Talk:Operational Service Medal

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is part of WikiProject Orders, Decorations, and Medals, a collaborative effort to improve, organise, and standardise Wikipedia's coverage of national honours systems. For guidelines and a participants list see the project page. You can discuss the project at its talk page

[edit] OSM Article merger

It has been suggested that OSM Afghanistan,OSM Democratic Republic of Congo,OSM Sierra Leone be merged into this article or section. There are only THREE Operational Service Medals - the separate articles are each tiny, and lack context. Together, they make a better encyclopedia article. --Lexein 17:12, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm inclined to disagree. These articles are quite under-developed at the moment—however I can see scope for substantial additions. Expanded as I envisage, when brought together in one article, the combined size would be excessive. Therefore, while conceding that these medals are very much a work-in-progress, I think that we are best off leaving them as they are. Additionally, despite their similarities, we must not lose sight of the fact that each medal is a separately authorised award, with varying criteria, etc, so logically it also seems to me that they are best treated individually. Finally, there may only be three OSMs issued at the moment, but this is almost certain to increase with the passage of time.

Xdamr^talk 00:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The three extant OSM medals would never have separate articles in an encyclopedia. That they are "separately authorized" is irrelevant - they come through the same department. The three extant articles contain redundant content, which would be eliminated by a single table, with a total article size of far less than the suggested maximum. Future medals could be easily and neatly added at the bottom of the table. Separately, the articles' redundancy will only grow. They'll continually be nominated for merging for the entire life of Wikipedia, and not just by me. I'm not expert at quickly composing tables, or the merging would already be done.--Lexein 06:27, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

You are possibly right about separate articles in an encyclopaedia—however in that regard see WP:NOT#PAPER (Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopaedia). Quite frankly a huge amount of content, from Pokemon characters to articles on film and tv series, would disappear if this was the standard by which things were judged. Of course you might believe, with good reason, that some of these things should be removed—however that's another argument :)

Back to the question of OSMs. The only similarity between the three is that the UK government, as penny-pinching and unimaginative as ever, use the same design of medal for each award. Other than that, they are issued at different times, for different conflicts, to different units, with different qualifying criteria, with different campaign clasps/emblems, under separate authorisation warrants, etc, etc. As I have acknowledged, you have correctly identified that the articles are quite poor at the moment, however this will improve as more information on the medals emerges. Including a simple list of qualifying ships/units/squadrons and qualifying criteria already takes it beyond the scope of what can be reasonably included in a table.

One further point; by and large the criteria for awarding a medal its own article is whether it has its own individual ribbon. If you take a look at British campaign medals you will see a list of all the ribbons from Waterloo onwards. Merging these articles would also interfere with this layout.

Xdamr^talk 15:48, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

• Quick note, gotta run for now: I don't want relevant,informative content to disappear, ever. Separate articles make sense for the purposes of size control. I do want information presented in a reasonably compact form, either in one place or "nearby" places. For that reason, may I suggest renaming the OSM* pages by their full names, so that they are textually "near" each other, and can all be found by a single search for 'Operational Service Medal' ? --Lexein 17:03, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the rename—we don't want new readers to be scratching their heads over what 'OSM' means, and your search issue is a good point. What form do you suggest for the title? Operational Service Medal for Afghanistan, Operational Service Medal - Afghanistan, Operational Service Medal (Afghanistan), (any other variations)?

Xdamr^talk 21:21, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Operational Service Medal, Afghanistan seems in keeping with mil. style, but your experience may speak to this. If commas aren't allowed, then : or -, in that order. How is it listed on the recipient's record, and how is it listed on the presentation certificate? ––Lexein 21:40, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The most common usage that I've come across is Operational Service Medal for Afghanistan or OSM Afghanistan. The next most common seems to be Operational Service Medal (Afghanistan). What about the latter?

Xdamr^talk 00:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC)