Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 77

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Archive 77


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Non-English operational codenames

A question has come up regarding the proper title form for articles about an operation with a non-English codename; should the codename be prefaced with "Operation", or the relevant term in the original language? In other words, do we want Unternehmen Rheinübung or Operation Rheinübung? Ten-gō sakusen or Operation Ten-Go? And so forth.

And, as additional points to consider: should the approach taken for better-known operations (e.g. Barbarossa) differ from that taken for more obscure ones? And what about entire title translations (e.g. Case Blue versus Fall Blau)?

Comments would be very appreciated! Kirill 18:02, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I claim full credit for inadvertently causing this situation... I should point out that I moved Operation Bodenplatte to Unternehmen Bodenplatte (which I had previous known as "Operation Baseplate") many moons ago and no-one batted an eyelid, but I guess that one is not as well-known(?) Grant | Talk 18:17, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
The manual of style is quite clear on this point - use the common english name. Raul654 (talk) 18:18, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
That tends to work neatly for well-known ones, where there's a decent range of sources to compare. The more obscure ones are slightly more problematic; if we have five sources, three of which use one name and two the other, it's a bit difficult to say that one is the "common" name. (Not to mention that some English historians will use non-English names.) Kirill 18:26, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Difficult. I would say that when there is no clear preference for a title, translating the classifier of what it is (Unternehmen) into English; while leaving the rest as if a name. This would follow biogrpahyof nobility I think, where non-English noble are given either their common English name (e.g. William I, Bishop of Utrecht) or if no common English name exists their native name (e.g. Floris V, Count of Holland) while the title (Count of Hollnad) being a classifier is always translated (never Graaf van Holland).
In this case this would result in Operation (the classifier) Rheinübung (the name). Is this an idea, or do you think this is not a way forward?Arnoutf (talk) 19:25, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
There are some, such as Operation Barbarossa, that are reasonably well-known in English. Assuming this were not, how would it be translated? Literally as Red-Beard, or idiomatically to Frederick Barbarossa? If the latter, is there need to explain the connotations? By modern security standards, Nazi code names were seriously transparent.
What about the recasting for public relations purposes? BLUE SPOON (correct) or JUST CAUSE? POLO STEP or IRAQI FREEDOM? Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 19:34, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Actually, Operation Ten-Go isn't a full translation either. "Ten-Go" means "Heaven-one" or something like that. It seems to me that the English word "Operation" should be used first and then the most common usage after that, whatever the language. If it happens to be the original, non-English word, so be it. Directly translating some non-English titles into English would be awkward. In the Japanese "Operation Ka" for example, "Ka" comes from the first syllable of "Guadalcanal" as pronounced in Japanese. So, translated directly it would be "Operation Gua" which is awkward and unrecognizable. Operation Red-Beard should be Operation Barbarossa, Operation Heaven Number One should be Operation Ten-Go, etc. Cla68 (talk) 20:23, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Just a quick point out here, Ka (カ) is the actual sound "ka" and the sixth "letter" of the Japanese katakana. Many Japanese operations are taken from katakana symbols (Ha-gō, U-gō, Ke-gō etc.). While I don't doubt that they chose "ka" because of the similarity in sound, it matches the pattern presented elsewhere. Oberiko (talk) 02:43, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

It has occurred to me that there are three different situations here:

  1. cases in which operations are named after universal proper names or neologisms, i.e. Operation Barbarossa, Operation Bagration and Operation Mo (an abbreviation of "Moresby") are literal translations of the German, Russian and Japanese names
  2. calques of the foreign names, such as Operation Baseplate/Operation Groundplate
  3. what we might call "half-translations", e.g. "Operation Rheinübung" and "Operation Ten-Go" (not even "Operation Ten-gō), that are neither English nor the original language and not really well-known (relative to say Barbarossa or Overlord).

While I think that 1 and 2 are perfectly acceptable, I must admit to having a problem with 3....

Grant | Talk 08:17, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd favor Ten-gō sakusen (or Mo, or Ae) as the pagename, with a redirect from "Ten-gō" (or, more probably, "Ten-go", given the average keyboard) and "Operation Ten-go" (or &c), since it's well enough known by either name among specialists (& it's likely anybody searching it has already found it somewhere, or it wouldn't be a search subject...). Why? For the same reason I've advocated moving/renaming Ger-named articles: that's the name the originators used. Trekphiler (talk) 13:11, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
It is English Wiki, not that of the originator.
In the extreme, your suggestion would imply "Ten-gō sakusen" should be spelled in Japanese characters. Also you suggest that the Battle of Britain must be renamed to it German codename (after all, the Germans started bombing the UK and where hence the originators of this). I think that would be weird. Arnoutf (talk) 17:23, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Wrong on 2 counts. "It is English Wiki"; therefore, no Japanese characters need apply. And the Battle of Britain covers more than Adlerangriff , so a moot point. Trekphiler (talk) 21:00, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Ah, but you agree it is English Wiki and we must therefore deviate from original language/characters and the original plans/names but take the English the perspective. Arnoutf (talk) 21:05, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I think we should stick with the convention WP:ENGLISH. But note that this does not mean that we always use literal translations of English names. It means that where a particular operation is well-known in English language sources by a particular name, that name is used.

That convention says that where a subject is not well known, we should use the name in the original language:

At the same time, when there is no long-established history of usage of the term, more consideration should be given to the correctness of translation, rather than frequency of usage (in a typical example of testing the usage by counting Google hits, if one version gets 92 hits, while another one gets 194 hits, it can hardly be decisive) [emphasis added].

Grant | Talk 07:55, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

If I may add, I am in the process of rebuilding/building the Eastern Front articles. One can not expect the English reader to know the word for 'operation' in at least German and Russian, particularly when including it in the search. However, it is equally difficult to refer to a German operation by an English name given they were on different sides. I have taken to interpreting WP:English to mean that within the article the reader needs to be able to understand how to say the name of the operation, and what it meant in English. It is not necessary to actually title the article Operation Polar Star. Naming it Polyarnaya Zvezda is no different to Bagration (neither a translation or a transliteration) or Rumyantsev (there is no English translation). What is more important is that the operations are appropriately categorised so the readers can find them.--mrg3105mrg3105 08:21, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree. Using commonly used English language names and words in English wiki seems blindingly obvious. While a casual reader may not know what Operation Rheinubung was about at least the nature of the event is clear; to use "unternehmen" or "fall" is not helpful. The mixture of languages in the heading is not a problem - it's a name. Folks at 137 (talk) 18:44, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Maybe I'm aiming at a different part of the "class", but I don't. A page about Polyarnaya Zvezda should be called Polyarnaya Zvezda. Which is not to say the Russian (or German, or Japanese) should be used throughout the article. And finding it? If I search "Polar Star" (& get dab'd from Polar Star (novel)), I should come to Polyarnaya Zvezda. Ditto Fall Blau, or Fall Weiss, or Unternehmen Seelöwe. Or Battle of the Ardennes, for all that; just 'cause most Americans can't find the Ardennes with both hands, a compass, & a road atlas is no excuse. (Plenty of others, too; I doubt the average Canadian could, either.) Anybody looking for it has already got something Joe Average doesn't: a reason to want to know. Anybody going to Britannica (back, Satan!:D), or coming here, is looking for more than the superficial. I say, give them the best information, not the usual. (I've had the same kind of disagreement) with Rlandmann on detail in spex boxes.) Aim higher. You'll bring everybody with you. Trekphiler (talk) 20:08, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I guess you mean, Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein, which is the German name for their offensive in the Ardennes hills?Arnoutf (talk) 20:23, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I cannot resist saying that Hollywood has trouble finding, or more properly, understanding, the Ardennes. If you look closely at the Henry Fonda version of the "Battle of the Bulge", you can suspend disbelief on seeing US tanks on both sides. It's the tumbleweeds blowing through the white-painted desert set that always made my teeth hurt. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 20:17, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
If you listen to Hollywood, you'd be lucky to know there were Germans. Who was it said he'd do his role in English, because if he did it in German, it'd end up on the cutting room floor? And was proven right? Or James Mason as Rommel? (At least it wasn't Peter O'Toole as Sherif Ali.) Jonathan Mostow should be ashamed of "U-571". Michael Bay should be pilloried for Pearl Harbor, & Academy voters should be crucified for giving it an Oscar, seeing how it costarred Dan Aykroyd as Capt. Kreskin, USN (for starters). (BTW, I refused to watch it on the strength of Dan's psychic powers in the trailer alone.)
Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein? Yeah, I could live with that. Except, as I understand it, that wasn't the attack, that was the lead up, or a cover operation. I stand to be corrected, there, tho. Trekphiler (talk) 05:23, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm of similar mind to Grant in that I think it would depend on the situation. Operations tend to be named after the following:

  1. Proper names (people / locations etc.)
  2. Phrases
  3. Objects

IMO, we should be doing our best to represent the intent of the operational name.

For example, the first should most definitely remain in the originial (albeit Anglized) form. Operation Barbarossa was named after the man, not literally a red beard. The origin of his name is beyond the scope of the article, readers who are curious can simply look it up from the wiki-link about him that we provide.

The latter two should, IMO, be translated. Something like "Frühlingserwachen" has absolutely no meaning to anyone who doesn't speak German or isn't a World War II military history buff; "Spring Awakening", on the other hand, conveys the original intent of the name with much more clarity. Take also sets: Fall Weiss, Fall Blau, Fall Grün, Fall Rot, Fall Gelb... those off-hand mean almost nothing to me. Case White, Case Blue, Case Green, Case Red, and Case Yellow at least convey the original intention as simple code-names. Even the example above of "Ten-gō" would mean much more to the average reader as "Heaven One Operation Heaven", conveying the importance that the Japanese placed on the operation to give it such a grandiose name.

I personally find that using foreign names is something of an elitist notion, serving little purpose other then to lessen accessibility to our target audience, the common readers. Oberiko (talk) 16:26, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I personally prefer to translate Fall as "Plan", but I may be on my own there. Anyway, I have to mention article names like "German order of battle for Operation Fall Weiss", which is either a mistranslation or redundancy, or both (i.e. "Operation Plan/Case White"). Grant Talk 15:03, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

The purpose of the Manual of Style provisions, and the naming conventions, is clear: to make us intelligible and comparable to other standard sources. Histories of the Second World War, in English, almost invariably use Operation Barbarossa; what do they use for Operation Polar Star, or Case White? I would bet the answer is the forms just cited; but it's a question of fact: what do they use? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:39, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Usually the (English) sources are mixed. But I don't think we're so much as aiming at the "always-referred-to-as" operations as we are the "sometimes-X-sometimes-Y" operations. In those cases, far better to go with one that offers clarity IMO. Oberiko (talk) 17:21, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Are we getting bent out of shape for nothing? This is the page title, isn't it, not the entire article, let alone all WP, right? So if the page is Fall Weiss, anybody looking for it, or Case White, will get the same page, no? And Case White (or Plan White, tho I'd oppose that) can, should, be used in the body of text. My objective in opposing strict use of translation/transliteration is to raise the level of discourse, to educate the ill-informed, not just inform.
"Case White" doesn't get it. I can't imagine not knowing, & using, the German terms for their own operations, nor the Japanese for theirs. And, for somebody who's seen Fall Weiss (or Ten-Go) but never the translation (who may be finding it somewhere for the first time), we can offer the correct usage as a place to start, to keep people from developing the awful habits, like calling it "Operation White" (which I've seen), or (worse yet) "Operation Case White"; heaven forfend "Operation Fall Weiss"!
And there's an issue of "doubling". Zitadel was the German name; what was the Red Army equivalent? (Typhoon? Or was that later?) I can't help think of a grade school history teacher I once had, who knew the A6M as "Zero" but not "Zeke"; aim higher, & bring everybody up (to repeat myself...). Echo 10:46, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't follow your argument. Are you for the original foreign names, or the translation? And the correct useage is what's under discussion here. If the Germans named an operation after a sunflower, why not just call it Operation Sunflower instead of "Sonnenblume"?
One of my issues is that each language, of course, has their own word for just about everything. Germans called their tanks "panzers", the French called their tanks "chars" etc. It seems we've (generally) decided not to have phrases like "the four panzers attacked the six chars" as that serves little purpose but to confuse and cause further, unneeded, research to understand something.
It just seems odd to mix-and-match needlessly. For example, "Fall Gelb" was an operation to invade "Frankreich"; the "Dritte Französische Republik" in particular. Why translate the latter two into English, but not the operation name itself? Why not "educate" the readers on that as well? Why even refer to the plane as "Zero" instead of Rei shiki Kanjo sentoki? Or it's "true" name "零式艦上戦闘機".
I strongly believe the original name should be included, but as a supplementary instead of the primary name. Knowing what the original designation was is a useful bit of knowledge, but, IMO, should take a back seat to clarity and conveyance of intent. Oberiko (talk) 14:39, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Break

I am going to agree with Oberiko on this one. The article title should be translated into English unless the another title is better known or when its a specific name of a person, place, etc. I see no reason why we can't title the article Operation White, and redirect Fall Weiss there and mention that in the intro sentance.Cromdog (talk) 17:48, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

You've just undermined your own argument. It's not "Operation White", & using the original avoids giving an endorsement to a wrong name. Or, at least, to an inaccurate one. Besides, your argument for redirecting works just as well the other way: use the original, translate/explain in the lead.
Notice, also, I'm not suggesting transliteration is out of bounds (as implied above). Nor am I saying use of English in the body of the text is (tho I would object to German armor not being called panzer, & anybody who wants to use char for French or broniye {?} for Soviet gets my vote). Trekphiler (talk) 21:06 & 21:31, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't speak German, so I don't know how Fall Weiss would be translated...earlier comments indicated something along those lines. Fall Weiss is meaningless to me because I don't speak German...when I read the first few comments I didn't realize we were talking about military operations. Had people talked about Operation or Plan or Case whatever, I would have realized that was what they were talking about.Cromdog (talk) 21:37, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I’ve wrestled with this issue myself and while I was originally in favor of the source language name, I’ve come around to a view that an article title should be what is most commonly appears in English publications oriented toward the general reader. What’s the most likely reason for someone to come to Wikipedia (or any encyclopedia)? They came across a subject and want to learn more about it (and then pursue their interest on to other related topics). This argues for an “accessible” title. I still do firmly believe that the name in the original source language(s) ought to appear in the introduction, but the general use should follow what is most accessible. Along these lines, we might propose the following, in order of decreasing priority:
  1. The common, popular English name for the operation. (As a rule, this would subsume proper names as per Grant’s situation 1.) E.g., “Operation Barbarossa”.
  2. Translate the modifier to English, as per Arnoutf’s suggestion. E.g., “Operation Bodenplatte” vice “Unternehmen Bodenplatte”. (This at least makes clear what the nature of the beast is.) I’d also prefer “Operation Polyarnaya Zvezda” to simply “Polyarnaya Zvezda” for the same reason.
  3. If the modified word is a simple word with a simple meaning, then translate it too. E.g., “Case Blue” instead of “Fall Blau”.
  4. Transliterate characters that do not appear on a standard English typewriter. E.g., “Ten-go”, not “Ten-gō”; “Rheinuebung”, not “Rheinübung”; “Weiss”, not “Weiß”. I can pronounce Þingalið, but I can’t type it on my keyboard, without writing it in Word first.
What do y’all think of this as a “first draft”? Askari Mark (Talk) 03:57, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
I think I agree, but can you clarify that you're proposing (as per your third rule) that "Polyarnaya Zvezda" would be "Polar Star" and "Ten-gō sakusen" would be "Operation Heaven"? Oberiko (talk) 13:11, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
I disagree (which should be no surprise by now... =D). I take the view "education" means offering the best information, not the most popular. To that end, a page title Fall Weiss is most appropriate, while article text saying "Case White" is, too. (Personally, I'd use Fall Weiss throughout, but I don't expect that to gain consensus, unless you mean to call the page "Case White" & do it...=D) My thought is, the broad article can serve the general reader, the links out a more interested reader, but the title should not sacrifice accuracy in the name of familiarity. Besides, if you're searching "Case White", chances are you're doing it because you've already seen "Fall Weiss" & can't remember it (or spell it...); I started that way, too. And do not mix & match: "Operation Fall Blau" (or something) makes me want to scream; "Operation Blau" (which I've seen, from people who should know better) is just barely less abominable (& don't do that, either).
Re transliteration: yeh, “Ten-go” & “Weiss” &c; “Rheinübung” maybe, 'cause I'm seeing the "ü" among my edit choices (& I can cut & paste it into a pagename, or a redlink, or a page move, if I have to). Trekphiler (talk) 16:48, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
There is no "best" Trekphiler, stating one as alternative as "better" then another is an opinion, hardly a fact. In the case of using English, I'm arguing for it for several reasons:
Would you argue that Fall Weiss is more optimal for general, English speaking, readers? That it's more accessible? That they'll have an easier time understanding what it means? I would argue not, a more likely reaction is probably going to be along the lines of "What the heck is a 'Weiss', and where is it falling from?"
If Fall Blau is more "accurate" then Case Blue, then why isn't it more accurate to say that Fall Blau was the Sommeroffensive des Jahres 1942 in the Sowjetunion? And how exactly is "some-foreign-word some-foreign-word" (which, for me at least, is how non-English words basically translate if I don't know the subject) more accurate then Case Blue? Oberiko (talk) 18:31, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

(Unindent) No, I’m not suggesting an approach that would be the “most popular”, but rather the “most accessible”. I firmly believe that readers should learn the name in the native tongue from our articles, but I’ve come to expand my definition of the range of readers that should be able to learn it. We here have a tendency to write for those who are already fairly knowledgeable with the subject matter, like we are, but the readers who would benefit most are actually those who know the least about the topic – which usually means they also have no familiarity with the non-English language. “Polyarnaya Zvezda” might be an article about Pollyanna’s sister for all they might know. The reason I’m suggesting a (for the most part) mixed-language approach is that rendering the modifier in English gives these readers a clue, while the remaining foreign-language part emphasizes that the topic is actually about something foreign.

In my point 3, I really do mean names that translate into simple, common, everyday words (and single words at that, not compounds or multiple words) – the sort of words you’d learn in your first year of studying the language. By my schema, “Polyarnaya Zvezda” would be “Operation Polyarnaya Zvezda”, not “Operation Polar Star”; would be “Operation Bodenplatte”, not “Operation Baseplate” (or Base Plate); “Operation Sonnenblume”, not “Operation Sunflower”. As for “Ten-gō sakusen”, I’d prefer “Operation Ten-go” simply because there is far less familiarity with the way(s) in which oriental words can be rendered (as Cla68 and Oberiko noted earlier). Moreover, I’ve mostly seen it rendered that way in English texts – rarely “Ten-gō sakusen” and never “Operation Heaven”.

This approach retains the “foreign-ness” of the subject and avoids the misleading suggestion that it was an American or British or Canadian or whatever operation. The only reason I suggest using the translation of the simplest names is because they tend to be so short as to look awkward otherwise and those are the words that even a gradeschooler might learn. (I’m not hard over on this point, though. “Case Weiss” just looks silly to me, as though it’s named after a person.) Anyhow, those are my thoughts. Askari Mark (Talk) 04:49, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

"There is no "best""? Yes, there is: the most accurate, most comprehensive, most reliable we can make it.
"Most accessible"? Not an issue. If you search "Case White", you will (or should) get a redirect to "Fall Weiss" (if we accept my pos). No different than in a hardcopy, where both would be included. And it's not about speaking German (or Japanese), I don't either; it's about accuracy. "Operation Weiss" is a bastardization to avoid controversy, I'm afraid, & inaccurate, besides. (I'm agreed on "Case Weiss"; wasn't she on "DS9" =D?)
Yeh, I want to retain the "foreignness", but also keep out a "dumbing down". I'm saying even an "average user" can cope with an unfamiliar term or page title; they were unfamiliar to all of us, once. How else do you learn it?
I have real concern (maybe overblown), if we translate these, before long, Luftwaffe will be "German Air Force"; panzer will be "tank": Staffel will be "four-ship"; 7x57mm will be .312 Mauser; & nobody will ever know these aren't the original terms, because nobody uses the originals, anymore. Among firearms enthusiasts, it's "Government", not M1911, & in the public at large, it's just "Colt .45"; is that the level of scholarship we're aiming for? Can we call that "scholarship"? (I wouldn't.) Worse yet, we may end up with ignorant "average users" searching for Kaga & ending up with White Castle. Is that what we want? I sincerely, genuinely, hope not.
What I want is to force "a.u." to think & learn. Yes, force. "Challenge", if you prefer. I learned more on my own than from any of my HS history teachers (to brag just a bit, I tended to know more than they did) because I wanted to know. I looked for it. I'm counting on that bit of "say what?" to get "a.u" to read on. (Trouble is, it keeps getting lost in revert wars... Attack on Pearl Harbor would say there were light U.S. losses & obsolete battleships because it's accurate, & because it's provocative.) Maybe I'm hoping for a standard that's too hi. Maybe consensus can't achieve that. At Britannica, it'd be up to the writer they chose, & a judgment not to be too POV, so no "Sneak Attack on Pearl Harbor" or "Mass Jewish Suicide" pages. Here? Wait for the vandals to figure out how... We'll probably never agree on much past Captain Whitebread, and I'm sorry about that. Trekphiler (talk) 11:51, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I think you're pretty far out of step with Wikipedia policies. Force users to think and learn a certain way, the way that you prefer, instead of what's easier for them? We don't force users to do anything, we're not their parents or school teachers, we're writing articles to help them understand particular topics; assuming that they have zero-knowledge beforehand. I still don't understand why you want to stop at that "standard" (which seems to be the one that you are comfortable with) and not force users to go further by doing things like putting all Japanese operations in their most "accurate" names, like "ハ号作戦" and so forth.
Addressing your panzer point. Do you know actually know what "panzer" means in German? It just mean armour, with "panzerkampfwagen" (armoured fighting vehicle) being the name for tanks. Many other vehicles, like APCs, self-propelled guns etc., are also "panzers"; it's just convention (and by your definition, I'd think innaccurate) that we use the shortened panzer to refer strictly to German tanks, sometimes only WWII versions, sometimes all of them. When the Germans pressed a captured T-34 into service, did it stop being a "tанк" and become a "panzerkampfwagen", or did the Germans just have a "mix" of panzerkampfwagens and tанкs? Is it who'se using this vehicle, or who made it that defines the name? How about something like the LT-35? Ironically, likely the primary reason we call them "panzer" is that it's the most accessible name for them, seeing how all but the last models lacked names beyond a numeric designation (Panzer I, Panzer II etc.). Case-in-point, how often do you see a reference to a "Panther panzer"?
Back to the point, it's elitist. It's trying to hoard knowledge away from the users, making it more difficult to access. It's a direct contradiction to Wikipedia's naming conventions of using English and it's optimizing for (some) specialists instead of casual readers.
If they come to Operation Polar Star, they want to learn about Soviet actions around Leningrad, not some foreign words that are meaningless to them and will be forgotten within minutes. Operation Lorem Ipsum or, worse, Dolor Sit Amet could be articles on just about anything as far as they're concerned. People might even avoid the articles on that basis alone. Oberiko (talk) 14:24, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
There is a great feature here called redirects. I think it is the best possible policy to stick to the most common English name and have redirects for elitist specialists that use other names. If it is not possible to find an English name, cast common sense and use an understable term. This is likely to contain at least a translation into English of what kind of event you are talking about with additional info in non-English language if necessary.Wandalstouring (talk) 15:12, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
"Zero knowledge"? I'd guess not, or you wouldn't be getting searches. "There is a great feature here called redirects." Exactly. Searching in English will redirect to foreign-ID pages just as well.
"Force"? Note I also said "challenge". Did you miss that? Or the "don't dumb down"?
Do I know what "panzer" means? Don't be ridiculous. It's not about what it means, it's about what it represents. I've never seen a work on German armor that does not say "panzer", & I can't imagine it. Could be "panzer" for APC is inaccurate; it's also so ingrained, I'm not going to argue against it. (Coral Sea didn't actually take place there; I don't feature trying to change public opinion on it.)
"I still don't understand why". Because this is an English wiki, not a Russian or Japanese one?
"If they come to Operation Polar Star," " People might even avoid the articles on that basis alone." You seem to be presuming these articles are only stumbled upon by casual surfers, not read by people looking for them. That strikes me as insulting to the average user here, or at least "dumbing down". (BTW, "Polar Star" suggests Martin Cruz Smith, to me, not "operations around Leningrad".) I'm presuming anybody coming here is curious enough to read a peculiarly-titled article, not pass it by (absent the vandals, who aren't reading the articles anyhow). Is that too elitist for you?
"Hoarding"? "Elitist"? How do you figure? I repeat, these terms are titles, nothing more. I'm by no means suggesting the English never appear in the articles. (Whether I would use the translation is another matter.) And it's a convention, not a rule, which is why we are debating it.
Yes, it is the standard I'm most comfortable with, which is why I'm arguing for it. Your point? Or do you mean I should just shut up? "Elitist" suggests a belief in superiority. I'm after the difference between "the front of the class" & "the back of the class" (as it was once put). I think the standard should be, appeal to the brightest & most interested, & let them bring the rest with them. I take the view we should aim for articles serving the smartest & most interested student, not the dumbest (or the vandals, who aren't reading the articles anyhow). I'm not suggesting they should be inaccessible or unreadable unless you've got college-level English, just that the level of information should satisfy a top student. If my preferred standard turns out not to be the one adopted, I'll live with it. I won't like it, necessarily... Trekphiler (talk) 11:13 & 11:26, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Exactly my point, I find that very elitist. You only want to educate the "smartest" and "not the dumbest" students? How is that not having a belief in some sort of superiority? It seems to me like you're trying to make the title difficult to serve as a filter to keep out people who are just casual readers instead of hard-core dedicated military historians.
And who said these are for students only? Wikipedia is for the general public, not any particular sub-grouping of the population. As for the "top students", you think that having "Operation Polar Star (Russian Polyarnaya Zvezda)" would be less informative? It won't satisfy them? Why not?
As I said, why at that level of standard? Why not advocate for full-proper foreign names for everything? Why even translate it at all and not call it "Полярная Звезда"? Surely that's more "accurate", no? Oberiko (talk) 13:04, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

<--"only want to educate the "smartest""? Not what I said. Pay attention. "serve as a filter to keep out people who are just casual readers".? Again, not what I said. Neither what I meant. I suggest writing for the smartest challenges the "dumbest" to get smarter, to read more carefully, & I call that a good thing: treat somebody like he's dumb, he'll stay dumb; treat him like you think he can be better, he's liable to surprise you. Students only? No, just the same model regardless; Joe Average or Jack Granatstein should be able to read WP & learn something; how much each learns is the issue. And I include us; I've read several pages where I thought I knew a lot, & still learned something, & I count myself "front of the class". That is what I'm hoping everyone who comes here does: learn something. Notice, as I said before, it's the title; if I really wanted " a filter to keep out people who are just casual readers instead of hard-core dedicated military historians", I'd be advocating for no use of translation & routine use of acronyms & jargon. I'm not. And because you disagree with me, do you feel entitled to ignore my reasons? I've said it before: it's an English WP. Transliteration is a compromise I can live with. The best historiographers I've read use the original language; why should WP be less than equal to the best in print? What you can't seem to accept is, not everybody wants to aim at the least capable. Trekphiler (talk) 14:18, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

You don't like the current standard, OK. You admit that it is a solution for dumb people like me and not smartest students like you, OK. The problem is, what real changes do you suggest, name examples and show me that your way is better. Wandalstouring (talk) 16:34, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Making something more accessible is most certainly not making it more "dumb". In the words of Einstein "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." and "Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction.". Hence the wisdom of the KISS principle.
I'm not sure how it could be possible to misinterpret "we should aim for articles serving the smartest & most interested student, not the dumbest..."; I'm pretty sure that is what was said and that I got the the intended meaning.
But, perhaps you're right and I need to "pay attention". To avoid future confusion, I should get some confirmation on a few things:
  • treat somebody like he's dumb, he'll stay dumb; treat him like you think he can be better, he's liable to surprise you. -- Am I correct in infering from this that you believe an English title is dumber, a dumbing-down, or treating people as if they are dumb?
  • I suggest writing for the smartest challenges the "dumbest" to get smarter... -- Do you believe that a foreign title will make people smarter?
  • Joe Average or Jack Granatstein should be able to read WP & learn something -- Do you believe they won't learn something, or as much, if the title is in English?
  • The best historiographers I've read use the original language; why should WP be less than equal to the best in print? -- So historians, like David Glantz, who routinely use full English translations of foreign operational names are not among the best? Are they lesser historians?
  • What you can't seem to accept is, not everybody wants to aim at the least capable. -- Does using English titles "lower" our standards? Are we not aiming to include people of "lesser" capabilities? How do we define a persons capability level?
I can see where there could be potential for me to misinterpret that, could you offer clarification? Oberiko (talk) 17:50, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
"You admit that it is a solution for dumb people like me and not smartest students like you, OK." No, I don't. I'm saying it's more familiar to more experienced or better read students. "Dumb" wasn't my choice, & I mean no offence to anyone; "less-informed", if you prefer.
"dumbing-down" I got the impression from the bulk of your comment you believed using tranliteration or original required too much knowledge (or education, or intelligence); I call that aiming low or, yes, "dumbing-down".
"a foreign title will make people smarter?" Same answer. Does using the original aim too high? And yes, maybe it will make people smarter ("better informed"): it will reinforce, or introduce, an unfamiliar term; offer information (probably) not encountered before. Learn that, I say you're smarter afterward. I'd say I was.
"or as much, if the title is in English?" No, not as much. It's the easier route. "More accessible"? I call that an excuse. I repeat, I think the difference is small, but important, per my answer above.
"using English titles" When they are translations, rather than transliteration, yes, I think so. I say the same of using the Western form of Japanese names. It's lazy. (And it sows confusion for people who know the correct form but not which one WP is using.)
"historians...who routinely use full English translations of foreign operational names are not among the best?" Nope. I don't think so. As a matter of opinion, tho; I've no way of judging the quality of their scholarship.
"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." Fine for mathematical elegance, not necessarily applicable here.
Evidently I should have taken five before I posted; I was testier & less precise than I should have been. Trekphiler (talk) 16:13, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Another way of looking at it

Until now we have discussed title use from perspective of the author/editor. How would a reader search for the article? Imagine a high school student working of an essay. What would he/she look for when looking at say the earliest battles with Axis after the fall of France? Not Operation Battleaxe because he/she is starting from scratch. Does knowing the operation name matter? It seems to me that it does not. It was a name given to an operation for security reasons, but aside from that carries no other innate information about the event, as intended! It says as much in the Manual of Style. So how does an event become named for an article title that gives the article meaning? Is the author obligated to use the operation security name or to use a name that informs the reader? In my humble opinion the later is always better. British offensive in eastern Libya (1941) seems to me to be a far better article title then Operation Battleaxe because that is what it was even if it is not "sourced" or "most used" in English. I think this would solve the issue of the use of non-English terms in the titles. Common sense to me --mrg3105mrg3105 If you're not taking any flack, you're not over the target. 07:23, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Let me take my usual perspective. =D Given any knowledge of the subject, getting to the right page should be no problem. A student given Monty, Rommel, & Libya will find "Battleaxe" in the respective articles on the senior commanders. Even a bad TV doc that only mentions "Battleaxe" in passing will offer a lead. And, AFAIK, even searching "Tobruk" or "Alamein" will mention battles around them in the right era, so identifying "Battleaxe" won't be too hard. (A student might not know it was '41 or '42, but will know WW1 from WW2 {one hopes...} or Lawrence didn't have tanks {one hopes...}.)
Also, it isn't just a cover ID, it's a form of "brevity code", so you can say "Clamagore" & don't have to keep saying "That bloody awful operation against that rotter Rommel at Tobruk in May 1943" all the time. The interest of brevity militates against "descriptive" page titles; they're too hard to remember if you want to search again, & we get into a debate over just how much detail to include, which is a debate we really don't need. (It clearly isn't just for security, or nobody'd have had the half-witted idea to codename the invasion of Italy Operation Avalanche...) Trekphiler (talk) 12:06, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

"Battleaxe" (interesting choice...) was used because it is far-and-away the most common name for the actions taken. "British offensive in eastern Libya (1941)" could be Operation Brevity, Operation Battleaxe, Operation Crusader, or even the last part of Operation Compass. If anyone had heard of this action, it was likely entirely due to hearing it referred to as "Battleaxe", the only alternative, "Battle of Sollum", is something that I've only found in a few books, namely Rommel's personal writings and a speech made to the House of Commons by Churchill.

In the case you mention, we have the following:

  • The World War II article itself (which is where I'd think 90%+ people would go)
  • The "aftermath" section of the Battle of France
  • The military history articles of Germany or the United Kingdom

I doubt many would, randomly, type in anything to do with Libya; people with no knowledge of the war aren't going to connect something in North Africa with the war in Europe. In any case, Battleaxe isn't even close to being the first, there's the whole Battle of Britain and Axis conquering of Greece, along with many other events, before it.

But I think you'd agree that the debate about using operational names in English vs. foreign languages is a bit of a seperate subject from using operational names at all, no? Oberiko (talk) 14:36, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I was presuming a minimum knowledge of the battle (mention of a city or country, desert, something) in going to "Libya".
"a bit of a seperate subject"? Maybe, but part of the same argument, I think. It's the difference between "zero knowledge", "minimum knowledge", & "expertise", or between "aim hi" or "dumb down". As noted above, I take the view we should aim for articles serving the smartest & most interested student, not the dumbest (or the vandals, who aren't reading the articles anyhow). I'm not suggesting they should be inaccessible or unreadable unless you've got college-level English, just that the level of information should satisfy a top student. Trekphiler (talk) 11:25, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

This discussion has gone off track

Sorry for interjecting with a subhead, but unless I've misread this discussion badly, this all started as perfectly innocent discussion about standardized practice on the subject of using the idiom "Operation" or other language translation in reference to the actions. Now we're dangerously skirting "who's correct" and positing on whether the prose under discussion is aimed at Grade 9 readability or Grade 12 readability. Except for my roughing in the numbers, have I misread? Are we actually getting bitter over this trivia? BusterD (talk) 15:43, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, let's all try to make sure that nobody gets too aggravated over this; we have the luxury of time to fully discuss this and come up with something that works. Disagreement is to be expected—we all have differing views on how things should be presented—but I'm confident that we'll be able to come to a workable consensus eventually.
As far as the substance is concerned, I'm beginning to wonder if the "use the historians' preferred method" idea suggested initially couldn't be workable in some broad sense? Not on the level of individual articles, perhaps, but maybe broad areas? For example, is there some "common" method used by, say, WWII historians to refer to such operations in WWII? On the Eastern Front of WWII? And so forth? (WWII seems to be the biggest area of practical concern here; few other conflicts involve so many codenames in so many languages.)
Or is this still likely to be infeasible? Kirill 17:02, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
It tends to be a very mixed field, usually boiling down to the individual historian. Some other problems also tend to crop with inaccurate translations that became somewhat popular: an example being Operation Ha (Ha-gō sakusen, ハ 号作戦) being routinely translated as "Operation Z" becase Ha (ハ) is the 26th katakana symbol by the common ordering scheme; since there are close to fifty katakana symbols, that would obviously be an unfeasible way to translate. Other problems often include partial translations that, if fully translated, would be the equivelant to Operation operation X. Quite problematic, especially if we're going for any kind of standardization. Oberiko (talk) 18:08, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
How many people are disagreeing and what are their points of view? If we answer this question the conflict appears far less dramatic. Oberiko has provided a good example. The most common name seems to be Operation Z, however, it is an incorrect translation. For the Operation operation x we could use a mix =Operation(translated term) x(native term). Wandalstouring (talk) 18:50, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Let's assume that the following examples all say the same thing:

  • ДĞÖΦ ÂΔΘ€őþœəи - Original
  • Lorem Ipsum Dolor - Transliteration
  • Operation Lorem Ipsum - Partial
  • Operation Iron Fist - Full

Of the above, I don't think anyone is pushing (or, by Wikipedia standards, would be allowed) to have the very first one. Of the latter three, they all appear in various historical accounts, as per the whims of the particular author, to the point that there is no real "standard".

What we have agreed on (I think) is that nothing outside of those four should be used. For example: "Operation Lorem Ipsum Dolor", which would be the "Operation operation" error. I think most of us would also agree that an inaccurate translation should be avoided where possible as well.

It would seem that the current discussion has led to dropping, for the most part, the transliteration option and now contends between the partial and full translations.

The arguments for the partial translation are:

  • More authentic

The arguments for the full translation are:

  • More clarity, easier to access
  • Adheres to Wikipedia conventions

Of course, being that I'm arguing for the full translation, my opinion may be biased. Oberiko (talk) 19:40, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

We should at least have redirects for all possible writings. Now, it is only a question what we define as the title under which the article should be presented. As long as the most common name rule isn't clear, a most translated rule could apply(being easiest to understand for a speaker of English). Wandalstouring (talk) 20:31, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Can I mention the (IMO highly sensible) convention WP:ENGLISH again? In particular, two points which have not really been addressed:
  1. That convention says that where a subject is not well known, we should use the name in the original language.
  2. more consideration should be given to the correctness of translation, rather than frequency of usage
e.g. Few lay readers have heard of Ten-gō sakusen, "Operation Ten-Go" (which is a half-baked translation in any case, since "Ten-Go" is neither English nor even very close to the proper Japanese word...and yes, we are allowed to use accents in en.wikipedia) "Operation Ten-gō" or "Operation Heaven One", by those names. At least Ten-gō sakusen has the advantage of being the original name (since we aren't writing articles in Japanese characters), although Last mission of the battleship Yamato may be the best name of all, IMO
Grant 16:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Hey Grant. Can you quote where those points came from on WP:ENGLISH? I can't seem to find them, and, to me, seems to contradict the primary point of "article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity."
I agree on your second point that, for the most part, most of these aren't worth fighting over if an easy fix (such as not using the operation name as the article name) can be used. Oberiko (talk) 17:45, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
WP:ENGLISH does not mention 1 from above, but it does mention 2, but only when there is no long established history of any usage, ie. that google turns up very few hits for any version of the name. Ten-go does not fall under this category (IMO) as Operation Ten-go receives 11,000 hits to Ten-go sakusen giving only 1,200. However, I disagree with using a descriptive name for an encyclopedia article, Oberiko and Grant. For other articles, we can all agree that at the least, we must transliterate. The main question seems to be just transliteration, full translation or partial translation, correct? Or do others consider a descriptive title as a viable alternative?Cromdog (talk) 18:35, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
The thing is that our the MilHist MOS states we are to avoid code names where possible. I was assuming this discussion was primarily about operations where using a descriptive name simply isn't feasible (due to ambiguity otherwise, almost always known as the codename etc.). Oberiko (talk) 18:57, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I was referring to 'descriptive' titles, such as the aformentioned Last mission of the battleship Yamato...something that to me seems to be too unwieldy for a title.Cromdog (talk) 19:36, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Oh, I see. The making linking to those articles easy and second nature part of WP:NAME. Oberiko (talk) 19:54, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

"Last mission of the battleship Yamato" is too unwieldy? It's hardly "Proposed Japanese invasion of Australia during World War II". ;-) Grant 06:55, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Where to go from here?

It seems that this discussion has mostly settled and the points for either side been made. Where should we go from here? Oberiko (talk) 16:28, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Since we seem to be stalemated, does anyone have any objection if we take it to WP:Name and let them decide the matter? Oberiko (talk) 14:05, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Sound idea. --ROGER DAVIES talk 14:48, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
That seems reasonable; Wikipedia:Naming conventions (events) would probably need to be kept in sync with this anyways. (Having said that, I'm not sure that the people watching the main naming pages will be any more in agreement than we've been.) Kirill 16:09, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, we might at least get some more people involved. The conversation thread is here. Oberiko (talk) 16:43, 4 March 2008 (UTC)


Fundamental issues, perhaps MILMOS, coming out in Iran-Iraq edit wars

I am concerned that a potential RfA may address some minor issues, creating conflict with attempts to be encyclopedic about military history articles. The battles in Iran-Iraq War are centered around entries in the infobox, when many more complex and significant aspects are involved and are being ignored in the heated emotions there. For those of sufficient strength, see Iran-Iraq War#Infobox again: the purpose is to add clarity, not fight battles. If it's this difficult to manage, it needs to be deleted.

If I may, I'd like to emphasize here that things that are arguably wrong elsewhere are being used, in the Iran-Iraq article, as a drunk in the night uses a light post: for support, rather than illumination. For example, the WWII infobox shows the war going between 1939 and 1945. I'd suggest that quite a few Chinese and Japanese would disagree with that, and, even there, it would be arguable when, in the thirties, the conflict started.

My own proposal is there be an "overarching" article about the best known name for the conflict, but, in the lead, links to a series of articles on specific conflicts. In the Iran-Iraq case, I am perfectly comfortable having articles on US-Kuwaiti vs. Iran, and Iraq vs US conflict.

I am perfectly comfortable with another article on western support to Iran and Iraq, from simple supplies to advice, that also recognizes that there were no joint staffs or coalitions. It is POV, I believe, that the issue is being made of US supplies and advice, but not of the Russian equipment on both sides, the Russian and French technical assistance to the Iraqis, the Kuwaiti reflagging, the Russian and US and British equipment used by the Iranians, etc.

There could well be a separate articles on the freedom of navigation issues and combat.

Another difficult area involves both the listing of non-national combatants and of nations that changed sides. Let's go back to WWII, not the controversy at hand. In a two-column infobox, on what side(s) should Finland, the USSR, and Italy appear? Should the Seminole Nation, which declared war on the Tripartite Pact, have a listing? "Neutral" Switzerland and Sweden still probably assisted one side more than the other. Should the Swedish ball bearing sales, if nothing else, define participation? The Swedish acceptance of the Danish Jews?

If the dates were 1939-1945, then, I suppose, the US wasn't a participant. Where are the relationships to the Panay incident and Lend-Lease to be in the infobox? What about the results of the Wise Peace Policy of Comrade Stalin? Where does the Haganah fit, with a temporary truce toward Britain?

I'm afraid the discussion going on in Iran-Iraq, ostensibly about the infobox, is making me wonder if the fundamental idea of trying to make useful boxes is more like improving epicycles while ignoring Copernicus. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 15:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I have very mixed feelings about infoboxes for precisely the reasons you mention. They have a tendency to over-simplify complex subjects and strip out nuance and variation in the process. This can be handled much more sensitively and comprehensively in the lead. As Wikipedia becomes more globalized - and less Anglosphere dominated - these issues will increase. The best thing in their favour is that they present a unified graphic, which provides cohesion between a series of related articles. This can be done in other ways, with less potential for contention, for example, with graphics alone. --ROGER DAVIES talk 15:29, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Would it be appropriate to link this discussion to the current argument, and especially the RfA if issued, from Iran-Iraq to here? It worries me that an arbitrator, who is not especially versed in military history, will get caught up in the raw emotion in Iran-Iraq, and wind up making rulings that affect the overall infobox process.
Indeed, I wonder if it might be appropriate for MILHIST, perhaps on the essays page, to address the broader issues of multipolar, non-Anglosphere article organization. While I'm the last person in the world to sympathize with Saddam, with one or two exceptions, the most invested in the infobox argument, are clearly pro-Iranian. The crux of their issue is they want the US listed as an enemy of Iran in the infobox, and some also want non-national groups under Iran and Iraq listed, such as Kurdistan. As far as I can tell, they simply don't want to hear about the role of Kuwait, Russia, France, Britain, etc. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 15:42, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
That's a very good idea. How do you feel about drafting something? I find it much easier to expand things than start from scratch. Others are not so hampered :) --ROGER DAVIES talk 16:47, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
There's the meat of a considerable essay already in this section, but with the most insightful, well-organized essay in the world, how can it deal with the POV warriors? I will freely admit that someone who fumed at me for some time about trying to introduce some balance into CIA utterly amazed me, a few days ago, by presenting me with a diplomacy barnstar. I was utterly amazed.
Now, if there were a decent essay that, in some way, showed a consensus guide to writing military histories, given the POV if-you-are-not-my-ally-you-are-my-enemy people, how could it benefit the process? Kirill's opinion was that this would be perceived by the ArbCom as a content dispute, in which they would not get involved. As long as there is a core of 4-6 that have a political POV, I see them as being able to filibuster the matter to death, WP:OWN notwithstanding.
The next two steps, in parallel or series as people here think most wise, would be to create External support for Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, and then to rename U.S. support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war as External support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War. The lead few paragraphs of the "US support" article do identify a number of other countries, but one wouldn't realize that from the title. "support to Iran" would certainly pick up Iran-Contra. I'd want to find out if either Britain or Russia sold them spare parts or actual tanks and guns, or, for that matter, missiles, during the period in question. Iraq clearly had more external suppliers.
Would "support" include "combat"? Somewhere in these supplementary articles would need to be, in no special order, the engagement centered around Vincennes (more than the Airbus alone), mining of international waters, the Stark and Roberts, the attacks on Kuwaiti and other vessels, etc. Is support the wrong term?
Rather than rename the US article, perhaps it would be more or less politic to start a new one. Nevertheless, one should always consider contingencies when going into a potential conflict. I would hesitate to start what outsiders might call a balanced view, as long as a hard core will fight it once they find it.
It's not only infoboxes that get POV battled. Think of the article Covert U.S. regime change actions. I got POV pushback even when I suggested renaming "US regime change action", as I would suggest Grenada, Panama, and Iraq were hardly covert. Indeed, there's grumbling that such an article didn't read "CIA-sponsored covert regime change" (tinfoil hats on), if we didn't have solid documentation of such things as Iran-Contra specifically circumventing even CIA covert action, or the loophole that may exist today in which military special operations forces could be used for covert operations, bypassing the CIA-specific Presidential finding and Congressional notification (there are some legal nuances).
Am I rambling, or does this help establish the issues? I'm simply dubious about Wikipedia having a mechanism to handle POV cliques. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 23:33, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I too have a love/hate relationship with infoboxes: I love them when no one disagrees with me about what should go in them. Otherwise, they suck! ;-)
As Mr. Berkowitz rightly points out, too much time is wasted on these things. I would suggest a simple guideline to help avoid some of these endless arguments: Any field in an infobox that is routinely disputed by informed, good-faith editors should be omitted. No agreement about combatants? Omit them. Commanders causing problems? Omit. Sort the issues out in the text instead, where most of the effort should be concentrated anyway. —Kevin Myers 15:49, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I've found that roughly 90% of the issues we had (in the World War II section) was regarding the infobox. I would advise the following:
  • Make the infobox a template. This keeps the bulk of your edit-wars and discussion isolated from the main page, makes tracking changes much easier, prevents a lot of "drive-by" changes and leaves a much smaller footprint for the Wikipedia database.
  • Debates about "major belligerents" tends to get very heated, usually by people (I've found) who are biased to being pro- or anti- nation X. I think I would agree with you that we probably need some MOS participation level recommendation. If one nation did 80%+ of the war-work, then it's probably better to leave them in the box alone and have other nations/client-states listed in a link as "And co-belligerents" beneath them. Addressing Kevin's point, any field that can be routinely debated likely deserves its own article (or section of an article) anyway. Oberiko (talk) 15:52, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Forgot, thanks to Howard C. Berkowitz for pointing out the 1939 start-date issue; I've changed that to late 1930s, as I should have a while ago. Oberiko (talk) 15:58, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Believe me, I cringe to bring this up, but even "co-belligerent" becomes controversial. In a global economy, it would not be totally unreasonable to consider any country, which does not have a strict economic embargo against all combatants, to be, in the broadest sense, a participant. Now, I regard that as insane, but, as you point out, 90% of the disagreements do not deal with military history, but perceived injustice, and, especially, that some perceived bad-guy country isn't singled out for condemnation.
With trepidation, I'll mention the US role in Iran-Iraq. As I've suggested a number of times on the talk page, I would be perfectly fine in having three additional articles, one dealing with US combat with Iranian assets, and the other with US combat with Iraqi assets. Kuwait can probably ride along with some of those.
The third article deals with support/supply. While in this specific war, satellite IMINT principally came from the US and presumably USSR, the current reality is that there is better commercial imagery available than the national technical means of the time. I have trouble saying the US was a belligerent because it gave imagery to Iraq, but now an arbitrary country can generally biy better imagery from French or other private companies. To avoid the participant label, must private satellite companies embargo shipment? As I understand, detailed imagery of Israel is considerably harder to buy than of other areas.
I haven't looked for Finland, the USSR, and Italy, to say nothing of the Seminoles, in the WWII infobox. A look at the dates was enough for me to decide there were things I'd rather not know.Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 16:06, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Classical warfare seems a happy place compared with your troubles. I still think the infobox system is useful because information can be boiled down, however, some guidelines could help against endless discussions. Wandalstouring (talk) 16:38, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Indeed. The infoboxes were designed around the average case, which is obviously simpler than some of what we're dealing with in these more modern conflicts. Kirill 16:41, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
It's worth noting that the Arbitration Committee stays well away from making content decisions. I can't really see any circumstances where we'd rule on what should and shouldn't go into a particular template in any detail. Kirill 16:41, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
With no sarcasm intended, would your suggestion be to give up on the edit war in Iran-Iraq? It appears that there is a group of editors that will fight any change to their POV, which has little to do with encyclopedic quality.
I'm still dealing with the idea of chemical warfare as a happy place. Even there, I have mixed feelings about mentioning explosives and incendiaries as not chemical weapons, given some of the endless, essentially emotional arguments about WP as a chemical weapon. (For the record, I have been in the immediate vicinity of burning WP in lab accidents, controlled the fire, and then assisted in disposal of fragments in the emergency room. I've breathed the smoke and prefer it to cigars.)Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 16:49, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I wouldn't give up. I'd start by templating it, then giving it a few days to cool off (even a little). Regarding your earlier points, the actions of private companies and individuals shouldn't be included unless they are relatively massive. Within the limited confines of the infobox we don't, for example, include Spain and Vichy France as part of the Soviet-German War, even though they sent volunteers; likewise we don't include countries which sold materials to a particular nation as their allies.
Do we currently have an article for foreign involvement in the Iran-Iraq War? If not, it'd probably be a good place to start, at least to gather all the facts. Oberiko (talk) 17:01, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Sort of. There are three related articles – U.S. support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, Arms sales to Iraq 1973-1990, Iraq-gate (Gulf War) – on Iraq, but none on Iran other than Iran-Contra Affair. I’ve recommended the first two be made more bipartisan. In the article Howard, I and a few others have been trying to bring some stability to, the Iran-Contra Affair is noted only briefly under Iran’s Military armaments/technology section, but US support for Iraq is treated substantively in three separate sections in this one article.
While I’ve never been a great fan of infoboxes, the problem here isn’t so much with infoboxes per se as it is that their terms are so vaguely defined that they are extremely open to abuse by POV warriors, especially by those with only a secondary familiarity with English – or even by those with it as they are more adept at “gaming” colloquial usage. The result is a very difficult problem to resolve when nationalist jingoism is pushed; if you don’t accept their POV, you are automatically tagged as irrevocably anti-“them”, so there’s little chance for anyone who is neutral on the subject to help work things out. Askari Mark (Talk) 19:34, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
(sigh) I've gone into the U.S. support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and found large blocks of text identical to that which is in Iran-Iraq War. Possibly due to masochistic urges, I am now updating a great many incomplete or external references, in the former article, to reasonably complete inline citations. It suggests something when exactly the same citation errors are made in both.
I have to agree about the POV. I agree if the three related articles cited by Mark were, in fact, made more even-handed, with a minimum of duplication, the entire multilateral conflict would be much better covered. So far, I haven't gotten any "anti-Iran" accusations for bibliographic clarification, but who knows?
Ironically, I believe it is in the interest of contemporary Iran to bring accuracy to any WMD discussion, including some of the hysteria about arming Iraq. I am apparently handicapped by not having direct familiarity with microbiology in general, and BW more specifically. The Riegle Committee report, coming from the Senate Banking Committee that has oversight over export licenses, is indignant about the provision of terrible cultures to Iraq. Out of interest, I went and read the list of cultures. One of the orders indeed was headed by a culture offensive to Muslim sensitivities, since that first organism was a Saccharomyces yeast species notorious for its role in the preparation of fine Belgian ale.
If one looks at a past US Militarily Critical Technologies List, the more recent being classified but quite adequate in available versions, they correctly identify the really critical elements in a BW program as the production-scale culture, drying and milling, etc., equipment, which, in the case of Iraq, came from France and Russia. Many of these, however, are dual-use. Much indignation is vented on providing cultures, of, for example, Bacillus anthracis, when "Woolsorter's Disease" is endemic in the Middle East; getting cultures are the easiest part.
This sort of imprecision led to the aluminum tube fiasco WRT Iraq centrifuge development, and presumably the same sort of errors could affect Iran's program and be used as a casus belli. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 20:06, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
For note, there is somewhat of an ongoing issue with the War of 1812 infobox as well, specifically the results and we try to explain over and over again that the result was complex so, we put the definite result (That a treaty was signed giving status quo ante bellum) and let the reader decide if anyone 'won'. Infoboxes are, sadly, as much of a bane as a boon. I'd suggest the answer is that if it is a complex issue, we put a section saying "See this section for details" or such. Just my 0.02 cents Narson (talk) 20:54, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Please see an updated writeup, in which I tried to convey what I sense is a MILHIST consensus, under Talk:Iran-Iraq War#The infobox most everyone seems to want. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 15:39, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I took some classes in microbiology and can possibly help you a bit with BW. Just send me a message about what bothers you. Wandalstouring (talk) 15:58, 23 February 2008 (UTC)


Peer review for USS Siboney (ID-2999) now open

The peer review for USS Siboney (ID-2999) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 16:41, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Prefixes and Hull Numbers

I noticed a problem and I am not sure how exactly to solve it. When noting other ships in the Iowa class articles some ships are given a mention including there prefixes but not hull numbers, some omit the prefixes but include the hill number, and some omit both and simply report the name of the ship. Do we have a uniform way for presenting this kind of information? TomStar81 (Talk) 18:54, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships) - basically don't put the hull number in (unless immediately relevant, which is rare in an article of the sort you're talking about). Use the prefix on the first mention if it may not be clear what the nationality is, but it then isn't usually needed on subsequent mentions to the same ship. Benea (talk) 19:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I often find it helpful to include the hull number so that you know what kind of ship it is without having to be familiar with its name. For example, you could refer to Gilligan and I'll have no idea what it is, but Gilligan (DE-508) tells me that it's a destroyer escort without having to click on its article. TomTheHand (talk) 14:30, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Tom. I think the first mention should include the hull number with the first use, but not afterwards. One does have to be careful, though, to use the contemporary number for ships that were redesignated during their service life. Askari Mark (Talk) 16:58, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
And to add in the former names and hull numbers if they have any. Leobold1 (talk) 22:09, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Helping out

I just cleaned out the slush pile of all articles. Is there any other specific area I can help with? Geoff Plourde (talk) 23:00, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Our template has a large selection of articles needing attention, any help you could provide there would be apreciated. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:44, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Tag & Assess 2007 forgotten?

Remember that on Tag & Assess 2007, it says "All articles you tag and assess during January will be credited fully to your tagging tally for award purposes." But now it's well into middle of February, surely someone forgot to do a follow up and dish out the awards? (Or is it held up because of the coordinators election?)OhanaUnitedTalk page 23:56, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Probably just a simply oversight. Most of our efforts after the new year were focused on collecting info from the drive to improve the next one. Incidentally, Roger Davies was handling the award handouts, so he may have some system he is working on to get the awards dished out. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:00, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, Ohana, it's entirely my fault. The top-up awards didn't fit easily into the system so it was a bit fiddly to do and the time slipped. Anyhow, I've sorted it now and everyone should have their updated awards. Thanks for mentioning it, --ROGER DAVIES talk 03:40, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Cheers. OhanaUnitedTalk page 03:43, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Incidentally, it would be great, if you have some spare time in the next week or so, to add your insights, comments or criticisms to the Tag & Assess Workshop page. The feedback will be used for planning and improving the next drive. --ROGER DAVIES talk 04:02, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Indonesian occupation of East Timor (1975-1999) now open

The A-Class review for Indonesian occupation of East Timor (1975-1999) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Carom (talk) 17:49, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Deletion

Template:BRAC is up for deletion. I would rather not see it burned, but no one knows when the BRAC round will be. Thoughts on this deletion? —Preceding unsigned comment added by TomStar81 (talk • contribs) 03:58, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Change the template wording to 'The information on this page may change as a result of the next BRAC round. However, the timing of the next round has not yet been determined' Buckshot06 (talk) 07:52, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Personally, I think that it should be deleted. The change will be that it will be announced that the base will either close or have its role changed. Both of these events normally take months or years to impliment and don't warrant the use of such a template. Military bases (and all other government institutions for that matter) are forever opening, closing and changing so the BRAC process should be included in the text of the article rather than in a template. At present, using the template seems to be a combination of crystal ball gazing (eg, as it is being speculated that the BRAC will have an impact) and placing undue weight on what's basically a routine event in the life of military bases. -Nick Dowling (talk) 22:45, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
At the time I created this the bases effected by the BRAC round had been announced but not the planned changes, so this was added as something of a placeholder until the committee released its final recommendations. The tally is now 0/1/0, deletion leading by a point. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:52, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Public records?

