Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 44

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Archive 44


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Naming conventions for military units

As we've recently had some issues with how some US unit articles are named, I think it might be worthwhile to finally bite the bullet and come up with a usable naming convention for military units.

The old draft isn't particularly useful, in my opinion, as it includes a number of highly problematic rules, tries to combine a naming convention with a general style manual about referring to units in text, hasn't been seriously edited in about a year, and has been stuffed with so many extremely specific exceptions that it's basically unreadable. I would propose, instead, starting afresh with a simple guideline, of the sort that we use for battles, and working from there if additional guidance proves necessary.

Hence, some initial proposals:

  • Article titles should follow official names, where available, and most common names where no official name exists. (This could be reversed, I suppose, but then we'd need to define what "common name" means in the context of switching ordinals to numbers and that sort of minor thing.)
  • Non-English names should be adapted by translating common words (such as type or size designations) and transliterating any others.
    Example: "22nd SS Volunteer Cavalry Division Maria Theresia".
  • If disambiguation is necessary, it should be given in parentheses after the unit name.
    Example: "6th Airborne Division (United Kingdom)". This obviously doesn't apply to usage within article text, where a more natural form (e.g. "British 6th Airborne Division") could be adopted; the intent here is to make it clearer that the parenthetical is a disambiguation term, rather than part of the name (as opposed to units where the country is part of the actual name).

There are probably a variety of special cases where an exception to these principles would make sense; but, quite honestly, I don't see the point in trying to write every one of these into the guideline. A translation/usage guide for specific countries might be useful, but could probably be done on the basis of the relevant task forces; it would be more of a how-to than a formal guideline, in any case.

Thoughts? Kirill Lokshin 03:08, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Definitely an improvement. I think you're right that specific exceptions are probably best handled as they come up, rather than trying to write a guideline that enumerates all of them. Carom 15:41, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Please. Anything that gets rid of the plethora of annoying and inaccurate "British"es on units... Shimgray | talk | 19:41, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Common names must be respected. But perhaps we should wait for the outcome of the debate that is taking place in Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (names and titles) and User talk:John Kenney/Naming conventions (names and titles) where there is a debate about whether a pages should remain in the style of Henry IV of England or be renamed to Henry IV (England). Many of the advantages and disadvantages that are coming up in that debate map onto this debate.
One immediate problem I can think of is that having the country in the name eg British 10th Division is once one knows what the rule is it is easy to find the page without needing to check every link to see if it is the name of the unit or a disambiguation page. Further usually in a battle article one would write "British 4th Division" the first time it is mentioned so that the reader can clearly see which 4th division is being referred to. As it is the first mention of the unit it would usually be the one which carries the link. It could be written "The British 4th Division (British)...", but it is easier to write "The British 4th Division ..." particularly if one is retrofitting links into an article written by someone else. After the first mention of the division one would of course just write 4th Division unless there was more than one 4th division in the article but that does not effect link/page names. what happens if I am writing an article to a division for which there is no link. Do I put a red link to 99 Division or 99 Division (Country) If the former then someone else may create an article about another country's Division in which case this article now links to the wrong page. But if I put it in as 99 Division (Country) and 99 Division never becomes a disambiguation page my article link will remain red unless someone who reads the article knows that 99 Division is about "Country 99th Division" and fixes the link.
There is also the point that searches to find all of a specific unit type for a country have been written for example: I would like to know what articles have been written for the U.S Armies, If some of them are under the name First Army (U.S.) because there is also an article on the First Army (British), but the U.S. "Fifth Army" is under Fifth Army how can I easily search by title to see which American Army articles exist and which do not? Because the Fifth Army article might be an article on some other country's fifth army, without checking the text I can not tell.
The article List of German divisions in WWII#Infantry Series Divisions lists all of what it says it lists. Maintain this list would be a nightmare if the names in the list were not unique in the first place. Take for example 8th Infantry Division, because in the article it is already in as German 8th Infantry Division with links already set up for German 8th Light Infantry Division, German 8th Jäger Division (which are also names for the same division) I can see at a glance if anyone has written an article on it. This is not something I can easily check if the default name is 8th Division without a country name. Now with the lower numbers it is obvious that there will be several countries with such division but what about the 60th Infantry Division? I want to add a factoid to the to the German article, because in the list it is already blue. But whoops it is an article on a French division! So although I want to do work on the German division first of all I have to move the French page to 60th Infantry Division (French). Then create a disambiguation page to 60th Infantry Division, and add the 60th Infantry Division (French) my new page 60th Infantry Division (German). Now go through all the pages with links 60th Infantry Division including the list List of German divisions in WWII#Infantry Series Divisions altering the links to point to the correct page. Now finally I can add my information to the new 60th Infantry Division (German). Do we really need the extra hassle when by putting into a guideline that the pages should be named CountryXYZ 60th Infantry Division we can avoid it? --Philip Baird Shearer 20:19, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, some good points, but not necessarily major problems, in my opinion:
Redirects are, of course, a good thing, and something that can be done regardless. Thus, British 6th Infantry Division could be a redirect to 6th Infantry Division (United Kingdom), and editors could link to either form within article text quite easily.
As far as redlinks are concerned, I'm unconvinced that this is an issue. Unlike the situation a year ago, we have seen an increase in article count by an order of magnitude. In the long term, it will become increasingly difficult to find units for which articles do not exist; I think we should consider the question of "permanent" names for articles, rather than focusing on the developmental stage where the necessary disambiguation page hasn't been created yet.
More generally, I think the main point of these guidelines should be making things correct for the reader, rather than necessarily making it faster for editors to find certain articles. Quite honestly, how much does the list of US armies fluctuate? If we put the correct links in place once, how often will editors need to go back and change them? Military units are not exactly an arbitrarily large set.
The main point, though, is that the "CountryXYZ 60th Infantry Division" form is drawing (quite legitimate) criticism—often from members of these units!—to the effect that the term isn't actually the correct name. (And this gets even uglier when the official unit names themselves include the country name, especially in a non-standard place—e.g. "3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment".) We have a general principle, followed for political groups, countries, companies, etc., that the group's self-identified name is given preference; I see no reason why we cannot do the same here. Kirill Lokshin 20:54, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I think you summed it up pretty nicely, Kirill. While I think it is nice to be able to achieve ease of use for both regular editors and readers, I think that, when it comes down to it, we should strive to present the information most correctly, rather than in the way that requires the minimum amount of work.
Also, if we wait for the outcome of the discussion over at names and titles, we could be waiting a very long time, as that particular discussion doesn't seem likely to result in any kind of consensus. I think we should agree on a new guideline for this project, bite the bullet, and make the necessary changes. As Kirill points out, there is a finitely large set of data to be brough "in line" (so to speak), and it will only have to be done once. Carom 21:05, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

As I see it there is no problem with names like "3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment" it can reside at that name and a redirect can take care of "U.S. 3rd Infantry Regiment" rather than the other way round. But even names like the 3rd Regiment of Foot causes problems because they are also commonly known as The Buffs which redirects to The Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment) that contains a super set of the information in the 3rd Regiment of Foot article. So if they are to be under their formal name (and not common name) which formal name should be used? What happens when regiments combine, does one put the regiment under the original name or the new combined name? So in the case of British regiments what does "Article titles should follow official names, where available" mean? Further what happens if the common name was only adopted after a century or so (eg Scots Greys), which name should be used in that case?

Numbered units like "3rd Infantry Regiment", are a problem, but not unique names like the Coldstream Guards or "3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment") Take the example of "Anti-Aircraft division" See British Divisions in World War II#Anti-Aircraft and List of German divisions in WWII#Anti-Aircraft divisions. Unless such numbered units as Anti-Aircraft division are created with a page name that includes country it is just asking for the mess I described above. The trouble is that unless one knows a lot about a lot of countries military units over a long period of time, these types of problems are always going to crop up unless disambiguation is built into the names from the start. Whether that is Country 99 unit or 99 unit (Country), it does not really matter. But creating numbered units (eg divisions) without incorporating the state name in the page name, even if disambiguation is not immidiatly necessary is going to cause unnecessary work and lead to articles linking to the wrong article. BTW I an using the term country here loosely here because of course the "British" armed forces owe their allegiance to Betty not their paymasters. --Philip Baird Shearer 22:38, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, whenever I've worked with British regiments and their many and multifarious names, I've gone with (in rough order):
a) the title it is currently existing under, if it still has an independent existence
b) the title it is most famously known by (for the Scots Greys)
c) if all else fails, the title they existed under for the longest time
C is the one I usually end up going with for the long parade of short-lived cavalry regiments, which I did a swathe of a while back. But whatever you choose, it's redirect paradise. Things like the 3rd Foot are a bad example to use, by the way - most of the old infantry regiments are sloppily organised, with no real standard on whether different names constitute different periods and should be handled differently, and are likely to be chopped around a lot at some point in the future.
I concur that pre-emptive disambiguation in the titles is a good idea, I just would really really really prefer that we use Nth Unit (Nation) rather than National Nth Unit. Shimgray | talk | 22:49, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
The other possibility is to use whatever the final title was; that tends to make sense in the context of a narrative (i.e. presenting the history of a unit, including its previous identities).
As far as pre-emptive disambiguation goes, I have no problems with instituting it, but, as Shimgray said, the Unit (Country) form would seem to be much better, both because it makes it clear that the country name is there only as a disambiguator, and because using noun-form country names is often very useful (e.g. when dealing with "Chinese" units). Would there be a practical issue with standardizing on "[official/common name] (country name if not obvious from the first part)" as a naming convention? Kirill Lokshin 22:57, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I think it's perfect, other than the expected arguments that will arise over whether it's better to use the unit's common name vs. its official name. Can we just use the official name every time and redirect from the common? Otherwise I fear the argument(s) that started this mess will continue, just on different grounds. --ScreaminEagle 13:16, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Hmm. I would tend to give preference to the official name (which is generally the same thing as the common name [after allowing for changes in word order] anyways) when one exists, but I'm not sure that a categorical rule would be the best idea, as there are probably exceptions where a unit is overwhelmingly known by some name other than its official one. (Not that any come to mind at the moment, incidentally; does anyone have a good example, or am I worried over nothing here?) Kirill Lokshin 13:29, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I can't think of any particularly compelling examples at the moment, although I agree that we should probably leave the door open for any that do crop up. We might standardize as "[last official name] (country name)" - this will at least give us a point to start from. Carom 14:01, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Some additional thoughts:

  • The proposed guideline must acknowledge the Wikipedia:Naming conventions policy, that says in a nut shell "Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." However the "with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity" gives lots of wriggle room for a guideline.
  • Although for a state like the United States, there is no ambiguity in the Country field. This is unusual, for many states in Europe and Asia because they have had many regimes or names through the centuries, so although a regiment may have a long history, that history may span several states. For example how many constitutions have the French had since Napoleon (which one!) was on the throne? There were Prussian regiments around before and after Germany became a state. So what do we use for country? What set me thinking was the reference to the 6th Infantry Division (United Kingdom) because to me that should be 6th Infantry Division (British) because it is the British Army not the United Kingdom's Army and it is the Royal Navy not the United Kingdom's Navy in which ships are HMS not UKS (not shure what happens with ships like HMS Orion of the Royal Swedish Navy and Royal Navy, though I suspect that the waders have it all worked out already with their frequent use of parentheses in names). If the name of army units is to go in parentheses after the unit instead of before as most of them are now, it opens up a whole new vista of possibilities, should it be 6th Infantry Division (German) 6th Infantry Division (French) -- which is what it usually is if the name goes before the unit --, or 6th Infantry Division (Germany), 6th Infantry Division (France) or 6th Infantry Division (DEU), 6th Infantry Division (FRA) (see ISO country code)? --Philip Baird Shearer 21:37, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
If we're using (U.S.) after American units, we certainly can't then use (German) and (French)--it would have to be (Germany) and (France). Also, not everyone is familiar with the ISO country codes and while some are easy to pick out (FRA), others might not be so obvious to the average reader. I would think using the name of the country itself would be best (a simplified version of the country's full name if it's more widely accepted), and in cases where units were associated with different countries througout its history, use the latest country it was identified with, much like we're using the latest name of the unit it was identified with--the written history of the unit would sufficiently describe the earlier countries it was with. --ScreaminEagle 21:46, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

The country designation also becomes interesting in cases like Republic of China (Taiwan) and as that page puts it "Not to be confused with the People's Republic of China (PRC)". About "If we're using (U.S.) after American units", it cuts both ways, if we're going to use (British) after UK units we could use (German) and (French) etc as well. Possibly even (American)? BTW why the abreviation U.S. why not (United States)? Philip Baird Shearer 23:22, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, (U.S.) was just an example--it could be (United States); it doesn't matter, but I think most would agree that would be more appropriate than using (American), because it's not the American Armed Forces, it's the United States Armed Forces. I'm also unclear as to why we're using (British) instead of (U.K.), or in instances where we're separating it out, using (England), (Scotland), (Wales), etc., especially where English units fought against former Scottish units and the like. Using British for both would defeat the purpose, wouldn't it? --ScreaminEagle 16:01, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
For the same reason it is the United States Armed Forces it is the British Armed Forces not the "United Kingdom Armed Forces". It is also "Her Majesty's Armed Forces" but there are other queens around so (Her Majesty) would not work for disambiguation ;-o --Philip Baird Shearer 00:57, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, China is a problem with using adjectives; "5th Division (Chinese)" could be any number of things. Using the normal (article) name of the country would probably work in most cases (e.g. "5th Division (Republic of China)" versus "5th Division (Peoples' Republic of China"). Using the service name, though, would probably lead to problems in the cases of services that were already disambiguated; we'd see things like "X (Royal Navy)" and "X (Royal Navy (Sweden))". Kirill Lokshin 13:56, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
Not really because ships have their own designations USS, HMS etc. Also in the particluar case you have given it would be "X (Royal Navy)" and "X (Royal Swedish Navy)" - under common usage. At the moment the RAF has that designation in most of its units, for example see List of Royal Air Force aircraft squadrons, I do not think that "UK" or "British" should be used for disambiguation of RAF units --Philip Baird Shearer 00:57, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, we needn't disambiguate at all if the name is already guaranteed to be unique, so an article like "HMS X" or "RAF Squadron Y" wouldn't need a parenthetical. The real question is how to deal with things that are going to be pretty much purely numerical; do we want "2nd Division (Soviet Union)" or "2nd Division (Red Army)"?
We may actually be forced to use service names: there's going to be a numbeing overlap between US Army and USMC units otherwise. Kirill Lokshin 02:25, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
That's a good point, although I think we should avoid using service names to dismabig unless it's the only way to do so. We could default to [unit name] (United States), and then, if necessary, add a service disambig in the parentheses - such as [unit name} (United States army). Just a thought. Carom 02:34, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

We should probably use the most precise name for the country (as Kirill points out above with regard to China and Taiwan). Another issue of precision: If the unit only existed in an independent Scotland (for example), it should probably be listed as [unit name](Scotland), provided there is need for disambiguation. If, however, the unit continues to exist today, it should probably be [unit name](United Kingdom), and the text should explain the history of the unit (Scotland is probably a bad example - this might be more useful when it comes to the former Soviet Union, etc.). Carom 17:38, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Scotland is a good example for the use of the most precise name. For example: Independent Ireland 1916/Easter Uprising units in contrast to units formed of Irish serving the Empire. Wandalstouring 20:29, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
Good point - I hadn't been thinking of Ireland. Carom 22:57, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure it is an issue in IONA (to be PC), as Civil War regiments were known by their [colonel]]s name and there was only one New Model Army, and the other armies are always identified by unique names. (not sure what the official postion was between the English Restoration in 1660 and Acts of Union 1707) but since the Civil War has there ever been any other government funded army within England Scotland and Ireland (before 1921) apart from the British Army? After the Anglo Irish War did any unit in the Irish Army claim any affiliation with former British Army Units. I would be suprised if it were so.

