Talk:Liberation of France/Archive 1

Archive 1

Sourcing copied lead content

Just a note about ensuring Verifiability of copied content, especially when that content happens to come from the lead of another article. This article fits the description of a parent article, as defined at WP:Summary style. The organizational structure of this article should thoroughly cover the scope of the topic, but the content of each section will be fairly brief, and consist of a summary of the more detailed content at the child article. In some cases, content from the lead of the child article may be able to be copied here for use as the summary; in that case, appropriate references from the body of the source article may need to be copied as well to support the copied lead content, since an article lead does not require references, but when the content is copied here, then it does require them. Care should be taken to make sure all copied content is appropriately sourced.

And of course, every edit containing content copied from another article, must have an accompanying edit summary that meets Wikipedia's licensing requirements, as described at WP:CWW. For convenience, a copy-paste model summary is listed right at the top of the Draft. A nice-to-have, is a {{copied}} template here on the talk page as well; but the edit summary attribution is a requirement. Mathglot (talk) 01:17, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Organizational structure feedback

I've created this draft as a skeleton structure of section and subsection titles, top and bottom matter, and images; but no body content (other than Lorem ipsum filler, so the images sit properly). Any feedback on this structure would be appreciated. The easiest way to see the overall structure, is just by looking at the Table of Contents. Mathglot (talk) 01:24, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Question about copying infoboxes

@Mathglot: I've started looking at some of the "Main" and "Further information" articles you'd linked to, just trying to get a sense of the work involved and whether there's a particular section that I might have more background knowledge about or that interests me more than others to work on, and I just have a quick question for right now: what do you envision for the info box on the Liberation of France page, and do you think it makes sense / is it feasible in terms of WP markup to copy the infoboxes from the child Main and Further pages for a section into that section? For ex., I'm thinking that I may start with the section on Resistance, and both the Free France and French Resistance pages have details in their infoboxes and graphics, and I'm wondering about bringing a significant chunk of that info (map, etc.) over. But I don't know (a) whether it's possible to have section infoboxes along with a main infobox (as a technical matter), and if so, where to look for directions about this, and (b) whether that will take up more space in the sections than you're envisioning for each section. Thanks. -- FactOrOpinion (talk) 13:36, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

@FactOrOpinion: Part of this is easy: "no", for section-based Infoboxes. That said, you sometimes see {{campaignbox}}es at the section level, and technically, I think they are Infoboxes, so maybe it's a partial "yes". You could post at WT:WPINFOBOX and get a better answer than I can give you. (Please notify me there if you do, so I can follow along.) Mathglot (talk) 04:05, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

You might also check WP:Manual of Style/Military history, for those sections of the article that fit, basically section 2. I'm not too familiar with MOS:MIL, so not sure whether there's anything relevant to your question there or not. And of course, MOS:INFOBOX. Mathglot (talk) 05:17, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

You can also check the Infobox in the French article (or any of the foreign articles on the topic). The French interwiki link is in the left sidebar, under "Français". Mathglot (talk) 06:34, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

The article on the liberation of Corsica has a "campaignbox" in a section. See Italian occupation of Corsica#Liberation of Corsica (Operation Vesuvius). But that's nothing like a complete Infobox. Mathglot (talk) 07:09, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Ended up adding multiple Infoboxes to Draft:Government of Vichy France after all. More follow-up here. Mathglot (talk)

Question about change in the Table of Contents / structure

@Mathglot: I noticed that the article structure had changed, and although I can see that it happened in between the last two edits, I don't see the deletions, and my sense is that something odd (and perhaps unintended) occurred, so I want to check. If you compare [1] and [2], you'll see that the Contents changes from:

Before- and after-images of ToC showing differences in structure

1 Background 1.1 Western Front 1.2 Fall of France and rise of Vichy 1.3 Resistance 1.4 Operation Sledgehammer 2 Military campaigns 2.1 Algeria – November 1942 2.2 Corsica – 1943 2.3 Battle of Normandy – June 1944 2.4 Paris – August 1944 2.5 Southern France – August 1944 2.6 Pockets of German resistance – to May 1945 to: 1 Background 1.1 Western Front 1.2 Fall of France and rise of Vichy 1.3 Corsica – 1943 1.4 Battle of Normandy – June 1944 1.5 Paris – August 1944 1.6 Southern France – August 1944 1.7 Pockets of German resistance – to May 1945

