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Task-force tag

Instead of having to use "American-Revolutionary-task-force=yes", can't we just use "ARW-task-force=yes". I've already tagged a couple that way, and it is MUCH shorter.--Bedford 03:39, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok, done. Kirill 03:42, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks.--Bedford 03:43, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Initial Priorities

I think the first thing we need to do, besides adding the task force to the Talk pages of pertinent articles, is get American Revolutionary War back to GA status ASAP, and perhaps get it as an Featured Article on April 19, 2008.--Bedford 07:31, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

The hard part, as I see it, is maintaining the article rather than writing it. I wrote most of the "good" version but gave up trying to keep it good. Too much vandalism and youngsters adding what they learned in school that day. I could write a featured version in about a month, but I'm sure it would be a mess two months later. I have no interest in keeping a daily close watch on any article—life's too short—so from my perspective I don't know if it's worth the effort for an article that gets such random abuse. —Kevin Myers 16:46, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Sounds like it would have to be permanently locked from being edited by newbies.--Bedford 22:53, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
The article could do with some restructuring. It gives an overview of the war, but it is just a hodge podge of information. What it should be is the root of the tree of all information on the war. It should mostly consist of summaries of more detailed articles which are at the second level in the hierarchy. BradMajors 12:48, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't think there should be any attempt to maintain quality of the American Revolutionary War article unless it is permanently semi-protected. BradMajors (talk) 02:51, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Portal

In a similar, but somewhat unrelated vien, should we consider creating an American Revolutionary War portal? That we could keep and maintain at Featured Status with relative ease. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:57, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I've thought about it. However, I've been busy assessing (2nd place, yeah) for the current MH drive. I did Portal:Louisville and Portal:Kentucky, so I have some experience in doing portals. However, no one has really critiqued my Portal work.--Bedford 19:07, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
They're not bad, but I'd suggest using the more modern random-rotation scheme (as in, say, Portal:Military of Greece) rather than the older scheduled-rotation one; it's much lower-maintenance once it's been set up. Kirill 21:26, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Trust me, I've been thinking about doing that to my portals, as anything other than Louisville news is a pain to keep up.--Bedford 22:47, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
As the fellow who maintains Portal:American Civil War I have something to say on the subject of portals (and main page for that matter) as priorities. I'll attest to Kirill's statement that scheduled-rotation takes a fair number of monthly edits. IMHO, the first priority of this new area task force is to fully survey the existing work, and get a handle on where the big content holes occur, then start building pagespace. Building category structure is also an essential early task. In order to support a really fine portal, you need a large body of b-class or better material. This task force has what, ten articles which qualify? Not nearly enough for a really fine portal, in my opinion. BusterD 00:35, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
There ain't no time like the present to start thinking about a portal. Besides, as we attract more people our article quality and quantity will go up. It will take the portal page a while to get on line anyone, might as well start now while we thinking about it. TomStar81 (Talk) 07:54, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't disagree, but I do think that the TF might better spend its early energies mustering resources. One of the tasks I began when I started researching the idea of an ACW portal was to examine and beef up the ACW topics list and discover untagged and uncategorized articles. I started by clicking "what links here" on the ACW main page, then clicking through the links one at a time (I clicked about 3,500 out of about 9,000), identifying ACW people and articles still needing tags or categories (for ex: Buffalo Bill Cody had previously not been categorized as a ACW person), working essential figures onto an existing template, and placing odds and ends on the topics list. IMHO, that's where I suggest we start: go through all the articles which link to the ARW main page, identify and tag untagged articles, build category structure with the results, and develop a template like ACW Menu. That would be a big set of accomplishments to start. And it's something many hands can do more quickly than one. BusterD 14:23, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
And I might have added: we're going to have to do something like this anyway. My labor built this page, which provided some guidance when I assembled the portal. Sorting wheat from chaff will be a basic responsibility of the task force, IMHO. BusterD 14:31, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Articles needing attention

The link to these articles takes you to all military history articles in this category, not just the ARW.--THE FOUNDERS INTENT TALK 17:27, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Which link is this? The ones in the open task list go to the ARW-specific categories. Kirill 17:32, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

The link in the general wikipedia military history box.

Well, yes. That template is identical across every project page; it's meant to link to the overall category. Kirill 18:16, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Well we need a list specific to ARW.--THE FOUNDERS INTENT TALK 02:17, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

As I said, the links in the open task list on this page are specific to ARW. Kirill 02:22, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
For example, Founders, see here or here, or, my favorite, here. —Kevin Myers 02:29, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Why do these links point to Talk pages instead of the articles themselves?--THE FOUNDERS INTENT TALK 17:06, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Where can a list be found of those articles "ARW" tagged, but that don't have a "class" tag? BradMajors (talk) 08:12, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Hmm, it seems that Category:Unassessed military history articles is not sorted by task force. Why this is so is above my pay grade. Kirill? —Kevin Myers 15:52, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Back when the task force categories were first designed, the feeling was that the unassessed one was only a short-term holding bin; so creating dozens of sub-categories that would remain empty most of the time wasn't needed. Given the small size of the main category over time, I think it's a reasonable position. Kirill 17:22, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

What is Wikipedia 1.0?--THE FOUNDERS INTENT TALK 17:33, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

A proposed offline edition of the encyclopedia. See WP:1.0. —Kevin Myers 22:15, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I've scanned Category:Unassessed military history articles and assessed any Revolutionary War articles I've noticed there. Because this task force is new, few unassessed articles have yet been tagged with "ARW". As long as we remember to assess articles (usually "stub" or "start") as we tag them with "ARW", we'll have no backlog of unassessed articles. —Kevin Myers 03:03, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Is it possible to obtain a list of those pages which are tagged "ARW", but are not articles? For example, those pages whose class = "NA" or "List". BradMajors 19:15, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Tagging articles

As you know, a major initial priority for this task force is to tag related articles by adding ARW-task-force=yes (or ARW=yes) to the project banner at the top of each article talk page. As I write this, there are 162 articles tagged; my guess is that this number will rise to more than 1,000 when we've tagged all existing American Revolutionary War articles.

One way to systematically go about this process is to proceed category-by-category, tagging everything in an American Revolutionary War subcategory. I've done a few small categories so far, as indicated below in a simplified category tree. Feel free to mark as "done" any categories you've gone through and tagged. —Kevin Myers 19:44, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, when you tag an article, be sure that the article is also rated using the class parameter. Most unrated articles will be "class=start" or "class=stub". Also, while you're at it, it couldn't hurt to add other task force parameters where appropriate, if you're so inclined. The easiest ones to add are the national ones, usually "US=yes" or "British=yes", or maybe "Canadian=yes" or "French=yes" or "Spanish=yes", or some combination. Biographies should add "Biography=yes". Thanks! —Kevin Myers 01:21, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Category needed

Shouldn't a category for "British units and formations of the American Revolutionary War" be created? BradMajors 00:39, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Probably, although the naming convention suggests "Military units and formations of Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War". Kirill 01:16, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Sub-categories "Military units and formations of Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War" and "Military units and formations of France in the American Revolutionary War" created. BradMajors 08:13, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Notability issues

Now and then one comes across a biography of someone who served in the American Revolutionary War but otherwise does not appear to be particularly notable. Often these articles seem to be based on family tree research, which does not qualify as reliable sources for Wikipedia purposes. To paraphrase from the project notability guide:

If a person has non-trivial mention in one or more published secondary works (family history and genealogies excluded), they are probably notable. Any person that is only mentioned in genealogical records or family histories, or is traceable only through primary documents, is probably not notable.

If you come across an American Revolutionary War article that may not be notable, list it here. Perhaps someone will be able to help with finding sources for these articles so that they will not be deleted for being in violation of the policies of verifiability and no original research.

Articles with notability issues

Another apparent product of family tree research, this guy is notable enough for an article if the claims in it are true. The article claimed that he was a colonel in the Continental Army, but I think he was too young for that rank, and according to Heitman's Historical Register, he was (more believably) a militia lieutenant. —Kevin Myers 19:51, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Whoops, spoke too soon -- just found a good source for this guy, clearly a notable and interesting person. What threw me was that the details of his military service were wrong in our article; his career was actually more colorful. —Kevin Myers 20:03, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Nathaniel Greenheath
    This unreferenced stub created by an anonymous editor claims that Greenheath "distinguished himself as a soldier during the American Revolution", but I can find no references to this guy anywhere. —Kevin Myers 04:38, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
    Curious. According to our articles on the topic, at least, Moses Cleaveland surveyed the Western Reserve and founded a settlement on Lake Eire. Kirill 06:09, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
    Your observation got me looking around again. There was a guy named Nathaniel Doan (bio) who seems to fit the brief facts of this article. Doan was a blacksmith from Connecticut who worked as a surveyor (under Moses Cleaveland) in the Western Reserve, and was one of the first settlers in the Cleveland area, founder of the settlement called "Doan's Corners". How "Doan" gets replaced with "Greenheath" is a puzzle, but considering the other nonsense posted by the anon who created the article, this may be the answer to the riddle, if there is one. I haven't yet seen any Revolutionary War military service listed for Doan yet, though he was just old enough, and eventually became a captain in the early Ohio militia. —Kevin Myers 07:38, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
  • John Brockman (soldier)
    All sources are family histories. Whether or not being a colonel of militia during the war automatically confers Wikipedia notability is an open question, but clearly some non-genealogical sources are needed here. —Kevin Myers 05:50, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Restructuring Continental Army categories

