User talk:Civilaffairs

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Contents 1 How to go about correcting an entry full of errors and obviously NPOV 1.1 Thank you for your kind help 1.2 Another Thank You is in Order 2 Milhist 3 Adopt-a-User 4 Re: I am new and not sure how to handle this 5 Comments on your comments about Operation Storm at MILHIST 6 Intelligence articles generally 7 Bringing up the standard of an article 8 Re: SPA Account 9 Trivia 10 Something to read 11 By the way... :-) 12 Many thanks 13 Use of UN Document template 14 The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXVI (April 2008) 15 hey 16 The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXVII (May 2008)

[edit] How to go about correcting an entry full of errors and obviously NPOV

I am fairly new to Wikipedia and I found you under "editors willing to assist". I hope I am doing this right, and contacting you in the way you prefer. My apologies in advance if I have goofed.

The entry "Operation Storm" has numerous errors and is quite biased. I understand that this subject can get quite emotional and even heated when discussed between the two parties (Croat and Krajina Serb). This is no excuse for shoddy research and misleading documentation, however.

I was so shocked upon reading this entry, I first lodged complaints on the discussion page, and then marked it "This article has been nominated to be checked for its neutrality."

Where do I go from here?

Thank you in advance for your kind help

Civilaffairs (talk) 15:53, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, you already left a tag concerning "neutrality". (The policy page related to that would be Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.)

Research and references would be a great start. I strongly advise any editor to read Wikipedia:Verifiability.

You also might want to leave a note at talk:Operation Storm explaining your concerns. You may find some helpful editors there. But if you find those who may be argumentative, or those who you may feel are "less-than-helpful" (since, as you note above, for some this may be a contentious issue) The advice at Wikipedia:Staying cool when the editing gets hot, should be helpful.

And it may be worth your while to read previous posts on that talk page. You may find out why certain issues may exist, or perhaps others have had the same concerns, or perhaps you may even find references, or other aids, which may help further your research on this topic.

And finally, if you have any thoughts or concerns, or if you wish anything further clarified, please feel free to drop me a note.

I hope this has helped. - jc37 16:06, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you for your kind help

Thank you for your quick reply (I am so amazed and impressed!).

I read the previous posts on the talk page, and yes, they are very argumentative and sometimes unhelpful. I gather this entry has mainly been under the control of a person on the Croat side of the argument, one who appears to be quite stubborn. In its present incarnation, this entry is certainly quite biased in that direction.

I know why disagreements exist, and will probably always exist. (Look at our own disagreements over the Civil War after all these years.)

Does this mean I should simply edit the entry myself, using verifiable references? It looks like it needs to be completely rewritten to me. I realise the Croat editor will probably simply undo whatever I write, but I may as well give it a try?

I did leave a note expressing my concerns at talk:Operation Storm (as you can see, it is the last entry there).

I will study the resources you have cited. Thank you for providing the links to them.

A question I cannot find the answer for: How to correct the "Notes" section of the entry which is in a protected template? As I explained in my note on the talk page, #12 is mislabeled with what looks to be, frankly, deceptive intent.

My sincere thanks, and my apologies for bothering you again.

Civilaffairs (talk) 17:25, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

First, it's no bother : )

On one hand, yes, you could do the rewrite yourself (See Wikipedia:Be Bold), but if you do, I'd suggest doing so in small, sectioned edits, so as to make clear to those who may be watching.

On the other, you might wait a day or so to see if anyone else may comment on the re-write. There's the possibility that there may be some constructive suggestions/advice to be had.

(Most editing here comes with that balance of being bold, vs. discussion. And usually it falls somewhere in between : )

Also, as "you were there", I should probably point you to Wikipedia:Original research. To summarise: you should be able to present observations, but be wary of presenting personal judgements or conclusions based on those observations.

As for the template, it merely collates/collects all the references from the article body. if you click on the "number" of the reference, it should take you back up to the section that has that reference. Note that, and when you edit the article, you should find the text in question.

If you have any further questions/comments, don't hesitate : ) - jc37 17:37, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Another Thank You is in Order

Excellent advice. Thank you.