Did you intend to combine those two sections and eliminate 3 sub-sections? (I know that you'd had a question about deleting the Operation Sledgehammer sub-section, but I don't recall there being a question about that for the Resistance and Algeria subsections.) -- FactOrOpinion (talk) 03:05, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

@FactOrOpinion: thanks for the heads-up, and no, I didn't intend that. Let me have a look, might have been an error on my part. Mathglot (talk) 03:33, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

It's very strange, because "Military campaigns" has dropped out of the ToC in the second (current) version, but if you edit the source, it is still there. That is to say, if you look at the rendered page (as a reader would see it) of revision 967895894 (the current version, at this time) there is no section "Military campaigns" nor does that string appear anywhere on the page. However if you click the "Edit" button to look at the wikicode, the expression is still there. This must have to do with unbalanced expressions: either an unterminated comment string, missing end-brackets, or something like that. I'll see if I can find it, but if not, I'll back out that version, to the last good revision, which was revision 967894033 of 23:44, July 15, 2020 by User:Elinruby. One way or another, we'll figure this out. Mathglot (talk) 03:44, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

@Mathglot: I wish I knew enough to help. If you have time, I'm still wondering about my earlier question re: copying infoboxes, and as I noted on your Talk page [3], I think it would be helpful to have a Table of Contents at the top of this Talk page, but I'm not sure how to create that. Thanks. -- FactOrOpinion (talk) 03:52, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

@FactOrOpinion: A few ways; either __TOC__ or use of the {{toc}} or {{toc limit}} templates. I'll get back to you on Infoboxes. Ping me in a day or two, if I don't. Mathglot (talk) 04:00, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

I added a sentence to say this operation never took place. I am inclined to err on the side of more info until we are more ready. Will re-examine my own edits shortly in case Elinruby (talk) 03:50, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Found it. This edit turned an html end tag (' --> ') into this: (' —> ') which wiped out everything up until the next html end tag. That's something that a "smart editor" (including some mobile coding apps) might do, because back in the days of typewriters, which just had one symbol for minus, hyphen, and dash (let alone two dashes, en and em), people would type two hyphens in a sentence--like this--to indicate to their publishers that that's where a dash should go. This was universal practice at the time. Anyway, now that we have computers with tons of dash-like characters, but many keyboards still don't have an easy way to generate a dash (my laptop keyboard doesn't), lots of folks still just type two hyphens. Enter the "smart apps" on mobile devices or iOS devices, which *do* have a way to type en and em dashes, so they've decided to just convert the double-hypens into em dash. This is usually fine in the middle of a sentence, but wreaks havoc with html and other coding systems. My guess is, that's what happened here. Anyway, it's fixed. Elinruby, if you're using a "smart editor" please configure it to "code" mode while editing wikicode, so it doesn't inadvertently change html hidden text delimiters in the background, without telling you. Mathglot (talk) 03:56, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Collapsed the before/after images above to save vertical space; technical WP:TPO, feel free to revert. Mathglot (talk) 04:10, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Oh it’s this stupid iPhone, my apologies. it has done that elsewhere Elinruby (talk) 05:18, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

No wories, Elinruby. You can turn off smart punctuation on iOS. Check out this article. There are also dedicated coding apps, which is nice, because editing in the code window in Safari on an iPhone is a pain, plus if it crashes, or you kill the open window with your text in it by mistake, you're not guaranteed to get it back. Plus searching, and cut/pasting in that window, is really a pain. I like the Kodex app for iPhone; it's free, really nice, saves stuff if you crash, and even allows regex search and replace, which is what did it for me. But even if you don't use regexes, it's really nice. There are plenty of competitors out there, but check it out. Mathglot (talk) 05:35, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Going to add in military detail first

Basicslly, since this is a somewhat different different point of view of events I was already telling at the Government of Vichy regime draft, will attribute anything specific taken from another page. But since there is already a resistance page and a couple difference Vichy pages, plus the different administrations, this article is specifically about the way the Nazis were defeated, right? Elinruby (talk) 05:44, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

@Elinruby: Basically, yes. Although we should let the sources guide us on what the scope of the article is, too. Vichy regime is more about what they did. This article is more about how the Allies kicked the Nazis out, and Vichy went scurrying off to Sigmaringen, or they would have been captured, either by Americans, or maybe even slaughtered by the Resistance. Whatever the scope of the article, I always like to start off with a Background section to set the stage—I think you do that, too—especially for folks landing here who really don't know what the Liberation of France was, or what war, or what century. I always imagine in my mind's eye, high school or even middle school kids reading it, and I ask myself how do we tell the story so the article makes sense to them, and stands on its own? At the tail end of the article, I like to have an "Impact" or "Legacy" or "Aftermath" section, to kind of provide a segue, and to put it in context for later events.