It is an issue for countries like the former Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia, Czech<o>Slovakia, and probably many more --Philip Baird Shearer 00:57, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I can think of many examples of where country names might need disambiguated, but can't think of any service names that would. Surely that in itself is worth something. Civil wars would be a good example, 1 country, 2 forces. Emoscopes Talk 03:04, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Version 2

Okay, based on the long discussion above, I think this may be a bit closer to what people are looking for:

  1. Article titles for military units should generally follow the form "Official name of unit (Disambiguation)". If the name of the unit is not originally in English, it should be adapted by translating common terms (such as type designations) and transliterating everything else; editors should generally follow the usage in reputable historical works when deciding which components of the name should be translated.
  2. The "(Disambiguation)" part of the title should be the name of the country whose armed forces the unit belongs to (e.g. "(Soviet Union)"), or, if needed, the name of the military service to which the unit belongs (e.g. "(United States Marine Corps)"). In general, unit names that can reasonably be expected to appear in multiple countries' armed forces—in particular, numbered units—should be disambiguated immediately, regardless of whether any other articles by that title exist at the time.
  3. When a unit has had multiple names over its lifetime, the article may use either the name under which the unit is best known (if any), or the final name of the unit.

Comments? Are these principles generally acceptable, or do people see problems with them? Are there major issues remaining here that we haven't touched on? Kirill Lokshin 18:11, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Anyone? ;-) Kirill Lokshin 02:18, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
This question is buried pretty deeply in the middle of the page, so easy to overlook. If I'm not mistaken I believe this version covers all the issues raised in discussion above. BusterD 02:38, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, hopefully people will notice it; if not, we can always move the section down to the bottom. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 02:45, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Looks good to me - although I would argue that it might be best to default to them most recent name of a unit, as "best known" might be a little too subjective (I don't think it's really a big deal, though, so feel free to implement the guideline as is). Carom 15:14, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Prior to World War One, the naming convention for American units was fairly simple: One system for the Army, one system for the navy, and one system each for the various National Guard forces. With the arrival of World War One, the naming convention went to hell in a hand basket as hundreds of new units had to be created from whole cloth, and others had to be converted from pure State Militia units to National Guard units. For example, the 15th New York Infantry Regiment became the 369th United States Infantry Regiment, New York National Guard. Likewise, the 69th New York Infantry Regiment became the 69th United States Infantry Regiment, New York National Guard. Previously, the term "United States" as part of a unit nomenclature was used only by Federal units to separate them from Militia units. During World War One, American units that participated directly in the war maintained the use of the US designation to separate them from their French, Belgian, British and Italian allies, and this convention stuck. With the end of the war, and the passing of the National Defense Act of 1920, the use of US in a unit designation became moot, and was deleted for the duration of the peace period. With the arrival of World Wat Two, the use of "US" was restored when it became apparent that units of various forces would be mixed in common campaigns, especially when more than one force had units with the same numerical designation. After World War Two, with the rise of the Cold War, this designation system was continued, and is still used when units of different forces have common numerical designations. - SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) 19:30, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Categorizing military people

Since the military unit categorization cleanup seems to be proceeding nicely (with a few issues still to be worked out, of course, but that's to be expected), I think we may be able to turn our attention back to the never-settled question of how military and war-related people should be categorized. The last major discussion on this topic was back in May and June, although we've touched on it at various points since then.

Generally speaking, I think that we should be able to adopt the general principles used in categorizing units to people fairly cleanly. Thus, we would have a couple of obvious ways of categorizing them:

  • By country (and by branch, if needed)
  • By era (and by war, if needed)

Beyond that, there are a couple of other factors that could be used for categorization, but I'm not entirely sure of how they could be structured:

  • By type (e.g. engineers, nurses, pilots)
  • By rank (e.g. admirals, generals)
  • By decoration won
  • By position (e.g. Chiefs of the General Staff)
  • Miscellaneous things (e.g. POWs, "military leaders", mercenaries, etc.)

Aside from the structure, there's a major issue to be discussed as far as the naming of the by-country categories is concerned. The standard for other military categorization ("... of Foo") wasn't particularly well-received in the past for this tree, as most biographical categories seem to use the adjective form ("Fooish ...") instead. There's probably a certain subtlety to be considered here as far as whether these categories indicate the country of origin or the country of service; some categories for government leaders, for example, use the "... of Foo" formulation based on similar reasoning.

This is all rather vague at this point, obviously; any comments, ideas, and suggestions would be extremely welcome! Kirill Lokshin 00:01, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I doubt by country is a good idea, some mercenary turncoat armies will spill it. by era sounds Ok at first, but we have to mention the sides, origin, organizational form or cause (whatever distinguishes them). Wandalstouring 01:52, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't see anything particularly problematic with categorizing mercenaries under multiple countries; it's an extremely obvious form of categorization, though, so getting rid of it doesn't seem like a very viable option. Kirill Lokshin 01:56, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
I think country and era would be the most useful. Position might be useful for particularly notable positions, but I think type and rank will be of relatively little use. Although, on second thought, by era, country and type might be interesting - for example Category:British fighter pilots of World War II. Carom 00:05, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes. The US cat has 3 parents: "Members of the United States armed forces", "Women in war" and "History of women in the United States". That breadth looks OK to me; but most countries haven't (yet) got the third of these, so I'd use the next level up, like Category:Social history of the United Kingdom. I'm happy to start doing this - or do you see any problems? Mereda 14:22, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
No problems in principle, but the final names of alll these categories are still up in the air (obviously), so the new ones will probably wind up needing renaming once we come up with a usable naming convention. Kirill Lokshin 14:28, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
OK. I've now started off a new Category:Women in the British military. although I think renaming consistently to "armed forces" would make sense. There's a marginal issue about whether and when some auxiliary organisations became "military" or "forces", but I think we can leave that for later! --Mereda 16:39, 14 November 2006 (UTC) I've also pulled together the first entries for Category:Women in the Russian and Soviet military. Mereda 17:39, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Ah, next problem. Another editor has promptly added some articles about all-female organisations (like Women's Battalion) to the new personnel cats I started yesterday. Is there any consensus about having gender-based cats for organisations/units?? Or is that a stupid question? :) --Mereda 19:26, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I can't see any reason why we couldn't create a new category as Category:Military units and formations by type → Category:All-female units and formations; we certainly have all sorts of other "types" of units in there. Kirill Lokshin 19:29, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
That's a neat answer. And if you could try to add a sentence to the "by type" guidelines then that would be complete. --Mereda 20:55, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I've added a note there that the "type" designation also applies to unit structure, and listed some examples; hopefully the wording won't be too confusing. Kirill Lokshin 21:17, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I've started the new cat & dropped a note to User:Asarelah as well. --Mereda 21:20, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I like your new guideline wording! I'm assuming that the words on structure also cover the case of "auxiliary" formations for women (see WASP which I've included). --Mereda 08:48, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Yep, I don't think there's any difference for how that category would apply to auxiliary formations. Kirill Lokshin 13:22, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Moving on now to a different aspect of gender, I see there's inconsistency in the categories for "resistance members" and "wartime spies". While there's already Category:Female wartime spies there's not the equivalent Category:Female World War II Resistance members Category:Female resistance members of World War II, so I'm thinking of creating that under "World War II Resistance members" and "Women in war". What do others think? (I think it needs naming "female" for consistency and because it includes young girls like Zinaida Portnova.) Separately, is it just an accident that all the Russians are missing from Category:World War II Resistance members?? --Mereda 14:20, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
I don't see any reason not to - I think that, when you want to create a new category, the question to ask yourself is: How likely is it that a reader will want to navigate along this axis? That is, do you think it likely that readers who have read the Portnova article will want to read articles on other female resistance fighters of WWII?
We should probably maintain consistency in naming gender-related categories: if some article are going to require the more generic "female," we should probably use "female" for all the categories (unless doind so would result in an unnecessarily awkward name).
As far as the other question, categorization is somewhat haphazard. Rarely will an editor make an exhaustive attempt to track down all potential members of a category and add them, so they tend to be added a few at a time by someone who is interested in a particular subset of that group - in this case, it would appear that no previous editor has been interested in Soviet resistance fighters, and so they haven't been added to the category. Carom 14:31, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Yep, this seems fine to me. The question of naming is something that we'll wind up fixing across the category tree anyways, so if some categories don't have the best names right now, that's not really a problem. (Here, for example, I'm guessing we'll eventually wind up with something closer to "Female resistance members of World War II"; but that's not something to agonize over at the moment.) Kirill Lokshin 16:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I've taken your wording for that new cat and started off. But I also changed my mind so the levels are - Women in war| Women in World War II| Female resistance members of World War II, while the female wartime spies are currently undifferentiated by war. --Mereda 17:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
I imagine that we're probably looking at something like this (using the UK and WWII as an example): Category:Military personnel of the United Kingdom in World War II which would (theoretically) be a child of both Category:Military personnel of the United Kingdom and Category:Military personnel of World War II. If we added type, we would also have Category:Air force personnel of the United Kingdom in World War II which would (theoretically) be a child of: Category:Air force personnel of the United Kingdom and Category:Military personnel of the United Kingdom in World War II. We might even get more specific with Category:Fighter pilots of the United Kingdom in World War II, although I don't know off the top of my head how useful that category might be.
Just a note: I don't remember how the personnel/people debate sorted itself out - feel free to substitute people for personnel in my example if that's what you prefer.
(and apologies if all the redlinks make it hard to read - just thinking out loud, as it were)Carom 19:26, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Yep, that's pretty much the sort of thing I had in mind.
(But if we need to use adjective forms for the countries, we'd wind up with something like Category:British military personnel of World War II instead.) Kirill Lokshin 19:35, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Both "Fooish" and "of Foo" seem to have their problems, and I'm not entirely sure which one will be the most satisfactory, although I tend to lean towards "of Foo," because I think (in this context) country of service is slightly more important than country of origin. Carom 20:22, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