I was puzzled about one thing you wrote, however: you should be able to present observations.

I thought this was a no-no concerning the entry itself, but possibly okay on the talk page. I thought it best to restrict myself to reports which can still be found on the UN website, such as applicable Reports of the Secretary General.

I will take your advice and perhaps edit just the first paragraph to correct the name of the UN Mission and its mandate, citing documents which can be found on the United Nations website, and see what happens.

I don't want to step on anyone's toes, but as more and more people are citing Wikipedia as a reliable source, I'd like to see it actually be a reasonably reliable source.

Again, many thanks and no need to reply this time round. I am most grateful for your assistance.

Civilaffairs (talk) 18:12, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

It's something that's often misunderstood.

To direct you to the specific section I was referring to: Wikipedia:No original research#Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources, it states (a bit more verbosely, though probably more clearly):

"To the extent that part of an article relies on a primary source, it should:

• only make descriptive claims about the information found in the primary source, the accuracy and applicability of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and
• make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about the information found in the primary source."

That said, it's always better having other sources to "back up" your observations (as you noted above). (See also:Wikipedia:No_original_research#Citing_oneself.)

Happy editing : ) - jc37 18:21, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Milhist

[edit] Adopt-a-User

Hi there. I notice that you are looking for a user to adopt you within the Adopt-a-User scheme. I am willing to adopt you if you wish. I have taken the effort to convert the adoption request template on your user page to the adoptive offer template - per Adopt-a-User guidelines. If you could reply on my user talk page, I would be grateful. Thanks, Jhfireboy Talk 15:02, 14 April 2008 (UTC).

I have taken the liberty to finish the adoption precess for you. I am new to this role as an adopter and am willing to help in any way I can. Jhfireboy Talk 15:51, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Can I please have some information from you as to what you hope to achieve from Wikipedia and what you aim to dabble in mostly? This will allow me to help you in any way I can. This page, although in its infancy, will be able to help you get started with Wikipedia and give you some useful "cheatsheets" to Wikipedia guidelines and syntax. Jhfireboy Talk 15:55, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your quick response. Do I reply here, or on your talk page? I want to follow whatever is your preference, and I'm not sure what the ettiquette is on this. Civilaffairs (talk) 15:59, 14 April 2008 (UTC)Civilaffairs

There is no official etiquette on this. Usually I like to people to talk to me on my talk page, and I reply on theirs. However, some people do not like this and settle for the entire conversation on one page. Usually, those who use their talk page a lot have guidelines: like mine. Is that ok for you? Jhfireboy Talk 16:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

In a case like that on Operation Storm I would just rewrite the caption. if anybody disagrees then talk to them personally and argue your case. You do not need to ask permission each time you want to make an edit - just make the edit. if anybody disagrees they will revert it or speak to you personally. If they revert it, do NOT just write the new caption again but talk to the person in question and come to some agreement. Incidentally, the way of getting an image deleted (which is not required, I think, in this case) is to place it in Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion but you MUST state your reasons why. Jhfireboy Talk 17:17, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: I am new and not sure how to handle this

Ping! --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 22:36, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comments on your comments about Operation Storm at MILHIST

If I might, a couple of comments about the Operation Storm concerns you raised:

"Blitzkrieg" is not so much a Nazi reference, as an obsolete term. Blitzkrieg was an early example of what, more commonly, is called a "combined arms operation", with close coordination of air, ground, and, where relevant, naval and special forces. Even there, a number of new terms and related missions have evolved, such as deep strike by organic ground forces fire assets, battlefield air interdiction, special reconnaissance control of national-level air assets, etc.

It's always touchy to speak of the "largest" of anything, as there may be different ways of measuring size. In the Batlle of 73 Easting, a company-sized U.S. force destroyed an Iraqi brigade. Was size relevant, or is relative combat power more important? Nevertheless, by pure headcount, I believe more troops were involved in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Were you intending to say "the largest post-WWII operation up to that time"?

