Wikipedia

I looked in the Linking Help guide and it doesn't show how to do a Wikilink to an article in another language edition of Wikipedia. Does it have to be done as an external link, or is there a way to do it as a WikiLink? Cla68 16:02, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

There's two methods. If you just need a link in the sidebar (an "interwiki"), you can use:
[[es:Name of article in Spanish]]
substituting the correct language code and article name. If you're actually trying to indicate something like the provenance of a translation, however, you'll need to use an external link, since you'd have to indicate the revision of the article that was used. Does this answer your question, or have I misunderstood what's being asked here? Kirill Lokshin 16:11, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
That answers the question. Since I started putting the Japanese name for the battles I've been working on in the intros, I thought I would link them to the equivalent article in the Japanese edition. I'm still having trouble getting it to work, is there one in an article somewhere that I can use as an example? Cla68 17:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Mmm, maybe ask over at the Japanese task force? If you want to actually link it from the text, you'll need to use the same form as category links do ([[:jp:Name of article in Japanese]]) with an initial colon; but I'm not sure if there are any subtleties with Japanese articles specifically. Kirill Lokshin 17:03, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for the assistance. Cla68 17:38, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
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