New draft

Based on the comments so far, a somewhat more coherent idea: a four-part categorization:

  • By country [of service] (and branch)
  • By era (and war)
  • By rank or title (could be merged into "type", I suppose)
  • By type (a catch-all for everything else)

We could then try to extend the existing naming convention across this tree:

  • By country/branch: "Military personnel of Foo" (e.g. "Military personnel of France")
  • By era: "Fooish military personnel" (e.g. "Medieval military personnel")
  • By war: "Military personnel of the Foo War" (e.g. "Military personnel of World War II")
  • By rank or title: "Foos" (e.g. "Generals" or "Chiefs of the General Staff")
  • By type: "Foos" or "Fooish personnel" (e.g. "Pilots" or "Naval personnel")

These combine using the normal conventions to produce things like "Generals of France in World War I" and "Medieval military leaders of England".

Thoughts? Is this somewhat workable? Kirill Lokshin 23:06, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Works for me. Carom 15:06, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Works out well, although I dont see much difference with our prior Categorisation ideas, save some added explainative.--Dryzen 18:58, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Also bear in mind the pre-existing soldiers/enlisted personnel cats: do you want to keep those, merge them, further refine them by rank, and if kept with that structure, under what title? Alai 18:04, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. We should be able to put an officer/enlisted branching under the rank/title categories, I think; there will probably need to be some renamings to meet the overall naming convention, but I think the structure should carry over more-or-less intact. Kirill Lokshin 18:52, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Beautiful. I apologize for somehow not noticing this discussion earlier, and thus not contributing to it. But the results look wonderful. LordAmeth 15:53, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
KL: Wouldn't that be the other way around? i.e., a "Lt. Colonels" category under an "officers" cat? Or do you mean, omitting the latter, as implied by the former? Or am I misunderstanding completely? Alai 19:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, based on previous discussions and a series of recent deletions (on CFD), it would be omitting the former. In other words, the categories would be split into "officers" and "enlisted", and "generals" would be nested under "officers"; but sub-general ranks (e.g. Lt. Cols. and so forth) wouldn't get categories of their own, but would all be directly under "officers". Kirill Lokshin 19:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
OK, sounds fine to me: I was confused by the "By rank or title" bit. Probably better as while it's generally possible to identify enlisted personnel and company/field/general officers (with some variations) exact rank equivalences would get very fine-grained, very fuzzy, or both. Alai 21:19, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

New element for external links to images

I would like to create a templatebox for external links to images that can be placed in articles in case images are currently only available from external sources. We are not capable of serving most image requests with our database at wikicommons and we lack the interested manpower for a sufficiently fast expansion compared to the requests from new articles. Providing links to external images has been done from time to time, but the reliability of this solution is questionable. As soon as the link changes the information is lost. The only way to realize a more fail-proof access to external sources is a redundant system with more than one external link for the same subject, what with the usual external link integration would look even more ugly than the current versions. Of course this solution is unlikely to help FA promotion and is to be substituted as soon as there is a suitable image on wikicommons. For the meantime I would advocate it as a suitable solution to fill the gap and improve our ability to provide information. Wandalstouring 04:47, 28 November 2006 (UTC) You can position it left right or in the center with the text running around it. I experimented some time till I was halfway satisfied with the solution. I support the text in italics. Any suggestions, outcries or else before I start solving the big pile of image requests? Wandalstouring 03:24, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

External images
Foo
description with link to image 1
description with link to image 2
Hmm, if we're going to do that, why not make it a template? Here's a first attempt; I've tried to make the format a bit less jarring. Kirill Lokshin 03:44, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, will try this version. Wandalstouring 04:26, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Looks like an excellent idea. While en.wiki is more safeguarded thanks to the allowing of fair use images, recent trends on commons has been to interpret copyrighting more strictly (especially in regards to this EU-idiocy [own emphasis]), anonymous works etc. Perhaps the date when the link was visited could be included (but commented out)? Another suggestion, perhaps the template could be included in articles a bit like {{meta}} and {{commons}}, a way down in the article (as in Tank). Scoo 08:20, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I like it. DurovaCharge! 14:46, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
The template finished and implemented in a Helm article would in effect be links to Helm images fround on the internet correct? Would this apear as a link, such as here, or an image projected from the hyperlinked website? Should hte first statement be indeed true, then this is a cunning way around waiting for Commons images to get by Copyright politics. Intellegent indeed, ;o) --Dryzen 16:37, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
That was the trick to get around our problem with too slow buildup of Commons (most likely Commons will never be able to have enough material), no it does not show a small preview of the image. I thought about the possibility, but I'm not sure whether this would be safe legally. Basically it is only a filler for images from commons to replace it, so it can be positioned anywhere in an article. Wandalstouring 18:08, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
A tiny image icon of a copyrighted image would be fair use—technically legal, but not up to Wikipedia standards, where fair use is interpreted quite strictly and only to be used in an article specifically about the subject of the image. —Michael Z. 2006-12-07 20:41 Z
It won't be technically possible to display an external image, regardless - this is disabled in MediaWiki to avoid the (large) potential for abuse. Shimgray | talk | 12:03, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. Bukvoed 09:19, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I see that the template has the same width as the weapon infobox. Good idea too, but adjustable width (with default value) would be even better. Bukvoed 11:45, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Easy enough. I've added a "width" parameter that can be overrriden if needed. Kirill Lokshin 17:10, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Uhm... I tried to override the default, but it had a rather unexpected effect: whatever the value, the box simply "shrinks" to fit the width of text (see the example above). Am I doing something wrong ? Bukvoed 11:17, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
You have to specify the width in pixels, not just as a raw number. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 17:30, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Bukvoed 18:42, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Some changes to the template:
External images
Foo
description with link to image 1[1]
description with link to image 2[2]
External images
Foo
description with link to image 1[1]
description with link to image 2[2]