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 22:51, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

(copied on my userpage)

Wikipedia can be surprising. When I was doing bold reorganization of Central Intelligence Agency, first creating the sub-articles, an editor who had worked extensively on CIA in the past showed up, became angry, and redirected links around the subarticles. An admin restored them, and the editor announced he was taking a Wikibreak. My impression, at the time, was that he objected to anyone who did not treat the CIA as the darkest of evil forces, as opposed to a more realistic splotched and dirty gray.

A few weeks later, he came back, and, to my utter surprise and pleasure, he bestowed a Barnstar of Diplomacy on me.

There are editors that have seemed combative and POV, that, for no apparent reason, suddenly become cooperative and constructive. Alternatively, some manage to get more combative and banned. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 01:46, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Intelligence articles generally

You might want to look at my user page User:Hcberkowitz, which gives an overview of the two sets of intelligence articles: CIA specifically, and intelligence cycle management, which focuses more on the organization and techniques of modern intelligence. It will also show what I'm trying to do on Iran-Iraq, not that I expect to write all those subarticles, but to counter, in a reasonable and fact-based way, that the US was not the only involved third country, and did not pull Saddam's strings. To the best of my knowledge, the only time Saddam had a string pulled was when it was attached to his neck. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 02:48, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'm afraid, it does have to be countered that the whole thing was not a U.S. plot. I'm not unsympathetic to the emotions, if not the accuracy, of a number of editors with an Iranian standpoint, who have some justifiable anger at the US over the overthrow of Mossadegh, and U.S. support of the Shah, as well as the shooting down of their civilian Airbus. Unfortunately, just as Americans can have trouble understanding their anger, they do not fully appreciate the U.S. anger over the embassy takeover/hostage crisis, and, to a lesser extent, to the mining of international waters in the "tanker war".

The great assumption seems to be that the U.S., or even that Iraq was rather incidental in the Iran-Iraq war. Yes, there was direct combat between U.S. and Iranian forces, but I honestly believe that is better described as the Iran-U.S. war, rather than the "tanker war" as a side campaign of the Iran-Iraq War. Unfortunately, a number of the people involved do not have much experience with military affairs, and, for example, believe that a report that the U.S. had 600 intelligence officers assisting the Iraqis meant the U.S. dominated Iraqi decisionmaking. In a war of that size, 600 officers is not a very large force. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 03:51, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

You mentioned MPRI (MPR1). What is that? I don't recognize it.

I freely admit that not many sources speak of an Iran-US war, although there is considerable discussion and Wikipedia articles on the individual operations that composed it (PRIME CHANCE, EARNEST WILL, PRAYING MANTIS, etc.). I might see if anyone has written on it as a separate war. Part of the reason I consider this approach historically justifiable is that freedom of navigation has been a casus belli for the U.S. going back to the War of 1812 and the Barbary Wars. While I can intellectually understand the anger of Iranians at U.S. support of the Shah, I can't grasp the intensity on an emotional level. At the same time, I don't think some of the Iranians grasp the U.S. anger at both the embassy seizure and on the interference with freedom of navigation. While I can control it, I have an intense flash of anger when I read about releasing free-floating naval mines into international waters.

In many of these conflict articles, it would be an enormous step farther if both sides would say "I accept you are furious about XXX, and I am not going to convince you not to be. I only ask that you accept I'm furious about YYY.

Angry people and countries do stupid things. Another piece of getting quality articles is recognizing that one's country, ethnic group, etc., did things that, in retrospect, were unwise. While I am not a fan of the book itself, I very much appreciate the title of Barbara Tuchman's history of the events leading up to the First World War, The March to Folly. How many wars have started when sane people on both sides saw the matter building to a crisis, but didn't know how to stop the momentum? Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 15:30, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Tuchman, for all her reputation, has always been erratic for me. That book's title was much better than I found its contents, although I thought her Stilwell and the American Experience in China brilliant. I forget if I mentioned it, but one exceptionally insightful, short book is Every War Must End by Fred Ikle -- try to get the revised edition that covers 1991. It's a historical review of the disasters that come from starting wars without understanding what both victory and defeat mean for you, as well as the dangers of mission creep. Blackhawk Down is a classic, but a much drier but worthwhile read is Somalia Operations: Lessons Learned at http://www.ndu.edu/inss/books/books%20-%201990%20to%201995/Somalia%20Lessons%20Learned%20Jan%2095/SOLL.pdf. An alternate title would be "how not to organize a chain of command."