Is there a public resource of who is in the US armed services, and maybe their status? Matt Sanchez has been referred to as "Marine Cpl" and "reservist", but there's some question as to whether he's still a member. Thoughts? -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 15:32, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I suspect that the answer is yes and no. Yes for Commissioned (and Warrant) Officers, no for Enlisted men. Which unfortunately doesn't help you very much. I may be wrong though, but it's basically true in the UK, and I would expect the US to broadly similar. David Underdown (talk) 16:08, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Where's that resource for Commissioned Officers?--Vidkun (talk) 16:23, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
For the US Navy (I would assume this includes US Marine Corps officers too, but haven't actually checked) http://buperscd.technology.navy.mil/bup_updt/upd_CD/BUPERS/Register/RegOpenMenu.html, Royal Navy and Royal Marines (2006 edition) http://www.rncom.mod.uk/uploadedFiles/RN/Reference_Library/e_navy_list_2006.pdf (see Navy List). I believe that there's a (British) Army List and (Royal) Air Force List as well but would have to do more searching to find online copies. All British commissions and promotions are routinely published in the London Gazette which has an online search facility. David Underdown (talk) 16:40, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
I was wrong, the US list referred to above is Navy only, and doesn't cover USMC. I suspect one will be avaialbe somewhere though. David Underdown (talk) 16:45, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
There are sources avaliable to active duty/reserve US Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard that would give that list. All it would take is someone who is in the military now. Leobold1 (talk) 22:11, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, there is much more concern about having biographical information available without some level of control. The sensitivity started some years ago, when the State Department Biographical Register was readily available, and then magazines published "How to Spot a Spook" articles on the key indicators that a particular entry was for an intelligence officer under diplomatic cover.
There have been incidents, not always very clear, that ideological organizations have used biographical data for harassment, including of the service member's family. Personally, I think that some tinfoil hats do get involved, but I won't dismiss the argument completely.
Getting information from promotions and such takes more determined effort than a single guide. I once did an OSINT exercise where I was given, IIRC, 100 consecutive "Hometown News" or whatever the Pentagon calls the news releases it sends to hometown media, and experimented to see how much order of battle and doctrinal information could be derived, especially when I could request archived news releases. The amount derived was not trivial, especially when the effort focused on the news releases focused on a unit in a particular location. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 06:03, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for y'alls help - sounds like there really isn't a way to tell unless you're currently on the payroll. Makes sense - I just wasn't sure if the military needed to be more open than that :) -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 15:10, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Copy-editors

There's a terrible shortage of these for milhist articles. Is anyone interested in volunteering their services if a list of available copy-editors were set up? This would not, of course, require copy-editors to accept every request that was made or, indeed, to copy-edit to Pulitzer prize standards. --ROGER DAVIES talk 05:40, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not unwilling, in principle, in volunteering. My concern is time, and understanding that while clarifying questions are welcome, in a volunteer situation, grammatical wars are not useful. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 05:55, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Good points. First, there are many levels of copy-edit, from quick fixes of glaring problems and correcting typos, to in-depth line-by-line stuff. Second, in my experience, grammar wars are very rare in this situation. By requesting a copy-edit, people are implicitly handing over the keys to the house and are usually very grateful for the input. They are rarely precious about what they have written. --ROGER DAVIES talk 06:05, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Most serious copyediting seems to be done as a precursor to FAC, I think; extensively copyediting an article that'll be significantly rewritten later isn't really a very good use of one's time. I wonder if it mightn't be worthwhile to set up this volunteer copyediting group as an aspect of some sort of broader pre-FA workshop rather than as an isolated effort. Kirill 06:30, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
That's pretty much where I was leading. i was curious to see where any interest lay. We seem to be establishing a good FA route as many of our articles go: PR / A-Class / FAC in rapid succession. That would need also MOS-specific copy-editing skills (endashes, emdashes, hard spaces, BE/AE consistencies etc). --ROGER DAVIES talk 07:10, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I was including all of that under "copyediting". We might also want a more technical check for things like correct template setup and so forth.
In any case, since the existing A-Class review doesn't really cover quality of prose to any great extent, articles that go through even the entire process (and there's many that don't, obviously) can wind up on FAC without having gotten a needed copyedit. I'm not sure whether it would make sense to integrate copyediting into the review process, per se, but it would be nice to have something like an intermediate point between the content reviews (PR, A-Class) and FAC where authors could get someone to do a technical review of their article before nominating it. Kirill 07:26, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Quite. The fact is that many peer reviewers do comment on the need for a light copy-edit, simply to make the prose easier to read, rather than saying it would be needed for the formal FA path. It all points, I suppose, for a general need for copy-editors providing a range of copy-editing, from "lite" to "de luxe". Copy quality, as you know, is easily the single biggest crunch issue at FAC, derailing or snarling up many candidacies. --ROGER DAVIES talk 09:32, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm all for the creation of the task force, but thats becuase I intend to use the hell out of it if/when it gets created. We could start by checking to see if any of our members are also members of the league of copyediters, since they would be the ones most likely support the creation of such a group and be active within it. Thats my two cents. TomStar81 (Talk) 10:08, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Have you raised this with the WikiProject League of Copyeditors? They might have some suggestions. --Nick Dowling (talk) 10:17, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
No, I haven't yet. This is very much at toe in the water stage, seeing who could informally provide editing here at a variety of levels. A good deal of it is unlikely to be LOCE territory and need a full CE. Others may just need a MOS technical CE (correct dash types; number formats; distance conversions) which could be happily done by a wiki-gnome rather than a copy-editor. --ROGER DAVIES talk 16:17, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Won't it be a useful procedure to send our new A class articles to the league since they are all more or less in need of copyediting. Wandalstouring (talk) 15:49, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it would indeed in theory (though not all our articles need to go automatically as many are already well-written by the very good writers within the project). The problem with LOCE is they have a 13-month backlog and many of their copy-editors know nothing about military history. I suspect if we can come up with alternatives, they'll be very pleased with us :) --ROGER DAVIES talk 16:17, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
An in-house LOCE, basically? ;-)
(If you want to get really fancy, you could set up something like a workshop department, where people would stop by and ask for a particular type of technical assistance [e.g. copyediting, illustration, maps, templates] with an article. That would allow a more one-stop solution for people who had gotten the material prepared but needed help with polishing.) Kirill 17:57, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
I have a suggestion based on Kirill's comment above. Early on in the project we offered a collaboration article of the month, which didn't work out. Yet the recent tagging and assessment collaboration went very well. What if the project drove a set of collaborative clinics/workshops over a regular time period devoted to this sort of "rising tide" effort. The clinics could cycle back around on an established rhythm. Citations and Referencing drive one month, say, then Sections and Copyediting drive the next, then Maps and Images, Talk pages and archives, or whatever material the project decides. But my point is that a drive-related collaboration worked in the past, perhaps a similar idea could be adapted here. BusterD (talk) 18:30, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Interesting but the copy-editing need is a persistent on-going one rather than a crisis that needs dealing with every few months. I'd rather see a constant lower-level of activity with editors finding regular niches. Not everything is appropriate for drives: some editors won't get involved in drives but will regularly chip in on stuff that interests them. Also an indepth copy-edit can take ages. --ROGER DAVIES talk 18:43, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Funnily enough, Kirill, that's exactly the direction my mind was going in :) Matching needs to skills within the project, and roping in specialist outsiders. --ROGER DAVIES talk 18:43, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Article logistics dept

Some ideas for structure:

Copy-editing
  • Copy-edit lite: basic proofreading, spellchecking, punctuation.
  • Conversion: AE>BE or vice versa
  • Naturalising: copy-edit for editors whose English is fluent but not perfect
  • FAC technical copy-edit: Mos-compliance for dashes, hard spaces, numbers, measurement conversion
  • FAC prose copy-edit: flow, structure, elegance.
Graphics
  • Mods of existing maps.
  • Maps to order.
  • Diagrams to order.
  • Design of project barnstars
  • Design of project user boxes
Photography & picture sourcing
  • Request specific pix: from out-of-copyright resources, subjects photographed on request by local editors
  • Request picture clean up and retouching
  • Request fair use rationale help
Research
  • Find-a-source: list info for which source needed
  • Jstor material: list article needs
  • Find a book: does anyhow have XXXX and can they look at p320 and tell me if XXX is sourced there.
Templates
  • New templates to order
  • Old templates modified or updated
Translation
  • Translation of short sections for articles.
  • Gist. "Can you give me the gist of what this means"

Recruit editors: in-project; via announcements; in related projects, introduce a friend (from real life)

--ROGER DAVIES talk 19:25, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

May I say "magnificent"?
I'm in temporary housing, and most of my books are in storage. I often can narrow the cite I want to a section of a book, but I just don't have access--Cape Cod is rural enough that there are no really decent reference libraries within an hour or two drive.
There are also cases where I have no clue as to how to find a document that I know is now declassified (it was marked declassify from CONFIDENTIAL in 3 years), during the Vietnam War, yet would be quite relevant. Sometimes I may not remember more than it was in the MACV Lessons Learned series, and I don't know if there is an index somewhere, or if it's searchable from the public DTIC.Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 19:37, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, very nice structure overall. I'd take out the barnstars and userboxes from here though; they're not really related to article work, per se, and our need for new ones is so infrequent that there's probably little benefit to setting up a dedicated area for it. Kirill 00:33, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. You're probably right about barnstars and userboxen. --ROGER DAVIES talk 19:29, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I like this idea and would be certainly willing to chip in with anything under the 'Copyediting' section above. However, as Roger notes above, a full FA-standard copyedit takes a while (often up to a week for longer articles depending on the degree to which RL intrudes), and I'm fairly busy elsewhere on WP as well. A lot will depend on finding a pool of reliable editors that have time available ;) EyeSereneTALK 08:39, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Know anyone who might be interested? If so, rope 'em in :) --ROGER DAVIES talk 19:29, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Not many, unfortunately - although I'm a member of the LoCE, I tend to copyedit by personal request. There's one or two I could ask, but whether their interests and other commitments would allow... I also don't think we want to be seen as poaching copyeditors from the LoCE, although if the net result is that MilHist articles are no longer added to LoCE pages, thereby reducing their backlog, we may find some support. Have you tried asking there? EyeSereneTALK 12:26, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Can I suggest adding a "fact-finding" bullet as well? Things for questions like "how much territory was conquered by nation X during the y war" or "who commanded the Z battalion at the Battle of Something" etc. One sentence answers. Oberiko (talk) 11:26, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Good idea. --ROGER DAVIES talk 19:29, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

How does just Logistics dept sound? Article logistics is kind of clunky. --ROGER DAVIES talk 19:29, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Logistics, presumably? That would be clear enough, I think, and also neatly avoids any questions regarding whether, say, lists count as "articles". Kirill 23:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)


List of Historically significant generals

On page General Officer, User:Althena started a "List of Historically significant generals".

I think it's a lovely concept, but I imagine most of you (like me) are cringing in horror at the thought of the realities of the idea. (e.g. see my postings at Talk:General Officer#List of Historically significant generals and User talk:Althena#General Officer.)

Can one (or more) of you more-knowlegable-and-more-experience-than-me people please have a look at:

and give "Althena" some better and more useful advice than mine?

Thanks in advance, Pdfpdf (talk) 10:33, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Easy solution. All the editor needs to do is go around all the event articles and copy names of general-rank officers ;O) Gonna be a loooooooooog list though!--mrg3105 (comms) If you're not taking any flak, you're not over the target. 11:10, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Gee, thanks mrg3105. That was really helpful. (Never-the-less, I'm still smiling ... ;-) Pdfpdf (talk) 11:57, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
You could also ask Turkish editors whom they think is a historically significant Greek general and vice versa. I guarantee heaps of fun.Wandalstouring (talk) 15:44, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Hmm, have to say this doesn't seem like a well thought out idea. There's no objective way to state who is "significant", or even what the criteria of being "significant" is. Even the concept of what a general is differs by region and era. Oberiko (talk) 16:12, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Quite. Plus, the only way to avoid original research objections is to cite reliable sources specifically for "historically significant" for each and every entrant. --ROGER DAVIES talk 17:05, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
I think it should be split off in a different list whatever. Furthermore there are probably 1000's of significant generals unless a definition of significant is found that is less ill defined. E.g. Henri Winkelman was significant because he led the Dutch defenses at the start of WWII, a source for significants is easily provided; but I guess we would not want to include him in the list.Arnoutf (talk) 18:00, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) There's also this one: List of military commanders. --ROGER DAVIES talk 18:14, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Roger, do you think that this list needs to be better defined and maybe split into historical lists?--mrg3105 (comms) If you're not taking any flak, you're not over the target. 00:02, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
And things like List of historically important U.S. Marines (although I have a sense that this is more in need of a better name than anything else). Carom (talk) 18:21, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
In trying for historical significance, there may need to be a special category for people such as Fredendall, Samsonov, Stopford and Hamilton, Budyenny, Sickles, Gamelin... (Wondering if it would be simpler to list the competent WWI generals and just have "all the rest"). Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 21:20, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Sorry if I was not helpful with the earlier comment. I think a bit of levity was called for, but maybe not. In nay case, scope of notability can only widen. General Marshall was not notable for participation in combat operations, but I'd say he was fairly notable for other achievements. There is General Noriega at the other end of the scale, who is only notable for not behaving like a general. Generals of the Ancient China sometimes commanded forces way over and above what a modern general would be expected to command. How does one select what the rank "general" means? The British persisted in calling Napoleon "general", while the late General Zia-ul-Haq was also claimed to be a "drug lord", suggesting his primary occupation was far from military! However, I can only welcome this project since I'll be adding several hundred generals myself as part of the Eastern Front authoring/editing.--mrg3105 (comms) If you're not taking any flak, you're not over the target. 23:45, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Under the conventions we use, all generals are automatically deemed notable. Any listing of particularly notable generals would need a source justifying why they deserve to be singled out to avoid original research problems. Anyway, what would the point of such a list be? - the article needs some examples, but List of the best ever generals or similar would be a waste of server space as there is no single definitive list which can be used and there are literally hundreds of published rankings which would have an equal justification for being used. --Nick Dowling (talk) 23:56, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
With tongue only partially in cheek, I wonder if a useful of Notably Bad Generals might be a more realistic project. Perhaps a list of comments about same, such as "A man with a very large mustache and a very small brain", or getting the response to "headquarters in the saddle" of "if only he'd switch his hindquarters and headquarters." Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 00:02, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Have to agree with Nick, and in fact it's broader than that. We deem any general - or at least anyone of 2-star rank or higher - as automatically notable, which could well take in 'historically significant' to my mind. More than that anyone who rates an article on Wikipedia for any reason would seem to have some level of 'historical significance'. So my recommendation is to drop the idea of the list as a) not particularly useful and b) open to interpretation. In a nutshell, I think it would generate lots of work for no great return. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:10, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Are we talking those promoted to General or breveted to General? There were more than a few wars that someone was breveted to general and once the war was over, they reverted back to their old rank (sometimes as low as lieutenant) and never reached general officer on their own (Custer is an example...Brevet Major General in the American Civil War, back to Captain the day the war ended, died a Lt. Colonel). Would generals like these be included? Sometimes the brevet is what makes them known/significant. Leobold1 (talk) 00:29, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
To suggest another list Generals who though they were best ever I know its a bit POV, but at least not by the editor ;o)--mrg3105 (comms) If you're not taking any flak, you're not over the target. 04:41, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Back to the original question?

I love this page, particularly the humour displayed. mrg3105: sorry if my response sounded terse; yes, the levity was noticed and appreciated. Wandalstouring: My wife came into the room and asked me why I was laughing so loudly. Howard C. Berkowitz: To avoid my wife's frowns, I laughed more quitely, but for just as long.

Oberiko: "this doesn't seem like a well thought out idea." Yes, that was my point. As I said "I think it's a lovely concept, but I imagine most of you (like me) are cringing in horror at the thought of the realities of the idea."

I agree with pretty much everything said, but I don't think it's helping Althena much.

So, returning to the original question, what is the best advice for Althena? Note the response:

As a reader of this article [Ed: "this" = General Officer] (rather than someone interested in writing it) I did feel like it was missing such a topic. However, I think if you guys see value in at least mentioning actual historical generals, perhaps at the top there could be one of those links/explanations such as "This article concerns the rank. For information about historical generals, see .... (relevant article link here). Just an idea.

Perhaps?

Or, perhaps among the most prominent links in a "See also" article listing section, there could be such a link. Althena (talk) 14:35, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Again, nice idea, but still impractical.

So, Can one (or more) of you more-knowlegable-and-more-experience-than-me people ... give Althena some better and more useful advice than mine? Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 01:37, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe an answer is to add a section called "Lists of Generals", and have it contain pointers to the various categories of generals that currently exist? Pdfpdf (talk) 02:13, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

BTW, if someone is going to do Generals, don't forget the Navy (and Marines) and the Air Forces! You would not want Wikipedia being accused of Service bias? ;o)
And then there is Anna Mae Hays...is she notable? To say yes, is to widen the criteria even further. To say, no, is to be accused of being sexist.--mrg3105 (comms) If you're not taking any flak, you're not over the target. 04:37, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Useful advice?

Is anyone going to come up with some useful advice for Althena? Pdfpdf (talk) 12:08, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Why not advise him / her to simply work on List of military commanders? If there are any missing who are "important", then they can just be added. Oberiko (talk) 15:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. That's like making a listing of noteworthy national monuments. Are there any that aren't? And if they aren't who decided that? First of all, if these commanders are on Wikipedia to begin with, they're automatically significant in one way or another by definition; if they ain't significant, they shouldn't be here. And the second point is who decides who is "historically significant" in the first place and where is the cutoff point? Why would some be included and not others? Such a subjective grouping--something no one will ever completely agree upon. He/she should abandon this problematic, unrealistic, and unnecessary endeavour and concentrate on searching for historically significant commanders who deserve to be on Wikipedia, but who aren't yet. --ScreaminEagle (talk) 17:20, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Well thank you Oberiko and ScreaminEagle, I find your responses very useful.
I'm now happy to close this discussion.
And thanks also to those who contributed usefully (and to those who contributed amusingly!) Pdfpdf (talk) 11:07, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Occurs to me this begs for a List of the worst ever generals. I nominate Montgomery, MacArthur, the British commanders of the Peninsular War (except Arthur Wellesley), & French as charter members. Trekphiler (talk) 23:12, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Delightful, if not necessarily viable, topic. Do you remember those Doonesbury cartoons of the evil side of the President? MacArthur was more a case of the Little Girl With A Curl Right In The Middle Of Her Forehead: When she was Good, she was very very Good, but When she was Bad, she was Horrid. (Ummm...Douglas, not Arthur).
Jesus Christ Himself Lee really deserves recognition, and Budyenny needs to be there if only for the wonderful one-liner description. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 23:19, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Naturally, I meant "I shall return" MacArthur (I only wish they'd left him); Arthur I know almost nothing about (beyond the fact he earned the Medal). Budyenny one-liner? Trekphiler (talk) 23:30 & 23:31, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
What an interesting idea - if there's not enough controversy and edit-warring, you could restrict sources to Hollywood films. EyeSereneTALK 12:15, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Wait, if you're using Hollywood as a source (sole or otherwise), isn't that List of best fictional generals? =] (Judging by the accuracy of, for instance, "MacArthur".) Trekphiler (talk) 16:42, 2 March 2008 (UTC) (P.S. I am by no means suggesting somebody actually start List of best fictional generals...)

Peer review for 5th Army (Soviet Union) now open

The peer review for 5th Army (Soviet Union) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 04:48, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for USS Bridgeport (AD-10) now open

The A-Class review for USS Bridgeport (AD-10) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 22:57, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

List of battles by death toll

List of battles by death toll is one of those hard to maintain list articles. Most of the stuff is uncited and what is cited uses sources that come to dubious solutions. All in all could benefit from someone's attention. Wandalstouring (talk) 15:13, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Help

I assessed the article Gleiwitz incident as a B, but didn’t assess the grammar field; can someone check that for me? TomStar81 (Talk) 19:19, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Done, marked as criterion met. --Eurocopter (talk) 19:33, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:24, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Eyes needed as Harteck Process

I removed the following from the head of this article:

“Much of the information recounted here about the Harteck Process can be found in the meticulous research of author David Irving in his book the "Virus House" which can be downloaded online. The same book is also known by another title "Hitler's Atomic Scientists." The following is based on notes from the book and other sources.”

I am concern about this message because it suggested a copyright violation, can someone else check the source material and tag it as such if this be the case? TomStar81 (Talk) 19:19, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't even think we can use Irving as a source, as it says on his article, he's pretty widely discredited. Oberiko (talk) 20:26, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Then perhpas we should list the article at afd, because it seems iffy to me. If consensus there is to keep it then we can move from there. How does that sound? TomStar81 (Talk) 21:00, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Considering a Google Book search doesn't find a single result for "Harteck Process", and most web results are from forums, I'd say that seems like the best course of action. I'll go pop in at WP:PHYSICS and see if they have any input on the matter. Oberiko (talk) 21:14, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I'll wait then and see if they do, otherwise I'm filing an afd on this asap. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:16, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Heuschrecke 10 now open

The A-Class review for Heuschrecke 10 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 01:13, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Harteck Process

An article that you have been involved in editing, Harteck Process, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Harteck Process. Thank you. TomStar81 (Talk) 18:43, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Romanian Land Forces now open

The peer review for Romanian Land Forces is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kyriakos (talk) 20:13, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Cannon

Hello. Several editors, myself included, have been working on the article cannon. I've just put it up for a peer review, located here. Opinions of any project members with a bit of free time and a critical eye would be most welcome, we are trying to get the article as good as possible, maybe to FAC in the future. Thanks for all the great work you do on military articles, your work is appreciated. :) Keilana|Parlez ici 22:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Spirit of the Winter War

Looks like a nationalism pushing article at Spirit of the Winter War. If this hasn't been heard of by anyone, could we get it listed on AFD? Oberiko (talk) 03:32, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Respectively: I've never heard of it, and I am all for an afd. Do you want to file it, or should I? TomStar81 (Talk) 04:25, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
I added tagging and made some suggestions on the talk page. Why don't we see what that engenders? Having studied the Winter War, I have come upon the term, but it's more a political usage than one with military significance. Perhaps the Finnish WP should take a look at it. Askari Mark (Talk) 04:35, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Well if there is some truth the article then we can't dash to the afd pool. Lets notify all involved projects and wait 24 hours to see what happens; if we get no response on any front then lets see about merging the article's info with better established articles rather than going the afd route. How does that sound? TomStar81 (Talk) 04:40, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Fine. I left a note on the WP:Finland talk page. Askari Mark (Talk) 04:50, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
ANZAC spirit is the Australian equivalent, and is a much worse article. --Nick Dowling (talk) 10:23, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Gregory R. Ball now open

The peer review for Gregory R. Ball is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kirill 13:23, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

How to translate "kuchnia polowa"?