There are categories for American army officers (i.e. colonel, captain, major, etc.). These are unnecessary and do not help. Rather than trying to categorize the officers by rank, the officers should be categorized by their state. BradMajors (talk) 05:48, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I think I agree with you if I understand you correctly. That's how I set up the American Revolutionary militia category. There is one subcategory for militia generals, since other armies (such as the Union and Confederate armies) have that special subcategory, but otherwise they're subcategorized by state. We should do the same here. So, to sum up:
Category:Continental Army officers -- keep as the broad category with 13 state subcategories
Category:Continental Army generals -- keep
Category:Continental Army colonels -- delete
Category:Continental Army captains -- delete
Category:Continental Army lieutenants -- delete
Category:Continental Army majors -- delete
And then we create: Category:Continental Army officers from Virginia, Category:Continental Army officers from Massachusetts, etc.
One question is: what do we do with Category:Continental Army soldiers? This is a category of enlisted men rather than officers. Should we also sort that category by state? There are not a lot of articles on enlisted men to be divided into 13 state categories. Perhaps we put them into the same state categories with the officers. If so, our new categories should be named Category:Continental Army personnel from Virginia, Category:Continental Army personnel from Massachusetts, etc. With that approach, we lose having one big category of all Continental Army officers to fit in the Category:Military officers tree. Thoughts? —Kevin Myers 17:37, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes. I think the Continental Army personal should be organized exactly as has been done for the militia. I think Generals should be treated special for different reason. A Virginian colonel can only command Virginian soldiers, but a Virginian general can command soldiers from multiple states. There are also some non-state personal which needed to be handled special such as quartermaster and staff officers. I don't see how differentiating between officers and soldiers adds any value in the AWR. I would propose we reorganize the personal on state lines and postpone whether or not we what to split between officers and enlisted until after the reorg. BradMajors (talk) 23:39, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I reviewed the military personal of the ACW categories and in this war splitting between officers and enlisted men works because many of the enlisted men did nothing notable and the split somewhat separates notable persons from riff raff. I would propose a different solution; that simply being a private and doing nothing of note in a war should not qualify someone to be placed into a category for persons of that war. Instead, for someone to be placed into the category of military person of the ARW they would have had to have done something notable in this war. Some privates are notable persons of the ARW while some colonels are not notable persons of the war. BradMajors (talk) 02:25, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Your suggestion is similar to the guideline at WP:MILHIST#SCOPE, which describes whether an article should be tagged with the WPMILHIST banner:

Note that military service does not in and of itself place an individual within the scope of the project—particularly in the case of service in modern militaries. To qualify them, an individual's military service must have been somehow noteworthy or have contributed—directly or indirectly—to their notability.