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 21:15, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

There is some amazingly good content at some of the midcareer and senior military colleges in the U.S., which usually also have a research institute with permanent staff. Some of the papers can be quite critical of military and political leadership, but that seems to be accepted there although it could be career-ending if said, in public, when not in school.

I believe that a variant of Thomas Barnett's "leviathan" and "system administrator" concept may be the best long-term approach to some conflicts (and not others). In my article, Insurgency, there are some links to online discussions of his model. Briefly, he sees the main nation-building force (system administrator) being multinational and drawn from the region. Its mission is to build opinion and infrastructure, while providing security, to make the country in question part of the "connected core" of nations. For the system administrators to be able to work, however, it may be necessary to crush some fighting factions, and that is the job of Leviathan, generally assumed to be an extremely capable First World military (typically the US, or an alliance with common doctrine and communications such as NATO). When Leviathan finishes, it gets out. Perhaps the best recent example of what is still a theory was in Sierra Leone (partially described in Operation Barras), where a British Royal Marine force, operating from ships, took down the main rebel group -- who fought very hard -- and then gradually withdrew, to be replaced by the West African ECOMOG forces. ECOMOG is not a perfect example of system administrator, especially because it still had to do some fighting. The conflict, however, is a model, just as in WWII, the Occupation forces for Germany and Japan were separate from the combat forces, and specifically organized and trained for an equivalent of "system administrator". I can provide some links there if they are of interest -- I should go look at insurgency and see if they fit in there as a special case. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 16:31, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bringing up the standard of an article

It will depend significantly on the length of the article. Recently, I did do a total rewrite of insurgency in my sandbox, put a request for feedback on the existing article webpage, and, after hearing very little, just replaced the article. The only comment I had on the sandbox version was that it was too academic and complex, but that raises a broad Wikipedia question: when is it reasonably to be expected that an article be accessible to a complete layman?

There's no simple answer, especially for something such as "insurgency", which, although it has had a technical meaning for decades, has become the "Iraq insurgency" according to politicians and media. They also tend to equate it to the "Global war on terror," which, to quote Francis Fukuyama, makes about as much sense as "global war on submarines".

I can't say that I remember seeing anyone demand that an article in the hard sciences, mathematics, and other disciplines be "accessible to the layman". That's somewhat more of a challenge in medicine, where laymen do look for simple explanations of things that are decidedly not simple.

It's a British saying, I think, that any fool thinks he can command a regiment, while it seems to be accepted that the equivalent-rank command of a warship takes many years of experience. You do see this a lot in military articles -- people want things to be simple that are not. Another saying, which has quite a bit of merit, is "amateurs talk tactics, dilettantes talk strategy, but professionals talk logistics."

When I started working on CIA, it was over 300K, more than half conspiracy theories, and with a very strong (if not large) group of POV editors that the CIA was responsible for every bad thing in the world. I'd say I approached it in two directions: trying to get subarticles established, and also going into much more historical depth on things, such as history and organization, that really belonged in the main article. Occasionally, someone would suggest that a part of the main article, such as the directors and their influence on the organization, belonged in a subarticle, and I didn't feel strongly about that so moved it. OTOH, there are a few editors with a broad knowledge of the subject that check the subarticles fairly often.

Sometimes, it's not worth the effort. I have several areas of professional expertise, but one is data network engineering. After a while, I gave up on the Computer Network Project, as I grew very, very tired of explaining, to people that fairly obviously were relative beginners, why certain oversimplifications, and at least one specific textbook, were wrong. The same arguments were fought every few weeks. The last straw, I think, came when I cited a peer-reviewed Internet technical specification, of which I was the lead author (perfectly OK with Wikipedia if there is that review), and a college student informed me that I was wrong because the same damn textbook said so. At that point, I took all networking off my watchlist. I've seen a couple of other people, with outstanding expertise in the field, give up there.