I realized that a Polish wikipedia article on pl:kuchnia polowa (mobile field kitchen, see photos) has no English interwiki; I was unable to find a reliable online translation. Commons pictures would suggest commons:Category:Field kitchens - but we have no article on field kitchen, so I want to verify that's the term before I stub it.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:23, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Yep, seems fine to me. --ROGER DAVIES talk 18:32, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

327th Infantry

Has anyone heard of this unit? No references were provided for the article, and nothing in it is linked. It looks iffy, but the history end of the article seems legit. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:58, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, GlobalSecurity lists it as an element of the 101st, which seems to match up with the unit's history in the article here. But man, what a mess that is. --ScreaminEagle (talk) 20:46, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
It's a duplicate of 327th Infantry Regiment (United States) and a copyvio. Straight copy from globalsecurity.org (first paragraph), bastogne.org (WWII parts), and bastogne.org (Vietnam parts). The only section that's not a copyvio is the World War I part, which is copied word-for-word from a public domain source, Our 110 Days' Fighting. The whole thing should just be redirected to 327th Infantry Regiment (United States), and if someone is ambitious they can clean up the WWI part and put it in that article. jwillbur 20:58, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
There are several notes on the author's page warning him that the article has been nominated for speedy delete. He's a very, very new editor. He obviously doesn't know how to search for units on WP and likely just assumed the article didn't already exist. If it's a copy of the original article, then that needs to be rewritten also, yes? --ScreaminEagle (talk) 21:12, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Its been redirected now, so we solved that problem. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:01, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I went ahead and redirected because of the copyright violation and left the creator a note. The 327th Infantry Regiment (United States) article is messy, but at least it's not a copyvio. jwillbur 22:13, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Aircraft Complement on Carriers

I was looking through the US Carrier pages, and couldn't really find a clear place where the aircraft complement was mentioned. In fact, to find the list of aircraft on the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63), I had to go to their official page. Could some conscientious wikipedian please add a section or a list with the aircraft types, numbers and unit please.

Thanks in Advance. Cheers. T/@Sniperz11editssign 22:08, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

While you're at it, Mr. Dedicated, can you do the same for Japanese & British carriers? =D Thanx. Trekphiler (talk) 22:58, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Ship articles infobox conversion drive

This is also posted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Infobox conversion:

WP:SHIPS is currently in the midst of converting all articles under their project scope to a standard infobox: {{Infobox Ship Begin/doc}}. As many of our articles are also Military history articles, I am posting this cross-project notice. Any help is welcome, as always. The articles are tagged on their talk pages in two ways:

Each of these categories currently holds over 500 articles each, and is probably over 1000 for conversion. -MBK004 23:22, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Iraq War troop surge of 2007

This article ended up in the category for tag-related issues and I think its because someone requested a peer-review, which was never started. I suppose its probably a good idea for somebody to actually get the process set-up...? Cromdog (talk) 02:29, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

...Yeah, I suppose it can't hurt. I will get right on it. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:20, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Iraq War troop surge of 2007 now open

The peer review for Iraq War troop surge of 2007 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Blnguyen (vote in the photo straw poll) 03:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Photos from Rome

Here a kind editor has announced his trip to Rome. Are there any photos we need from this place? Wandalstouring (talk) 13:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Here is a list of museums in Rome. If he could visit the National Museum of Sant'Angelo Castle (Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant'Angelo), Historic Museum of the Liberation of Rome (Museo Storico della Liberazione di Roma), or the Vatican History Museum (Museo Storico Vaticano), that'd be great. I don't know the collections they offer, but they do state to have "military" sections, and anything in them is likely to be of benefit to some of us. Oberiko (talk) 20:33, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

93rd Regiment of Foot - The Thin Red Line

The article on this famous regiment is abysmal. Is there someone who deals with British military regiments/history who can sort this out. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.232.8 (talk) 19:02, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

You might want to try the British military history task force. I am sure that some editors there might be able to help you. I agree that the article is in quite a state. Seems copied from somewhere to me. Woody (talk) 19:08, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
It seems to be shorthand notes summarized from this site, which isn't exactly the most scholarly of sources to begin with. Kirill 19:20, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Kirill, you beat me to it and I refuse to amend my reply! ;-) The bulk of the unformatted text does appear to have been extracted verbatim from this site. I would be interested in attending to the article but I've been preoccupied of late with subjects quite irrelevant to MILHIST ;-). Shimgray (talk · contribs) might be receptive to the challenge. He's been the initiator of numerous regimental pages and was/is the primary contributor to the Royal Scots article. Regards, SoLando (Talk) 19:25, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I've removed the offending text and stored the material in the history of the talk page for conveniant access. A link to the original source is now available on the talk page. SoLando (Talk) 19:42, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Reality check potentially relevant to MILHIST/Intel: interpretation of WP:V

Apologies if this is off-topic, but I don't think it is, given that I believe I am coming at the problem from the perspective of an intelligence analyst. One of the more painful things I had to do during Vietnam, figuratively longer than a root canal with less pain control, was to read the translations of Nhan Dan, the North Vietnamese party publication. While we recognized that it was mostly propaganda, there would be the occasional dropped tidbit that could fit into the intelligence mosaic after cross-checking with other sources. We also derived information by looking at changes in policy among successive issues.

[Incidentally, this is some intelligence analytical tradecraft that I may not be able to source for the main articles on the topic. Is it appropriate to have a wikilink, with a disclaimer, to a MILHIST essay?]

Anyway, my approach is part of a major battleground in Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-02-04 Code Pink, where the opposing editor believes that WP:V requires a source to be consistently accurate before taking a fact from it. My position is that a generally unreliable source may contain nuggets of truth, which, if validated against independent sources, meet the criteria of WP:V, without vouching for the source as a whole.

This must have come up in work for MILHIST articles, where I can't believe people did not consult heavily propagandistic sites, to pull out facts worthy of further authentication. There is a legal theory generally called "fruit of the poisoned tree", suggesting that if any piece of information was obtained illegally, all derivative information that can be traced to it must be thrown out.

How do people approach WP:V? Might you, for example, look at North Korean or jihadist sites to get a starting point for...I don't want to say "original", but "appropriate" research. Again, I differ with this editor about the interpretation of WP:OR. If I bring together absolutely validated information in a new way, he believes that is "original synthesis" and banned. Frankly, under his restrictions, it would seem that Wiki editors are limited to paraphrasing a very limited set of sources.

If anyone wanted to comment in the mediation, that would be great, but I honestly think this is a valid question for MILHIST, regarding finding sources for articles.

All comments welcome, here, at User_talk:Hcberkowitz, or Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-02-04 Code Pink —Preceding comment was added at 16:12, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi Hc. I agree with you in principal but we're not writing books or academic articles here, that get double-checked, have to go through publishers' filters, etc. WP can be distorted by absolutely anyone with very little time or effort. That means that we have to limit the amount of going beyond the absolutely prove-able fact we do here; I have no doubt that you would stick closely to the facts and do some good analysis, in this one case, but if we re-did the rules in general, others would take advantage of that, and one of the few things that holds WP together as a useful reference source would slowly dissolve. Again, agree with you, but not really suitable, I believe, to this particular website. My 2 cents. Kind regards and keep up the good work, Buckshot06 (talk) 22:54, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
In general – and as someone who is quite experienced in such analytical tradecraft – I’m afraid I have to agree with Buckshot06. The problem is not with the relatively small minority of Wikipedia editors that knows how to do it properly, but rather with the great majority who do not (and it is especially egregious with the POV-pushers). On Wikipedia, such a technique begs accusations of WP:OR and WP:SYN by those who don’t understand it. This appears to be part of what is at issue in the Code Pink MC. You’d pretty much have to have both a left-wing and right-wing source for each point to have it received as “neutral”. While I think your particular point in this specific case is defensible, it may not be “winnable” in a WP venue. I've had to tiptoe at the edge of it on some articles with limited sources available, but wherever politics or other contentious subjects are concerned, that "edge" inevitably lies along a minefield. Askari Mark (Talk) 03:19, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
OK, and thanks to all. I took one stab at radical (forgive the phrase) change, but I'll let the Code Pink editors go to hell in their own way. If I deal with anything political at WP, it will be in the intelligence area, where, to my surprise, one of the CIA POV pushers suddenly returned and bestowed a Barnstar of Diplomacy.
To some extent, I'm now asking myself if it's good for me to do substantial Wiki contribution under those policies, which I see can avoid manipulation, but, if I get at all into the habit of staying under such constraints, it can ruin me as an OSINT consultant. I've already taken all the network engineering article off my watchlists, with the POV pushers not so much politicized as beginners that don't understand some subtleties. In more than one case, I was getting an argument from an apparent student about things on which I've developed some of the definitions and research; there was even a case where I got an argument that I was misinterpreting my own (well, I was the lead author of the coauthors) peer-reviewed IETF document.
Perhaps staying with the more strictly military and intelligence tradecraft is safer, although, especially in the latter, there is a good deal that I know to be unclassified, but is not readily sourced. I have a pretty good visual memory, and can sometimes visualize a page of text, but didn't pay the same attention to the cover page. So, even though I could almost give the exact words out of the MACV Lessons Learned series, I can't remember the specific issue, and I don't know if they are indexed in DTIC or anywhere else.
It surprises me that I've made this much progress on CIA, although I've learned my lesson to stay away from things like articles such as "Covert US-sponsored Regime Change", even for suggesting taking out the "covert", Panama, Grenada, and Iraq hardly being covert. In the main CIA series, there seems to be a growing acceptance that, indeed, there's more to things than covert action, and that quite a few things came down from White House level. It's also been increasingly accepted that if you are going to say CIA rather than US intelligence (and even the nuances of OPC before the DDP was formed), it's pretty hard to blame them for something done before they were formed.
A Swedish friend once said "for such thoughts, there is akvavit." Thanks, all. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 05:04, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Hey Mr Berkowitz. Again wanted to just sympathise with your position and thank you for your CIA work. It'd be great if we could do leading-edge stuff here - analyse, and push forward the boundaries of knowledge - but it's really not too do-able. Indeed, for such thoughts, there is [appropriate national strong beverage of choice]! Buckshot06 (talk) 22:32, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I genuinely wanted to thank the commenters here, those that left notes on my userpage, and a couple of private blog people to whom I posed the problem. The latter included a couple of lawyers familiar with poisoned trees and such.

This has helped me clarify some of what frustrates me about Wikipedia. I've done open source intelligence professionally, and I would very much like to see a cooperative public endeavor in which people use open sources to try to get truth on assorted world events. While I've made considerably more recent progress than expected on CIA, that truthseeking doesn't fit Wikipedia.

In like manner, I've had some intelligence tradecraft articles as "how to". From a strict wiki policy basis, there may be some of that, and even *gasp* independent synthesis or personal experience. There's some quite detailed information about technological methods for intelligence collection, some of which should be obvious to one adept in the appropriate kind of engineering. HUMINT, however, is not as obvious.

Many years ago, I was the network architect for the Library of Congress, and had 24-hour access. I had had a researcher's stack pass for several years before that (stack passes are now just not done). Over several years, I set a goal of reading every serious intelligence book on the shelves (in English), and gave it a pretty good shot. Not having the Library of Congress at hand, I can't precisely source; in some cases, I'll go as far as citing the book if I am certain it was the source.

At this point, I'm honestly not sure how I want to progress with Wikipedia, but I've learned to treasure quite a few MILHIST colleagues.

Thank you all. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 00:59, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm consulting a promising editor in classical warfare who wants to present some facts he found out by research. Unfortunately wikipedia isn't the right place for this, so he is going to create a website which he could cite. Of course, this seems problematic, but if the website gets well established(will try to get a professor to review it) or his theories turn out to be sourced in an obscure language like German, French or Dutch (languages almost all English speaking historians can't read and for this reason don't use, what does lead to very wrong theories) I'm sure they can be used. Although the situation isn't exactly the same, perhaps a similar solution could help you. Wandalstouring (talk) 16:40, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
I would not get too disheartened, Howard. Most encyclopedias get written by experts, but Wikipedia invites “anyone to edit”. Unfortunately, this means more POV-pushers participate than experts, but the fact remains that Wikipedia needs a leavening of experts and the more serious editors appreciate having them around and learning from them. Ultimately, the whole purpose of Wikipedia is educational and that is true as much for the editors as the general readers.
In its quest to be a compendium of all knowledge, one area that Wikipedia inherently fails to handle well are specialized topics for which most knowledge isn’t openly available. I’ve had similar frustrations over the Fourth generation jet fighter article. Professionally, I’ve been part of the process of defining “fifth generation” and am currently involved in attempting to figure out what the “sixth generation” will be. However, there is no official definition and even though there is a wide-spread understanding among aerospace professionals about what is meant by the various “generations”, I know of no good published definition (beyond the essay I wrote for the benefit of WP:AIR editors). In struggling to rewrite it, I’m stymied by the lack of citable sources for something I know inside and out.
Skillful open-source analysis is a scarce art, but an increasingly necessary one in a WWW-dependent society. It, too, is a practice that Wikipedia has yet to figure out how to productively employ without giving free-rein to the POV-pushers. My experience to date has suggested that when the going gets unbearably tough, it’s best to shift projects to a less contentious area. Give it half a year or so and then come back to it. For better or worse, the recent contentiousness we’ve witnessed over the Iran-Iraq War has died down for the time being. Sure, it’ll come back, but these quiet periods are actually when the best improvements to the article can be made. Three steps forward and one step back is still net progress. The one problem with contentious-subject articles is that you pretty much have to give up getting them to FA quality. Cheers, Askari Mark (Talk) 20:36, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
True enough -- progress, however small, is still progress. I've been contacted by another open-source online publication that may give a little more editorial support and a little more ability to use personal experience, but I'm not yet sure it interests me.
So far, I am not at all convinced that the current Wikipedia model can deal with POV. There are some interesting studies that show that some of the most informative posts are from anonymous editors that only edit one, or a few times, but apparently in the area of expertise. OTOH, I look at certain contentious areas that want to "round up the usual suspects" and blame one country, not a country without some responsibility, but we really aren't so powerful to have managed all of that in some secret cabal. The CEO of one organization for which I worked, which was a communications industry R&D consortium, had just retired from heading a national intelligence agency. We traveled a good deal, with my role being technical advisor and court jester, and liked to talk about history. When I hear, from someone that had as all-source an access as possible, that the US simply didn't see some things coming, it makes me wonder about some of the POV pushers that assume something like the Soviets used to call the Dark Forces.
I had several friends and colleagues in the CIA computer center, and we'd occasionally get together in computer user groups, or for a meeting on unclassified common interests. One had an incredibly bad sense of direction, coupled with a regrettable tendency to try to take shortcuts in the headquarters basement. Many was the time when I'd have to escort my escort back to his office.
Actually, while Code Pink has been incredibly frustrating, I am pleasantly amazed that the CIA articles, subdivision, and flow edits haven't run into controversy in weeks. Something, somewhere must be wrong. Why, at this rate, I can go look at some things like TECHINT where I need to clean up my mess! Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 03:16, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Results of the fifth project coordinator election

The fifth project coordinator election has now concluded. Roger Davies has been elected to serve as the project's Lead Coordinator, and Blnguyen, Eurocopter tigre, Kyriakos, LordAmeth, Nick Dowling, TomStar81, Wandalstouring, and Woody will occupy the eight Assistant Coordinator positions. Congratulations to the winners, and thank you to everyone who participated!

If I may also be permitted a few personal remarks:

It has been a pleasure, and a great privilege, to serve as the project's Lead Coordinator for the past two years. I am deeply grateful to everyone for giving me the opportunity to play a role in shaping the course of the project's growth. I think that, through all our efforts, we have become one of the foremost projects in Wikipedia; and I have every confidence that we will continue to prosper under Roger's leadership.

For my own part, I have every intention of staying active within the project, albeit not in any official capacity; so any questions and requests for assistance or advice will continue to be entirely welcome. Kirill 00:00, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

First, I'd like to thank Kirill for all his work on behalf of the project over the last few years. It's good to know he'll still be around!
Second, I'd just like to say that as the incoming Lead Coordinator there will be no major changes. It's still the same project, with the same mission, and the same committed membership. Thank you for your support, --ROGER DAVIES talk 01:19, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Congratulations to all. Though the "retirement" of Kirill has left some mighty big shoes, it looks like quite a strong set of coordinators this year. I have full confidence that this project will retain the same quality as it has shown. Oberiko (talk) 02:49, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Limited edition election gift. Blnguyen (vote in the photo straw poll) 04:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Limited edition election gift. Blnguyen (vote in the photo straw poll) 04:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Well done to Kirill and the new coordinators. I wish you another six months of happy military mopping, more good times reading articles at WP:MHR and success with your own article writing. And hopefully another big period of growth for WP:MILHIST. Blnguyen (vote in the photo straw poll) 04:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure if I ever told Kirill this, but he's the main reason that I became active in the project. When I first started editing, I made a lot of mistakes and bumbled around extensively. He patiently explained, without lecturing, how I could productively improve articles. He was also one of the main participants in establishing and maintaining the different forums within WP:MILHIST, such as the A-class review and answering questions on the project talk pages, among others, that helps all of us take articles to Good, A-class, or FA level in a supportive, efficient, and organized manner. I've already seen outside Wikipedia critics mention that one of the project's bright spots is its treatment of military subjects. Obviously, Kirill deserves much of the credit for making that happen. Cla68 (talk) 06:45, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Oh, and by the way, congratulations to the new or reelected coordinators and I look forward to participating with you over the next six months. Cla68 (talk) 06:48, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
I'd just like to say congrats and kudos to Kirill for all the time and effort he put into the project over the last two years. I would also like to congraulation Roger and I think that the will make a fine lead coordinator. Also congrats to all the other coordinators and I hope we have a constructiv six months. Kyriakos (talk) 08:23, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank you Kirill for all your help you have given me in the last two years and answering my dumb questions. Good luck Roger. Rebel Redcoat (talk) 16:10, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Just the specs, ma'am

I just came from M6 Heavy Tank, & I notice there are a few spex missing, like fuel capacity (477 USgal, 1807 l), engine torque (1830pd-ft @2100rpm), engine compression ratio (4.92:1), ignition system (magneto), transmission (three speed; two fwd, 1 rev), track width (25.75"), electrical system (24VDC), trench crossing (11 ft), vertical wall clearing (4 ft), & turning circle (74 ft). Seems to me the template should include these, at a minimum. (I got them from the cited source, Firepower.) Trekphiler (talk) 17:29, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Can and should this be done for every vehicle or is it perhaps better to list them in a table within the article? Wandalstouring (talk) 11:13, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
If it's something that's going to be widespread, we may want to look at splitting the vehicle parameters out of {{Infobox Weapon}} and having a dedicated {{Infobox Military Vehicle}}; otherwise, this could get slightly unmanageable. Kirill 18:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Or perhaps some sort of auxiliary infobox or sub-infobox approach, to minimize parameter duplication? I'm not quite sure, off the top of my head, what the best way of designing this would be. Kirill 18:05, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
I'd say the AFVs & APCs want this, at least, since these are fairly standard measures of performance. Halftracks too, maybe. They also offer a chance to branch articles on AFV design, like steering systems (such as "turning in place") & obstacle-crossing (such as fascines). May also get dedicated tranny & engine articles (Continental AV1790, anyone?); I can see some trivia loons doing articles on types of tank tracks.... Of course, I'm in favor always of more information. Trekphiler (talk) 19:38, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Template:Externalimage is up for deletion

Template:Externalimage (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) is used in quite a few military history articles and, if I remember correctly, was created as a result of a discussion on this page. It has been nominated for deletion by a possible SPA and the deletion discussion is at: Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2008 March 2. --Nick Dowling (talk) 04:41, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

For the life of me I cannot get this listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Military, can someone else help me with that? TomStar81 (Talk) 06:34, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
I've added it and created a bunch of other categories using Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Australia as a model. The deletion discussion doesn't show up on the page, but that seems to be related to how the TfD page is formatted. All editors are invited to add any relevant deletion discussions they come across, and I'll continue doing a daily check of AfDs and less frequent checks of the other kinds of deletion debates. --Nick Dowling (talk) 06:50, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Then it wasn't me, it was them. Thanks for the help. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:58, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Yesterday, I made some rules for removing externalimage, but these are not met. Wandalstouring (talk) 11:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Posada now open

The A-Class review for Battle of Posada is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! --Eurocopter (talk) 16:48, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