So, according to the guideline, just because a person served briefly in the armed forces doesn't mean they should fall under this project's scope. You're saying we should extend this principle to categories: just because someone served in the military during the American Revolution doesn't mean they should automatically be placed in one of American Revolutionary War categories. For example, because William Barnett (Georgia politician) served in the Continental Army as a private for a couple of years but otherwise did nothing of historic note in the war, you're saying he should not be placed in Category:Continental Army soldiers.
I can see the advantage of this approach. If every single soldier is placed in a given category, it's hard to discern who the most notable ones are. This is especially true when the categories become very large. For example, Category:American military personnel of World War II has thousands of names, making it essentially useless for browsing.
But I wonder if this will be a problem for the American Revolution. Right now, Category:Continental Army soldiers has just 46 articles. Perhaps this will not grow to more than 200, the number that can be displayed on a single category page. And because the officer category will be divided into 13 states, perhaps those categories will remain somewhat small and manageable as well. So my guess is that we don't need to worry about excluding officers and soldiers from the categories on the basis of notability at this time. —Kevin Myers 02:43, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I think we should use WP:MILHIST#SCOPE to determine whether a soldier should be placed in the ARW soldier categories. Using this scope rule William Barnett (Georgia politician) is not within the scope of the WILHIST group because he did not do anything of note in any war. For similar reasons most of the ARW enlisted men should be removed from the scope of the WILHIST group and most of the WW2 enlisted men also. Yes, doing this scoping at this time is not of high priority, but it can be conveniently done as bibiographies are checked to determine if they are within the scope of the ARW project. BradMajors (talk) 13:04, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
You should probably bring the issue up on the main talk page of the project to see if others want to go that route. I think (I could be wrong) that at one time the WW2 categories had two categories for soldiers, named "veterans" and "personnel" or something like that, which effectively put people notable as soldiers in one category, and people who served but were not notable for their service in another. It doesn't seem to be that way anymore. Perhaps an idea like that could be brought up as an alternative if you pursue the matter. —Kevin Myers 13:58, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
I hope I don't come across as argumentative here, but IMHO, as it regards private and non-commissioned officers of the ARW, documented participation in the war is the sole requirement for their inclusion in the category. As a student of the early 19th century in the U.S., I frequently come across references to notability based on the fact a given individual actually served in the ARW, no matter the minor capacity. William Barnett (Georgia politician) serves as an excellent example. According to the article, subject served in the ARW at a young age with a sibling, later became a sheriff and civic leader, and then served in Congress. So he certainly passes the basic bar of notability. I'll make an OR claim (for the purposes of my argument) that Barnett's notability was established because of his early participation in the symbolic national saga, a saga that grew legendary even in his lifetime. This is a common theme in early US biography. Whether the TF chooses to embrace the individual articles is I suppose debatable, but especially in this initial tagging and assessing, shouldn't we be trying to embrace the largest reasonable body of pages? BusterD (talk) 15:01, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Yeah my thinking is that we want to cast our nets wide and see what we come up with. If the categories get unmanageably large, which may not happen, we can discuss ways to limit categorization to make categories more useful. Until then, it will probably be useful or interesting to some readers to see just how many common soldiers in the Revolution became notables later in life. Of course, we still have to ensure that articles meet general Wikipedia guidelines for verifiability and notability. In other words, I shouldn't write an article about my ancestor who served three months in the Pennsylvania militia before going back to the farm, where he spent the rest of his life. Military service in the Revolution alone doesn't confer notability for Wikipedia purposes. —Kevin Myers 23:25, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
I would change wording slightly. I would say that if a mere week's service in the ARW conflict established the subject's notability in subject's own time (later civic leader, soldier, explorer, engineer, law enforcement, political office because of ARW participation), then that passes my smell test. I would concede the rarity of such circumstances. BusterD (talk) 15:16, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

A definition of whether or not an article should be placed in an ARW category should be placed in the header of the category article. A definition similar to that used for enlisted men should also be used for some other categories such as "Women in the AWR". BradMajors (talk) 03:11, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I've recently expanded some of the category descriptions to help editors determine what goes where. This discussion should help that process.
Your mention of Category:Women in the American Revolution brings up a related issue. Notice that the category is titled "Women in the American Revolution" rather than "Women in the American Revolutionary War". The difference is significant: not every article relating to the American Revolution falls under the scope of the military history project, because of course the Revolution included political and social aspects which were not necessarily war-related. (John Adams was always adamant in insisting that the American Revolution and the War of Independence were different events.) So the distinction—not always clear—between the American Revolution and the American Revolutionary War is something we should keep in mind when tagging and categorizing. —Kevin Myers 06:55, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
I assume "Women in the American Revolutionary War" is a proper subset of the set "Women in the American Revolution". Hence, Molly Pitcher is in the correct category and is a subject of the AWR group. BradMajors (talk) 01:11, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, to return to the first issue raised in this section, I don't believe we've had any objections to deleting Category:Continental Army colonels, Category:Continental Army captains, Category:Continental Army lieutenants, and Category:Continental Army majors, and replacing these with Category:Continental Army officers from Virginia, Category:Continental Army officers from Massachusetts, etc. If their are no objections, I'll go ahead and do this as I go through the officer categories, checking to see what still needs tagged for this task force. —Kevin Myers 10:40, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Creating the new state categories

I've created and populated Category:Continental Army officers from Maryland. I started with just one state as a test case. Check it out and see if it works, and use it as an example if there are states you want to do. I've tried to find as many Maryland Continental officers as I could (I'm sure there are more), and make sure they're all properly tagged and categorized as I went. One helpful online tool, if you decide to join in, is Heitman's Historical Register. Starting on page 14 he lists field officers by state. You'll have to root around to find the general and company-grade officers from each state. If you want to create and populate some of the state categories, let us know here what you plan to work on. —Kevin Myers 11:28, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

