Talk:Distinguished Service Order

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This is a highly confusing article. Perhaps someone familiar with the decoration could clean it up a tad?

[edit] Recipients

Should there be a category for recipients of this medal, similar to the other British honours?--Peta 03:48, 10 July 2006 (UTC) Tirpitz Tait (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Brian_Tait) who died recently, should be listed in the Notable Recipients section - DSO and three bars. --Dsheppard 18:01, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notable recipients - might (short) additional clarification be useful?

I recently added information to the entry "Bernard Montgomery", on the assumption that the interested reader might not realise that this refers to "Monty", aka Field Marshal Montgomery of Battle of Alamein fame. This information has just been removed without comment, although a couple of other such 'clarifications' have been left. I feel that an explanation for such a deletion would have been polite. Whatever. IMO a short clarification, shorter perhaps than my addition, would enhance the usefulness of the list of notable recipients. Opinions, anyone? --TraceyR (talk) 18:09, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Really the whole section is out of control, see the equivalent on Military Cross#Notable awards whic is much more useful. The section here should be radically pruned, concentrating on those with the most Bars - which confers a degree of notability in its own right, and then mentioning any cases where there were particularly unusual circumstances which led to the award, or "firsts". Awardees in general who are notable enough to have Wikipedia article can be found in Category:Companions of the Distinguished Service Order, which can be given as a "See also" link. David Underdown (talk) 20:57, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
I disagree. The category approach does not distinguish between people on the basis of number of awards; the list in this article does that. Is there some place here where MC recipients with one or more bars can be found? The DSO list is IMO much superior to the approach of the Military Cross article; cross-referencing to the respective one-dimensional category serves little useful purpose. The other recipients mentioned, e.g. Moshe Dayan, 'Popski', T.E.Lawrence and 'Monty', to name but a few, are notable enough to stand out from the others and find mention here. I would even go so far as to suggest that the MC article would be much improved by the addition of an equivalent list. --TraceyR (talk) 23:19, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
I would suggest that the section needs serious culling. A similar (and more detailed) discussion was held over at the Talk:Silver Star page. Adding the Category:Companions of the Distinguished Service Order to each recipient would satisfy the need for a simple list. I believe 'notable recipients] have to have some form of stand-out reason to be included - eg, "only recipient of 3 bars", "first woman", etc PalawanOz (talk) 04:39, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
To look at this another way, you seem to be suggesting a list of particularly notable people who happen to have been made given the DSO. The problem is that there is no clear selection criteria, someone who seems particularly notable to you may well not do so to me, the first two examples you give above don't seem particularly "stand-out" to me, so theere isn't really any way of stopping the list growing, and completely unbalancing the article, which is generally in less good shape than those for some of the British decorations. Remember that the categories can easily be extended, and there would seem to me to be quite a good case for creating appropriate subcats of the Companions category for those with one, two and three bars, and similarly for similar decorations, although some might argue that the categories for the higher numbers would be rather on the small side, but there are ways of using the sort key to separate them out in that case. The people listed here should those whose notability is actually related to the DSO, not just that they happen to have been awarded it at some point. David Underdown (talk) 16:24, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
I would agree that the 'notability' section should relate to the DSO in some way, and not just a list of famous people with the DSO. I would imagine a short sentence (or two) which gives a brief synopsis of their notability. PalawanOz (talk) 22:02, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
The original question was about the usefulness of a brief clarification for some entries, exemplified by "Bernard Montgomery", who might not be readily identifiable to the casual reader as being the famous WWII British Field Marshal. The discussion about the usefulness of the list compared with a category is a different issue. The concept of "notability" is by definition subjective. One could argue (although I wouldn't) that anyone for whom a wikipedia article exists is in some way 'notable' and therefore deserves inclusion. IMO replacing the list by a reference to the category would reduce the usefulness of the article; wikipedia is primarily there as a reference work for the general public. --TraceyR (talk) 22:48, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
If we list every DSO who is notable enough to have a Wikipedia article, we will have entirely duplicated the category - how does that reduce the usefulness of the article, provided that there is a clear link to the caegory fo those who actually want to see the full list. Very long lists aren't particularly readable, and are discouraged by the manual of style. Once we've trimmed the lsit to something with more objective criteria, then it can be converted to prose, which might well include a brief description of who they are (although of course it's easy enough to follow the link if you're not quite sure who someone is), vastly improving the article. I believe that we should only mention in this article those whose connection with the DSO itself would make them notable, not those whose notability is for other reasons. David Underdown (talk) 12:11, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
As I wrote above, I'm not suggesting that everyone who has both a wikipedia article and a DSO should be added to the list of "notable recipients" - that would be way over the top. Nor do I agree that the "whole section is out of control". Before applying objective criteria to reduce the length of the list, it would be necessary to know a little more about those currently mentioned, which is why a short explanation or comment, not exceeding one line, would be useful (the point of the original question). 'Converting' a shortened list 'to prose' would just serve to reduce the accessibility of the information; this is an encyclopaedia, after all, not a history book.
FWIW I have just checked a couple of entries at random, and would suggest that Arthur Rhys Davids is a good example of someone whose intrinsic 'notability' is insufficient to warrant a mention here, in spite of his obvious courage and no doubt other admirable qualities. There are probably others who could be removed for similar reasons. On the other hand, Moshe Dayan on the other hand is surely 'notable' enough to be retained in any list of DSO recipients. --TraceyR (talk) 21:56, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps those for whom a short note is not possible should be weeded out! --TraceyR (talk) 14:14, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Candidates for 'culling'

While not exhaustive, the following list contains some names which could be considered for deletion:

Apologies in advance to friends/relatives who may disagree!

I suggest that anyone who was awarded the DSO more than once should be included as 'notable' for that reason alone.--TraceyR (talk) 14:45, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

A single bar is far from rare (just from the figures in the article 62 for RAF officers in WWII, so the numebrs for all services must be over a hundred, then include Commonwealth forces too), even including those with two bars would make the list pretty unwieldy - if we were to be truly exhaustive. I think essentially we're looking for those people (as I've said before) where we could make a reasonable case for them being notable purely by virtue of their association with the DSO alone. So those with 3 bars yes, possibly Dayan and Peniakoff as non-Commonwealth citizens serving in British units (though in passing I've been unable to verify Dayan's receipt of the medal), and in fact even a quick search on The National Archives website turns up a number of foreign nationals (albeit serving with their own forces) who were awarded the DSO http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/search-results.asp?searchtype=browserefine&query=scope%3ddistinguished%20service%20order&catid=22&pagenumber=1&querytype=1&mediaarray=* (slightly curiously a search on "bar to the distinguished service order" only turned up 3 results) David Underdown (talk) 15:14, 23 April 2008 (UTC)