FA-Class nomination for Heuschrecke 10 now open

The FA-Class nomination for Heuschrecke 10 is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! ~ Dreamy § 17:25, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

JSTOR Access

JSTOR is an incredibly useful resource for some articles. Would project members who have access might indicating, so needed articles can be obtained if necessary? Buckshot06 (talk) 08:52, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Now part of the newly-formed Logistics Dept. If you have JSTOR access, please say so here. Thanks, --ROGER DAVIES talk —Preceding comment was added at 12:22, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Concerns with the 'Malmedy Massacre' article

Moved from archive page Woody (talk) 10:47, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I am new, so I hope this is an ok place to write this. There is a lot of debate as to whether Peiper did commit these atrocities, he was actually 12 miles away from the baugnez crossroads at the time! I don't necessarily want to change the information, maybe just point out that the issue is debated. Thanks, User:fogle45 10:09, 03 March 2008 (UTC)

Welcome fogle45. It will be great if you can guide us to the reliable source you have used when saying that [Peiper] was 12 miles away from the baugnew crossroads. What about Peiper commiting atrocities? Is it sourced?
Meanwhile, probably this can help you... Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation. The source should be cited clearly and precisely to enable readers to find the text that supports the article content in question.
Also, please note that exceptional claims require exceptional sources.
What you need to do is apply the above to your case. If you still have further questions please let us know. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 05:11, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Logistics dept

This is now up and running. There remain a couple of sections to be added but there's plenty there for the time-being. All editors who can contribute are urged to sign up :) Any discussion, questions, and comments on talk page please. Thanks, --ROGER DAVIES talk 12:20, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Battle of Marion now open

The A-Class review for Battle of Marion is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Woody (talk) 21:55, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Unit naming convention and unambiguous names

There's apparently been another spate of article moves to bring things "into compliance" with WP:MILMOS#UNITNAME; here, a whole bunch of SS divisions have acquired a "(Germany)" disambiguator—which, if I recall correctly, was thought to be redundant in the past. I've pointed the matter out to the editor responsible; but it'd be nice if someone with more interest in these topics could follow through with any needed cleanup and so forth. Thanks! Kirill 14:21, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I've done the British divisions (and others that needed moving) but it's a bit time consuming, so I don't think I have the time or patience to tackle the lot. Leithp 18:42, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
I checked all divisions and they aren't without any Germany disambiguator. Wandalstouring (talk) 13:01, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Byzantine navy now open

The peer review for Byzantine navy is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Carom (talk) 13:53, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Project in Signpost

For anyone interested in such things. ;-) Kirill 22:03, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Hey, we're famous! ;) Carom (talk) 22:11, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Hooray, everyone who stood for election is now one reliable secondary source closer to being notable ;-) --Nick Dowling (talk) 09:50, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
That I think wins the new topical joke of the day contest! --ROGER DAVIES talk 10:18, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Darn it, couldn't they just show I was 11th without showing how far behind in 11th I was? :) Blasted gutter press! Narson (talk) 12:00, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Such comments are usually the reason, try a different ghostwriter for your public statements. ;P Wandalstouring (talk) 12:39, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
You're presuming WP qualifies as a reliable source... ;p Trekphiler (talk) 18:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Admins within the project

There's some discussion among the coordinators about listing admins who are Milhist members. possibilities are incorporating an admins section in the logistics dept; showing admins in the members list either with a separate section at the top or adding an asterisk after their names. What do members (including admins) feel about this? Is it helpful? And, importantly, would admins wish to add themselves to any list, or have it done automatically? --ROGER DAVIES talk 06:24, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it seems reasonable. Not only to assist our users, but also as a matter of disclosure (i.e. potential bias). I would vote to keep admins in the same list with a symbol, and to have it done automatically. Oberiko (talk) 12:30, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for 53rd Pennsylvania Infantry now open

The peer review for 53rd Pennsylvania Infantry is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Woody (talk) 19:08, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for 5th Army (Soviet Union) now open

The A-Class review for 5th Army (Soviet Union) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Blnguyen (vote in the photo straw poll) 01:58, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Kelly Girl?

Maybe I'm being fussy, but {{Fleet-boat-armament-3-inch}} links only torpedo, not torpedo tube & won't allow linking to Mark 14 torpedo, which, I would have thought, would be of real interest in re USN WW2 subs. Trekphiler (talk) 04:15, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Benjamin Brice now open

The peer review for Benjamin Brice is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kyriakos (talk) 07:31, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Additional recommended guidelines on conflict infobox

We're discussing additional recommened guidelines on the conflict infobox here. Any input is welcome. Oberiko (talk) 15:07, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Help with gun-related tech issues

User:Haxxploits has been changing sourced text in the A-10 Thunderbolt II related to the GAU-8 Avenger cannon. Details of the dispute are at Talk:A-10 Thunderbolt II#1 mile vs 5 miles. We need someone who knows exactly what the tern "5mil, 80%" means (I don't know, and was only going by the original source which was removed), and can explain it simply. My concern that this user does not know what he is talking about is that he interprets "a 20-foot radius cirlce" as being " a circle 20-feet wide" - should this not be 40 feet wide? I am also concerned that this could be a sock/troll-type situation, and as such, we probably need an admin to intercede in this. - Certainly, the user's tendency to "change first, explain later" needs to be dealt with by an admin. Thanks. - BillCJ (talk) 02:01, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Portal:Iraq War

Does anyone know anything about Portal:Iraq War? I see that the one who created it has ummm...retired but before I mark this as a Portal for deletion it seems like it could be useful if updated and it appears to be fairly well done. I am also leaving this question on the Wikiproject Iraq discussion page.--Kumioko (talk) 21:15, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

It could certainly benefit from some changes. Is anyone willing to adopt it? Wandalstouring (talk) 12:52, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't know much about Portals but I would be glad to help. Just let me know your ideas on what should be done to make it better and to help promote it. It seems to be linked to a good number of pages already.--Kumioko (talk) 01:05, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I'll also keep eyes on it. The biggest problem with this portal is POV constantly being placed upon it.--Bedford 01:16, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Would it be appropriate to add the Template with the military Operations or Terrorist/Insurgent attacks. Do you have any recommendations for things to add?--Kumioko (talk) 01:40, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
You could move the "Iraq Timeline" box underneath the "category" so it has a better layout, but you could also use the space for the template about the insurgent attacks. I don't like the colors chosen. Wandalstouring (talk) 11:27, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Louis Spears

This is currently marked as a stub. However, a lot of work has already been done and more is in the pipeline. I feel that the stub banner could now be removed. If others agree could it pse be taken away?Mikeo1938 (talk) 08:46, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I see it's been removed but don't feel afraid to remove stub tags where appropriate. There is not special permission that is required. Blnguyen (vote in the photo straw poll) 02:34, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
OK and thank you. I didn't know the form. Mikeo1938 (talk) 10:43, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

FAC

Hello. I have nominated an article, Huldrych Zwingli for FAC and I would like to ask if people here could comment, review, and vote. The reason I am posting this message here is that I would like to avoid canvassing, so I am leaving this message on Wikiprojects that are related to, but not directly associated with the topic. This concerns a historic figure which had some connections to Swiss military history. Thanks and please vote (Oppose or Support). --RelHistBuff (talk) 09:08, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Portal question

Anyone have any ideas why we have two separate portals for the UK navy, Portal:Royal Navy and Portal:Royal Naval Service? John Carter (talk) 20:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The latter looks like a project started and subsequently abandonded early last year by one user. I would advocate to merge anything useful and then delete it. Oberiko (talk) 20:49, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Agree - probably because the one editor who created the Royal Naval Service didnt know it was a nonsense term! MilborneOne (talk) 20:50, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
It's not complete nonsense. Can probably be deleted anyway, as the user who created it transferred their energy to Portal:Royal Navy. Carom (talk) 20:54, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Makes sense. Anyone interested should feel free to comment at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Royal Naval Service. Thanks for the quick responses. John Carter (talk) 21:05, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Pakistan Air Force Academy now open

The peer review for Pakistan Air Force Academy is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Kyriakos (talk) 13:42, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for USS Orizaba (ID-1536) now open

The peer review for USS Orizaba (ID-1536) is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Blnguyen (vote in the photo straw poll) 02:05, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

CSS Neuse

I came across this article and tagged it with projects that would probably find it interesting. I'm not sure where to list articles for this project, so I'll just mention it here. AgnosticPreachersKid (talk) 02:42, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

New! BCAD drive

This is to announce our new assessment drive. It's strictly for experienced wiki-gnomes and has a degree of friendly competition built-in. It involves re-evaluating around 3500 Milhist B-Class articles to ensure they match the Milhist B-Class criteria. As ever, we're offering a range of awards as our way of expressing our thanks. The drive doesn't start until 18:00 (UTC) on March 10 but you can sign up in advance here. It would be great if you can spare the time, --ROGER DAVIES talk 05:33, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

One Stripe (200 articles)
Two Stripes (400 articles)
Three Stripes (600 articles)
Chevrons (1000 articles)
Golden Wiki First place

Marine (military)

Because of a recent cut-and-paste move of Marine (military), I've opened a dicussion on the article's fate. Please comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Maritime warfare task force#Marine (military). Thanks. - BillCJ (talk) 07:09, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Scope question

Lafayette Square, Buffalo was just tagged for the project as it contains an important civil war monument. Is this enough for it to be under the scope of the project? The square itself has little or no military historical importance. Is this ours? Rockfall (talk) 16:27, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Military memorials and monuments task force, and assessed as B-Class while I was passing :) --ROGER DAVIES talk 16:37, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Ah, thanks :) Rockfall (talk) 00:09, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Technical Question

Does anyone know of aplace where I can find R&D info for cancalled navy projects? I'm hereing rumors of an eight inch guided/rocket propelled artillery shell designed in the 70's or 80's that was intended for use by the Iowa class battleships, but can't find any info on it. TomStar81 (Talk) 20:43, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

The description of the program rings a vague bell, but are you sure you have the caliber right? The Iowa-class had 16" & 5" guns, best I recall. Askari Mark (Talk) 02:33, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
See early approach at http://www.navweaps.com/index_inro/INRO_BB-Gunnery_p2.htm, http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/4-751.aspx (hunt through bloggish responses). FWIW, the option was in Hunt for Red October (book version) Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 02:43, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Is there a Portuguese speaker in the house?

We need a Portuguese speaker to help out at WP:MHL#Requests for language support? Is there one here please? --ROGER DAVIES talk

If there's nobody, someone could visit Wikipedia:Translation/*/Lang/pt. Cheers Buckshot06 (talk) 05:50, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Umbrella term for internment, war crimes, massacres etc.

Can anyone suggest a good term(s) to cover all oppressive activities against civilians committed by a state? Basically something which would cover the following:

Thanks. Oberiko (talk) 18:31, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, the are all war crimes.
All these cover the terms listed above. As to what would also encompass War Crimes, I don't think there is anything. The Category:War crimes is listed under Category:Human rights abuses, and Category:Laws of war, but I'm not sure if these would actually umbrella the list you've made, not because they would not apply, but because both of them encompass so much more.
For instance, List of war crimes has the Nanking Massacre, Comfort Women, and The Holocaust in it. The other two (Executive Order 9066 / Population transfer in the Soviet Union) I personally believe to be war crimes, but they are not listed as such in their main articles by direct name (both hint at it without actually using the word).
If I had to choose something, I'd say it was Human rights abuses or Crimes against Humanity, but, as I said, I'm not sure if that would actually apply.
Leobold1 (talk) 21:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Adding: The article Soviet war crimes gives some links to articles on the transfer of Germans which is mentioned directly in the Population transfer in the Soviet Union article. The article Japanese American internment calls it a Civil rights violation. Leobold1 (talk) 21:47, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
War crimes does not include all oppressive activities against civilians. Population transfer in the Soviet Union, Khmer Rouge#Crimes against humanity, and the most subtle damage due to Robert Mugabe. -- SEWilco (talk) 22:05, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
One minor note, remember context. Events may have occured before such terms as 'War crimes' or 'crimes against humanity' were applicable. I would infact go as far as to say there is no umbrella term, we are stuck with majority opinion. Heck, there is even active debate in academia over what constitutes a genocide....so...I really do think we should look at what terms are used by reliable sources. Narson (talk) 22:01, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't necessarily have to be one word. I'm not sure if "civil rights" has any bearing in dictatorships, as they can exist in much different forms then our own. Is it a right if the state says it isn't? Oberiko (talk) 04:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I suspect a basic problem is that the definition of "oppressive" is subjective. While I don't agree with them, I know militant pacifists (I love that oxymoron) that believe, quite sincerely, that having their taxes support any military activity is oppressive. There are people that believe their religion makes heterosexual polygamy moral and government restrictions are oppressive, and there are people that believe that government oppresses those who love people of the same gender. (Personally, I'd rather see government get completely out of the marriage business other than as a recorder of agreements between consenting adults).
When, for ethnic or religious reasons, a government considers certain people less than human, officials and their supporters might look at you blankly when you suggest they are oppressing people. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 04:29, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
I would summarize it as effects on the civilian population. There are few countries like antique India where warfare was a sport of the nobility and nobody harmed the peasants, but that was a limited idyllic place (from a civilian's perspective). Wandalstouring (talk) 09:38, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Problem with that is that it wouldn't include all war crimes, such as those committed against military forces (i.e. Malmedy massacre) and would include things like rationing. I'm thinking atrocities and acts against civilians might encompass everything, anybody think otherwise? Oberiko (talk) 15:22, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Atrocities and acts against civilians sounds like it wouldn't cover Military vs Military either. Can you provide some kind of context? Perhaps that will help? Narson (talk) 16:05, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Sure. This is going to be for World War II and I want one umbrella to hold all non-direct-combat related atrocities/actions against civilians/war crimes as outlined at the top (I just added Dresden and Geneva Conventions as well). Right now, the various actions are covered fairly sparodically, so it would serve as a good place to link them all together and make it easier for the readers to go over.
Considering that I don't want to cover conventional military vs. military (with the exception of war crimes and/or other actions that violate the Geneva Conventions), I think I'm ok with the earlier proposal of atrocities and acts against civilians. The "atrocities" part should cover all war crimes, breaches of Geneva Conventions and massacres; while the "acts against civilians" should cover most of the remainder, such as forced internment and population transfer (which are questionable as to if they're atrocities or not). Oberiko (talk) 18:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
I meant that it can read as both the atrocities and acts being against civilians. I'd go with State and paralegal acts against civilians and POWs during the second world war....ok....that is too long. Drat. Narson (talk) 18:59, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
I see, it reads like "(atrocities and acts) against civilians" as opposed to "(atrocities) and (acts against civilians)". We can't single out civilians and POW's because some actions were against military forces, such as the usage of chemical weapons. What about a simple reversal: "acts against civilians and atrocities"? Oberiko (talk) 23:24, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

What problem are you trying to solve?

Rather than continue trying words and phrases, could you give some examples of where you would use this umbrella term, and why a single term is better than several more specific ones? Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 23:27, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

It's to serve as a cover-all for all such actions during the Second World War. Rather like how the "Aftermath" section should contain the various territorial shifts, independence movements and such. Right now we have war crimes (which covers some, but not all), atrocities (which covers some but not all) and a few other articles scattered here and there. There's no central place or parent which collects them all for presentation to the user. Oberiko (talk) 02:47, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
If that's what you're looking for, then its already there World War II#Casualties, civilian impact, and atrocities with emphasis on atrocities. That's what these were, and you can then differentiate between civillian and military. It can be a separate section, something like atrocities during the war. (Name up for debate, but for what its worth, that's one option) Leobold1 (talk) 04:16, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm actually going to be re-writing that section as per World War II/temp, where we've agreed separate those out. Oberiko (talk) 11:12, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Reliable Source?

How reliable is information gathered by Greenpeace with regard to military matters in general and nuclear weaponry in particular? TomStar81 (Talk) 20:25, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Greenpeace is arguably partisan in the context of nuclear weapons so I would have serious reservations - nay, it would probably be divisive to attribute a contentious, disputable claim to it. If it's used to support non-controversial text or information which details, for example, Greenpeace's position, I can't imagine there'd be many objections to its use as a source. Have you sought input from WP:RSN? SoLando (Talk) 21:00, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
A Greenpeace researcher, while never mentioning his affiliation, did two good pieces on the Northern Fleet and Russian Pacific Ocean Fleet in 93 and 94: Joshua Handler, 'The Northern Fleet's Nuclear Submarine Bases,' Jane's Intelligence Review, December 1993, and 'Russia's Pacific Fleet: Submarine Bases and Facilities', JIR, April 1994. They're the best articles I've ever seen on the subject - solidly informative and authorative. If anyone's interested, I can try and figure out a way of getting them to them. Buckshot06 (talk) 21:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
In answer to your question, SoLand, no I haven't, but I have done the math and thats why I ask this question. As you all know by now I have a thing for battleships, and according to my research each Iowa class battleship, when outfitted with ABL launchers, can carry and fire a total of 32 tomahawk missiles, yet niether battleship fired a full complement during Gulf War I. Today, while cruising through JSTOR looking for material to cite for a political scinece paper I am doing I happened across an article that had a list naval vessels alleged by Greenpeace to have been carrying nuclear armed missiles during Gulf War I, and to my suprised found both battleships listed. If this information is correct then it explains why the battleships did not fire all 32 of their tomahawk missiles, but the major hang up is that the USN doesn't confirm or deny the presence of nuclear weaponry aboard its ships. With this position I would think it difficult for Greenpeace to know conclusively if the remaining non-fired tomahawks were in fact nuclear, hence my question about reliability. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:46, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
SoLando! Think Han Solo, minus the majority of that character's charisma ;-). Yes, that is problematic. As Buckshot observes, the organisation has had a record of authority. But in this instance I would continue to exercise caution as, in the context of a contentious claim, it would appear to be of questionable reliability and might constitute undue coverage, especially if Greenpeace is the only reference. Are there additional sources alleging/denying the presence of nuclear weapons embarked on those battleships during the Gulf War? If there was an official denial, media reports, etc, the inclusion of a passage containing the allegation could have application. SoLando (Talk) 22:29, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, when staring at the computer screen for hours on end one tends to see things that are not their; in my case, that would apparently be "phantom" o's :-) When time permits I will look for backup for material, or denial of the material. As it stands at the moment the info falls under the umbella of an educated guess, which wouldn;t be a problem ordinarily, but as luck would have it both battleships in question are already FA-class, and adding this material out of the blue with no support would be OR at best or POV-ish at worst. BTW, I asked the noticeboard you link to. Thanks for providing a link to it. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:49, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Surely USS San Jacinto (CG-56) was the special weapons platform during GW 1? That's what my copy of Friedman's Desert Victory, Naval Inst Press, 1992, says. I thought all the nuclear tipped weapons were concentrated aboard her? This JSTOR link [1] seems to indicate she had 6 weapons about - you Tom should be able to read the full article. Buckshot06 (talk) 05:44, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
We're second-guessing after a military operation which was planned (and ships loaded for) well in advance. It might have been thought best to not send nuclear payloads on surface ships in the relatively small body of water. Particularly because many aircraft were available and places such as Diego Garcia provide options away from the battlefield. -- SEWilco (talk) 05:18, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I've seen some Greenpeace research cited in papers posted on Australian military websites. However, as this is an activist group there's obviously a lot of scope for NPOV problems. As such, I don't see anything wrong with using the good-quality Greenpeace documents (eg, those which cite their sources) as one of several sources in articles. --Nick Dowling (talk) 07:13, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Question about lists and ranks

A comment has come up on the FLC of List of Victoria Cross recipients of the Royal Navy about whether to include ranks in this list. Does anyone here have strong feelings about this either way. And if they do, should this also be carried out on the other VC recipients lists Nationality (FL): Australian (FL), Canadian (FL) etc.