The section starting around pg. 630 where it lists officers by state, at least for New York, has several errors. The rest of the book looks fine. BradMajors (talk) 10:32, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Also, these new categories will, thankfully, reduce the number of categories for many people. For example, someone previously categorized with both Category:People of Maryland in the American Revolution and Category:Continental Army officers will now have those two categories combined in Category:Continental Army officers from Maryland. —Kevin Myers 12:29, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Oh, one more important point -- in fact the main reason for using the Heitman book as a reference while you're populating these categories. It's tempting to just go through the Continental Army officer categories and simply sort the officers by state, but many of those articles have been improperly categorized. Editors who aren't military history buffs don't always realize the distinction between the militia and the Continental Army, and so frequently articles will be in the Continental categories when really they belong in the militia category. Keep an eye out for that! —Kevin Myers 12:40, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Applying the typical naming convention here would suggest that Category:Officers of the Continental Army from Maryland (and Category:Officers of the Continental Army) would be preferred; but that's a minor point. Kirill 14:03, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I think I'm officially the last Wikipedian who still prefers brevity in category names. ;-) —Kevin Myers 14:22, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Actually, after looking around, I can't find a single example of what you describe as the naming convention. It seems to me the service branch always precedes the word "officers", like Category:Royal Navy officers or Category:French Army officers or Category:Italian Air Force generals. So Category:Continental Army officers follows that pattern. ("Continental Army" was a national service branch like these other examples.) Regional subcategories of Category:Foo Army officers don't seem to exist yet, but the "from Place" regional disambiguator is the common method, i.e. Category:People from Maryland. So, as far as I can tell, Category:Continental Army officers from Maryland would be the conventional category name. Is there something I'm missing? —Kevin Myers 03:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Ah, yes, you're right; I was confusing people and units. We've never really established a firm guideline for the former; but since the nation names precede the terms (e.g. "French officers" rather than "Officers of France"), the service names tend to as well.
(Units are the other way around [e.g. "Regiments of France" rather than "French regiments"] and we actually have a formal guideline for them at WP:MILMOS#CATNAME; but that's not really applicable here.) Kirill 03:47, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Cool, good to know I'm not yet losing my marbles. User:BradMajors has since created Category:Officers of the Continental Army from New York, which should be renamed Category:Continental Army officers from New York. Don't worry Brad, you don't have to change this by hand. Just put {{subst:cfr-speedy|new name}} tag on the category page and a bot will do all the work after awhile. I believe it goes quicker if you, as the creator of the category, place the template. —Kevin Myers 04:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
I think we need another category in addition to the ones you created for: Category:Continental Army officers from Canada for the Canadian regiments. BradMajors (talk) 10:00, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I held back from creating that one because I thought maybe we'd instead just rename Category:2nd Canadian Regiment to Category:Continental Army officers from Canada. With this new category system, we won't need the old category, especially since it's restricted to just the 2nd Canadian. Sound like a good idea? —Kevin Myers 15:09, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
OK, but then we will need another category Category:Canadian Line (More than one Canadian regiment) BradMajors (talk) 04:07, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, after the officer categories are all sorted out, I plan to open a discussion about reorganizing the unit categories. More on that later! —Kevin Myers 04:13, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Vermont

Does Vermont exist during the AWR? According to the Continental Congress and the State of New York it does not and the Green Mountain Boys were a New York unit. BradMajors (talk) 04:07, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

British Army Organization during the AWR

I am looking for a definitive book on British Army organization during the AWR. There is the book: Organization of the British Army in the American Revolution by Curtis. BradMajors (talk) 00:19, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know the literature, but that might be the definitive book. (It's cited by Fischer in Washington's Crossing). It's online here, but I'm not sure if all of the book is there. Fischer also cites an article by C.T. Atkinson, "British Forces in North America, 1774-1781: Their Distribution and Strength", Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 16 (1937): 3-23, 163-66, which is not exactly sitting in everyone's local library stacks, but might be on JSTOR if you have access.
There's also Encyclopedia of British, Provincial, and German Army Units, 1775-1783 by Katcher (1973), which seems to be widely available. Perhaps British Officers Serving in the American Revolution, 1774-1783, published in 1897, will get scanned into Google Book Search. They have a page on it here, but no text yet. Also there's Fortescue's A History of the British Army, the standard history. —Kevin Myers 05:52, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
I have seen the Katcher book and it looks pretty good. Expect to some changes in Wikipedia British unit articles. BradMajors (talk) 22:04, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
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