In all cases I encountered during image release negotiations the hosts of webpages were keen on having a link to their website if you used its content. We are not legally bound to do so if we link to an image in the internet, but to avoid bad blood and as a sign of fairness I suggest to do it. See these images as quotations from websites, even if you only have them as external links. It also simplifies things for the user to check the website this image is from (political extremists, propaganda, etc.). Wandalstouring 06:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

It would be nice to have some sort of image icon, to make it evident at a glance that these are links to images, and not pages. A small icon in front of every link would look right, but might be problematic: readers would click on the icon and get confused when they arrived at the icon's image page. However, there may be some options:

  • The icon could be placed as a list bullet, the way lists use blue squares for bullets, and interlanguage links to FAs now have stars. This could be implemented in the common.css style sheet. These should be very small, as they would be list bullets, and not mouse-click targets.
  • Replacing the external link box-arrow with something that visually says "picture" would be nice, and probably doable in common.css. The advantage would be that the icon would also be a click target.
  • Perhaps just an image icon in the box header or background would get the point across.

Can the identity of image links and in-context page links be more self-evident? Perhaps instead of a numbered citation reference, it would be better if the links read "[page]" or "[image in context]", or something. This would also make the ext-image box more standardized and self-contained, so editors wouldn't have to worry about which citation format is used in the article. —Michael Z. 2006-12-07 20:49 Z

I revised the template, naturally you can use both reference styles like for any other material. bulleted lists aren't possible. Wandalstouring 21:12, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
You can get a bulleted list by using the raw HTML formatting (e.g. <ul><li>First item</li><li>Second item</li></ul>) in the image parameter. Kirill Lokshin 21:19, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Bulleted solution: (in discussion)

External images
Foo
External images
Foo

I don't see any real advantage of a bullted list. Other lists in our infoboxes work without them and the use of flags for example is strongly discouraged. So without bulleted lists we are more in tune with the current style for templates. Wandalstouring 21:46, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

With icons: (a possible solution, but no must)

External images
Foo
description with link to image 1[5]
description with link to image 2[6]
External images
Foo
description with link to image 1[5]
description with link to image 2[6]











stay out of other comments. Wandalstouring 09:54, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

The blue icon looks very nice. It would probably be a pain to insert by hand, though, so I'm wondering if there's some cleaner way to pass in the image parameters that would put it in automatically. It would be fairly trivial if we could limit the number of images (e.g. to a maximum of, say, 20); is that something we're likely to get away with? Kirill Lokshin 13:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, more than twenty would be unlikely and if this is the case you can open just a second template. Wandalstouring 18:17, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I've tried adding twenty named image parameters (image1, image2, etc), together with source parameters (source1, source2, etc.) that should just be passed a single link; does that seem to work? Or is that too complex? Kirill Lokshin 18:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
External images
Foo
description with link to image 1
description with link to image 2
I think it is too complex to read. The difference between image and source isn't that strikingly evident. Furthermore there are some rules on the use of websites as sources (you are required to give also the date. So I'm really in doubt whether it is possible to integrate that into a simple to create and read structure. Does it work after all? I took a short look at the code, but how do you specify the double input of image and source? Can you give a working example? Wandalstouring 18:59, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
External images
Foo
description with link to image 1
description with link to image 2
It would be something like this. Kirill Lokshin 19:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

This doesn't work and is likely to confuse. Take for example:

External images
the Siege of Leningrad
Russian map of the operations around Leningrad in 1943 Blue are the German and allied Finnish troops. The Soviets are red.[7]
map of the advance on Leningrad and relief Blue are the German and allied Finnish troops. The Soviets are red.[8]





  • I tend to stick with the idea that we use the current guidelines for website references also in this case. Principally the title of the image and the subject we think it represents is an interpretation based on this website. It could be wrong. This makes it also possible to write more explanations to the links (like a legend for maps).
  • Furthermore what changed that there is now this spacing below the top image? In my opinion this looks ugly.
  • In case of the siege of Leningrad template if the text is longer than 2 lines it gets aligned further right than the previous 2 lines. this doesn't look good. can you change it? Perhaps we should introduce columns. Wandalstouring 05:28, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
External images
Russian map of the operations around Leningrad in 1943 Blue are the German and allied Finnish troops. The Soviets are red.[9]
map of the advance on Leningrad and relief Blue are the German and allied Finnish troops. The Soviets are red.[10]
Okay, made some changes to the spacing and removed the separate "source" parameters in favor of just using the "imageX" ones for everything. I'm not quite sure what your third point refers to, though. Kirill Lokshin 09:58, 9 December 2006 (UTC)


The third point appeared during a preview with the old version (from source). It doesn't seem to be the case now. Whatever was the cause. Wandalstouring 15:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Draft unit naming convention

Okay, since the previous discussion seems to have more-or-less wrapped up, I've tried my hand at putting together a draft naming convention for military units and formations on the project page. Is the proposed convention broadly acceptable? Are there any significant points that have been missed, or problems with what's being recommended? Any comments would be very appreciated! Kirill Lokshin 03:03, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Still looks good to me. Carom 14:50, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Ditto. --ScreaminEagle 22:10, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Anybody else? Kirill Lokshin 00:33, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Are there any outstanding objections? Or should we adopt the proposed convention, then? Kirill Lokshin 17:47, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Idea for next task force

How about a 'Military bases and installations' task force? There is a lot of this material out there which needs considerable attention.--James Bond 23:04, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Is there a significant number of editors that work on military bases as a specific area of interest? I would have thought that this would be better handled by the applicable task forces of each country/region. Kirill Lokshin 23:49, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I see bases and installations as being in Technology task force. BusterD 02:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Some of them are (e.g. research facilities, etc.); others probably don't fit in there too well, as there's nothing particularly technology-related about them. Kirill Lokshin 02:07, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I'll have to second Kirill on this one and say that bases and installations are best dealt with by the applicable task forces of each country/region. Might make a good sub-section under each task force to highlight that these need lots of work and encourage members to do so.--Looper5920 02:37, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
If we see it with less recentitis: old Celtic and Roman forts, castles etc. would belong into such a group. Concerning bases and installations there are some differences in planning. An ancient example would be the Greeks optimizing the use of natural defences, but having a chaos within, while the Romans had their quadratic standard and everybody knew where he belonged. In modern times US bases are usually optimized for reducing waylength in between facilities, contrary Dutch bases often use a checkerboard system and original German bases (in Germany) ensure training for labyrinth warfare. Perhaps a non national approach would be a good idea to shed light on some differences.
Yes, we could somehow create a taskforce for this topic. Most likely the people in this group should have some tendency to planning, architecture and construction. Well, fetch them and you can start. Wandalstouring 02:38, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Interesting. If we're going to take that approach, maybe we should just create a military architecture task force? Kirill Lokshin 02:44, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't want to sound stubborn or contrary, but in my opinion both basing and fortification are similar developments of military technology just like weaponry and martial arts. Of course I do agree that regional groups will deal with content area-specific items, but IMHO armories, barracks, and forts also deserve some meta-grouping. Designating these pages merely to regional groups misses the evolution of military science/technology aspects of those articles. Military architecture is one aspect of Military technology. BusterD 03:01, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Architecture isn't limited to merely a sub-area of technology, in my opinion; I think it would be more correct to say that it's an aspect of military science that intersects heavily with technology.
(But, on a more practical point: would a military architecture task force work, in this context? Or are you asking specifically for one that covers all military "installations", even those that are just an unused plot of land somewhere?) Kirill Lokshin 03:17, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
It also heavily intersects with organization, even more so in modern times. Some military planners negelected this aspect. For example it was not common in Medieval castles to guard the toilets. But the latrines of Château-Gaillard could be entered by a team of enemy soldiers crawling through the waste pipe. This way the French were able to enter the Norman fortress through the toilets and afterwards through the front gate. Wandalstouring 03:35, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Gives a whole new meaning to Gardez L'eau doesn't it;)--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 03:40, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I was under the impression that Architecture was taken under the Military technology and engineering task force perview. Of course fortification/base placement does fall under the Military science task force. There's probobly more than enough material for a Military Architecture Task Force, which would have some overlap with Technology, Science and National Task forces; Murder holes, Maginot Line, US Bases exemples of architecture worthy article falling in one or more other TFs. P.S. The Krak des Chevaliers had a latrine tower in which the pits doubled as Machicolation.--Dryzen 16:28, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Military of... Cornwall?!