My personal thoughts are that it is not really neccessary as the VC is open to all, and the valour is the main focus of attention. That is me though... Woody (talk) 18:20, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

To some extent including the rank (at time of award is msot easily verifiable, since it's given in the gazette entry) for all recipients demonstrates the lack of discrimination on basis of rank. The proportions of officers/ratings is potentially quite interesting. David Underdown (talk) 18:30, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Are unit awards of VCs to officers only?
Correct me if I misunderstand, but isn't there a subtly different process, that of the nation involved, for Commonwealth VC's? They are, AFAIK, still awarded by, or in the name of, the Sovereign. If there are different approval processes, separation might make some sense. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 18:29, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Including the rank is easy, I have a source somewhere with them all listed anyway. I agree that it could be interesting, though one source says they are almost perfectly balanced.
Unit awards gave one VC to a balloted Officer, 1 to an NCO and 2 to ratings where appropriate. (Thirteenthly. It is ordained that in the event of a gallant and daring act having been performed by a squadron, ship's company, or detached body of seamen and marines not under fifty in number, or by a brigade, regiment, troop or company in which the admiral, general, or other officer commanding such forces may deem that all are equally brave and distinguished, and that no special selection can be made by them, then is such case the admiral, general, or other officer commanding, may direct that for any such body of seamen or marines, or for every troop or company of soldiers, one officer shall be selected by the officers engaged for the Decoration, and in like manner one petty officer or non-commissioned officer shall be selected by the petty officers and non-commissioned officers engaged, and two seamen or private soldiers or marines shall be selected by the seamen, or private soldiers, or marines engaged, respectively for the Decoration, and the names of those selected shall be transmitted by the senior officers in command of the Naval force, brigade, regiment, troop, or company, to the admiral or general officer commanding, who shall in due manner confer the Decoration as if the acts were done under his own eye.)
There is a different process for Commonwealth awards now, hence Victoria Cross for Australia, Victoria Cross for New Zealand and Victoria Cross (Canada). At the time where these awards were issued, there was one system. Am I getting confused or are you advocating splitting up the nationality lists? They are currently separate for countries with over 75 VCs. Woody (talk) 19:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
On the rank issue, if we do include it, to keep the main focus on the person, perhaps have it as a separate column, and keep the name first.
On the award process, possibly the only ones which might be a bit different are the VCs awarded to ANZACs in Vietnam where there was no UK involvement at all, most other cases there would have been some sort of joint command arrangement in any case I suspect. Certainly in WW2 a large number of recomendations went through the (British) War Office for all levels of decorations, regardless of nationality, see for example this search on the digitised records of Recommendations for Honours and Awards (Army) at The National Archives. David Underdown (talk) 21:08, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for Battle of Naissus now open

The peer review for Battle of Naissus is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks!Blnguyen (vote in the photo straw poll) 23:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Offensive Operation

Please see the naming discussion at Talk:Memel Offensive Operation#Memel Offensive. Several articles are named "something Offensive Operation", I feel this is may not be the best name and batch renaming may be needed.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:26, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Help needed on Vickers Vimy - Chinese translation needed

There is an unreferenced section in the article on the Vickers Vimy about use of some of the Vimy Commercials delivered as airliners to China as bombers in the Second Zhili-Fengtian War. After extensive Googleing, I have managed to find this link http://cwlam2000hk.sinaman.com/caf05.htm, which appears to say something about Chinese military use of the Vimy - can someone who can understand Chinese please check whether the link confirms what the section of the article claims about Chinese use?Nigel Ish (talk) 18:58, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Reference desk question

Someone has asked on the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk (here) where they get the numbers that go with military units, like the "112" in "the 112th Regiment". I hoped someone here might know and would like to answer at the link above. --Milkbreath (talk) 23:47, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Article wording when referring to decorations and honours

I've been in a bit of a discussion with User:'Arry Boy about how best to word mentions of awards of honours in articles, particularly with reference to appointments to the various grades of the Order of the British Empire. Strictly, "appointed ... KBE, CBE etc" is the right wording (or "promoted" if they are later given a higher grade of the same order). My feeling is there's no need to be pedantic about the wording used, when it often leads to repitition of phraseology within the article ('H'. Jones is particularly where it came up), I think we should go for readability, particularly since a google for "made an MBE" returns about 60.900 hits[2] so it's obviously common enough usage. David Underdown (talk) 21:08, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

If you look at the London Gazette the correct term is appointed, made an MBE is sloppy english when it should be appointed as a Member of the Order of the British Empire. Just because others use it should not set the standard for an encyclopedia. MilborneOne (talk) 21:43, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Does the general term "gazetted" apply? Trekphiler (talk) 17:35, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I believe that gazetted refers to the effective date from which officer ranks commence. --ROGER DAVIES talk 18:12, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
"Appointed"? --ROGER DAVIES talk 18:12, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Indian and Pakistani 7th Divisions

Could editors with knowledge of the Indian and Pakistani armies please have a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/7th Indian Infantry Division. There seems to be some confusion about what happened to this division after the partition of British India. Both Pakistan and India appear to currently have 7th Divisions - which one inherited the lineage of the WW2-era division, and how should the articles be structured? Thanks, --Nick Dowling (talk) 07:33, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

The 7th Indian Infantry Division became the Pakistani 7th after independence - for proof, they've got the same insignia. The 7th Indian article was created well before the Pakistani 7th and said that the division became part of the Pakistani Army after independence. The 7th Inf Div in the Indian Army today is a new raising since '48. The articles should be merged, as several people have advocated on the talk page, but with redirects left at the WW2 name. Buckshot06 (talk) 09:34, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
You mean like this 17th Indian infantry division [3]?! This unit article is misnamed. It should be 7th Indian Infantry Division (United Kingdom). The division was never a part of the Indian national Army, and was never a part of the Pakistan's Army either. Just because they borrowed the insignia, does not a lineage make. Just flattery.

This sentence "The 7th Infantry Division is now part of the Pakistan Army, stationed in Kohat in the North western Frontier Province." I bet was added by a Pakistani editor, and the fact that it is not referenced should say something. All British units in India that did not return to British territory after Indian independence were of course disbanded. Do not delete.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 10:20, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

You should put your opinion in the AfD. Leithp 10:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Mrg, I sometimes wonder whether you check sources. The British Indian Army was divided - some units went to Pakistan, others to India. It specifically says in several places that the 7th Division was the only division allocated to Pakistan. Buckshot06 (talk) 10:38, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
(edit confilct) I don't know whether that's correct. I think that many of the pre-Independence Indian units became part of the Indian and Pakistani militaries upon Independence, with there being no break in the units' lineage. The 'British' Indian Army was mainly made up of Indians serving in Indian regiments under Indian officers, and these certainly weren't disbanded en-mass in 1947. --Nick Dowling (talk) 10:45, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that any unit above regiment size can claim direct lineage from a pre-partition unit. Wouldn't those divisions have contained artillery, headquarters etc from outside India and Pakistan as well as a number of UK based battalions? I don't doubt that the Pakistani military has continuity of insignia etc though. Leithp 10:50, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
My sources, why, I checked with King George VI. He told me that not one officer of the Indian or Pakistani armies were commissioned in the British Army after partition. What are your sources?
You fail to differentiate between personnel and equipment transfer between armies and actual administrative unit creation as acts of national governments, something we had a difference of opinion on in the matter of Ukrainian armed forces. I dare you to find one British national that continued to serve in the 7th Indian Infantry Division past the independence of Pakistan. Different countries Buckshot06.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 10:53, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Lineage is not traced through either equipment, personnel or insignia, but by the continuity of the unit's service in the national forces.
PS. UK WW2 units in the category are a mess--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 10:56, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunetly the best site on this topic, regiments.org, is down at the moment. While the small British component of the Indian Army (which was never much more than 10% of the force's personnel - albeit including almost all of the senior officers as late as 1945) did indeed go home in 1947, the units survived more or less intact and were divided between the two countries and claim lineage from pre-Independence formations. It's no accident that the modern Indian and Pakistani order of battle looks a lot like the OOB from the Burma Campaign of WW2. --Nick Dowling (talk) 11:14, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I can contact the owner of regiments.org if you wish, but it is unnecessary. Several Indian divisions fought with Australian and New Zealand troops in the Middle East as detailed by Gavin Long in Australia in the war of 1939-45:Greece, Crete and Syria. On page 541 you will find calculation of the British government on how AIF was to be created as part of other forces subordinated to the British General Staff. Pakistan was not among them. While the Australian divisions required the Commonwealth Government's agreement to bring them into service, the same was not true for the divisions formed in India which were directed to form by Whitehall. Long confirms this on page 552 "India did not possess political independence and the British and Indian armies were virtually one."--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 11:43, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure what you're arguing here. No-one is claiming that India was a self-governing dominion during WW2 and that the Indian Army was under any sort of Indian command prior to independence. Rather, it is my understanding that upon independence the colonial-era Indian Army survived as an institution by being split between India and Pakistan. These Armies claim lineage from the pre-Independence Army, and that seems good enough for me. I don't know what happened with the Ukrainian Army after the breakup of the USSR, but the Indian Army can be thought of as having switched owners. --Nick Dowling (talk) 22:24, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
How does a unit "claim" linage? Please have a look here [4] at the process that took place in Australia when it separated from the British Empire. This [5] is fairly typical of how national armed forces are managed in terms of lineage.
With all British Indian Army service units the British Government did the USA equivalent of:
  • Inactivate. To place a Regular Army unit that is not currently needed in the force structure in an inoperative status without assigned personnel or equipment for a limited period of time. The unit is transferred to the inactive rolls of the British Army, but it can be activated again whenever needed. Its personnel and equipment are reassigned to one or more active units or decommissioned, scrapped due to damage or obsolescence, or disposed according to other Government policy , but its historical records and properties are placed in storage (British Army Archives), and funds transfered to Treasury. Upon reactivation, the unit retains its former history, lineage and honors, and it may retrieve its records and properties from storage.
  • Demobilize. To remove the designation of a unit from the official rolls of the Army. If the unit is active, it must also be inactivated.
  • Disband. To remove the designation of a Regular Army or Territorial Army unit from the official rolls of the British Army. If the unit is active, it must also be inactivated. Disbandment is intended to be permanent and irreversible, except in extraordinary circumstances.
  • Withdraw Government recognition. To remove the designation of an British Army unit from the official rolls of the British Army. Government recognition is withdrawn when the unit no longer meets Army requirements or is no longer needed in the force structure.
The Pakistan Government then
  • Organize. To assign personnel and equipment to a unit and make it operative— that is, capable of performing its mission. For Army National units, this term is used instead of activate.
  • Federally recognize. To accept an Army National unit into the force structure of the Pakistan Army after the unit has been inspected by a federal representative and found to be properly stationed, organized, and equipped in accordance with Army requirements.
  • Constitute. To place the designation of a new unit on the official rolls of the Pakistan's Army.
  • Order into active federal service. To place an Army National unit on full-time active duty under the control of the Pakistan government. The unit remains in federal service until released by the federal government, at which time it reverts to the control of its home state or states.
What makes transfer of lineage impossible between countries is lack of ability to Reconstitute. To restore to the official rolls of the Army a unit that has been disbanded , demobilized, or had its federal recognition withdrawn. The reconstituted unit may have a new designation, but it retains its former history, lineage, and honors. A government of one country can not reconstitute a military unit of another. If this was not true, Italy could have its own Old Guard by claiming Italian serving in it, and Napoleon having Italian birth (or any pretext)--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 23:31, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
This is all complicated U.S. practice never used by the British Army. It is not relevant. British units can be disbanded and then reformed, and the complicated arrangements used by the US Army are not used. Buckshot06 (talk) 00:05, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Mate, where do you think American's got their procedure from?! I'm just not able to find the British Army version online, so will ask at the Defence library on Monday. If anything, the British procedure is more complicated. However, you made my point, "British units can be disbanded and then reformed", but not as Pakistani units! If this was the case, all Commonwealth formations and units could claim BA lineage, and there would be no regimental associations--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 00:18, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Hmm. I had it in my head that around 1 in 3 or 4 of the infantry battalions in an Indian division were British. I can't remember where I read that, though. Certainly there was a large contingent of British infantry assigned to Indian divisions. Are we confusing the Indian Army and the British Army in India? There would be units from both in an Indian division. Leithp 11:52, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Nope, you are confusing British Army in India, and Indian National Army. The later has no lineage with the former regardless of having regiments wit names like Grenadiers and Guards.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 12:05, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Mrg's unfortunately wrong here. The Indian National Army was a rebel anti-British force in the service of the Japanese. Leithp, you are correct, the usual proportion was 1 to 3 British Army, UK-raised, battalions in a British Indian Army division (a lesson learned from the Indian Mutiny). Indeed they'd be units from both in a British Indian Army div. Buckshot06 (talk) 00:05, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Iirc they tried to keep it one British battalion per infantry brigade (i.e. the 3-4 Bns per division like you said). Although i had wondered why they did that and not thrown together in there own brigade until i read you remark about the mutiny.--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 01:30, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Chemical warfare

Umm...the project's mainpage has this article removed from FA status due to citation problems, however, the article itself is still rated as FA and has no mention on it anywhere of an FAR. Does anyone know what the deal is? This came to my attention because I have recently begun working on the portal Weapons of mass destruction. Cromdog (talk) 21:43, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

There are a number of old FAs which aren't visible on the main page because they don't "serve as excellent examples" for editors to follow (due to the problems with them); chemical warfare happens to be one of those. It won't actually be fully removed until it goes through FAR, however. Kirill 23:43, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

UK deterrent - Eyes on

Request some eyes on to British replacement of the Trident system where there is a move to alter the description of the UK deterrent to an alternative wording.

Could usefully use some additional views.

Cheers

ALR (talk) 12:18, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Eyes on required at Talk:British Divisions in World War II#list break

A discussion at this page requires wider input; following on from the debate over the Indian 7th Division, people are looking at the inconsistent page titles for various WW2 British divisions and how they should be named, especially in relation to divisions that became part of post British armies (like the debate over the Indian 7th). Please come and contribute your points of view. Buckshot06 (talk) 22:47, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for 11th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment now open

The peer review for 11th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Blnguyen (vote in the photo straw poll) 03:48, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Allan Davidson

Could someone take a look at Allan Davidson the way I read the scope of the MilHist project, there has to be something more than just that someone was in the military to bring them into the project...I know its cold, but dying in a battle in WWI isn't notable in itself and won't really ever be more than just a line or two in this athlete's article....thanks!!! LegoTech·(t)·(c) 04:47, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I removed it. Blnguyen (vote in the photo straw poll) 05:05, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks...is this the right place to ask this sort of thing? I don't want to bug anyone! LegoTech·(t)·(c) 05:42, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

AfD: Raffaele Cadorna, Jr.

This article has been nominated for deletion. The general appears to be a very notable Italian WWI resistence general. He is probably mentioned in various English sources, off line, about the end of war campaigns in north Italy in WWII. Anyone who can improve the article, please take some time to do so. I don't think deletion is a real concern in spite of the listing. However, he seems like a character about whom more is written in English than the few resources I can find on the web, and military historians, especially those with access to indexes to military history magazines, might be the editors who have good information. --69.226.108.255 (talk) 22:41, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I've just been a little bit bold and closed the discussion with a speedy keep in line with WP:SNOW - the article was referenced and Cadorna was inheritantly notable from being a general and a senator and all the votes were keeps. --Nick Dowling (talk) 10:38, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Armia Krajowa now open

The A-Class review for Armia Krajowa is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! Blnguyen (vote in the photo straw poll) 00:50, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Iraq War

There is an improperly formated cite tag in this article that should really be adressed. Also, in the interest of NPOV, could you guys maybe find a pro-war demonstration for the topical images section? 129.108.96.45 (talk) 06:10, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Please provide sources that there were any notable pro-war demonstrations compared to the global phenomen of anti-war demonstrations. Wandalstouring (talk) 12:59, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
To my knowlage there were no notable pro-war demonstrations, however there have been pro war rallies here and there across the years. It just seems pov-ish to rule out the pro war camp entirely, hence the reason why I bring it up. I suppose it doesn;t matter in the end, I just thought it may help make a better case for NPOV compliance if a prowar rally was included to balance the pro-peace rally. 129.108.25.23 (talk) 15:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Plus, those who are pro-war are usually too busy to do such things, as they are more productive members of society. Occasionally at an anti-war rally, you get some counter-protestors, but once again, there are fewer as they tend to be more productive.--Bedford 22:18, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Cor, nothing like broad-brush generalisations. I think it might also be worth saying that many who might have supported operations in Iraq (note that I have major issues with calling it a war) wouldn't see a need to protest in support of, indeed the description itself is counter-intuitive, since it was going to happen anyway. There are more productive ways of doing business when having a protest is a waste of time.
ALR (talk) 23:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Why no "War" projects?

Hi guys, is there any reason why there aren't any specific war projects e.g. "Gulf War Project". Ryan4314 (talk) 11:41, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, we do have dedicated task forces for several wars, including the American Civil War, World War I and World War II. The reason these are not fully fledged projects of their own is, I think, a result of the fact that, the more narrow the scope of a project, the more difficult it is to sustain enough editor interest over the long term to make it viable. Carom (talk) 11:56, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
OIC, so there's no rule against it then? Ryan4314 (talk) 12:14, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Not a rule against it, no; it's just that these projects take a slightly different form than might be expected. In general, independent sub-project have been deprecated in favor of task forces for years now, and it's worked quite well in practice.
If you're looking for a group focusing on a specific war, please do feel free to propose it, and we can easily create the corresponding task force if there's enough editor interest. Kirill 12:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, in layman's terms, what's the difference between a task force and a project? Ryan4314 (talk) 12:54, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Basically, a task force is integrated into a parent project, and makes use of that parent project's infrastructure (e.g. assessment templates, review processes, etc.) rather than having to maintain its own. Other than that, they're basically the same thing: a group of editors working on some area of common interest. The task force version just requires a lot less "project management" overhead, and thus tends to be preferred for things that can fit in neatly with an already-active parent project. Kirill 13:05, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
I think it may be an interesting idea to create a sort of virtual starbucks on MILHIST, where interested editors may discuss specific topics or conflicts which are too narrow to have a task force, but have enough editor interest that it warrants a common talking place. That will also help sort out conflicts or issues, like on the Kargil War or 1962 India-China War page, for example. These needn't be official groups (but can be made into their own task forces if theres enough interest and breadth in the issue), but just like in coffee shops, where we hang out, chat with friends and generally discuss, this could also take about the same form. What do u think? T/@Sniperz11editssign 12:57, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Only if we get a virtual coffee!--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 13:13, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Sino Japanese War

Does anyone have an additional references for the Second Sino-Japanese War? I'm trying to find one or two good online sources for a school paper I'm writing, but so far can't find anything usable in our online collections. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:32, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

No, I've been looking for one though. I've been told that Sino-Japanese War, 1937-41: From Marco Polo Bridge to Pearl Harbor by Frank Dorn is an excellent source. Though it only goes up to 1941, from my limited experience, those were the crucial years of the war, as after the conquest of North-east China, the war settled into one of attrition and relative stalemate. The Cambridge history of China argues that both Kai-Shek and the Japanese avoided major conflicts with each other due to being preoccupied elsewhere; Japan with the war against the United States, Kai-Shek hoping to let the American's defeat Japan so he could preserve his forces for the upcoming conflict against the communists. Oberiko (talk) 02:38, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

FA-class nomination of USS Bridgeport (AD-10)

The FA-class nomination for USS Bridgeport (AD-10) has been open for quite some time and I'm sure more feedback would be appreciated. Maralia (talk) 22:49, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

7th Indian Infantry Division

I'm aware that there's a section above but I'm unsure whether MILHIST is archives the talk page with a bot. Anyway, mrg3105 (talk · contribs) has been vigorously arguing at the AFD his conviction that the independence of India and Pakistan signified a termination of lineage between the units of the new armies and the pre-partition Indian Army. He has been repeatedly asked to support his claims about the legal military ramifications of independence and republic, organisational succession, and lineage termination. His claims appear to hinge on personal theory and interpretation of primary documents which do not appear to even allude to the issues being discussed at the AFD. He initially appeared to dismiss that Indian and Pakistani units even claimed lineage until evidence to the contrary was presented. Sources have since been produced which I believe compellingly demonstrate official recognition of lineage by the governments of India and Pakistan but he has seemingly (?) refused to accept their authority. I have explained that until he presents sources contradicting the apparent position of those governments (which has conspicuously not been challenged and/or disputed by the United Kingdom), that he must respect that Wikipedia should reflect that reality and not propagate what appears to be personal opinion and theory. To me, it amounts to original research. I've stated that and asserted that his arguments appear to be dependent on the hypothetical and theory. His claims are exceptional and demand exceptional sources. Opinions would be really appreciated as it seems as if this will be a self-perpetuating discussion even when the AFD is closed. SoLando (Talk) 00:17, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I support SoLando's position here (as one of two or three people who've been contributing to the AfD). There seem to be no crystal clear, authoritative sources either way to prove either lineage continued or was terminated for this particular divisional headquarters, and in the absence of that, it is a reasonably clear that there was no physical break on Independence Day for this formation - they went to bed one night serving in the British Indian Army and woke up next morning in the Pakistan Army. I believe the information in the articles concerned should be at 7th Infantry Division (Pakistan) with redirects, including at 7th Indian Infantry Division. Buckshot06 (talk) 02:06, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