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 03:44, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: SPA Account

An SPA account is an account that is used just to edit one article or a group of related articles. See Wikipedia:Single-purpose account for more detail. Hope this helps. Jhfireboy Talk 20:33, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

If you notice at the top of the page, it is an essay and not a policy or guideline. You can choose to ignore it without any adverse consequences. I would suggest dabbling in a few different things occasionally but on the whole there is nothing wrong in sticking with what you are doing. If you think about it logically, an expert in mathematics would be more useful in helping with maths-related articles and not the history of Burma, for example. Jhfireboy Talk 21:17, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Trivia

Regarding your observations about areas where it's hard to get good articles (and believe me, CIA took a number of months of negotiation), in a way, I was happy I was on a business trip and had dinner in my room, since I rather made a mess of myself while listening to the local television news. Apparently, the station had sent out its first "foreign correspondent". Breathlessly, she opened with the dramatic comment, "the former Yugoslavia is becoming (gasp) Balkanized!"

Actually, my Uncle Bill was fond of soup sandwiches, but he'd put the can of condensed soup in the refrigerator, and then cut slices of the congealed mess. Yech. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 22:02, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Something to read

http://thebosnianwarfactstimelinehistorygenocidecriminals.wordpress.com/2007/04/16/german-chetnik-relations-and-serbian-nazi-connection-and-collaboration/

--(GriffinSB) (talk) 23:42, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] By the way... :-)

		The Exceptional Newcomer Award
		Awarded to Civilaffairs for her great efforts in improving NPOV on Yugoslavia-related articles. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:32, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Many thanks

While Wikipedia has its frustrations, it has taught me a lot about dispute resolution. I really wish I knew if its basic assumptions will work; I'm also going to try some writing at another Wiki that doesn't allow anonymous editing and see if that will work.

Nevertheless, it's great to collaborate with people such as yourself. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 19:02, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Use of UN Document template

Hi, I've noticed you've made lots of links to undemocracy.com website in your "sources" page, like:

REPORT OF THE SECRETARY-GENERAL SUBMITTED PURSUANT TO PARAGRAPH 4 OF SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 947 (1994) S/1995/38 Report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council, 14 January 1995. Tudjman's decision not to agree to extension of UNPROFOR mandate, NATO stikes on Udbina and Dvor radar site, ceasefire violations, economic agreement, etc.

Just to let you know, there's a box on the holding page of each document[1] where it generates a templated description of the document of the type:

<ref name="UN_S199538">{{UN document |docid=S-1995-38 |type=Document |body=Security Council |year=1995 |document_number=38 |accessdate=2008-05-02}}</ref>

If you remove the <ref>, you can embed the link rather than have it as a footnote. And also, you can add in the date and title as extra parameters (the site isn't clever enough to automatically scan them from the PDF). So this looks like:

{{UN document |docid=S-1995-38 |type=Document |body=Security Council |year=1995 |document_number=38 |accessdate=2008-05-02|date=[[14 January]] [[1995]]|title= Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to paragraph 4 of Security Council Resolution 947(1994)}}

which evaluates to:

• United Nations Security Council Document 38 Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to paragraph 4 of Security Council Resolution 947(1994) on 14 January 1995

Also, don't forget to note backlinks to the discussions listed in the holding page, and the ability to point to specific pages in a document and highlight them, like so:

• United Nations Security Council Document 38 S-1995-38 page 9 in 1995 (retrieved 2008-05-02)

This is supposed to improve on doing hardlinks into the webpage, because if the site needs to get relocated, or the UN decides to allow links into its website, we can change one thing, and all the links will point in to the proper place. Also, they work if you're looking them up in a library.

If you have any questions, or experience some missing documents, please drop me a note on my talk page and I'll see what I can pull out.Goatchurch (talk) 21:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXVI (April 2008)

The April 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 00:25, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] hey

I agree with the projection thing that you wrote on Serbs of Croatia article. Editors who call others "vandals, nationalists, etc" are themselves those things. Mike Babic (talk) 15:55, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXVII (May 2008)

The May 2008 issue of the Military history WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 00:13, 3 June 2008 (UTC)