Also, I recently created the {{Liberation of France}} Nav template, starting as a translation of the French one, Modèle:Palette Libération de la France and branching out from there. There should be a rough kind of overlap between the article, and the Nav template, but only a very rough one. Nevertheless, there may be some links in the Nav that might point to areas where there are gaps in the article. It's the first one, at the bottom of the article. Mathglot (talk) 06:23, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

@Mathglot:, great. Just making sure this one is a military history and the discussion of the Resistance for example focuses on its military aspects as opposed to oh popular culture or literature or cinema. I see the government of Vichy regime as more of a procedural about who was in charge of the jolly youth camps at a given moment and how a republic voted itself out of existence Elinruby (talk) 06:37, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

@Elinruby: I would say mostly military, and I agree that such things as touch on the Resistance would be mostly military as well. If there was something non-military that really contributed in a big way to liberating the country, maybe some genius French cryptanalyst equivalent to Alan Turing breaking the Enigma code, or kidnapping Goering on a visit and shipping him to the Gulag, then that would belong as well. Whatever you think "liberated" the country; in this case, mostly military efforts. I would say the Resistance efforts in hiding Allied pilots, or spiriting them back to England might be something worth mentioning, but it depends a bit on how large the article gets, whether that would be WP:DUE or not here. I trust your judgment. Clearly, the article on the Resistance itself, would be able to host a lot more detail than we can here; after all, since this is a "parent article" in Summary style, the section on the Resistance here will probably only be a few paragraphs, and point to the main article with a {{Main}} link at the top of the section. But yeah, to your original point: I think the majority of this article will focus on military operations. Mathglot (talk) 06:59, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

thoughts in passing. Somewhere there should be mention of Casablanca the movie and some of JP Sartre's plays with Resistance protagonists, and the adoption of "Maquis" by the Star Trek franchise, but not what I am doing atm, just writing it down before I forget. Elinruby (talk) 15:46, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

the latter two should prob be @ French Resistance. Note to self, Casablanca strategic port Elinruby (talk) 15:52, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Castle to Castle should link to Sigmaren enclave, poss in Vichy régime Elinruby (talk) 21:02, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Please use "In use" template to avoid edit conflicts

(edit conflict) It looks like we might all be editing this at the same time—which is great!—but in order to reduce the risk of edit conflicts, to "claim" a section of the article, please add the {{In use}} template at the top of the section, and hit Save right away. This should put a big box there, saying you're editing it. Try and remember to remove it after a few hours or a day.

If you have set your sights on a section that you'd like to edit, but not just now, just leave a comment right in the section right out in the open; this is only a Draft, so it's fine. You can use {{notice}} if you want: {{Notice|Hey, can I have this one? Thanks!|heading=Dibs!}} or something. Ha! So ironic, that I just got an edit conflict, when placing this! Too funny. Mathglot (talk) 06:52, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Possible in-links

Here are some possible in-links, after release to mainspace:

Some could be used in the "See also" section, as well. Mathglot (talk) 19:45, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Update: 'A' – Battle for Brest. Mathglot (talk) 03:28, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Checked off another 25 or so. Mathglot (talk) 08:27, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Release to-do list

Pre-release

• Handle sections needing expansion  Not done – released to Mainspace anyway, marked sections with {{Expand section}}
• consolidate <ref>s to {{sfn}}s. Not done – will have to be done after.

At release

• drop "Draft" cruft at top
• drop hidden text cruft
• de-orphan with three or four in-links from list
• use {{banner holder}} on this page, not the /sandbox version (which requires release)
• convert {{Further}} links that target French articles, to {{Further ill}}

Post-release

• remove {{Draft categories}} template
• add in-links  Partly done but more needed
• Talk page:
  • Add {{copied}} and/or {{translated}} templates  Partly done Gabon, et al. needed mostly done now (and ongoing; Mathglot (talk) 03:51, 4 February 2021 (UTC)