7th Armoured Division (United Kingdom)

A zealous editor has added enough detail on the division's operations for it to make the 20 longest wikipedia pages - needs some attention and a split, I think. Buckshot06 (talk) 22:02, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh dear, a lot of it seems to be direct cut and pastes from this self-published website. The website doesn't say that the material is copyright, but this is hardly good practice. --Nick Dowling (talk) 07:46, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I left a message on the editor who contributed this material's talk page, but they've just removed it: [6] There may not be any option but to strip this article back to a stub and start again... --Nick Dowling (talk) 22:33, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Gah. I endorse any decision to purge the article if the user refuses to clarify the status of the information extracted from that website. There's always the generic, impersonal templates ;-). SoLando (Talk) 22:39, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, this is a little out of control - see also their edits to Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, among others. Carom (talk) 22:41, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
OK, done. I reverted to the last good version, so it's probably a start class rather than a stub. It's not every day I make an edit which removes 224,425kbs of material! --Nick Dowling (talk) 04:23, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Heh, it's surprising an edit removing that much material didn't get summarily reverted by on of the anti-vandal bots. Carom (talk) 14:36, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Help needed

Could any editors with some spare time please help reduce Category:Unassessed military history articles which is currently getting rather large (92 articles)? If we can get on top of it now, it will stop the category becoming dauntingly big :) Thanks in advance, --ROGER DAVIES talk 18:56, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I tried to rate American Volunteer Group. Could you check to see if I worked the template correctly? Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 00:21, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Yep, fine :) Thanks, --ROGER DAVIES talk 00:24, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Roger, there are a fair number of Air Force articles that are nothing more than a template, such as 2d Space Launch Squadron. Are these even up to being assessed? Others source only a fact sheet. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 14:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, they just need assessing as class=stub. Don't bother with the checklist for stubs. --ROGER DAVIES talk 14:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)z
Need some extra help here; I've been pruning it, but the number has gone up to 120. Allez! Buckshot06 (talk) 03:38, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I'll have a go at the biographical ones, starting with Aldrin. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 04:16, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Hey! Barnstar required - I think for Mr Rose here. When I left it last night the number was 36, and I'd been working on some of the aviation articles, while the bibliographical ones had been disappearing steadily. Now there are none at all in that category. If that is you Ian I believe you deserve some recognition. Buckshot06 (talk) 22:01, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Many thanks, mate, but I think there must be others at least as deserving - I know I knocked off about a dozen bios so someone else must've been hard at work covering the rest of the great unwashed (I mean unassessed)...! Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for Armia Krajowa needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for Armia Krajowa; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! Kirill 22:04, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Infobox National Military

[[Military of {{{country}}}]]

I've seen a number of comments on various talk pages about the use of manpower statistics in this infobox and how applicable they are. The estimates for total available manpower figure for military service and number of men (and women) reaching military age annually may be readily available, thanks to the CIA World Factbook, but are not very relevant nowdays - we're not at August 4, 1914!

At least at first, I'd like to ask whether we can halt the automatic display of these figures in the box even when they're not filled in - resulting in an ugly blank space.

Further on, I think we should change the infobox to something more relevant, but I'm not sure how we would actually measure military effectiveness in a quantifiable way -(Flying hours?) Ideas welcome.Buckshot06 (talk) 05:20, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree - the available manpower isn't a very useful measure of modern military potential, especially as current thinking is that mass armies of conscripts are actually less effective than smaller but better trained and equipped professional forces. The current military expenditure in $US is perhas the best measure, but is hardly perfect as expenditure doesn't always equal capacity and this data isn't available from free online sources, that I know of. --Nick Dowling (talk) 05:29, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
With myself and no doubt other contributers having access to the IISS Military Balance, we can get authoritative estimates of military expenditure. If we can get a list of countries with missing current figures, we could probably fix it up quite quickly. Buckshot06 (talk) 05:37, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
All the parameters in the infobox are now optional. If something needs to be added, that would be easy enough; but I have no idea what other parameters would be a good fit. Kirill 12:52, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I think it is a good solution that all parameters are now optional. I don't think that the military expenditure is that good a number for comparison because in some countries the soldiers are cheaper, in others national industries get financed (despite the fact that their products are too expensive), others have a hidden military expenditure via stateowned arms manufacturers (that also produce civil goods and this way finance their institutions) or scientific research is undertaken on a larger or lesser scale via the military funds. Wandalstouring (talk) 13:31, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for USS Siboney (ID-2999) underway

The A-Class review for USS Siboney (ID-2999) is underway; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! — Bellhalla (talk) 12:03, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Decorations, units and commands

How do I find out decorations, units and commands for Bob Chappuis?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 00:39, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Can anyone make sense of this: http://aad.archives.gov/aad/record-detail.jsp?dt=893&mtch=1&cat=all&tf=F&q=Robert+Chappuis&rpp=10&pg=1&rid=1263209 It seems to contradict other information I have found out about him.

Perhaps more appropriately a review over beer than a peer review...

Unfortunately, there is no effective Wikibeer feature.

I'd like to invite comment on two (and a fraction) things I've written, one (and a fraction) in my userspace, and one that, perhaps prematurely, got loose in mainspace. User:Hcberkowitz/Sandbox-AirCampaign, is in userspace because, I hope, I have learned by what I did with Foreign internal defense in mainspace.

While they are both well sourced, in doing the "Air Campaign" piece, I consciously did not worry about original research and synthesis. My motivation in writing it was looking at the current aerial warfare article and seeing it as more historical than explaining current doctrine. So, I decided to put down thoughts and not worry about the usual constraints. The result might well be suitable as a MILHIST essay about addressing air warfare. The piece is still a work in progress, especially as I try to get my mental arms around one of the latest buzzwords, "effects-based operations". One of the nice things about this piece is that I've been able to draw on a wide range of national sources, so it is certainly leaning toward globalisation, although I still have more research to do there.

In mainspace is an article, foreign internal defense, that I believe is well sourced and reasonably globalised, but probably should split. It has a substantial amount of information on current theories of insurgency, which may not be covered elsewhere. Of course, foreign internal defense, as a form of counterinsurgency or prevention of insurgency, needs to have an understanding of the nature of insurgency, but not necessarily in the same article.

It became obvious that one piece of the FID article was US-specific, reflecting politics in the special operations community, and with Donald Rumsfeld and presumably other Bush Administration policymakers. User:Hcberkowitz/Sandbox-FIDscraps deals with a controversy in the US military on whether the more highly trained specialists such as United States Army Special Forces are better used in "door-kicking" direct action and counter-terror, or should emphasize the longer-term FID and unconventional warfare missions. It really should be considered a current event/ongoing debate. Again, I don't know if it can be a properly encyclopedic piece about a US issue, if it has value as a MILHIST essay, or if it doesn't fit Wikipedia at all.

I'm quite comfortable accepting that some of my work is not really fit for the Wikipedia paradigm, and am open to suggestions for more appropriate venues. Let's see what does fit here. Comments may be on the talk pages or by email.

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 02:28, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

One thought Howard: Foreign Internal Defense is a specific US Army doctrinal term. It started that way and (correct me if I'm wrong) no other armies use it. So the article on that should be defined that way, and one doesn not have to be worried about being US-centric. It would misrepresent the concept to apply it to other armies too closely, or, on Wikipedia, to compare their efforts against US criteria which they may not do in real life. (Reviewing the FID article now I, honestly, would have to say much of the material, I believe, belongs at the insurgency article.) However, everything you're writing would probably be picked up quite happily by thinktanks - have you thought of refocusing your work for publication, by, perhaps, the Project on Defense Alternatives? Buckshot06 (talk) 03:47, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree FID is a specific US term. Nevertheless, toward the end of the article, I describe British and French parallel functions, including some of the theories of Roger Trinquier. Is there enough, taking text perhaps from US doctrine, to produce an article on "Comparative National Approaches to Counterinsurgency"? I wasn't proposing to include the Soviet approaches in Hungary or Afghanistan, but, seriously, should they be included even though there is little of the persuasive and cooperative?
If I do move content to Insurgency, I'd appreciate feedback there. When I first looked at that article, I found it fairly high-level, and am not sure if I can merely add and edit text, or if a full rewrite is needed. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 16:42, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

WPMILHIST: Articles of unclear notability

Hello,

there are currently 57 articles in the scope of this project which are tagged with notability concerns. I have listed them here. (Note: this listing is based on a database snapshot of 12 March 2008 and may be slightly outdated.)

I would encourage members of this project to have a look at these articles, and see whether independent sources can be added, whether the articles can be merged into an article of larger scope, or possibly be deleted. Any help in cleaning up this backlog is appreciated. For further information, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Notability.

If you have any questions, please leave a message on the Notability project page or on my personal talk page. (I'm not watching this page however.) Thanks! --B. Wolterding (talk) 15:07, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Style Guide for Military Vehicles?

I've been in a minor edit war over a user concerning the Austin K2 article. I moved the main front image of the truck to the infobox, to keep some commonality across the breath of Military Vehicle Articles, and the other user keeps on moving the image back into the article space, citing various reasons why he keeps reverting it back. i've told him about the Style guidelines and NPOV, but he keeps on insisting to undo my edits. I really want this to stop once and for all. Is there actually a Style Guideline for Military Vehicles? Or is it just an unwritten rule that all Military Vehicles articles need to share some shared aspects by default?--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 19:17, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

It's not mandatory that the image appear in the infobox, although it is certainly in keeping with the general practice of editors who work on these topics. The image should certainly not be located in the top left, immediately opposite the infobox, as this squashes the text in between the two; I belive this is generally frowned upon. Carom (talk) 19:34, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, if I recall correctly, there's something to this effect in one of the image-related MoS sections. Such basic layout issues aren't really anything specific to us as a project; they're just common matters having to do with how web pages are rendered. Kirill 04:14, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
The relevant guideline is this one - the third bullet point says to "avoid sandwiching text." Carom (talk) 05:17, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

How to handle this one?

Ok, let's say for example that we have a British national serving with the United States Army in a particular conflict. Do I tag them with "British military personnel of the XXX war", "American military personnel of the XXX War" or both? --James Bond (talk) 05:01, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I would say that, if they are serving as a memeber of the US Army, then they should be tagged "American military personnel of the XXX War." I see no reason to really call them British, since they aren't acting in a capacity as a British soldier.Cromdog (talk) 15:58, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Cromdog though they might also merit inclusion in a "British people of the XXX war" category (if one exists for the conflict). --ROGER DAVIES talk 16:03, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm tempted to say "neither", but wonder if it's "with" or "in"; if it's in, then American would be appropriate. If they are current British military, and it's "with", then British might be more appropriate, or I'd use both. If they are not British military, we need "Foreign nationals serving in XXX war" or something like that (there could be an even huge-er number of tags otherwise.) htom (talk) 16:51, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
This has been on my mind, especially with British military classification as 'many' non-British nationals have served in the British Armed services at one time or another. My view is that military figures should be classified by organisation not nationality. The benefit a user gains from knowing what passport someone was carrying is far less than to know who issued their rifle. Also, it is confusing when multiple categories for one period of service are applied Kernel Saunters (talk) 16:58, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
On a related note (already discussed with Kernel Saunters individually), Category:British World War II flying aces is currently (via Category:British World War II pilots) a subcat of Category:Royal Air Force personnel of World War II, which is all a bit dodgy, since not all pilots were RAF personnel, and as alredy pointed ou tin this thread, they could be serving in the forces of another country (haven't checked if this actually applicable). I don't know if similar issues also affect the categorisation scheme for other countries too. David Underdown (talk) 17:03, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the country they are serving would have to be used. This is quite normal, many dual citizens who play sport for instance are categorised under the flag under which they competed. Blnguyen (vote in the photo straw poll) 04:00, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

There have been many soldiers who have served with foreign armies, either as an observer or as an active participant of the chain of command.
As to the first, Evans Carlson served as an observer to the Chinese Eighth Route Army and gained many of his views which he later transferred to the Marine Raiders during World War II famously on the Makin Raid.
As to the second, see the Eagle Squadrons where the command was of British Royal Air Force officers, while most of the pilots and ground crews were Americans.
Now, when I was on active duty in the Marine Corps, one of my best friends was a British National serving in the US Marine Corps. He would have been appalled to have it said he was a British military person.
The major difference between the first and second/third examples above is the comment made above by htom, that if they are serving with they should be tagged as British Army Personnel, while in means American Army Personnel. Leobold1 (talk) 04:14, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
As to your example i think your friend should be in the following categories; US Marine Personnel in war X and British Nationals in war X. Many in the british army are Commonwealth nationals. (Hypnosadist) 04:49, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I think we have to standardize the categorization of personnel based on the nationality of the service (nationality of the individual is much more mutable). For the example above I would have the individual categorized as "U.S. Army personnel of the X War" and "Foreign servicemen in the U.S. Army".

I will admit, I'm a little stumbled on the example that Leopold gives. How are observers usually classified? Oberiko (talk) 13:21, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I would think they would be classified by their own nation. They are representatives of their nation's military in a conflict which their nation is not actively participating, not part of the participant's military. Cromdog (talk) 17:22, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
I've tended to list them under a more generic *ish people of X war where *ish = nationality of the military observer to avoid confusion as they are non-participants. The other similar example is for volunteers in hospital units not under control of national military Kernel Saunters (talk) 17:39, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Some statistics

The following table is a summary of the most consulted military histrory-related articles in February 2008. Full listing can be found here. 23 of the 1,000 most visited pages of Wikipedia are articles maintained by this project. 87 out of the 5,000 most visited articles are also related to military history. Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in getting the full list of the 87 articles.

Anyway, this is the summary and I am leaving the door open to comments and analysis. Statistics are important but interpretations can differ. I hope this would serve the project unless a statistics dept. or a stat. task force is created. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 21:39, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, they don't read serious articles. :(. Blnguyen (vote in the photo straw poll) 00:49, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
I've noted on FayssalF's talk page, but I'll do it again here, the top MILHIST article is actually World War II not World War I by looking at the link provided. The table is inaccurate as of this edit. -MBK004 00:51, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
World War I is actually #67 on the list. Carom (talk) 01:01, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for spotting it guys. Blnguyen, I believe some of them are serious ones. It depends on the intellectual level of the readership. Unfortunately, there is no way to get to know 'who read that'. -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 02:32, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
We can interpret a bit (considering that most users belong to the Western cultures):
1. The weekly cycle:
Wars (and Nazi Germany), for example WWII or Korean War, have a cycle of being viewed for 5 days(often an increase towards the middle and a decline towards the end of the week) and then 2 days break(especially on Sunday and with an increase on Monday). This suggests that there is less interest on the weekends and at the beginning of the week. Who could be interested in this topic in that great numbers during the week and not on the Saturday and Monday? A problem of this interpretation is that wikipedia uses one timezone while access is conducted from multiple timezones, but still it renders more or less this picture.Wikipedia:About, Bill Cosby and other articles show the same characteristic of access. It may be the result of a group consulting wikipedia in workspace such as students, but it is also possible that this reflects a general trend of reduced activity on Monday (checking emails from the weekend?).
2. The sudden outburst:
This is a sudden burst of interest and a decline 2-3 days later. These are topics highlighted in popular media. The presidential candidates and Amy Winehouse (and probably Che Guevara, but also according to 1.) are examples of that type of interest. While these cases can appear relatively high on the assessment list, we should judge them based on their everyday access and not rate them too high, except if these bursts appear on a regular basis like for the aforementioned presidential candidates that reappear in the media coverage during every voting session.
3. The constant
Articles with constant high access like United States Marine corps probably interest people not only when they have to work and are thus of general and high interest. These should simply be top quality articles to show what good work we can produce.
4. The weekday specific
I don't know why the M16 rifle was that popular on Tuesdays? Maybe a weapons magazine is distributed on these days. (I usually check a gun I know for comparison to other weapons; for me this would be the G3 and G36)
The scheme for sex related articles shows a slight increase on Sundays and Mondays, the day after the weekend(especially on Saturday) when most condoms are used and afterwards arrive in the domestic wastewater treatment(I worked there for a few weeks). This is probably resulting from people who want to inform themselves what went wrong during last weekend, but there is also generally a high interest in sex and related subjects.
That covers all criteria I could find so far. Some articles have an access mixed from different criteria (especially sudden bursts from media coverage interrupting the routine). Wandalstouring (talk) 14:54, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
To be quite honest, I'm not sure that a month's worth of data is sufficient for us to be able to draw statistical conclusions of this sort; it's too likely to be unduly affected by random factors, such as mentions in the news, and so forth. We'd need at least a few months of data to have any certainty that we were seeing actual behavioral patterns, and not just plausible-looking statistical noise. Kirill 01:18, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
The criteria have been established in multiple articles and are thus valid. It's the same as watching one article for several months and the views of other articles didn't bring new criteria. Wandalstouring (talk) 09:54, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I read somewhere that search blips are often caused by high profile news items or widespread screenings of related stuff on the tv. --ROGER DAVIES talk 09:59, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Excluding ITNs, links from DYK and the main page, it should be pretty constant. Obviously, people will be out in droves for TFA, ITN and if it is linked as an associated article to a DYK hook or a SA hook. Also, from my watching of January stats for some of my Vietnam articles, a lot things related to Ngo Dinh Diem spiked on Jan 3; likely because they went to the Jan 3 page and read his article because it was his birthday. Most of the subarticles linked to that article also got a spike on January 3. Blnguyen (vote in the photo straw poll) 03:12, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Besides MILHIST

Which WikiProjects are well known for high quality A class reviews? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.189.65.127 (talk) 14:56, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Off the top of my head, Films and Biography have running reviews of the same type as ours, although I'm not sure how active they are; and Tropical Cyclones used to—and still might—run a somewhat different sort of review. Kirill 23:55, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

A-Class review for William Stacy needs attention

A few more editors are needed to complete the A-Class review for William Stacy; please stop by and help review the article! Thanks! Kirill 00:00, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

"This man is your friend" propaganda posters

I've seen this posters pop up as jokes in forums. I've seen one for a Canadian as well. Were these notable posters and does it warrant an article. I presume these are WW2 propaganda posters, was there one for each allied country? Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 02:57, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

AFAIK, there are British and French as well and probably Belgian and Polish but I am not sure.
Defense needs rubber - Save your tires - 1941
P.S. I think the Anti-war posters did not exist at that time :) -- FayssalF - Wiki me up® 04:16, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
There's also a poster with an Australian soldier. I've got no idea if these are notable, but they'd make a great article if some sources on them can be found. Nick Dowling (talk) 09:38, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
There is also definitely one with the Chinese. Lordjeff06 (talk) 09:42, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Found a bunch of them here and they look free as they are on a US government site. I will look into the story behind these posters further. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 21:02, 22 March 2008 (UTC) LOL! look at the bad teeth on the Englishmen. Classic. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 21:03, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Interesting posters. The site you found them at is a New Hampshire library /government site, not a U.S. government site, however, so it would appear they are not free from there. doncram (talk) 21:13, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
The war posters of WWII are very notable and have had a large cultural impact, Dig for Victory a campaign to get british families to grow their own food is iconic in britain. Others spawned new english words such as scuttlebut. On i side note i have started to see them more and more in the houses of enviromentalists, mostly the austerity posters such as Make do and Mend. (Hypnosadist) 22:02, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
I'd suggest that the genre might be notable, but individual posters probably aren't. Of course that depends on finding any credible sources which discuss the subject.
ALR (talk) 23:12, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, the posters are hosted on a New Hampshire government site, but they were created by the United States Office of War Information, and as such, are in the public domain. — Bellhalla (talk) 14:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)