I just stumbled on Category:Military of Cornwall today. As far as I can tell, Cornwall has never had a distinct military identity. Is it really a good idea to categorize militaries by what's essentially a coincidence of geography? Comments would be very welcome! Kirill Lokshin 04:57, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

No, this is not a good idea. If Cornwall, why not every other county in the UK? Raymond Palmer 12:34, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Pretty much a bad idea, if you ask me (which you did, indirectly). There might be some cases where a military-related region category like this might be useful (although I can't think of any off the top of my head). At any rate, this one should probably be deleted. Carom 17:21, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Bad, bad idea. Definite for cfd. We might as well let any well meaning nationalist set up their own category. Emoscopes Talk 02:32, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I've nominated it for deletion. Comments there would be appreciated. Kirill Lokshin 03:51, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Ranger History

I have the idea in my head of splitting off the majority of the historical information in United States Army Ranger into its own article, perhaps History of the United States Army Rangers or something similar. Since the Rangers are a fairly unique unit, there's significant information to the article in addition to the historical part. I'm fairly convinced that it's the right thing to do, but I wanted to post in here and see what other editors thought about the idea. EvilCouch 03:54, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, the parent article isn't really so long that it needs to be split, at this point; and much of the non-history material in it is lists (including some fairly trivial ones). I have no objections to splitting the article in principle; but I'd like to make sure that the parent is left with enough material to cover to make a good article in its own right. Kirill Lokshin 04:03, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not particularly convinced that this is neccessary - as Kirill points out, if we remove the trivial lists, there isn't a whole lot of article left if the history is split into a new article. Are there particular reasons that you want to make this split? Carom 05:07, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, mainly I was looking to do it for clarity and brevity's sake, while not losing any important information. For example, that the Regiment dates back the French and Indian War is definately notable and should be included, however I don't know that the article itself really needs to go as in depth as it currently is. However, dumping the information off into ether seems like a really horrible idea. I could condense the article down significantly and improve its readability for those that are more interested in getting a good overall grasp of what the Rangers are, but I would not want to just axe the detailed information. While, I'll certainly agree that it's not nearly as long as other pages and doesn't need to be whittled down because of size, I do believe that the article is not nearly as concise as it could be. EvilCouch 03:31, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
That might work; you'd have the main article, which would cover the Rangers generally (composition, roles, equipment, etc.) and include an overview of their history, with a more detailed article that would cover a blow-by-blow of the history at greater length. Kirill Lokshin 05:23, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I went ahead and did the split and now the main article is much more concise and readable. The history article still has its information in list format which is impeding readibility, and has become my new project. Any feedback so far? EvilCouch 06:08, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

A-Class review for Cambodian Civil War needs attention

If anyone has some free time, the A-Class review for Cambodian Civil War could use some more editors commenting! Thanks! Kirill Lokshin 04:07, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Please do drop by! ;-) Kirill Lokshin 17:33, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Can we please get some comments on this review? :-) Kirill Lokshin 00:21, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Notability for minor orgs?

I've just spotted that 2407 Yateley & Eversley Squadron (ATC) - a local UK Air Training Squadron - is on the deletion-discussion list. I've seen a few of these articles around before, and I'm really not sold that groups which tends to be as small, emphemeral and inconsequential as these are worth including on such a "granular" level. (For context, the RAF sponsors >900 ATC squadrons) Thoughts? Shimgray | talk | 11:09, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Should probably merge and redirect to a parent article, which would provide a complete list of all the ATC squadrons sponsored by the RAF (even though there are a lot of them). While I don't think that individual squadrons are generally notable (although there are probably exceptions), the entire structure probably is, and I don't see any reason for Wikipedia not to have this information listed somewhere. Carom 16:08, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
There are also a few articles on Australian cadet units. I agree with Carom's view that while individual cadet units are non-significant, the cadet system itself is (I take the same view on all the articles on individual schools which people create). --Nick Dowling 07:09, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Category:British Commonwealth Forces

Is this category really useful and/or neccessary? As far as I know, the Commonwealth does not have a distinct militay identity, apart from the fact that many units in the forces of the member nations are derived from British units that were created during the Empire period. It seems to fall outside the usual country/region tree, and I can't see a good reason for keeping it. A side note: if the category is useful, it should probably be renamed to Category:Units and formations of the British Commonwealth. Any thoughts? Carom 22:43, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't seem particularly useful, and produces a number of problems with units from one country winding up in a sub-category of another country's military. I'm not sure that any explicit categorization for the Commonwealth's militaries is useful at all; but, even if one is present, it should be above the "Military of Foo" categories (e.g. "Military of the British Commonwealth", which would include "Military of Australia", "Military of the United Kingdom", etc.) rather than at the level of individual units. Kirill Lokshin 23:09, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
It's the Commonwealth of Nations, not the British Commonwealth. There have been a couple of identifiably "Commonwealth" formations - 1st Commonwealth Division and subsidiary formations in the Korean War - but other than that... Shimgray | talk | 23:50, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
How many potential category members are we talking about? Enough to make a category? If there are, than we can probably keep the category, cut it would need an overahul to get the right units in it, and a rename. And you are indeed correct about the name - the category should be Category:Military of the Commonwealth of Nations, if it's going to stay. My mistake. Carom 00:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
For those units, this may indeed be a worthwhile category (under a different name); but it would need to be limited to units that were explicitly "Commonwealth" in their own right, rather than just being national units of countries that are part of the Commonwealth. Kirill Lokshin 05:25, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I queried the creator of the category on their talk page - we'll see if they have anything to add. At the moment, though, it seems like the best course of action would be to empty the cat., refill it with the appropriate articles, and then nominate it for rename at CfD. Does anyone object to Category:Military of the Commonwealth of Nations as the name for such a category? Carom 18:01, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
As far as I know, we're just looking at the Korean forces and that's it. It's perhaps worth emphasising that the "Commonwealth division" was essentially an administrative formation with a good name - it was a Canadian brigade and two British brigades with a handful of ANZAC units; there were no actual "Commonwealth" units involved per se. I don't think it's worth categorising seperately, but YMMV. Shimgray | talk | 20:52, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I think that the category should be deleted. All the articles in the category are better classified through their national militaries as the Commonwealth is in no way a military alliance, much less a unified military command. As has been noted above, 'Commonwealth' units haven't existed since the 1950s. The articles which have so far been classified into this category are a real hodge-podge and don't seem to demonstrate any Commonwealth links - eg, how is the 1 NZ MI Coy or the British 16th Air Assault Brigade a 'Commonwealth' unit? - they're units of the New Zealand and British Armies respectively and have almost nothing to do with each other. --Nick Dowling 07:06, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Anyone else? Per Nick and Shimgray, it seems that the category has no real usefulness, even with an overhaul, and I haven't heard from the creator, so unless anyone has any objections, I'll nominate it at CfD. Carom 23:20, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

