Talk:War memorial

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[edit] First World War Memorials

In the (current) third paragraph of the article (the one starting with "In modern times..."), there is a list of countries where war memorials were erected in most villages (France, England, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and "other countries"). I don't think there is anything unique about these countries -- after the horror of the First World War, I think the same phenomenom occurred in virtually all countries that were involved. My suggestion is to get rid of the list and simply reference "countries involved in the conflict". Skeezix1000 20:10, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Images

  • The selection of images in the article was overwhelmingly western, and three of the nine images were of Canadian memorials. I have replaced some images, so as to achieve a a broader representation. Obviously, the list of memorials in the article remains unchanged. Skeezix1000 22:57, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
The Image:Vimy999.jpg was the last of the Canadian images left and it's missing so now there are no Canadian images. To keep the article tidy I've removed the following text

[[Image:Vimy999.jpg|thumb||right|The Canadian National Vimy Memorial in [[France]], commemorating those who died in the Battle of Vimy Ridge during [[World War I|First World War]].]]

Someone must have a suitable copyright photo of this quite spectacular memorial. Also according to [1] "The Memorial on Vimy Ridge does more than mark the site of the great Canadian victory of the First World War. It stands as a tribute to all who served their country in battle and risked or gave their lives in that four-year struggle." so we would have to re-word anyway to reflect this wider scope. Ttiotsw 01:07, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit]  ?????war memorial

war memorial in newmarket cb????? -- —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.27.208.111 (talk • contribs) .

  • What exactly are you asking? Skeezix1000 18:23, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
    • I am assuming ( I know - never assume - Makes An Ass Out of U and Me) that the editor thought cb stood for Cambridgeshire, when in fact Newmarket is in Suffolk. Edmund Patrick ( confer work) 15:34, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images

There were too many images, and the different sizes in direct follow-up were distracting from the article. I have removed two (still 10 images! still really too many, but I didn't want to make too many people angry) and resized the others. For more explantion, please see my edit histories of the 25th February 2007. MadMaxDog 11:16, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. But, further to posts above, the selection has again started to veer towards UK/US memorials (although your removal of some of the English ones helps). I have done some further culling, to ensure that there is no more than one image per country in order to better represent a world view. In response to Ttiotsw's comments above, I have also reintroduced a Canadian image (as the sole remaining Cdn. image, of the Vimy Ridge memorial, was removed once it was found to be a copyvio), but it can always be replaced if a new, non-copyvio Vimy Ridge image is uploaded. I have also reintroduced a Russian image, to replace the images I have removed. Finally, I reduced the excessive wikilinking in the image descriptions. Skeezix1000 18:37, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The "one image per country" rule may be too constricting. For one thing, the "Soviets" were not all from one country so a nation like Estonia would be difficult to represent here. For another, a monument to women would be excluded if one was pictured from the same country. This is why I reverted that last change, but I'm open to discussion. Wilson44691 (talk) 18:22, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Good point. If you review the edit history of the article, however, you'll note that there have been issues with images. Not suprisingly (given this is the English-language Wikipedia), the "natural tendency" appears to be for the article to fill up quickly with images from English-speaking countries (mostly English, and suprisingly, Canadian), or simply several images from the same country (Germany and Russia come to mind) -- a situation which we try to avoid and is contrary to policy (at times, the globalize tag would not have been unwarranted on this article). Some articles more than others attract editors who want to give their personal photos prominence on Wikipedia -- this is one of them. On occasion, some editors have even removed "more diverse" images in order to include the latest pic they have uploaded. The only way to counter this in a fair, non-subjective fashion is to effectively limit the images to one per country.

Having said that, I agree with you that there are a few cases where a memorial is unique, and in keeping with the goal of trying to maintain and promote diversity of images, ought to be included even if it results in there being more than one from a country. The image of the women's memorial is a perfect example. In retrospect, it ought not to have been removed.

As for the Soviet images, I don't think I agree with your reasoning. The fact that the Soviet Union contained many nationalities is not reason to allow multiple Red Army images. Yet, a nation like Estonia, for example, can easily be represented -- it took me 4 minutes on the Commons to find an image of an Estonian war memorial unrelated to the exploits of the Red Army in WWII. Skeezix1000 (talk) 20:21, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

One more point, in response to your edit summary that "there is room" - sure, there is. Agreed. But the Commons is full of images of a vast range war memorials all over the world -- we can add new images and still maintain diversity. As for images being interesting - I agree with that too. Even if we try to maintain a fair representation here, we should ensure images are uploaded to Commons, so that readers can follow the link and see all the images that have been uploaded. The memorial/War memorial categories at the Commons are poorly organized at the memorial, so my next task will be to try to organize that in some coherent way that complements this article (and articles in other Wikipedia projects). Skeezix1000 (talk) 20:27, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Protesters

"Such memorials were often constructed in city centers and now they are sometimes regarded as symbols of Soviet occupation and removed, often under protest of those who remember the Stalin regime in a more positive light..."

I would replace the marked part with "the original purpose of war memorials - to honor the fallen", but that'd be just replacing one POV with another. Would someone propose a neutral description for the protesters? --Illythr 20:49, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
This should do. MadMaxDog 08:23, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] dates on British War Memorials

On many occasions the war memorials for the dead of World War One reads 1914 - 1919 instead of 1914 - 1918. I have been told the ones dated 1919 were to also recognise the dead from the expeditionary force to the new Soviet Union. Is this correct and if so was the funding for the memorial mainly from the gentry of the area ( a political statement ?) as I have also been told. presumabilly the dates are on memorials from areas that the soldiers of such a force were drawn from ? Thanks. Edmund Patrick ( confer work) 18:18, 20 October 2007 (UTC)