"British Commonwealth" was the official name in 1926-49 and there were a lot of combined entities in WW2, such as the major RAF formations, the Eighth Army and the British Pacific Fleet. By "combined" I mean that they actually had whole units detached from countries other that the U.K. in them. On one hand the category would probably be worth preserving for combined entities; on the other hand it is liable to be misunderstood. Grant65 | Talk 01:30, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
The point being made is, I think, that these formations are not "Commonwealth" in any meaningful sense - the component units belong to the armed forces of other sovereign nations, not to a "Commonwealth Army," etc. More to the point, the Commonwealth has not (except for a brief period in the Korean War, as Nick and Shimgray have pointed out) fielded a military force as an independent entity. While I'm perfectly willing to keep this category if it provides a useful axis for navigation, I don't really see that as being the case. Your comment about the name pre-1949 is well taken - however, it will be something of a moot point if the category is deleted.Carom 02:53, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that this category is suitable for pre-1949 units either as there weren't any 'Commonwealth' units in this period. For instance, while many units from Commonwealth countries served with the British 8th Army and RAF Bomber Command these higher headquarters were part of the British military and the interests of the national contingents were represented by seperate officers where appropriate. Similarly, the RAF bomber squadrons which were manned by mixed crews from the Empire Air Training Scheme were British squadrons first and foremost. --Nick Dowling 08:00, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I've nominated it for deletion - feel free to comment over there. Carom 18:48, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

There's also the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan of WWII. —Michael Z. 2006-12-07 20:30 Z

Military history articles needing attention

I think we need clarification on what this entails. What are we looking for with articles marked "yes" for this? The only criteria I have seen is "use sparingly." Looking through the category, there are a lot of articles in there that I can't discern why they are in the category, and there is no explanation on the talk page. I would argue that one criteria should be articles which are important subjects, but only stubs, are in need of immediate attention. For instance, if the Douglas MacArthur article said only he was an American general in World War II, and left it at that, I would think that would require immediate attention - the importance of the subject matter is not reflected at all by the content of the article. Given how few articles actually are in this category, out of 25,000+ articles, I think it is being used a little too sparingly.--Nobunaga24 05:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Right. What criteria do you suggest? Wandalstouring 05:58, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I think the comment about important stubs could be one criteria. I'm curious as to what other people would suggest also. Maybe pages that have no links, or in drastic need of wikifying. What criteria do other members think should be used? As of now, I don't know what the crteria are.--Nobunaga24 06:04, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Hmm. Stubs are one possibility; another would be the presence of various cleanup tags on the article. I'm not sure which one would be more useful. Kirill Lokshin 12:45, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't think it needs to be limited to any one criteria. I just think we should spell out what those criteria are that would qualify it as needing immediate attention--Nobunaga24 13:22, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
True. Let's see, then; how about these:
  • Clearly inadequate material (i.e. stub on an important topic)
  • Major dispute (i.e. a {{totallydisputed}} tag)
  • Lack of references (i.e. an {{unreferenced}} tag)
  • Expert attention (i.e. an {{expert}} tag)
I think that probably covers most of the cases that typically come up; did I miss anything obvious?
(It would be nice, incidentally, to have the corresponding list of articles on the announcement template get rotated once the tag is removed; I can't figure out any way of automating it, so it's something that needs to occasionally be done by hand.) Kirill Lokshin 13:31, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
That sounds good to me. Even though those tags put the article into categories (i.e. pages needing wikifying), They are for the community as a whole. This would at least bring it to the attention of this group. I guess the next step would be re-evaluating everything that is presently in the MILHIST pages needing attention category, and probably spelling it out on the category page. But late here...I'm going to bed.--Nobunaga24 14:03, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
We might also include long articles that need splitting (or at least need to be looked at to see if a split is neccessary), as those seem to get ignored by people making general edits (including adding huge chunks of text) - calling attention to them might get them cut down to size or split up a little faster. Carom 14:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Afd Discussion

I have started an important AfD discussion related to lists of battles. Please share your opinions. --Ineffable3000 02:23, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

It's helpful to provide a link to these sorts of things, incidentally. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 02:24, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
There's some fairly interesting discussion going on about what sorts of lists of battles we want to have in general; so anyone with an interest in these sorts of lists is very encouraged to drop by! :-) Kirill Lokshin 02:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
List of military routs, List of raids, List of battles (geographic), and List of naval battles are now up for deletion due to expert consensus. Please post your opinion. --Ineffable3000 03:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The reason I started this whole AfD campaign was to formulate a test which determines which war-related lists should exist and which shouldn't. This way, we can help users easily find the battles they are looking for, and maybe get some Featured Lists. --Ineffable3000 03:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

After this discussion, we can hopefully formulate a good Wikiproject policy on lists. Also, after some of the lists get deleted, we need to refine the Lists of battles page. --Ineffable3000 03:57, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I have added a few more lisits to AfD. Please dicuss. --Ineffable3000 05:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I doubt anybody uses these lists. take Military campaigns of ancient Rome as a model to make readable lists. Wandalstouring 05:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
That's a real article, not just a simple list, though; an actual narrative makes sense there—because actual campaigns are being described—but may not work too well in cases where battles from different wars/countries/etc. are interspersed in a single list. Kirill Lokshin 09:09, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
And why would anyone benefit from reading a mixup of battles worldwide? I think the whole list concept is nonsense the way it is practiced. Rather I suggest an hierarchical approach with a timeline of political participants, their wars and finally the battles, sieges, etc. within the wars. It doesn't have to start as whole articles, but even if it is just an ordered listing of campaign boxes without further description, it actually gets more useable than any current list. Wandalstouring 11:03, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
For reference, here are the AFDs I could find related to this:
It should be noted that this sort of large-scale but haphazard nomination—akin to throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks—are not, in my opinion, a viable approach to the issue of determining a general guideline for lists. Kirill Lokshin 09:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
All lists of battles (except chronological) are unmaintainable and should be killed. I'm not sure about the rest, but the lists of sieges and war criminals appear reasonably informative and not too difficult to maintain. I have List of sieges in my watchlist for two years and have not seen much harm from this page. --Ghirla -трёп- 09:38, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Did Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history just declare war on lists? ;-)   It might have simpler to remove the "Lists" section from the war infobox instead. --Zigger «º» 14:23, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think anyone has declared war on lists (I, at least, am still at peace with the list nation). I also don't approve of the haphazard way that this mass AfD was constructed - the lists are not, in my opnion, similar enough for coherent discussion in the AfD format. It would have been better to establish consensus first, and then nominate a specific set of lists that were determined (by consensus) to be disposable. I don't know if it's possible to close AfD nominations for the reason "there's a better way to sort this out," but I don't know if it would be fruitful to pursue all the existing nominations to the close, as there are really too many for anyone to follow at once. We might wrap up the original nomination, List of battles (alphabetical), but other than that, I think we would be better served by attempting some consensus in another forum (like right here). Carom 16:52, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Indeed. I think it would be more correct to say that this project was informed—after the fact!—that a war on lists has been declared by third parties; certainly, the various AFDs aren't the best forum for a general discussion of how to structure lists. Kirill Lokshin 20:21, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I am a member of WikiProject Military History and I have started this "war". The reason I started it was because I was getting confused trying to find what battles have and don't have articles from the lists. --Ineffable3000 21:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
It would have worked much better, though, if you had started a discussion first, and only moved to actual AFD nominations once there was some consensus on which lists needed to be deleted. Kirill Lokshin 21:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Sorry. It is too late now. I will first reach consensus next time.

Here is the likely outcome of the war as of now:

Please comment on the Afd pages. --Ineffable3000 22:18, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I primarily want some of these lists to be removed to due WP:SNOW. Also, I am on your team. --Ineffable3000 22:40, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh, we know that; it's just that this project tends to favor slow and deliberate approaches over sudden and haphazard ones. :-) Kirill Lokshin 22:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I understand that now. --Ineffable3000 23:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
One way you could do the list thing is to have a brief "history of military campaigns" page. Like a history of the world in 1 minute type thing, which would contain each battle (and it's date) in just enough text to be considered text. This would still be very long though, but I suppose at least it could be considered an "article". You know, like those ultra-brief encyclopedia entries about someone's life, or the entire history of a country reduced to 1 page kinda thing. Possibly not, I don't know. But some people seem opposed to lists as if someone would only want to know the battles associated with a particular war, rather than just clicking to a page of battles and reading about any of them. People may well want to read about a certain battle just out of the blue, so I don't see that it's necessary to have the battles mentioned only on a page about the war in which they were fought.SpookyMulder 11:11, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Who maintains this thing? That's the problem in wikipedia. We need a useable structure that can be maintained, preferably by bots. Wandalstouring 11:15, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Lists of military conflicts

The AFDs are now becoming pretty chaotic; I have no idea what, if anything, will wind up being deleted by them. I think this would be a good time to have a more general discussion of how these lists should work within the project, and to use whatever consensus we come to as a rationale for further AFDs (or lack thereof). Hence, some initial comments (mostly cribbed from my earlier comments here):

Lists tend to be more difficult to maintain than categories or navigation templates; they should be used in cases where they offer some substantial benefit over these, but the ones that are redundant to more easily maintainable organization schemes needn't be kept around. The major drawback of categories is that they arrange articles alphabetically; while this is suitable for many things, it excludes the other natural ordering: chronological. (Campaignboxes offer a chronological ordering, but are limited in scope to individual wars or campaigns.) An obvious role for lists is therefore to provide chronological navigation through military conflicts (related or otherwise). Thus, the core of my proposal: combine the existing chronological lists of battles and wars into a single, comprehensive timeline of military conflicts. It could be structured something like this (a rather crude sketch, obviously):

Year
  • War of X begins
    • Battle of A
    • Battle of B
  • War of Y begins
    • Battle of C
  • War of Z ends
Year+1
  • War of X continues
    • Battle of D
    • Siege of E
  • War of Y ends
    • Battle of F
  • War of Q begins
...

Obviously, size constraints would force us to break the timeline onto multiple pages; but they would still remain part of a single, navigable sequence. The entries would be open to further annotation, of course; I've left them as mere titles, but things like combatants, locations, results, etc. could all be briefly summarized.

Thoughts? Is this a totally insane idea? (And, regardless, does anyone have any other ones?) Kirill Lokshin 20:52, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

It would be a huge project, but I think that it would ultimately be worthwhile. I don't exactly know how you'd go about accomplishing it, however - you would almost need a group of editors doing nothing else in order to make certain that the list was complete and accurate. Maybe a trial run on a particular portion of the master list (19th century, or something like that) would b in order to see how it works in practice. Carom 21:48, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
It would be a huge but "Good and Necessary" project. I recommend creating a page for each year. --Ineffable3000 22:14, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
That would create extremely stubby pages for everything except a few brief periods (ACW, WWI, WWII), though; I would suggest starting out at the century level and then breaking the long ones apart by decade (and, in the extreme, by year). The key thing would be to create a navigation bar that would link to all of these; then, we wouldn't need to worry too much about the exact splits. Kirill Lokshin 22:17, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Centuries is fine. --Ineffable3000 23:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
The template {{History_of_China}} could serve as a possible blueprint for such a structure within a limited timeframe and over different geographic regions/political entities. Wandalstouring 08:09, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

strategic resources

There are some articles about resources that would be considered strategic. For example salt, tin in ancient times, later saltpeter, oil and coltan today. Controlling the supply of these items or having them (not) in storage was considered essential for the ability to lead or continue wars. I suggest to improve the integration of articles on this topic into our project. For example History of salt or Petroleum contain this topic. Possibly we could create a new task force for the topic or integrate it into one of the existing groups. Wandalstouring 10:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Presumably the question of strategic resources per se would be within the province of the military science task force. Whether anyone is interested in actually working on articles from that perspective is a different question; while undoubtedly important to war, these topics call for a somewhat different writing style than most of the more obvious areas of military history. Kirill Lokshin 20:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
That's why I wanted some input on how to proceed. Our quality would improve if we could integrate such elements. Wandalstouring 08:01, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Orders, decorations, and medals

Wikipedia's coverage of national orders, decorations, and medals is pretty disjointed and disorganised. Some articles have had an awful lot of work put into them (eg. Order of the Garter and other British chivalric orders, most of these are now FA), others have patchy coverage (eg Canada), and others have little meaningful coverage at all (eg Australia). Many editors have put in fine individual efforts in this topic, but one thing is certain, Wikipedia's coverage of this topic is far from definative.

Part of the problem, I think, is that there is no central, coordinating body. Looking through a few Orders and medals articles, we see some which are flagged up as under the Numismatics WikiProject, others under the Military history WikiProject, and others under are the wing of individual, national WikiProjects. Orders and medals certainly come within the orbit of each of these, but it is a topic which is very much overshadowed by their main focuses, coins and banknotes, military history, and national topics respectively. As a result coverage is patchy, there is no consensus of style, medal-related categorisation is a mess, even simple things like pictures are overwhelmingly absent.

What I would like to propose for discussion is the establishment of a central project to deal solely with this topic, hiving off this area from these other WikiProjects. This would provide us with a means by which to evolve the consensus necessary to get some sort of uniformity of coverage. Any views?

(I've posted this message on both Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history and on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Numismatics)

Xdamrtalk 14:52, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Are there people interested in doing the job? If yes go on and do the job. If no you found out why it is a mess. Certainly we could establish some standards like the weapon info box for medals. Wandalstouring 07:57, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I recall that the last time a task force for military decorations was proposed, the response was less than spectacular. ;-)
(We did eventually manage to get {{Infobox Military Award}} put together, though.) Kirill Lokshin 13:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Yep, less than spectacular :( I would be interested though. -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 14:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
That is the idea of raising the issue here - if 4 or 5 interested editors emerge then we can see what can be done. There *are* editors working on these topics, its just that it is very much individual effort at the moment. Of course if there is no interest in collaborating then that is the way it will have to stay...
Xdamrtalk 14:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps you start things the wrong way. If there are editors working on the topic, they are frequently listed in articles' histories, so it is likely more effective to ask them directly. This page is only visited by a limited number of participants of the project, let alone wikipedia editors on military history. Wandalstouring 05:24, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I'd actually guess that a great many people visit this page (although the number of people regularly commenting is smaller); but they tend to be editors from areas where the project already has good penetration. In other words, we won't get many medal-article editors here until we start making our presence known on medal articles—which won't happen until we get medal-article editors involved here; sort of a catch-22. Kirill Lokshin 05:43, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
I have worked both on creating medal articles and tried to clean up the category structure of the orders. That turned out to be a bit frustrating as a couple of times editors came along and added articles to every possible category on the same category tree and insisted on keeping them there. This topic does need some coordination, but I am not so sure I will be able to take on a lot of that work. I can say I am interested in participating at least.Inge 11:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Ok then, I'll start assembling some sort of Wikiproject page and we'll see if we can start this off. Any views on a suitable name? What about the Orders, decorations, and medals Wikiproject?
Xdamrtalk 19:39, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Operation Meghdoot

I call on participants of the wikiproject to join the discussion on Operation Meghdoot's talk page. Cheers, --TheFEARgod (Ч) 21:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Commented on article's talk page. Kirill Lokshin 22:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

also: Template talk:Campaignbox Indo-Pakistani Wars--TheFEARgod (Ч) 22:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Image available for article missing one (but you'd need to get permission I suspect)

See Talk:USS Admiralty Islands...66.167.137.9 00:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Scroll up and use the solution presented there. Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Military_history#New_element_for_external_links_to_images.

Wandalstouring 07:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Article for deletion

I don't know if I should bring this up here but I think this article Second Battle of Mohács needs deleting. Not only is it factually wrong but the article already exists: Battle of Mohács (1687) Raymond Palmer 12:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

It's probably easier to just redirect it to the actual article. Kirill Lokshin 13:23, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
A redirect is probably better, as it's not entirely out of the question that someone might search for "second battle of mohács" - no reason they shouldn't get redirected to the actual article. Carom 14:59, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. Done. Raymond Palmer 16:06, 6 December 2006 (UTC)